SPEAKER_00: Okay, everybody, it's Friday, it's going to be a variety show. We've got four great topics for you from Twitter to boring company, Amazon dropping a billion Ackman's $430 million loss

Jason Calacanis: on Netflix plus plus, we have okay, Boomer, everybody's favorite segment, which is an interview with a brilliant sounding blogger and technology technocrat, I would even say in the good way, Renaissance man, it sounds like you're really going to enjoy that. And also, I just want to shout out Jason J. Cal keeping his promises. It is Earth Day.

SPEAKER_05: It is Earth Day. Yes. And, and our first climate deal has launched, we have a climate

Jason Calacanis: portfolio now because like, yeah, let's do that. We have two. We have one actually this on the same day that we officially launched the climate syndicate. Yes. My first founders gave her first presentation at the accelerator.

SPEAKER_08: And I think we could shout out that company. I think we should eat spring.

SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so they're doing this really clever idea. I watched the presentation yesterday. Um, they, uh, are letting you get all of your, uh, various

SPEAKER_12: groceries in glass jars. As I've talked about, I've been trying to be zero plastic. Uh, so you're going to be able to order your flower, your sugar, your pasta, all these beautiful glass jars. You put them in your pantry and then you send the glass jars back and they send you more stuff and it's kind of a premium service right now. Uh, but you could be zero waste with this product.

SPEAKER_14: It's from your grocery, uh, such a cool founder, freedom on a compa Gupta.

Jason Calacanis: Freedom is zero waste home. Yeah. I like where I, we're going to have her on this week in climate startups. Cause I'm like, I need to know everything about how you do that. It's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_17: And then if you are an accredited investor and you want to sign up for the climate syndicate, it's the syndicate.com slash climate.

SPEAKER_19: We're doing it. Invest with us. It's going to be a great show. Change the world. It's going to be a great show. It's going to be a great future. It's going to be a great future. Stick with us. Stick with us.

SPEAKER_21: This week in startups is brought to you by intercom. If you're an early stage, high growth startup, you can get access to intercom's early stage academy today at a 95% discount. Join the program today at intercom.com slash early dash stage, or email them at startups at intercom.io Microsoft for startups founders hub for the challenges you face as a startup founder, Microsoft for startups founders hub is here to help. The platform provides founders with free resources like Azure credits, development tools like GitHub, mentorship resources, productivity software, training, and so much more. The program is open to all and takes five minutes to apply with no funding required. Learn more and sign up at aka.ms slash this week in startups and thorn thorn empowers people to take control of their long-term wellbeing with a proactive science-based approach to health through a variety of at-home tests thorn teaches you about what your body needs and provides the right high quality certified nutritional supplements for you to get started and take 10% off your first order, head to thorn.com slash you slash twist.

SPEAKER_00: All right, everybody. It's five for Friday. You guys love when we whip through the news. There's so much going on God. And, uh, we had about 10 items, so we weren't going to do like 10 for the weekend. So we just did five for Fridays.

SPEAKER_26: I tried to like combine two into one.

SPEAKER_05: Like we are, I mean, you know, hope springs eternal for the five for Friday, but we are going to try to get

SPEAKER_14: through all these, what five minutes per five minutes, five minutes per story.

SPEAKER_31: Yeah.

SPEAKER_32: Important stories, but, uh, you know, I feel like we're getting to a little groundhog day here.

David Friedberg: Uh, obviously Twitter news up first. So let's start the clock and I'll tee us up for the first story. Let's begin. Two words, people funding secured.

Jason Calacanis: Oh God, here we go. According to it's the new mission accomplished. According to a regulatory filing on Thursday, Elon Musk has received commitments for $46.5 billion and might now try to purchase outright some or all of Twitter stock directly from shareholders. This includes $25 and a half billion in debt via Morgan Stanley and others. And he has committed $21 billion in equity. Twitter has not responded to the proposal.

SPEAKER_17: Yeah. I think they're curled up under a desk right now.

SPEAKER_23: Um, and by desk, I mean their homes, their beach, beach houses. I mean, they're, they are in, they must be in a state of shock because I can't even imagine.

SPEAKER_36: Yeah.

SPEAKER_37: This is, um, this company has never had to really focus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: They've had a lost decade. The stock, if you bought it 10 years ago is trading below where it is now. It's a dysfunctional company. We all know that it's an amazing product. The product has changed the world and, um, I am, uh, actually I'm tickled pink that at the prospect of the product getting better. I'd like to see it still be a publicly traded company. Um, so I don't know if the plan here is to just buy shares and just keep letting trading the more shares. Elon owns of this. I predict the more people are going to want to own the company, uh, like his other company. So. I can see like Twitter being trading at like a hundred dollars a share after he buys up a lot of these shares.

Jason Calacanis: So, uh, what's interesting is that he still in theory cannot write the, the poison pill is still in place. So what gets really dishy here is that this sounds like given the lack of response by Twitter, that, that Elon is exploring whether to commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock at this price of 5420. Um, but is not determined whether to do so. However, the, the board did put that poison pill in place, which is, which is that if he buys a certain amount, uh, starts to own a certain amount of shares that then basically they can just like print some more money. Right. Devalue the shares.

SPEAKER_14: So the, so what is actually the move here? Like, go ahead and force them to do that.

SPEAKER_40: Um, I think it's a, it's a chess match and there is a fiduciary responsibility, a duty of care for all shareholders and for the company that the board has to do.

SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing the majority of shareholders would rather see Elon run the company than the current management.

SPEAKER_37: I think they would rather see there be half as many employees and maybe some number of them come to an office and compete against Facebook and try to win, uh, or try to grow. Build the business and maybe take it more seriously.

Jason Calacanis: So you think it's like a game of chicken? Like he says, we've got them on chess. Sorry. Yeah. Well, chicken in the sense of like, look, I'm coming for you. And if you issue this poison pill, it is going to, uh, damage your standing as a responsible steward of fiduciary duty.

SPEAKER_05: Right.

SPEAKER_35: I mean, I think it would result in shareholder lawsuits, like massive ones.

SPEAKER_00: So I think they're probably doing their diligence to see if they can find another couple of buyers, raise the price, whatever. And that sounds like that would be the responsibility of a board in my, I've never been on a public board, but I've been on plenty of private boards. Mm-hmm I think the right fiduciary would be, are there other buyers, will they exceed this price? Can we get another 5% to the price? Can we add two or three bucks to the price and, you know, get everybody a better outcome. And then if you, in this, you know, if it is a game of chicken, you know, it's, that'd be like, Hey, we're going to be on this head on collision. I, I think we know who loses that. I think the person with $46 billion and who's running some of the, the greatest companies are, is going to roll over them. So I, I think this is, uh, the beginning of the end of, um, Twitter as we know it. No, the beginning of the end of like, um, trying to fight this because there's no other buyer. If there was another buyer, the price would be at $54 right now, right? Or $51, $52, the price would be rising. If people thought Microsoft was a viable or Google was a viable suitor, there's no other viable suitor right here. I don't think anybody wants the heat that Twitter brings. Yeah. Like, look at how much heat taking Trump off these platforms caused. Look at what heat is caused by, you know, bots and spam and all this other stuff.

SPEAKER_52: Like, I don't think people want that smoke. I'll be honest. Like who wants that?

Jason Calacanis: Sure. I mean, I'm sort of surprised that Elon does too. When I say the end of Twitter, as we know it, I don't mean the product. I mean, the end of Twitter in its sort of current incarnation with this leadership and potentially this board.

SPEAKER_05: Like we said it when we had, um, Alex from the verge on that. I think that like, or I said it, that Twitter's only move at this point, literal only move is to find another buyer. Otherwise you lose. Like there's no universe in which, if your bluff is called, you cannot issue that poison pill. Yeah. And devalue the shares. So you're, you're absolutely right. If you devalue the shares.

SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know. Revolt. What kind of liability would you have now? Imagine also Elon walks away at some point. Um, they were saying like, maybe he's not serious about this. I mean, it's a lot of work to set this up. So he's obviously serious.

SPEAKER_10: So I think, do you think in our 27 seconds that he leveraged Tesla debt?

SPEAKER_37: Well, I mean, I think he has many companies, got the board of shares against spacex.

SPEAKER_00: So people want to own shares in those companies. So obviously you can take margin loans against them. And it says, I think I read that he pledged like $20 billion worth of shares against this. So I think when you set these things up, my understanding is, um, I've actually done it. You say, here's a block of shares. They say, okay, we're going to give you this against that. There's a ratio percentage. And then if this goes down, you have to start paying off the loan. So I think he's got the money to do it. And I think there's a lot of people who would want to partner with him. And anybody who owns the shares wants to see them go up. So if it hasn't gone up and you own 5% or 2%, you know, why wouldn't you take the chance of having somebody else run it? Yeah.

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SPEAKER_67: Uh, I think it's going to be awesome.

SPEAKER_17: And he talks about, I don't know if you saw it, he talked about on Twitter, he's going to solve the bot problem and, uh, the fake account problem. That's his number one priority. Great. Can't wait for that. Yeah. Honestly, I actually talked to him about the bot problem many times and we talked about the possible solutions and it's super easy. It's super easy. I mean, it's, it's super easy.

SPEAKER_72: It's super easy if your incentives aren't the opposite.

SPEAKER_05: Yep. Ding, ding. What's next? Start the timer.

Jason Calacanis: Billionaire hedge fund manager, Bill Ackman has dumped his entire stake in Netflix, which he initially disclosed about three months ago for a $430 million loss. Ackman bought about 3.1 million shares of Netflix for $1.1 billion in January. When he disclosed the stake on January 26th, the stock was trading at $160 billion, that market cap. He closed his position on Wednesday, taking this $450 million loss in about three months. And basically it was just like, I'm getting out while I can. CNBC's Scott Wapner talked to Ackman on the phone shortly after he closed his position. Here's a 40 second clip of our precious time of Wapner talking about their conversation.

SPEAKER_77: We'll see you on the other side.

SPEAKER_78: As he told me, the reason why he exited his position after only three months at a $400 million loss was, quote, I'm 100% ready to admit when I'm wrong and 100% ready to admit when I'm wrong quickly. So that sort of gives you an idea of where his thinking was. He said this might work with someone with a portfolio with smaller positions. But when you have eight or nine investments that are large, it's hard to have bets where the dispersion of outcomes can be so wide.

SPEAKER_80: And I think that sort of reflects the uncertainty of Netflix's business moving forward. I don't think anybody, whether the retail investor or somebody as smart as Bill Ackman, knows the appropriate valuation of Netflix.

SPEAKER_32: So he rage sold, he rage quit, he rage sold. We have this in poker.

SPEAKER_37: You lose a big hand, you're supposed to win, you know, the person hits runner runner and the person just gets up after they get felt it and they just leave. It's called a rage quit. We have this in video games too.

SPEAKER_09: Oh, you can rage quit a video game. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: Got it. I think that might be where, anyway. That might be where it originated from? Yeah, this is a rage quit for sure.

Jason Calacanis: I have a question, however, when was it, I would like us to find that clip where we were talking about this jocks that you would like to have in 10 years. And I was like, I got to be honest, I'd rather have Bitcoin than Netflix because it seemed so clear. That was on this show and it was within the last couple of months.

SPEAKER_05: What I don't understand about someone as smart as Bill Ackman, I put that in air quotes, is why the hell he bought that much Netflix in January?

SPEAKER_89: Well, let's think it through.

SPEAKER_35: The competitive landscape was well known at that time.

SPEAKER_00: There was competition. Sometimes competition is a sign that there's a vibrant market and it's growing because everybody wants to be in on it and you're the leader. So buying the leader, the counter would be buying the leader is a good idea. So if you were thinking about computer hardware, you go with Apple. If you're thinking about e-commerce, you go with Amazon. If you think about cloud computing, go with Amazon as well. If you think about advertising, you go with Google, right? So there is something of buying the leader is a protected thing. Like, but this, um, this feels like there's something else going on here. I have a theory that maybe he, when you are placing these big bets, you typically have access to management. The way he's rage quitting on the way out. It felt a little, um, emotional. Maybe a little like I'm kicking the company, but I can't predict it. And I think maybe he feels like management didn't paint a good enough picture for him of where they're at.

SPEAKER_93: Uh, and, you know, he obviously has access directly to Reed Hastings, et cetera. Uh, and, and this feels a little bit personal. Like I don't want to own the stock and I'm going to make it very public. That this stock is a dog and I don't want it in my portfolio. And so in this big, you're buying big chunks of this stuff. And somebody comes out cause he could have very quietly sold it. And he could have made a statement. Like, uh, you know, we, we think streaming's got headwinds the end, you know, but this feels a lot more emotional and a lot more personal to me. So I wonder if there's something else going on here. Like they, they didn't tell him they had these significant headwinds.

Jason Calacanis: That is a super interesting insight because honestly, the other thing that doesn't totally make sense about it is that when I was on CNBC the other day talking about this, the, the, the, uh, one of the analysts who was on was like, I'm gonna buy. I'm buying this dip because I think if Netflix can turn those a hundred million subscribers into six bucks a month for an ad supported tier and whatever that there's actually. Sure. There's an opportunity bound opportunity here. So to sell at a loss, I'm just saying, if I were in that fund, I'd be like, I questioned your decision to take that biggest stake in Netflix in January. And I questioned your decision to take a $450 million loss and then be like, I'm just mad.

SPEAKER_37: Like, or maybe he sees another opportunity. Maybe he's looking and seeing like another, if in those big funds. And he said it, like, did he say they have nine positions or something?

SPEAKER_00: So nine, I think. Yeah. So if they're going to have a small number of positions, they want each one of them to work when one of them is not going to work, you know, it's going to be 12% of your returns or whatever, you know, 11% of your returns.

SPEAKER_12: You got to move it quickly. And he just maybe saw a better opportunity to own Disney, you know, maybe he looked at and was like, you know what, if I'm going to bet on an entertainment company, a streamer, I'm going to bet on Disney or something.

SPEAKER_52: Totally.

SPEAKER_05: Right. And in fact, the, the alternative to everything I just said is this Twitter user, super Magatu said really have to respect Ackman selling Netflix on a thesis break and calling it like it is the discipline move. People are going to trash talk, but it's the pro move.

SPEAKER_100: The cost of good risk management is looking bad to the peanut gallery at the moment being a gallery me.

SPEAKER_00: Well, there is something to that, you know, if you were in a hand of poker, you know, I use gambling a lot like, and, you know, the cards just don't go your way. And you're sitting there with like, you had aces and the board has three hearts and it's, you know, king, queen, Jack, and you're just like, oh my Lord, or four, five, six, I'm nowhere near this. And somebody is shoving all their chips and well, maybe, maybe you, um, just got unlucky. And so I do, I do appreciate the discipline here. Um, the other possibility. I don't know how you do it.

SPEAKER_05: I know that buzzer and I freak out.

SPEAKER_00: Like the radio in me is like, dude, I feel like it's like when you hear that buzzer, it's kind of like you're getting, you're like a presidential candidate. You feel like a yellow light. It's just a yellow light. Finish your sentence. It's kind of like when you run yellow lights, you know, it's like, you're like, yellow means stop. And you're like, no, yellow means hit the accelerator and go faster, right? Like you have to only six seconds to get there. Um, so I think what also could have happened was maybe he had advice for them. Uh, cause sometimes if you're buying these big positions, you, he might've said like, listen, I think you need to cut staff. You need to cut expense and you need to put the advertising tier in now. And you need to have a lower tier and you need to, and they weren't moving fast. And that was one of the things that I think people have been critiquing is that Netflix seems to have been, you know, blinders on our ways the right way. And let's not do anything else. Yeah. I think Netflix just go for that, uh, dual subscription model where they have a lot of video games, casual video games, other video games, buy some video game studios and combine it. And then maybe even have a music service. So, you know, if they, if they added a music service and you got music games and video content. Wow. Yum. Yum. Like innovate. Innovate. I got double. I got doubled. Okay. No innovation is the problem. Okay. Let's do our next story. Uh, in other nudes, boring company has raised 675 million in a series C at a $5.7 billion valuation led by our friends at Sequoia. Obviously Elon Musk created the boring company to revolutionize transportation by creating quote, safe, fast to dig and low cost transportation, utility and freight tunnels. Company has spent the last five years building core technologies designed to solve traffic and beautify our cities via loop and hyper loop. So there they are using the hyper loop, uh, title. Remember, he released that white paper on the hyper loop where you take the air out of the tube and it creates less resistance and you could potentially go 1000 or 2000 miles an hour. It's a really interesting physics problem. Uh, the investment announced announcement, uh, outlined loop and pro frock loop is an electric zero emissions high speed underground transportation system. I guess riders to their destinations without intermediate stops. Remember back in 2021, Vegas became the first city to approve a loop project includes a 29 mile tunnel network connecting 51 stations pro frock is a machine that will quote construct mega infrastructure projects in a matter of weeks instead of years.

SPEAKER_43: And at a fraction of the costs pro frock, pro frock, pro frock, I think we might put emphasis on the rock, right?

SPEAKER_104: Cause it like, okay, proof rock, yes, is designed to for poise, porpoise, porpoise, porpoise, like, like this, like a dolphin swims, got it, porpoise, ah, meaning it launches, this is why you read this stuff, meaning it launches directly from the surface mines underground and reemerges upon completion main benefit of using a proof rock is a continuous mining capabilities and the fact that no person is needed to be in the mine while it's operating, which is safer.

SPEAKER_00: Um, yes, this is a BFD, it's a big frickin deal. Uh, it's plenty of, uh, money and these things work. And I think people were kind of dogging them and making fun of them when they use them, um, the Las Vegas one, the Las Vegas one. And I was like, do people, it's like, people really lack imagination. This is the same group of people who made fun of the roadster and were like, it's just a Lotus Elise made of carbon fiber with a giant battery pack that uses no gas. And goes 200 miles. And it was like, did you just, can you, can you write down the sentence?

SPEAKER_116: You just wrote, you built a tunnel in Vegas in under a year and they're going to build 51 miles of it. And if you've ever been on the strip, it sucks. And he did the hyperloop paper. So if the hyperloop paper exists and he's building tunnels.

SPEAKER_119: Yeah. Is your imagination not able to connect these two things?

SPEAKER_122: I mean, yes, that is obviously building, um, you know, these things to go faster and faster and faster.

Jason Calacanis: And then the robo taxi, uh, announcement feeds right into the boring company and it all kind of, yeah, it's all like one big thing in time. I just want to shout out our super literary producer, Rachel, who was like, oh, I think it's from the love song of J Alfred Prufra, the poem by TS Elliot, which it probably freaking is P R U F R O C K.

SPEAKER_128: What did nerd girl say? What did nerd girl, producer, lit producer, Rachel, what?

Jason Calacanis: First of all, respect the lit. I respect the lit. She said, uh, TS Elliot wrote a poem in 1910 called the love song of J Alfred Prufra. And then I got really distracted reading the Wikipedia and trying to see if it had anything about porpoising and awesome digging, but I don't think it did. But still, I bet that's where it's from. And now I really want to ask Elon, like what that reference is about. Although I am also focused on this interesting technology question of solving traffic. I'm now down the poem rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_132: Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go through certain half deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells. Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question.

SPEAKER_116: Oh, do not ask, what is it? Let us go and make our visit.

SPEAKER_135: In a room, the woman, women come and go talking of Michelangelo, the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes.

SPEAKER_136: I mean, I can go on, but I'm getting a little too emotional.

Jason Calacanis: By some estimates, here comes the bad news. Over 90% of startups will go out of business in year one.

SPEAKER_140: The good news? That's why Microsoft created the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub. It's a program that provides founders at any stage with up to six figures worth of resources. Seriously, wait until you hear this banana pants list of perks. You're going to get up to $150,000 in Azure credits based on your stage and size, free access to GitHub's enterprise tier, technical advice from experts at Azure and Microsoft Cloud, one-to-one mentorship from their mentor network, exclusive benefits and discounts from companies like OpenAI. This is worth a lot. And the best part is that there are no fundraising requirements. Unlike others in this industry, the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub doesn't require startups to be investor-backed or third-party validated to sign up and access benefits. You can be the founder with a PowerPoint and a dream. It's not about who you know here. It's open to any founder at any stage. Get up to six figures of value by signing up at aka.ms slash This Week in Startups. Sign up, start building today, aka.ms, that's like Microsoft, slash This Week in Startups. I'm getting a little too emotional.

Jason Calacanis: I was just listening for the part that said, this is how you dig the tunnels. But either way, I'm loving the literary connection. And look, yes, everyone is short-sighted. Everyone lacks imagination. No one believes in a thing until the thing is real. And sometimes that's warranted and sometimes it's not. But like, I respect the vision and the living. Here's the thing.

SPEAKER_37: Yeah. Well, here's the thing. We built tunnels previously. Yes. Our great-grandparents were like, you know what would be cool?

SPEAKER_00: If you could get from Brooklyn to Manhattan, uh, quicker. And they're like, yeah, well, we could just, we're sending people on ferries. You want to make the ferries faster? And somebody's like, you know what? No, let's, let's, let's figure out another way. And they're like, you want to build another bridge?

SPEAKER_12: And they're like, there's already too many bridges. It's just, the whole, the whole island's covered in bridges.

SPEAKER_00: Let's fill the tunnel. And they're like, that's not possible. And he's like, I think it's possible because they did it in France, whatever. And like, all you have to do is drop these things and connect them and then take the water out. They just drop these casings and they were like, yeah, okay, let's give it a shot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_119: Everything cool we've ever done. When's the last time Manhattan built a tunnel?

Jason Calacanis: Or the tunnel. I mean, remember when they were like, we're going to dig a channel between France and England. And everybody was like, you're, every cool thing that humans have ever done started as a banana pants idea.

SPEAKER_05: Yes. When was the tunnel built?

SPEAKER_43: I remember that. I know it was in our lifetimes, right? It wasn't in the nineties?

SPEAKER_12: Uh, 88.

SPEAKER_43: Yeah.

SPEAKER_12: 1988.

SPEAKER_116: So I just, it feels like people have. Forgotten that you can build tunnels. Yes. Spoiler alert. This is not that difficult. It's just. Yeah.

Jason Calacanis: Luckily, this is what risky capital is for. Not everyone has forgotten it, which is why Sequoia and Vi Capital were like, yeah, dude, make it go. You, oh, you're the guy that did the rocket thing. And then they landed on the freaking drone ship in the middle of the ocean.

SPEAKER_162: And one of the coolest videos you'll ever see in your damn lifetime.

David Friedberg: Yeah. Okay, go. I mean, just dig more tunnels and all of a sudden you'll have less people on the surface street.

SPEAKER_00: And you know what? Sure. You get a subscription, make it 25 bucks a month to have access to the tunnels and the tunnels are guaranteed to have a certain speed. So you pay 25 bucks a month to have access to the tunnels like easy pass and uh, you, yeah, that's it. And it's for rich people to go down and take the tunnel and then you know what happens? The surface streets get empty and then there's less traffic up there and then you can build more tunnels. So who cares, like make it, I, I think it should be like a Netflix subscription if you were, I mean, how, I, I also like to know for sure what is the, what was the cost? Do we have the cost per mile of the Vegas one or what they think the cost will be of a tunnel? Because I could do the back of the envelope math here.

SPEAKER_167: Uh, what is a mile cost? Well, I mean, I think we're going to get it.

SPEAKER_05: Uh, the point says it's currently tunnels cost between a hundred million and one billion dollars per mile.

SPEAKER_10: So that's what like the traditional way, what does the boring company say is loop tunnels will cost this, this might be 10 million a mile.

SPEAKER_37: Okay. So 10 million a mile. All right.

SPEAKER_12: So 10 million a mile. So let's imagine you had a hundred miles. That's $1 billion, right? $1 billion. These things are going to last 50 years, 1 billion divided by 50 years, 20 million a year. Now, if you put in interest payments and everything, you double it. 40 million a year, 40 million a year, if you had a million people using that $100 million system in a city of 10 million or something, a 10% of people elect to do it, they pay $40.

SPEAKER_10: It pays for itself $40 a year, which is $5 a month or less $4 a month, you know, like the Las Vegas costs $47 million for a 1.7 mile loop.

SPEAKER_05: That was $27 million per mile, which is still like a quarter of what, what tunnel digging evidently usually costs, which is between again, a hundred million and a billion dollars per mile. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: And so these are one way tunnels or whatever, but you can see the math is obviously going to work. So it's just a matter of which city is the most frustrated and wants to have a delightful city. Miami, Vegas, a lot of cities are like, let's do this. You know, who doesn't want to do this corrupt cities that are paying 500 million or a billion dollars to some, you know, construction company that is corrupt. And, you know, it's like, yeah, this is impossible to do.

SPEAKER_10: All right. We just need to build these. Okay. Let's do another. Agreed.

SPEAKER_09: We're like five minutes over and that's my fault because of the poem. Sorry. All right. One more. We're going to do four for five today. Story for Friday.

Jason Calacanis: Sorry, Snapchat, shout out Snapchat on every level.

SPEAKER_34: Basically, on Thursday, Amazon announced a $1 billion industrial innovation fund to invest in startups building solutions for, quote, customer fulfillment, logistics and the supply chain, all things very relevant to Amazon's business.

Jason Calacanis: So basically, Amazon in corporate VC here, I'm not sure if they've done this before that. Well, they did it effectively with the climate pledge in some ways, but I think that was mostly. Um, I don't know what has come of that, but this is actually pretty interesting. Investing in companies that imagine solutions that incrementally increase delivery speed and further improve the experience of employees working in warehousing and logistics field.

SPEAKER_09: That last part is PR nonsense. Yeah, but okay. I don't care about that experience.

David Friedberg: They're just like, anytime we announce something, can we just put something in about the factory workers? Yeah, we actually consider them part of the company and reduce injuries for sure.

SPEAKER_187: It's just definitely going to reduce injuries.

SPEAKER_12: I mean, they really, I always thought it was so dumb that they didn't make it a point to treat those people exceptionally well. Yeah. Because a lot of people did like those jobs and appreciated them. Um, it seems like they've turned that around though. Um, or they're in the process. I mean, there was that tornado thing. That was not good.

SPEAKER_189: Not good, not good.

SPEAKER_12: Um, but I, you know, you don't know what the details are yet, so I, it doesn't look good. I'll say, I mean, we should wait and see what the actual, if they did tell them like stay in the building during a tornado, that seems like a really bad decision by a mid-level manager.

SPEAKER_05: No, it's not good. And to be fair, Tesla also struggles with high amounts of injuries and the, and the robot, you know, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_12: Well, it actually turns out Tesla has lower than other places because they have more robots, but, um, I think any of these companies that have any kind of normal problems in a factory, they just, the expectation's higher on them.

Jason Calacanis: The expectation is higher and they're investing in robots to try to like make that all go away, including one of Amazon's investments is agility robotics, which develops bipedal, uh, walking robots called digits.

SPEAKER_194: Hey, but I wonder, is this like a fun note from the producers?

Jason Calacanis: Remember fast and stripe and the conversation around taking money from strategic VCs.

SPEAKER_05: I mean, this is a strategic VC question and a mafia question in some ways, like, which is all corporate VC.

SPEAKER_00: If they do put money in your company, you want it to be a small amount. You don't want them on the board. You don't want them to have optionality. Um, and so I think the stripe issue with fast was they put in way too much money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12: And Intel used to do this. They used to put a million dollars into a lot of deals. So they would just be like, if you were raising 6 million, you know, you could expect Intel to put in 1.5 or one, they would just kind of top off the round. And that was a good use of a strategic. So they just had this option to call management. They owned 2% of the company, no problem. So if, you know, Amazon or stripe or whoever owns 1% or 2% of your company, it's not a big deal. When they started owning 10% or 20%, now they have a seat at the table. They have a lot of voting shares. They might have more shares than one. If you have three co-founders, they might have as many shares as the founders or, you know, each individual founder.

SPEAKER_00: So it gets problematic, but yeah, um, yeah, this is great.

Jason Calacanis: It's interesting and it's really smart because it doesn't feel like this is a hot space for venture necessarily. And it probably should be because fulfillment is the only way we're ever going to get anything in the world.

SPEAKER_09: But you know, this is why Amazon's doing it and it'll probably enable some great companies.

SPEAKER_00: It's probably that VCs do not see hardware in this space as a great opportunity for returns. They'd rather do software and other things. And so this is Amazon's way of saying like if VCs would fund it because it doesn't have the return profile. Well, maybe we can help and so good on them.

SPEAKER_05: Um, I mean, robots and robotics are kind of a money sinkhole. And so you can see why Amazon would be like, we really need this. And other VCs would be like, um, yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_207: Okay. Good stuff. Well, there you go.

Jason Calacanis: Listen, if you're a high performing founder or operator or human, you need to make sure you take care of your health and your wellness.

SPEAKER_140: A founder is one of the most stressful jobs you can have. You're taking care of a business, all the employees around you. It is a really stressful job and it can take a huge toll on your physical health. And that is where Thorne can help. Thorne is a health and tech company that offers at home tests that can actually identify where you need the most care. Everything from a gut test that analyzes your gut microbiome. Yeah, that stomachache is not only stress. It could be something else. There's also a stress test that measures your stress hormone fluctuations. And these tests help get rid of guesswork around good health. They provide personalized steps for how to eat, how to exercise, and what supplements you should take. I hear you right now saying you think you don't have time for this, but you need to make time for this. Thorne also has a range of multivitamins and supplements that you can subscribe to. Again, this is personalized health and wellness. And Thorne is totally vertically integrated, so you're not dealing with anyone in the middle. It's a one-stop shop to feel better. To get started and take 10% off your first order, head to Thorne.com slash U. That's the letter U slash twist.

SPEAKER_41: That's Thorne.com slash U slash twist today to save 10%. And then next up, we have, of course, OK Boomer.

SPEAKER_00: It's Friday. Everybody loves Friday's episode because you get the five for Friday or four. We shortchanged it this week, but I think we, I think we doubled down on the first four. But everybody loves OK Boomer.

SPEAKER_211: So tell us, Molly, what is on OK Boomer this week?

Jason Calacanis: Yes. Today we have Dwarkesh Patel, a UT Austin December 2021 grad, where he got a bachelor's in computer science. He blogs about tech science, talent, and other things, and is also, this is like so up my alley, the host of the Lunar Society podcast, where he interviews economists, scientists, philosophers. Some of his guests include economist Tyler Cohen and the physicist David Deutsch. This is like when you realize that someone who's less than half your age is just brilliant. He's hosting like the new like Algonquin salon up in here talking about science.

SPEAKER_00: I think it kind of, when he said Lunar Society, I immediately got Skull and Bones, like some secret society from Yale kind of.

SPEAKER_214: Does have that vibe. Bohemian Grove vibe.

SPEAKER_12: But I like Tyler, is it Cohen? Cowan? Cowan. I like Tyler Cowan. He, he has this econ talk podcast that like I listen to sometimes and I, it's,

SPEAKER_214: I, I suppose it's like when people listen to this and they're not in the startup space

SPEAKER_12: and you kind of get 70 or 80% of it and then you have to have Wikipedia open. So like a lot of times I'm listening to him. I don't know if you've done this on a podcast, but I'll listen to a podcast while I'm doing my email or something. And then I'm just like, okay, pause podcast, go to Wikipedia, read the Wikipedia page on

SPEAKER_214: some term they did, which is why I'm sometimes on podcasts. I'm like, explain that term. Unpack that term. Cause I want to see people from home to go to Wikipedia.

SPEAKER_05: That's how I feel about Desus and Mero, which is a show that I love and it is so dense with cultural, it's so dense with cultural references that I have to pause

SPEAKER_219: every like 10 seconds and be like, wait, uh, I did that with still processing, uh, because

SPEAKER_214: they would be mentioning, you know, people I might not have heard of or shows that I didn't know about or an album or not musician. And I'm like, I I'm just, you know, like my musical tastes stopped in like 99. Like anything that happened in the last 23 years, like, I don't know anything like after the smashing pumpkins, you know, in Nirvana, it's like, ah, I don't know. Try to get a quest is like the end of my knowledge, but it's like about, your kids

SPEAKER_05: are about to start helping you out. I just have my son straight up creating playlists for me at this point.

SPEAKER_214: Actually, I'm helping them out. I, I got them on talking heads. I got them on David Bowie.

SPEAKER_00: I got them on queen. I I'm just going through like the great rock acts of the seventies and eighties. Yup. And they love eighties playlist. They love seventies playlists. And man, I just been playing talking heads for them and they're into it. Yeah. I put on burning down the house. I'm like, let's go girls.

SPEAKER_121: Do it. Okay. Girls. Oh, nice. When two six year olds are rocking out to talking heads. It's kind of fun in the car all the way to. It's horrible.

SPEAKER_162: Yeah. When they're, by the way, could not be a more appropriate intro for the okay boomer segment. Yes, exactly. Okay. Boomers.

SPEAKER_237: Enjoy. Okay. Boomer.

SPEAKER_235: I understood the assignment.

SPEAKER_237: Dwarakash. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I actually didn't find you. Producer Justin found you. Who's helping us out with this recording today. Justin directed me to your Twitter page. I saw you before on Twitter, but I didn't get to dive in deeply to your content until a few days ago. I read a ton of your blog posts and DM do, and you came on the podcast pretty quick. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_239: Yeah. Yeah. My pleasure. Thanks for finding me, Justin. Justin.

SPEAKER_237: So you are a December, 2021 UT Austin grad, where you've got a bachelor's of science and computer science. Um, we've had a lot of people on from the UT system, whether that be Austin or not.

SPEAKER_241: Austin, Ben Awad, um, is another computer science person, but he didn't go to Austin. So I always have to preface, he went to UT, not UT Austin, but how did you get into this, uh, blogging podcasting space from computer science?

SPEAKER_244: Um, well, COVID hit my sophomore year, uh, classes went online and I was bored. I didn't have anything to do.

SPEAKER_239: So I just cold emailed, uh, my first guest, Brian Kaplan. Uh, he was incredibly kind to come on and everything else has just been compounding returns on his kindness. And then from there, you know, you can get more guests by just saying, Hey, would you please come on my podcast wherever the pleasure to have Brian Kaplan dot, dot, dot on. Um, and you just take it from there.

SPEAKER_247: So your podcast is the Lunar Society podcast.

SPEAKER_237: It is incredible. You've had a ton of really cool guests. Um, can you explain to everybody a little bit what Lunar Society is all about?

SPEAKER_239: I wish I could, um, the, the, the, the, yeah, there isn't, you know, I've been asked this question before and I really should have a better answer. What is the podcast about? There isn't a central theme. I would say I just like to interview people I'm interested in. A lot of them end up being, um, economists or scientists or philosophers. And I try to ask some questions that somebody who has read all their work would ask them who wants to go deep into their ideas.

SPEAKER_237: Mm-hmm. And I saw recently on Twitter, I think Jeff Bezos recently followed you. Is that right? Oh yeah. That must feel, yeah, that's insane. So who was the, you think the person that you had on a podcast that pushed you over the edge to Jeff Bezos's world?

SPEAKER_256: There's no explanation. Oh man.

SPEAKER_243: There's no person I can point to where it's like, oh yeah, that, that must have been how,

SPEAKER_239: um, the night before Mark Andreessen, uh, you know, retweeted that blog post that may have been the impetus, but as for how, how, how it came across Jeff Bezos's feed, at what point he decided to use his valuable time to read it. Um, I have no explanation.

SPEAKER_237: That's really awesome. So explain to me a little bit about why it's called the Lunar Society podcast, because again, producer Justin looked into it and we were like, wait, the Lunar Society, like the Lunar Society of, uh, Birmingham, which is a British, uh, dinner club and informal learned society

SPEAKER_241: of prominent figures in the Midlands, entertainment, including industrials, natural philosophers, and intellectuals. Is it related to that one?

SPEAKER_239: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you, you basically got it. That's a full description almost. Cool. Um, I needed a name and, uh, you know, I, I had a book by the similar title, um, on that society at hand.

SPEAKER_243: And, um, you know, I just recorded that episode with Brian. I needed to figure out what to call it. Uh, and then society.

SPEAKER_247: So you wait, so you recorded with him before you even thought of a name for the podcast.

SPEAKER_243: Don't quote me on that. I think that's how it happened, but it's been two years. So that's how I remember it.

SPEAKER_237: Very cool. I'm really into like the branding and the marketing side of podcasting. Obviously, um, both of our hosts on the speaking startups have their own podcasts outside of the one that we're talking on right now. So I'm very, very interested in that sense. And, um, what I thought was really cool about the lunar society is when I looked into it on the beginning of before, like even realizing who you were, anything like that, I was even more impressed by your blog posts because you were just so well written. And I find that there's not a lot of overlap sometimes with people that are really good interviewers and really good writers. I find that it's, it's a skill, both of them. And so if you invest a lot of time into writing, you're an incredible writer. If you invest a lot of time in interviewing, I find you're an incredible interviewer. Um, I think you can be a good talker and a good writer, but a good interviewer, you're not thinking about what you have to say as much as you're thinking about what somebody else has to say. And so it's cool that you have a lot to say and you are very good at getting out what people want to hear from your guests as well. So moving on to your amazing, uh, words that I got to read in your blog, scout talent as

SPEAKER_273: buying options. What's the one that I would love to talk to you about?

SPEAKER_243: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and thank you for the kind words.

SPEAKER_239: Um, so in that blog post, I'm trying to figure out why certain kinds of things that young people do seem more impressive than other kinds of things. So to give you an example, um, imagine there's a two high schoolers, both of them are trying to apply to selective colleges. One of them says on their application, you know, I joined all these, uh, clubs, I'm on the varsity tennis team. I'm the president of, you know, these four make work organizations. Um, you know, that takes a lot of hard work, right? That that's like many dozens of hours a week. Uh, now imagine another high school student. He says he started a business. Maybe he's got a four figure or five figure contract. Um, he's been even able to hire a few of his friends to help him out. That seems much more impressive. And it may not even be the case that he worked harder or, um, he's necessarily smarter or something, but there's something more impressive about that. And I was trying to figure out why is that the case? And, um, the hypothesis I came up with is maybe we can model this as an option, right? So I'm sure many of our audience might know about the black Scholes formula for pricing options. The first is volatility. Well, for first, I guess maybe we should back up and talk about what an option is. It gives you the right to buy an asset at a predetermined price. And one of the things that makes an option valuable is the volatility of the underlying asset. Um, that's because, you know, if you hold an option on something, you're entitled to the full upside. Uh, but the downside is limited to what you paid for the option. So you want a highly volatile asset. And, you know, the kid who is starting his own business in high school, he's telling you that, um, he's incredibly volatile in this way, right? So the best case scenario for him is, you know, he becomes the next Patrick Collison or something and found Stripe. And the best case scenario for the kid who joins, you know, four make work clubs is that he works for Patrick Collison. And, um, so, you know, that's one element. Uh, the other is one of the other things that's, uh, important in measuring options is age to maturity. So how far away are you from the time that the option can be exercised? Uh, because again, the further away you are, the more time the option has to, or the underlying asset has to experience large fluctuations in value. Um, and that's why we find young people doing more impressive, right? Uh, you know, why is a high schooler writing about a blog post way more impressive than a grad student writing a blog post? Uh, well, because you have, uh, the high schooler has more time in which he can do some really cool.

SPEAKER_237: That's awesome. Um, so is there any way that you apply this to your own life or was this something that maybe you saw somebody else? Like what inspired that?

SPEAKER_239: I guess you could say I applied it somewhat, although accidentally, um, I, after I graduated college, I wasn't really sure what to do. And, um, uh, some, some incredibly generous people, Anil Asunil Varanasi, they offered to give me a small grant to get me started on blogging and podcasting full time. Um, and, um, at that point, I guess I decided that the more volatile, the more, the more interesting plan would be to pursue that full time. And, you know, in fact, I was actually, the day I published that blog post, it was, you know, Wednesday afternoon and I had gotten maybe like a dozen likes on that blog post. Um, and I was like, Oh, come on. That's the second blog post in a row. No new subscribers. All right. Well, um, what am I doing with my time? I'm writing essays. I have a CS degree and maybe I should be coding. I, I, I text a friend of mine who works at a tech company. I'm like, Hey, are you guys hiring? And he's like, you know, yeah, we're constantly, are you looking? And I'm like, you know, maybe, maybe I'll let you know in a few days. Um, and, uh, and then, you know, that stuff happens at night. And so I'm incredibly grateful that the, like, now we're all in on this.

SPEAKER_237: Yeah. So I've noticed that a lot of people reading your content, even though, um, the content that I like that you're putting out tends to more be on the, uh, people that you're interviewing are like philosophers, um, economists, but the people that I've noticed are consuming your content are a lot of other people that I know in the tech space, a lot of young founders. Why is it important for founders, especially young ones to consume content? Um, revolving about the things that you're putting out.

SPEAKER_244: I think it gives them a way to conceptualize what they're up to.

SPEAKER_239: It maybe gives them a theory about, um, how it is that they get to a point where they can do something really creative and novel. As for what exactly they are getting out of it.

SPEAKER_286: Um, I think you'd had to ask them, but that is my hypothesis of what's going on.

SPEAKER_237: Gotcha. If you weren't doing this right now, then, and, uh, writing blog posts, writing content, uh, interviewing all these really cool people, do you think you would be working then at a tech startup?

SPEAKER_290: Yeah. Yeah. Or possibly trying my own.

SPEAKER_237: Really? Okay. So you said computer science, I know, and that seems to be a big foundation. A lot of your stuff is very data driven, even though it's about philosophy and things like that, which is really cool. Um, how has that wanting to understand more about the technical side of things helped you understand philosophy and economics and things that maybe aren't

SPEAKER_270: necessarily, um, as like binary as computer science.

SPEAKER_239: Yeah. Tyler Cowen has a quote. I think I'm paraphrasing, but it's something like, um, it's all applied economics. Uh, and you could say the same thing about philosophy. It's all applied philosophy. Um, I think that the boundaries between, uh, domains of knowledge we imagine are much more superficial, at least that's been my experience. So it is actually not that difficult to just, you know, read about one idea in one context, for example, options and think, Oh, how do you apply that to your own life and think about your own prospects and the different, um, the different plans you can follow.

SPEAKER_237: That's so sick. So for this kind of pulling a one 80 year, but you're really, really young to be talking about these types of things. A lot of the people that are like interacting with your page on Twitter, which like I keep going to is I just can't believe that we found you on Twitter, to be honest with you, because I think you are really, really smart. I think that I should have found your blog posts and it's seen like two years ago, to be honest, because again, I'm just like scrolling through to right now. And I'm like, I'm wooed away. I see, you know, Mark Andreessen is interacting with your page. Like I said, for Jeff Bezos, you've had these insane people on how would you tell people that want to break into the podcasting media space, how to grow? Yeah.

SPEAKER_239: I mean, first of all, I'm incredibly flattered by the description. Um, you know, my friend Ben Kuhn has a very good blog post on this. It's called, um, just, just sort of something like Ben Kuhn power law. And one of the points he makes is so power law, by the way, is you might have heard of it described as the 80, 20 rule where, um, most of your results come from a small, small amount of your investments or your tries. And that's been a strong part of my experience. Like if you are interested in this kind of thing, it's very hard to tell in advance, like what will take off, what will not take off.

SPEAKER_243: And, um, you know, your audience will definitely know more about this than I do in startups. That's the rule, right? You get like a $0 exit, $0 exit, $0 exit, $1 billion exit, $0 exit.

SPEAKER_239: So, um, that's, that's very similar to if you want to produce this kind of content, um, don't get dissuaded if in the beginning you're getting what's analogous to $0 exits and you're kind of just busting out, um, yeah, like the next one could be the one that I guess could

SPEAKER_237: give you the few days I've had, I guess I couldn't even say I want to take back. It's not just the growth. It's first off the quality of people that are interacting. It's not just like an on accounts on the internet being like, you have a good podcast, but it's people that I'm also impressed that they're not remotely close to like, are you like, for example, I like to consume content from people who are similar to me. So a lot of things, a lot of the other podcasts I listened to are hosted by people around my age, around content that I'm directly interested in right now that pertains to my life, whether that'd be like living in New York or having this as like a first step out of college, but the people that are interacting with your stuff are older, insanely successful. Like that's gotta mean a lot. So I want to take back that it's not just growth that I think is important. But I think it's really hard as a young person to get anybody outside of like your age demographic to see what you're doing, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_244: Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_243: And you know, I'm still incredibly confused about what Mark Andreessen and Jeff Bezos and Paul Graham.

SPEAKER_239: Yeah, that they thought I had something worth saying that means a lot to me.

SPEAKER_237: So what are your future aspirations for this project? Now you said this podcast has been around for two years.

SPEAKER_244: Yeah, I'm going to continue it at least for the next few months.

SPEAKER_239: And I'm going to be the past few days have given me the opportunity to kind of drastically scale up what I'm working with on a podcast and blog. As for what happens after that, I'm still trying to figure that out. I've always been very interested in tech and startups. As for how the pivot happens and what that looks like in the meantime, you know, hopefully

SPEAKER_306: I'll have a better answer in like a few weeks or months.

SPEAKER_237: Well, I'll be looking out for you, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah. And how did you become such a good writer? That's a question I asked Rachel Cantor, too. I just had her on. She's an incredible writer. Used to write for the Morning Brew. Great blog post by her as well. So plugging Rachel Cantor again, you write on things that are a little bit different than what she writes about. But I'm so impressed by people that don't have a writing background or who aren't forced like in college to sit down and have to write every day, maybe like a communications major or somebody studying journalism. You have to sit down and write for class. In computer science, you're not necessarily given those opportunities. And for writing, I always thought of it as something, you know, you get better by practicing it. How did, were you sitting down and writing during your computer science classes?

SPEAKER_244: No, no, not at all. And I really, I guess before, before a few years ago, or even before, like a few days ago,

SPEAKER_243: I've never really been described as, it's not something that people have pointed out,

SPEAKER_239: especially that I'm a good writer or something. So I guess that wasn't, I didn't know that that was a thing I could do. Why am I good writer? You know, I actually think a lot of people in your audience who are programmers might be surprised at how good writers they are. I think there's something very similar about the art of writing elegant and concise programming,

SPEAKER_243: and, and being able to express your ideas in, in prose.

SPEAKER_311: That's so interesting. Jason would absolutely love that. I've noticed that a lot of people that have been on your, like a lot of your guests have

SPEAKER_237: also been bloggers in addition to their day jobs. Like Brian Kaplan, obviously, Tyler Cohen. So that's really cool seeing that people that like I aspire and look up to are incredible writers as well. Again, just very, very blown away by the quality of people that you have on the kind of questions that you're asking. Do you have any advice for younger people going back to that scouting as a talent or scouting talent as buying options? Like relating to that, what advice and what takeaways should Gen Z, especially recent grads, honestly, because I think that relates a lot to like the time in life I'm in now. What advice do you have for people?

SPEAKER_301: Yeah. So you said you just graduated college?

SPEAKER_282: I graduated 2020, May. So a little before you. Not that much though.

SPEAKER_239: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, cool. Advice. Maybe they should be giving me advice because I'm trying to figure out myself what I want to do. These are some obvious things, but even to the extent that I mean, I even didn't emphasize them to the, you know, to nearly the degree I should have. I think there is hugely diminishing returns to optimizing for the things that you're told to optimize for by your parents in your college. Like, you know, getting that, putting in that extra 20 hours a week to get all A's versus, you know, taking a few B's or even C's. I think that has diminishing returns, especially if you're able to channel that time into doing other kinds of things. One of the things I'm incredibly grateful for is like I never had a strong idea they want to go to grad school or something. Because if I did, I would have to spend all my time just, you know, trying to get all A's or something.

SPEAKER_243: And instead, when I found myself with some free time, I could just say, let's spin up a podcast.

SPEAKER_239: So look out for those kinds of opportunities. One of the most valuable things I got out of college, honestly, was just meeting the people I got to meet who ended up being collaborators, collaborators encouraged me to do these kinds of things are doing equally cool things and take advantage of the networking opportunities. Do new shit. I mean, these are kind of obvious things, but it's amazing to the extent to which you need to be keep reminding of the be reminded of that even me. Right. Because you kind of just get trapped in that loop where, you know, you have this idea that, oh, I'm going to graduate. I'm going to get a big tech job. There's other options.

SPEAKER_237: So this is kind of this is a question I have like prepped or anything. But today is Monday, April 18th. And on the live stream, Jason and Molly talked a little bit about how many people are deciding to take Twitter breaks. Chris Saka was the one that we discussed today. He decided he's going to pop off for a little bit. Do you think that Twitter is like you're going to put Twitter in one or two buckets? And I know like this isn't probably something that's binary, but do you think Twitter and your presence on there has been overall good or do you think it's something that you'll end up leaving behind like we're seeing so many people do?

SPEAKER_239: I think it really depends on how you engage with it. I think that is definitely a hazard, maybe the way I use Twitter like a couple of years back. But, you know, more recently, if I just if I see somebody tweet anything political and I don't know them or, you know, have some strong reason to follow them, you know, I just unfollow them. I'm just not interested. There's there's a good way to prune. And obviously, you know, don't spend all your time on it. Like, but other than I mean, it's a great way to promote your own stuff mostly. And I mean, without Twitter, like, who would have known about me?

SPEAKER_300: Yeah, that's true. I keep saying, but like, I feel like I should have seen I am. This is horrible to even say out loud, but like, I probably read more pod.

SPEAKER_237: I mean, read more blog posts and sub stacks. I'm a newsletter junkie than I am. Like, producer Justin, the one that introduced us, basically, is always a quick new podcast. You're listening to it. I'm like, oh, I have a new I have a new newsletter. So you're going to give me some recommendations. Oh, man. After that, you don't even know. I have like a whole organization system set up. I definitely will. And so on on Twitter, like, who are your best follows? Who are people that you're not going to unfollow that are saying super political stuff that could help our audience, especially in like that tech realm?

SPEAKER_330: You know, maybe helping them level up.

SPEAKER_293: Let's see. I think. Paul Graham has a high signal to noise ratio.

SPEAKER_243: Tyler Cowen. I'll have to get back to you on that.

SPEAKER_323: I'm sure there's other accounts that I follow that are highly worth following.

SPEAKER_237: But we saw Paul Graham posted some quotes from your blog, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_239: That's really cool. You know, I remember. I remember. I remember freshman year. I was in this entrepreneurship class or something. And I met this guy. He later ended up being my roommate. And we were talking. And he says, this class is bull. If you want to learn about startups, you should read this guy named Paul Graham. Here's the website. And I spent the next few months just binging that blog. You know, to talk to anybody who was even remotely interested or even overly polite about Paul Graham. And so, you know, it was like beyond words when he when he did to think that he read that and, you know, quoted it real.

SPEAKER_247: I'm super excited to see what you're going to do next. Like you said, things have probably been a little crazy for you the past few days as your content

SPEAKER_237: has been actually just like sweeping the web.

SPEAKER_291: Thank you again so much for coming on. Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_239: Yeah. Dwarkesh Patel dot com. But, you know, the one of the disadvantages of having a name like Dwarkesh is you can't just say Dwarkesh Patel dot com. So maybe I guess maybe it's in the YouTube description, but I'll just slow down. Dwarkesh Patel dot com. And the podcast is called The Lunar Society available on all fine podcasting platforms, including YouTube.

SPEAKER_237: And if you Google it, by the way, the Lunar Society does show up as a British dinner club. So everybody Lunar Society podcasts. I was like, wait the frick minute. What is this guy doing over here? He's not born in 1765. So thank you again so much for finding for coming on. Excited to go binge some more of your content. Wow.

SPEAKER_280: Well, incredibly flattered to hear you say that, Rachel. Thank you.

SPEAKER_237: Thank you.

SPEAKER_342: Hey, everyone. Producer Nick here. I want to tell you about the SAS syndicate. If you're a founder of a SAS company with a product in market, our investment team wants to talk to you. Head over to the syndicate dot com slash SAS, S A A S to apply to raise from the SAS syndicate. And you can join Jason's syndicate of over 9000 accredited investors at the syndicate dot com.

SPEAKER_344: Producer Justin here. Know a cool startup? Check out open scouting dot com where anyone can refer a startup to our investment team here at launch. Even if you don't know the founder, if you're the first to flag a company for us and we decide to invest, you'll get 5k in cash or 10% of our carry. Hey, everybody.

SPEAKER_346: Producer Rachel here.

SPEAKER_347: Are you an early stage startup that has product in market, some traction and are looking to raise at least $500,000? Apply today to remote demo day for your chance to pitch to over 9000 investors in Jason's syndicate. Submit your application at remote demo day dot com. Our next event is on April 27th.

SPEAKER_342: And if you want to learn how to invest in startups from the world's greatest angel investor and no, we're not talking about Chris Saka, then head to angel dot university to apply. The four hour workshop costs $300 and all proceeds are donated to charity. To date, we've donated over one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to various charities. And you can see the full list at angel dot university slash charity.