SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody, it's Friday. Yes, you made it to Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So many great episodes, so much great news. But today is Friday, which means we're going into the holiday weekend. We will be doing a Sunday show though, no Monday

SPEAKER_01: show. But I'm really excited for today's show. Molly, what's on the docket?

Jason Calacanis: Yeah, we got a variety show with a bunch of news. A new little

SPEAKER_04: update from the BlockFi CEO denying that FTX is buying them for $25 million, maybe not denying that they're buying them. But not $25 million. I don't know. And we'll see we're going to

SPEAKER_07: discuss.

SPEAKER_08: There's a bunch of other crypto quick hits, we'll get through them quickly. Just what's going on in the crypto contagion collapse.

SPEAKER_01: And then some talk about Sequoia and them holding their big winners in their public equities fund the new Sequoia fund. And if

SPEAKER_09: that's a good idea or not having this evergreen fund, obviously, with the markets down, there's been some criticism.

SPEAKER_11: Yeah, kind of an interesting, what do LPs want conversation

Jason Calacanis: zoom and other quick hits is looking to expand beyond video conferencing is a competition with slack heating up. I freaking hope so.

SPEAKER_09: I think I predicted that I predicted that and consumers will be the winners if that does happen. A few more quick hits. The FCC also approved Starlink for moving vehicles. That's amazing. And Klona is apparently raising around at a $6 billion valuation. Remember, they were they were up in the $40 billion club. So that

SPEAKER_15: is quite a striking markdown if it's in fact true. It's going to be a great

SPEAKER_17: show. Stick with us. This Week in Startups is brought to you by Vanta. Compliance and security

SPEAKER_18: shouldn't be a deal breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 report fast. Twist listeners can get $1,000 off for a limited time at Vanta.com slash twist. Helpware. Helpware helps you outsource the tasks that slow your team down. From data entry to world class customer support, Helpware can help make you bionic. Go to helpware.com slash twist to get $1,000 off your first invoice. And Byrace Dev. Hiring a team of experienced developers doesn't need to be hard, slow, expensive, or risky. Go to byrace.dev slash twist and schedule a 20 minute chat to get a development team you'll love and get $10,000 off when you sign

Jason Calacanis: your first contract. Before we get into the crypto news, let's start with possibly a correction or at

SPEAKER_04: least a publicly issued clarification. So after we recorded yesterday's podcast, this was where CNBC and I think PitchBook also reported that FTX was nearing a deal to buy BlockFi for $20 million, $25 million. The BlockFi CEO, Zach Prince, came out and denied the news, said, lots of market rumors out there. I can 100% confirm that we aren't being sold for $25 million. I encourage everyone to trust only details that you hear directly from BlockFi. We will share more with you as soon as we can. It seemed extraordinarily low. We did say that

David Friedberg: yesterday. We did, I think, give the caveat. If this is true, this is a report. So when something's a report, we always tell you which news sources from. So when we say it's from a news source, you as the listener should always say, Okay, how did the news source get their information? Sometimes it's a rumor. Sometimes it's a leak. And, you know, depending on the publication, some people run rumors very quickly. Other people need three sources. Some people will allow

SPEAKER_00: anonymous sources. Some people are now anonymous will allow anonymous sources if they're vetted.

SPEAKER_01: So you have to make those own decisions. We're a show that comments on the news. So when a news story happens, we're giving commentary on that. So just so people know the rules of the road here, we're not calling BlockFi and checking on that. We're reporting on a report, right? So we're commenting on a report. Just understand that. And we give the caveats all the time, I think. So, but yeah, for people who don't understand how this works, uh, Paul,

SPEAKER_31: Although I'm still going to go ahead and try to parse this tweet commentary style, because the tweet does not say we are not being bought. Yeah, there it's clear that there's a deal going on.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah. We are not being bought for $25 million. So it seems to me that it's very, look, maybe he meant we're not being bought, but it seems like there's definitely a deal in the works. Sure. And maybe that specific number is in flux, but like one note, he just said, Jason, who just said, would be hilarious if it's $26 million, like, Well, I think maybe what's going on here is there

SPEAKER_01: was the $250 million line of credit they were talking about. So I even said, well, maybe it's 250 plus 25 that would make more sense to me $275 million. Then you're looking at if it was a $5 billion company previously, you know, going for 500 million would be 10% going for 275 million would be about 5% of the original value. Uh, crypto exchange losing 90% or 95% of its value, makes sense. And it could also be a bunch of debt here to Molly. So we don't know about the assumption of debt. So sometimes when you calculate a deal, there could be 25 million in cash, and there could be 250 500 million to pay off debt holders, right and settle debts. So that's why these deals can be a little bit of a moving target. The assumption of debt is part of the price. So sometimes companies even get bought for their debt. Somebody's got a billion dollars in debt, somebody comes in gives a billion dollars, they essentially are buying the company for a billion because the company has those liabilities. So that price would be 1 billion. Yep. But yeah,

SPEAKER_04: so we can say that this is the official response from BlockFi. It doesn't, it's not denial of a deal. Um, but the pricing at least at minimum still seems to be in question. What is not in question is that the crypto drama and collapse continues. Uh, the latest story today is that a crypto exchange, another exchange in trouble, basically a crypto exchange called coin flex, has paused withdrawals, uh, since last week. And they said that they had to pause withdrawals because a big investor reportedly had defaulted on a $47 million loan. It's led to like a public feud with this investor coin flex in case you hadn't heard of it is the 96th largest crypto exchange by trading volume, according to coinmarketcap.com. So they're in the top 100. So they're in the top 100, just right over the line. Um, it's obviously the volume is down substantially since they paused withdrawals. And then CEO coin flex CEO, Mark lamb last week tweeted Roger bear, who apparently some of the media called Bitcoin Jesus. Oh, it was coin flex.

SPEAKER_43: That was Michael sailor. I linked Michael sailor, Bitcoin Jesus.

SPEAKER_04: I know. And evidently that was taken. I don't know. This like never gets any less absurd. Um, but yes, uh, the CEO tweeted Roger bear owns coin flex $47 million USDC or million USDC. We have a written contract with him obligating him to personally guarantee any negative equity on his coin flex account and top up margin regularly. He has been in default of this agreement. Oh, and we have served

SPEAKER_44: a notice of default. Oh, okay. So. Well, wait, shouldn't they then liquidate him? Isn't this against

SPEAKER_01: his holdings? If they gave him a margin loan, why are they asking him for money? They should just liquidate his holdings or did they move too slow and not do it programmatically? And they gave

Jason Calacanis: him enough space that they are now not able to liquidate. According to CNBC, there was in fact,

SPEAKER_04: an agreement in place that prevented coin flex from liquidating bear like typical accounts with negative equity, I guess, because he was a really big whale. Now he seems to dispute this and tweeted recently, some rumors have been spreading that I have defaulted on a debt to a counterparty, a counterparty. These rumors are false. Not only do I not have a debt to this counterparty, but this counterparty owes me a substantial sum of money and I am currently seeking the return

SPEAKER_00: of my funds. Okay, well, this is what happens when you have a collapse in the market, you stress test contracts. So most of the time in an upmarket, this is a just a micro lesson here on how contracts work. Most of the time, you don't have to enforce a contract. All the clauses in the

SPEAKER_01: contract are there for a reason. But most people do not have the experience of having to actually execute on a piece of that contract. So as but one example, you might have a non solicitation is pretty normal in your employment agreement with your employer. Non solicitation means you can't go to another company and then solicit other employees to go there. This never comes up. But when it does come up, and some director of sales leaves the company or a CTO leaves the company, all of a sudden four or five other employees do, you know, you then could have some serious ramifications for the person who is soliciting. In other words, you can personally hold them liable for the damages of those people leaving, the other company gets dragged into it. It's like an edge case. But this is what's happening in law right now, the edge cases are all going to be stress tested, I'll give you another one. In contracts for events, I always have really been detailed about what the force majeure and act of God clauses are people are like, Why do you care about this stuff? I'm like, well, I lived through 911. I had an event during a hurricane one time. And in both those cases, we had to have a negotiation with the vendors and say, Listen, in our contracts, we have a thing that if we have to move the dates, we move the dates and we all work together to move the dates. And we don't owe you the money. And we got our money back. So during COVID, we had a deposit down with a hotel. And I just basically knew that we were in the right. And we told them, Listen, this is we're talking about $20,000 here, don't make us file, just give us our money back, and they dragged their feet. And then I sent a legal letter. And I said, This is going to just cost you, you're gonna have to do it. You're gonna have to pay for our attorneys, it's gonna cost you $10,000 in legal fees, just give us our 20k back. And of course, once I presented it to them as such, like the stuff is being filed on Monday, we got our money back. Because I said, Look, it's in the contract here, we signed it. And then sometimes I'll even have people initial specific portions of a contract. So they understand it like this is a serious portion. So there's a little device I came up with for people who don't read. And I will tell them in the email, Hey, I'm sending you this contract, I need you to read this portion. In fact, we were just having this with a contract. contract for an event that takes place in Napa. And there is a concern about wildfires. And so we're literally going down to what is the rating of the air quality, the AQI. And we're going back and forth with what's healthy, what's unhealthy. And I have to make a decision, do I want to assume this risk, and then also getting insurance for events, yada, yada, and then you have to read those things. So what's happening right now, when the storm hits, whether it's for a conference,

SPEAKER_00: like the database of contacts, I had this happened one time, an employee downloaded our database of contacts for our sales. Yep. And we caught them, because like, it's pretty easy to catch people doing stuff like this. And yeah, we caught them and say how. And I just basically sent a letter to the employer who was contact who they were hired them and to them and said, Listen, the second any of these advertisers are on, you know, your, you know, properties, you know, that you've actually contacted them and we're going to contact them. And if you hire this employee, we're going to sue you. And you know, I take a pretty hard stance of stealing. And so the person got their job offer rescinded. And then I was left with a choice, Molly, you sue a former employee or not. And I just said, write me an apology letter. And I will not sue you. I literally made them write me an apology letter.

SPEAKER_70: made them write me an apology letter. Dang, he's like, you're a maniac. Yes, I am. What would you what would you do to Roger Ver? Just kidding. Wait, who's that? That's the guy who supposedly owes this $47 million. Oh, for him? I would make him write an apology letter. He doesn't know. Yeah, always write an apology letter. That's what's happening here. We're going to see this over and over again. Sorry to belabor the point. This is why contracts matter. In an upmarket, nobody cares. Everybody's making money. Who cares? Yeah. In a down market, these things matter. This is by getting educated to what each of those clauses

SPEAKER_61: and contracts are there for and asking somebody, can you explain to me in plain English, your attorney, your employer, your partner? What? Why is this in here? And they you can have like a really good education on that. It's really important for founders to understand what SOC 2 compliance is. Basically, if you're a SaaS or a service company that stores customer data in the cloud, then you need to be SOC 2 verified from a third party to close major customers. It's that simple. If you're not SOC 2 compliant, you can't close big deals. But SOC 2 verification is brutal. The process is tedious, time consuming, and expensive. But now there's Vanta. Vanta software makes it much easier to get and renew your SOC 2. On average, Vanta customers are SOC 2 compliant in just two to four weeks compared to three to five months without Vanta. And they partner with over two dozen audit firms who have been trained to file SOC 2 reports directly within Vanta. And congratulations again to Christina and the team. at Vanta for raising $110 million Series B. What an amazing company. And my investment firm, we got a little taste. Yeah, no conflict, no interest. They advertise, we invest in their company. All my startups use their product. Here's the best part. Vanta is going to give you $1,000 off your SOC 2. That's Vanta.com slash twist for $1,000 off your SOC 2.

SPEAKER_04: So in this case, like the contract in question, or the term in question is the one that says coin flex can't liquidate Roger Ver if indeed he doesn't meet his margins.

SPEAKER_78: doesn't meet his margins.

SPEAKER_79: Yeah, I mean, there's probably.

SPEAKER_81: Well, here's what he was probably like, I'm good for it forever.

SPEAKER_01: Here's what happens. You know, sometimes people will say, you know, I want these special terms, I would like a week's notice to correct, right? So let's say they said, Okay, you can draw my stuff down, but I have 10 days to correct 10 business days correct. Okay, so now we're getting into the nuance of that. How many days is it 10? Okay, is it 10 business days or 10 calendar days? Um, and you know, then they could liquidate him, right? So they're there might be some thing like that where he has x number of days, or this could have been a verbal agreement. In other words, no agreement, or it could have been an agreement over email, which is like, not as good as a print one, but could be enforceable. So you really want to anytime you have to do a contract or have an agreement, this is my advice to founders, get it in writing, and sign it. If you don't want to engage a lawyer, you can write, here's the understanding of our agreement in bullet points, and send it to somebody to DocuSign and you both sign it, it's just a memorandum of understanding.

SPEAKER_00: between you and another party. So, you know, I agree, you know, that, we're going to start this company together, we're going to split the equity, and we give 10% to our employees. And we'll vest over four years, and you and your partner can just sign it on a piece of paper, it would be binding, and maybe not as binding as a legal document, but it's still binding. So plain English contracts are better than nothing, certainly better than verbal. So I bet there's like a verbal or an email agreement here, and they're going to debate

SPEAKER_04: the correct I was going to be exactly and it's not going to matter. It's not going to matter. It sounds like now coin flex is going to raise capital to try to repay this $47 million debt, regardless, sort of like, aside from whatever, whatever is going on here, because again, he seems to be disputing this allegation. But coin flex is going to issue. This is going to go great, I bet coin flex is going to issue a token with a 20% annual return.

SPEAKER_92: Come on, guys. Seriously? Are you? Is this gaslighting? That sounds so great. I should get one. Absolutely. Let's go. Would you accept Luna? As

SPEAKER_00: 20% That's amazing. I mean, yeah, what's the, you know, feds interest right now? Or, you know, what does a mortgage go for now? 6%? Yeah, sure. This makes sense. That would be three x plus a mortgage. Sure. Who am I loaning the money to? Is it a payday loan? I mean, come on,

Jason Calacanis: who's gonna, so people are going to come along and buy these tokens, you know, the only one person is going to come in and buy these tokens. And that person is sbf.

SPEAKER_98: Listen, all these tokens are worth nothing. Stop buying tokens, people. They're not going to be worth it. The floor is zero. The floor on your tokens is zero. Like, if you're doing this, you're literally betting on Pokemon cards.

SPEAKER_01: Um, just, let's just be honest. I mean, I've been saying this from the beginning. If it doesn't have a use case, if it's not being used...

SPEAKER_102: Pokemon cards have intrinsic value, Jason. That's actually true. Pokemon cards do. You can sell that. That was a joke. That was a joke.

SPEAKER_82: No, but, uh, but you can sell that. They do. There's nerds who love that stuff.

SPEAKER_01: I mean, the intrinsic value might be $1 each, one penny each, or $100 each, depending on the level of nerditude. I, I agree. They do actually have a floor value. I mean, you could...

SPEAKER_106: No, totally. We like, we know you're kidding, Nick, but actually, my boyfriend's son has sold his Pokemon cards for up to $35.

SPEAKER_107: I have an imperfect one of the Pokemon.

SPEAKER_109: A legendary Charizard is very rare. Very rare. Like, come on.

SPEAKER_23: And actually, the Pokemon cards make a lot more, Pokemon cards make a lot more sense to me than most tokens.

Jason Calacanis: And then a token that's going to supposedly have a 20% annual return from an exchange that has paused withdrawals. Okay. Yeah. Sounds credible. Somebody take my money. Who do I make the check out to? The reckoning is underway in the crypto department. As Jason has been predicting, the next however many years are basically just going to be about the lawsuits. You know who's going to reap their crypto fortunes now? The lawyers. Yeah.

David Friedberg: It's going to be a lot of that. So, the Commodities Future Trading Commission, CFTC, charged Mira Trading International for fraud. Is that the story we're talking about here?

SPEAKER_04: Yes, we are. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, Mira promised what? I don't even know what that is. Mira promised.

SPEAKER_14: What did they promise? Passive income. Okay. I like it. When I hear those words, I write. Like a dry cleaner, right?

SPEAKER_90: Or like, uh, uh, uh, kookaroos. How many kookaroos do you want? Kookaroos. Okay.

SPEAKER_29: Allegedly, Mira promised a passive income return of 10% a month.

SPEAKER_93: Wait, wait. Hold on a second. A month.

SPEAKER_123: Not a year. Okay. There's no muni bond you could buy for 10% a year. There's no like, but you could buy a kookaroo.

SPEAKER_127: No, it's not a kookaroos.

SPEAKER_128: I got my red flag. 10% return a month. A month. Which means every seven months you double your money. I love it. A month. Let's go. Yeah. Forget, forget time blocking. This is the rule.

SPEAKER_61: Somebody do a quick back of the envelope. What is 10% a month compound to a year?

David Friedberg: There's, there's some way to do that calculation on an internet calculator, but it's, it's a lot.

Jason Calacanis: Yes.

SPEAKER_04: So the CFTC came along and said, Hey, that sounds like it might be a fraudulent multi-level marketing operation that scammed investors out of billions of dollars. Yeah.

SPEAKER_99: Um, okay. Yeah. There you go.

Jason Calacanis: If your family member, uh, producer, Nick wants to know, asked you about an investment opportunity with 10% returns per month. What would you tell them? I would take their phone away.

SPEAKER_98: I mean, I would tell them this requires you having the backstop of breaking somebody's legs.

SPEAKER_01: Like this only exists a 10% vague only exists in money laundering loan sharking. Like if you gave somebody $10,000 to gamble on the jets and they were stupid enough to bet on the jets or the nets. Then you could say to them, listen, every month, every week, you got to give me four points, two points on the money you owe me. So every week you give me 200 bucks until you pay me the 10,000 back. That's not even the principle. That's impossible.

SPEAKER_08: And so, you know, 2%, I think would be a typical vague on 10, 10 dimes, a high society out there. Yeah. A week, which is, you know, about 10% a month. Yeah. So there you go.

SPEAKER_141: Insane. That doesn't exist in the world. It doesn't, it's not, it's not real. It's not a thing, Molly. You can't get. Yeah.

SPEAKER_144: Why did people fall from this? How dumb are you people?

SPEAKER_146: Come on. Because everybody wants to get rich quick and no one wants to work. Yes, I know. I know. Just please. That's exactly why.

SPEAKER_148: I mean, even 10% a year is outrageous. Like a credit card company for somebody with credit bleep that out as well.

SPEAKER_01: They could charge you 10 or 15%. Like that would be bottom feeding. But you know, this is, this is the realm of loan sharks. Um, so anyway, it just people, please, anything above what you would get on a loan. Just think about what you pay in interest. You are the other side of the transaction.

SPEAKER_58: What's the most you ever paid in interest? 20% on some crazy, stupid credit card you signed up for. You didn't read it. And then you saw the amount you were paying where you consolidated your loans.

SPEAKER_43: All credit cards.

SPEAKER_04: Now, by the way, that's all of them. But yeah. Really? Oh yeah. It's insane. I mean, I, I'm pretty religious about this, but 16 to 20% is standard for credit cards. Even when interest rates are at zero. I'm just pulling out. Here's another idea, folks.

SPEAKER_58: Don't use credit cards. Don't use credit cards.

SPEAKER_153: That's free. That's free money.

SPEAKER_154: That's a rich man talking. You got to use credit cards. That's a rich man. Credit. Use credit cards. You do. Just don't spend what you can't afford to pay.

Jason Calacanis: Dude. If you use credit cards wisely and pay them off every month, they give you free money. That is free money. I just booked a whole trip to Mexico with points. Boom.

SPEAKER_84: Free. Done.

SPEAKER_00: I use credit cards all the time for businesses and I have a million Bonvoy points and a million United points and I just never use them because I try to, you know, these days I, you know, I don't always fly coach. Um, and, um, it's very hard to use those for a business class trip because they, like, United is so stingy. They're just like, yeah, you can use it for business class, like on this flight at 5am, but you can't use it on the 9 or AM or 10am flight.

SPEAKER_01: And I'm just like, come on, just let me use these goddamn points.

Jason Calacanis: You should donate those to your staff as like an end of your bonus. That's a good, I've heard of people doing that.

SPEAKER_161: No, no.

SPEAKER_04: Um, by the way. We're in a recession. Bonuses are over. Forget that. In other news. I found a legendary hollow Charizard listed on eBay for a thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_91: Oh, I'm sorry. A what? A Pokemon card. Stop. Enough with the Pokemon cards. Enough with the 10%. I'm just saying I'm doing Pokemon cards instead of crypto for sure. A thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_00: I do think that collectibles are a great thing, um, to spend money on. If you get joy from them. So I totally understand if you got joy from, you know, I see Alexis Ohanian. It's like, you know, he's like, here's my street fighter, you know, Nintendo cartridge.

SPEAKER_01: And it's a loose site. And he's so happy. And I'm like, you know what? If, if you paid a hundred bucks for that and it made you happy, some people pay a hundred bucks for foie gras on their hamburger. It makes them happy. I don't care. Like, go for it. Put it on your shelf. Nerd out. If you like the baseball cards, my friend likes to trade baseball cards. Like, yeah, go for it. I think that's fine.

SPEAKER_57: Um, but you have to understand 10% a month is a, is a giant scam. And this is when you, you know, we're at peak grift.

SPEAKER_127: You know, it's awesome. When a crypto person makes the FBI's 10 most wanted list. I think there was some.com people who may have made this list in the, in the.com era.

SPEAKER_01: We have to do some research, but I want, uh, if the, if the notice in the audience can tell me in the chat, who are the most famous business people or tech people to make the top 10 FBI's most wanted fugitive list. This is rarefied air.

SPEAKER_165: It is. This is pretty special. The FBI announced this. Ruzha Ignatova.

SPEAKER_04: Ruzha Ignatova. A Bulgarian woman is wanted for her alleged role in running a cryptocurrency scam known as one coin.

SPEAKER_31: She is often referred to as the crypto queen. Oh. She now.

SPEAKER_168: I think she spoke that NFT week last week. Right, Rachel? Probably. Was she at NFT New York? She's at NFT New York.

SPEAKER_04: She is now much like mint jelly on the lamb. The FBI says she defrauded victims out of more than $4 billion.

Jason Calacanis: What? She started. Uh huh. Uh huh. She started in 2014 and then disappeared in 2017 with at least $500 million.

SPEAKER_04: You know what? I follow her on Tik Tok. She's pretty good. Ruzha Ignatova. I like want to know so much more about the crypto queen.

SPEAKER_180: I do.

SPEAKER_04: This feels like. Julio Flores in the chat, by the way, is like, what's her grift?

SPEAKER_82: How did it work? I'm gonna do that. This is it. This is the one.

SPEAKER_61: I think this is the one we're gonna produce our own short film on. Yes. I am going to produce a short film. Lana's gonna write it.

SPEAKER_183: Just look at the lipstick.

SPEAKER_184: Lana's gonna write it.

SPEAKER_183: It's just gonna be a story of what she did before she was the crypto queen.

SPEAKER_61: The. This is my script. What she was doing before she became the crypto queen. How she found out about crypto. And then where she is now. Just those three scenes, but nothing about the grift.

SPEAKER_01: Just like, okay, she's working in this office at a construction company in Jersey city. Right. And she's in one of those containers. Some guy from the construction group comes, he delivers the coffee. And he takes out his, you know, Coinbase app. He shows her Coinbase, or he takes out Mt. Gox and shows her Bitcoin. She buys 10 bitcoins. He gives her 10 bucks to buy 10 bitcoins at a dollar. It goes up to $300. She feels like a genius.

SPEAKER_57: And then she has an idea when she's, you know, out with her girlfriends at a club on Saturday night in Newark. Yep. And then boom, we flash to wherever she is now in Hong Kong, eating Peking duck, trading flash drive. With crypto on it.

SPEAKER_188: Amazing. Zen profit. Zen profit already. He gave us the title. Inventing Ruha. Perfect.

SPEAKER_23: Come up with the titles. Everybody. This week in startups production.

SPEAKER_61: I need a director and somebody. I need to cast for this. It's gonna be like my own goodfellas. So long. I need a short script. I'm putting a budget up today. Nick, you're gonna produce as well. Executive producer credit for Nick. Rachel, you can get a credit too. If you put it get in on this Rachel, I'll give you a part. If you want a part. Um, and I'm putting a, I want to make a 10 minute short 10k.

SPEAKER_01: I can do this for 10k, right?

SPEAKER_08: About that. Okay. $10,000. Lock it up. If anybody wants to produce this.

SPEAKER_126: And we need the razzle dazzle couple. Definitely. Um, they should make a cameo. The razzle dazzle. We just make a cameo.

SPEAKER_195: They beat her on razzle con razzle con.

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SPEAKER_61: They have 13 global locations and they cover 26 language. So bottom line, you're gonna save tons of time and you're gonna become bionic with help where like I do a lot of this stuff. We're researching potential targets for advertising. You can use help where to do all that stuff. And it's going to scale up nicely with their teams because they've already pre vetted everybody. You don't have to do all that work.

SPEAKER_200: So I want you to go to help where dot com slash twist h e l p w a r e dot com slash twist for $1,000 off. So let's move on.

SPEAKER_04: Authorities say I gotta read about I had to read up about one coin because when you read up about one coin, which is the coin that she grifted all this money with. Authorities say one coin was one of the largest pyramid schemes in modern history. Although Inatova claimed it was backed by a blockchain.

Jason Calacanis: Prosecutor said there was none. She made up the price. There was a wallet? The coins were not traded. One coin. But listen to this description and tell me how this is like substantially different.

SPEAKER_04: I mean, you know, considering most people aren't going to check a blockchain somewhere to make sure their coins exist. One coin. This is according to then FBI assistant director in charge. William Sweeney was a cryptocurrency existing only in the minds of its creators and their co conspirators. Conspirators, unlike authentic cryptocurrencies, which maintain records of their investors transaction history. One coin had no real value. It offered investors no method of tracing their money and it could not be used to purchase anything. In fact, the only ones who stood to benefit from its existence were its founders and co conspirators. You guys talked on all in about how transparency was the first thing to go once the middlemen came into cryptocurrency. Yes. So this question of like, how could investors track their money on, let's say, three arrows capital or an exchange that's totally obscured? Hmm. I don't know. It doesn't sound that different.

Jason Calacanis: I mean, I get it that if a blockchain coin exists on the blockchain, you can trace it, but like most people aren't. Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya: Um, you know, listen, everybody who's listening, if you're giving your money to somebody and you, you need to check the history of that person.

SPEAKER_01: This is like one of the simplest ways to do that. And to ask questions and ask for documents. When you ask for documents or you ask for history on a person, you do kind of sign of your, you know, little background check. If it doesn't check out, it doesn't check out. It's that simple. Anytime you ask for documents, if there's like some delay or reason you can't get the documents, by the time you've asked the third time for the same documents, just like asking an interview subject for the third time the same question and they won't answer the question. You kind of have your answer, you kind of have your answer and the answer is guilty. This is my philosophy. You ask three times to get something. If you can't get the basic documentation after three times, like I would just ask this person, where are you incorporating? Can you send me a picture copy of your corporation documents? And can I see your bank account statements? You know, if you were making a big investment, just like basic stuff and diligence. And so, um, and if, of course, if you see a return that doesn't make sense, and you've never heard of anybody paying that interest rate, but it's paying off that interest rate. Well, you're a pretty good proxy, right?

SPEAKER_57: Like if you've paid 21% for a predatory credit card from some retailer or something.

SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know, 21% a year is the upper bound in all likelihood.

SPEAKER_58: 10% a month is a lot more than 21%. So just do basic math, people. It's too good to be true.

SPEAKER_207: It's too good to be true.

Jason Calacanis: It is too good to be true. Stick to Pokemon cards. I just found one for $6,500. 2002. Pokemon Legendary collection.

SPEAKER_58: Or another great way to backstop is to simply put in the smallest investment possible.

SPEAKER_01: So if you said to this person, hey, oh, great, I would like to put in $100. You want me to put $100,000 in? Great. I'll tell you what, I'll put in $500 now. And then can you get me this paperwork? And then I'll prepare $5,000 for, you know, Q2. And then if that works out, and I get a good return, and I can take that money out, I'll do $50,000 in Q3. And then always ask to get some of your return back. This is the other backstopping test. So you got three backstopping tests here. Ask for documentation. Number two, go slow with your investments. Number three, when you do lock in a bit of a return, cash out, stress test, see if you can cash out. So I was in some hedge funds at one point, and I had put like $250,000 into them. And God bless them, they had like, two and a half times did. And I said, great, I want my principal back, give me the $250,000. Yeah. You know, and this was a super legit one. They were like, sure, do you want to keep going? Or do you need the money, whatever? I was like, I just need money. Yeah, that's it. That's the reason. I was just like, I need money right now. Yeah, I'm making a deposit on something. I didn't. I just wanted to see if I could then play with the house's money. And of course, then I just let whatever it was $350,000, because they had just had such a great run for two or three years. And I put that money into something safer. And I'd let the other $350,000 ride and it did great.

SPEAKER_57: So yeah, stress testing and taking some money out is a great way to make sure that your investment is real.

SPEAKER_01: Or, and in this case, a Ponzi scheme, they would have used somebody else's money to give you your money back. This is what happened with Bernie Madoff. People who stress tested and took their money out, he really tried to talk them out of taking their money out. And he would win that discussion most of the time. But other times people did take their money out. And they got somebody else's money to pay them back.

Jason Calacanis: Exactly. Which basically again, like given how many, which again is similar to when you hear about these exchanges, it's like they borrowed this from this person and or from this entity.

SPEAKER_04: And then this was the collateral. And then it was the collateral again. And then they're paying you back with more. It's not dissimilar.

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SPEAKER_04: Let's do it. It's a bit of a hard bit of a thank goodness because otherwise it would have been a hard pivot from Ponzi schemes to public markets. Yeah.

SPEAKER_219: And actually, I think that's actually a good segue.

SPEAKER_61: Yeah, if in an unregulated market, crazy stuff goes down.

SPEAKER_00: In a regulated market, you could have weird stuff go down, but you don't have the massive contagion like we're seeing now in crypto.

SPEAKER_01: Right.

SPEAKER_04: So now there is this sort of interesting debate that has come up about, you know, possibly the greatest private investing institution maybe ever Sequoia. Eric Newcomer wrote a newsletter. Friend of the pod. Friend of the pod. About Sequoia, you know, being down on its public market positions in Unity and DoorDash, like everybody. But of course, you know, Sequoia pivoted its main fund into an evergreen fund and is sort of investing in private and public markets at the same time. And that led to a tweet from, hold on, I'm opening it, Martin Tobias, I think, saying I'm responding to this piece saying I'm an LP in 17 venture funds. I hire those guys to manage private market risk. Sure. Some, he says, like Sequoia, have tried to manage public market risk as well to increase their fees. Yeah, I don't want my VCs holding public stocks. That's my job. Sure. And I think this is just an, normally this wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't be a huge story that Unity and DoorDash have fallen over 70% other than this kind of question, which is like, what do VCs do and what do their LPs want them to do?

SPEAKER_205: So here's the thing, LPs in Sequoia's evergreen fund, my understanding, they've been public about this had the option to do this or not.

SPEAKER_00: Yep. Most of them did, I think a very small amount didn't. So they had the choice to do it or not. And then second, they have a redemption period every year where they can take money out of it, or maybe it's every six months. So it's not like they don't have a choice here, they have the ultimate choice. So if they do choose, um, so this person, if theoretically they weren't a Sequoia LP would have had the choice. So really no harm, no foul here. If you are trusting Sequoia with private markets, great. If you trust them with private and your public holdings, great, but you can pick. And so I think Sequoia is super savvy and they understand that. And if these companies grow, if they're, if these, if a company is down 70, 80%, like in some cases companies are right now, um, in some extreme cases, it might be 90. But let's just say you have growth stocks down 60%. You know, if they're growing 30% a year, there is a path, you know, in the coming years for this to return. There was a point of time where Facebook traded, I think at $17. Right.

SPEAKER_61: And so a lot of people sold their whole positions. They got nervous and they sold it. In fact, I think Chamath is very public about the fact that he sold a lot of his Facebook locked in that huge win for himself and then put it into social capital, which then was another win.

SPEAKER_01: So sometimes selling too early and as long as you put that money to work in something that you think is higher growth is a fine thing to do. In fact, when I sold some of my Uber shares, I was able to buy houses that appreciated in value and put it into other venture firms, which have appreciated in value. So you can't perfectly trade markets and they have choice. So no big deal. And these companies are still growing. The chances that unity and door dash are not bigger companies now than are not significantly bigger companies in five to 10 years and have significantly better stock performance in five to 10 years is very low to me.

SPEAKER_57: I think that they're doing the right thing by holding those.

SPEAKER_43: I think there is this interesting question.

SPEAKER_04: There was also the, there was also like a, a tiger global thing about this, right?

SPEAKER_99: About using somehow mixing its public and private funds and investments. I'm trying to remember what that was about. Well, they were public traders who then dipped into private.

SPEAKER_193: So you have both things happening. You know, people who are private saying, Hey, we'll hold our publics longer.

SPEAKER_01: People who are public saying, Hey, let's get in on this private thing. It is two different disciplines. I think Sequoia is the rare firm that can manage both.

SPEAKER_00: I think it's easier to manage public as a private than it is as a public to understand privates. Yeah. Sequoia also has, uh, a family office, uh, Sequoia heritage. I think it's called where they manage high net worth individuals. And so they are used to managing public markets equities because they manage their own, right? They all, those partners got Google shares, they all got unity shares. So they have to make their own decisions about that. Most of them hold them because they know when you have a world-class tech company that hits scale,

SPEAKER_01: it generally hangs around for a couple of decades.

SPEAKER_57: So if you were a shareholder in Airbnb, Uber, you know, DoorDash, uh, Slack, et cetera, a lot of times these companies will hang around for 10, 20 years. Now, sometimes they get bought out like Slack does, but generally holding is, um, historically been the right move. So.

SPEAKER_04: Well, I guess, so, and I, I don't have religion on this. I just think it's a really interesting conversation to have, like from this perspective of an individual LP, for example, who's like, listen, holding might be the right move in the public stock, but I want to make that call. Like I became an LP and it'd be an adventure firm because I want a private market return. And you have that option. And so once they get them, but then it's basically saying like, okay, cool. You have that option. Yeah.

Jason Calacanis: What if you're an LP who wants to be in Sequoia and Sequoia is like, sorry, this is our deal.

SPEAKER_241: Like, no, no, they gave people the option.

SPEAKER_242: They were very upfront about that. You don't have to do this. They said to people, you can remain an LP. You can remain an LP. Yeah. They were very clear about this. And I think they were very clear, you know, that the overwhelming majority asked them to do this.

SPEAKER_57: So this was something that I think their LPs wanted, which was more advice and more insights into which companies they should hold on to for the next decade. So if you were in Square for the private, if you were in Unity for the private moments and DoorDash, that could really inform your public market decision making. And I think Sequoia is in a better position to do that than most, the overwhelming majority of public market investors. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: So do you think that this is just a model that's going to continue like people have big funds like this are going to move to a model where it's sort of like a, like a all inclusive financial management full life, a full lifespan of the investment.

SPEAKER_82: Sure. Why not? Yeah, I could see other folks.

SPEAKER_00: If this, if it works for Sequoia, it's going to be a huge advantage because what could happen is over time, they just have huge positions. In the largest tech companies, which is just great inside data influence, etc. And then they're managing just a larger pool of capital. So yes, I think they will pull it off. But remember, they've been doing this for decades. So they have a lot of experience. And so it's not like some newbie doing this. So a lot of people thought they could do everything. And, you know, doing everything all at once immediately is very hard. But if your firm is adding, like, look at Sequoia just added.

SPEAKER_01: They were the, they were one of the original YC LPs. They had backstopped YC famously when YC couldn't raise money during another downturn. They just launched a YC competitor this year. You don't think they've been watching YC for over a decade. They could have done it in the first year. They decided to wait. Then when they had the right moment where they thought they could add value, they did something thoughtfully. So you don't have to rush into every category. You can be thoughtful about it, right? And specialization, specialization in venture is great. And then adding adjacencies is great as well. You just have to be thoughtful about it, right?

Chamath Palihapitiya: It's back to that, like, thoughtful, can you do it well? So. Yeah.

SPEAKER_70: Anybody can launch a podcast about investing. Can you do it well is the question, right? Won't be any good. Every venture firm launched a podcast.

SPEAKER_183: Half of them haven't updated in the last year, right? And so, you know, it's like very easy to start.

SPEAKER_04: It turns out people, it's a lot of work. We make this look easy. It turns out it's a lot of work. It turns out it's a lot of work. I think this move toward evergreen funds is really interesting. I remember I think I read about I think homebrew did something similar, like became an evergreen fund, but it's with their own capital with their own money. Yeah. Anyway, maybe it's a busy Sunday school. Just like what? Because, you know, it just seems like the business is evolving.

SPEAKER_52: And it's super interesting.

SPEAKER_00: Innovation in venture has been amazing since I started working in it. Because my two swings at bat, my first two big wins were both in brand new products. I was the first syndicate on AngelList and did Calm as the first syndicate, which is still the biggest and best return of all syndicates in the history of the entire syndicate AngelList or otherwise until somebody can tell me a better one. And then I was the first Sequoia Scout. Both of these were crazy new innovative products. You got to give Ruloff credit for Scouts first his creation. Everybody copied. You got to give Naval a ton of credit for syndicates. There had been syndicates and SPVs. They were just done very privately.

SPEAKER_57: They weren't done with some crazy syndicate lead. And that was really Naval's incredible innovation, which I thank him. And I thank Ruloff for being the first scout. So there's a lot of these new innovative things.

SPEAKER_257: And I think it's great to try things.

SPEAKER_99: How does it start to change? Nick and I were talking about this earlier, this question of how it starts to change, like the metrics by which firms are measured and the metrics that firms value versus LPs.

SPEAKER_88: You know, like if you stay in, if you're in an evergreen, then IRR seems like it's not as big a deal.

SPEAKER_01: No, no, it will still be IRR. Cash in cash out. That's what matters. Ultimately, how much cash did I give you? How much cash did I take out? So if I put a million dollars into a Sequoia fund, and they turned it into 5 million as a private market investment, and then they put so that was the first 10 years I had a 5x cash on cash after fees amazing and you know, Sequoia has put up funds that do even better than that. Then it went public. And I kept it in the evergreen fund and it went my five, you know, so went one to five over 10 years private. I put that I kept the 5 million in there and it returned, you know, again, 4x, and it went from five to 20 million. So now I started with 1 million. And over 20 years, I got to 20 million. You know, if you double your money in the stock market, typically, 7% a year, every 10 years, you double your money, that one would have turned it to two after 10 years and four after the next decade.

SPEAKER_58: So you would be comparing, you know, for an outrageous fund like Sequoia, like just the most elite going from one to 20, maybe one to 15, one to 25, something in that range, as opposed to going from one to four. And that's what having access to elite assets means for people with compounding, you know, and I think that probably historically is probably a true statement.

SPEAKER_57: So. Hmm. All right.

SPEAKER_93: Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting.

SPEAKER_263: Um, and then speaking of just like, yes, there just was one comment from one of our producers.

SPEAKER_00: Bruce and Nick said, well, you know, Sequoia sells and then some hostile, you know, takeover happens like we saw with Zendesk, et cetera. Um, that's a bad outcome for everybody. So if Zendesk had had their VCs staying on the board, supporting it, maybe even having more money available to them and they could defend those companies. That's actually really good for the, um, that's really good for, um, the founders as well. So this could have downstream effects of keeping these companies very focused.

SPEAKER_267: Like imagine if instead of Twitter, there was an activist investor in square that tried to kick Jack out and mess everything up before the cash app acquisition. How bad that would have been for the company overall. Right. And that's kind of the bet that they're making, right. Roloff is saying he wants to just hold their ownership percentage so that they can stay on the board and keep making decisions. Right.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Um, all right. Well, as long as we're talking about valuations, we cannot skip past this kind of astonishing story about Klarna, the, uh, Swedish buy now pay later startup. We've been covering kind of buy now pay later and the drop in this space. Um, but there is news now that Klarna is reportedly raising money at a six and a half billion dollar valuation, which is about a seventh of what that company was valued at a year ago in June of 2021.

SPEAKER_57: Um, yeah, it was, it was in the 40 billion, I believe was the number. And, um, this is what happened. We thought private market valuations would come down slower. Mm hmm. So this is kind of matching. I think what happened to a firm coin base and, you know, some of the other really big pullbacks in the market. So, uh, this is still in negotiation. Supposedly it's 650 million, um, is what they're trying to raise. And sure it's a haircut. But again, if the firm is growing 30 or 40% a year, if it's a high growth company in that space, they'll be able to catch up maybe not to the $40 billion one, but it could still be a great investment for everybody involved.

SPEAKER_00: And the people who invested at that higher valuation, Molly have downside protection, all likelihood. In other words, they get their money out first. And if the valuation comes down, they're going to be able to invest in this round.

SPEAKER_08: So, you know, they, they have the option to take their pro rata in this round in all likelihood. And if you do a down round like this, there's a little bit of negotiation that occurs for those ones. The people who do get, um, will take the brunt of this will be the employees and the founders who, you know, might have thought they had six times as much shares.

SPEAKER_00: But because they're the last to get paid, the common gets paid last in a sale and the preferred stack gets paid first. So when people make these preferred bets, as long as you believe that the company is not going to go to zero and it's going to trade above that $6 billion valuation, um, you're pretty, uh, protected.

SPEAKER_274: So, so we did, yeah, we talked about this a little bit back in May because there were questions about just this whole space, right?

SPEAKER_04: In this valuation, the Klarna, a firm comp that producers did back then was that a firm's GMV was $8.3 billion, about 10% the size of Klarna, uh, or rather Klarna is 10 times larger. A firm's operating loss was $380 million. We were doing this comparison because a firm is public and Klarna is not. So we couldn't quite, we didn't know for sure.

SPEAKER_277: Buy now, pay later, I think is going to be more. I, my theory would be, it would be a more attractive product in a down market.

SPEAKER_188: Risk here, but more attractive, right? I mean, they already have a payback problem.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess. Has that become public? The bad debt? I don't know. Uh, I don't think these firms.

SPEAKER_08: I don't think that's public yet, but we'll see that a firm is public. So we should see that with a firm, uh, is going to have to release the, you know, the bad debt. So that's something if anybody understands, that's something to watch for is what does the bad debt look like here?

SPEAKER_57: I don't know. It doesn't seem to me like that's going to be a major problem. I'll be honest. I think they're going to be able to figure out which customers to offer this to and which ones to not offer it to.

SPEAKER_04: They have a, I look up the story every time we talk about it. There was a story that suggested that, uh, it was like as many as one in four, um, were, were in default on these loans. That seems incredibly high to me. It looks like Gen Z and millennials are already defaulting on auto loans. Um, Well, definitely see some of that.

SPEAKER_21: Just so you know, a firm is down peak to trow and obviously it ran up pretty hot there.

SPEAKER_08: Uh, 90%. So they were trading at 10 times. They were probably a $50 billion company. They're now a $4.9 billion company. Uh, so yeah, I mean, that makes sense of why Klarna would come down, uh, in value. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_57: So the operating loss, which is not at the end of the day, the net, because it's other expenses have to come out. Our firms was 380, 380 million. Klarna had an operating profit, 1.6 billion. So 7 million customers active for a firm. And I think Klarna has 20 times as more, more. So if Klarna goes public, I think it would be, if, if they're trading at the almost the same price, if it's a $6.5 billion market cap at this recent funding, that's pretty crazy. Um, Klarna also has banking services they provide. So, uh, we're gonna, it's gonna be interesting. I think Klarna is gonna go public though. So it'll be interesting to see how these two stocks.

SPEAKER_267: What's your question with this is if Klarna is so much bigger than a firm and they're, now their valuations are almost the same. Well, that's what sort of pointing out.

David Friedberg: Yeah.

SPEAKER_267: Yeah.

David Friedberg: Yeah. So now they have the same. So now Klarna and a firm have the same valuations, Molly, or within a billion or so.

SPEAKER_89: It seems if this were to go and once 20 times bigger or 10 to 20 times larger terms of customers and revenue.

SPEAKER_57: So it's a very interesting moment in time. This is where price discovery is, you know, just takes a lot of time in a market. Yeah, we're weighing.

SPEAKER_04: Um, I, I found the story. It was by Qualtrics on behalf of Credit Karma and determined that a third of buy now, pay later users miss payments. A third miss payments.

SPEAKER_21: Mm hmm. But that's not necessarily bad debt.

SPEAKER_08: That's just missing a payment. So be interesting to see. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what default rates are.

SPEAKER_300: Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing too, is, you know, you, you can do this so granularly.

SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, if you are using this, they might let you do like two or three transactions at 50 bucks, 200 bucks or whatever. And if you don't pay back, they can just turn you off. And then I bet you the, I wonder how much the retailer has to assume some of this risk for the bad debt. So I know the retailers pay to offer the four payments, right? So they get the spread from the, um, retailers who are trying to get more people to buy stuff by offering payment plans.

SPEAKER_08: So I wonder if, um, the retailers have to take on some of this risk if people default, um, by offering the service, but pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: And I think this is what Apple is going to do for all their products. You're going to be on a payment plan with them and they'll use their own money.

SPEAKER_199: As I predicted, they're using their own money, I think as the, um, as the bank, as it were. So.

SPEAKER_04: Yep. Um, quick update, uh, in the breaking news department, according to Axios block by says block by announced that it has agreed to an option to be acquired by FTX for up to $240 million. So almost exactly what you were predicting with the line of credit. If performance incentives are met. If performance incentives are met, which seems key. The acquisition, yes, would include that. It would also receive a $400 million revolving credit facility from FTX. Okay.

SPEAKER_225: That's the, the update as we're taking.

SPEAKER_57: So if you put those two things together, um, you know, it's, um, whatever $650 million, $640 million from FTX to backstop this, which I think a lot of people are speculating. Why is FTX want to backstop so much of this? Mm hmm. And, uh, he said he wants to save the sector, right? He's been upfront about that. Like it's part of the reason he's doing it. So I wonder if FTX and Sam wasn't doing this. What would be happening in crypto land if he wasn't backstopping these projects, but it seems like he's backstopping for hundreds of millions of dollars. If he does that three or four times, it'd be low billions. Can you, is, is that the only amount of fraud and or mistakes to be, um.

SPEAKER_307: Yeah.

SPEAKER_308: I mean, I would be curious to know which apples he is just, you know, why he's deciding to pluck certain apples and probably your, your comments about user accounts are the most likely, right?

SPEAKER_04: Like choosing filter, but it also does sort of feel like if you believe the space is not going to go to zero. Yes.

SPEAKER_221: I understand rolling up user accounts on the cheap makes sense, but also, isn't it going to be a healthier ecosystem overall if like the bad apples just fall off the tree?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I mean, what you're trying to do or what the purpose of a down market and a flush out like this is to flush out the bad actors. Yeah. Either criminal or incompetent, right? Yeah. So you have a bunch of projects, companies that were run poorly. They took on too much debt. They didn't have good margins, whatever the reason is.

SPEAKER_01: So there's sort of incompetence slash weak companies, low performing companies that get washed out, which then sends those customers to the better companies, which then makes them even stronger. So that is a very good function. And then if there's five or 10% fraud or bad actors, you get them out as well.

SPEAKER_57: Mm hmm. You know, in this case, it might be, you know, just very large numbers of bad actors and very large numbers of incompetence or low competence, I guess, to be generous. The question is, is he backstopping certain projects because, you know, that directly impacts him in some way? Right.

SPEAKER_01: So that'll be very interesting to understand as well. In terms of his selection of projects, is it strictly based on opportunity? Or is it based on some contagion risk? You know, for him and hit for FTX? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: Um, which I guess, I mean, honestly, like that's, I maintain that that is, I still think that's what's happening here in a big way. I mean, I think it's also opportunistic, but I maintain that it, this is about preserving his fortune.

SPEAKER_221: Ultimately.

SPEAKER_242: Yeah.

SPEAKER_221: Okay.

SPEAKER_242: Yeah. And I guess we'll see. Lightning round. Bloomberg Verge. Lightning round.

SPEAKER_57: As I had predicted that zoom, uh, would be looking for other business lines, like going after slack. Everybody knows slack and zoom are like two sides of the same coin. We use slacks huddle feature a bit. We don't use their video conferencing feature. It's kind of sucks. Terrible. Um, huddles are pretty good, but there's no reason why slack. You can't have zoom built in free and just delightful and wonderful. The fact that it doesn't is kind of strange and it's a missed opportunity. And it's also an Achilles heel. Zoom is saying explicitly. Now they're going to go into a chat and make, you know, persistent chat part of the product.

SPEAKER_04: Cause that's always the problem. Yeah. Like that's been the part about zoom. That makes no sense. It makes no sense that slack doesn't have better video conferencing.

Jason Calacanis: And it makes no sense that zoom doesn't have a persistent chat that you can keep in search. Like you're having all these conversations, you're sending each other's links, and then you, you hang up your zoom call and it's gone. That just makes no sense whatsoever. Zoom itself could be more persistent if it was a full fledged messaging app in addition to video conferencing.

SPEAKER_00: If we have a standing investor investment team call, podcast call, or, you know, I don't know, uh, event call or marketing call. If you know, you're having that call every Tuesday, that room should stay up for in between for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

SPEAKER_01: Right. And you talk in that. And then at any point in time, the Tuesday investment meeting can just hit a button and pop up a zoom.

SPEAKER_128: You can have prep in there. Like everything. Yes.

SPEAKER_268: Everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_57: So they have the app store. Now I can see zoom becoming in a way like AWS, where like zoom is your video conferencing layer on your computer.

SPEAKER_327: And everything is kind of built on top of that in a way like slack is. So I see it as a platform play.

SPEAKER_04: I mean, I love the idea of zoom becoming a platform that's super interesting because you could imagine. I mean, it's one thing to sort of have APIs where it can plug in like you can schedule a Google calendar and it's like make it a zoom meeting. That's great. And as plugins with Calendly. But if it also started to incorporate more productivity features like messaging more than just the chat to do list. Persistent messaging would be taking persistent messaging. Exactly. Like if it started to be a little bit of a slack or communications platform, then all of a sudden that would be super cool. Like zoom with a better slack is better than slack with a better zoom. If that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I mean, we nailed it. It's pretty in fairness. It's super obvious.

SPEAKER_334: I know. I'm like, we seem really smart, but really like this is a no brainer.

SPEAKER_08: Um, the fact that they're moving so slowly is the weird thing. Cause Microsoft, Facebook, Google are moving pretty quickly to, you know, try to bring these two things together. Totally. Yeah. Um, all right.

Jason Calacanis: Next lightning round. The FCC has author. I love this internet and moving vehicles. Mm hmm. Like sort of.

SPEAKER_04: Finally, the FCC authorized SpaceX to provide mobile Starlink internet service to boats, planes, and trucks. Starlink satellites, of course, are these low earth orbit satellites that deliver high speed internet anywhere on the planet. And, uh, evidently we're not allowed to sort of be part of connectivity on the move, but the FCC now has specifically authorized this new class of customer terminals. For space access satellite system to expand the range of broadband capabilities to meet the growing user demands that now require connectivity while on the move. Whether driving an RV across the country, moving a freighter from Europe to us port, or while on a domestic or international flight.

SPEAKER_205: Uh, I think there are two different prices for this.

SPEAKER_00: So if you want a Starlink for your house that doesn't move, you pay one price, but if you want it for your, uh, boat, or you want it on your RV, you get a different price. But having been on a couple of boats, uh, having been, you know, uh, on an RV, this is the constant problem. You know, like, uh, you're on a boat, you don't have connectivity on a lot of planes. You'd still don't have connectivity and on a lot of, um, you know, uh, RVs, you don't have connectivity. And so it kind of ruins the trip. But if you had it the whole way you're driving down to LA or you're going to Yellowstone, you know, the kids had high speed broadband in the backseat. Oh my Lord. It's such a game changer. Totally. And on boats, I mean, this is one of the problems with boats. I, you know, everybody always invites me on these, like, oh yeah, I got a yacht for the week here or whatever. I'm just like, you know, I can't be out of communication for the whole time. And then you only like get communication when you get to shore. This is going to be a real game changer for when people are doing cross Atlantic kind of boats. And, uh, you know, in terms of safety as well, think about how great this is.

SPEAKER_57: Like if you were going back country, people go back country, fly fishing or whatever, you can literally throw. It's not that big, the Starlink. If you went camping and you were going to go, you know, three or four days into the woods, you could totally carry one of these with you. And you have a battery pack and a solar battery and you could bring high speed internet with you. Um, so people on Everest or, you know, you really start to think about the use cases here. People going to, you know, Antarctica, whatever, if the satellites are covering those areas.

SPEAKER_89: And I think they are going to business really, by the way, I'm cracking up at best tea.

SPEAKER_221: And one of our, and the noted gang saying, yeah, that's the reason I always declined yacht invites. Me too. No, it's not me too.

SPEAKER_98: Like, I'm not talking about super big yachts. I'm just teasing. Or three cabin boats, right?

SPEAKER_00: These are not expensive. You can rent them out for 2000 bucks a day. And a lot of times people do these kind of little trips, they go scuba diving, you go off, you know, California to go scuba diving, you know, for three days or whatever. You know, this is going to be incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think they're huge, like their business, their safety. I mean, this is already like, if you are in the back country for several days, like, you know, it's common to rent a really, really expensive, like satellite device. So that if you get in trouble, you can call for help. Those are crazy.

SPEAKER_347: Sat phones are crazy.

SPEAKER_04: They're crazy, crazy expensive. And so like the idea that you could sort of have some version of this, I think would be incredible. And it's, you know, it's interesting. Cause like the biggest, I, the most, I love satellite radio. I'm like one of eight people I know, but all the people I know who actually use satellite radio live in the middle of the country because it, cause satellite, you know, where you can get stuff.

Jason Calacanis: So yeah.

SPEAKER_04: You can't stream.

Jason Calacanis: Right. You can't stream. You can't get a radio signal. Oh, even a radio signal doesn't make it.

SPEAKER_348: Yes. That's right.

Jason Calacanis: If you're in the middle of Montana in the middle of nowhere, Montana, you're not even getting AM. Hmm. You need satellite radio. And so like, in terms of coverage of the whole planet, this is a super big deal. Yeah. Really interesting.

SPEAKER_57: And, uh, they are raising their prices a bit. It makes total sense. The stuff is getting better and better. I, you know, I've had a lot of, um, zoom calls with people on star links. Now I'm seeing it happen more and more. And in the first wave of zoom calls, it was kind of not perfect. I remember I had Adrian Grenier on from his farm and he was on a, a star link. A couple of years ago. I mean, it was a year ago and it would break up once in a while. Um, now it's kind of becoming rock solid.

SPEAKER_04: So, um, Starlink, so Starlink residential costs are $110 a month with a one-time hardware cost of $599.

SPEAKER_221: Business costs are $500 a month with a one-time hardware cost of $2,500. RV, $135 a month.

SPEAKER_08: So they charge you an extra $25 to be on the move, which makes sense. Yeah. Um, and the same hardware costs. So pretty great.

SPEAKER_00: And, uh, yeah, it was the, I, I like what they called it. It was like better than nothing was the name of their beta. So they let people be in the band and like, listen, better than nothing. But I saw Antonio, uh, Garcia Martinez was taking his Starlink in his car and then setting up a desk in the middle of the desert. I, I think that's like kind of a joke or like Instagram moment. Yeah. Um, where he was just trying to see like the most outrageous places he could get high-speed internet. This is gonna just change everything. Right now people make a lot of decisions for work on where they get high-speed internet.

SPEAKER_01: If high-speed internet's everywhere. 100%. And thank God, what is gonna happen when a billion people on the planet who don't have access to YouTube, who don't have access to Wikipedia, who don't have access to banking or cryptocurrencies or stocks, you know, or just information or communications. All of a sudden have it like $110 a month. Yeah. That's more than a person living in an emerging market can afford, but it's not more than the village can afford. If there's 200 people in the village and it's 50 cents a month each, it's a penny a day, 2 cents a day per person. It's actually not that much. And so very easily we're gonna see a billion people come on and those billion people have so little access to this information and this opportunity that this is going to change the world.

SPEAKER_57: Bill Gates, you know, really worked and the UN on getting people out of various as Antonio's, you know, in the middle of his photo up in the desert.

SPEAKER_01: You know, we, we, this is one of the great things during our lifetime. If you pull up the chart for people who are living in abject poverty, which I think the UN said is like under, I think it might be under $2 a day.

SPEAKER_57: Now it used to be under a dollar, um, the number of people living in like serious, serious poverty went from 1.5 billion to 500 million in the last 20 years. It is amazing. What can happen for humanity when you have this amazing capitalistic enterprise going on? Um, it's just, this is capitalism at its best.

SPEAKER_04: I can't help, but think too, that this is also certainly in the United States and also in other parts of the world and just an abject failure of 5g. Um, because really like this was supposed to be the promise of 5g and I'm not saying 5g won't eventually occur. Right. But the idea that satellite got there first when 5g has been, has existed and been in development for all of these years and just the deployment isn't there is actually a weird failure of capitalism, right? That's like these telcos and carriers, at least in the United States was sort of like slow rolling it and yes, having to get block by block permission in some cases. And there have been some regulatory hurdles, but it was an opportunity and Starlink took it. Yeah.

David Friedberg: So here is the chart.

SPEAKER_08: You look at this from 1990 and you see Asia is the big beneficiary here of people living in poverty.

SPEAKER_57: That's because of the iPhone, Amazon basics, you know, the just amazing amount of factories being built. Um, in Asia and receiving all this money from the West to build their products and services pulled a billion people, uh, or so out of poverty.

SPEAKER_08: Incredible. Yeah. Um, and then you see here, sub Sahara, sub Saharan Africa still waiting. And I think this is going to be the next big drop off when these satellites hit Africa. You know, we're going to just start to see that those numbers plummet as well. Mm hmm.

SPEAKER_358: Yeah.

SPEAKER_359: That's good news.

SPEAKER_00: 5g. Yeah. They, they seem to have been fighting with each other of like, who would pay for it? Yada, yada. They just weren't as aggressively putting it out. And let's face it. It requires a lot of back hoes and towers, et cetera, you know? And so to get 5g to remote areas is, is still, you still gotta run some cable, right?

SPEAKER_225: Um, yeah, but you don't have to have rockets. Right. But it doesn't, I mean, right. As an infrastructure play.

SPEAKER_361: 5g travels short distances, right?

SPEAKER_99: There's like, yeah, there's like a long range and a short range. And you know, I mean, yes, there are, there are technical limitations that have caused

SPEAKER_04: 5g not to be rolled out, but even the fact that Starlink could leapfrog 5g in the United

SPEAKER_221: States to me is a failure of the operators of that technology.

David Friedberg: Okay. It's time for everybody's favorite segment. Okay. Boomer with Rachel reporting. Who do you got for us this week? Rachel.

SPEAKER_365: So today I got to talk to Jared Downing, who's the co-founder and CEO of stages here at this week in startups. We've been talking a lot about marketing and different ways we can market the show. And so I was like, Hmm, I want to see all different startups and in the space and see how other creators are deciding to pitch their podcasts in particular. Cause I find that it's one place, um, podcasting in general, I find it's like really difficult for me at least to find new shows. So how can we can engage our community? Where else could we be marketing? And I thought, why not go to a startup? Uh, stages is a platform. It lets users go live, entertain yourselves through like these little, little entertaining, um, mini games, like Uno and things like that. And it's basically like a bunch of those pigeon games that you can do with your friends on iMessage all over on an app. Um, my favorite is that I can share a screen with people so I can watch like YouTube videos with my friends in real time. Didn't iMessage add that feature?

SPEAKER_370: Is that out yet? Where you can watch videos together? Yeah. They have like group FaceTime, but I'm not. Yeah. And they might have a shared video. Next iOS update.

SPEAKER_31: That's coming up.

SPEAKER_373: Very cool.

SPEAKER_37: This sounds like a, um, much more individualized Twitch. Like not so hardcore, but like Twitch for you and your friends.

SPEAKER_375: That's exactly what I was thinking too.

SPEAKER_376: I like the idea of being a little bit more interactive with a community in general. I think the creator space is kind of moving towards that. But you already see the creator space becoming more and more casual where like initially you had celebrities say like, you know, 10 years ago, the Kardashians were it.

SPEAKER_365: Now we have the D'Amelio's where you're actually seeing like the insides of their houses, but the first videos that they were making. Now I feel like we're moving like a step closer with this like creator economy where you're

SPEAKER_376: not just like watching these people become famous from the inside of their house, but you're actually watching them become famous or their platforms are blowing up while you're interacting with them in real time. So I'm interested to see where the space goes.

SPEAKER_378: Cool. Awesome. All right. Jared Downing co-founder and CEO of stages. Take it away. Awesome. Thanks guys. Okay.

SPEAKER_379: Boomer. I understood the assignment.

SPEAKER_365: Thank you so much. Jared Downing for talking to me today on this segment of okay. Boomer. Jared is the co-founder and CEO of stages. And I actually met Jared. Well, I was at a WeWork talking with Preston Atterberry, who if you guys remember is the co-founder of the other gaming platform smart, who was formerly on okay. Boomer a few months ago. So thank you so much, Jared. My pleasure.

SPEAKER_381: Thank you for having me. Great to be here.

SPEAKER_384: Awesome. So to start things off, can you explain a little bit about what stages is? Yeah.

SPEAKER_385: Yep. So, um, we're making the interactive live app. Uh, you know, basically we think the barrier to entry to go live and actually be entertaining is really high. Um, so in stages, you can go live and be instantly entertaining through these interactive mini apps, games and tools like, uh, games like HQ trivia, uh, tools like screen share, or like

SPEAKER_386: bring a random audience member on stage. Uh, so yeah, that's what we're working on.

SPEAKER_388: Very cool. Awesome. So when I first met you too, your name was game bites and you guys had to change your

SPEAKER_376: name because of some difficulties happening with the app store. I was wondering what your thoughts necessarily were on the whole Apple situation. If you could explain a little bit about what happened. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_391: So, I mean, when we, when we started working on this, we started with, um, iMessage games.

SPEAKER_385: Uh, so basically we, we saw an opportunity because HTML five games are, are getting really good on mobile devices. You can have multiple games on one app. Um, so, you know, we. We started making a iMessage gaming app where you can play games and iMessage, just like send a chat, uh, and go back and forth in a game of like cup pong or bowling, et cetera. Um, yeah, we changed the name, uh, to stages, uh, mainly to focus on like the live stream content element of our, of our product. Uh, but also because, you know, like Apple, um, you know, like for example, in the Roblox situation where Roblox, uh, started referencing their games as, uh, experiences instead of, uh, games, uh, like we just wanted to make sure we didn't run into any trouble there. Okay.

SPEAKER_376: Got you. And I think it's really interesting because we've covered the whole gaming platform, like landscape before in the past and having to rebrand yourself, it seems like just, it really, really sucks. Like you can't call yourself a gaming platform because there's so many other issues. And you kind of also explained to me before this, we were talking. Um, what are HTML five games and how do those differ from like the traditional apps that we see? Right.

SPEAKER_385: So HTML five, the web games, um, you know, it's just a, basically a fancy word for, for web games and, you know, basically allows you to have multiple games or activities. They can be anything really like websites, um, apps without having to physically download it from the app store or from any sort of third party. So like if you use, uh, Snapchat, uh, snap minis, uh, those are actually HTML five, um,

SPEAKER_399: games. And even like the, the games and the minis are both HTML five.

SPEAKER_376: Got you. Got you. That makes a lot of sense. And I got to test out stages. It was super duper cool. Um, can you explain a little bit more too about, so who, who are you guys like mainly targeting? Who would be downloading this? Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_385: So, um, like, have you, uh, of course you've used that clubhouse, um, and then there's TikTok live, uh, et cetera. So you have these influencers or content creators that, uh, you know, go live and want to engage with their audience and create like engaging content. Um, and clubhouse, for example, like there it's not, it's just audio chat. Right. So like what we did in stages was make it so that you have like these interactive activities, such as, um, for example, like doing a poll or playing a game of Uno with the audience or bringing up a random person on stage by just pressing a button. Um, the, the main point is like there, the, there's all these live streaming apps and it's a very fragmented market, but we think there's a problem with the level of interactivity between the actual host and their audience. So we're building tools to make that easier to do, uh, whether it's watching YouTube videos together and Netflix together, um, or just playing games with other people as well.

SPEAKER_376: Gotcha. I love this idea of kind of creating like a more intimate area for influencers, for like talent to kind of connect with their audience. And I think actually podcasting like podcasters, this would be a really unique use case. Um, this is basically like a one-stop shop, right? Like I could, if I was looking to like watch YouTube with my friends, like I could, I could watch that at the same time with them. So like my long distance friend group, um, cause I went to college in PA, we kind of live all over the Northeast. This would be a great use case for that too. Um, but then also like doing the games. Is there any game that you have right now where it's not just two people?

SPEAKER_404: Like, is there a group game that anybody could play?

SPEAKER_401: Yeah, for sure. Uh, so, um, we actually, so HQ trivia, uh, it was that for, for people who don't know,

SPEAKER_385: it was, um, it was really popular a few years ago. It's a trivia game where you would, they had 11 questions. And at the end of it, um, everybody, the last person standing would get a cash prize, or if there was multiple people, multiple cash prices. Um, but basically one interesting thing we did was actually build that entire experience. It's just, it's just one of the activities and our product. So it's not just, um, a two player game, everybody in the audience can play. So as a streamer, I can create a set of questions and go live and, um, basically have everybody participate in my HQ trivia and even give out a cash reward if you wanted to. Um, so that's an example. Another game is like, um, actual multiplayer game is like Uno where it's like, uh, you go around, like it's, you can have up to eight people in a game of Uno on stages and bring people up on stage, uh, to play with you. So as a content creator or whoever you are, like you could just do it with your friends as well. Um, so the audience can watch and the people on stage can participate. Got you.

SPEAKER_388: Okay.

SPEAKER_376: That makes way more sense now. Um, because I feel like your guys' path is super duper interesting. Also as from a founder perspective, which I feel like we actually sort of started with that because you're one of the first people that I've met that has co-founded a company as a young person with so many other people. So what was your guys' founding story? There's not one founder. There's not two founders.

SPEAKER_365: How many founders of there are there? And then how did you guys meet? Had this come to inception? Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_385: Um, okay. So yeah, going, going back, we actually, so my team, we all worked together in college. Um, just, we would build, um, we felt like maybe 10 apps, uh, throughout college. We met first year and a freshman year at the university of Virginia. And, uh, we just loved working together. We built, um, social apps, games, et cetera. Um, and then eventually, uh, and also there was, there's another co-founder, um, Alex Zaretta, uh, who actually also co-founded the company with us, but, um, he was the director of entrepreneurship at the university of Virginia. Uh, great guy. But basically, uh, we applied to Y Combinator and, uh, ended up getting in with, uh, this idea and, or it was actually quite a bit different at the time. Like how old were you guys? This was right after college. So I was, I must've been, I was 21. I'm going to say I was 21. Cool. And how old are you right now?

SPEAKER_410: Um, like this was pretty recent.

SPEAKER_411: I was 24. Yeah.

SPEAKER_385: So this is just a few years ago. We were summer 2019.

SPEAKER_411: Yeah.

SPEAKER_385: Nice. Yeah. So, um, I, uh, ended up getting into YC. We had applied like, um, probably like five, maybe 10 times before that. Um, so, you know, to, to anyone out there, you know, definitely keep trying. Um, but basically it got in and then, uh, yeah, we, we got in on the, we always knew we wanted to work on social product and we thought HTML5, um, represented a really good opportunity on mobile, um, to create, uh, platforms where you can have this different, different types of content. Um, and one app. So, you know, we started with chat games, um, and actually, you know, like that our, our current, our current product, like that's, that's on the app store right now, um, has like around 200,000 or so like monthly players. And like, it's all like organic, um, because people just share it with each other. Um, so start with that and then, uh, yeah, evolve to this, but yeah, our team, uh, super

SPEAKER_386: close friends from college.

SPEAKER_376: Awesome. And, um, I also want to ask going back to the game, Preston, speaking with the person who introduced us, we spoke a lot about what is a social media app versus which gaming app versus what is a messaging app. And lately we've seen a pretty big rise in like that area of social media with apps like be real apps, like lock it, like are really trying to break into that space that we've seen Snapchat kind of fall off in. Um, Snapchat obviously has amazing other, uh, use cases that they've been killing it in. But, um, in the grand scheme of things, I think the police that is really like trying to, trying to get the break in is people are trying to become the next Snapchat here with those, those two, um, you know, those two use cases.

SPEAKER_417: Do you consider stages to be like a social media platform at all?

SPEAKER_385: Uh, yeah. It is, it is a social media platform. Um, you know, like I, I actually listened to your, uh, to the podcast with Preston. Um, so yeah, I, we think of it as like more similar to something like TikTok. Can we do a messaging app like Snapchat? Um, so, you know, there's, there's friends versus followers. So like in our products, um, you have to follow people, uh, and like you're the, you know, you build a following and you engage with that audience over time. But Snapchat, um, is more so for close friends.

SPEAKER_395: And, and we think that there's, there's like a big difference there in terms of, um, how we're approaching it always.

SPEAKER_376: Got you. Very, very cool. How do you feel about the kind of like this landscape going, you know, how you guys originated kind of in that gaming space and gaming has really just done incredibly well. Like in 2020 alone, there was $4.7 billion worth of investments that were funneled into gaming startups. That was like almost a 193% increase year over year for 2019. Um, but stages is still obviously calls itself an activity platform. Um, do you guys ever think that you'll go back to a strictly like gaming app?

SPEAKER_404: Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_385: Okay. So I think the way we're thinking about it right now is games. We don't want to limit ourselves to games. I think we're, we're more interested in building a social platform that has like activities that, that people can interact with each other, however they want to interact. Because like for example, an example of a, of a non game activity is something like, um, if Zara wanted to build a shopping activity where they could, uh, users could go live and do the whole checkout flow right in the app with their audience. Um, that would be an example of something where people can go shopping together. So it, it doesn't, um, we're, we're more interested in building the best platform for interactive entertainment and interacting. If engagement and a large part of that is gaming. Um, but we think it's, it's more broad than that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_376: I mean, like you kind of mentioned clubhouse before and if you could give, like go back in time to like when clubhouse was at its peak, when we were all still like locked up and clubhouse was like the only way we had to have like interesting conversations with people. What, how would you have run clubhouse differently? And where do you think they should have pivoted to? Yeah.

SPEAKER_385: I, uh, well, yeah, first I, I think they've, uh, they've overall done a. Done a good job. It's a great product. I really like clubhouse. Um, but, uh, I think. That. Like the, the main difference in approach that we're taking is around the individual versus conversations. So like in clubhouse, the, the content is like the room names, right? So if you, if you go in, it's like, okay, you scroll and it's like, okay, this room name might be interested in, I might be interested in this. So maybe I'll jump into it versus the approach we're taking is a little bit different in the sense that like, it's, it sounds, it sounds like a nuanced point, but like, um, you know, we, we focus on, okay. Rachel is live. And like, you can add a title to the room, et cetera, but it's more so about you and you building your following and not so much. So about the topics, um, because yeah. Yeah. And in our opinion, like topics, um, they're, they're really interesting when it comes to like big live sort of events. Uh, you know, when the war started, um, in, in Ukraine, that was clubhouse was a great spot to go to, to, uh, get up to date with what was going on. Um, but you know, we're basically, the way we're thinking about it right now is that by focusing on the individual, you allow people to create relationships between streamers and their audience. Um, and we, that, that, that's one of the big differences in approach that we're taking right now.

SPEAKER_376: Gotcha. So this, this also kind of reminds me of this app that I saw recently called Geneva, which is just like an organized group chat. But I've seen a lot of people like podcasters use it. Do you know what Geneva is?

SPEAKER_385: I've actually, I've heard of it. I have not used it extensively. Actually, I think I just downloaded that the other day, but, um, I've not used it extensively.

SPEAKER_376: It's for groups, clubs, communities, things like that. Less, I guess, going about the influencer from you guys. So that I guess is the big differentiator. But I think it's really interesting when you have this sort of like place that is completely focused on the, not necessarily what you're going to talk about, but who is going to be there. Because I think traditionally what we've seen, especially like even going way back to when we were in elementary, middle school, you know, you used to make those like groups on Facebook, like event groups. So you and your friends could be like, I don't know, like marching band 2012 and it would be all your friends like in one, one group right on one page on Facebook. And you could, you could all chat. And that feels like that was the first iteration of like, okay, you're there for the people. And as we got older and older, we started to see people like lifestyle YouTubers, um, create their own versions of, of these like Facebook groups. But they really are losing that interaction point where you are completely focused on the person that set up the group itself. So this is about like community building and reaching out with other, uh, other followers that like are interested in those topics. Right. Whereas you guys, it feels like so geared toward that main, like the main celebrity, whoever's talking, whoever's that mean talent speaking. Do you guys ever think that you'd pivot into a way where the rest of the community could like converse with each other more effectively?

SPEAKER_417: Right.

SPEAKER_385: For sure. I, I definitely wouldn't throw out the idea of, you know, being able to create a group. Um, like for, for example, but I, I think it comes down to, um, you know, like, like more similar to how like TikTok, for example, has, you know, you have your TikTok creators. It's like, how do you create a platform where the individual feels valuable? Um, and it's given the tools to be able to engage with, to actually like build their own following, et cetera, uh, without it out of getting lost to it. But yeah, no, we, uh, I, I definitely wouldn't throw out the idea. Uh, like we, we definitely wouldn't throw out the idea of allowing for groups.

SPEAKER_399: Uh, but it's just about like what the focus is.

SPEAKER_376: Yeah. One group of people that I don't think are considered influencers yet, but I think could really be is the resale market right now. The resale market right now for Gen Z is incredible. Like I've seen a lot of people focus on, um, especially people our age, just like the importance, not only of trying to cut down on fast fashion, but also people just really like buying new stuff that are our age. Uh, I just had a package, you know, that came during this call and it was something that I thrifted online that I had to like get up in the middle of this recording and sign for. Um, like, and on Depop, there are these people that are like literally considered these like main super users, right? Like I'll go to these people's closets on Depop, but you don't really have this good interaction on their platform. And Depop for those of you who don't know is a second hand, um, second hand, like online, kind of like similar to Poshmark, um, like thrifting website. But the people that created like the best closet, these girls are like seen as celebrities, right? On this platform. And the fact that there isn't a way to kind of like engage with them and have them almost become like the new version of influencers, unless they migrate like off that app and create something like TikTok. Honestly, even TikTok still doesn't have that like same form of intimacy. I could totally see something like stages kind of like parlaying into that. Totally, totally agree.

SPEAKER_385: Um, you know, like one, one, yeah, one of the activities, uh, that we're excited about is like the idea of being able to shop together as well. And like, you know, have the audience, for example, be able to check out right there in the app. Um, if they want to buy the same things that the streamer is buying, um, or vote on what the creators should, should buy or, or try on next. So, um, yeah, shopping is, is, uh, shopping is a really big, um, it's actually, there's actually an entire app. Um, I actually, I can't remember the name off the top, but there's, there's an entire app around just live stream shopping. Um, I'll send you a link after this, but, uh, you know, like one of the, the core ideas behind what we're working on is like, there's, you have a lot of this, you have this fragmented market. Of live streaming apps and it doesn't have to be that way. If you provide a platform for people to just like build their own, like influence and give them the activities, these HTML5, um, products, uh, to, to do whatever's most valuable to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_440: And it's so funny that there's like cleat app for shopping.

SPEAKER_376: Like it's, it's crazy how far we've gone. Cause there's this one TikToker that I follow and she's not that big. And if I remember her name, I'll have to like plug her, uh, maybe over on Twitter, my Twitter's at underscore Rachel Braun. Um, but she has like a really good account where she goes to the real real, which again is another second, secondhand clothing store and says, listen, I'm not going to buy these right now. But if I were going to buy clothing like this, these are like the items that she goes through her likes. And like, these are like the outfits I would make. I think stages would be so interesting. Um, with like the share your screen feature. Cause right now what she does is she's like a person that stands in front of like a green screen. Right. Um, and it's honestly really difficult to see what she's pointing out sometimes of what she's talking about. And overall she's like one of my favorite, like new creators. I don't even know if I'd consider her like up and coming because I don't even know if she's that popular, but I love the idea of her content. Like really promoting like, um, the real, real in general. Um, Molly likes this other, uh, this other platform where, um, you can like rent clothing, rent the runway. And I always get them mixed up, but she does it on the real real. And I could totally see her being like a use case for stages, which would be interesting. Thank you so much, Jared, for talking to me today. Where can people find you if they wanted to talk more? My absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_385: Um, yeah, you can find me on Twitter at Jared Downing underscore.

SPEAKER_395: I believe is my name. I mean, I'm just double checking here.

SPEAKER_385: Jared Downing underscore. Yep. You can find me on Twitter. Uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_445: Awesome. And where can people, I mean, they better be. And where can people find stages?

SPEAKER_446: If you want to check out the beta, what I'll do actually right now, I'll put a, um, I'll put a link in my bio.

SPEAKER_385: We're actually about to change the name of the Twitter, but if you go to the game bites app at Twitter, I'll also put a link in there. Um, but the app will probably change.

SPEAKER_448: Very cool. So we'll go to your, we'll go to your personal account. We'll go check out whatever's in your bio and go from there.

SPEAKER_450: Sounds good.

SPEAKER_448: Awesome. Thank you so much, Jared.

SPEAKER_450: My pleasure.

SPEAKER_61: All right, everybody have an amazing July 4th weekend. Sunday school, uh, will happen.

SPEAKER_14: And this week in climate, uh, on Sunday.

SPEAKER_451: Definitely.

Jason Calacanis: Definitely. So we'll be, uh, taking Monday off with the rest of the country, but don't forget to follow Jason at Jason and me at Molly would on Twitter, because most likely, even though we probably shouldn't be hanging out on Twitter on a long weekend. It's possible.

SPEAKER_127: It's possible. And I got a bunch of, uh, people who pitched me their startups on bubble and I'm meeting with one of the founders. It was a very cool company.

SPEAKER_57: Use bubbles.com slash twist. Use bubbles, plural.com slash twist to send me your pitch, Molly. Three minutes and under, show me your product. Don't show me it back. Just show me your product. Speak to me like a human being. And, you know, I love good product. You send it to me. Jason at Calacanis.com or Molly at launch.co. Send us a bubble and we'll, we'll watch your pitch and we might use it here on the show.

SPEAKER_08: So let us know if it's okay to use it on the show or not. Um, and we'll see everybody on Tuesday with a lot of news, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_454: Enjoy the rest of everybody.

SPEAKER_08: Have a great weekend. Everybody. Uh, we'll be also in this week in startups.com slash tick tock to follow our tick tock account.

SPEAKER_57: We're experimenting there. This week in startups.com slash TC for the Twitter community and slash discord for our

SPEAKER_08: discord. If you want to talk and shout out to our producer, Justin, who is going consulting. We're going to miss your buddy. We'll see you in six to 12 months. When you start banging your head against the wall, when people you're giving consulting advice, uh, absolutely make you lose your mind and you want to come back here, but you're always welcome. Uh, we love boomerang employees who crush it.

SPEAKER_458: Team members.

SPEAKER_457: We'll take you back anytime. Anytime.

SPEAKER_458: Come on back. Uh, we'll miss you, buddy. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.