0:00

Spiral allows you to automate 80% of

0:02

the writing that you have, the repetitive

0:04

writing. You can give it how you

0:06

tweet, how you write newsletters, and then

0:08

it learns your tone, the voice, the

0:10

structure that you want, and it just

0:12

gives you the content from the content

0:14

that you already have. The biggest differentiator

0:16

is like, when you raise $50 million,

0:18

I kind of felt like I personally

0:20

and the business was always sprinting to

0:23

make sure that we didn't topple over

0:25

ourselves, like we didn't fall forward. I

0:27

was always running to keep my under

0:29

me. I think there's that thing that

0:31

we're sort of aspiring to like a word

0:33

that we often use internally is like building

0:35

a little bit of a creative playground and

0:38

you have this principle that you apply to

0:40

your life from then on which is... I

0:42

thought you were gonna say measure twice. Oh

0:45

right. We talked about this daddy. It's kind

0:47

of what we're doing here a little bit.

0:49

Yeah it's like measure twice cut once in

0:51

the front and then fuck around and find

0:54

out in the back. Danny,

1:08

welcome to the show. Thanks for

1:10

having me. And Brandon, welcome back

1:12

to the show. Thank you. So

1:14

we are doing a little bit

1:17

of a different episode today. We've

1:19

got, for people who don't know,

1:21

Danny Aziz, you are running spiral,

1:23

which is a every product we're

1:25

launching, or we just launched an

1:27

entirely new version of spiral. And

1:30

Brandon, you run our studio, which

1:32

produced or created spiral. And we

1:34

wanted to all come together and

1:36

just like talk a little bit

1:38

about what we're doing. Because I

1:40

think like, like, We have a little

1:42

bit of a different model that we're trying

1:44

to figure out for media, which is like

1:47

have a core underlying media business, and we

1:49

have a newsletter, we've got this YouTube channel,

1:51

we do podcasts, all that kind of stuff,

1:53

and then build software out of the experiences

1:56

and out of the ideas that we have

1:58

running the media business. And so Danny... you're

2:00

like one of the first people to

2:02

come in and help us do that.

2:04

So you're a little bit of a

2:06

a little bit of a guinea pig

2:08

for us. Yeah, definitely a guinea pig.

2:11

And we're trying to like share a

2:13

little bit about like what we're learning

2:15

and what that's like. So maybe start

2:17

by telling us like what's new with

2:19

spiral and maybe like a little bit

2:21

of background into what it is and

2:23

like what we just launched. So spiral

2:26

allows you to automate 80% of the

2:28

writing that you have the repetitive writing.

2:30

You can give it how you tweet,

2:32

how you write newsletters, and then it

2:34

learns your tone, the voice, the structure

2:36

that you want. And then you can

2:38

give it your rough drafts, or maybe

2:41

you've done a podcast and you want

2:43

to turn that into a tweet. And

2:45

it just gives you the content from

2:47

the content that you already have that

2:49

sounds just like you. What we've just

2:51

launched is a brand new design. It

2:53

looks completely different. far more organized and

2:55

then the biggest piece I think we're

2:58

the most excited about is 250 plus

3:00

public spirals. So we've gone through we've

3:02

handcrafted plus obviously with the help of

3:04

AI all of these spirals that will

3:06

turn one form of content into another

3:08

and we spend a lot of time

3:10

just making sure we're happy with it

3:13

so that everyone else will be happy

3:15

with it and then people can take

3:17

it, they can clone them, so it

3:19

sounds like them and they can continue

3:21

using it. That was really good. I

3:23

love listening to you talk. Yeah, you

3:25

are very good. I feel like the

3:27

spiral, I really struggle to pitch spiral

3:30

to people because I'm like, you could

3:32

turn a thing into another thing. And

3:34

they're like, what things? But that was

3:36

actually, that was, that was, that was

3:38

good. Yeah. I think like you nailed

3:40

all the beats of like when I'm

3:42

when I'm pitching it you nailed like

3:45

all that stuff but your voice and

3:47

like your inflection like everything is just

3:49

so much better. I mean I was

3:51

born with this voice so I can't

3:53

take credit for it. It's kind of

3:55

reminds me like when we first met

3:57

Danny I was like is he 45

3:59

and just like super mature and is

4:02

this his voice or is he like

4:04

22? I kind of can't tell somewhere

4:06

right in the middle. How old are

4:08

you actually? So that's what spiral is.

4:10

That's what kind of like what we're

4:12

launching. Like why are you doing this

4:14

with us? Obviously, you're super talented. You've

4:17

got a long history of working at

4:19

different startups. Like where did you end

4:21

up doing this? I think I've been

4:23

following the content you've been putting out

4:25

for a very long time. Do you

4:27

feel I hadn't actually seen any of

4:29

the products that ever you had put

4:32

out? It was always just the content

4:34

I have actually just like a bunch

4:36

of bookmarks of things that you've written

4:38

and like other people have written and

4:40

When I saw that you guys were

4:42

looking for EIRs entrepreneurs and residents I

4:44

was like this makes so much sense.

4:46

I think a lot of what I've

4:49

been feeling Working at startups every startup

4:51

that I've worked at has like raised

4:53

money and I've always felt this tension

4:55

between what felt right for our customers

4:57

and the business right now versus the

4:59

grandiose vision that we think we're going

5:01

to go do. And then when I

5:04

first met Brandon and Brandon was kind

5:06

of explaining to me of like we

5:08

have this media business and then we

5:10

have all this consulting and you know

5:12

we're trying to chart our own destiny

5:14

it all just resonated really well with

5:16

how I was feeling. I love that.

5:18

So I think something I think something

5:21

that you just said I kind

5:23

of want to do a call back

5:25

to your introduction of what we're trying

5:27

to build here, which is a media

5:29

business as a foundation and a number

5:31

of things that are layered on top

5:33

of that and one thing kind of

5:36

helps the other succeed. But there's another

5:38

thing that you just said, which is

5:40

a lot harder to put your finger

5:42

on and a lot harder to figure

5:44

out if we're actually doing well, which

5:46

is like charting our own path and

5:48

doing it in a way that feels...

5:51

really right for all of us as

5:53

individuals. And like I feel like when

5:55

we first had the idea for like

5:57

what you've been thinking about for me.

5:59

years but then we sort of came

6:01

together and we're like let's do this

6:03

thing we were like we're pretty sure

6:05

this is going to work we just

6:08

need to do it and then there's

6:10

this other piece which is like but

6:12

are we still going to be happy

6:14

that like we we're like currently figuring

6:16

out and like I think that was

6:18

a part of working with you I

6:20

was just like I think that Danny

6:22

feels you know what we're what we're

6:25

trying to do I think that he's

6:27

trying to do that too. Yeah, how

6:29

has that been for both of you?

6:31

Like, um, like, the, there's, I think

6:33

there's that thing that we're sort of

6:35

aspiring to, like, a word that we

6:37

often use internally is, like, building a

6:40

little bit of a creative playground. And

6:42

then there's also the sort of reality

6:44

of, like, it's really fucking hard to,

6:46

like, run, like, three businesses all at

6:48

once. So, like, yeah, how has that

6:50

been for, for, for you, Danny and

6:52

then I'm curious, Brandon? It's a little

6:54

bit difficult for me to answer that

6:57

question for everyone because I'm 95% of

6:59

the time focused on spiral. And obviously

7:01

it came out of every and I've

7:03

spent the last couple of weeks just

7:05

talking to the people who are using

7:07

it a lot. And 80% of the

7:09

people that I've spoken to are using

7:11

spiral because of every. I actually spoke

7:14

to somebody the other day and she

7:16

literally said, whatever every tells me to

7:18

do, I'm going to go do. Don't

7:20

don't do everything we say, but it's

7:22

nice. I like to hear that do

7:24

as we say not as we do.

7:26

Yeah So I feel like I get

7:28

to focus a lot and so I

7:31

haven't felt that tension and Because the

7:33

media business is doing well enough that

7:35

it can support something like this. I

7:37

don't feel this tension of, oh, I

7:39

have 18 months until I have to

7:41

go raise another round. And I think

7:43

we have a team of people where

7:46

we can, everything we need to do,

7:48

we can do. And then we just

7:50

know people who can help us with

7:52

the other things. So I haven't felt

7:54

this pull of anything other than I

7:56

get to focus. That's cool. Yeah. What

7:58

do you think? go through phases of

8:00

of you know feeling that like freedom

8:03

that I was searching for for so many

8:05

years while running Clyde like I go

8:07

through phases here a really good example

8:10

is this morning when we were you

8:12

know we mean we needed to make

8:14

all these changes to sparkle yeah so

8:17

sparkle is our AI file organizer so

8:19

it helps you organize your computer using

8:21

AI it's really amazing little product we

8:24

put it out a number of

8:26

months ago. May or June or July,

8:28

something like that? Yeah, like we, it

8:30

works really well, it's pretty basic, it

8:32

gets 50 new customers per

8:34

day, and we're just sort of like

8:37

trying to see what happens to it

8:39

right now without us like needing to

8:41

invest a ton, but we're also realizing

8:43

that we need to continue to invest

8:46

in it. And this morning we were

8:48

doing a bunch of like annoying stuff

8:50

to save ourselves from like a tax

8:53

situation in the future, basically. And I

8:55

was just like kind of flustered

8:57

because I didn't really have like

8:59

my morning routine and I didn't because

9:02

I just went straight into solving this

9:04

problem and I turned to my way

9:06

of Lydia and I was just like,

9:08

this sucks. Like I'm not, you know,

9:10

I hate. And she looked at me

9:12

and she was like, this is the

9:14

work part of your job. And I

9:16

was like, you're right. And I rarely

9:18

feel this way. So this is a

9:21

good thing. I love that. So that's

9:23

how it's going. That's really great. Yeah,

9:25

I feel similarly like the sort of

9:27

the sort of ups and downs But

9:29

I've like having run every for five years.

9:31

This is like without a doubt like my

9:33

favorite era of the business. And I'm someone

9:35

who I feel I think you really like

9:37

to like focus on one specific thing and

9:40

I'm just like I want to do like

9:42

50 things all at once. I love that

9:44

and so my day is very much like

9:46

I'll often start in the morning and I'm

9:48

like writing for a couple hours and like

9:50

coming going back and forth in case there

9:52

are like fires or like we always publish

9:54

in the morning so I'm usually involved in

9:56

that in some way. And then the rest

9:58

of the day is like talking to various

10:01

people about the different businesses we have

10:03

going on and you know looking at

10:05

spirals with you today or like you

10:07

know we have a couple of like

10:09

alpha products that we're working on so

10:11

like trying to figure that stuff out

10:13

and or some of the consulting that

10:15

we do and I love love the

10:18

variety and I do feel like it's

10:20

sort of like this playground which is

10:22

like very special because all the stuff

10:24

we do is like stuff I'm deeply

10:26

interested in which is cool. it's a

10:28

lot. I think this is like an

10:30

interesting transition to like how do we

10:32

do this well because like I really

10:35

like doing a lot of things too

10:37

every does a lot of things but

10:39

you and you do one thing at

10:41

every but you do a lot of

10:43

things within that one thing and like

10:45

so far you've kind of only done

10:47

one thing which is like get us

10:50

to this v2 yeah and I'm curious

10:52

how you feel about like where you're

10:54

starting a new journey where you're going

10:56

to be transitioning to like doing other

10:58

things besides what you've done for the

11:00

past many years, meaning like marketing and

11:02

growth and all of these things. Yeah,

11:04

I mean, I think the, I think

11:07

that's the thing that I'm most excited

11:09

about is throwing myself kind of in

11:11

the deep end. And it's also why

11:13

I love the idea personally for me

11:15

to continue answering a question then of

11:17

like why am I working on spiral

11:19

is I think I've spent most of

11:21

my career. Having ideas of how I

11:24

think all these other things should work

11:26

and I've never been able I've never

11:28

been in the environment to actually go

11:30

test those ideas Because it didn't make

11:32

sense, you know, if you've raised around

11:34

and you have 18 months You're not

11:36

going to let the engineer go do

11:38

X Y and Z You're going to

11:41

go hire someone who actually knows how

11:43

to do X Y and Z So

11:45

nervously excited is how I'm feeling But

11:47

I think it's going to be like

11:49

we had this product for people to

11:51

love and it's just about figuring figuring

11:53

out What's missing for them and then

11:55

who else is just like them and

11:58

how do we go get them? Not

12:00

to make it sound too easy. I

12:02

think it's going to be pretty difficult,

12:04

but Did that answer your question? I

12:06

think so, yeah. Yeah. How do you

12:08

feel about it? I feel, I mean,

12:10

I think my genuine question is like,

12:12

does it work? Yeah. Like, does the

12:15

model work? There's, for many, many years,

12:17

there's been this whole thing of like,

12:19

go raise a bunch of money, go

12:21

hire all the people you need to

12:23

do all the different jobs, and our

12:25

model is the complete opposite of that.

12:27

It's, don't raise any money, and don't

12:29

hire anybody, do it, do it, do

12:32

it, And I think that's my biggest

12:34

question just like just doesn't work. I

12:36

think it'll work but yeah and it's

12:38

definitely it's it's also really hard I

12:40

think one of the one of the

12:42

other parts your question we haven't touched

12:44

on is like it's really hard to

12:46

run multiple businesses and like for example

12:49

putting out a daily newsletter that's really

12:51

high quality and a podcast and doing

12:53

courses and doing trainings. All of that

12:55

is a lot. And then adding, layering

12:57

on other software businesses is like, it's

12:59

a lot a lot. And usually I

13:01

think people have a hard time, have

13:03

a hard time balancing those things. And

13:06

part of, I think part of the

13:08

reason it's worked so far is it

13:10

took us a long time to get

13:12

there. Like, where I guess this is,

13:14

it's almost exactly five years since I

13:16

started every. It was like Thanksgiving of

13:18

2019. Which is crazy, I actually hadn't

13:20

even thought about that. Congratulations. Yeah. And

13:23

there's been a lot of different areas

13:25

and we've tried a lot of different

13:27

things, but I think like, I think

13:29

this latest like spur in growth and

13:31

things that we're doing, it all basically

13:33

started when you joined. And I think

13:35

one reason for that is like, obviously

13:37

you're just like super talented and super

13:40

hardworking and you've like. brought so much

13:42

to what we do. And another reason

13:44

is like there was a foundation there

13:46

that like we could bring you in

13:48

and there like there was a lot

13:50

of potential energy to lock. And I

13:52

think I think that's it's really hard

13:55

to do that if you've. like you've

13:57

been talking about like you've raised a

13:59

big round and you have like 18

14:01

months like it we we raised a

14:03

little bit of money in 2020 but

14:05

we never spent it we have basically

14:07

the same amount of money that we

14:09

raised and I think that afforded us

14:12

the time to like let this thing

14:14

bake a little bit so that when

14:16

we hit the right moment we could

14:18

like let it rip a little bit

14:20

more. I

14:22

think one question on my mind is

14:24

this this model is working like it's

14:26

working it's just it's something is working

14:29

we just don't exactly know what it

14:31

is exactly know what it is and

14:33

how big it will go I think

14:35

one question on my mind is this

14:37

this this model feels like it should

14:39

not work Like if you ask someone

14:41

a year ago or two years ago

14:43

or three years ago, like, I want

14:45

to do this with this newsletter, like,

14:47

you know, we're going to, we're going

14:49

to, like, have the newsletter and then

14:51

we're going to, like, bring people on

14:53

to, like, help us, like, run the

14:55

products and build more of them. And

14:57

they would say, like, it's not going

14:59

to work for, like, five different reasons.

15:01

And I can list those out. And

15:03

one of the questions in my mind

15:05

is like, why is it working now?

15:07

And I think it is working uniquely

15:09

now in a way that it may

15:11

not have been able to like four

15:13

or five years ago. And a big

15:15

reason is AI stuff. Like, it is

15:18

just so much cheaper and faster to

15:20

make products. And I'm curious, like, how

15:22

that has been for you or like,

15:24

how using AI tools has like changed

15:26

your workflow or your productivity level or

15:28

what you're able to do. Before I

15:30

answer the question, I think AI has

15:32

also made it super easy to do

15:34

the media part of stuff. I was

15:36

shocked to see that like the images

15:38

that we have is like a custom

15:40

chat GBC that we have that like

15:42

spits out images and then we do

15:44

a little bit of tweaking. And by

15:46

the way this whole podcast AI generated.

15:48

Yeah we're not supposed to tell anybody

15:50

that. To answer your question, I think

15:52

the obvious answer is it just allows

15:54

me to move so much quicker, but

15:56

it allows me to do also like

15:58

the Monday things a lot more quicker.

16:00

Like I'm able to build tools for

16:02

myself in a way that I was

16:04

never able to do. And like I

16:07

think, you know, if we think like

16:09

10, 15 years ago, if you wanted

16:11

to kind of do that, you'd have

16:13

to probably like get resources in a

16:15

budget. and like, okay, I want to

16:17

get three engineers because we're going to

16:19

build this internal tool. And now I

16:21

could just ask Claude or Kursa or

16:23

Windsor, like, hey, build this internal tool,

16:25

and it'll like 80% get there, and

16:27

then I could finish it off. Didn't

16:29

you just do that? I did just

16:31

do that. So some of the spirals

16:33

that we have, we've built out the

16:35

data set of examples really well, and

16:37

it turns something into something. So for

16:39

example, it turns transcripts into tweetsets. But.

16:41

We can also use that exact same

16:43

data set for turning an article into

16:45

a tweet. And we don't need to

16:47

build a whole new spiral. So I

16:49

just built a really quick tool that

16:51

allows me to take a bunch of

16:53

spirals that could easily be twisted into

16:55

something else. And I could be like,

16:58

hey, this can also twist into that

17:00

and this. And the way that I

17:02

would have done that otherwise would have

17:04

been to start from scratch and make

17:06

them from scratch. We would have taken

17:08

forever. Okay, so this is exactly why,

17:10

like you're saying it shouldn't work and

17:12

there's all these reasons why yes AI,

17:14

and then the other thing, which is

17:16

the hardest part of this business, is

17:18

just choosing the right people to work

17:20

with. And we were talking a little

17:22

bit yesterday about like, we weren't really

17:24

talking about this explicitly, but like it

17:26

essentially is this, why you're the right

17:28

person for this. And... Maybe we

17:30

can talk about that a little bit

17:33

like what what I feel like there's

17:35

a certain amount of curiosity that you

17:37

have that is not normal or it

17:39

sort of feels it sort of feels

17:41

normal for like a lot of every

17:43

people honestly, but it's it's it's what

17:45

I think makes every in the playground

17:48

special and What was your perception of

17:50

him and why why did you want

17:52

I just had this sense like very

17:54

very quickly that he was going to

17:56

be really into doing all of the

17:58

things that aren't just engineering. which is

18:00

so important for us. Like I just

18:02

got the sense that you were really

18:05

technical, you had great taste, and I

18:07

actually, the second we met, I was

18:09

like, this guy's got a great clothing.

18:11

His hair looks great. He has a

18:13

bunch of plants behind him. So suave.

18:15

He's very suave. I was like, this

18:17

is not normal for, you know, a

18:20

incredible engineer. And at least in my

18:22

experience, and I was like, this is

18:24

a good start. But I think it's

18:26

like having high IQ being technical, but

18:28

then most importantly having high EQ is

18:30

like a very good test for us.

18:32

That's what I was gonna say is

18:34

like I remember. like the first time

18:36

we talked Brandon was like okay you're

18:38

gonna talk to this guy he really

18:40

wants to build like therapy software and

18:42

I was like yes we're gonna have

18:45

a great conversation well yeah most of

18:47

the time when I speak to somebody

18:49

and they're like I want to be

18:51

an EIR I know they'll be a

18:53

good fit if the conversation just goes

18:55

from like them talking about their background

18:57

and their work experience to just riffing

18:59

on an idea yeah and that's immediately

19:02

what we started doing yeah Yeah, I

19:04

mean I remember the first, literally

19:06

we jumped on the zoom, it

19:08

was like in the morning, and

19:10

you were like, that's a lot

19:12

of greenery, and I remember that

19:14

vividly. I like to call out

19:16

all the greenery because of my

19:18

wife, it's not because of me.

19:20

You've got to put that in that,

19:23

or she'll kill me. Good taste, you

19:25

have good taste. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's,

19:27

that's all me, it's got nothing to

19:29

do with that. And... Yeah, I love just

19:32

like riffing on ideas and taking

19:34

them a little bit further. The

19:36

therapy one was really interesting to me

19:38

for a while until it wasn't. And

19:40

ironically, now it's like, you know, we

19:42

have a bunch of therapists that are

19:44

using spiral and they love it. And

19:46

it's far better than any of the

19:49

therapy specific tools that they're using because

19:51

it, and I think that actually is

19:53

just like, it's worth noting that I

19:55

think one of the reasons that spiral

19:58

is going to be so successful. that's

20:00

something that we should keep in mind

20:02

as we build it. It's just like,

20:04

how do we not, how do we

20:06

always have that feeling even while we

20:08

pack it with, you know, a lot

20:10

of interesting functionality? And I think the

20:12

reason it's simple, at least to start,

20:14

is it came out of something that

20:16

I was just doing myself. So it's

20:18

like, it was like this process of

20:20

like, I was prompting it to like,

20:22

you know, make tweets from, prompting claw

20:24

to just make tweets for me. because

20:26

it had to be useful, it had

20:28

to be simple. And so I think

20:30

we had, like, one of the special

20:32

things about what we have is everybody

20:34

is using the stuff we build every

20:36

day. We're not building for people who

20:38

are different than ourselves, at least not

20:40

yet. And I think that that feedback

20:42

loop helps keep things simple because we

20:44

have a better idea of like what's

20:46

necessary and what's not, and a better

20:49

idea of like, is it being overbuilt

20:51

or, you know, like, is it too

20:53

complicated now, you know? I really like

20:55

that. I'm kind of curious

20:57

Brandon like your last business so like

20:59

your last business like you raised 50

21:01

million bucks for and just going back

21:04

to the like like why is this

21:06

working when it kind of like shouldn't

21:08

I guess in your view like what's

21:11

different now about this era and about

21:13

like what we're doing at every then

21:15

the constraints or what was possible when

21:18

you were running your last business. What

21:20

have you noticed? Well, they're very different

21:22

businesses. I think it's like the first

21:24

thing. I like, you know, decided to

21:27

build, I cannot imagine more complicated business.

21:29

for my last company. It was it.

21:31

What was it again for people that

21:34

don't remember? So it was an insurance

21:36

tech business that helped. It helped any

21:38

brand launch their own version of Apple

21:41

Care. So I was 22, I'd never

21:43

built an insurance company before, and I

21:45

was essentially building an insurance company that

21:47

also had like this whole tech side

21:50

of it. And it was. just really

21:52

complicated. So I think I think that

21:54

the if I had to boil it

21:57

all down to one thing it's just

21:59

like the simplicity of the second we

22:01

tried to go build Clyde at every

22:03

it would consume all of our time.

22:06

Because of like the regulations and like

22:08

the complexity of just like insurance or

22:10

I think just the size it was

22:13

a huge product that we built and

22:15

it kind of had to be because

22:17

it was It was B to B

22:20

to B to C. So we had

22:22

to build a business for end consumers.

22:24

We had to build a business for

22:26

the businesses that we were selling to.

22:29

And then we had to build, excuse

22:31

me, build a product for the insurance

22:33

companies that we partnered with. So we

22:36

kind of had to build three products

22:38

and they all needed to work really

22:40

well together. And then also, e-commerce just

22:43

sucks to build for. Don't let anybody

22:45

tell you otherwise. And e-commerce merchants are

22:47

really hard. So I think the I

22:49

think the simplicity side of the business

22:52

of the products that we're making is

22:54

why we'll be successful and because I

22:56

think we're focusing almost inadvertently on like

22:59

pro-soomery type products where we can just

23:01

convince you as an individual that this

23:03

is a good thing for you and

23:05

if we do our job you're likely

23:08

to share it with your coworkers. That

23:10

makes sense. What about like abstracting out

23:12

from your specific? Clyde experience and just

23:15

like I think we have a bit

23:17

of a different ethos for how we're

23:19

building stuff like we or it's attached

23:22

to a media business we're not really

23:24

like raising that much money like all

23:26

that kind of stuff versus like a

23:28

like the more standard venture back startup

23:31

path the last 10 or 15 years

23:33

like what have you noticed is different

23:35

either good or bad? I mean I

23:38

personally I think it's just all been

23:40

good I guess the only bad thing

23:42

is like I feel like we maybe

23:44

have a bit of a bit of

23:47

a ceiling where like we're not gonna

23:49

go from like zero to like 30

23:51

million. I mean we could but it

23:54

would just again it would consume us

23:56

and that wouldn't be a bad. thing.

23:58

Danny if you want to if you

24:01

want to do that we won't be

24:03

mad. So maybe the ceiling is like

24:05

kind of a bad thing but not

24:07

really for all the good things I'm

24:10

about to say. I think the the

24:12

the biggest differentiator is like when you

24:14

raise 50 million dollars I kind of

24:17

felt like I personally and the business

24:19

was always sprinting to make sure that

24:21

we didn't like topple over ourselves, like

24:24

we didn't fall forward. Like I was

24:26

always running to keep my feet under

24:28

me, and I felt like that personally,

24:30

and I felt like the business felt

24:33

like that. And I think here, because

24:35

we keep things simple, because the types

24:37

of things that we're choosing to invest

24:40

in, and because we're not raising money,

24:42

so we like don't owe it to

24:44

anybody except ourselves. By the time people

24:46

listen to this, we will have just

24:49

sort of put ourselves in a position

24:51

where We were leaning a little bit

24:53

far ahead of ourselves like we were

24:56

we were taking a risk But then

24:58

we'll take a couple weeks to like

25:00

get our feet under us again Yeah

25:03

And I think just when you raise

25:05

money. It's hard to do that. Yeah,

25:07

I think that that's actually like you've

25:09

just put your finger on like something

25:12

that's been really important for me is

25:14

like It's not for me the reason

25:16

we didn't raise a lot of money

25:19

in the last like four or five

25:21

years is like it's not because like

25:23

I don't want to work hard or

25:26

be stressed It's like there's a very

25:28

big difference between stress that you put

25:30

on yourself and you like choose to

25:32

when it's right versus like stress about

25:35

like other people and other people's expectations.

25:37

And I think for me as a

25:39

person I'm just like already so sensitive

25:42

to like other people that like a

25:44

business that felt like it was I

25:46

could we could choose when to be

25:48

stressed felt like what I wanted, you

25:51

know, whereas I think some, for other

25:53

people that are like less sensitive to

25:55

that, it, it. it doesn't necessarily change

25:58

the character of the business quite as

26:00

much or they're maybe not as afraid

26:02

of it as I was and I

26:05

just really like that that freedom to

26:07

choose to be stressed or not. Yeah,

26:09

yeah. Have you felt this much as

26:11

a founding engineer? The stress more comes

26:14

from like we need to not agreeing

26:16

with the milestones that we're trying to

26:18

reach because they feel very short-sighted. The

26:21

thing that's been very apparent to me

26:23

in just like three, four weeks is

26:25

not the lack of money but the

26:27

lack of just like we can burn

26:30

this because we're going to go raise

26:32

some more. It's forced me to be

26:34

a little bit more creative which I

26:37

really enjoyed. I think like before I

26:39

was like, oh I'm going to buy

26:41

five seats for this thing, cool whatever.

26:44

Now I'm like, okay, looking at the

26:46

price. I'm like, well, do I really

26:48

need this? Is there a, can we

26:50

be a bit more creative about this?

26:53

Is there a way that we can

26:55

get this cheaper? Which I think in

26:57

some places, you know, definitely money is

27:00

meant to be spent on the right

27:02

things. But I definitely found that before

27:04

having venture backed money, it's like, well,

27:07

we have money, we should spend, I

27:09

was just not being as creative, Place

27:11

I think right now what I've been

27:13

feeling a lot of my own expectations

27:16

which have been very Like I don't

27:18

know the fuel from that feels a

27:20

lot more longer lasting than other people's

27:23

expectations that feels like just thinking about

27:25

my own like Emotional journey that spiral

27:27

happen no pun intended happens a lot

27:29

quicker. Whereas right now this arc feels

27:32

like it's gonna go a lot further

27:34

Wait, sorry, I want help to, I

27:36

want to make sure I fully understand

27:39

this. So you're saying, when other people

27:41

are putting expectations on you, that cycle

27:43

of feeling stressed about those expectations is

27:46

like a quick, quicker cycle? And then

27:48

the fuel runs out a little quicker.

27:50

Like I feel like that gives me

27:52

like. It's like, I mean, a pressure

27:55

cooker, and that can, and I get

27:57

a lot of stuff done in a

27:59

pressure cooker. And he just, that's it,

28:02

kind of fizzles out off for a

28:04

couple of weeks. And then it takes

28:06

a lot of like getting back into

28:09

it, whereas right now it's my own

28:11

expectations. And I kind of, it feels,

28:13

at least right now, ask me in

28:15

a couple of weeks, but it feels

28:18

like it's going to take me very

28:20

far. Well one, and I don't know

28:22

how much like equity you owned in

28:25

previous companies that you were part of,

28:27

but one thing that I found during

28:29

Clyde I could. And you now own

28:31

a very significant part of spiral. And

28:34

I wonder if that plays a part

28:36

of it at all, is like you're

28:38

literally an owner. Because that's what's tough

28:41

about being an equity owner in a

28:43

business, like being an employee that has

28:45

equity, is it's really not that much.

28:48

So like the second you feel that

28:50

pain, sort of like, it's not a

28:52

rocket chip already, so it's really not

28:54

going to be worth that much, which

28:57

is what's tough about equity as an

28:59

employee. That's not really the case for

29:01

you and I wonder if that comes

29:04

into it at all. Yeah, I mean,

29:06

it's not being consciously The counter example

29:08

of like my options at other companies

29:10

has definitely been conscious for me before

29:13

in that like I've always I've never

29:15

really exercised my options before Because I

29:17

just never made any sense to and

29:20

it's never been motivating enough But I

29:22

I couldn't speak to is that a

29:24

reason why I'm super motivated right now?

29:27

It definitely is playing apart into it

29:29

for sure You did say like, right

29:31

answer. We knew we picked right. You

29:33

did say like the weight of your

29:36

own expectations is like sort of what's

29:38

pushing you forward and it made me

29:40

think like what are your expectations for

29:43

yourself? I think I think I've been

29:45

telling myself this narrative for a very

29:47

long time of I find all these

29:50

other things interesting and my opinion might

29:52

mean something in these other places. And

29:54

a big part of this, for me,

29:56

I'm seeing this as an experiment, is...

29:59

a big part of this experiment of

30:01

running spiral is all those opinions worth

30:03

anything. Probably not. And then it's like,

30:06

okay, well, when I, when reality tells

30:08

me they're not, how do I react

30:10

to that? How do I shift and

30:12

figure out what actually does make sense?

30:15

Will I figure out what actually makes

30:17

sense? So it's, in that I'm being

30:19

a guinea pig for every in the studio,

30:21

every in the studio is also being a

30:23

bit of a guinea pig for me. So

30:25

it's kind of this like. Similes a relationship.

30:28

Yeah yeah yeah yeah I think that there's

30:30

I think that that's such a common founder

30:32

thing is like the subtle sense of like I

30:34

think I could do this a lot better than

30:36

like you know no matter what it is and

30:38

and then but also kind of like wanting to

30:41

find out you know rather than just sort of

30:43

like a lot I think there's there's another

30:45

personality type that's a little bit

30:47

more like I think I could do this a

30:50

lot better but like I don't I'm not gonna

30:52

try. Or I'm not, or I think I could do

30:54

this a lot better, but I'm not going to

30:56

because I don't get value from it. You know,

30:58

you sort of need to be like somebody who's

31:00

like, of course I'm going to do an amazing

31:02

job no matter what. Like I just love it

31:04

for the love of the game. And this is

31:06

what makes me feel good. And often you

31:08

just kind of get smacked in the face,

31:11

like when you try, but then you just

31:13

sort of keep doing it. And then you

31:15

learn how to do it. Well, yeah, I

31:17

mean, like, the way that I described my

31:20

time running Clyde was it was just being

31:22

able to, every day was being able to

31:24

get punched in the face with a smile

31:27

on my face and being able to wake

31:29

up the next day and do it again.

31:31

And that's what it was, not for all

31:33

seven years, but like maybe five years, but

31:36

like maybe five. especially when it's not going

31:38

like incredible. There are I

31:40

mean there are definitely times

31:42

where this business has felt

31:44

like that for me but

31:46

not recently which is great.

31:48

You know those like boards

31:50

where it's like days since

31:52

like I was punched in

31:54

the face. Days since nuclear

31:56

disaster yeah. I love that

31:58

sweater. Thank you. Is that Greek? I

32:01

didn't get this increase. What else should we

32:03

talk about? I want to talk about. How

32:05

I can code with so many rings on.

32:07

It really doesn't get in the way. Wait,

32:10

I got to hold the rings up to

32:12

the camera. There's a lot. Yeah, you know,

32:14

I'm... I bumped on the, this is a

32:17

couple of weeks ago, and I bumped on

32:19

this guy that I met once at a

32:21

party. And we kind of like saw each

32:23

other, we recognize each other, and then he's

32:26

like, that's a lot of rings. Like we

32:28

didn't, it wasn't even like, where did we,

32:30

was like, oh, we met each other at

32:33

that guy's party? It was just like, that's

32:35

a lot of rings. It was like, oh,

32:37

we met each other at that guy's party,

32:39

it was just like, that's like, that's like,

32:42

that's a lot of like, that's a lot

32:44

of like, that's a lot of like, that's

32:46

a lot of a lot of a lot

32:49

of a lot of a lot of a

32:51

lot of a lot of a lot of

32:53

like, and we, and we, a lot of,

32:55

and we, and we, and we, and we,

32:58

and we, and we, and we, and we,

33:00

and we, and we, and we, and we,

33:02

and we, and Because I was really into

33:05

like tracking my sleep or whatever. The gateway

33:07

drug. The gateway drug. And then I was

33:09

like, oh shit, this looked really good. And

33:11

then you said, oh shit, it looks really

33:14

good. Oh, I was like, oh, I actually

33:16

really like how it looks on my hand.

33:18

No, you can really pull them off. Yeah,

33:21

you can really pull them off. Yeah, you

33:23

can rock it. And then I got this

33:25

one. And then I got this one, and

33:27

then I got this one. What is it?

33:30

It's a house. It's like a, it's like

33:32

the, it's like the, it's like five lines

33:34

of a house. I got it when I

33:37

was studying architecture, Copenhagen, you know, callback to

33:39

architecture, and then also my grandma passed away

33:41

and sort of all connected to that. I

33:43

was 18. I love that. You know, you

33:46

do these things when you're abroad and you're

33:48

a team. I don't even see it now

33:50

though. That's what's like kind of, you know,

33:53

you know, you know, you know, a fascinating,

33:55

a fascinating, like I literally, like I literally

33:57

don't like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

33:59

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

34:02

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

34:04

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

34:06

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

34:09

like, like, like, like, like, like No Not

34:11

at all. That's good. Yeah, is that I

34:13

don't think that that's did they do that?

34:15

want to be buried anyway. It depends on

34:18

how serious that they are. Oh you're going

34:20

to do the Brian Johnson like don't don't

34:22

die thing? Oh no definitely I definitely want

34:25

to die. Please kill me. No I definitely

34:27

want to die on day. The I I

34:29

I I think I just want to be

34:31

like honestly I want to Well, I guess

34:34

I want I do want to be buried

34:36

but I want to be buried without a

34:38

casket I want to just be like I

34:41

want to decompose as quickly as possible like

34:43

ashes scattered to the wind Well, I'm a

34:45

little bit worried about the ashes thing because

34:47

like does that sort of negate your ability

34:50

to like Absor back into I don't know

34:52

So you want to you want to just

34:54

be like open air to not open air

34:57

just like I want to be buried with

34:59

a ton of worms I see like in

35:01

the woods or something like kind of a

35:03

moist woods, a moist woods, you know Fertile

35:06

grounds, damp, yeah. Okay, interesting. Well, I mean,

35:08

my family business is cemeteries in Fertile Home,

35:10

so I can hook that up for you.

35:13

That's actually, I mean, did you know that?

35:15

I didn't know that, yeah. Yeah, that's like

35:17

such a fascinating thing, and also your name

35:19

is W. It is W. What does I

35:22

have to do with anything? Just two fascinating

35:24

things. Those are my two fun facts. Those

35:26

are two fun facts. Yeah. Yeah, that is

35:29

actually my number one fun fact is my

35:31

name is W. My other one. I just

35:33

got a new fun fact, which is that

35:35

I drank a wine that was over 100

35:38

years old this weekend. Wow. Was it good?

35:40

I've been storing that one up for the

35:42

next ice breaker and this is the next

35:44

ice breaker. like a very dense balsamic vinegar

35:47

reduction. Yeah. It was like that. Wow. Basically.

35:49

Yeah, it was a Sherry. Um, which it's,

35:51

it was cool. Yeah, 19, 19 or something

35:54

like that. Yeah. I feel like you have

35:56

a lot of interesting things that we don't

35:58

really know that much about you. I don't

36:00

have it like, I was just now trying

36:03

to think of like fun facts about myself.

36:05

If we were like talking about things, it

36:07

would come up. I really like. We learned

36:10

yesterday that you used to fix your mom's

36:12

car. Are you like, oh, and you have,

36:14

you ride a motorcycle? And you didn't go

36:16

to college, right? I think that's college. Yeah,

36:19

you got a lot of interesting stuff. Yeah,

36:21

which one of those you want to dig

36:23

into? Yeah. We could pick the why I

36:26

didn't go to college one, because I think

36:28

that's a story that I've said a million

36:30

times. When I was like a stone throwaway.

36:32

My high school was one of the schools

36:35

that they like select ballboys from. I was

36:37

never a ball boy. And when I was

36:39

15, this kid who went to like the

36:42

next school, he built like the Sumerizer app.

36:44

You could give it an article and it

36:46

would summarize it in 400 words or 200

36:48

words. And he was a couple years older

36:51

than me and he sold it to Yahoo

36:53

for like some particular amount of money. The

36:55

app was called Sumli and his name was...

36:58

I remember Sumli. Yeah, and Nick something. I

37:00

don't remember. Oh my god. Yeah, I remember

37:02

seeing interviews with him and stuff and you're

37:04

like, that guy's cool. And he was just

37:07

some kid a couple years over me who

37:09

went to a school that was 10 minutes

37:11

away. And that, I saw that and that

37:14

was like this big, like what the fuck?

37:16

What? Right, you can do this? Yeah, like

37:18

people could do this. And it was a

37:20

time of my life where like a lot

37:23

of the conversations at school and like with...

37:25

People in general is like, what am I

37:27

going to do with my life? And I

37:30

did not have an answer. Is that a

37:32

conversation in in England? Like, does that like,

37:34

and they asked, do you have, when do

37:36

you need to decide that? Do they have

37:39

like liberal arts colleges in the UK? No,

37:41

I don't really know what liberal arts colleges

37:43

to be honest. We can talk about that

37:46

later. Never run. They're stupid. Okay. I wouldn't

37:48

say that, it's just like, at least for

37:50

me at least, was this like subtle conversation

37:52

that was happening, because we were in this

37:55

like moment where you were going to pick

37:57

subjects that you were going to do for

37:59

the next couple of years. And those subjects

38:02

that you do, then kind of dictate where

38:04

you're going to do at university. You, you

38:06

know, if you're picking maths and the sciences,

38:08

you're going to go do something kind of

38:11

relate to that. And that dictates your career

38:13

too. Like, like, you pick pretty early and

38:15

then you're like set basically. You're like set,

38:18

pretty, pretty early on. So you just didn't

38:20

pick, that was strategic. Well, so this was

38:22

a couple of, that's a little too early.

38:24

At that moment in time, I knew that,

38:27

you know, I was really into computers. I

38:29

like, when I was a teenager, I was

38:31

like, fucking around with after effects and I

38:34

was really into like, CGI and like, recording

38:36

little videos and like, pretending I had a

38:38

lightsaber and like making it look like I

38:40

had a lightsaber. I had my toe in

38:43

this like interesting world and was just slowly

38:45

going deeper and deeper into it. Like what

38:47

can you do with technology? That's so interesting

38:50

because I was huge on after effects too,

38:52

probably around the same time, or I'm a

38:54

little older than you, but I'm a little

38:56

older than you, but like at the same

38:59

time, or I'm a little older than you,

39:01

but like at the same age, but like

39:03

at the same age, I'm a little older

39:05

than you, because I was also really into

39:08

lights. Yeah, yeah. I was so into lightsabers

39:10

that I, you know, those like plasma balls,

39:12

or it's like a, it's like a like

39:15

glass ball in it, like, yeah, you could

39:17

touch it. So I had one of those

39:19

in my room, and I really, really wanted

39:21

to make a lightsaber, like I spent so

39:24

much time on like the internet, like trying

39:26

to figure out if they're any way to

39:28

make a lightsaber, right? If you take fart

39:31

putty. I don't even know what that is.

39:33

It's sort of like, it's like, it's like,

39:35

uh, is that when you make an air

39:37

bubble and then you, it's like, it's like,

39:40

it's like, it's, but it's a little bit

39:42

more plasticy. Okay. And you, and you can

39:44

like, it comes in a little cannon, you

39:47

can like, push it down and then it

39:49

makes a fart noise. So if you took,

39:51

if I took Fart putty and put it

39:53

on the plasma ball. And then I got

39:56

like, you know, the graphite that pencil led

39:58

for mechanical pencils. And then if I put

40:00

a piece of graph, if I hold a

40:03

piece of graphite and put it next to

40:05

the fart putty, I would get this like

40:07

shooting. and I was like, it's a light

40:09

table. And so, that's, count it, yeah. So

40:12

then I would like, I would hold it

40:14

and then I would like put sheets of

40:16

paper through and like cut it and I'd

40:19

be like, I'm, I'm Obie one Canoe, like

40:21

I'm, you know. I just am loving this

40:23

image of you doing this. That's awesome. I

40:25

almost burned out my house multiple times, but

40:28

yeah, it was, it was cool. Yeah. I

40:30

hope I have a kid like a kid

40:32

like you. Really? Wow, that's very nice. Yeah,

40:35

I have a kid that's just like as,

40:37

because I wasn't, I was like doing, I

40:39

wasn't doing, I was doing like digital, like

40:41

after effects, I did a ridiculous amount of

40:44

film when I was younger, and um, an

40:46

editing of footage, but I never really did

40:48

anything. I like pretended to take like calculators

40:51

apart, and then with the intention of like

40:53

putting them back together, and then I'd be

40:55

like, I don't fucking know how to put

40:57

this, that was just a bunch of parts.

41:00

But you were actually putting them back together.

41:02

You might be giving me a little too

41:04

much credit. I don't know if I was

41:07

putting the calculators exactly back together, but I

41:09

was definitely, I loved... Danny was putting them

41:11

back together. I definitely wasn't putting them, at

41:13

least at that age or something. I thought

41:16

that, well, what about that time that you...

41:18

like broke your mom's car and then yeah

41:20

I mean so I broke my mom was

41:23

gonna get her car serviced and I was

41:25

like I want to go do it you're

41:27

like I can do it better I'm 12

41:29

I think I was like 16 at the

41:32

time maybe 50 or something like that and

41:34

I just gone down this like rabbit hole

41:36

of YouTube videos I was like I could

41:39

do this and there's this one company that

41:41

makes manuals for every single car it's the

41:43

haze manual and the haze manual and they

41:45

their entire business is building like how to

41:48

how to how to take apart the car

41:50

and repair it I really love that business.

41:52

It's really interesting. So I bought the Hayes

41:55

manual for the car that we had devoured

41:57

it and then convinced my mom somehow that

41:59

like she should let her teenage son do

42:01

her car and she agreed. That was, that's

42:04

a little bit on her to be honest.

42:06

Yeah, I mean all credits my mom, she

42:08

really did like let me. If you had

42:11

a voice like this at 16, I'd let

42:13

you do whatever you wanted to do. I

42:15

don't think that a voice just like those

42:17

six days. Imagine this, but a lot more

42:20

high-petched. And yeah, I, most of the way

42:22

got through, totally fine, and then cracked a

42:24

spark blog in half inside the Andrew blog,

42:27

and then spent weeks figuring out how to

42:29

get it out. And like long story short

42:31

was like using some like penetrating oil that

42:33

I could only get from America and like

42:36

slowly drilling it out and then forcing it

42:38

out. to go around the threads the other

42:40

way around. And then I realize that, OK,

42:42

all the other three spark plugs are going

42:45

to be really stuck in there. So I

42:47

just soaked the shit out of them in

42:49

W.D.40. And then they came up. And then

42:52

since then, I've kind of worked on my

42:54

own cars. When I moved here, there was

42:56

like this motorcycle repair class that was happening

42:58

in Bushwick that I took. That was a

43:01

lot of fun. Yeah. And you have this

43:03

this principle that you apply to your life

43:05

from then on, which is, fuck around and

43:08

find out. I thought you were gonna say

43:10

measured twice. Oh, right. We talked about this,

43:12

Daddy. I was setting you up, man. I

43:14

actually didn't know. I like, fuck around and

43:17

find out better. Yeah. It's kind of what

43:19

we're doing here, a little bit. Yeah. We're

43:21

like, it's like, measure twice cut. Cut once

43:24

in the front and then fuck around and

43:26

find out in the back. Yeah, I like

43:28

that. Yeah Yeah I mean I've definitely figured

43:30

out the like yeah do otherwise you get

43:33

stuck in situations You know it's funny. I

43:35

think I've I don't think I've learned that

43:37

life constantly teaches me that lesson over and

43:40

over and over again and I hopefully one

43:42

day I learned that lesson probably or not

43:44

like I think that maybe the reason why

43:46

you like maybe the three of us have

43:49

done you know built businesses which is arguably

43:51

like the stupidest thing that you can do

43:53

if your goal is to make money or

43:56

like be happy or start a newsletter or

43:58

start a newsletter is because it's sort of

44:00

like measure measure once cut twice ready fire

44:02

aim yeah exactly Yeah, it's just sort of

44:05

like, I'm curious about this and I'm gonna

44:07

go for it now. Miss Fernandez, my third

44:09

grade teacher always, I remember this very well,

44:12

said in my report card that I

44:14

was, what's that word, when you do

44:16

things without thinking? Impulsive? Impulsive,

44:19

yes. She wrote that

44:21

in my, in my, in my, in

44:23

my report card, and I

44:25

remember thinking. That's not such

44:27

a bad, like it was like a

44:29

bad thing, but I was thinking that's

44:32

not, that doesn't sound so bad to

44:34

me. I had the same thing. My

44:36

fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Piper, said I

44:38

was a nutty professor. Oh my god,

44:40

that's perfect. That's like when I

44:42

called you the drunk uncle, that

44:45

you're... Nutty professor drunk uncle. It's

44:47

just, she was like, you're always

44:49

thinking about stuff, but you're like,

44:51

kind of not always like... you

44:53

know, grounded or whatever. Yeah, and

44:55

I thought that was great. My

44:57

mom was like, that's terrible. You

45:00

cannot be like that. That's perfect.

45:02

I don't have any quotes that

45:04

I can remember, but my entire

45:06

time spent at school was thinking.

45:08

I'm too clever for this and this is

45:10

fucking boring. And there's more interesting things for

45:13

me to be doing. So what did you

45:15

do, Apso, you know, is it 18 when

45:17

you go to college in the UK? I

45:19

was like 17 when I left school and

45:22

it's... You graduated high school? I graduated high

45:24

school. I graduated high school and then before

45:26

we got to university in the

45:28

UK, there's like these two years that

45:30

you do, we have to go get

45:32

your A levels. And I decided that

45:34

I wasn't going to all the different

45:36

universities, like talking to... the kids who were

45:39

doing computer science. And I kind of just,

45:41

it's not that I felt that I already knew

45:43

what they were talking about, it's that they weren't

45:45

talking about anything interesting. The

45:47

things they were working on, they weren't

45:49

building anything cool, and I don't know.

45:51

It seemed kind of stuffy and not what I

45:53

wanted to do. At the same time, me and a

45:55

friend of mine were like getting really hooked

45:58

into like this idea of startup. We were

46:00

reading and watching YouTube videos of all

46:02

this stuff that was happening in San

46:04

Francisco. And all of that was really

46:06

exciting. That was far more exciting in

46:09

the school. It was far more exciting

46:11

than going to university for computer science.

46:13

And then we realized that there was

46:15

people in London doing the exact same

46:17

thing. And then we realized that there

46:19

was people in London doing the exact

46:22

same thing. And we just like decided

46:24

to turn up to like an event

46:26

that someone was hosting. It might be

46:28

because I had a bed at the

46:30

time. probably was, but it was like

46:32

the first time that I really felt

46:35

like I was being listened to and

46:37

heard and people actually cared to hear

46:39

my opinion and it was about this

46:41

kind of stuff and it was like

46:43

from that moment on that I was

46:45

hooked. I do think that's a very

46:48

different thing about the tech industry which

46:50

is it's almost 95% amazing there's a

46:52

little bit weird but like it's the

46:54

only industry where One, you're taken seriously

46:56

based on like what you can do

46:58

rather than like your credentials. And as

47:01

a result, it's the only industry where

47:03

like young people are taken really seriously

47:05

from the very beginning. And I always

47:07

felt that too. Like there are so

47:09

many times in my career where I

47:11

can just remember as like an 18

47:14

year old or like a 20 year

47:16

old or 22 year old like saying

47:18

stuff and like talking to like people

47:20

who are in their 30s or 40s

47:22

or 50s and they like actually listened.

47:24

And I know now, like, talking to

47:27

20-year-olds, I'm like, wow, you've known nothing.

47:29

And I try to pay that forward

47:31

because like, they were really nice to

47:33

me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I feel like

47:35

in the tech industry, there's there, the,

47:37

the impact or the, the, um, having

47:40

potential is just as important as having

47:42

experience and. I think that's also like

47:44

kind of where VC kind of goes

47:46

like a bad direction a good example

47:48

is giving me a 22 year old

47:50

50 million dollars like It's just, there

47:53

needs to be sort of, we're having

47:55

a correction, like literally right now we're

47:57

experiencing that, but it is a special

47:59

place where potential is just as important

48:01

as experience. I think that was like,

48:03

the 5% bad is sort of like,

48:06

sometimes when you give a 22 year

48:08

old like $50 million, like. it turns

48:10

out really well and then I just

48:12

have a lot of friends for whom

48:14

it's like it was a very scarring

48:16

experience that they didn't really like I

48:18

know what they were getting into and

48:21

all the adults around them were kind

48:23

of like you should go do this

48:25

like this is this is your time

48:27

or whatever and I think that's like

48:29

that's the sort of difficulty of it

48:31

you know yeah yeah and I think

48:34

that's because running a business like yesterday

48:36

we were going through a lot of

48:38

like P&Ls and figuring out how we

48:40

like manage taxes for all of these

48:42

different LLCs and it's like that's not

48:44

fun and you really need to pay

48:47

attention and do it right and when

48:49

you're 22 you're sort of like none

48:51

of this matters I can like do

48:53

whatever I want but like that can

48:55

come to but not that that was

48:57

my situation but it very well could

49:00

have been. But also like you just

49:02

like there's a lot of weight that.

49:04

is on you that you don't even

49:06

realize how it's going to feel until

49:08

you're in that position like you're thinking

49:10

of yourself like cool like I'll be

49:13

the CEO of this company it'll be

49:15

amazing and like I'll have all these

49:17

people working for me on all this

49:19

money and it seems awesome and then

49:21

it is awesome until things start going

49:23

wrong and then it's like It can

49:26

just be really hard to handle it

49:28

like last years, yeah, for people. Yeah,

49:30

I think it's definitely, I think about

49:32

the things that one has to do

49:34

in running a business. I think I'm

49:36

like, if I was 22 and I

49:39

had to like hire people, fire people,

49:41

like I don't know if I would

49:43

have done that well. It's a school

49:45

of hard knocks for sure. But such

49:47

a, I mean, I feel like we're.

49:51

I don't know if we're shitting on

49:53

it, but like it is also an

49:55

incredible thing where you just learn so

49:58

much and you mature. I feel like

50:00

it enables you to like mature. really

50:02

quickly both professionally and personally but you're

50:04

still kind of like controlling your own

50:07

destiny a little bit so you get

50:09

to mature in a sense that in

50:11

a way that also feels like I

50:13

can own my life versus like I'm

50:16

going to just dedicate the next 50

50:18

years working for. just doing a job.

50:20

Like I definitely, you know, I feel

50:22

like that's probably the case for all

50:25

of us. We're all like around 30

50:27

and it's odd to be around 30

50:29

and sort of feel like I'm gonna

50:32

live my life exactly the way that

50:34

I want it and I can. Yeah,

50:36

I do, I do really, really love

50:38

that and yeah, I don't, I definitely

50:41

don't mean to say like 22 year

50:43

olds shouldn't run businesses or raise money.

50:45

It's just like, it's pretty situational and

50:47

I think by people who are older

50:50

and know better than them and I

50:52

think that's kind of that kind of

50:54

sucks. So Ezra Gallsen who is one

50:56

of my investors and I think is

50:59

like one of the best investors I've

51:01

ever worked with he runs a VC

51:03

called Starting Line he explained it to

51:05

me as multiple different types of founders

51:08

you can have a freshman founder which

51:10

is like you're super naive and you

51:12

don't know how hard something is going

51:14

to be and you can have a

51:17

sophomore and a junior founder which I

51:19

forget how we define those but imagine

51:21

it somewhere between freshman and Senior which

51:23

is I've done this before I know

51:26

how hard it is I'm gonna take

51:28

on only the amount of money that

51:30

I need and He basically was like

51:33

you only really want to invest in

51:35

senior founders and freshman founders because the

51:37

ones in the middle are kind of

51:39

like maybe a little stuck up They

51:42

didn't learn their lesson hard enough. You

51:44

know one way or the other and

51:46

I don't know what you are yet

51:48

I don't know, like, I don't know,

51:51

I don't, yeah, maybe you like also

51:53

exist outside of this, because we're not,

51:55

we're not investing any money. Yeah, you're

51:57

off the charts, yeah, you never went

52:00

to college, so it's important. Yeah, I

52:02

mean, I think, if I was to

52:04

define myself in those, in that constraint.

52:06

I would say I'm much more on

52:09

the earlier side. But yeah, I feel

52:11

like the constraint doesn't necessarily fit. Yeah.

52:13

One thing on my mind, because we're

52:15

sort of, we're getting close to the

52:18

end and just to sort of like

52:20

bring it back to spiral stuff, because

52:22

like. I love the idea and we've

52:25

done this a bit in other parts

52:27

of the every journey, but like I

52:29

love the idea of having these conversations

52:31

as like little time capsules and so

52:34

this is sort of a time capsule

52:36

of the very start of your spiral

52:38

journey or your every journey and I'm

52:40

kind of curious for you like if

52:43

we and there's no right answer to

52:45

this but like. when we come back

52:47

in a year and we're like on

52:49

on the pot and we're we're doing

52:52

the like one year review v three

52:54

hopefully v six and you know gBT

52:56

seven is out and like whatever like

52:58

yeah where do you hope to be

53:01

what what is it what does success

53:03

look like for you I think where

53:05

I want spiral to go to in

53:07

the next year beyond like being in

53:10

a you know being used by a

53:12

bunch of businesses and stuff I think

53:14

the product I wanted to stay simple,

53:17

but simple doesn't mean stupid. I think

53:19

it's, it has this opportunity to be

53:21

really clever and automate things for people

53:23

in a way that they didn't really

53:26

realize that it could be automated. I

53:28

think, the thing that I think about

53:30

a lot, about AI in general, is

53:32

that I think most people have tried

53:35

AI. They've asked Chad GPT for a

53:37

joke or whatever, but there is, that's

53:39

it. And they've never tried it again.

53:41

I think there's this world of businesses

53:44

and individuals who are not really utilizing

53:46

the tools that we have right now.

53:48

I think spiral is simple enough that,

53:50

it's simple and powerful enough that it

53:53

can be really easy to use and

53:55

be impactful enough to their day to

53:57

day lives. I think getting it in

53:59

the hands of more people with a

54:02

lot of the advancements that we want

54:04

to work on, making it easier to

54:06

share, making it a little bit more

54:09

powerful, so it's doing even more for

54:11

you. Yeah, I love that. I mean,

54:13

and I hope you also learn kind

54:15

of like the things that you seem

54:18

like you're you want to learn, which

54:20

is like, do I know better? Can

54:22

I can I do all the other

54:24

stuff in addition to the engineering stuff?

54:27

And yeah, I also like, I think,

54:29

you know, I love those things you

54:31

mentioned, like I love spiral as this

54:33

kind of like. For me it operates

54:36

this as like inspiration machine where like

54:38

I can just like if I'm doing

54:40

a task like you know I have

54:42

to write a tweet or like I

54:45

have to you know do a like

54:47

YouTube description or whatever I can just

54:49

like throw some input into spiral and

54:51

it just gives me so many different

54:54

options and I would love like you

54:56

know we were just going through a

54:58

bunch of the every created spirals today

55:01

and you surface for me so many

55:03

spirals that are there that I don't

55:05

even know. and I would love for

55:07

it to like 10x its ability to

55:10

act as that sort of like machine

55:12

where it's like I can just see

55:14

tons and tons of different possibilities and

55:16

get through them as quickly as possible

55:19

to find the thing that has that

55:21

like little spark. I think there's so

55:23

much opportunity to do that and I

55:25

feel like I feel like we're going

55:28

in that direction and yeah it's gonna

55:30

be it's gonna be really cool in

55:32

a year. Yeah I think it's gonna

55:34

be really cool. What are you hoping

55:37

for? Where would you like to be?

55:39

If we go one level up from

55:41

a spiral to like studio in a

55:43

year? So we have three products that

55:46

are all in a sort of similar

55:48

place. We've got Sparkle, spiral, and Cora,

55:50

which is the product that we haven't

55:53

announced yet. And I would love a

55:55

year from now for all of those

55:57

to have, for all of those to

55:59

like feel stable, not like technically stable,

56:02

because they're all technically stable, but... more

56:04

like they have a plan, we have

56:06

some understanding of the levers that like

56:08

make them work and we're able to

56:11

pull on those levers however we want.

56:13

So I would like that for all

56:15

of, for those three products and I

56:17

think my hope for the rest of

56:20

the studio is that one we're able

56:22

to like offer resources to like Danny

56:24

Kieran. all the other EIRs that allow

56:26

them to do their best work in

56:29

things that they're maybe not great at

56:31

or like don't have the skill sets

56:33

for we can supplement them with like

56:35

the best people like a really good

56:38

example is like performance marketing kind of

56:40

really hard to do with like well

56:42

and you should know all of our

56:44

EIRs and anybody who's running a business

56:47

at every I think should know how

56:49

to do it but maybe you don't

56:51

need to because we have somebody who's

56:54

actually 10x better than you. So I'd

56:56

like to be able to like supply

56:58

a lot of those resources and I

57:00

hope we can increase the experimentation level.

57:03

I think that like we're moving ridiculously

57:05

fast compared to other studios and other

57:07

people like I think we'd build a

57:09

lot but I think we can also

57:12

do more. Like it's been playful but

57:14

I think it can be even more

57:16

playful. And I think that what will

57:18

enable that is like... having these three

57:21

businesses functioning in a way that we

57:23

are like, okay, we know how to

57:25

do it. So let's just have fun.

57:27

And then if any of these land,

57:30

we know how to do it. Yeah,

57:32

I think like figuring out the model

57:34

because like we now we've got three

57:36

of them and like I think we

57:39

can step back and like look at

57:41

like what's worked and what hasn't and

57:43

like kind of zoom in more on

57:46

what's worked. I think for me, I

57:48

would love like, like, I

57:50

think this studio and Inspiral and all

57:52

these other products are big bets and

57:55

I would love to be in a

57:57

place in a year where we've like

57:59

really figured out how to like make

58:01

the media. side and the product side

58:03

like really work together well and feel

58:05

like the media stuff is adding to

58:08

the products and the products are adding

58:10

to the media and that's what I

58:12

think there's this like really special core

58:14

thing that's happening right now where I

58:16

go into discord every day and there's

58:18

like smart creative people like all talking

58:21

to each other and it's like there's

58:23

founders there's writers there's like all these

58:25

people and I think that that's so

58:27

different usually people are like in their

58:29

own little silos and stuff and I

58:31

want to like keep that going to

58:33

be going to grow into something like

58:36

really beautiful and special and so that's

58:38

that's sort of that's where I'd love

58:40

to be in here. Yeah I think

58:42

the hardest thing for us honestly is

58:44

going to be looking at the data

58:46

and being like this feels like this

58:49

feels like the right data like I

58:51

feel like we're constantly going to look

58:53

at the data and be like this

58:55

isn't it's just going to be hard

58:57

to figure out exactly what you're saying.

58:59

It's this sort of, it's this amorphous,

59:02

it's just hard, it's gonna be hard

59:04

to do that. I don't think that,

59:06

I don't think that I'm necessarily saying,

59:08

I think that there will be a

59:10

really clear number where I'm like, X,

59:12

it's just gonna, it's gonna be a

59:15

vibes thing, and that's like, and I

59:17

think we have the vibes now, and

59:19

I want the vibes to continue and

59:21

get better, and that's the most important

59:23

thing to me, yeah. I feel like

59:25

there's a lot of there are a

59:28

lot of like metaphors of business building

59:30

that are sort of like about like

59:32

going to war and I feel like

59:34

every for me is like it's more

59:36

it's like more like growing like a

59:38

garden or something you know and you

59:41

got to like create like make the

59:43

conditions right for things to like flourish

59:45

and that's a very vibes type of

59:47

thing so may the vibes continue. This

59:49

is great. Thanks, uh, thanks to Annie

59:51

for joining. Thank you for having me.

59:53

Brandon, thanks for joining. Thanks, Dan. This

59:56

is great. and

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