0:00

Now in my household, February

0:02

is a big month. We have

0:04

now, you know, I don't want y'all

0:06

to change how you do the

0:08

podcast, but Kim, my wife, listens

0:10

to the episodes. She listens to

0:13

the introduction and then it gets

0:15

to the nerd shit and she's

0:17

out, right? So like... Smart. Yes,

0:20

indeed. That's pretty much how

0:22

I do every episode. And so

0:24

February is a big month. We

0:26

got we got my wife's birthday.

0:29

We've got Kormak's birthday, my

0:31

son, but the biggest holiday of

0:33

the whole year we have is

0:35

Valentine's Day. Now Valentine's Day is

0:37

when you express, you show your

0:40

love for the people that you

0:42

love in your life. Now, your

0:44

lady friend, your special lady friend,

0:46

all sorts of things, your

0:48

wife, whatever it may be, all

0:50

of those people. And then what

0:53

Kim introduced me to with Valentine's

0:55

Day is that it's not only

0:57

for your... as they say, lovers,

0:59

it's also for the people that

1:01

you just love in your life,

1:03

your kids. So you'll give them

1:05

some stuff. You might even have

1:07

them wake up in the morning

1:10

and come out and see some sort

1:12

of, you know, full spread of

1:14

presence on the table. I

1:16

was thinking, Valentine's Day is coming

1:18

up, right? I've got to

1:20

think about what to get for

1:22

my lovely wife, but then it

1:24

occurred to me, what should I be

1:27

getting? What should I say is

1:29

like, because this is the one

1:31

time that the stereotypical, like a

1:33

bunch of, you know, in their

1:35

30s, now 40s, white guys talking

1:37

to each other on a podcast

1:39

stereotype, is really gonna pay off,

1:41

because who the fuck knows what to

1:44

get us for Valentine's Day, right?

1:46

You know, like, and so I wanted

1:48

to, as I always like to do

1:50

here, let's do a little roundtable, and

1:52

I might have to skip, but

1:55

like... Really help out people say like

1:57

what do you want on Valentine's Day?

1:59

Valentine's Day? is not your birthday, it's

2:01

not Christmas, definitely not Thanksgiving, it's this

2:03

whole other thing where you're gonna get

2:06

a gift, but what are you looking

2:08

for? And you know, you can't be

2:10

like me where I would be like,

2:12

I don't really want anything, right? Like,

2:15

what is it that you're really looking

2:17

for on Valentine's Day? Well, I would,

2:19

I definitely would go with like, I

2:21

don't not want anything, but if I

2:24

was forced to give an answer, I

2:26

don't generally want anything like anything like...

2:28

if you want material that's just gonna

2:31

be another thing in the house. So

2:33

I'd probably be like, I don't know,

2:35

like some candy, like a sweet treat,

2:37

something kind of like, kind of just

2:40

like, consumable, something consumable that's kind of

2:42

like fun for something, you know, something

2:44

along those lines, because I just don't

2:47

generally want more stuff of any kind,

2:49

you know, unless it's like something like

2:51

mine. And I admit, I'm very particular

2:53

about the things that I want, so

2:56

it's like you can't really just like.

2:58

Oh, I got you this. It's like,

3:00

no. This is the problem for a

3:02

while. Yes. And I don't want that.

3:05

That's not the, you got the wrong

3:07

color version, you know, whatever. So I

3:09

tried to do that. So if I

3:12

had to do it, it would be

3:14

something among those lines. But I would

3:16

say, maybe wrong way, we don't, I

3:18

wouldn't say I take Valentine's as serious

3:21

as it sounds as you do, so

3:23

I wouldn't say like, like, Do they

3:25

bring in a little bit of American

3:27

values to the Netherlands? Do they even

3:30

do like Valentine's Day? Because here? The

3:32

pushback was like, that's an American thing.

3:34

Just like Halloween. But you know, it's

3:37

bigger than it was when I moved

3:39

here. So now, now one of the

3:41

primary reasons that I like computers is

3:43

they tell me things like the date

3:46

that Valentine's Day is. I'm not quite

3:48

sure when it is, but I can

3:50

look it up and find out. Perhaps

3:53

maybe the week before that episode we

3:55

should bring this question back up and

3:57

I'll see if there's stuff around. But

3:59

I think in the Netherlands, it's kind

4:02

of like Halloween. Like it may not

4:04

be like. a big deal like it

4:06

is in the states, but I think

4:08

Valentine's Day, it's landed here. Let me

4:11

do it. You know, because you know

4:13

in the US there are going to

4:15

be a bunch of articles about how

4:18

much money is being generated by the

4:20

holiday. Like that is a very American

4:22

thing. They're like, oh, you know, consumers

4:24

spend, you know, $40 billion on cards

4:27

and candy and flowers, right? I mean,

4:29

I was reading an article about the,

4:31

you know, the fight between Trump and

4:33

Colombia and Colombia, and they pointed out

4:36

that. Valentine's Day was coming and Columbia

4:38

exports flowers. And I was like, yes,

4:40

you know, I mean, it's that kind

4:43

of thinking just affects a lot of.

4:45

Yeah, now, now, now, now, this is

4:47

a total side note that I'm going

4:49

to bring us back from, but I

4:52

think you're, you, you're, there's, there's, there's

4:54

an idea in my head that you're

4:56

formulating that maybe some of our people

4:59

who are familiar with Dutch culture can,

5:01

like, validate, but I think. The Dutch

5:03

don't have that notion that we have

5:05

in America of like, it's just a

5:08

scam to make money. I mean, it

5:10

kind of comes up. I think the

5:12

Dutch are fine if you have a

5:14

scam to make money. But what they're

5:17

more interested in is like, you know,

5:19

can I like stop working at 430

5:21

and go get a beer? That's what

5:24

I'm saying. You know what I want

5:26

for Valentine's Day? Day off. Right, and

5:28

so I think, I think, I- Could

5:30

you talk to my boss? So here,

5:33

in the Netherlands, the spirit would be

5:35

like, I mean, sure, it's like a

5:37

thing that I gotta do, and like,

5:39

it might be businesses making money, but

5:42

am I enjoying it? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

5:44

yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I think in

5:46

Europe, if they get something. Oh sure,

5:49

sure. No, I'm not down on it

5:51

completely. I'm just saying like the amount

5:53

of consumerism that the US pushes on

5:55

things is it is true. It does

5:58

get to be a little bonkers. Right?

6:00

And, and, and, and, and, and, and,

6:02

and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

6:05

and, you must get cards, yeah, to,

6:07

to, to, to, to, It seems like

6:09

Valentine's Day is very important to your

6:11

significant other. There, it's important, therefore you

6:14

should make a good, for that situation.

6:16

But maybe what it is that you

6:18

should be thinking about, it's not so

6:20

much like, you actually don't want anything

6:23

from Valentine's Day. But there's something else

6:25

in your life or whatever, you're broader,

6:27

you know, whatever, that you do want.

6:30

And it's sort of like, just acknowledging

6:32

that, like, hey, I don't really want

6:34

anything for this. but I want this

6:36

other thing is important to me, which

6:39

may not be important to you. So

6:41

maybe that's true. You wonder, I want

6:43

some dedicated time to play Dungeons and

6:45

Dragons, the chat, you PT, for a

6:48

long, whatever. You know, I'm just throwing

6:50

that at that as a ridiculous example.

6:52

You want to get a, you want

6:55

to get a new drug. But that's

6:57

sort of like, you know, what I'm

6:59

saying, it's sort of acknowledging, you know,

7:01

different desires, raises rates. $10 an hour

7:04

more, I want to make sure that

7:06

if you raise your rates, I want

7:08

to vino you the right amount of

7:10

money, so you can have to email

7:13

me afterwards. Right, of course. But I

7:15

think, I think, I think that is

7:17

all part of it, right, is how

7:20

do you, because this is the other

7:22

confounding thing, is I think that a,

7:24

there is a set of people who

7:26

do not value the gift. Let me

7:29

rephrase that. There's a certain set of

7:31

people who do not value the gift

7:33

of giving of just money. And what

7:36

I'm trying to say there is they

7:38

do not, I think we've mentioned this

7:40

several times over the years, the people

7:42

who don't want to give gifts or...

7:45

as a gift, right? And they think

7:47

that like maybe this is not the

7:49

correct thing to do. So, you know,

7:51

maybe what they will value is time,

7:54

as you're saying, right? The old coupon

7:56

book that you used to do in

7:58

your 20s, where you'd write it up

8:01

on your coupons and say you could

8:03

give time for things. And I think

8:05

that is perhaps what we're looking for

8:07

here. Not sort of like, you know,

8:10

the exact amount of money that you

8:12

pay for things or things like that,

8:14

but the value that you have, which

8:16

I think, you know, that really brings

8:19

up maybe the biggest news item for

8:21

the past week, which is if you,

8:23

if the amount of money that you

8:26

pay for AI computation drastically goes down,

8:28

maybe we should focus on the value.

8:30

the way that it improves our lives.

8:32

And, you know, like, like things like

8:35

that. So, you know, what, what it,

8:37

I obviously, if listeners know where I

8:39

work and have been watching the stock,

8:42

I have paid very close attention to

8:44

what's happened in the past week. But

8:46

how about you too? How's it's panning

8:48

out for you this discovery that maybe,

8:51

what is it, five point something million

8:53

dollars, you can, I'm exaggerating here, but

8:55

apparently you can train a model. that

8:57

will bring the paper clip apocalypse upon

9:00

us humans doesn't cost half of a

9:02

trillion dollars. How's it spanning out in

9:04

in your worlds? Well I think I'm

9:07

referring to of course the Deep Seek

9:09

just to get everyone up today. So

9:11

Deep Seek you know launched the new

9:13

model which they you know pretty much

9:16

credibly have said they built for a

9:18

lot less than what that it took

9:20

to if you will build frontier model.

9:22

So that's of course led to a

9:25

pretty big sell off at least in

9:27

the while we're recording this in some

9:29

of the stocks. related to AI. And

9:32

hence, Matt, I know you have some

9:34

thoughts on this. Since you're a resident

9:36

trader, tell us what you proceeded to

9:38

do this week. I evacuated my position

9:41

on it. Yeah, I decided it was,

9:43

you know, time to take my, my

9:45

winnings and, and, you know, go home

9:48

for the night. I, so, yeah, we've

9:50

talked about on the show before, when,

9:52

when, when, when, when my couple companies

9:54

ago got sold, I took the money

9:57

and put in the stock market right

9:59

before COVID, and when COVID hit, I

10:01

was like, what are people going to

10:03

want? I was like, video games. So

10:06

we would call that good process, but

10:08

kind of wrong outcome. Like you went

10:10

in, like you went in with a

10:13

very solid premise, and that premise had

10:15

nothing to do with the reason you

10:17

made money. So it was still up

10:19

like 70% before China GPT. I mean,

10:22

it was still killing it. Just take

10:24

the win. I agree. I like it

10:26

done. Take the win. You know, I

10:28

love it. So, but you did this

10:31

week, shook you down. So you got

10:33

out. Well, I've been eyeing it for

10:35

a long time and thinking, you know,

10:38

if this thing dropped, because it started

10:40

as like a small percentage of my

10:42

portfolio. And, you know, I mentioned to

10:44

my wife the other day, I was

10:47

like, this thing's up to 40 percent.

10:49

It started like seven or eight. And,

10:51

you know, so I sold it. That's

10:54

pretty good for four. Five times? Five

10:56

times not bad. Four, five years? Yeah.

10:58

Yeah. So yeah, I figured it was

11:00

time. Well, I was thinking, you know,

11:03

before we get into the news, I

11:05

actually was thinking, I've heard so much

11:07

analysis on this. I threw up some

11:09

rules. I think we should just throw

11:12

out. It's like, when you, when we

11:14

experienced this, how should we process it?

11:16

So I just throw out some of

11:19

them and you can kind of give

11:21

me your reaction to some of some

11:23

of some of some of some of

11:25

some of them. So, to some of

11:28

them. So, so, so, so, so, the

11:30

first thing, the first thing, the first

11:32

thing, the first thing, the first thing,

11:34

the first thing, the first thing, the

11:37

first thing, the first thing, the first

11:39

thing, I always, I always, I always

11:41

put, I always put, I always put,

11:44

I always put, I always put, I

11:46

always put, I always put, I always

11:48

put, I always And everyone has an

11:50

agenda including us. So I think it's

11:53

sort of like as you're like listening

11:55

to all the coverage You should always

11:57

remember that like really nobody knows anything.

12:00

That's that's number one. Yeah was everyone

12:02

that had a vested interest before whether

12:04

it was for expensive or cheap frontier

12:06

models will likely maintain their that position

12:09

regardless of what the actual truth is

12:11

so if you already spent billions of

12:13

dollars on a frontier model you're gonna

12:15

defend that you're gonna be like of

12:18

course we had to do that and

12:20

if you haven't spent money on a

12:22

frontier model you're gonna be like of

12:25

course we didn't and I think because

12:27

it's like it's very hard to get

12:29

off your position and I think all

12:31

of us would feel this way like

12:34

you're not gonna just come out and

12:36

be like you know what open ice

12:38

it's not gonna be like turns out

12:40

guys all of this money that we

12:43

spent completely wasted right it won't it's

12:45

not you back that last round right

12:47

it won't it's not going to happen

12:50

right so I think that's that's something

12:52

we should all keep it so just

12:54

like you just know who you're like

12:56

listening like where it's coming like You

12:59

know, eventually things are going to catch

13:01

up with this. I'm not sure when,

13:03

but it's kind of happened. Until then

13:06

I'm going to hold on to my

13:08

invidious. Absolutely, that was good. So that

13:10

was my prediction. And now I'm like,

13:12

I'm feeling like I don't want to

13:15

hold on. You're feeling like a little

13:17

worried there. So again, like, so again,

13:19

like we don't know anything. Let's apply

13:21

rule number one to us. Like Matt

13:24

doesn't really know anything. He bought it

13:26

for video games. Maybe you shouldn't, but

13:28

he doesn't really know. Take the win,

13:31

right? So the other one I was

13:33

going to say here, it's like, on

13:35

Deep Seek, the foundation model in general,

13:37

it's like, there's a least speculation, like

13:40

they definitely did the cheap leg. No,

13:42

it turns out they had the secret

13:44

pile of chips, and we don't know.

13:46

So it's going to take a little

13:49

bit for in someone to actually... Right,

13:51

but it's going to take a while

13:53

for someone to really validate exactly what

13:56

they did and is it cheaper? Probably

13:58

a couple researchers. Everyone's really working on

14:00

it probably right now But I think

14:02

you got to give it at least

14:05

a few weeks a month to be

14:07

like someone come out a few people

14:09

come out and say like it's it's

14:11

almost like a Peer reviewed study like

14:14

we've had a bunch of people do

14:16

it. They all agree that it can

14:18

be done in a way that was

14:21

described in their own paper. People are

14:23

picking at the details, but nobody said

14:25

like this is BS. Everyone's like, they

14:27

have some innovative things. Super optimization. I

14:30

go back to number one again, number

14:32

one, no one knows anything. So number

14:34

two, I think it's like, I think

14:37

you're right. Indications are very clear that

14:39

like it looks what they're saying is

14:41

true, but just wait. I think it's

14:43

worth waiting a little bit. Let's assume

14:46

that they are right and they were

14:48

able to do it for significantly less

14:50

costs. Everybody involved this entire industry, no

14:52

matter what they were doing, are all

14:55

going to claim victory and simultaneously all

14:57

refer to, I don't know if it's

14:59

Javon or Jevons, Jevons, Paradise, yeah, whatever

15:02

it is, like that will be cited

15:04

450 billion times about why what they

15:06

were doing, in fact that it's now

15:08

free. makes them in a better position.

15:11

Everyone will say that. No one will

15:13

be like, whoa, like, this is horrible.

15:15

Like, Jensen wants to actually come out

15:17

and be like, whoa, nobody really needs

15:20

these shifts anymore. We're screwed. It's gonna

15:22

be like, no, this is the greatest

15:24

thing that's ever happened. So I think

15:27

we can predict that, right? I think

15:29

the other thing is like, assume it's

15:31

right. It's like, I think we kind

15:33

of all win, right, because we all

15:36

the regular regular people win, because if

15:38

AI is really going to be helpful

15:40

for all. then I think we're all

15:43

just going to get access to it

15:45

better. I actually think there are a

15:47

couple losers. Could be. But are you

15:49

thinking losers as far as company or

15:52

losers as far as like the end

15:54

user? I just think the end user

15:56

people, that's what I think are good.

15:58

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant

16:01

there. Like good for the general, like

16:03

if you're not an VC or an

16:05

investor, just a regular person. Those are

16:08

the people who are going to be

16:10

hating. don't miss out on the benefits

16:12

of AI due to cynicism, but at

16:14

the same time... Be very skeptical of

16:17

the bold claim. So you have to

16:19

think we all have to like do

16:21

that. Like I did a little personal

16:23

project, cursor, fantastic. I've touched it, I

16:26

played with it, I love it, I

16:28

can see why software development is revolutionized.

16:30

Some of the other stuff, like I

16:33

don't know. Some of the very bold

16:35

claims about AGI, I'm just like, I

16:37

don't know. And I think the final

16:39

one here is just like, you should

16:42

try to use it yourself. Use some

16:44

type of Gen AI yourself and then

16:46

you can decide. if it was helpful

16:49

or was a waste of time. So

16:51

there you go. Those are my meta

16:53

commentary points about how to evaluate it.

16:55

Coatee, what are your thoughts? I love

16:58

it. We need to etch it on

17:00

stone. I think it makes sense. I

17:02

want to add, I want to add

17:04

just one more to it, which is

17:07

like, you always think you're some sort

17:09

of one person or smart person, like

17:11

you're off there with galt and all

17:14

those people, but you know what, you're

17:16

just going to get fucked like everyone

17:18

like everyone else. your time is going

17:20

to come right and so like don't

17:23

really like don't don't think that your

17:25

own almost like worth or intellectual prowess

17:27

like that you're not susceptible to all

17:29

these things like everyone else is right

17:32

we're all just in one big bucket

17:34

and you know it's better that like

17:36

help each other out than like think

17:39

that like oh we're going to establish

17:41

our Kevin Costner like ocean world. thing

17:43

where we are not bound by these

17:45

rules and things like that. Because I

17:48

mean what it shows is that like

17:50

all of the kind of hubris that

17:52

comes with we're a bunch of smart

17:55

people and we're reinventing everything like it

17:57

can be like destroyed in basically like

17:59

a 24 hour period by what you

18:01

may consider to be like weird normies

18:04

and things like that but it's very

18:06

like maybe if you just weren't so

18:08

like like thinking you were like doing

18:10

great things and like a genius, you'd

18:13

be a little bit better. Maybe that's

18:15

a little ranty there, but it does

18:17

seem like there's all. the kind of

18:20

verifications also that you need to go

18:22

through for it. But I think you,

18:24

we hit upon some things at the

18:26

end there is that the, the Jevan's

18:29

paradox thing is beneficial for individuals out

18:31

there, right? Like it's not always beneficial

18:33

for the people who are holding scarce

18:35

resources or things that are expensive versus

18:38

like if once something becomes cheaper for

18:40

everyone, right, then it's great. Now, I

18:42

think there's a lot of assumptions to

18:45

kind of use my own advice there.

18:47

It has only been, you know, you

18:49

can go listen to the Ben Thompson

18:51

thing and see that they talked about

18:54

this back in November or something like

18:56

that and it's only taken until now

18:58

and all the explanations of why that's

19:01

happened. But you still need to verify

19:03

like all the different ways that this

19:05

model was done and how much money

19:07

went into doing it and blah blah

19:10

blah. So who knows actually how cheap

19:12

things are, but... Probably the end result

19:14

is that as we experience with all

19:16

technology it gets cheaper as the years

19:19

go by So you should kind of

19:21

plan on that and I don't know

19:23

figure out a way to benefit from

19:26

it and I don't know like It's

19:28

been a crazy couple of weeks as

19:30

well like we had we had like

19:32

a whole bit new presidential thing and

19:35

then this AI thing and I was

19:37

just thinking earlier today. It's only Wednesday

19:39

It feels like it's interesting already. Well,

19:41

I did think one of the notes

19:44

are quotes I took out of many

19:46

newsletters that covered this was about venture

19:48

capital. So I'll just quickly read it

19:51

here. It says, quote, this could be

19:53

an extinction level event for venture capital

19:55

firms that went all in on foundational

19:57

model companies, particularly if those companies haven't

20:00

yet productized produced with the wide distribution.

20:02

So anyway, long way of saying. So

20:04

I was like. What do you do?

20:07

Like, it is kind of one of

20:09

those things I thought, like maybe it's

20:11

for Matt, you know, the resident investor

20:13

here, it's like, if you did, like,

20:16

if you... or like the person that

20:18

was like raised you know whatever billions

20:20

of dollars and you gave it to

20:22

someone to build a foundation model like

20:25

like it's gonna be a difficult moment

20:27

in your and your investor relations what

20:29

they call it your limited partner update

20:32

like that feels like a tough place

20:34

to be right now well I mean

20:36

if this was the event that sets

20:38

you off you had already missed the

20:41

boat right I mean there was already

20:43

like a trouble ahead. Everybody saw that,

20:45

you know, that, you know, the semi

20:47

open source stuff from from from Facebook

20:50

was upsetting things. There were too many

20:52

models. The pace of model advancement had

20:54

slowed while getting more expensive. There was

20:57

already a lot of trouble ahead in

20:59

this space. And then somebody shows up

21:01

and like we do it for a

21:03

hundredth the price. So all that like

21:06

sunken capital into building new models is

21:08

now just like it's burned. So if

21:10

you're If you're VC, you know, if

21:12

you're not tied to like one of

21:15

the, you know, two or three leaders,

21:17

you know, if you're not, if you're

21:19

not Google or Microsoft or Amazon, and

21:22

you're not anthropic or, or open AI,

21:24

you probably need to get out. Now,

21:26

now, now based on what you too

21:28

are saying, maybe this is another view,

21:31

is that if we look at the

21:33

amount of money that was spent. on

21:35

the Manhattan Project by the government, right?

21:38

And then you think like the Manhattan

21:40

projects like probably drove trillions of dollars

21:42

in commercial interest and things like that.

21:44

And then you look at all the

21:47

money that Al Gore spent on building

21:49

the internet, right? Like that was a

21:51

lot of government and non-profit money. And

21:53

so what happened, you know, you had,

21:56

you know, like after Reagan and Thatcher

21:58

and all that kind of stuff and

22:00

even Clinton, like you kind of deregulated

22:03

and you. pushed sort of the advancement

22:05

of civilization into the private sector and

22:07

what you're saying is so now you're

22:09

in charge of all of that you

22:12

have to fund it right like you've

22:14

got to spend the money on it

22:16

and then you see that with like

22:18

you know Elon Musk company like sending

22:21

rockets around instead of funding it through

22:23

the government you're going to do it

22:25

in a private way so if we

22:28

take AI as an example there and

22:30

in the scenario where we trust all

22:32

the deep seek stuff that it's all

22:34

legit and whatever like so we did

22:37

spend all these billions and billions of

22:39

dollars to get to the point where

22:41

someone could come do what what do

22:44

they call it not a derivative but

22:46

a distillation of a model right right

22:48

then it's sort of like well yes

22:50

that's how innovation happens innovation is like

22:53

yeah but like it's it's the bad

22:55

end of a moors of moors law

22:57

where like it costs a shit ton

22:59

of money that even Zeus would blanch

23:02

at to spend to get to the

23:04

point where it costs nothing and Normally

23:06

you would have us the people the

23:09

taxpayers pay for it and you amort

23:11

not a moratize you spread that out

23:13

over all the different people It's not

23:15

that much of a big deal. But

23:18

if you center it on just a

23:20

couple of like sovereign wealth funds and

23:22

some people out in California like it's

23:24

shocking right but really That's the game

23:27

they're signing up for is you've got

23:29

to burn through this money to get

23:31

through an advancement of how things are

23:34

happening absolutely absolutely I mean You know

23:36

people who profess to love capitalism Should

23:38

hate monopolies because you know monopolies protect

23:40

their pricing and and and suck up

23:43

all the the outcomes with none of

23:45

the risk whereas like which just described

23:47

as what people who say they're capitalist

23:50

libertarian thinkers say they want, but really

23:52

they rarely actually go for. So, you

23:54

know, they try to lock things up

23:56

with, you know, legislation and... the like

23:59

to you know protect what they've done

24:01

which is why with this open with

24:03

this AI stuff you're gonna see like oh we

24:05

can't trust it because it's Chinese or you know

24:07

we can't trust it because it's open source it's

24:10

like right you know you've kind of lost that

24:12

I can't I help but think like some of

24:14

this you know because we've covered a long-running theme

24:16

let's offer to fine talk right this last covering

24:18

sort of like an open-source project

24:20

getting some momentum getting some momentum and

24:22

then like you know being co-coopteded by

24:24

a larger company and of course that

24:26

creates a lot of frustration amongst the

24:29

original open source people and you know

24:31

many license changes derived from that right

24:33

we've covered that plenty times but like

24:35

I do think it's kind of ironic

24:37

or interesting here it's like this seems

24:39

to be the reverse right it's sort of like the

24:41

largest companies in the world did go

24:43

out and spend all this money on a frontier

24:45

model which seemed like it was important to us

24:47

right it's your point code today we can call

24:49

that capitalism at work But then what happened was,

24:52

oh, that model basically was then used to

24:54

create a cheap model and now, if you

24:56

will, it's kind of going the other way.

24:58

The people that spent all this money instead

25:00

of being co-opted, the one co-opted something that

25:02

was free and making it proprietary is the

25:04

other way around. It's like, well, we're just using

25:06

your proprietary thing to build a free thing and

25:08

now everyone's going to have it. Which is sort

25:10

of like, I guess in some ways, it is

25:13

sort of like Appleism at work. It is sort

25:15

of like Appleism at work. I think his name

25:17

is Darrio, you know, he wrote a really long

25:19

post on anthropic, not surprising, like go

25:21

back to our rules, not surprising. He's built

25:23

a very large foundation model. He believes

25:25

there's still a need and it was very

25:28

smart to build foundation models. That's the net

25:30

of his both, but he's kind of going

25:32

into saying it's like, well, we need export

25:35

controls and this has really worked well and

25:37

it's like. It's just one of these things where you're just sort

25:39

of like, well, it's just kind of backwards now, right? This is sort

25:41

of like, well, the every man, if you will, every person rather, is

25:43

getting access to it. And now it's just like, it's the arguments in

25:45

reverse, right? It's like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. All of you

25:47

can't do it. And even, and I don't know how much it's come

25:49

out, but like some of the Obel lms are now, they're now, they're

25:51

saying like, like, like, like, like, you know, you know, you know, like, like,

25:54

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

25:56

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

25:58

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, LLLM

26:00

to build their LLLM, right? That's not

26:02

fair. And then of course you have

26:04

like all of the internet and all

26:06

of journalism saying, wait a minute, you

26:08

used our text to build the LLL.

26:11

So it's just like everybody's just constantly

26:13

like pointing at the person that was

26:15

behind them. Like you're doing it wrong,

26:17

which is I think is just, if

26:19

you will, it's the classic American capitalism

26:21

kind of funny thing happening. So I

26:23

don't know. Go take thoughts? Right. So

26:25

I think I think of the three

26:28

of us, you've got a sense of

26:30

what's going on in alligator leather jacket

26:32

land over there or whatever it is.

26:34

I think someone did some research. Maybe

26:36

it's actually not. We should find the

26:38

article, but someone actually did some close

26:40

analysis of what that jacket is. They

26:43

find the exact jacket so I can

26:45

dress like him. Yeah, I think they

26:47

did. And so knowing. In video, like

26:49

you do now, Brandon, after reading that

26:51

book, what do you think's going on

26:53

over there? Like, what are they cycling

26:55

through? Well, you know, I'm almost really

26:58

cote and mad. I feel like I,

27:00

you know, I kind of wrote off,

27:02

I did read this a while ago,

27:04

we've had it in the notes, it

27:06

just hasn't really been relevant, but I

27:08

feel like, oh man, I really should

27:10

have published this beforehand. I wanted to

27:13

get my comments on record, because I

27:15

feel like it's like it's like it's

27:17

like it's already like it's already like

27:19

it's already happened, like it's already, like,

27:21

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

27:23

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

27:25

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

27:27

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

27:30

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

27:32

like, like, like, like, like, like My

27:34

biggest thing that I kind of said

27:36

in kind of my own notes to

27:38

myself was that, you know, I thought

27:40

the book was going to be a

27:42

time capsule in general. This is kind

27:45

of like Matt's investing thing. I just

27:47

like sometimes like to read these things

27:49

right at like, because it kind of

27:51

often serves as like the Apex moment.

27:53

You're like, when the book comes out

27:55

from the leader of the biggest company,

27:57

you're like, that could be the Apex,

28:00

right? That's almost like if we're using

28:02

some some trading stuff, it's like. Maybe

28:04

it's time to, to Matt's point, maybe

28:06

it's time to sell Invidia because it's

28:08

sort of like usually the book comes

28:10

out and then all everything goes bad.

28:12

Right now I want to pause you

28:15

there. I want to pause you there

28:17

because I'm really liking this theory. Right.

28:19

And this theory is historically testable. Oh

28:21

yeah. For sure. Like you could totally

28:23

go and look. You could identify. Like

28:25

those last could degrade are books that

28:27

are just fantastic to historically look at.

28:29

They've just so incredibly wrong. Go on.

28:32

I think the model you could do

28:34

is identify when the top New York

28:36

Times best-selling book of a company came

28:38

out. and chart that against their share

28:40

price and just see what happens. So,

28:42

yes. I like this. This is a,

28:44

I'm gonna call this the Wicherd Airport

28:47

Business Book Hypothesis. It is, I mean,

28:49

it's kind of a version of books,

28:51

books, books, books that kill, you know,

28:53

that podcast that does a good job.

28:55

But it's like a tech business book

28:57

version of that. So, and so the

28:59

thing that comes across in the book

29:02

is, I always like to say it's,

29:04

I kind of believe this is not

29:06

a new thing, it's not my idea,

29:08

but it's sort of like I would

29:10

just call it markets over management, right?

29:12

All of these books essentially come down

29:14

to like one of two questions. Like

29:17

did the company just pick the right

29:19

market or was it the management of

29:21

the company that ultimately, you know, if

29:23

you was successful? And I would say

29:25

most of the time, it's really picking

29:27

the right market either by accident or

29:29

by some rigorous analysis, but once you're

29:31

in the right market, you can kind

29:34

of just do everything wrong. and you'll

29:36

still work out, right? And again, a

29:38

very popular opinion. And I think, you

29:40

know, in this book, right, but the

29:42

thing that's fun to write about are

29:44

all like the weird things that are

29:46

unique to a company. So in this

29:49

book, they really talk about that. Jensen

29:51

has like 40 direct reports. I have

29:53

a friend, a friend that works at

29:55

invidity, he said, now it's up to

29:57

60, right? So that's really unusual. So

29:59

people like to talk about it, right.

30:01

They talk about how Jensen. gives very

30:04

direct public feedback. That's the only way

30:06

he gives, you know, if you will,

30:08

feedback to you, which I would say

30:10

is not generally how human beings like

30:12

to receive, you know, let's call it

30:14

constructive criticism, right? But that's the only

30:16

way he does it. And the other

30:19

thing that's kind of like talked about

30:21

in this book over and over is

30:23

that they like to use whiteboards. They

30:25

just keep talking about how Jensen talks

30:27

at a whiteboard and he expresses his

30:29

ideas on a whiteboard and whiteboarding super

30:31

in part. important and whiteboarding is the

30:33

way you think through your ideas and

30:36

on and on and on and on

30:38

which reminded me a lot of like

30:40

the six-page memo in the sense of

30:42

like wow this is a really contrast

30:44

right the six-page memo is all about

30:46

like writing and having it read and

30:48

everyone just reading it right and everyone

30:51

just reading it right and I just

30:53

like I just like to like kind

30:55

of like put these things are just

30:57

correlations right it's just more about these

30:59

companies Amazon and invidia were in the

31:01

right markets but then this week I

31:03

thought that was really of points in

31:06

the book that everyone in video works

31:08

very long hours. 100% if you read

31:10

the book it should come to do

31:12

no surprise that like basically 10 12

31:14

hours a day probably most of Saturday

31:16

or at least half a day on

31:18

Saturday and then they go through that

31:21

like Jensen won one of the things

31:23

you do everyone if you will sends

31:25

a top five email and the top

31:27

five emails are then if you will

31:29

rolled up and then Jensen gets them

31:31

all. And he, and then he, I

31:33

guess he goes through and I think

31:35

he sets a time to read for

31:38

like a hundred a day, right? And

31:40

so again, they talk about like this

31:42

is his way to like stay in

31:44

tune, know what's going on, you know,

31:46

kind of skip level meetings, get information

31:48

directly from people. And so I just

31:50

thought it was interesting this week, it's

31:53

like I would, to your original question

31:55

on this, Kote, it's like, I would

31:57

love to know, it's like, all right.

31:59

but you know at some point this

32:01

week they lost half a trillion dollars

32:03

so it's like kind of like what

32:05

went wrong here like if like it's

32:08

kind of like to me it calls

32:10

into question all these things like you're

32:12

doing all of this stuff and you're

32:14

generating a lot of time and effort

32:16

on these things right and you still

32:18

like I don't I haven't seen any

32:20

statement from an video, I assume at

32:23

some point they'll say something, probably make

32:25

sense for them to say nothing at

32:27

the moment. But it's like, did they

32:29

just miss this? And maybe they did.

32:31

And like, was it even realistic? Should

32:33

we even hold them accountable to try

32:35

to see these things? Because again, in

32:37

the book, they talk about customer obsession,

32:40

knowing what their customers are doing. They

32:42

give all these examples like the scientists

32:44

were using this, and that's how they

32:46

kind of saw that they needed for

32:48

AI was coming. Well, like, I mean,

32:50

again, like back in the spirit of,

32:52

like, public discourse or public feedback, well,

32:55

like, how did invidia miss this completely?

32:57

Like, did nobody know what was going

32:59

on at Deep Seek? Did no one

33:01

call? And again, it's like, and if

33:03

you did, if you didn't know what

33:05

was going on at Deep Seek, did

33:07

no one call? And again, it's like,

33:10

and if you did, if you didn't,

33:12

if you didn't know what was going,

33:14

all these things, Well, you know, regardless

33:16

of if the deep seek thing is

33:18

like were to happen or if it

33:20

actually is a real thing or not,

33:22

like I think what you described sounds

33:25

like a terrible place to work and

33:27

a way of existing. I mean, what

33:29

I wanted to bring, I was like,

33:31

you know, for all their success, you

33:33

haven't seen the business books sort of

33:35

like the invidious way, right? That are

33:37

encouraging people to like follow up on

33:39

this and bring it into their own

33:42

companies. Nobody's like, this is a good

33:44

idea. You should do it too. And

33:46

like what got me thinking on this

33:48

is, well, I mean, obviously, having 60

33:50

reports or 40 reports is I don't

33:52

more than 10 is ridiculous. Like we,

33:54

there's an upcoming episode of software to

33:57

find interviews, which you can subscribe to

33:59

by searching for software to find interviews,

34:01

where we talk with Richard Cerroder. And

34:03

one of the things about him, the

34:05

chief evangelist at Google Cloud, and I

34:07

kind of sort of work for him

34:09

up the management chain is everyone who

34:12

has worked for him says that he

34:14

is great at career management, right? And

34:16

so I have to think that if

34:18

you have 40 or 60 people working

34:20

for you, when do you have time

34:22

to give them like an hour a

34:24

month of coaching for their career? Well,

34:27

you don't, you don't, I mean, right,

34:29

like, like, like, like, when are you

34:31

going to help them out? When are

34:33

you going to try to, like, do

34:35

anything other than just like, where's my

34:37

fucking whiteboard, right? And so, so, like,

34:39

so one, there's that where you can,

34:41

you can burn a candle, but when

34:44

it's done, there's no candle. Right? Like

34:46

you've got to figure out like how

34:48

to like keep the candle going and

34:50

how to refuel it and like have

34:52

the sustainability of the organization, right? And

34:54

you know, I haven't studied this, but

34:56

like, you listen to Ben Thompson's tale

34:59

of invidia and he's like, ha ha,

35:01

invidia, they go up and down, up

35:03

and down, right? Like if you follow

35:05

them over the decades, you see that

35:07

they're just like this crazy asyloscope of

35:09

going up and down, up and down,

35:11

right? So I don't know. If you

35:14

are like riding a wave, waves go

35:16

up and down, right, and you don't

35:18

control the waves, you just control not

35:20

drowning, which is very stressful. And to

35:22

your point, just to say that, I

35:24

think that's where it's sort of like

35:26

it's the market, not the management. I

35:29

think if we say this way, it's

35:31

not that the fact that like, and

35:33

if you just distill it down, if

35:35

you say computers that are good at

35:37

matrix multiplication, the need for that feature

35:39

or that ability. Goes up and down

35:41

with market needs and that's right and

35:43

over time and and and you know

35:46

Don't get me wrong. I'm not dismissing

35:48

all the effort all the genius all

35:50

that stuff put into it But I

35:52

guess what I'm saying is I have

35:54

a lot more Interest in someone who

35:56

can figure out how to sustain that

35:58

over decades rather than just like a

36:01

surfer who's just like paddling on their

36:03

board and then waiting for the big,

36:05

do they call it a kahuna? I

36:07

don't know, the big wave to come

36:09

and like to do it, right? So

36:11

then second, I know a lot of

36:13

people, sales people, field-facing people, who are

36:16

very good at whiteboarding and a whiteboard

36:18

is fantastic for one meeting. Right, like,

36:20

like, it's good for, like, communicating what's

36:22

happening. Like, we're, like, we're a visual

36:24

species, right? Like, we like to draw

36:26

things out. A whiteboard is actually really

36:28

fast for communicating. But for, like, Socrates

36:31

didn't whiteboard, right? Like, like, if you

36:33

want to, like, communicate something that's going

36:35

to last beyond just a meeting. like

36:37

what happens after a whiteboard you look

36:39

at the junior person and you're like

36:41

can you put that in slides yeah

36:43

right like can you write that up

36:45

right the like you take a picture

36:48

of the whiteboard because you know the

36:50

whiteboard gets erased right and so you

36:52

have to preserve the whiteboard and some

36:54

other things so like whiteboarding to me

36:56

is like a gimmick like it's just

36:58

a crutch it's and this is why

37:00

like now in contrast as you were

37:03

saying like I look at There's all

37:05

sorts of stuff over the years we've

37:07

critiqued about the Amazon like Like six-page

37:09

memo and the PRFAC and all that

37:11

kind of stuff to summarize if it's

37:13

so fucking great How come they're the

37:15

only ones who do it? Right? So

37:18

like however Like I think it is

37:20

better to like write something right to

37:22

take the time to sit down to

37:24

figure out how to organize your thoughts

37:26

Which has worked for I'm gonna say

37:28

five thousand years with humanity to kind

37:30

of like write something up and not

37:33

just have it be something that you

37:35

can erase and that exists on a

37:37

wall somewhere. So again, a whiteboard is

37:39

great for communicating, but what if the.

37:41

The idea that whiteboarding is like this

37:43

essential tool is like something that is

37:45

part of your religion. It means that

37:47

you're dismissing all the people who then

37:50

take that picture of the whiteboard and

37:52

do something with it. Right? Like there's

37:54

a whole chain of things you don't

37:56

see that happens after that. 100% I

37:58

think that and also too it's just

38:00

sort of like I just come back

38:02

to like what I I think of

38:05

like my and it's really just another

38:07

version of the halo effect which I've

38:09

mentioned a million times on this this

38:11

podcast is just sort of like it's

38:13

it's really the market that's driving these

38:15

things right it's just not fun to

38:17

talk about the need for matrix multiplication

38:20

went up and down like three times

38:22

right for video games and gaming cards

38:24

for Bitcoin mining and things like that

38:26

and now AI right that's just kind

38:28

of boring what's more fun is what

38:30

you want to read in a book

38:32

is like well how did they do

38:35

it because like when you're reading a

38:37

book you kind of want to take

38:39

from it like why do it too

38:41

right and I think the same thing

38:43

with six six page memos and I

38:45

think what these all of these things

38:47

are really doing they're just taking the

38:49

preferred communication style of the early founders

38:52

and the strongest personalities. and saying this

38:54

is how they prefer to communicate. So

38:56

it's no, like everybody knows, Jeff Dizzo,

38:58

and you know, Andy Jassie, Harvard, and

39:00

you know, Princeton people, right? Generally, if

39:02

there's one thing I'd say about Ivy

39:04

League, people I know, to Ivy League,

39:07

they're usually had good ICTs, they're usually

39:09

very quick to like read and process

39:11

text text. That is generally, if you

39:13

just told me someone went to Ivy

39:15

League, I'd be like, I bet you

39:17

like they like to process text text.

39:19

Makes total sense. So therefore, it's not

39:22

surprising that they're sort of like, the

39:24

way that everybody should do it is

39:26

the way that I like it. Sounds

39:28

like Jensen. You know, he's from a

39:30

different background, right? They kind of go

39:32

over that. He likes to do things

39:34

visually. A lot of us do, right?

39:37

To your thing about Cote, or to

39:39

think about, you know, human beings like

39:41

to do that, right? He likes to

39:43

do things on a whiteboard. But like,

39:45

all it's just all it's sort of

39:47

stating, sort of stating, sort of stating,

39:49

stating, stating, stating, stating, stating, stating, stating,

39:51

stating, stating, stating, stating, stating, stating, stating,

39:54

stating, stating, like, like, like, like, like,

39:56

like, like, like, that, like, that, like,

39:58

that, that, that, that, like, that, that,

40:00

that, that, that, that, like, that, that,

40:02

that, that, that, that, that, that, that

40:04

if you will expand it. And I

40:06

thought to myself, like, what's kind of

40:09

a ridiculous way to show that? It's

40:11

like, let's just say for a minute,

40:13

software to find talk was, you know,

40:15

sold for a billion dollars. Let's, I

40:17

would love to process that. Go on.

40:19

That, right? And then what someone could

40:21

do. Right? And someone could, what someone

40:24

could do is be like, you know,

40:26

I'll just pick on myself, but I'll

40:28

throw you to and I'll include you

40:30

too. It's just, it. It's like, it's

40:32

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

40:34

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

40:36

like, These people love to listen to

40:39

audio, right? In fact, Brandon listens to

40:41

the X amount of hours of audio

40:43

a day because audio is the way

40:45

that you can process and stay up

40:47

to date and be doing other things.

40:49

And you know, you could just make

40:51

this whole narrative around that like consuming

40:53

information via audio was the reason this

40:56

podcast was sold for a billion dollars,

40:58

right? And then we could go further

41:00

and be like, everything at the software

41:02

defined talk, billion dollar corporation. Everyone has

41:04

to submit a 15-minute MP3 podcast episode

41:06

at the end of the week and

41:08

the executives mad, go take Brandon, listen

41:11

to it all. And that's the way

41:13

that they come up with all of

41:15

their topic ideas and they go on

41:17

and they're geniuses. And it's like, no,

41:19

none of that makes any sense, right?

41:21

It's kind of ridiculous. It's like, it's

41:23

just saying that like, I and probably

41:26

people listen, is like, I like to

41:28

process a lot of things via audio.

41:30

starting a successful podcast or being worth

41:32

a building. Right, right, right. Or like

41:34

Mr. Beast having like all their internal

41:36

memos are done. Right, right. That's a

41:38

great example. No, it's terrible. And I

41:41

think, you know, when you, I should

41:43

have said this, because I thought about

41:45

that, that's a great point man. I

41:47

think if you just take the three

41:49

things of very successful companies, you could

41:51

say Amazon six page memo, Mr. Beast

41:53

incorporated videos of how to do things

41:55

of how to do things. at invidia

41:58

it's the whiteboard and it's like right

42:00

none of those things cause you to

42:02

be successful all of those things were

42:04

done in very successful markets and they're

42:06

I would just say it's just correlation

42:08

as nothing to do with causation. I

42:10

think, you know, you're kicking off a

42:13

lot of good ideas here, Brandon. And

42:15

I think that, let me just try

42:17

to whiteboard through it as it were,

42:19

right? Like, let me do some Socrates

42:21

talking here. And I think that what

42:23

I want from business books, and I

42:25

think you two would agree, is I

42:28

don't want to know the tools they

42:30

use and the practices they follow. But

42:32

I want to know how they came

42:34

to use those tools and how those

42:36

tools sustain how they operate. Right? Like

42:38

any tool, like you could use whatever

42:40

tool you want to do something. But

42:43

like how did you invent that tool?

42:45

Why are you using that tool? And

42:47

how is that tool like keeping you

42:49

going? Why do you think it gives

42:51

you an advantage? Yeah. Exactly. Right. And

42:53

then I think the next part is.

42:55

So. How do you essentially take any

42:57

tool that you may be using and

43:00

what does it say about the way

43:02

you want to operate? Which is to

43:04

say, the tool you're using is just

43:06

like a symptom of your culture. Right?

43:08

So you set up this way you

43:10

want to operate. Like we all like

43:12

to communicate with whiteboards. We like to

43:15

communicate with like memos because we went

43:17

to like B school and that's the

43:19

way that we communicate. Like the tools

43:21

that you use like say a lot

43:23

about how you operate and you think,

43:25

which is to say the tool is

43:27

very important, right? Like however you think

43:30

about stuff, you have to do that.

43:32

But the real analysis, what we need

43:34

to see in those airport business books

43:36

is like. So why do they think

43:38

this way? What is the way they

43:40

think? What is the kind of analysis

43:42

they have and whatever tool they represented

43:45

in, whether it's cave paintings, six-page memos,

43:47

whiteboards, PowerPoint? whatever, right? Like, and I

43:49

don't know, maybe that's a little too,

43:51

like, Marshall McLuhan or whatever, but it

43:53

does seem like it's worth spending time

43:55

if you're gonna say, we use a

43:57

whiteboard, we do all of our presentations

43:59

in power, not presentations, we do all

44:02

of our thinking in presentations, or six-page

44:04

memos, you've got to think about how

44:06

those various mediums, how they kind of

44:08

like, belie how you think in a

44:10

good and a bad way. If you

44:12

will, it's almost like at the front

44:14

of that book or that, that, however

44:17

you communicate that, like, hey, this is

44:19

how we want to work and communicate,

44:21

but right at the front of that,

44:23

like the cover page, right, it would

44:25

be sort of like, before we read

44:27

all of this, ask yourself one question,

44:29

are we in the right market? Before

44:32

we do everything, are we in the

44:34

right market? Do we ultimately believe we're

44:36

in a high growth market and do

44:38

we, why do we believe that? Because

44:40

as soon as you start getting into

44:42

downstream and like writing all the memos

44:44

and doing on the whiteboards, if you

44:47

haven't like sort of done that pre-work

44:49

or at least acknowledge that like maybe

44:51

we don't know, okay? We don't know

44:53

over in the right market, but we're

44:55

going to do this and try and

44:57

then we're going to revisit that original

44:59

question or we're in a hyper growth

45:02

market because like people are literally beating

45:04

down our doors because like we sold

45:06

out our chips for the next three

45:08

years, right? It's like okay. Like we

45:10

know we got that figured out so

45:12

now we gotta figure out how to

45:14

work together so I think that like

45:16

to me that's like the most important

45:19

part of it and I think you

45:21

know to give you like some of

45:23

the positives of this book just to

45:25

kind of wrap this up was sort

45:27

of like the things that I liked

45:29

were just sort of like the stories

45:31

and the decision points like ultimately invidia

45:34

came out of Sun right so two

45:36

engineers there were like we're working on

45:38

this graphics card they're kind of ignoring

45:40

us we think it's going to be

45:42

a big deal Basically Jensen wasn't even

45:44

involved right they went to Jensen who

45:46

was their Biz Dev guy on the

45:49

manufacturing side and they're like we want

45:51

you to come work for us and

45:53

you know or really not work for

45:55

us be a founder and run the

45:57

business for us and he's like at

45:59

first he's like no You guys need

46:01

to figure this out. And then they

46:04

ultimately do figure it out. And it's

46:06

like to me, like, that's number one

46:08

is like, you know, he was given

46:10

a, they came to him with an

46:12

idea, right? And he was smart enough

46:15

to be like, I think there's a

46:17

good idea here. And then two, the

46:19

other thing is like, that comes through

46:21

is like, he did believe, but he

46:23

was relentless in trying to find the

46:26

new markets. Like that to me. is

46:28

sort of the reason why they've been

46:30

successful. And I think, you know, all

46:32

this other stuff about white boards and

46:34

things like that. And the final one,

46:36

I thought of you, Cotay, was they tell

46:38

the story, and I think it's meant to be come

46:41

across one way, but I took it a different way.

46:43

The whole story about like, you know, Jensen

46:45

is basically on vacation and his staff finds

46:47

that like, he ends up sending more email

46:50

on vacation than it is when he's in his

46:52

office. So they kind of staged and in his intervention.

46:54

and you need to go on vacation

46:56

like like stop that in meetings right

46:58

stop doing this and so but he

47:00

then tells the story right so he

47:02

tells the story and he says something

47:04

along the lines of like well like you

47:07

know i'm i'm in this tropical place

47:09

beautiful place and i'm over it's overlooking

47:11

my kids playing on the ocean or

47:13

in the pool and like i've got

47:15

i've got time right i think to

47:17

myself it's like the way that you can work

47:19

for so many long hours for such a long period

47:21

of time is it's not work it's what you know

47:23

it's kind of the four-hour work work it's like what

47:26

you want to be doing so like yes you know

47:28

I think it I think the story is sort of

47:30

like Jensen's relentless and that's the way they kind of

47:32

taken I kind of took it more like no Jensen

47:34

wants to be reading these emails and doing this

47:36

he doesn't want to be in the pool with

47:39

the kids which I mean it's not even a

47:41

judgment it's not even a judgment it's just sort

47:43

of like You gotta be that person, right? I'm saying,

47:45

like, this is how you can work 80 hours a

47:47

week. It's like, that's what you wanna be doing. Whereas

47:49

a lot of people would be like, I think a

47:51

lot of parents would have two thoughts. Either I wanna

47:53

be in the pool with the kids. Or they're gonna

47:55

be like, I don't feel like being in the pool

47:57

with the kids, but like, this is important to. the

48:00

family. You know what I'm saying? It's

48:02

like inverting the pyramid. It'd be like,

48:04

it's important I be in the pool

48:06

with the kids because that's what they

48:08

think is fun. And even when I

48:10

don't want to like throw them again,

48:13

you know, and like play any more

48:15

of the pool games, it's important to

48:17

that group, the family, right? And I'm

48:19

going to put their interests first, right?

48:21

Whereas everything about feeding Invidia is about

48:23

like rolling information up. And you can

48:25

kind of see this in his life.

48:28

So he's doing what he wants. And

48:30

I think that's the secret to working

48:32

these long hours, right? And only a

48:34

few people are going to have a

48:36

company and something built around them to

48:38

let them do it. The most of

48:40

us are going to have to make

48:43

some tradeoffs. Like I want to be

48:45

doing the emails. I want to be

48:47

with the kids. But also I got

48:49

to be doing the emails. But also

48:51

I got to be with the kids.

48:53

But also I got to be at

48:55

the kid event. But I'm not really

48:58

into it because it because it's important

49:00

to the family. you know maybe that's

49:02

what makes them successful maybe not but

49:04

I just sort of like there is

49:06

a cost to it right I think

49:08

again I think that booktail is sort

49:10

of like he works all the time

49:13

but to me it's like well like

49:15

you know what is the family want

49:17

right like I don't think that it

49:19

ever comes up that question never comes

49:21

up right so I thought that question

49:23

never comes up right so I thought

49:25

that was good but I think again

49:28

like some of those insights I actually

49:30

think are really interesting the whiteboard and

49:32

like being kind of you know direct

49:34

if not mean to people in meetings

49:36

I'm like I've seen it I've lived

49:38

it I'm like I'm not doing that

49:40

anymore I'm like I'm out of that

49:43

like I'm like I just I just

49:45

check out of that but like I

49:47

can I get it of other people

49:49

think it's a good way of other

49:51

people think it's a good way to

49:53

work it's a good way to get

49:56

it if other people think it's a

49:58

good way to work to work to

50:00

work first I think it's pretty clear

50:02

about like I think it's I like

50:04

what you're saying there, Brandon. There's two

50:06

things. One, I think that it's underappreciated

50:08

that a lot of the... strategy work

50:11

in like the 60s and 70s was

50:13

based on finding your market or as

50:15

we might say nowadays finding your market

50:17

window right like defining with the the

50:19

competitive advantage of products that you have

50:21

the way of producing it the price

50:23

that you can put it out in

50:26

the market the suppliers that you're dealing

50:28

with etc and so forth how can

50:30

you identify metaphorically and literally where to

50:32

show up? like what market do you

50:34

go to where you can maximize your

50:36

profit? And I think that is, that's

50:38

something that a long live technology company

50:41

has to be good at is that

50:43

maybe this past five years was shit,

50:45

right? But the next 15 years will

50:47

be great because we know how to

50:49

identify like how to enter a market

50:51

and do things, right? And you know,

50:53

that drives a lot of emanate and

50:56

things like that. But then the second

50:58

thing, which I think is more important,

51:00

which is interesting. because I haven't thought

51:02

about it this way, is that maybe

51:04

when we talk about the 10x developer

51:06

or the 10x executive or the 10x

51:08

whatever, all these people where everyone's like,

51:11

oh, if only we hire the right

51:13

people, we'd be successful, but everyone else

51:15

says a fucking moron, right? Like, there's

51:17

only like 20 people in the world

51:19

who can do this. Maybe what they're

51:21

saying is. It turns out

51:24

that everyone has the skills

51:26

to do the job, but

51:28

there's only a few people

51:30

who won't go swim in

51:32

the pool with their kids

51:35

on their vacation, right? And

51:37

so what you're looking for

51:39

are those individuals who, and

51:41

I only, let's say, 40%

51:43

mean this as a put

51:45

down, and 60% as a,

51:48

whatever the opposite of a

51:50

put down is, a beautification.

51:52

I don't know my words

51:54

here, but like, you're trying

51:56

to find the people who are

51:58

dedic- to their work. Now, let's go

52:00

into a completely different field. If you

52:03

were to go into the field of

52:05

like fine art, right? And you would

52:07

be like, oh, you know, you know,

52:09

Picasso. Maybe not the best father, but

52:11

look at that fucking painting, right? Like,

52:13

like. you know all the all the

52:15

sort of like spouses that various artists

52:17

go through the pain that they put

52:19

their kids through but you look at

52:21

the art that they create and that's

52:23

kind of unless you're like really dig

52:25

deep and read all the books that's

52:27

all that you pay attention to right

52:29

and they're a similar thing where like

52:31

if you read the lives of artists

52:33

they're kind of like I gotta go

52:35

do my shit can you shut the

52:37

fuck up? Right? Like, and like, I'm

52:39

gonna get a spouse, usually because of

52:41

the way things have happened over the

52:43

Eons, a wife, and a series of

52:45

wives who are gonna like take on

52:47

the work of your domestic life, your

52:49

entire life, so you can just go

52:51

to the studio and like, you know,

52:53

throw a bucket of paint on a

52:55

canvas or whatever you're gonna do, right?

52:57

And so like, it's a very similar

52:59

sort of thing where like, like, we

53:01

do appreciate genius and dedication. But it

53:03

comes at this huge price of just

53:06

like that's all that you do. And

53:08

so maybe it's just like, yeah, sure,

53:10

Picasso's like a 10x developer, but whoo,

53:12

did you see his personal life? Right,

53:14

but he gave up a lot. And

53:16

I do think to be just slightly

53:18

more, you know, maybe it doesn't have

53:20

to be so unique, but I think,

53:22

you know, I think an easy like

53:24

test for yourself, it's just sort of

53:26

like for anyone, it's sort of like,

53:28

it's sort of like, If you can

53:30

somehow align that to something that makes

53:32

money, great. If you can somehow align

53:34

that, something that makes extraordinary money even

53:36

better. You're gonna have no problem. You

53:38

know what I mean? Like, this is

53:40

the whole thing, the writer, right? You

53:42

know, this is J.K. Rawling or any

53:44

other, you know, Stephen King. It's like,

53:46

they love the right. they're going to

53:48

write no matter what. Like it was

53:50

going to happen no matter what. And

53:52

that's what they want to do. Like

53:54

no one's making them do it. I

53:56

always think like, I was thinking of

53:58

this example, I was thinking of Matt

54:00

Ray. It's like, what if taking raspberry

54:02

pies and building Kubernades clusters and like

54:04

taking where, and if you will, revitalizing

54:07

old Matt computers? What if that led

54:09

to like a billion dollar industry? Like

54:11

Matt Ray would be, but we'd always

54:13

kind of doing it, right? Right. Yeah,

54:15

I think what this has got me

54:17

thinking of is like of all the

54:19

people who are, you know, they're grinding

54:21

on the weekends and like because they've

54:23

bought into this mythos that like, you

54:25

know, that's the only way, you know,

54:27

I'm going to be a billionaire too.

54:29

It's like there's this is this is

54:31

survivor bias this is you know this

54:33

is right right right who were like

54:35

you know oh if I just you

54:37

know ignore my family like Jensen's why

54:39

I'll be a billionaire too is like

54:41

no you'll just be a bad dad

54:43

right well that's the whole I say

54:45

that's the whole I say that's the

54:47

combination you have to kind of somehow

54:49

discover a combination of like stuff because

54:51

this is because I don't think anyone

54:53

can work 80 hours for like 30

54:55

plus years it's like you kind of

54:57

to figure out like I love to

54:59

the right market And then of course

55:01

timing comes into it. And it's like,

55:03

you're right, man, I think we've all

55:05

worked at some startups and things like

55:07

that, where it's like, because wherever you're

55:10

at a startup, like the founder always

55:12

believes they're this kind of person. Because

55:14

they are, they're working a lot. They're

55:16

putting a lot into it. And they're

55:18

just like, they're frustrated not everyone's working

55:20

as much as them, right? And they're

55:22

like frustrated. the old Jeffrey Katzenberg quote,

55:24

if you don't show up on Saturday,

55:26

don't bother coming in on Sunday. Right,

55:28

and it's that whole thing. And it's

55:30

like, because they're all believe, but we've

55:32

all been there, but we've all been

55:34

at these companies where it's like, you

55:36

know, it didn't work out. Like, well,

55:38

in fact, all we all did was

55:40

like, waste a lot of time in

55:42

retrospect, right? I mean, everybody listening to

55:44

this, I bet you, if you worked

55:46

at a small company, or a small

55:48

company, or startup, like, like, like, like,

55:50

you have like, like, like, like, like,

55:52

like, like, like, a few of them,

55:54

a few of them going, like, like,

55:56

like, a few of them going to

55:58

succeed, like you and I we could

56:00

this off us three on the spy

56:02

guest do three hours of stories about

56:04

like look at all the time we

56:06

wasted doing this look at all the

56:08

time we're doing this that just led

56:10

to nothing right you know so I

56:13

just think it's just it's just interesting

56:15

to kind of think all of that

56:17

through and then in the and of

56:19

course it's really interesting in real time

56:21

because this will be a little time

56:23

capsule for us it's like okay well

56:25

like deep sea deep sea it's a

56:27

great Think of all the money we

56:29

spent on that AI foundation company that

56:31

came in 7th. Yeah, exactly right. So

56:33

like Deep Seek, this is going to

56:35

be a great moment. And I think

56:37

this is like, this is why like

56:39

it's like real time, if you will,

56:41

evaluation of the in-video way. It's like,

56:43

okay. If you will, evaluation of the

56:45

invidious way. It's like, okay. If it's

56:47

management, it's like, they're going to come

56:49

out with a chip. does this even

56:51

better? You know, it does the the

56:53

deep sea method even better and you

56:55

got to have it, right? Or we

56:57

just may or going forward we would

56:59

be like, oh, you know, it's just

57:01

a moment when in video, just like

57:03

Cisco, it's flirted with like maybe the

57:05

world's biggest most valuable company, but then

57:07

things change and you know, and and

57:09

again, we come back to what episode

57:11

number, episode 504, you know, it's software

57:13

to find talk, we can be like,

57:16

at least we discussed it in real

57:18

time. Yeah, you know, I

57:20

think this reinforces my theory of capitalism,

57:22

which is that if you imagine a

57:24

gigantic like clear plastic tube above your

57:26

heads, right? And there is just like

57:29

a big wind tunnel and there's euros,

57:31

dollars, whatever occurrence you want, just blowing

57:33

through it constantly, right? Like your job

57:36

in capitalism is to figure out. Two

57:38

things. One, how do I get a

57:40

hole in that tube so I can

57:42

reach my hand up into it and

57:45

grab as many bills as possible before

57:47

someone stops me? and pull them down

57:49

to not destroy the whole machine because

57:51

I might be able to drill a

57:54

hole in it and put my hand

57:56

up there again right and that kind

57:58

of is like the metaphor I always

58:00

think about just kind of like from

58:03

the prices right you're gonna go down

58:05

in the money chamber and grab the

58:07

money but you've got to sustain it

58:09

too and so you can have whatever

58:12

kind of theories that you want you

58:14

can work on the weekends you can

58:16

show up on Sunday because you believe

58:18

in it But really, you're just sticking

58:21

your money in the tube. Now, speaking

58:23

of things that you stick your hand

58:25

into, Brandon, when people are looking around

58:27

and they're like, I don't know what's

58:30

happening to me, but I feel like

58:32

there's some force that's compelling me to

58:34

put my hand somewhere, and where they're

58:36

putting their hand as bureaucracy, what's shooting

58:39

through that tube this episode? Well, what

58:41

I hope is shooting through that tube

58:43

is they've sent an email with their

58:45

postal address To stickers at software to

58:48

find talk that com and I'm going

58:50

to send you a sticker as many

58:52

as you want anywhere in the world

58:55

And of course when we write the

58:57

business book of the success of software

58:59

to find talk we're going to talk

59:01

about how stickers stickers were our promotional

59:04

strategy and how it was genius, right?

59:06

That's how it's all going to work

59:08

Also I want to invite everyone as

59:10

we do every week to join the

59:13

slack. This week I spawned a great

59:15

little conversation because it's helpful for me

59:17

about what terminal people are actually using

59:19

mostly on Mac because this there was

59:22

an article and I read about it

59:24

and I was doing some stuff and

59:26

it turns out lots of change in

59:28

terminals since I've been around there and

59:31

I guess warp was really popular this

59:33

other one called I think it's called

59:35

ghosty with two t's that was pretty

59:37

popular and then of course a lot

59:40

of people. as only in the software

59:42

defined talk listeners can do. It'll be

59:44

like, no, no, you know what's fine?

59:46

The default. The terminal laugh is fine.

59:49

The default lifestyle and effect again. It's,

59:51

you don't need all that stuff. It's,

59:53

it's, you don't need all that stuff.

59:55

It's, it's, term two, still the default

59:58

lifestyle or is it really just like?

1:00:00

I turned two, it was in there

1:00:02

a lot, but a lot of people

1:00:04

had moved off it and a lot

1:00:07

of people talked about inertia. A lot

1:00:09

of people were just like inertia. So,

1:00:11

um, and there was something that kept

1:00:14

me from going full default, but yeah.

1:00:16

Yeah, so, so the whole point. So

1:00:18

if you want to get in on

1:00:20

this kind of riveting discussion and many

1:00:23

other things, you should join the software

1:00:25

to find, talk slack, and you can

1:00:27

do that by going to, software to

1:00:29

talk, and click on the slack, the

1:00:32

slack link. Now, now, let me give

1:00:34

a little rat hole here. I had

1:00:36

a reason to use the terminal and

1:00:38

as everyone knows long-term listeners I'm very

1:00:41

into the default lifestyle so I just

1:00:43

use whatever terminal the dot app is

1:00:45

I don't even know what it is

1:00:47

I think at some point I changed

1:00:50

it to load up bash for me

1:00:52

and so I had to go to

1:00:54

I think chat gBT because I wanted

1:00:56

to set up where my Java class

1:00:59

path was and I asked it should

1:01:01

I put this in my bash RC

1:01:03

or bash underscore profile. And it gave

1:01:05

me some fucking bullshit answer about like

1:01:08

something about terminals and opening up. And

1:01:10

so I want to throw this out

1:01:12

to whoever's in charge of this stuff.

1:01:14

The people who have separated out these

1:01:17

two files, they need to study up

1:01:19

on what the default's lifestyle is because

1:01:21

the default lifestyle does not include two

1:01:23

different files that do the same fucking

1:01:26

thing. And then one file by convention

1:01:28

just calls the other file. And I

1:01:30

feel like maybe there was some reason,

1:01:32

but at this point, what are you

1:01:35

fucking about that time? You know the

1:01:37

reason. Kote, once an interactive felon, one

1:01:39

isn't. Kota, I just want to say,

1:01:42

I want to give you the solution

1:01:44

to this problem, because the default lifestyle

1:01:46

to this question in chat TV is

1:01:48

the following. It's something to prompt, something

1:01:51

like, create a docor file that has

1:01:53

Java version, X, Y, Z, in it,

1:01:55

and includes all of the things that

1:01:57

I need to run it using. In

1:02:00

your case, bash, using the bash shell.

1:02:02

Yeah, yeah. Enter? Game over. Then you

1:02:04

just like it. Take that and then,

1:02:06

and then, and then if you're me,

1:02:09

you'd be like, can you write the

1:02:11

darker composed file for that? And then

1:02:13

they do that. And then you'd be

1:02:15

like, what was the doing? It's like,

1:02:18

can you give me the darker composed

1:02:20

can to start this? And then that's

1:02:22

it. That's all you gotta know. And

1:02:24

then you're done. And it works 100%

1:02:27

of the time. I agree, I agree.

1:02:29

And that is just another reckoning for

1:02:31

whoever's in charge of bash. I'm. Figure

1:02:33

out what's going on there. Now speaking

1:02:36

of things you can sort out, there's

1:02:38

a lot of conferences. There's configuration management

1:02:40

camp in Ghent. That's in Belgium. if

1:02:42

you don't know where that is. That's

1:02:45

next week. I'm going to be speaking

1:02:47

there February 2nd to 5th. There's also

1:02:49

Cloud Navigate North America in San Francisco.

1:02:51

That's in February 10th to 11th. We've

1:02:54

got Devop. Devop stays LA and scale

1:02:56

22X, which sadly I'm not going to.

1:02:58

I just found out I'm going to

1:03:01

be speaking at the VMware user group,

1:03:03

the VMUG in the Netherlands March 12th.

1:03:05

There's SRE Day in London. And Cloud

1:03:07

Foundry Day is going to be in

1:03:10

the U.S. Apollo Alto hosted by us

1:03:12

at V&M, Broadcom. Also in D.C. Oslo,

1:03:14

it's May 21st, the 23rd. And there

1:03:16

is Coob Khan, EU. And then also

1:03:19

a late, late show up here, show

1:03:21

up here, is Devop State Chicago. It's

1:03:23

going to be March 18th. coming up

1:03:25

soon. I've been to that conference several

1:03:28

times. It's very nice. That time of

1:03:30

year, I think you can go to

1:03:32

Chicago and you see this kind of

1:03:34

like emerald sapphire thing on the rivers

1:03:37

that run through it or canals. I

1:03:39

don't know what they call it in

1:03:41

Chicago, but it's a nice place to

1:03:43

go. So that said, Brandon, what's your

1:03:46

recommendation this week? My recommendation is I

1:03:48

started watching this new show on Hulu

1:03:50

Paradise. So I've only seen a couple

1:03:52

episodes. But I think so far I

1:03:55

like it. I think it's pretty good.

1:03:57

So if you're watching, I want something

1:03:59

to watch. I think it's better to

1:04:01

kind of go in blind. I'm not

1:04:04

going to say much about it. It

1:04:06

kind of has a little mystery component

1:04:08

to it. So watch the first episode,

1:04:10

if you will, see if you like

1:04:13

it. I think you'll know. right away.

1:04:15

So like I said two episodes in

1:04:17

pretty strong start you know of course

1:04:19

you never know with these but if

1:04:22

you want them to watch Paradise and

1:04:24

who on Hulu is a good one.

1:04:26

Yourself Matt Ray? My recommendation is I

1:04:29

want someone to recommend things to me.

1:04:31

I'm reaching out to our community I've

1:04:33

been thinking I wanted to get into

1:04:35

into automated drones like I don't want

1:04:38

to like you know get the little

1:04:40

camera and steer it myself, I want

1:04:42

to program them. And so I've been

1:04:44

looking into like Px4 and Archie Pilot

1:04:47

and I'm looking for a Dev kit

1:04:49

that isn't going to break my bank.

1:04:51

And so I've kind of narrowed it

1:04:53

down to like a couple of things.

1:04:56

The Holibro X500 v2 or the QAV

1:04:58

250 and I just want somebody to

1:05:00

tell me like, yeah, I've used that,

1:05:02

it's fine. Or no, this is what

1:05:05

you should be using instead. And and

1:05:07

the kicker on this is like, like.

1:05:09

It's ridiculously expensive to ship to Australia

1:05:11

for some reason, so I probably won't

1:05:14

buy it until I visit the US.

1:05:16

Well, hopefully we'll get some feedback on

1:05:18

that. That's almost one of the most

1:05:20

Matt Ray recommendations I've ever heard is

1:05:23

that I need some kind of kit

1:05:25

for a bunch of like letters strung

1:05:27

together with numbers that make no sense.

1:05:29

Thank you. Please recommend them to me.

1:05:32

Well, I have two recommendations. One is,

1:05:34

I would call it advice and one

1:05:36

is a recommendation. The first piece of

1:05:38

advice is my son is at the

1:05:41

grade level where citations actually affect your

1:05:43

grade. And I remember when I was

1:05:45

discovering the, let's say the joy of

1:05:48

citations. And they are so annoying the

1:05:50

way that you format your citations, you

1:05:52

know. the work, the author, the date,

1:05:54

the source. But they're pretty easy to

1:05:57

figure out and they are very important.

1:05:59

So I don't really know who I'm

1:06:01

giving this recommendation to. But just put

1:06:03

up with it. Just citations, just learn

1:06:06

some MLA citation, you'll be fine. Like,

1:06:08

I remember going through this, you just

1:06:10

have to burn it into your brain,

1:06:12

and it'll last, it's nice. It also

1:06:15

helps in your corporate life. Anytime that

1:06:17

you have a well-done citation, people kind

1:06:19

of don't question it if you formatted

1:06:21

it correctly. My other recommendation is, I

1:06:24

was looking through some old D&D stuff.

1:06:26

There is a book that candle keep

1:06:28

mysteries that has all these sorts of

1:06:30

adventures in it in the forgotten realms.

1:06:33

And there's the first adventure in there

1:06:35

is called the joy of extra dimensional

1:06:37

spaces. And I was reading through it

1:06:39

again, and it is a very good

1:06:42

adventure for like first level characters. It's

1:06:44

very imaginative. It has a lot of

1:06:46

interesting things going on. It's not your

1:06:48

typical like. Let's just go into some

1:06:51

caves and kill some goblins. It's very

1:06:53

well thought out. And so it's a

1:06:55

good representation of like what a good

1:06:57

role-playing game adventure can be. So check

1:07:00

that out if you're tired of just

1:07:02

like black pudding and things like that.

1:07:04

So, you know, speaking of, I'm sure

1:07:07

you are tired of gelatinous cubes, black

1:07:09

pudding, maybe even those weird monsters that

1:07:11

come down and suck your blood out.

1:07:13

I forget what they call it sturges,

1:07:16

maybe. But I'm sure you've enjoyed this

1:07:18

episode of software to find talk, which

1:07:20

is episode 504 I'm not sure what

1:07:22

pair of Levi's that is, but I

1:07:25

think I might own a pair So

1:07:27

if you want to like read the

1:07:29

slack channel that we've talked about see

1:07:31

the show notes all those conferences that

1:07:34

I just very quickly ran through A

1:07:36

bunch of stuff that we didn't talk

1:07:38

about you can go to software to

1:07:40

find talk.com/504 you can find those links

1:07:43

and other stuff like that and with

1:07:45

that we'll see everyone next time. Bye

1:07:47

by by bye. Bye. Now I know

1:07:49

Matt Ray has to leave in less

1:07:52

than seven minutes, so I may not

1:07:54

be able to answer this question for

1:07:56

him, but I can't answer it for

1:07:58

you.