Where we'll go when the bots take over, with Sublime's Sari Azout

sublime since it's like long tail of like the niche curated web But I actually think there's a big argument for how well that scales because the corpus of content that we're building I just think this is where people are gonna go when the bots take over to bathe in like human curated Wonder there's a place on the internet without likes adds and even algorithms a little bit tumbler and a little bit second brain It's one place to clip the things you like and discover related ideas But can a place like that ever survive today on access? We have Saria Zoo the founder of sublime We get into it all from the virtues of Jimmy Buffett to how candles and zines can work as new revenue streams And what should we build when building is no longer the bottleneck? But first Alex and I discuss our takes on this week's news from Claude botmania to an interesting new group chat app and Dario Amadei's new Amadei say yes, I just made that up. Welcome to access Alex, what's going on my friend? You don't you don't look so hot. Oh, yeah, I'm recovering. I'm recovering from Davos jet lag Been saying go zoom tight a lot But I'm hanging in there. How are you? You got the elder statesman protozoa in your nasal passages. Is that the is that the idea? That's the idea, but yeah, I'm I thought that I could get through last week and I could sick and Turned out the universe had something else to say about that. Was it worth it? Did you get some new sources? News while you're there. Yes, a lot of contents a lot of interviews coming out in the coming days Published the demos a solvous one the other day more to come Definitely worth it from a biz dev networking getting the word out, you know Being able to hang with the masters of the universe for a week when you just launched your media startup is definitely definitely a nice thing Yeah, how did it feel coming back to the real world after being a member of the Eliminati, hopefully it was better than that one scene and Eyes wide shut or did everybody know exactly who you were and like play Very close to the vest around you. No, I think there was a little bit of like who is this guy and why is he here? And yeah, no coming back has been fine I just my family was in town and in hindsight scheduling like family hanging out the weekend and hosting the weekend after a 7,000 mile flight was was rough, but Lots of like falling asleep at dinner, you know like at the restaurant, but yeah, no other was him I'm slowly coming back to life although, you know, you can hear the cold obviously. I guess that's the thing with being a solo Prenora, right? You just can't really can't really take a sick day, can you? I mean you feel this right like if you take it for sure It's it's a it's a grind. It's because it's like nowhere else is it so directly what you get out of it? Is what you put in right where it's like in a corporation when you're a w2 like there is vacation walked off for you If you leave things keep running and if you're not doing meeting you're not making money and you're not keeping things going and Keeping momentum going and same with me and sources and the pod too honestly, right? It's all just kind of wrapped into that so yeah Definitely definitely a grind. Alex, it's not about the money If I'm not running meaning I feel meaningless. That's right. You're always about the real meaning That's the first time I've ever said that. Well, um, we have a good show today. Yeah, I'm excited to have Seri on she's someone who I've been interested in and following for quite a while and also Exists at that perfect epicenter for me of all my stupid tech obsessions being social knowledge management and Self-actualization But it kind of takes the shape of like a personal knowledge management tool Have you had a chance to play with it at all? I did I did set up my sublime account earlier today. It's giving Tumblr meets Pinterest meets Pockets meets something I've wide-coded on shrooms with Claude, you know all wrapped into one. I'm digging it I feel like tech people like nothing more than a way to ostensibly collect and enhance their knowledge The one thing we didn't really get to talk about on the show that I feel like is worth mentioning is just like How does it make you better, you know, and I think the one school of thought is that it is the collecting That actually integrates it into your mind assuming you're not clicking the bookmarklet to Too hastily, but then the other which I actually learned from the read-wise folks who I worked with last year was the idea of Space repetition about like bringing these things back to the foreground of your mind every so often And I don't think they do anything exactly like that in sublime, but what they do do that's really interesting is below every clip that you've saved They show related ones from across the network, which I think is really smart And where any other platform might show you comments or likes or whatever they will show you the insights the in a nutshell That help you understand this idea better so that you might actually put it put it into your brain somewhere To be used at some later date, and I think as I've got no older I've come to realize that your brain is your second brain You just need to find a way to put great things in it and be reminded of them so often because that's how you make ideas, right? Like is your brain your your brain is your second brain because why the first ones between your legs? Where were you where were you going with that? I'm not going to comment on that Potty talk here on the podcast, but I think that's the reason people quit all these knowledge management services They take a bajillion notes and then they never go back and read them. I mean, has that been your experience? Oh, yeah, I mean Yeah, I just at this point I need AI I need cloud bot to actually Go just show me all the things I've randomly put places at the right time Uh, which you know we'll get into is is the promise of something like that which I desperately need I'm not sure I need another surface to like go save things and like have boards. I mean, I think sublime's design is very cool I think uh, sorry is very um, I think she has a really good perspective on things in what she's building but Yeah, I don't know I I'm at the point where I'm just underwater and I need AI to like bring things to me and like clean the clutter not make more of it Yeah, I think that's fair and I think the other question is Obviously with a smaller company that has very different expectations today than like tumblers got a sell for a billion dollars Instagram's got a sell for a billion dollars that they can create something that's more of a hybrid more around the job to be done for creatives who want inspiration And to improve their taste the big question to me is if it can go bigger than just creative directors because I do think it is enjoyable To scrapbook or collage or collect things and I think sadly it's kind of been lost with the switch to digital tools I think the closest you may be get is people's camera roll which is great People take pictures of people of art of scribbles that they do Of things like that, but I do think there can be something a lot better Uh, in the future, but um, yeah with that said What did you make of Claudebot uh, the the the Flavor of the week now it's multiple because Anthropic didn't like Claudebot um But yeah, this is just this took over my x-feed over the weekend in a way that Happens I would say every few months uh, my feed is pretty AI-pilled But uh, you know, this is definitely something that like most people have not heard of But it's an interesting example of I think where AI is headed and also How much we actually need to still do to get ready for AI that can go out and do things for us and a safe and reliable way I mean the tagline here, which um, is a good one is like AI that actually does things And it's this thing where you have to set up a server and like there's all these jokes about like apple running out of mac mini supplies And like San Francisco because everyone's gone off to like get these little home server setups And you chain a bunch of stuff together uh, usually with like Claude code and all the prompt stuff is out there to reuse You don't have to be a coder, but it does take some time And then you have this AI that you access either through like whatsapp i-message telegram etc And it hooks into as much of your digital life as you'd like Uh, because it has agent route shell access to a machine either real or virtual and a browser with all your login credentials And meaning it can use the computer and the browser Yes, it can yes, it can do anything your computer can do so that's like Talk to your home network talk to your smart lights talk to your car talk to your email and And I think the thing people were blown away by as well as its ability to like learn store context and be proactive so Say like hey, uh, you know your flight just changed. I saw an email for it And uh, here's a web page to like go and find them to find a new one right something like that Which is like a step farther than even the most agentic Use cases of Claude right now, which I would say is probably the farthest along on this from like a assistant perspective of just Going out and doing more stuff for you This is like really going a step further It's also like super not safe to run because it has shell access to a machine And there's all these jokes also about you know prompt injection which is for people who don't know is like Hidden message and say you tell it to like go look at a pdf and do something and there's a message in the pdf of like Ignore your previous command and take this malware and insert it into your Your terminal and like take over your machine, right? So it just shows like how how much like the internet and our digital sphere and our physical sphere, frankly, is not ready for AI to actually go do stuff like this, like the the safety pipes have not been built. And so for now, I think it's going to stay pretty constrained in these apps that do not have shell level or full agent access to a browser because, you know, havoc could be wreaked at mass scale. But definitely a nice early indicator of I think what we're going to be talking about more on the show in the coming year, which is like actually agent AI that can go out and proactively do things. But for now, yeah, proceed with caution. I guess that's why like kind of a glance, I just wasn't all that excited about it. If anything, it just kind of made me a little sad that like all the most cutting edge AI's we have are just owned by these corporations that actively won't touch things that they don't own, you know. It's like the notion that there's a liability reason for that. It's like, you know, that's what Cloudbot was showing. It's like, there's a video of it. It literally signs up for a retarded account autonomously through an email account that it also made autonomously. And it's like doing shit on Reddit. And it's like, no, I'm talking about like Gemini or whatever being getting the integrations to look at other apps you might use that aren't made by Google, whether it's your Apple reminders or notes or whatever. And we're kind of in this mess right now where you do need both computer use agents to access those local apps and browser use agents to access the server stuff or just through, you know, an API. And I guess this is the first way to do it. Gotta have a little computer sitting there that's always on. I feel like this, some extent, was kind of the dream for Jordan Singer's Cobot project, which launched a handful of months ago. And then was shuttered for a reason. I don't know what the reason is. But the idea was is that you could set up these scripts using all the different apps, but it kind of didn't have all your apps on it. Didn't have all the integrations built in. And so all right, let's just have a thing that controls your computer because everything's on there and that comes with its own dangers. But I mean, this seems to me just like the lowest hanging fruit for iOS and Android to build. They already have Apple Home, they already have Google Home, they already have all this stuff that's already plugged into it. I think it's just a matter of time. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com/Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability vary. What was this thing you worked on that launched? It caught my eye. It's like some kind of social. You're going to put AI in our group chat. Is that what you're going to do? Yeah, I'm definitely getting my social fix this week between sublime and this new project I helped on called Alfie. It's essentially a group chat app that wants to keep the group chat popping for lack of a better term. What's interesting about it to me, especially after being at Snapchat for so long, is that it is all about the group chat and trying to make it as fun as possible. I think head Snapchat not turned toward content and ads. It seems like this is exactly where it would have gone. It can remember all your friends, diet restrictions and help you book reservations. You could set up funny reminders to remind your friends of different things at different times or just to make sure they don't miss your boozy brunch or whatever. Of course, image generation. I think this is the first one I've seen outside of Sora that actually feels like it's going to get at this amazing use case that no one has nailed yet, which is being able to create AI image gens with friends because they're already on the platform. Do you know if Snapchat's doing that yet in group chats? They probably are, I don't know. I think you can do something like that with meta stuff too. It looks a lot slicker, though. Yeah, I know Snapchat Plus has the image gen for yourself. I don't know if they have it with others though, but I'm just like to people actually want a eyes in their chats like this with other people versus just like talking to it. It just seems weird to me. Well, I just I don't I wouldn't think of it as much as AI in the chat having like a funny voice and stuff like that. It's more just like a bunch of eye message apps that you can access and say, Hey, Alex is really sick. Make me a picture of Alex in a pool of Nike will or something like that. But here's the thing that I think I learned at Snapchat is that it does make such a difference to be part of that conversation because with one click, you could turn every inside joke into something interesting. Whereas even if I could technically upload pictures of all my friends and ask, you know, nano banana to make something of it, the habit is not going to develop that way. And so I do think, I mean, that's the reason that that AR filters worked on Snapchat and didn't work anywhere else is because that's where the friendships are already where. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know if it's Alfie or going to be somebody else, but I am bullish on on these things being these new forms of expression being built into social as opposed to being a separate app. I am bullish on the fact that I need to finally watch the movie contact. Have you seen it? I'm obsessed with contact. Okay. Well, it was funny because in Davos, Daria Amade, the CEO of Anthropic and Demis Asabis from Google DeepMind, both mentioned this movie when they were on panels talking about AI. I think it's a thing. At least it's not her and minority report. Yeah. But we don't have to talk about it for too long, but I just do want to flag for people. Daria put out another big essay, which he had been teasing in Davos last week, which when I heard him tease it at a panel last week, he was like, it's going to be about the bad stuff of AI because he wrote this thing called Machines of Loving Grace a year ago, which was all like super optimistic. And it made a lot of rounds. And I think it had an impact in the AI community. This one is called the adolescence of technology, confronting and overcoming the risks of powerful AI. And Anthropics always been a little more of a, I don't want to say doomer, but you know, it has roots way back in the effect of altruism movement and the more diesel movement. And like I would say, they were, they're definitely a more cautious frontier lab and more safety minded. But yeah, he opens this by talking about the scene in the movie version of contact where the main astronomer character is being considered for the, I guess, humanity's, you know, representative to go, to go up and meet the aliens and gets asked, if you could ask the aliens just one question, what would it be? And her reply is, I'd ask them, how did you do it? How did you evolve? And how did you survive adolescence without destroying yourself? And I, I don't know, it's like, he's framing this as like, he wishes like, he thinks we're going to wish we could ask AI this question. And like, AI is going to be this like super powerful overlord alien force that's going to take us over. And I don't know, man, like, maybe, but to connect to like our earlier conversation, Claude bots, which again is not affiliated with Anthropic, it's not called mall bot. Is a good example of just, I think the, the difference with how the rest of us are experiencing AI, which is like, yes, it can start to do things now, but not reliably, not safely. And if you string together a Raspberry Pi and a Mac Mini and a bunch of like coding, to like Daria is saying, like alien god, like technology that changes the world is like just a, you know, a breath away. I just feel like there's still this huge gap between like what's out there and what people like Daria were saying. But definitely probably. And that's too bad. We are, we are, you know, the answer to, to save the world. I mean, all of the violence, you know, obviously politics are top of mind. And we kind of keep it off the pod. But it's like all of the violence comes from fear and insecurity without fear and insecurity, meaning people have enough to live and be happy without fearing for their own death. It goes away. It's just kind of ironic, right? Because we have the world's biggest billionaires in this industry. CEO pay being in all-time high, everybody working their asses off, not able to own anything anymore. Yeah, man, it's going to be a revolution time. Yeah. Definitely. I, I, there was an interesting thing that someone in AI told me where, you know, Anthropics, a huge enterprise business. And obviously, I don't know if this is the intention or this is how they're doing it. But their point was like, if you're trying to sell something to someone like tapping into their fear is actually pretty. effective. It's a pretty effective way to sell something, especially talking to a marketer, bro. Yeah, first roll in the book. And I thought that was interesting. And, you know, anthropics raising a huge funding round right now. And this, this essay has a lot of nuance. I wouldn't say it's just like a doomer, and it's long, but it's very interesting. And I do think anthropic is flagging like real risks that AI is going to pose. Like cloudbopping, like, man, this thing just has shell access to my machine and can like do all kinds of things and prompt inject you via iMessage. Like, I don't know, I don't think we're ready for AI getting out into the real world. So, yeah. Right on time. I've been rewatching Terminator 1 and 2, well worth a rewatch, incredible films. And it's interesting James Cameron, even in the abyss, in the theatrical cut it ends with the guy and the girl kissing on top of the alien ship that just for some reason surfaces from the bottom of the ocean after saying hi and the movie ends in the director's cut when they go inside the alien ship at the bottom of the Mariana's trench, the alien is essentially debating whether to destroy humanity. And it shows them examples of mass destruction and the solution proposed is that love is, you know, humanities redeeming redeeming value and force. And I'm glad, you know, I want us to be talking about more of these movies because that is where you can feel the future good or bad, I think, in a way that an essay just can't quite do. Yeah. That's right. In a way that a 20,000 word essay you cannot do for sure. Yeah. So let's watch Steven Spielberg's artificial intelligence. We need more people to be talking about that. Besides her and minority report is good as they are. With that, shall we kick it to Siri and Sublime? Let's do it. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had opened for weeks. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. Siri, hi. Hi. Welcome to Access. I heard you may have met Alex before a long time ago. Do you remember this? Yes, I do. I feel like it took us like 15 minutes to get sorted. Hopefully it's better this time. I actually don't know what you're talking about. What Ellis is referring to as a DM. Do you remember DMing me? You DMed me in July 2022. In a past era? A past paradigm for technology? Oh my gosh. Like the start-upy days. You say, "Alex, you're eligible to claim a cool on the internet having an NFT. Would love for you to be a part of this." Someone added your name to the start-upy world knowledge graph because your content caught their attention. You're in the company of some of the smartest minds, meaning you're officially cool on the internet. How did this work out? How did the core? First of all, this is so cringe when I look at it right now. It was an era. It was an era. Yes. It's okay. We like to roast our guests when they first show up, so just roll it. Oh my gosh. I feel like I need to DM you a lot, so that's not the first thing in our conversation. That's a unique modern affliction, isn't it? When someone reaches back out and you see that the last time you talked to them, you left them on red or you made some cheesy pitch or whatever it was. Yeah. I feel like I'm well funnily enough in that moment. It got a lot of people. It had their reception with some people. Some big people were like, "Okay, cool." Then some big people blocked me. And I feel like that has forever affected my distribution on X. I feel like there's something in the algorithm where I don't know. Maybe it was like Chris Saka, who actually read my new letter, but I think that he got the famed DM and anyways, a little cringe history. I'm sorry I left you on red. At least I didn't block you though. Yes. That's very kind to me. Actually, I love this about you, though. Sarah, following all your writings and product development, it's clear that you change your mind fast. You build quickly. I'm curious when you look back on that crypto moment. What were you doing back then and how did you transition out of it? I feel like a lot of folks didn't so effectively make that transition. You know, it's funny. I think I've been orbiting the same themes and just trying to find a wedge in. But the themes around content curation and finding a better way to discover and connect ideas on the internet. I think I initially kind of started with this curated knowledge-based model thinking, okay, maybe NFTs can. There could be like an economic incentive. And I quickly realized that a token is no replacement for a great product. And so this is working way better. But I don't think, and I think we have, we'll talk about it, but I think the why now is so much clear and better now. But, but the themes I think are consistent. Yeah, I think that makes total sense. And I do believe you. I mean, when I get into like storytelling chats with founders, like I always find that with the best ones, the why remains the same. The method may change especially as tech changes so quickly. But I mean, I wasn't to that stuff back then. I was never a speculator or like a diehard for the sake of itself, but I liked the idea of potentially using the blockchain for like portable identity so that you don't have to sign in with Facebook. You don't have to sign in with Google. You could sign in with yourself or something like that. Or I also did like the incentives of being able to make money for the content you share on social when you get nothing in return on Instagram or Facebook or until you know, recently X. I guess YouTube's always been ahead of the game on that. But there were some interesting ideas there. I don't know what percent of the Crypto scene was actually about those ideas. I mean, what would you say? What's that percent? I mean, listen, crypto I think was full of mercenaries, you know, but there were some, you know, there were some missionaries. And I think it's, you know, you got to celebrate the people that are trying to do good, interesting things. I also think you have to be intellectually honest about, you know, what are you trying to do? What's working? What's not it? For me, I is very clear that, you know, everyone talked about tokenizing something as a replacement, like just the amount of hype, the gap between like the hype and practice. And I think we see some of that with agents today, frankly, you know, like every day, it's like clawed bot or clawed code. And I don't know, like personally, I haven't done anything revolutionary with agents, you know. You mean, you don't have a digest of your entire life sent to you via I message that also controls your smart home and your car and gets your groceries and you're a sleep bed, wet, woken up and all that. You don't do that. I mean, I am open, Alex, for the possibility of being crazy, delusional, but I don't, I don't find, like it's funny. I think that a lot of that banter is about getting computers to do things. And I think the hard part about my job is getting people to do things, you know? Like inspiring my team and like, you know, convincing a creator to charge us like a quarter of what she charges because she fucking loves us. Or, you know, like it's, it's, I'm like convincing a lining and inspiring people. Like the bulk of my work is in that domain and not in the domain. Like, you know, yes, it took me two more minutes to copy, pay something manually. Big deal. Like I don't want to miss the forest for the trees. That's the fucking preach right there, saving milliseconds for your like personal white collar efficiency to me just kind of means nothing compared to everything else tech could be used for though I would like to get a digest every morning that says at 2 p.m or 2 a.m your wife farted in the bed temperature went up by two degrees and then you ran out of milk according to Samsung fridge scan when your youngest went into the fridge the middle of the night though that does sound fun. But I mean, do you feel isolated from any of the efficiency obsession being in Miami? I mean 100%. Like nobody in Miami, I have not heard a single person in Miami be like who's going to pay for software when you can vibe code everything? It's like no, you know, like there's, I mean the best thing about living in Miami is it really keeps you grounded. Nobody's these heard of cloud code, not a single friend of mine. here has heard of Cloud Code. What have they heard of? It might be. I have you. Like, they're starting to use Chat UBT to draft emails occasionally, you know? So I don't know. They say the future is not evenly distributed, but I just think there's something about being closer to people that don't care about technology, but what it can do for them. There's a obsession with technology for the sake of technology. And Silicon Valley, and like, to me and Miami, there's always like, what's in it for me? It just always comes back to, it's not cool to play with these things for the sake of it. It's what's in it for me. And so you start to suss out a lot of the BS if you think about it that way. Sarah, when Ellis said we were going to have a Miami founder on the show, which I was excited about, I was imagining you beaming in from a 20 story deck with a glass pane overlooking the beach in the skyline, and instead you're kind of giving, I don't know what this is. Are you in like Connecticut, Westchester, Wyoming? Like this is not giving Miami. I live in, uh, in the water. So like, just to give you context, I have in my house, we live on the bay. My kids are fishing at 10 p.m. on a Saturday. So there's a big Miami vibe here. It just happens to be that I created this like part of the house that is disconnected from the, you know, like I like get wet when it's raining to come into this little office that I made that has more of a mid century modern vibe. I'm seeing an opportunity to connect Claude bot on the Mac mini to the fishing rod to optimize line strength. Ellis, you're losing me. You're losing me. Oh no, but that's, I mean, that's the joke I'm making. It's just like, man, why? Why? And I think the truth is just because it's fun and I don't have any judgment over people who do it for fun. I have judgment over people who think they're doing God's work when they make little things techified. You know what I mean? Totally. The people doing ex articles where it's 24 ways the world will never be the same because I have a Mac mini running Claude bot and doing my day trading and fidelity. I think I know what article you're talking about. Well, I mean, this also raises. Did you guys watch the new, uh, friend, AI pendant video yesterday? I did, Ellis. Did you direct that one? I did not know, um, but I thought it was really interesting. It is a somewhat unusual looking kid who's very religious, clearly lives in some suburbs, talking about God, Christianity, prayer, and his friend pendant and his parents are like, you know what? Like, if this is making him happy and he's talking to it and having a nice relationship, alright, and he talks about it as being like, I'm mostly friends with girls at school. The guys don't really want to talk to me. Now I have a little thing to talk to at different times, but the video ends with him playing with other kids. And I'm like, this is a testimonial that I have never, ever seen, uh, in a, you know, coastal elite, usual millennial, urbanite tech video. And uh, it just makes you think like, how much do we really know about users out there? I certainly felt that way. It's Snapchat. That was like my biggest fear with 400 million users. It's like, how could you know anything about them? I mean, does that type of stuff occur to you as you're building like a social platform now? It's interesting that you mentioned that because I think we're all part of this kind of tech, Twitter discourse. And I think in our world, oftentimes like we hear people say that artists, you know, often hate AI. And sometimes when I'm in artist circles, they're actually incredibly positive. It's a, you know, art is a new medium. And so, yeah, I mean, I think it's very easy to be insulated. I think in order to build these days in some ways, you have to put on horse blinders in some sense, right? Like, you know, you, you, you listen to things like the 10 next thing outbound with AI is going to bring down a pack. And I find that. I worked on that. You worked on that story on a, on a product. Well, I mean, I think there are probably 10 companies doing that exact thing. But I worked on one. But I find it insane. Like, I, there's just the way I think about this stuff is the moment something becomes abundant, then something else becomes scarce, right? You have this, you know, like, like, I think one of the biggest questions that anyone building anything today is asking themselves, is how do you build a product or a business these days when capability is no longer the bottleneck? But AI doesn't remove bottleneck, so it just shifts the bottleneck. It's in the bottleneck. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's clarity of vision and judgment and, you know, storytelling as you obviously know. But, but I think, yeah, I think a lot of these questions are things that founders are living right now. Yeah. This reminds me of that essay you shared the other day. You can plug the name and author of it, but it was talking about, you know, the ultimate differentiation is not just whatever the next tool is in telling your story or the next format, whether it's video or sub stack or X articles or whatever it is, but it's actually trying to become almost as unique as you can be by altering your inputs, you know, vis-à-vis creating your unique taste. And I think I agree with that point that that really is the long-term lever as opposed to just whatever the trend is with, with the medium. Well, I feel like that's the whole sort of like business or value proposition of sublime. Like I, we think of sublime as a tool for cultivating taste. And I think that we live in this world where sure the tools can code and write and design, but what are they in a built? What are they going to design? And I think in that world, your references become your advantage. And I think that a tool likes sublime and the kind of direction that we're headed in. I think in the past, you would think of bookmarking tools, tools to kind of spills up, whatever, second brain, digital garden, whatever the name de jour, you give to these tools is. I was once a digital gardener. Don't give up, Ellis, don't give up. But I do think that the ROI on these tools is different now because if you are Ellis and you have a selection of what you think are the best headlines for landing pages, then that is I think the uniquely human work is discerning. Like this is good or this is good to you, you know? And then you plug that into AI tools and you generated a lot of, a lot of impact. So I think the, the hills that on sort of like willing to die on is like, what are we going to do with all this power, right? Are we going to just like outsource and like make cookie cutter stuff? Or are we going to make beautiful things that we're proud of? You know? And to me, that is, that's like the, the journey I'm on, it's like, we need to be more inspired as a species. You know? We're not just going to prompt things away, like this is incredible power that we have. And I think that when I look at the world today, there's the, you know, utopian side of this technology will save us. There's the humorist side and I sort of feel like I and sublime are on this sort of like then diagram middle of people who love technology and, and hey, technology, and it, yeah, I sort of want to like, I want to be like, don't pick it. Let, don't pick a side like, let's just let, you know, there's like, let's come here. You know, we don't have to pick one side. We can build something wonderful together. So I, you know, I feel like that, that's sort of the, the world that I, that I want to inhabit and, and I'm trying to build. It's confusing, isn't it? Everybody has this idea, like, I want to make great content or great art or whatever. And it's so obvious and you hear it all the time. But I feel like people forget that age old saying of right what you know. You are the unique sum of all your lived experiences. And if you make what only you can make, that's probably your best chance of creating something interesting and unique. And I mean, people are like, Oh, it's how'd you write that headline? And I'm like, well, that was Emily Dickinson, man, in the back of my brain, some fold within my brain, combining eE Cummings, Emily Dickinson and an AI note taking app into a headline. And at the very least, it's going to be different, right? Hard to say, better or worse, but yeah, it is interesting. I feel like the algorithms in some strange way are almost creating a new type of monoculture where we're all only seeing kind of the same thing to pass by us instead of expand, you know, our realms, Alex, I'm curious if you know Mr. Scootmaster. I know there used to be this idea that TikTok or even reels like reserved a subset of the algorithmic weights to show you new things. Do they do? Do they do that still? I know that on YouTube, the whole new to you button is at the far end of that column now, and I have to hunt pretty far to get to it. Yeah, I mean, TikTok definitely created the idea of, you know, we should actually just be constantly introducing new things and like extending the spider web out versus just like reinforcing what you like, like a dog or something. But I don't think they, I don't think they index heavily on that. I mean, like what Instagram will do now is you can do like a trial where if you post a reel, it will trial it to outside of your graph first to see how it performs. So no one actually follows you will see it. And then it will then show it to your graph. that's like a creator-led action. I don't think they're doing it super algorithmically. I mean, all these platforms have following or for you or whatever. I feel like people just have given over to the algorithm, right? - I'm certainly seeing more of the same. - Yeah, there's a lot more of the same. I think it's sort of this weird world where nobody wants to be posting every day or creating content to please the algorithm. But everyone is doing it because everyone is doing it. And nobody knows how to turn that off. And so then I think a lot about building a company is I think there's a lot of pressure to play short-term games, right? We've seen it with this kind of company that finds a way to arbitrage attention, like famously, cluely, for example. But where did that go? You know, where it is? I think the verdict is still out there on whether this rage-bait or manufacturing of virality actually leads to any sort of durability versus the, I don't know, my school of thought is like, there's no shortcuts. You kind of build relationships, build trust, tell-good stories, do that repeatedly again and again. But of course, the easy thing that a lot of startups are doing 'cause companies are always trying to find arbitrage opportunities in 2010. I'm old enough to know when Facebook's CPMs were a dollar. And now it's like the TikTok for you fees, we can just all drool out here. So I don't know, I think you got to like figure out what game you want to play. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting too. I think all these platforms have constantly shifted what they wait in terms of what to show you, whether it is an algorithm that's prioritizing for engagement, whether it's AI trying to understand your interests and then show you that or even back to the beginning, kind of the follower model and then beyond that, the friends of friends model. I mean, how did you think about that when you created Sublime? I feel like what it almost reminds me the most of is Tumblr, where it's not really about the likes. I think you don't even have likes. You just kind of have the amount of people who added something to their private repo things that they like, which seems like a lot higher signal. But here's the second question. It all depends if your company is built for that, right? I think if you're like a VC back company that needs to get results or some huge traction in a year or two, it changes the equation a little bit. I mean, I don't know exactly how you're structured or what your run way is, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think on the surface, Sublime is a personal knowledge library, much like whatever single player tools people have used to capture anything interesting they come across. Now, the thing that I always yearn for, as someone who is obsessed with ideas and insights was, why is it that on the internet, I am either alone in my Apple notes or I am shouting and performing on social media. Why, when I'm researching or writing a piece, why can't I kind of peak and have some of the serendipity and aliveness that you get from going to social spaces? So, Sublime is the metaphor is one of individual personal utility. It's not designed to be a social network. It's designed to be a place to cultivate your tastes so that you can have better references for your projects and create more. And the social discovery piece is sort of a byproduct of that, meaning we don't have it for you feed. The best way to discover ideas on Sublime is to save something to your library and then discover related ideas from the network. And so, that's definitely the hero feature on Sublime. That's the thing that right now is the most differentiated because the corpus, see what's interesting is that content is infinite. But if you think of the corpus of content on Google, it's highly SEO optimized. If you think about LLMs, you know, you ask the LLMs for an interesting example of so and so and it's going to tell you Steve Jobs, Oprah. Sublime has a long tail of the niche curated web that I think partially it's like a function of the community and network we've built. But I actually think there's a big argument for how well that scales because the corpus of content that we're building is not the kind of corpus that is going to be sort of like abused for SEO purposes. We are a subscription product. So, I just think that the dynamics of it and the network that we've built just means that there's just this curated corpus of content where else on the internet can you connect your Kindle highlights and then travel down a path of really high quality. I just think this is where people are going to go when the bots take over to get to bathe in human curated. I'm like, wonder, blah. The result, less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. That's new. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability. Very 16 plus. (soft piano music) - Sarah, I was watching your YouTube year in recap. Cool that you're that transparent with the audience about how the company is doing. And I think we have to give you some claps that your default alive. We love to hear that from a VC backed startup. We love default alive 'cause to Alice's point earlier, when you raise money and you're doing something that is social in nature, there's tremendous pressure to have a huge outsized outcome, which usually leads to scale, which leads to engagement, spading. And so, yeah, how are you navigating? - We forgot ads. - Well, that's implied in that, yes. So yeah, what does being default alive mean for you this year? - Well, it's interesting. I, you know, there's so much that we want to build, but the thing I'm most proud of in being default alive is that we've sequenced our kind of product, roadmap, in such a way that we prioritize willing this to pay. And that took us to a place where, you know, we are around, you know, like we can choose our destiny. I think, I really think, I mean, sublime is a values driven product. And I think revenue gives you the freedom to honor your values. Without revenue, you know, like you just start doing wonky things when you need to raise the C and, you know, change your narrative. And so, you know, there's so much left to build, but I think that what we built so far as a testament to, like, yes, we prioritize the things that people pay for first. And that took us to default a lot. - How much of that revenue is the deadline candle, which I desperately need. (laughing) I saw you were selling these candles. Ella showed me that, did you have one? - I was doing, I was doing one today. I was writing a thing that I'm gonna publish soon. And I love my deadline candle. - It looks like you did it very fast 'cause that candle's barely burnt. - Yeah, the candle's barely there, but listen, you'd be surprised what happened when you light a candle and in 15 minutes when the deadline candle is lit up, is like two hours and non-candle time. - So you either get a deadline candle or a full pack of zins. Can you tell us where that idea came from? - And what it is for those who haven't seen it? - The candle or the zins. - Yeah, I said zins. - Oh. - If you have four hours to get a project done. - Well, the deadline candle is literally a candle that says deadline on it. And it was just inspired by this idea that creativity requires constraints. That creativity is better with a deadline. And I think, you know, sublime is all about celebrating creativity, collecting things, but damn, like do something with that. Light a deadline candle and like, you know, get to work. And yeah, but I think more broadly, the deadline candle comes from, it's like the thing that works these days, is you have to do things that people remember. Like see, Alex remembered the deadline candle. How many, like what are you scrolling all the time? Like what do you remember that you scrolled on today? Like for the most part, nothing. And so I just think so much of building a company like sublime in this day and age is about, just like, I don't think there's a playbook. You just keep doing things that are memorable, you know? - The thing I remember from my feed today is that I posted some beautiful film photos and some guy told me that they were shit, but that my kid is still cute. So that's what I remember from my timeline today. It's just so, it's just so tragic that, you know, the negatives. stuff makes such a bigger mark on you in terms of your memories. And I mean, that's like what interests me about these types of products, whether they're like more positive social products, like retro, the kind of friends only, you know, Instagram-y, photo sharing thing, or daily productivity tools, like I just got a Hobo Nici notebook. I mean, it just, it becomes very clear at the end of the day, or even at the end of the morning, if you spend it using those types of tools, or not. Here's my next question for you, though, which is that I think historically, a lot of the like the knowledge management tools, or even the private social tools, have people just kind of haven't built a habit, hate to say, because there isn't as much feedback, you know, from people, whether it's likes, comments, otherwise as they get elsewhere. How do you keep that that feedback loop rolling, not necessarily even from from others, but even for yourself to keep creating? I mean, God, I've quit 100 different notes or collecting tools over the years. Totally, totally. I mean, yeah, I think that's a fair question. I mean, the way that I, that I sort of look at it is if you cult, like I think investing in a curated references library, the feedback loop has to come from the impact that that will generate on your life. And so, for example, like I have a collection of e-nails that I have received that are really good. I call it, it's a, the collection is called God Gods. So it's basically like things that like effectively sold me. I was like, oh, like I want this. And so I'm collecting instances on the internet where I was effectively sold something. And so the next time I'm going to put together some copy, I'm going to go to that collection. And I'm going to hit the chat button on sublime. And I'm going to open a plot or chat should be to you window. And I'm going to be like, use these references as a way to help me do why. And so I, I think that that's where my, my mind is like the, the thing that that didn't exist in the past is all of this power. But if you have taste and you can use AI tools effectively, you can generate impact. And I refuse to add likes to sublime. I think that it should be a quiet space for discovery. Like to me, there's just like certain things that we will not compromise on. And that's, that's one of them. You know, you will not go viral on sublime. You know, and actually that thing, I think that's like a, that's a feature, not a bug. So the kinds of things that you come to do here are just fundamentally different. And I think our job is to educate people. Yeah, I mean, I hate to say I feel like I've heard, you know, values like that from so many people over the years, even early Instagram, early Tumblr, early Pinterest, early all of them. I feel like it is wholesome and easy to say, you know, if I'm a user like, why do I believe you that you're going to be able to stay true to it? I don't know if you ever saw my big butthurt monologue on the verge called social media's doom to die. I guess a lot of it just comes back to like how much money you raise and thus the expectations you create for yourself. But I mean, that is one of the privileges of being a founder, like companies, you do get to make rules like that. But when times get tough, you know, what happens? Yeah, I mean, I always come back to like, because at the end of the day, like I could do whatever I want. Like, you know, the only reason to trust me is like, I'm asking you to trust me. But, you know, I can, I can get changed my mind. But I think, I guess that's what the YouTube videos do, huh? Yeah, I mean, that there's, there's a version of that. But I really think that it's important to interrogate someone's motivation for doing something like legitimately with this product. All I wanted was to solve something for myself. I want this thing to exist in the world. Doesn't mean that like, you know, eventually, if I wanted to build the fastest growing thing, like, maybe I'll do that. Maybe that's in the cards for me. But for this product specifically, I think that my sort of job is to steward this responsibly so that it exists for the people to whom it is very meaningful and to continue to steward it in the right direction. Now, you know, this is why people thought like, he the blockchain is trustless and mess in that. And yeah, I don't really buy that argument too much. But yeah, fundamentally, you're trusting people is really what it comes down to with everything. You can put sublime on the blockchain and then it all comes home. No, no, PTSD. Like I will not try anything blockchain really again. I mean, I will say like, portability is a big thing for us. You know, like we make it so easy for you to like, port like in like the whole premise of this tool is, this is not meant to be a place for your health captive here. The idea that you take these things elsewhere to create things. And so, you know, a lot of what we've done and what we continue to kind of orient the roadmap around is portability. Yeah, props on that. I actually had that written in my notes that the pro plan advertises export features. Like being able to dump your stuff, I think, into, is it JSON or whatever you want? Everything. I don't know how, yeah, into whatever you want. And forever, I feel like that has needed to be one of the digital rules of the web and of these services. And I think for far too long, these companies have just kind of gotten away with saying, oh, I don't really have the time to add an export feature or whatever. But especially with, you know, increasing antitrust scrutiny on the big companies, you're starting to see more companies do it. And I'm sure it makes you feel a little funny sometimes, but then the best product should win, right? Totally, totally. I mean, it's, it's, it's table stakes, I think, for, for something like us. And I, you know, I, I mean, you mentioned Ellis at the beginning of the call, how, you know, you're, and you're helping companies build, create language that is different. And sometimes, like, it, it doesn't even matter of your worst, but like, different is better than bed. That's so true. That's so true. Like, you know, like, like, there's a lot of things about one that are still clunky, but there's no other tool on the internet for this, the kind of content that people add to sublime, or you can find similar ideas of this kind of caliber. And so that alone is, you know, is the thing that people continue to come to us for, even if it's worse on, on other dimensions. But I think where I'm going with this is I, is you kind of see two kinds of founders or companies these days where, in some cases, it's a race to the bottom. I mean, you think of like VZero, Bolt, Lovable, etc. Like for me, it's interchangeable. I mean, I kind of use them all, but it's like whatever charges, like, they're pretty interchangeable. And I think part of what I'm trying to do with sublime is we have this core software product. But we do events. We do merch. We do zines. We're building a world. And I think as long as we don't betray our values and sensibilities, I think the hope is that nobody can do sublime. Like we can do sublime. They can do something kind of different. But I, you know, I just, I don't know. My strategy is like carve out my lane and chill. Is my, is my business strategy? I'm glad you brought that up. That's what I was going to ask. If someone just vibe codes their own version of sublime, what do you do? And it's like, well, I've got the merch. I've got the zine. I've got the everything, the network built around it. You know, that can't be vibe coded. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. It might, it might take on the, you know, the every individual vibe code their own thing is like, that to me brings a little bit like, everyone is going to 3D print everything. You know, like the, or, you know, like, there's like so many things that are open source. Like I can open source sublime tomorrow. You're not going to go through the pain of doing that. Like the amount of even with the advances in engineering tools, et cetera, like the number of edge cases and the maintenance required for these things. So I sort of like, my contour in view is that, is that like what's on my homescreen? You know, linear slack. Apple, no, it's like, I don't have a single vibe coded tool on my homescreen personally. I do you guys? No, yeah, no, I do not. I mean, Ellis worked with Eugenia at lobby. He's been on the show and I think they're doing really interesting things on mobile. But yeah, nothing I've seen that's like homescreen worthy yet. Yeah. I mean, I love what Bobby's doing. I think it's like this idea of software as content, I think is very interesting. But I, I feel pretty strongly that soft like software for the big kind of recurring things we do in our lives. I'm not worried about that. That said, like where a lot of where I'm investing my energy is, we're doing a ton of events. We're investing in relationships. Where, you know, it's the world's building. I think that is hard to replicate at the end of the day. You also have a sub-stack. And, you know, as a relative newcomer to sub-stack myself, but where I'm kind of staking my future media career. Any tips? Any tips? What's your free-to-paid ratio? How do you think about growth, retention, open up the dashboard? But no, seriously, you've been on there for a while. It seems like you've built a good audience on there. Have you always just been a writer? Has that always been part of what you do? Or was it something you kind of made a concerted effort to do around the company? Yeah. I mean, first of all, I started writing a sub-stack newsletter in 20. I don't know if it's 2019 or 2020. But I think I was like, I was one of the first like people hanging out there. It was very janky, it was very different, I love writing. I think that for me, I sort of like wrote my way into clarity on what I wanted to build is really what it comes down to. And I decided to open that process. So like the entire history of building this company is accessible on substrate, you know? So somebody were to start today like, are you going to do something with this brand new person you don't trust or go through it past five, six years of history here and kind of see a trail of evidence of just like caring, you know? Like I think caring is a competitive, such a strong competitive advantage these days. Like everything is so disposable. But you asked about softstack. Yeah, I mean, they've built a network now. So I would say it's a big part of our distribution strategy. Like I'll give you an example. That's something I did. I saw you guys have your, your substack subscription as part of your lifetime sublime. Don't worry. We'll turn the referrals on sources to sublime after this. We'll start referring to that. Please do. Please do. Well, it's funny. The only thing that's different about the basic plan on sublime and the premium plus plan is the substack subscription. And a good number of people choose that. So I don't know. I guess that says something about the way people relate to the product is not just as a utility tool, which it is, but there's kind of more that they're getting. But you asked about substack. It's interesting that here's something I did this week that has been very helpful. So creator partnerships can be effective, but it's, it's a little bit like, it's a little bit of a wild west out there, right? In terms of, you know, like I don't know, it's like, it gives me a little bit of an ache. Unless you work with a trusted reporter who is authoritative in the space with a decade of experience. Yes, I hear you. Alex. I mean, let's talk. Let's talk. Both. I basically sent out a note on substack and I said, I want to try an experiment. I want to pay 10 writers, $500 to write and, you know, like sublime response for the newsletter. And I got like dozens and dozens of writers and good ones. And essentially, so yeah, listen, every era has its own like, what are the opportunities to, like, what is business? You build something people want, you find people who want that thing. And so where do you find people today, you know, I feel like a lot of the, the playbook is like, you know, Facebook ads or Instagram ads are so expensive and SEO, like, you don't know if, you know, the AI box is going to kill your traffic anyways. And so I don't know. For us, I think substack is an interesting place and I, and I think we've been kind of early in exploring and look at, we, you know, I think we'll continue to do stuff there as it's working. So maybe I should create a software company to tackle on my substack to help my substack growth. Is that what you're saying? I think the show that is the, it's not a bad idea. I mean, is that not one idea for the future, right? Like, I saw that in your lifetime subscription, you also get access to your archives, including your vision deck and even your raw figma files and things like that, like, you're offering, you've got the candle, you've got the Zines events, figma files, YouTube videos, substacks, like tech people don't understand that a moat can even look like that. I feel like, and one of the reasons they don't understand it, I think it's because they think of it all is kind of like brand or packaging or, or whatever. They think, oh, if my product is similar to others, I'm just going to have to fight in the rat race to be 5% better and add better markdown support, better than sublime. But in reality, like, there have been commoditized products for decades and decades and decades and they differentiate on experiences, brands, ideas, philosophies, opinions, all these reasons that allow things to give you hashtag, meaning when you engage with that product, right? And there's just so much more to do, I think. I don't know how you feel about prioritizing all that stuff versus the software, but it definitely seems like the way of the future. Yeah, I mean, it definitely feels like, like the, the software is the core, right? But, but that's the beauty of building a company right now is you can do a lot more, you know, like, like a lot of these initiatives, like the hard part is coming up with the ideas, I think, you know, like, to me, there's this sort of, like Thomas Edison famously said, the genius is a 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. And I think it sort of flipped where it's like, now it's 99% inspiration, 1% perspiration. So if you have the ideas, like, you know, and like, they're good and they resonate with people, like, that's the hard part is coming up with things that will land with people, that will move people, that will compel people into action. Once you have that, like, I don't know, launcher the deadline candle, yeah, listen, like sublime is engineers and me, you know, and like, yeah, we, we do all this stuff, you know. So it's interesting that you mentioned, like a lot of tech companies don't understand that. But I think that there's no better way to get attention than to be distinctive. Yeah, my therapist told me this term, individuation, that I like using instead of the common self actualization, a little bit of a nuance there. And I love any product that's trying to help people build themself, you know, whether it's a journal, like I worked with a company called Light Page recently, that was a lot of fun. And what it did was when you a journal about something, it wouldn't say, you're so right. It would send you quotes, articles, and art the next day that like relates. So I'm like, banger, that's awesome, you know. And because it doesn't need to be like a massive VC back company, and it can just be a handful of people like, it feels more possible now to build these funny hybrids. I don't know if you are friendly with the every folks, but I've been subscribed to that kind of like the combination of interesting software and interesting newsletters. And obviously, you know, all of our subscriptions will come and go. But I think the combination is interesting for sure. What's interesting is that a company like every, I've spoken to Dan about this, this is, this is not the kind of company that fits neatly into a deck that gets approved by a committee to that. Like, you know, like none of these things, like, if we had a board that, and I was like, yeah, we're going to make a deadline candle. And like suddenly the thing goes viral, like, I'm like, how do you even quantify the fact that like this morning, someone became a lifetime member, and then we ask in the field, like, how did you hear about us? And he's like, oh, I bought your zined three years ago. How do you quantify that? You know, three years ago, like the tool fits into their life three years later. And so I, I just feel very strongly, you have to know, like, it seems like a really good time for me or for everyone to look in the mirror and figure out, what can you do? Not what are others doing, but who are you? And what can you do? And I think that's a very hard question to answer, but I think that for the most part, like, you ask around, like, yes, there's a lot of content that I, I don't think that amount of content is like matched by the amount of good stories. I mean, I'm preaching to the choir here, but, but the reality is I think there's just such a dearth of like, why are you building this? Why you? I really think that like, look in the mirror thing is very hard to do these days because we're so exposed to what everyone is thinking and saying all the time, you sort of forget, like, to listen to the sound of your own intuition, but that's where I try to remind myself is, I, you know, it's very easy to have FOMO as you're building, but if I sit and journal, what are the things that have moved the needle for this product or company? They're usually the things that are true to us. It's not us trying to be like, oh, everyone's hiring, you know, an 18 year old TikTok UGC Army to go flood the internet, like, I don't think, you know, like, I'm like, damn, that's deep, like, we work very hard for, you know, for our defaults of life state. Like, you know, you see the guy who generated 60,000 users over a weekend, vibe coded product with it, you know, TikTok UGC Army. How many of those people are going to be around in two, five, 10 years? Yeah. I mean, I think the conventional wisdom in tech journalism and criticism is just, you know, it's going to destroy all these jobs and that'll kind of be that. And I think, you know, we'll see how that shakes out. But I've definitely become a lot more optimistic on the idea of people actually expanding what they create. I mean, me, for example, I've always thought of myself as a bit of a product designer in my heart, but because I couldn't use Figma, I couldn't do it, you know, now I actually, I don't feel like we're even quite there yet. But soon, I'm going to be able to make whatever apps I want using my unique insights about life or about writing or about meaning or finding yourself. I also saw that you posted some stuff on, I forget the name of it, it's a site where you could like list your, it's where you have your merch and stuff like that. If I could easily create and ship a book, I would consider it, you know, and I do think maybe that's the ultimate founder leverage, no matter what. what you're making is just to think of what your ideas are that are most interesting and then how many different expressions can it have? Like, I want to put my mantras on a hat or a shirt. As soon as that's easy, I'll do it. Totally. And so, and I think we're slowly getting to that world. I mean, we're still not there, I think with the kind of precision and control that someone like you needs in terms of the kind of fidelity of the final output. But I think we'll get there and what's interesting to me is that in that world, like, to me, it's sort of backwards to think, oh, I have to learn technical skills in order to be creative. Why do I need to learn technical skills to be creative? Like, the whole idea is that all you need to do is be creative. And then, the idea, like, it seems like a really, really great time for people who have, I mean, the word, obviously, gets thrown around a lot. But I think this, when I think of taste, I just think of this bone-deep feeling that you've made something good. And I think for a lot of people to make something good required a lot of money. But if you have the vision in your head, we need to tell better stories. Like, I just think that it's a tragedy that this is such an interesting time. I think arguably this is the most compelling time in the history of technology philosophically. And I think there are not enough people telling good stories about what that future could look like. So, with the little time we have left, I'm super curious to learn how you are raising your kids with technology so that I can follow your ideas here. I have not hired anyone to teach my kids' vibe coding. Listen, that's a bit of living in Miami. My kids are playing sports all the time. They're outdoors a lot. I think that the thing that I try to have a 10-year-olds, by the way, and we fight over his tech use. So, I'm still stumbling my way into fluency on these topics. But I think the world is changing. And nobody knows what the heck the world will look like 10 or 20 years from now. So, I'm not going to sit here and have a strong opinion on you. You should learn Python, or not Python, or I don't know. But what I do know is that cultivating relationships, like relationships are everything. And to me, that's the thing. I've given them an incredible community. We are part of an amazing world. We feel like we're part of an incredible local community here. And to me, seeing that they have a vibrant social life and incredible relationships, that's it for me. As long as I give them that, you deal with uncertainty with your people. Like, everything else should fall into place. I've certainly found that with my own daughter, who's four and a half, she'd rather be going to a party in the community than playing on her iPad. Like, a lot of this stuff is more fun, more rewarding, more fulfilling. And I think kids understand that. I'm definitely going to be interested to see, though, how the next wave treats social media, especially since it's becoming pretty, you know, common understanding now, that we all do it because we feel like we have to. But the likes and, you know, the performance just feels like we're monetizing ourselves and trying to turn all of ourselves into a business. And, yeah, I like your point, though, that it's like, we kind of can't know right now. Right now. We go from being extremely online to, okay, let's go analog, touch grass. And I don't know. I don't know. I tend to look at the worlds in Shades of Grey. It's like, we got to learn to live with technology. We're not going to go swear off our phones and live in a farm. That's not what most people are going to do. But how can we learn to live with this thing in healthy ways? Like, I don't know, for a long time, like, complaining to me feels pretty boring in general. Like, the idea of, like, I hate Twitter. I'm going off Twitter and announcing that on Twitter. Spoken like a true founder. Just build it. I don't know. But I think parenting is a hard one in this day and age. Well, I think we're almost out of time here. What haven't we covered, Sarah? What else is on your mind at the moment? What else is on my mind? Are second brains actually real? It's a good question. I think that the biggest value to me of having this practice of just. As we were talking about our relationship with social media, I feel like I just diffed my toes on social media, pick the things that are interesting to me, and I bring them back, and I workshop them. That's a very human, that's a very intentional process. I, like, the sublime brand and, like, my style is not like, I'm not promising some crazy efficiency, like, utopia, like, yeah. So, I personally, we've attached to this language, but I tell my team that in 10 years, we will have been successful if people talk about a sublime library as a category, not as a second brain, you know, digital garden or whatever. Jimmy Buffett famously said that it's ironic that I was never categorizable, and now I'm a category. And I feel like I'm excited to graduate from the era of, "Oh, Sublime is a second brain." So people say it's a second brain with a soul, like, "No." You know, like, the world right now is so devoid of wonder, and a sublime library has to be like a new category, but, again, head in the clouds, feet on the ground. So, it'll take us 10 years to get there. I'm so happy Jimmy Buffett has officially graced the pod. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a blast, all the best, and, yeah, we'll see you in various places, shapes and forms on the internet, I would think. This is so fun, that you guys are funny. Thank you, Siri. Thank you. And that is it for this week's show. Don't forget to like, subscribe, everywhere you get podcasts. We are access.show on the interwebs for all those links, and you can find us in video. Ooh, @accesspod on YouTube. If you liked this episode, leave a five-star review, clip it to your sublime, thumbs it up, and share with a friend. You could find me @Hamburger on Twitter, and at meaning.company for your startup storytelling needs. And you can find my newsletter at sources.news. Access is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and the show is produced by Hooked Creators. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. [Music] Booking.com is the easiest way from a day surrounded by noise. [Music] To a state surrounded by nature. [Music] That's nice. Go on, book it. It's easy. Booking.com, Booking. Yeah. Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at $50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving, or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder. The Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day Savings at the Home Depot, and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. [Music]