Where it says wrong way, where that guy's turning, go there. Got it. Don't go in.
Now it's recording. Can you say that thing you just said about... I don't want to leave the question. What? That this car has a physical SIM slot in it?
You also made another comment about... I actually like it. Yeah, it's good. I mean, look, it's no Miata.
We also could just, you know what, why don't I not navigate? I'm just going to do it by feel.
Yeah, I think that's better. That's better. Just drive. Yeah. So you can like get Apple CarPlay in this thing, but I don't think I will. It's better to do it old school. No, this car, you can't put Apple CarPlay in a 2009.
No. No, otherwise it's very inauthentic to do that. That's like trying too hard. You said something interesting about how you're glad I didn't get a new one. It's just douchey.
It's like, um, life... It's like the most simple litmus test for taste in life. It's like, do you get a new one or do you go through the records and figure out which one is right for you? Or do you just get a Miata?
Yeah, so this has more acceleration than a Miata. Oh, maybe I do want a little Porsche.
But okay, so like the Miata, is it a form of... So I was reading Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.
Of course you were. Yeah, and so I'm curious, which school of pre-Socratic or post-Socratic, whatever, philosophy would you put yourself in?
Oh, man. What a funny question. I mean, I don't even know how to answer that. Like, I think right now I'm like deep Frankl. Okay. All right, in just like my life philosophy? Yeah, so I can tell. I mean, there's so like the Stoics. I mean, you can go through like a whole... there's all sorts of people that have... I don't... I think it's hard to argue that any of them are the be-all end-all. They're all interesting patterns of thought.
Yeah. But right now I'm like deep in a like, what's the meaning of life and like what are the frameworks for that? And you know, I think Frankl's pretty compelling. Okay, well let's... So you're talking about that. Seems like something we should talk about. Man's Search for Meaning? Yeah, like who is Frankl and let's just start there. I mean, he's a Holocaust survivor who wrote an incredibly, I think, important and compelling book about the Holocaust and how people maintained a sense of dignity and meaning. Oh, wow. You've read it, no?
I actually haven't. Oh my god, you haven't? Actually, it's actually quite important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, how over years these prisoners, you know, who even talking about who died and who didn't and who survived and why. And like, you know, kind of like the philosophy of meaning in life and purpose that came from that.
And you know, I mean at the highest level there's like, you know, there's one very simplistic component of it which is just like the people who had survived were the people who had a reason to live, right? And like they had a framework for that. There was a family member they wanted to be reunited with. There was academic work they wanted to finish. There was some reason. Like because the people who died were the ones who lost that.
There's a whole section which was very compelling about how, you know, one guy, you know, and this is all told in actual stories, you know, who... um, he was... Apparently there's a lot of understandable disinformation, misinformation, you know, especially towards the late war about when liberation was coming because they kind of had some partial information of what was happening. And one guy had been totally convinced 100% that, you know, the allies were going to free them, call it like March 15th. Okay. And he died on March 16th because it didn't happen. Oh, okay. And he died nominally of, you know, medical complications, right? But it really is like he had staked his entire meaning on this date. Yeah. And then it didn't pay out, you know, he died. And like I think so there's a whole bunch of stuff around that that's super interesting.
It's also just like frameworks of life. Like you can live for happiness, right? Like happiness can be the goal, right? And you know, pleasure. I mean, but happiness is actually kind of super obvious. It's really pleasure. There can be like a project that you're looking to complete. Yeah. But you know, he also talks a lot about how like in some ways the private dignity of dealing with whatever you're dealing with, right? Like there's a version of that as well that can create purpose for people, which is like living well under the circumstances you're dealt. Um, anyway, it's... You should totally read the book. It's... I will. It's a really, actually, pretty fundamentally important book.
Is this like because you wrote an interesting newsletter about like meaning in the age of AI? Yeah, I think it's really... I think it is the question, honestly. What? By the way, we're going to take a right somewhere up here. Is it here? Let's keep going straight. Keep going. Definitely don't go there. You know what, go here. Go here. Go here. Where it says wrong way, where that guy's turning, go there. I got it.
Don't go into the wrong way. Just... but love it. Where it says wrong... Unless you want a new Porsche. No, they don't make them anymore. Well then don't go in the wrong way.
All right, this is your road. You'll like this road. Great. So how have people found meaning before and how has that changed?
Well, I like... The answer is I don't know. I mean, you know, I'm trying to figure this out. Like how do you find meaning? I'm working on it. And I don't like, you know, it's... I think when you're young in some ways it's easier because you're just like, well, I have no money and like I have nothing to... and like no one thinks I'm cool and I have like no access to anything.
Yeah. So I guess I should just put my head down and work, right? Or like I should try to build a life in some way, shape or form. And then maybe you kind of come down that and you start having bigger questions about these things, right? And like how you should spend your time and what matters and things like that.
I think like... So I don't know. I don't have like super concrete answers. I do think that AI is a very problematic moment for meaning. Yeah. If for no other reason than I mean like my kind of grand narrative on this is, look, for most of human history for most people life just sucked, right? It was like nasty, brutish, and short. Yes. Right? And you had millennia of people justifying why they should get out of bed in some form of religion, right?
Super interesting. There's a book called The Ancient City. Have you read that? Uh, no. Great book. And I will admit, as much as I like to rib people, I actually... you know who loves the book and how I learned about it? It pains me to say it. Who? Peter Thiel? No, actually Peter wouldn't pain me. Marc Andreessen. Your nemesis.
I'm my... my Max nemesis. But like, is he a nemesis or is he like the sorting hat? The sorting hat? You know, because he like... or not... you know? Oh, like I think being called by him is good? I don't even know.
I think all the publicity is... I mean that's certainly my philosophy in life is there's no such thing as bad publicity. The only thing that's bad is being sufficiently irrelevant that no one cares. I agree with that. This is the worst, yeah. Like irrelevance is the real thing you don't want.
Anyway, so look, early religion, land-based ancestor worship. Your family's living in the same land forever. Yeah. Your life sucks. Yeah. But like you keep the hearth fire going and you literally feed your dead ancestors under the ground because the worst thing is to be a wandering spirit. And like that's literally what it was. Like that was like the religion.
Yes. And then technology starts getting better. Yeah. And all of a sudden like you have like mini empires starting to roll up these local families, right? And interestingly, you know how they work basically is they would conquer a family or a region. Yeah. And then you know what they would do is they'd take the family deity and like move the hearth fire to the capital. Yeah. Which was, if you think about it, like capturing the ancestors.
Is the hearth fire this like multi-generational thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you keep the fire going forever. Like even the burning bush. The burning bush is like a swerve of what the hearth fire was. Because the hearth fire like consumed. Like you'd feed it like animals, like sacrificial... And what was interesting about the burning bush is it was a fire that does not consume, right?
Were hearth fires purely religious or was it also like... I think they were purely religious. There was... I don't... Again, like we're obviously going to stretch my knowledge. So like, look, okay, you have fire. You have local deity. Yeah. You start getting better technology. You start rolling up these families.
Polytheism is just like, okay, we took all the local deities and captured them and stuck them in the capital cities. So now you can't rebel because I took your ancestors. Yeah. Right? And like turns out that like a lot of the ancestors are pretty related because like, you know, they all kind of look like Athena or whatever. So like you kind of amalgamate them, right? And then all of a sudden you don't have 10,000 family gods, you have like dozens of polytheistic gods, right?
And then like you get even more powerful and you kind of need monotheism because there are too many gods and you can convince people that there's, you know, like whatever. Like there's this whole progression of religion, but the backbone of it all is like life sucks, nasty, brutish, and short. You live for the future, for like the afterlife in some way, shape, or form, right? And like there's evolutions to what that is.
Then we had this like crazy moment in like the... It's kind of we caught the tail end of around the industrialization. We're like, wait a minute, we don't have to live for some like your dead future. Dude, actually the actual future you're going to live in will be better if you work hard.
The area under the curve became positive. Right. And so like all of a sudden like GDP not growing, you need to live for the afterlife. GDP growing, you're like, oh, like your kids' lives will actually be better. Like by the way, actually if it's going fast enough, your life's going to be better. Yes. Right? And so like you actually can live. And then very importantly, it's not just stay alive. It's like you can do work and be invested in a mission that will pay off in your lifetime. Yes.
That's a huge innovation. Because all of a sudden like why do you think in like the developed world religion falls off whereas in like the shittiest places religion's really virulent, right? It's because like well, if you live in a shitty place and a shitty culture then like actually you kind of got to stick with the next life. Sorry, because your life just sucks, right? You know, in your life we get to be in the 2009 Porsche driving on the Skyline, right? Like and you're not even that old.
And so like that... My parents came here from the Soviet Union with nothing. Right. So that's like... So good. In my entire bloodline... They have like in two generations. That's sick. Like that's like an amazingly compelling story.
Thank you, United States of America. Thank you, capitalism. Thank you, medicine. Thank you, science. Like great story. Thank you, parents, too. And thank you, parents. But by the way, the parents had such an awesome foundation of meaning, right? And like there's all sorts of meanings. Like you think of the Jews. Like why are the Jews so good? It's like part of it is like that's a hell of a story.
The chosen people, thousands of years. Like you have this like unbelievable meaning story that's like a weird swerve in cultural history, but it's like unbelievably powerful for bestowing meaning and therefore getting people to like live good lives, right? Um, although I think like... And also get murdered a lot. But like you know, like... So okay. So by the way, it's pretty cool road, right? It is. This is great. Yeah. You wanted. Yeah. Thank you.
Okay. So back to meaning. So we got the religion. We got GDP growth. This by the way, amazing restaurant in the woods. Great. Nice. We have a mountain house, too. Do you? Yeah. There I think it's on Tam, yeah. Who doesn't have a mountain house? Yeah. Do you have a mountain? So fine. So you got meaning, religion, GDP growth. Now here's the up part with AI, okay? Yeah.
AI breaks the story of work harder, get better outcome. Yeah. That's the problem with it. It's not like the better outcome part is actually only part of the story, right? So this is why like take like Bryan Johnson, who I think is great, but like his whole don't die narrative. His whole narrative is like your only purpose is to not die because the world's going to keep getting better. So as long as you can hold on long enough, great. So your only mission should be to not die. Well, like hold on long enough until your consciousness can be digitized and we're immortal.
Whatever. So you hit some like inflection point. Like maybe you just like a vampire you hold on long enough and your income you compound well or whatever. His point is like it's a very clear mission. It's very religious. I'm actually like I get it and I don't... I liked him. I think he's like an interesting guy. Like a really warm guy. He's great. Yeah. Here's the problem is and like I think he has a slight solution for this and how crazy he is, but like the mission of just hang on, like stay alive, doesn't actually tell you what to do every day.
It doesn't give you purpose to do anything. It's all of a sudden you're like, okay, just don't die. Like what am I supposed to do for the next 12 hours? Like there's no... It doesn't organize your life or give you like a sense of agency or purpose, right? It's just... So that's like one possible outcome is that the world gets better for everyone, but you don't have to do for it to get better for you. Yeah. Which is not a high meaning way to live, right? Like there's no... You don't... It doesn't tell you what to do every day.
Option two with AI is that actually the world doesn't actually get better for everyone. It's a massive wealth compounder if you already have wealth. Yeah. Like it's going to like because all of a sudden you don't need labor for all this which means capital is like way more valuable, right? And there's a counterargument which is capital so abundant it's not valuable, but like whatever. The point is like in which case like a vanishingly small number of people from a return on scale perspective just own everything and have amazing lives and can have all the meaning they want, but they in some ways have like weirdly like a monopoly on meaning.
So the thing about this is like if it used to take, if you wanted to build the railroad, you needed like so many people, right? And each of those people driving a spike in, even how shitty the work is or like uneducated, there's like some level of like I'm doing this thing that is meaningful. Like relevant. Part of the team. Like I drove a spike, I got to drive a spike in the railroad rolling and that's like a cool feeling.
Yeah. But if you're like, wait a minute, I can do the whole thing with just capital and robots and no labor. Then like you've just like eviscerated meaning for so many people. Like or like even a tech company. It's like if you can run Google with five people, you probably can. It is way more efficient. Those five people and the shareholders are thrilled short term. But there's like a meaning vacuum to it, right? Because like you just haven't shared the wealth of meaning with anyone. Like no one else gets to be like I was part of that.
Is there a historic period we can look back on where people had it so good they lost the meaning that comes from like work and struggle and they kind of went nuts and like... Well, I think there's actually... The most obvious one unfortunately because it's well-trodden ground is the fall of the Roman Empire, right? Which is actually towards the tail end of the Roman Empire, they were never richer, right? There was actually if you look at the bread studies, there was more bread per capita than ever before, right? There was more wealth per capita. Like they were crushing it.
But it kind of hollowed out the small farmers and their civilization collapsed, right? And so like there's actually like that's like probably the most direct parallel, which is like just because a civilization gets on paper richer doesn't make it more powerful or resilient or successful.
Do you have... There's so many fun theories for the fall of the Roman Empire. Of course decadence is the best one, but do you have any favorites? About why it fell apart? I honestly like there are smarter people than me on like giving really good answers to that. I just think it's... To your point about decadence, like yeah, like they actually were super rich.
Yeah. Like... Well, I have a suggestion for you. Low interest rates end of 2010s. Like 2015, 2019. Like this is the rise of DEI and woke. Sure. Because people like were like, well, we have nothing else to fight for. Exactly. Like people at Google in particular like at this time Google had all this activism and it's like, okay, well we don't have to fight for existence as a company. We need something else to fight.
Well, kind of. I think there was another thing going on there though, which is what I actually... what happened with DEI and a bunch of these like weird side quests that have nothing to do with the mission of these places is that in a balanced good society there are like lots of institutions that are out doing work like for these things. Like a lot of these things are like valid missions. They're just like it's not Google's job to like deal with this, right? It's like the same thing with like education. It's like it's not higher ed's job to deal with the fact that like a bunch of kids don't know pre-algebra.
But it is Anthropic's job to own the morality of the US government, right? We'll get to that in a second. But there's this whole thing about like whose job is what. And I think what happened was we've just watched the collapse of so many institutions that everyone kind of looked around in that period and was like, well, what institutions are still strong? And it was like, well, tech companies and some universities. You're like, well, since everything is collapsing in terms of institutional trust and whatever else, the remaining strong institutions need to take on all this scope, right?
And so there was like this whole like effectively scope overloading on the remaining strong. That was one thing. And then I think the other thing is the actual Google workers or people they're like, I'm so powerless and yet the thing I work for is so powerful and I want to have meaning in my life. And being like engineer 10,003 at Google is meaningless.
Yeah. And therefore what I should... It's like my God-given mandate because I should have power to like leverage the power of the platform I nominally work at because like I don't have any other... like there's no other institution I can exert myself in, right? That's kind of I think what... But look, I think the meaning scope of like when you're rich you start going on side quests, right? It's for sure true, right?
So there is also I don't know. Like I can imagine a couple of ways this plays out. So you're totally right. Like a lot of people's work as they do it today just won't matter. You can easily imagine this automation. And maybe new work will emerge and then people get meaning from that. I don't know. But you can imagine like a kind of negative world.
A bit of a... What's that book where they have sex all the time and take the drugs? Brave New World. Sure. It's kind of Brave New World. Like everyone is taking drugs to maintain their state. They're having sex all the time, but like it's kind of empty. But then maybe there's like... So you sent me an email the other day that revealed that you may be a Trekkie. Is that... I mean I've certainly watched a lot of Star Trek.
Okay. What if the whole deal of Star Trek is like we've got into abundance. We don't really have to explore the universe, but we're just going to make that really cool. Well, okay. And that's Starfleet. And so we have... note being like one, you sent me a note being like there's a 25% chance in my lifetime we're going to discover like aliens. Like how on earth do you come up with that percentile? Okay, so by the way the next... Cuz that sounds like a load of to me. You think it's higher or lower? I just think it's like a random number you pulled out of your ass.
So I by the way the next day I looked it up on Polymarket and it's 18% and that for like a term of like a couple of years. So can I just... I'll tell you my story about... story and then we can talk about why Star Trek is a great but a completely incomplete narrative. So my wife has a cousin who's an amazing guy. That's how we're going to find aliens though. It's my wife's cousin.
And he commanded a squadron of F-18s that flew off of aircraft carriers. Okay, so... He said like the Marines don't fly a lot of airplanes but they fly F-18s off of aircraft carriers and... They're the people who eat crayons. Wait, I don't get that reference. Oh, that's like isn't that the military thing that the Marines like eat crayons? Oh, like they're not... they're like a little maxi. I think that's the military thing. Yeah, for sure. Maybe I don't know. I'll ask him though. Ask him if he eats crayons. Crayons and what the best flavors are.
But so it's a pretty badass job, right? And Thanksgiving like 8 years ago I facetiously asked him like, see any aliens? And he's like, you know, you're joking. But back in 2000 like he and his guys were flying missions off of the Nimitz off of San Diego and they saw the... Have you heard the flying Tic Tac story? No.
Flying Tic Tacs that don't obey the laws of physics. They move in weird ways and so he's like, yeah, I think I saw them. My colleagues, fellow pilots saw them. So he thinks they're real. There's Alice's restaurant by the way. Oh, nice. I biked here once. Yeah, I mean it's a classic. Yeah.
And I was just like, it was just pretty compelling because this guy is like a Marine aviator commander. Like he's not a guy who's going to make something up. And that gets you to 25%. Well, and then you see like all this like declassification and it almost seems like the US government is like trying to just softly like release this stuff until it just doesn't really become a surprise when they actually show up.
Maybe. I mean the... There's a great book, Area 50 of Area 51 something something something. I don't know. There's a good Area 51 book that's like fairly rigorous that is worth reading if you're into this stuff. Uh-huh. I don't know. Like look. Well, but I'll just say the best counter argument is Elon is like, there are no aliens and I would know.
I mean that's your best argument because we live in an era of techno kings where we just trust like three techno kings and like just say like, well, Elon can't trust him anymore. He lowered... I bought a Model Y and they lowered the price by 20%. Oh my god. What can you... What you lost with nothing because of the Model Y.
The... Look, I just think the Star Trek... Now here's the problem with the Star Trek narrative. Yeah. Is you just... Okay, the whole thing is like what is it? It's um... Who's first contact again? Vulcans. It's the Vulcans. Yeah. So like you get warp up, you get first contact and then all of a sudden Earth stops being shitty because we realize we're all one people and blah blah blah Starfleet. It's a very nice vision. Yeah. Two problems. One is like it's pretty hard to get into Starfleet and you like don't need that many people.
Yeah. And so like I don't really understand in the Star Trek world what everyone else is doing. Like sure I don't... I don't think there's any war. I have no concerns about the top 1%. Of drive, of intellect, of whatever. Like they're fine. Like you're always... In fact I'd actually go a step further. Humans are great at inventing meaning for themselves. And if you're really disciplined you're going to figure it out, right? That's... I'm so unconcerned with you.
The problem is there's another 99% of people, right? And like they're the ones who need cheap retail truth. Yeah. That's... and that cheap retail truth and meaning comes from religion or economic growth. And the reality is like you know you can have the robots and the 1% doing just fine. Yeah. And like the other 99% is going to be super pissed and hate them. Yeah. Right? And like they're going to be like, we're all doing Starfleet and you're like, yeah, but like you, right? Or...
And so actually so much of progress has been stories we've built and been able to tell at societal scale that got everyone on the same page, everyone rowing together and respecting private property and like all these like it's all stories, right? And the problem with the whole Star Trek thing is like I don't understand what everyone else is doing. Right?
You make a great point. Like they're even... Even Captain Kirk seems perfectly happy. Like fine. That doesn't do much for the rest of humanity. There are even episodes like there a couple of the TNG had an episode which is like about the normies on the Enterprise. Yeah, they're on the Enterprise. They're like the best like the normies on the Enterprise are like the top 1% of the world. And like some dude in engineering gets blown up and you're like who the [__] was that guy, right? And so like this is the whole thing of hero stories is you can't like... Now could you say no no no everyone's in Starfleet and there's an infinite number of people like maybe but like first of all that's insane and second of all like robots will do all that [__]. Yeah. Like why do you like even even Starfleet? Why the [__] are we sending people around? Like I don't get it. Maybe Starfleet is a job creation program. Like why why don't you automate the ship? Why do you need to call a guy in engineering to do a thing?
Well the only reason like It's a 60s battleship, you know? makes no sense. You could argue faster than light communication like you can't communicate fast enough. Yeah. Fine. So you have like a few it's just like a it's not the Starfleet defense is like a bad defense, right? It's not like it's just bad. Oh man. Um Can we change tax real quick? Sure. I What were your impre You were in you were in Europe recently, is that right? Like last week, yeah. What did you how was it? What did you think? I bought this shirt in Europe. Oh, it's a nice shirt. Thank you. Um I don't know. I mean like we had great weather. Yeah. And we were in Rome and Yeah. it's pretty. Yeah. I don't really get that much out of cities anymore. Okay. I like it's not that I don't appreciate a good meal. Uh-huh. But I'm not like I don't get people getting all excited about frescoes. Mhm. I get it. You know, but like eh. And like you know it just doesn't do much for me. It's like especially I think part of it is that all cities are kind of the same now. Dude. Right? Like they're just it's not that they're like they're all kind of the same, right? And and so it's very hard to go somewhere and be like oh this is uniquely special. Now in the country Yeah. you can get out of cities get into nature. There are lots of places where you see new things or just have new experiences but you know you can stay in a five star hotel anywhere on Earth and it's basically the same thing.
Dude, I think... Okay, so one connected thought to this is like I think the Catholic Church has a pretty interesting history.
And... You can say that. And like it doesn't seem like... Let's turn around because otherwise I think this is going to go forever.
Oh wow, that's amazing. Okay. I mean you can go forever.
Yeah, yeah. You got kids to get home to. I got kids to get home to. We'll turn around right here. Yeah, perfect.
So like during it, I think there was a period where the smartest people went to the Catholic... Like if you believe like, you know, for example at one point Facebook had the smartest people and OpenAI had the smartest people, at something like this. Well like a thousand years ago the Catholic Church had all the smarties.
Sure, because you could like have a lot of power and like have a bunch of kids and have accumulated a bunch of wealth. Yeah, and your job was to convince these like heathen kings of France, you know, and the even crazier guys in England to, you know, become civilized.
It's kind of a cool job. It's like the ultimate forward deployed engineer. You're a forward deployed missionary.
Kind of, although they got killed a lot. Yeah, but... Like it depends where you were in the church hierarchy.
But you're also living in a world where like your life sucks and you're all about the afterlife.
Yeah, yeah. 100% afterlife.
You kind of want it, right? To be martyred.
Those guys were crazy though. Like the stories of these missionaries who would just like walk into like a town of like Gauls and just like chop down their sacred tree by themselves and be like, 'Come at me.' You're like, are you kidding?
But like, look dude, like St. Patrick did that in Ireland and now there's a holiday, you know? Like St...
Yeah, but like he's not enjoying it. I don't know.
But he is like, he set out to... he accomplished his...
It's wild to me that you guys were so crazy. Like, you know what I mean? Like the missionaries, or the real missionaries who literally would go to some people like, 'You've been worshipping this tree for like 500 years.' Yes. Or thousands of years. And like you don't even have an army. You just like march in and you're like, 'I'm chopping down your tree,' and you're like... it's just insane.
So, and they would go back to Rome and this was like the ultimate temple, you know? To be clear, they would not go back to Rome because they'd be immediately murdered. But yes, the ones who made it back, they would come back to Rome.
And then like, so you're talking about frescoes, man. Like, this was a time, like let's just pick the Renaissance... Yeah, that would blow your mind.
Dude, the fresco was like VR. Like...
Oh, beyond. Like the Sistine Chapel. You're like, oh my god. This is my problem with the Taj Mahal.
Uh-huh. Have you seen the Taj Mahal live? Yeah, I haven't.
It's like, it's fine. But I do think that VR has totally ruined us on this because you're like, 'I've seen cooler stuff.' Now I understand that like actually to build it...
Yeah, it's impressive that it's kind of like looking at something that's a money pit. I mean, like it's amazing how much money you spent on this, you know? But it's like it's not physically impressive the way it once was because you're like, 'Yeah, I can just make this for 5 cents in pixels,' right?
It's the same thing with like striking beauty and AI. You know what I mean?
Striking beauty and AI.
Well, actually this maybe not, but like here's the thing. It's like... All right, how about this? Let's make it simpler.
It's like if you see like a really attractive woman... Oh god, this is being recorded. Yeah. Okay, here we go.
And she's like really fat, I'm just making stuff up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Like before Ozempic, you'd be like, 'You worked out really hard.' You know what I mean? Like that's impressive.
Like there, it's hard to look that way. Now it's like everyone's on Ozempic. So, like being thin as a female is like no longer aspirational.
You tell because like... saying, and you know this is the direction we're heading.
I see. Like eventually you'll take a pill. If you just take a pill, no one's going to give a shit about beauty. Ah. Right? Oh, yeah. Interesting.
Do you think that will ever... I mean the like logical extreme of that is like you swap your consciousness in and out of bodies and you have like a... No one gives a shit what you look like. Like if anything you'll come up with a different game, right?
Like anything that the... Oh, then like your personality will actually be valued. Or it'll be like it'll be really attractive...
Uh-huh. To be super ugly and fat, right? Because like only someone who's very powerful, like Jabba the Hutt, can get away with being super ugly and fat, right?
That's his worminess is a flex. It's kind of like how it used to be in the Middle Ages that being super fat was really desirable because it meant you were fed. It was like food was expensive, you know?
Like parenting, what do you think... What parenting advice do you have?
Oh man. I mean, my kids aren't old enough for me to feel like I can give out any advice yet. I mean, I love my kids and I think they're awesome. And they're all very unique characters in certain ways.
I guess the thing for me is like I think the only thing I'd offer maybe is like what is your goal in parenting? Is that like an interesting thing? Like I'll give you an example. I think that from like a life perspective, I really want my boys to be awesome friends.
Okay. Right? Like that's like an organizing principle for me. And I think that they're on their way and it gives me great joy to see that.
Each other or together? Okay, got it. Each other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I want them to be a pack and like I think that's a really good gift to give them and I don't think it's like a thing that you have no agency over. Does that make sense? Like I think you can encourage that.
Yeah. I don't think you can encourage everything, but like I think that's good. I think giving them a sense of purpose...
Uh-huh. Is key and a sense of drive and community. I mean, there's a lot of things you want to do, but I don't know. I'm not old enough to feel like I have great parenting. I'll say the only piece of... I'll tell you one thing I can say.
You know Todd Francis? No. Todd is awesome. And he once gave me a piece of parenting advice which I really loved, but he's like, 'Find activities to learn with your kids, not to teach your kids.' So, like find new things that you can both learn together and it's like one of the most joyful experiences with your kids is to learn something together.
Uh-huh. That sounds cool. But, I don't know. Give me 20 years, I'll tell you how I feel about parenting.
Do you have like a family set of values or you have to share that, but like is there some sort of... I wouldn't call it like... a friend of mine, I mean, they take like both of them down very seriously.
Like propaganda. He was like, 'You need propaganda for your family and you need like a coat of arms and values and a mission statement.'
Not a terrible idea.
Yeah. Like there've been at times like family mottos or community mottos we've tossed around. Like my favorite for a while, there was a dual motto...
Uh-huh. The motto is 'try harder' and 'do by self.'
Yes, meaning do it yourself. Oh, okay. Right? Do by self.
Got it. Fair. Right? So, and I do think 'try harder' and 'do by self' are both very good creeds. But we have not like formalized this. Yeah.
I know some people do. It's not a bad idea.
Would you put it in Latin or keep it in English?
We did put it in Latin, but we mistranslated the Latin because honestly I took Latin for 2 years in high school. So, my Latin isn't super strong. It was before ChatGPT. I want to do this stuff. Like...
You do. My family never had a coat of arms.
No, because you're dirty Jews. So, we want one and we have...
You weren't allowed to have a coat of arms or land, dude. But, in America...
Welcome to America. Everyone can have a coat of arms and...
So, make your own history. I mean, you know that startup that has a robot arm that carves like marble sculptures?
No, I don't. It sounds incredibly stupid.
But, you would totally get like a marble sculpture of like your wife for your entryway, right?
No, I wouldn't.
Oh, you wouldn't? Why? That sounds ridiculous. We just toss them. It's like that's...
Only awesome because other people don't have it. If you just started walking in your house and everyone's got marble sculptures of their wives, you'd be like, 'This is just weird.' It's so like Renaissance-ville. You walk in and...
Is kind of funny.
Yeah, and be like the patron of the house has like a massive statue...
All right, I think this is a dumb idea, but I probably will get one.
What is 'need pewter cup'? That's not even a question.
What is it? What did I write? 'Need pewter cup.' Oh, yeah. Is this like a personal shopping list? Okay.
I really need a pewter cup. That is... By the way, this is like... the idea that you need a pewter cup is like pretty funny.
Do you know the Mory's drinking tradition? The what? Oh, dude. Did you ever go to Mory's? I don't know what the fuck Mory's is.
Oh, okay. So, you went to Harvard, which is a great school.
Go to Harvard, yeah. Yale is... I've heard of it.
It's like a pizza place, right?
A pizza place, but Yale's a pretty good school too. Anyway, so...
So, there's a restaurant there called Mory's. Did you guys have a Harvard Political Union? Yep, yes.
Okay. So, like the Yale Political Union gets together at Mory's and they do something called toasting, which is just like, you know...
Oh yeah, I love it. You just go around toasting.
Go around and you drink out of a pewter cup and there's like a great ritual around it.
Yeah, yeah. I love a good time. And I'm doing my birthday on Saturday at the Pelican Inn.
Is it actually your birthday or you're just doing your birthday? Actually my birthday.
Wow. And... Oh, no. Well, my birthday was this Tuesday.
Just doing your birthday. Doing the birthday. But, it's Elizabethan-themed, which is actually...
You are really enjoying being retired for a minute, aren't you? Just for a minute, yeah. I love it.
Yeah. But you picked Solana...
Earlier, like, how did you do that? Relationships and theme, theme and theme, man. Like, I, yeah, I was, you know, depending on how you count, one of the first two or three investors in it, which was a great financial return for our fund from zero.
