Tiffany: GM and welcome to episode six of Probably Nothing.
I'm TZ CEO of islands, and together with my cohost Alexis Ohanian, we're uncovering how NFTs and web three are changing community commerce and content online by talking directly with the people building in the space.
Our guest today is Bobby Hundreds co-founder and creator of the streetwear brand, The Hundreds.
The Hundreds was founded in 2003, and in 2011 it was named as the fifth greatest street wear brand ever by complex magazine.
Bobby is not only a successful creator and entrepreneur, but he's also an incredible writer, thinker, and community builder.
His book, "This is not a T-shirt", and essays on a variety of topics are extremely thoughtful observations about community culture and other trends that shape our world.
Earlier this year, Bobby and his partners from the hundreds launched the atom bomb squad project, which has traded over 12,000 ETH worth of NFTs today, making it one of the most successful NFT projects.
We wanted to sit down with Bobby because he is one of the few people who has been able to successfully bridge the gap through web one, web two and web three.
He brings a wealth of knowledge about building community and pioneering new trends as he's done for his whole career.
Don't forget to like subscribe and share this on social media to help others learn more about web three, feel free to tag me @TZhongg and @AlexisOhanian.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with the one and only Bobby Hundreds.
Well, We're excited to have you here.
Welcome to episode six with the one and only Bobby Hundreds.
Do you want to introduce yourself?
I mean, we know a little bit about you or a lot actually, but...
Alexis: A lot don't be weirded out.
We know a lot.
Tiffany: Wow.
That wasn't creepy at all.
Alexis.
Bobby: Um, I don't know.
Where do I begin?
I don't know what, w w who am I?
What are, who are we?
Who are we?
Alexis: Thats profound.
Bobby: What is this because how I would have answered this question a year ago before NFTs, right.
And before all this ha- like that would have been a completely different answer.
Tiffany: Um, so now with NFTs, what's, what's the, what's the new answer?
Bobby: Well, I mean, I guess it's still, I, as far as me being an artist and illustrator, writer, streetwear guy, uh, author, I'm still all those things, but, um, I don't know what my job is anymore.
And it's something that I've, I still say, I say it all the time, especially the younger people who are seeking some type of advice or guidance.
I'm like, I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.
And this last year for most people.
I know that have immersed themselves in this space.
They went from having a regular day job, a consistent job like myself, where they were known and identified as one thing and are now saying I pretty much allocate the entirety of myself to NFTs web three, de-centralization trying to figure out what this next thing is for all of us.
And so I'm a community builder and I guess I'm just a, uh, I'm here for the conversation and just show up every day for the conversation.
Tiffany: Identity is interesting now with webs three, because I think it also allows people work and jump in between so many different projects as well.
So it's like to your point, a short bio is harder to have now because it's, it's so diverse.
Bobby: Totally.
I apologize for interrupting, but it just seems that the things that intent and emphatic about a year ago, especially two years ago are from another time and from a distant planet and just seemed very, almost obsolete or antiquated in comparison to what we're building right now.
And, um, I don't know what that, I feel like no matter what industry you're in, if you're delving into this technology and the opportunities that can afford.
Whatever you were doing in the past.
It's not that it's dead, but it might find a newer second life in, in this future that we're, we're trying to figure out.
So it just like the old way of doing things.
It just seems so old, not, not a year old or two years old.
Now it seems like that was from 20 years ago.
That's how much information I feel has been passed around over the last 12 months.
Tiffany: It's hard to go back.
Bobby: It's impossible to unring that bell.
We'll never be able to unsee what I've seen.
Right.
Alexis: Well, and so what, what is that specifically?
Because you've been a culture creator and curator for a really long time.
And I think you all represent the first real NFT project that like, I think bridges a lot of cultural intersections that is not pure Internet.
That is actually has authenticity and legitimacy in like streetwear culture in so many other parts.
Like I, I actually believe, and you all are maybe the exception that proves the rule, or this is what I'd like to dig into.
I actually think having a legacy brand is weirdly a liability in web three, because you feel like there's something to lose.
Because, and this is where you're seeing video game companies right now terrified at the prospect, even social media companies terrified at the prospect of adapting or adopting rather web three may because their user base is upset, maybe because, well, for all kinds of reasons, but how have you brought your original community, the true believers along for this ride.
What are the things that you all have had to think about and do that?
Like, if I were starting just a simple profile pic project tomorrow, I wouldn't have to think about, because I wouldn't have an audience that already sort of loved my brand and everything else.
Bobby: It's- so it's Alexis, everything you said is very accurate.
We came into this space, thinking that because we have a legacy and a history where we have experience, um, having built this brand over the last 18 years, that would be to our greatest advantage and in many ways it is.
And, and the ways of look, we, you have trust built into the system.
We have a, something to lose.
And so this isn't a cash grab for us.
All of these other NFT projects are trying to move into being brands.
You know, whether it's through producing soft goods, merchant apparel, to establishing infrastructure of a company and, and figuring out how staffing works management.
And we already have all of that.
And so if you're going to bet on anyone.
You know, if you're gonna, if you're going to collect anyone's project, why wouldn't it be ours?
The artwork comes with a rich history.
There's already associations tied to most of the art people have been collecting them since they were children around the world.
If there's a strong, emotional connection.
So all of these attributes of the hundreds and our experience and our knowledge, we were bringing to the table where like, this is all to our benefit, but.
What we underestimated and I think didn't necessarily appreciate as much to now is that we are also entering and treading into a space where all of those things were not necessarily antithetical, but weren't exactly the most conducive to a web three philosophy, right?
Because there are founder led companies, founder led brands that were established around essentially being walled gardens.
Like these gaming company.
And that was how the philosophy went, especially during web2, but what people also don't realize.
Maybe if they're new to the hundreds are to us.
And they're learning about us really just on Adam Bomb Squad is that we're actually a web one company.
Uh, we are entirely founded on decentralized principles.
And we went through web too, but I never really felt comfortable in what to, or felt like we were our true realized selves in web two.
It never really necessarily aligned, especially with social cause we're really built on blogs.
And the way that our initial blogging system was set up was that it was my direct voice with the people.
And then we gave, gave the people their own blogs.
And so it was, we were all on the same page.
And me growing up in the punk and the hardcore scene.
I didn't want the stage.
I wanted to be on the floor in the mosh pit with everyone else.
And the microphone gets shared and passed around.
I just didn't have the means or the technological know-how on how we could all participate and rise up together.
And so I was doing it from within our brand and other brands trying to establish our community.
And so if there's any web to.
We're not even a web to brand.
If there's any web to company that I feel is not only sympathetic to what's happening with web three and decentralization, but really embodies that spirit.
I think it's us.
I literally wrote the book on building brands around community, right?
And so when you get inside of The Hundreds and you're figuring out how our wheels turn, what really makes us tick, the entire thing is established on building community.
We wouldn't be here if we hadn't said the company, the community though.
Um, on Fairfax with all the other competitor brands of ours, it was never about us just being the winner.
Um, us investing so heavily in collaborations since we started was entirely, that was that in telling someone else's story, we tell a little bit of our story and we are all, uh, symbiotic.
We are all part of this ecosystem together.
And so as the tide rises, you know, we lift all the boats together.
It was, that's always been the mindset.
We were doing it within the industry, and now we're doing it within our actual immediate communities and customer bases.
And so just to bring it full circle to your point about, you know, having to a lot of these companies, established legacy brands are looking at web three and NFTs, and they're scared because they have something to lose.
And for me, it's actually quite galvanizing and inspiring to, to think that every single day I might lose this company entirely to the community.
Right.
Like that to me is electrifying that thought.
And I want to get to a point where that, I don't know if that's tomorrow.
I don't know if that's in a hundred year.
But that's the most beautiful moment when we can fully lose ourselves, you know, to the community and everything is entirely decentralized.
Um, and-
Alexis: So like Reddit vibes.
I'm feeling you, man.
Yeah.
Bobby: Yeah.
It has to get there.
It has to, it's the only way all signs point in that direction.
They tried so hard to make it the other way for the last 10, 15 years.
And it caused a lot of distress and was entirely unnatural.
And you know, it was, it made me unhappy.
I live, I've lived with a lot of guilt and a lot weighing on my conscious over the last, you know, 10, 15 years.
And I talk about this at length.
I talk about it in my book.
I've spoken about it for years that here I am just convincing young people that they aren't enough unless they have this product.
And it's great streetwear fashion design.
What that lends to humans is invaluable, right?
I'm a big believer in all of these things, but when it's a one-way exchange, you know, it's a completely asymmetrical exchange between a consumer and a brand, um, that never really quite sat right with me, even when I was a kid wearing t-shirt brands.
Yeah, here I am being a walking billboard for someone else's company
Alexis: So my version of this was telling startup CEOs to take Merch really seriously and know that it's a privilege to have someone be willing to take and wear your merch, let alone paid for it.
Right.
But even back in oh five startup founders would be thrown out shirts to people being like, here you go.
And it'd be crappy quality.
They'd look bad.
Like, and it's, it's so disrespect-
Tiffany: It's the difference between swag and merch.
Like, I think there's a fundamental difference between companies we'll just call it schwag versus companies that call it merch.
It's like it has to be high quality.
So if that represent, this represents your brand.
And if you're going to put really bad quality things out there, that's what youre promoting your brand to be.
Bobby: And we've always, um, you know, endowed upon the community, the sense of ownership.
They always felt like they own this brand.
Right?
That's I talk about this in my white paper, but why do people buy brands?
Right.
They buy it for a community.
They buy it for identity and they buy it because they have a sense of ownership, but not real true ownership.
And so when young people are getting my logo tattooed on them, which has happened since we started thousands of kids around the world.
Travis.
Scott, why YG they all have our logo tattooed on them.
It's not that they're a huge supporter or fan necessarily just of me.
They feel like the brand belongs to them, but in reality it never did.
It always belonged to me.
Right.
And so I'm out there proselytizing the brand as, oh, we're a community, we're a community.
I wrote a book about it, but really I was still the owner.
So, how is it?
Is there a way where we can all feel, not just feel, but actually half or maintain some sense of real ownership in a brand's upside and success.
And when it's having hard times that we all go through together, because I can not do it alone, it's such a lonely journey to build these brands and to be entrepreneurs.
And there's great upsides.
And in terms of, oh, you're going to make a lot of money for yourself, whatever.
It's not most entrepreneurs aren't doing it just for that.
They're doing it because they really believe in a vision.
Something is missing if the community isn't there to help them and to be there alongside them.
It's one of the most wonderful parts of doing this project.
We're only a couple months in, but the work is overwhelming.
It's, I'm not enough, right?
One body.
Like I'm not enough to hold this thing up.
And so to watch the community come through and they're setting up their own podcast series that run alongside.
Right.
They're having their own events.
They're setting up their own games within Discord and build- there's one person in our community who's developed an entire app.
Right.
And it's like an amazing app that's gamifying Adam Bomb Squad.
Things I could have never done.
I could have never imagined let alone I could have never physically done it myself and they're doing it and they're doing it.
Not because they're trying at first I felt, oh my God, I felt a little bit guilty.
Like, why are you doing this all for me?
Why all for me?
Yeah.
All for you?
F%$@ you,, I'm sorry if I can, like, you know, screw you.
It's not for you.
This is for us.
This is for all of us.
This is for the community.
Like we need to all chip in.
We're all rowing the boat.
Oh my God.
That's so powerful to hear as a business, as a brand owner, as an entrepreneur.
People are alongside you saying I don't work for you.
I don't, I'm not your fan.
We're all in this together.
We're all equally invested.
Whether I dropped $5 in here, 0.05 ETH or I dropped five ETH in here, we're all equally invested because that meant something to us and my time and my energy and attention spent in this Discord following a lot, like we're all in this together.
Like, wow.
Then I feel invincible.
I feel invincible because the scariest thing to me.
When Steve jobs died.
I said, holy crap, this is a problem because the entire brand and company at that point in time, in my opinion, as a consumer was centered and scaffolded around one, man.
And I said, at some point I'm going to die, right?
I'm not getting any younger.
Right.
And I want this thing to live for hundreds of years.
Right.
And at some point I'm going to leave.
And does that mean that it disappears with me?
I think for some founders and entrepreneurs, that might be the exact thing that they want.
They want the whole thing to come crashing down with them because they want everyone to remember how amazing they were.
I'm the opposite, right?
Like I'm, I'm, I'm a mirror person.
I'm not, I'm really not that interesting or exciting of the human, but I think what the brand is and the community.
It's very special and unique in history.
And I don't ever want that to die.
Right?
Like I'm as much of a fan of it as anyone else.
What happens if I leave?
What happens if I burn out, I have a mental breakdown.
What happens if I get sick?
Unhealthy?
What if I leave?
What happens to this, that scares the crap out of me.
And now I don't ever have to worry about that.
That's how I feel right now.
I feel I'm I'm I feel like the brand is immortal because it's not just going to be, and it will be, it's not just me.
It's not just these community members it'll get passed down through generations.
The technology lives forever.
So the brand lives forever.
Now.
That's how I feel.
Alexis: I love that.
Yes.
Tiffany: I want to, I want to dig into how you're thinking about building this into a more decentralized organization, but first to rewind Bobby how'd you first get into NFT.
And what helped you understand them?
Bobby: Yeah.
Uh, this time, last year, almost to the day, there was some news about Beeple and his sale and Trevor , um, who everyone knows now, as Friends With Benefits back then everyone knew him.
Then if for different reasons,
Tiffany: McKayla and other, all the cool things.
Bobby: I know I'm just as Trevor and skeet, because he's the hangout at the shop.
Yeah, when we started.
So he's, he's been a part of the crew since the start and Trevor tweeted it, you know, we're coming off of the election and there's a little bit of a vacuum in terms of the Twitter discourse at that time.
Right.
Because for four years, arguably longer, it had been centered around one type of conversation.
And so I'm still on Twitter every day.
I still love Twitter.
I feel like it's the alpha and omega of all social.
And he drops that tweet in and I'm open and receptive to it in a way where I think the month before, which was around the election, I wouldn't have been receptive to it, but I was open and it's talking about the Beeple sale and it doesn't make any sense to me.
And it scared me.
Right.
Well, first of all, I got mad about it, right?
It was so big.
The number was so big, which compared, you know, I think there was this a $10 million punk sale.
So nothing is now that's relative.
What's big in terms of NFT stuff.
It's just like, oh, $10 million punk sound for a JPEG selling for X, you know, what was it?
$6 million just on.
It was number one.
It, it, it, it made me a little upset and mad.
And then it made me a little scared.
And that's when I was curious, because I was just like, okay, I'm feeling a certain way reading this.
I need to know more to either get ahead of it, to dismiss it for my mind-
Alexis: I love you for thinking that way.
Bobby: I think, I think like that with everything, nothing makes me more freaked out than young people because they make me feel irrelevant and they're pushing me out of the relevance window.
Every single.
Um, and so I dive in and I spend as much time with them, right.
Because I need to know they need to help me understand.
And I have all my fears in life or drowning, public speaking, and going to the dentist.
And so I go to the dentist twice a year, surf every single day.
And I do as much public speaking as possible.
Like what I'm doing with you right now, it's frightening.
Like my whole back is sweating, but I forced myself to do it so that I feel some semblance of control over the situation.
Alexis: I love it.
Bobby: But the same thing.
But the same thing happened with the people sale, where I was like, it's making my back a little sweaty.
I feel like I don't understand.
Am I aged out of this?
Am I, am I not in the conversation?
Let me in.
And I hit up Trevor.
I said, explain this to me.
And he explained it.
I was more confused and I got even more angry about it.
And then I said, let me talk to someone else.
And he said, talk to Dee from Zuora.
And I sat with Dee, from Zuora and I think my entry point in and what really started to inspire, well, there was a number of things, but one of them was, I was just looking at it as an artist first.
And I think a lot of people were at that time, it wasn't NFTs weren't this day trady investment stock type thing it turned into over the summer at that time.
Uh, resource for a lot of artists to be able to get their work, seen circumvent the gatekeepers, and then also like provenance and then also, uh, maintain some royalties right in secondary sales.
And so there was a lot of frustration that I had felt as an artist, my entire life.
I've been trying to build my art.
I had to pivot and use a street wear brand to do it, but I want to be known and remembered as an artist, as a photographer, all these things, but there were all these gates in between that kept me out and NFTs from what I was seeing were breaking down a lot of those holes.
So then I was in, I was just like, not only is it going to help me, it's going to help all the other young artists that we work with, that we surround ourselves with, that I see are also being kept out of the room.
Right.
So if it's going to help me in the community, all right, I'm in, I looked at it also because of what I touched on earlier, I always felt this imbalanced relationship between myself and my consumers.
And I was like, maybe this is a way where we can all share in the upside of a brand success and we can all be in it together.
Like truly, truly have some ownership instead of, oh, I feel like I'm a part of the brand.
Right.
And, and, and then I think third, I've always been a little bit curious about tech because I'm not a tech guy.
Right.
And the NFT or crypto up until that point to me represented two things that I was highly allergic.
Number one was tech and number two is finance.
I hate both of those things.
I feel I'm the stupidest person in the room with both of those subjects.
And so NFTs has made it palatable to me because it was spoken through the lens of art and collected and collecting and culture and community.
And I was like those things I do.
And I know, and I understand.
And so if I can understand these other parts, maybe it'll help me understand this part.
And so I think looking at it from a lens of, I don't understand tech or finance art, it's going to help me community and culture are going to help me get there.
That was very appealing.
That's where I'm at today.
Love the 12 months later, I feel like I've moved an inch
Tiffany: 12 months later, and you have Adam Bomb Squad, which is an incredible community that you've built with what?
Over 48 million in total sales volume now.
How's that compared to building The Hundreds as a brand.
Cause this is a whole new brand that lives under kind of The Hundreds brand that you've built in the past.
But how have you seen like the big stark differences in building these brands?
Bobby: I, I paused to say that it's.
Uh, brand and the way that I've always, always understood brands and branding.
When I see a lot of NFT projects out there and they're striving to be brands, or they liken themselves to other brands, right.
There's a lot of Supreme comparisons.
Like who's the Supreme.
It's really hard for me to reconcile those two things because.
The way I've always understood.
Brands is brands.
Number one, they take time and there's been no time.
Right.
And brands just have certain narratives and arcs.
And there's a lot that goes into brands.
A lot of, a lot of branding is about discipline.
A lot of branding is about saying no, a lot of branding is about, um, just really like measured breaths.
Right.
And I haven't seen any of that really this year.
And so Adam Bomb Squad is a brand more or less, but I'll be more keen to say that in a few years time, if not like 10 years, I think right now what it is, it's, it's a community aspect.
It's a culture aspect.
It's a movement aspect associated under The Hundred.
And The Hundreds, when we speak on it has never just been about clothing.
It's not just street wear.
That's why my book is called.
This is not a t-shirt, it's really not to do with the cotton.
The Hundreds is a lifestyle.
We always called it the lifestyle.
The Hundreds is the people, The Hundreds is an attitude, right?
And so Adam Bombsquad is a way of congealing the culture side, the community aspect.
Where there's, again, those three things, those three things associated with branding, community identity and ownership.
Like we can actually realize all three of the things within Atom Bomb Squad, but over time yes uh, do I want Adam Bomb Squad to be known as a brand for sure.
But.
It's, I'm not kidding anyone just because some people within the NFT echo chamber know what the Atom Bomb Squad is, um, does not mean, first of all, most people on NFTs have never heard of it.
Still.
Most people from within The Hundreds of universe have never heard of it.
Even my own personal friends who I talk to regularly.
Hit me up every day and say, Hey, have you heard about NFTs?
When are you guys going to do an NFTs?
It's shocking to me.
We're still so early, still so early.
So they don't know what Atom Bomb Squad is.
The world does it and it'll take time.
And if you really want to speak on brands, they just required time and discipline, passion and patience is what I always say.
You need passion and patience.
And can you sustain the passion over long periods of time, especially long drought, then you have a brand.
But the way that a lot of projects are going right now, which is to me, fast rise, fast demise.
Everything's very frothy.
Everything is excitable excited, hight fueled.
We seen all that.
I'd done that before fashion has done that.
It's even faster now because of the technology it's expedited.
I've seen it all with street wear and there are seasons where you're like, this is it.
This brand is forever.
This is the.
And two years later, I'll see you at the next stop.
And half of those brands won't be there.
And so I'm not interested in calling Adam Bomb Squad, necessarily a brand yet.
Like I called The hundreds of brand because we've been around for 18 years.
And to me that's still not nearly enough.
Alexis: But I think that's the mindset you got to have and that you're bringing to it.
That the average project isn't like there's to be clear, right?
There are so, so, so many of these NFT projects that are.
They're they're short-term, they're Cash at grabs, you know, 99.9% of them in a few years even are going to be worthless.
And, and, and that's going to give you, unfortunately, that's going to give a reputation to the broader space that is unfair, but it's going to malign it just because, you know, there are short-term greedy folks who are just doing this to make, make a quick buck.
Bobby: We thought again with streetwear.
Our generation, which was arguably the third or the second or third wave of streetwear.
It was very cash grabby.
There are people who are genuine, genuinely interested in building lifelong brands.
Like when we started, we said, oh, we want to be like, Levi's we never took outside money.
You know, we fully bootstrapped a thing because we wanted to move very organically and authentically, and we wanted to maintain some kind of control over the brand.
And then we saw a lot of people sell out and a lot of people grabbed that cash and I'll say in their defense.
And I see it still, even within this space with a lot of things.
A lot of them aren't even maliciously doing so they think that this is what you're supposed to do.
You're supposed to take this money in, and this is how it moves and we're supposed to move this fast and they are going to burn out and it will look cache grabby, but I don't think they came into it necessarily thinking about it.
I think they have a drop and they get on the other side of that trop and are like, oh my gosh, this is.
A giant mountain that we have to climb.
And they think that leading up to the drop that this is all that matters is I got to get over this little hill.
It's like, um, there's a meme of a surfer going over one small wave and, and there's like a hundred foot wave coming up.
Yeah, that's what this is.
And most people don't know that I didn't even fully appreciate what was on the other side of that release until I got over that first hill.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I just opened up a whole can of worms.
I'm I'm starting at zero.
I'm actually starting behind zero and I got a hundred 50 years, 75 years to build into this.
But for me, since I've already gone through that, I was just like, okay, I'm already doing that anyways.
And I'm accustomed to this lifestyle where 24 hours, seven days a week, I'm pouring myself into the project and constantly innovating and adapting.
But I think for a lot of people who were like, oh, the sale is the big hit.
And then, you know, a success.
We sold out of them or we sold a certain amount of them and that's the successI don't think that they were prepared and I don't think they'll ever quite be prepared because building a brand in reverse, uh, I would have never been able to do it when I was 23 years old.
If at 23 years old, someone came along.
Here's a hundred million dollars and now builds your brand in reverse, and now prove yourself to that a hundred million dollars.
Wow.
We never had that pressure, never had that type of scrutiny.
Alexis: Thats the liability of having the high expectations and all the sort of money up front, the same way.
Bobby: It's near impossible, in my opinion, for artists to be able to perform to their full potential under the weight of that.
Under the scrutiny of shareholders, let alone thousands of them.
And third, which is probably the hardest part of it all because we didn't grow up under this, like my partner, Ben and die, but the watchful gaze of the internet, 24 hours a day, and you're hearing all the feedback all the time.
It's the greatest thing that ever happened for the a hundred.
We started a few years before social started.
So we were singing in the shower.
Right.
We had blinders on, we, we didn't know what we sounded like.
We did it because we believed in it.
We didn't listen to anyone's thoughts.
We had one hater every now and then that would pop up on a message.
And that was enough to disrupt my entire day.
Now, starting a brand, let alone being given a hundred, a million dollars, a hundred million dollars of someone's money and being like now prove yourself and thousands of people going like, where's my money on top of you, how is an artist supposed to perform an execute anything that they want?
Because they have to sit, sit there and do social maintenance, calm people's fears, alleviate FUD when the artist's job and the creator's job is to sit in a dark room and dream and realize, and think positively and crate.
So it's, it's, it's very hard and I feel, I feel it for a lot of NFT projects out there and, you know, I know it's hard to feel bad for people.
Who've made a lot of money, but.
I'm telling you for some of these people that I've talked to behind these projects, they would turn it all back in, in a heartbeat.
You know, they would, they really would.
Tiffany: It's interesting because to your point, it's like these creators, these artists, they don't have time to create anymore.
Like they're managing comms.
Full-time now they have to, they have to be the face of it.
Otherwise the community is going to be mad if you're not responding, but also it's like the sale isn't the end.
The sale means, you owe everyone something, right?
That's the difference.
It's just the start and you, right?
Bobby: No one thinks about this.
When they get into creating an empty project, all they think about is the bag, but we couldn't do that because when we are coming in, we have a reputation to uphold.
Right, right.
This is the case, the gears, my credibility in this space and my life is on, like, I'm not an anon.
You see my face, I put it out there.
Like, if you want to know where I am, you can find me every single day.
Like I'm here.
I can't disappear and nor do I want to, but I'm not going anywhere.
And I have 18 years of work that I'm very proud of that I don't want, you know, any negativity to eclipse.
And so that to us was, is a real blessing because we are held accountable every day in this work, we are held accountable.
We have to show up and not because the community's breathing down our neck and telling us and screaming at us that we have to do XYZ.
We show up because we show up for ourself because we have to prove it to ourselves.
Like I need to sleep at night now.
I upset someone in the community, but I don't want to upset myself.
Like I don't want to disappoint my family.
And so we have that.
And to me, it's a gift.
I think it can be crippling for some people, but for us, it's a real gift because I show up to perform, right.
Like I do it for me.
And then I think that trickles down to the rest of the community, but I'm out here every day to prove it to me that I can do it.
Tiffany: As you guys become more decentralized or aim to do so, how do you think about maintaining that brand quality and that box of super, super curated brand control that you've done over the past decade of building?
Your brand, because I think that's the biggest question.
Right?
And it goes back to what you were saying earlier, where this is the most important thing projects or companies that have started this year.
Uh, I guess their company, technically companies now these like NFT projects, uh, with the amount of money they have in treasury, it's still too early for them to be considered, uh, a brand per your definition.
And so how do you think about that as this becomes more and more decentralized?
Bobby: I remember when we started the company, um, it was a very selfish project and I think many young entrepreneurs, they start their projects.
It's coming from a very selfish place.
They don't hear their voice necessarily out there.
They don't see themselves represented.
They have an opinion on something that's not being warranted or received.
And so they step up and say, Hey, my art belongs here.
I'm just as good as anyone else I can do that better.
No, one's listening to me.
Right.
That's why I started even building this brand was I was like, everything else that's out there is garbage.
My art is better.
It needs to be seen.
It's a shame.
And it's a disservice, right?
This is my ego telling me like the world needs you.
The world is not enough without you.
And so I start this project from a purely egotistical, selfish point of view, right?
As a creator, as a creator and as artists, and one day Ben, my business partner comes over and is just like, you need to hire someone to help you do your art.
And I said, no, this is my art.
And he said, well, you're holding us back because you're only turning out 10 t-shirt graphics a week.
I need 20.
And I was just like, no, I don't want to compromise my art.
I'd rather hold us back and keep it slow and keep it pure.
And he's just like, that's fine, but we're never going to grow.
And we're never going to be the successful brand you want to be, unless you hire someone and you train someone to take on some of your duties.
And it took me a while to finally do it.
And I started hiring designers under me and started building a team.
And the work was never good enough.
And to this day, it's never exactly held up to the standards that I've wanted.
Right.
It's frustrating as an artist owner, because you're never going to get the results that you want, the 110% exactly how you would do it because there's no one else like you, you hire these people.
To come work with you, not for you because they collaborate with you on their versions and interpretations of what those designs should be.
And so then I didn't appreciate this until years in for the first few years, I was like, this is not good.
This is kind of like a sub standard.
This is a sub Bobby version of The Hundreds.
This is not exactly how I do it, bro.
It was never about you.
This project was never about you.
It left your mind and entered the universe and the day that you sell one t-shirt.
We sell one NFT out there.
It doesn't belong to you anymore.
You think it belongs to you because the money comes to you.
The brand does not belong to you.
That's why people get a tattoo tattooed on you.
It has nothing to do with you, dude.
It has to do with their emotional associations, with whatever they were going through that time in high school.
And they were wearing that t-shirt and they're like, I want to get that tattooed on me.
That has nothing to do with you.
Right.
So you have to get past that as a founder and as a creator, you have to understand that it has nothing to do with you.
And so I started looking at the brand and the breadth of work that we were putting out.
And I was just like, you know what?
I would have never designed that jacket that way.
That was a compromise that I had with some of the design team here.
They wanted it green.
I wanted it red.
It's not a compromise, it's a collaboration, right?
And now the brand is stronger because it's a mosaic of my vision and all these other talented people who are honestly better at their jobs, younger, their ears are to the ground are fresher.
They're more spirited and engaged and inspired.
To do the work than I could ever be being a 41 year old washed up dad, you know, trying to run a business, still trying to be the cool artists like out in the streets.
Like, no, of course you don't want that.
You want to know what kind of clothing I'm going to design by myself.
It's awful.
Thank God I have a team.
And so I only bring that story up that ended up the anecdote because I think the same way with this project, right?
The more decentralized we get, they're going to look to me as a north star, right?
I'm the inspiration, I'm the Walt Disney of it.
What would Walt do, not Walt, get down and you do it yourself, but what would walk through and what in my mind would walk.
And whatever you think what Walt Disney would do is not necessarily what he would do.
Right?
Like for all we know Walt Disney was like a horrible person by some accounts he was right.
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
I read, I read a lot about Walt Disney.
Yeah.
We don't really want wall to do what Walt does.
We want to do what you Tiffany, and what you, Alexis would think Walt would do and do that.
Right.
And so I'm only one small piece.
I represent like a north star where it's like, okay, try to stay within that realm, but we want your voice is in here, man.
Like, this is what makes the brand so strong.
And the coolest part about the Hundreds is in every season, every generation have different staff, you know, who was working at that time, it's moved.
The personality of it has changed.
The texture of it has changed.
I love that.
It's not just a story of me.
It's really the story of the community.
It was a small staff at the time.
And now with Adam Bomb Squad, we have thousands of people who are lending their voices and adding to the texture of what it is.
And I'm just kind of like an idea right.
In the floating in head.
Tiffany: It's really about building something greater than yourself.
Ultimately, whether you're a startup founder, whether you're creating an NFT project, whether you're creating a brand.
And I say this to a lot of content creators as well, because a lot of content creators, they think very one dimensional and they're like, Hey, I assume my shelf life is going to be a few years.
And that's that?
I'm like, no, you have to think about your community.
If you want this to be a longterm.
Like you have to think holistically about this and you have to make this greater than yourself.
They can't just come to this community because it's you, but because you represent something that they're passionate about,
Bobby: It's romantic to think so, but it's, it's transcendent, right?
It's transcended.
If you want to do an art project.
That's just, you selfish, you stay in your basement and do that.
Those are called hobbies.
Those are hob- those are hobbies.
We all have a hobby, right,right?
Do that.
That's self satisfying.
That's for you to have a release, but if you're out here.
To create something that everyone can partake in and benefits the world.
Like I have a line that real artists make the world look better than not themselves.
Like your job is to make the world look better.
That's why we have art.
It's not for you.
It's for everyone.
So you have to think in terms of that in building companies to now, in my opinion,
Tiffany: I love that basement hobby example.
You just said it makes a lot of sense.
And with that, we have one last question, which is if you're stranded on an island, What NFT would you bring?
It can be your collection or any NFT in the world.
Bobby: Oh my gosh.
Um, I mean, I would never leave Adam Bomb Squad.
I have, um, there's an essay I wrote, uh, it's called The Robots.
I minted it early in the year.
It's one of my favorite things I've ever written and it just kind of shares my point of view on what makes human being special in contrast to AI and machines and robots.
And, um, and the, the moral of the story is it's, it's really our imperfections.
Right?
And, um, we have those in order to help heal each other.
And robots don't need that because robots are perfect.
And we always think we want perfection, but really what makes us special is that we're imperfect.
So I wrote this essay and it doesn't, it never really went far ive been shopping around.
I try to get it sold through publisher.
I put it up.
As I mentioned, as the NFT, I got a couple of bids.
It kind of died.
And I still read that thing all the time and I love it.
And a few people really understood, like Hotson min Hodge, like DMd me once and was like, dude, this thing is crazy.
And I'm like, yeah, that's the one piece of writing that I'm most proud of that one day I'll get recognized for it.
And it's just buried somewhere.
You can see it on my OpenSea but it's just buried there.
And, um, I'm really proud of it.
And I'm not proud of it because it sold for $10 million, like a crypto punk.
You know, I'm not proud of it because I sold 25,000 of them, like Adam Bomb Squad and they sold on dates and nothing to do with that.
I'm proud of it because it really means something to me.
And, and, um, and I believe.
Know, so I love it.
It's probably the robot's essay.
Tiffany: I will go and read that.
It sounds amazing.
Um, thank you guys for the time today.
This is a lot of fun.
I have a lot of, I have a lot of questions for you.
We'll kick it in LA.
Um, yeah.
Alexis: I'm going to buy some more, uh, Adam Bomb Squads.
Tiffany: Alexis, you got to find the robot now.
Like you gotta go by the story, right?
Bobby: I'll never sell it.
Maybe that's what it is too.
I'm like, I want accept any bit it's priceless
Alexis: Okay.
Challenge accepted.
But seriously, thank you, Bobby.
This is great.
Bobby: I love you guys so much.
Thank you.