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- [00:00]
A
We all run businesses. In my case, I get a bunch of letters from the California Franchise Tax board from the IRS. And they come. Usually they're digital. I get PDFs sent to me and I have no way of either editing, changing, or analyzing these things. But you know what can do it?
- [00:16]
B
Adobe Acrobat Studio. Doug.
- [00:18]
A
That's right. And I honestly, it's. It's super, super nice. I'm going to show later an example, but you can analyze an entire PDF document, get quotations and sites of where different things are, and understanding what is like a 10 page PDF from some random obscure government agency, it's like a hundred times easier. Genuinely.
- [00:36]
C
Well, you can learn more about that@adobe.com do that with Acrobat. Support for this show comes from Rocket Money. Okay, like three months ago, I was going through my subscriptions on Rocket Money. Cause this is really good place to compile all them. You cancel your unwanted subscriptions. Right. And I realized that I'm still subscribed to Atriok on Twitch, so I use it to unsubscribe.
- [00:56]
B
Why wouldn't you want to?
- [00:57]
C
Well, I don't watch you on Twitch. I don't watch you.
- [00:58]
B
You do watch a lot of my content. It would be hard to give me two.
- [01:01]
C
Only on YouTube. Only on YouTube. So why would I subscribe to you on Twitch? Your friend doesn't make any sense.
- [01:07]
A
Patriarch has a Twitch channel.
- [01:08]
B
I am your co host.
- [01:12]
C
And if you want to try Rocket Money for free@rocketmoney.com lemonade to cancel your unwanted subscriptions, you can go check it out. Like Atriax Toy Shop. Doug. It's dead.
- [01:28]
B
No. What?
- [01:31]
A
Sorry, guys.
- [01:32]
B
Wait a minute.
- [01:32]
A
You're doing renovation in my apartment? I had to sleep here last night.
- [01:35]
B
Oh, but you do it every night. You're always here.
- [01:38]
A
Yeah, it's been going on a few years.
- [01:42]
C
All right, well, thank you for joining this week on Lemonade's Dead. This week we were going to have Ludwig, who is currently shitting, who quit and vomiting and. And is quitting YouTube. That's what we quit our episode of the show.
- [01:58]
B
Coincidentally, Ludwig doesn't show up on the same day they released the Epstein files.
- [02:02]
C
It's interesting. It's interesting.
- [02:04]
B
He was right. Locked in for the show and then this big release happens.
- [02:08]
C
Guys, I'm throwing up. Yeah, it doesn't make. Doesn't.
- [02:12]
B
You hear the lawyers in the background?
- [02:13]
C
You hear like.
- [02:14]
B
It's just like a lot of the.
- [02:15]
A
Cameras, they weren't on when I was throwing up, but it definitely did happen.
- [02:18]
B
It happened.
- [02:19]
C
It just feels like a suspicious spree of YouTubers quitting. We have Ludwig not showing up to this episode. We have Doug dropping his main channel and we have Schlatt dropping his main channel all at the same time that the files go out. And it just feels like, you know, there's a lot of redacted pictures.
- [02:35]
B
What's under the black bar? It's on YouTube.
- [02:39]
A
Don't need to think about this too much.
- [02:40]
B
Why don't we?
- [02:41]
A
What else is going on?
- [02:42]
C
You want to speed it up? You want to speed it up?
- [02:44]
A
So, guys, let's wrap this episode up.
- [02:47]
C
We've been going for a while.
- [02:48]
B
No, but it is a big deal. Doug, you put out a big video yesterday why you're quitting your main channel. And I think people are going to want to know what you know a little bit, what's going on. And maybe we talk about a broader discussion of what's going on with YouTubers in general. Because you're not the only one doing this. It's like a trend happening right now. Tommy in it quit yesterday, maybe for the fifth time, but it's happening. And so, I don't know, I mean, maybe for people who haven't seen your video, do you want to give a quick, a quick synopsis, like just to catch everybody up on what's going on?
- [03:15]
C
Yeah.
- [03:15]
A
The quick version is I have been doing my main YouTube channel, Doug Dug, for seven years. That has been a particular type of format that I sort of honed and developed back in 2018 and then in 2019 when the channel took off. Like, that's what I've been trying to do ever since, which is a very story driven, narrative kind of driven, challenge based content, which fortunately, you know, worked really great back then. It took several years for that to finally work, but then it did. And then it's just I've been going non stop ever since and it is really stressful to do this. We'll give the obvious caveat that this is not like the hardest job in the world. It's not physically dangerous or physically exhausting in the same way. But. But this job of YouTube and creative grind has a level of there's no separation at all between work and not work at all. What you've done by doing one of these jobs is take your hobbies and convert them into work. You also are in an industry that is demanding an endless, endless churn of additional stuff that is sort of leaving you behind at all times. If you are either one, not making things or two, are making Things that don't hit whatever the current algorithm and trends are. And you are blasted with these numbers on a day to day basis and generally with creativity. I mean, my, my opinion is still, you know, the harder you work, generally the better you do. But there isn't an end point to it there. You don't have a schedule, like with a movie or a TV show where you work for this period and then the project is done. There's no constraints, it's just endless.
- [04:50]
B
Posting that for a while and then.
- [04:51]
A
Yeah, and everything is telling you all the time, go forever. And that is extraordinarily draining. It is. You know, I mentioned this in my video, but you know, we've done, I've done very stressful jobs where it's like you have to show up and work for this client 14 hours a day at Blizzcon and it's chaos and there's millions of dollars on the line and that's really stressful in a defined period. And that's very different from being in a state where literally for seven years I have never really turned my brain off. I don't know if you guys have had the same thing, but I mean, particularly you, where you do it full time but, you know, you don't go on vacation, really, you're thinking about content. Even when I'm on vacation, I'm thinking about how I should be reading things or playing a game that might be relevant to content, or watching YouTube about content, or if I'm enjoying a video game or YouTube or anything, I'm inevitably thinking about how it might tie into work. There's just, there's no separation. And everything in this ecosystem, YouTube, Twitch, all these numbers are just telling you nonstop. You're shrinking, you're dying. Unless you're working hard, it is falling apart. Everybody else is growing bigger than you. Go, go, go, go, go. And it's extraordinarily fucking draining. So for me personally, I've hit a point after seven years where I want to stop doing that particular grind with the obvious note that I'm very lucky to be able to do this in the first place because now I have the financial freedom. And also this podcast is helpful as well. It's like another sort of, of, you know, backstop. But really it's. The podcast is actually not almost at all the incentive behind this. This has been building over more work.
- [06:23]
B
Honestly, it's.
- [06:25]
A
Yeah, so it just made everything harder. It's just. But I should be clear like this, you know, this show is not the reason that I'm making this decision really at all. It just accelerated it a little bit.
- [06:35]
C
Sure.
- [06:36]
A
There. Maybe I would have extended this decision into 2026, but that's my personal experience.
- [06:42]
B
Couple things jump out to me. I mean, one thing you said about the. The algorithm is really echoed in what Schlatt said in his.
- [06:49]
A
Yeah, so Jay Schlatt also quit. And while he is pretty inconsistent, I've. I've really pushed myself to make as much stuff as I possibly can at all times. Even the periods where I'm not making things, I am. I am working on things in the background. I think that's actually true of Schlatt, despite him posting once every six months a lot now.
- [07:07]
B
But he. I think it was more than once a six months. You know, you had decently regular video updates on that side channel.
- [07:14]
A
So not only that, I talked to friends of his. I'm not personally made big projects close with Schlatt, but like I've talked with close friends of his and apparently despite his output not being consistent and seeming like he's not doing anything and there's a big joke of like, oh, rent is due whenever he actually uploads. Apparently he is working on projects all the time, but has felt such immense pressure. And he talked about this on his retirement video, about whether a new video is going to reach the same success as a previous one. That that pressure basically just destroyed him mentally and stopped him from making things. So according to people who are close with him, for every project he actually releases, there's like 10 that he's worked on that just isn't happy. He's not happy enough with it to actually put it out.
- [07:56]
C
Yeah, it's interesting to hear that across the board from YouTubers. They all have the same feeling about the out of 10.
- [08:07]
B
That was a big part of his video, was like the. When you have a 1 out of 10, you get the confetti and it's like this dopamine rush.
- [08:13]
A
Let me show it.
- [08:15]
C
Yeah. For those that don't understand. So when you upload a YouTube video, what YouTube does as of. I mean they've been doing this for like this feature has been available for at least five years now. Right. It wasn't always there. But when you upload a video, your video for the time it is uploaded compares its views and performance and retention and against your previous nine videos. So it falls into a ranking where maybe it's a 5 out of 10, maybe it's a 10 out of 10 and that, that is just showing how many views it has compared to Your previous ones and for it is the main talked about metric in this like sphere of career about like the success.
- [08:57]
B
Of your project all the time. They're always talking about out of 10.
- [09:00]
C
Yeah. And from the people that I've gotten to know over the years, you know, whether it be Ludwig or you got or I've had some conversations with Schlatt or I've had conversations with Ted Nivison about is the mental breaker for some people because I think what happens a lot of the time and to an extent I've felt it for the first time this year with this show where for the yard. I never really checked that metric of success directly, but I've been more attentive to it this year when we're releasing this show. And I, I, I think a podcast is a little different because you have a weekly cadence of how you release it. But for other YouTubers because I, I think there's a part of me that is aware to, of people listening to this who are like, you know, YouTubers complaining about their careers. Right. And I totally understand that. I think there's just an important spectrum of how people work on projects on YouTube. Right. There's a type of in style of channel that is, I would say like lower effort. There are types of YouTube channels that maybe pump out things really quickly. They don't put as much like creative effort or thought into those into each individual video. And the turnaround is easier, the effort is easier. But then on the other end, which I would consider dug on where you're spending like maybe weeks or a month or more in preparation with staff of the building of the idea outside of the video itself so you can execute on the day the broader narrative of the video, the editing. So when you see channels that take like, you know, weeks or months between their uploads, it's because there's a ton of work that goes into that effort. And with a channel like yours that doesn't have a fixed like format or narrative between each video, you're often experimenting or trying to do something a little new. The idea has to be its own own individual thing that can stand on its own each time you upload. Right. So from a YouTuber's perspective, when they spend maybe weeks or months on that one project or sometimes longer than that, some people work on things for like a year and then you upload it and then It's a stinky 8 or 9 out of 10. It's like this shattering of your personal identity to a degree. That's how people describe is it is such a hit to feel this idea of, like, I dumped all this, like, time and energy and, like, my soul into this project, and it didn't pan out. And I'm sure that's a relatable feeling for many people. It happens in so many other forms outside of YouTube, right? You preparing maybe for a performance or a project at work, and it's supposed to lead to a raise, or you have, like, a piano recital that you've, like, prepped years for, or you're finally trying to apply for a program, you're trying to do.
- [11:52]
B
The difference with those is that they don't give you a number. They don't give you. It's not algorithmic or it's not like a they. They score it. That's the. The YouTube one is every time you have a underperforming video, you will know directly.
- [12:04]
A
Here's for people who are watching. If you pull my. My thing up. Perry. So this is what it looks like on Lemonade Stand. We posted a clip yesterday from Chris Broad and us talking with him in Japan, ranking my views 10 out of 10. The views, there's a big arrow down. Average percentage views. It's okay, but the likes are down. Every single time you post anything, this. This pops up on you.
- [12:24]
B
Chris, make him feel bad about us.
- [12:25]
A
This is the. This is the main thing you are shown when you open YouTube. You cannot close this. Every time you upload anything, it is telling you, this did better or worse, and they make a big fucking deal about it. And it's crazy. By contrast, here's mine yesterday. Wow, looking good. This video's ranking 2 out of 10. Earlier yesterday, it was a 1 out of 10 and confetti shot on the screen. And I'm like, oh, wow.
- [12:51]
B
You said, cool, I'll retire more often.
- [12:52]
A
This is hopeful feedback.
- [12:53]
C
I like. I like how you. The confetti is the best part. Schlatt in his video was like, the confetti's evil, dude.
- [12:59]
B
It's so funny because I was like, you turn this shit off.
- [13:02]
A
I don't want to know this.
- [13:03]
B
I was like, I don't relate with this at all. I love the confetti.
- [13:07]
C
You probably love it like you're a demon, dude.
- [13:09]
B
I love the confetti, bro. It makes me smile, makes my day better.
- [13:12]
C
I think what's. What's tough is maybe. Maybe you guys agree or don't, but having, you know, having had a very normal job, I would say not that long ago, the difference between, like, not meeting a performance at my old job versus having a stinky 8 out of 10 or a 9 out of 10 on lemonade stand for me is the product just isn't personal. At the old job, it's like, if I'm not meeting, like, the KPI or the performance marker or whatever, it's like. It's kind of like, whatever. I work at this company and I, you know, I tried my best and. And like, things didn't work out and. But so there's. There's this. With this. It feels like kind of a personal attack. It's like I have failed. Like, some part of my being has failed and it is translating into this low ranking.
- [14:02]
B
Yeah.
- [14:03]
C
And it eats at you. Uh. And I wonder for a lot of other people, I think the reasons they quit. I briefly talked about to Ludwig about this before he said he was gonna come on this episode. And he basically boiled it down to, you know, people get maybe a level of stress with the output like this that they wanna break from it. Other people just reach a certain, like, monetary goal or financial goal that they're like, this is it. I'm out. I don't wanna do this anymore. And then other people, I feel like they just reach a natural, like, phase out where they're. Their channel just isn't popular anymore. They don't have a way to, like, keep outputting something that a bunch of people watch and the career doesn't work out, so they just. They just have to quit and it falls into these, like, three. Three buckets.
- [14:49]
B
That was Ludwig's analysis of the ways it can go.
- [14:52]
C
Yeah. He boiled it down into, like a two sentence. Like, you've either you either, like, hate it or you're bored of it, or you've made too much money and then you walk. Right. And that was his, like, very short synthesis.
- [15:05]
A
I think there's also an element to this that I. My read because I've been kind of looking at different creators, and the ones who go for long, long, long periods of time tend to just do a series. They show up and they do a consistent thing, right? The let's players, even though let's plays have kind of, like, dropped off, they show up and they. They were. They're doing well. You know. Northern Line is phenomenally successful.
- [15:26]
B
First person I was thinking of.
- [15:27]
C
Yeah.
- [15:28]
A
And like, he's got a system. He's got a system. He shows up and he plays games and talks over them and that's it. People just want to hear him talk.
- [15:34]
B
It's a defined period of time, not forever. And he was very guarded of like many vacations a year, time with family. I don't stream outside of these hours. I don't stream on weekends or whatever.
- [15:43]
A
Yeah.
- [15:43]
B
Like he has made it into a job that is as close to a regular job as can be.
- [15:48]
C
Yeah.
- [15:48]
B
And he outputs so much. He doesn't care about the numbers on his YouTube. Like he puts out whatever librarian takes care. He's. Yeah, he's solved a lot of these mental problems.
- [15:56]
A
So that consistency, I think is. Is a big difference between somebody who gets really burnt out and that's. You see this on Twitch, like many people have been streaming for 10 years and they're the people who just show up and play video games every day. By comparison, someone like, I don't know, Kai Sanat, who's showing up and doing like these crazy produced things every like two or three weeks, that's a different, very different type of creative job. And I think that, I imagine he's.
- [16:18]
B
Going to be pretty burnt out by the time he's like 27.
- [16:20]
A
Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. He's the only doing it for a couple of years, really.
- [16:24]
C
The people who show up and play video games every day, if they manage to keep the viewers somehow over that period of time, I think that also falls into the camp of you're turning around something that is inherently less stressful than the upper end of like creativity.
- [16:36]
A
You have on the platform. So here's what I would say. I think what people maybe don't see the difference sometimes between somebody like Northern lion who shows up and plays video games and talks and that's the creative output. And he's phenomenally talented at that. Right.
- [16:48]
C
He's very good at that.
- [16:49]
A
But what I do, or Schlatt does, or Tommy in it, or Tom Scott or Matpat or all the people, you're trying to create a new thing every single time you put out a video. It can't just be next part of the previous series, really. You have to write new jokes. You have to write something conceptually that is interesting because that's what YouTube, if you're focused on YouTube specifically, rewards. It does not reward putting the same thing out over and over. You can at most, if you have an idea, you do a few more series of it, but they plummet really quickly. So you are expected every time you put something out for it to be new and feel new and exciting, while also being not so dissimilar from your previous stuff that people don't show up and participate in it. There's this entropy where if you do the same thing or something that's too similar. You see your channel and views going down and again, YouTube blasts that @ you and lets you know that you are declining and you have to do something that is fundamentally different, which means you never feel secure. And then on top of that, your boss is a robot. You show up every week and you put your stuff to a robot who then says at the end of the month, fuck you, I don't want to give you much money or attention. Your career is potentially threatened now. Maybe you're just going to start plummeting and blah, blah, blah. Whereas other people have a human boss who there's some degree of knowledge about what they're.
- [18:04]
C
Doing. I, I think, yeah, I do agree with that. I think there's the, the other end of it, where specific like static formats can last a long time. Like part of Schlatt's issue was his mainstay is like these like tick tock react videos that.
- [18:20]
B
He. Yeah, like your room is.
- [18:21]
C
Crazy. Your room is.
- [18:22]
A
Crazy. But even those like that series. So yeah, he experiments with different things. Right. He found that format, that format works. But then over time those start to drop pretty precipitously. So you can land on a format like, I've done that with Twitch plays, but you have a limited shelf life before. You now need to attempt to find a new thing. And then because of how creativity works, you don't know what's going to work. So you have to try as many new interesting things as possible all the time. And then YouTube fucking blasts you in the ass when some one of them doesn't.
- [18:51]
C
Land. Yeah, I think that's the, the part that he seemed to be struggling.
- [18:54]
A
With.
- [18:54]
C
Right. Is like he was trying to break, he wanted to break away from that stuff creatively because he, from having personal conversations with him. He hated making that.
- [19:04]
B
Stuff.
- [19:04]
C
Yeah. Even though it was the success behind the viewership of his channel in a lot of ways. Right. But every time he tried to break the mold and spend a long time investing in some other type of project that is way different than worse than those. It would do worse than.
- [19:17]
B
Those.
- [19:17]
C
Yeah. And he's like, what? This makes me feel awful. I did want to ask you guys something maybe personal, because for Ludwig, I think part of the motivation that keeps him going after such a long time is he has created like an apparatus and a company around him where a lot of other people are dependent on him and that contributes greatly to his motivation. So the fact that he employs a bunch of people and they have healthcare and they have an office, they go into and a sense of community. All of these things matter to him, and it's a reason for him to keep going and working hard. And he talks about that and turning that switch off. It means that one day, also, everybody I employ at my company, or almost everybody I employ at my company, is not gonna have a job anymore. And I need to make a decision as to when that transition happens. And he's very forward about how many years he expects to keep doing things. But. But I was wondering, on both of your guys end as people who employ people because of your work, is that like a big factor in, like, how long you want to keep going? Or like, what maybe kept you from. Like, you're. For instance, you're about to take a break for a bit, and then you just announced this. So how does the situations of other people that work on your channels contribute to you making these sorts of.
- [20:40]
B
Decisions? It's been a big part of it this year. I. It wasn't so much before, but I think with this year, it's not. Not even solely about their jobs. It's about that we, at the beginning of the year all made a commitment to. To hit every day we made this thing. And so they're all in on it. They're like, crunching to make the videos.
- [21:01]
A
Happen. This is Big A, right? How many people are involved with Big A.
- [21:05]
B
Specifically? I mean, there's two editors, and me is like the main team, but there's. There's, like, people to help with research. There's people that. There's other editors that jump in when we need a crunch. So it's like, probably five, six people that are around, but all these people, like, early on committed to this idea, and sometimes they've had to make sacrifices to do it. And so when it's time for my turn to make a sacrifice, like, I feel like shit that day and don't want to do it. I feel like I can't be. I can't be the one to break this streak. I'm not gonna be the.
- [21:30]
A
One. You were finding ways to cram in content in.
- [21:33]
B
Japan.
- [21:33]
A
Yeah. When we're theoretically on Big, just give people. We would literally be in the Trash Taste studio doing a podcast, and then we would wrap up. And Trash Taste guys are about to record their own podcast, and you were like, cdawg, can I borrow your computer to record a clip? And you, while we are all hanging out with the Trash Taste guy, they're having fun catching up. We're having fun. 10ft away in the corner, Brandon is Recording.
- [21:57]
C
Clips. It was funny because you were. You were reading through the research material before making the clip in the corner of the room, just silently.
- [22:06]
A
Scrolling right after. And we went out drinking until like 2am and then you're. You're wasted. And you're like, connor, can I go to your. Can I go to your. Your apartment tomorrow? It's. And record clips. And he was like, well, I'm leaving for a flight. You'd have to come at 6am and you were like, that's.
- [22:27]
B
Fine. So you're like, dude, I showed up. So my not hungover just felt like absolute. He let me in the door. He's like, all right, I'm leaving. Go record. And I was like, all right. And then I fell on his couch and fell asleep for three hours and then woke up and recorded. Yeah, yeah, but that's because, you know, same thing. Because I know that Aish is the big example, but, like, I know that he has stayed up late sometimes to make sure we hit the midline deadline and he's done work on it. And so it's like, you got a break before me. I'm not going to be the one that stops the streak at the end. We're getting near the end here, and it's getting very annoying. Like, you know, I'm running out of stuff that I want to say this year. I want to break. And you're a.
- [23:05]
C
Podcaster. You got.
- [23:06]
A
Takes. Come.
- [23:06]
B
On. I use them on this show too. We've talked about this. Like, yeah, a big problem for me is, like, I think you mentioned it where you said, you know, when you have downtime, like, I better read something. So I have. That is what my life feels like right now, where I feel like I'm constantly trying to consume things. So I have things to talk.
- [23:23]
C
About.
- [23:24]
B
Yes. And that's fine. And that's it. I like to. I did this because I like to do that anyway. But it, it is hitting. Because of the podcast. Plus, big A. Yeah. There's only so many damn things that I'm gonna have a strong opinion on that I want to talk about. And I'm hitting the limit and it's like, like the engine stalling out right there near the end of the year. And I just want to take a fucking break and read a book for fun and read a. You know what I'm.
- [23:44]
C
Saying? I think you. You summarized it really well in your video, which was this idea of because. Because you're. You're the guy, you're making the video, you're in charge of everything. Every free moment could be another moment that you're working to make the thing better, because you could put a little more time into it. You could put a little more thought into it. It could be. And. And so there's never.
- [24:11]
A
A. There's never like, a list of things you check. And now the thing is creatively perfect. It's only ever an infinite thing you could do.
- [24:18]
B
Better. Yeah, I want to talk about this. Like, I think some people listen, these jobs are, especially with the level of success we hit, are really good, and they're unbelievably for. It's lucky.
- [24:30]
C
Right?
- [24:31]
B
Yeah. But I do think it's worth this discussion because we're in a world where if you polled especially young people on what their number one job would be, it is this job that is right now, every polar study is like, it's become the. It's past astronaut and fireman. I'm like, whatever. And so I think it's worth a candid discussion of what the downs. Like, what are the down. What are the. The perils and stresses of it. I think that's why this is a worthwhile discussion to have. Even if you are sitting there and you're like, my job bugging sucks. This is. What are you talking about? Don't complain. I can understand that. And I've had, you know, I worked jobs that I, you know, at the end of it, I really hated my job at Twitch, and I. There's parts of my time in Nvidia that I was, like, extremely stressed and didn't like it either. But I. I don't go, oh, now I have this job. And it's so easy. There is some parts of this job that fudgeing suck. And I think it's worth talking about. And I think it's. It's easy to pretend like they don't exist and be like, we're so lucky. And I'm glad we're having this discussion, because there are parts.
- [25:27]
C
That. I'll be totally honest. I think, like, there's a very big difference from being a YouTuber to being like a. A podcaster. Like, this is way easier. Way easier. And making the yard, compared to being somebody like Doug, making that style of YouTube video is significantly easier. Doing the yard itself is very easy. It's. I mean, it is. It is incredibly.
- [25:58]
B
Easy. Speak for yourself. A lot of research, a lot of.
- [26:01]
C
Prep. Yeah. And I think that's. I think maybe that's. The asterisk is like, I don't know if people know what they're Asking for when they say they want to chase that. But I think that goes a lot of ways, right? Like, I had this dream when I was a teenager. My goal was to work in esports. I wanted to make video game events. I thought that would be the coolest thing ever. I went to MLG Anaheim 2013. I saw 20,000 people packed in a room watching League of Legends and Starcraft. And I was like, dude, holy shit, this is fucking amazing. This is what I want to do. And then every decision in my life was towards the goal of working in esports from there. And then eventually I. I got there like very, very early, to be honest. And I got into the world of what running esports events was actually like. And I was like, damn, this is.
- [26:51]
B
Not. This shit.
- [26:52]
A
Sucks. It sucks so.
- [26:54]
C
Much. This shit sucks.
- [26:55]
A
Dude. Everybody who gets into it, I've personally had calls with a number of people or like friends were like, hey, can you talk to my brother? Like, he wants to get into esports. Can you talk to this friend? And I'm like, look, man, just so you know, Ron, it sucks once you're in.
- [27:09]
C
There. If you are listening to this.
- [27:11]
A
Podcast part of it, it sucks balls.
- [27:15]
C
Dude. And it's a whole industry that.
- [27:17]
B
Runs on people that love video games so much that they can grind them down to hate it. That's just an endless turn of people that love competition and love video games and they just mash.
- [27:27]
C
Them. Yeah. One feeling that I really resolved from that trip through esports, like getting to this point of like, oh, I have the job I told myself I always wanted and now I'm not enjoying it anymore. I realized that chasing like aspirations or rose tinted versions of careers is so much less fruitful than making changes in your life that are about like quality of life. It's way better. Imagine so many jobs like, boil down to like tech or spreadsheets that you're using on a computer, right. And the end output, a lot of the time is very disconnected. Like in the case of esports, your love of gaming is very disconnected from the spreadsheet and emails that you're filling.
- [28:13]
B
Out. Yeah, you're just filling out.
- [28:14]
C
Here. And I was like, oh, I could just be doing this for something else or some other type of.
- [28:18]
B
Thing. Yeah, make more money, work less.
- [28:19]
C
Hours and then game at home. Exactly, exactly. That allows me to improve other parts of my life outside of work. I should start making decisions based on that. And I feel like that was like a life changing revelation that helped me move in a better.
- [28:33]
A
Direction. I disagree. My Mental health has been not prioritized in any way, shape or form the last seven or eight years. I wouldn't train this for anything. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think the experience is worth it. First off, I only got to the position where now I can, in theory, again retire. For people who don't know, I'm still gonna make videos on a second channel I'm gonna stream when I feel like it. It's just gonna be much, much looser. But, like, even if I had to fully quit now, like, I would do it again. I'm so. I want to have accomplished things and contributed to industries and creative projects that I'm passionate about. And that, to me, is worth it. It just. It's just. It can't be forever. And I think that's maybe what the average person doesn't realize. It feels like almost every YouTuber is burning the rope at both ends and you are, like, rapidly moving towards this ability to just not emotionally be able to do it anymore. But I'm of the. Maybe because I'm a workaholic of the mindset of, like, I would fucking do it again. You know, I liked working in esports. It was miserable and so hard and not good for me in many ways. And I'm really proud to have done those things and gotten through it and have the experience to look back and know I did it and I learned what I did and don't like. I don't know. I. I would rather try than be.
- [29:45]
C
Safe. I agree with that part. I don't think I regret the experiences. I think it's important to still chase those things and, like, learn from.
- [29:53]
A
Them. Okay, this ties to a question then that I wanted to ask both you guys, because one of the things I'm excited about with AI is that I think it's going to offer many, many more people the ability to be entrepreneurs, start a business, do whatever. Because I think AI tools are going to pull away at many of the friction of starting a business or.
- [30:11]
C
Whatnot.
- [30:11]
A
Yeah. And we can get into that later with our later conversation, but not only because of that, also because of everything else we've talked about. With the economy changing, it feels like everything is moving towards gig work and people being their own business owner. And while that's really cool in a lot of ways, I am concerned increasingly that that's going to put every person on earth into this position where you just need to work endlessly because you don't have an employer, you don't have some degree of safety, you don't have a consistent thing. You can show up. You are trying to grind and make your way and establish something all day, every day, forever. And I really would not wish that on all of the populace. I think I enjoy that for periods of time. But I. I'm concerned about the average person who's forced into gig work or forced into self employment needing to be in this grind without a.
- [31:03]
C
Decision. I think that I feel like it's kind of a false offering because it gives you so much autonomy to do the work, ignoring all of the other downsides of it. You feel a sense of guilt for your own failure or like economic position that I do not think is fair to the circumstances of that job or why you were forced to take that job. And it's kind of this false. This false promise because you're not really a business owner. You're not. You don't have any of the upside. You have none of the upside except maybe kind of the scheduling part of what it would mean to own a business. Right. So the TR I reward is not there. Yeah. The trade off of actually owning the business is sure you deal with all the things that you're talking about, which I do think is true. I think the. That the cost of like leadership, if you're doing it correctly, is that you do have to always be on and you're responsible for other people and you owe an amount of time and effort that if you were in a more standard position you wouldn't have to put in. But you don't even get the. And then you get the ownership of the thing and the. Presumably the financial reward. Reward and the flexibility and being your own boss that comes out of that. Right. But as soon as you're a gig worker, you actually have none of the upside. The actual upside and the reason to put that time in. But you're only. You only serve to be like exploited with the false promise of what it means to be your own.
- [32:38]
A
Business. Like you just read the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Yeah, I agree. The proletariat really should have the means of.
- [32:47]
C
Production. This little thing. If you want to check out the book club episode, we.
- [32:51]
A
Just. Yes, we are. We are hours off of Aidan finishing the Communist Manifesto, by the way. What do you.
- [32:59]
B
Think? Yeah, people, I actually think I've said this on stream, which is that when people complain about YouTube or consecration, it is because like you said, they can't turn their brain off. There's no. You can't check out at the end of the day and becomes. There's Always something you could be doing. And that is essentially what everybody entrepreneurial job is. And in fact, I think I said this, I think consecration is probably the easiest version of that because you have a very defined set of rules that the platform handles for you. I have to just do this thing. But it still fills up all your time and your mental thought. But if you, if you're running a business, you might have to do, you know, permits from the city, your HR and payroll, all extra stuff that's like much more annoying. That's like more managed with, with YouTube. But so I do think making everyone into having to deal with that as their regular course of doing business is a, it's almost dystopian. I mean it's crazy. It's not, that's not a normal.
- [33:53]
A
Outcome. I don't think the average person wants.
- [33:55]
B
It. They don't want it. They would like to find even, you know, my own employees, dude, I learned this from working with people. There's some people that would really like like a high percentage based pay and they want to just grind. They want to hustle and put a time. Some people would like a structure. They want, they want stability, they want a set amount. They want time and effort and hours that are set to their, to what? They want to give to this and they don't want, they want to not think about it outside of that. That's just some people's preferences. And so I think the major takeaway is like if you're someone who's like, oh man, I, I'm watching Kai Sonat or something, that's something I want to do. And you're not a person that would like to do that stuff outside. You're not going to enjoy it, you're going to hate the job. It's not going to, it's not going to be fun for you. That is the, I think the takeaway you can take. You know, even it was funny. We were at your housewarming. I don't want to, I'm not even gonna say the name someone who works for one of those type streamers, one of those big irl young live streaming people. And from the outside it looks like that person is, you know, winging it, like having fun. There's camera on. But that the, the person on their team was like, yeah, after, you know, nine hours of live streaming, then we have like a two hour review call and we're like planning that like and that person's leading the call like that. And this is a young person. Like this person's Grinding. They're grinding to get that.
- [35:13]
A
Level. You're saying this is like an IRL streamer for nine hours. Very, very.
- [35:17]
B
Afterwards.
- [35:17]
C
Okay. Yes, I mentioned this. Yeah, yeah. On Mixed.
- [35:22]
A
Signals. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [35:23]
C
Yeah. She left my house at 9pm for the meeting. Yeah. Like it's like on a.
- [35:29]
B
Saturday. What a.
- [35:29]
C
Surprise. It was a Friday night. She left. She left at 9pm after working all day to go do another meeting. Because that's just when it has to.
- [35:36]
B
Happen. Yeah. Because they just finished a stream. That's crazy. And then. Oh, man. Say something because I. What are you talking.
- [35:45]
A
About? Don't cut this.
- [35:46]
B
Out. No, don't cut this out.
- [35:47]
A
Perfect. Leave this in the.
- [35:48]
B
Podcast. Oh, and this is the brain rod that can't.
- [35:51]
A
Talk. It's been five seconds of nothing. This is awkward. The.
- [35:55]
B
Audience. It's two out of.
- [35:57]
A
Ten. Yeah, two out of ten. Three out of ten, four out of.
- [35:59]
C
Ten. I think I, I, I wanted to move on to after, after a year of doing the show. If you guys have any big shifts in what you think or believe about the world, because this is, I think, just the speed at which I formed opinions this year and changed opinions was probably the, the fastest because there was an intentionality to reading and consuming stuff all the time. So we had stuff to talk about on this show and a little bit outside of it. So I wanted you guys to speak to.
- [36:31]
A
That. I went from not like, disagreeing with Nick Fuentes to disagreeing with him, like, about hating.
- [36:40]
B
Women. He doesn't go far enough. You're always like, yeah, well, I'm.
- [36:43]
C
More, that's the old.
- [36:44]
B
Duck. You think he's a.
- [36:45]
C
Rhino? I'm more, yeah, calling Nick Vunt as a rhino is so.
- [36:51]
B
Fun. One I, I.
- [36:52]
A
More. The joke was that I didn't know what Nick Fuentes thought, and now that I've looked at what he thinks, I strongly disagree with it. But yeah, that.
- [37:00]
B
Too. What about.
- [37:00]
A
You? That's it? That's the only.
- [37:01]
B
Change? That's your only.
- [37:02]
A
Change? No, no, I got, I got a bunch, but I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, TED talk this. What's yours? Oh, what are some of yours? We can go around the.
- [37:08]
B
Torn. There was one that I talked to you about after we recorded one day recently, and it's about the idea. I don't want to do a huge AI thing. You have plenty of AI things to say.
- [37:18]
A
Too. Yeah, I'm.
- [37:19]
B
Sure. But I, you know, there's one belief that strengthened and one that weakened at the beginning of the year I would have told you that I think is like a financial bubble and it's going to pop, whatever. That view over the year has strengthened. However, on the flip side, I have become like just middling to 100% concrete that it is going to change the world very, very profoundly and that it is an extremely, extremely impactful. Like I mentioned this to you in the way there's people in my community who when I talk about AI being a financial bubble are like, yeah, and then it's gonna blow up and then it's gonna be gone. And I just, I have to be so direct that that's not going to happen. Like it is. Once you see even one thing, and I've seen a couple now that it can do fantastically that it's just 100x improvement over previous things. Once you see that, once you realize it's like, oh, this is, this is like when I first saw the Internet or this is like a big.
- [38:14]
C
Thing. This is going to give an.
- [38:16]
A
Example. Yeah. What are the ones that like stuck.
- [38:18]
B
Stuck. The big example that I've talked about recently is that I used to sit next to the finance department at Twitch and I would play melee with these guys every day. We would talk and they would complain about their job and things they're working on. And I saw an example of a finance professional using AI to take a massive amount of data, financial data, and, and, and organize it for new regulations that were coming out. So like it would ask him the right questions and things you need to change. And, and I have seen someone do that for like when gdpr, which is a financial thing from Europe rolled out. Everyone had to do it. I talk with them every day as they're working on it. This is such a painful process for them that takes weeks and complaining and it's has a lot of human error too. Honestly. They mess up on it and, and I saw this thing step by step go through it and the financial professional checking it. It was crazy. I mean that is such a 100 year thousand x leap over how simple it was. That would have taken a team of people a long time. This is like, you know, that's like if you were somebody who's a coal miner and saw the first steam engine, like it's, it's a big deal. That is a big.
- [39:20]
A
Deal. Or somebody delivering letters physically via horse and then the Internet appears or you know what, yeah. Morse code or.
- [39:27]
B
Something. And I, I. There's many things I hate about AI which is like what I think it's doing to education. I think it's amazing for education, but it's being used horribly. So I think there's a lot of, a lot of complex thoughts on it. But I once I see a few and I see more of these examples as time goes on. And it's like nobody who's done it that way is going to go back. They're just not going to. They'll refine this system, they'll add extra people to check it if it has problems, but they're not going to go back to the old way. It just will not happen. And I probably wouldn't have said this at the end of last year and Now I will 100% say it. That it. There's just. Yeah, that's a big thing. I've.
- [40:03]
A
Changed. And you like crypto now too.
- [40:06]
B
Right? No, no, no. You haven't got me on crypto. Not even a little.
- [40:09]
C
Bit. You did 180 on crypto crypto more than I.
- [40:12]
B
Did. Imagine a PDF like this basketball right now I have it and you can't do anything with it. But with Adobe Acrobat Spaces we.
- [40:23]
A
Can share this digitally closed the thing I had set up. Please tell me. Oh my God, you exited Chrome. I need five minutes. Jesus Christ. Recently I've been getting a whole lot of business notifications and PDFs from the California Franchise Tax Board telling me about different taxes that I owe. I don't really know tax stuff. And with Adobe Acrobat Studio, this is awesome. You can go in with the new AI assistant and say, hey, summarize this document for me please. What was a ten page esoteric thing now becomes easily summarized. And check this out with quotations. It shows you exactly where every single thing is. And if it's like, oh, here's the information to pay, you need to do full balance here. Clicks right to the section with a quotation. That's so sick. Not only that, you can then go into it and put it into edit mode and you can change all of this. It's not actually sent to fake company Inc. Aiden's home address Sweden Earth 676767 I just edited the PDF directly. If you want this level of detail and control over PDFs of editing of AI assistants, it's awesome. You should check out Adobe.com. do that with.
- [41:27]
D
Acrobat. When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice Flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a Refreshing way to shake things up this sipping season and only for a limited time. Sprite Obey your.
- [41:51]
B
Thirst. This message may be shocking to many millennials. If you are one, you might want to sit down. Right now, loads of people are searching the following on low rise jeans, halter top, velour tracksuit, hookah shell necklace, disc belt. You likely placed these in the dark of your closet in 2004 now, never to be seen again. But if you can find it in yourself to dust them off, there.
- [42:19]
D
Are a lot of people who will.
- [42:20]
B
Give you money for them. Sell on Depop where taste recognizes.
- [42:24]
C
Taste. Well, what's. Okay, one thing, maybe one thing, stuff that you changed on and it can't. But what's one thing that you feel like you have enhanced conviction for and it can't be.
- [42:37]
B
Crypto? Well, that was the first part of that, was that I am, I feel very.
- [42:41]
A
Strong. Well, another thing you changed on is you were very critical of Lena Khan.
- [42:44]
B
Now. Well, we pressed her in that.
- [42:46]
A
Interview. According to the New York Times. Major change from Adrian Per.
- [42:56]
B
Atriot. Yeah, Gavin, did you. Gavin Newsom, he's a Year in Review podcast and he was like, here's all the people we debated this year. First of all, I don't think we debated. And he's like, a lot of them were controversial. We had Charlie Kirk, we had Steve Bannon, we had a triathlete. That was his big three. He interviewed like fudgeing 50 people this.
- [43:17]
A
Year. My God, I was so.
- [43:20]
B
Awesome. That was, that was wild. But what I've solidified on, I don't know most things, honestly, I feel like I've solidified on. That's, that's the hard part. The hard part is the things you change. I don't know, is there anything about you, what's something you, you change or solidified.
- [43:34]
C
On? Change is I think I came to terms with this idea of broader trends or forces dictating long term outcomes in ways that, like the solutions that we talk about don't actually change. I think the main time this came up was when we were talking about how national debts affect countries and using Greece as this example, this historical example, and this idea of how different policies and political ideologies had occupied the Greek establishment throughout that time period in the 1900s, and how while short term outcomes for people did change based on those policies, like quality of life might have improved for people based on like a social welfare policy that got introduced or something like that. Right. At the end of the day, not nobody addressed the undercurrent of how the government was funding.
- [44:35]
B
Itself.
- [44:36]
C
Yeah. And they spiraled into a scenario where eventually they had to come to terms with that. And I think that my brain has just been opened up to the idea that a lot of solutions feel so simple, especially when you're younger and when I was younger, of like, why don't we just do this? Why can't we just do this? This thing will fix this thing. And it doesn't work that way a lot of the time. Like there is some undercurrent of more complex issues that are very difficult to address that you need to deconstruct somehow and that needs to be addressed as well. And taking that framework to a bunch of different things that we look at in society, I feel like that was like an eye opening moment for me in the earlier part of the.
- [45:25]
B
Year. So you did trim for the first.
- [45:28]
A
Time.
- [45:28]
C
Yes. And, and to some people, I feel like I'm saying something that's super obvious. Right. Like of course that's the case. But I think you, you want, I think an optimistic view and maybe a naive one is looking at things in very simple terms and being like, why don't we just pass this little policy and it'll fix this issue. But there's, I think, wrapping my head around issues this year and realizing like how many stakeholders and decision makers and, and, and, and how like one positive outcome for somebody else, like so easily affects somebody else in a negative way. The, the idea that the people in power can just make really simple decisions and make everything better is not really.
- [46:13]
B
True. I can't crank the dial on their.
- [46:15]
C
Desk. Yeah. And, and I think a lot of people do feel that way. And I, I used to feel that way.
- [46:21]
A
Too. Do you, have you ever had the experience where, because like there's so many companies that are run so fucking bad. Like video game company, like EA is awful.
- [46:30]
C
Right?
- [46:30]
A
Yeah. And then you go work at EA in my case and you're like, oh, it's a miracle that anything functions at all. Or you know, you got.
- [46:36]
B
Work. It's most, yeah, most human groups, it's like held together by fucking duct tape and string. And like, I think it's a.
- [46:44]
A
Young, I think idealistic view of like, why don't they just do the things that'll fix the problems? And then you, when you work at enough companies, you're like, oh, this is.
- [46:53]
B
Barely. Yeah, everyone is like a plane being rebuilt in flight. Yeah. I have this example, people have mentioned this with me and I use an example of when I first started at Twitch, you know, I'm a young guy, I'm like 21. I'm like, this is fucking awesome. This is the website I watch every day. This is going to change the world. And I get there and my first job is handling the front page of Twitch. What streams are showing. They're like, yeah. So this whole thing is run out of a Google Calendar. They hooked up the fucking code to the back end of a Google Calendar. And then you open it up and it's a Google Calendar with 100,000 entries covering every square inch of space. And you have to write a Google Calendar entry in the certain syntax that it can pull from the. So I have to Write like lyric 4:00pm to 4:15pm 6:17 priority 6 7. I'm brain rotted. Yeah. And that's how it works. It still works like that today from my herd, from people inside. That's.
- [47:41]
A
Crazy. This is.
- [47:42]
B
A. This is like a cut for a billion dollars. The website runs on fucking Google Calendar back end. Yeah. And then everyone's kind of making things up. Like so many people that are supposed experts. A lot of them just got lucky in something and then they. They extrapolate that to so many other fields. Like I remember I shouldn't say the name, but there was a guy who had done something really big at Riot and he'd really succeeded. But largely it's because he hit right. Right time legal legends took off and right was.
- [48:10]
C
Big.
- [48:10]
B
Yeah. But I was like this guy's a fucking legend. And I. He was starting up a new startup and I almost left Nvidia for it. And he was selling on that phone call. He's like selling me. He's like, this is. And I just like was believing this guy's. This guy's got it all figured out. He sees the future, how everything's going to go. And then I ended up not doing it. Like a very last second decision. And of course it was a disaster. But the way is reality distortion field. But I've seen that with a lot of people where they just. It's a lot of. It's confidence over. I don't know. That's something I've learned over my.
- [48:44]
C
Life. I.
- [48:45]
B
Think. Careful.
- [48:46]
C
With. There is an unfortunate juxtaposition of. You have to be. You have to be confident enough to push ideas forward to make anything incredible or interesting or.
- [49:00]
B
Successful.
- [49:01]
C
Yeah. But if you're cognizant of this idea that you. That you just don't know everything and you can't be wrong, there's always more information and there's Always more consequences. It, it, it like you freeze you.
- [49:14]
B
You. Yeah, I see what you're.
- [49:15]
C
Saying. I feel more frozen this year than I ever have before. I, I, I'm very aware, I feel like I'm very aware of the fact that I'm, I'm just fucking wrong about a bunch of.
- [49:24]
B
Your.
- [49:24]
C
Right. I am. And I'm going to be changing and updating the way I feel about things for the rest of my life because that's. I want to try to understand things better. But I also you can do.
- [49:34]
B
Is you can just check the comments. They're always.
- [49:35]
C
Right. Yeah, that is true. Like if you, I don't.
- [49:38]
B
Know. When I think about something, there's. They'll synthesize all the.
- [49:41]
A
Comments. That's the.
- [49:41]
B
Truth. You got to read them.
- [49:44]
C
All. Me copy pasting all of our comments into an AI chat bot. Turn this into a.
- [49:48]
B
Guy. It kills it. So the AI truly is.
- [49:52]
C
Dead. You. No, no, no. That's what the big A comments would.
- [49:55]
B
Do. The big A comments are not bad, bro. They just one person called you bald or.
- [50:00]
C
Something. That guy hate that guy that.
- [50:02]
B
You can't get over it.
- [50:02]
C
Dude. I, and, and fearing that that sense of being frozen is going to impede me from making some sort of progress in my.
- [50:11]
B
Life. Yeah, no, it makes sense. You're always talking about you need fat stacks of.
- [50:14]
A
Cash. Why don't you grift? Just start grifting.
- [50:16]
C
Dude. Confidently so. It would be so awesome. It'd be so awesome to grift. It'd be so.
- [50:24]
B
Easy. What about you, Doug, what you changed your mind on this.
- [50:27]
A
Year? I got a couple things, but it's interesting transition point that you said, which is the feeling of feeling less confident. I super feel that, like I feel less qualified to say anything on this show, which I think we've talked about over time. It's like. So I've thought about my own political opinion transition and I forget if I've mentioned this to you guys off the podcast, but I would say that 2024 kind of radicalized me a little bit. Not necessarily to the right, but against Democrats specifically. And I did go into the beginning of this year really, really disliking Democrats, which is I think the source of some of those critical.
- [51:03]
C
Comments. Everybody, they said by the polling.
- [51:07]
B
Everybody. Yeah, yeah, that's not a.
- [51:10]
A
Completely. Here's the difference. It's me being Democrats are fucking terrible. And maybe the Republicans will do better. Like the standard is so low. So I again did not vote for Trump. But the context for this is that I have, for a decade now, been following closely leaders in tech. I have been looking at their interviews and their think. You know, I was listening in 2016 and 17 to Tim Ferriss, who interviewed Marc Andreessen and all these different tech folks, CEO of Dropbox, CEO of Instagram, Ben Horowitz. Read Ben Horowitz, read. Peter Thiel, 0 to 1, read all these things about how to make a business and. And how to, you know, think about technology and entrepreneurship, which I think are all incredibly inspiring. Marc Andreessen is a wild, weird dude, but is really fascinating the way he thinks about the world. So for whatever it is, eight years was following this, and then I started listening to the all in podcast, like three years ago, which my friend recommended to me. And that is what really kicked off my interest in business and technology. Because those guys, four VCs, who are like ultra rich, but they're talking about these things with a level of knowledge of business that you just didn't hear anywhere else. And they just kind of didn't give a fuck either. They were like, we're so hot and rich, we're going to say what we feel like. And for the first several years of that.
- [52:28]
B
Show, David Sachs is your guy. That's your poster over the.
- [52:33]
A
Bed. Look, I don't smoke it hot. I don't know if hot and rich, if the word rich is big enough, gets drowned out, feeds in, okay, okay, it's trickled. I trickled.
- [52:46]
B
Out. That's what it's all.
- [52:47]
A
About. And so I started to listen to those guys constantly and roughly. It was mostly focused on business and tech. And I found it phenomenally interesting. And that really spurred my interest in following this and wanting to understand AI and understand what's going on with the business world. And they occasionally touched on politics. And of that group, there was distinctly somebody who's on the left, Jason Calacanis, somebody who's distinctly on the right, David Sacks, and then two guys who are distinctly moderate, which is Chamath Palihapitiya and David Freeberg. And then 2024 happened. All these people in tech, all of them shifted way to the right. And I'm sure all of you see this. Sam Altman says openly, he's gonna donate a million dollars to Trump. Like a year or two prior, these same companies are all Democratic and talking. They think Trump's an absolute disaster and they would never vote for.
- [53:36]
B
Him. Right Was like, lock him.
- [53:37]
A
Up. Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen do a podcast saying how the Kamala Harris administration is going to be so unbelievably hostile to AI that they have to, at a moral obligation to humanity, endorse Donald Trump because it is so clear how disastrous their policies are. And to be clear, I actually agree with the sentiment that supposedly Kamala's team that they talked to in person was bad. It sounded like they wanted to use AI to like crack down on free speech and stuff. So taking that at its word, pretty scary. Every tech person starts shifting sharply to the right over 2024. The all in podcast, my daily, my weekly source of like news and information about how to think of the world, basically became a political show by the mid of 2024. They were running fundraisers for Donald Trump and once the election happened, they are visiting the White House regularly, doing interviews from the White House regularly. And David Sacks is now a key member of the Trump administration who is personally dictating AI policy. And so for me, I wouldn't say my heroes, but the people who largely influenced how I thought about the world and developed my business sense and my, my acumen and my worldview and specifically how I went to for news and tech updates all started telling me every day on Twitter, on podcasts, all over the place, biden is going to destroy the economy, destroy technology, ruin the future that we have in mind. And Trump is the only hope. And while I like to believe that that did not influence me, I definitely went into this year being like, I'm, I don't want to say glad Trump won, but like, if these guys are right, this could be.
- [55:16]
C
Good.
- [55:17]
B
Yeah. And that.
- [55:17]
A
Way. And that was sincerely where I was at the beginning of this year. And then it's been quite interesting to see, as I've learned all of this stuff and just seen the Trump administration be a complete fucking disaster. And then most of those, and most of those same tech people are no longer vocally supporting Trump. Right? Yeah, they all just kind of are now. You know, Elon Musk, right, who's endlessly talking about how it's like humanity is at stake, is fucking hates Trump now and calls him a pedophile publicly. Right. And it's like it was very interesting to come into this year at the beginning of this year thinking like, I kind of understand how incredibly destructive the Democratic policies are. And while I would still consider myself a left leaning person, I'm not afraid to voice some of those criticism on this show. And then I did, kind of, and people got upset kind of in, you know, a myriad of ways, but less about comments and more. Just as we've for the first time in my life, I learned things that aren't Twitter and a podcast, and we actually dove into stuff every week, and I was spending five hours every week really understanding the fundamentals. I think my view has shifted substantially away from this is what tech people are telling me to think, or this is what the politicians are telling me to think, to just. I feel like I. I'm still uninformed, like you said. I still don't know stuff. I have less confidence than ever to say things, even though it's ironic, because I do know a lot more. But now I feel like I'm kind of in my own individual source of knowledge and I can view things with a degree of, I don't know, actual knowledge and not just being fear mongered by a bunch of people.
- [56:46]
B
Online. Have you seen that graph? It's like the. Is it Dunning Kruger? What's the.
- [56:50]
A
Graph? Yeah, the Dunning.
- [56:51]
B
Kruger. Yeah. It's like when you have no knowledge, you feel super confident, but the more you learn, the less confident you get because it's like, it's so complicated.
- [56:58]
A
Dude. I. It's worrying to me how confident I came into this year. That sentence, it is worrying to me because in retrospect, you know why I was so confident? It's because I listened to all in every week and there was a lot of Twitter confidence. Yeah, they were so confident. That's. That's what led me to believe I was actually qualified to talk about politics on this show. As much as I joked about and like, genuinely with. With 100% sincerity, I now believe I am not qualified. I believe that these things are so deep and complex, and I still love trying to understand things, but I. I don't listen to that podcast anymore. I don't go on Twitter almost at all. I read lots of articles and try to deeply understand the systems behind these things and then make conclusions. And that has. I just feel much more, like, thoughtful. And it was very interesting to see every hero do this weird right, you know, massive right pivot for me internally to be like, I'm not voting for Trump. I'm not on board with you guys, but. But the truth's probably somewhere in the middle. And then to feel like everybody's a fucking idiot is kind.
- [58:00]
B
Of. I mean, not probably the same way, but definitely with some finance professionals I read who were, like, telling me openly that Trump was gonna be the guy, that he was gonna fix the national debt, that he was like. I would read these things or listen to their podcast and I'd Be like, I really respect this guy. He was talking, he said some smart things in the past. And so I'm gonna keep my mind open. I don't think I was.
- [58:22]
A
As. Yeah, I should say, that's my Trump got elected. And I was like, I'm gonna keep my mind open because while I disagree with so many things about it on the economy, specifically on the handling of technology and on the debt, those are the two things that, in theory, everybody was saying, this is why we just saved the nation. And those two things have utterly disaster, like, disastrous. Right. And so the part of me, I was not elated in any way that Trump won, but I was like, well, I've been told by dozens of people I respect for a year that there's these incredible outcomes that are going to happen. Those didn't fucking happen. Like, not at.
- [59:00]
B
All. Yeah, people. People lie. They. I mean, they just lie all the. I mean, I don't even know if they're.
- [59:10]
C
Lying. They're like, no, that's. That's something I think about a lot is whether or not, you know, people are so quick to saying, like, he lied or they're lying to you. But I think a lot of the time, certain people have absolute conviction for what they're saying. Yeah. And lying, at least to me, lying means you're. You're intentional that it's. You knowingly are not telling the.
- [59:30]
B
Truth. It's like a lie by exaggerating, lie by confidence. It's a lie. It's a lie of like, you don't know and, you know, you don't know, but you're projecting a sense of confidence that make everyone else feel like, you know about.
- [59:45]
A
That. It's a little weird. I mean, I really, like, I'm really not going to trust, like.
- [59:51]
C
Random. I don't.
- [59:52]
A
Know. I have so much. I have so much more. More of a sense of like, I am not going to form a strong opinion unless I've really taken time and otherwise, you know, I'm gonna talk about this with my friends. I don't know if you guys feel the same, but.
- [60:03]
C
Absolutely. I think this is the every. This is an experience that a bunch of people go through and are going through. I think that, to me, is kind of the intention of the show. It's like we're three guys who don't know everything. The fun of the show is us figuring stuff out and learning about things that we think are interesting and then talking to each other about them. And we're not, you know, we're not experts. And that's, that's most people's experience as they navigate these things and they navigate.
- [60:33]
A
Life. Wait, but are you like me, where you went into the year being like, I do kind of know some stuff. I'm kind of smart. I had like 50% confidence and now it's at like.
- [60:45]
C
5. I think I feel less that way. I think I, maybe if I were to use your percentage analogy, I felt maybe like, I felt like I had like 25 and now I'm down to like 15 or.
- [60:57]
A
10.
- [60:57]
C
Damn. Really? Yeah, I, I, I do feel.
- [61:00]
A
Like we got to build up your confidence. We need to build up your.
- [61:02]
C
Confidence. No, no, no, no.
- [61:04]
A
No. I think it's the yard. They've been chipping you down. We can get. Let's start next year at 100. Let's start you at 100 next.
- [61:09]
B
Year. The year of kindness.
- [61:10]
A
Raiden.
- [61:10]
C
Yeah. Don't even joke. Don't even. You sick. Don't make a sick joke like that. Like you mean it, because we're.
- [61:16]
B
Not going to do.
- [61:16]
C
That. You.
- [61:17]
A
Know, we both call in sick that morning. It's Aiden by himself, first show.
- [61:24]
B
Of the year, we don't even show up. What else have we changed our minds on? I'm sure there's a lot, but I'm struggling to think of, like a broad. Big.
- [61:33]
A
Point. Okay, I'll throw a couple out there we don't need to hear my thoughts on. I'm curious if you guys have changed at all. One, again, this is, you know, I would say that I felt quite knowledgeable about tech going into this year, and I now feel more knowledgeable, but about other fields. But some, some of the other fields, I feel like I've learned. One, I now strongly feel that we should raise tax rates a lot. It's not just reading price apiece or, or talking to Lina Khan or whatever. It's a lot of things that just over and over feel like they reinforce that the importance in unironically. The fucking Communist Manifesto here a little bit.
- [62:05]
C
Dude. Who knew? It's got some stuff in.
- [62:08]
A
There. I, I wouldn't go that far. It's not.
- [62:11]
C
Good. But. No, I think, I think, Look, I don't, I'm not, I don't agree with this, but there was like a, there was a couple things in here was like, I guess that makes sense. Like, and then there was a couple things is like, I feel like you're trying to, you. I'll save it for the book.
- [62:24]
B
Club. Save for the.
- [62:25]
C
Book. But this guy's built. It feels like there's a bit of a mental framework that they're like, the whole world needs to fit into this framework. And anyway, we'll save for the book.
- [62:35]
B
Club. I don't want to.
- [62:36]
A
Say. Okay. I think you guys were already on board for higher taxes. I think I started the year being like, I see the argument for that, but all the people in my life, you know, like, all the tech people are saying it's bad. You're saying you shouldn't tax. And now I'm solidly. And like, I think we need higher taxes. Curious if that changed for you guys. I'm way more upset at boomers. I think boomers are like a.
- [62:54]
B
Wild. You have radicalized on.
- [62:55]
A
Boomers. I've radicalized on boomers a.
- [62:57]
B
Lot. I think I saw you and there's old guy in the parking lot. You were like, oh, you made him.
- [63:02]
A
Flinch. Well, I made a flinch. And I was like, wait, wait, how old are you? And he's like, I'm only.
- [63:05]
B
57. I'm like, okay, you just made.
- [63:06]
C
The. You're clean, Gen.
- [63:09]
A
X. Like I said, I think I tried to go in with an open mind on the Republican administration. I think they've been a complete fucking failure. And then there's a bunch on AI that, you know, there's been more bad and more good, but that's a bigger one. Did anything. Oh, oh, monopolies and acquisitions, too. Same thing. I feel like we would really benefit from a fuck load more regulation against all the acquisitions and monopolies. I've gotten increasingly concerned about that. I'm curious. I think both of you and most of our audience already felt in that camp, but I think I now am in your camp. Not because I was reading a bunch of Twitter or watched a stream or a video essay about it. It's because of books and dozens of hours of research where I'm like, yeah, this is genuinely what I think is.
- [63:48]
B
Valuable. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, it's almost like the obvious. Those are things that I have. Those are like, core to me that I said for a while. But, like, the things I've picked up from this show and honestly from you are more of being, you know, not every idea that you've brought from that world that you were in is we should discard. Like, there's some interesting things from that that I have. Like, I started reading more of the Free Press. I started reading, trying to. But like, who's the guy? Who's the fucking.
- [64:21]
A
Guy? I need more.
- [64:22]
C
Information. Who's the.
- [64:24]
B
Guy? Ben Horowitz. I'm sorry, Ben.
- [64:26]
C
Horowitz.
- [64:27]
B
Sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
- [64:30]
A
Yeah. How did I not pick up on.
- [64:31]
B
The. Those are things I snapped at you. You didn't say it, so I don't know. I think I've picked up that again, the more pro AI stance of just its possibilities. Those are the things I picked up that I didn't have going into the year. You mentioned price of peace. Price of piece is a big thing for me as part of the show. That one opened me up to ideas on government spending that I was like really militant against that I see the benefit.
- [64:57]
D
Of.
- [64:59]
B
I. But I still like a fucking.
- [65:01]
C
Dude. It's. It's so funny that that might be. That might be my number one.
- [65:04]
B
Recommendation out of the year, that.
- [65:06]
A
Book.
- [65:06]
C
Yeah. Is that.
- [65:07]
B
One. I thought it was.
- [65:08]
A
Beast. I thought it was really.
- [65:09]
C
Impressive. Yeah, I think that's. It's for. For people to read or like what I could. If I could give one action item for people out of the podcast. I'm like to just read this book and I think it'll give you. At the very least it'll give you a lot to think.
- [65:23]
A
About. I feel that about abundance. I felt way more about.
- [65:26]
C
Abundance. I mean, I liked abundance a lot too. I. Dude, I think abundance has become a curse on my life.
- [65:33]
A
Though. I'm having dreams about that. We did a live show with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson and they came on stage and everybody started booing. Like, not a joke. Honestly, I'm dreaming about them hating us for our association with Ezra.
- [65:47]
C
Klein. I can't. I can't. I listen to your crash out the other day. My. My abundance cross is. I hate how the public discourse around the book has turned me into a defender of the book because I did like a bunch of it. But then I have a bunch of criticisms of the book that I read of the book that I read. Well, hold.
- [66:06]
A
On. Let's talk about my imagination of.
- [66:08]
C
What the book is about. And the problem is I'm fist fighting these ghosts of what people think the book is about. And it's like, it's like if you're talking about the movement or the corporate money behind it or. Or whatever like this. The co opted movement around it. But I'm like, if you read this paragraph in the book, there's nothing controversial about it. It's. It's the Halal Mamdani thing where he's like, guys, the permit system is fucked up and everybody has to pay for this exploited system. What if we fix that so people don't have to pay a giant fee for a permit that should be $50. That's. That's what the book's about. That's what the. And I feel like it. I feel dumb because I feel like I'm constantly on the back foot of defending this book and these authors that I'm not even that big of a fan. Like, I'm not a particularly big fan of Ezra Klein, but I'm like defending against this thing that I'm like, the book just didn't say.
- [67:00]
B
That. Yeah. Yeah. Once you've read the book, it's kind of, it's kind of tough to pile on when you're like, it's not that controversial. Like things in the book would be. Most people, if you split them out, would be agree with.
- [67:09]
C
Them. I.
- [67:10]
B
Think. I think the word abundance has become insane. I hate. Because people use it in so many fudgeing ways. Elon Musk is talking about abundance every fucking week. And he's like entirely different vision than what Ezra Klein has, than what other people have, than what some corporate fucking lawyer on the Democrat DNC says. They just say the word abundance and it's like this paper over of doesn't mean anything. I think this fucking communist might have abundance in it at one.
- [67:29]
C
Point. My, my. I think my new thing. My new thing is anytime I want to talk about like a point from abundance, I'm just going to say it's from Breakneck instead because it's almost the same fucking fucking Bernie.
- [67:42]
B
Sanders. Honestly, though, go for it. It does it anyway. I've had that crash out 50.
- [67:49]
C
Times. Yeah, to.
- [67:50]
B
Me. Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. Enjoy it over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata. Your holiday cocktails just got sweeter. Tap or click the banner for more. Drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream. Natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Logo Brands Pojoaquee, Wisconsin. All rights.
- [68:17]
C
Reserved. So good, so good, so.
- [68:21]
D
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- [69:16]
A
State. The one takeaway from Bundants that really felt different to me again, coming from two straight years of every tech person I had followed saying how the government is a total fucking disaster and if Biden in Commeller are able to maintain control, then the government is going to have even more of a strangle hold and it's too inefficient and business can't operate and run. And I think there is some truth to that. But the, you know, and then Abundance points out a number of examples which is like, we tried to make a wind farm in Wisconsin or whatever it is. It's been 17 years and nothing's been built. Here's the train in California we've tried to build. It's been what, 18, 17 years and nothing's been built. The regulation and all this stuff like a track. Yeah, you can't ride it, but, yeah, you can't ride it, but you have a tiny bit of track. And, and that was like the kind of standard like, yeah, government sucks at doing things. But what I think Abundance did very well is then. Or breakneck or breakneck, they show.
- [70:11]
B
The government can do things. It's like there's a different problem.
- [70:14]
A
There.
- [70:14]
C
Right. It's funny because both books use China as an example of like, look, China building. Look how they built all.
- [70:20]
A
This. Yeah. And I think what, what shifted for me was I had been presented the argument in either a very black or white way, the government should do more, or the government is too inefficient and we too overregulatory and we should strip it down as much as possible, get Elon Musk in there and tear it all down. But I think what Abundance does well is say, look, we've actually stopped the government from being effective through these different tools and regulations and lawsuits. So there's opportunity there and then there's a long history of the government being really effective at making projects that had a huge difference or importantly to me, invention, where the government funded the fundamental research, which is what companies then used to market and bring these things to a wider audience. So the I, I think there's a fantasy from the tech folks that still exists right now, which is you should let private industry do it all. And I think it's a very appealing thing for entrepreneurs and people who get tired with government excess.
- [71:18]
C
But. And it's what. That's also what people who hate abundance but haven't read it say. The book.
- [71:23]
A
Says.
- [71:24]
C
Yes. And it's like half of the.
- [71:25]
A
Book. Right. The book of the book is how effective the government has been historically and how that's actually being stripped away now because of RFK Jr pulling research from all this stuff. And so I thought that was very interesting of it being a really compelling case that even in the case of like pushing the bounds you like the government is incredibly valuable and should play a part and you shouldn't view the government as the smaller, the better with no.
- [71:50]
C
Exceptions. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean that's a great takeaway from the. From the year. I think that it speaks to the point of there just being nuance to these like big black and white ideas that I think are often.
- [72:02]
A
Carrying. There's nuance to Nick Fuentes.
- [72:04]
C
Ideas? No, no, no. I can't even. Joke made me laugh. But we can't even. That's. It's so funny. Cause he's like one guy where it's like. I think it's. I think it's just.
- [72:16]
A
So.
- [72:17]
C
There's. He's dropped the nuance. He's dropped the nuance and he really dropped. He's just saying that. He's just saying the worst thing. It's so funny. It's so funny because it's like you can. He's. He's the. He's the most concrete example. If you could open it up. You open up the stream. You hear the worst thing you've ever heard in your entire life. And he's just saying it. You.
- [72:42]
B
Just. I mean that works for him. That's the west, the society. I don't know that. That attention at all costs. We shouldn't get into.
- [72:49]
C
Nick. But I don't need to.
- [72:51]
B
Rehash. That's.
- [72:52]
A
How. Why shitty. We went on deep dive on a page. So did.
- [72:56]
B
You. We went deep was after the Piers Morgan thing.
- [73:00]
C
Or. No, no, it was before the Piers Morgan thing was. Anyway, I wanted to. This is. This is a big idea. I wanted to know if you guys had any thoughts. This is one thought I came around to this year of I think, you know, a young. A young Seattleite college student such as myself, you know, has come up in the ideas of like, you know, the. You Know the evils of capitalism, if you will. Obviously that, that lacks a bit of.
- [73:29]
A
Noise. Hold on, hold this book while.
- [73:30]
C
You'Re saying hold on, hold on. So, and I just want to, so I think with that kind of background you come into things with a certain mental framework or certain like ideas that just sit in the back of your mind that shape how you perceive things. And this year we talked a lot about wealth inequality and how that's like a really driving force in what is making things shitty for everybody right now. And I came to the realization this year, I think you're sold as maybe a younger left leaning person or outright like socialists or if you call yourself a communist, that capitalism is like this driving force behind wealth inequality in society. And it is inevitable that capitalism forces us towards this outcome. And I think this year because of a little more historical concepts we dove into, and this idea of money is this money is kind of like a representation or an exercise of power. Right? Money allows you to like accomplish something.
- [74:42]
B
That'S. Yeah, yeah. Fuck.
- [74:45]
C
Yeah. Okay. And I, I, I started to think about how power, like inequality of power congregates in a bunch of different places and.
- [74:58]
A
Scenarios. Past the mushrooms, by the.
- [74:59]
C
Way. I'm serious. No, no, I'm, I'm serious. And, and how like wealth inequality through the lens that we view it now with money is not the only way that wealth inequality exists. It exists within like power structures in society. And even if we eliminated, like, if you eliminate money, if you eliminate capitalism, this idea of wealth inequality still forms and exists. And what you're actually trying to do with whatever system of governance that you have or the way you're trying to like lead society is combat wealth inequality within that society. You're trying to, it doesn't have to be, it could be through like social inequality, like maybe through an autocratic government that doesn't actually need money to enforce a lot of their power and decisions because of the way they've congregated it. You're trying to protect against the consolidation of power, not the consolidation of money. And money is just a vehicle for power in society now. And I thought, I feel.
- [76:00]
A
Embarrassed. I think it's.
- [76:03]
C
Great. But this is one thing I came around to this year is like, it's, Capitalism is not this exclusive scenario where wealth inequality develops. It exists in any structure or society in a bunch of different ways. And letting it consolidate in so few people's hands is bad for everybody else in the long term. I, I think that lens, I didn't come to the realization too, no, man, that's 100%.
- [76:28]
B
True. Right. I mean of course there was wealth inequality prior to capitalism. Feudalism had wealth.
- [76:32]
C
Inequality.
- [76:33]
B
Yeah. If you go back to villages, there was the, the big man structure where one guy would hoard all the resources and be the chief or whatever. If you go to Soviet Russia, they had inner circle that had way greater access to wealth and privilege than. Yeah, there's, there's no, I don't think there's any society actually outside of very, very small proof that doesn't eventually have some like, you know, that's the great leveler of theory which is that they all trend towards. Because people figure out the meta of whatever it is, they figure out the meta of whatever the game is you've created, whether it's capitalism or anything. And then they start optimizing for their resource acquisition and then eventually it breaks because somebody, they get too much inequality.
- [77:08]
C
Becomes. You break the. Whatever the game is that you exist within, you start breaking down that and somebody starts consolidating within.
- [77:17]
A
That. Brendan, I'm curious did your views on. Because you've talked about this and I think probably been the most knowledgeable about the three of us about this particular. The way it manifests. Has your opinion on what should be done about wealth inequality changed at all this year? I mean we went and interviewed your fucking hero, Lina Khan, who I.
- [77:36]
B
Would say, I mean I couldn't speak to myself at the end of last year, but I feel so, so strongly that it is the stuff we started to do around 1980, which shifted the flow of tax money from rich to poor, from working to rich instead of going from the rich. And the tax money flowed towards subsidies and helping for working class people. It has flipped. And that plus government overspending. Those two things I think are the core root of the problem that you. Everything else stacks on top of. And so I, yeah, I guess what I would say is something that ties off what you're saying is that I strongly believe there is no solution at all that doesn't require constant human vigilance. There is none. There is no like set of rules we're going to create that won't get gamed by humans trying to maximize their, their gain in the system. And so the only way you can do this is to have human beings that care and you know, like, like for example, there's no way you could write the law that is going to be better than a, a reasonable human being judge who is acting in good faith being like this is the right call here that is going to be the better outcome in every situation because you can't stop things from getting game. So yeah, I think the thing I want most in the world is high wealth. I mean high progressive taxes. I want high taxes. I want a system that does not distribute it mostly to wealthy boomers. I want to distribute to people that need it the most kind of like Post World War II, New Deal America. That's, that's like the thing I'm. And then a strong antitrust system. I think that's the number one thing I think, you know, go to cap cop, capitalism, communism, all that. I think there's so many downsides to, to both systems. But the thing I like about the one thing I think is the upside of capitalism. The only good part is that very clearly when two entities compete, it drives down costs and drives up innovation for regular people. That is the only good thing. So if we have a system which I think we have right now, which is the downsides of capitalism and we don't even get the upsides, we have an ossified monopoly based. Then there is no point to. There's no. You're not getting any of the good part. You only get it in very few areas which is like I mentioned them, which is like YouTube for a YouTube viewer. You get a million different options that are all competing for your time. And you get a lot of great options. On Steam. You get a ton of different games competing for your dollar. They're driving down prices. You're getting a ton of innovative new games. People like that, people like a competitive environment. TVs, you get a bunch of people trying to compete for your dollar. And TVs. TV prices are getting cheaper, you're getting bigger and thinner. Those things are great. But you do not get that in health care. You're not getting that. You're in a lot of areas. You're not. You're getting very limited options. You don't get that in fucking youth hockey when you have to go and it's bought up by private equity and they fudgeing make you film to pay you like that shit is not. And the only way to stop that is not some massive. I mean I personally don't think it's like we need to have the government seize every private asset and then regulate it. What I think we need to do is have a strong antitrust system which we've had in this country which is informed and knowledgeable and has experts and takes a huge amount of it has like the weight of the government behind it. It's not like A afterthought where they don't care about it. It's like a very important mission that everyone understands. And they're going to break up monopolies. They're going to make sure no matter what industry it is, if there is a few players, if they're coordinating to raise prizes, you are going to get broken up, you're going to get massive fines, we're going to break up your. And if you just do that as your regular course of business all the time, you will end up with a fucking, I think a really, really healthy competitive economy where, where someone being rich can be easily outcompeted by someone who's poor. And I think that is awesome. I think that is almost unbeatable. I think if a country does that and another country doesn't, even if this country has better stability, regulation, they're going to fall behind. I think it's so productive. It's so incredible the amount of innovation will get off that. So, yeah, that's my dream. That's what I want. And I think I've, I felt that generally, but maybe, you know, over the year I've gotten more concrete on the actual.
- [81:32]
A
Asks. Yeah, I think it's very well said. I think you've also convinced me that again, like, you know, increased taxes and the, the issues that are coming around, increased monopolization are, are basically new to me. But the more we've done research, the more I feel like, no, this really makes sense as much as, again, the tech people in my life are all saying how great it is that this company is becoming as big as possible. That seems to be the entire metric for success. The all in guys literally will bring on anybody. You know, they bring on Travis Kalnick, whatever, the former.
- [82:06]
C
Guy. For some reason I thought you were going to say Travis Scott and.
- [82:09]
A
I was like, they would say Travis Kelsey. There's three different Travis's that they brought in and unfortunately it was this boring Uber CEO. And yeah, to him they're like, yeah, you were phenomenally successful at Uber. And then you look at what he did and it was a. I mean, he was technically successful for all these unethical things that he was doing. That was just brutal that he was forced out of the board and it was a disgrace. But the one single metric that determines that this is a person who is valuable and worth talking to is made money. He made a shitload of money. And the company became extraordinarily valuable. Acquisitions are good, mergers are good. This is all good. And I've. And I've just really fallen away from.
- [82:50]
C
That. Well, we're rounding out our year. Why don't we talk a little? We'll do one little current news section to send off the.
- [82:59]
A
Year. You know, my views have changed. Epstein not. Not.
- [83:02]
B
Even. Turns out he's a bad.
- [83:03]
C
Guy. I can't, admittedly, I came into.
- [83:06]
B
2025 that it was going to be Epstein's.
- [83:09]
A
Year. I've been following Jeff on Twitter for a.
- [83:12]
C
Decade. The New York financier and a great.
- [83:16]
B
Friend. That's what I.
- [83:17]
C
Heard. And a lot has been.
- [83:19]
B
Revealed. Yeah, a lot has been actually not enough. That's the real fucking story of today is that we got drip fed a thousand new Epstein documents, but they're like 98% redacted. People are doing like big shows on the. The House floor or whatever they're holding up. They wasted a lot of fucking ink for this. Just pages of pages of pure black, like all printed.
- [83:40]
C
Out. Think about how expensive that.
- [83:41]
B
Is. I know, low key. Where's our government budget.
- [83:44]
C
Going? Printed out to the printed.
- [83:46]
A
Redactions. I thought the whole point of the vote and all of this stuff around it was to not have it be redacted. Is that.
- [83:53]
B
Not. No, no, that's not the.
- [83:55]
C
Case. Wow. And Doug, you're such an.
- [83:57]
B
Idiot. You're dumb for thinking that. So next year you're going to realize how stupid.
- [84:00]
A
That. I know, I know. I can already sense the Dunning Kruger effect happening. I was so confident about we.
- [84:06]
B
Would learn emergency redaction section and they went crazy. They had like a whole team of people moved in to fucking redact these files to get them ready for this release. They dropped only a portion of them. And even this portion is heavily redacted. And the people in these files that are released, you know, it's like, it's very obviously who Trump would want to put. It's like, it's like Michael Jackson, Oprah, Bill Clinton. You know, I don't know what Oprah was doing probably. But yeah, it's like there's clearly more to the story and it's not done. And I think this is like another attempt to be like, well, there you got it. All right, shut up, piggies. But, you know, and I guess I'm thankful that it doesn't seem to be the response from anyone even. You know, I was on our conservative this morning reading their response to this and it was all of them, like, where's the rest? Like unreacted. Nobody, nobody is going to see 80 fucking pages in a row of pure black and be like, that's good. I got what I need.
- [85:03]
A
Solved.
- [85:04]
B
So. Yeah, it's not a major news item. It's. It's just the beginning, I think of people getting. Honestly, I think it makes him more angry. I don't know. We'll.
- [85:11]
C
See. Do you think it loses his.
- [85:13]
A
Cell phone of Trump to do. It's just. It's all insane to, to not fucking release the.
- [85:20]
C
Files. It's funny because in the worst case scenario, right, presumably it'd be a.
- [85:25]
B
Bigger cell phone to leave them unreacted in a super compromising way then the biggest cell phone was doing that. And that is now going to haunt you no matter what. But I, I do think he's handled it. I mean that, you know that in the fucking economy, man. The affordability speech. I don't know if you guys saw it. He's. He's like woken up to the fact that it's a big deal. And so he's doing affordability speeches, starting.
- [85:47]
C
Rallies. And is he doing more? Because my understanding was he did the one rally so far. It didn't really go.
- [85:53]
B
Well. We did a rally, then he did this big national address. Yeah, I think he's got more planned. I know Vance been on to advancement on tour doing affordability around the country. And it's just. I don't think it's hitting. I think, yeah, I think it's.
- [86:05]
C
Bad. But people are leaning into the word right now, too. Yeah, the.
- [86:10]
B
Democrats. I'm saying.
- [86:11]
C
Affordability. I think the, the articles I'm seeing. So there was one article this morning that I wanted to talk about. One sec. Which was how Democrats used one word to turn the tide against Trump. And it's about affordability. And I was having, like shockwaves because of that era where Democrats were like. We started calling them weird and now we're. And now we're winning. And I was like, I think we can't. I don't want to get too.
- [86:42]
B
Excited. No. I don't want to get too brilliant.
- [86:45]
A
Messaging. I.
- [86:45]
B
Don'T. I.
- [86:46]
C
Don'T.
- [86:47]
B
Disaster. Trump is bad and people are feeling it. I don't think you could run almost anyone against what he's running right now. I literally think it's so to. To independence and to people who aren't Die hard maga. It's so unpopular. It is just unpopular. It's not what anyone thought it was going to be. It's not the promised.
- [87:04]
C
Land.
- [87:04]
B
Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, there's some, there's some candidates are doing. I obviously, Donnie ran a great campaign. And ran on affordability. But I just think in general it's not like some brilliant messaging. I actually hate this because both Democrat and Republican strategists talk about politics like it's all about. If you say the right word, it's just about. It's like a puzzle that if you unlock this thing in the right order and it's never about like changing the conditions of people's lives, it is always about if I just, if I massage this in the right way, that will unlock the voters that I need. And I think that's so fucking cynical and so fucking annoying. And a lot of these articles are about that. And Republican strategists are saying that like, we need to focus on affordability, we need to use the right messaging. For Trump, it's like whether the fuck Trump. Trump can keep talking like a buffoon as long as, like it worked for him when they thought it was good. It's not his messaging, it's not how he says it. If he can say whatever the fuck he wants. If people feel like their lives are actually getting better and costs are going down, they're going to love him. He can talk shit on Rob Reiner as he's dead as much as he wants if the prices are going down and I swear to God, people will laugh at it. He's basically like, that's funny. But now because he's not working, they're like, that's too far. You've crossed the line. I think that's honestly what it is. So I hate the idea that it's messaging, that it's like the.
- [88:22]
C
Right.
- [88:22]
B
Yeah. And I just haven't picked the right New York Times. Is that angle a lot of like. It's a.
- [88:26]
C
Tactic. You wanted to touch on one thing. It was a game studio had recently announced that they're incorporating AI into the game that they're develop.
- [88:36]
A
To. Yeah, we'll hit this quick. So there are two beloved game developers who both have come under fire Asterisk from terminally online Twitter people because they revealed that they use AI. It's some part of their development process. So the first are the people who made Clair Expedition 33. Clair obscure. Excuse me, Expedition 33. And the second is Larian Studios who made Baldur's Gate 3. So these are like two of the most critically acclaimed and beloved games from like let's say mid sized studios, both of which won game of the year the last couple years. And in interviews, the I believe studio head of, of Baldur's Gate 3 of that studio, which is Sven Vincke, he has said, oh yeah, we use some AI for our development. We use machine learning for in his quote, tasks that nobody wants to do, they talk about how like if it's motion capture cleanup or editing, voiceover that's already been recorded or something very specific that was quotes from him. And then he also mentioned how their concept artists use it to sort of compile different reference images. And this received an enormous amount of flak. He had to then respond on Twitter and I mean you can pull this up Perry, but holy, there's so much pushback. Holy fuck. Guys, we're not pushing hard for or replacing concept artists with AI. We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we're hiring more. The art they create is original and I'm very proud of it. I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of generative AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn't say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that and they are indeed world class artists. He goes on to talk about how they use it to explore references in early ideation stages and then he ends with a line I like which is, we hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier. So this has become a sort of discussion on the at least like Twitter sphere of for folks who are really concerned about AI and particularly generative AI and whether it's going to replace human work or devalue human creative work. Is any amount of this allowed? The vibe I'm getting is that most people feel that this stuff is fine even though these are beloved studios. They're like, look, these are tools that are accentuating the human creative process. Concept artists would have gone and spent hours and hours and hours compiling images and pulling them as references for the original art that they then create. This helps speed up that process or again some like technical cleanups of whatever. In theory that's like to me that's like the great stuff that AI will be used for. It's human beings being able to do their creative visions faster. But it's received this a lot of feedback and concern from folks basically saying all the companies you like are actually using AI and they are going to eventually replace artists. And it's an interesting discussion because this is happening. I've seen a number of folks in the game dev industry reply to this and say, you people are completely naive if you don't think every industry is Using AI to speed up small tasks like this. Everyone is doing this and there's this sort of realization that is spreading to the discontent of many people of should there be this purity of a form like game development or any kind of art where no amount of machine learning or AI tools are allowed at.
- [91:56]
C
All. I think the label just comes with so much baggage right now and so many negative realities that are interlocking with this one word that can mean and impact a lot of things. So people are taking the worst idea of what this could mean and then applying it to this out of fear that the other bad things that they see happening associated with AI are, are happening here as well. I, I, I, it's weird because it's like I understand where the fear comes from but it's, I also have this frustration that it's funny because I.
- [92:32]
B
I didn't see, I saw less or yeah, you know, I saw. So when a game like from EA announces something like this, it's universally it's easy to hate but because Larian is so loved and because X Men 33 is so beloved, it was more people being like, well there's nuance to this. I saw most AI haters being like, well the way they use it is different. It's funny. The truth is, you know, I work with a game developer and he's pitching me on new ideas and all the fucking slides he used were there's a mock up with AI of course he's not gonna hi. You know he's making these 10 different ideas, quick mock ups so he can pitch them. It's, it's going to be used. I don't know if it's especially something behind the scenes and it's 90% cheaper or 90% faster or 90%. It's just that, that is, you know, it's like there's, I don't know if you've ever seen these. A really like white pilling thing you can do on this is to go back and read ads that were in the newspaper about the first wave of cars. And it's like people being like your horse is so much better. It's like they're, you know, and, and they would use names, they'd be like old Bessie never let you down old. You know there's like a real ad, it's like a famous and it's just a similar thing in this. I, I'm not talking about AGI. If that happens, that's a whole different conversation and that's like, that's a fundamental change of society. If that happens but as like a thing. This is right now, right now what? AI is basically just a tool that can do some things faster, some things worse. Something's good, something's bad, and there's just no, there's no way to put a tool back in the box in the way. It's just not. It's just because. Because what you create, then if you try to like really make a labelize it, like if you, if you made a rule tomorrow where this has to be a humans only label, then all you're really creating, at least in our current system, is an arbitrage opportunity for you to pay someone to human wash it. That's all that's gonna happen. Because if, if there's a premium you can charge on a game that is human only, then I'll make the game with some AI and then I'll pay a human to run it through that so it looks like it's a human game and I can make it for 10 times cheaper than you and I'm selling it as a human game. That is the incentive you're creating. There is no that will happen no matter what. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm just sometimes you have to tell people like this is. This is the world, this is what's going to happen. So you have to wake up and be ready for it. And this tool is too good at some things to ignore that is. And people are going to use it and if you shame it, then they will find a way to hide it. But it's because it is 90% faster or 20% faster that's the case. And I would like us to work to build a world where humans see the rewards and benefits of this. But to pretend like it's not there or to finger wag at it and hope it goes away is a huge waste of everyone's time. It's a colossal fuck up on the paths we could take. What are you. I thought.
- [95:30]
C
You'Re. This, this. This is my conviction that I carried into this year that I think I carried the whole way through it.
- [95:36]
A
Okay. What the goal? Only going to play human.
- [95:37]
C
Games. That. That I'll only play human games. Human.
- [95:41]
A
Games. By.
- [95:44]
C
Humans. By humans. For you, this episode's brought to you by human game by human game is that I think the goal of AI and automation should be. The main goal is to supplement human living and stability. So like the underlying thing that this should service is because AI has to contend with the reality that you're talking about where it will inevitably be used by a bunch of people, at least as we continue to develop it. I want AI or automation in general that is maybe contributed to by AI to supply the social welfare that is necessary to keep people stable and happy at a time where they will be losing their jobs. Like we, we, like we talked about with, you know, it's not inherently bad to want to automate the backbreaking work of being in a warehouse 12 hours a.
- [96:42]
B
Day.
- [96:42]
C
Yeah. But the issue with a bunch of people losing those jobs is that their reality, having lost that job is also very bad. And we should be automating a future where everybody has access to like their base needs. And then I think a lot of people will take less issue with things like this because it's the threat of that instability that I think overhangs all of this thing. What this guy is doing when he tweets is he's exasperated because he's.
- [97:12]
B
Basically saying, I'm a concept artist. This is my life and career. What we're seeing is a train coming at my industry and I have no plan, nobody has any plan for what I'm going to do for my livelihood. And so I'm streaming out and I'm trying to build a movie. I totally get.
- [97:26]
C
It.
- [97:26]
B
Yeah. But, yeah, I, I just. Yeah, I agree. I. That 100%. And that's. But I think it comes back to what we've been saying about higher tag. Like the benefits of this automation are going to accrue in fewer and fewer hands and we have to find a way to take some of the money out of that hands and to take it.
- [97:45]
A
Back. There's two.
- [97:47]
B
Things. There's two things in that that I'm going to hard agree with in the.
- [97:50]
A
Book. I'm going to hard agree with.
- [97:51]
C
Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to check that out, you could go to patreon.com lemonade stand. The our second tier. We have a book club every month. This month it happens to be the Communist Manifesto, but we've read a bunch of different.
- [98:03]
A
Books. Basically, we're saying if you're kind of in the elite class of the Patreon, then you can.
- [98:08]
C
Participate. Then you have access to.
- [98:09]
B
Knowledge, the.
- [98:12]
A
Revolution. Be part of the bourgeoisie. Read the Communist.
- [98:15]
C
Manifesto. Seize the knowledge by subscribing to our.
- [98:17]
A
Patreon. This has been a great.
- [98:21]
B
Year. That's a great.
- [98:22]
A
Year. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been.
- [98:24]
B
Awesome. Wait, do we have any. Anything we want to say about like this year of the.
- [98:27]
C
Podcast? Is there I. I would like to say I appreciate this podcast has reached an audience that is much larger than I ever thought it would be. When we talked about starting the show, it's been a privilege to get to work with both of you and I'm really glad that not only did I like, pitch you the idea of doing this, but you spoke up and said you wanted to be a part of it. I think this has been a really fun, good fit. It makes me so happy to meet so many fans of the show throughout the year too.
- [98:56]
B
Yeah. I want to say I. Thus far, we've been doing the show for about a year, maybe eight months, 10 months. I have not met Eliminate Stand in real life who wasn't really awesome to talk to and so you could be that person. I want you to come up and be a total asshole to me so you can break the streak. That's what I would like. I would like to meet the first asshole in an instant. No, I. I love this show. It is exposed me to a lot interesting books and ideas. Breakneck and Pies of Peace are two things I really, really enjoyed reading this year. They. They drastically changed my worldview on things and I love these discussions. I just like doing. I like you guys. I like this is a fun thing for me to do and I. I'm glad it's part of my life and I'm hopefully, you know, I think both you and I are going through this. I'm trying to reorient our lives so we can have more time to.
- [99:42]
A
Really.
- [99:42]
B
Yeah. Breathe with this and not feel like it's crushing us. But honestly, you too, you have. You have six jobs or whatever. You're doing a lot. So. Yeah, just looking back, I'm glad we did it and I'm hopeful you guys can stick with us as we figure out more of how we're gonna make it work. But it's. It's fun and.
- [99:57]
C
Cool.
- [99:58]
A
Yeah. I got nothing to add. It's been. It's great. I'm. I'm very excited to keep doing this. I'm excited for 2026. I feel more like comfortable in my own skin with this type of show than. Than ever before. So it's. It was great. I'm excited if I did. Sorry, just a reminder, we are going to China next year. That's a big thing. We're planning in tentatively.
- [100:17]
C
March.
- [100:18]
A
March. We are working on it, but that. That was a Patreon goal that we hit. And so we are going to go there and film content there. And hopefully, according to somebody we spoke with recently, maybe be real journalists for the first.
- [100:28]
C
Time. Real journalists, yeah. Mixed signals called this. You're doing some real journalism. And I was like. And I was like, I promise you.
- [100:35]
B
I'm. I can't wait to ask you. Jinping Cutter.
- [100:37]
C
Uncut. But yeah, I think this, I think this new year is going to be very exciting for the show because of projects like that, other guests that we have lined up and excited to share it with you guys. And if I could give you one thing into the new year.
- [100:52]
B
It'S.
- [100:54]
C
You know, just kind of in the vein of this episode. Be open to changing your mind and updating how you feel about things. Don't listen to us and take that as the only way to look at things. I think what you were saying, this has been my, like, bridge to learning and exploring a lot of things that I wouldn't have otherwise. It's forcing me to engage with a bunch of ideas that I'm really happy. I am. And I hope that's something that people take away in the coming year. It's like when you hear something you're excited about or interesting or you want to respond or you feel antagonized by on this show. Show. Go read some more about it. Go learn some more about it. I think that's a really good energy for your entire life, to be honest. And I'm trying to take a little bit of that with me into 2026. So we'll see you.
- [101:41]
B
There. Hold.
- [101:44]
C
On. Ludwig's calling me. Hey, No. I mean, no. I have to edit. I have to. You don't respond to me. He. I've been using. I've been using the new features in Adobe Acrobat Studio to edit PDF documents for Ludwig, and he's upsc upset about some of the things I've.
- [102:02]
B
Bought. Well, you forged your signature and then.
- [102:04]
C
Bought. I didn't do that. I didn't do Luxury Mansion in Sweden for your signature. I used my signature to spend his money on the things. But the, the editing feature is how convenient it was. It's very convenient to edit the PDFs. It's like incredibly easy. If you want to learn about.
- [102:21]
A
The amazing flexibility you can have with PDF files, go to adobe.com do that with Acrobat. This tool is.