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safedean.com and sign up now. Welcome

1:04

to the Bitcode Standard Podcast. Our

1:06

guest today is Anjan Kattah, the

1:08

visionary founder of the

1:11

Daylight Computer. It's an

1:13

excellent, amazing product that

1:15

I have wanted for a very long time, and I've

1:18

been using it for the past few months and I've been

1:20

enjoying it enormously. I'm very

1:22

thankful for Anjan who sent me one to

1:24

try out, and I wanted to have him

1:26

on because I think this

1:28

is a truly remarkable technology, and

1:31

I think it's something that I am very happy to

1:33

put my name behind. I will be

1:35

investing in it, and I

1:37

am using it very regularly. So

1:39

Anjan, thank you so much for building Daylight Computer.

1:43

Thanks for having me on. Always great to

1:45

meet a happy customer. Yeah,

1:47

no, this is amazing. Maybe

1:50

I'll begin with some of my

1:52

personal story with this computer.

1:55

So I've only had your computer for a

1:57

few months, but I've wanted it for many

1:59

years. many years even before

2:01

I heard about your company. Back

2:04

in 2019, I remember looking into building

2:06

something like this and thought about buying

2:09

an E Ink screen and

2:13

figuring out how to connect it to a

2:15

Raspberry Pi and then connecting it to a

2:17

keyboard and then just using it for my

2:20

writing because I had

2:22

a Kindle and I enjoyed reading the

2:24

Kindle but my

2:26

ability to work was limited by the fact

2:28

that I couldn't spend as much

2:31

time on a laptop. Laptop screen was a

2:33

little too intense on the eyes so

2:35

when you wake up early in the morning you don't want to turn

2:37

on your laptop and late at

2:39

night if you turn on your laptop and if

2:41

you work then it can bother you and you

2:43

won't sleep properly and you wake up with

2:47

your eyes hurting. So I wanted something

2:49

that would allow me to do, to

2:52

work, to write specifically because my most creative

2:54

hours are usually early in the morning or

2:57

late at night and I

2:59

wanted something that would allow me to write without having

3:01

to get into a regular computer

3:03

screen and I thought somebody

3:06

must have done it and I kept looking

3:08

and at some point I said I considered

3:10

getting the parts. At some point

3:12

I found there was some machine made

3:14

by a Japanese company with

3:16

a Japanese keyboard and I don't know if you're

3:19

familiar with it, I forgot the exact name. Pomera

3:21

I think. Pomera, yes exactly. I have it, I

3:23

still have it here. I ordered it and

3:26

I downloaded the manual in Japanese and I wanted to

3:28

get it translated to figure it out and I started

3:30

using it and I used it for a few days

3:33

even though it was Japanese but you could sort

3:35

of make it work in English and

3:38

I managed to make it work but there

3:40

were still issues with the formatting that was

3:42

going to make it too complicated to use

3:44

for writing. So that

3:46

didn't work out and then

3:49

I kept looking into it and then

3:51

I found there was the

3:53

books tab C

3:56

so I bought that one and

3:58

that was the first time. that I managed to

4:00

finally get to type on an E Ink screen.

4:02

So I was pretty happy with it. But

4:05

it was pretty

4:10

mediocre in terms of performance. Mediocre, I

4:12

think, is flattering it. It was pretty

4:14

bad. The screen isn't very good. And

4:17

it heats up pretty quickly if you're sitting in the sun.

4:20

And it's pretty slow. And it

4:23

wasn't very good. And

4:27

then I heard about you

4:29

guys. And I first

4:31

heard about you was you had contacted me.

4:33

Somebody from your company had contacted me. And

4:35

he told me about it. And from the description,

4:37

it seemed too good to be true. Because I looked

4:40

at this for a very long time. And

4:42

I saw just how complicated it was

4:45

to build an E Ink screen that

4:48

had functionality that you could interact

4:50

with. I thought

4:52

it would be simple since the Kindle was

4:55

made. But I realized over the years that

4:57

it's extremely complicated. That even that

5:00

books note thing, which is a

5:02

pretty expensive tablet, I think it

5:04

was $600 or $700, $800

5:06

maybe, even they couldn't

5:08

really get it to work. And then suddenly, you

5:11

look at your videos. And it looks like it's

5:13

as good as a regular tablet screen. But

5:16

it's actually E Ink. And then you set

5:18

your one. And lo and behold, it works.

5:20

And I've been an extremely happy customer. I've

5:22

been using it a

5:24

lot with my new book. Getting

5:26

a lot more writing done

5:28

because I can sit in the sun with it and type.

5:32

And it takes quite a bit of

5:34

time to heat up so I could get a good shift

5:36

of writing done. So

5:39

thank you so much for that. Now

5:42

tell us your story. What brought you

5:44

into this world? And how did you

5:47

decide to build this? Well,

5:50

first, I didn't know that you had been trying

5:52

so many devices in the past. And so you

5:55

kind of get it. I feel like one of

5:57

the hard parts of doing this is if you have not had

5:59

the product. deeply

8:00

in pain, at least I did. I

8:03

feel like shit, my nervous system is jacked. I

8:06

was like, dude, something's not right about this. And

8:10

then when I got to college, I

8:13

was reading a ton on the internet,

8:15

lots of blogs, essays, articles. And

8:18

I was like, whoa,

8:21

this is not a great medium for doing

8:23

deep work. It's

8:26

called a browser for a reason, it is about

8:28

browsing. It's about being

8:30

shallow. Its

8:32

inherent design principles kind of pull you to,

8:35

and have 500 tabs open before I finished one,

8:37

I'd be onto the next one. It

8:41

captures your attention, notifications. And

8:43

I was like, huh, okay, I'm

8:45

either like low willpower, kind of

8:47

incompetent, like I just don't have

8:49

the right discipline, like there's something

8:52

wrong with me. And

8:54

that was my narrative for a long time. But

8:57

I'd be stunned where I turn

9:00

off wifi, I would

9:02

download some software that would block things and kind of

9:05

simplify the computer. And then suddenly

9:07

I'm just reading the thing, like getting it done.

9:12

Same person, same low willpower, same

9:14

this, but I'm now actually able

9:17

to do what I intend to do. I

9:20

actually have a preservation of my intention, my

9:22

choice. And an

9:25

example that has always stuck with me is I

9:27

was trying to read, somebody

9:29

told me that the best psychologist ever

9:32

is Tolstoy. So read his work,

9:35

because you'll really understand the human condition. I

9:37

don't know, Tolstoy seemed intimidating and pretentious to

9:39

me, so I like had the

9:42

book, and I just never read it. Six

9:45

months and I still haven't read it. But then I

9:47

was on a plane ride, they

9:50

had no screens, there's nothing, it was a very crappy plane.

9:54

And the only thing I had with me was

9:56

this Tolstoy book. And so I

9:59

didn't have any other. gadgets is accessible. It's all

10:01

in the overhead bin. And

10:04

so I kind of pick my nose for a while, be a

10:06

little bit bored. But

10:08

suddenly, you know, you get bored enough,

10:11

I take the Tolstoy book out, and

10:13

start reading it. And, okay,

10:15

whatever, it takes a little bit of time. And

10:17

I finally hit, you know, page 25, or something

10:19

or page 50, where it gets interesting. And

10:22

then I can't stop. It's incredible. And

10:26

it's a simple thing. I'm sure many of us have experienced

10:28

this, you get bored, and then you do something. But there

10:30

was a way in which I connected that to my

10:33

experience on my computer in college. Where

10:36

I was like, what the heck? I'm

10:39

the same person, same willpower and this and for

10:41

six months, I couldn't even get

10:43

started on this book, I couldn't even get past

10:45

page five, same person. How

10:48

am I suddenly now doing it and like

10:50

enjoying it and now like, you

10:52

know, wanting to finish it? The

10:55

only difference is the design of the

10:57

environment is this design of

10:59

the tools. And

11:01

that design, if it is aligned

11:03

with your intention can empower you and allow you

11:05

to be the better version of yourself, you want

11:08

to be. And if the design is

11:10

not aligned with you, the gravity

11:13

is to be a worse version of yourself.

11:16

Right? That's what it's I'm just simply

11:18

following the design principles. I'm a droplet

11:20

of water, going down whatever is

11:22

the gradient of gravity. And that just kind

11:25

of planted a seed in me that like,

11:27

we act like technology is neutral. But

11:30

actually the core defaults, the way these things

11:33

are designed, deeply have

11:35

opinions, whether explicitly,

11:37

implicitly, whether conscious or unconsciously, about like

11:39

the way they're supposed to use what

11:42

they make easier to do what they

11:44

make harder to do. And

11:47

that kind of stuck with me that maybe

11:49

we don't need to all just blame ourselves.

11:51

Maybe we don't always need to be exercising

11:53

willpower. Or fighting. Maybe actually

11:55

it's just we really need to question the

11:58

design of these tools, the design of these defaults

12:01

and so that that was kind of the second piece

12:03

of like there's something here and then

12:06

the last one was just really seeing how

12:08

much blue light and

12:10

sunlight and being like in touch

12:12

with natural rhythms matter for

12:14

like feeling good and I

12:17

would just stay up way too late on

12:19

the computer and just like sleep at like 2 4

12:21

a.m 5 a.m.

12:23

Just you know overstimulated by the blue light

12:25

and everything

12:27

else in your life almost Comes

12:29

like starts to fall apart, you know when your

12:32

sleep's get when you're desynchronized and your circadian rhythms

12:34

are toast I'm

12:36

sure we could we could go deeper into it. But yeah,

12:39

that's just my physical health started to fall apart

12:41

My mental health started fall apart this

12:43

was a kind of the end of college

12:46

and the time afterwards and It

12:50

was really hard time I was

12:52

really depressed my vitamin D levels

12:54

were were really low

12:56

and It's

13:00

hard to think well when you're nervous

13:02

system is shot It's

13:04

hard to to have deep

13:06

insight when you're sleep deprived and

13:09

brain fog low energy And

13:12

over time I started to learn more and more

13:14

of the science of blue light and circadian rhythms

13:17

and So I was like when

13:19

a computer was invented. Did anybody sit down

13:22

and work backwards from how humans relate to

13:24

light? Did anybody

13:26

know the science of flickering? Did

13:29

anybody know that blue light has this impact

13:31

on our? circadian rhythms

13:34

did anybody know about the benefit of UV or

13:36

infrared or full spectrum light which you get with

13:38

the Sun I Don't think they

13:40

did and so we've

13:42

kind of had these unconscious designs that

13:46

We just assume is what a computer is

13:48

and There is just

13:50

something about the way it affected me so much. I

13:52

was just like this can't be

13:54

the rest of my life Like

13:57

my most important non-human relationship is

14:00

a computer. If every

14:02

day is just going to be like this in

14:04

a fight, there's something wrong here. And

14:07

so kind of the combination

14:09

of all these experiences started to snowball.

14:12

I was very disillusioned in

14:14

college by my experience with my own

14:17

computer, and I was in the middle of

14:19

Silicon Valley. And I was like, something's

14:21

not adding up here, dude. There's so much

14:23

rhetoric here about how technology is amazing, and

14:25

it's changing the world, and this and that.

14:27

And all I see is pandering. All

14:30

I see is extraction. All

14:32

I see are devices that default to,

14:35

you know, pulling you in

14:37

the direction of being a pig

14:39

to slaughter for these dopamine slot

14:41

machines in the attention economy. Like,

14:44

something's rotting at the core of this, dude.

14:46

Like, something is super off. And

14:49

just seeing how much I was affected, seeing

14:51

my friends, seeing people around me, I started

14:54

to, like, wonder how we could shift this

14:56

or change this or do something about it.

14:59

And the last cherry

15:01

on top is when I realized so much of what they

15:03

would teach you. I went to Stanford,

15:06

you know, this amazing

15:08

institution. So much of what they

15:10

teach you just fell off. I

15:13

think I get it from my dad where

15:15

he's been pretty anti-authoritarian his whole life and

15:18

was libertarian from pretty early, you

15:20

know, obviously often the emperor doesn't

15:22

have clothes. I was just,

15:24

I was annoying. I was just always

15:27

question teachers a lot and do the same

15:29

at university. And the answers were never satisfying.

15:32

You know, these famous founders would come, the

15:34

founders of Instagram and so on. And

15:36

sometimes we get to have lunch with them afterwards

15:39

and I ask them questions and there's

15:41

no substance. Right?

15:43

Like, they would say all this shit, oh, make technology

15:45

to make the world a better place. So we want

15:47

to connect people and you push on it. There wasn't

15:49

really much behind it. And

15:51

so I really wanted to learn

15:54

things for myself and understand things for myself.

15:57

So I started to spend even

15:59

more time than you. usual reading

16:01

papers, reading essays, reading textbooks, going

16:04

deep, complexity theory,

16:06

thermodynamics, neuroscience, really

16:11

trying to understand reality for myself.

16:13

What are the deeper principles? And

16:16

informing it from natural principles, those that are

16:18

not controlled by anybody or proclaimed

16:21

by anybody but are simply the

16:24

underlying of the universe. And

16:27

that's where I started to realize also like

16:29

a computer sucks for deep

16:31

learning and reading and

16:33

self-educating. And

16:36

I realized like my whole sovereignty, my

16:39

whole free thinking is dependent on me

16:41

being able to learn freely and

16:43

deeply and coming to my own

16:45

perspectives of the world. And it's

16:47

almost like the computer is just

16:49

for junk food information to keep

16:51

you in the machine. It prioritizes

16:53

and makes easy snacking and all

16:55

this bullshit articles and crap. But

16:57

when you want to deeply read

16:59

via papers, Bitcoin white paper was

17:02

an instrumental one for me or books

17:06

that really take concentration, really sitting down.

17:08

A computer is a horrible place for that. And

17:12

I was frustrated how little of my life, my

17:14

computing life I could do in a Kindle. I

17:17

love that it kind of solved

17:20

the distraction or blue light or

17:22

health issues, but it was so niche.

17:24

It was so little of my life, great for Harry

17:26

Potter, but not else. So

17:29

all this kind of snowballed, I hit a

17:31

breaking point of just being so depressed

17:34

and frustrated and a

17:36

loss of hope. And in

17:39

a moment of frustration, anger and

17:41

kind of knowing not

17:44

what else to do, I said, okay, what would

17:46

it look like to try

17:48

to finally rethink computing from

17:51

natural principles? I

17:53

kind of really was struck by the evolutionary

17:55

point of views. Yeah,

17:58

how could we? redesign this such

18:01

that it actually better served our interests, such

18:04

that it was actually sovereign. And

18:08

maybe it's a crude way of putting it,

18:10

but like stopped fetishizing computing, like technology fetishizes

18:12

technology. It's like, no, what

18:15

is like the least amount of technology that we need

18:17

that allows us to live the lives that we want

18:19

to have? And

18:22

your imagination starts to run wild when you

18:25

think of re-engineering a computer, not

18:28

just the hardware, but also, oh,

18:30

wow, software, the operating system. Oh, how

18:33

do we even change all the primitives,

18:35

the networking stack, identity payments? And

18:38

so it kind of snowballed and snowballed into

18:40

the possibility of creating a whole new

18:43

sovereign computing, natural

18:46

computing ecosystem. So that's it.

18:49

It's been a bit of the journey. Yeah.

18:53

No, I think we're very similar

18:55

stories here, except

18:57

we part off at the point where you

18:59

actually do something about it, whereas I just

19:01

continue to bitch

19:05

and moan well and try out all

19:07

kinds of different products. But

19:11

how did you get into the hardware

19:13

business? So I mean, it's a lot

19:15

more complicated than software. I think a

19:18

lot of people probably, well, I mean,

19:20

that's an overgeneralization, but I would say

19:22

it's a little bit more complicated for

19:24

somebody to get in hardware because you

19:27

need to get in touch with supply

19:29

chains and things that are just outside

19:32

of the purview of usually the

19:35

usual tech-minded person,

19:38

which is more software focused, perhaps.

19:41

So how did you get into this world and what

19:43

was the thought process

19:46

behind building this computer? Now

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start Bitcoin-ing more confidently. There's

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one thing I would love to get from

21:52

the rooftops to the world is to communicate

21:55

how insanely hard it is to build

21:57

a new computer. And

22:00

if we're wondering why, hey, how come

22:02

no one's making more options or things

22:04

like, you know, there's so many different

22:06

health devices and infrared this and cold

22:09

plunge that, but when you think about

22:11

the underlying computer, why is there so

22:13

little damn innovation? The

22:15

answer is when you get into it,

22:17

it is so insanely difficult to

22:20

your point. The supply chains, the defaults that

22:22

are set up in that world,

22:25

it is such a complicated product

22:27

from the hardware to the software to

22:30

the firmware to the apps to

22:32

the supply chain, every part of it. It's

22:36

a piece of hardware. You think a toaster is

22:38

a piece of hardware, but it's just immensely different.

22:42

And so I think the

22:44

highest level thing here is if people

22:46

understood how hard it is to make

22:48

a new computer, I

22:51

think we would fight so much more to

22:53

have something that is

22:56

able to survive, that's able

22:58

to provide some value because then we can evolve that. You

23:01

know, the great filter is the survival. We

23:03

can evolve that to the type of computers

23:05

we want. But

23:09

saying all of this, if I

23:11

knew how hard it was, I would have never done it. When

23:14

I started, I was like, how

23:16

hard could it be? You know, this Kindle thing

23:18

exists. Like, how hard could it be? Like, I

23:23

could do a better job. I could make this work. So

23:26

I originally thought it would just be two years. And

23:29

it ended up taking six years from

23:31

the first idea all the

23:34

way to getting it into production and launching

23:36

it to the world and six

23:38

very painful years. So

23:40

I didn't have any background really

23:43

in hardware. It's not like I worked at

23:45

Apple or worked at Lenovo or anything like

23:47

that. In school, I kind of

23:49

studied engineering. Jack

23:52

of all trades, master of none. I'm a

23:54

bit more of a scientist or I like

23:57

to kind of better understand how reality works. But

24:00

I always thought if then

24:03

you didn't have the meeting of reality by trying

24:05

to make something or build something You

24:07

know, you can kind of live in your

24:09

own bubble. There's no empiricism. There's no there's

24:11

no actually testing yourself So

24:13

I didn't want to be an engineer But

24:17

I thought it'd be cool to kind

24:19

of have an understanding enough to be

24:21

dangerous So mechanical engineering electrical engineering bioengineering

24:24

computer science some of the stuff I studied So

24:27

I just had like a baseline confidence that I could figure

24:29

it out But

24:32

it was insanely difficult If

24:34

I knew what I knew I don't know if I'd started again and

24:37

so much of the difficulty of hardware

24:40

is it's You don't

24:42

there's no control Z There's no, you know every

24:44

single prototype every single experiment is real money in

24:46

real time. You make one small mistake You got

24:49

to throw the whole thing out It's

24:52

very very difficult and a lot of the

24:54

early project was material science things

24:56

that's some of the core innovations that I was

24:59

able to to pull together and After

25:02

that then if you survive that gauntlet and you're

25:05

able to make something that works It

25:08

took almost Took

25:11

almost three three years For

25:13

the first like proof of concept prototype

25:16

of this like fast high refresh

25:19

rate e-paper screen Then

25:22

the whole gauntlet of then

25:24

convincing factories and extremely conservative

25:27

Asian men in Japan and

25:30

Taiwan and so on to work with

25:32

you that

25:34

the gatekeepers to get something into

25:36

our art is is immense and

25:39

That in itself is such a great

25:42

filter to innovation Because

25:44

these people who are absolutely conventional

25:46

absolutely risk averse Absolutely

25:49

myopic in their understanding of

25:51

culture or what the problems are They're

25:53

kind of deciding what is able to be

25:55

realized what's able to be real and

25:59

so this could be a rant for later

26:01

in the conversation or some other time but I

26:03

think things that 3D printing and

26:05

things like that that allow you to make

26:08

without gatekeepers, whatever

26:10

format it is, is going to be

26:12

such an incredible unlock because

26:15

it is so sad that there's this homogenizing,

26:18

centralizing force of

26:20

this supply chain and these kind of conservative

26:23

gatekeepers. So that was a tremendous challenge

26:25

and a lot of funny coincidences

26:27

and pieces of luck and maybe

26:30

a bit of hoods but required to get through that. But

26:34

it was hard man, it was hard. Yeah

26:38

so probably a good time

26:40

to mention that here you're

26:42

not just some

26:45

kind of cheap

26:49

plastic tape on onto a

26:51

regular tablet. You didn't just get a regular tablet

26:53

and then put an e-ink on it. This is

26:55

a far more sophisticated job

26:57

because you actually built a whole new computer

27:00

from scratch. So first of all why

27:02

did you do that and what

27:05

is the extra functionality that this allows

27:07

you because I think this is a

27:09

major selling point though. Why this

27:11

is, I would say it's

27:13

more than just a little tablet that you

27:15

can use today. I think it's a gateway

27:18

onto a different kind of

27:20

internet and a different kind of online experience

27:22

and a different kind of work experience where

27:26

it's designed to prioritize

27:29

not being invasive onto your body

27:31

and attention and mind and

27:34

not placing too much of a strain

27:36

on your body. So from the bottom

27:38

up. Right

27:40

let me maybe start with the big

27:42

why. Computers are

27:44

miraculous you know in a way

27:46

they're magical but

27:49

it's also full of shit. Like

27:52

you can't cash the check it promises you.

27:55

That was the core thing here and it

27:57

was just questioning is what we have with

27:59

a an iPad and distraction-filled,

28:02

eye-straining, blue-light computer, is that what

28:04

a computer is? Or

28:08

is that simply one version of a computer? And

28:10

what I learned is natural selection

28:13

in an evolutionary context is not

28:15

an optimization. It's

28:17

not making what's most optimal. It's simply

28:19

making what's most fit. And

28:22

what's most fit for one environment or what's

28:24

most fit is not necessarily optimal for the

28:28

future. And

28:30

that was the idea here is, hey,

28:32

this is one evolutionary trajectory of computing,

28:34

what we have today. I'll call it

28:36

maximalist computing or

28:39

overstimulating computing or pandering

28:41

computing, candy computing, whatever you wanna say.

28:45

Is it- High-time-preference computing, I think would also

28:47

work. I

28:51

could have write that down. That's beautiful. Oh,

28:56

that's a- Yeah, it's really

28:58

high-time-preference because it gets you a lot of

29:00

motivation in the moment. You get to see

29:02

the vivid color and it

29:05

captivates your imagination for a few

29:07

seconds, but then you wake up the

29:09

next morning and you're paying for the

29:11

price for that. So it's a

29:13

short-term, yeah, it's like a candy

29:15

binge for your senses, for your dopamine

29:18

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5% off your purchase. So

30:10

I was curious could

30:12

there be a different evolutionary trajectory to computing? And

30:15

I started to think about what would the principles

30:17

underlying that be? And

30:20

I love this concept of evolutionary mismatch. That

30:23

we evolved under a particular

30:25

set of environments in a particular way. And

30:29

almost the arrogance of technology is not

30:31

deeply understanding how we're composed, how we're

30:33

made up and what the

30:35

natural principles are that shape both us and

30:37

the reality around us. And

30:40

so in a way, when a

30:42

computer screen is made, it is totally mismatched to

30:45

our circadian biology. Blue

30:49

light is not a priority inherently

30:51

bad. It's just for us, blue light

30:53

meant something very specific. It

30:56

meant it's 1 p.m. And

30:58

there's all sorts of processes that are built around that. Every

31:01

computer chip will say 2.4 gigahertz, 3.4

31:04

gigahertz, that's the clock of the computer

31:06

chip. That's how many ticks. It

31:08

has 3.4 billion ticks per

31:13

second. That's the gigahertz. One

31:16

of the biggest problems in a computer is something

31:18

called clock skew. When that

31:21

clock gets desynchronized, things start happening at

31:23

different times, there starts to be chaos

31:25

and things crash and fall apart. So

31:28

much of computing as to how do you keep

31:30

things synchronized. Well, guess what?

31:32

It's the same thing for

31:34

a human. We have

31:36

all sorts of different processes. Our liver

31:39

needs to know when to secrete something.

31:41

These hormones here, growth hormone or pituitary

31:43

gland, you have an insane complex ecosystem

31:46

here and they need some

31:48

way of being synchronized. They

31:50

need some way of cooperating and working together. And

31:53

one of the great forms of cooperation is

31:56

a clock that everything can go

31:58

against. And so when... you

32:00

have blue light and you're confusing

32:02

the clock up here, the super charismatic

32:04

nucleus, and

32:07

it starts to say, oh wait, it's not 9 p.m. and it's

32:09

1 p.m., okay, and starts to

32:11

go through different process. Suddenly, your growth

32:13

hormone and your insulin and your cortisol

32:16

and all the rest of the processes,

32:18

the catabolic, anabolic building up, building down

32:20

processes are all confused. Everybody

32:24

accepts this if you're an engineer working on computers that this

32:26

is one of the main things to solve, but

32:29

it's like crazy, it's taken us so long

32:31

to understand that for human physiology. And

32:34

you know that internal chaos of a

32:36

lack of coordination is

32:38

inflammation, right?

32:41

And that's what's happening to us is

32:43

we're chronically being deep fragmented

32:45

as a human with the blue light of this.

32:48

That's a mismatch from the way we're built and the way

32:50

we're evolved to kind of the

32:52

ignorant supply chain side of how a

32:54

computer was made. And

32:57

so that to me was like

32:59

a oh my God moment. We don't need

33:01

to blame ourselves or say something's wrong. It's

33:03

like this, nobody sat down and rethought

33:06

a computer from how we work. If

33:08

you think of notifications and the red dots, that's

33:10

an example of evolutionary mismatch. It's

33:13

using an evolved response in us

33:15

to orient toward a strong stimuli

33:18

that's red to kind of hijack

33:20

our attention. Sometimes

33:23

with good intention, you want to see a message,

33:25

but often it's to keep you coming back

33:27

and engaged and clicking on things, the

33:29

notifications and Facebook or so on. I

33:32

was like that's taking advantage of

33:34

the way we're evolved. That's an evolutionary

33:36

mismatch. And you just go

33:39

up and down the list of a computer from

33:41

its materials to its EMFs, its radiation

33:43

that it puts off, the light of

33:45

the screen, the environments in which you're

33:47

able to use it, like not

33:50

struggling to use it outdoors, having to use it

33:52

indoors, the software and the way

33:54

it's distracting and got the notifications and

33:58

the variable reward slot machine of

34:00

what most feeds are. And

34:02

you start to realize, whoa, we

34:05

just built all of this from a technology

34:07

perspective and not from a

34:09

human perspective. And so the canonical

34:11

question is, can you solve this evolutionary

34:13

mismatch? What does it look like

34:16

to make a computer and a computing trajectory

34:18

that works backwards from how humans work? Which,

34:21

of course, are the natural

34:24

principles. And that's where I

34:26

thought, OK, you're going to have to

34:28

solve all of this, and you can't solve all of this. But

34:33

the slowest pace layer is always the

34:35

hardware, is always nature. So

34:38

let's start there. And

34:41

I thought the light was the core, core

34:43

thing to start with. And

34:45

so I asked the question,

34:47

what did our ocular system, our eyes,

34:50

evolve for? What did

34:53

our occipital lobe and our vision processing evolve

34:55

for? And it evolved

34:57

to look at objects,

34:59

reflective analog objects. And

35:02

by reflective, I mean, as the light of the

35:04

sun bounces off them and you're able to see it.

35:06

And when there's no sun, you can't see it,

35:08

because it doesn't produce its own light. It doesn't emit

35:11

its own light. That's what we're

35:13

used to observing, things that

35:15

emit their own light the way

35:17

modern computer screens do. There

35:20

were few, like maybe a

35:22

fire, maybe a firefly, maybe the stars.

35:24

But this is not something you were

35:27

looking at all day. All you're looking

35:29

at trees, rocks, dirt, and so on.

35:31

We're reflective. That's what our

35:33

eyes, that's what our cicades, that's

35:36

what our tear films, that's what it's all built

35:38

for. The

35:42

objects in our environment don't flicker. That's

35:45

not what we're not used to looking at

35:47

flickering light. And we can get into it

35:49

more, but a normal computer screen on your

35:51

iPad or whatever flickers. At a really high

35:53

frequency, the light is turning on and off

35:55

and on and off and on. And that's

35:57

called flickering. That is not what

35:59

we're used to. what our visual processing is

36:02

built to handle. And so

36:04

I was like, okay, could you make a computer

36:06

screen that was similar to

36:09

what our visual system

36:11

is used to handle? And

36:13

so that meant making it reflective and

36:15

analog. Its main

36:18

principle is it bounces light from the environment.

36:21

I.e. it is in harmony with the environment versus trying

36:23

to compete with it. That's

36:25

what a flashlight is. Is it's trying

36:27

to compete with nature and have its own

36:29

say. And that's

36:31

why a normal computer screen, you can't see it in the sun

36:33

because good luck trying to compete with the sun. But

36:36

something like a piece of paper, a

36:39

newspaper or a Kindle, you

36:42

can see that in the sun because it's

36:44

reflecting the light. It's a

36:46

total different principle of seeing

36:49

something. And therefore you can see it in the sun because

36:51

it's working with the sun. And so

36:53

I was really intrigued at the possibility of

36:55

creating a computer screen that was

36:57

more natural by being reflective and

37:00

analog. And the

37:02

early things like the Kindle do

37:05

have that principle. But

37:07

the screen technology is so

37:10

incredibly slow. Their

37:12

refresh rate is so laggy.

37:15

It's fine for Harry Potter. It's

37:17

maybe okay for taking a few notes. But

37:20

I tried, I hacked all these devices similar to

37:22

you. It's just, it's a real struggle. If you

37:24

wanna do more of computing on it, Google Docs,

37:27

reading through PDFs, scrolling, searching

37:29

things up, a

37:32

kind of bigger breadth of knowledge work. And

37:35

so the kind of wild goose chase I went on is

37:38

it finally possible to unleash this

37:41

whole category of computers that are

37:43

reflective and paper-like

37:45

and analog by

37:47

making the refresh rate fast enough. Which sounds like

37:50

a subtle thing, but that's what really

37:52

holds it back. And

37:55

I kinda went on this crazy intellectual chase. kind

38:00

of, I guess it's a similar thing

38:02

to what got me into Bitcoin and so on. It's,

38:04

you know, people judge things and they'll

38:06

say stuff and the experts were like, ah, there's

38:08

no way people have been trying this for 20

38:10

years. I, every attempt has failed.

38:12

Amazon bought this company for hundreds of millions

38:14

of dollars and it didn't work out who

38:16

thinks that you can, but

38:19

just kind of like, okay,

38:21

I'm just going to like, I'm just going to dig in

38:23

and see what the actual ground truth is underneath all of

38:25

that. And I

38:28

spent two years of my life becoming

38:30

kind of the world expert on these

38:32

paper like reflective analog displays. And

38:35

long story short, found this crazy Japanese

38:37

professor who

38:40

had solved some core, core problems with

38:42

this and found

38:44

another professor in the Netherlands and one

38:47

in Germany put together.

38:49

They're all kind of Mavericks. They were all kind of shunned.

38:52

No one really knew about them and

38:55

kind of put their different innovations together. And my

38:57

core insight was if you combine them all, you

38:59

may actually have solved the problem and took

39:02

three years from start to finish

39:04

and did it. And

39:06

so then what you get out of that is finally, you know,

39:09

a more natural computing screen.

39:12

It's trade off is it's black and white, but

39:14

in a way, I think there's something

39:17

so cool about that because

39:19

I would say the problem with

39:21

this emissive maximalist high time preference

39:23

computing is

39:26

it's illusionary. It

39:31

creates illusions to kind of trick you. And

39:34

what I mean by that is even color

39:38

is not actually color. It's

39:40

just RGB pixels that

39:43

are so small that you see it as purple when it's

39:45

actually just a red and a blue beside each other. Meaning

39:47

like what you're seeing is actually not what you're

39:50

seeing. It's just fakery. And

39:52

so there's something about coming

39:54

back to what is real and

39:57

kind of saying like let's

39:59

restart computing from a real core.

40:02

And one simple but potentially

40:04

very powerful way to do that is give

40:06

up on the illusion. And colors

40:08

are one of the core illusions of

40:10

computing. And come back to black and white.

40:12

Because when you're seeing a black, it's a black. And when you're

40:14

seeing a white, it's a white. It's real. And

40:18

so everything else we're doing kind of comes back

40:20

from this new computer screen technology.

40:22

We have multiple patents on it. It took a

40:24

long time to develop. It's

40:28

a pretty big breakthrough in the field. And

40:31

the possibility is you can create

40:33

laptops, phones, whiteboards, monitors, a

40:35

whole set of computers that

40:39

feel totally different because of this

40:41

kind of reflective paper-like analog screen

40:44

technology. And then the sky's the

40:46

limit in terms of rethinking the operating system and

40:48

all the software on top of it. Yeah.

40:51

So I'm just going to show mine here. As

40:55

you can see, it's quite

40:58

like a Kindle screen. It's very simple, black and

41:00

white. But you can open

41:02

a Google Doc here. And you can work. You can type on

41:04

it. And then you can connect it to a keyboard. And

41:07

then it's just extremely,

41:09

extremely, extremely useful. It's

41:12

incredible for zooming in and out. It's

41:15

really incredible how easy

41:17

it is to move documents around. It's

41:19

very fast processing. It

41:21

functions like a regular high-quality

41:23

tablet, like an iPad

41:26

or a

41:28

Samsung tablet. In terms of its

41:30

ability to perform the basic

41:32

tasks that these tablets do, it

41:35

works as well as they do. But

41:38

it does it all while feeling natural, so

41:40

not placing strain on your eyes.

41:42

And I think I very much agree with what

41:44

you're saying at the end. And for me, I mean,

41:47

when you're working, you want to try

41:49

to keep all of your tools as

41:52

efficient as possible. If you want to

41:54

go far, you have

41:56

to make your machines as optimized as

41:59

possible. possible. I mean it's just everything

42:03

that you don't exactly need is going to be slowing

42:05

you down. Everything that you take with you is slowing

42:07

you down. Everything you're adding on to a machine is

42:11

adding on weight onto your

42:14

usage of it. Whether it's the colors

42:16

bracing strain on your eyes or

42:19

the screen requiring

42:21

a lot more

42:24

space and making

42:27

the machine heavier and making the

42:29

machine overheat. So the more

42:32

you can get rid of things that are not essential

42:34

in order to, the

42:36

more you're able to optimize for the essential things. And

42:39

so if you write and if you read,

42:41

this is an activity that almost always

42:44

does not require colors. You don't need to

42:46

be reading in colors. For

42:48

most adults, we just read

42:51

in black and white and

42:53

so you're able to perform a lot more

42:55

reading, a lot more writing when you just

42:57

give up on the superficialities

42:59

of color. But

43:02

then your machine can stay cool for

43:05

a long time. It's simple,

43:07

it's lightweight, it places no strain on

43:09

your eyes and it completely

43:11

transforms the way that you work. I mean this

43:13

is something that I've always bothered me

43:15

which is that I love to be in the Sun, I love

43:17

to be outdoors, but I can't work outdoors.

43:19

I have to go inside and

43:21

now this is becoming, this is changing.

43:24

My life is really changing because I

43:26

could spend a lot more time outdoors

43:29

and enjoy a lot

43:31

more productivity because I can be relaxed,

43:33

I can be in the Sun, I

43:36

can be smelling

43:38

fresh air. It's really

43:41

wonderful. And

43:44

I think that's the simplest thing that computers can do

43:46

is just get out of the way so

43:49

we can live the way we want to live our

43:51

lives. It's not natural

43:53

to be stuck inside all day. Let's

43:55

be in our happy place, let's be in the

43:57

way we're evolved to.

44:00

which is out in the

44:02

sun in nature, doing her

44:04

best work. And I was

44:06

deeply, deeply influenced by a book called Brave New

44:08

World. I'm not sure if you've read

44:11

it. Yes, I have. Yeah, of course. And

44:14

that feels like that's the core thing that's happening

44:16

is computers are not computers. They're

44:18

portals and tendrils to

44:20

have us all stimulated into

44:22

complacency, into nothingness, to

44:25

no free thinking. And so

44:28

if we keep going down that route, we're going to end up

44:30

in Bali. We're going to end up in Brave New World. And

44:33

so what the hope of this project is, is

44:36

how do we go away from computers being

44:38

portals back to being tools and objects that

44:41

serve us that we can use to be

44:44

the better versions of ourselves, to read,

44:46

to think for ourselves, to build ourselves

44:48

up for self-development, and

44:51

cut the tendril of this

44:54

complacent dopamine slot

44:56

machine. Yeah.

44:59

Yeah. And I think that's a great

45:02

way of putting it. And

45:04

I think, I mean, there's still, you

45:07

can still have other screens. So when you do

45:09

want to see something that requires full color, then

45:12

yeah, of course, you can do it. You can have

45:14

a giant screen. You can use a laptop screen, but

45:16

it's good. It's a lot better if

45:19

you're just using these for the times when you actually

45:21

need the color. If you say want to watch a

45:23

movie or if you want to watch a sports

45:26

game or something like that, then okay, it makes

45:28

sense to do it then. But

45:30

then all the other time when you're

45:32

working, you don't need that. You need

45:34

the simplest, most lightweight experience

45:37

because for me, and this is one of

45:39

the keys to my productivity, as you mentioned,

45:41

is the more distractions that

45:43

are in the environment, the less productive

45:45

I am. It's a very simple relationship.

45:48

And this is part of the reason why

45:50

I moved to working on a Linux laptop,

45:52

because I think Macs

45:55

and Windows are

45:58

becoming more and more like cable TV. almost,

46:00

in that they're constantly trying to get you

46:02

to buy stuff. It's

46:04

just a lot of

46:07

distraction. So in Windows, they

46:09

have all these different

46:11

screen savers that they'll show up and

46:13

different background photos. And it's just

46:15

all distraction. I mean, it looks really beautiful, but

46:18

I just opened the computer now because I want to

46:20

sit down and work. I don't want

46:22

to be wondering about this beautiful scene in somewhere

46:24

in Peru and going down a rabbit hole and

46:26

reading about it, which is designed

46:29

to get me plugged in more and

46:31

more and addicted to spending time in my laptop so

46:33

that I could keep clicking the links that they give

46:35

me and buy more of their crap. And

46:38

that comes at the expense of my productivity. So

46:40

I don't want that. I just want a laptop

46:42

that functions like a washing machine. You

46:45

click the buttons and it does what you're supposed to

46:47

do. It's not supposed to sit

46:49

there and try and sell me things.

46:52

I don't want it to be talking to me.

46:54

I don't want it to have its own agenda

46:57

of what I want to do. I want to get in.

46:59

I want to open my file where I'm working on my

47:01

book and begin typing. And

47:03

I want complete silence. And

47:08

I think the reason that's so difficult, say,

47:10

for Silicon Valley is they

47:12

have their identity around the computer. They have

47:14

their business models and incentives around having you

47:16

spend the most amount of time.

47:19

So there is no accountability or responsibility to

47:22

your productivity. Who cares? All

47:26

they need to do is their OKR, their

47:28

numbers of how many hours and clicks you

47:30

had, whether you're the Facebook or

47:33

TikTok or so on. That's

47:36

what they're optimizing for. If you're Apple

47:38

or Microsoft, they're

47:40

hoping you don't even know that you're less productive on it.

47:43

It's just the lowest common denominator. It's super easy

47:45

to have one computer that's full of notifications with

47:48

an app grid that works for your

47:51

grandma in Mississippi and works for you. It's

47:54

always way more profitable to sell one thing to

47:57

everybody and not need to make a bunch of

47:59

different devices for different. things. And

48:01

we know these principles, right? In your house, you

48:03

keep your office separate from your entertainment room. The

48:06

argument here is not to not

48:08

have entertainment or not have color, it's

48:10

to have freedom. When you choose to

48:12

have color, when you choose to have stimulation or entertainment,

48:15

make a free choice. I'm going to sit down with

48:17

my TV, I'm going to sit down with my normal

48:19

computer. But when you're choosing

48:21

to focus, to actually be productive,

48:24

to think, to read deeply, to write, to

48:26

take notes, freely

48:29

choose to do that and have your

48:31

choice be respected. But that's,

48:33

right now, your choice is not being respected,

48:35

to your point. You're sitting down and it's

48:37

always saying, here's some candy. It's

48:40

like a black hole of the same set of

48:42

activities. So you're not more free.

48:45

It's a fake freedom. They're like, look, you can

48:47

do everything on this. You have all these options.

48:49

But it's a total fake freedom because you just

48:51

end up doing the same couple things that are

48:53

most, you know, the pathways resistance. Yeah,

48:57

the way it gets dopamine, basically. Yeah,

48:59

exactly. And the original point of

49:01

dopamine is for learning. If

49:04

you look at a kid before

49:06

they get corrupted by society, they're

49:08

out playing and pulling things apart

49:10

and taking like climbing them and

49:12

examining them. And a lot of

49:15

that is the dopamine circuit, rewarding

49:17

learning. And what

49:19

we've done, you know, it's an evolutionary mismatch

49:21

again, and with all the screwed up incentives,

49:24

is take that same circuit that's meant for

49:26

learning and exploring and using it

49:28

for the stimming, this

49:30

absolute junky behavior. And I think what's

49:32

really fascinating is blue light plays a

49:35

key role in making us

49:37

more compulsive because it overstimulates our

49:39

dopamine pathways. It

49:42

actually jacks up our nervous system. So

49:45

we're in a sympathetic response such

49:48

that, you know, our breathing rate

49:50

changes. We breathe shallower and less

49:52

often. You

49:54

want to then, that tension, you want to stim it out. And

49:57

so there's a fascinating way where the whole thing thing

50:00

has been kind of set up to

50:02

be extremely convenient to their business models

50:04

and incentives. And

50:06

in a way, you're really, really

50:09

trusting people when

50:11

then you say, hey, I've made a black and

50:13

white computer that does less and

50:15

looks more analog. Because

50:18

you're saying, I'm

50:20

not going to sell you something on flashiness. I'm not

50:23

going to sell you something on it

50:25

being fancy. I'm going

50:27

to sell you it based on its

50:29

actual empirical ability to be useful in

50:31

your life. And

50:34

if you are the big companies, they're

50:36

cynical about human nature. People are stupid.

50:38

They're going to fall for glitz. No

50:41

one's going to buy something because it's actually better for them.

50:43

And so I think at the core here, too, is

50:46

a principle of actually being

50:48

not cynical about people, actually

50:50

being optimistic about

50:52

our willingness to empower

50:54

ourselves, to educate ourselves, to make

50:56

good choices and low time preference,

50:59

as you said, as a great

51:01

way of summarizing this. It

51:03

looks great in the story. It looks good on first day. But

51:06

then over time, see all the externalities and

51:08

implications. Something like this may not

51:10

have the same glitz and the glamour, but

51:13

over time, it starts to prove itself. Yeah.

51:17

No, I think there's a tendency here

51:19

to think that people

51:22

might think that somebody's really out to get us

51:24

with this. And I don't think that's the case

51:26

with the blue light. We

51:29

want that. We want

51:32

to be inundated with this stuff, and it

51:34

sells well. And people

51:36

just spend all their time glued to their phones and

51:38

their screens because there's a lot going

51:40

on in the phone and the screen. It's

51:42

okay to stare. I mean, the total sum

51:44

of human knowledge is accessible from

51:46

that little screen in your hand.

51:49

So it's entirely understandable that you want to

51:52

stare. That there's your mom on the other

51:54

end. Just your children, your

51:56

cousins, your friends, your life.

52:00

partner, your work,

52:02

your entertainment, your favorite sports team, everything

52:06

everything is there. You could find pictures of

52:08

it or you could talk to it or

52:10

you could work on it. So

52:13

it's natural that people want to look

52:15

at it and I think it's just it's

52:18

also natural that people have more

52:20

and more tendencies to go

52:22

for the short-term thing until they start

52:24

realizing the long-term implications of it

52:26

and then they start reversing course. So you

52:28

see it with food,

52:31

you know, people over the last few

52:33

decades we invented all kinds of new

52:35

concoctions that people were really amazed by

52:37

and now people are beginning to

52:40

realize oh well you know eating all of these

52:43

dyes and chemical

52:46

concoctions is

52:48

not the best thing you can do for your health and

52:51

so now you see an enormous

52:53

industry of people moving away from

52:55

junk food, mass-produced, high

52:57

time preference, high dopamine,

53:02

big giant crash later food away

53:04

from it to healthier options and

53:07

I think it's inevitable that we'll see the same

53:09

thing with computing because people are just going to

53:12

realize there's no conspiracy out there. They're

53:14

not forcing you to buy those things,

53:16

they're not forcing you to stare at

53:18

them. You're the one conspiring against yourself.

53:20

You are the one that is

53:24

buying it, putting it in your hand,

53:26

connecting it and staring at it all

53:28

day and you're the one giving yourself

53:30

carpal tunnel, you're the one giving yourself

53:33

a stiff neck and it

53:35

doesn't have to be this way. You can

53:37

have a much healthier relationship with your machines

53:40

and I think this is a great way of

53:43

doing it because you're focusing on

53:45

what you need and you're reducing

53:47

the amount of unnecessary

53:50

stimulation allowing you

53:52

to have a much healthier relationship

53:54

with your machines. The

53:58

way I see it is like It's just,

54:00

it's been hard if you realize

54:03

what this is to kind of have another choice.

54:07

And if you're the big dogs, you have no reason

54:09

to make another choice because people are already buying your

54:11

stuff, why do you need to do anything? And

54:14

so the hope is there's a whole new cadre

54:16

of companies like us making

54:18

people have actually new choices when

54:20

it comes to computing. And

54:23

kind of to what I said before, it's just so

54:25

damn hard and that's why we have few choices. And

54:28

so I think we're, if nothing else, a

54:30

fascinating experiment to see, is it possible to

54:33

create a new computing company? Is it possible

54:35

to have a different set of incentives? You

54:38

know, an operating system that's not about like ads

54:40

and tracking, could it be

54:42

decentralized from top to bottom? And

54:46

yeah, I think it's, you know, this new

54:48

timeline that we're all trying to create together.

54:51

What if we can be full stack? You

54:54

know, from networking protocols, relationship to the

54:57

internet, all the way down to the

54:59

core hardware. Yeah,

55:04

that is what is really exciting about

55:07

it, which I started to become more

55:09

familiar about as I was reading

55:11

more about this, which is that there's

55:14

a possibility of just re-imagining

55:16

all of the, all

55:19

of the main things that people are addicted to on

55:21

the internet right now can be done, maybe

55:24

not today, but in a few years, they can

55:26

be done with open source protocols in

55:29

a way that is a lot healthier,

55:31

a lot less invasive, a lot less

55:33

invasive of privacy, and

55:39

a lot more financially sustainable if

55:41

integrated on an open source basis,

55:43

which means Bitcoin.

55:45

I think this is just a very,

55:48

it's a very Bitcoin-like technology. It

55:51

reminds me of Bitcoin in the sense that, I

55:55

mean, I love Bitcoin, but Bitcoin

55:57

is not, it's

55:59

not going to work. win on flashiness. It's not

56:02

going to win on prettiness. Bitcoin is not

56:04

the iPhone of money. As

56:06

I like to say, Bitcoin is not the fancy toy

56:08

that you need. Bitcoin is not

56:10

the fancy toy that you want. Bitcoin

56:12

is the bitter medicine that you need. Handling

56:16

private keys and public addresses and

56:18

running your own node and all

56:20

that stuff. It's not as

56:22

fun as just holding an iPhone

56:24

and using iPhone pay. It's

56:28

not the iPhone experience but it's the medicine

56:30

that you need. It's the thing that you

56:32

really need. You need money that goes back

56:34

to the essence of money. You don't need

56:36

all of these fancy figures and insignia

56:39

on your money. You don't need all these

56:42

banks and central banks to make your money

56:44

work. Bringing money back

56:46

to its basics which is essentially just

56:48

information. And so you're

56:51

using it in a very efficient way. You're being able

56:53

to use money in a way that works so

56:56

that you can free yourself from the fiat

56:59

cancer which has a lot of bells

57:01

and whistles but is slowly killing you.

57:04

And in a sense this is

57:06

what the daylight computer is doing. It's the basic

57:08

bare bones of computing so

57:11

that you get rid of

57:13

all the associated bullshit that

57:16

has been ruining your

57:18

life. Computers aren't as

57:20

bad as fiat. I think

57:23

fiat has much more negative impact

57:25

on society and humanity overall but

57:28

it's certainly to see the parallel in

57:30

terms of this bare bones structure.

57:33

And so with this I

57:35

mean how do you see

57:37

this evolving? Because I could think of so

57:39

many ways in which this could

57:41

serve

57:43

as

57:45

the hardware platform from which

57:48

this new ecosystem

57:51

develops. Because it's kind of hard to break

57:53

out of the Windows and Mac ecosystems

57:57

for most... content

58:01

distribution mechanism,

58:04

but this is very open source. And

58:07

so you can see more and more open source

58:09

projects being built on this. Yeah,

58:13

I think you have to

58:15

start with the world the way it is and bootstrap

58:17

off of it, whether that be Android apps and things

58:19

like that. But the

58:21

real possibility is

58:23

web and web technologies, things that

58:26

are open. Then

58:28

you're not stuck to the walled garden

58:30

of these existing ecosystems, because

58:33

then anybody anywhere then would be able to do

58:35

that. And in so much as we can create

58:38

a new world, which is around these web

58:40

apps, web technologies, we're

58:43

free. We have the chance

58:45

of actually creating our new ecosystem. And

58:48

so that to me is the

58:51

possibility of escaping this, and that's

58:53

uniquely possible today, because web technologies

58:55

are finally powerful enough. They're getting

58:57

there. PWAs, WebAssembly,

58:59

happy to be nerdy about it, but

59:02

I think people should know that we're

59:04

getting to the point where you don't just need to rely

59:06

on the mobile apps. You

59:08

actually can go to web technologies. And

59:11

web technologies, anybody can run anywhere, and that

59:13

is a huge game changer. So

59:17

the way we think about it is our hardware,

59:19

this kind of healthier screen, more ergonomic

59:21

hardware too. We haven't talked much about

59:23

that, but the goal is a broad

59:26

carpal tunnel and things like that is

59:28

how to kind of make the hardware more ergonomic too. Once

59:32

you made the hardware healthier and you can roll it across a bunch of

59:34

form factors, a phone, a monitor,

59:36

a Chromebook, a laptop, whatever it may

59:39

be, then, okay, that's

59:41

going to be valuable in itself because

59:43

it's healthier and less distracting. The

59:48

next layer on top of it is, well, one of the

59:50

great possibilities of hardware

59:53

is you get to control the operating system. You get to have your own operating

59:55

system. So

59:58

the way we think about it is... When

1:00:00

you log into your daylight account, your

1:00:02

daylight ID, it's actually noster behind it.

1:00:06

When you're using daylight pay, it's

1:00:08

actually lightning. And so

1:00:10

suddenly what you start to be able to do

1:00:13

is because you control the operating system, you

1:00:15

can have really good user

1:00:17

experiences where

1:00:20

you don't need to sign up for things and download

1:00:22

Chrome extensions and go out of your way to figure

1:00:25

out key management and a wallet. And

1:00:28

all this opt-in, you could have it be

1:00:30

opt-out, where the onboarding

1:00:32

process, when you get the computer, sets

1:00:35

you up with a bunch

1:00:37

of these DIDs and

1:00:39

a hot wallet on

1:00:42

the thing and so on, where

1:00:44

it's just an easy, beautiful, seamless

1:00:46

part of the experience of onboarding

1:00:48

onto a daylight product. And

1:00:51

for all intents and purposes, whether you're

1:00:53

into Bitcoin or not, you just

1:00:55

have an experience. But the rails,

1:00:57

the rails of everything, get

1:01:00

to be decentralized. And

1:01:02

that, to me, is so fascinating, where

1:01:04

my mom could potentially be somebody who's

1:01:06

sending zaps and doesn't even realize it

1:01:08

because it's just the back-end rails. She

1:01:11

just thinks she's using a daylight product.

1:01:13

And so the way we think about it is there's

1:01:16

a very powerful opportunity to make an

1:01:18

operating system that's decentralized

1:01:21

at its core. Identity,

1:01:24

storage, payments, where

1:01:27

data is stored, data model. And

1:01:31

hopefully from there, with the combination of web

1:01:33

apps and web technology, so we're not stuck

1:01:35

on the Google Play Store or the Apple

1:01:37

iOS Store, is we can

1:01:41

create a new, free, sovereign,

1:01:43

decentralized whole ecosystem of

1:01:45

software. And of course,

1:01:47

the baseline OS will be Linux-based, but

1:01:49

then building everything else on

1:01:52

top of it. And so that's

1:01:54

our vision here is hopefully our hardware

1:01:56

allows us to create a

1:01:58

totally new software. ecosystem. And

1:02:01

our goal as a company is not

1:02:03

to get captured into becoming a public

1:02:05

company and the fiat incentives to

1:02:08

not have investors that you know want

1:02:10

us to sell out to Amazon or something

1:02:13

but design the whole company to kind of

1:02:15

build something that is far more aligned with

1:02:17

people that's low time preference.

1:02:19

That's about building something

1:02:21

sustainably over time. And

1:02:24

I think that allows us to not

1:02:26

need to have all the distorted incentives so

1:02:28

many tech companies have. So

1:02:30

that's kind of the vision here is

1:02:32

can we birth a new set of

1:02:34

ecosystem and I believe our community needs

1:02:36

our own platform. There's no way we

1:02:38

can forever build this on top of

1:02:40

Apple or on top of Samsung or

1:02:42

on top of Google. So

1:02:45

that's the big moon shot of our project.

1:02:50

Yeah and I think it's such a

1:02:52

good fit with Bitcoin and I think

1:02:55

there's a huge opportunity there which is

1:02:57

why I'm interested in investing in this

1:02:59

because I think it's going to be

1:03:01

a very receptive audience. People who have

1:03:04

unplugged out of the

1:03:06

dopamine hits of

1:03:09

blue light and

1:03:11

unplugged out of the high

1:03:14

time preference consumption of

1:03:17

the fiat monetary system and

1:03:20

taking on debt and moved

1:03:22

on to a Bitcoin world with

1:03:25

savings. I think they're

1:03:27

going to likely be a good

1:03:30

fertile ground for the replacement

1:03:34

for Audible. You know the open

1:03:36

source the next kind of platform for

1:03:38

Audible. I think this is this is likely

1:03:40

going to be a good opportunity in the

1:03:42

future for something like this to emerge here

1:03:45

because if you're able to

1:03:47

apply the same design principles into

1:03:49

building something like Audible which

1:03:52

is likely going to become more

1:03:57

easily doable with open source solutions over

1:03:59

time. in a way that can

1:04:02

scale, then people who use this

1:04:04

kind of machine would be a natural

1:04:06

fit for it because you'd

1:04:09

want to get into open-source solutions for

1:04:11

audiobooks because that's going to be more

1:04:13

sustainable in the long term. And

1:04:16

so you'd see this, I would

1:04:18

say, emergence something like this and

1:04:20

then platforms for ebooks and

1:04:23

all kinds of things. I think it's

1:04:26

a really attractive model that makes

1:04:28

it look more than

1:04:31

just a hardware play because it's

1:04:33

something like what Apple did in

1:04:35

that you're providing hardware

1:04:37

that works so well integrated with

1:04:39

the software that makes a

1:04:41

compelling product that people want to get it and all

1:04:43

the bells and whistles that come with it. Except

1:04:46

your bells and whistles are black

1:04:48

and white and non-inclusive and non-invasive.

1:04:53

That's to me, the powerful thing here, is

1:04:55

it's the exact same principles, it's the exact

1:04:57

same characteristics up and down. And I

1:05:00

think that's what makes this thing, oh this isn't just

1:05:02

like a fad or

1:05:04

like a niche opinion, no this is

1:05:06

like a core refactoring of each

1:05:09

of the different technologies we have, whether it be

1:05:11

the technology of money or the technology of identity

1:05:13

or the actual literal technology

1:05:15

of a computer. And I don't

1:05:17

see it therefore because it's all coherent. I don't

1:05:20

see it as, oh this is like a nice

1:05:22

to have thing to have Bitcoin and decentralized rails.

1:05:24

I'm like no no no no, this

1:05:27

is the central possibility of

1:05:29

this. You can

1:05:31

actually checkmate the attention economy at

1:05:34

its core level when you do

1:05:37

rethink it in this way. Instead of it

1:05:39

being a competition for your time because that's

1:05:41

the main way they get paid with ads,

1:05:45

what if you actually made microtransactions and

1:05:47

value for value incentives possible? And

1:05:50

you know when you do have

1:05:54

some sort of e-cash thing built into it, so you have

1:05:56

a really nice user experience, you don't have to, you know

1:05:58

the bitter medicine as you said is a a little

1:06:00

bit less bitter and easier. If

1:06:03

daylight's the best place to read things and so

1:06:05

on, and audio books and e-books and, you know,

1:06:07

all these kind of content things, what

1:06:10

if you had that, a microtransaction based

1:06:13

thing, because you don't need to, it's like

1:06:15

a beautiful user experience. It kind of just

1:06:17

like handles it in the background. Every time

1:06:19

you read something, it sends a, you know,

1:06:21

a few zaps or whatever it may be,

1:06:24

that could potentially be a total

1:06:26

different incentive scheme of creating content

1:06:28

and consuming content and rewarding what

1:06:31

is actually valuable, rather than it just

1:06:33

being about engagement and ads. So

1:06:37

our hardware, our software, our operating

1:06:39

system is kind of protecting you,

1:06:41

you know, kind of

1:06:44

leveling the playing field versus the

1:06:46

predatoryness of the dopamine slot machines

1:06:48

of the internet. But

1:06:51

what is really fascinating is then, if you

1:06:53

can actually start encroaching onto the incentive territory

1:06:55

of how we share information, the internet, and

1:06:58

I think microtransactions are uniquely possible because

1:07:01

of Bitcoin and things like that. You just can't

1:07:03

do it with credit card fees and all of

1:07:06

that. And so to me, that

1:07:08

is so powerful when you go from ads and

1:07:10

attention to microtransaction and

1:07:12

value for value. Yeah,

1:07:18

that is truly fascinating. So

1:07:21

in terms of hardware, what other things do you

1:07:23

have in mind, because I

1:07:25

can imagine this is probably

1:07:27

going to

1:07:29

be quite popular in platforms more

1:07:31

than just a tablet. So

1:07:34

full laptops, screens, monitors.

1:07:37

Yeah, a phone, a laptop, and a

1:07:39

monitor are probably the three next products.

1:07:43

Nice, any kind of timeline on this yet?

1:07:49

Depends on how successful we

1:07:51

are with the tablet, we'll take the cash

1:07:53

flow from that and reinvest it. But

1:07:55

you'd expect in the next two years, we come out with one

1:07:57

or two of these. That's

1:08:00

going to be great. I'm

1:08:02

hoping you have the

1:08:05

phone ready quickly so I

1:08:07

can get my children

1:08:09

onto this as their first device.

1:08:12

My kids still don't have their own phones. But

1:08:15

when they do, I'd much rather that they

1:08:17

start frying their brain on

1:08:20

a very low temperature with

1:08:22

something like this. That's,

1:08:25

to me, potentially one of the most powerful things

1:08:28

is the computer

1:08:31

and phone and laptop you buy for

1:08:34

your kids. And

1:08:36

it comes with these better primitives built in.

1:08:38

And it's almost like that that generation just

1:08:40

grows up. That's normal for them.

1:08:43

And that, to me, is so powerful if

1:08:45

we cannot zombify this

1:08:49

entire generation. Have

1:08:53

them think and play and

1:08:55

have a functioning dopamine system.

1:08:58

All of this is necessary for

1:09:00

being agentic, for having free choice,

1:09:02

for being sovereign. It's

1:09:06

like you need physical health sovereignty, you need

1:09:08

cognitive sovereignty, and then you need actual monetary

1:09:10

sovereignty. The whole thing goes

1:09:12

up and down. Yeah.

1:09:15

The way that I see it, I think the

1:09:19

more that you become indulgent

1:09:21

and high time preference and

1:09:23

seeking immediate gratification in any

1:09:25

one aspect or avenue of

1:09:27

life, the more likely you

1:09:29

are to lean that

1:09:31

way in other aspects.

1:09:34

It's obviously not universally true. There

1:09:36

are people who have great discipline

1:09:38

in one area, for instance, work

1:09:40

but don't have great discipline in

1:09:43

other areas. There

1:09:45

are people who have enormous

1:09:48

differences in these in

1:09:50

general. But overall, I think on a day

1:09:52

to day basis, you'll find that on the

1:09:54

days in which you get into high

1:09:57

time. because

1:12:00

you've rewired your system to

1:12:02

actually be in touch with the

1:12:04

deeper, more sustainable pleasures. And

1:12:07

so I don't think it's even just like sacrifice.

1:12:10

It's actually like a deeper way

1:12:12

to get to satisfaction. What works?

1:12:17

Yeah, absolutely. So,

1:12:19

um, what other plans do you

1:12:21

guys have? Oh, I should also mention you've also got

1:12:23

a pen with these. You can also take notes with

1:12:25

them. We've been discussing it as a, as a, as

1:12:27

a computer, but it's also a, a

1:12:30

note taking tablet. Yeah.

1:12:32

And we try to make it feel and have the

1:12:34

same friction as if you're writing on paper,

1:12:36

uh, because I, I, that kinesthetic feeling

1:12:38

really matters. If it's slippery, like an

1:12:41

iPad, I don't, I don't find it

1:12:43

a great experience. So we really tried

1:12:45

to dial that. With the

1:12:47

books, it was, uh, it's kind of like

1:12:49

nails on a chalkboard. It's kind of annoying.

1:12:52

And so it's not very nice

1:12:54

to be using it to taking notes, but yours

1:12:56

is much better. It's a lot smoother. Right.

1:12:59

Um, what our plans are is get into

1:13:02

community, have people develop on it, build

1:13:04

out this operating system bit by bit.

1:13:06

Yeah. We're, um, for

1:13:09

example, fountain in terms of open

1:13:12

source podcasts, figuring out a way to

1:13:14

do microtransactions for that. So,

1:13:16

and scale up this tablet, get into the hands of more

1:13:18

people. Excellent. So

1:13:21

it's daylightcomputer.com one

1:13:23

word. Yeah.

1:13:25

And that's where you can learn more

1:13:27

about this, take a closer look at

1:13:29

it and hopefully order yours. It's,

1:13:32

uh, it's really very, very,

1:13:34

very, very nicely

1:13:36

done. I highly recommend a piece of hardware

1:13:38

that I think you will enjoy using. Just,

1:13:42

uh, I think what we're doing here

1:13:44

is running a societal experiment. Can we

1:13:46

vote with their dollars to create something

1:13:48

that isn't flashy, that isn't the bells

1:13:50

and whistles, but is actually effective and

1:13:52

works. And you

1:13:55

know, is, are we too optimistic or

1:13:58

the cynics, right? When they say all people. want to

1:14:00

do is, you know, addict themselves

1:14:02

to death? Or are there

1:14:04

enough of us who say enough is enough and want to

1:14:06

bring, you know, choice

1:14:11

back into our hands? So I'm

1:14:13

fascinated to see whether we

1:14:15

can bootstrap our community here and, you

1:14:19

know, whether this is one

1:14:21

of the ways to do so. So like, thanks for

1:14:23

having me on and let's see how

1:14:25

this goes and I'll keep working my ass off to

1:14:28

try to make this future happen. Yes,

1:14:30

please do. I'm extremely grateful that

1:14:32

you chose this. I'm extremely grateful

1:14:34

that you did it. You obviously did a much better job

1:14:37

than I could have done in a million years. Thank

1:14:39

you so much for this and I

1:14:42

feel almost obliged to be churning out more

1:14:44

and more books now that I have this

1:14:46

because it's just going to allow

1:14:48

me to enjoy being in the sun while I

1:14:51

work, which is a huge

1:14:53

boost for my productivity. So I've got a

1:14:55

new book coming soon, which is going to

1:14:57

be hugely, a

1:15:01

big part of it is going to be, have been

1:15:03

produced on the daylight computers going to be called the

1:15:05

gold standard. If

1:15:09

there's one OKR we have for daylight is how

1:15:11

many people made, wrote books on

1:15:13

it, wrote poetry, wrote great

1:15:15

new stuff. By the way,

1:15:19

that's amazing here. My

1:15:21

email is unginn at daylightcomputer.com.

1:15:24

We're always recruiting

1:15:27

people, investors, anybody who

1:15:29

wants to collaborate, feel free to reach out.

1:15:32

Always excited to meet more

1:15:34

people from the community. Awesome.

1:15:39

Well, thank you so much, Anjan. This has

1:15:41

really been wonderful. Thank you so

1:15:43

much for doing this and for continuing to do it.

1:15:45

And I really wish you all the best of luck

1:15:47

with expanding both your

1:15:50

hardware and software parts of the business.

1:15:52

Thanks again. Hey, thanks a lot

1:15:54

for having me. Cheers, man.