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Julian Dorey Podcast
#339 - Anti-Spy Phone CEO Responds to Israel Link Allegations & Exposes Apple’s Cult | Joe Weil
03:23:42
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- [00:00]
A
You don't need to be faster than the bear, you need to be faster than the other hunter. We should not be worried about crazy conspiracy theories. We should be worried about what is happening because it's completely insane. I think when we look at the effect that phones have had, I don't think we realize how big the change has been. 2010, our screen time might have been like three, eight and a half hours a day. Today the average screen time is well over seven plus hours and people are seeing 12,000 ads a day.
- [00:22]
B
I just want to get some background on Joe because you are coming from the belly of the beast.
- [00:26]
A
The guy who sort of brought me in, one of the OG guys and he goes, you know, I just want to prepare you people have this image of Apple from our advertising and marketing. I just need you to know it is nothing like that at all. If it's a female and they've seen a high incidence of deleted selfies, that indicates like a low self image and they might be a good target for a specific type of. Yeah, but I mean, that's crazy, right? This is a way to do social studies with it. How do we change these big things? The unplugged phone first, the experience.
- [00:52]
B
Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge, huge, huge help.
- [00:59]
A
Thank you.
- [01:10]
B
All right. How you bugging us at home? What are you doing to us? I'm skeptical here.
- [01:15]
A
Literally nothing, man. We don't need to, we don't need to bug anyone.
- [01:17]
B
That's exactly what the villain says at.
- [01:19]
A
The beginning of the movie.
- [01:20]
B
It's like, we're not doing anything wrong. Then Jurassic park blows up.
- [01:22]
A
You know, that's that. That, Yeah, I get that. People definitely have this fear like, you know, is there some backdoor into this or something like that? Which is understandable, right?
- [01:32]
B
Yeah, you have to get it. I mean, we've all watched the last 10 years unfold. It's like one thing after another. And for you it's like really watching the last 20. If we're just talking about tech.
- [01:42]
A
Yes.
- [01:42]
B
And what's happened? You were around for, you know, the post at Apple. We're going to talk about that today. But for the post, iPhone boom, where it becomes the center of the world effectively. And you've seen the power from literally from the inside of what technology like this has. And naturally a lot of us goddamn civilians out here are always a little bit afraid of what that can mean.
- [02:05]
A
Sure, yeah. It's it's amazing how quickly we went to a product that's so personal that it's with everyone all the time.
- [02:12]
B
That's right.
- [02:13]
A
And, you know, it's not only that it's with us all the time, but the big boom, I think a lot of us lived through it. We didn't know it was happening was actually with LTE and 4G, that's when, like the being on the apps all the time started.
- [02:27]
B
Right.
- [02:27]
A
Because as soon as it went from 3G to 4G, you had video and fast apps and Internet, and that's when things really change. And Uber and all of that stuff where the phones became like the way we all connect in all of these different verticals. Right. And yeah, it's crazy that we're all carrying around these phones, which are basically like targeting vectors.
- [02:46]
B
Targeting vectors, sure.
- [02:48]
A
Yeah.
- [02:48]
B
Do they call them that at Apple?
- [02:49]
A
No, people at Apple, it's like. No, I would say. I would say Apple, like the OG Apple is, you know, like any company that's grown over time. There's definitely like an OG element at Apple of like, Steve's original people, who are some of the greatest, smartest people you'll ever meet. And I was very lucky and blessed to have worked, worked with and for those people. And I think a lot of those guys, at least my impression is I don't think most people in that space want people to be using their phones all the time, which I know sounds. Sounds weird because that sounds like a sort of counter incentive. But I think when we look at the effect that phones have had on the culture, right? Individual, well being, mental health, teenage self harm, all of this stuff, it's. It's pretty obvious. So that's kind of a tension point.
- [03:42]
B
Yeah, I. I remember there was a documentary that came out towards the beginning of COVID talking about, like the. The addiction of social media, and obviously had a lot to do with the phones and things like that. And I got. I can't remember what that was called, but I remember that dude, you know who I'm talking about, Joe. He was. He was on, like, a lot of the podcasts. He was on Joe Rogan, talking about it like one of the guys who was behind the doc.
- [04:03]
A
Oh, Tristan Harris.
- [04:05]
B
Yeah. The Social Dilemma.
- [04:06]
A
Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
- [04:08]
B
And that one of the guys they talked to was the dude who invented the infinite Scroll. And he had such guilt about it because he. And I believed him. He didn't intend for it to do what it ended up doing, but it goes to show you, like, the Race for innovation mixed with capitalism. And I believe in capitalism very much to be clear. But like this is where sometimes it can go a little too far to where you're doing something to get a result and then afterwards you're like, oh, I just built Frankenstein.
- [04:37]
A
Totally. The good news is within our system we can also correct quickly. So I think that's we have a lot of more options in the future than we might realize.
- [04:45]
B
What do you mean by that?
- [04:46]
A
Sure. So I mean we're just all making choices that we can change. You know, we're making choices we can change. And I agree with you. And obviously I've seen it like we've lived through one of these historic shifts, Right. Anyone in their from their 20s to 40s has lived through one of these historic shifts. And I don't think we realize how big the change has been. Right. So let's just give a couple of examples in like 2010, not, that's not that long ago, we were all seeing on average a few thousand ads a day max, right. Our screen time might have been like three and a half hours a day. Today the average screen time is well over seven plus hours. For Gen Z, it's much, much higher. And people are seeing 12,000 ads a day. So that's like not even a full generation. Right. And the amount of our consciousness that's being informed by these systems has dramatically expanded. And I think that one of the big awakenings for me was to realize that we have to some extent a delusion of diversity of things in the Internet, right. Oh, there's all these apps, there's all these signals I can get. However, they're all going through two operating systems and Apple and Google can seem like different companies on the surface, but in fact they're quite symbiotic and in many ways when it comes to beliefs, they have the same exact convictions. And I think we saw during COVID you know, if speech is inconvenient, they'll censor it, you know, at a platform level beneath even the apps, right?
- [06:12]
B
Oh yeah.
- [06:13]
A
So I think that's that for me was, was a big wake up was like this huge change has happened and we basically have two options and we need more options.
- [06:22]
B
You say though, like when you talk about things being corrupt, correctable because we can change. Yes, on the surface you are right about that. But you go outside just like I do and you see people's behaviors. They have been trained to be like this at all times. Dopamine, hit dopamine, hit dopamine. They're not even looking at really anything. They're just looking to look. Sometimes I'll get caught doing it, too, to the point that it is now, like, almost. I don't want to take this too far and beyond where it's scientifically appropriate to do so, but in some ways, it's almost evolutionarily programmed into us now.
- [06:59]
A
Yeah. I think again, though, that has happened and we can change it. Like, we can change it. We can pick different products, we can pick different habits. I listen, I'm the first to admit, like, I use my phone too much. Where are the places that shows up for me? You know, I have a big family. Having dinner with my family is very important. My wife will sometimes point out that I'm, like, looking at the phone. This is not good. Right. This is a problem. I do not want to be sending that message to my children.
- [07:24]
B
That's right.
- [07:25]
A
I'll go to church. I'll take my family to church. And I'm like, looking at email like, this is not healthy. Right, right. So I think, again, like, we can pick products that help us with this and that don't make money off of this. I think this is the key thing, is this thing that we've been trained into is we're on products that make more money the more we use them.
- [07:45]
B
Yeah.
- [07:46]
A
Think about it like this. You ever take a cab somewhere in that whole story of, like, the. You're somewhere you don't know, and the guy might take you on, like, the long way to get somewhere. Okay, so what's that about? Right. He's trying to get the rate as high as possible, as many miles as possible to boost the price. The same thing is happening with most of the apps on your phone. Right. Their goal is to keep you in as long as possible and to get as much information about you, because the more information they have, the more the ad is worth on a per ad basis. Right. So the goal is make the ads more valuable, increase the number of ads, and then they make more money. So I think we can pick systems that don't do that. Right. We can pick systems that don't do that. And again, back to the operating system level, beyond just the apps, you know, Apple and Google have this symbiotic relationship where they, you know, Apple's paid many billions of dollars to use Google as the default search engine on the phone. It's indirectly making more money the more people are on the phone. And I think that that's not really in the customer's interest. So I think, again, like, moving in New directions into phones and options and operating systems that aren't making money off of that is where we can start getting some better solutions. Now, are there still going to be a ton of people who are super addicted to stuff? Sure. But like anything else, I think we can pave the way and you know, things change over time. You know, things change over time.
- [09:07]
B
All right, couple things there to two different points I want to get your response to first would be I could see how it's doable with people who were born without the phones. Right. So I remember a world without iPhones. When I was a kid, you went outside, you know, you weren't sitting here like this all the time. That said kids who are like 18 right now, 16 to 18, they don't. And I remember, I think it was Jesse Itzler once said that you make around. The average human makes around 30 to 50,000 decisions a day. These are everything from micro decisions that you don't think you're really thinking about, but it's using a little bit of hardware in your head or software in your head, power to do it all the way to do I want to eat this or eat that. Like an actual conscious decision. And so when you give me a number, like we used to be looking at roughly 3,000 ads a day in three hours on the phone, but now we're looking at 12,000 a day with all these other hours on the phone. Like, think about how much that's chewing into the average human decision making capacity and how much like analog power now has been devoted to that. To the point that people are fatigued to do everything else in their life. So they go back to the thing that's simple. How do we fix that? For the youngest generation in particularly, forget other people who maybe can change.
- [10:24]
A
I think that we make these decisions on a. Personally, I think the core unit of civilization is the family. So my kids do not have access to phones. They have access to very little technology.
- [10:34]
B
How old's your oldest?
- [10:35]
A
11. And I love that I'm under a lot of heat, brother. Like, I mean they're pushing me like, but dad. But like I bought a PS5, I let them use it for a few months and now that thing is gone because it was just like. I mean I personally, what I witness is my children do much better when they're outside, when they're building stuff, when they're painting stuff. You know, we're blessed to be on like a rural situation. There's animals and stuff. They get to help with that. That to me is A much better path for them. And I think it's like, one. One person at a time. And I think this stuff can change, you know?
- [11:10]
B
That's great parenting, though.
- [11:11]
A
Well, it's my wife. I'm blessed. I have a beautiful, wonderful wife who's. Who's the. Doing an incredible job with that.
- [11:17]
B
Good answer.
- [11:18]
A
It's. It's true. It's the truth. She's. She's with them right now. But I. Another thing, like, we do this thing on our product on the UP phone, where instead of, like, screen time, which is about the phone, we have a thing called Time Away, which is about you. So when you pick up the phone, you see how long it is since you've used it, which for me, is very helpful. Right? So, like, it's great. I love this feeling of, like, I'm literally at dinner, and I'm like, I know that phone phone's gonna say, like, 75 minutes when I go back, you know? And I'm like, I'm. Wait. That's like doing reps. And I'm like, yes, I did it. And I'm so proud of it. I feel so relieved that I didn't ruin dinner by being distracted, you know? So for us, like, we literally make no value off using the phone. Our value comes from selling the product.
- [11:58]
B
And we're gonna break down the whole phone, people.
- [12:00]
A
We'll get there.
- [12:01]
B
We'll get there.
- [12:01]
A
But, yeah, this thing for me is like that. So that little change, right? That little change for me as a human being who uses the phone way too much, I'm a very busy person. That little thing helps me have a totally different relationship with it. So back to your question about, like, how do we change these big things? You know, I had a friend who did very well in business, and he said, if you take care of the small numbers, the big numbers take care of themselves. And I think a lot of this is like that. You know, I think we can change little things, and big things change over time. And the big. The big problem to solve is just better products. We need better products. The reason we're all doing that is. Cause those are the best products. Well, we need better products.
- [12:38]
B
Yeah. That's interesting, that psychology of time away. It kind of reminds me of, like, with Netflix. They never show you how long you've been watching. They just show you how much time is left.
- [12:47]
A
Yes.
- [12:48]
B
So it's like flipping the switch on, like, well, I can make it that much farther. And in this way, you're doing that for a positive, like, oh, it was 70 minutes this time. Maybe next time it'll be 85. And you kind of gamify it.
- [12:58]
A
We literally show you that. We compare it to yesterday. I think you're totally right. Netflix has described their business model as competing with sleep. Like that. We don't, we don't have that value. Right.
- [13:10]
B
I didn't say it was aligned in.
- [13:11]
A
Values, but, you know, but I mean, that's crazy, right? Like, I think this idea that, I mean, technology with the phones, it has seriously blurred the lines on who does it belong to? Right. Who does it belong to?
- [13:26]
B
Yeah.
- [13:26]
A
If it's doing things that I don't know, if it's making money off me that I don't understand, does it really belong to me? And the answer is, of course not. No. You know, and I think that that's, that's the key is just we need better products that actually belong to the people who buy them.
- [13:39]
B
So you want to create that better future utilizing the element of capitalism, which says better products, that is new competition coming into the space and creating an incentive for customers to go there, as opposed to what has been the oligopoly system of say, I mean, it's basically a monolith. But Apple and Google saying, like, no, we're going to incentivize people using the phone as much as possible because that's how we make money. And so capitalism just goes to us. We make more money.
- [14:10]
A
I don't think that they're, that they're actually that different, these paths. I believe that. And again, I think Apple, Apple's a very big company. And in some regards, I would say, like, the challenges at Apple are primarily because of how successful it's become. Right. So I think at its heart, Apple really has and had a strong view on privacy. That, that was very meaningful for me when I was there. But yet then again, we have these other things, right, where money's made in these other ways. So what I would say is this. I believe that Apple and Google became really, really successful because they made really good products and Meta became real or Facebook became really successful because it had a really good product. And I think the job for people who want to change the future is to make better products. So I, I, you know, I understand today we can look at these companies and see them like these oligarchs that are, you know, controlling society or whatever. They are literally just responding to our demands. Yes, they are like trained seals. And we're saying, give me that, give me the new camera for 1500 bucks made in China, whatever. The story is. And they're like, sure, boss. Here you go, boss. So. So I think with new products and education and telling people about new products that are better, I think we'll. I think we'll see change. And again, I don't think it's going to be. One of the things I think we need to also understand is success isn't like everyone's on a new single product. It might be that success is a more diversified marketplace. Right. And we believe that's very possible because apps are so ubiquitous now. Right. So it's like you can run a normal phone on a separate os, running normal apps, and it's like a normal phone experience. It's not like a different phone experience.
- [15:48]
B
Can you do that or does that not. This is where I'm not as knowledgeable. Does that not mean that the app makers themselves, be it this company over here, that company over there, have to make it compatible with your system.
- [16:02]
A
There are no. So everything basically runs. There's a couple of app. I mean, literally a handful of apps that require a certain Google service on Android that we don't provide on the phone for security reasons. And I mean, like a handful, and those won't work. But it's. It's so marginal. It's. And it's not noticeable. Like, I run YouTube on mine. Signed in normal Google Maps.
- [16:22]
B
And you're fine?
- [16:23]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [16:24]
B
Okay. We're going to be breaking down the unplugged phone today, which Joe is the CEO of the company, and Erik Prince was on this podcast. It was founded by him. We're going to be breaking down that entire thing today, the ins and outs, how it works. We're going to. You and I were talking before. We're going to make it digestible for everyone so they understand what everything is. So we're coming to that. I just want to get some background on Joe so that you guys understand, like, the world he comes from. Because, like, you are coming from the belly of the beast, so to speak, as you've already kind of laid out here, but you spent a lot of years at Apple. I want to get to what you were doing there. But how did you even end up in tech? Like, where are you from? What did you want to do when you grew up? Like, how did this happen?
- [17:04]
A
I grew up in Long island and New York City both. My dad was a big innovator in the video production space. Actually, I grew up watching digital video get invented.
- [17:18]
B
Wow.
- [17:18]
A
Yeah. My dad directed the first MTV Music Video of the year award in 19. I think it was 84. So I was five then. I. I grew up watching, like, post production get invented and all of this come to life. And I was making movies when I was a kid, and I was like, I was running an avid when I was like 10 or whatever, you know, it was. It was really. And I got to. He had wonderful people in his company that were like my uncles, wonderful, great people who really played a big role in my life. Um, so I got to see a lot of innovation in real time. Um, fast forward. I didn't really do the college thing. Um, part of my family, part of my dad's family's from Portugal. I grown up. I'm named after a guy from Portugal. I have this long name. My actual name is Jose Alchander de Pelagio. While. And I'm named after this guy, my dad's uncle, who was like this movie star in our family because he had been involved in the coup d' etat that overthrew the Portuguese dictator.
- [18:12]
B
Nice.
- [18:13]
A
And so I, like, always idolized this guy. He was like, super handsome and super fucking cool. Pardon me. You can say whatever you want, bro. This is New Jersey. I'm working on it. You're fine. Thank you.
- [18:22]
B
Have you heard me?
- [18:23]
A
Yeah.
- [18:24]
B
This is like a fuck, shit and cunt show.
- [18:26]
A
Yeah. I just went to the Luca Brasi deli, so I should come. Correct. So anyway, I became very interested in my uncle and his story in the revolution. I moved to Portugal in my early 20s, researched all about the revolution, ended up writing a book about the revolution and the role that the communists played in sort of delaying freedom to Portugal.
- [18:48]
B
You. You wrote a book?
- [18:50]
A
I did. And then when I came back, I was like in my early 20s and I, you know, I didn't really know what I was going to do. And I got a job at. My dad had two companies, and I got in New York, in midtown, and in advertising, production and effects. And one of them had not been succeeding. And I got like a very kind of entry level job there. But it was. Something crazy happened. I'll tell you, man. Like, it was like playing a video game. I just suddenly knew what to do in a ton of situations, I think, because I'd been around the business and been him watching him build this stuff. And very, very quickly we turned around this kind of failing company and I went from, you know, a kind of aimless, you know, kid to, like a businessman. And, like, I had all this sudden success in my mid-20s. And we, we grew this company. We had like hundreds of employees. It was incredible. We buil.
- [19:47]
B
How fast did that happen?
- [19:48]
A
It happened pretty fast, bro. It was, what happened was basically like the, I got involved in the company and it just like it was really out of gas. There wasn't a lot of morale, I think there wasn't a lot. There were some wonderful people in the company who obviously ended up being essential to making it really grow. But I would say like it didn't have a lot of pop to it. Our clients were ad agencies. I started meeting these clients and I just suddenly realized like, you know, when we're meeting with this client, it sounds like maybe they want the higher end service that costs more money. Why don't I present them that? And they would say yes. And then suddenly sales started doubling and doubling and doubling and doubling. So over a few years, I mean we like 5x sales pretty, pretty quickly. And it was, it was amazing. And you know, I was having like this crazy experience in New York, you know, having a lot of success and.
- [20:44]
B
Good things come with that.
- [20:45]
A
A lot, a lot of things, A lot of nice things and get out of your system. And as it evolved I could see something happening, which is a lot of our clients were these big Advertisers. Coca Cola, InBev, Unilever, whatever, Procter and Gamble. And we could, I could see very clearly marketing was consolidating, budgets were getting compressed. And I had my first son. And I'm holding this baby and it's like 2013, 2014. He's 20. Yeah, 2014. Isaiah, my beautiful son. And I'm like holding this cute kid and I'm like, man, like, do I want to bet my future, his future on this industry, knowing where it's heading? And that's when I teamed up with a friend of mine who I'd really looked up to my whole life who had an idea about a software app we could build. And I'd been building a lot of technology for this company that we'd grown. It was a very innovative animation company. And we took that expertise and deployed it to build a mobile app and put a team together. We founded this company and it was very exciting. We built this app that became part of what is now part of your iPhone. Apple. Very long story short, Apple acquired the company. There's a lot of details there, but that's how I got into Apple.
- [21:57]
B
We got time. What's the deal?
- [22:00]
A
It was pretty wild. One of our investors through my, one of our investors had a relationship with leadership at Apple. So my first meeting at Apple was with Jony. I've in the.
- [22:12]
B
Johnny, I've.
- [22:13]
A
Correct. In the design studio. Come on. No, no, Literally, that's the greatest industrial.
- [22:18]
B
Designer to ever live.
- [22:19]
A
He's a very talented person, and we show him the product. He was very excited and it was very positive.
- [22:26]
B
And Jony, I've liked your product.
- [22:28]
A
It was great.
- [22:29]
B
That's like Jordan saying you got games.
- [22:31]
A
It was a big moment. It was definitely one of these moments where felt like the curtain opened and it was like, you know, I've arrived, bro.
- [22:37]
B
I've read everything on Jony. I've. He's like a hero of mine.
- [22:39]
A
He's a very talented person. Yeah. He deserves a lot of the credit that he has. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that, that, you know, so long story short, I. We went through this process and in the end, I ended up becoming part of Apple. It was. It was a very tumultuous thing. I had a partner at the time. We didn't see eye to eye, so it was sort of like we needed to. To kind of make this move and it. That ended up working out.
- [23:04]
B
And did he go to Apple too?
- [23:05]
A
No, no. He was primarily, like, on the investing.
- [23:09]
B
Got it.
- [23:10]
A
Anyway.
- [23:10]
B
Got it.
- [23:11]
A
Yeah. Not like a yeah. And it turned out great. You know, I started this. I mean, they sort of created a role for me at Apple. It was very, like, I was very. The guys there were very gracious with me and created space for me to be very innovative in a company that is normally otherwise very structured. So over time, I got to build a team, this special projects team, creating a lot of new stuff. So, you know, if you have an iPhone, there's a number of areas of that that we touched.
- [23:40]
B
And real quick, before I ask about that, can you go back for one second?
- [23:44]
A
Sure.
- [23:44]
B
So when you're holding Isaiah in 2014 and you're like, where I'm at right now, this is not what I want for the future. You had had a lot of success, though. It's. But based on the success you were having in New York City right here, you'd probably built for yourself some pretty good wealth and obviously, like a good name. It wasn't like you were sitting there like, damn, I wonder how I'm going to retire, or something like that. Right.
- [24:08]
A
I think the core issue for me, the reason to make. Because I haven't had a lot of jobs. Right. I've only had a few jobs in my. I had that job and then I had Apple and then I have this. Right. So this was a big decision for me.
- [24:19]
B
Yeah.
- [24:20]
A
And it wasn't just this concern about the future of advertising. You know, I'm in a family business, which can be challenging. Right. So it's like I'm running one business, my father's running another business. And I'll just say that, like, our ability to successfully do that together got it got harder and harder.
- [24:40]
B
Sure.
- [24:41]
A
You know, and I think, you know, looking back, I think, you know, in some ways my dad was. You're not an easy guy to deal with. In other ways, I brought a lot to that relationship and had expectations of him that were not realistic and it was very stressful. You know, my old man was a very, he was a, he's gone now, but he was a very, very driven, very creative, dynamic, charismatic person. And he also could be a very challenging person to deal with. And the, you know, the pattern that had sort of emerged was like, you know, unhealthy family dynamics at work are not fun. You know, like when you, when you're sort of at work and like, you know, a lifelong struggle with your dad is controlling, like the course of a meeting. It's like, it's very deflating, you know, so my experience, and this is just one side of it, like I was having these, you know, good results objectively, and, you know, personal issues would sort of color how that was all interpreted. So, you know, I, I'll put it this way. Like, I. Around this time. This is a little over 13 years ago. Yeah. So around 13 years ago, one of the big changes that also catapulted this big shift for me that was wanting to start new things and also leave New York, that's when I moved to California. I'll put it this way, the trappings of New York and the successful life had caught up with me and I was ready to turn over a new leaf. So I've been sober since then. So I've. I had a lot of challenges and.
- [26:38]
B
Was your first kid. This might be too personal.
- [26:40]
A
It's fine.
- [26:41]
B
Was your first kid planned or was that.
- [26:44]
A
Yeah, I was, I was, I was married. His mom and I married. I think that we, you know, my first two sons are from one marriage. I've been divorced and I have a second wife. And yes. So that was not like an accident. And he's, he's amazing. But you know, at that time, like, I, again, like, I was very immature. I'm like, you know, I build this business going after all the crazy stuff in New York, you know, having this sort of big shot life. And you know, for me that got hollow very, very seriously. Right. So I found myself in this, in this kind of fork in the road and, you know, there were a lot of things to change and a lot of good things to move towards, you know what I mean? But a lot of what was sort of at the heart of some of the challenges then was this, like, you know, again, my dad and I had these fights, these conflicts, these age old things. It was, it was not good, it was not healthy.
- [27:49]
B
Do you think you were. It was a way of you. And I'm just reading between the lines here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a way of you kind of escaping that, escaping that dynamic you're seeing on a day to day to, you know, go out and get hammered or do whatever you were doing.
- [28:06]
A
Yeah, definitely. And yes, I was getting super hammered on a super regular basis.
- [28:12]
B
Hammered or.
- [28:13]
A
Yeah. By the whole thing. Yeah, I was. Vodka and cocaine and women I didn't know. Yeah.
- [28:21]
B
These days you got to check though, make sure they're a woman.
- [28:24]
A
Yeah. It was neither here nor there. It was pretty, it's pretty dicey. So. Yeah. Do I think that those things are related? Yeah. I also grew up around a lot of this stuff. There was a lot of partying and stuff around my family and I had actually, I'd been around one parent who was recovered, another parent who wasn't. And yeah, I mean, this, this, you know, here I am in this sort of coming of age time, early 30s, and I was still carrying around a lot of childish stuff. So it was really time to like, kind of move on and not like, move on from my dad, but move on to like, honestly, this addiction to conflict and this relationship and this fighting. And was my drinking part of that? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, my understanding of this. I've been very blessed big time to have this problem removed from my life because it was out of control for me. But, you know, at that time it was, you know, I would, I would think, like, you know, I'd wake up in a total disaster. I'd be like, oh, never again. I'm never doing this again. You know, and then I'd find myself that night, like holding the bottle of vodka and I'd be like, wait, I'm not supposed to do this, don't do this. And then I'd like pour it and here it comes. I'm like, don't drink this. You know what's gonna happen? And then the instant it would touch my lips, I'd be like, where's the cocaine? Like, where's the cocaine? And everything else would ensue and then this whole process would start over again. So in this sort of fork in the road. And it was actually a few years later that I decided to pursue this new opportunity, this new business in tech. I continued in the advertising business for a while, but it was. It was really like. It was this point of, like, man, like, I'm holding on to a life that I think like a script someone else wrote for me. You know what I mean? And I had been. I really had experienced a miracle. And I can tell you someone has been through this. Like, when you have a problem like this and God takes it away, it reorients everything because it's like I personally experience in my own life something that can only be described as a miracle. What happened to go from not being able to stop yourself from drinking to suddenly. Because when. When you really can't stop that. It is. Think of it like this, right? Imagine like, you know, there's a giant problem in your life, you know, this issue that is, like, really toxic. But it's you. You know, it's not cancer. It's not something else you can point to. It's you and your decisions. That is a very demoralizing experience.
- [31:11]
B
Oh, sure.
- [31:12]
A
And. And that feeling is very desperate. And I. I went through that. I lived through that. And it's. It was a. For me, obviously, a supernatural act that. That changed.
- [31:26]
B
Was that an overnight kind of thing or did you go to rehab? Like, what?
- [31:30]
A
I did go to rehab. I went to rehab for one month. And that is not. I went to one of these, like, nice fancy rehabs where, like, it's, you know, get like a back rub and acupuncture, whatever. Yeah. But for me, the thing. And I. I'm not speaking on behalf of this. I just can tell. You know, for me, I got exposed to Alcoholics Anonymous. I got exposed to people who had been recovered, and I found answers and a way of life that totally reoriented everything and. Yeah. So was it overnight? No, but it was much quicker than I. You know, much quicker than I thought it was going to be. I mean, when I first. When I first kind of hit that moment, I was like, oh, man. Like, you know, can I. Like, my biggest hope was like, can I just not drink? You know what I mean? I had no idea what was ahead of me.
- [32:24]
B
Was it all internal where you were just like, screaming out to yourself for help? Or were there also people around you like, dude, you got a serious problem with your ex wife, or people like that?
- [32:34]
A
Yeah, this. I was married after I got better so she. She hadn't seen any of that. Thank God. My kids never saw. No, it was both. People around me were seeing this, so. People around me were seeing this. There was an intervention six months before. I eventually asked for help.
- [32:54]
B
With your family?
- [32:55]
A
My family and. And people I worked with. And. And I. I was very arrogant in that moment. At the time, I thought, like, I'm some big shot, you know? And it's kind of a shock, though. No.
- [33:09]
B
Right.
- [33:09]
A
Yeah. They bring me into this thing. I literally left. I'm like, can I take a break? I call my attorney and I'm like, can they do this? He's like, why the fuck are you calling me? How the fucking odium dream, you know? I was like, in a dream world, right? So. So, yeah, these people that I love read these letters. Like, oh, man. Like, you know, Joe, we're. You're slipping away. Like, I wish you could be at Christmas. You're not a grip, you know, answer my phone, you know, whatever. I was like, not a good son or brother, you know, And I was not willing to hear that. And I said, all right, listen, you know, I'll just. I'll stop. I'm not going to some rehab, and I'll just stop. And that. The. The benefit is I actually really tried. I really, really tried. And, you know, I could just say for myself, the way this works is it's progressive.
- [33:53]
B
Mm.
- [33:53]
A
So the. What happened for me is the period of time that I could stay stopped got shorter and shorter. It's like the first time I stopped was like 11 months. And it was because some, you know, girl I was crazy about, I made a fool of myself in front of her and I said, that's it, baby.
- [34:07]
B
I'll stop.
- [34:08]
A
Stop for 11 months. Right? The next time it was one month. The next time it was one week. Right?
- [34:12]
B
Right.
- [34:13]
A
So by this time, I'm like, I'll stop. And I. I really meant it. I really meant it. And there I was, like, I was describing to you six months later. I remember very early in the morning, I was with some woman I did not know. It's 8 in the morning. I'm all gacked out. I was over here on the west side. I was in one of these big towers on the west side Highway. I'm in one of those. Look, I've got this crazy view. I'm looking out over the whole city. The sun's coming up. I'm like, oh, man, I got this meeting at 9 o'. Clock. I'm gonna do great. It's gonna be Great. I mean, it's gonna be amazing. And then I guess I passed out. And I Woke up at 3 o' clock in the afternoon with about 60 missed calls from my company that I'd built with these people that I really respected. And I heard this sound in their voice, which was the sound of someone I really cared about and respected pretending to believe me while I lied to them about where I was. And when I heard that, I was like, I was not prepared for that. I had a lot of other weird consequences and bad decisions, but that was something I was not prepared for. So in that moment, I, you know, I. It's. It was January 19, 2012. I, you know, I. That was when I sort of hit the button and I called my old man, actually, who'd been in that intervention. And I. I weeping, weeping, snot, everything. Because it hit me very clearly, I cannot run my life. I tried to stop drinking. I swear, I'm a smart guy. I can do things in the world. And I could not stop this. And I just knew, I can't do this. I cannot run it. So I remember calling him weeping. And I said something to the effect of, is that offer you made still available to this rehab that they wanted me to go to? And I'll tell you something, when you call someone crying and weeping, with snot pouring down your face, begging them for the offer they made you, that means your negotiating position has changed. Like, my. My relationship to this had changed, and I had been totally beaten down. And, you know, my old man showed up for me. He said, go home. Wait an hour. I'll call you back. It's gonna be okay. And the next day, I was on a plane to California. I went to this beautiful place. They said, hey, you gotta give me your phone. I said, okay. They said, give me your computer. I said, okay. I said, give me your belt. I said, okay, give me your razor. If anyone had said any of this the day before, I would have been like, do you know who I am? I'm important. You know, I mean, I got big things to do. You can't have my phone. And I was just like. I was just like, I need someone to show me what to do.
- [36:58]
B
You surrendered to it.
- [36:59]
A
I surrendered completely. And God showed up and took care of everything and fixed everything in a way that I could not imagine.
- [37:07]
B
Did you have any belief in God before that?
- [37:09]
A
Yes, I unfortunately had the experience of, yes. I. I've been a Christian since I was 25. I had an experience when I was 25, an experience I did, yes, yes.
- [37:21]
B
When people say that in here, it can mean, like, a UFO experience.
- [37:23]
A
I did not see a ufo. I. I fell. I fell and hurt myself very badly coming out of the shower, and I saw Christ.
- [37:31]
B
You saw.
- [37:31]
A
And there was no leading up to this. I. No leading up to this. So much. So, like, just to give you my background, right, if you ask my dad, hey, are you Christian or Jewish? You know, he'd be like, I'm not Christian. I'm not Jewish. I'm a New Yorker. Right? Like, what, are you kidding me? Right? Like, that's. That's what I grew up. That's. That's how we grew up, right?
- [37:49]
B
Yeah.
- [37:50]
A
So here I am, I'm coming from that position, right? And I have this event, and I look up and there's Jesus. And I'm like, jesus, like, what? And was he, like, decked out in.
- [38:00]
B
A robe or was he wearing, like, regular clothes we wear?
- [38:07]
A
He was not wearing normal. The clothing that we wear. I saw a person. It was him. There was a lot of light. And the key thing I can describe is that it's not just light, but, you know, when you get in your heater, like one of those radiant heaters, and you feel it warmer the closer you get, there was like, a force coming off of him that didn't just transmit. Like, it was almost. It had the. It was palpable, like, gravity, but it transmitted knowledge and love and information. So I was overwhelmed that Jesus was there. He understood everything about me, knew everything I'd ever done, and I was. I was like. And also, at the same time, I knew that he forgave me for all the things that I immediately knew were not okay, that I'd done. All of this happened in an instant.
- [38:57]
B
And you were hurt. You got hurt coming out of the shower?
- [38:59]
A
Correct. I fell coming out of the shower and injured my legs terribly. And I crawled to the phone, and when I got to the phone, some. Some voice in me said, stand up. And I said, but I can't. My legs are busted. And I suddenly felt myself putting pressure on my legs. I looked down. My legs were a disaster. My shins right below my knee were like. It was terrible. And I was, like, standing up. This is. This is not possible. I walk into the bathroom to splash water on my face. And because I was, like, experiencing, I thought, a hallucination or something. And when I picked my head up, there was Jesus. And that's. And that. That's when I saw. And I literally was like, Jesus. And I said, did you just fix my legs? And what I heard was, that's nothing. I only did, I only did that to show you I've been protecting you this whole time. And then I was taken through a, like a, like a picture book flashing through experiences of my childhood in which there were a lot of abuse and bad things happened with crazy people. And I would, I was in those situations, but he was there and he had his hand out over me as a child, protecting me in these situations. And we went one to the next to the next to the next.
- [40:08]
B
You were abused as a kid, correct?
- [40:10]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [40:12]
B
Do you mind me asking how. So you don't have.
- [40:14]
A
No, it's fine. I was, I mean, I was in an environment of, you know, when I was young, I was in a very chaotic environment where there was a lot of drug use and alcohol use and chaos. And in that environment, it was just a lot of hectic screaming, as far as I understand. I was left alone a lot, I've been told. And there was a period of time where I was sexually abused during this young part of my life. And again, like, all of this was shown to me. And one of the things I'd always wonder is like, how did I make it out okay. Of this?
- [40:55]
B
You had to re. Watch those images in your head, but.
- [40:58]
A
It was with if they were completely different lens, brother. Like, completely, like, God is real. So, like, I, I was not like, in pain. I was like, oh, my God, it's okay. This is all for your purposes. Like, it's okay. I felt complete clarity that, that God was protecting me and was in control. And, and I, yeah, it was overwhelming. It was very overwhelming.
- [41:24]
B
But this is a long, this is at least some years before you have your rock bottom moment too.
- [41:30]
A
Correct?
- [41:30]
B
You have.
- [41:30]
A
So, yes.
- [41:31]
B
And, and I, I understand this. Like, I, I, I don't think the two things need to be mutually exclusive at all. But it's interesting. You have such a holy experience like that, and then you still have years of struggle with something else that, by the way, like, we know how chemicals are when, with human beings. Like, it can take a power on people that has no, like, there's no real explanation for it. It just does. It doesn't make you a bad person or anything like that, but it affects the quality of your life. And, and you still dealt with that for a lot of years while you had this piece about like, oh, shit, I've seen Jesus.
- [42:08]
A
Totally. I had this experience, which, by the way, I don't wish on anyone what I, what I went through after that, because for years it Was great. I had this, I started reading the Bible, I started learning about God. I mean, it was like my eyes were totally opened as I started. Then I. Then right after that I get involved in this business, I started having all the success and I, I'll just put it this way. Like, as soon as I started making decisions with women that were not God's way around this, I immediately everything started unraveling.
- [42:39]
B
What do you mean by that?
- [42:40]
A
I mean like the Bible is pretty specific about like how men and women, you know, romantic relationships are supposed to be organized. Like they're designed a very specific way. Right.
- [42:52]
B
What do you mean by that?
- [42:54]
A
That where in the Bible am I referring to or what aspect of relationships?
- [42:59]
B
Yeah, like how they're designed, like just like man and woman marry kind of thing.
- [43:03]
A
Yes. So like I, as I understand we're designed to be married, to build a family and to not have romantic activity outside of that relationship.
- [43:14]
B
According to what, the way you interpret the Bible.
- [43:18]
A
Sure. Yes. That's what I see very clearly. Yes. Is that.
- [43:21]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I'm on almost nothing in my life an absolutist. Right. I'm not one of these people that things need to be 100% or zero. Right. Like I kind of take what's good, discard what it doesn't seem as good or whatever. But like, wouldn't you. I don't know if you would say, I might say that the Bible has some guidelines for some things like that. And I say this as someone who's not Christian, but I read the Bible and I'm very fascinated by it. I'm fascinated by world religions and history and all that. But like, it may say, like, oh, you should marry and that's just who you have sexual relationships with. That said, like, as human beings, scientifically, we are wired to. For sex, we are wired to have relationships. And I've always had an issue with the Bible, like saying that that's bad because then there's also a lot of amazing Christians that I know who, you know before marriage.
- [44:17]
A
Sure.
- [44:17]
B
And I, I think that's great. You know.
- [44:20]
A
Yeah. The first thing I should say is like, I'm not the judge here. Right. So that, that's one thing that's very clear to me in my life is my track record demonstrates that I am not in a position to judge other human beings. That's very clear. I can say for me, for me, I really mean this for me, not for anyone else. The pursuits I've had with dating and intimacy outside of marriage were not life giving. Experiences. In the end, I was very excited about them. I was very, oh, this is the one. This is great. And, you know, I. I think I mistaked. I. I confused sexuality and intimacy a lot of times.
- [45:02]
B
That makes sense.
- [45:03]
A
So I. Oh, this is amazing. Like, this is the one. You know, it's like, of course I feel that way. We're acting like we're married. You know what I mean? Like, this is pretty nice.
- [45:10]
B
Like, I like the box, but not the package.
- [45:12]
A
Sure. And it's like, you know, that. That is not. Like, that's. Actually, my experience has been. That was very dehumanizing for me and for the other women involved. And. And. And I don't say that, like, at all. Like, oh, now I'm going to hell for that. Like, I don't feel that way at all. I don't feel that way at all. I don't feel like anyone who does that is a bad person. Like, I am. Like, there are much worse things about me than that. What I do think, though, is that. That I can say, looking back on that time, I started having a lot of success in business. I started having, you know, opportunities that were very enticing. And as I started pursuing those, my. My integrity kind of started disintegrating. The drinking started getting really bad, and it kind of went parabolic. It got, like, worse, worse, worse. And then really fast, in my 30s, it started getting a lot worse very quickly.
- [46:10]
B
Did you have, like, an awareness, though, during that time where you're constantly, like, this situation spiraling? It seems to have control over you. You're taking actions that you don't want to take. Right. Like, and you have awareness of that. But were you also, like, going back to the whole, you know, leaning on your Bible, though, too, and saying, like, well, that's what. And I do really believe all this stuff, so why can't I just. Like, are you playing with that in your.
- [46:38]
A
That's why. Yeah, I can. I can tell you I went through an experience that I really would not wish on anyone, which is like, I'm literally, you know, going to church, reading, listening to scripture, being like, why is this happening? Please stop this from happening. Please stop this from happening. I did not want to be doing this. And then, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Which is a unique version of hell that I don't wish on anyone. And that went on for a while, you know, and again, I. I just. Looking at this, like, biblically, I would say, like, at the heart of it, I had idols. I had. I had things in my mind, that were more important than God. Specifically, like financial success, how I looked in the world, how pretty the girl was, front row boxing suit, you know, whatever fancy clothes I want, all that nonsense were. Were getting in the way of. Of what's actually important.
- [47:29]
B
This is where I think the Bible makes some amazing points, because you see it in society like you're looking at it through the lens of your own story and your own struggles. But you and I can both look out at society and see the things that people seem to worship or think are the most important. And I could look at any of those things. And regardless of what I believe, I can tell you you're not getting buried with it.
- [47:52]
A
Brother, you said it. It's like we're all worshiping something. We are all religious. What are we worshiping? Right? And I found that when I was chasing these things, you know, I thought I was like in a video game, chasing the higher level. The higher level. I was, I was just, oh, my goodness. And by the end, you know, I believe this. I'll try to put this as clearly as I can. I believe God used alcohol to bring me to my knees, to bring me to the realization that I couldn't live without him. And I see it as the biggest gift I've ever had. So that horrible time I just described was the absolute biggest gift I've ever been given. Because I've been shown that I cannot run this on my own. I am not in the position to be on the throne. And I've been given a whole new life, which involves, like, you know, I get to work with other guys who have these problems. It's been a. It's a major focal point.
- [48:43]
B
Wow, you're giving back to great.
- [48:45]
A
It's like the greatest thing in the world.
- [48:46]
B
Yeah. No, that's amazing, man. I have such. Such empathy for that. I've had a lot of people in here like you, who have been nice enough to share their story. So I really appreciate you doing. I know that's a very vulnerable thing, but I can speak for probably most people out there listening. We all have friends and family members who, through different things that maybe happen to them in their life or went on struggle with different substances and stuff like that. And some of them, you know, it ends up. It ends up killing them or the worst thing happening. And then when people are able to kind of somehow some way scratch and claw and rise up and come out on the other side of that, I think it's very inspiring to a lot of people because it shows you it shows others that. That it's possible.
- [49:29]
A
Yeah, I've seen a lot of people, by the way, go the wrong way in this, too. And. And it's terrible. And, yeah, I've also seen a lot of people get recovered from this stuff. And, like, miracles happen, brother. I literally now I have a front row seat at the Miracle Factory. And it's amazing. And it's like God's cosmic compost heap, right? It's like, I have personally experienced, you know, the worst things I've been through that I have. Shame. I had all the shame about, oh, I did this terrible. And then I'll find some guy who's, oh, I'll never get better. You don't understand. I did this thing. And he literally would tell me word for word exactly what I experienced. And I'll be like, brother, I've been there. And then what happens is, because we've both been through it, the shame is taken out and he can feel some hope. And then suddenly that thing that I was so ashamed of is a bridge that another guy can walk across. And I'm telling you right now, you go through this over and over, and the whole God thing, like, there's no question. There's. There's no question. You know, it.
- [50:27]
B
It's actually really interesting. A blessing that comes out of going the route you had to go and the struggle you had to go through is that you then forced to accept this level of vulnerability to help not only get better, but once you do, in your case, giving back help other people who are going through it. And that's amazing. But. But you guys have been. You beat yourself down so much that now in your case, you've come so far back that you can look at that as the struggle and talk about how deep that hole was and still to this day be vulnerable about it. And yet other people out there who don't have. I'll speak for myself on this. Who don't have, like, a previous substance abuse problem or something like that, but are still human beings and have still had their low moments and wondered if, like, that makes them normal or not to have those things. Like, we. We don't. A lot of us don't have that comfortability with. With digging that deep to, like, forgive ourselves or, like, tell ourselves that our past is not who we are. You know, even with simple things, right? Like, if I go to do this job and I started on day one, I. This is something that's real. It's like you feel a sense of. What's it called? What's the term. Why can't I remember it right now?
- [51:41]
A
Or like the imposter.
- [51:42]
B
Yeah, the imposter syndrome or whatever. And you go through that forever. It doesn't matter how many subscribers you get or how long or who people you talk to. You're like, why the am I doing this year? And there's a part of it where you, you can never. And again, like, speaking for myself, I can't even face that sometimes because I can't give myself credit for some things because I'm, I'm looking so deep at things that I felt like got me into that position to have to do this that I failed at and other stuff, you know, and maybe there's some of that that I keep locked away. And maybe there's other people out there in different contexts who have experiences of stuff they, they lock away. And we don't have the, as much of the natural inward looking view that you have forced yourself to be able to have because of the experiences you did. And I think that is actually one silver lining that comes out of going through what you went through. I don't know if, if that.
- [52:31]
A
I think that makes a lot of sense. And I would just say, like, I, I don't feel like I've been in the driver's seat of the positive changes. I feel like I've been in the, I've been the beneficiary of them. I really feel that way. I, that moment I'm describing of like, I can't run my life is a, that has a lasting impact on me. You know, I, I am like, I am at risk of thinking I got it figured out. I don't have it figured out.
- [53:05]
B
You know, that's a great answer too because, like, I think that's one of the ultimate pitfalls in life when you have that moment where you're like, oh, I got this.
- [53:12]
A
Yeah, I don't got it. I don't got it. No, no, no, that's for anybody. Yeah, that's correct. That's correct. So it's like, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, whatever's coming up, I'm doing much better. When I pause and go, like, you know what? I might not be seeing the whole picture here. You know, I might not be seeing the whole picture here. That's, that's a good thing for me because I'm obviously a very opinionated, driven person with some strong convictions. But it's like, you know, there is, there can be outside of a couple things that are very clear to me that are Absolutes. I'm. I'm. I need to pause and learn and listen from other. From other people.
- [53:45]
B
You know, how did this whole situation, once it transpired and you got past it and also, you know, the nature of your business change. You moved on. You got yourself in a situation where you're building an app, you end up at Apple. We'll come back to that in a minute. But, like, how. How did that end up impacting the overall arc of your relationship with your dad? Because it sounds like, to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, based on what you were saying. When you were growing up, there was a lot about your dad that maybe is like. Is like a hero. And you admired a lot of things he did. And then you. Eventually, all these things happen. You end up getting into business with them. You have that family dynamic like this. You're also going through some personal things yourself. And then he help you.
- [54:28]
A
Yes.
- [54:28]
B
At your lowest moment. But then eventually, you still do leave the company to go do your own thing because you felt like that business dynamic wasn't healthy. So, like, where did that all land? And, like, I'm sorry your dad passed away, but, like, did you have a good relationship towards the end of his life?
- [54:43]
A
Yeah, I was super blessed. I had the best relationship we could have. We got to rebuild our relationship a lot. And I would say the big thing is that, like, you know, I got to just be his son. Yeah. You know, and that was a big change for me. I didn't have to be his best friend. I didn't have to be his business partner. Right. I got to just be a son. And with that came. It wasn't like, I got to just be a son, and I got to push away all these things I didn't like. I also got to stop expecting these things from him that were not reasonable. Right. Again, growing up, it was like, I don't think he had a lot of friendships. I was. He and I were like, you know, wingmen. You know what I mean? Like, literally. I mean, I started getting loaded with. With him. We would go on these trips. He was very successful. So we would go to, like, St. Bart's when it was still very exclusive. You know, there's us and Madonna or whatever. You know, it was very. And, you know, I'm 12, whatever. Oh, wow. We would just get loaded the whole time, and, you know, that'll do it. Womanizing stuff and all kinds of crazy stuff. Right. And. And it's like, you know, that's. That's not a good father. Son dynamic. Right? So it was like, we got to get to a place, you know, as all these changes happened, in which I got to just be a son, you know, and he. And he was my dad. And that wasn't perfect, but it was. It was. It was great. And he went through cancer. It was very long, slow process. It was, you know, horrendous. He turned into, like, you know, skeleton. It was terrible. And I actually went through this really big. I don't know if this is valuable for someone. I'll say it. I went through this very. At the very end of his life, I had this. This personal sort of sudden crisis around. Like, I could see that he was struggling with a lot of regret. You know, he's very sick. He's in hospice, and he's regretting a lot. Right. You know, and I had this strong feeling of, like, I've got to, like, have this talk with my dad. You know, I had this image of, like, the light coming through the window, and we're holding hands, and I'm gonna. We're gonna pray together, so he's gonna feel relief, you know? And there was this one night when I went to sleep on this. I woke up, and it was like. It was one of these. It was one of the most distinct moments of my life. I woke up shot out of bed at 4 in the morning. I wake up early, but, like, fully, fully energized. Like, something had happened while I was asleep. And I had total clarity from the Holy Spirit. Like, total clarity. I've got your dad, and your job is just pray for him. I've got him. And I suddenly went from desperation. Oh, my dad is going to go to. You know, he's probably suffering. He's got this regret to total delight. My dad's finally going to meet God. And I felt so much joy and calm. Two days later, he died. I got. I flew in the way it turned out. I literally flew in. His body was still in his bed. I was in California. I get to New York. We were on the upper west side, 72nd Street. I get to his place, his body's still there, and I kneel next to his bed. I'm like, you know, father, please take my. My. My father into your kingdom. You know, And I just heard, I've already got him. I. I just totally. I don't. I can't explain how any of this happened. It's not my business. But this was an area of, like, you know, the. The problems in our relationship were just handled by something else. These were problems I couldn't manage. And, and you know, they got taken care of.
- [58:05]
B
You know, when I was growing up, I would, I was only child, so I could only see what was around me. I didn't have a brother or sister to kind of be like, oh, I'm noticing this or I'm noticing that. So you get some things really right and you get some things really wrong in that scenario. But there's this idea, and I think a lot of people who aren't only children also know exactly what I'm talking about, where, you know, you're 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old and you see these adults and you know, they wear their suits and some of them are successful and they seem, they tell you what to do and they seem to have life figured out that term again and all that. And, and society almost tells you like, yeah, you know, that's what you do. You grow up, you get the respectable job, you have a position of some sort of power a little bit. You have kids and then you raise them well. And, and you have to respect every single thing about your parents because they know how the world works. And I don't. In hindsight now I know that's not true. And it's also completely not fair to your parents. Your parents are the age they are at the first time that they ever are at that time too. You know, this concept of like, hey, once you get out of college and get through your 20s, you'll kind of figure it out. No, my parents are still twice my age and they were amazing parents, but like, they're still figuring the out all the time too, you know, And I think that sometimes now, maybe in society we don't show enough grace towards our parents and the things that they maybe don't get right along the way or mistakes they made. And there's this huge knee jerk reaction that you go, you got to go into the shrink's office and just complain about everything your parents did to you. Which, hey, in some scenarios that that might be fair. But in a lot of scenarios, yeah, it's not perfect, but like, you got to take some responsibility for yourself, number one. And number two, like, they're figuring it.
- [59:58]
A
Out just like you too.
- [59:59]
B
And it seems like you had a lot of clarity on that with your dad because it seems like you guys had a, had an overall, especially what ended as a great relationship, but it had its complicated moments along the way. And at the bottom line though, is that when you had your lowest moments, it's clear that he was right there for you.
- [60:16]
A
And this. I think you're right about something, which is we have. It's very appealing, albeit emotionally lazy, to want to put people in these buckets. Right? Oh, they're all this and they're all that, you know, And I think that's what I needed to graduate from was like, I had this tendency of looking at my dad as either the greatest guy in the world or the worst guy in the world. And the fact is, he was just a guy, you know, and I was his son, you know? Yeah, I agree with that. And by the way, I think on this whole technology topic, we do the same thing with. Oh, thank you. We do the same thing with these products. Right. Which is like, it's. We turn them into, like, these super forces that are in control of our lives. And I just think, again, like, we have a lot more agency with the stuff than we realize. And with the stuff with my old man, you know, I. You know, it was a healthy thing for me to realize that, like, I brought plenty of problems to that relationship too, you know, and to your point, you're right. Like, when I needed him, he was there.
- [61:15]
B
Yeah. This. And you know what? It's okay to have moments in your life where you get really humbled on stuff, too. It's not only okay, I think. I think it's a huge part of life. I. I can hear that in your story. I'm sure all of us can think about it in. In points of ours. And, like, that's a. It's a key moment because whether it's like you surrender yourself to, like, God or something higher than you in that way, or you just surrender yourself to the idea that maybe you need to take a step back.
- [61:38]
A
Back.
- [61:39]
B
You know, that that can make a huge difference and be the fork in the road that goes in a good direction.
- [61:45]
A
Big time. Yeah, big time.
- [61:46]
B
Well, thank you for sharing all that. I always appreciate when people do that. That's. That's a lot there for sure. But we had left off a while back on you getting into Apple.
- [61:56]
A
Yes.
- [61:56]
B
Once they brought you in. So your business partner, he had been on the investment side. He didn't come along. Apple essentially invents a role for you before you even talk about the role and really what you did. What's it like? Like, day one, I don't know, 2015, walking into fucking Apple.
- [62:14]
A
I know, it's so wild. The guy who sort of brought me in said something that's very relevant here. He was a really, really excellent, excellent person named Roger. He's a great guy. He's one of the OG guys. And he goes, you know, I just want to prepare you. He goes, people have this image of Apple from our advertising and marketing. And he's like, I just need you to know it is nothing like that at all. It's sort of more like the food fight in Animal House. And it did not connect. And he was completely correct. So, yeah, I mean, it's. Apple is a very cool company. I think it is a very unique culture. It is historically, you know, Apple, Apple tends to not care a lot about what other people are doing. And in some ways that is a huge gift of Apple's because it's not worried about other people are doing in other ways. It can create blind spots, I think.
- [63:16]
B
Sure.
- [63:16]
A
And sort of miss where the world is a little bit. The shadow of Steve is cast long there. Yeah.
- [63:26]
B
You're there what, like four years after you died?
- [63:28]
A
Something like that. Yeah. And also there had been a lot of shakeups in the executive team in that time. And also, again, this was. I arrived right as things are blowing up. I mean, like iPhone 6, 6 and 7 is when you go like, whoa, you know, it gets to totally different categories and you know, it, it, it's, it's. I mean, listen, it's one of the best products, product companies ever. I don't think people realize how successful Apple is. Like, you know, the next most successful product in history, as I'm aware, is Barbie doll, meaning it took Apple about 10 years to sell a billion iPhones, maybe a little less. It took Barbie like 50 years to sell a billion Barbies. And an iPhone costs a lot more than a Barbie. Okay. So it's like the velocity of this product is, it's kind of unimaginable, you know, so I think that was, you know, intense walking into. But, but the truth is when you get to the people who are actually deciding things there, who are very capable, very smart, excellent people, it's largely a values driven, A really values driven organization.
- [64:43]
B
What do you mean by that?
- [64:50]
A
I've been in a number of important moments where it was very clear to me that this idea of Steve's, which is if you figure out the right answer for customers, money will figure itself out Right like that. I think the people who make decisions there still really feel that way.
- [65:06]
B
That's interesting.
- [65:07]
A
Yes, yes, I see that for sure.
- [65:12]
B
What was your role when you were first coming in?
- [65:14]
A
So I was given a title that does not exist anywhere. It was called Senior Product Strategist. This is not a real thing. This is basically this Is basically, wait.
- [65:26]
B
We got a brand. All right, yeah, just call them whatever.
- [65:28]
A
It was literally. It was literally. That was it. It was literally like, please go figure new stuff out. And. And it was very fun. And I got to work with people that I really respected. I slowly built up a team. And I was originally in the video space, so we did stuff, you know, on your phone, like video editing software on the phone or in the messages and FaceTime products. But then I got very involved in machine learning and AI on device.
- [65:58]
B
How early are we talking with that? Like what years?
- [66:00]
A
Like, you know when you go to share a photo on your iPhone and it suggests who you might want to share it with? We designed that.
- [66:07]
B
Oh, wow.
- [66:08]
A
Which is a good design. It's a great, great product. Yeah, very happy about that. And I got. I mean, I got involved in a lot of new product stuff that, you know, isn't public yet, so whatever, but. And other platforms, you know, other than.
- [66:24]
B
Iphone, you obviously found a way to fit in well with the culture because you had a lot of staying. But you were there for what, nine and a half, 10 years?
- [66:31]
A
Yeah, I was there for a while and it was. It was great. And it was actually really interesting because I've been working on something that was very important to me and I got like, very good news about that the day that I decided to leave. So it was like I was. God really made it like, bro, you're going to have to pick, motherfucker, you are going to have to pick. So, you know, I might. My journey at Apple is sort of characterized by like these zero to one projects. So I was like a zero to one guy. So like, you know, we usually have a couple going at once because, you know, they could. They could die. But we had a lot of success. We shipped a lot of stuff that was in, you know, keynotes and stuff.
- [67:02]
B
What was it like coming up with some of these ideas though? You know, culture wise? Like, take me there, would you? Let me start with this. This is really simple question, but what was your office set up? Like, did you have your own office with the glass walls or were you more out in the open floor space?
- [67:20]
A
I had different office setups at different times. So like, in some scenarios I had like the nice big private office and others. At one point I shared an office. I mean, Apple is very like, I was also not in office a lot. That was one of the. My team was largely like, we would be there all the time when we needed to be, and then like, I would again, I would. It was like I'd work on these projects, we'd pitch them to the leadership and then it was like I'd, you know, get it shipped and then back to the next thing. Right. So it was, it was very, it was very fluid. The, the vibe of like doing new stuff in this environment is, is there's a lot of antibodies. Antibodies, yes, that's. That, that was a term that was used. So there's a lot of like pushback and Yeah, I mean it was challenging but you know, I think I was, having had an entrepreneurial background, I was sort of well prepared to just over just do whatever I need to do to get stuff moving. I'm not like a big company person and everyone sort of saw that I was sort of this odd, odd person at Apple. Yeah. And yeah, I mean I got to work with these amazing people and pitch the, you know, new things and, and get involved in decisions and it was great.
- [68:39]
B
Well that, that's the thing about Apple when you look at like Steve's vision with building it. Steve Jobs, he was all about simplicity. You know, one of my favorite quotes ever of his is, every microwave just needs one button add 30 seconds. Right. He was all about how can we take away rather than add to it? And that's what made Jony. I've an incredible designer as well. So when you use the term antibodies, I might be totally wrong here, but as part of that built from the culture of like antibodies attack outside, you know, bad cells coming in that want to build new shit that's not good for the body. So that was more Apple's way of saying, hey, if something's going to pass through for us to build, it better be good and it better be simple for the user to use.
- [69:22]
A
I think, I think the both or both can be true. Okay, so it's not binary. My experience was the process of refining things is healthy and good and a lot of times these sort of credos or axioms will get used just to maintain headcount and corporate inertia and whatever. So both, both can be true. But yeah, it was, it was, it's a, it's still a demo culture. Like you got to kind of build it, you know, Steve was, I think, big on that. Another Steve quote that for me is very valuable. There was an interview he gave where he was asked, you know, what's. How do you make a great product or something like this? You know, what's at the heart of a great product? And he goes, he actually answers in the negative and he goes, you know, after I Left Apple, the company got a disease. And I've seen many other companies get this and it's this disease of thinking that once you have a great idea, you can just go tell people, go make this and it'll work out great. And he's like, that's not how you make a product. You gotta like, you figure it out, what it is while you're making it. And I have found that to be very, very true. Very true. And I think that over time, you know, the bigger companies get, they start getting away from that.
- [70:33]
B
Yes.
- [70:34]
A
You know, and I think, you know, it's, it's, for me personally, it's very rewarding to be back in an environment where it's like we are just grinding and discover like even that time away feature I just, I mentioned to you like that that came out of, that came out as an accidental outcome of another thing. And then someone was like, hey, why don't we do that? I was like, oh, that's, that's what we were, of course, that's what we were meant to do here, you know.
- [70:57]
B
Yeah.
- [70:58]
A
So that's the magic is actually getting in and building.
- [71:02]
B
There's a quote that Eric Prince had when he was on here when we were talking about certain parts of government that I can't get out of my head because it's perfect and it applies to everything. Like he was talking about it with the government perspective, but with bureaucracy. But he was like something along the lines of shrubs. You know, you plant some shrubs and they're great, but shrubs grow and then they start growing out of control and then it's a bitch to try to whack them down to the, to the size you need them to be. And so you look at anything, any idea, any company, anything that's born somewhere, it's, it's born. You know, like my thing was born in my parents house and we work really hard to keep it exactly that way. Right. Like you see, I sleep five steps from where I work right here. Like there's, there's this startup aspect that I'd never want to lose because you see all these places, you start to add bodies, you start to add titles, you start to add new ideas, you add shareholders, you add expectations, you add this, you add that and suddenly the magic that made it that way doesn't exist anymore.
- [72:06]
A
This is a very real thing. Yes. And yeah, I know what you're describing. That thing Eric mentioned of like organizations are constantly serving their own interests of growing. Right. So you realize again, like you're interacting with a Thing that has a secondary motivation, which might not be the customer. You know what I mean? It might be, you know, I, I need to divert resources here so that I get a bigger bonus and get more people in my organization and blah, blah, blah, blah. Or juice, the stock price. I mean, that's, I think a big, big risk is again, like, when things get so big, feeding the juggernaut can invisibly become the thing that everyone's rallying behind, not customers necessarily, you know, and that, That's, I think, you know, something to be very careful about. And you see that with a lot of these companies. Like, we're, we're living in a world in which we're interacting with businesses that, when we were kids, were these, like, innovative, amazing businesses, and they've become the establishment they were fighting against.
- [73:10]
B
Exact. Dude. You know what's the old quote? The day, the, the day after the revolution, the revolution becomes the old guard.
- [73:18]
A
It's, it's literally how it goes. It's literally how it goes. So we're back in this sort of. I think we're at a moment of like, recycling again, where we're sort of turning over new things. I think, you know, this, these mega giant companies that we're interacting with, I'm not saying that they're going away. I'm just saying, like, the soil is fertile.
- [73:36]
B
Yes.
- [73:36]
A
For new companies to create new experiences. And I think a lot of customers are ready. I agree with you. Many people are kind of stuck in their little moat, but a lot of people are. And you see this now, like people. I think Covid really was the icing on the cake. You know, it made people question a lot of old loyalties. That's right around medicine, around government, around technology. For good reason.
- [73:58]
B
Yes.
- [73:59]
A
So I think that, that the time is good right now for innovators to stir things up.
- [74:04]
B
What was the, this is what I was going to ask before I asked about, like, the desk situation, but what was the ideation set up at Apple? Could you literally sit there in your office and be like, man, what do I want to build? What do I want to build? Or were you being. Pitch a lot of ideas from.
- [74:20]
A
Both, both. And, and, and, but sometimes, sometimes it was, you know, one of the people running the company being like, I need you to solve this, and, okay, great, you got a boss. You know, other times it was, hey, I got something and you're going to love it. And they'd be like, come back with a, with a prototype. Okay. You know, it would, it would happen both ways.
- [74:42]
B
Now how would you like? Because you built. You built a family during this time. I guess you have four kids with your second wife.
- [74:48]
A
I do, yes.
- [74:49]
B
How did you balance so many years at the world's 10th biggest country? You know, having such an important job and clearly having to work very hard with building what sounds like a really great home as well.
- [75:03]
A
Yeah. So when. When I was first at, like, the first four years I was at Apple was before COVID and again, I had this very unique situation. So, like, I had a lot of fluid. Like, I'd be at the office constantly for a couple of weeks and then not for a month. Right. And then it was just depending on the different cycles of where we're at in something. Then Covid happens. I actually bought a home in Idaho during COVID and worked remotely. I mean, I was remote for a couple years. Right. Two, two and a half years, whatever. And that. That was, by the way, when I started realizing, like, what am I really participating in?
- [75:42]
B
What do you mean by that?
- [75:45]
A
In Covid, I. Big question. During COVID we saw a lot of Internet censorship and sort of government and tech coming together. And I became acutely concerned about where the world was heading. One of the moments that. That really shocked me. So I'm gonna go pre covered for a second. Okay. But like, 2018, I believe it was 2018. Check me on this. I believe that's when Alex Jones was sort of de. Platformed from Apple. Okay. And at the time, I was like, oh, whatever. Like, it did not cross my mind at all.
- [76:28]
B
Precedent.
- [76:30]
A
It was a prep. And like, everything that followed that basically was like, cancellation. If you do something wrong, you're out. If you do something wrong, you're out deplatforming. And again, like, we're in an environment where the entire world is experienced through two products. And what would happen is Apple would sort of. When Apple would do something, other companies were allowed to do it. Apple sort of has the moral high ground among the tech companies, at least that's my perception. So Apple deplatforms Alex Jones, and then the other ones do. Right?
- [76:53]
B
Right.
- [76:53]
A
Literally the same day. And then all the social media cancellation happens with, you know, me too. I'm sure some of that was justified or not, I don't know. But, you know, we got this sort of itch that we needed to scratch of, like, bad guy out, bad guy out. And then we get to Covid and it starts getting very bonkers. Very bonkers. Now it's like, you can't say the virus might be from a lab because that's racist. And like, I'm just, I'll just say like, you know, I had experiences like, you know, that was a. I'll put it this way, Apple was a non political company when I got there. I never heard about politics at work. And then during this period of time, I was in experiences that were basically like struggle sessions.
- [77:35]
B
Struggle sessions?
- [77:36]
A
Yeah, like big group of people. Like, we're going to talk about how, you know, the world is racist and you can't say Covid's from a lab because it's, you know, that's right, that's anti Asian hate or what, you know, whatever. So it's like, you know, that became like anti.
- [77:48]
B
Our biggest client.
- [77:49]
A
Exactly. That's. We'll talk about. Yeah, that's a big one. So while this is all happening and I felt the culture changing big time. Big time.
- [78:00]
B
That's shocking that.
- [78:02]
A
Brother. Brothers. After that it was very shock. It really happened in starting with the, the George Floyd summer riots. Like, like that's when it started being like commentary at work, you know, important meetings. We're going to discuss, you know, how the world's racist, whatever. And, and you know, I'm like in Idaho. Like, what is going on here? Like, you know, it's like going out.
- [78:27]
B
And shooting at night.
- [78:28]
A
Literally. Literally. Dude, I'm like, I'm like, wait, hold on, what am I gonna. And so this is starting. And then I think a really important moment was all. If you remember in 2021, all of the social media companies censored all the conservatives. So this is anyone who's saying the election might have been fucked up or Covid's from election. All these people get taken off platforms. And there was one app left that allowed them to speak called Parlor, but there was one and it became the most popular app. It was the most popular app in the world for a month or something. Okay. And then Apple and Google removed it from the App Store and then Amazon on the same day took away its web services, so there was not even a website. And that moment I was like, okay, we don't live in a republic anymore. Like literally our means of communication, right, which is through the Internet, just said certain inconvenient speech from the president is not allowed. Like, that's crazy. And like we just flew by like that was like normal. That is not normal. That is totally outside of the design of our founders.
- [79:34]
B
Did you have any meetings, like, I don't know, in the closet with other senior ish people at Apple who were harboring your same beliefs that like Later.
- [79:44]
A
Yes, later. After. After. Yes. More recently, I have be like, oh, my goodness, can you believe where they. You know what I mean? Like, yes. So after, I would say, like, the breaking points where I started seeing, like, the culture shift back because it got. It got to the point I remember wearing an American flag to work one day and getting evil eye from like, everybody, come on. Yeah, just shirt normal. I mean, like Costco shirt, bro. Like, just American flag. And then people like, you fascist, you know, you fascist, you know, whatever for wearing a flag. Meanwhile, I'm like, got my ccw. Like, you have no idea. Anyway, so, you know, so. But it's like, I, you know, I'm like. I'm like, anyway, was there. Yes. I would say the moments when things started changing were like this. It was when Elon bought Twitter. It was like a lot of people. Can you believe Elon? So fucking stupid. He's ruining Twitter. And I'm like, yeah, Elon's really stupid. Like, yeah. And we're here we are at this company that's like, you know, not as innovative as Elon's company. You know, I'm like, yeah, yeah, Elon's really lost it, guys. Like, so that was like. But I think a lot of people would be in meetings where, like, someone, you know, their boss might say something and then people like, yeah, you know, and that started. I. I sense. I sense at least personally sort of the iceberg melting. And people in private would be like, you know, because there was also a lot of. I'll just say, like, you know, I'll just. I'll put it this way. Ideas you might have about big tech companies and, like, you know, rules about hiring different races are, like, basically true. It's. It's like, it's basically in practice, true.
- [81:29]
B
So you're saying the DEI is exactly what, Big time.
- [81:31]
A
Big time. Big time. But it's like, you know, it's like not written, but it's like there are times where, like, someone senior might say, like, I can't email you this, but I'm going to tell you, we cannot hire X, Y or Z for, you.
- [81:41]
B
Know, because they're big time. Wow.
- [81:43]
A
Yeah.
- [81:43]
B
Now, actually, though, I do want to say, I don't know if you remember this. I'd love to get the inside baseball as far as, like, what you thought. But I remember after Elon bought it in, like, officially in October 2022, I think he took control of it like, that month or something like that. And then a few months later, there was all that controversy with. With People being pressured to pull advertisers and all that.
- [82:05]
A
Yes.
- [82:05]
B
And there was this threat, this idea like, oh, Apple's gonna pull. And they did their stuff and pull from the App Store. And then Tim Cook invited him to Apple. Good. So it seems like Tim was. And this is still somewhat early. Tim at least saw that the ball had rolled too far and wanted to roll it back.
- [82:23]
A
I. I can't speak for his perception, but I. I remember that moment. And I was. That was one of the moments where I was like. I mean, it's like we're talking about my dad. It's. You know, there were moments where I was like, yeah, we did the right thing. There are other moments. Like, you know, like, it's just. It's not. It's not black or white, you know, in a lot of ways. I mean, we're talking about the company that, like, created itunes. And, I mean, this is like, these are the best people. Like, they're awesome. And I just think there's room for other new things.
- [82:46]
B
And there's a lot of new people that are there, though, since then.
- [82:49]
A
That is also true. That is also true. And I think a lot of people felt the kind of McKinsey ification.
- [82:54]
B
Yes.
- [82:54]
A
You know, and it's like, you know, that's. That's. That's a real thing. But, yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways, like, I was very, you know, when I thought Apple did totally the right thing when it came to that terrorist and the government wanted to unlock their phone.
- [83:06]
B
The San Bernardino thing.
- [83:07]
A
Yeah. And it's like, all right, I wanna.
- [83:08]
B
I wanna talk with you about this.
- [83:09]
A
Sure.
- [83:10]
B
This is. This is something that has come up a bunch.
- [83:12]
A
Sure.
- [83:13]
B
On my podcast before with different guys. One of my friends, Jim Diorio, actually was on the other side of that because he was at FBI at the time and was talking with them. And I get it. They have a job to do. And it's like, try to stop the next one, Protect American lives, whatever. And then there's good people like Jim who are gonna use that for the right reasons. But now you're giving access to maybe the bad guy in the corner who now use that precedent for bad reasons. And I have mostly come down on the side of what Tim Cook did there, because he was looking at it like, this really sucks. I wish we could give that to him. But if we do that, what's next after this? So it sounds like you kind of had the same opinion.
- [83:49]
A
I do. And I just want to say I have that opinion because of my Great respect for people in law enforcement who maintain our constitutional rights. So I. My allegiance is to the rights that they're protecting, and I'm very grateful that they're putting themselves at risk to protect our rights. So my position is not like, screw you. I don't feel that way. What I feel like is, wow, what a really, really difficult situation. And we end up. We create the risk of destroying what we're protecting if we do this. And for me, the solution here is like, go back to the founders. Go back to the founders. Go back to the founders. Go back. Because they went through this stuff. They went like, none of this is new. You know, the technology is different, but the issues are the same. And, you know, the founders of our Republic had long, detailed debates about this issue in particular. And one of the things that came up a lot was like, man, we are creating a system that's gonna make it easy for criminals to get off. Like, it's hard to prove guilt. Like, they designed a system that's very different from other countries.
- [84:53]
B
Yes.
- [84:54]
A
And they were like, yeah, but we know what happens when the system doesn't protect innocence. Everyone ends up abusing it. So you end up with sort of two general perspectives. I think one of them, My perspective is this. Human beings are too flawed to have power over each other. Human beings are too flawed to have power over each other, and they will abuse whatever power they have for hidden motives that they will never acknowledge. And I'm on the top of that list, right? I don't mean people worse than me. I mean people just like me will. We saw this during COVID Will overstep because they're helping. You know, and when it comes down to the scenario of private communications, our founder said, you know what? Like, not only is this important, but it's literally in the first article. Article one, Section eight is they. They tell Congress is going to establish our money and then our post office. And what about the post office? It's gonna be private communication between citizens. People need to be able to share ideas for the Republic to thrive. What else? A major reason at that time was to get people out of cities, newspapers. For people to get news, it has to be totally private. We can't know what news they're reading. Right. Our founders encoded this. And I think the notion that today we should be able to, because it's more dangerous, actually read each other's communications or appear in or actually get all this metadata. It's just like, you know what? But people better than us figured this out, and it sucks and there are shitty moments. And by the way, the founders didn't say, welcome to this Republic. It's going to be a joyride.
- [86:30]
B
That's right.
- [86:32]
A
They said, welcome to the responsibility of Republic. I hope you can maintain it. Because they knew it was going to be hard.
- [86:37]
B
It's like you have these slippery slopes. One of them is more slippery, though. We said it a million times with different guests on the show. Know, free speech is painful. You scroll through X right now. You know, if you're just, like, thinking for a minute, like about just, you know, your. Your mental sanity, you're like, man, it'd be really nice if they took that account away. But the next thought is, nope, that has to be there, because you don't get to decide where it stops first. They take that account away, and eventually it's like, you say, there's two genders, and they go, you're gone.
- [87:09]
A
I completely agree with this. So it's like, we, none of us should have this power. And I think what we've seen is these platforms will abuse the power. And I think we should be very careful of, like, getting cozy with. It's great that Elon, I think, saves civilization. I clear. I believe that. Okay. And I don't know, Tesla could go bankrupt and he could lose Twitter tomorrow. And then we're back at what, you think Mark Zuckerberg has our back? No, I don't. I don't. I don't have that perspective. I think he's going to do whichever way the wind's blowing is how he's going to go.
- [87:37]
B
Right. He's had a nice glow up, though.
- [87:38]
A
I am. He's looking good. I like the chain. You know what I mean? I like the roll. Hey, listen, we're more.
- [87:42]
B
We're more fits in in Jersey now. We're on Better ways.
- [87:45]
A
I see it. You know, I used to box down here in downtown Manhattan at Trinity Gym.
- [87:49]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [87:51]
A
Trainer named Jon Snow, who's a angel. Saints and taught me a lot. And I remember when I started actually sparring and fighting guys, you know what I mean? I felt like suddenly the chain comes out like I'm rolling around, like, yeah. You know, Anyway, that. That ended when I actually got to sparring with a legit, like, pro middleweight champ. And I was like.
- [88:14]
B
Yes, absolutely. But you're raising some really good points about privacy. And you see in that there. So it sounds like you. You started to appreciate that more as your time went along at Apple. You know, maybe day one, you weren't thinking about that as much and then you're like, wait, wow, we really have a lot of power.
- [88:32]
A
Well, I was like, I was heavily aligned. Like there are a lot of people at privacy. Thank you so much. There are a lot of people at Apple who are very big privacy advocates and I was among them and share that. And I'm not suggesting that there are people who are like anti privacy there, but I think what I did not realize is I was designing stuff in order to prevent Apple from being able to see customer information. And that was like a big, big important thing. What I didn't realize is that, you know, most of what I do on the phone is not Apple software. Most of what I do on the phone is all these third party apps. I have hundreds of apps on my phone, right? I might use a couple apps like Apple Music or, you know, iMessage or whatever, which are good services, but there's all these other third party apps that I use on the iPhone. And I sort of imagined that Apple's approach with software was applied to third party software. So I thought, like, I thought what I was doing on apps, which is staying up all night figuring out how to protect customer data, was somehow happening on the rest of the platform.
- [89:38]
B
Meaning you felt like if you shut the door here, the other people couldn't access that room even if they were clients.
- [89:45]
A
I assumed that other software was following similar approaches. And I. And that's by the way, naive and stupid and you know, anyone would have disabused me with that. You know what I mean? But I never really thought about it. It. I never really thought about what was happening. And what I didn't know is there's this whole sort of shadow industry of data harvesting, which is a massive industry in the United States and around the world. That is apps that are free are being paid to allow these SDKs, which means software development kits. So you're an app and you're like, hey, I want to show people how to find balloons or whatever, right? Okay, I'm the balloon app, but it's free. Everyone will use me because it's free. It's easy to get me because it's free. How do I make money? I allow this STK to get information off what's happening in my app, right? And I get paid incrementally. The bigger I get. Okay. I did not understand how pervasive that is. It's quite shocking when I started realizing how much this is happening. It's not like a little bit. It's happening all the time. Okay. We did a test this Blew my mind. We did a test with a phone with 33 apps, okay? So we had a cybersecurity firm take our phone and an iPhone. 33 apps in one hour. Okay? And I mean, these are the apps we use, like whatever, Spotify, you know, Pinterest, whatever. Just normal stuff. Just 33 apps on the phone. My phone has hundreds of apps on it. 33 apps on the phone, one hour. Ask app not to track every time. Don't track, don't track, don't track. And these apps all opened up in one hour, over 3,000. It was specifically, I think it was 3,100 times. They opened connections with these servers, which are these data harvesting. And get this. And the software, these guys at the cyber company are monitoring this, right? And we get this report. So it's not just that they opened 3,100 sessions. It's that in these 3,100 sessions, 210,000 packets of data went back and forth between the phone, the iPhone, and the data harvesting server. And I'm like 210,000 in one hour is 58 per second. So that means there's like 58 packets of information per second on an app. On a phone with 33 apps that are just going like. I mean, and what is it telling, like where you are, you know, if there's any Bluetooth signal of someone else around, you know, what are you doing in the app? And I don't think people realize how significant this is because when you know where everyone is just from the apps on their phone, just implicitly, you now have a heat map of the United States and you understand who's with who during the day and who's with who at night, and who's with who at the restaurant and who's with who at the gym. Right. So now you basically have this three dimensional topographical map of the relationships of the people in our country. And then one of them, you know, doesn't turn on private browsing and does a little Google search or whatever. And now that relationship node has information to target.
- [92:53]
B
That's right.
- [92:53]
A
So you take this, right? And then you put on top of that the fact that we're seeing 12,000 ads a day. So we're basically in a casino all day and we don't even realize it. What do I mean by a casino? Well, first there's just the image of the slot machine. We're seeing all these ads. But two, what else does a casino do? It takes you the long way, right? Right. There's no direct way to the elevator Right. We're in this casino seeing so many ads. So people would always ask me, like, joe, are the phones listening? And I would say, like, it's worse than that. They don't need to listen. They don't need to.
- [93:22]
B
It's just a bonus.
- [93:23]
A
Exactly right. It's like they. What's happening is you have this uncanny moment where you see this crazy ad. You're like, how? It must know. It must know. It's similar to, like, you know, my wife has a red Tesla, and one of our boys is constantly going, look, red Tesla, look red. You know what I mean? Like, you see a car and suddenly it pops out all the time. I think really, that's what's happening with these ads, is we're seeing so many ads, and once in a while, they're really uncanny because these companies have a lot of information about us. And back to the whole censorship thing, the big risk here isn't just creepy ads because, like, like, we've all seen creepy ads. You know, I've, I've. One of my sons has a disability. I've been shown ads based on his disability, which is like, that's creepy. Like, that means my son is, like, marked, you know what I mean? As, like, that's unpleasant. Right?
- [94:14]
B
What scares me. Sorry to butt in for a second, but just like a whole nother level, I've noticed this. There are things that I have not. I know for a fact I have not Googled on my phone. I have not typed it into a notes app, I haven't typed it into a text message, and I haven't said it around my phone. I have just thought it. And I don't know if this is me going way too fucking, you know, tinfoil hat here, but I have seen ads pop up for that.
- [94:44]
A
I understand that. It's uncanny. And my, my understanding, and I'm in the weeds on this stuff, my understanding is the greater likelihood is that you had seen that ad already, didn't realize it. It had the thought, and then saw the ad again.
- [94:57]
B
Interesting.
- [94:57]
A
Okay, now, now, does that mean they can't access your microphone? There are scenarios in which your microphone can be accessed. I'm not suggesting that's impossible.
- [95:05]
B
I want to know if my brain waves can be accessed. That's where I'm going.
- [95:09]
A
I, I, you know, it's. To me, it's a pause.
- [95:11]
B
I didn't like that pause. He wasn't like, no, no, no.
- [95:15]
A
It's more, I would say, no. What I'm actually thinking is your brainwaves are being Impacted by what you're seeing. You know what I mean? So what's. I believe what's really happening is you're being profiled. I mean, I'm seeing this and real. We're literally doing studies on it. Like you're being profile, you're in a cohort, they're showing you and people like you certain things and it's reverberating. Is it possible that like you know, the. I don't know, there's, you know, the stories. I don't know. I would say this. We should not be worried about crazy conspiracy theories. We should be worried about what is obviously indefinitely happening all the time. Because it's completely insane, right? All of this third party data is being harvested at again, rates I just described that are hundreds of thousands of times an hour. This is insane. All of that information is publicly available and the government buys it regularly, like admitted to it. Right. I mean it's like they do social studies with it. How many people are going to churches, they buy this data to find out, Right. It also comes up in criminal cases. This is a way to. Absolutely. Montana is the only state that has prevented this.
- [96:17]
B
So can you explain this, please?
- [96:18]
A
Of course. So this publicly available and we should go through that deck, by the way, at some point to walk through how this works. But this publicly available data is purchasable by advertisers or really anyone, right? So when the government wants to find out where a certain phone was, there's definitely routes they can go where they get a warrant and get the cell phone company and get the whatever, right? There's also the route of buy a bunch of ad data, do some basic elimination of other devices and you're like, oh, here's where this phone was like, and it's available. And again, because of this third party doctrine which was established in the 70s, Supreme Court cases, two key Supreme Court cases, there's no Fourth Amendment protection for this information. This ad data, which is now like.
- [97:06]
B
So our mail's protected, but our digital mail is not.
- [97:09]
A
You are exactly correct.
- [97:10]
B
Not even our digital mail. Our digital. Just like a layer below that.
- [97:14]
A
Here's the way to think about it, right? The mailman is just bringing you letters. And the mailman can't tell anyone what letters he brings you, okay? Your phone is not just bringing you letters, it's bringing you that times a million. And it's making money telling everyone what mail you're getting. That's what's happening. And that information is discernible. This is, this is why I'm not the first one saying this, Byron. Tout lots of people have been ringing the bell here. This is a huge civil liberties risk. And the reason I bring up Covid is we saw what happens during COVID and the next crisis will be used to justify why we need to find this group or that group. And again, listen, I obviously we've talked about my personal beliefs. I think every American, this isn't new. Our founders figured this out. Every American has the birthright from God to these protections. If you're going to an anti ice protest, I might not agree with you. You should not be tracked by the government that you went there. I agree. You know I, I might not be on that side but you, I'm on the side that you have the right to protest. Right. I'm very concerned about a future with. You can imagine. I mean, I mean is it unimaginable that we could have a debt crisis that could make things kind of chaotic in this country?
- [98:27]
B
It's not unimaginable.
- [98:28]
A
That is not unimaginable. And do you think we couldn't draw sides and sort of have problems? I mean we are asking for huge problems here, here. So again, I think the solution here is just new products that prevent this data flow. Right. Because you know, you start getting into like do we legislate this? And this is like for we should not. Let me, let me clarify. I'll be as precise as I can. The source of the problem is us surrendering our responsibility to other people to solve this.
- [98:59]
B
I don't think, I don't disagree with that. There is a, there's a human convenience element here though.
- [99:06]
A
I agree.
- [99:07]
B
What I mean is that everyone has their lives. They got, you know, a family, a job to take care of, same 24 hours in a day everyone else does. There's limited things they can do, limited things they can spend time on and you know, learn all about their lives are impacted by their phone. In many jobs for you to be able to do your job so you need to quickly get things done. When you get sent a 200 page contract that says are you agree these terms? No one realistically has the time to read that or respond to it or try to change it. So how do we change a system where the fact of the matter is people have to go to convenience just to get their shit done during.
- [99:47]
A
I think the idea that you have to pick convenience or privacy is a false, false choice.
- [99:52]
B
Okay, why?
- [99:53]
A
Well, here I have a phone that runs all the normal apps that stops that third party data tracking. So I live, I, I live a normal life with a family and a very active job. And I'm constantly texting, taking pictures, applications to do all kinds of normal things.
- [100:07]
B
Nobody sees it.
- [100:08]
A
So let's be very clear. Okay, let's go down the list. Okay. Is this a phone that makes you invisible to the world? No, this is a phone that has unique protections at different layers of, of the hierarchy of risks. Okay.
- [100:21]
B
People listening, not watching. Currently, Joe is holding the unplugged phone.
- [100:25]
A
Yes.
- [100:25]
B
The company, you're.
- [100:26]
A
The way I would say it is. Think about like a pyramid. Okay? Think about a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid is third party data tracking. Okay. This is all of this stuff that's commercially available, right? So this is again, I go on any app. I think I'm just using a free app and the app is sending stuff to known third party data harvesters. Okay. That is happening to all of, to all of our, many of the apps on all of our phones. This device stops that on the phone with this firewall that stops the apps from contacting those servers. Okay. Does that mean if I go on Facebook, Facebook's not recording what I do on Facebook? No, Facebook is definitely recording what I do on Facebook. We have some interesting things in the pipeline there, but that are not yet released. But I would say for now, third party data is the bottom of the pyramid. That our device is very unique at blocking that activity. Okay. I'll also say it's the most risky data because that's the data that's on an open marketplace, the Google and metadata is first party to them, meaning they're not like selling that to everyone. You can't go on a website, be like Google, tell me where someone's phone is. Right. You can do that with these third party ad networks. That's the main thing that is stopped at the bottom of this pyramid. Buyer device. So that's a big, big problem. Separate from that, there's first party tracking in Google and meta. Our phone does not have any Google Mobile services on it, so there's no Google activity. If you go on Instagram and give it access to your live location, I would say that that's probably a mistake and our, you know, our phone will let you do that. I would not encourage you to do that. What our phone does is, is stop the unknown third party data tracking that's happening everywhere at the bottom.
- [101:57]
B
Now what about when you go onto Instagram and you say, allow access to my photo library?
- [102:01]
A
That is a really dangerous thing and it's actually really sad. I believe they had a whistleblower come out recently that talked about some of the insights they draw from the photo library. So you'll notice. Yeah, like one of the things they, they. According to, according to what I recall from a whistleblower, you know, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I remember one of the stories acutely was if it's a female and they've seen a high incidence of deleted selfies that indicates like a low self image and they might be a good target for a specific type of, you know. Yeah. Oh, they'll like these kinds of products for girls who think they're ugly, you know. Yeah, that kind of. Which again, I have two daughters, you know, it knows the deleted data too, if you give it access to the full thing. Yes, that's, that's, that's a possibility.
- [102:44]
B
All right, hold on. Let's go back to Apple then. Why doesn't Apple have it built in to their services that when an app asks for full access to the photos, it just gets accessed and there's still problems that can happen for this. It just gets access to the photos.
- [103:02]
A
Though, and not the metadata of everything. Does have a great product which is an out of process photo picker. So you'll say Instagram, I want to post the photo. And Apple will bring up. You'll notice it's like the share sheet I mentioned. When you go to share something and the share sheet slides up in front of the app, the Apple will do the same thing with the photo picker. It'll say, hey, pick the photo you want to share.
- [103:21]
B
Right.
- [103:22]
A
Instagram and other app. I'm not saying Instagram specifically. I've seen many apps, I'm not sure if Instagram does this. Many apps will try to avoid using that service from the iPhone because they want to see all the photos. So I've had this experience with other apps where it's like instead of using Apple's convenient picker that is invisible to the app, they want to push me to allow all access.
- [103:44]
B
Why does Apple allow that to be possible? If I put in an alarm system on my house, the alarm's going to go off. If someone breaks in, it sounds like.
- [103:51]
A
I have an alarm system. I would say this is a really tough spot that Apple's in which. And I actually think in this area we're describing, I think Apple has a good product which is this photo picker. And again, it's not like apps can't access that. It's like they make it very. To the customer, they're like, no, you really want to give a. Those repeated access, right? Persistently asking for access to the whole thing. These are the kinds of things, like, I think the photo picker is great. I mean, the big surprise to me, the big surprise to me is that I click Ask app not to track and the app opens data sessions with third party data harvesters that are known like that to me is a concern.
- [104:31]
B
When did you first discover that at Apple?
- [104:34]
A
I wasn't at Apple. When I discovered that I left Apple in May, I didn't know this. I was like, bro, it's like, well, okay. So when I was Eric and my partners were like, Joe, you gotta, I got to know these guys. They're like, come on, you gotta come. You're like the perfect guy for this guy.
- [104:49]
B
Maybe actually tell that story how you got connected with Eric and what happened.
- [104:52]
A
I saw Eric on a podcast and I mentioned I'd had these concerns about civil liberties and phones and information and freedom of speech. And I see him give this pitch on a podcast and I'm like, I'm like, man, I'm so glad someone's coming up with a new platform. I think he's got the right ideas that it should be privacy focused. Eric's someone I respect a lot. He's a very smart guy and he's not a, I would say he's not a consumer tech guy. Right. That's not his vibe. Wouldn't have guessed. No. So I actually, I ended up reaching out, out to him and starting a relate and starting chatting, just being like, hey, listen, you know, I'm, you know, I'm doing this stuff for a long time. I'm at Apple. I'm, you know, and I think what you're doing is great. But, you know, I think the way you're describing the phones, like, it's not really exactly how it is, you know, like, you know, I think a lot of people perceive, for example, the phones are listening and Apple's making money off the phone. Like, and that's just not, not real. Right.
- [105:58]
B
You reached out to Erik Prince and you said, buddy, I think you're wrong.
- [106:01]
A
Yes.
- [106:01]
B
You got some balls.
- [106:02]
A
Eric is a very, one great thing about Eric. I think when you're a Navy SEAL who like, you know, knows how to handle himself in situations, he's just a very confident guy and can take information. He's not, he's not like, he's, he was like, oh, wow, new information. Tell me. So we got to know each other a little bit. And he, he, he was coming out to California we met and you know, he was, he was like, dude, you know, And Ryan, who. Who was the, the guy running the company before me, who has a security background, like Eric. They were both like, you know, this is, this is your specialty. Like, you should do this, you know, like, here you are with the six kids on a farm, homeschooling, going to jiu jitsu classes. Like, you know, like, oh, you homeschool your kids, I hope we homeschool our daughters. I'm sorry. Our daughters were hoping to homeschool. We did a couple of the boys during COVID but the sort of meme was like, you know, you're sort of more. More oriented towards this direction. You know what I mean? And one of the things that had me stuck was like, yeah, but how different is it really? And I got to know Iran, who's my partner now. He's in Israel. He's a cyber specialist.
- [107:15]
B
You have a partner named Iran who lives in Israel?
- [107:17]
A
Iran, E, R A, N. Yes. Yes. And he is, he is a very, he's the cto. He's a very talented engineer and he designed this software. And I was like, man, like, I really need you to prove it to me. I was like. Because, guys, I was like, leaving a. It was very hard situation to leave. I'll put it that way. You know, with six kids, like, this is not like an easy decision, you know.
- [107:40]
B
Yeah, you're at the biggest company in the world, very successful.
- [107:43]
A
It was a very nice situation. Everyone was very nice to me and I was like. But I was like, you're on. You got it. You got to prove it to me. Like, I, I need to know, you know. And he showed me something. He did, which later when I joined the company, we replicated with a, a cyber firm where he showed me this sort of air gapped test where he's watching the network traffic on the phones and he showed me what the iPhone did. And I was like, but wait, you pushed ask app not to track, right? And he's like, every time. And I was like, like, I don't believe you. Can you redo the test and do it A live stream? I need to watch the whole thing. And I needed to, like, see it. Like, so we recorded the video. Like, I. And I couldn't believe it. But like, it would hit ask app not to track the app would. Then you start the app up and then it would start opening these sessions with known addresses, like dataharvester.net in, you know, Honduras or wherever, all over the world. Like, so the App is opening these connections with these data harvesting servers all over the place. And the data is just going back and forth. And I couldn't believe it. But that was the final straw for me. Like, it was a very hard decision for me. But when I saw that, I was like, oh, man. I just. Honestly, I felt like God was like, come on, bro, who's gonna do this?
- [108:56]
B
This is one point of contention with the unplugged phone. And I understand this, and that is that there is, as far as the technology being built, we're talking about connections within people who are in Israel who are extremely talented. And the fact of the matter is, Israel is a country that has innovated a lot of incredible stuff in tech, and it's also been used as information. It is the country that they are the most prolific spies in the world. They make the CIA look like Toys R Us at Mossad. These people are on a whole different level. And there is information like, I understand, like, they have a job to do. They're trying to protect their interests as a country. But right now, people are obviously very ang with them and actions they're taking in Gaza. So there's an extra, I guess, like, emphasis on, like, well, what are they doing with all this technology? So when people see, for example, that many of the major VPN companies are headquartered out of Israel, these trans are supposed to stop tracking what your information is. Yet in reality, there's people buying that it's probably going to a fucking server in Tel Aviv.
- [109:58]
A
That would be correct. I don't know if. I don't know if the servers in Tel Aviv, but I would say that. I would say I personally, one of the reasons I'm in favor of this is the vpn. Well, the traffic blocking is on the phone. We also have a VPN if you want to hide your IP address. But the traffic blocking is not on a server, it's on the phone. Which is different from my perspective than outsourcing it to a service.
- [110:17]
B
This would be my question, given that they don't have a great track record with not using information against anyone that could be to their interest over there. How is this phone protected? Sorry to call out Iran here, but that's the person you just mentioned. How is the information that is not being allegedly transmitted through this phone protected from people over there in another country getting access to it and potentially having powerful people here compromised if they do.
- [110:47]
A
So I think there's a couple layers to this. Let's start with the first one. First thing is, again, it's it's.
- [110:53]
B
Keep that mic in front of you.
- [110:54]
A
I'm not, it's, it's not just my position that this is the case. Like, this is why we get testing done from third parties. So, so, you know, we hire these cybersecurity firms, they give us these test results. You can contact them and anyone can, can look at these tests.
- [111:08]
B
So U.S. cybersecurity.
- [111:09]
A
Correct. Correct, correct. So that's the first thing is we, we don't think anyone should take our word for it. I don't like, when it comes to your data privacy, you should not take anyone's word for anything. I would agree with that. I would encourage you to look at the test, which is published, and reproduce it yourself. Like I, Everyone should have their own comfort level with these things.
- [111:28]
B
Can you give me the link to that, by the way?
- [111:30]
A
Yes, it's on our website. It's on the features page of our website. And go to the.
- [111:34]
B
Yeah, let's write that down, Joe. So we put that in the description for people to check.
- [111:37]
A
Yeah, but I would say, like, do the test yourself. We have like Raxis gave us like a abbreviated five page version. We have like a 200 page version of this test. We can release more of that. We can ask them to redact themselves if they need to so that they control their methods. But so I would say first is that is, I would say, you know, we think that that's very important. The other thing I would say though is that a lot of times our perception can be like, from these movies from the 90s and the early 2000s about Sandra Bullock fighting the net or whatever, and hackers and the nerdy neighbor who's staying up all night drinking Mountain Dew, hacking or whatever. And I think for non engineers who are not involved in this stuff, there can be this barrier and we can just sort of almost like I was saying, imagining Apple from the outside versus the inside. When it comes to like data privacy, there's a similar thing where we can imagine, oh man, the phone is actually sending everything to a Mossad agent or whatever. I would just pause there and I would say the intelligence agencies don't need to hack our phones because the apps on our phones have done that for them.
- [112:48]
B
Yeah.
- [112:48]
A
So this is the big thing I would say is, is that that like you look at a guy like Mike Yagley and others, right. They don't need to put Pegasus on people's phones because the apps are already spilling this data out already.
- [113:02]
B
Mike Yagley was someone you and I talked about off camera. So you can just tell people?
- [113:05]
A
Sure. Mike Yagley is the key subject of Byron Tao's book Means of Control, which is an excellent book I would encourage everyone to check out. Byron Tao wrote this book, I believe it was published last year. And it really lifts the curtain on this sort of smartphone data surveillance complex that is behind all the ads we're seeing. So again, like, I don't think many of us realize how big this industry is. Just. Oh yeah, it's, you know, just, just the advertising piece, let alone the data harvesting. The advertising piece is 5 or 6x what TV was at its peak, which was 10 years ago, inflation adjusted. So it's like when you can we have this on our site too. When you compare these two industries, it's like, whoa, something else is happening here and something else is happening. And it's not just more ads, it's more. More targeting of the ad. So Byron Tao wrote a book exposing all of this. It's a really well researched book. He's excellent. And a prime subject of his book is a guy named Mike Yagley, who we know. He's. He actually is a friend of our company. He's fantastic, Very smart guy. And he's a consultant who works operationally for various agencies. And he can say some of this stuff publicly. You guys should have him on. But he'll say like, oh yeah, I was in, you know, Central America finding Chinese nationals or whatever, whatever. And what he does is, well, he's done many things, but he lifted the veil on the risks here. And if I'm recalling, certainly one of the most famous things he did was he gave a presentation to leadership at the DoD showing how he used some commercial data, commercially available data that's out there for all of us to find. The home addresses of like an entire Delta team, which, if you can imagine, is like the biggest secret in the country. Right? Like, those guys can't be discovered. Right? These, these are very important people in our security system. Right? So. And he was able to do it with like no private information, just open source stuff and some advertising data. He similarly showed how the use of the app Grindr, which is a gay hookup app. He did an experiment there and he's like, look, here's the gay employee. Not. He's not like a. He was showing like the risk for DoD employees who use this application. Foreign actors can easily be like, oh, if I want someone who's secretly gay and works at the do, boom, I got him. And he's like, guys, this is just out there. I just bought this Right. So the book sort of goes through these layers and I think Byron Tao does a really great job explaining third party doctrine, how we are living in a world on our phone that we don't realize we don't have fourth amendment protections. Our point is also, it's not just that we don't have data protections and fourth amendment protections. We also don't really have platforms that are aligned from a First amendment perspective. Right. I mentioned the canceling of Alex Jones and how that was the beginning of where we ended up in Covid when, you know, in 2021, like the president and his advisors were not allowed to talk on Apple or the web generally. Right. So I think in both of these areas, when it comes to free speech, freedom of freedom of association and communication and data privacy, we really need to start making some new decisions. So back to this question of like, is this a honeypot? Like are you actually stealing our data? I would say like pause, let's slow down, let's look at the, let's look at what's around us. Number one, we're outsourcing verification of this to American cybersecurity companies. And that, that should be. We should, we will continue doing that and we want people to look at that. That and I really mean this. Do the test yourself. So I think that's one thing. The second thing I would say is understand your risks. The our risks are not some Mossad boogeyman who is infiltrated our company getting data that's not coming out of our phones, which I'll explain in a moment, like that doesn't exist. Our risk is the commercial system we've signed up to that is putting all of our information in an open marketplace that's very real. So I would encourage us to sort of be a little more clear eyed here around this. Now is it possible, you know, there's a secret spyware thing again like our, we have like people using this phone are those very operators that I described in other countries. And there's a reason they're using this phone because it's harder for their information to come off of this phone for adversaries to find their location. One of the challenges we need to face as a company, as a product, get this, we deal with these operators who are in these really tense environments where there's all these tools looking for electronic signals. The problem with our phone right now for these guys and they're using it is it's too quiet.
- [117:41]
B
What do you mean it's too quiet?
- [117:42]
A
Our phone is making far less calls than Other phones because we're blocking all of this data harvesting, right? So like a normal iPhone is going around like. Like you don't realize you're not even using the app. And these data harvesting app solution servers are being cool called over and over and over again. That's traffic that these adversaries can see. Our phone is quieter because we're stopping that.
- [118:02]
B
So that's good.
- [118:03]
A
It's good. But we're creating layers of spoof signal right now so that our phone looks like another phone.
- [118:09]
B
Oh, I see what you're saying.
- [118:11]
A
Yes, yes.
- [118:12]
B
So because. Because it gets too quiet, enemies can be like, o. That's one of their.
- [118:16]
A
That's one of their security phones, right? So we're literally designing features where it's like fake signal. It's like just look like some. Some asshole on Instagram ordering pizza or whatever, right? Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, like, okay, so again then there's like, what data do we keep? What data comes back to us? And the answer is literally nothing. And this is very auditable, right? Like our finances. We have two sources of financial income. Cash comes to us, two ways you can buy the phone or accessories. And we sell a software subscription for features on the phone like the vpn. And a. We have a encrypted cloud service like an icloud type product. But even there, we don't have the keys to that. So when you set up and you move your photos over, right? It. It says to you like, julian, hold this key. Share it with Joe. You do not want to lose this key. We do not have this key.
- [119:09]
B
So it's kind of like crypto.
- [119:10]
A
It's. Yes, yes. Like we. If. If government comes to us or Israeli or American and says, give me Julian's photos, I'm like, all I have is this encrypted garbage I don't have. So, like, we literally hold no data. We hold no data. We want no data.
- [119:24]
B
Is there a back door, though? I'm just thinking, yeah, let's talk about. I mean, we gotta talk. I'm using a parallel term here, but you got to talk about zero day type things, because anything technology totally could have that. Is there a back door where something like a Pegasus.
- [119:39]
A
Let's talk.
- [119:39]
B
Get in and take stuff.
- [119:40]
A
Let's talk about it. That is possible. Any piece of electronics can be hacked. We happen to have a unique feature to help with this called a hardware kill switch. Why does this matter? I normally just turn my phone off with software, right? I push a button, it says, off restart. I turn it Off. After I turn it off, I use a little pen and I click that switch and that separates the battery from the phone. Why do I do that? Because then it's like, really off. Really. Right. It is possible that I could be targeted with something like Pegasus. And let's talk about the realities of this. Pegasus is extremely expensive to deploy and it's used very rarely, though it is.
- [120:18]
B
Used for people out there who don't know what Pegasus is. We mind.
- [120:20]
A
Sure. Pegasus is an offensive software tool that actually, my partner Iran knows some of the people who are involved in that.
- [120:27]
B
That's not promising.
- [120:29]
A
Actually, I think it is. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. It's really encouraging. Encouraging. I'll tell you why it's really encouraging. Iran and Eric, why did they start this company? They were involved in using people's cell phone signals to find them, and they realized very clearly we cannot live in a world like this. Like, what do you think, Eric? Eric? Okay, I'll put it this way. I sent. There was recently, if you recall, the Iranian generals were all killed in a single night. And there was one video where the explosion was extremely targeted. And I sent it to Eric and he just text back, ad id at. @. So what I'm trying to say is the people who actually do this stuff. I'm not saying Eric did that one. I'm not. I'm not. I'm just saying he knows how these things happen. Right. What I'm saying. And I mean that I don't believe Eric was involved in that at all. But. But what I mean is he knows how these things happen. Right. So he goes, AD ID and like, that's how this works. Right. So the guys who were doing that were like, our families are walking around with targeting vectors. I use that phrase. They are targeting vectors.
- [121:35]
B
Yes.
- [121:36]
A
So. And it's all commercial. They don't need to. They didn't need Pegasus to do that. It was just the AD id.
- [121:41]
B
Yeah. Pegasus is just a whole different level.
- [121:42]
A
So what is Pegasus? Pegasus is a much higher end, bespoke software that can be put onto the phone via various means. And again, this is like a team of people are deployed to get it on a certain target's phone.
- [121:54]
B
All you do is. The way I understand it. Correct me if I'm wrong here, Joe. All you have to do is send the text. I don't even have to open it. And they're in.
- [122:04]
A
I imagine that that is plausible. I imagine that that series of events is plausible. That is totally plausible. And again, I think we need to reroute a little bit. Pegasus has been used tens of thousands of times. The third party tracking data which was used for all. For the whole gwat to find all these terrorists is just AD ID data that is everywhere, spewing out of our. Not this phone, spewing out of other phones. It's endless. Okay, so could something like Pegasus target our phone? Yes, something like Pegasus could target our phone. Do I think that has happened? I think that it is harder to target our phone than other consumer phones because it's a newer operating system. That doesn't mean it is impenetrable and unhackable. I think that's kind of a foolish claim. The way we think about it again, is the parent pyramid, right? So I'll get to Pegasus, bottom of the pyramids, third party data. The next real risk is your phone could get taken, right, by, by law enforcement. It could get taken by someone who could hold you hostage. People don't realize this. When you cross borders, your phone is, oh, it's wiped. You have no rights. They can say, open the phone, right?
- [123:12]
B
Okay, yeah, there's a lot of countries I can't go to.
- [123:14]
A
So we have features like this that are important for people who are concerned about this. Where for example, I can create a false pin code, right? I can create a false pin code on this phone where if someone says, open this phone, I can go, sure, my code is 1212. And they just wipe the phone and.
- [123:30]
B
They say you're lying.
- [123:32]
A
Well, that, what they open up is a phone that doesn't look wiped. But all my data is gone. We have another thing where I can say, hey, if I'm. It's right here. If I'm not back here by Wednesday at noon, wipe, right? So these are protections for this second layer of the pyramid. Why is it the second layer? Because it's more rare. But you're very vulnerable if your phone is taken and opened, right? And then last there's the top of the pyramid, which is this like very serious, you know, Pegasus like, or digital penetration of the phone. And is that plausible that that could happen? That could happen to any electronics. However, software cannot overcome a lack of electricity. So what is the big risk of Pegasus? The big risk of something like Pegasus is your phone turns into a microphone that you don't know is with you. So you think you turn your phone off, you bring it into the important meeting in the skiff and it's transmitting. Not when there's no battery. So again, the way we see this is about there's layers to this. It's like a diamond with different facets and it's about increasing your odds on every scenario. Our goal is not you don't need to be faster than the bear, you need to be faster than the other hunter. Hunter.
- [124:37]
B
I, I agree with that and I, and I do on when you're talking about across vast society, what the clear I don't know enemy if you will is here. Yes, I would agree. It's the third party data system because that's applicable to all of us in a lot of different ways and our rights potentially being violated. Get all that Pegasus? Yeah, I, they don't need to use Pegasus on my phone or Joe's phone or something like that. They do need to use it on Erik Prince's phone though. They knew they do need to go after people who are actually like important in the world and how things work and they can. And so if this phone, yes you're marketing it to all people but if especially its types of strengths would be very have hold a lot of appeal to people who are in powerful positions then I don't care if Pegasus is only tens of thousands of permutations versus billions, all it takes is those tens of thousands and it can still get in there. And it's like you created a Trojan horse potentially.
- [125:34]
A
Again this is why the off switch is very important. Right. So it's like the reason we have a lot of people in this in high up in government and security using this device for this reason because otherwise they're carrying Faraday bags around which are, you know, these.
- [125:48]
B
We're just talking to Cat, she has like five.
- [125:49]
A
Correct. So these, these are bags that stop the phone from transmitting any signal. Like so our goal here is to simplify managing these issues. Does that mean that stuff is impenetrable under any conditions? Again I think that's not only like a impossible to claim, it's also like the wrong direction to be thinking about. So we again layers so the phone can be taken. That's a problem. We want to protect people with this. The phone can be hijacked and turned into a mobile microphone. Not if it has no electricity. So this is, and again I think you're going to see with our roadmap is like going more and more in this direction of enabling people to have the benefits and, and conveniences of technology without their data being left like a breadcrumb trail all over the place.
- [126:36]
B
You've kind of touched this today in little pieces but I'd like to put it all together just so people can picture it and understand what it would be like. How does this phone work? And before you answer that, essentially the way we know it out there is we got Apple or we got Android. One's Google, one's Apple, and they both have an app store. They both have a certain type of ui. It's pretty accessible. The only problem is that, like, if you're trying to do a text on Apple, it's going to be green coming from Google, which was a brilliant invention, by the way, by Apple. But, you know, like, they. There are these centralized systems that we're used to that are run by these two behemoths. You're now making something that isn't run by either of them, but can access the Google stuff to be able to run like it's an Android.
- [127:21]
A
Is that. Yes. So let's talk about. Let's talk about software that it can run and sort of what the mic. Let's talk about the software we can run. Thank you. Thank you. Let's talk about the software we can run and then what the experience is like. First, the experience. This is an Android phone, but it is de Googled, but it does not run like an Android phone. I have mine configured like an Apple phone. So let me show you what I mean. Like here I'm running Apple music with the Android app for Apple Music, and I just like swipe up to leave it. So I'm running. We have an iPhone interface that you can pick.
- [127:50]
B
Yeah, got it. Does it have the. It kind of has the wave feature that they patented a little bit.
- [127:57]
A
Right. Which is this.
- [127:58]
B
You know how, like Apple, they bought that company in Delaware like 15 years ago or 20 years ago, that lets you slide it. So it doesn't slide automatically. It has a little wave. So it's satisfying. It has a little bit of.
- [128:09]
A
That seems like that's all tunable. I mean, so for me, that's like a daily driver setup that I'm comfortable with.
- [128:15]
B
Okay.
- [128:15]
A
Right. So it feels like my iPhone. I've been on an iPhone for decades. Right. So it's like using a normal phone. I can use normal apps. Apps. You know, we have this like, icloud equivalent type thing. Again, not equivalent because we don't hold the keys. Right. So here's all my photos. I moved my entire icloud over. We have an app called uploader. You put it on your iPhone, all your photos move over, which is important for me. So like my whole life, for the last, you know, 15 years, is here and I'm running other normal apps. Right. We have this app center here, which by the way, I. Oh, I'm in. I'm in airplane model mode. I call it the App Center. We named it the App center instead of the App Store because we are not monetizing third party apps on our system. This is an important distinction.
- [128:59]
B
How does that even work? Don't abs have to sell for money?
- [129:03]
A
They can sell and we're not going to get a cut. I don't want to cut. I do not want to cut at all. I want our business model to not have anything to do with third party.
- [129:12]
B
How do you make money?
- [129:13]
A
I sell two things. A phone and accessories and a software package. So the software package I just showed you the photos. Storage, that's one of the components. Just like icloud. Right. So we sell for 1299 and 1999, two different tiers we have.
- [129:30]
B
So is that $12.99 or $1200?
- [129:33]
A
No. So the phone is 989.
- [129:36]
B
Okay. So below a thousand.
- [129:37]
A
The phone is below. And we're keeping it below a thousand as we bring production here. Which we should talk about. About.
- [129:41]
B
Yeah, we're gonna. Because I don't know how you even.
- [129:43]
A
I know it's crazy. So. So we're. So the phone's 989 and then we have a software subscription for a handful of services that you don't need to have on the phone. The phone works without them. But there's some privacy benefits with these that are $12.99 a month or $2019.99 a month depending on how much you use. And those are only starting the second year. They're free for the first year before.
- [130:04]
B
We even get to bring in the jobs back to the US and the financial implications of that, that how do you try to compete at scale with Apple or Google when the only things, and I appreciate that that's the only things you're making money on, but the only things you're making money on are like some sort of small price, small profit margin on the phone and then a little subscription plan month, month to month on software.
- [130:32]
A
The answer is we keep it small. We're an open source company. We're big believers in open source. So. So we're not having to build everything ourselves. We leverage and contribute back to open source projects. I think there are trends that make this possible and I'll describe these. Why I think this is very why I made this big bet. The main thing that makes this possible is that all of the software. Like our experience of the phones is primarily cross platform apps. Very little of what sticks you to iPhone is iPhone only. It's like most of what you're doing is third party stuff. Most of what you're doing. Okay, not all. Most of it. So that's a trend that favors us, is if I build a platform that other apps can, that all these apps can work on, well, then I've solved my big software problem. That's one, two. I think we've left the world where people are really excited every year about the new phone. Like, oh, the line around the block. Whoa. The new iPhone 4. Right. That's in the past.
- [131:30]
B
I agree.
- [131:31]
A
So the hardware has been largely commoditized. I think that we have a vision of like instead of a new SKU every year, it's more like we make a really good phone every three or four years. We optimize the hell out of the OS and we are not selling people a new phone every year. This is one of the things that makes it possible to produce here, by the way. I'll explain that in more detail. So again, that brings our cost down. I'm not designing a new phone every year. That brings our cost down a lot. So that's a trend that's in our favor. Right. There's also things like rcs. RCS is an open source or not really. It's an open standard that allows data messaging from Android to iPhone, so you can retain group chats and send large photos and videos. That's an important thing that allows you to have like a phone outside of the big ecosystems. Right. There's a lot we're able to take advantage of that five years ago wouldn't have been possible. Then there's sort of like the. Okay, so technically you can make the phone, you can make a little margin on the phone. You know, we, we actually like do, you know, last year we've been cash flow positive. So it's great. You know what I mean? We're doing all right, we're making it happen. But then there's like, culturally, why is this the right time? And I think people are more ripe than ever and they're becoming readier every day to adopt products that align with their values rather than feel like they need to compromise on these big issues. And the big issues that we've identified are three things that I think are really big. Number one, we've talked about data privacy. It sucks to feel like my iPhone is being subsidized by my data to Google, which it is Right. If Apple's getting tens of billions of dollars a year from Google, that means that the price of my iPhone is basically implicitly sort of rebated by my data. Right. So that's a compromise. I don't want to make the free speech issue like it's uncomfortable for me to be requiring a platform that has shown me or platforms that have shown me they're not going to have my back if things are complicated to continue on that road. So we have our own app store, so we're able to use any Android app at all. But the top 10,000 apps that people use are on our server. So if Google or Apple cancels them, them, they stay alive on our servers. Right. So we think that's very important. And then the last compromise that I think people are tired of making is paying for phones that are de industrializing our country and building the industrial base of another country that happens to be our adversary. Now, this is not like an anti China pitch. I think China has done a great job. They should serve a pat on the back. We should learn from them. But I think this issue of how the phones are made is a very, very big deal.
- [134:13]
B
Yeah, we had gotten off this. This is a good time maybe to loop it. Apple, step back for a second. And your concerns that you saw there.
- [134:20]
A
So it's like, you know, recently a great book has come out about this. I'll send you the link to it. I'm forgetting the name. The guy was on the Daily show recently or whatever Jon Stewart show is. But it's a great book. I apologize for getting his name. A great book about the empire of industrialization that Apple has installed in China.
- [134:38]
B
Empire.
- [134:39]
A
The numbers are insane. Tens of billions a year, year over and over and over. And I want to be clear, this isn't like Apple investing in Apple in China. This is Apple paying Chinese companies to build expertise. So building a phone is very hard. It's like, it's an order of magnitude more complicated than a laptop or a tablet. It's really challenging. The margin for error is 0. The total, it's like. And the fact that this thing doesn't overheat is like insane. It's like the amount of compute in this space space that it retains, these thermal dynamics is like a miracle. It's very hard. Okay, now to. Yeah, it's. It's unbelievable. So the amount of money that has gone in is over. Yeah. $275 billion.
- [135:23]
B
Apple's investment in China. This is from Google. Joe just pulled this up. Apple's investment In China focuses on worker training, supply chain infrastructure, and a 2016 commitments, as you said, goes way back of over $275 billion for five years. With the company investing billions annually in the country to build out its of manufacturing and assembly operations. Though the scale of these investments has led to significant dependencies on China for production.
- [135:50]
A
Yeah. So this is a big deal. And like, when you look at the, you know, Chinese cities that are blowing up, these skylines that are unbelievable, and you look at our cities, you see like different trajectories, I think you could.
- [136:02]
B
Say, depending on the city you're looking at. Yes, sure.
- [136:05]
A
I would say, generally speaking. Another way to say this, the smartphone explosion has benefited a small portion of American society.
- [136:14]
B
Absolutely.
- [136:14]
A
And it has not benefited people who make their money with their hands.
- [136:19]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [136:20]
A
At all. And we've brought a lot of wealth to people doing that in China. So I think our view here is it's not anti China. It's like, hey, it would be great. I think people would love to buy a phone that created value for people here. So our vision is bringing assembly first, meaning the first thing we can do here and make a phone for under a thousand bucks. That's a great phone. That's everyday driver that works awesome. That has all the features that you're used to on a normal smartphone.
- [136:45]
B
How can you do that when. And I don't mean this cynically, I mean it just how it is.
- [136:50]
A
How do you do that when you're.
- [136:51]
B
Not relying on slave labor?
- [136:53]
A
Yeah. I'll tell you what happened. I was talking with our guys about this and. And here I am and I'm like, all right, we gotta figure out how to do this in the US and they're like, great idea. It's totally impossible. Everyone else wants to do that. It's not gonna happen. I'm like, come on, humor me, please. Let's go through this. So here, you know, and they're being generous with their time. They're taking me through. I'm like, literally, I want you to draw the steps on the factory for me. I wanna see everything that you know, and we're going over. You know, the big thing that stood out to me was when you build a phone, think about it like this, right? You're going to build all your phones for the year in about two months. And then you spend the whole year selling them. Yeah, but as I said, it's really hard to build the phone. So to build it for two months, you need to train those people for two months. So you're paying labor for two months when they're not building inventory, that means your labor cost is double. Yeah. When you bring that here, it breaks the bank, you know, man, of course we can't do it. I looked at it and said. I said, what if we don't make a new phone every year? And they're like, well, but everyone makes a new phone every year. I was like, yeah, but no one wants a new phone every year. Who gives a. What if we just don't buy.
- [138:01]
B
Buy a phone every three years?
- [138:02]
A
What if we don't make a new phone every year? And then we're like, huh? We re. Ran the numbers and we were like, yeah, we can do it in the US Basically. When you take this huge labor cost of training everyone for a new SKU every year and you're able to predictably make a certain number of phones every month, I shift my problem from this giant labor cost of training to a new problem, which is I could potentially run out of phones and have a wait list for a month. Right. You could try to buy a phone. I could be like, ah, we don't have enough bandwidth. I need to. You know, it's gonna. I'm basically not potentially not gonna be able to meet demand as quickly. And I think people are willing to put up with that.
- [138:39]
B
What's your current profit margin on your phone?
- [138:42]
A
The margin on the phone, when we get into it is. I don't wanna. Our CFO is not here and I don't wanna get into. Into, you know, super specifics, but like, we, we, you know, like, we. Depending on the cost of customer acquisition. This is really where it gets tricky. Right.
- [138:59]
B
All right, let me make it simpler. Sorry I should ask that. Simpler. When you look at cost of production.
- [139:04]
A
It costs $100 more per phone to make them here. And we're eating that in our margin because we think it matters.
- [139:09]
B
So how much does it cost to make a phone in China?
- [139:12]
A
We don't make them in China. We make them in Asia. I know, but if you did, I don't know. It would be very much less. Much, much, much, much less. Okay, and we. And here's why I think it's worth it. Because. Okay, I'll explain why I think it's worth it. We're not losing money on the phones by building them here. Our margin gets compromised. However, the full picture of the business is really, in the long term about the stickiness of the platform and the software subscription. Like the idea of customers being on our platform long term, who we're storing Photos for who are using our vpn. Other services of ours that we have rolling in out, we think that like, and clearly charging them for what they're getting. We think that is a much better vision of a business than having feast or famine with the hardware. So our, our vision on the hardware is, is something like this. I think people are going to be very excited and we're activating this soon. We're, we're literally, I'm just coming off of trips where we're putting together the cash flow to, to activate this right now. Imagine going to a website for a phone and what you see is, you know, hey, I'm Bill, I put the camera module in your phone. If you got a problem with the camera, send it back, we'll fix it. And Bill's obviously like your countryman and Bill's kids have dental insurance. You know what I mean? I think people will value that. I'm not saying everyone will value that, but I think many people will value that. And I think we can pull that off. I know we can pull that off. We're pulling that off. So, so I believe that how the phone is made can be part of the experience of buying the phone of what you're getting. And again, this goes back to the three compromises. I don't want my data to subsidize my phone at the expense of my civilization. I don't wanna have questionable free speech rights if things get complicated and my phone decides to turn off information that I wanna have access to. And I don't wanna be giving my money to another country when people in my country need some money. Money, right. I, I think that those are jobs. Jobs. Specifically. What I'm talking about is I would like the purchase of my phone to employ people in this country rather than what we're seeing, which is our de. Industrialization. It's like we lost a war or something. And again, forget all the big ideas. These are just choices. These are just choices.
- [141:24]
B
They're choices. But here, here's the other thing too, Joe, because like you're in it and you see it every day. You live with it, you can feel it. You see where the jobs are. You're watching them leave, you're seeing how you can bring them back and the looks on those people's faces when they have a job and they can build the phone here. But like human nature is that when things are not directly in your backyard, you hear about it for a minute and you're like, wow, that's terrible. And then you go on with Your life. I'm not disagreeing with you that there's now a market where there's more people who are thinking a little more about where their stuff is from and what it's about. But like a lot of the same people who will say boycott Nike because I hated their latest ad, two weeks later, you know, they're going to buy some running shoes and if they like the Nikes, you know what I mean?
- [142:08]
A
I'm totally with you. I'm totally with you. And well, I mean I think Nike's taking a bit of a bath. So a little.
- [142:14]
B
But, but they're still fucking Nike. You know what I mean?
- [142:17]
A
And, and our goal is not like end Apple. Like Apple's a great company. And by the way, success for me could be that we set reset standards for other companies. That would be fantastic.
- [142:26]
B
You make them move towards you.
- [142:28]
A
That would be like our, our vision here is to serve our customers according to those three core values that I just described. And I believe, just like Steve said, if I do that the money will take care of itself. I don't think success for us is not we replace Apple. Success for us is a portion of the market that is aligned with what we're doing, allows us to have a great business and if other companies align with our practices and our approach, that will be successful. Yes.
- [142:56]
B
All right, I have a question on that. I'm going to pull it back to kind of get there on it and I want to focus on the, the China Apple thing that you witnessed that we just touched on a couple minutes ago. And you'll see where I'm going with this. China is a company that has prevented a lot of us tech companies from doing business there. Right. Like Google's not there because the restrictions got so insane that they left in like 2008 and they built their own knockoff off companies that became big of all these different types of companies. Now Apple has sent a lot of jobs there so they can stay in the market and you know, also get their product made cheap and ship it all over the world and everything. What impact do you think that had? Did you or did you see any impact during your time there on. I don't want to call them like political decisions, but like business decisions that would be made at Apple on the basis of appeasing the ccp.
- [143:53]
A
I, I can't, I, well, I can't speak to this. Well, let's just look at publicly available information. Right. And you know, part of that book that I'm referencing describes something happened in, I believe it was 2011. Okay. I believe it was 2011 when the CCP decided to single Apple out as an abuser of the Chinese people. I believe the story goes every year where they pick a company and say, oh, this company is harming us, they're exploiting us. And this one year they picked Apple and said, they harm us. They just want us to work. They don't care about us, they're exploiting us. And as I understand it, this book that I was describing, the response was for Apple to get very active in making investments in growth in China. So I think that, understandably, I think Apple was making decisions in its best interest at the time to double down in a market that's first of all a huge market, that's incredible expertise of manufacturing there. I mean, like there's, there's many reasons to do it there. Do I think that that led to pro China? I mean, I think the results, you know, is. The Bible says like, you can tell a tree by its fruit. You can tell a tree by its fruit. So the numbers we just saw, that's real. That's real. The cyber test we did, that's real, that's fruit. I also think that, I really believe this, the cultural stuff we're going through as a nation where we really saw this reveal itself a lot in Covid. I think we saw this a lot yesterday with, you know, Robert Kennedy's, I don't know if you saw his Senate hearing.
- [145:45]
B
I heard about it, but it was.
- [145:46]
A
Just, it was one of these very like, you know, different people perceive it very differently. Right. Yes, understandably. You know, I do think that a lot of what we've, what we've seen in the last few years is these big companies that we're giving all of our money to that are these giant institutions which, you know, as we remember 15, 20 years ago were these crazy startups with crazy ideas. And now they, they're like the establishment. I think we have seen them put forward and promulgate and broadcast and in some cases enforce ideas that are like really anti American ideas. You know, I, I think there has been a big blurring of the lines of Google, Apple, Meta, you know, are platforms, but they make decisions like publishers.
- [146:31]
B
Yes.
- [146:32]
A
You know, they promote ideas into our culture and they hide ideas on their platform. I think more than we might realize. That's right. That are out of sync with the perspectives there of their employees. And I think that that's a, I think that that is a very, very big deal. I think that that is, I'm not Saying it's illegal. I'm not saying it's anti constitutional. The constitution does not restrain companies, it restrains governments.
- [146:57]
B
But what happens when those companies become governments?
- [147:00]
A
Unwittingly, though, my, my answer to that is let's innovate. We're Americans. Let's not sit on our couches and complain. Let's build, you know what I mean? Let's build better products. Like the, at the heart of your question is. But, but the up phone's less convenient. I don't really think that's true. Right. I don't really think that's true. Like certainly like we are, we are arriving very rapidly at parity. Right. You know, the one thing we haven't landed yet, which is coming soon is a digital wallet. So like I have this wallet case. Right.
- [147:29]
B
How do you find parity there?
- [147:31]
A
Experiential parody. Like again, if, if all of my, if all of my digital activity is through cross platform apps and we service all those cross platform apps. Well, that's the big hurdle.
- [147:41]
B
Meaning I can move from Apple and go to your phone and not really have a problem.
- [147:44]
A
Correct. There will be some things you notice, but it's not, it's not like night and day. Right. It's not like the cost that my job is basically this. Right. What are the hurdles for a customer versus what are the benefits? Yeah. And I need to make it so that the hurdles are very minimal and the benefits are very high. Right. And where we're getting to is a point where like the hurdles are very, I would say at this point they're, they're getting smaller and smaller and smaller. They're very diminishing. And I think we're, you're going to see it within a few months. It's, it's going to be quite unnoticeable. So like RCS is something I mentioned, right? RCS being rcs, it's a new communication standard that allows data messaging across platform. So it's instead of sms, Right. So on iPhone it shows up as a green bubble, but it operates just like imessage. You have the typing indicator, you have read receipts, you can send big photos and videos. Groups are persistent. So it's like, will there be people who are like, I must have the blue bubble. Yes, that is fine. I wish those people well. There's a wonderful company in Cupertino. I know those guys, they make great phones.
- [148:43]
B
They're going to one of those blue bubble people. I'm not going to.
- [148:46]
A
What if the blue bubble though? What if the green bubble has no Difference in experience. It's so ugly. I hear that. I would say there are more people than we imagine who would joyfully have an uglier green bubble and a free country than be stuck on the blue bubble. I think that there are a lot of people who feel that way.
- [149:08]
B
I think that there are, there is a subset of people that feels that way. I think that again, it comes back to the. Do you see it directly in your backyard? You don't. Because you don't see those third party companies and it's like, I wonder what they're doing.
- [149:25]
A
I would say I think there are subsets of the country who really do.
- [149:28]
B
Yeah, no, I.
- [149:30]
A
To your point. But like, are there people, like Compare today to 5 to before COVID Okay. Are there more or less people who are concerned about medical freedom?
- [149:39]
B
A lot more.
- [149:40]
A
Okay, okay. Those are people I'm talking to. Are there more or less people who are concerned about their ability to homeschool?
- [149:48]
B
I agree. Your point's being made. I agree. I'm talking about. But maybe I should have been more clear about this. I'm talking about it at mass scale though. Like, I don't know the percentages off the top of my head of what percentage of people in the country, in America alone own an iPhone. But it's large, right?
- [150:03]
A
It's huge.
- [150:03]
B
I don't think you ever have a market that big for something like this.
- [150:07]
A
I, I don't, I don't think our goal is not to have a market that big. Our goal, our goal is not oriented towards market size. Our goal in the United States is to have people living their lives on digital devices that protect their constitutional rights. Right. And if Apple and Google embrace some of the standards we're setting now, we will see that as total success.
- [150:27]
B
So the. And I like that because you're basically trying to say a challenge from the outside forces. Action. And that's, that's, that's a nice added benefit as well. And then people could get their green, their blue bubble and also have certain benefits. That's great. But the reason I brought up the, the China thing again and the influence of a government there is because the next layer below that involves everywhere around the world, because at home here or all these other countries which all have different intelligence agencies and they all have their own motives and it's below the bureaucracy. They do things in secrecy in a lot of ways you could say, like collectively their little disagreements with each other are what creates the world as we know it. Let's start here at Apple. I mean, people have heard the stories about what happened with Hunter Biden's laptop story and stuff like that at Meta or. And at Twitter and how intelligence, in that case, in that case, it was US Intelligence, it seems like, meddled with information getting out and got into these companies and said, here's what you're going to do at Apple. How much did you experience seeing any intelligence agencies, I don't give a shit who they were, having some sort of either perceived or even uncomfortably direct relationship that made you go, wait a minute.
- [151:47]
A
I'll just, I'll describe some. I'll describe some data points and I'll allow you to draw your conclusions because I actually, I don't have a big reveal here, but I'll just describe some daily life experiences that might. I. I recall, I recall I was someone who worked for me, reached out to me and they said I was in a meeting and I was in a meeting and Thanksgiving was coming and I told everyone I was flying home. And this person said, oh, no, don't go to the airport. This was during COVID Don't go to the airport. You're going to be around a bunch of unvaccinated rednecks, okay? And this person contacted me to say, hey, this other person said that. And I felt like, kind of weird because, like, I don't, I don't see this the way other people at our company do. And I understand deeply. I was very concerned about these issues. I was not on the. Yeah, but anyway, I'm just describing something where it's like, if you're at work and people feel comfortable saying that just, you know, and I mean, I'm talking about, like this very highly paid, successful professional. People are comfortable saying that in a minute meeting. That should tell you, I think, a lot about the vibe somewhere. Now, does that mean that I think everyone in that environment feels that way? No. It does mean, though, that I think it was perceived as an acceptable status quo to think that some human beings aren't human beings because they're on the wrong side of the COVID vaccine issue. And I was in a lot of conversations where I'll just say, like, I was. I often would say, like, hey, like, I think we're taking a weird position here. I think we're taking a very risky position here. And I definitely, you know, heard, I received feedback where it was like, well, you know, I would say, like, it's one thing to like, stop to not allow things that are illegal, but like, you know, and, you know, I would get. Receive feedback, well, maybe it won't be. Maybe it won't be legal soon. And I was like, that's terrifying. Like, I sort of, my impression, reading through that was like, you know, the impression I had was I was talking with someone who had information that I didn't have and they were sort of winking at me like, that problem's gonna get solved for us by the government. That was the impression I had. I'm. I'm not that. That was the vibe I had. Right. And you know, I just think it's, you know, it's Silicon Valley. It's a very left wing place. I mean, I remember during the election, like the head of council, the lead counsel, I believe, left the company to become Joe Biden's head person who picked the vice president. Right. So it's like, and that's, you know, companies are aligned with different stuff.
- [154:44]
B
But it would be fine if it wasn't like 99 to 1 in favor of any party in industry.
- [154:49]
A
I agree with you. But it's like, it's very pervasive. And like, I'll even tell you, this stuff, Stuff is changing though. Like, I live, I live in this area. I live in this beautiful area, you know, in the Bay Area. And you know, it's perceived as this like, really, really left wing area. And I get it, I get it. Like, trust me, my kids are in some schools or I'm like, whoa, oh boy. You know what I mean? But like, you know, I also see, I also see other things. Let me tell you, brother. Like, the culture is changing, man. And it's like, I actually don't think, I really don't believe that many people believe this stuff. I think a lot of people work for people who believe this stuff, so they feel like they have to sort of be in line. But I've noticed some amazing things, like the Bruin decision, a very important Supreme Court decision. Very important. This is a couple of years ago, Clarence Thomas, who is like peak American in my view, he took the lead on this and it basically said, like, counties can't withhold CCW permits, concealed carry weapon.
- [155:44]
B
Oh, okay.
- [155:45]
A
So. So the idea that like, you know, basically there used to be counties like New York, York, I grew up here, that would just. You'd apply for a CCW and they just wouldn't answer you. They would basically administratively say no and deprive you of rights. Right. And there was a Supreme Court decision that was like, can't do that, like, unless you have a reason to withhold this, meaning a felony or something like this or a bad Judgment. You can't withhold this.
- [156:05]
B
They don't let cameras into the Supreme Court. But I just picture Clarence like taking out. Yeah, we're gonna rule.
- [156:14]
A
I mean, dude, that fits my fantasy. That fits my fantasy. But it's like that decision, you know, and now like in where I live in this very left wing county, there's, I don't know, many thousands of CCW since then. So it's like, I think the way people perceive it and how it actually is are often somewhat different. You know, I went to our Independence Day celebration at our community center near my house and I have one of those. Dude, you. It looked like I was in Oklahoma or something. Something awesome, brother. I was. Wow. I was really encouraged. And like, I'm telling you, a few years ago, no way. Yeah, no way. So I think that, I think that the, the center of gravity is shifting dramatically. I don't think the answer, it's like it's going to be some new super right wing thing. I just, I think that we went through a spell. I believe, I believe there's like a spiritual dynamic to this. I think we went through a period of time that revealed a lot and I think the world is different now. So, you know, again, back to your question. Like, is success for us, like everyone using this? No, that's not our vision.
- [157:22]
B
Moving the needle.
- [157:23]
A
It's moving the needle and it's finding like minded people and servicing the out of them with a product. That's super great.
- [157:30]
B
Yeah, it's an interesting way you put it too. And I've, I've given this speech on my podcast several times before, so apologies to people who've listened to it, but it always comes in different forms. These, as you just called it, a spell during this time period where there was a lot of crazy shit happening. But like we see this pendulum, even if you just look since World War II. And you could go past that, but you know, Truman, Eisenhower, right, left, right. Kennedy, they whacked him. Left Johnson in there. Nixon, Nixon, they, they kicked him out. Left, Ford in there. Carter, Reagan, Reagan bought four years for his intel buddy. Hw, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden. Like it goes back and forth because something gets out of whack in culture, whatever it is, sometimes more than others. And people are like, wait a minute. And so in this case, you talked about it earlier and now you're bringing it back to that when it started to be like the American flag was a political statement. You know how crazy that is?
- [158:26]
A
Is.
- [158:26]
B
So it's like, I make fun of it. But it's also great to hear that people are like, oh, we're celebrating July 4th again, and I don't give a fuck they're who anyone voted for or whatever. We at least have this thing that we can rally around and say, hey, it's great that we have a system where we can all talk about this. And you do see some of that culture shift right now. And that is one positive that I'm seeing in society from all the negative we see politically. But that's one. I agree with you very much. That's a positive. I'm seeing to where just some regular, normal things are at least, like, acceptable.
- [158:57]
A
I totally agree. Yeah, I think it's completely resetting, and I believe that there's a lot to be hopeful for. And I think that this is not, like, I'm not one of these, like, doomer people. And trust me, I'm not blind to what's happening. I'm not blind to what's happening. But, like, really, like, we. We have to get off of our asses and get into action. Action. We're Americans. We build stuff.
- [159:22]
B
Yes.
- [159:23]
A
Like, the answer here is not sitting back and commenting on the Internet. You know, we have to make things. We have to make things better. You know, that was a big thing for me, was like, this decision was so hard. But I looking, you know, I'm looking at my. My sons, my oldest son, you know, I'm like, man, like, where do I want him to work when he's a man? And, like, do I want him to have to go into an environment in. And pretend? Because I did. I. I don't. I'm not proud of that. I had to go into work. And like, I. I was very outspoken. I was very outspoken. But, like, there were things where it was like, you know, you know, special trainings around, like, pronouns and stuff, like, oh, my God, oh. You know, and like, I'm clicking. I'm clicking. I'm clicking through the thing, and I'm like. I'm like, part of me is like, oh, whatever, you know, you've got this fancy job, you know, millions of dollars, blah, blah, blah, blah, click, click, click, whatever. Like, it doesn't matter. And another part of me is like, I'm kind of digging the grave of my civilization right now by pretending like this is fucking okay. It's not. This is not healthy. We should not be getting ideologically trained like this. Yeah, this is not. This is not where we want to be. What did.
- [160:34]
B
Did, like you mentioned earlier, having, you know, some FaceTime with Johnny, I've, and I point that out just because he was one of the, the traditional old guard guys at building the company, regardless of whatever the hell they thought. Like some of those guys that were still around from the early days and whatever that were a part of this era where the culture and other things that had nothing to do with the product shifted. Did they ever, did you ever talk with any of them without naming names, like over a beer where they're just like, what the.
- [161:04]
A
Like, sure, yeah, totally, totally, totally. I mean, I think I, the, the guys who, I'm not like super close with all of them, some of them I know pretty well, but like very well. But like, you know, these aren't like blind people. These are smart people. I mean, these are ultra innovative people, you know, I really mean it. Like, and by the way, there's the ones we've heard of and then there's a whole crew of fucking pipe hitters who are like, I mean, just the best of the best. And they literally invented the world we live in and we've never heard their name. And they are like, they are so good. And I was very privileged to work with a lot of these people and I for sure, I felt like many of these serious senior people had a very mature, healthy self reflection on. Like, our company's fucking changed, you know, like, and, but not like it's over, you know, we can still do new things. You know, these are, these are optimistic, pioneering people. But yeah, I don't think it's, it's lost on anyone. I think think the real change that I perceive is this, that like Apple was designed to be run by a decider. The whole thing is structured to have a single person go, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. And it's not like that. It's sort of more of like, Tim is a very, very brilliant operations person, but it's, it's much more like, I would say like committee oriented than it was.
- [162:26]
B
Like, what do you think, Think of. Obviously he's way different than Steve Jobs. Sure, Steve knew that and Tim knew that. Like, they've never claimed to be the same thing Overall. Now, looking back on it, all the years Tim's been in charge, obviously there's ups, there's downs, there's positive there, there's negatives. What, what's your takeaway on Tim's leadership of the company.
- [162:49]
A
For shareholders? He's been a magician. Yeah, I would say that, you know, he, he pioneered this vision of resetting how Apple was valued by Wall street. And he moved it from Being perceived as a hardware company to a services company. And he successfully multiplied the value of the shares of the company many times over through that engineering. And I think that's incredible. I think that's really incredible. I think he has also innovated. I mean, he's an innovator when it comes to operations. The whole fact that these phones are made at these price at the speed that, you know, very few phones are made that are not sold. I mean, you know, we're talking about a uniquely capable person. Like, historically, you know, I really. I really believe that. I also personally believe, just as a human being and as a customer of Apple, I personally felt like one of the things I liked about Steve was he didn't get the company involved in politics at all.
- [163:53]
B
Yes, he's brilliant with that.
- [163:55]
A
Yeah. If I recall, I might be wrong here, but I believe Apple gave nothing to charity. I actually kind of think there's something interesting about that. I'm not saying that's the right choice. You know, I have whatever. But it's just interesting. You know, I perceived in my time at Apple that things got basically progressively politicized. And it started the day Trump was elected. I remember I went into work the day after Trump was elected, and the first time I heard anything mentioned politically at work was that day.
- [164:23]
B
The day after.
- [164:24]
A
The day after, I was like, oh, man. I was like, wow, I've never heard politics at work here. And then it basically just went up and up and up and up and up. And I think that my general perception is that in the group of people who've been made extremely wealthy by this smartphone economy, which a lot of these people tend to be centered around the Bay Area and other, you know, a handful of other communities. I think there is a very dangerous and slippery slope of seeing other people, are the other people in the country, like, as less valuable human beings. And what do I mean by that is like, the sort of vibe, like I mentioned that about, like, the. The unvaccinated rednecks, you know, like, that to me, is a fruit of a tree.
- [165:16]
B
Right, Absolutely.
- [165:17]
A
The tree is basically like, there are these other people. And what are they? They're uneducated, they don't know how to code, you know, they don't live here, they don't have a pride flag in front of their house, whatever. You know, the things that we think make us a good person. Person, and maybe some of those things are good, you know, but. But I think. I think it's very dangerous when the companies that our lives are all Going through are. Are kind of what might be the kind of fundamentalist about these ideas. You know, I think that creates, and I think that's what we saw during COVID was like, you know, information that's not okay getting silenced, information that is actually really extreme and unusual and not very common, getting pushed as like the status quo. And I think that the. I think we should be extremely on guard about normalizing that.
- [166:11]
B
Absolutely. There's a concept of using democracy against itself. Right. And I'm referring to that with foreign adversaries, all of them, every single one. It's like, if you want to turn a country in on itself, use the freedoms that that country enjoys, that you can kind of hac into openly that you don't allow in your country, by the way, in many places, use that against them and get in there. And this, this is the thing that was so disappointing with every company, be it Apple, Google, whatever. It's like, you guys are Apple, you're Google. You're these huge companies with huge gdp, let's call it. And you're letting the lowest common denominator mobile yell at you for the smallest things to get you to bend in the. It could be something as simple as saying, remove the gun emoji from your emojis and make it, you know, some fucking water gun or something like that. And you say, yes, bitch, you're Apple. You don't have to say yes.
- [167:08]
A
Say, fuck you.
- [167:09]
B
My next quarter's gonna be bigger than my last one, bitch.
- [167:12]
A
Yep.
- [167:12]
B
Like, why the fuck is that not with Google? When they demonetize videos on YouTube, it's like, if an advertiser says, for an auto advertisement that goes on, this one's obviously personal me. But let's say that that YouTube led on some fucking. What's like a horrible person, some extremist or whatever, had a channel and you know the auto ad puts Target as an ad on there. No idiot at home thinks Target actually advertised for that person. And someone that does like is beyond reproach, and they're probably going to forget about it the next minute. So if Target comes and complains to you that their ad, out of a million permutations, one of them was shown on this idiot's video with 3,000 views. You don't have to sit there and be like, oh, my God, we're sure we demonetize way more now. You can be like, all right, sorry, shit happens. Go somewhere else. Where else are you going to advertise?
- [168:02]
A
This advertising cartel thing is no joke, brother. This is a very Serious thing. And your concern about this is very well founded and we have not seen the end of this. And it's extremely dangerous. This is extremely, extremely dangerous. The use of these advertising cartels to demonetize channels and control what can be said in order to match or enforce speech codes is republic ending type stuff. It's not. This is not like. All right, what was it recently? I think I saw, oh, what's his name who recently came out saying, oh, I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have done this panel the way I did this. Oh, this famous writer. Oh, my goodness, it's skipping my mind. The curly black hair, super famous guy, Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell, correct. What did he say recently? Came out. I think this is. I think it's Gladwell. Yes, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure it's Malcolm, like Tipping.
- [169:01]
B
Point and all that.
- [169:02]
A
Yes. And he. He basically was out, you know, in an interview, and he's like looking back at a panel he did in 2022 where he was basically forced to endure. He felt forced to cat. He was cast cowed to endorse boys in girls sports. Right. And he's looking back and he's like, I'm ashamed of myself. Whoa. I should not have said this. I felt like at the time, careers are being ruined and I didn't know what to do. And this is what I'm getting at. It's like, we're all, brother, he's no better or worse than me. We're all able to make these errors. We're all able to make these bad decisions. The problem is when we do that don't correct, and when power's super consolidated in hands that don't correct, that is where we should expect more of the same in the future. So I'm very, very concerned that, like, right now, it's nice you can say what you want on Twitter. I agree. There's some channels that I'm like, oh, boy, it would be better if you weren't here. But it's great that you are because we all need to have some free speech. Yes. Like, this could change like that. It could change very, very, very quickly. And I'm super concerned about us being in environments. We're occupying spaces where we have no constitutional protections. And in fact, the referees have shown their true colors repeatedly. They've shown us what they think. So this use of advertisers to control what you can say or what the Daily Wire can say or whether X can survive or not, like, we are being. We're In a war. We're in a war, guys. We are in a war. We have been in a war for decades, and we don't even know it. Read Unrestricted Warfare, the book by two Chinese colonels. And right after the Gulf War, they saw what happened in the Gulf War, and they were basically like, okay, we're in a different world. We're in a different world where, like, the US has these space alien weapons. Like, war is now this. It can be. They say in the book, viruses, information, war. I mean, they literally say, viruses, information war. Right. It can be stock market fluctuations. We're in this right now. It's all tied. My question is the numbers are very specific. Where do we think these companies have their allegiance? I agree. And I know. I remember friends of mine being like, don't worry, everything's back to normal. They all went to Trump and kissed the ring. And I was like, brother, just for this quarter, fool me once, fool me twice. You know, I mean, come on, like, we are asking for it if we can't see through this.
- [171:34]
B
You also, the idea of putting allegiances in any one person or any one thing that includes Trump and everyone on. I don't even mean this as a political statement. It's just like we've been let down over and over again by politicians throughout the history of this country, since its founding. People of both sides or whatever the fuck you want to say, and all the bureaucracy around them as well. So when you start to think like, oh, oh, we're good now, or something like that, that's how the movie starts, brother.
- [172:01]
A
I'm totally. And it's like this. Back to this thing of, like, how do we fix it? It's not by pointing fingers. It's not by, you know, yelling at the top of our lungs. It's not by, you know, resenting them or nasty comments. We're Americans. Our answer historically to these problems is we build better answers. And we can do that. There is nothing stopping us here. We can just do things. Things. And that's at the heart of what we're up to. And by the way, forces are coming together to make this possible. People are buying the phone. We literally put the phone for sale, and it sold out like that. There was way more demand than we anticipated. So I think whether it's investors who are coming on board, guys like Eric who decided, like, man, nothing's going to change if we don't do this, you know, here I am making this jump that are other partners in this. It's like, I think people are Ready to act like Americans and not like sheep. Yeah, right. We are not. We are not subjects of some unaccountable technology monarchies. We are citizens of the United States. We have a birthright, right? My family, my mom's family's been here since the 1600s. My dad's family came here and moved to Washington heights in the 30s. Okay? It's like, we are Americans, right? That means something. And it's not gonna change by us, you know, it's not gonna change by us expecting a savior in the form of Trump or anyone else, you know, love him or hate him, I like him a lot. But, like, you know, I think he's done a lot of good things. But, my goodness, as a person, we have to make new decisions. We have to make new decisions, and the state of our country is primarily the result of our decisions as consumers. Worse.
- [173:48]
B
We were. We were talking about a little bit ago the impact of, like, intelligence agencies potentially having weird contacts or alliances with people at these companies and whatever. But what about. This was something you and I quickly talked about off camera before we started. What about how intelligence agencies basically have their work done for them by these third parties party, you know, marketing data apps that then allows them to do, like, what, Like. Like what is the. What constitutional rights that people may not know about are being violated like crazy right now, even by CIA on the average American?
- [174:26]
A
It is happening. It is happening. So you've heard of, like, open source intelligence, right? This is like using the Internet, okay. And there's humint, right? Humans. Okay. There is also. Also ad int. Right? And that is buying publicly available purchasable advertising information to find people. We should. You want to go through this thing real quick? Can I show you this? This is interesting. So this is an actual case this occurred. This is through some people we knew who were trying to find a human trafficker who was bringing people up through the southern border. And here's what they had about him. So if you go to the next thing, they did not know who this guy was. They didn't have a name of him. He was clandestine. They knew he was in Nicaragua. So, okay, they bought the Nicaragua cell phone data for one month.
- [175:17]
B
Who's doing. Who's finding him again?
- [175:21]
A
People affiliated. This is a project Eric was connected to. This is a real thing. He said we could share it. So here we go. So what do they do? All right, they buy the cell phone data, and they have three locations. So when you buy cell phone data, what are you getting? Is the location of these phones among Other things. You also can see what websites they visited, what apps are on them. I mean, you can see everything. Okay, but in this one, they're using locations. So they gave it three locations. They knew a cafe that this guy went to. They knew about an office of one of his associates, and they knew where his granddaughter's school was. So they put those three locations in. And as you can imagine, you could get three locations like that for anyone. Right? What do they do next? Let's go to the next one. Now they see, okay, only four phones in Nicaragua have gone to those three places in the last month. And it looks like it's two couples traveling.
- [176:08]
B
Because it's just from this third party data.
- [176:10]
A
Correct? This is they purchase. So now they see there's two phones going together, okay? And they go, sometimes they're together, but usually they're apart. Okay, go to the next one. They realize, all right, the granddaughter school, by the way, maid is advertising id, mobile advertising id. They go, all right, all four of them went to the school, but it looks like they're alternating pickups and drop offs. Two of them are dropping the girl off, two of them are picking them up. And they go, you know, we think this is parents and grandparents. Okay, we go to the next one, the office. One of the guys is there nine to five every day. All the other ones had been there, but only for brief visits. And the red guy is there 9 to 5. Next one.
- [176:50]
B
I'm just picturing, like Eric with drone strike.
- [176:54]
A
And then there's a restaurant. And one of our guys is there while everyone else is working. Hmm. Okay, One of our guys is there while everyone else is working. Next one. All right, frequency. Now they realize they can see where they sleep. Two of them live here. Two of them live here. You can do this for anyone, brother. But they've also visited each other's homes. And then the last one they realize is this. All right, the daughter had said on Facebook that she walks her daughter to school the granddaughter. And they realized one of the houses is close. And they see the walking pattern. So they go, all right, green is the other guy. Green's our target. He's the one who doesn't live next to the school. It took them, bro, 30 minutes. 30 minutes and purchasing some data, and they found a clandestine operative in Nicaragua. This is happening 247 now. Why? Why? This is the next thing. This is this test we did.
- [177:46]
B
We needed this for bin Laden, bro.
- [177:50]
A
It's insane. This is this test we did, right? We took a phone, we took an iPhone. Oh, the numbers are flipped. Hold on. This is wrong. Don't show this. The numbers are flipped. It's the iPhone. Should be on the left. I'll get you the correct image, basically, in one hour. Okay, 3,000 times. These phones are opening sessions, contributing the data that you just saw that publicly. Purchasable data. Data. Our phone blocked all of it. This is insane. So when you say, what are the public? What are the agencies doing? I'm showing you basically a report of an agency adjacent person. You know, consultant, whatever, right? This is what they're doing. They are buying data. They give it a few data points and they find the person. And then, okay, you get an ad for the Home Depot. When you're near the Home Depot. So they can see it in real time, bro. So they don't just get, oh, there's this happen. They can go, show me where he is now. Show me where he is now. Show me where he is now. Show me where he is now. You can also get. I've looked at this data myself. I mean, you can buy this stuff. You open an interface and you're like, oh, I don't just want to see who went there. Show me who went to that location in Hoboken. And show me the people who read Breitbart and show me the people who read cnn. I'm not joking, brother. Like, I've personally done this. Like, it's. It's there, right? So. Oh, my God. Are our intelligence agencies doing this? Yeah. By the way, I'm concerned about our intelligence agencies and our government doing this. Obviously, this is a huge constitutional crisis. You know who else is doing this? China's intelligence agencies and anyone else.
- [179:17]
B
And then there.
- [179:18]
A
And.
- [179:18]
B
But you understand why there's people out there going, well, you're building the shit in Israel. They're not actually building it there, but, like, you have engineering teams over there. Aren't they probably fucking doing it too?
- [179:28]
A
It's a great question. And again, let's. Let's actually talk about the answers to this question. Question. Obviously, there are risks, but what we're comparing here, we're literally showing you a situation where normal consumer phones are pouring data out to populate these databases, and we're showing you tests where this is not happening on a device. I think we should be really careful. Like, we should try to educate ourselves and make choices here based around what we could actually measure. Like. Like really, like the. The whole idea of the. The hypothetical back. What's the bigger risk? The hypothetical backdoor or the actual thing we can See right here.
- [180:08]
B
Yeah, I would agree. You have a very good, there's a very clear benefit immediately applicable to your phone when, when someone buys it. It's just like, what else are, is there a trade off with that? And is, does the trade off seem smaller but to certain people would be large, larger. You know, if you put in, if you put in the, in the hands of a person who's a, you know, the CEO of Intel or something and they're using that phone and then they get blackmailed or something, that's a, that's a general concern. It's. People get really concerned about this on an individual basis. Like, yes, people listening to the show or the average person like me. Like, but like then there are people that actually are real targets and that's where it gets weird and uncomfortable.
- [180:49]
A
Yes. And I, I'll just say this, I'll say we're working, working with folks like this and you know, both, both, you know, high profile people who need stuff but also security. Like there's whole sections of our government that have this problem like that. We have hundreds of thousands of people who have this problem, not just the head of Intel. Like we have operators and people who have this problem. And I think, you know, our, our vision here is, you know, this is step one, you know, we're looking at step two, three, four and five. And our vision here is a, is, is both new products and reformation of existing products. Let me give you an example. We're working with Pond. This is an MVNO they designed when we work with other MVNOs, awesome ones like Patriot Mobile, which we're huge fans of. Patreon Mobile has great like phone plan products. We worked with Pond on a data only product. What do I mean by data only product? This is for people who are like really concerned about data leaking. Right. This SIM that you get from Pond that they designed for us, it's exclusive to our phone. It doesn't have a phone number. Like you can text it in SMS for like two factor authentication, but you can't call it. There's no like phone line. It just has data for apps. So you could use WhatsApp, you could use Signal. And they've redesigned their billing platform so there's literally like the second the billing cycle's done, they purge all location data. So what does that mean? That means the location of your device in relation to the tower from the perspective of the network that you're paying is gone after 30 days as opposed to permanently, which is the other, all other cell phone, like your location is harvestable from your mobile provider.
- [182:21]
B
Sure.
- [182:22]
A
Right. So like with Pond, this is just a first step and we have a lot more coming. We're putting a lot of wood behind this down the road. It's a new network product where it's like they're literally just not keeping the information. Where we see a lot more opportunity here to go much further to imagine, you know, a major cell carrier designing a privacy centric product that is not retaining information. Because here's what's interesting. We have this thought which is like, oh, they're designing all this to monitor us and follow us around. That's not what this shit is at all, man. Remember like our parents used to get a phone bill and be like, hey, did you make that call? Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's why the cell carriers keep track of where the phones were. Because the phone bill system is still designed on that component concept.
- [183:03]
B
Yeah.
- [183:04]
A
It's not designed to follow us around. Right. So.
- [183:07]
B
But it can be used.
- [183:08]
A
It can. So it's like I, I'm opening discussions with all these carriers and I'm like, guys, I know a million people here will happily pay you twice as much to not keep their, their location around. So I think again, it's just, let's use our commercial capitalist system and innovate and build better products.
- [183:23]
B
Oh, that's the other thing. So are you going on like AT&T, Verizon?
- [183:27]
A
We're on AT and T. We're on AT&T, we're on T mobile and all the MVNOs. I'm working with Verizon right now.
- [183:32]
B
Okay.
- [183:33]
A
I'm actually. Anyway, we're working with Verizon. Yeah, got it. We have this, you know all the MVNOs I mentioned, patriot, who's awesome, they're great partners for this data product. We have this exciting thing with Pond, which is again, like a very ultra low data retention product. So we think there's going to need to be a lot of innovation here. And I'm telling you, we're working on and prototyping stuff that is going to blow people's minds in the, in the coming year or so.
- [183:56]
B
I'm going to have a lot more questions. Questions too. But one thing that's been like kind of above what we're talking about today, but it's, I don't know, been below the surface at the same time is AI. And you even specifically mentioned that early on in, in your time and Apple you were seeing some applications of that and things. It's like, oh, you know, how much farther along is this from what you know, than what we can see through chat, GPT and things like that. And what are, what are the things that keep you up at night about it?
- [184:29]
A
I think that. I think a lot of the hype is some of it's real, some of it's fake.
- [184:34]
B
Okay.
- [184:35]
A
So a lot of what we're consuming around AI is like legitimate, and a lot of it is like just another spoof, you know, fad, whatever. Okay. AI is a totally. And when I say AI, what we're describing is large language models, which is basically a unique. A new type of processing and information. And it's really incredible. And it's a new category of technology. The best way I can describe what it does is you can take information of different data types and immediately synthesize them and create insights out of it. It's extremely powerful. It makes things possible that would have taken decades of engineers writing algorithms. So it's incredible. Okay, what do I. I do not think there's gonna be some AGI. Like, I do not. I do not think we're gonna be talking to software all the time. I think that.
- [185:28]
B
Why.
- [185:31]
A
Okay, two major reasons. One is experiential and one is structural. Okay, the structural one first. I'll just. I'm just gonna talk about public stuff. But like, you know, Apple made ads that are like. I'm paraphrasing, but that woman who's in that zombie show, the actress. Last of us. Last of us. Anyway, they did ads with her where she's like. On that, she's like, hey, Siri, who's that guy I met at the hot dog stand five years ago? And Siri's like, oh, that's Joe with the camo hat. You know, and in that scenario, I understand it's sort of showing like she texted someone. Five years ago, I met a guy named Joe with a camo hat at a hotdog stand. Right.
- [186:12]
B
By the way, his hat means our company here, not yours.
- [186:15]
A
Sorry. I like it.
- [186:18]
B
For everyone out there, Joe's hat says, I love this company.
- [186:21]
A
We should get. We should get that for our thing. Yeah, so. So that idea that the AI is going to. That the LLM is going to magically understand whatever I said in a given moment is not how this is going to work. Why our minds similar. And this, this is the same reason AR was such a. A big phony bullshit thing too. Right? And I worked a lot in that space and there's amazing things Arkansas can do.
- [186:44]
B
I remember when that was going to.
- [186:44]
A
Be, but it's like, it's the new computing platform. No, that, you know, not real. Right. Okay. Why? The real world is not a compliant computing canvas. Okay? Similar. Neither are our minds. All right, so my understanding of how I describe the guy I met at the hot tub, blah, blah, blah, is not, not going to reliably translate to the AI. I describe that as what I call a thousand yard putt. I use this term a lot like we should not be trying to design a thousand yard putt where the AI is going to be like, it's this guy. Maybe you recorded something that gives the LLM a breadcrumb trail to get that answer. Maybe it didn't. So I think that is a terrible use case for how this is going to work. Alternatively, I think, think LLMs can do an incredible, insanely efficient job of distilling insights out of bodies of information. So while I don't think the thousand yard putts, where the AI can answer anything perfectly for me is going to be successful. And by the way, another example of the failure there is ask it something politically sensitive and it fucking fails. Remember Google Gemini? You said, show me an image of the founders of the United States and it showed you like the, you know, the cast of the wire is like what the. Like what? You know what I mean. Like what? You know what I mean?
- [188:02]
B
Like that's, hey, listen, Omar Little was my president.
- [188:04]
A
Hey, beautiful. But it's just like he made no sense, you know, it's like, it's, it's like another way to say this. Computers are not a good place to get the source of the truth because we all have different interpretations of the truth.
- [188:15]
B
What happens when they start interpreting it and defining what the truth is, though?
- [188:20]
A
I think that product sucks. Like, I use LLMs all the time. I use products all the time. I use LLMs for research all the time. And they, they help me find things and then I go and make sure that it's real. Right? But it's like I, I don't think that whether it's my recollection or what's the truth, I don't think that's going to be the actual interface that is killer here. What I think is going to, what is going to be amazing and it's, it's happening is using the LLM to take a lot of friction off of things we're doing all the time, right? Like you're going to have, have experiences on your phone or in software, on the computer, whatever in your life where the predictions are much better because it understands you. And like, I think we're going to see existing industries just get much, much, much better. Be less wasteful, be more personalized. And I think there's a huge amount of value there. I also think in the same way that Eric talked to you or I think he talked to you about drones and how they are totally democratizing violence, violence in a whole way that we can't imagine. Right?
- [189:22]
B
Yeah, I saw it too.
- [189:23]
A
Yeah. Like that's serious. Guys. LLMs are the same thing. There is so much risk with criminal enterprises using LLMs and this publicly available data to find people. This get ready. Like this publicly available data and an LLM, you can basically pick who your targets are. Like, show me the people who go to these places. Oh, oh, okay, I get it. So now when you see this guy, guys loaded. But he's going to that strip joint, that would be a perfect guy to lean on. You know what I mean? Like LLMs are going to make that.
- [189:53]
B
Possible, you know, it sounds like you are less concerned. Look, if I'm looking farther down the road right now at, you know, I'm gonna make up some years here, 30 years from now, the world being controlled knowingly or unknowingly by an AI that's.
- [190:06]
A
Sentient, do I think the world will be controlled by. Okay, I think there is a. I think there is a real risk you have brought up as a counterpoint to freedom and independence. Convenience. Okay. Which is a wise observation. That is a counter for that is a opposing force. I believe the real risk. And Adam Curry and John Dvorak talk about this all the time on their show, which is awesome. I think there's a real risk of a meaningful portion of people building relationships with these things. And I think that's dangerous. And I think. I think we have. In the same way that porno is a big problem. Like, I think we're going to go into very weird spaces there. So do I think there's risks here? I do think there are risks. I don't think the risks are Terminator, Judgment Day. Personally, I certainly. I'm not blind. If we start using software like this in defense areas, you know, obviously a mistake could get made. I. That's. You can imagine that. But big picture, I feel like we kind of adapt to things pretty well. My concern with LLMs is the following. I think it's incredible horsepower. I think we're going to make incredible. Cap. We're working on incredible things using LLMs locally. Great. I think that they accelerate the risk of dystopia. I don't think it's like overlord AI. I think it's evil people using AI to control other people. What do I mean by control other people? LLMs make it much easier to, for example, understand who goes to a church or a mosque or this or that or this or that. It makes it much easier to group and profile people. It makes it much easier to spoof people. So I'm, you know, I think that it's going to be an accelerating technology like we've had for thousands of years. We've been through these cycles and we're going to see some catastrophes, we're going to see some total injustice. We're also going to see some incredible inventions that happen. I think this is an incredibly perfect time to be innovating. But I think a lot of what we're seeing in terms of like, you know, a lot of what we're hearing, I think we need to remember this when we, oh, we need more, but you know, 500 times the power to build. It's like we're basically hearing their pitch to take their company public. You know what I mean? Like, and I'm not saying that everything they're saying is wrong and I, we certainly will need more power, but I think a lot of what we're hearing is luster. Yeah. And it's like, bro, it's like, look, listen, Cars, cars, amazing technology. They're kind of the same, you know what I mean?
- [192:36]
B
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
- [192:37]
A
You know, it's like my wife has a car, drives herself, you know, it's amazing. Right. But it's still like four wheels with a door, you know what I mean? It's like place to place. Yeah. And I feel like our form factor is going to be here for a while. I don't think we're around the corner from like glasses and I've spent a lot of time in this space and I think there's some great innovation happening there. I also, this gets back up. So I'm talking about the structural limitations. Then there's the experiential stuff. One of the great observations was a guy named Masahiro Mori, who is a roboticist who discovered this concept of uncanny valley.
- [193:06]
B
Familiar. Yeah.
- [193:07]
A
So it's like robots are interesting when they're not too human and then when they get human they get threatening. This is very important that the reaction, the cross cultural reaction to the humanoid robot is not. It's weird, it's, I feel threatened and cross culturally he got this feedback of zombie, living, dead head. Some part of our brain, by the way. This is a deep part of our brain is programmed to notice people with, who might bring a disease or something. They're not from our community. We're designed to protect our little village. Right. That part of our brain. The bells are going off when we see a robot that looks too human. This, this is a big. My original business before I got into tech was in computer human animation and motion capture. This is a big factor when you're talking about animation and showing people content that looks like people. Right. I think this same issue is going to be very relevant in the future applications of LLMs. So this notion of like the AI is in charge of us. I don't, I think that we're gonna prefer to be in control of a lot of our interfaces more than, than, you know, having a disembodied voice controlling things for us. I think that there's like basic human issues here that are gonna. Now there are going to be some people who fall in love with these things and develop religion. I think there's gonna be, I think we're gonna have weird spiritual things happen here. You know, I think that's very, very strange what can happen there. But I don't know. I think we're probably interfacing with things like this for a while. While I think why this allows me to like, turn it over.
- [194:48]
B
Sure.
- [194:48]
A
You know, I think people wearing glasses like that's gonna be weird. No one's gonna want to.
- [194:52]
B
I have no interest in them. I ain't gonna lie. I, I don't even have the slightest, like, oh, maybe I'll get. I, I, I don't care. I don't want it. You know, I, I kind of. This is enough for me right here.
- [195:02]
A
I mean, what. This form factor is a very effective and convenient. Enter exit. Enter exit. You know what I mean? Like, it, it's the glass is like not knowing if someone else, what they're doing. So that's, that's why I'm raising the robot thing is like that issue is going to happen with these glasses of like. Are you, what the, Are you photographing me? Are you not? It's just weird. It's like this, you have the world at your fingertips and like we understand that it's down and whatever, you know.
- [195:31]
B
Joe, it's been awesome today, man. I appreciate you going through a lot of different things. Your time at Apple is obviously fascinating. Answering some hard questions about your phone too. I think the I, and, and I hope this is true as well. You, you seem very genuine, but the intentions here are great. You know, so people out there are. We're all giving up our data like crazy on these other phones right now anyway, so that might be a benefit no matter what to going to use that. So we will have the link to unplug down below. People could check that out. They could check out all the permutations you guys ran as well to test all this stuff. We'll have that down there and then any other link links you want to give me, we'll do that as well. And we'll continue this conversation as you guys move along.
- [196:10]
A
Julian, thank you, brother.
- [196:11]
B
All right.
- [196:11]
A
God bless, man.
- [196:12]
B
Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me.
- [196:14]
A
Peace.
- [196:15]
B
Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. They're both a huge, huge help. And if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.