All-In Live from Austin: Colin and Samir, Chris Williamson, and Bryan Johnson

Summary

Podcast Summary: All-In Live from Austin: Colin and Samir, Chris Williamson, and Bryan Johnson

Podcast Information:

• Title: All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
• Host/Author: All-In Podcast, LLC
• Description: Industry veterans, degenerate gamblers & besties Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks & David Friedberg cover all things economic, tech, political, social & poker.
• Episode: All-In Live from Austin: Colin and Samir, Chris Williamson, and Bryan Johnson
• Release Date: April 3, 2025

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Introduction

The "All-In Live from Austin" episode features an engaging discussion among the hosts—Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, Dave Friedberg—and special guests Colin and Samir, Chris Williamson, and Bryan Johnson. The conversation delves into the evolving creator economy, media consumption trends, monetization strategies, the impact of generative AI, and ventures into Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG).

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1. The Creator Economy and Building an Audience

Chamath opens the discussion by highlighting the transformative impact of the creator economy, emphasizing how podcasts have reshaped societal interactions and business dynamics.

• Dave Friedberg [01:25]: "The podcast isn't about making money on the POD as much as it is, like, helping me in my everyday work."

Chamath and Dave explore how building an authentic audience through content creation can significantly aid business endeavors by establishing trust and reducing friction in professional interactions.

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2. Evolution of Media: Short vs. Long-Form Content

The conversation shifts to the evolution of media consumption, contrasting short-form platforms like TikTok with the resurgence of long-form content through podcasts and YouTube.

• Colin [12:20]: "As creators started putting out longer videos, they started serving more ads, making more money, investing back in their channels, in their shows."

Jason elaborates on how YouTube's algorithm favors content that drives viewer satisfaction metrics like click-through rates and average view duration, leading creators to strategically position their content for maximum reach.

• Jason Calacanis [15:01]: "50% of our watch time is on connected TV."

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3. Impact of Algorithms on Content Creation

The hosts discuss the tension between creative authenticity and algorithm-driven content strategies. The shift from subscriber-focused content to algorithm-optimized content has led creators to adapt their production methods.

• Chamath Palihapitiya [13:18]: "You have some long term results determined by your consistency."

Samir adds that aligning content with platform algorithms doesn't always resonate with the creator's authentic vision, leading to a balance between art and commerce.

• Samir [17:43]: "A true artist does not necessarily care if someone watches their work."

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4. Monetization Strategies in the Creator Economy

Monetization pathways are a focal point, with discussions on advertising, sponsorships, product endorsements, and building proprietary products to retain equity and control.

• Jason Calacanis [23:05]: "The best creators can create good content with just their iPhone."

Samir emphasizes the importance of building personal brands and leveraging audience trust to partner with like-minded brands.

• Samir [58:10]: "We built a brain interface at my company, Colonel... It was an all-in effort."

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5. Generative AI's Role in Content Creation

The panel explores the burgeoning role of generative AI in automating content creation, from scripting to video editing, and its potential to revolutionize the creator landscape.

• Dave Friedberg [36:12]: "There's a lot of raw energy under this topic."

Colin expresses skepticism about fully AI-generated channels but acknowledges the integration of AI tools in enhancing production quality.

• Colin [37:16]: "We are continually adopting more and more AI tools."

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6. Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and the Creator Economy

Samir and Brian Johnson discuss their ventures into CPG, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of creating health-focused products without compromising authenticity.

• Samir [90:42]: "A better for you energy drink. Evidence-based, research-backed, nootropic ingredients."

Brian shares insights into testing and validating product safety and efficacy, emphasizing the importance of transparency and consumer trust.

• Brian Johnson [98:06]: "Baby foods... dangerous levels of glyphate."

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7. Live Events and Community Building

The hosts underscore the significance of live events in fostering community and enhancing audience engagement beyond digital platforms.

• Samir [92:15]: "People are desperate for in-person events... conferences are about conversations in the foyer."

Chamath advocates for balancing high production quality with ease of access to facilitate genuine interactions during live sessions.

• Chamath Palihapitiya [54:25]: "Stand out visually. You're really there to... it's an occasion."

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8. Challenges with Traditional Media Executives and Contracts

The panel critiques the traditional media industry's approach to managing content creators, highlighting issues with IP ownership and restrictive contracts that limit creator autonomy.

• Chamath Palihapitiya [34:22]: "The model's broken."

Samir points out the inefficiencies and lack of scalability in traditional ad rep firms, advocating for direct partnerships and sustainable monetization models.

• Samir [62:11]: "It's a terrible business because if you do your job and you actually do make money and the creator does break out, then they will leave you."

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9. Health and Wellness Discussions: Sleep and Cognitive Enhancements

Brian Johnson shares his exploration into health optimization, discussing the critical role of sleep in cognitive function and longevity.

• Brian Johnson [106:16]: "Sleep is the biggest power law. Then exercise... diet."

Chamath and Samir echo the importance of integrating wellness practices into daily routines, highlighting the interplay between physical health and content creation productivity.

• Chamath Palihapitiya [74:16]: "This has been the big unlock for me. I am now sleeping."

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10. Future of Content Distribution and Consumption

Looking forward, the discussion anticipates a shift towards interactive and AI-driven content experiences, where personalization and real-time engagement redefine audience interactions.

• Dave Friedberg [76:08]: "Content will get turned into an AI chat experience."

Samir envisions a landscape where content is highly fragmented and tailored, akin to niche communities thriving within larger platforms.

• Samir [77:07]: "How do you engage with a conversation between multiple people, like a podcast compared with an audiobook."

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Key Takeaways

• Authenticity vs. Algorithm: Balancing genuine content with strategies tailored to platform algorithms is crucial for sustained audience growth.

• Monetization Diversity: Utilizing multiple revenue streams—advertising, sponsorships, product endorsements, and proprietary products—enhances financial stability and creative control.

• AI Integration: Embracing generative AI tools can streamline production processes, though it shouldn't completely replace human creativity.

• Health as a Foundation: Prioritizing personal health and wellness significantly impacts content creation quality and sustainability.

• Live Engagement: Incorporating live events fosters deeper community connections and augments digital presence.

• Evolving Media Models: Traditional media frameworks are increasingly incompatible with the creator economy's demands for autonomy and scalability.

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Notable Quotes

• Dave Friedberg [03:23]: "Building an audience, building credibility is really beneficial, and it can work out in a lot of ways."

• Chamath Palihapitiya [06:30]: "Invest in your friends. Invest in those hard conversations. Your life will become so rich because of it."

• Jason Calacanis [23:05]: "The best creators can create good content with just their iPhone."

• Samir [58:10]: "We built a brain interface at my company, Colonel... It was an all-in effort."

• Chamath Palihapitiya [74:16]: "This has been the big unlock for me. I am now sleeping."

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Conclusion

The episode encapsulates a deep dive into the multifaceted world of the creator economy, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between authentic content creation, strategic monetization, and adaptive business models. Guests Colin and Samir, alongside Chris Williamson and Bryan Johnson, provide valuable insights into navigating the evolving media landscape, leveraging technology, and prioritizing personal wellness to build sustainable and impactful ventures.

Transcript

[Jason Calacanis]

That was perfect. Rocked it, bro.

[Dave Friedberg]

This guy's crazy.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Austin. Welcome, everybody. That's my friend, Dave Friedberg.

[Dave Friedberg]

Thanks for having me.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

How are you doing, brother? Welcome to Texas. It's a little light.

[Dave Friedberg]

We're missing a couple friends here tonight.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We have some new friends. We got some awesome friends. And we wanted to do something around this sort of new media creator economy. It's something, you know, we're experiencing with the podcast, and that's obviously having a big impact on society.

[Dave Friedberg]

Right. A lot of people say this was the podcast election. The big media companies, from journalism, Fox News, cnn, to the big platforms, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu to Disney and others, are kind of rearranging their pawns on the chessboard based on and responding to what's going on. And so we thought it'd be really interesting to hear about some of the people who we think are probably the smartest in the creator economy in terms of building a business and how you maneuver and how you play and how you grow as part of that conversation today, you didn't.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You had a Twitter account when we started all in, but you literally had never tweeted. And now you've become the Sultan of Science. You're very famous. Any Sultan of Science fans out there? Awesome. Awesome. Did anybody see him win celebrity Jeopardy? You want to. I mean, we're so proud of our bestie.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You have no idea how anxious, ashamed, hand wringing he was for six weeks. He knew he won. He wouldn't tell us the outcome because he knew that Chamath would gamble it and there would be, like, a whole controversy. He'd figure out a way to make, you know, a bet on it, Actually.

[Dave Friedberg]

Someone doesn't know how to keep their mouth shut, but yes.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, that's right. I keep talking to Chamath about that. And then he wins. And he wins, but he's so upset at himself because he didn't win enough.

[Dave Friedberg]

I'm gonna thank our sponsors.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, this is what happens on an average show. I say about 17 inappropriate things. He goes, strike, cut. Strike, cut. And then we have to have a grand negotiation after the episode where we horse trade the inappropriate things Chamath and I say and what he's gonna allow us to.

[Dave Friedberg]

I don't mind when Chamath says inappropriate things. Cause it usually doesn't involve other people. It's you. Where you kind of cross the line a little bit. But, you know, that's why they tune in. I have to save you from you. J.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But what has it been like in Terms of. Because we're going to talk about this here. A lot of people now are taking the playbook of creating audience and then building companies. And you were doing the production board. You're building a bunch of different companies. Ohalo became very successful, and you said, hey, wait, I got to go all in on this, so to speak. But you're going into it with a certain amount of audience, a certain amount of notoriety, and the ability, let's face it, a lot of people in business know you from the podcast now. So what's it like been being a CEO now and having the POD as, like, a platform?

[Dave Friedberg]

That's actually a great question, because for me, I'm, like, not doing this podcast to, like, build a media thing. I just thought it'd be interesting. We started doing it during COVID and I just kind of kept doing it. I don't know why I kept doing it, to be honest. Tried to quit a couple of times. I tried to quit, like, every week. I wanted to quit.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And I, oh, my God, still contemplated. All of it was so much tension the first two years.

[Dave Friedberg]

And now until we got to sign an LLC agreement, now it's all smooth sailing. The votes are what mattered. It was a big actually, but I.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Think it's like a real important evolution. We had this thing going ad hoc, and I was trying to keep it together. And the one thing I learned in media from Engadget, I asked Peter Rojas, who I had stolen from Gizmodo, Nick Denton's company, to come to Engadget. I said, tell me the secret of why Gizmodo, Gawker and now Engadget are doing so well. And he said, oh, the secret to blogging is very simple. Show up every day.

[Dave Friedberg]

It's actually a great point. Yeah. I mean, Jason did keep us showing up, and then it became a thing. And then it's like, okay, we should probably do something legit to make this into a business or make it into something structural that stays alive. So we did. But to answer your question, I go to meet with farmers a lot and business executives in the agriculture industry. And I can't tell you how often I run into someone who's like, I watch your podcast. I'm a fan. That is like, Farmer Joe. Like, the other day, I was in a meeting. I won't reveal too much, but look, I mean, you guys won't have any idea, but, like, some big farmer company, big company that does farming, who you would have never heard of, no one in this room has ever heard of. And Then I'm in the hallway after we do this big pitch, and the guy pulls me aside. He's like, gives me a fist bump. He's like, love the pod. I'm like, it is weird. It is weird. And then I'm like, in another state at a meeting, and the COO comes out. He's like, dude, I'm a big fan of the pod. And so it helps with getting. Building trust. You've earned a reputation. And so then when I go into meetings, people know me because of this pod, and that reduces friction. I don't have to go sell myself in a meeting.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Right.

[Dave Friedberg]

I'm already sold, and it makes business easier. And so for me, the pod isn't about making money on the POD as much as it is, like, helping me in my everyday work, which is where I spend pretty much all my time except for a couple hours a week. Here, to contextualize that in the conversation we're gonna have today, you create an audience with your content. What do you do with that audience? What are you doing this for? You can sell ads and make money against that audience. You can get sponsors that you speak to, quality products that you endorse, and you can make more money. And you can either get paid cash or get some equity. You can build your own product and actually own it and then own all the equity and participate meaningfully in the upside. As you sell your audience your product, or in other cases, you're building credibility, you're building, which is what a lot of venture capitalists did after our show, I think, kind of became big. They realized that they have this opportunity to build credibility with entrepreneurs. So when an entrepreneur shows up, they're like, oh, I want to work with you because I've seen you on your podcast, or investors show up. I want to invest with you because I've seen your comments on your podcast. So I think there's a lot of ways to think about the value of this, but building an audience, building credibility is really beneficial, and it can work out in a lot of ways.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. And you take it seriously. It's an investment in time for you. Today, we've recorded a great episode. We had our first comedian on, Andrew Schultz, and that'll come out tomorrow. He was hilarious. But you had an emotional moment today on the show. We were talking about entrepreneurship and your journey, and I gotta give you a lot of credit. You're not like a professional broadcaster or whatever, but you prepare and you put it all out there. And I'm very proud of the work you've Done. And how you've evolved as a broadcaster and as somebody on the pod. I'm very proud of how much you've started to put out there of yourself. And it's not easy to do because you're an introverted, personal person.

[Dave Friedberg]

I mean, pretty extroverted.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'm like, I mean, yeah. I mean, on the mdma, I'm ready to go party.

[Dave Friedberg]

I don't know what you're talking about. You're the one who locks yourself up in the room afterwards. I mean, maybe.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Maybe in the 90s, when you were going to raves and you had a little of the Molly, the mdma, you were different. But I'm saying, like, now you're a little bit, you know, back in the day. Back in the day. It's hilarious. Because he's such a perfectionist. And every time the pod comes out, Chamath and I just wait 60 minutes after the pod. That sucked, right? Producer Nick sucked.

[Dave Friedberg]

Right?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We should delete it. Cancel it. There's the worst episode ever. And then the stats come out. Oh, we broke another record. Oh, it's number eight in the world. Oh, okay.

[Dave Friedberg]

Look, the reality is we can always do better.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, I am such an optimist, as some of my friends who are here know. Like, I just like, ah, that was fucking great. It was a train wreck. But for me, it was a great train wreck. And, you know, just so y'all know, we couldn't do it without the audience. And the love that you give us is such an amazing motivation, especially for me. Like, I feed off the energy, and when you all tell me your favorite episode or a great moment or you email us something where, you know, the thing I'm probably most proud of now is people are telling me they're having more difficult conversations with their friends while remaining friends. And I think that's, like, one of the most beautiful things for me. And my motivation on the podcast is really to help give an example of how you can really have a hardcore discussion, learn from each other, appreciate each other, and I hope that you all take that back to your poker games, dinners, familiar families. You know, it's a very divided country right now. There's a lot of important issues, but friendship is worth investing in. I just want to give you all that as, like, a note. Invest in your friends. Invest in those hard conversations. Your life will become so rich because of it. Have a couple of laughs. Don't take it all so seriously. Firstly, David.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah, well, before we. Before we bring our friends out, Colin and Samir, I'M gonna just quickly. We do those. We don't do sponsors on the show or ads on the show.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But when we do live, it's incredibly infuriating me. I want to read.

[Dave Friedberg]

It'll be fine. You'll be fine.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But we'd have a jet by now.

[Dave Friedberg]

We want to pay for these. We don't want to pay for live events out of pocket.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

So we do have sponsors left on the table.

[Dave Friedberg]

You'll be fine. Find another Uber. So I did.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It's called Robin. It's doing great.

[Dave Friedberg]

So I want to say thanks to Gemini. Gemini just stepped up. I think we just got them involved this week in helping us put this event on. And the after party on global cryptocurrency exchange. Everyone knows Gemini. Available in all 50 states with a focus on security. And you can buy sell bitcoin plus 70 other cryptocurrencies. Gemini's offering new users 50 bucks in bitcoin when you sign up with the code. All in a L L I N Even you might trade crypto after this.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No. We own a decent amount of bitcoin and I think everybody should own like a low single digit percentage. It's not investment, their net worth. I think like a low single digit in bitcoin. If you lose it, so be it. If it 100 x's from here, anything's possible.

[Dave Friedberg]

Gemini.comallin use the code. All in 50 bucks free Bitcoin with $100 deposit. And then function Health. We've negotiated a special deal for users today. They have access to over 100 lab tests, which I think is super interesting. Personally, it's really hard.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You just signed up. I'm.

[Dave Friedberg]

It's hard to go to your doctor and get the tests you need. You can sign up at Function Health.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Do them, they'll send a phlebotomist. That's a fancy word for somebody who draws blood. Phlebotomist. I learned that from Function. And then you can be like Brian Johnson, my friend here in the front row and you can live forever with.

[Dave Friedberg]

Function health all in 100 at checkout to get a hundred bucks credit. And then Tru Niagen, which is a product I take, I take it. NAD booster, lots of studies, very efficacious. So thank you to Tru Niagen. Again, great product. But those are the sponsors. They help pay for this.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Let's give it up for the sponsors one time. Come on now.

[Dave Friedberg]

Very good. You want to get Colin and Samir out?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. Hey, let's bring out our first guest, Colin Samir run the Colin and Samir show and they are experts on building content business. Come on out, Colin, come on out. Sameer, welcome, welcome. You get the couch. Come sit on the couch. Ready to see you, brother.

[Dave Friedberg]

All right.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, sit on the couch.

[Jason Calacanis]

You guys are like real creators. Brand deals.

[Colin]

Look at that brand deal.

[Dave Friedberg]

Thanks for being here. I think we wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about the evolution in media. I want to talk a little bit about the origination and the creator economy where folks were putting out and tell me if I'm off on this. But what felt like more kind of short form content, it was almost like a new type of media that was different than traditional long form media, TikTok type content. But then what happened? It's like folks started doing podcasts and the content started to eat into other forms of media. It started to eat up journalism now and eat up news media. And now the platforms are doing deals with the independent creators to put out long form content. Can you talk a little bit about the evolution of like short form, long form?

[Colin]

Sure. I don't think you can underscore the importance of the YouTube app on TVs just the fact that there was now a free option and you have people who are in a setting where they want to actually sit and consume something for a longer period of time. So as creators started putting out longer videos, they started serving more ads, making more money, investing back in their channels, in their shows, and now they can actually produce things consistently. They can make things better, they can elevate it, they can make them longer. And that's what you're seeing now. I mean like 50% of our watch time is on connected TV.

[Dave Friedberg]

So the reach has grown because of YouTube on TV? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Specifically YouTube now. Like when you buy a new TV. I just, when I, when I moved to the ranch, I got a new TV and it's got YouTube on the remote. And you just think about that as a concept. And then I watch my daughter's behaviors and they are watching YouTube on the giant television, not on their iPads. It's, it's really a major difference. And there's something about I'd like you to get into is the algorithm.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

First is subscribers. Cause I grew up in a subscriber world where I thought about, okay, I'm gonna get one more subscriber and then I'll have them or a certain number of them out of 10, I may keep five, but they're gonna watch every episode. But then there's something that's Gone on where people are creating content not with the intent of subscribers, but with the intent of getting picked up by an algorithm and getting non subscriber viewers. This seems like there's some tension here maybe.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I would say probably the biggest creators, most successful creators largely have like a 70% viewership base that's not subscribed to them. Right? Yeah, I would say that's pretty common amongst our friend group and amongst the people that we work with. And I think a lot of that has to do with the algorithm shift towards viewer satisfaction. And YouTube is a recommendations algorithm. So first, when we first started making YouTube videos, if you could make a great thumbnail, people would click that then inevitably got into clickbait, where you would click into a video. It was really short, it wasn't representative of what was in the thumbnail. So YouTube shifted their algorithm into what is called viewer satisfaction, which is essentially gauged off of click through rate. Did they click on the video? And then average view duration, how long did they watch, what percentage of this video did they watch? Then there's other engagement metrics. They like the video, did they comment on the video? There's a lot of different ways to understand satisfaction, but essentially as creators, every YouTube creator, what they're trying to do is go, what video are you watching before you watch my video? Because I want you to click on my video after you're done with that video or maybe in the middle of that video. So Most traffic on YouTube comes from suggested. Okay, does that make sense?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yes, you have the suggested along here. So you're telling me people are creating videos with the intention of hijacking a popular video and trying to get that suggested. So everybody's talking about, I don't know, pick the latest thing Trump did today or who's on Joe rogan or what MrBeast did. So now I try to get one of those slots that would be related to the latest MrBeast video.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I wouldn't say that timely because I think YouTube operates as a catalog, right? Like some of our videos that are still picking up viewership today were made four years ago. So the best way to do it is to build a catalog that accrues viewership over time. So you're mainly looking at subject matters with high total addressable markets on YouTube. Right. Like specific on YouTube. So that is why when the world of Mr. Beast really exploded on YouTube, you have a lot of people talking about Mr. Beast or reacting to Mr. Beast or going, there's 200 million people to tap into here who are probably watching a Mr. Beast video.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

This is fascinating because right now there are people doing, after all, in videos where they talk and kind of drag us, you know, a bit. And they're doing phenomenally well too.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, they are. Maybe we'll get into that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, we should probably drag us. Well, there's plenty to drag us.

[Dave Friedberg]

I wouldn't call it phenomenally well. There's like a couple hundred views, whatever.

[Colin]

But we could be the best in that category.

[Dave Friedberg]

You could be. You could own that category, number one.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Sounds like you could own that category do for Colin art and the artist that this is in their brains. Because, you know, Freeberg and I, after a show happens, I talk about the moments and Freeberg has, you know, got that other brain where he's like talking about the metrics and he's wondering about the wait time and the thumbs up and the thumbs down. Who liked it? I'm like, I don't give a fuck about that. It was a funny moment. There was this moment people laughed. There was this moment that had emotional resonance. So maybe you could talk a little bit about art versus commerce. Art versus algorithm. Art versus algorithm.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah.

[Colin]

I mean, it's difficult to create right now within a vacuum, right? I would say even opening up TikTok. The first couple of TikToks you see are going to show you what works, right? So it's hard to create something now that I know what works, now that I know what people will see.

[Dave Friedberg]

If that's the objective audience growth.

[Colin]

But a true artist does not necessarily care if someone watches their work.

[Dave Friedberg]

If one person loves my work, that's all that matters.

[Colin]

But a true artist doesn't always know actually what they could do to get people to watch their work. And so we immediately know what would work. And so you find for a lot of creators, they're on two ends of the spectrum. They're either an artist or they're a distributor. But to be an impactful creator, you kind of actually need to lean more towards distributor. You need to be like that programming executive that's like, okay, well, Spider man worked. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again.

[Dave Friedberg]

Correct. We see that a lot. If we change the title of the show or the order of the topics. We debate this a lot where it's now this might be the thing that I want to talk about, but no one wants science corner up front because then the audience won't click.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, I mean we literally.

[Dave Friedberg]

But I think don't you guys think if we had Science Corner up front, more audience would click. Thank you.

[Jason Calacanis]

But that's the media business, right?

[Dave Friedberg]

More Trump. It's like, well, I got enough Trump.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, this is the tension we've had, you know, and we're a band, not a solo performer, right? So you have four people with distinct perspectives. And, you know, Sax was always of the mind. What's the top story in the world? I'm trying to think about, well, like, what's the most interesting, you know, discussion? Freeberg's like, well, what's the biggest breakthrough and what did we do last week? And you kind of. And then Chamath's like, well, what am I wearing and how does it look?

[Dave Friedberg]

What am I wearing?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What am I wearing?

[Jason Calacanis]

What am I wearing?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What did I consume this week? Everybody's got different things there. But it's kind of disheartening to me to even know about all this. I feel like it's ruining it to a certain extent for me.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I think, look, there's tension between creativity and strategy on these platforms, right? Because these are businesses. And if you zoom out and go, like, how do media businesses work? This is how media businesses work.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Sure.

[Jason Calacanis]

But I think what you have to think about is also choosing your platforms. I think we struggle because we entered into the world of YouTube 15 years ago as creatives, as guys who are exploring wanting to get into Hollywood and saw this as a different route. And where we've come to as now entrepreneurs is we're in the media business and there's still tension where we want to express our creativity, we want to do cool things that we think are cool, but they're very anti media. But what I think what you're talking about, what's really interesting is you just need to pick the right environment. So we think about platforms in the context of permission and interruption. So YouTube is an interruptive platform. You have to stop someone in their tracks with a thumbnail to get them to click in. Right. But Spotify, for example, is a permission based platform. Like RSS Feeds are permission based. Email, which we have an email newsletter. That's where we can have permission. People have given us permission to be there. It's where you're seeing the rise of memberships too. Whether it's like Patreon, right. People have said, hey, you know what, I'll pay whatever you guys make. I'm down. And so I actually think you just think about those environments of top of funnel, bottom funnel, or you go, permission, interruption. It's an interesting Way to think about in this environment. I can play around and my audience has given us permission. Everyone who's in here, we have the permission to talk about what everyone want to talk about.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yes.

[Colin]

You're not worried about the title?

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Right. Yeah. And that's sort of where I'm getting to. And the other trend that Freeberg and I have been talking about, we have this natural tension. We don't have ads on the podcast. On my other pot, it makes millions of dollars in ads this week in startups and it. That helps me have a team of nine people. We like to throw good parties and we like to. Yeah, we. We spent.

[Dave Friedberg]

We spent like a million to a party in LA.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We spent 900,000 on the Barbie party on here.

[Dave Friedberg]

Oh, we spent more this year. This year we did. Oh, my God.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Fuck. Well, see, that's.

[Dave Friedberg]

By the way, let me just put a little plug in. This year at the All In Summit in la, the first night is going to be insane. Insane. Like everything last year combined, like. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. Anyway, I mean, my job is to burn all the money. I'm like Jimmy at Mr. Beast, let's flip a coin and double it. Let's double. You know, I kind of feel that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That'S what's interesting when you have success as an artist is being able to deploy resources to make something that gives joy or that experience. Right. And one of the great things about the event is when people show up and they dress. When a party has a theme, great music, great people and it's in a really great location, something happens to me. Has anybody been to one of the All In Summit parties? Raise your hand.

[Dave Friedberg]

Open. Open bar.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Open bar.

[Dave Friedberg]

Well, Jake Hal fought me on the open bar. I'm like, you gotta have.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, no. My thing was wine and beer and like a couple of cocktails. But this guy's like, he's a bit of a lush. And he's like, we got to have like all the high end stuff. And then what happens is the last.

[Dave Friedberg]

Hour, Jason thinks everyone's like sipping champagne, looking in the sun.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No. People are pounding double Macallan 18s because they're like, I got to get my money's worth. And then all of a sudden I'm in a headlock getting. Somebody's taking a selfie. You're my favorite friend, Jacob.

[Dave Friedberg]

I love you.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What do you think of the phenomenon now of building audience to distribute a product? Because this is infected.

[Dave Friedberg]

This is a great. By the way, let's just ask the broader question. What's the business model. You have a new creator, they're starting to build an audience, advise them on what are the paths they can walk and where that can go. Because this is one of the paths. It's a great one that we're talking about. But what are the options? And when does one become an option?

[Jason Calacanis]

Sure. I mean, no matter what, everyone is making videos, attracting an audience, and selling a product. That product is either theirs or it's someone else's. Like, if we go back in the history of media, why are they called soap operas? They were literally created to sell soap.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yes.

[Jason Calacanis]

Right. And so I think that.

[Dave Friedberg]

Right, that is right. Interesting.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Ivory Soap, that was like the car companies.

[Dave Friedberg]

I'll write that down.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Ivory Soap were the big sponsors early on.

[Jason Calacanis]

No, but, like, it was programming that was created to attract a specific audience that was interested in buying soap.

[Dave Friedberg]

Totally.

[Jason Calacanis]

Right. And so that's why the programming happened in the middle of the day. And so the reality is, like, you.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Could say housewives at that time. Nobody's gonna think you're a misogynist.

[Jason Calacanis]

You said it, not me. But, you know, I mean, at the.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Time, that was a nuclear family.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, that was a nuclear family. And that's why they were called soap operas. So, you know, the reality is, for a young creator, I would say that the number one piece of advice is actually keep your operation lean and your costs very low. Most great creators can create. If you're a good storyteller, you can make videos right now on the Internet with your iPhone. The number one thing you have to think about is the audience that you are engaging. Because at the core of it, your product, is your relationship with the audience. It's the trust that you have with the audience. And so that takes a long time to build. Some creators make the mistake of raising money to start making their content, or some creators make the mistake of hiring a big staff that creates too much overhead. You're gonna start doing deals that maybe you don't wann. You need cash to finance your content. First and foremost. It's like, keep it lean, make good stuff, find the audience. Your first hundred videos are gonna suck. Just build until you find the audience that you want. And then the business models will start to emerge. Whether that's, hey, you know what? I built a great brand, and part of my content, I'm Emma Chamberlain, and part of my content is I drink coffee every day. So maybe I should launch a coffee brand. I take the coffee that I'm drinking every day.

[Dave Friedberg]

Meaning make your own brand.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[Dave Friedberg]

Right.

[Jason Calacanis]

And that. That's but that's hard. That means you have like critical mass, big scale. You're reaching millions and millions.

[Dave Friedberg]

The cost challenge. But payoff is higher.

[Samir]

Yeah.

[Dave Friedberg]

And that's the big right.

[Jason Calacanis]

It can be.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think CPG is really predicated on connecting with an audience first. So the advice, I think what I'm hearing is, hey, connect with the audience and put on the back half of your career monetization. But just connect. And Marques, I don't know if you've ever seen his early reviews.

[Jason Calacanis]

Of course.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, it's hilarious. He's like, how old is he? 15, 16, 17 years old? And he's like, I'm using this phone, it's the iPhone.

[Dave Friedberg]

For Jimmy's first videos are still up on YouTube. MrBeast's first videos. He's still up there. You gotta go watch.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, I watched one of them. It's him counting to 10,000, I think.

[Dave Friedberg]

By the way, that was a later video, his very first videos. You gotta go watch like the first 10 videos.

[Colin]

I mean, he's playing video games and you can't even see his face.

[Dave Friedberg]

You're like, what?

[Colin]

And he's speaking, speaking literally to Nolan.

[Dave Friedberg]

I've become the most famous person in the world from that. But you can watch TV Evolution.

[Jason Calacanis]

He watches paint dry in a video. It's like a 20 hour long video.

[Dave Friedberg]

But just to go back to the question, isn't one of the other pabs selling your content? So now we're seeing a bunch of deals. Jimmy's getting a deal from Amazon. Amazon paid him for the Beast games. We're seeing more comedians that do live shows, getting deals with Netflix. We're seeing a bunch more of those happen. We're seeing Hulu and other platforms start to bid. Even X might be doing some more content deals with folks that look more like journalists. So ultimately, how do you decide whether I want to monetize by ads and making a product or is there becoming a more liquid market for selling my content onto bigger platforms that are losing their audience to be independent and they need to basically go rebuild an audience? Is that a realistic path or is that just like the cream of the cream get to have access to kind of.

[Colin]

I think that's a realistic path for the top.

[Dave Friedberg]

And maybe you could talk about the.

[Colin]

Spotify thing, especially if we're talking about streaming. I think it's a realistic path for the top. And I don't look at it as like selling content. I look at it as selling distribution, like bringing distribution and audiences because the.

[Dave Friedberg]

Ads get layered on to these platforms.

[Jason Calacanis]

Talk about Amazing Digital Circus.

[Colin]

Yeah, I think where it's probably going, there's an interesting case study. There's a YouTube channel called Amazing Digital Circus, which is an animated channel. And they did a deal that is super unique, I think the first of its kind, where they will be distributing on Netflix at the same exact time as they distribute on YouTube. So Netflix licensed the content and it's coming out at the same time.

[Dave Friedberg]

It's not their content. It's not proprietary to Netflix.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No.

[Dave Friedberg]

Right.

[Colin]

It's licensed. That's a big deal in that regard. He's making money on advertising, but he wouldn't be getting.

[Dave Friedberg]

He's not getting paid as much or they're not getting paid as much as if they sold the content and the rights to Netflix. Is that right?

[Colin]

Yeah, maybe if it was like original. Yeah, I guess if it was exclusive.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But this is a watershed moment in many ways, because Netflix was really about them being the tastemaker, them underwriting it, you know, at least in this, like Netflix post licensing DVDs, then they became the creators, the arbiters. And now they're going back in some ways to say we're going to cherry pick people off of YouTube, give them money for their quarter billion subscribers. It's a really fascinating moment, probably, if.

[Jason Calacanis]

You'Ve seen the Nielsen ratings of connected TV usage. YouTube's at the top at 11%. Right. It's the most used streaming app on connected TVs. Netflix is at 8.5%. And in December, after Beast Games, Thursday Night Football and that movie that they did with the Rock, Amazon, they've made a move, moved up to 4%. Right.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

So, but YouTube, Netflix moved up, you mean.

[Jason Calacanis]

No, Amazon, Amazon Prime Video moved up to 4%. 8.5%. And YouTube. But YouTube's at 11%. Right. Like, the reality is, there's a really interesting quote from Ted Sarandos when Netflix won their first Emmy for House of Cards, because Netflix was an aggregator beforehand, right. So Netflix goes from aggregator, starts producing original programming. And it was a massive moment when they won an Emmy because that was pretty new. That some Internet tech company can win.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

An Emmy, that's very strange.

[Jason Calacanis]

And Ted Sarando said, television is television. It doesn't matter which pipe brings it forward. And I think it's a really important thing that the major difference when it comes to YouTube is Netflix is gonna spend 18 billion on content this year. YouTube doesn't spend on content. YouTube does a revenue share. They actually technically don't know what's gonna get Uploaded today. And it could be the biggest video of the day. It could be something like amazing digital circus that did 500 million views across three episodes.

[Dave Friedberg]

Wow.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It's also interesting. Netflix, I'm sorry, YouTube Premium, taking the ads out is at 110, 125 million subscribers at 125 now.

[Dave Friedberg]

And you get broken on TV. You're on your TV.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

How many people here pay for Netflix red or the premium version that takes out the ads?

[Dave Friedberg]

YouTube Red.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, YouTube.

[Colin]

YouTube Premium.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

YouTube Premium.

[Dave Friedberg]

Premium, yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

How many people are YouTube?

[Samir]

Wow.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That's pretty significant. It's like a third of the audience. And what is that, 12 bucks?

[Jason Calacanis]

It's like 20 bucks.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, it's 20 bucks now.

[Dave Friedberg]

20 bucks.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think it's the best 20 bucks I spend on it.

[Dave Friedberg]

I agree. How do the guys that are losing audience, which are the traditional broadcasters, how are they going to respond as their audience gets attrited away? Like we're seeing as long form is taking up more time and attention from the independents. Fox News is losing an audience. CNN is losing an audience. MSNBC is losing an audience. I mean, their audiences are gone. Like, they're just vaporizing right now. What are they gonna do? They've got a lot of cash. They got a lot of advertising dollars still flowing in. For now, yeah. They're well capitalized. They've got very motivated shareholders. What's their response? If you guys are an executive running Fox, what would you do?

[Colin]

We spoke about this recently, but there already are some shows on cable that are starting to act more like digital channels, more like YouTube channels. Right. If you look at like Saturday Night Live.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yes.

[Colin]

Or you look at late night, those are actually just a bunch of segments that can work really well when uploaded to YouTube or to the Internet. And I think when you bring up Fox News News is actually one of the last genres of cable to try and figure out, or be able to figure out how to put themselves into segments that work at the 20 plus minute range, which is what's working on YouTube right now.

[Dave Friedberg]

But the long form is crushing too. Right? Like the hour long, I mean, our show is 90 minutes. Lex does three and a half hours.

[Colin]

I would say 20 plus.

[Dave Friedberg]

Rogan's like hours long and he's number one.

[Colin]

When I say 20 plus, I mean, like, that's like the minimum.

[Dave Friedberg]

I see what you're saying, like 20.

[Colin]

And continuing to go.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah, I think that. But does that mean that they're gonna try and license Rogan? They're gonna try and license Lex. They're gonna try and license one of these independents in. Is that the move that they're going to have to make?

[Jason Calacanis]

Ultimately, that's going to be like a big changing of the guards because that's like a. There's like some risk mitigation that I don't know if they would be comfortable with something.

[Colin]

It's like Pat McAfee.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I guess Pat McAfee is a good example on ESPN.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

He's a sports guy. Yeah, yeah, sports. So ESPN just picked him up.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, that's right.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah. He does independent.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, he came onto espn, but that also created some. You know, ESPN tried something similar with Barstool a while ago. Right. And Barstool got taken off the air within an episode or two because, again, there's a risk factor. They said some stuff on air and they were like, we can't do that, do this, get them off the air. But McAfee is the more mature iteration of that, as both spaces have kind of matured. That's like a YouTube show that was brought to television. And McAfee's really good, where he's doing. I don't know if you guys saw the college game day stuff where he's doing the big field goal kicks for $100,000. It's essentially a YouTube title, but built for TV that then gets clipped and put onto YouTube. Right. And so I think that's what Colin's.

[Colin]

Saying is turn on ESPN at any moment and it looks like you're watching a podcast when you see his show. The production level is pretty low.

[Dave Friedberg]

They're gonna. So is the media exec going to go out and find the next. Or the up and coming and say, I want to bring you on. I'm going to pay you to come and do this on my platform now you're going to become a Fox News show. You're going to become an ESPN show.

[Jason Calacanis]

They have to give irrational deals to creators versus, like.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah. Versus the talent agent showing up and saying, here's a good.

[Jason Calacanis]

The other problem is distribution. So, like Jimmy, for example, like, Jimmy is. Yes, he's in the media business, but he's in the chocolate business. Right. And so being able to get to 200, 300 million people in a video is really significant. And YouTube being at the top of the connected TV streaming apps, like, you'd probably choose YouTube if you're just going pure distribution. If you're selling a chocolate brand or some other type of CBG product, you choose distribution over.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Not totally.

[Jason Calacanis]

And so I think when you're getting offered a deal to Go onto Fox News, do stuff on linear tv. It has to be such an irrational deal because it limits my distribution. Right. Even if I go onto a Netflix technically, I'm actually, I'm limited in distribution if I'm Mr. Beast, not if I'm another creator.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Also, the money and control issues are also very acute. This week when Stardust was doing good, right before all in started, I met with Sirius XM team and they were like, hey, we think you might have some Howard Stern potential. And what if you got Travis from Uber? He was very hot at the time and a couple of guys to come on and do like roundtable thing and make it fun. And then when we started talking money, I was like, that's less money than this week in startups makes already and I own 100% of it. Would I own the IP here? And they're like, well, no, no, we own the ip. And I'm like, I mean this is, we're talking six years ago, seven years ago, and then even now, you know, once in a while I'll talk to CNBC or somebody and we'll come and say, hey, you know, you have any ideas? And I'm like, it doesn't economically make sense for a creator who has escape velocity to go backwards. And I wonder, Friedberg, if the answer to this question is anybody who is actually talented enough, like a Megyn Kelly or somebody like Mr. Beast or even Tucker Carlson, how could they ever go back to Fox now? Right?

[Dave Friedberg]

That's the point. I don't think they will. I think entropy, it's only going in one direction. I think their audience erodes, their advertising dollars erode. And then they're getting whatever broadcasting, distribution deals they have on cable are going to slowly be worth less. I don't know what it's going to be worth.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think Colin, isn't this Colin? Like, because Fox and Sirius XM and CNBC have a cost infrastructure. So when they meet talent, they're like, talent gets 20% and then we need to get our 20% and then the other 50, 60% has to go to the shareholders. Yeah, and the building and the 50 fucking camera operators.

[Dave Friedberg]

No, you're 100% right. The model's broken.

[Jason Calacanis]

The greatest thing about your guys shows, it's on it. Start on zoom. We talk about this in the context of creators, like advice to up and coming creators. It's the same advice. Keep your overhead costs extremely low. Creators are the startups of Hollywood. We always say like, think out on a 52 week schedule. Could you do this every week for 52 weeks. If you're someone who loves to set up cameras and lights, sure, you might be able to do that.

[Dave Friedberg]

But if you're 100% right, busy people.

[Jason Calacanis]

You'Re like, yeah, we can hop on Zoom every week for 15.

[Dave Friedberg]

And if this, if this, if it were like what you're describing, there's no frigging way I'd do it. Like, zero chance. Like, the only reason I do it is because I can get on Zoom for 90 minutes and be done and then I go on the rest of my day for work.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Like, the turning point of the pod really was when, you know, used to run out of my operation. And I said, you guys have to commit to Thursdays the same time. We cannot if this is going to work. Everybody has to agree that Thursdays at 11am Pacific are sacrosanct. And everybody agreed.

[Dave Friedberg]

We all blocked it out.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We all blocked it out. And we said, if anybody has to move, then we go to our list of fifth besties, six besties, and we rotate them in. But we're not gonna move around Chamath's schedule, my schedule, three burks. And that's when the show really.

[Dave Friedberg]

Okay, let me take the conversation in the opposite direction now, which is we're going from points of low leverage to Fox News, lots of cameras, lots of buildings, expenses, to low leverage being on Zoom and a laptop. Let me talk about the lower leverage. Are you guys seeing any success in Gen AI? Only content channels out there. Maybe you could talk about as Gen AI gets better and better and better, do we have agents that ingest the news, ingest content, ingest data, repackage it, and then create new versions through an iterative process to kind of hack the algorithm to figure out how do I get stuff that people stay on, what's the right cut rate, what's the right color balance, what's the right sound, what's the right audio, what's the right music? And ultimately, the Gen AI does what great content creators like Jimmy took 10 years to do in a couple of weeks and ultimately creates like a whole new category. And I'm just thinking ahead here now, but, like, maybe tell us today on the ground, if you're seeing any Gen AI that's like got realistic traction out there.

[Colin]

For me personally, there's no Gen AI channels that are 100% Gen AI that I am watching, or at least that I know of, that I'm consuming and that I'm enjoying. But I mean, even within our organization, with a lot of other creators, the amount of AI tools that we're using, from scripting to even cutting the angles on our show, we're continually adopting more and more AI tools. And I think. Which is the way it should be. The audience, I don't think even really can tell.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah, right.

[Colin]

So it's like slowly seeping in into production.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But not taking it over.

[Jason Calacanis]

Have you played with Notebook lm?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yes. So it's pretty amazing.

[Jason Calacanis]

My vantage point with the first time I fed a PDF into NotebookLM was the Spotify earnings report. And I was like, I have a 20 minute drive, I want to hear this. And it was nine minutes and it was perfect.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

And you can, if you don't know what NotebookLM is, it's a project by Google. You can, you can feed in a bunch of text. It'll turn into audio. It'll have two hosts. They host it like a podcast.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

So then I started to think, okay, well actually you can just custom make yourself a podcast for your drive. Right. And go, hey, I'm driving 30 minutes. I want to know about the NFL scores, I want to know about the Netflix earnings call. And I'm also interested in what's going on in the world of the creator economy. And all of a sudden you have a aggregate of news and articles and it gets turned into audio and it's compelling.

[Dave Friedberg]

And does that replace the time that you would otherwise spend listening to podcasts and watching videos?

[Jason Calacanis]

It's a more. So what's interesting about Gen AI content I found, especially with Notebook elements, it's a more efficient way to consume content. But I don't think we prioritize efficiency always as humans.

[Dave Friedberg]

Oh, of course.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That would be like Soylent. You know, it's like, well, this is easy.

[Dave Friedberg]

J Cal.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No offense, Brian, but I'm just saying, like this nutty pudding concept. My wife makes me the nutty pudding. I'm like, you know, I kind of want the regular pudding anyway. I know it's healthier, but this is. It kind of takes out the spontaneity of what, you know, if you want that NBA content, I watch this Knicks thing, Knicks fan tv, and this guy takes all the clips. And last night the Knicks won in overtime. The Kel Bridges amazing buzzer beater. And I was as excited to open up Knicks Fan TV. You know, he comes on 15 minutes after the game and watch the community's reaction to it. And every time the Knicks win, I will give $100 tip and a super chat. I probably give two or three thousand dollars a year just to support this creator because it reminds me of WFAN in New York, and he has all these regular callers. It is such a spectacular product. And then I noticed that I'm like into Corvettes and the YouTube thing. And I got the Corvettes in my sidebar, right? And this are like creating fake AI Corvette announcements that aren't real. And they're using generative AI and they're saying, the new ZR17 is here. And I'm like, what? I'm gonna get the ZR1. And then it's just there's a 17. I click on this thing and it's this AI voice. Chevy Corvettes are known for having the greatest engine.

[Dave Friedberg]

But that's.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I blocked that motherfucker.

[Dave Friedberg]

No, but that's today.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Block that channel.

[Dave Friedberg]

So, look, you're right, but I hit.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The triple dot ban.

[Dave Friedberg]

Look, I would be less dismissive. As we all know, every month we're a little more surprised by what Genai can do and the power of it. There's a really important human directorial role in the early days of this Gen AI revolution. And I think that it enables an incredible fragmentation of media even more than we're seeing today in the creator economy. Maybe you end up getting your personal news feed with the newscaster or the podcaster or the Knicks superfans reading to you what happened at the game last night, That's Gen AI completely. And it's indistinguishable from reality. That's where I think things may get a little more funky in the next couple years. I don't think it's like, that's just.

[Jason Calacanis]

Also like this kind of far move away from monoculture into extreme microcultures, which kind of already exist. And each of us opens our floor.

[Dave Friedberg]

I got a point of view on this one, which is like, I do think that there's shared cultural facts, but different cultural experience of the facts. Meaning like the game is the game, but the commentator that tells me about the game is different.

[Samir]

Yes.

[Dave Friedberg]

And that's where I think this all plays out. Where I'm gonna have my own tuned broadcaster. She could be really beautiful. I don't know. And she could be really cool. She could be talking to me one on one. I don't know. It could be really weird. It's really funny. I actually. I get on ChatGPT advanced voice, and I have this female voice. And when my wife's in the car, I start talking. I'm like. I'm like, hey. I'm like, hey, baby, what's going on? And my wife gets so upset.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. I was about to say, Freeberg, as your counsel, I'm gonna go ahead and advise you to not share your.

[Dave Friedberg]

And I think that's where my start. Yeah. By the way, we're gonna come back and talk again in a few minutes, but Colin and Samir, thank you, guys. Thank you guys again.

[Jason Calacanis]

Thanks.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Austin's unique.

[Dave Friedberg]

Okay.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

There's a lot of podcasters here. So, you know, I came to town, I got a lot of podcasting friends, and as you know, I'm podcast famous, which is the fame that goes right below reality television. And we're incredibly lucky because our next guest is both podcast famous and reality television famous. And he's in Austin. And when I came here, I was like, you know, I'm going to come here and I'm going to hang with all my podcasting bros. So I texted Tim Ferriss. I was like, tim, let's get dinner. Tim's like, yeah, I'm trying to find a girlfriend, wife, you know, going to try to grow up, make a baby, all this kind of stuff. And so I'm out and about. I'm not in town. Then I text. I said, okay, well, I'm. Oh, for one. But I'll text Lex Freeman. Text Lex Freeman. He's like, I'm having panic attacks. I don't know. My life. Existential. I had Kanye on. You told me not to do it. You were right. And then I had Zelensky. I had Zelensky on. Then I had Putin on. Everybody hates me, but everybody loves the pot. He's a hot mess. And he's like, I can't find a girlfriend either. So then I text Chris Williamson, and I'm like, hey, you know, let's have dinner. He's like, j Cal, let's eat a steak. I need your help. I'm trying to find a girlfriend. And so, ladies and gentlemen, Chris Williamson. We're gonna find out.

[Samir]

Such a good wingman.

[Dave Friedberg]

Good to see you, bro.

[Samir]

Good wingman.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Get over here. Oh, man. Chamasa is off the program, and now we've got a real man on the pod. Chris Williamson will be taking Chamat's seat going forward. He's so handsome. What's going on? You and I had a little steak, and I think he double booked, but I appreciate being the first seating on your Friday night. You went out.

[Samir]

I think I'm sloppy thirds for this choice.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, no, we saved the best for last. There it is.

[Samir]

Good save.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'm full of.

[Samir]

That's why you're such a good wingman.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'M a solid wingman. I helped Lex out a bit. But what's going on on the dating front? Let's be honest here. Did you. Where are you at? Because a lot of ladies want to know, is Chris Williamson still on the market or.

[Samir]

Not off the market currently, but I did shave the handlebarmer stache, which I think sort of straightened me up as well. People were worried about that he shows.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Up for our steak dinner with the porn stache of all porn staches. It's unbelievable, this handlebar thing. And I was like, you know, Chris, we don't know each other. Whatever. Are you straight as an arrow.

[Samir]

I spent 50% of the meal asking me whether I'm straight. That kind of sounded a little bit like wishful thinking. After the lady doth inquired.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I thought there was a window. I felt there was a window. But you started in reality tv.

[Samir]

Yeah, technically, I suppose so, yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, that's how you got your first taste of media and fame. Yeah. You were on Love Island.

[Samir]

That would be fat. Yes. I actually did a reality TV show before that. I have an illustrious history of reality tv. Oh, okay. Was a nightclub promoter, commercial model, dj, reality tv. And that's my career too, by the way. I was about to say.

[Dave Friedberg]

Actually, I did a little summer stock.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Very similar to your reality television comedian.

[Samir]

Told me the other day, commercial male model, club promoter, dj, Reality TV is otherwise known as Cunt Bingo.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Ah, yes, that's right. Yes, absolutely.

[Samir]

So I had a full house. Yeah, look. Did some reality TV stuff that was kind of like an existential crisis that was captured on television 24 hours a day. Being trapped in a house for a little while, and then got toward the end of my 20s. And Rogan, Sam Harris, Alain de Botton from the School of Life, Jordan Peterson are all coming to the front. And I thought, wow, I'm learning a lot from these people. I'm less of an adult infant as I was when I first started listening to them. Maybe if I started my own show, I would be able to have these sorts of conversations. They felt really nourishing to me. And 900 episodes and a billion and a bit downloads.

[Dave Friedberg]

Did you think about it? Did you think about it as an interview show? Were you like, I want to interview people, or were you like, I want to explore the world or I want to teach people, or what? What was the kind of.

[Samir]

I had nothing to teach people.

[Dave Friedberg]

Right.

[Samir]

How do you. Yeah, so it was very much, yeah. I'm going to find these interesting people who understand how the world works. I want to understand myself and the world around me. But you start off with who you've got around you. Your friends like Kai Way, the guy that invented the light phone. He was episode 10 because I was super obsessed with digital minimalism and what social media was doing to our brains. And then there was a season of relationships and a season of health and fitness, and there was a season of evolutionary psychology. So it's a thinly veiled autobiography, which I actually think a lot of people's sort of true bodies of work are. If you're following your instinct, you're just. It's a little trail of breadcrumbs of where your mind was at at that time.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, you figured out the great hack of podcasting, which is if you want to learn really quick, if you hang out with smart people and you ask them very simple questions and you're present and you listen to the answers, maybe you're really good at the follow up question, by the way, which is always how I judge an interviewer, how good they are at being present and not being like, okay, question number one.

[Dave Friedberg]

Done.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Check. Now let's go to number two. You're really good at listening and finding that next question. But it is such an amazing hack to learn. Right. And to build a network and to even build a group of friends.

[Samir]

Look, I always felt reticent that I did business at university. I did two business degrees, including a master's, and I can't remember anything from either of them. Spent a lot of time partying again. Club promoter, bingo. And I always thought, I wish I'd gone and done psychology. I wish I'd sort of followed something more approximating a passion or philosophy or sociology or something. And then I realized a couple of years ago, I was like, well, you have done that. You've got to design your own degree. Only speaking to the best in their field about the very specific niche part of their topic that you want to learn on your terms with no coursework or homework beyond what you want to do, and you get to call it a job. So whatever version of the simulation that we're in at the moment, I need to sort of thank the designer because it's wild that I get to call this a career.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think we all feel that way in many respects. Tell me about. Sam's a good friend of mine. We had the same book agent for a long time, and I remember I had him on my podcast and he said, what's podcasting? And I explained it to him and he said, well, how do I do it? And I said, well, you get two microphones and a guest. And he's like, then what? I'm like, well, then we hit the record button and I helped him start the podcast. What are your thoughts on what he's done and his influence? Because I know you've really had him. You've had him on a couple times.

[Samir]

Yeah. No, he's been on once.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Only once?

[Samir]

Yeah. His wife's been on as well.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, Annika's been on as well. Yeah, she's fantastic. So tell me about your favorite guest, Sam. Jordan Peterson.

[Dave Friedberg]

I know there's a bunch of.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

He's. He's pretty great.

[Samir]

It's kind of like having to choose from 900 children, I suppose. One of the most reliable guests, actually, a guy called Rory Sutherland.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Love Rory. Amazing.

[Samir]

For the people who don't know, imagine a gruff, upper class British sweary uncle who also happens to be one of the best behavioral economists on the planet. So this guy understands consumer behavior like nobody else. In fact, if you go onto Ogilvy's website and you look at the job description on the board members, it says, Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy Advertising. Rory got to design his own job titles specifically. So no one actually knows what he does. And he's fantastic. Speaking to Jordan was great. Alain from the School of Life is just. He sees the human condition very accurately. It's fun, you know, I get to indulge my own curiosities and follow my instincts.

[Dave Friedberg]

Do you think other people can do it? Should do it. This is a big thing I see is like, folks that want to kind of create a business through this kind of new creator economy. There's all these paths to monetization. Build the audience, and they're like, what I'll do is I'll go find people to interview and I'll interview them. What's the barrier for folks? What makes folks really great at this? What's the challenge in the business? And how do you kind of do it better than others?

[Samir]

Yeah, I think Christopher Hitchens says everyone has a buck in them, and for most, that's where it should stay. And I wonder whether podcasting may be something similar, but it's certainly a skill set that you can develop. Look, I think the best thing is a project so personal to you that you would do it if nobody listened.

[Dave Friedberg]

Right.

[Samir]

And for me, if everybody switched off tomorrow, I did this when no one listened.

[Dave Friedberg]

Your conversations with people that you were truly interested in learning from.

[Samir]

It's an autobiography. For me. It's a repository of my own I.

[Dave Friedberg]

Think that's really interesting because kind of like our podcast was us literally talking with each other about the things that were going on in the world and how we were maneuvering in Covid and talking about markets, stuff that we would literally do at the poker table.

[Samir]

Dude, look.

[Dave Friedberg]

And then we just did it on Zoom and put it on the Internet.

[Samir]

All of the people that are here, I listen every week. I think the pod's fantastic. I get to tune in and just listen to between three and five guys, depending on who's available that week. Just have a hang. And it feels like you're dropping in on precisely the poker table or the private room of the steak dinner. And that's why I think people are massive fans of the show, because it.

[Dave Friedberg]

Feels like I know you're genuine, authentic conversations that you want to have as an individual that you're interested in having.

[Samir]

Yeah, it's like if your friend list was just a little bit better educated than you and you're like, okay, I get to find out. It's a little bit more elevated as a conversation.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah. By the way, this is a little different than what we talked about, which is the other side of this, a creator economy, which is hacking an audience, making stuff for an audience, growing the audience, where your focus is on algorithmically, technically, tactically identifying things that the audience likes and then focusing on those things and building from there. And it's just a very different kind of tack. Both work, this is the right tack.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

By the way, is to pursue your muse and to do something that's authentically interesting to you.

[Dave Friedberg]

You and I both agree on film and the importance of great film. And great directors are the ones that were left the fuck alone. You know, the great directors are the ones who got the deals at the studios where they were told they had complete creative control.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Final cut.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah, final cut.

[Samir]

Look, you can still play that game. I have two full time front catalog strategists and two back catalog strategists as well for YouTube. So we have a big team that's playing the algo game. They're chopping down clips. So look, I think that. What is it that Ferris says about. In the short term, your results are determined by your intensity. In the long term, your results are determined by your consistency. But don't trade the latter for the former. And if you try and go too hard, if you try and do things where you're being ventriloquized by the audience, I'm going to try and reverse engineer what I think the audience wants from me. Which means that if they stop loving you, not only do you not have the one thing you used to have, but you didn't even make a body of work that you cared about either. So you end up resenting the audience. And, yeah, for me, it's kind of like a bulletproof strategy. You're going to keep going for longer because you like what you do.

[Dave Friedberg]

So can we talk about monetization, how you think about making money?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Before we get to that, I really want to bang on this just a little bit more. You also made a decision we were talking before about we did something lo fi to just get ourselves in the same space virtually with zoom for a couple of hours. Your production quality is absolutely stunning. You care about aesthetics, you care about the lighting and the location just for the audience Here, take us through that decision and I don't know, the earliest part of the catalog, and if you did it to that level, you have done some zooms, I believe, because Rory's only available on Zoom. But take me through the aesthetic choices you made and why.

[Samir]

Yeah, so I realized about three years ago that most podcasters are something with a podcast. They're a UFC fighter with a podcast, they're a comedian with a podcast. They're whatever, investors with a podcast. Right. It's not their profession. So I asked myself, what would it look like if we turned pro at being a podcaster? And part of that is the lift needs to be very low for most people that are busy doing other things, because they're busy doing other things, so they can't spend ages going towards this one big production. So I started working with cinematographers. I got one of the best directors of photography in America. He's out of Nashville. I got a producer, we got grips, gaffers. We started using location scouts, and we started to dial in a very specific look. We started to use handheld cameras on tripods, monopods, dollies, doorways, dollies. We did the first ever five camera podcast on LED video wall, the same technology that was used for the Mandalorian. And as we were talking live, the video controller changed the scenes based on what we talked about. So if we moved from a war story to a scary story in a spooky house. We went from Afghan base with trucks driving around and helicopters coming in to a spooky house that had.

[Dave Friedberg]

This is like literally the opposite of what Khaled at Tamir was saying with keep the budget low. No, but it takes.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, just knowing what I know about production costs, that sounds like you're spending 30, 40 dimes an episode.

[Samir]

It's not far off that we can get it down by squeezing here and there. Thankfully, my line producer is a sort of bully when it comes to trying to get that stuff down. But look, I like pretty things and I think that one way that you can excel is to stand out visually. Look who I'm on stage with. I like things to look nice and I didn't see anyone that was really elevating the way that stuff looked.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Does it change the subject's mindset and the interview itself? When they see how beautiful it is, when they see the investment in it, does it change something in the subject?

[Samir]

So I have this belief that at least in the world of podcasting, we're sort of splitting into two directions at the moment. One of them is perhaps a little bit more elevated. It's the modern wisdoms, it's the Stephen Bartlett's of the world. And then the other side is the more sort of low tech. It would be all in. It would be Matt and Shane's secret podcast. And then, you know, you've got sort of a Rogan or a Flagrant that sort of sits somewhere in the middle, which is good quality, not insane. It's just facilitating the hang. And I think that barbelling both of those is a good way to go. You can lean into the real sort of high end production stuff. And when the guest turns up and they're like, wow, we're in, you know, 25,000 square foot warehouse in the middle of LA and there's a team of 15 people here and there's huge lights and there's guys holding dollies, like they lock in, you know, they're really there to, oh, this is an occasion. This isn't me just turning up for a chat. But that wouldn't work for every type of show. In fact, what you want to do is facilitate a little bit more ease. So that's why I still like doing stuff over Zoom or I guess like Riverside or whatever we use, because I want to have that casual sort of compass. Not everyone wants to turn up and it feel like it's a, you know, the World cup final of podcasting.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah.

[Dave Friedberg]

Should we go to the monetization? So, like, how do you start thinking about building the business? High quality content, authentic content. Was it a conversation about, hey, let me just put this out there, make ads and I'll figure it out later, or was it very deliberate and how's the model kind of evolving for you?

[Samir]

Yeah, so it was emergent over time. You start off just Taking whoever you can get a lot of supplement companies and teeth whitening companies, whatever, whatever's.

[Dave Friedberg]

You read that.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Dave Friedberg]

And they come in or you call out.

[Samir]

I did outreach for the first five or six hundred episodes of the show. So I was managing my own ads, I was sending the invoices, I was slowly scaling up the CPMs. You can get between a 15, $25 CPM, something like that, audio only. I made the commitment not to do ads on YouTube because if it was a virtual episode, it felt like it was such a low lift that that kind of didn't justify making people sit through baked in ads, at least on YouTube. But we got away with where you.

[Dave Friedberg]

Have the option to turn them off.

[Samir]

No, these are hard coded into the file itself.

[Dave Friedberg]

Coded in.

[Samir]

So you're just. Yeah, that's what's referred to as baked in. And then look, we've got ourselves to the stage now where we have some pretty interesting setups. I think I'm one of the only podcasters that does this where we sell an entire ecosystem. So if you come on board as one of what we call our flagship partners, you get a set of impressions across the entire year, let's say 40 million, 60 million impressions. Then you get a number of Instagram story sequences on my Instagram you'll get newsletter drops on my newsletter which has got 300,000 subs and a 50% open rate. Lots of click through on that and then maybe I'll come speak at your AGM or I'll do something else. And we build out this big package.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That will elevate the level of the partner too because they're being thoughtful. So you're going to remove the nickeling, diming people who should just be buying cost per click ads on meta. And now you've got people who are actually thinking about their brand and what they want their brand associated with.

[Samir]

I mean function, health, who I think are on here somewhere. We did a two year deal with them and I love what they do. I use them to track my blood work and I thought why would I not want to be in bed with a company that I use all the time?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Absolutely, yeah. I mean in our case it's.

[Samir]

And you deepen the relationship as well. So Element, James from Element. If there's something he wants to talk about to do with brand, I have a good insight when it comes to brand, especially from a creator side or ad reads. And I'll happily just do a couple of hours of work. This is what we've seen that's been.

[Dave Friedberg]

Working it's interesting when we were talking about the old media model, I'm new to all this stuff, so I'm not big in this podcasting space, but I just observed. So maybe what I say is super reductive and obvious, but it's like you got these pharmaceutical ads on Fox News and it's in between the segments and no one on the. None of the anchors give a shit about the pharmaceutical ad, nor do they talk about or promote it and have no connection to it. There's no authenticity to it. But here there's an opportunity to be selective and to have it be part of the content, part of the experience. And it actually probably does better as a result with the audience than you would get with that. You know, have you talked to your doctor about. Yeah, well, look, I mean, diarrhea, like, or whatever.

[Samir]

In the same way, you know what it is. In the same way as following your instincts on the show when it comes to what you talk about. If you can get yourself to the luxurious position where you get to choose your partners as well. Every single product that I partner with, I use.

[Dave Friedberg]

So let's talk about. So you got leverage.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Whitelisted advertising was something we started on this week in startups from the beginning, which was if I don't use the product or don't like it, we turn it down. We turn down all kinds of crazy offers from, you know, services that you'll hear. Like, I was on Megyn Kelly and I heard her read one of two of these ads and I was like, God, I would never read that ad because I know that if you type in that product and scam or complaints, it'll be like a long list of people complaining about it. And then we were talking about her business and she's using a third party agency to sell her partnerships. And I said, Megan, you're Megyn Kelly. Like, just get to ad reps to and partnership people. And you have to build that leg of the stool. You've got the content, you've got the distribution, you've got the advertising, the partners. You have to have all three of the stool or else.

[Dave Friedberg]

Let me ask, let me ask both of you guys two questions.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Who have you turned down? Like advertising wise category. Just tell me the category.

[Samir]

Anything. Anything. Which is to do with investing. We've said no to buy gold. Jonathan, My ads guys stood there and he hates it because, you know, these guys are prepared to spend big money. Yeah.

[Dave Friedberg]

You don't want your customers losing money being upset at you.

[Samir]

I can't. I don't have the chops to be able to assess whether or not this bank or this new investment opportunity. Can you turn your Roth IRA into a 501k backed by. I don't know, I have no idea. And I hear these things and I go, Ben Shapiro, you don't know either.

[Dave Friedberg]

So that's interesting.

[Samir]

Yeah.

[Dave Friedberg]

Well, so let me ask you guys both a question. In the old Internet world, there were these companies that emerged within DoubleClick, Aquantive that were the site rep firms. So there were a lot of independent websites out there. They didn't have the most sophisticated sales force. They couldn't go hire the two great sales reps to go do the work and dial in. There wasn't a very liquid market. So the site rep firms would rep your site, they would go out and get ads. Do you see more of those kind of emerging today? Are they getting more sophisticated? Are they getting better to enable smaller creators to be able to kind of be successful in this space right now?

[Samir]

Maybe. I mean, I think it's, it's a difficult.

[Dave Friedberg]

And you've never done it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Finish your thought and I'll add mine.

[Samir]

Yeah, it's a difficult game to play because people can go to creators of sort of around about my size and it's very reliable. You know what you're going to get in terms of plays, you know what you're going to get in terms of demographic. But the shows that are smaller are growing so you don't actually know what it is that, that you're going to get. So maybe you can bundle all of these guys together into some weird sort of dispersed multi channel network type thing and they will bulk be sold by some company that sits above them. But it's so effortful. And when you think some podcast's gonna do 25,000 plays totally, you've gotta go through all the rigmarole and the red tape and the ad read to hit 25,000 people. Or you could go to Rogan and hit like 100,000 times that.

[Dave Friedberg]

Have you ever used site grabs?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, I always hated the concept, even when we were doing blogs because yeah, you wind up. If you're gonna take it seriously and you wanna make it into a great effort, I think you have to have that relationship and not somebody mitigating it. I think it's better to just focus on the content until you hit to Chris's point, the reach that is necessary to have people calling you on the phone and then being able to choose it. And there's other monetization that's Available now, merchandising, creating premium content that people can do. So it's just those are better avenues than using these rep firms and the rep firms. It's a terrible business because if you do your job and you actually do make money and the creator does break out, then they will leave you. Like Megyn Kelly will leave hers. Or Tucker. I don't know what the one that does all the Tucker Carlson and all those folks, but I'm just shocked. Like Tucker and Megan were getting paid 10, 20, $30 million a year. They can afford to have one or two ad people doing this for them and not giving 40% to somebody and it just corrupts the whole relationship.

[Dave Friedberg]

Let me ask you guys both another question. So you've now got a great content creation engine, which is you. You have a great content creation at this week in startups, which is you. And then you got this advertiser setups, you got ad dollars coming in. How do you get leverage so that it's nonlinear? Any great business has a nonlinear scaling function. And in your business, you guys are limited. And this is something we've talked with Jimmy at Mr. Beast about. If it's just you making the content, you can only make X number of units of content per month per year. So that limits the scalability of the revenue for your organization in terms of how big this can get. Do you ever think about creating leverage in the system where you do almost like what a Spielberg does with an Amblin Entertainment or any great director producer does, where they scale up, they become the producer, create a network, they create a network, they create a studio model and then you have several content shows that are under your brand. And have you ever thought about that? Is that kind of the model where this is eventually going to go? Where some of the great breakouts are going to end up realizing they can kind of scale up and build the next studio model?

[Samir]

If you want to do that, then fine. But I have no desire to start managing a ton of other content content creators. Managing myself is hard.

[Dave Friedberg]

What if you still did your show but you have others that you kind of bet on basically?

[Samir]

Perhaps. I guess it just doesn't speak to me all that much. And I think a question is, what do you need this additional money for? Like, is it that you just need to continue to build, like more and more profit? Because I quite like where I'm at. I quite like the level of revenue that I make, the workload that I have, the fact that I get to spend a morning reading and I don't Feel like I should have been on more zoom calls. So my ability to put my foot on the gas or take it off is exclusively on me as opposed to having other obligations. So it's very much a lifestyle business. And I understand that that's going to cap the upside. Now there's some things I can start cpg, I can start to do some clever stuff with ads where that will begin to ramp and ramp and ramp.

[Dave Friedberg]

But yeah, you've got unlimited upside with how you spend your time now that you don't have to do work 24 7.

[Samir]

Absolutely. And there may be a day when it's to press that button again, but it's not right now. But just before Jason jumps in, you've got YouTube AdSense partners, Spotify partner program, which is brand new and that's actually cranking quite a lot. And then the one area that I think way more podcasters need to look at, which is monetizing clips. So you do mid roll ads on a long podcast episodes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 50 minutes, 120 minutes into an episode. But you can also be seven minutes into an eight minute long clip. And you can crank clips out all the time. So you can be putting out one a day.

[Dave Friedberg]

So there's other points of leverage.

[Samir]

Exactly. So you can look at, okay, how can we. A little bit more innovative. We can put Instagram stories up, we can use newsletters, These sort of 360 deals and fill out all of the ecosystem where you can without obliterating the viewing experience and making the audience hate.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You know, I think that's well said. And there's going to be international as well with AI. I don't know if you've experimented. We have a company podcast, AI dubbing stuff and then that'll be built into YouTube. So all of a sudden you'll be in Spanish, Japanese and French and the whole cycle will start all over again. But you know, I did actually try that with this Week in Startups. I got the domain name thisweekin.com and we did this Week in Poker with Annie Duke and this Week in Blank. This Week in Blank. This Week in Comedy. We tried a bunch of those. The problem was.

[Dave Friedberg]

But you did, you did different shows.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I did some different shows in the beginning. I did it for about a year. And what I realized was you could get, you know, average hosts, broadcast hosts, but you couldn't get someone like Chris or Annie Duke for the long term. We had a guy, Dave Pensado, who's a music producer, and I wanted to do this week in music, he wanted to do the Dave Pinsato show. He had his own view. And the really great creators, what they realize is, I want control of my art, I want control of my brand, I want to own my ip, I want to pick my team. I don't want to be part of a machine. And so what we're seeing is people like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson now are free. Ben Shapiro started with, he was on AM radio in Los Angeles and then he worked for Breitbart and now he's got his own company, he makes his own decision. So I think a lot of the talent, the most talented people will want to be independent practitioners.

[Samir]

So true. There's sort of a weird level that people get to anybody who is sufficiently talented for you to think that they're an A grade player is probably not going to want to sit underneath anybody else. And if someone isn't that good, you're kind of just filling the air with something that maybe isn't going to catch.

[Dave Friedberg]

So in the new media world, is it all just lots of independent producers and there is no studio model?

[Samir]

I think so.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Absolutely.

[Samir]

I think so. Because a lot of people want that lifestyle.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What happens when you get rid of distribution? Like, it's not like we have to ask somebody for permission anymore. It's not like the record labels where you had to have distribution, you had to go to Columbia Records, if you were a Bob Dylan to be in a record store, you can just do it.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah. Well, I think the question is the economic moat being, can you reinvest capital in creating high quality content? Because if that capital is invested well, it creates an audience. So you give certain people money, people.

[Samir]

Will show up, more money comes out.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah, more money comes out.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Samir]

So I mean, some high points of leverage would be getting a strategist who understands the YouTube algorithm and can ensure that no matter what it is you're recording and how honest and truthful that is to your instinct, it's being presented in the best way for the algorithm we can repurpose what are the sections that we're choosing? So one thing that hasn't been spoken about today, which is interesting on YouTube is timeliness. So YouTube is increasingly becoming where people go to find out their news. So maybe you see something that trends on Twitter and you'll catch some clip of some kind, but then you quickly over to YouTube. Okay, where's the breakdown? And you'll have seen, to use Shapiro as a good example. Daily Wime, I think it's called Ben After Dark or something. Like that. It's not Ben after dark. It's Ben in his living room. Because something's happened today. And before he can get back into the studio tomorrow, Ben, they need to get a video. Trump gets shot today. You need to do your video today. Because people are going to be going. And that's the hack to get to the top.

[Dave Friedberg]

Because we've had this issue where we put out a show because we record Thursday mornings and then it doesn't publish usually until Friday afternoon. Something happens Thursday after we record and the show sucks. And literally no one watches it. Yeah, no one will watch the show.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That's not true. Everyone watches it, but everybody complains. But the volume goes down, like freak out.

[Dave Friedberg]

40% down.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, what are we going to do?

[Samir]

But it literally about 24 hour turnaround. It's like, sorry, that's stale. That's old now.

[Dave Friedberg]

That's right.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Which is crazy when you think about it. I mean, I think this is the. The next great opportunity will be somebody who just is sitting there and has the ability to go live at any time.

[Samir]

This is what a lot of streaming is doing. Right. You look at a Hasanabi, you look at Destiny, you look at asmongold, Charlie Penguin zero. All of these guys are doing it now. Yeah, they're also playing, you know, like video games, too. But they're commenting on a lot of culture and they crush on this. Not because they're insane cultural commentators that are, you know, really deep in the research, but because they're timely and they've usually got some take.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But it'd be really fascinating if somebody with depth, you know, imagine if Sam Harris, when some breaking news story happened, turned on his live stream and you're like, oh, my God, we're now we've got Sam Harris commenting on this assassination attempt or et cetera. And you see it in sports. I noticed Bill Simmons has started whenever there is a major trade. When the Kyrie trade happened, when the Luka Doncic trade happened, he just goes, emergency pod. And I think they're really starting to embrace it. That is like a hack. And I think that will become a thing. I often go to the live tab on YouTube now just to see what they're talking about. Right. It's typically low quality, but once in a while, somebody will do something.

[Samir]

Well, you're talking about the relatability, authenticity thing thing before. If somebody is talking about a developing situation which happened three hours ago, it has to be. You haven't had time to become contrived. You know what I mean?

[Dave Friedberg]

Totally. Yeah. I think that's a big point. What other content do you think is going to win? Going to continue to accelerate time and attention away from other forms of content. So the long form podcast conversation. Learn about the world with me. Are there other forms that are out there that are interesting to you? That formats that you think are new or emerging or that are real winners that are.

[Samir]

I would continue to bet on substack, I think. And that style of blogging, very frictionless. You know, it's enabling writers to work out loud. I think Jonathan Haidt basically wrote his entire new book chapter by chapter, published it on his substack, allowed the anxious generation. There's another one about the Tower of Babel thing which he's working on next. But yeah, it's this seamless transparent door. So writing, I think has got like just huge, huge upside there. I'm not too sure what we're going to see from short form. I'm aware that algorithmically it's able to get the bottom of your brain stem really well, but you were talking about this before. It doesn't seem like TikTok creators are able to convert. One TikTok sub is worth 100 TikTok subs is maybe worth one YouTube sub. Correct.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And 100 YouTubes are worth one email, by the way.

[Dave Friedberg]

It's a lot like having a cigarette. Like you need it, but you don't want it. You know, you end up being like, I'm not really looking forward to that TikTok tonight. You're not really sitting there at work being like, can't wait to watch that TikTok. But you get home and you're like, I need my TikTok. But you do look forward to seeing this great new movie that's coming out this weekend.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Or the latest episode.

[Dave Friedberg]

Or the latest episode. You're like, I want that. I don't need it, but I want it. And I think there's a big difference between that and I think that's where the short form really hits the limbic system. It doesn't actually activate the rest.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think this is a form of addiction that's going to wind up like MTV going away. MTV and music videos. We all as Gen Xers. I think you're on the tail end of Gen X. Or a millennial. Millennial. Millennial. Like we kind of got addicted to it and then it kind of went away as a format of just sitting there and watching three minute videos. And everybody thought our brains were getting scrambled because we were watching the Aha video.

[Samir]

And then this hold my beer.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And TikTok's like, yeah, wait one second, seven seconds. And I think it's fucking with people's dopamine to a level that they don't understand. And you do, because you dip into this stuff and you have interest in it, but you can't fire your serotonin and see the moment, the most exciting, terrifying, funny moment in every piece of media, back to back to back.

[Dave Friedberg]

Oh, dopamine addiction.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The next day, people are feeling hungover. It's because they're fucking with that dopamine receptors in their brain. And then they can't have a normal conversation. They can't go to a normal dinner or have a conversation like this, or.

[Dave Friedberg]

Feel happy having a walk and a long toe.

[Samir]

I think this is one of the reasons why I wouldn't bet against the reading thing. I'm aware it's limbically way less hijacking, but it feels like going to rehab for your dopamine system. It's one of the few things, it's hard that you can only do it right. You can watch a movie in double screen. You can be listening to a podcast while scrolling. Instead you can, you know, you cannot read and do anything else.

[Dave Friedberg]

I'll tell you what I think might win. My personal point of view on this is I think that that content will get turned into like an AI chat experience. Jason makes fun of me about this, but I do sit in my car. I do a lot of long drives now at my office, like Santa Cruz and the city. I drive a lot and I talk to ChatGPT Advanced Voice. But I'll talk about a topic and I'll learn about it and I'll engage with it and I'll kind of go back and forth. But if I find, if I flip on like a book on tape or something, my brain wanders off and I got questions and ideas and I'm like, oh. Then I start thinking about it. Then I realize, oh man, three minutes have gone by. And so for me personally, and maybe this is just the way I'm wired, I kind of like the interactive model, but I do think this great content like Jonathan Haidt's new book gets put out as kind of an interactive mode where I get to go engage. It starts telling me about it. I can ask questions and I. It's almost like I'm having a conversation with the author. And that's where going back to the earlier point, the cultural experience is the book written by the author. But the way I experience it is going to be different. Than the way you experience it in an AI world.

[Samir]

I would love to look at how people pay attention to a conversation between multiple people, like a podcast compared with an audiobook. And the author is trying their best to come across with bounce and energy and engagement and stuff like that, but really it's not. And it's one person, just one tone going through, recorded very carefully. Whereas when you've got stuff bouncing around, even that author talking about that book on a podcast, why am I so much more engaged? There's something about that which is compelling.

[Dave Friedberg]

It's the way humans are. Humans aren't designed to sit on the floor and be lectured to by another human. Humans are designed to be social creatures, to have engagement, to have that process. And I think that that's how it plays out in our brain. There's more of a responsive chemistry to that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'm excited for this pendulum to swing back and for people to, like, read a book again or to watch a Kurosawa film.

[Dave Friedberg]

Well, you know, that's. That's 100, right? No, I mean, you can't watch a Kurosawa film and not feel.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'll tell you what, you know, I think for a lot of young people, they're missing out on some of, like, the great beauty in life is to be able to give yourself over for two hours to a Kurosawa film or to give yourself over to a book for an hour, Just about an hour. And that's what we're gonna see, I think, in the coming years, is people are gonna look at this like they looked at junk food, like they looked at cigarettes, and say, this is not healthy for me.

[Samir]

You've seen that list of five regrets of the dying. It's things like, I wish I'd allowed myself to be the person I wanted to be, not the person others expected of me. I wish I'd worked less. I wish I'd kept in touch with my friends. I would bet an awfully large amount of money that one of them, in starting about 30 years time, is going to be. I wish I spent less time on my phone. And that's gonna.

[Dave Friedberg]

I Wish I deleted TikTok, by the way. We're gonna continue the conversation. So, guys, join us. Thanking Chris. And we're gonna invite the rest of the crew back out.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, yeah. Come on out, everybody. Brian, come on up. This is my friend Brian Johnson. Come on up, Brian. Can we get him a microphone? Can we get him a mic tails or something?

[Dave Friedberg]

Will you introduce Brian?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. Brian Johnson created a payments company. He was on this week in startups years ago. And then I looked up and he was sharing his nighttime erections on social media.

[Brian Johnson]

It's 3 hours and 12 minutes.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yes, 3 hours and 12 minutes.

[Samir]

Ryan, you're Kardashian famous now. Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, really? You were on the Kardashians?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, last week's episode.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You were on last week's episode. And who was you were hanging out with? Kim or which Chloe?

[Samir]

This Andrew Huebman, who was the star of the show. Who was Andrew Huberman And Brian. That was my Trump Zelensky moment. You two in a room. I'm aware.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, is this like east coast, west coast? It's like Crips and Bloods. You guys get along or is he.

[Brian Johnson]

We do get along. Yeah. We're friends.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You're friends?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Okay. What do you do together? Like, the two of you?

[Brian Johnson]

A secret?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, do you guys exchange blood? What's the secret?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Samir]

Sus. All in.

[Dave Friedberg]

They do lab tests. They do lab tests on a Saturday morning.

[Samir]

Spotify moved to video. I think that's an interesting one to talk about. That's something people aren't really sort of factoring in because you turn what was an audio platform into. Is this audio? Is this video? Now there's trailers that you can see as well. And they are paying creators a pretty penny. So we were a part of the partner program for January and February, and we made more money from them with only 10% of our catalog uploaded than the entirety of our YouTube AdSense. So they are throwing. They're throwing everything at it to take you do.

[Jason Calacanis]

We don't. And we're working on it. Yeah, but we're working on it. But I think also, like, there's. I think in all these platforms when they. When they announce a new monetization model, they need model citizens. And I think, Chris, like, your show is a model citizen for Spotify. Like, they've put you on billboards. They're definitely going like, hey, golden child. Yeah. Modern Wisdom is the show you want to be on Spotify. It's video. It looks beautiful. It uploads quite a bit. It has a big back catalog. So I think it's a really interesting model. To me, it feels experimental. I think if it works, it's great. Share of premium subscription revenue is awesome.

[Samir]

Ryan, are you going to be able to be within the vicinity of that passive smoke? I imagine this is. You're going to be counting down how many minutes it's going to knock off your life.

[Brian Johnson]

Jason, what is this?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That's a Puente That's a nice cigar. You can just chew on it.

[Brian Johnson]

What's going to happen if I chew on it?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You get a little nicotine hit and you're going to enjoy life for the first time in three years.

[Dave Friedberg]

Go ahead.

[Brian Johnson]

I don't know. I don't know if this fits in the protocol. I mean, just chew it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Come on.

[Dave Friedberg]

Like this.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

See what I'm doing here?

[Brian Johnson]

Should I do it? Wait, hold on. Before you, before you say something. Don't die. Is in your hands. Touch you on it.

[Dave Friedberg]

No.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yes. Yes.

[Jason Calacanis]

Give it a shot.

[Brian Johnson]

That was a very clear response.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It's either that or you gotta do Chris's ketamine. It's one or the other. Which one are you doing, Chris?

[Brian Johnson]

You do ketamine?

[Samir]

Yeah, we'll do it backstage. I'm an ex club promoter. I do everything.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Do you want the cigar?

[Samir]

I'm okay, thank you.

[Dave Friedberg]

You did ketamine recently, didn't you, Brian?

[Brian Johnson]

I did, yeah. I used. So we, we did, we built a brain interface at my company, Colonel. We were trying to build a wearable FMRI and we had this question, what happens when, you know, there's like when you take an SSRI or when you take ketamine. And so yeah, I did a. A dose intramuscular dose and we measured my brain 30 days before the ketamine, during ketamine. And then was it an injection you.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Snorted or you did the injection?

[Brian Johnson]

We did the max FDA loud amount. And what was cool is we saw.

[Dave Friedberg]

You just did it on yourself. You're like, I'm just gonna max out, right?

[Brian Johnson]

No, we had an irb. We had it approved ethically and what we saw.

[Dave Friedberg]

So sorry, just real quick, have you done ketamine before this?

[Brian Johnson]

No, first time.

[Dave Friedberg]

So you're just chilling. You're like, I'm gonna max out on ketamine. Yeah, I just want to make sure I really get this. I want to get your mindset.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, we wanted to see the effect, you know, so like we have.

[Dave Friedberg]

When you say we, you know that it's just you. Right.

[Brian Johnson]

Like, well, okay. So we spent six years building this brain interface. We built a custom asic, we pushed it through Covid. Like it was like an all in effort.

[Dave Friedberg]

You don't have like an intern or 23 year old analyst or something to be maxed out on ketamine.

[Brian Johnson]

Like, well, I was also doing blueprints. So I was like, you know, this is interesting. Like what actually happens to the brain when. And so like you think about. So you put this helmet on your Head and think of your brain like a globe. It has airports all around. You see traffic like New York to Tokyo. And so my patterns were very fixed in that 30 days running up to ketamine and then I did ketamine and it just scrambles your brain. Like all the traffic patterns are just remixed. And then two or three days afterwards it drops. So now you're open minded to new patterns and then days, three, four, five, you come up to your old patterns again. So that's why it makes sense. There's this therapeutic window where if you do a psychedelic, you're open to new ideas and doing things.

[Samir]

But.

[Brian Johnson]

So there was on the second day, I was in the office, we were walking in between meetings. We have these big walls. And I thought, why don't I just jump over that wall? Like why am I gonna take this long route? I just jumped over the wall, not thinking about it, like, Brian, what are you doing jumping over a wall? But it just. I did really behave differently and I had the way I thought, the way I behave. I couldn't really see my patterns very well, but. Because we were all watching it so closely. But it was cool. Now we have the ability to say what happens when anything.

[Dave Friedberg]

But you could have done gotten that information without doing that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Well, no, no, I think what you're referring to is this phenomenon where it kind of refrags your hard drive a bit and you disconnect from reality. Did you disassociate a bit? Did you see yourself outside of your own body? Did you see like you were here and Brian Johnson's here and then there's a universe and then you go past the universe and you're in that space that's outside the universe.

[Samir]

How much have you done?

[Brian Johnson]

Same place, same trip, same place.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, yeah, I've been there. It's pretty great.

[Dave Friedberg]

Sorry, Brian. Let me just. So there have been a lot of studies on this kind of neural plasticity that arises when you take these. You get like maximal neuroplastic. Basically the neurons are out searching for new connections. It really kind of activates those cells to go hunting. And people get rewired. And that's why trauma can get rewired out of your brain. And you can learn new stuff and develop new experiences. But it can also have profound changes on people's psychology, motivations, other sort of factors. Have you noticed any of that kind of residual effect? Motivations change, point of view has changed relationships, personalities are different relationships or people. Like you're different, different. You're X, Y or Z and you're not Brian, where that's kind of affected you in a way.

[Brian Johnson]

It was only one time, so I didn't notice anything in particular. It was really that acute two or three day window. I think if I would have paired some therapy in there, I probably could have done something meaningful, but I didn't. We just were really looking at the quantitative measurements. But yeah, I mean it really.

[Samir]

You're right.

[Brian Johnson]

Like it scrambles the brain. It was cool to see it because before this nobody had ever seen ketamine on the brain. You don't see the patterns that are in place. You don't see what's scrambled, you don't see when they reform. And you can take these patterns, think of like a 96 by 96 grid. You can use these patterns to assess intelligence, emotions, character traits. Like, it's very informative. And so these things, when you assess and you reassemble, you really can deduce a lot of, you infer a lot of things about the person.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, I mean, we're joking about it here, but I have some friends who have spent a great deal of time, money and effort on the MAPS project. Tim Ferriss. A number of my friends have really worked on this in a clinical session and setting. And it can have a profound impact on ptsd, on relationships, on trauma. But I just want to give people a caveat here that these are extremely powerful modalities and you need to do them in the proper setting. The set, the setting, the dose are all extremely important. But people with PTSD are coming out of 9, 11. My brother's a firefighter. A lot of firefighters in New York and first responders, they haven't gotten over it. And they've gone to some of these sessions and they've come out of it and they found peace. And it can process what can't be done in 100 sessions of psychotherapy, can get processed in two or three of these sessions. I think it's very important that we, we take it seriously. Even though some people are doing it at Burning man and having fun with it. I get it. People want to do that.

[Samir]

There's a dependency risk with ketamine that there isn't with a lot of the other substances that you can use too.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

This is the problem. It's interesting. My friend Tony Hsieh passed and he got addicted to ketamine specifically and it disassociated him. And that's the problem with the recreational use or the use alone. Chris There's a lot of very notable CEOs I know friends who have gotten into it and they've had good intention, and then maybe they're at home watching Netflix or YouTube and they are doing it out of boredom. And that's where it gets very pernicious. And I just. Be careful.

[Dave Friedberg]

Can we go back just to the content creator piece, Brian? I mean, you basically started talking about don't die, and you've created quite a bit of content around this. What's the model for building a business where you. Did you actively think, hey, I got to build an audience to get this effort to be successful?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. No, we actually didn't. So Kate, my co founder, is here with me. We were posing the question. We thought it was a cool question to ask. Are we the first generation who won't die? It's kind of like in 1870, you're back in there and you hear in town, people are like, hey, there's this new weird idea. There's this guy saying that there's these microscopic objects, they're called bacteria or something like that, they cause infection, they lead to death. And then others are like, that's stupid as fuck. Because really, it's just, you know, it's bad spirits. We know that's what's causing the situation. And so if you're getting to surgery, you really care to know is this a correct idea or incorrect idea? And turns out bacteria are real. They actually cause infection. They can lead to death. And I think the parallel here for us right now is like, are we legit the first generation who won't die? And so that was our effort, just actually scientifically go do that. And then someone did a Twitter thread on this, and it just went viral. Like, 50 million views. And we're like, what the. What's going on? The tsunami of hate came our way, and it was just like, there's so much raw energy under this topic. We didn't know that was the case. And so, yeah, we've just been trying to basically take people along the journey of, like, this is what we're doing. So content's really been like an afterthought to a primary mission, and now it's a primary modality for us to.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And you've productized it. I came home, my wife was joking about the nutty pudding. I mean, it's not my favorite, but it's healthy. And I've had it a couple of times. I eat it, and my wife's got the whole cupboard filled with blueprint stuff. I was told the Whisper number's over $100 million in sales.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, we'll be at a hundred million dollars in less than 12 months. But the goal was not to make money. So it went viral and people are like, I love this, I want to do it, but it's so damn hard.

[Samir]

Right?

[Brian Johnson]

You have to source all this stuff. And we had learned ourselves that when we source things that most labels are incorrect, most things are toxic and there's like a disaster out there. So we started sourcing our own stuff. And so like, well, why do we, why don't we just package this up? Like CPG sucks. It's the worst business in the world. So we were legit, like, do the world a solid, like make this available. Like we've worked so hard to make this available and it's impossible to do unless you're all, you're losing money or.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You make just a very modest profit margin.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. So we're almost basically breakeven.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Got it. So it's a 4 break even, not a 4, not a non profit. And Chris, you're drinking this new category of beverage you created. Maybe you could talk a little bit about your intent with your product.

[Samir]

Yeah, I think one of the easiest hacks.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Can we get a couple of these out here? I want to drink. I'm losing my energy. Thank you.

[Samir]

I think that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Let's go, Jonathan. Hurry up.

[Samir]

One of the easiest hacks that you can do if you want to be successful in CPG is take something that people are already consuming, source it better, improve the formulation and then put it back out. Right. A better for you, a better for you pair of underwear, A better for you chocolate bar. A better for you hydration drink. So we made a better for you energy drink. So evidence based, research backed, nootropic ingredients, efficacious doses, blah blah, blah. We bootstrapped it and I got to build it from the ground floor up and create the brand and come up with the copy, the shoots and everything else. And I love it. And now we've got to the stage where some really big players are sniffing around and we've only been in the market for 18 months.

[Dave Friedberg]

Are you guys going to do a CPG business? That's kind of the trend du jour. What would you do? What are you going to do?

[Colin]

I mean, we're a little bit different in that like our value prop is creator education. So we try and think of like what is an extension of our value prop and for us digital goods courses, that's like a direct extension. So that's what we have.

[Jason Calacanis]

As much as Brian is a content creator, I Will say, like, I came across Brian's content. I was marginally interested, kind of like, you know, confused by it, then got invited to one of his dinners. And I really commend you for doing the dinners because I think the dinner is like, it's very unscalable, but it actually creates a lot of scale and people come to those dinners like me. I've been talking about that dinner for I don't know when that was six, seven months ago, and telling a lot of people about it. And it was a very impactful event. And I think actually the creators today who are doing things like this, getting people together physically, last week when we were here, there's a creator named Jake Shane sold out the Moody Center. It was about 3,000 people. He started as a TikTok creator up there for an hour and a half by himself doing comedy.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Amazing.

[Jason Calacanis]

And it's amazing. And I think like getting people together and actually having like face to face impact, that's where I think you can build a product.

[Samir]

You know how we were saying it's gonna be lovely if there's a counter movement against the tiktokification. Very short form video. I do get the sense that coffee and chill. Do you know what that is? Have you heard of coffee and chill or mushroom cowboy? These are daytime, sober, rare.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, I saw this on TikTok.

[Samir]

Yeah. So paradoxically, a couple of hours on a Saturday or a Sunday from 10am or midday or something like that. And I think that what we're seeing is the equivalent here of the work from anywhere. Digital nomads degenerate, wake up whenever you want, fuel yourself with caffeine and get back, get to work. And this is the backlash against that, which is people are desperate for in person events. They're desperate for stuff like this. And it's not just this. Think about any conference you've ever been to. The speakers, cool, whatever, they're the headliners you go to see. But what you're really there for are the conversations in the foyer in between the different events.

[Colin]

I gotta say, like the higher, the higher the barrier sometimes the bigger the fan, right? Like your episodes are three hours long. That's a pretty big barrier. Like you get to the end, you're invested, like you're a fan of you guys. It's the same thing with events, right? Like there are brands and creators now that are starting with events.

[Dave Friedberg]

I think it makes so much sense. Think about like you give up your, your form of social engagement in a kind of free way, not a structured way as soon as you're done with college and then you're at the workplace. And at the workplace, if you're working in an office, it's like you got the thing to do and you're done. Then you go, like, where else do you have this kind of social engagement at? Scale.

[Samir]

They're also pre selecting, as you say, if it's a three hour long podcast or it's a really niche topic, it's a particular series of Warhammer 40K that not many people know about, or it's some weird Japanese anime. Like you are pre selecting for people like you, assuming that you're interested in it. This is why Reddit is so good, right? Reddit is a website filled with people who couldn't find others to have that discussion with in their hometown.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That's true.

[Dave Friedberg]

That's very true.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It's very true. Well, you know, I just want to point out with these CPG products, the creators who are making them. Like when you two gentlemen make something, or Sax is making this all in.

[Dave Friedberg]

Tequila or where's my super Gut bars?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And he has super gut, which is fantastic. The peanut butter one is pretty good. You know that Freeberg's not making super gut, or you're not making blueprint or you're not making tonic new tonic. You're not doing it because you want to maximize profitability. You want to be proud of it. You want to know that the person buying it had a great experience and it was good for them. Right?

[Samir]

Fills a hole that didn't exist. And the other thing, which I'm sure you guys have sensed as well, the online course is the best way if you want to. The margins are amazing, the scale is just fantastic. But you never get to see someone holding your course. If you get to see someone, if.

[Jason Calacanis]

You do it as cohorts, which we have done, you do get to see them digitally. And now our idea is to actually go, hey, can we take that? And have that be also entry into a live workshop or live session that's.

[Samir]

Gonna crush perilously close to creator Tony Robbins. I can see you on stage, Joey.

[Dave Friedberg]

I'll make a bet right now that'll make you guys more money than anything else combined.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I think that's your question that you asked before was like, how does that compare? Like right now, the reality is in a single check, a brand deal makes more money when it's one client. But as what we're watching right now in the course business is like 100 people on an $800 product is significant. A thousand People, it gets even more significant because you guys will sell tickets.

[Dave Friedberg]

To the live event but the sponsors to get that targeted audience in a captive way will pay you more than they'll pay for the online. That's what you guys will make.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But also think about the value prop for people go to school, they go 50,000, $250,000 in debt. And then what I hear from young people all the time is they go take a course afterwards and that course for $800 does more from them in the marketplace and getting jobs than the degree did. And I think this roll your own education is very similar to function health in a way which is like I'm going to take control of it. I'm not going to have an MD direct my healthcare, I'm going to get my blood work myself, I'm going to do my research, I'm going to go on ChatGPT or Grok or whatever. I'm going to ask about Peptides, I'm going to ask about this, I cross reference that. I'm going to listen to your podcast or Huberman, you know, whatever. And I think that this self reliancy and this new category of products and services that are available, it kind of resets this industrialization that occurred. I'm sure Procter and Gamble and some of these things didn't start out with the evil intent that is now in their products and in their system.

[Dave Friedberg]

You got to cut that out.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Well, I don't give a fuck. I'm not.

[Dave Friedberg]

Honestly, it's like Proctor again. I'll give a.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

They're pretty dying kids cereal, you know, like, like their cereals can go.

[Dave Friedberg]

They're the enemy, they're bad guys.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I don't give a. About their sponsorship.

[Dave Friedberg]

Seriously. I guarantee you're using Procter and Gamble toothpaste in about three hours.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, no, no, I got that. Tom's wife puts me on all this. I'm telling you, they literally are putting dye in children's cereal, they're putting corn syrup in children's cereal, they're poisoning the country to make an extra 2, 3, 4, 5 cents. What's the word you used? We were talking about the word England. You use the C word.

[Samir]

Ah, yes.

[Brian Johnson]

So I agree. Jason, these guys, right? We can cut it, but I agree. So we just launched a new endeavor called Don't Die Certified and we're testing foods.

[Dave Friedberg]

Go.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh yeah, let's go.

[Brian Johnson]

Baby foods, pet foods. Yeah, all packaged foods. And we got the early results back.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You got the receipts?

[Brian Johnson]

We do. And so yeah.

[Samir]

How bad is it?

[Dave Friedberg]

Worse.

[Brian Johnson]

Worse than you think.

[Dave Friedberg]

Yeah. Sorry. What do we have, Brian, what did you test? Dies?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, we're. So we're doing heavy metals.

[Dave Friedberg]

Heavy metals.

[Brian Johnson]

Heavy metals. Yep. Then we're doing glyte, some other agrochemicals and then maybe a few phase.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What's the worst product you got so far?

[Brian Johnson]

So okay, we got results back from.

[Dave Friedberg]

Have you done any phthalates? Have you done plastics or is that separate?

[Brian Johnson]

Yes, we're doing that too. So we'll probably have it later. There's less evidence around that, but yes. The cool model we're doing is if you find your food, go to the website, we'll launch this next week, find your food and say I want this tested. So you can then put up the money if you get enough money. So it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What does that cost? Three, four grand?

[Brian Johnson]

No, like 500 bucks. What?

[Samir]

Wow.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, I'm doing 10.

[Samir]

Crowdfunding. Other people that also eat that thing from Sweetgreen can be like, I want to know if it's got loads of plastics in it.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. So then the test gets triggered, results come back and then we go to the brand and we say, hey, come claim your product. So they then come back and we say, all right, now do you pay back the people who funded your test like you should have been testing in the first place, so they're doing the work for you. So we want to do the food ohm in the U.S. we want to test 20% of foods that make up 80% of the U.S. diet. So then we can say on average, the average American consumes blank mercury per day or catamine or whatever. So we tested a few of the things. We looked at diapers. There was a dangerously high level of glyphate in diapers because of the cotton. Cotton. Exactly.

[Dave Friedberg]

Roundup ready cotton.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. And then we also tested tampons, which graphite. High heavy metals.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Which brands heavy metals. Call them out right now.

[Brian Johnson]

We can't. Yeah, so we, we.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Okay, we got the test soon.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. So we're going to work reveal the first few ones. But dog food was really bad, which makes sense. Dogs have been living, you know, their shorter lives now. But yeah, once you start seeing this, it's really pretty.

[Samir]

Have you guys checked out plasticlist.org do you see that? Nandalizing.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh yeah, that's another rich dude spending his money.

[Dave Friedberg]

Intelligent.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I love it. No, I told you.

[Dave Friedberg]

But look this.

[Jason Calacanis]

Hold on a second.

[Dave Friedberg]

It's all. I know it's super hyperbolic, but like just the plastic thing, it's really important to note they rank things. But you also have to look at the absolute numbers. This is where this can get a little too carried away. I think that there's a lot of shocking in there that's super bad. But you've also got to recognize that a tiny amount that's like 1.1trillionth of something that could ever affect your body, it'll flush out. May not be that bad. So we've gotta be really cognizant on how we interpret this stuff.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

These mother knew the whole time they were doing it. They knew.

[Dave Friedberg]

Who's they? This is like when the induction Brian's.

[Samir]

Like, giving you one third of a.

[Brian Johnson]

New tonic and you've got fired up.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Thank you.

[Brian Johnson]

This is great.

[Dave Friedberg]

This is a great.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, I'm telling you, I'm so. I have. I am so infuriated about this because these people. You know it's true. You know it's true. They knew they were doing this. And it takes some rich guy who's bored and principled. No offense.

[Dave Friedberg]

I love you.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You know I love you. And the. Who's the guy who's doing the plastic dot org?

[Dave Friedberg]

Zack not three Freeman.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, Nat Freeman, another rich Internet guy. He's like, you know what? I'm bored. These guys are screwing people over. I'm gonna test plastics.

[Samir]

Annie Hari turns up with 400,000 signatures outside of Kellogg's HQ and says, you make in the same factory, the Canadian version, which uses beetroot coloring and carrot coloring to make it. And the exact same factory is throwing red 40. And yeah.

[Brian Johnson]

So, like, so again, to back you, Jason, on this. So Gerber. So there was a law passing by California that said baby food providers have to disclose heavy metals in their foods. So it went into effect January 1st. And so we go to Gerber's website.

[Dave Friedberg]

All heavy metals.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I think the four. Four big. And so it's like, okay, so go to Gerber's website. I can't find heavy metals results anywhere. And then I realized my VPNs on and I'm coming from a server outside of California. They've IP blocked.

[Dave Friedberg]

No way to.

[Brian Johnson]

Yep. California only IP origination, and they hide it. And so this is what I'm saying. These companies, these are nefarious. It's really not good.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What do you think of Bobby Kennedy, friend of the pod, and him taking this on for Maha? I don't want to make it political, but how did we get to this?

[Brian Johnson]

How would it happen?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Freiberg, this is the good shit, man. This is the good.

[Dave Friedberg]

You guys like this?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. They love it, man. This is the.

[Samir]

This is how IT channel.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We take little detours.

[Colin]

Hey, Proc.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We take detours. This is a side quest worth taking.

[Dave Friedberg]

Give me one of your nicotine drinks, jb.

[Samir]

There's others. There's others in the other green room. There's some in the other green room.

[Dave Friedberg]

I'm okay. I'm okay. I did. I did a lot of drugs earlier.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What do you think of Bobby Kennedy?

[Brian Johnson]

I. I think he is going to challenge status quo power. And I think that's going to create a lot of conflict and a lot of reconfigurations. I think it'll refrag.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I like the refresh.

[Dave Friedberg]

There's a lot. Look, the thing. There's a lot of really important questions being asked that are not asked in the way that they're being asked now. That's the most important thing is the system needs to be challenged. And whatever's left will get hardened. And whatever shouldn't be there will get blasted away. And that's it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But you gotta name and shame.

[Dave Friedberg]

You gotta ask the market.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That's the thing that really pisses me off. You gotta name and shame in order for them to do what's right. That's what's so up.

[Dave Friedberg]

They wanna do any. They wanna do any of the AMAs or.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, I don't know. I felt like this was going in a nice direction. I enjoyed the conversation. I got into the conversation I find enjoyable.

[Dave Friedberg]

Just see if there's any cool AMAs people ask these questions.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Come on.

[Samir]

I've got a question for Brian. In the meantime, I'll look for a good question. Brian, if you were to. Without someone having to completely decimate their entire diet and never look at meat again, what would you say are sort of top triaged lifestyle changes most people should look at making based on what it is that you guys have looked at?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I mean, the power laws are so clear. Sleep is like by far and away the biggest power law. Then exercise number two, diet number three. And so it's just being consistent on those three things. Then once you get those two, those three layers, you can go down other layers. But what we've tried to do is. We tried to say anything which increases my speed of aging is a form of dye. So how do you eliminate that? And then we just started with the power laws. I start with zero all the way down and just. Yeah.

[Dave Friedberg]

Top three things for sleep.

[Brian Johnson]

So the thing you want to do is you want to lower. So the key marker is lowering your resting heart rate before Bed. That is the number I would say if you can mark, if you can optimize one marker your entire life, it's that. So before you go to bed tonight, look at a wearable or take your pulse. It's your resting heart rate. So tonight, let's just say you're at 55. So your goal of the next week or two is to try to get down to 50 the next month, 45. As you do that. So the way you drive it down is you have your final meal of the day at least two hours before bedtime. So if you go to bed at 10, be done at 8, and then push it back an hour, you're okay, 30 minutes each day. And as you push it back every day, your heart rate's gonna go down incrementally. Cause your body has more time to digest. So then you also find that food you eat. Like if you eat a big pasta or, or pizza or something, it will jack up the heart rate. So mine right now is 44 beats per minute. So if I eat late in the day, if my last meal of the day is at noon, and I did that after like a few hundred experiments of like, what optimizes my resting heart rate. If I have a big meal, like at 5 or 6, I'll be up my low 50s, and that will take away about 30 to 40% of my sleep.

[Dave Friedberg]

So you go to sleep super hungry.

[Brian Johnson]

Actually, I'm okay. Yeah, my body's really adapted. So food is a really big one, and then two is wind down routine. So you need to calm yourself down. You can't have your phone up. You need to turn it off. Give yourself like 30 to 60 minutes, decompress in the day.

[Dave Friedberg]

Because if you leave your kids in the house and go sleep in the garage.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. No, no warm shower that could help.

[Brian Johnson]

And actually a book in hand has probably the best evidence. So it's what Chris was saying, right? It's like you can't do anything. So screen off, book in hand. Spend even 10 minutes and you'll be amazed at how much it'll calm you down.

[Samir]

Yeah, there's some cool stuff around. People thought it was the blue light from screens that were impacting melatonin release and cortisol and stuff. As you went to sleep. It seems like it's much more what you're interacting with on the phone that you're so engaged that dopamine's firing. You're probably getting riled up about you sending stuff to friends. It's triggering all of these ideas in you Suppose if you just sit down and read Red Rising or something by Pierce Brown and you go off to sleep dreaming about being it.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. And you can measure it by how much your heart rate goes up or down. So you now have a quantitative benchmark every single day.

[Samir]

If you could peg that those habits regularity versus duration. What's more important?

[Brian Johnson]

Consistency is so important because your body tells time like a clock. Like when I was, I did eight months of perfect sleep, 100% sleep every night to show I could do high quality sleep.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You tracking on Whoop or you tracking on? Yeah, and they tend to are pretty close, no?

[Samir]

Oh yeah.

[Brian Johnson]

I mean like they're all, they're all relative comparisons, they're not absolute. So just stick find one. They're all fine.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. This has been the big unlock for me. I am now sleeping. I got a 94 last night, I got a 99 two nights ago. It's my higher score ever. I'm really dialing in the sleep and it's changed, changed everything for me.

[Brian Johnson]

It's the biggest life improvement you can do, period. It's the best in performance, hands and drug. It is like. It is just better than anything on market. But like be consistent because your deep sleep window happens in the first two hours of night. And so that's when the garbage trash collector comes through to pick up all the trash in your body. If you miss that window, you miss it. So you miss the garbage trash collection. So that's why pick your bedtime and be consistent. Otherwise you get junk accumulation on the inverse of that.

[Jason Calacanis]

I have a six week old baby, so I have the least consistent sleep right now. How long can I endure that?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'll tell you two things that also worked for me because I sometimes sleep with my bulldog and that was killing it. But I got these nice headphones and I'll listen to some really high fidelity sleep music and use an eye mask. And both of those added a couple of points and that was really a good unlock for me. How are you sleeping, Chris?

[Samir]

Yeah, pretty good.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, pretty good.

[Samir]

Thank you. Yeah. Audiobook As I go to sleep. Turn that off. And you've probably got a problem with the ionizing radiation. Non ionizing radiation. You bothered about Bluetooth headphones, Brian?

[Brian Johnson]

No.

[Samir]

Oh, that's good. That's the first thing I've proposed to you that I'm still allowed to do in my life. Everything else is like the fun police that comes in and tells me everything's. Oh, the die police. I guess.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I'm actually the happy police right like the shit I say, it makes you happy. People, they have this misconception that, like, staying up late and missing bedtime and drinking is happy. It's not. It is sad. It makes you depressed. And we have to be honest. Like, we think it's happy. It's not.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Well, listen, thank you to all of our guests. And, you know, you're very busy. I really appreciate you coming here. I know that you've been busy. And congratulations on the big win for Nosferatu. That was great. That's an Oscars reference. Thank you to the people who got it. But seriously, are you worried? Because, I mean. Yeah. Are you sure what you're doing, like, this extreme is a good idea? I'm a little concerned you might be turning into a vampire. You are doing the blood transfusion?

[Brian Johnson]

You know, I did it because my dad was experiencing cognitive decline, and he called me in a panic and he said, I will do anything to save my consciousness. And so I did it for him. So the headlines was all about my son and my. My me.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But what, you did a transfusion with your dad?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. That was the whole.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

After doing it with your son?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. So I. Pre.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Generational.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes. My dad called me. He's like, okay, I'm experiencing cognitive. So he was writing something for work. He walked away and he came back and it was a jumbled mess. And he's like, I'm experiencing cognitive decline and I can't see it. He said when I thought I would start, like, forgetting names or, like, missing keys, but, like, right there in front of me, I didn't see the jumbled mess. So he called me. He's like, I'm panicking. And so I was like, dad, we're actually looking at this new evidence on these plasma infusions. I'm happy to give you a plasma if you want to try it. We don't know if it's going to work or not. So then my son heard, and he's like, I'm in. We'll do a trigenerational thing. Like, great. It's a family activity.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Is there any empirical evidence of this?

[Dave Friedberg]

Chris, we should talk about this another time. But there's a lot of good work on this.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You think that this is a path worth pursuing?

[Dave Friedberg]

I mean, it's longer conversation.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Chris, what are you doing after? You want to do some blood transfer?

[Samir]

I'm doing ketamine with Brian. Okay.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Can we transfuse this.