37: Trevor McFedries - Creative People Should Be Rich

The broken and immature is the alpha and what artists are great at. This is like maybe as bizarre as like the Shops Your Rhino. The Shops being like this thing you piss in is art. It's not something that a market would value. You know, like Warholian Tincan? That is, effectively what Bondy curves a lot of people to create a market and be like, "No, actually this is important." And you're like, "That is important, that's slop." And you're like, "No, trust me." I think what like great collectors have been able to do historically is like take the aside of that and be like, "Yeah, I want all these Warhol's." And this basket guy that can't draw, I think it rocks actually. And I think that is the opportunity on both sides of that market. Been doing these kind of like gatherings at my home to connect Silicon Valley friends and artists friends. And I brought all these artists together. You're on, you know, those in those X-Feeds and aren't aware of this stuff, but have, you know, being all, you know, really important work. They were here in the AI people were kind of assuming that they would agree with that sentiment. But they were like, you know, the AI's don't have intuition, which is why they can't do great art. - Yep. - And all of the artists were like, I don't know, I think a lot of stuff is really good. And they were kind of like, wait, what? - Whoa. - And so I do think there's absolutely going to be a moment where slop is punk. But I also think what's clearly interesting now are the models themselves. It will be probably uncomfortable for researchers at the big labs to be like, "I'm the artist." Welcome to Dialectic Episode 37 with Trevor McFedries. Trevor has lived a few different lives, including as a musician, an entrepreneur, a technologist and a curious internet person. Among other things, he's also spent much of his career trying to help creative people get rich, which we talk extensively about. That balance between music and entrepreneurship has extended throughout his career to this day. He's part of electronic dance duo, soft with his fiance. And it's all recently they were touring. And he's also a founder of a new company called Runner, where he's exploring how markets, attention and prediction can affect culture and creativity. Runner will be launching soon. Looking backward, on the music side, he started off as DJ Skitski, enjoyed rap groups Swazie when he was about 22, and had a top 10 album in America. It had been a long time producer and been involved with all kinds of musical acts. And then he's also started multiple companies, including Broad, whose flagship asset, if you will, was Lola Kayla, who was one of the first digital creators. You could call her a CGI influencer if you wanted to, but what Trevor was really getting at and what he pitched me when we met around 2016 was that he wanted to create Marvel for pop stars. Broad created several characters alongside Michaela and explored what it would need to have a creator who wasn't bottlenecked by just a single person with an ego and everything else. Broad was acquired by Dapper Labs, where Trevor went on to run Dapper Collectives. And Trevor also, while running Broad, started FWB, or Friends with Benefits, which was a kind of novel type of Dow focused on building a community, maybe even new type of city. I've talked about FWB in the past, both when I interviewed its former mayor, Alex Zhang, as well as when I interviewed Reggie James at FWB Fest. They're in-person music, culture, and crypto festival in Idaho wild. As I mentioned, we talked about how creative people can capture more of the value they create, including about how that might require new instruments. We talked about high and low, and the ways that culture and capital intersect. I asked Trevor about the ways that he continues to just have the remarkable nose for weird and be ahead of cool, and also what it means to be on time when it comes to cool. He argues that unlike 20 years ago, it might actually be punk to sell out in the modern world. And he talks about why, how despite it being solo status, he continues to return to crypto as a new way to explore how all of this might fit together. And he's particularly interested in prediction, the value created from it, and how value is captured there. I also pushed him to talk about how he continues to find new, weird corners of the internet, including those that are illegible, or even inaccessible to the rest of us. We wrap up by talking about optimism, particularly for the next generation as Trevor is about to become a father, music, and how it's been such a core part of his life, and even the brief period of time where he worked with, and was bewildered and yet amazed by Kanye West. I hope you are inspired to be as vigorously curious as Trevor is as he spends his days. I know I was. Before we get into the episode, I would like to thank Notion, the presenting partner of Dialectic. Notion is a collaborative workspace for teams and people doing their life's work. And these days, it's never been higher leverage and more powerful thanks to AI and the agents that take away the busy work and allow you to focus on the important creative collaborative work. Notions how I prepare for all my episodes, I throw ideas and quotes and clues and excerpts into a big document. And then I synthesize them and try to find the patterns and the interesting points of conversation or questions that I want to dive deep on with my guests. And Notions AI and agents are tremendously helpful for helping me find those patterns and make sense of it all. And Notion obviously becomes so much more powerful when you're working collaboratively with a team. It's no coincidence that so many startups and the world's best companies turn their ideas into action thanks to Notion. If you don't use Notion, you can check it out at Notion.com/Dialectic. I'm so grateful to them for supporting the show. And I'm thankful to you for listening. If you enjoy it, please give it five stars on Apple or Spotify or like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. With that, here is Trevor McFedries. Trevor McFedries, we made it. - We did it by the way. - Thank you for having me. - Thank you for coming by. - I'm very excited, this is overdue. I think we were gonna try to do this like six months ago. - Yeah. - And we are. - I haven't made it, I love it. - We're gonna start with, I think one of the main through lines of your life, at least your working life, which is, I think it's a tweet from you. I think creative people should be rich. - Yes. - I think it's like kind of like your big quest almost, or one of them. - Yeah, I think it's probably because I'm old enough that when I, so when I was 22, I joined this like rap group called Shrezy. - Yeah. - We put out a big album on top of an album in the States. And I was kind of thrust into the dying corpse of the music biz. And I got to see a taste, you know? I remember going to this record producer who I won't name who had like one kind to hit in the 90s. And he had this like five million dollar house in the Hills in the six studio. I mean, it like didn't really compute because we had like a kind of hit and I was still looking broke. And so there was like a taste of what could have been with this deep desire for information to be free that I had as a product of the internet. And so there's always been this tension and I think that probably encapsulates it. - Why aren't creative people rich? - Or richer. - Richard, I mean, I, there's probably a lot of reasons, but I think at, in my heart, I believe there's an instrument problem, right? There are like creative people producing a ton of value in Williamsburg 20 years ago, but the instruments that captured that value were properties. And so if you were a real estate developer, or someone who owned them as one of properties, you got very wealthy. You didn't produce any of the value in the day-to-day life of Williamsburgians. And I think as a result, that's probably why I got deeply into crypto. Is it was like here's an opportunity to create new instruments that can capture value and pass them back. - How do you think about the instrument thing in the kind of more traditional like capital versus labor thing? Is it the same? Or are you getting at something more specific? - Historically, I was kind of extremist. Grapes, rapport in the Midwest, discover raising it to the machine was radicalized, like reading Eldridge Cleaver in my like, you know, fifth grade English class teachers were concerned. I was very interested in kind of socializing things, my bringing, you know, the redistributing all of that wealth. Not actually almost like a true, like a creative supremacist, you know, where I'm kind of inverted, and I think, crapy wish to be billionaires, and people that are effectively precipitating this forever 21 economy of it's ripping off things. And like, you know, it should be minimized. And it's, it's probably an account of becomes explicit. But like, ultimately, I think the idea of laborers as capital is a limited framing. I think I'm interested in playing the game on the field. And if we're existing inside of, you know, as the Panthers would say, survival pending revolution, you know, it's probably like crafts for folks out there, who are familiar with literature, like a planet that's this like modern venture backed technology environment. But I think there's an opportunity to effectively play the game on the field and to create instruments that can pass value back to the people that make life worth living, not just those who know how to trade derivatives or bonds or stuff or whatever it is. Is the internet like, what do you think the internet's role has been in this? And like, to what extent do you feel like the internet has like missed out or failed its potential? Or was like this the inevitable or like most likely outcome where we are now? - I mean, I'm old enough to recognize that it's probably the most likely outcome I've been through a few cycles that this is gonna change everything. You feel like whether it was dance music, you know, with the blog house and we're like, we're gonna reinvent dance music and change everything and it was like, wait, why is will I am here? And you're like, oh shit, like, he kind of took all the sound and made millions and my homies are still broke driving Door Dash or whatever it is. - He somehow, everywhere. But there are effectively those kind of participants and all kinds of culture and I think you recognize it in like Silicon Valley where you see it in Hollywood, you see it in DC, people that can kind of like, you know, understand what's next and ride the wave. So obviously internet devalued media. Like that's like table stakes for anyone who's a dialectic listener. I'm sure they can appreciate that. But I think the things that are underappreciated is that there are kind of these charlatans that oftentimes will like recognize an emergent trend and accelerate it and create all this pompous and how radical it can be knowing that it will effectively change things more or less 5%. You know, they can insert themselves in that 5%, they can get, you know, ludicrously wealthy. And I don't want to sound like some doomer. But I think that like, if that's ultimately the game on the field, I think the people that are coming up with like net new ideas and innovations should be that 5%, not the charlatans that insert themselves. - I think we'll come back to it. You might sound like a doomer a couple times today, but I think you were decidedly not a doomer. - Decidedly. - Yeah, I think it's important to establish that up front. Maybe I'm at less note, like the extractor thing a little bit like a different take there would just be like, so there's a cynical view that just says like, the reason creative people aren't rich is there's these extractors, there's these opportunists who aren't even the creatives themselves. There's a maybe less cynical view that says like, Drake's super rich. - Totally. - And depending on the medium, like music's complicated and a lot of reasons, but there like are very clear ways to get rich in music in a way that's probably less legible or less obvious if you're doing something more esoteric, if you're a ceramicist or you're a fine artist. Like, so maybe the less cynical view is just like, medium matters a whole ton and some mediums are much more commercial than other mediums. - Certainly, yeah, and I think we're creators throwing around a gun right now. And I think I like a decouple this idea of like a creative supremacy or whatever I'm pointing now from someone who is, you know, grabbing tumblr graphics off the internet and throwing them on t-shirts to someone who's like truly innovating. And I want to talk about crazy people, I mean founders, I mean the scientists, I mean artists. Who are creating like, you know, net new things that are advancing this thing we call life. And so the challenge for me, as always, when even in like the culture industries, there were this commercial space. And then there was kind of more institutions that recognized that their role was to recognize things that were advancing this thing called life. That would necessarily play nice in the commercial marketplace. Now you can go to, you know, a museum and see a cause show. All, you know, cause has done his thing. I won't go there. But like cost is financially really well in the commercial marketplace. You can walk into a unit clone and see cause. Do you need to go to a museum and see cause? I don't think so. And so you've kind of seen that proliferate everywhere across the culture industry. So the challenge for me and I was saying, okay, if we have this opportunity to rethink what we're doing, can we find a way to recapitrate attention and value the people that are making these like net new things and maybe not the people that have found a way to just package and repurpose them and use a distribution to capture the upside. Again, I recognize that probably isn't going to happen, but if we can move the needle five percent, yeah, I would be elated. You have a line, I think you mentioned to me, we were talking a while ago, that it's easier for someone to raise $3 million than to raise $300,000, especially for like creative people. Maybe this is getting a part of your last answer, which is like you're almost talking about creativity through the lens of like ignition or like that kind of like genesis of things or originality or whatever you want to call that. Like why is that? Maybe that specific example isn't quite the point, but like why is that $300,000 over $3 million an important, like what are you pointing out when you-- - Yeah, I mean, it's a couple of things. I think one of the things we don't recognize, I think is that catch 22, where in order to be given opportunity, you need to prove that you can do things. And oftentimes that challenge and that chasm prevents a lot of really brilliant people from being able to capitalize and provide value to all of us more broadly. And so you often get this conundrum where, I don't know, I grew up in Iowa and you know, lucky you want to move to Los Angeles and encounter all these people who were celebrated, it's supposed to be really special. And I recognize they were not that much different than my friends I grew up skateboarding with. But because they had peers, friends, uncles, they could get the foot in the door and in a mail room or-- - Infrastructure. - Infrastructure, they could prove something and then be given a little more rope, be a little more rope and all of a sudden they're able to go raise a million half dollar seed round and think of big swing. And so the challenge for me is that getting that initial of like $30,000 to create a T-shirt company to prove that you can build something is really hard. And people often don't cross that chasm. And so the idea that it's easier for folks, even an established creator to go as a million and a half dollars to go do something really big and ambitious and fail. Then just do something small and prove it out and be able to increment it there. Is this interesting, I think thought that to me provoked startup ideas and other things that people could be solving for potentially because there's probably something between venture and bootstrapping that will need to exist. - Yes, yeah, it's, I think agency is this sort of like, it's almost like an escalator or something where like you, there's this reciprocal relationship. One of my favorite ideas is this guy, C.T. Nguyen, he talks about games and they're like what a game designer is doing is that they're creating attention between your abilities and your goals that's like not too far out of step. - Yeah. - Because like if you play a level one of a video game and it's really hard, you're gonna get bored. And if it's too easy, you're also gonna get bored. And there's a sort of like part financial, part the world helping you. But it's like, yeah, those two things, 100K to go do a little bit. Even if you're Elon Musk, by the way, building SpaceX, like it wasn't like here's a billion dollars go nuts. - Totally. - Yeah, I've always appreciated that because we complex video games that are able to introduce complexity to you step by step and like walk you through. And I remember when Game of Thrones was massive, there was this kind of like dominant narrative that like there's no more attention span as people can't focus on anything. And I watched the first episode and it was like the white wolves in the North like I had to take notes. And I was like complexity done well is the most powerful thing and people have decided to like the client even attempt. And so I love when games, films, those things, introduce all of that. - I like the lot. You have, there's this quote from Yancy Strickler that you quoted that I think is pointing something really interesting. I'll read Yancy first. He said, the idea of quote unquote selling out implies a hopeful nostalgia of choice beyond market pressures. Among younger creators I talked to in whose brains the algorithm is directly embedded, not selling out feels like an impossible luxury from a far away time too risky to attempt but a fantasy they dream of one day indulging. And then you quoted and you said, increasingly feels like artists who opt out of the algorithm game and produce work that isn't algo friendly are seen as posh, slash nipples, slash truss fun, playing the algo game to survive is optically punk and honest. This is really interesting to me. Like, first off, like when did that change? Or when did it feel to you that it changed? - I mean, it's been a slow boil, like again, I'm old enough to remember like the Beastie Boys being upset their music used in adverts or and then, you know, in kind of my gen, I remember hearing like Santy Gold in Budweiser commercials. And then there being a gen about me that was like, this is fucking stolen out, this is terrible. Why would you do that? And then living this moment where it's like, I can't afford to own at home, like, have a family. Of course I'm taking the Budweiser to check. - Creators should be rich. I think especially in the last three to four years, the kind of dominant understanding of how aesthetics flow and how ideas populate has really inverted from the kind of like Bushwick model that people are familiar with where it's like some interesting art person makes something and it gets its way to some boat person, it gets the animal tour. She says it's important and it gets pushed down to a soccer mountain in the Midwest. So now this more middle out thing where, you know, effectively, I remember like, I forget which TV I could have talked about making television that was the least inoffensive. For the, you know, like the most inoffensive television you can make was the one that would keep people from chasing the channel. It does feel like, you know, for you algorithms, especially a similar idea, where you can go to East Berlin, you can go to Bushwick, you can go to Beverly Hills and see the same aloe yoga outfit on the street. And I think it's because culture is now middle out. You know, it's just the most inoffensive person is gonna capture the most mind share and people will optimize for kind of being that person in order to get opportunities with influence or whatever else, that isn't groundbreaking. But I do think as a result of that, the only people who have been able for the last four or five years to play this kind of art game and opt out of algorithm are effectively trust fund kids. Like, I don't need to name names, but I do love that meme where it's like, never ask a woman her age and like an indie musician while their parents' names have a blue, a little boob link on Wikipedia or whatever. Like, to be truly indie and like, participate in a purely artistic environment while playing the culture and your city game, you need to survive. And it's just gotten so dire now that the only way to do it is to effectively be a trust fund kid. So, the most punk kids I know are playing social well, whether it's like, Amel and the Sniffers. I don't know what that is. Australian like, you know, or like, turn style, right? Like, they've been able to like, capture these meetings on their own terms, but they haven't opted out entirely. Yeah, it's interesting. It's like, one question that's really dumb that I found myself like wondering as I was thinking about this is like, are we gonna get to the point where like, slop is punk or like, you're sitting inside of this tension, which is like, at what point can you like play the Algo game and still do all that other stuff we were just talking about about creating something actually new and still be like, by the way, regardless of whether you think about Warhol or what, like being commercial can be really interesting. Certainly, I think it's funny. I had a conversation I've been doing these kind of like, gatherings at my home to connect to looking value friends and artist friends. And there's this like, in this theme and still looking like about taste, you know, taste is so important. - Yes, yes. - And I brought together, you know, which is almost becoming slop. Like that narrative is like, at this point, it's so regurgitate. - Exactly. You're on, you know, those in those X-Feeds and aren't aware of this stuff, but have, you know, being really important work. They were here and the AI people were kind of assuming that they would agree with that sentiment, that they were like, you know, the AI's don't have intuition, which is why they can't do great art. And all of the artists were like, I don't know. I think a lot of stuff is really good. - Whoa. - And so I do think it was absolutely going to be a moment where, you know, slop is punk and interesting. You're seeing some interesting, it's some examples starting to emerge, but I also think what's clearly interesting now are the models themselves. And like, you know, creating in latent space. And I think that as people begin to appreciate that as they have the kind of the contextual awareness of how these models work, they're going to really appreciate some of those things. And I think it will be probably uncomfortable for researchers that the big labs to be like, I'm the artist, I'm making the most interesting-- - Or at least I'm making the medium or whatever. - Yeah, I'm making the most interesting cultural work at the moment. And I think a lot of artists would be like, yeah, absolutely. Like, I claim that I made this cool wall work, but like what you're doing is absolutely reflection, the most important reflection of this current cultural moment. - I think it's really, like, I think, maybe I'm just too on Twitter. Like, I would be shocked if most people would have any intuition that, like, quote unquote, real artists or serious artists felt that way. Like, and maybe part of that is that, I should probably be careful here, but like, the sort of mid-wit artist on the internet is just complaining about it. Like, you say the words AI, they're going to like, have a meltdown. - Yeah, I would say like capital A art world versus like, you know, an art world that, you know, this is dangerous as well. Like, I remember, I really wanted to go to Designs. I went to RISD, that was my dream. I was football player, and I could go for that for free, so I ended up doing that instead. But I would take these summer programs. - For so many possible timelines in your life. - Yeah, bizarre. I remember I went to Otis, a design school here in Los Angeles for a summer program, and I was just really intrigued as to like, you know, if I were to meet these artists that were just like me, and what I was confronted with the people that would just draw like, anime, and Hentai, and dragons, and they were really good at drawing dragons, but there were really any new ideas, and where I found the people that I was drawn to were actually in like, you know, the corners of 4chan, or like random street wear stores, places that were emergent, and actually quite interesting, and people that wanted to find like, new forms of expression would kind of huddle around. - Yeah, yeah. What do you think the relationship, I think this is very related, and it also a kind of warms. Like what do you think the relationship between authenticity and creativity is? Is authenticity, I think one thing I felt myself feeling is like authenticity is almost like ridiculous, like at least when it became an aesthetic, like is it even worth talking about? Like maybe the other part of this question would be like, is there such a thing as like pure art or creativity or originality? - I would say like there is conceptually, but when I talk about like creativity, or even authenticity, it's like talking about Nirvana, you know, it's like this end state that I think you can like aspire towards, but I'm not sure that it is achievable. I do think authenticity was maybe like the buzz word, it was like the taste of five, 10 years ago, and because we were doing Michaela at the time, that was often the question I was confronted with by like new hires or DCs or whatever. And what I always try to explain to them is that like, authenticity can take a lot of different forms, and I think ultimately what I'm looking for in great artwork is honesty, you know, a connection to you who is themselves a divine bridge to something, and you know, actually this is a bit of a tangent, but I was in that Timothy Shelley May Bob Dylan moment, there was an interview with Bob Dylan where they were talking about a songwriting process, saying he wrote these songs so long ago, you know, and a more or less alluded to the fact he's like not able to do that anymore. And I thought it was like really compelling. - Also terrifying, because as someone who like wants to tap into that divine stream all the time, the fact that it can come and go, I'm very aware of it in a songwriting room, because you watch writers that are just like, and you're like, whoa, where did that come from? But in building organizations and these kind of marathon things it's less clear, that said, I think the authenticity piece and what I would relate that to is there are creative people who do commerce explicitly, and I was thinking about K-pop, you know, like you know they didn't write those songs, you know they didn't style those clothes, they didn't courier out those dance moves, but what a beautiful machine. - What a beautiful machine, an appreciative machine, and I often will get into these arguments with peers who are like, I don't understand why you love Rihanna, but you hate these imposters and these people that you think are like taking attention from people that are actually creative. And I'm like, I love Rihanna because she's not telling me she's making a two Michelin star steak. She's like, here's a cheeseburger, and I'm like, I do love cheeseburger, this is fantastic. I get frustrated when someone's like, look at this two Michelin star steak, and I'm like, I know all of those references that you're biting, just because you're, you know, rehearsing them, yeah, or you're, it's just borrowed nostalgia, right? And I like, I actually seeing this thing now, which is quite interesting, like Silicon Valley has gotten a cultural critique and consciousness and kind of these more abstract concepts, and the very uncool humanities are getting quite cool, and there's an emergent founder who's like seen the Adam Curtis films, who can be like, and like paraphrase, and these VCs are like, wow, how do you know this? - Maven McCluen, we got it all, I've done some of that myself. - No, but I think that's why you're especially able to connect these dots, but I think again, you can do it in a very honest way, where you're learning, and it's an interest of learning in there, people that are like, I have this new idea. - Yeah, it's the first thing we talk about. - This is the thing, and that's the frustration I often have, where I'm like, if you just want to get rich, like sell real estate, don't purport to be some poet or philosopher and just repurpose ideas for people that aren't familiar with them. That's where I get all riled up, Jackson. - Why, the borrowed nostalgia thing came up a few times in my research. Why, what do you mean by that, and what it's so frustrating about that, and specifically like, I think you gave one example of a in-white house, but like, what is the line between borrowed nostalgia, and like, everything, nothing's truly new, but it can be remixed in a way that feels really new. - Yeah, I mean, again, I think there's like, there are people who act as a divine bridge, and they're able to interpret their environment, and kind of share that moment and reflect on that moment that people aren't really honest ways. And I think, you know, Amy Winehouse, I always use, 'cause people are like, Amy was doing nostalgia, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, Amy was in taking an interpretation in a style, and then parsing it through her lived experience. You know, like, talking about rehab through a jazz lens is new, it's not just staying on the shore of giants, but she's parsing it through her lived experience. That's really important. I think the reason the nostalgia piece is so tougher in me as a millennial, we had this generation that effectively was able to do that trick at scale. As much of Gen X, it didn't know anything, and we were like, fuck, I have the internet. I can just put on a gold chain and reference from '80s rapper, and some K-Rock, you know, dude, A&R guy, or you know, radio programmer is like, whoa, this is a hip-hop aesthetic with a rock thing. This is crazy. - I've never heard of you say like that. It's so unbelievable. Like, it was like you got the answers to the test. - Totally, and you could, you know, you could cheat in real time on the test, and blow minds. And so there were all these people that effectively got to larp all these different errors people weren't familiar with, and kind of passed through these gates, such everyone wanted to tear down the gates. Like, a bunch of millennials were like, this sucks. I want to make the decision to be like, and tell this is dishonest, and then we removed those gates, and we were like, maybe some of the gates were good. The gatekeepers, can you bring them back? Well, that's my war on nostalgia. - Yeah, I, before we go into the next thing, I just want to mention the Bob Dylan thing, like, I think what I, the optimistic part of that would be, I don't know, you hear so many art, so many musicians in particular, they just like, the songs come from God, or whatever. Like, it came to me in a dream, whatever. Whether it's Bob, we are a Rosalie or whatever. And there's this like loose grip on that. I think that I'm Bob Dylan, and I did it in the past, and I can't do anymore, like, that's pretty tragic. But I wonder if you have like a looser grip on just like, sometimes they come, and I want to be ready for when they come. - Yeah. - But, oh man, it's got to be hard when you're-- - Yeah, kind of, too much. I don't know much about soccer or football, but my friend Alonzo was talking to me about messy, as being this just like, disgifted savant, and Ronaldo being this like, workhorse. I find a lot of that in songwriting and artistic practice. You know, there are founders, you talk to a callison and you're like, "Oh, I don't have that gear." You know, like, I just, I don't. I'm not gonna get there. But maybe if I find other ways to create edge, I can get to this thing that I'm really proud of. And I respect both. And to me, it's almost like a spiritual thing, right? Like, there are monks who I imagine have like this divine light. They're just connected immediately. And there are people who have to spend a lot of time getting deep into themselves and closer to God. And that's how I interpret the practice. And I want to honor both. I'm actually probably more aligned with, you know, the Ronaldo, because I find myself like, I'm not a gifted musician. Like, I just poke buttons and turn knobs until it sounds cool. And it's a struggle. When I go into sessions and people say, "Oh, that flat fit isn't in that chord." I'm like, "I don't, is it this thing?" Or like, it's heartbreaking, but it's also, it's this blessing. I get to find something and let it kill me. - Yeah. - A lot of different things. - Yeah, it's almost like you're not a native speaker, but you're trying, the other thing that's interesting to me is you, like Jerry Seinfeld comes to mind, but there's so many creatives who talk about this sort of like, I was talking to Gabe Waley actually about this with the stuff they do at mischief too. Like, they schedule their brainstorms. It's actually this like Seinfeld. It's like, he goes in the room and he has the, he has the old legal pad, he doesn't have to write, but he's not allowed to do anything else for like three hours. And it's like, discipline, scheduled discipline, sort of as like giving you the best surface area for the inspiration to happen. - Agreed. - Which is maybe more Ronaldo, like maybe you're not walking into the room as messy or whatever, but there's something I think beautiful about that too, which is like, I'm ready for the inspiration if it ever comes. - Yeah, and it's interesting because you can kind of argue both, like, you know, what are the Buffett and Bill Gates, so they don't have calendars or whatever. And like, they're effectively doing the work, the creating space to do the work, but they're also creating space for like, the divine light and to strike. - Yeah. - And so, yeah, I think a lot again, it's, to me, it is probably very spiritual. And the older I get, the more I could probably relate a lot of these things to spiritual practices. But ultimately, they seem to be reflections of reflections like, you know, you can see the fractals and all of these things. - We talked about instruments at the very beginning. I want to talk, maybe to set up our conversation about crypto. There's a couple of quotes from you. And then I think our particularly interesting that's this backdrop that like, depending on when you cut, slice it, although for many people, crypto is like always low status. And just there's a lot of disdain. This is you. Then this thing about blockchains, about tokens, the hyper-financialization of our lives. I've had such disdain for it. But if you invert that and try to create better instruments for capturing value, you can attribute that value and pass it back, part of what you're just saying. And then another section from you, after reading debt, the first 5,000 years of money by the late anarchist anthropologist David Graber, Trevor found himself asking like, what is value? And he followed that destabilizing thought to a liberating conclusion. It's whatever we collectively decided is. One of the reasons that I love crypto or an internet of value is that we have really antiquated vehicles for representing value. He says, he believes crypto enables it better instruments for assigning value to all things. This idea of like value being something we can tinker with seems at the core of that. I guess I'm curious why you consistently find yourself being drawn back to this thing, despite all of the cases for demerism and all of the disdain and all the hyper-financialization and the SBFs and all of that. There's some hope, dream thing that you're seeing, like what, what is that? - Yeah, I mean, there's so much in there. I think there is a spiritual and psychological war. There is a desire to move people to a higher state of consciousness. I don't know, there are plenty of people doing that. God bless them, they're really good at that. And then I think there are a lot of people who are kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum are looking at purely utilitarian ways to like help people get to the next meal or to the next moment. And I think what I've uniquely been able to do because of my life trajectory is, you know, kind of live what I say from a squat to the yacht. Like, I actively engage with like, you know, shithead crust kids, crusties. And like, I still have all of my like, Tukuni and anarchist friends who are on no-fly lists. And I have billionaire speaking my house about AI, you know? And I think I was a function of moving from Iowa to LA when I was 16 and having, you know, art aspirations, but kind of recognizing my place in the universe as being someone that can be this connected tissue. And I think I've stoked in the past that like, I've always wanted to be the chef that makes two Michelin star corn dogs. Like, I moved to LA. I'd never had sushi until I was 19. I had a California roll and I threw it up. It was like too advanced, you know? I was raised on like, not even talk about, I was raised on Taco John's, you know, like knock off of knock off things. And the idea that there were people who could contribute if they had some kind of connective tissue is what I was interested in. So there is this kind of like psychological and spiritual war. And there kind of needs someone to say like, man, I actually know how venture capital works. Like, it's like two and 20 to friends of mine in like the art world. They have no idea what that means. And I also am like deeply rooted in the history of culture and music and I'm interested in like the right people winning. And so if I can effectively be a low status person who can leverage like a high status person and maybe a high status person that can leverage a low status person, I can do this translator and do this kind of tissue. And I also think from the kind of more utilitarian angle, low status games are often like the best way to repurpose value just historically when you learn the history of Hollywood. I often, you know, talking to my contemporary art friends, I'm like, I was just a pure artist. I would be in Saudi right now, you know what I mean? I would be like, where else are you going to find someone who's like $3 million to like build a really compelling object? Like take a flyer, but I want it to be here. And it's Day Class A and people in America will be like, ugh, it's Middle East money. But that's what like people in France were saying about America not that long ago. And this was the Day Class A, we are new money, we are low status, you know, like Ralph Lauren is a Jewish kid from the Bronx who changed, Ralph Lipschitz who changed his name to like Ralph Lauren and started pretending to be a kid from Connecticut. I was able to play this game so well, they created this whole fantasy that became real. And I think that's a tangent that I'm also interested in. Like I love Lana Del Rey because her dishonesty is so internalized, it's real. Like, yeah, like Lana can tell you, you know, she was like living in a trailer park, like smoking meth with a local like rodeo guy. And I'd be like, I know it. I believe you my whole chest, my whole heart. Even though you were like your dad was a domain broker and had hundreds of millions of dollars or whatever it is. Like you even internalized these things so deeply that like the schizophrenia is real. Yes, yes, there's an idea, I've struggled to go over the years, but I think sort of more or less is that identity can be a projector and a mirror. And it's intuitive that it's a projector. Like if you put on, if you dyed your hair green or have a mock, like people are gonna perceive you differently. But after enough time, you're gonna perceive yourself differently, which is pretty profound. - Absolutely, like we are who we pretend to be. And that figure to you make it thing is, you know, one of, I think it's one of the things that's so easy to articulate but to truly live it and to become that is a real blessing to experiencing. Watching people overcome that imposter or whatever it is and just live it, commit. And you see it in LA, like you see the pirates. - Yeah, yeah. - They're still doing like an 80s hair metal thing and they live it and you're like that rocks. Good for you. - Do you think there are a lot of people who are really living it in crypto? - There are obviously a lot of imposter's. But a lot of them have left. I like crypto a lot right now unless people are in an AI. - The weirdos are hanging around. - Yeah, it's just like freaks and weirdos and people that are, you know, probably unemployable. A lot of places. And they're, you know, I wonder, I haven't thought a lot about it but yeah, I'm sure you encounter it. You know, the other day, I went to Shake Shack with my fiance, get a cheeseburger and she's pregnant. And I was like carrying all this things. And this guy just went above and beyond and helped us. I started talking to him and he was just so articulate, so curious, so thoughtful. You know, I was asking what he'd do. He was going to school, told him I work in technology. He had all these thoughts about AI. He's like really like poignant stuff. Like could explain a transformer. You know, which is like what most of the DCs I engage with, like, could in. - Right. - And so there is this is kind of like neat, reddit, you know, kind of lost individuals deeply curious. But maybe he doesn't have the tools to kind of contain it or articulate it such that they can like, you know, it's a, it's a possible by whatever institutional power is to be. - Yeah, it's not quite legible. And, you know, some part of me is really interested in identifying those people and giving them power and getting and teaching them how to become legible. And I think cryptos fool those people, which is so fun. I think that's one of the reasons I love hanging out in a telegram with a bunch of like racist and like insane anime, PIP people. - Yeah, so there's some, there's somebody human underneath. - There is, there's someone human underneath who read the wrong white paper or the wrong something else. They read too much Curtis or whatever. - Yeah, yeah, totally. - There's, okay, so there's this thing that has been happening for a while that you, I think, are very interested in, which is that attention and capital are compressing. Back to the idea of things being financialized. And I think this is interesting maybe through the lens of like, things being legible because part of what I think financialization of things does is it brings things to the forefront, this is you. You say this is the definitive mutation of the early adopter. The 2000s hipster discovered bands and basements and hoarded their finds like trade secrets, terrified of mainstream contamination. Today's equivalent, what Nemesis calls the creative director still wants to be early, but they want everyone else to show up to preferably with liquidity. Creative directors aren't gatekeeping, they're showing. Being first isn't about protecting your scene. It's about getting it at the bottom of the bonding curve and waiting for your idea to graduate to the DEX. Cultural capital has merged with the financial capital. Great writing, thank you. Maybe with that backdrop of like the weirdos that the internet has always been good at sort of like having a place for like, I'm curious how you think about when attention and culture are like fully financialized to something about them fundamentally changed, do you actually have less room for the, this was at least selfishly like one of my frustrations of crypto is like the financialized part of it and the speculation part of it sort of like clouds everything else out. You have something that's bubbling up to the surface and all that weird stuff you were just talking about is like hidden away somewhere. And I think what I am trying to figure out how to express is that all of the stuff that's being obscured needs to be obscured because we're entering into a new era. And I think it's as uncomfortable as it was even the move from like modernism to postmodernism, you know like the urinal, like do you shot me? I'm like, no, this is an art. I just be like, that's not a fucking art object. Like where is the craft, where is the skill? - Yes. - And I think that's like the great tension and I applaud people in Silicon Valley and the broader you know technology world for wanting to champion what they see as art. But I think what myself and other artists have been talking about a lot kind of behind the scenes is that the act of creation is not that different from the act of speculation if you squint. This idea that you have a belief about the future and you want to express it via a medium and have it validated or perceived by your peers or maybe recognize in a market is something that all of the artists that you know people champion do because those models are so antiquated or laggy by the time you get your work to an art fan by the time you get the album out, by the time you get the film out it often feels dated. You know, and I think what's tough for people that are actually interesting is you watch a new Paul Thomas Anderson film and you're like, oh cool, that conversation about like in cells and like civil war and a bunch of like 60 year olds are like, how radical? This is a reflection of our time. You're like, no, we're having that fight on Twitter 18 months ago. And so I think what I recognize is that all you know and I talk about in that piece a little bit is my group chats where my artists, you know, visual, you know, music filmmakers, we used to talk about prestige television or you know new films or art fairs. We talk about fed rate cuts. And you're like, wait, what happened? And I think what happened is they've recognized that there are instruments for expressing beliefs that now allow them to be right verifiably and with financial upside in the same way they could be with an art object. But now it's like skipping the middle. Yeah, skipping the middle. And without a 50% vague to your curator, right? And I think like meme coins and prediction markets are like bad instruments, but when the game before was you could bet on wheat futures if you understood weather patterns. Like they have an information advantage because they're a meteorologist. OK, well, like I have an information advantage because I'm a cultural savant. Why can't I have thousands next asymmetric upside? And so like that to me, I think is the great tension is these people have these very narrow ideas of what like an art community is and what a finance community is. And there's like the Patagonia vests and the Bushwick babes. But to me, I'm actually interested in saying like instead of those people living in opposition, which is a fool's game for the Bushwick babes because they guys have nukes and they have financial nukes. And you have like sticks, you know, both arrows. Like we can give you nukes too. And you can have a real meaningful advantage against these people in markets and you can have asymmetric upside and the yachts. So like, why not? So many of these things come down to like don't hate the player. Hate the game, I think too. Or like, and there's a lot of hating of the game. In a broader thing that I don't know if you've written about this publicly, but you kind of talk about this idea of the belief economy. And you have this specific frame around making to framing to predicting that partially is encapsulated in what you just said, but I think it would be helpful for you to talk specifically about like that. Danco has also written about this shift kind of post-postmodernism, but like what is that shift? I think it's also worth hitting on the framing part. I think most people sometimes sort of feel like we're still in that because it's the thing in the past and then obviously this new thing. - Yeah, I love Danco's piece. And so there's a group of friends, which maybe I would call like the new models extended universe. And that goes to Arthur at Trost, de Siddorella, Jeffel Siddorella, Holly Hernandez and Matt Dryhurst. You know, the novices folks like Dan Keller is here now and not part of the model is like, we've been deeply frustrated because we're people that are interested in progress. And technology for us has all of this white space and all of this incredible opportunity for progress. But post, you know, Trump election. And I think the artistic world seeing technology as these enablers of dictators, of tyrants, as you know, a rush of gate, whatever. Like you felt disenfranchised from both a bit. And so we've kind of had the talking isolation for a bit about the world that we see in front of us. And then the world we encounter when we go to a Biennale and just see like our original artworks and wall works and sculptures that could they're not meanly different than they were 20, 30 years ago. And so I think in my opinion and Danko's opinion and like the group chats, so this kind of like thing that's ethereal in the air that we're trying to pull out of it, it is this idea that the people who would have been articulating ideas about what's happening, what's going to happen, have taken different forms in society over the years. And the ones we're most aware of, you know, probably are in the framing way I'd use in that piece were like the modernist era where the thing you produced had all the value to this postmodernist era, where we identified actually like the narrative and the framing around the thing at the most value to now we're talking about with this belief economy where the thing you were able to call or predict has that same value. And I think it feels really uncomfortable for people because they're like, it's all fucking gambling now and you're like, well, yeah. But like the always was meme, you know what I mean? - What has happened? - They're always decisions being made and they're market forces and they're, you know, their outcomes that were more opaque. And if you choose to kind of make them more visible it's uncomfortable but I think it's very real and it allows for, you know, new champions to emerge. And I think that's the part that like we're all really interested in is that predicting is very similar creating and if you squint, you know, making a wall work or having an opinion about prestige television is very similar to taking a position or expressing that belief in a prediction market, a meme coin or, you know, betting on a meta on the thing I'm looking at now. - It seems almost that maybe a little less so with the making part but especially the narrative the framing part, it's almost like we ran out of scarcity there. Like there's nothing scarce in the ability to like, again, I talk with Gabe Whaley about this, like going viral is like, it's shot on goal. Like it's not even, there's no novelty, there's no magic there and it is interesting that sort of like consensus on the collective belief is fundamentally scarce but relatively rare and that's the thing that everyone's seeking. I wonder like, I don't know, one of the things I was thinking about a lot is I went through this is just like, this feels very reactionary even if you're right and I think there are optimistic parts of what you're saying. Like don't we still wanna incentivize people to make things? Like having all of our best people, all of our tastemakers skip over everything to the anticipating, reacting to what's going to be next. Maybe we'll horse you but like, I think that would, if I were to guess what the average sort of thoughtful person's reaction to what you're saying is, even if all of that's true, like are we just gonna be in a world where we're all like speculating on made up memes? - Potentially I think a lot there. I think talking about my reality being shots on goal, the other thing that I maybe didn't highlight in that piece that I maybe should have talked about more is that discourse is probably the most important product of millennial culture. Like podcasts, everyone has clubhouse voice, every dinner party you go to people are repeating the same New York Times podcast takes or whatever it is. And we live in this sea of takes with no way to sift through what's meaningful. - Yes. - Right, and so Marcus being a tool for seeking on information I think is really interesting. - Yes. - So to speak to the part about making actual objects, I think it's really important. I just think that robotics and AI automation are going to devalue those things. And so-- - It scares you again, yep. - Yeah, and I think having lived through technology devaluing things, it's like, okay, who are people that you care about, like care about, create a people. And I want them to win. Okay, well then where do you shepherd them? I shepherd them to where the value is going. Like, and I think what I appreciate about Silicon Valley is they want creative people to do well, but they are effectively pushing them to where the puck is, not to where it is going. And that's why I feel like even if dissonant, uncomfortable, I need to actively speak up and be like, hey, this matters, go here, get in the resource that you can impose your will and point at you in the world 'cause it's important that you do because your figure is out once you've won, almost. - I mean, I think, yes, we'll figure it out once you've won, but I also think we're being quite thoughtful about it. Like, you know, and I think it's on common people to hear as well, but part of growing up is that there are people that make decisions in the world, and you can either have a seat at the table and influence or not. And, you know, the all-in podcast has, you know, extra to rest, real at this point, influenced as a space force. And if we can shepherd people from having conversations on dialectic into having seats at the most powerful tables in the world, I would like that in order to do that, they probably will need to have meaningful capital. And meaningful amounts of verifiably correct takes. - Yes, okay, so this is interesting. One of the things you said a couple times, you just got at the end, is that markets are a way to get to at least one kind of truth. This is a pretty, pretty profound idea. Obviously, the prediction market kind of stuff, lots of different things. It's a market-driven truth. I'm curious what you think about, if you have any thoughts broadly on what that truth is and if it derives from other types of truth we might have. And then on top of that, like, does that truth line up with what creative people are trying to get closer to? Maybe back to the other thing around authenticity and honesty or whatever the things maybe creatives are normally sort of trying to get at. - Yeah, and this is a sticky one, right? So I guess the framing I would use is like in a pre-enlightened world, there's effectively like magic and like a divine interpretation of truth and like ideas. And I think in this post-truth environment, like there's so much takes, so much just that you can find your truth in your research. There's been a return to magic. And I think what's interesting for me is that, again, like if you think about it and kind of like less contemporary terms, like in a tribe, there were kind of people that created magic and were able to like define what truth is. - 100%. - And I think that like, you know, obviously the narratives and the stories that control our lives like define those truths, whether it's capitalism or neoliberalism or whatever it is. And so the thing that I'm interested in truth right now and in markets being able to, I guess, reveal truth is that, and this is again an accountable reality, a truth is subjective in a lot of ways. And what you're seeing, I think, in capital markets at the highest level is this unwinding of this like efficient markets hypothesis and retail effectively like running over some of these value investors and Steve Cohen's in the world. And you're like, what's going on? And I think the idea that we can stay retarded longer than you can stay solvent, it's like quite poignant. Like the Wall Street bets thing, like there are P ratios and then there are a bunch of like retarded redditors who are like, no, I actually those don't matter. And effectively at some point, it's a tipping point where like a P ratio was just a meme, you know? It's truth, but it's a collectively accepted truth. Like it's, by the way, when we say truth here, I think what we kind of mean is consensus. Exactly. And I think like at some point, consensus tips. And I think that's, that again, is the opportunity, right? And I think that's what like great, what I would describe as like creative people do. You can tell, you can be Karl Marx or the Chicago School Boys or whomever you want and you can come up with a narrative people internalize and manifest and turn into real actions in the real material world. And all of a sudden, that is the dominant form of our everyday lives and truth. Yeah. Again, you're pulling me into cancelable territory. But like, I think it's really interesting. I think it's really interesting. There, I guess we've been talking a lot about it from the lines of like the creative person. One of the first interviews I did, or early ones, was with Jacob Horn, and he had this line where he's basically like, there's a difference between speculation and gambling along the lines of your belief economy, which is like, speculation is sort of putting weight behind or steaks behind something that you want to be more likely. I guess I'm curious how you're thinking about that now and how you're thinking about the ways that like, having more hard incentives versus soft incentives from the like crowd to push the taste makers or whatever else we want in a certain direction. Like, one version of this, one instrument is meme coins. Sure. Like, I think a lot of people look at that and they're just like, what, like this is, this is, yeah. There's nothing here. What is, and you can be a specific or not specific as you like, but like, what is a version of this that is good for creatives, for all the stuff we talk about, for musicians, for visual artists, for like, even just cultural taste makers. Like, what do you think that starts to look like where regular people can be at home with their favorite creator, favorite artist, or whatever, and like, speculate on them in a way that, I'm investing in five likes or whatever. Yeah, yeah, totally. So I think, you know, try to set the state of play right now. Jesse Walden kind of describes his current meme coin moment as like, the 4-chann moment. And there is like an emergent Reddit or Twitter moment that will allow people to kind of, to have these takes in a synonymous or anonymous way and find community and kind of do all the things at social media and those kinds of, those, those chants, those evolve chants, and able us to do. The crochet of meme coins is, you know, a bunch of degenerates in the wild, wild west, effectively launching tokens that represent some idea or meme. And then people speculate on how much attention they will get. The problem in my opinion, and I think, I would say that the pros in my opinion, are we've created an instrument that allows creative and cultural people, people at least aware of how your information flows. Bushwick girls are right. Tibet, right? And it may be some Bushwick girls yet, but there are, you know, it's the, Frank's a telegram, guys, but we're like, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's, honestly, it's like Fortnite kids. Yes, you know, and I think it's really unsexy for people to go look at a bunch of like, Spurgy Fortnite gamers who are, you know, betting on whether ony, Elon's like AI companion will get enough attention or not. It feels bleak, but it also has opened the aperture as such that you can squint and see a world where if you have, if you have an information advantage on whether skinny jeans I tweeted about will become popular again, our mainstream again, I think it would be fantastic if you could express that belief and have the asymmetric upside that Bill Akman has. Bill Akman has fucking takes. Why listen to Bill Akman? More than ever. Yeah, because, you know, he, because he has billions of dollars from taking asymmetric best, I need to approach some girl and say, man, meet you. You know, like, why does he have influence and why couldn't the Bushwick's be? Which the internet may have meme that into being a real thing now. I know it actually probably does bang. If I was a single man, I might go out there and see who's like brain rot is me at the level bar. But, so I think, I think that what we would need, I think there's a few things. I think you need attention instruments that can persist. The time horizon is for meme questions right now are so small. I mean, even if you think mom Donnie is going to be mayor and there are 400 mom Donnie coins, I can't pick the right one, but even if you do, it might pump and rug in two hours. And if you're a person who isn't your average fortnight enthusiast, those attention spans are too small for you to petition and probably win. On that note for a second, I think most people who have like ever heard that example are just like, oh, obviously it's prediction markets. Like prediction market. Like, could you talk about maybe an example of something that you think is like better served by whatever it is that you're pointing to that's more nebulous, rather than like, there's something about whatever sports and politics that are pretty deterministic. - Yeah. - So yeah, I think prediction markets are great at deterministic. I think things that have like kind of discrete outcomes. I think-- - Skinny jeans is a, maybe exchange jeans is a soft one, right? And so I think a couple of different things. So we'll start with the obvious. I think there are soft things that don't have probably resolutions that everyone could agree on. - Tip the scale a little bit. - Yeah, and so the question for me often is like, okay, if this thing is soft and squishy and we can't get an elegant resolution, that's probably better served as a market where people can vote with their dollars and I don't know how much attention they get and you can just see a real time scoreboard. The other thing is I think, you know, the illiquidity of prediction markets and the lack of fungibility. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Tip to me creates a lot of interesting challenges and beyond that, like bonding curves are magic. You know, like if you haven't played with mean coins and then you do, there's a very regular occurrence where people will bet $10 and make $100,000 because of the convexity of those bonding curves and the way they're shaped. On the other hand, you know, if you get a 20% return on prediction markets, fantastic. A 2X, 3X is fantastic. You know, because most of these markets, as in most of the liquidity in these books whether it's sports or politics or things, there are these sharps that are so advanced. - Yeah. - Like the edge is soft. - 2%. - It's interesting when you say that like, I think most people's intuition is actually like, the correct thing is that you can get a 20% like the prediction market thing. And the $10 and $100,000 is actually like a broken novel feature of it just being weird and like, immature. - Yes. - And you're almost saying the opposite. You're actually saying like, that's the thing. - Yeah, I think like, to me and I think this is like, maybe as bizarre as like the sharps you're right now. Like the broken and immature is the alpha and what artists are great at. Like the sharps being like, this thing you piss in is art is not something that a market would value. - Yeah. - And I think that is, you know, like Warholian Tincan, you know, a soupcan, like, that is-- - Yes. - Effectively what Bondy curves a lot of people to create a market and be like, no, actually this is important. And you're like, that is an important, that's slop. And you're like, no, trust me. And what great-- - Well, this back to slop becoming punk maybe, I don't know. - Totally. And I think what like great collectors have been able to do historically is like, take the aside of that that and be like, yeah, I want all these Warhols. And this basket got kind of a catch draw. I think it rocks actually. And I think that is the opportunity on both sides that market. - I want to talk a little broader about speculation. I don't know. It just feels like the gambling, the sort of speculation in culture is out of control. People are starting to talk about it. And your big kind of, maybe not counter, but at least thing that's cutting through a lot of it is it's rational to speculate a couple of things from you. All of the crypto ideologues will tell you that the trenches are the death of crypto and it's all extraction and brainless, but they're wrong, obviously. From my POV, the trenches are a lot of people making very rational decisions about how they should spend their time and their energy to create the best outcomes for themselves and their loved ones. I also think they're underserved. Lots of people are building for devs, creators, vibe coders, whatever, but not a ton of people building for someone trying to turn $20 into $40 to buy Chipotle. Obviously like, there's this sort of silly super microversion of this. There's the like broader financial nihilism thing. Like, what are you seeing? What is happening for 20 year olds? And like, why is it rational to speculate? - I think a couple of things, I think often I get frustrated because the things that are happening for 20 year olds are the same thing that are happening when we were 20 year olds in different moments, right? We were like young people who wanted to make a mark on the world and in order to do so, we needed to prove ourselves. And oftentimes we could go to like low status domains and do things in order to build up an XP to get a shot. And in parallel, you need to survive. And so whether it was clipping sneakers for a generation or for me, like building eBay auction pages for like my grandparents, you're going to look for Alpha. And so I think that's happening. But I think what's really awesome is like, a version of the internet that I was drawn to when the young person reading Kevin Kelly or whatever is happening. Because if I could use entirely online economy, it's existed. People are spinning up mean coins. They're paying people and putting digital currencies all over the world without permission to manage a discord or a telegram or to bag work in whatever way. And it's a totally like online behavior being paid in an online currency. I think it's what people dreamed of. - The irony is it's not metaverse shaped enough or something. And as a result, people are like, it doesn't look like Eve online. And so it doesn't count. - Totally. - Or it's uglier than I wanted it to be. - Yeah, and what is, I think, and I had similar sentiments. So I started talking to the people in the trenches. And it's like, who are you? I'm 21, I live in Milanoa, Missouri. I work at a bookstore part time. And while I'm there, I reply guy handsome with like CAs, like, you know, tokens he should buy. And I'm able to turn $20 into $100. You know, I make 12 bucks an hour working at this bookstore. I could work eight hours or I could just reply guy handsome for an hour a day and be up 100 bucks. And I'm like, absolutely, it's rational. Absolutely, you should be doing those things. And it speaks to probably what will come and it's uncomfortable because it's new. But I think, again, you have to think. - And because we don't believe in the underlying thing to go back to the other thing, which is actually like being ahead of consensus. Most people in the world don't believe is productive or something. - Yeah, and I think it's easier to be out of step when you're already low status and like perceived as like, you know, day class A. And so I think that's often where the alpha is. Like, of course, if it's consensus, like any great investor, you know, contrarian, it's be contrarian and right. And I think a lot of great investors these days, I don't think are that contrarian. - No, which is maybe part of the. - And the momentum moment, which I also kind of think speaks to like, the tipping of this efficient market thing, you know, is like, I think what a lot of investors have learned also is that, you know, we don't need a name, any of them, but I think the really intelligent one's like, you can create media arms and you can shape consensus. - Yes. - And so you can make yourself, right, us, by having the hoards follow you. So you can take gigantic bets, shape consensus, and be right, which is what Hollywood was so good at forever, you know, manufacturing consent. - And Hollywood forgot that or they just lost their leverage. They're still fantastic at it, but they've lost their leverage, right? Like what they had was, they had a corner, they had a monopoly on distribution of media. And so now that people can do it, I think the people that have capital and media arms are like, oh, we could try to pick, or we could just king make. And be right long enough to exit. - It's funny how, when you say it like that, it sounds a lot very similar to the new thing that's happened. It's like, hmm, one last thing on this, there's an excerpt from the piece I referenced earlier that Danco wrote on this, we're calling prediction kind of the successor to postmodernism, but he gets something interesting and I'm curious who you take on, which is he says, how early early you are to something. It's now an essential component of your relationship to that thing. The timelines and reels represent what is going on are increasingly about a single metatopic. Are you predicting it or is it predicting you? This has become the main thing that you feel. And it is a complete break from the postmodern aesthetic where your consumption was wrapped in an unthreatening fuzzy blanket. It doesn't matter what time of year you arrive at Whole Foods to buy strawberries, the farm stand, Simulacra is recreated faithfully. The prediction aesthetic is a new thing and rejects postmodernism. Quote, I want to feel something, even if it hurts. And this is like, it at least sits next to the it's rational to speculate thing, which is like, is there something else also happening here, which is like, we all want to feel something again? Like gambling is both rational, but also like, in a flat algorithmic society, it's like volatile. - Yeah, and I think gambling is rational is provocative and there's so much I can say. But I think, you know, there's a lot of that daco piece I don't believe in the line with. Others that I'm not, but I think he's pulling exactly the right thread. I think one of the things you're pulling out here that I like is, and this is kind of dark, but I remember I got on airplane once to fly and I was like, I should look at my tweets to figure out like what the last tweet I have is playing goes down. And it was like a crossing the thing, but in the exact moment after that, I had this thought where I was like, at least no more email, you know, like there was, we live in this life that like lacks finality to this extreme such that like, you know, at the end of my life, the kind of like the thought of it was like, damn, at least you would be able to like, you know, add some email ever again. And it was a bizarre thought, but it reminded me of the lack of finality in our lives, like more broadly, you know, like all of your ex-girlfriends, your eighth grade friends are in your cell phone and your Instagram feeds. Like, we lack finality in a lot of our lives, and I think it's tough, right? Everything is so ambiguous. Everything's frictionless. And I think it's really comfortable to watch a basketball game and watch it resolve. And things that provide finality, a scoreboard, it's actually like comforting. And so I think there is something about staring at a hyper-liquid purpose and being like, damn, I'm up, damn, I'm down. Like, it's concrete. And I think there's a difference there between gambling as how people understand it. I think there's a misconception that people think people go to the slots in Vegas and they go to win or to lose. They go to me in the machine zone. They go to be in the machine zone. They go to disappear, right? And I think that's very different from being confronted with the finality of your up or your down. I think they're the good job of obscuring that, right? And I think what-- - Crypto is more the machine zone or is it more the actual semi-lackerm of finality? - I find that the finality of crypto, and they blur, which is concerning, right? Is like, people have recognized their opportunities to implement more of machine zone into these things. - But that's probably more common in fantasy sports or whatever then. I mean, you could argue whatever draft kings or whatever. There's all kinds of places to get lost in the machine zone or in just mobile games. But that said, I think-- - Instagram Reels, for that matter. - Yeah, I think-- And when you talk about the finality, I guess the hyper liquid perp, I think, is compelling because you're like, I'm up or I'm down. But also the scoreboard of, like, I was right versus I was wrong on a take on a belief. Like in the messy world where everything's so subjective and unambiguous, like, Bitcoin hitting 100K was sick 'cause I was rich. But it was sicker because I was fucking right. You know what I mean? And like, I think that's something that people feel across the board. - Yeah, I love it after a lot. I want to shift a little bit. I think still connected. You, I've explained to you to people many times over the years and I always refer to you as sort of the person who's like most consistently ahead of culture. And part of that, I think, is that I'm sure of everyone you know, you're not the most at. But you are, and maybe specifically you're super on the frontier of both technology and of culture, which are like kind of orthogonal things. So many things, like obviously early music stuff, crypto, Michaela, like, there's a tweet from you in November 2020, obviously, this was resonant to me. You said gaming is replacing music as the linchpin of emergent social scenes and it makes everyone 30 plus I talked to really uncomfortable. You're the first person to ever mention a litigram to me, like there's so many of these things. And critically, I think the edge of culture partially means what's going to become consensus but critically it means weird for now. And so I guess my question is what do you think, what do you think has caused you to develop such a nose for weird, particularly in a one that actually resolves to consensus? - Yeah, it's a good question. I will say I'm actively trying to be a more on time now, I think it's important for people that I care about, but it's a, I think, so this is a tangent, but I'm gonna have a child in March and-- - Congratulations. - I, you know, obviously it provokes a ton of thoughts, but one of them is like, you know, what you hope to offer them. And to me, it's just so clearly curiosity. Like I don't care what it is that, you know, he's going to be into, but I want him to be deeply curious. And for whatever reason, I mean, I could probably, I could probably analyze myself and say, because I was like a poor black kid who was good at sports, but put in like the alternative and gifted classrooms in like middle class white Iowa, I was like consistently othered. And like wanted to find places to, to, to A impose my will to create suffering for other people that made me feel uncomfortable. And so it was like, it's why I played football. It was partially to be good and loved, but also to like, - Like a poor back ribs when I like came off the corner, you know? And it was also the reason when we did times tables in math class where like, I was gonna fucking win, you know? 'Cause I want to feel good, but also I wanted to let you know that you're worth, you're not better than me. - Yep. - And I think that that was also the sport that's what Nemesis was talking about. Like in some respects, I grew up in a pretty anomalous, era, like I'm 40 years old. I was 15 and 2000. And I lived through this moment that I reflected on, I actually want to write something about, maybe I should. That's been, I think pretty detrimental to a lot of Millennial men. And that is like historically, like I'd watch Saved by the Bell, which is 80s, I know you've ever seen, when I was young and I was like, it's weird that the really buffed Jock guy is the cool guy. Because I'm 14 now and the cool guy is the angular art guy. Like the coolest movie in America is the lagging. It's Garden State and like Zach Bradford is a sex symbol. And like Pete went from the cover of Rolling Stone with his shirt off and is the coolest guy. And when I went on live journal or like these dating apps, the mode was effectively, you put like the five books you like, I'll put the five books I like. And if you like the same books, we should date. And I was like, that may have been correct on this. And I think for nerds, it's kind of like it is. And then there was this cultural shift where like, you watch technology, which was the dominant cultural force, move from the nerds to talk to their shoes to like the MBAs that took over. And you watch dating apps go from you write your books and you write my books to like Tinder, which is like a really normal, we make eye contact at a bar. You know, we keep looking or we don't. And Instagram where it was like, "Dang, you look good in the bikini, lots of likes." And I was kind of knocked off guard because I was like, whoa, this is like hyper heteronormative and masculine and sexual. And I was taught to like meet a young woman. I should tell them that we should get married and like they'll be my punk rock princess. And then there's this like, Zoomers being like, "Hey baby, we should link," you know? And so I think they're, I lived through this like bizarre moment where nerds dominated culture. And it was celebrated to go into a record store. And you know, like I remember as a kid, I went to a Christian sleep away thing in Iowa. And my friend's older brother was in MXPX Coverband, which is just like kind of niche pop punk band. And I was a kid and I was watching play and I was like, that was awesome. And I went to the CD store in the mall, North Park Mall in Davenport, Iowa. And I was like, "I wanna get this punk rock thing." I think it's like something XX. And they were like, "No FX." And I was like, "Yeah, that's it." And I got a No FX album. I got in a punk, I went to the punk record store. And I was like, "I like No FX." And they were like, "That's fucking whack." You know, "This is what you should be into." And they pushed me into like, "Fugazi." And like, you know, all of this stuff that defined me, I'm still straight edge, I'm still punk. And like, it was really celebrated to be deeply nerdy and inquisitive. And so I think I wanted to win at that sport also. And so when I got in a No FX, I needed to get to grind core. Or like, I needed to get noise shows where they're running back in clean and street distortion pedals. Like, that was the final boss I had to get to. And I don't think that's like compelling anymore. - It is interesting that I suspect if you surveyed, I don't know, five different generations you'd get. Like, it's the pendulum swinging. It's like a sign curve. And like, maybe one thing that's weird about it is like, while you're kind of living it, media's lagging and pop culture's lagging. And so you're sort of disoriented. I don't know, like I also wonder if just like, the extremely into something thing is always going to win out. Over to like the extremely curious. The extremely curious always wins out. It maybe takes like a lot like you, I don't know what stretch of your life you weren't cool. But like, it probably didn't take that long ultimately for you to like, for things to resolve. - Well, I think that's the interesting thing is like, obviously like cool because of different axes. But like, if you were to talk about like, pop cultural cool, it's not clear to me that being super curious is the path where I think like, you know, the people that I see winning the cool game right now. - Oh, maybe because those people are on time to go back to your earlier. - Yeah, I guess they are curious, but they're curious of like the contemporary moment and they're less interested in the historical context. And I think it's because things move so fast. It's like, not clear that you need to have that knowledge. - Yes, yes. - And I think that's like, I remember that brat moment, the choixx brat moment. And it felt kind of like the last hurrah for like the world that I knew where it was like, here's Charlie, who honestly, I've known this industry was 16, we did some of our first sessions together in America and my bedroom and Silver Lake. And as someone who's always been so knowledgeable, so bright, so talented, and was finally able to make the music that responded to people. But I also think more importantly, a lot of the kind of Bushwick elite, you know, like the publicist, the people at Spotify, they were able to be like, this is what it should be. Like someone making interesting, most advanced, yes, like accessible music that references a moment that's important culturally and kind of elevates it and twists it. And I remember like the height of that, going to look at the Spotify streams and being like, wow, this is amazing to see. And I look and I was like, oh, this song is like, 200 million streams, that's crazy. And I just went to look at the most streamed artists at the moment. And like, ahead of her was like the neighborhood, you know, which is like a band like, they had a record in a long time and had to get thought about and made like really plateless as a music or like, Charlie Puth, to me, who is like, Sevant, but like, you know, quite boring. And so I took it as this accomplishment, but I'm still well aware that there are tons of things all people have never heard of that are gonna do far bigger numbers than that, which was able to capture, you know, whatever it is, Bushwick extended, the global Bushwick. - You started that answer by saying you're trying to be more on time. - Yeah. - It's not surprising, you say like one thing that has been, like, Michaela's maybe the best possible example, but like, you've been early, arguably too early to a lot of things. And I have to imagine that there's like some internal, like the honest version of you is way too early. And that's awesome, but like the back to all the commercial, like, I don't know, what is that? What is that feeling of the, obviously on some level, like being on time has really obvious positive outcomes, which is like, it's commercially resonant. Your things maybe actually get to go to the distance versus be the thing that the kids today are inspired by. Yeah, but I'm curious what the psychological thing is there. - Yeah, and I think, you have to get old and tired. Like, and I think, and you kinda hope that that slows you down, like part of that Bob Dylan statement was like, "Ooh, that's terrifying." - Yeah. - And I will probably go on it tangent again, but one of my best friends is the guy named Sam Taylor. Sam and Elon were looking for a place for the Giga Factory. And in parallel, I had been really fascinated with this idea. This is like 2016, 2017. With getting all of my favorite brilliant people to move to Iowa. Like, I was like, "Man, it's actually pretty awesome for seasons. "Drives Chicago in two hours, where I'm from." Like, what if we just all went back and we did, what you didn't Williamsburg or in Silver Lake here. And you own property, and that evolved and this thing called actually, so ruling in the musical plan. And I was like, I think it's a way to reverse brain drain. It is kind of cliche tech, right? I'd be like, "I'll start a city." But I was like, "We can go. "We can basically work with economic development directors "to give us incentives to move there." And Sam was like, "You're totally nuts." But like, we've been close to the people in Tulsa. And we're talking about building a factory there. They're really in these kind of ideas. You should just go and talk to these people. And so I went and long story short, I went to say I named George Kaiser. Billionaire, oil guy, unbelievable, unbelievable guy. I think like famously was like the first person to identify Obama and like really back him and it was deeply unpopular. But I met him and he was probably like one who was late '70s. It's not early '80s. And he built this like Disney land in the center of Tulsa with free buses that go there. It makes me want to cry thinking about it. And when I met him, you know, I met him and we were on this walk 'cause he tries to walk multiple miles a day. And he was talking about how he wants to make Tulsa this like cultural center. And he's like, "I love what you're talking about. Like we should do this. We should bring this here." And he was like, "I have all these consultants that are talking to me about what I can do to make this center of culture." And you know, one of them said I should do like an EDM festival. And he's like, "I don't think that's right." You know, I think for like a couple hundred million, I was like, "I can move all of Broadway and theater and ballet here." And I was like, "You're fucking right, dude." Like don't let these 22 year old McKenzie fucks tell you you're wrong. Like you're fucking so right. It's brilliant. It's like so, it's such an inspiration to me still. - Wow. - But what I also saw like in his eyes was this person who was talking to me and he was like, "What you want to do? I need you to do it and do it now." 'Cause like the clock is winding down for me. And it was like deeply inspiring but also somewhat terrifying because I've someone who's just had endless ideas. And I don't know that it will just stop one day. But I do know that I'll be confronted with a reality where it's like-- - You're running out of time. - I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time. And so all that is to say, I think that like the Bob Dylan thing was terrifying but also inspiring and that potentially I could slow down and be right and have enough resources that I could start to paralyze and do a lot of things and try to chew through this list. - Yes, yes. - And maybe you get satiated by the time the Grimmie River comes knocking or Brian Johnson is able to extend me in the perpetuity or whatever it is. But I think that's part of the reason that I want to be on time is this like, you know, very human fear of the clock stopping. - That's quite an answer. On a maybe a lighter note or maybe not, what are you obsessed with today? Maybe outside of the speculation stuff we talked about, which I know you're spending a lot of time thinking about, like what are you obsessed with today that you think the rest of us are gonna catch up on? Hopefully soon. - Oh, wow. - We're just anything else that's been firing that's sort of sense. I know you were really interested in streaming streamers for a little while. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that I'm absolutely interested in what I'm trying to think of things that are maybe less obvious. I'm very interested in telegram. I don't think not because they're crypto at all but because I've been able to stumble into these portals where teenagers seemingly can be very free. And because I'm a non, I think they let me in, but there are these channels where they all upload MP3s and they talk about the music that they're discovering. And it's really interesting to me to see this up to their end too. And the kind of revisionist history of what they think was really important when I was 20 and I'm talking about it. But beyond that, these channels where they're able to do what I was able to do on an internet that wasn't so neutered, I often get really upset thinking about the overtime window was acceptable on YouTube or really any of these platforms saved for maybe X. Like I just don't think Tyler the creator could release the Yonkers video right now on YouTube. - Why? - Because he hangs himself, you know? And like, you know, there's, you know, I wouldn't watch one of my, I was playing a show in San Francisco with my DJ duo and I was reminded of this band Girls. That's a song called Lust for Life. And it's such a perfect encapsulation of a San Francisco that I knew. It's like young, like the 50,000 Art Hose San Francisco, like it used to exist. And like if you watch that music video, like it's an encapsulation of like this radical band and these radical Art Hose and like queer kids hanging out in bathtubs and clapping and jamming. - What I was reminded is I don't even know that that would be allowed because it's like, you know, young people, nudity or whatever it is. And so in these dark corners of Telegram, you're seeing, like I'm watching them post and it feels like Tumblr or like on blogs. There's like, you know, there's stuff that is horrible, like Thin Spowe and like, you know, anorexia posting and cutting and, you know, all the goth cliches of Tumblr that I saw that felt somewhat like rights of passage. But why I had them in probably misinformed to think the best of it gone away? That you were living in this really like, you know, progressive young, like people are still doing it all these demons. And I'm manifesting the same ways that I'm familiar with. And we've pushed them to the margins what they still exist. And I think what's interesting for me is, you know, hearing them talk about culture and their experience, there are the cliches that I'm familiar with on YouTube. But we need to talk to these people. And yeah, I've now kind of like doxed myself as like boomer and some of them. They're able to just give me like unique insights. And so I guess some, maybe it speaks like a pendulum that constantly swings where we're talking about the things I'm interested in now are like these unfettered cultural spaces on the internet. Like it sounds silly and quite trite because a lot of us remember that. But most of the stuff we interact with now is mediated by like algos, you know? - It's really interesting to see that 'cause my next thing I wanted to talk you about is that it's come up in so many conversations that I talked about with a few people on the podcast, Eugene Wei, like the consensus view is actually that there are no subcultures on the internet anymore. The consensus view is that like, for whatever reason, lack of friction, so many other things like we have this like total flattening, you've even talked about like iOS City being more culturally interesting in New York. And I have to wonder or imagine that part of that is that it relates to something else you've said, which is that New York is the sound stage for the internet. And because of that, like everything in New York, it's the other thing. It's every Mexico City, New York, every coffee shop it looks the same. It's really interesting to me that you have found, obviously for a while in Discord and now in this other place, it's like where on the internet can you actually knock it in? Yeah. And that's what's allowing for the fertile ground and the flowering and the interestingness and like by definition, it can't be servied. Certainly. And that was like one of my great gripes of like the woke moment was like, you know, inclusivity is incredibly boring, you know? As like the one black dude getting VC funding, I was like, actually like this sucks. I think we should have boundaries. Boundaries are how you define society. And like people should be exceptional and they should be of all kinds of all walks of life. Absolutely. But we shouldn't be like any old asshole in this place. Like Berkheim's not special because fucking suits get in. And increasingly less interesting because some suits do get in. And so I think like boundaries are absolutely important. And exclusivity is like I want to write this thing in praise of exclusivity, but I was still a CEO, a company, you know? And so I was like, maybe I shouldn't get fucking canceled. But I absolutely couldn't agree more. Like maybe that is at the core of what I've, you know, I have very fond memories of getting fake IDs to get into shows, you know, and go places. And it made those experiences sweeter and richer. And maybe it's all psychological, but maybe it is those boundaries. How do you, how do you find these? Like is the finding of these telegram groups sort of like getting into the party or is it something totally different? Yeah. I guess I think what's nice is I've developed, I think by doing the homework, have just developed a taste for bizarre, like when I buy artwork, I buy stuff that I love that I'm hate, you know? And I often find that like, fuck, I hate that. Ends up being like, I love that in six months. It's doing something to me that's causing a reaction. It's not the middle. Yeah, but I think ultimately it's like this narcissism of small differences where you're like, this is so close to a thing that I am. But like this water down or this like, this thing that I hate, I think the thing that kind of got me into this telegram was some really wild, super ADD, you know, clip to an old break-course song that I vaguely recognized, which is all kinds of like anime and like Wojax and memes cut up. And it was shared from this, and you can see the forwarded thing in telegram from so Armageddon. I drew an Armageddon and it was all this is, you know, it's people being blown up by drones. You're creating like Russian kids sharing like, you know, crystal castles derivatives or whatever it is. And you can just like clicking into the other things that are being forwarded from a lot of them sucked. Some of them were like really interesting. And then I just keep clicking and then some of them get shut down or whatever. Curiosity is the end of them. Yeah, and I think just like developing a palette for like what is actually good? Like I don't think a lot of people stop it and think critically is this good? Is it good? And that that is oftentimes people are like, what can I do to be successful? I'm like, you can just stop and do the homework. Like why was your podcast so excellent? Like you've written red all this stuff about me instead of like winging it. And most people don't have time to not wing it or the kind of like, where would they want to do it? But just don't wing it. But also it's just like, you have to care. Like clear it like the reason you can do this is 'cause you care. Yeah, totally. I am, that's absolutely right. Whatever the program busts, busts ticket theory of excellence, whatever it's called. Like it does ring true. Like I do love this shit. I want to find new things. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of at least some of the stuff you were talking about, particularly around exclusivity, and another thing you were early to, probably not on time, although it was friends with benefits and dows and obviously the breadstuff too, building dapper collectives. Like I want to talk about the exclusivity part specifically, but maybe before we get there, like, I guess just what stands out from that arrow of like a bunch of things, which is like crypto highs and lows, COVID, building, getting super into discord, building kind of like the, at least the the cultural Dow. And now you also have some distance from it? Yeah, still remember, still very excited about FWB. I think what stands out, I think what was clear to a lot of us is that what crypto is doing is effectively speed running like a history of markets and organizations. And most of these trials, we're going to end up in the exact same place that we were. But I think it was important with this new coordination layer of the internet to be like, maybe things go different? Let's give it a go. Let's give it a go, right? And we can run these experiments pretty rapidly. And so let's give it a go. FWB was interesting because I was still pretty, I was still of the belief that people would like fork things, copy ideas, iterate on them. And I think at the moment we were in the crypto cycle, we were kind of more of like an extraction layer. And so the idea was still like come up the primitive where it was like, hey, all you've ever known, this was when the fork crypto was, you know, even remotely mainstream, in my opinion. And the idea was, okay, you've only known networks where all the value accrued to the people in the middle of the DCs and the founders and employees. Like there's a world where you can create network with the value accrues to the people who make it interesting. - Yes. - And we created like super dumb tokenomics. - But by the way, you made this, at least you messaged, I got a message in fall 2020, which was pre-any NFT stuff, like pre-any web three, like this was quite, this was really, really primitive, I think for people. - And I think the idea was just to like create a spark with the dream that, and that's been some of like, the bummer of Michaela and this is like, here's a primitive. It's exciting for you to go expand on it. And people were like, eh. - We just wanted this. - I really just like cash out on this thing and like move on to the next thing that has some momentum and then cash out. And so I think there's still plenty of room for people to create these spaces that, you know, value can accrued to people that make them interesting. - Yeah. - I thought you'd used to think of a decent job of it now. I think one of the challenge was in the Gensler era. It was pretty impossible to kind of accrue value to a token without getting in trouble. And so there are other hands were tied, but now it's like better time than ever. - Well, that's kind, yeah, one of the thoughts I had is like, oh my gosh, what a time to try to do a new version of that. - 100%, you know? - And it's more maximally commercial or whatever, but yeah. - Maybe I don't really know to that. Like what's the relationship between community and exclusivity? Like can those two things actually, are they necessary for each other? Are they at odds eventually? - That's a good question. I don't know that I'm really interrogated like deeply, but like on the surface for me at least, I think they live in harmony and live in tension. And I think I like to optimize for a tension. Like whenever like Barrel's taxonomy of players, like you kind of need these griefers, you can probably achieve her. So they have something to play against. I often get like frustrated and people talk about politics, and they're like fucking AOCs and Tucker Carlson. And I'm like, you absolutely need those things. You need that dialectic, so to speak. And so I think for me, communities are places where boundaries can emerge. And they're like petri dishes, right? And so there's this kind of, this is idea that you have, you know, this primordial soup, that turns into a community, the community can spawn like a lot more primordial soups that spawn into these like boundary communities. And I'm not totally sure how one emerges or one gets together, but that's how I see it in my head. - Yeah, on that maybe, on that note, like Ken, I guess my question was gonna be Ken these things scale. Maybe part of what you're saying is like scale doesn't mean them getting infinitely bigger. It means spawning off new replicas or remixes or something. - Yeah, I think at the height of the UB, what I love is there are people that only hung on the trading channels. And then there was like just the parenting breaths. They were just sharing, and there were different parts of their lives, but to me it felt like, oh, there's the green point crew. And like there's, you know, like the red hood crew or whatever, you're like sick. And so yeah, I think that's how I do it. And I think those communities should have kind of an active tension and, you know, outlets for resolution, that tension gets like really important and interesting things. - Yeah, we talked about a little bit. Lil Mikaela, I think you were, I met you. You had just started Mikaela, baby. It was very, very early on. And even then you had these kind of two really refreshing ideas I think, which is one, and maybe this is a little bit controversial to say, but like the artist is the bottleneck. So I think one thing that you were kind of feeling around particularly the music side of things. And then maybe almost conversely, this is something you said relatively more recently, but celebrities are a team sport. And I think like, it's so interesting to think about that. That was like 2014 or whatever. Like we're in the world today, you mentioned this earlier, like we use the word creator. And yet what we mean by a creator is the person who controls the distribution. Like we live in a world that is completely dominated by the individual who is like the leverage point of distribution. And even if there are other quote-unquote created people behind them, they have no leverage. Bands are dead, la la. I guess I'm curious one, like to think back to like what was in your head back then, then more importantly, like it feels like things have gone the direction you were a little worried about, like even more extremely, do you have hope for creativity feeling like a team sport again? Certainly, and certainly. I think the thing I was responding to with the artist being the bottleneck is there are kind of diminishing returns and it's creating as crabs in the Braille dynamic that I don't think is positive. And so there, I think we're opportunities to create, like I think it was like pass-through vehicles, right? Like you could think of Rihanna as just like a giant, like rent-seeking middleman. Like everyone's on set waiting. And Rihanna's got a bunch of smoke in the trailer. Like I guess we're all waiting. And so the idea that you could have these pass-through vehicles where you could, you know, have value created by this entity on behalf of whoever is behind it, the visionary storytellers, choreographers, whatever it is, technologists. And Mickey. Mickey, 100%. And I think the things I like to pursue are things that are exciting kind of spiritually because they poke at something that I think is really important to the community that I care about, creative people, but also meet this tech moment. And for me, I think it was less about the technology stack, purely as much as this idea of like zero marginal cost reproduction and like aggregation theory and all these ideas that I felt like were radically changing this world as like, okay, how can we judo that? How can we kind of use it against itself to kind of like more people, I think it's male, but it's cool. And so that was, I mean, I think what's more often than not in my life, when you start trying to do those things, maybe it's a bit like hippies, even I mean like, going with the universe or whatever, like you start doing those things and all of these things start emerging quite elegantly where you're like, oh yeah, and they're spending a ton of money on AR. And so all of these, like all the infrastructures that I can use to do this stuff. And spatial computing and digital goods, ideas that I cared about, our generative media that I cared about, just like things started popping up and like, you know, hugging face to merge. And I'm mad at you because I came to the club and I was like, this is fantastic. We could scale 2016, I think. Yeah, they were still a conversational kind of like a chatbot tool. When you're, I think you can identify things that are kind of floating in the ether and to pretty like dominant parts of our lives, whether it's technology and culture and kind of start letting the ball roll in the right direction. You can kind of roll with it. I think the challenge, as you highlighted for me, is that people interpreted a lot of these behaviors, the things that we did at like the surface level and then like virtual influencers. And because we were so attached to the bit of being in the story for the Mikayla thing, we didn't want to speak up and kind of break that fourth wall. And I think ultimately we should have made it clear like, no, no, no, no, no, we're building Disney. We're not building virtual influencers. Like the reason people care about Mino Oblonex is not because Carrie was just shilling them because she was fucking rad. And she made you want to be her and you could be her by buying an Oblonex. I think the other thing too is that, unfortunately, because of the timing, like people took Mikayla at the gimmick. - Yes. - It was almost like it can never go farther than this because of how new it was. That was one of the first things you ever said to me is like I'm building Marvel for pop stars. - Yeah. - And specifically like this thing you've talked about plenty, which is like it ultimately came back to the narrative. - Certainly. - I think one challenge of the modern internet is that there's very little linear. Like everything's constellation. It's fragmented world building. You're speaking to a moving army. Like and you're moving while the army's moving. - I don't know if you ever read one of the things that came up when I was talking to Gabe was this piece Brad Tremel wrote called Athletic Aesthetics. - No, but I love Brad. - It's like, it's worth reading. I'll send it to you after any sort of describes where we're going with this, which is just like, it's not even really about what you're saying or what you're making as a creative or influencer. It's just about like having the audience keep up with you. And yet I think you were really, really thoughtful about trying to tell like true narratives with Mikayla. I'm curious what you think great internet storytelling looks like now. - Yeah, and I think it's some contextual things there 'cause it's easy to sort of mean to forget even, but I started making Mikayla in April of 2016 and there were still chronological feeds where like pre-Trump, right? And so there was a lot of adoration for tech. And when Mikayla first started getting traction, you know, like days to all these outlets were like, look how cool and interesting and smart Trevor is, like visionary guy. Wow, wow. And then I think the Trump moment, you know, really kind of inverted the politics of celebrating technology, but also the changing from these chronological feeds to algorithmic feeds really presented a wrinkle for us of storytellage. Because the thing I always try to list it with people who are hiring is like, this is panel by panel storytelling. It's the same as comic books. - People are keeping up with us. - Yeah, yeah, it's the same as a comic book. You're reading panel by panel by panel. How can we start to create a behavior where people learn to start from the beginning? You know, can we do some of these things? When you go buy the sopranos, you know, just like start a last season, like kick it off at the beginning. And that's how we are starting to kind of like get some of those things working out. Surprise. - No way. - Oh, wow, okay. So the challenge shifted of course to like, how can we participate in this more dynamic social media that I think brought stars like Cardi B to life? You know, she's so good at a clap back. She's like the opposite of Carrie Grant to me. We just like the stand up and performs the things she was written. Her whole skill is like, fuck you Cardi B. She's like, fuck you bitch, something I dick. And you're like, yeah, wow, like you can't strip that. That's amazing, that's Cardi. And so the challenge begins. - She's a highlight reel almost. Yeah, but also like, how can you be dynamic? How can you, you know, like in a, in borrowing things from Hollywood, from game studios, where they're working on these like, you know, these long time periods and producing a finished product, can you instead of start to develop systems that can be dynamic, you know, weekly bibles, all those kinds of things? - Almost interactive. Yeah, almost interactive. - Unrelated to that, but related to Michaela without sort of like, being a person who's a touring musician or a person on the road, you said, one of the things I was trying to do with Michaela was create a model where people who were disenchanted with being public figures could share their work without having to deal with what it means to be a public figure. It can be miserable. The court of public opinion will try to destroy you as fast as they'll chave in you. The idea that you could just create this figure, this avatar for you to share your creative where it was through was really intriguing to me. And then there was another creative found. I think on the day Verdane died where you said, what strikes me most is his passing while on the road working. The loneliness I felt while professionally DJing was such an isolating experience. How do you event to anyone about a job or a life that is viewed as the dream? You've since been a touring musician after you wrote that graded with a bow, a buddy. What has your relationship been like to that sort of, maybe especially with like the touring music bookends of so much of your life? Like, or any reflections on that kind of that idea? - Yeah, I think DJing, it's funny how you stumble into things in life. Because it's a large game of luck to me. But I was really lucky in that when I turned 19, I dropped out of university. I, they created this topic called Final Scratch Pro where you could install Linux and then DJ with MP3s on traditional turntables. And I was like, that's crazy. And then Swato came out and it made it easier to do that. And it created this dynamic where I was in San Jose, that's a whole other long story about how I ended up there. But I ended up going there because I wanted to be close to looking value. Like I had random hours for school, for school. Yeah, so I went to San Jose to play football and ended up hating lots of reasons and ended up there for lots of reasons when I needed to go into. So yeah, I was very lucky and I think kind of reframed. It's like I was very lucky to be in San Jose at the moment that I was, because I was interested in tech, interesting business and I was reading things and I was really frustrated that I didn't have and I couldn't raise capital to start a business. And I was also reading these books about brand building. And I was like, man, I'm actually pretty good at that 'cause I've hired a Photoshop, I've hired an illustrator, I know how to build a website, like I could do that part. But I don't have like capital to create a product. And then Swato came out and I was like, oh, I can like download MP3s for free and make myself the product and brand myself, I created a Myspace and this blog and all these things. And I think I was also very lucky in that I'm very good at being isolated. I can sit in front of a computer for 10 hours a day and get lost and I've been comfortable with that. And DJing, as I became quite popular, was a lot of that. It was just me driving myself to the airport, me parking a car, like walking the airport by myself, sitting on a plane for six hours, staying high to promote her, going back to my room, preparing a set, playing this show where you have this really- - The barbell almost, it's like complete isolation and then like in a mob. - Yeah, but the bizarre thing, and I think I wasn't able to be illicit with that ordained tweet is the really difficult part is you're getting all of this attention, but it's almost like empty calories. You know, like you're the center of attention and everyone's looking at you, the kind of looking through you. - It's like, hey, monkey dance. - Kind of, yeah, like there were like, you know, there are millions of times I'd be geeching and somebody's like, hey, do you know where the bathroom is? And it's like a nice reminder, like, yeah, I work here. Like I'm an employee, you know. - Ah, yeah. - You can think of yourself as a talent and you're like, oh, it is that way, so you know. And then I'm a big fan, where's the bathroom? - Yeah, and like very bizarre things were like, you know, not, and this is maybe too aggressive. I look like pod, but like, you'd be DJing and there'd be like some rich guy in a booth and you'd be like, hey man, you'd be like, why, hi, he's just like, I don't know what you're doing later, but I've always wanted to see my wife, a black guy and you'd be like, what? Like, and I think he understands your contained here. - Yeah. - You know, like you effectively like are, like you are, like the monkey on stage and so you're like, yeah. - All right, like, I'm sorry, I had a very beautiful, not interested, thank you, like whatever it is, but it's a very busy, like a person. - No, yeah, you're dehumanized, but you're also even though it's attention. And it's very hard to come back to your friends and be like, I'm living the dream, but. - Yeah, I'm 21 of flying all the world to play music and making more money than my friends who are doing investment banking, but I'm also deeply unsatisfied in a lot of ways. And so that was like the really tough part with the more day in thing is like, you could ask people what the dream job is, like travel on the road and eat the best meals. - The main people. - And be famous, yeah. And I think it can be really, really tough. - What did you learn about identity through the Michaela process of either like running that account or even just thinking about the different personas you guys were gonna create? - Yeah, and I've expressed this a little bit before. Like, some of the seedlings of Michaela stem from me being really intrigued with this idea that I could make a song and put it on SoundCloud for YouTube and have someone talk shit about it. - I really feel bad, this early, you know? - And you're like, one comment, by the way. - Yeah, one comment. - But no, like that snare sucks. And you're like, damn, maybe I should change a snare. And you're like, wow. And, you know, this idea that I had also been able to live as like a little script kitty hacker in these spaces on IRC wherever the kid that were like, clearly very white. You know, they're like, weren't a bunch of, and like white people saying incredibly racist shit in chats, but I could kind of live inside of them and kind of embody this thing that was different. And there was this idea like, wow, wouldn't it be, and everybody isn't like, no, there wouldn't be interesting if people could effectively like embody another person physically on the internet and feel what it means to have someone be like, you know, you're ugly. And what was bizarre is that like working model was very real. You know, like, I've never been a woman with the internet and never in my life ever thought I should change my eyebrows. You know, but people would be like, look at her ugly eyebrows. And I'd be like, damn, should we change the eyebrows? And I'd be like, whoa. It must be fucking crazy to be a woman on the internet because I've just, you know, people will say a lot of things about this podcast, but I doubt they'll critique my eyebrows. And so there was a lot about identity. And I think one of the things we tried to explore was this idea of like post physicality and us being these post physical creatures. And like some of the best moments where when we would get messages from young people, they'd be like, I'm 13 and non-binary and live in like Missouri and no one believes that I'm real. And like, you're not real, but you're doing amazing things that inspires me. - Wow. - Wow, that is so cool. And that stuff is like, you know, when I look back on it, making employees rich and making people who are fans of Michaela, if you'll see and heard. The way X-Men was for me, like that was always the dream is like, I was this weirdo and I'm never even a kid being like, when I get my mutant powers, like, they're all gonna pay. But like that, that, that, that's to me was like easily the best part of that stuff. That's awesome. - And with Michaela, it was like gnarly. Like it was walking the first floor of the door, catching all the arrows. I remember reading that and being like, so fucking true. Like, wow. - I think you've done it plenty of that too in your life. - Yeah, and I think it's, I think like, yeah. I think again, having a child is kind of reframed a lot of this stuff, where it's like, it was just kind of me against the world. And again, we haven't talked about my personal life, but like, it's always kind of in me against the world and that's been very liberating for me. You know, there wasn't a lot of collateral damage for me to like, you know, I have my mom. - They could take risks. - Yeah, but we're already at zero. You know, there was no way else to go. And so it was like, your mom was a retirement plant or she doesn't. And so like, let's take a big swing and if I fail miserably, I was already supposed to be here. - A little bit about music. There's an article on soft. The South Florida trans team. - That's right. - We want to not think too much with our brains and just feel the music with our bodies. You're a brilliant dude who is, I think people can tell it can like, brain blast with the best of them. And yet, as I think both conceptually but also maybe even like, physically, you've always done a really good job of like, both high and low. And I think that's like part of what's in that quote a little bit, but I'm curious how music has helped you with your ability to move between spaces and be in high low and. - Yeah. And I was interesting because we're a bit trolley. But like, there's this tension with the product of being born when I was born. I didn't, I never had anything, but I was very lucky that it was very chic to have nothing. Like the Blur song common people, you know, could blare through like a nightclub when I was 20 and it was very real. Like a lot of the rich kids wanted to be common people and go to the shithole die bars and hang out or me might actually like poor friends were like playing records. And it was comforting in that I could just thrift clothes and still participate in, you know, high status Los Angeles society at least. And in parallel, a bit heartbreaking. Like there were definitely, you know, one of my, one of my best friends when I moved here was the guy named Adam Moonbes. If that is less Moonbes former like CEO president of Biocom. And, you know, we had tons of amazing interactions just from being in proximity to him. I remember because if that was how the Biocom was hanging out one day and was like, "Dad, you should give Trevor a radio station." Like he's fucking good at music. And like we're young and young and I was like, honestly I would crush a radio station. Like no idea how to sell ads or whatever it is, but like just being in proximity people that could think that big was really comforting. But I also think that the ability to develop a palette, the ability to understand how some of these modes of thinking are superpowers and the desire to pass them down was really interesting. And so yeah, I guess like it's kind of the same answer I've always had but like music and being good at music and I guess I'm realizing now also providing a lot of power because of exclusivity. Like because I was the DJ at Hot Night Clubs, I would regularly have people walk up to the booth because I worked there and be like, this is my business card. A producer at Warner. Like I'd love to come back here sometime. You never need anything. That'd be like, damn, that's like a power broker, you know? And you'd be like, by the way, actually, we need a DJ for a movie that we're in. You definitely get you paid well and I'm like, bet I will text you and you get back into the nightclub next week. - Yes. - And if you watch the haunting of Molly Hartley, some like weird horror movie, there's a party scene that I got paid like $5,000 to DJ in for one night when $5,000 was like an insane amount of money. - Wow. - You know, and so I think for me, what I was able to provide was like a path for a low status person to create something, create something of value or something that was scarce that people of high status wanted. And the ability to transact, that would be like a really like, really a kind of like crafts way to view it. But I think that was actually important. I also said like getting a job at Spotify early, like being able to get people in North America Spotify. That was really cool. - So, yep, yep. - You know, like Lewis Hamilton or whomever, like one of Spotify was like that, bro. I got you. Thanks, man. If you're a needy thing, it's like honestly like, I might. But I think that's probably a pro tip for anyone out there that's looking to, you know, do you think it's like figure out places where you can create leverage and provide access to people that are of high status or high power. And you can call in favors when at the time it's right and skip steps. - Hmm. This is, I'm sure it can. I'm worried we don't have to spend a lot of time on it. But I found myself sort of wondering, I don't know, I worked at UMG 10 years ago, a lot longer, like if this sort of like music just sort of feels like it's at least with the internet structurally wants to be free, more than maybe any other medium. And so I guess if that's true, is there a business model for music like, is it just real-world-scape scarcity? Is it patronage? Do you, one, I guess, do you agree with that at all? And like, two, if so, does it tie into some of this other speculations of everything about? Do you have any idea? - Definitely. I think it's interesting, like music, mean, or anything else. I think, I wonder, I always wondered if that was like a function of file size. Because it seems like, to me, it's always, it's less about, file size is obviously a huge part of it. But it's more than, like you, you hear a song once, you're not like, I'm good. You're like, I wanna hear it more. Like you actually need, before you like it, you need to hear it five times. - Good point. - When you watch a movie, you're like, I saw it. - I'm good. - So it has a little bit more, like, oh, you should have to pay $20 to see it once. - Yeah. - Music, listening to a song is a way to build fandom with the artist. - Yeah. You know, obviously, I've worked with this for a long time. I would say immediately, it's not clear to me that it was a business model that makes sense for selling music. I think one thing that's been great for soft is, we've built a fan base that deeply cares about music and they buy stuff on Bandcamp, and it's far more ever could have imagined through Bandcamp. Again, it's not, I can't live in this home on Bandcamp, but I don't know, I don't know, I don't have a good answer for that. I think what is starting to emerge is, if you can build a universe, there's lots of opportunity to sell things. - Yes. - And I think, the brightest of the bunch, understand that? - Yeah. - Whether they're capable of doing it, is it a whole 'nother task? 'Cause it's taxing, you know, it's not what you love. It can be really hard. And so, what I think was most impressive about Charlie in that rap moment, she's so smart. She's so, so, so smart. I've always been so smart. And I think, recognizing the game on the field, and was able to commit and do the thing. And, you know, we're not, I want to see her, it's Daps and Heights, we're not close, but when I see her do like, you know, big television adverse or converse things, I'm like, get it. You probably had to sacrifice a lot of emotional discomfort to commit to this bit and this story and this world that you were building when you're just a really gifted songwriter, you know? - Yeah, it's just, I mean, in a much smaller level, this is even just the artists who love to make music and don't want to tour. - Totally, yeah. And, and I think I've always tried to be a realist about this and told a story to musicians about when I was 16 playing in a hardcore band. And there were two drummers and one had a car. And we were like, he's a worse drummer, but he's got a fucking car. You know, like, we can go play shows other places. So he's the drummer. - A lot of life that's like that. - Yeah, and so in some respects, it's like, yeah. If you want to play shows, you got to have a car. If you want to be a famous musician, you got to make the fucking TikToks of movies. - I got a handful of miscellaneous things before we wrap up. - Okay. - First from our front now, it's saying, "Yes, I asked him when I should talk about it." His question was, is there any point where culture actually prices into tech and business like in this real way beyond just narrative and marketing? Like, is it actually become a core business driver? Maybe it's some of the stuff you're thinking about, but. - It's a tough one for me. I think the answer for me is like, I don't know, you know? But I understand that I probably think about culture in different terms. And so, my friend Julie Young, who's brilliant. - She is. - I think understands culture more than almost anyone. I don't think she would ever describe herself as someone, but it's so adept at identifying things that matter. Like, OMG, LOL dolls, you know? - I remember her name. - And like, those blind boxes, like, you know, like, she was so good at identifying that. And so I think in that Silicon Valley will be able to weaponize the young girl to shape like meaningful, meaningful societal change in the way that Hollywood's been able to. I think there's a path there. It's still not clear to me that Hollywood has been able to make, or it's looking like I've been able to actually shift from the kind of like early adopter crossing the chasm model of technology and like software adoption. I do see really intelligent investors thinking about that and trying to go downstream and shape the hearts and minds of really, you know, young people, so young women, and then having that work upstream. For now, I still see like, go identify early adopters and then, you know, work upstream. And so I'm not a buyer holistically of that just yet, but I imagine I have blind spots because I am somewhat of a fucking hater as well. And probably refuse to see some of these things people are acknowledging. - I promise this is not a gotcha. You once described your involvement with him as Kanye collected me for like three months. And then you also said, he's the greatest of my time. He's a genius. I will ride with you forever. - Yeah, I mean, it's tough, but yeah. - What? Maybe especially up close, since you got to experience it, like what was so magical, what is so magical about that guy? - I think what was, also it was magical for me and what is so magical about him, maybe more broadly, and it'll be a little bit of story time. I got a text message from a big venture capitalist that said like, hey, Kanye is doing some investing. It's all about you, he really wants to meet you. It's like, if I give him your phone number. And I'm driving to the Beverly Hills Hotel, the counter downstairs, I don't see the spot. To try to like, win back my ex girlfriend at the time, who was kind of with me through the startup thing and you can understand how partners were doing, because running startups can be miserable. It was like, I'm not into it. I don't want to date this version of who you are. And I'm like, yeah, cool. I go to the breakfast and by this, you know, good blessings of the Lord above, I'm like, hey, this is insane. I'm sorry, Kanye is texting me. And so he wants to meet right now. Like, would you be down to hang with Kanye? And I guess for added color, it was right after the mag a moment. So there was the kind of first break of like, Kanye, she was like, yeah, of course. And so texting Kanye, he's like, I want to meet right now. Like, are you in LA? He's like, yeah, I'm in Calabasas, where are you? I'm like, I'm at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He's like, cool, I'll be there in 30. And I came to you. Yeah, and I was like, oh, and we're sitting. We finished our meal. I got a text. I'm out front silver Tesla. I'm like, cool. I told him I'm with, you know, my screen friend. It's like, great, we climb into the back seat in a Tesla and like, kind of dab him over the top. And so the friend in the front seat. And what we're starting to reveal is that like, when I love about Ye, is that he's like a 13 year old boy who's so curious and so excited. And he was so excited to meet me. It was bizarre, you know? Where he's like, hey, like, you know, I'm just like excited to hang out with you, you know, like, we do whatever you want. We can go to Venice. I think he thought like tech people like Venice, you know? And I was like, I was like, oh, I don't need to go to Venice. He's like, oh, we can do whatever. Like, yeah, we can go, we can go wherever it's. I mean, we can go for a drive. And we start driving and we get on the 405. And he's like, if you want, we can go to like Calabasas, you know, I was like, oh, okay, cool, you know? And we're just talking and I go for it at the time. There was an urban planning and an architect. And he's like, you're an architect, I love architects. We started talking about that stuff. And we're both geeking out. And he said, we should get you to work on some stuff. And I'm telling him about bread. And he's like, Kim just invested in some nuclear stuff. I wanted the investing. And it was infectious. You know, we went to the studio and he played me a bunch of the record of him and Cuddy. And we talked about it. And, you know, his homies were there challenging him about the Magahat while he was there. Like, very transparent. But, you know, we went to sit down and I had been wearing these Vivo barefoot shoes that I was, I'm still bearing into. And he was like, what are those? And I was like, are these barefoot shoes? I really fuck with them, and he effectively went on this like anti nostalgia rant, which is one of my rant, you know? And I have my ex who seem to give that rant a minute. Yeah, he's like, we want some new shit. Like, I get so tired of seeing these fucking same old like clones of forces or whatever, and she just looks at me. And she's like, you guys deserve each other. You guys deserve each other, you know? And I think what I, you know, was so special about, yay, was that boy like energy. And I watched him meet Tyler, the create, and like, tremble. You know, in his moment, Tyler's not Tyler, he's one gram, he's Tyler is like this kid with a kind of cool thing. And he's like shaking, you know, asking him questions like, really in awe, and it's like, you're the guy, you are Kanye. And this is just Tyler. But like, and he approaches so many people that way. And he's so curious, so funny, so, so, so funny. And, you know, at the time, he had bought all this property in Calabassas, and want to build a new room. And, you know, it was like, you can do the tech guys, the clothing guy, the tech guy, and we flew to Italy to meet up with Vanessa B. Croft. And like, you know, I'm like an insane Kanye fan. I was, we're at the, you know, the, the kind of private terminal at LAX, like getting scarred onto the plane, you know, and like, we're flying whatever it is, 10 hours next to each other. And he's showing me stuff, and we're talking on giving him ideas. And I, and the thing I remember most about Kanye was like, I've always had ideas that are just crazy. Like you can't, can't save them out loud, yeah. You know, 'cause they're not feasible. And with Kanye, it was his constant process of like having an idea. And then, you know, like that's not something like Kanye would want to hear that. And I remember we were sitting at Axel Bearvoritz Castle in Belgium, with Vanessa B. Croft and Tremaine, and a bunch of other people that he wanted to be a part of like this new room. And like, build this world. And they're going through the designs of what the property could be like and talking about it. And it's up against the mountain. And there's like an airship there. And they're showing me that. And I remember like the X-Men and the cartoon, you know, there would take off a mountain would like open up and the black bird would like come out or whatever it was. And I was like, that'd be sick if the plane came out and mountain and I was like, I can't save that. And I was like, Kanye would want to hear that. And I was like, damn, Kanye, what if like the airship came out of the mountain. And he was like, we got to do that out of the mountain. And like the architect is just like, looking at me and it's like, we're not going to get the rights to like have the plane come out of the mountain. And he's like, I'll call Donnie. You know, I'll call Donnie. I'll call Donnie. Like we'll figure it out. The plane's coming out of the mountain. And I was like, honestly, rocks. Like it's just cool to be around someone who's like, so unafraid to be unabashedly nuts. And like say things and get, you know, an eighth of the way there. And so there was obviously a ton of other madness. And you know, while we're sharing all the alpha with dialectic, and because it's like less precious now, you know, there's a moment where he wanted to like buy bread and have me run easy. And then, and like, you know, imagine going as quick as I'm going to be like, so here's the thing. How do you feel about Kanye West Exit? (laughing) Like what is the company? I'm like, it's an LLC. He owns a hundred percent. (laughing) Yeah, it was amazing, you know? And then, and like, like, it was all incredible. Like Kim was brilliant and so sweet. And like, so good with him. And that part was like tough for me. 'Cause like we're not homies. Like, you know, I was part of life for a moment. And Oxygen didn't go through. And we stopped talking and four phone numbers later. Like you didn't want to talk. But like, you know, it was, it was really incredible to watch Kim with him and the kids. And I think all of it was like, inspirational in a lot of interesting ways. 'Cause I think he's, you know, I can be quite complicated and he's complicated and I think more extreme way, but in similar ways. Yeah. And it was interesting to see what worked, what he had built around himself and what didn't. What an amazing thing to be someone who inspires other people to say their crazy ideas. Yeah. Like a blessing. It really was super, super special. Do you, if you could say anything to him, do you have, maybe you don't need to say I'm on the podcast, but I'm curious what, or even just like having watched the last few years, like, do you have any sense of what happened? To me, it's, a lot of the things are, Kanye is so good at intuiting what matters and where there is strife and where there are problems or where there are things to be addressed. He's not very articulate verbally. And I think people struggle with that 'cause he got to, oh, like, he'll kinda like rant for 30 minutes and when you dig through it, you're like, whoa, actually that was really brilliant, but it's tough to parse. And in parallel, that boyish wonder is a surface area for attack. Yeah. And I think there are people around him with good intentions. But I think Rick Rubin was probably someone who, in a very unpopular time, had more libertarian beliefs in the music business. And I think when people see like Rick and Tyler Cowan do a podcast, something like that, I was crazy. And I don't think it's that fucking crazy. If, you know, if you've been to Malibu, there are a lot of people who are kind of like hippies, who lean more libertarian and they do like classic, like, you know, sort of like lib or something. And I think my read was that someone like Rick was able to show him what ideas are really important to Kanye, TVA. And, you know, Yeh's boyish wonder and curiosity was met with people that were able to exploit it for other means. And it's a trade-off, right? Because it's what makes him so special. Is this kind of like, is this ability to absorb and be deeply curious and to take things at base value and be kind of childlike. But I think it also has caused him a lot of pain. And that's like hard to watch. Yeah, it's tough because somebody doesn't want to say that because it kind of gives, it makes me a Kanye apologist and he's an adult. But I also, just spending time with him, I'll wear how impressionable he is. And that's kind of tough to watch. And that's like a thing that got like really hard to integrate people, someone that could be so influential, so powerful, so wealthy, so, you know, some of us are much more bravado. Confidence can also be someone who will take something at base value from someone, you know, as someone who's like, like tired of their creator at the moment was like so much smaller than he was, right? But he recognizes the kind of, you know, the aura has kind of been perverted by the end of the aura of someone, like he can kind of see you for who he can be in what you are in what you're bringing to the world, not what you are. And I think that's that combined with the boyishness, capabilities, it can be dangerous kind of though. Yeah, it's interesting, when you first started talking about it, some of this, obviously a lot is clearly different, but the other person who obviously Kanye knew who has a boyishness that can be really frustrating to me, but also manifest so amazingly as Elon. It's interesting that there's some, yeah. - It's a good point, yeah. - I think a pair of separate ideas from you, one, you say a whole generation has come of age, not knowing real criticism, I think that was a random tweet. And then computers are creation machines, iPads are consumption machines. When you think about the next generation, are you worried, are you hopeful? Are you concerned, what are you most concerned about? - I am like long humanity, and so I think we'll figure it out and we'll be fine. It's for me, I randomly delete so many tweets on it, and you've found a lot of these ones. - There were a lot that were deleted. - Yeah, I'm like, respect. Yeah, I'm not holding you to it either. - No, no, I lifted the consumption one from it, some book I was reading, I think more or less had that. I really do believe that. I would love for my child to spend time on a computer, hacking at stuff, trying to make things which is like passively engaged, consuming something. - I'm really not that worried if anything I'm like very inspired. Yeah, I think the kind of like making sense of Gen Z, it's been beaten into the ground. Gen Alpha, there's an artist named Too Hollis, and his mother Catherine is someone I've known for a very long time. And her other son is a hardcore man called Star Today that I love, and when I look at Too Hollis, and I see what he's built, it's incredible. And I look at his Instagram, and he's posting a main pictures of him looking, I'm incredible with a song by Seven Angels, Seven Plagues, which is just like deep cut, hardcore band from Milwaukee, I believe, that I was into when I was, you know, 15. I'm like, man, there are still people that are deeply curious, and it is being rewarded. And I think that's fantastic. Both of them, by the way, both of them are kids. Star Today, and Too Hollis, took them out. I know of Too Hollis from Drew, but it's great. When both of your kids are that, there's something mom's pretty cool. Maybe I guess I'm not slightly related to No, but on the optimism, there's something happening around the popular stuff. Obviously, Zoran lately like, you're this weird sort of anomaly for so many reasons, including like sort of techno capitalist, sort of anarchists. I know you're a big burning guy, like, any views on what's happening and where that's going? - I mean, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes. No, 'cause it just feels like it's a status quo, like people who are kind of the status quo people that aren't. You know, I think people can cut that with that a million different ways. But to me, like the mom downy thing is not that dissimilar from, you know, any populist thing. It's like, anyone like, you know, watching Marjorie Taylor Green say things she's saying in the last two weeks, you're like, and people resonate. It's like, yeah, people are frustrated. And I think that's the hard part with me, kind of like mainstream DNC politics. It's like people are very comfortable, and they've had very good outcomes from the way things are. But most people aren't. - Yeah. - And I really struggle with that. I, yeah, and that's a whole other rant about growing up in Iowa. Most of my peers are doing it. We have multiple friends of parents kill themselves, post NAFTA. You know, we had Oscar Meyer plant, Alcoa plant, a John Deere plant, and when those plants left, or some of them did rather, like, the hurt was so palpable. People who were making 100 grand a year, 70 grand a year, and could provide for their children in unimaginable ways. All of a sudden, couldn't get a job at 7-11. And I remember that feeling. And actually, you know, pointing out, like, the first time I used to claw 3.5, I felt that feeling. Or not myself. Where I was like, oh my god. This is going to displace a lot of people who move symbols on screen. And what white collar, you know, NAFTA could look like. To me, it's still really scary. And hopefully people smarter than I are trying to figure out how to mitigate some of those pains. - Conversely, we talked about this in the beginning. And there's lots of potential black pills. Do you continue to lean on optimism? Why? - I'm just a believer in the human condition. Like, maybe it's silly and quaint, but I believe in us. And I believe in the goodness of us. And I think to lose that is almost worse than death, right? And so, I would like people, you know, I'm having a child and constantly go to blood, like, are you going to have children? A lot of people, I don't want to be kids in this world. And I'm like, you have to bring kids into this world. We need people, you work good people to create children that have been raised, right? To have the right moral compass that are going to go in, like, make this place better. And of course, everyone's got their own beliefs and don't want to push into anyone. But like, anyone out there who's morally righteous and a virtuous person, like, crank 'em out. We need good ones, the good little ones fight in the good fight. - There's a really old, I think on, like, an old blog, like, Young Skeeter blog, you say, "The only peaceful constraints I've known in this world are music and friendships that allow for freedom." - Damn. - What did you mean in any reflections on? Do you even remember what you meant? - I definitely don't, but I also know it's so funny. It's like, that blog, it was like such a great outlet for me for such a long time. But I do think, yeah, I felt so much discomfort in my life. And music is, again, this kind of, like, divine rich. You can hear something and feel something off and joke at, like, a lot of music and flashing lights. So simple, so primal. - That's kind of what's getting up with the high and the low. - Yeah, the monkey in me is just like, wow. Everything is fine. And good friendship, I think because of the circumstances of my upbringing and my kind of kooky family, I have been able to build different familiar units. I'm always reminded around Thanksgiving. My friends' giveings have been, the most important Thanksgiving of my life. And I just feel this, what a blessing. There's, I think it's like a DJ boring song where he samples Bob Geldoff. And Bob Geldoff, a popular figure, live eight, I believe, was the man he did in the back of the day, like, help Africa, one of those big, like, get all the musicians together to do things. And as I understand the story, his wife was an MTG presenter. She interviewed the lead singer of NXS, this band. Anyway, they fell in love. He was an heron addict. They hit Bob and had two daughters with this woman. She ends up overdosing, lead singer of NXS, you know, accidentally hangs himself. And later on in life, Bob's daughter, Peaches, who I knew a little bit from just like partying in LA, also tragically passes. And he's, he's sampled in the song, talking about grief. And he's talking about grief. And he's talking about life. And he's talking about, you know, just, must be on holiday with his family. And, like, looking out for my dinner table and seeing his, like, grandkids and his kids dance. And, like, that being all that matters, you know? And it's incredibly poignant. But, like, for whatever reason that met me at the right time of my life. And it was like, that's, it's, it is all that matters. And it's like being a post-hoffman me, where, like, in my startup days, and my, like, you know, best friend, Harley, you're like, you want to get a coffee at one on a Tuesday? And I'm like, no, I have work. But now I'm like, yeah, let's get a coffee. And, like, I can get back to this thing later tonight or whatever it is, like, spending time with loved ones is really important, so make time to do it. And, again, so obvious, but took me a while to get there. You brought it up a few times. You're having a child. How do you hope to be changed? Gosh, in so many ways I can't even imagine. Already, we read and also sound. And they were showing the, like, you know, showing parts of my son. And they kind of quickly move over his brain. And this thought of, like, that's the brain. You have to protect the brain. It was, like, this primal thing where I was like, I gotta protect the brain. I've gotta protect that thing's brain. And I'm really excited to be blindsided by this thing, you know? There's the obvious stuff, like, you know, I'll never get to experience ice cream again for the first time. I get to do it with, like, and that's going to rock to be like, wow, ice cream, welcome to fucking ice cream dog. Like, there's so many cool ice creams for you to enjoy. That's going to be great. But I'm just kind of excited to be blindsided by the whole thing. I just know, I plan all I want. I just know, I will say, while we're sharing nuggets of wisdom on this thing, I go to this conference that I love, and I always go, it's kind of an uncommerit. You sit around and talk about cool stuff. But I go to the dad session every year, and let me go for, like, close to a decade now. And one year, a gentleman was talking and he was like, how many of you think that you're a better parent, better father than your father was? And once your hands raised, my chair didn't raise. And they're like, how many of the hands raised have kids that are older than 18? And they all put their hands down. And they were like, yeah, when my kids were 7, 8, 9, 10, I was 100% better father. But the time they're like 22, I was like, I don't know, actually. And what the person who brought this up highlighted, he was like, everyone in this room, you're like, world beaters. You don't have incredible things and possible things. You make the world bend to your will. And he said that the thing I think is important for all of you, the younger parents, is that parenting isn't carpentry, it's gardening. And like, you may want this thing to be an oak tree, but it's a lemon tree. And you just got to make it the best lemon tree it can be. And I was like, wow, that felt really, so I've just tried to get a sip with that and be like, it's easy with expectations of what my boy can be. And he's in the 95th percentile right now. So I'm like, we got a chance of a league, you know? - Do what you couldn't do. - You do what I couldn't do. But again, if he wants to be, you know, God forbid an artist can do that too. - Well, last thing, you actually mentioned it. I didn't know it was gonna be a land project, but there's an old email of yours that I followed the link on and there's a domain called actuallyserulean.com. The language on the website is just this. Okay, I see. You think this is nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actuallyserulean. Some people obviously know the reference, but what does that mean to you? - It's a quote from the Devil Wears product, which is, you know, one of my favorite films. But to me, I think it reflects the sentiment I've probably brought up far too much in this podcast, that there are people that introduce important ideas into the world and they can be discounted and they can be made to feel small or unimportant. And I would much prefer a world that's celebrated serulean, 'cause it's not just blue, it's actuallyserulean. - Trevor, thank you. - Thank you very much, Jack. - This was great. - Yeah, pleasure. - Thanks for listening. I'd like to thank Notion again for presenting dialectic and for being such an amazing partner as I explore and interrogate the wonderful, craftful, soulful people that I get to talk to you here on the show. One thing that was exciting this past week, and I'll show you the link on Instagram, I did a little feature with Notion where they asked me a handful of questions about how I'm thinking about 2026. What my goals are, what my process is, advice I have for creative people, I'll give you a hint. It's, as it took me too long to figure out, listen to yourself and then just start any and how I'm using Notion as I create dialectic. I'll link that in the description. Thanks again to Notion, and thank you. I will see you next time.