37: Trevor McFedries - Creative People Should Be Rich

[00:00] The broken and immature is the alpha and what artists are great at. This is like maybe as bizarre as like Duchamp's urinal. Duchamp being like this thing you piss in is art is not something that a market would value. You know, like Warholian tin can. That is effectively what what bonding curves allow people to create a market and be like, no, actually, this is important. And you know, that isn't important. That's slop. And you're like, no, trust me. I think what like great collectors have been able to do historically is like take the side of that bet and be like, yeah, I want all these Warhols. [00:30] I think it rocks, actually. And I think that is the opportunity on both sides of that market. I've been doing these kind of like gatherings in my home to connect Silicon Valley friends and artist friends. And I brought all these artists together who aren't in those X feeds and aren't aware of this stuff, but have... [00:45] you know, being Ali, being really important work. They were here, and the AI people were kind of assuming that they would agree with that sentiment. But they were like, you know, the AIs don't have intuition, which is why they can't do great art. And all of the artists were like, I don't know, I think a lot of that stuff is really good. And they were kind of like, wait, what? Whoa. And so I do think there's absolutely going to be a moment where slop is punk. But I also think what's clearly interesting now are the models themselves.

[01:15] the big labs to be like, I'm the artist. [01:18] Welcome to Dialectic, Episode 37, with Trevor McFedrys. [01:22] Trevor has lived a few different lives, including as a musician, an entrepreneur, a technologist, and a curious internet person, among other things. He's also spent much of his career trying to help creative people get rich, which we talk extensively about. That balance between music and entrepreneurship has extended throughout his career to this day. He's part of electronic dance duo Soft with his fiance, and until recently they were touring. [01:52] attention and prediction can affect culture and creativity. Runner will be launching soon. Looking backward on the music side, he started off as DJ Skeet Skeet and joined rap group Swayze when he was about 22 and had a top 10 album in America. He's been a longtime producer and been involved with all kinds of musical acts. And then he's also started multiple companies, including Brud, whose flagship asset, if you will, was Lil Mikaela, who was one of the first digital creators. You could call her a CGI influencer if you wanted to, but what Trevor was really getting at and what he pitched me, [02:22] when we met around 2016 was that he wanted to create Marvel for pop stars. Brood created several characters alongside Michaela and explored what it would mean to have a creator who wasn't bottlenecked by just a single person with an ego and everything else. Brood was acquired by Dapper Labs, where Trevor went on to run Dapper Collectives. And Trevor also, while running Brood started FWB or Friends with Benefits, which was a kind of novel type of DAO focused on building a community, maybe even new type of city.

[02:52] in the past, both when I interviewed its former mayor, Alex Zhang, as well as when I interviewed Reggie James at FWB Fest, their in-person music culture and crypto festival in Idlewild. As I mentioned, we talked about how creative people can capture more of the value they create, including about how that might require new instruments. We talked about high and low and the ways that culture and capital intersect. I asked Trevor about [03:16] the ways that he continues to just have a remarkable nose for weird and be ahead of cool, and also what it means to be on time when it comes to cool. He argues that unlike 20 years ago, it might actually be punk to sell out in the modern world. And he talks about why, how despite it being so low status, he continues to return to crypto as a new way to explore how all of this might fit together. And he's particularly interested in prediction, the value created from it and how value is captured there. I also pushed him to talk about [03:46] or even inaccessible to the rest of us. We wrap up by talking about optimism, particularly for the next generation as Trevor is about to become a father, music and how it's been such a core part of his life, and even the brief period of time where he worked with and was bewildered and yet amazed by Kanye West. I hope you are inspired to be as vigorously curious as Trevor is as he spends his days. I know I was. Before we get into the episode, I would like to thank Notion, the presenting [04:17] Notion is a collaborative workspace for teams and people doing their life's work. And these days, it's never been higher leverage and more powerful thanks to AI and the agents that take away the busy work and allow you to focus on the important, creative, collaborative work. Notion's how I prepare for all my episodes. I throw ideas and quotes and clues and excerpts into a big document, and then I synthesize them and try to find the patterns and the interesting points of conversation or questions that I want to dive deep on with my guests.

[04:46] AI and agents are tremendously helpful for helping me find those patterns and make sense of it all. And Notion obviously becomes so much more powerful when you're working collaboratively with a team. It's no coincidence that so many startups and the world's best companies turn their ideas into action thanks to Notion. If you don't use Notion, you can check it out at notion.com slash dialectic. I'm so grateful to them for supporting the show, and I'm thankful to you for listening. [05:16] wherever you're listening or watching. With that... [05:19] Here is Trevor McFedries. [05:21] Trevor McFedry's, we made it. We did it, buddy. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming by. I'm very excited. This is overdue. I think we were going to try to do this like six months ago. Yeah. Here we are. We made it. I love it. [05:31] We're going to start with [05:32] I think one of the main through lines of your life, or at least your working life, which is, I think is a tweet from you. I think creative people should be rich. [05:40] Yes. [05:41] I think it's like kind of like your big quest almost or one of them. [05:45] Yeah, I think it's probably because I'm old enough that when I'm, so when I was 22, I joined this like rap group called Swayze. Yeah. We put out a big album, a top 10 album in the States. And I was kind of thrust into the dying corpse of the music biz. And I got to see a taste. Yeah. You know, I remember going to this record producer, I won't name, who had like one kind of hit in the 90s. And he had this like $5 million house in the hills in this thick studio. And it like didn't really compute because we had like a kind of hit and I was still fucking broke. [06:15] And so there was like a taste of what could have been with this –

[06:19] deep desire for information to be free that I had as a product of the internet. And so there's always been this tension. And I think that probably encapsulates it. [06:27] Why aren't creative people rich? [06:30] Or richer. [06:31] Richard, I mean, there's probably a lot of reasons, but I think at – [06:36] In my heart, I believe there's an instrument problem, right? There are like creative people producing a ton of value in Williamsburg 20 years ago, but the instruments that captured that value were properties. And so if you were a real estate developer or someone who owned a nice amount of properties, you got very wealthy. You didn't produce any of the value in the day-to-day life of Williamsburgians. And I think as a result, that's probably why I got deeply into crypto, is it was like, here's an opportunity to create new instruments that can capture value and pass them back. [07:03] How do you think about the instrument thing? [07:05] in the kind of more traditional, like, capital versus labor thing? Is it the same? Or are you getting at something more specific? Historically, you know, I was kind of extremist. Grew up super poor in the Midwest. Discovered Rage Against the Machine was radicalized. Like, reading Eldridge Cleaver in my, like, fifth grade English class, teachers were concerned. I was very interested in kind of, [07:26] socializing things, by bringing, redistributing all that wealth, not actually almost like [07:32] true like a creative supremacist you know where i'm kind of inverted and i think creative people should be billionaires and people that are effectively participating in this forever 21 economy of just ripping off things and like you know should be minimized and and it's probably been uncomfortable to become explicit but like ultimately i think the idea of labor versus capital is is a limited framing i think i'm interested in playing the game on the field

[08:02] revolution you know it's probably like crass for folks out there who are familiar with literature like a planet says like modern venture-backed technology environment but i think there's an opportunity to effectively play the game on the field and to create instruments that can pass value back to the people that make life worth living not just those who know how to trade derivatives or bonds or stocks or whatever it is [08:22] Is the internet, like... [08:24] What do you think the Internet's role has been in this? And to what extent? Do you feel like the Internet has missed out or failed its potential? [08:32] Or was this the inevitable or most likely outcome where we are now? [08:36] I'm old enough to recognize that it's probably the most likely outcome. I've been through a few cycles that this is going to change everything, whether it was dance music with Blog House. We were like, we're going to reinvent dance music and change everything. It was like, wait, why is Will.i.am here? You're like, oh, shit. He kind of took all this out and made millions, and my homies are still broke driving DoorDash or whatever. He's somehow everywhere. But there are effectively those kind of participants in all kinds of culture, and I think you recognize it in Silicon Valley. You see it in Hollywood. You see it in D.C. [09:06] that can kind of like, you know, understand what's next and ride the wave. So obviously, Internet devalued media. Like, that's like table stakes for anyone who's a dialectic listener. I'm sure they can appreciate that. But I think the things that are underappreciated is that there are kind of these – [09:22] ... [09:23] And charlatans oftentimes will recognize an emergent trend and accelerate it and create all this pompous amount of radical it can be, knowing that it will effectively change things more or less 5%. And if they can insert themselves into that 5%, they can get ludicrously wealthy. And I don't want to sound like some doomer, but I think that that's ultimately the game on the field. I think the people that are coming up with net new ideas and innovation should be that 5%, not the charlatans that insert themselves. I think we'll come back to that.

[09:53] you are decidedly not a doomer so i think it's important to establish that up front um [09:58] Maybe on that last note, like the extractor thing a little bit, like a different take there would just be like, [10:04] So there's a cynical view that just says, like, the reason creative people aren't rich is there's these extractors, there's these opportunists who aren't even the creatives themselves. There's a maybe less cynical view that says, like... [10:14] Drake's super rich. - Totally. - And depending on the medium, like, [10:19] Music's complicated in a lot of reasons, but there are... [10:22] very clear ways to get rich in music in a way that's probably less legible or less obvious if you're doing something more esoteric. If you're a ceramicist or you're a fine artist, like, [10:30] So maybe the less cynical view is just like medium matters a whole ton, and some mediums are much more commercial than other mediums. Certainly, yeah. And I think the word creator is thrown around a ton right now. And I think I like to decouple this idea of like creative supremacy, whatever I'm coining now, from someone who is grabbing Tumblr graphics off the Internet and throwing them on T-shirts to someone who's like truly innovating. And when I talk about creative people, I mean founders. I mean scientists. [11:00] that are advancing this thing we call life. And so the challenge for me has always been that even in the culture industries, there were this commercial space, and then there was kind of more institutions that recognized that their role was to recognize things that were advancing this thing called life that wouldn't necessarily play nice in the commercial marketplace. Now you can go to a museum and see a Cause show.

[11:24] Cause has done his thing. I won't go there. But Cause has done financially really well in the commercial marketplace. [11:30] a Uniqlo in CECAWS? Do you need to go to a museum in CECAWS? I don't think so. And so you've kind of seen that proliferate everywhere across the culture industry. So the challenge for me now is saying, okay, if we have this opportunity to rethink what we're doing, can we find a way to repatriate attention and value to people that are making these like net new things, and maybe not the people that have found a way to just package them and repurpose them and... [11:52] user distribution to capture the upside. Again, I recognize that probably isn't going to happen, but if we can move the needle 5%, I would be elated. [12:02] You have a line, I think you mentioned to me, we were talking a while ago, that it's easier for someone to raise $3 million than to raise $300,000, especially for creative people. Yeah. Yeah. [12:14] Maybe this is getting at part of your last answer, which is like you're almost talking about creativity through the lens of like ignition or like that that kind of like genesis of things or originality, whatever you want to call that. Like, why is that? [12:26] Maybe that specific example isn't quite the point, but why is that? [12:30] 300K over 3 million, an important... [12:33] Like, what are you pointing at when you say that? Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things. I think one of the things we don't recognize, I think, is that catch-22, where in order to be given opportunity, you need to prove that you can do things. And oftentimes that challenge and that chasm prevents a lot of really brilliant people from being able to capitalize and provide value to all of us more broadly. And so you often get this conundrum where, I don't know, I grew up in Iowa, and, you know, lucky enough to move to Los Angeles and encountered all these people who were celebrated. It's supposed to be really special.

[13:03] they were not that much different than my friends I grew up skateboarding with. But because they had peers, friends, uncles, they could get their foot in the door in a mailroom. Infrastructure. Infrastructure. They could prove something and then be given a little more rope, and be given a little more rope, and all of a sudden they're able to go raise a million and a half dollars seed round and take a big swing. And so the... [13:22] The challenge for me is that getting that initial approach, [13:26] like $30,000 to create a t-shirt company to prove that you can build something is really hard. And people often don't cross that chasm. And so the idea that it's easier for folks, you know, even an established creator to go as a million and a half dollars to go do something really big and ambitious and fail, right? And just do something small and prove it out and be able to increment it there is this interesting, you know, I think thought that to me provoked startup ideas and other things that people could be solving for potentially, because there is probably something [13:56] - Yes, yeah, I think agency is this sort of like, it's almost like an escalator or something where like, [14:03] there's this reciprocal relationship. One of my favorite ideas is this guy, C.T. Nguyen, he talks about games, and they're like, what a game designer's doing is that [14:11] they're creating a tension between your abilities and your goals. That's like not too far out of step. Yeah. Because like, um, if you play a level one of the video game and it's really hard, you're going to get bored. And if it's too easy, you're also going to get bored. And it's like, [14:24] There's a sort of like [14:25] part financial, part the world helping you, but it's like, yeah, those two things – [14:30] $100K to go do a little bit. Even if you're Elon Musk, by the way, building SpaceX, it wasn't like, here's a billion dollars, go nuts. Totally. Yeah, I've always appreciated...

[14:41] complex video games that are able to introduce complexity to you step by step and walk you through. I remember when Game of Thrones was massive, there was this kind of dominant narrative that there's no more attention spans, people can't focus on anything. And I watched the first episode and it was like the white wolves of the north. I had to take notes and I was like, complexity done well is the most powerful thing. People have decided to decline to even attempt. And so I love when games and films, those things introduce all of that. [15:11] um, [15:11] You have, there's this quote from Yancey Strickler that you quote tweeted that I think is pointing at something really interesting. I'll read Yancey first. He said, the idea of quote unquote selling out implies a hopeful nostalgia of choice beyond market pressures. Among younger creators I talked to in whose brains the algorithm is directly embedded, not selling out feels like an impossible luxury from a faraway time too risky to attempt, but a fantasy they dream of one day indulging. And then you quote tweeted and you said, increasingly feels like artists who opt out of the algorithm [15:41] isn't algo-friendly are seen as posh slash nepo slash trust fund. Playing the algo game to survive is optically punk and honest. [15:51] This is really interesting to me. First off, when did that change? [15:57] Thank you. [15:59] When did it feel to you that it changed? I mean, it's been a slow boil. Like, again, I'm old enough to remember, like, the Beastie Boys being upset their music used in adverts. And then, you know, in kind of my gen, I remember hearing, like, Santigold in Budweiser commercials. And there being a gen above me that was like, this is fucking still on out. This is terrible. Why would you do that? And then living this moment where it's like, I can't afford to own at home. I don't, like, have a family. Of course I'm taking the Budweiser check. Creative people should be rich. Creative people should be rich.

[16:29] I think especially in the last... [16:30] three to four years, the kind of [16:32] dominant understanding of how aesthetics flow and how ideas [16:38] populate has really inverted from the kind of like Bushwick model people are familiar with, where it's like some interesting art person makes something and it gets its way to some Bogue person gets Anna Wintour. She says it's important and it gets pushed down to a soccer mom in the Midwest to now this more middle out thing where, you know, effectively, I remember like, I forget which TVs I could have talked about making television that was the least inoffensive for the, you know, like the most inoffensive television you can make was the one [17:08] for you algorithms perpetuate a similar idea, where you can go to East Berlin, you can go to Bushwick, you can go to Beverly Hills and see the same aloe yoga outfit on the street. And I think it's because culture is now middle out. You know, it's just the most... [17:22] inoffensive person is going to capture the most mind share and people will optimize for kind of being that person in order to get opportunities with influence whatever else that isn't groundbreaking um but i do think as a result of that the only people who have been able for the last four or five years to play this kind of art game and opt out of the algorithm are effectively trust fund kids like i don't need to name names but i do love that meme where it's like never ask a woman her

[17:52] Boob link on Wikipedia or whatever, like to be truly indie and like participate in a purely artistic environment while playing the culture industry game, you need to survive. And it's just gotten so dire now that the only way to do it is to effectively be a trust fund kid. So [18:08] The most punk kids I know, you know, are playing social well, whether it's like Ammo and the Sniffers, you know, Australian, like, you know, or like turnstile. Right. Like they've been able to, like, capture these mediums on their own terms, but they haven't opted out entirely. [18:23] Yeah, it's interesting. It's like... [18:26] One question that's really dumb that I found myself wondering as I was thinking about this is like, [18:31] Are we going to get to the point where like, [18:33] Slop is punk. [18:35] Or like you're sitting inside of this tension, which is like at what point – [18:41] can you like play the algo game and still do all that other stuff we were just talking about, about creating something actually new and still be like, by the way, regardless of what you think about Warhol, what are like, like, [18:50] Being commercial can be really interesting. Certainly. I think it's funny. I had a conversation. I've been doing these kind of like gatherings in my home to connect Silicon Valley friends and artist friends. And there's this theme in Silicon Valley about taste and how taste is so important. Yes, yes, yes. And I brought together – Which is almost becoming slop. Like that narrative at this point is so regurgitating. Exactly. And I brought all these artists together who aren't in those X feeds and aren't aware of this stuff,

[19:20] important work and they were here and the AI people were kind of assuming that they would agree with that sentiment. But they were like, you know, the AIs don't have intuition, which is why they can't do great art. And all of the artists are like, I don't know, I think a lot of stuff is really good. And they were kind of like, wait, what? And so I do think there's absolutely going to be a moment where, you know, slop is punk and interesting. You're seeing some interesting, [19:50] models themselves and like, you know, creating in latent space. And I think that as people begin to appreciate that, as they have the kind of the contextual awareness of how these models work, they're going to really appreciate some of those things. And I think it will be probably uncomfortable for researchers at the big labs to be like, I'm the artist. [20:09] I'm making the most interesting cultural work? Or at least I'm making the medium or whatever. Yeah, I'm making the most interesting cultural work of the moment. And I think a lot of artists would be like, yeah, absolutely. Like, I clearly made this cool wall work, but like, what you're doing is absolutely the most important reflection of this current cultural moment. I think it's really interesting. [20:25] I think... [20:26] Maybe I'm just too on Twitter. I would be shocked if most people... [20:31] would have any intuition that like [20:33] quote-unquote real artists or serious artists felt that way. Like, and maybe part of that is that, I should probably be careful here, but, like, the sort of mid-wit artist on the internet is just complaining about it. Like, you say the words AI, and they're going to, like, have a meltdown. Yeah, I would say, like, capital A art world versus, like,

[20:52] in our world that [20:56] This is dangerous as well. I really wanted to go to design school. I went over to RISD. That was my dream. I was a football player, and I could go for that for free, so I ended up doing that instead. But I would take these summer programs. So many possible timelines in your life. Yeah, bizarre. I remember I went to Otis, a design school here in Los Angeles, for a summer program. And I was just really intrigued as to how I was going to meet these artists that were just like me. And when I was confronted with the people that would just draw like, [21:25] anime and hentai and dragons and they were really good at drawing dragons but there weren't really any new ideas and where i found the people that i was drawn to were actually in like you know the corners of 4chan or like random streetwear stores places that were emergent and actually quite interesting and people that wanted to find like new forms of expression would kind of huddle around yeah [21:48] Yeah. What do you think the relationship, I think this is very related to, [21:52] And it also a can of worms. Like, what do you think the relationship between authenticity and creativity is? Is authenticity... I think one thing I felt myself feeling is like authenticity is almost like ridiculous. Like, at least when it became an aesthetic, like, is it even worth talking about? Like, maybe the other part of this question would be like, is there such a thing as like pure... [22:11] art or creativity originality, [22:14] I would say there is conceptually, but when I talk about creativity or even authenticity, it's like talking about nirvana. It's like this end state that I think you can aspire towards, but I'm not sure that it's achievable. I do think authenticity was maybe the buzzword. It was like the taste of five, ten years ago. And because we were doing Michaela at the time, that was often a question I was confronted with by new hires or VCs or whatever. And what I always try to explain to them is that authenticity can take a lot of different forms.

[22:44] I think ultimately what I'm looking for in great artwork is, is honesty, like a, you know, a, a, a connection to you who is themselves a divine bridge to something. And, you know, I actually, this is a bit of a tangent, but I was in that, uh, Timothy Chalamet, Bob Dylan moment. There was an interview with Bob Dylan where they were talking about his songwriting process and saying, you wrote these songs so long ago, you know, and he more or less alluded to the fact he's like not able to do that anymore. You know, I thought it was like really compelling, also terrifying because, [23:14] as someone who like wants to tap into that divine stream all the time, the fact that it can come and go, I'm very aware of it in a songwriting room because you watch writers that are just like, and you're like, [23:27] Whoa, where did that come from? But in building organizations and these kind of marathon things, it's less clear. That said, I think the authenticity piece and what I would relate that to is there are creative people who do commerce explicitly. And I always think about K-pop. You know, they didn't write those songs. They didn't style those clothes. They didn't choreograph those dance moves. But what a beautiful machine. But what a beautiful machine, an appreciative machine. [23:57] you know, arguments with peers who are like, I don't understand why you love Rihanna, but you hate these imposters and these people that you think are like taking attention from people that are actually creative. And I'm like, I love Rihanna because she's not telling me she's making the two Michelin star steak. She's like, here's a cheeseburger. And I'm like, I do love cheeseburger. This is fantastic. I get frustrated when someone's like, look at this two Michelin star steak. And I'm like, I know all of those references that you're biting just because you're, you know, repurposing

[24:27] borrowed nostalgia right and i like i actually seeing this this thing now which is quite interesting like silicon valley's gotten into cultural critique and consciousness and kind of these more abstract concepts and the very uncool humanities are getting quite cool and there's a there's a new emergent founder who's like seen the adam curtis films who can be like and like paraphrase and these vcs are like wow how you know this maven mccluhan we got it all [24:57] why you're especially able to connect these dots but i think again you can do it in a very honest way where you're learning and it's an interest of learning and there are people that are like i have this new idea yeah this is the thing this is the thing you know and that's the frustration i often have where i'm like if you just want to get rich like sell real estate don't purport to be some poet or philosopher and just repurpose ideas for people that aren't familiar with them that's where i get all riled up jackson why the borrowed nostalgia thing came up a few times in [25:27] that and specifically like [25:30] I think you gave one example of Amy Winehouse, but like what is the line between borrowed nostalgia and like every nothing's truly new, but it can be remixed in a way that feels really new. Yeah, I mean, again, I think there's like there are people who act as a divine bridge and they're able to interpret their environment and kind of share that moment and reflect on that moment with people in really honest ways. And I think, you know, Amy Winehouse, I always use because people are like, Amy was doing nostalgia.

[26:00] you know like talking about rehab you know through a jazz lens is new it's novel she's staying on the shoulder of giants but she's parsing it through her lived experience that's really important I think that the reason the nostalgia piece is so [26:14] tough for me is as a millennial, we had this generation that effectively was able to do that trick at scale. Yeah. A bunch of Gen X that didn't know anything. And we were like, fuck, I have the internet. I can just put on a gold chain and reference some eighties rapper and some K rock, you know, dude, a and R guy or radio programmer is like, Whoa, this is a hip hop aesthetic with a rock thing. This is crazy. I've never heard anyone say it like that. It's so crazy. [26:42] unbelievable. It was like you got the answers to the test. Totally. And you could cheat in real time on the test and blow minds. And so there were all these people that effectively got to LARP [26:55] all these different eras people weren't familiar with and kind of passed through these gates. So everyone wanted to tear down the gates. Like a bunch of millennials, we were like, this sucks. I want to make the decision because I can tell this is dishonest. And then we removed those gates and we were like, maybe some, maybe some of the gates were good. The gatekeepers, can you bring them back? But that's, that's my war on nostalgia. Yeah. [27:14] Before we go into the next thing, I just want to mention the Bob Dylan thing. I think the optimistic part of that... [27:23] would be... [27:24] I don't know, you hear so many artists, so many musicians in particular, they just like, the songs come from God or whatever. Like, it came to me in a dream, whatever. Whether it's Bob Weir or Rosalia or whatever.

[27:35] There's this loose grip on that. I think that I'm Bob Dylan and I did it in the past and I can't do anymore. That's pretty tragic. But I wonder if you have a looser grip on just sometimes they come and I want to be ready for when they come. [27:48] But, oh, man, it's got to be hard when you... Yeah, I'm kind of on two minds. I don't know much about soccer or football, but my friend Alonzo was talking to me about Messi as being this just, like... [28:00] this gifted savant and ronaldo being this like workhorse i find a lot of that in songwriting and artistic practice you know there are founders you talk to a colis and you're like oh i don't have that gear you know like i just i don't i'm not gonna get there but maybe if i find other ways to create edge i can i can get to this thing that i'm really proud of and and i and i respect both and to me it's almost like a spiritual thing right like there are monks who i imagine have like this [28:30] immediately. And there are people who have to spend a lot of time getting deep into themselves and closer to God. And that's how I interpret the practice. And I want to honor both. I'm actually probably more aligned with the Ronaldo. [28:42] Because I find myself, I'm not a gifted musician. I just poke buttons and turn knobs until it sounds cool. And it's a struggle. And when I go into sessions and people say, oh, that flat fifth is in that chord. I'm like, I don't. Is it this thing? Or like-- and it's heartbreaking. But it's also this blessing. I get to find something and let it kill me in a lot of different areas. Yeah, it's almost like you're not a native speaker, but you're trying. The other thing that's interesting to me is--

[29:10] Um... [29:11] You, like Jerry Seinfeld comes to mind, but there's so many creatives who talk about this sort of like... [29:16] I was talking to Gabe Whaley actually about this with the stuff they do at Mischief too. Like they scheduled their brainstorms. It's actually this like Seinfeld. It's like, he goes in the room and he has felt is the old legal pad. He doesn't have to write, but he's not allowed to do anything else for like three hours. And it's like discipline, discipline, [29:31] scheduled discipline sort of is like giving you the best surface area for the inspiration to happen. Agreed. Which is maybe more Ronaldo. Like maybe you're not walking into the room as messy or whatever. But there's something I think beautiful about that too, which is like I'm ready for the inspiration if it ever comes. Yeah, and it's interesting because you could kind of argue both. Like, you know, what is it, Buffett and Bill Gates, so they don't have calendars or whatever. And like they're effectively doing the work. They're creating space to do the work. But they're also creating space for like the divine lightning to strike. [30:01] And so, yeah, I think a lot, again, to me, it is probably very spiritual. And the older I get, the more I could probably relate a lot of these things to spiritual practices. But ultimately, they seem to be reflections of reflections. You can see the fractals in all of these things. [30:15] We talked about instruments at the very beginning. I want to talk, maybe to set up our conversation about crypto. There's a couple of quotes from you. And that I think are particularly interesting against this backdrop that like, [30:24] Depending on when you cut, slice it. Although for many people, crypto is like always low status. And just there's a lot of disdain. This is you. Then this thing about blockchains, about tokens, the hyper financialization of our lives. I've had such disdain for it. But if you invert that and try to create better instruments for capturing value, you can attribute that value and pass it back. Part of what you were just saying. And then another section from you. After reading Debt, the first 5,000 years of money by the late anarchist anthropologist David Graeber,

[30:54] And he followed that destabilizing thought to a liberating conclusion. It's whatever we collectively decide it is. One of the reasons that I love crypto or an internet of value is that we have really antiquated vehicles for representing value, he says. He believes crypto enables better instruments for assigning value to all things. [31:13] this idea of like value being something we can tinker with. [31:19] seems at the core of that. [31:22] I guess I'm curious why you consistently find yourself being drawn back to this thing, [31:27] despite all of the cases for doomerism and all of the disdain and all the hyper-financialization and the SPFs and all of that, like there's some hope dream thing that you're seeing. Like what, what is that? Yeah. I mean, there's so much in there. I think, [31:41] There is a spiritual and psychological war. Like, you know, there is there is a desire to move people to a higher state of consciousness. I don't know. There are plenty of people doing that. God bless them. [31:54] They're really good at that. And then, and I think there are, there are a lot of people who are kind of the opposite end of the spectrum are looking at purely utilitarian ways to like help people get to the next meal or to, you know, the next moment. And I think what I've, [32:09] uniquely been able to do because of my life trajectory is, you know, kind of live what I say from the squat to the yacht. Like I actively engage with like, you know, shithead crust kids, crusties. And like, I still have all of my like,

[32:25] Takunian anarchist friends who are on no-fly lists, and I have billionaires speak in my house about AI. And I think I was a function of moving from Iowa to L.A. when I was 16 and having art aspirations, but kind of recognizing my place in the universe as being someone that can be this connected tissue. And I think I've joked in the past that I've always wanted to be the chef that makes two Michelin star corn dogs. [32:55] 19, I had a California roll and I threw it up. It was like too advanced. You know, I was raised on like, not even Taco Bell, I was raised on Taco John's, you know, like knockoff of knockoff. And the idea that there were people who could contribute if they had some kind of connected tissue is what I was interested in. So there is this kind of like psychological and spiritual war and they're, they're, they're kind of need someone to say like, man, I actually know how venture capital works. Like you can say two and 20 to friends of mine in like the art world, [33:25] And I also am like deeply rooted in the history of culture and music and I'm interested in like the right people winning. And so if I can effectively be a low status person who can LARP as like a high status person and maybe a high status person that can LARP as a low status person, I can be this translator and use this kind of tissue. [33:44] from the kind of more utilitarian angle, [33:47] Low status games are often like the best way to repurpose value just historically. When you learn the history of Hollywood, I often, you know, talking to my contemporary art friends.

[33:58] I'm like, if I was just a pure artist, I would be in Saudi right now. You know what I mean? Like, where else are you going to find someone who's like $3 million to like build a really compelling object? Like, take a flyer, but I want it to be here. And it's de classe, and people in America will be like, ugh, Middle East money. But that's what like people in France were saying about America not that long ago. This was the de classe. We are new money. We are low status. You know, like Ralph Lauren is a Jewish kid from the Bronx. [34:28] who changed his name to Ralph Lauren and started pretending to be a kid from Connecticut, and was able to play this game so well that he created this whole fantasy that became real. And I think that's a tangent that I'm also interested in. I love Lana Del Rey. [34:40] because her dishonesty is so internalized, it's real. [34:45] Talk about authenticity. Yeah, like Lana can tell you, you know, she was like living in a trailer park, like smoking meth with the local like rodeo guy. And I'd be like, I know it. [34:55] I believe you my whole chest, my whole heart. Even though you were like, your dad was a domain broker and had hundreds of millions of dollars or whatever it is. You've internalized these things so deeply that schizophrenia is real. Yes. Yes. There's an idea I've struggled to articulate over the years, but I think sort of more or less is that identity can be a projector and a mirror. And it's intuitive that it's a projector. If you dyed your hair green or have a Mohawk, people are going to perceive you differently. But after enough time, [35:23] You're going to perceive yourself differently, which is pretty profound. Absolutely. Like we are who we pretend to be. And that fake it till you make it thing is, you know, one of I think it's one of the things that's so easy to articulate. But to truly live it and to become that is a real blessing to experiencing. Watching people overcome that imposter or whatever it is and just live it, commit. And you see it in L.A. like the pirates. Yeah, they're still doing like an 80s hair metal thing and they live it. You're like, that rocks. Yeah.

[35:50] Good for you. [35:51] Do you think there are a lot of people who are really living it in crypto? [35:54] There are obviously a lot of imposters, but a lot of them have left. I like crypto a lot right now. Most people are in AI. The weirdos are hanging around. Yeah, it's just like freaks and weirdos and people that are probably unemployable in a lot of places. I wonder... [36:10] I haven't thought a lot about it, but I'm sure you encounter it. The other day, I went to Shake Shack with my fiancee. [36:17] get a cheeseburger and she's pregnant. And I was like carrying all these things. And this guy just went above and beyond and helped us. I started talking to him and he was just so articulate, so curious, so thoughtful. You know, I was asking him what he did. He was going to school, told him I work in technology. He had all these thoughts about AI, you know, really like poignant stuff, like could explain a transformer, you know, which is like what most of the DCs I engaged with, like couldn't. Right. And so there is this, this kind of like neat Reddit, you know, kind of lost [36:47] but maybe doesn't have the tools to kind of contain it or articulate it such as they can like, you know, it's a parsable by whatever institution of powers it be. Yeah, it's just not quite legible. And, you know, some part of me is really interested in identifying those people and giving them power and teaching them how to become legible. And I think crypto is full of those people, which is so fun. I think that's one of the reasons I love hanging out in Telegram with a bunch of like racists and like insane anime PFP people. [37:17] There's some, there's somebody human underneath. There is, there's someone human underneath who read the wrong white paper or the wrong something else. They read too much Curtis or whatever. Yeah, yeah, totally. There's okay. So there's this thing that has been happening for a while that you, I think are very interested in, which is that attention and capital are compressing, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

[37:38] Back to the idea of things being financialized. And I think this is interesting maybe through the lens of things being legible because part [37:45] I think financialization of things does is it, [37:48] brings things to the forefront. This is you. You say, this is the definitive mutation of the early adopter. The 2000s hipster discovered bands in basements and hoarded their finds like trade secrets, terrified of mainstream contamination. Today's equivalent, what Nemesis calls the creative director, still wants to be early, but they want everyone else to show up too, preferably with liquidity. Creative directors aren't gatekeeping, they're shilling. Being first isn't about protecting your scene. It's about getting in at the bottom of the bonding curve and waiting for your idea to [38:18] to the DEX, cultural capital has merged with financial capital. [38:21] Great writing. Thank you. [38:26] Maybe with that backdrop of like the weirdos that the internet has always been good at sort of like having a place for, like, I'm curious how you think about when attention and culture are like fully financialized. [38:38] Does something about them fundamentally change? Do you actually have less room for the, this was at least selfishly, like one of my frustrations of crypto is like the financialized part of it and the speculation part of it sort of like clouds everything else out. You have something that's bubbling up to the surface and all that weird stuff you were just talking about is like. [38:56] hidden away somewhere. And I think... [39:00] What I... [39:02] I'm trying to figure out how to express is that all of the stuff that's being obscured needs to be obscured because we're entering into a new era. And I think it's as uncomfortable as it was from the move from like modernism to postmodernism, you know, like the urinal, like Duchamp being like, no, this is an art. I'd be like, that's not a fucking art object. Like, where is the craft? Where is the skill? Yes. And I think that's like the great tension. And I applaud that.

[39:28] people in Silicon Valley and the broader, you know, technology world for wanting to champion what they see as art. But I think what myself and other artists have been talking about a lot kind of behind the scenes is that, [39:44] The act of creation is not that different from the act of speculation. If you squint, this idea that you have a belief about the future and you want to express it via a medium and have it, you know, validated or perceived by your peers or maybe recognized in a market is something that all of the artists that, you know, people champion do because those models are, [40:07] are so antiquated or laggy by the time you get your work to an art fair, by the time you get the album out, by the time you get the film out, [40:17] It often feels dated, you know, and I think what's tough for people that are actually interesting is you watch a new Paul Thomas Anderson film and you're like, oh, cool. A conversation about like incels and like civil war and a bunch of like 60 year olds are like, how radical this is. This is a reflection of our time. You're like, no, we're having that fight on Twitter 18 months ago. [40:47] you know, music, filmmakers, [40:50] We used to talk about prestige television or new films or art fairs. We talk about Fed rate cuts. And you're like, wait, what happened? And I think what happened is they've recognized that there are instruments for expressing beliefs that now allow them to be right verifiably and with financial upside in the same way they could be with an art object. But now... It's like skipping the middle. Yeah, skipping the middle and without a 50% vig to your curator, right? And I think meme coins and prediction markets are like...

[41:18] like bad instruments but when the game before was you could bet on wheat futures if you understood weather patterns like they have an information advantage because they're a meteorologist okay well like i have an information advantage because i'm a cultural savant why can't i have thousand x asymmetric upside and so like that to me i think is the great tension is these people have these very narrow ideas of what like an art community is and what a finance community is and there's like the the patagonia vests and the bushwick babes but to me i'm actually interested in saying like [41:48] those people living in opposition, which is a fool's game for the Bushwick Bays because these guys have nukes. Yes. And they have financial nukes. Yes, yes. And you have like sticks, you know, bows and arrows. Like we can give you nukes too. And you can have a real meaningful advantage against these people in markets and you can have asymmetric upside in the yachts. So like. [42:07] Why not? [42:08] So many of these things come down to like don't hate the player, hate the game, I think too. [42:13] And there's a lot of hating of the game. In a broader thing that, I don't know if you've written about this publicly, but you kind of talk about this idea of the belief economy. And you have this specific frame around making to framing to predicting that, [42:23] partially is encapsulated in what you just said, but I think it would be helpful for you to talk specifically about that. Danko has also written about this shift, kind of post-postmodernism, but what is that shift? [42:33] I think it's also worth hitting on the framing part. I think most people sometimes sort of feel like we're still in that because it's a thing of the past. And then obviously this new thing. Yeah. I love Danko's piece. And so there's a group of friends, which maybe I would call like the new models extended universe. And that goes to like Arthur at trust, Citarella, Jeff, Citarella, Holly Herndon, Matt Dryhurst, you know, the nemesis folks like Dan Keller's here now, not part of the models. Like,

[43:00] I think we've been deeply frustrated because we're people that are interested in progress and technology for us has all of this white space and all of this incredible opportunity for progress. But, [43:10] post you know trump election and i think the artistic world seeing technology as these enablers of dictators of tyrants as you know the russia gate whatever like you felt disenfranchised from both a bit and so we've kind of had the talk in isolation for a bit about the world that we see in front of us and then the world we encounter when we go to a biennale and just see like aboriginal artworks and wall works and sculptures that could they're not meanly different than they [43:40] years ago. [43:42] I think in my opinion, in Danko's opinion, in like the group chats, this kind of like thing that's ethereal and in the air that we're trying to pull out of it is – [43:50] This idea that [43:51] The people who would have been articulating ideas about what's happening, what's going to happen, have taken different forms in society over the years. And the ones we're most aware of, you know, probably are in the frame I'd used in that piece for like the modernist era, where the thing you produced had all the value to this postmodernist era. We identified actually like the narrative and the framing around the thing had the most value to now. [44:21] has that same value. And I think it feels really uncomfortable for people. Yes. Because they're like, it's all fucking gambling now. And you're like, well...

[44:30] Yeah, like the always was meme, you know what I mean? Always has been. There are always decisions being made and there are market forces and there are outcomes that were more opaque. And if you choose to kind of make them more visible, it's uncomfortable, but I think it's very real. And it allows for... [44:49] you know, in new champions to emerge. And I think that's the part that like, we're all really interested in is that predicting is very similar to creating. And if you squint, you know, making a wall work or having an opinion about prestige television is very similar to taking a position or expressing that belief in a prediction market, a meme coin, or, you know, betting on a meta on the thing I'm looking on now. Yeah. [45:13] It seems almost that... [45:16] maybe a little less so with the making part, but especially the narrative, the framing part, it's almost like we ran out of scarcity there. [45:25] There's nothing scarce in your ability to... Again, I talked with Gabe Whaley about this. Going viral is like... [45:32] It's shots on goal. Like it's not even, there's no novelty there. There's no magic there. And it is interesting that sort of like, [45:38] consensus... [45:40] on the collective belief is... [45:43] Maybe not. [45:44] fundamentally scarce, but relatively rare. And that's the thing that everyone's seeking. I wonder, like, I don't know, one of the things I was thinking about a lot is, is I went through this is just like, [45:56] This feels very reactionary, even if you're right. And I think there are optimistic parts of what you're saying. Like, don't we still want to incentivize people to make things? Like having all of our best people, all of our tastemakers skip over everything to the

[46:09] anticipating reacting to what's going to be next. [46:14] Maybe we'll horseshoe, but like I think that would – if I were to guess what the average sort of thoughtful person's reaction to it, [46:21] What you're saying is, even if all of that's true, like, [46:25] Are we just going to be in a world where we're all like speculating on made up memes? Potentially. I think a lot there. I think, um, [46:33] Talking about virality being shots on goal, the other thing that I maybe didn't highlight in that piece that I maybe should have talked about more is that discourse is probably – [46:44] It's probably the most important product of millennial culture, like podcasts. [46:53] Everyone has clubhouse voice. Every dinner party you go to, people are repeating the same New York Times podcast takes or whatever it is. And we live in this sea of takes with no way to sift through what's meaningful. Yes. Right? And so Marcus being a tool for seeking out information, I think, is really interesting. Yes. Yes. [47:10] To speak to the part about making actual objects, I think it's really important. I just think that robotics and AI automation are going to devalue those things. Scarcity again. Yeah. And I think having lived through technology devaluing things, it's like, okay, who are people that you care about? [47:28] I care about creative people and I want them to win. Okay. Well then where do you shepherd them? I shepherd them to where the value is going. Like, and I think what's, what I appreciate about Silicon Valley is they want, uh,

[47:39] creative people to do well but they are effectively pushing them to where the puck is not to where it is going and that's why i feel like even if dissonant uncomfortable i need to actively speak up and be like hey this matters go here get in the resources such that you can impose your will and point of view in the world because it's important that you do because you'll figure this out once you've won almost i mean i think yes we'll figure it out once you've won but i also [48:09] I think it's uncomfortable to hear as well. But part of growing up is that there are people that make decisions in the world and you can either have a seat at the table and influence or not. And, you know, [48:19] I [48:20] the all-in podcast has extraterrestrial at this point influenced as a space force. And if [48:29] We can shepherd people from having conversations on dialectic into having seats at the most powerful tables in the world. I would like that in order to do that. They probably will need to have meaningful capital and meaningful amounts of verifiably correct takes. Yes. OK, so this is interesting. Yeah. [48:48] One of the things you said a couple of times, you just got at the end, is that markets are a way to get to at least one kind of truth. This is a pretty profound idea. Obviously, the prediction market kind of stuff, lots of different things. It's a market-driven truth. I'm curious what you think about, if you have any thoughts broadly on what that truth is and if it differs from other types of truth we might have. And then on top of that, does that truth line up with what creative people are trying to get closer to?

[49:18] other thing around authenticity and honesty or whatever, whatever the things maybe creatives are normally sort of trying to get at. Yeah. And this is a sticky one, right? Um, so yeah, [49:27] I guess the framing I would use is like in a, [49:31] pre... [49:32] enlightened world there's effectively like magic and like a divine interpretation of truth and like ideas and i think in this post-truth environment like there's so much takes so much distance you can find your truth in your research there's been a return to magic and i think yes what's what's interesting for me is that again like if you think about it in kind of like less contemporary terms like in a tribe there were kind of people that created magic and were able to like define what [50:02] And I think that, like, you know, obviously the narratives and the stories that control our lives define those truths, whether it's capitalism or neoliberalism or whatever it is. And so. [50:14] The thing that I'm interested in truth right now and markets being able to [50:20] I guess, uh, reveal truth is that, and this is again, an uncomfortable reality. A truth is subjective in a lot of ways. And what you're seeing, I think in capital markets at the highest level is this unwinding of this like efficient markets hypothesis. [50:36] And, uh, [50:37] retail effectively running over some of these value investors and Steve Cohen's of the world. And you're like, what's going on? And I think the idea that we can stay retarded longer than you can stay solvent is quite poignant. The Wall Street bets thing, there are PE ratios, and then there are a bunch of retarded Redditors who are like, no, actually, those don't matter. And effectively, at some point, there's a tipping point where a PE ratio was just a meme.

[51:07] the collectively accepted truth. By the way, when we say truth here, I think what we kind of mean is consensus. Exactly. And I think at some point, consensus tips... [51:17] And I think that, again, is the opportunity, right? And I think that's what I would describe as creative people do. You can be Karl Marx or the Chicago School Boys or whomever you want, and you can come up with a narrative that people internalize and manifest and turn into real actions in the real material world. And all of a sudden, that is the dominant form of our everyday lives and truth. [51:47] but like it's really interesting. [51:50] I think it's really interesting. [51:52] I guess we've been talking a lot about it from the lens of the creative person. [51:56] One of the first interviews I did, or early ones, was with Jacob Horn. And he had this line where he's basically like... [52:03] the [52:03] there's a difference between speculation and gambling. [52:08] along the lines of your belief economy, which is like speculation is sort of putting weight behind or stakes behind something that you want to be more likely. I guess I'm curious how you're thinking about that now and how you're thinking about the ways that like [52:23] having more hard incentives versus soft incentives from the like crowd to push the tastemakers or whatever else we want in a certain direction. Like, [52:33] One version of this is, [52:35] One instrument is meme coins. Sure. Like, I think a lot of people look at that and they're just like, what? Like, this is, this is, yeah, there's nothing here. What is, and you can be as specific or not specific as you like, but like, what is a version of this that is good for?

[52:50] for creatives, for all the stuff we talk about, for musicians, for visual artists, for like even just cultural tastemakers. Like what do you think that starts to look like where regular people can be at home with their favorite creator or favorite artist or whatever and like speculate on them in a way that I'm investing in five likes or whatever? Yeah, yeah, totally. [53:09] So I think, you know, trying to set the state of play right now, Jesse Walden kind of describes his current meme coin moment as like the 4chan moment. And there is like an emergent Reddit or Twitter moment that will allow people to kind of to have these takes in a synonymous or anonymous way and find community and kind of do all the things that social media and those kind of those chance of all chance enable us to do. [53:39] tokens that represent some idea or meme, and then people speculate on how much attention they will get. The problem, in my opinion, and I think the pros, in my opinion, are we've created an instrument that allows people, [53:53] creative and cultural people people at least aware of how information flows bushwood girls or whatever to bet right and it may be some bushwood girls yet but there are you know it's the the telegram guys the weirdos yeah yeah it's it's it's honestly it's like fortnite kids yes you know and i think it's really unsexy for people to go look at a bunch of like spurgy fortnite gamers who are you know betting on whether ani elon's like ai companion will get enough attention

[54:23] but it also has opened the aperture such that you can squint and see a world where if you have – [54:33] If you have an information advantage on whether skinny jeans I tweeted about will become popular again or mainstream again. Yeah. [54:40] I think it would be fantastic if you could express that belief and have the asymmetric upside that Bill Ackman has. Bill Ackman has fucking takes. Yeah. [54:48] Why listen to Bill Ackman? More than ever. Yeah, because he has billions of dollars from taking asymmetric bets. I need to approach some girl and say, may I meet you? Why does he have influence? And why couldn't the Bushwick band? Speaking of which, the internet may have memed that into being a real thing now. I know. It actually probably does bang. If I was a single man, I might go out there and see who's brain rot is me at the local bar. So I think what we would need, I think, is a few things. [55:18] The time horizons for meme coins right now are so small. I mean, even if you think Mom Donnie is going to be mayor and there are 400 Mom Donnie coins, A, you're not going to be able to pick the right one. But even if you do, it might pump and rug in two hours. And if you're a person who isn't your average Fortnite enthusiast, those attention spans are too small for you to pick and probably win. On that note for a second, I'm going to say, [55:41] I think most people who have ever heard that example are just like, "Oh, obviously, it's prediction markets." [55:47] Could you talk about maybe an example of something that you think is like [55:50] better served by whatever it is that you're pointing to that's more nebulous rather than like there's something about whatever sports and politics that are pretty deterministic yeah like so yeah i think prediction markets are great deterministic i think things that have like kind of discrete outcomes i think skinny jeans is a maybe skinny jeans is a soft one right and so i think a couple different things um so we'll start with obvious i think there are soft things that don't have uh probably resolutions that everyone could agree on the scale a little bit yeah and so

[56:20] is soft and squishy and we can't get an elegant resolution that's probably better sort of the market where people can vote with their dollars and how much attention it's going to get and you can just see a real-time scoreboard the other thing is i think um you know the illiquidity of prediction markets and the lack of fungibility yeah yeah to me um creates a lot of interesting challenges and beyond that like [56:44] Bonding curves are magic. You know, like if you haven't played with meme coins and you do, there's a very regular occurrence where people will bet $10 and make $100,000 because of the convexity of those bonding curves and the way they're shaped. On the other hand, you know, if you get a 20% return on a prediction market, that's fantastic. A 2x, 3x is fantastic. You know, because most of these markets, most of the liquidity in these books, whether it's sports or politics or everything, there are these sharps that are so advanced. [57:14] Like the edge is 200%. It's interesting you say that. Like, I think most people's intuition is actually like, [57:20] the correct thing is that you can get a 20% like the prediction market thing. And the $10 into a hundred thousand is actually like a broken novel feature of it just being weird. And like, [57:31] - Yes. - And you're almost saying the opposite. You're actually saying like that's the thing. - Yeah, I think like to me, and I think this is like maybe as bizarre as like Duchamp's urinal, like the broken and immature is the alpha and what artists are great at. Like Duchamp being like this thing you piss in is art, [57:48] is not something that a market would value. - Yeah. - And I think that is, you know, like, Warholian tin can, you know, soup can, like,

[57:56] That is effectively what bonding curves allow people to create a market and be like, no, actually, this is important. And you're like, that isn't important. That's slop. And you're like, no, trust me. And what great – Well, this is back to slop becoming punk maybe. I don't know. Totally. And I think what great collectors have been able to do historically is take the side of that bet and be like, yeah, I want all these Warhols. And this basket guy that can't draw, I think it rocks actually. [58:18] And I think that that is the opportunity on both sides of that market. Hmm. [58:23] I want to talk a little broader about speculation. I don't know. It just feels like the gambling, the sort of speculation in culture is out of control. People are starting to talk about it. And your big kind of, [58:36] maybe not counter, but at least... [58:38] thing that's cutting through a lot of it is it's rational to speculate. A couple of things from you. All the crypto ideologues will tell you that the trenches are the death of crypto and it's all extraction and brainless, but they're wrong, obviously. For my POV, the trenches are a lot of people making very rational decisions about how they should spend their time and their energy to create the best outcomes for themselves and their loved ones. I also think they're underserved, lots of people building for devs, creators, vibe coders. [59:02] Whatever, but not a ton of people building for someone trying to turn $20 into $40 to buy Chipotle. [59:08] Obviously, like... [59:10] There's this sort of silly, super micro version of this. There's the, like, broader financial nihilism thing, like... [59:16] What are you seeing? Like what is happening for 20 year olds and like why is why is it rational to speculate? [59:22] I think a couple of things. I think often I get frustrated because the things that are happening for 20-year-olds are the same thing that were happening when we were 20-year-olds in different moments, right? We were like young people who wanted to make a mark on the world. And in order to do so, we needed to prove ourselves. And oftentimes we could go to like low status domains and do things in order to build up an XP to get a shot. And in parallel, you need to survive.

[59:52] to look for alpha. And so I think that's happening. But I think what's really awesome is like a version of the internet that I was drawn to as a young person reading Kevin Kelly, whatever is happening. There's effectively this entirely online economy that's existed. People are spinning up meme coins. They're paying people and putting digital currencies all over the world without permission to manage a discord or a telegram or to bag work in whatever way. And it's a totally [1:00:22] of the irony is it's it's not metaverse shaped enough or something and as a result people are like it doesn't look like eve online and so it doesn't count totally or it's uglier than i wanted it to be yeah and what what is i think you know and i had similar sentiments so i started talking to the people in the trenches and it's like who are you i'm 21 i live in millenor missouri i work at a bookstore part-time and while i'm there i reply guy ansem with like cas like you know tokens [1:00:52] You know, I make... [1:00:54] 12 bucks an hour working at this bookstore i could work eight hours or i could just reply guy handsome for an hour a day and be up a hundred bucks i'm like absolutely it's rational absolutely you should be doing those things and it speaks to probably what will come and it's uncomfortable because it's new but i think again and because we don't believe in the underlying thing to go back to the other thing which is actually like [1:01:14] being ahead of consensus, most people in the world don't believe is productive or something. Yeah. And I think it's easier to be out of step when you're already low status and perceived as like, you know, de classe. And so I think that's often where the alpha is. Like, of course, if it's consensus, like any great investor, you know, contrarian, it's be contrarian and right. And I think a lot of great investors these days, I don't think are that contrarian. No, which is maybe part of the momentum moment, which I also kind of think speaks to like, the tipping of a sufficient market

[1:01:44] I think what a lot of investors have learned also is that we don't need to name any of them, but the really intelligent ones are like you can create media arms and you can shape consensus. And so you can make yourself right by having the hordes follow you. So you can take gigantic bets, shape consensus and be right, which is what Hollywood was so good at forever. [1:02:04] You know, manufacturing consent. And Hollywood forgot that or they just lost their leverage? They're still fantastic at it, but they've lost their leverage. Right. Like what they had was they had a corner and they had a monopoly on distribution media. And so now that people can do it, I think the people that have capital and media arms are like, oh, we could try to pick. [1:02:25] Or we could just king make. Hmm. [1:02:29] Hmm. [1:02:30] and be right long enough to exit. [1:02:33] It's funny how you say it like that. It sounds a lot very similar to the new thing that's happening. It's like... [1:02:39] Hmm. One last thing on this. Uh, there's an excerpt from, uh, the piece I referenced earlier that Danko wrote on this, uh, we're calling prediction kind of the successor to postmodernism, but he gets something interesting. I'm curious for your take on, which is, he says, how early or late you are to something is now an essential component of your relationship to that thing. The timelines and reels represent what is going on are increasingly about a single metatopic. Are you predicting it or is it predicting you? This has become the main thing that you feel. [1:03:07] And it is a complete break from the postmodern aesthetic where your consumption was wrapped in an unthreatening fuzzy blanket. It doesn't matter what time of year you arrive at Whole Foods to buy strawberries. The farm stand simulacra is recreated faithfully. The prediction aesthetic is a new thing and rejects postmodernism. Quote, I want to feel something even if it hurts. And this is like...

[1:03:31] It at least sits next to the it's rational to speculate thing, which is like, [1:03:36] Is there something else also happening here, which is like... [1:03:39] we all want to feel something again. Like gambling is both rational, but also like, [1:03:47] In a flat algorithmic society, it's like volatile. Yeah, and I think gambling is rational, is provocative. And there's so much I can say. But I think a lot of that Diko piece I really am aligned with. There's others that I'm not, but I think he's pulling exactly the right thread. I think one of the things you're pulling out here that I like is, and this is kind of dark, but I remember I got on an airplane once to fly. And I was like, I should look at my tweets to figure out what the last tweet I have as this plane goes down. And it was like a crass thing to think. [1:04:17] moment after that, I had this thought where it was like, at least no more email. You know, like, there was, we live in this life that, like, lacks finality to the extreme such that, like, you know, at the end of my life, the kind of, like, the thought of it was like, damn, at least you would get, you would be able to, like, no, I'd send an email ever again. And it was a bizarre thought, but it reminded me of the lack of finality in our lives, like, more broadly, you know, like, all of your ex-girlfriends, your eighth grade friends are in your cell phone, in your Instagram

[1:04:47] I think it's... [1:04:48] It's tough, right? Everything is so ambiguous. Everything's frictionless. And I think it's really comfortable to watch a basketball game and watch it resolve. And things that provide finality, a scoreboard, it's actually comforting. And so I think there is something about staring at a hyperliquid perp and being like, damn, I'm up. Damn, I'm down. It's concrete. And I think there's a difference there between gambling as how people understand it. [1:05:18] to win or to lose. They go to be in the machine zone. They go to be in the machine zone. [1:05:25] they go to disappear. Right. And I think that's very different from being confronted with the finality of your up or your down. I think like, yeah, you know, like basically a good job of obscuring that. Right. And I, and I, and I think, well, [1:05:38] Do you think crypto is more the machine zone, or is it more the actual simulacrum of finality? I find that the finality of crypto, and they blur, which is concerning, right? It's like people have recognized that there are opportunities to implement more of machine zoning these things. But that's probably more common in fantasy sports or whatever. Yeah, I mean, you could argue, you know, whatever, DraftKings or whatever. There's all kinds of places to get lost in the machine zone or in, like, you know, just mobile games. But that said, I think… Instagram reels, for that matter. [1:06:08] talk about the finality like yes the hyper liquid perp i think is compelling because you're like i'm up or i'm down but also the scoreboard of like i was right versus i was wrong on a take on a belief like in a messy world where everything's so subjective and unambiguous like bitcoin hitting 100k was sick because i was rich but it was sicker because i was fucking right you know what i mean and like i think that's something that people feel across the board yeah

[1:06:32] I love that answer a lot. [1:06:34] I want to shift a little bit. [1:06:36] I think still connected. I've explained you to people many times over the years, and I always refer to you as sort of the person who's like most consistently like ahead of culture. And part of that, I think, is that. [1:06:50] I'm sure of everyone you know, you're not the most that, but you are, and maybe specifically, you're super on the frontier of both technology and of culture. [1:07:00] which are kind of orthogonal things, so many things. Obviously, early music stuff, Crypto, Michaela. There's a tweet from you in November 2020. Obviously, this was resonant to me. You said, gaming is replacing music as the linchpin of emergent social scenes, and it makes everyone 30-plus I talk to really uncomfortable. You're the first person to ever mention Politogram to me. There's so many of these things. And critically, I think the edge of culture... [1:07:29] Partially means what's going to become consensus, but critically it means weird for now. And so I guess my question is, what do you think... [1:07:39] What do you think has caused you to develop such a nose for weird, particularly in one that actually resolves? [1:07:44] to consensus. Yeah. [1:07:47] It's a good question. I will say I'm actively trying to be more on time now. I think this is important for people that I care about. [1:07:57] It's a... I think... [1:08:00] So this is a tangent, but I'm going to have a child in March. Congratulations.

[1:08:07] Obviously, it provokes a ton of thoughts, but one of them is what you hope to offer them. And to me, it's just so clearly curiosity. [1:08:14] I don't care what it is that he's going to be into, but I want him to be deeply curious. [1:08:22] For whatever reason, I mean, I could probably... [1:08:27] I could probably psychoanalyze myself and say, because I was like a poor black kid who was good at sports, but put in like the alternative and gifted classrooms and like middle-class white Iowa, I was like consistently othered and like wanted to find places to, to, to a impose my will to create suffering for other people. It made me feel uncomfortable. And so it was like, it's why I played football. It was partially to be good and loved, but also to like, [1:08:56] break a quarterback's ribs when I came out the corner. And it was also the reason when we did times tables in math class we were like, I was going to fucking win. Because I wanted to feel good, but also I wanted to let you know that you're not better than me. And I think that [1:09:12] that was also the sport is what Nemesis was talking about. Like in some respects, you know, [1:09:17] I grew up in a pretty anomalous place. [1:09:20] Like I'm 40 years old. I was 15 in 2000. And I lived through this moment that I reflect on. I actually want to write something about maybe I should. That's been, I think, pretty interesting. [1:09:30] detrimental to a lot of millennial men and that is like historically like i'd watched saved by the bell which is age i've never seen when i was young and i was like it's weird that the really buff jock guy is the cool guy because i'm 14 now and the cool guy is the angular art guy like the coolest movie in america is lagging is garden state and like zach bratt is a sex symbol and and like pete went from the cover of rolling stone with his shirt off and is the coolest guy

[1:10:00] these dating apps, the, the, the mode was effectively, you put like the five books you like, I'll put the five books I like. And if you like the same books, we should date. And I was like, damn, that may have been correct. And I think for like, for nerds, kind of like it is. And then there was this cultural shift where like you watch technology, which was the dominant cultural force move from the nerds who talk to their shoes to like the MBAs that took over. And you watch dating apps go from you write your books and you write my books to like Tinder, [1:10:30] really normally we make eye contact at a bar you know we keep looking or we don't yeah and instagram where it was like dang you look good in a bikini lots of likes yes and i was kind of knocked off guard because i was like whoa this is like hyper heteronormative and masculine and sexual and i was taught to like meet a young woman i should tell them that we should get married and like they'll be my punk rock princess and then there's just like zoomers being like hey baby we [1:11:00] I lived through this like... [1:11:01] bizarre moment where nerds dominated culture and it was it was celebrated to go into a record store and you know i remember as a kid i i went to a christian sleepaway thing in iowa and my friend's older brother was in mxpx cover band which is just like kind of niche pop punk band and i was a kid and i watched him play and i was like that was awesome and i went to the cd store in the mall north park mall in davenport iowa and i was like i want to get this punk rock thing

[1:11:31] I think it's like something XX. And they were like, no effects. And I was like, yeah, that's it. And I got a no effects album. I got in the punk. I went to the punk record store and I was like, I like no effects. And they're like, that's fucking whack. You know, this is what you should be into. And they pushed me into like Fugazi and like, you know, all of this stuff that defined me. I'm still straight edge. I'm still punk. And like it was really celebrated to be deeply nerdy and inquisitive. And so I think I wanted to win that sport also. And so when I got into no effects, I needed to get to grind core. [1:12:01] Like, it needed to be at noise shows where they're running vacuum cleaners through distortion pedals. Like, that was the final boss I had to get to. And I just don't think that's that compelling anymore. [1:12:09] It is interesting that [1:12:11] I suspect if you surveyed, I don't know, five different generations, you'd get like the it's the pendulum swinging. It's like a sine curve. And like maybe one thing that's weird about it is like, well, you're kind of living it. [1:12:23] media is lagging and pop culture is lagging and so you're sort of disoriented. [1:12:29] I don't know. Like, I also wonder if just, like... [1:12:32] The extremely into something thing is always going to win out. [1:12:37] Like, the Extremely Curious. The Extremely Curious always wins out. It maybe takes, like, a lot. [1:12:43] I don't know what stretch of your life you weren't cool, but it probably didn't take that long, ultimately, for you to... [1:12:50] for things to resolve? Well, I think that's the interesting thing is like... [1:12:55] obviously like cool exists on different axes. Sure. But like, um, if, if you were to talk about like pop cultural cool, it's, it's, it's not clear to me that being super curious is the path. Whereas I think like, you know,

[1:13:10] The people that I see winning the cool game right now, [1:13:14] Oh, maybe because those people are on time to go back to your earlier. Yeah, I guess they are curious, but they're curious of like the contemporary moment. Yeah. And they're less interested in the historical context. And I think it's because things move so fast. It's like not clear that you need to have that knowledge. Yes. Yes. And I think that's. [1:13:31] Like, I remember that brat moment. [1:13:33] The Charlie XCX brat moment. And it felt kind of like the last hurrah for like the world that I knew. Yes. Where it was like, here's Charlie, who honestly I've known since she was 16. We did some of our first sessions together in America in my bedroom in Silver Lake. And as someone who's always been so knowledgeable, so bright, so talented, and... [1:13:53] was finally able to make the music that responded to people. But I also think more importantly, a lot of... [1:13:59] the kind of Bushwick elite, you know, like the publicist, the people at Spotify, they were able to be like, this is what it should be. Like someone making interesting, most advanced, accessible music that references a moment that's important culturally and kind of elevates it and twists it. And I remember at the height of that going to look at the Spotify streams and being like, wow, this is amazing to see. [1:14:22] And I looked and I was like, oh, this song has like 200 million streams. That's crazy. And I just went to look at the most streamed artists at the moment. And like ahead of her was like The Neighborhood, you know, which is like a band like that hadn't reached a record in a long time and hadn't thought about, but made like really playlistable music or like Charlie Puth to me, who is like savant, but like, you know, quite boring.

[1:14:52] bigger numbers than that, which was able to capture whatever it is Bushwick extended, the global Bushwick. [1:14:59] You started that answer by saying you're trying to be more on time. Yeah. Yeah. [1:15:04] it's not surprising you say like, like one thing that has been like, Michaela is maybe the best possible example, but like, [1:15:12] You've been early. [1:15:13] arguably too early to a lot of things. [1:15:17] And I have to imagine that there's like some internal... [1:15:20] like the honest version of you is way too early and that's awesome. But like the back to all the commercial, like, I don't know. What is that? What is that feeling of, [1:15:30] Obviously, on some level, being on time has really obvious positive outcomes, which is like... [1:15:37] it's commercially resonant. Um, your things maybe actually get to go the distance versus be the thing that the kids today are inspired by. Um, yeah, but I'm curious what the psychological thing is there. Yeah. And I think, uh, [1:15:51] *sigh* [1:15:53] You also get old and tired. And you kind of hope that that slows you down. Part of that Bob Dylan statement was like, oof, that's terrifying. [1:16:03] And we'll probably go on a tangent again, but one of my best friends is a guy named Sam Teller. Sam and Elon were looking for a place for the Gigafactory. And in parallel, I had been really fascinated with this idea. This is like 2016, 2017. [1:16:17] with getting all of my favorite brilliant people to move to Iowa. Like I was like, man, it's actually pretty awesome. Four seasons drive Chicago in two hours where I'm from. Like, what if we just all went back and we did, um,

[1:16:32] what you did in Williamsburg or in Silver Lake here, and you own property. And that evolved into this thing called actually, so ruling, and it was like a plan. And I was like, I think there's a way to reverse brain drain. It is kind of cliche tech where I'd be like, I'll start a city. But I was like, we can go and we can basically work with economic development directors to give us incentives to move there. And Sam was like, you're totally nuts, but we've been close to the people in Tulsa. And we're talking about building a factory there. They're really into these kind of ideas. You should just go and talk to these people. [1:17:02] trying to get the guy named George Kaiser, billionaire oil guy, uh, [1:17:06] Unbelievable. [1:17:07] unbelievable guy. I think famously he was the first person to identify Obama and really back him when it was deeply unpopular. But I met him, and he was probably one of his late 70s, if not early 80s. And he had built this Disneyland in the center of Tulsa with free buses that go there. It makes me want to cry thinking about it. And when I met him, I met him, and we were on this walk. He tries to walk multiple miles a day. And he was talking about how he wants to make Tulsa this cultural center. And he's like, I love what you're talking about. We should do this. We should [1:17:37] that are talking to me about what I can do to make this the center of culture. And, you know, one of them said I should do, like, an EDM festival. And he's like, I don't think that's right. You know, and he was like, I think for, like, a couple hundred million, I could move all of Broadway and theater and ballet here. And I was like, you're fucking right, dude. Like, don't let these 22-year-old McKenzie fucks tell you you're wrong. Like, you're fucking so right. You know what I mean? He's brilliant. It's, like, so, it's such an inspiration to me still. Wow. But what I also saw, like, in his eyes was this person who was talking to me,

[1:18:07] Wow. [1:18:08] Because like the clock is winding down for me. And it was like deeply inspiring, but also somewhat terrifying because I'm someone who's just had endless ideas. And I don't know that it will just stop one day. But I do know that I'll be confronted with a reality where it's like I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time. [1:18:28] And so all that is to say, I think that like, you know, the Bob Dylan thing was terrifying, but also inspiring in that potentially I could slow down and be right and have enough resources that I could start to paralyze and do a lot of things and try to chew through this list. Yes, yes. And maybe you get satiated by the time the Grim Reaper comes knocking or Brian Johnson is able to extend me into perpetuity or whatever it is. But I think that's that's. [1:18:55] Part of the reason I want to be on time is this like, you know, very human fear of the clock stopping. [1:19:03] That's quite an answer. [1:19:05] on maybe a lighter note, or maybe not, what are you obsessed with today? Maybe outside of the speculation stuff we talked about, which I know you're spending a lot of time thinking about, what are you obsessed with today that you think the rest of us are going to catch up on, hopefully soon? Oh, wow. Or just anything else that's been firing this sort of sense? I know you were really interested in streaming streamers for a little while. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that I'm absolutely interested in this.

[1:19:35] obvious, uh, [1:19:37] I'm... [1:19:39] Very interested in [1:19:41] in... [1:19:43] Telegram? I think not because of crypto at all, but because I've been able to stumble into these... [1:19:51] portals where like teenagers seemingly can be very free and like because i'm a non sometimes they let me in but there are these channels where they all upload mp3s they talk about the music they're discovering and it's really interesting to me to see something that they're into and like the the kind of like revisionist history of what they think was really important when i was 20 and i'm talking about it um but beyond that like these channels where they're able to do what i was able to do [1:20:21] I often get really upset thinking about [1:20:26] you know, the opening window was acceptable on YouTube or really any of these platforms, save for maybe X. Like, I just don't think Tyler, the creator, could release the Yonkers video right now on YouTube. Why? Because he hangs himself. [1:20:37] you know, [1:20:39] And like, you know, there's, you know, I went and watched one of my, I was playing a show in San Francisco with my DJ duo. And I was reminded of this band Girls. There's a song called Lust for Life. And it's such a perfect encapsulation of a San Francisco that I knew. It's like young, like the 50,000 art hoes in San Francisco, like it used to exist. And like if you watch that music video, like it's an encapsulation of like this radical band and these radical art hoes and like queer kids hanging out in bathtubs and clapping and jamming.

[1:21:09] I was reminded is I don't even know that that would be allowed because it's like, you know, young people, nudity or whatever it is. And so in these dark corners of telegram, [1:21:18] You're seeing it like I'm watching them post and it feels like Tumblr or like on blogs. There's like, you know, there's stuff that is horrible, like Thinspo and like, you know, anorexia posting and cutting. And, you know, all the goth cliches of Tumblr that I saw that felt somewhat like rites of passage. But why I had them and probably misinformed to think that stuff had gone away, that you were living in this really like, you know, progressive young. [1:21:48] with all these demons and they're manifesting in the same way that i'm familiar with and that we we push them to the margins but they still exist and i think what's what's interesting for me is is you know hearing them talk about culture and their experience there are the cliches that i'm familiar with on youtube but when you talk to these these people and you know i've now kind of like doxed myself as like boomer and some of them they're able to just give me like unique insights and so i guess some maybe it speaks like a pendulum that constantly swings the way you're [1:22:18] Now we're like these, these unfettered cultural spaces on the internet. Like it, it sounds silly and quite trite because a lot of us remember that, but most of the stuff we interact with now is mediated by like algos, you know? [1:22:30] - It's really interesting you say that, because the next thing I want to talk to you about, and that has come up in so many conversations, I've talked about with a few people on the podcast, Eugene Wei, like,

[1:22:39] The consensus view is actually... [1:22:41] that there are no subcultures on the internet anymore. The consensus view is that, like, for whatever reason, lack of friction, so many other things, like, we have this, like, total flattening. You've even talked about, like, Iowa City being more culturally interesting than New York. And I have to wonder or imagine that part of that is that it relates to something else you've said, which is that New York is the soundstage for the internet. And because of that, like, everything in New York, it's the other thing. It's every Mexico City, New York, every coffee shop looks the same. [1:23:11] and [1:23:12] obviously for a while in discord and now in this other place, it's like, where on the internet can you actually knock it in? Yeah. And that's, what's allowing for the fertile ground and the flowering and the interestingness. And like, by definition, it can't be surveyed. Certainly. And that was like one of my great gripes of like the woke moment was like, you know, inclusivity is, is incredibly boring. You know, as like the one black dude getting VC funding, I was like, actually like, this sucks. I think we should have boundaries, boundaries are how you define society. And like, [1:23:42] and they should be of all kinds of all walks of life. Absolutely. But we shouldn't be like any old asshole in this place. Like Berghain's not special because fucking suits get in and increasingly less interesting because some suits do get in. And so I think like boundaries are absolutely important. And exclusivity is like I want to write this thing in praise of exclusivity. But I was still the CEO of a company, you know, and so I was like, maybe I shouldn't get fucking canceled. But I absolutely couldn't agree more.

[1:24:12] memories of getting fake IDs to get into shows, you know, and go places. And it made those experiences sweeter and richer. And maybe it's all psychological, but maybe it is those boundaries. [1:24:22] How do you... [1:24:24] How do you find these? Like, is the finding of these telegram groups sort of like getting into the party, or is it something totally different? [1:24:32] Yeah, yeah. [1:24:33] I guess... [1:24:35] I think what's nice is I've developed, I think by doing the homework, have just developed a taste for bizarre. Like when I buy artwork, I buy stuff that I love or that I hate. [1:24:46] You know, and I often find that like, fuck, I hate that. Ends up being like, I love that in six months. It's doing something to me that's causing a reaction. It's not the middle. [1:24:57] Yeah, but I think ultimately it's like this narcissism of small differences where you're like, this is so close to a thing that I am. But like this water down or this like this thing that I hate. I think the thing that kind of got me into this telegram was some really wild, super ADD. [1:25:14] you know clip to an old break course song that i vaguely recognized with just all kinds of like anime and like wojacks and memes cut up and it was shared from this and you can see the forwarded thing in telegram from armageddon i joined armageddon and it was all this and you know it's people being blown up by drones in ukraine like russian kids sharing like you know crystal castle's derivatives or whatever it is and you can just start clicking into the other things that are being forwarded from a lot of them sucked some of them were like really interesting

[1:25:44] just keep clicking and some of them get shut down or whatever. Curiosity is the engine though. Yeah. And I think just like developing a palette for like, what is actually good? I don't think a lot of people stop and think critically, is this good? [1:25:56] Is it good? And that that that is oftentimes people are like, what can I do to be successful? I'm like, you can you could just stop and do the homework. Like, why is your podcast so excellent? Like you went and read all this stuff about me instead of like winging it. And most people don't have time to not wing it or the kind of like wherewithal to do it, but just don't wing it. But also it's just like. [1:26:19] You have to care. Like, the reason you can do this is because you care. Yeah, totally. That's absolutely right. Whatever the program busts ticket theory of excellence, whatever it's called, it does ring true. Like, I do love this shit. I want to find new things. Yeah, yeah. [1:26:33] Speaking of at least some of the stuff you're talking about, particularly around exclusivity and another thing you were early to probably not on time, although who knows? Friends with benefits and Dow's and obviously the bread stuff, too. [1:26:46] building dapper collectives like, uh, [1:26:49] I want to talk about the exclusivity part specifically, but... [1:26:52] Maybe before we get there, like... [1:26:54] I guess just what stands out from that era of like a bunch of things, which is like crypto highs and lows, COVID building, getting super into discord, [1:27:02] building kind of like the, at least the cultural DAO, and now you also have some distance from it? [1:27:08] Yeah. [1:27:10] Still a member, still very excited about FWB. I think what stands out...

[1:27:15] I think what was clear to a lot of us is that what crypto is doing is effectively speed running like a history of markets and organizations. And most of these trials were going to end up in the exact same place that we were. Yeah. But I think it was important with this new coordination layer of the Internet to be like, maybe things go different. [1:27:31] Let's give it a go. Let's give it a go, right? And we can run these experiments pretty rapidly. Yeah. And so let's give it a go. [1:27:38] FWB was interesting because... [1:27:40] I was still pretty, I was still of the belief that people would like fork things, copy ideas, iterate on them. And I think at the moment we were in the crypto cycle, we were kind of more of like an extraction layer. And so the idea was to like come up with the primitive where it was like, hey, all you've ever known, this was before crypto was, you know, even remotely mainstream in my opinion. 100%. And the idea was, okay, you've only known networks where all the value accrued to the people in the middle of the VCs and the founders and employees. Like... [1:28:09] there's a world where you can create a network where the value accrues to the people who make it interesting. Yes. And we created like super dumb tokenomics. But by the way, you made this, at least you messaged, I got a message in fall 2020, which was pre any NFT stuff, like pre any web three, like this was quite, this was really, really primitive, I think for people. And I think the idea was just to like create a spark with the dream. And that's been some of like, the bummer of

[1:28:39] on it. And people were like, [1:28:41] eh. We just want this. I'd rather just like cash out on this thing and like move on to the next thing that has some momentum and then cash out. Um, and so I think there's still plenty of room for people to create these, these spaces that, you know, value can accrue to people that make them interested in, uh, at the end of these doing a decent job of it. Now I think one of the challenge was in the Gensler era. It was pretty impossible to kind of accrue value to a token, uh, without getting into trouble. And so their, their hands were tied, but now it's like better [1:29:11] to try to do a new version of that. 100%. It's more maximally commercial or whatever. Yeah. Maybe on a related note to that, like, [1:29:19] What's the relationship between community and exclusivity? Like, can those two things actually, are they necessary for each other? Are they at odds eventually? That's a good question. I don't know that everybody interrogated it, like, deeply. But, like, on the surface, for me at least, I think they live in harmony and live in tension. And I think I like to optimize for tension. Like, whenever, like, Bartles Taxonomy of Players, you kind of need these griefers. You can probably achieve them so that they have something to play against. I often get, like, frustrated when people talk about politics. [1:29:49] AOCs and Tucker Carlson. And I'm like, you absolutely need those things. Like you need that dialectic, so to speak. And so I think for me, communities are placed for, [1:29:59] are places where, [1:30:02] boundaries can emerge and they're like petri dishes right and so there's this kind of this idea that you have [1:30:09] This primordial soup that turns into a community, and the community can spawn a lot more primordial soups that spawn into these boundary communities. And I'm not totally sure how one emerges or one begets the other, but that's how I see it in my head.

[1:30:22] On that note, can... [1:30:25] I guess my question was going to be, can these things scale? Maybe part of what you're saying is, like, scale doesn't mean them getting infinitely bigger. It means spawning off new replicas or remixes or something. Yeah, I think at the height of FWDB, what I loved was there were people that only hung on the trading channels. And there was, like, just the parenting bros. They were just sharing. And there were different parts of their lives. But to me, it felt like, oh, there's the Greenpoint crew. And, like, there's, you know, like, the Redhook crew or whatever. You're, like, sick. And so, yeah, I think that's how I view it. [1:30:55] And, you know, outlets for resolution, that tension begets like really important and interesting things. Yeah. [1:31:01] we talked about a little bit, little Michaela. I think you were... [1:31:06] I met you, you had just started Michaela, maybe. It was very, very early on. And even then you had these kind of two really prescient ideas, I think, which is one, and maybe this is a little bit controversial to say, but like the artist is the bottleneck. So I think one thing that you were kind of feeling around, particularly the music side of things. And then maybe almost conversely, [1:31:24] This is something you said relatively more recently, but celebrities are a team sport. And I think like, it's so interesting to think about that. That was like 2014 or whatever. Like, [1:31:35] We're in a world today, you mentioned this earlier, we use the word creator. [1:31:39] And yet what we mean by a creator is the person who controls the distribution. Like we live in a world that is completely dominated by the individual who is like the leverage point of distribution. And even if there are other quote unquote creative people behind them, [1:31:52] They have no leverage. Bands are dead, la la la. I guess I'm curious, one, like to think back to like what was in your head back then. And more importantly, like it feels like things have gone the direction you were a little worried about, like even more extremely. Do you have hope for creativity feeling like a team sport again?

[1:32:10] Certainly. And certainly, I think... [1:32:15] The thing I was responding to with the artist being the bottleneck is they're kind of diminishing returns and it's creating this crabs in the barrel dynamic that I don't think is positive. And so there, I think, were opportunities to create like I think it was like pass through vehicles. Right. Like you could think of Rihanna as this like giant like rent seeking middleman. Like everyone's on set. [1:32:35] waiting and rihanna's got another blunt of smoke in the in the trailer like i guess we're all waiting and so the idea that you could have these pass-through vehicles where you could you know have value created by this entity on behalf of whoever is behind it these visionary storytellers choreographers whatever it is technologists and yeah mickey mickey 100 and i think [1:33:01] The things I like to pursue are things that. [1:33:04] are exciting kind of spiritually because they poke at something that I think is really important to the community that I care about creative people but also meet this tech moment and for me I think it was less about the technology stack purely as much of this idea of like zero marginal cost reproduction like aggregation theory and all these ideas that I felt like were radically changing this world I was like okay how can we judo that how can we kind of use it against itself to kind of like reward people being dismal about it that's cool and so that that was I mean and then I think what's [1:33:32] more often than not in my life, when you start trying to do those things, maybe it's about like hippies mean when they mean like going with the universe or whatever, like you start doing those things and all these other things start emerging quite elegantly where you're like, oh, yeah. And they're spending a ton of money on AR. And so all of these like all sorts of merchants I can use to do this stuff and.

[1:33:51] Spatial computing and digital goods, ideas that I cared about, or generative media that I cared about, just like things started popping up and like, you know, HuckinFace emerged and I was like, okay. [1:34:00] this is fantastic. We could scale. 2016, I think. Yeah. And they were still a conversational kind of like a chat bot tool when you're, I think you can identify things that are kind of floating in the ether and [1:34:12] And two pretty like dominant parts of, [1:34:14] of our lives, whether it's technology and culture, and kind of start letting the ball roll in the right direction. You can kind of roll with it. I think the challenge, as you highlighted for me, is that [1:34:26] People interpreted a lot of these behaviors and things that we did at the surface level and then virtual influencers. And because we were so attached to the bit of being in the story for the Michaela thing, we didn't want to speak up and kind of break that fourth wall. And I think ultimately we should have made it clear, like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, we're building Disney. [1:34:41] We're not building virtual influencers. Like, the reason people care about Manila Blahniks is not because Carrie was just shilling them. Because she was fucking rad. And she made you want to be her. And you could be her by buying Manila Blahniks. [1:34:54] I think the other thing, too, is that... [1:34:56] And unfortunately, because of the timing, like people took Michaela at the gimmick. Yes. It was almost like it can never go farther than this because of how new it was. That was one of the first things you ever said to me is like, I'm building Marvel for pop stars. Yeah. And specifically like this. [1:35:15] I think you've talked about plenty, which is like it ultimately came back to the narrative. Certainly. I think one challenge of the modern Internet is that –

[1:35:24] There's very little linear, like everything's constellation. It's fragmented world building. You're speaking to a moving army, like, and you're moving while the army's moving. I don't know if you ever read one of the things that came up when I was talking to Gabe was this piece Brad Trammell wrote called Athletic Aesthetics. No, but I love Brad. It's like, it's worth reading. I'll send it to you after. And he sort of describes where we're going with this, which is just like, it's not even really about what you're saying or what you're making as a creative or influencer. It's just about like having the audience keep up with you. [1:35:54] true narratives with Michaela. I'm curious what you think, [1:35:57] Great. [1:35:58] internet storytelling looks like now. Yeah, and I think [1:36:02] It's some contextual things there because it's easy for me to forget even. But I started making Michaela in April of 2016. And there were still chronological feeds. We're like pre-Trump, right? And so there was a lot of adoration for tech. And when Michaela first started getting traction, you know, like days, all these outlets were like, look how fucking cool and interesting and smart Trevor is. Like visionary guy. Wow. And then I think the Trump moment, you know, really kind of inverted the politics of celebrating technology. [1:36:32] changing from these chronological feeds to algorithmic feeds really presented a wrinkle for us as storytellers. Because the thing I always try to elicit with people who are hiring is like, this is panel by panel storytelling. It's the same as comic books. People are keeping up with us. Yeah, yeah. It's the same as a comic book. You're reading panel by panel by panel. How can we start to create a behavior where people learn to start from the beginning? Can we do some of these things that when you go by The Sopranos, you don't just start a last season, like kick it off at the beginning. And by the time we are starting to kind of like

[1:37:02] things working out. I was like, surprise! No way. Oh, wow. Okay. So... [1:37:08] The challenge shifted, of course, to like, how can we participate in... [1:37:12] this more dynamic social media that I think brought stars like Cardi B to life. You know, she's so good at a clap back. She's like the opposite of Cary Grant to me, where you just like to stand up and performs the things that was written. Her whole skill is like, fuck you, Cardi B. She's like, fuck you, bitch, suck my dick. And you're like, yeah, wow. Like, you can't script that. That's amazing. That's Cardi. And so the challenge begins. She's a highlight reel almost. Yeah, but also like, how can you be dynamic? How can you, you know, like in borrowing things from Hollywood, from game studios, where they're working on these, like, you know, [1:37:42] these long time periods and producing a finished product, can you instead try to develop systems that can be dynamic, you know, weekly bibles, all those kinds of things. Almost interactive. Yeah. Almost interactive. [1:37:54] So unrelated to that, but related-ish to Michaela... [1:37:58] About sort of like... [1:38:00] being a person who's [1:38:02] a touring musician or a person on the road. You said, one of the things I was trying to do with Lil' Michaela was create a model where people who were disenchanted with being public figures could share their work without having to deal with what it means to be a public figure. It can be miserable. The court of public opinion will try to destroy you as fast as they'll champion you. The idea that you could just create this figure, this avatar for you to share your creative wares through was really intriguing to me. And then there was another tweet I found, I think on the day Bourdain died, where you said, what strikes me most is his passing while on the road working.

[1:38:32] Yeah. [1:38:40] You've since been a touring musician after you wrote that, granted, with a pal, a buddy. [1:38:48] What has your relationship been like to that sort of... Maybe especially with the touring music bookends of so much of your life. Are there any reflections on that idea? Yeah, I think... [1:39:01] Thank you. [1:39:02] DJing, it's funny how you stumble into things in life, and life is largely a game of luck to me. But I was really lucky in that when I turned 19, I dropped out of university, they created this stuff called Final Scratch Pro, where you could install Linux and then DJ with MP3s on traditional turntables. And I was like, that's crazy. And then Swato came out, and it made it easier to do that. And it created this dynamic where I was in San Jose. That's a whole other long story about how I ended up there. [1:39:32] But I ended up going there because I wanted to be close to Silicon Valley. Like I had read about. This was for school? For school? Yeah. So I went to San Jose State to play football and ended up hating it for lots of reasons and ended up there for lots of reasons wanting to go into. So, yeah, I was very lucky. And I think I kind of reframe it. It's like I was very lucky to be in San Jose at the moment that I was because I was interested in tech, interested in business, and I was reading things. And I was really frustrated that I didn't have and I couldn't raise capital to start a business. And I was also reading these books about brand building. [1:40:02] and I was like, man, I'm actually pretty good at that, 'cause I pirated Photoshop, I pirated Illustrator, I know how to build a website, I could do that part, but I don't have capital to create a product.

[1:40:11] Serato came out and I was like, oh, I can download MP3s for free and make myself the product and brand myself. I created a MySpace and this blog and all these things. And I think I was also very lucky in that I'm very good at being isolated. I can sit in front of a computer for 10 hours a day and get lost in it. I'm very comfortable with that. And DJing, as I became quite popular, was a lot of that. It was just amazing. [1:40:37] You know, me driving myself to the airport, me parking a car, like walking the airport by myself, sitting on a plane for six hours, you know, saying hi to her motor, going back to my room, preparing a set, playing this show where you have this really bizarre barbell almost. It's like complete isolation and then like in a mob. Yeah, but the bizarre thing, I think I wasn't able to be elicit with that Bourdain tweet is. [1:40:59] The really difficult part is you're getting all this attention, but it's almost like empty calories. You know, like you're the center of attention and everyone's looking at you. They're kind of looking through you. It's like, hey, monkey dance. Kind of. Yeah. Like, you know, there are millions of times I'd be teaching. I'd be like, hey, do you know where the bathroom is? And it's like a nice reminder. Like, yeah, I work here. Like, I'm an employee. [1:41:18] You know, you can think of yourself as a talent, but you're like, oh, it is that way. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I'm a big fan. Where's the bathroom? Yeah. And like very bizarre things were like, you know, not and this is maybe too crass of the electric pod, but like you'd be DJing and there'd be like some rich guy in a booth and he'd be like, hey, man, you'd be like, hi. He's just like, I don't know what you're doing later, but I've always wanted to see my wife look a black guy. And you'd be like, what? Like, and I think he understands you're contained here. Yeah.

[1:41:48] monkey on stage. And so you're like, yeah, all right. Like, [1:41:51] I'm sorry. Very beautiful. Not interested. Thank you. Like, whatever it is. But it's this very... Don't treat you like a person. No, yeah. You're dehumanized. But you're also getting a lot of attention. Yeah. And it's very hard to come back to your friends and be like... I'm living the dream, but... Yeah, I'm 21. I'm flying all over the world to play music and making more money than my friends who are doing investment banking. But I'm also deeply unsatisfied in a lot of ways. Yeah. And so that was, like, the really tough part with the Bourdain thing is, like, you could [1:42:21] and be famous. Yeah, and I think it can be really, really tough. [1:42:26] Hmm. [1:42:27] What did you learn about identity through the Michaela process of either like running that account or even just thinking about the different personas you guys were going to create? [1:42:35] Yeah, and I've expressed this a little bit before. Some of the seedlings of Michaela stem from [1:42:42] Me being really intrigued with this idea that I could make a song and put it on SoundCloud or YouTube and have someone talk shit about it. [1:42:51] I really feel bad, viscerally, you know? And you're like. One comment, by the way. Yeah, one comment. With no likes. That snare sucks. And you're like, damn, maybe I should change the snare. And you're like, ah. And, you know, this idea that I had also been able to live as, like, a little script kitty hacker in these spaces on IRC or whatever, as a kid that were, like, clearly very white. You know, there, like, weren't a bunch of, like, white people saying incredibly racist shit in chats.

[1:43:21] this thing that was different. And there was this idea like, wow, wouldn't it be, and it probably isn't like a novel, but wouldn't it be interesting if people could effectively embody another person physically on the internet and feel what it means to have someone be like, you know, you're ugly. And what was bizarre is that working model was very real. You know, I've never been a woman on the internet. [1:43:43] And never in my life have I ever thought I should change my eyebrows. [1:43:46] You know, but people would be like, look at her ugly eyebrows. And I'd be like, damn, should we change the eyebrows? And I'd be like, whoa. Whoa. [1:43:54] It must be fucking crazy to be a woman on the Internet because I've just, you know, people will say a lot of things about this podcast, but I doubt they'll critique my eyebrows. [1:44:04] And so there was a lot about identity. And I think one of the things we tried to explore was this idea of like post physicality and identity. [1:44:12] us being these post-physical creatures. And like some of the best moments where when we would get messages from young people, they'd be like, I'm 13 and non-binary and live in like Missouri, and no one believes that I'm real. And like, you're not real, but you're doing amazing things. And that inspires me. Wow, that is so cool. [1:44:32] And that stuff is like, you know, when I look back on it, [1:44:36] Making employees rich and making people who are fans of Michaela feel seen and heard. The way X-Men was for me, that was always the dream. I was this weirdo, and I remember being a kid being like, when I get my mutant powers, they're all going to pay. But that, to me, was easily the best part of that stuff. That's awesome. With Michaela, it was gnarly. He was walking before the door, catching all the arrows. I remember reading that and being like, so fucking true. Like, wow.

[1:45:06] plenty of that too in your life. Yeah. And I think it's, I think like, you know, [1:45:10] Yeah. I think, again, having a child has kind of reframed a lot of this stuff. Hmm. [1:45:14] where it's like, it was just kind of me against the world. And again, we haven't talked about my personal life, but like, it's always kind of been me against the world. And that's been very liberating for me. You know, there wasn't a lot of collateral damage for me to like, you know, I have my mom, my sister. You can take risks. Yeah, but we were already at zero. [1:45:30] You know, there's nowhere else to go. And so I was like, yeah, mom's a retirement plan or she doesn't. And so like, let's take a big swing. And if I fail miserably. [1:45:38] I was already supposed to be here. [1:45:40] Thank you. [1:45:41] A little bit about music. There's an article on Soft, the South Florida trance team. That's right. [1:45:48] We want... [1:45:49] to not think too much with our brains and just feel the music with our bodies. [1:45:54] You're a brilliant dude who, as I think people can tell, can brain blast with the best of them. And yet... [1:45:59] as I think both conceptually, but also maybe even like physically, you've always done a really good job of like both high and low. And I think that's like part of what's in that quote a little bit. But I'm curious how music has helped you. [1:46:13] with [1:46:14] your ability to move between spaces and be in high low and, and, [1:46:18] Yeah. [1:46:19] And I close what you're saying because we're a bit trolly, but like there's this tension with the product of being born when I was born. [1:46:27] I never had anything, but I was very lucky that it was very chic to have nothing. The Blur song Common People could blare through a nightclub when I was 20, and it was very real.

[1:46:40] a lot of the rich kids wanted to be common people and go to the shithole die bars and hang out where me and my actually like poor friends were like playing records. [1:46:51] And, [1:46:53] It was... [1:46:54] comforting in that I could just thrift clothes and still participate in, you know, high status Los Angeles society, at least. [1:47:05] And, you know, [1:47:06] In parallel... [1:47:09] a bit heartbreaking. Like, they were definitely, you know, one of my... [1:47:13] best friends when I moved here was a guy named Adam Moonves, his dad is Les Moonves, the former CEO, president of IACOM. And [1:47:21] We had tons of amazing interactions just from being in proximity to him. I remember because his dad was at a Viacom, I was hanging out one day. He was like, Dad, you should give Trevor a radio station. He's fucking good at music. And we were young and I was like, honestly, I would crush a radio station. Like no idea how to sell ads or whatever it is. But just being in proximity to people that could think that big was really comforting. But I also think that... [1:47:48] the ability... [1:47:50] to develop a palette, the ability to understand how some of these modes of thinking are, are superpowers and the desire to pass them down was really interesting. And so, yeah, I guess like it's kind of the same ministry I've always had, but like music and being good at music, [1:48:07] and I guess I'm realizing now, also provided me a lot of power because of exclusivity. Because I was the DJ at hot nightclubs, I would regularly have people walk up to the booth, because I worked there, and be like, this is my business card. I'm a producer at Warner. I'd love to come back here sometime. If you ever need anything, I'd be like...

[1:48:25] dang, that's like a power broker. And he'd be like, by the way, actually, we need a DJ for a movie that we're in. Could definitely get you paid well. And I'm like, bet I will text you and you will get back into the nightclub next week. And if you watch The Haunting of Molly Hartley, some weird horror movie, there's a party scene that I got paid like $5,000 to DJ in for one night when $5,000 was like... [1:48:48] an insane amount of money. Wow. You know, and so I think for me, [1:48:53] uh what music was able to provide was like a path for a low status person to to create something or create something of value or something that was scarce that people of high status wanted and the ability to transact that would be like a really like really a kind of like crass way to view it but i think that was increasingly important i also said like getting a job at spotify early like being able to get people in north america spotify it was really cool so yep yep you know like lewis hamilton or whomever like wanted spotify i was like bet bro [1:49:23] Honestly, like, I might. [1:49:26] I think that's probably a pro tip for anyone out there that's looking to do things. It's like figure out places where you can create leverage and provide access to people that are of high status or high power. And you can call in favors when the time is right and skip steps. [1:49:39] Thank you. [1:49:41] This is, I'm sure, a can of worms, we don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but I found myself sort of wondering, I don't know, I worked at UMG 10 years ago, a lot longer. [1:49:49] Like if this sort of music just sort of feels like it's at least with the internet structurally wants to be free more than maybe any other medium. And so I guess,

[1:49:57] If that's true... [1:49:59] is there a business model for music? Like, does, is it just real world scarcity? Is it patronage? Like do you want, I guess, do you agree with that at all? And like two, if so, [1:50:09] Does it tie into some of this other speculations that you're thinking about? Do you have any idea? Definitely. I think it's interesting, like, music anymore than anything else. I think... [1:50:17] I always thought that was a function of file size. Because it seems like... To me, it's less... File size is obviously a huge part of it. But it's more that... [1:50:25] Like you, you hear a song once. You're not like, I'm good. You're like, I want to hear it more. Like you actually need, before you like it, you need to hear it five times. Good point. When you watch a movie, you're like, I saw it. [1:50:36] I'm good. So it has a little bit more like, oh, you should have to pay $20 to see it once. Yeah. [1:50:41] Listening to a song is a way to build fandom with the artists. Yeah. [1:50:45] All right. [1:50:47] I've been saying Russell this for a long time. I would say immediately, it's not clear to me as a business model that makes sense for selling music. I think one thing that's been great for Soft is we've built a fan base that deeply cares about music and they buy our stuff on Bandcamp. It's far more than I ever could have imagined through Bandcamp. Again, it's not [1:51:04] I can't live in this home on band camp, but I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that. I think, [1:51:12] What is starting to emerge is that if you can build universes, [1:51:16] There's lots of opportunity to sell things. Yes. And I think... [1:51:20] the brightest of the bunch understand that. Yeah. Whether they're capable of doing it is a whole nother task because it's, it's taxing you. It's not what you love. It can be really hard. And so I, what I think was,

[1:51:34] Most impressive about Charlie in that rat moment, she's so smart. She's so, so, so smart. Has always been so smart. And I think recognized the game on the field and was able to commit [1:51:44] and do the thing. [1:51:45] And, you know, we're not, I see her, it's daps and highs. We're not close. But when I see her do like, you know, big television adverse or converse things, I'm like, get it. You know what I mean? Like you probably had to sacrifice a lot of emotional discomfort to commit to this bit and this story and this world that you were building when you're just a really gifted songwriter. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, in a much smaller level, this is even just the artists who love to make music and don't want to tour. Totally. Yeah. And. [1:52:14] And I think I've always tried to be a realist about this and told a story to musicians about when I was 16 playing in a hardcore band. And there were two drummers and one had a car. And we were like, he's the worst drummer, but he's got a fucking car. You know, like we can go play shows other places. So he's the drummer. A lot of life that's like that. Yeah. And so in some respects, it's like, yeah. [1:52:36] If you want to play shows, you got to have a car. If you want to be a famous musician, you got to make the fucking TikToks. [1:52:42] It's a nice thing. [1:52:44] I got a handful of miscellaneous things before we wrap up. Okay. First from our friend Alex Heng, I asked him when I should talk to you about it. His question was... [1:52:52] Is there any point where culture actually prices into tech and business? [1:52:57] in this real way beyond just narrative and marketing? Like, is it actually become a core business driver? Maybe it's some of the stuff you're thinking about, but,

[1:53:05] It's a [1:53:06] It's a tough one for me. I think the answer for me is like, I don't know. [1:53:14] I understand that I probably think about culture in different terms. And so my friend, Julie Young, who's brilliant. She is. [1:53:25] I think understands culture more than... [1:53:27] almost anyone, and I don't think she would ever describe herself as someone, but is so adept at identifying things that matter, like OMG LOL dolls, you know? And like those blind boxes, like, you know, like she was so good at identifying that. And so I think, [1:53:43] In that Silicon Valley will be able to weaponize the young girl to shape like meaningful, meaningful societal change in the way that Hollywood's been able to. I think there's a path there. [1:53:57] it's still not clear to me that, [1:54:00] Hollywood has been able to make, or it's looking like I've been able to actually shift from the kind of like early adopter crossing the chasm model of technology and like software adoption. I do see really intelligent investors thinking about that and trying to go downstream and shape the hearts and minds of really, you know, young people, so young women, and then having that work upstream. For now, I still see like go identify early adopters and then, you know, work upstream. And so I'm not a buyer holistically of that. [1:54:28] just yet, but I imagine I have blind spots because I am somewhat of a fucking hater as well, and probably refuse to see some of these things people are acknowledging.

[1:54:38] I promise this is not a gotcha. You once described your involvement with him as Kanye collected me for like three months. And then you also said... [1:54:48] He's the greatest of my time. He's a genius. I will ride with Ye forever. Yeah. I mean, it's tough, but yeah. What... [1:54:55] Maybe especially up close since you got to experience it. Like what was so magical? What is so magical about that guy? [1:55:04] Thank you. [1:55:05] I think what was... [1:55:07] I'll say it was magical for me and what... [1:55:12] It's so imaginable about him, maybe more broadly, but... [1:55:16] And it'll be a little bit of story time. [1:55:21] I got a text message from a big venture capitalist that said like, Hey, Kanye is doing some investing. I told him about you. He really wants to meet you. It's okay if I give him your phone number. And, [1:55:34] I'm driving to the Beverly Hills Hotel, the counter downstairs. I don't see the spot to try to like win back my ex-girlfriend at the time who was kind of with me through the startup thing. And you can understand how partners with running startups can be miserable was like, I'm not into it. I don't want to date this version of who you are. And I'm like, yeah, cool. I go to breakfast and I'm. [1:55:57] by the blessings of the Lord above, I'm like, hey, this is insane. I'm sorry, but Kanye's texting me, and he says he wants to meet right now.

[1:56:09] Like, would you be down to hang with Kanye? And I guess for added color, it was right after the MAGA moment. So there was the kind of first break of, like, Kanye, she was like, [1:56:21] yeah, of course. I'm texting Kanye. He's like, I'm going to meet right now. Are you in LA? He's like, yeah, I'm in Calabasas. Where are you? I'm at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He's like, cool, I'll be there in 30. It came to you. I was like, [1:56:34] Oh, and... [1:56:37] We're sitting, we finish our meal. I get a text. I'm out front, Silver Tesla. I'm like, cool. I told him I'm with my ex-girlfriend. It's like, great. We climb into the backseat of the Tesla and I kind of dap him over the top. There's a friend in the front seat and... [1:56:55] What we're starting to reveal is that what I love about Ye is that he's like a... [1:57:00] 13 year old boy who's so curious and so excited. And he was so excited to meet me. [1:57:06] It was bizarre, you know, where he's like, hey, like, you know, I'm just like excited to hang out with you. You know, like we can do whatever you want. We can go to Venice. I think he thought like tech people like Venice. Yeah. [1:57:18] You know, and I was like, I was like, oh, I don't I don't need to go to Venice. Oh, we can do whatever. Like, yeah, we can go. We can go wherever. Maybe we go for a drive and we start driving and we get on the 405. He's like, if you want, we can go to like Calabasas. You know, I was like, oh, OK, cool. You know, and we're just talking. And my girlfriend at the time was in urban planning and an architect. And he's like, you're an architect. I love architects. We started talking about that stuff. And we're both geeking out. And he's like, we should you work on some stuff.

[1:57:48] nuclear stuff, I want to be investing. [1:57:53] It was infectious. You know, we went to the studio and he played me a lunch of the record with him and Cuddy. And we talked about it. And, you know, his homies were there challenging him about the MAGA hat while he was there. Like, very transparent. But, you know, we... [1:58:08] Went to sit down. [1:58:09] And... [1:58:11] I had been wearing these Vivo barefoot shoes that I was, I'm still very into. And he was like, what are those? And I'm like, these barefoot shoes. I really fuck with them. And he effectively went on this like anti nostalgia, uh, [1:58:24] rant, which is one of my rants. Yes. You know, and I have my ex who's seen me give that rant a million times. He's sick of it. He's like, I love doing some new shit. Like, I get so tired of seeing these fucking same old, like, clones of forces or whatever. [1:58:37] And she just looks at me and she's like... [1:58:40] You guys deserve each other. You guys deserve each other. And I think what was so special about EA was that boy-like thing. [1:58:51] energy and i watched him meet tyler the creator and like tremble you know in this moment tyler's not tyler who's won grammys tyler is like this kid with a kind of cool thing and he's like shaking you know asking him questions like really in awe and it's like you're the guy wow you are kanye and this is just tyler but like and he approaches so many people that way and he's so curious so

[1:59:21] and want to build a new Rome. [1:59:25] It was like, you can get a tech guy, the clothing guy, the tech guy. And we flew to Italy to meet up with Vanessa Beecroft. And like, you know, I'm like an insane Kanye fan. And we're at the, you know, the kind of private terminal at LAX and like getting carted onto the plane, you know, and like we're flying whatever it is, 10 hours next to each other. And he's showing me stuff and we're talking, I'm giving him ideas. And the thing I remember most about, [1:59:51] Kanye was like... [1:59:53] I've always had ideas that are just crazy. Like you can't, you can't say them out loud, you know, cause they're not feasible. And I, [2:00:02] With Kanye, it was this constant process of having an idea [2:00:05] And then, you know, that's nuts to me. Like, Kanye would want to hear that. And I remember we were sitting... [2:00:11] at Axel Vervoort's castle in Belgium with Vanessa Beecroft and Tremaine and a bunch of other people that he wanted to be a part of this new rung and build this world. And they're going through the designs of what the property could be like and talking about it. And it's up against the mountain. And there's an airstrip there. And they're showing me that. And it's up against the mountain. And I remember the X-Men in the cartoon, they would take off. [2:00:41] out or whatever it was. And I was like, that'd be sick if the plane came out of the mountain. And I was like, I can't say that. And I was like, [2:00:47] Kanye would want to hear that. And I was like, damn, Kanye, what if the airstrip came out of the mountain? And he was like, we got to do that out of the mountain. And the architect is just looking at me and is like, we're not going to get the rights to have the plane come out of the mountain. And he's like, I'll call Donnie. I'll call Donnie. We'll figure it out. The plane's coming out of the mountain. And I was like, damn.

[2:01:14] Honestly, it rocks. It's just cool to be around someone who's so unafraid to be unabashedly nuts and say things and get an eighth of the way there. So there was obviously a ton of other madness and... [2:01:31] While we're sharing all the alpha with dialectic, and because it's less precious now, there was a moment where he wanted to buy bread and have me run easy. Imagine going to Sequoia Capital and be like, so here's the thing. [2:01:46] how do you feel about Kanye West exit? Like, what is the company? I'm like, it's an LLC. He owns a hundred percent. Yeah. [2:01:55] Yeah, it was amazing, you know, and then, like, it was all incredible. Like, Kim was brilliant and so sweet and, like, so good with him, and that part was, like, tough for me, because, like, we're not homies. Like, you know, I was part of life for a moment, and oxygen didn't go through, and we stopped talking, and four phone numbers later, like, we didn't want to talk, but, like... [2:02:17] It was really incredible to watch Kim with him and the kids. And I think all of it was like... [2:02:24] inspirational in a lot of interesting ways because I think he's [2:02:28] I can be quite complicated, and he's complicated in a more extreme way, but in similar ways. Yeah. And it was interesting to see what worked for what he had built around himself and what didn't. [2:02:40] What an amazing thing to be someone who inspires other people to say their crazy ideas.

[2:02:45] Yeah. [2:02:47] Like a blessing. It really was... [2:02:50] Super, super special. [2:02:51] Do you... [2:02:53] If you could say anything to him, do you have... [2:02:55] Maybe you don't need to say it on the podcast, but I'm curious what... [2:02:59] Or even just like having watched the last few years, like... [2:03:03] Do you have any sense of... [2:03:05] What happened? [2:03:07] To me, it's... [2:03:12] A lot of the things are... [2:03:16] Kanye is so good at intuiting what matters and where there is strife and where there are problems, where there are things to be addressed. He's not very articulate verbally. [2:03:26] And I think people struggle with that because you have to kind of like rant for 30 minutes. And when you dig through it, you're like, whoa, actually, that was that was really brilliant. But it's tough to parse. And. [2:03:39] In parallel, that boyish wonder... [2:03:43] Is a service area for attack. Yeah. [2:03:46] And... [2:03:48] And I think there are people around him with good intentions. I think Rick Rubin was probably someone who... [2:03:57] Uh... [2:03:59] in a very unpopular time, had more libertarian beliefs. [2:04:03] in the music business. And I think when people see like Rick and Tyler Cowen do a podcast or something, I'm like, that's crazy. And I'm like, I don't think it's that fucking crazy. If you've been to Malibu, there are a lot of people who are kind of like hippies who lean more libertarian. They do like classic, like, you know, sort of like lib or something. And I think...

[2:04:23] My read was that someone like Rick was able to show him what ideas are really important to Kanye T.A. and. [2:04:33] You know, Ye's boyish like wonder and curiosity was met with people that were able to exploit it for other means. And it's a trade off, right? Because it's what makes him so special. [2:04:46] is this kind of like this ability to absorb and be deeply curious and to take things at face value and be kind of childlike. But I think it also has cost him a lot of pain. And that's like hard to watch. [2:05:01] Yeah, it's tough because some part of me doesn't want to say that because it kind of gives it makes me a Kanye apologist and he's an adult. [2:05:08] But I also... [2:05:11] And just spending time with him, are aware of how impressionable he is. And that's kind of tough to watch. [2:05:19] And I think that's like a really hard thing to rock with people. Someone that can be so influential, so powerful, so wealthy, so powerful. [2:05:26] you know, [2:05:27] someone with so much bravado. Confidence can also be someone who will take something at face value and [2:05:34] from someone, you know, as someone who's like Tyler, the creator at the moment was like so much smaller than he was. Right. But he recognizes the kind of. [2:05:44] You know the aura has kind of been perverted by the end of the aura of someone like he can kind of see you for who you can be and what you are and what you're bringing the world not what you are. And I think that's that combined with the boyishness capabilities can be dangerous combo.

[2:06:01] Yeah, it's interesting. When you first started talking about it, obviously a lot is clearly different, but the other person who obviously Kanye knew, who has a boyishness that can be really frustrating to me, but also manifests so amazingly is Elon. [2:06:16] It's interesting that there's some... Good point, yeah. I think a pair of separate ideas from you. One, you say a whole generation has come of age not knowing real criticism. I think that was a random tweet. And then computers are creation machines. iPads are consumption machines. When you think about the next generation, are you worried? Are you hopeful? [2:06:34] What are you most concerned about? [2:06:37] I am like long humanity. And so I think we'll figure it out and we'll be fine. [2:06:42] I randomly delete so many tweets. I'm like, yeah, you found a lot of these ones. There were a lot that were deleted. Yeah. I'm like, respect. [2:06:49] I'm not holding you to it either. No, no. I lifted the consumption one from some book I was reading that I think more or less said that. I really do believe that. I would love for my child to spend time on a computer hacking and stuff, trying to make things where she's like passively engaged, consuming something. [2:07:06] not that worried. If anything, I'm like very inspired. Yeah. I think the kind of like making sense of Gen Z has been beaten into the round. Gen alpha, uh, [2:07:19] There's an artist named Two Hollis. Yeah. And his mother, Catherine, is someone I've known for a very long time. And her other son is in a hardcore band called Start Today that I love. And when I look at Two Hollis and I see what he's built, it's incredible. And I look at his Instagram and he's posting stories.

[2:07:37] uh our main pictures of him looking incredible with a song by seven angels seven plagues which is just like deep cut hardcore band from milwaukee i believe that i was into when i was you know 15 i'm like man there are still people that are deeply curious and it is being rewarded and i think that's fantastic [2:07:59] Both of them, by the way, both of them were kids. Start today into Hollis. Check him out. [2:08:04] I know of, uh, to all this from Drew, but I, it's crazy when you, when both your kids are, are that there's something mom's pretty cool. Yeah. Uh, [2:08:13] Maybe I guess on a slightly related note, but like, [2:08:15] on the optimism. [2:08:17] There's something happening around the populist stuff. Obviously, Zoran lately, like... [2:08:22] You're this weird sort of anomaly for so many reasons, including sort of techno-capitalists, sort of anarchists. I know you were a big Bernie guy. Yeah. [2:08:33] Any views on what's happening and where that's going? I mean, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes. No, because it just feels like it's a... [2:08:43] It's a status quo. [2:08:46] like people who are comfortable with the status quo and people that aren't, you know, I think people can, can cut that and split that a million different ways. But to me, like the Mondani thing is not that dissimilar from, you know, any populist thing. It's like anyone, like, you know, watching Marjorie Taylor Greene, [2:09:00] say things she's saying in the last two weeks, you're like... [2:09:04] and people resonate, it's like, yeah, people are frustrated. And I think that's the hard part with me.

[2:09:09] Kind of like mainstream DNC politics is like people are very comfortable and they've had very good outcomes from the way things are. But most people aren't. And I really struggle with that. I. [2:09:25] Yeah, and that's a whole other rant about growing up in Iowa. What most of my peers are doing, have multiple friends' parents kill themselves post-NAFTA. We had Oscar Mayer plant, Alcoa plant, a John Deere plant, and when those plants left... [2:09:37] or some of them did rather like, [2:09:41] the hurt was so palpable. People who were making 100 grand a year, 70 grand a year, [2:09:46] and could provide for their children in unimaginable ways, all of a sudden couldn't get a job at 7-Eleven. [2:09:52] I remember that feeling. And actually, you know, funny enough, like the first time I used Claw 3.5, I felt that feeling. [2:09:59] Where I was like, oh my God. [2:10:03] This is going to displace a lot of people who move symbols on screen. And, uh, [2:10:09] what white collar NAFTA could look like to me is still really scary. [2:10:14] And hopefully people smarter than I are trying to figure out how to mitigate some of those pains. [2:10:21] Conversely, we talked about this at the beginning, and there's lots of potential black pills. [2:10:26] you continue to lean on optimism. Why? [2:10:31] I think I'm just a believer in the human condition. Like maybe it's silly and quaint, but... [2:10:36] I believe in us and I believe in the goodness of us.

[2:10:42] I think [2:10:45] to lose that is almost worse than death, right? You know? And so... [2:10:51] I would like people, I'm having a child and confident people are like, are you going to have children? A lot of people are like, I don't want to bring kids into this world. And I'm like, you have to bring kids into this world. We need people who are good people to create children that have been raised, right, that have the right moral compass that are going to go and make this place better. [2:11:09] And, of course, everyone's got their own beliefs, and I don't want to push on anyone, but, like, anyone out there who's morally righteous and a virtuous person, like... [2:11:18] Crank them out. [2:11:19] We need good ones, the good little ones fighting the good fight. [2:11:23] Thank you. [2:11:24] There's a really old... [2:11:27] I think on like an old blog, like Young Skeeter blog, you say, the only peaceful constraints I've known in this world are music and friendships that allow for freedom. [2:11:38] Damn. [2:11:39] What did you mean? Any reflections on... [2:11:43] Do you even remember what you meant? I definitely don't, but I also know it's so funny, it's like that blog... [2:11:50] It was such a great outlet for me for such a long time. But I do think [2:11:56] you know, yeah, I felt so much discomfort in my life and [2:12:01] Music, again, it's kind of like Divine Bridge. You can hear something and feel something off and joke it like loud music and flashing lights. [2:12:08] So simple. So primal. That's kind of what I was getting at with the high and the low, right? Yeah. The monkey in me is just like, wow, everything is fine.

[2:12:18] And good friendship, I think... [2:12:21] because of the circumstances of my upbringing and my kind of kooky family, [2:12:26] I have been able to build different familial units. I'm always reminded around Thanksgiving. My Friendsgivings have been the most important Thanksgiving in my life. [2:12:36] And I just feel this, this, what a blessing. There's, um, [2:12:41] I think it's like a DJ boring song where he samples Bob Geldof. [2:12:47] And Bob Geldof, a popular figure, Live Aid, I believe, was the event he did back in the day, like Help Africa. One of those big, like, get all musicians together to do things. And as I understand the story, his wife was an MTV presenter. She interviewed the lead singer of NXS, this band. Anyway, they fell in love. He was a heroin addict. [2:13:09] Bob had two daughters with this woman together. [2:13:12] She ends up overdosing, lead singer of NXS, you know, accidentally hangs himself, and... [2:13:19] later on in life, [2:13:20] Bob's daughter, Peaches, who I knew a little bit from just like partying in L.A., also tragically passes. And he's he's sampled in the song talking about grief and he's talking about grief and he's talking about. [2:13:34] life and he's talking about you're just more or less being on holiday with his family and like looking out from a dinner table and seeing his like grandkids and his kids dance and like that being all that matters you know and it's incredibly poignant but like i for whatever reason that met me at the right time in my life and it was like that's it's it is all that matters i mean it's like being a post hoffman me where like in my startup days my like you know best friend harley like you want to get coffee at one on tuesday and i'm like no i have work but now i'm like yeah

[2:14:04] and like I can get back to this thing later tonight or whatever it is like spending time with loved ones is really important so make time to do it and again [2:14:11] So obvious, but it took me a while to get there. [2:14:14] You brought it up a few times. You're having a child. How do you hope to be changed? [2:14:21] - Gosh, in so many ways I can't even imagine. Already we were at an ultrasound [2:14:26] And they were showing parts of my son. [2:14:30] And they kind of quickly... [2:14:32] move over his brain. And this thought of, like, that's the brain. You have to protect the brain. It was, like, this primal thing where I was, like, I've got to protect the brain. I've got to protect that thing's brain. And I'm really excited to be blindsided by those things. You know, there's the obvious stuff, like – [2:14:51] I'll never get to experience ice cream again for the first time. If I get to do it with... And that's going to rock to be like, wow, ice cream, welcome to fucking ice cream, dog. There's so many cool ice creams for you to enjoy. That's going to be great. Other than that, I'm just kind of excited to be blindsided by the whole thing. I just know... [2:15:09] I can plan all I want. I just know. I will say, while we're sharing nuggets of wisdom on this thing, I go to this conference that I love. And I always go. It's kind of an unconference. You sit around and talk about cool stuff. But I go to the dad session every year. They let me go for, like, close to a decade now. And one year, a gentleman was talking. And he was like, how many of you think that you're a better father than your father was? And a bunch of hands raised. A bunch of hands didn't raise. And they're like, how many of the hands raised have kids that are older than 18? And they all put their hands down.

[2:15:39] And they were like, yeah, like when my kids were seven, eight, nine, ten, I was 100%. [2:15:45] better father. By the time they were like 22, I was like, I don't know actually. And what the person who brought this up highlighted, he was like, everyone in this room [2:15:56] You're like world beaters. You've done incredible things, impossible things. You make the world bend to your will. And he said, the thing I think is important for all of you, the younger parents, is that like... [2:16:07] Parenting isn't carpentry, it's gardening. [2:16:11] And like you may want this thing to be an oak tree, but it's a lemon tree. [2:16:14] And you just got to make it the best lemon tree it can be. And I was like, wow, that felt really. So I've just tried to sit with that and be like, you know, it's easy expectations of what my boy can be. And he's in the 95th percentile right now. So I'm like, we got a chance of the league. [2:16:29] Do what you couldn't do? You do what I couldn't do. But, again, if he wants to be... [2:16:35] You know, God forbid an artist can do that, too. [2:16:41] Thank you. [2:16:42] One last thing. You actually mentioned it. I didn't know it was going to be a land project, but there's an old email of yours that I followed the link on, and there's a domain called actuallycerulian.com. [2:16:56] On the website, it's just this. Okay, I see. [2:16:59] You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean.

[2:17:20] Some people obviously know the reference, but what does that mean to you? [2:17:23] It's a quote from The Devil Wears Prada, which is one of my favorite films. But to me, I think it reflects the sentiment I've probably brought up far too much in this podcast, that there are people that introduce important ideas into the world and they can be discounted and they can be made to feel small or unimportant. And I would... [2:17:43] much prefer a world that celebrated Cerulean because it's not just blue. [2:17:49] It's actually Cerulean. [2:17:51] Trevor, thank you. [2:17:52] Thank you very much, Jackson. This was great. Yeah, a pleasure. [2:17:55] Thanks for listening. I'd like to thank Notion again for presenting Dialectic and for being such an amazing partner as I explore and interrogate the wonderful, craftful, soulful people that I get to talk to here on the show. One thing that was exciting this past week, and I'll show the link on Instagram, I did a little feature with Notion where they asked me a handful of questions about how I'm thinking about 2026, what my goals are, what my process is, advice I have for creative people. I'll give you a hint. It's as it took me too long to figure out [2:18:23] Listen to yourself and then just start. And even how I'm using Notion as I create Dialectic, I'll link that in the description. [2:18:31] Thanks again to Notion, and thank you. I will see you next time.