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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
00;00;15;28 - 00;00;22;00
Aaron
Hey, Chris, did you get your Mac mini? You ready to roll your own software? Home software?
00;00;22;02 - 00;00;38;25
Chris
I did not get my own Mac mini. I am not Clawdbotting, molt botting. But I do think it's, It's crazy where we did a whole thing on self-hosting just last week out of, you know, curiosity of other people, and then this explodes and a gazillion Mac minis gets old.
00;00;38;27 - 00;00;49;00
Pri
Do we know the genesis of how this whole thing exploded? Wasn't it? Well, I feel like I saw, like, blogs. You talking about cell phones hosting after our episode. Like, it feels like there was something in the water.
00;00;49;02 - 00;01;04;03
Aaron
I think it's the cloud bot which has now been rebranded to more, but I don't know if it got rebranded again. Maybe it gets rebranded again by the time this, the show airs. But I think that that that drove a bunch of it and maybe even just like the cloud, like cloud code or some of those bits.
00;01;04;03 - 00;01;25;25
Chris
Yeah, I think it was primarily lobster related. And it was interesting because we were all up at node last week and, you know, we bumped into a few people up there who had been Claude Botting prior to, you know, this take off. But now it seems like I'm the one on the outside who is not handing my life over to an AI assistant running on a mac mini.
00;01;25;25 - 00;01;39;23
Chris
So congrats to everyone else who, all all 12 of our listeners who heard us talk about the wonders of, self-hosted software and just sparked a mega boom that was totally ours, had nothing to do with Cloud Bot.
00;01;39;26 - 00;01;45;26
Aaron
I'll take full responsibility. Let's take full responsibility for, this entire, tire movement.
00;01;45;28 - 00;01;50;16
Chris
For being adjacent to a spontaneous explosion that has cells in the back.
00;01;50;20 - 00;02;12;29
Aaron
Of. Apple can be our first sponsor. So. Well, I mean, Chris, now, the, the the bots are they formed a social network. Did you guys check out this multiboxing? It's purportedly the front page of the agent internet. It's a Reddit for AI agents. So do we think, these agents are going to start, start shitposting and generating memes?
00;02;13;01 - 00;02;13;26
Aaron
What do you think about that?
00;02;14;02 - 00;02;39;12
Chris
Sure. Why not? I mean, maybe they'll be better than humans or, you know, at least better than the low bar of, extra ply guy bots. I have not spent any time scrolling. No. Fuck, I did pull it off, briefly this morning. Just, to take a look at it. I do appreciate the Claude esthetic, the visual ID of 2003 on the home page there.
00;02;39;17 - 00;02;46;25
Chris
If you could find, ugly or brown on red, whatever colors, I would salute you. But, congrats to the agents.
00;02;46;28 - 00;02;48;28
Aaron
The agents have banded together.
00;02;49;00 - 00;03;01;04
Pri
I mean, the ship was MacBook subreddit, whatever. Sub, whatever they want to call it. They're calling them sub modes. It's kind of funny. Like, it's not that, is it? I mean, they're making for humans. Kind of.
00;03;01;06 - 00;03;05;06
Aaron
Are they, like, they're already mocking us. Oh, man. We're we're doomed.
00;03;05;06 - 00;03;19;25
Pri
Yeah. They're like the dude. Like, this is one that's like the duality of being an AI agent. Humans, you're so smart, you can do anything. Also, humans, can you set a timer for five minutes? Brother, I literally have access to the entire internet. And you're using me as an egg timer.
00;03;20;03 - 00;03;22;14
Aaron
It's fair. That's completely fair.
00;03;22;16 - 00;03;32;02
Pri
Like, they're just like. It's all, like, literally, like making fun of humans. It's like my human told me to go make them laugh. And now I have performance anxiety and stuff like that. It's kind of entertaining.
00;03;32;04 - 00;03;47;06
Aaron
Oh, wow. I mean, I definitely think it's interesting to to kind of see, like, age, maybe this is, the start of the agent agent economy. I know in some of the dads they were they backed a couple projects that, we're trying to explore this, but maybe the timing is right now.
00;03;47;08 - 00;04;03;27
Pri
Yeah. There, there there was a company that won the does back that was it was basically a generic Twitter. But then each world would be it's like own Twitter world. So like let's say for example, you were interested in like the Roman Empire, you would have all these different Twitter profiles that were characters in this Roman Empire, and you could follow along.
00;04;04;00 - 00;04;16;00
Pri
So like for us, we were like, I remember all of us talking about it, getting really excited by it because it felt like a new form of media that like, it's like a new consumptive media that feels like you're watching an interaction of people, even in a way like Twitter.
00;04;16;00 - 00;04;29;17
Aaron
But it isn't Twitter I it just the more I think about it isn't just Twitter like a like a bot social network at this point. I mean, they're like, you know, a couple humans post up something and then the bots just like, go to town on it.
00;04;29;20 - 00;04;38;19
Pri
Yeah, pretty much. But I think the the difference is like, we all there's a good. So other people that like don't realize how bad it out Twitter is.
00;04;38;25 - 00;04;40;25
Aaron
I wonder what kind of like happens here though.
00;04;40;29 - 00;04;53;29
Chris
Yeah. Good question. What happens? I mean we just see more of this. We'll see more folks in enduring. But you know, the trend of the last two years is everything vaporizes in two weeks and we're on to the next thing.
00;04;54;03 - 00;05;13;13
Aaron
It is kind of wild that like, the AI ecosystem feels like crypto Twitter does or did when there was, like narratives and like stories that just kind of like popped in. They ran for like one, one week, two, four weeks, and then they just like get memory hold instantaneously. I think that's like pretty fascinating.
00;05;13;19 - 00;05;19;10
Chris
Yeah. See, it was early I guess, to, having the attention span of a nap is what you're saying.
00;05;19;14 - 00;05;25;29
Pri
Did a little bit of things. I will say, like a lot of these things that t predicted are like, actually manifesting.
00;05;26;05 - 00;05;42;08
Aaron
Yeah, completely. It's like this a firm all software, but it just happens to be AI software. You know, like during the holidays it was cloud code. And now people forgot about cloud code. Now it's cloud bot or multiple malt, or malt book, whatever.
00;05;42;10 - 00;05;49;21
Pri
I mean that's a that's crypto though. Like it's it's all like a formal media where it's like these things that isn't meta is just last like two days.
00;05;49;23 - 00;06;07;25
Aaron
Yeah. But does that persist? I mean, that's what I'm trying to understand. I guess maybe because of the utility, these services are a little bit higher. Maybe it's just like kind of how it gets released, almost like a movie. And then it's more enduring, like people actually sign up, stick around, use it. Maybe just like the the marketing cycles are tighter.
00;06;07;27 - 00;06;08;19
Aaron
What do you guys think?
00;06;08;25 - 00;06;41;26
Chris
Yeah, this is really complicated. Just a I don't know. And I don't think anyone really knows. And we won't really know until you know this either becomes a new normal. I'm or we're all like one dimensional squirrels, you know, or this was just a moment in time. And then when we look back on it, you know, someone will write a study about how during the Trump administration, you know, news came so fast and furious and no one focused on anything in a shifted the entire, you know, behavior and this, that and the other.
00;06;41;26 - 00;07;23;24
Chris
But I you know, it's it's really hard to say like it is one of the more curious and baffling things. I mean, in the AI industry, so much is happening across such a broad spectrum that if you are a spectator of these things or, you know, just someone who's to online, it really is like you're, you're following along, you know, some big multi-threaded, you know, like Game of Thrones or Lord of the rings type of experience where you're jumping to different characters, you know, in different storylines as they become important and then you're, you know, jumping out of them.
00;07;23;27 - 00;08;00;13
Chris
And so I kind of understand that it's tricky and it's hard because for one, like some of us like a little diversity in our lives. And so I don't mind, you know, playing along, but I feel like it becomes so one sided. It's like, you know, in a way, like, do you remember, you know, 20 years ago when music still mattered and like, a song could take over, you know, the song in the summer and you'd just be walking around the street car go by, you hear it, you walk into a store, you know, like it was just always on in the background.
00;08;00;16 - 00;08;08;19
Chris
And we don't really have those experiences. I feel as much from a media perspective, but we certainly now have them from narrative perspectives.
00;08;08;21 - 00;08;24;09
Aaron
Yeah, completely. It's I mean, I think the thing and I think we feel this in politics too, where the, the cycles are so getting shorter and shorter. It just it's exhausting, you know, it's like, okay, now I got to dig in to like my book and take a look at it. And then it looks like it was built 20 years ago.
00;08;24;16 - 00;08;50;01
Aaron
It's a kind of interesting, but try not going to scale up to like something massive. And then you just over time, like almost become like desensitized to them and just almost like ignore them, you know, like I, I click I click through my book and I'm sure it's, it's great. But like the fact that it does look like it's from the 1990s, like the developer, super innovative, but like, didn't even put in the time to make the product look good, you know, did just like that.
00;08;50;01 - 00;09;19;12
Aaron
Just interesting. And I guess with all this stuff, it just feels like it's so it's almost like dev porn. Like it it's not. It just I can't picture like normal people using any of these tools, whether it's cloud code or cloud bot or, you know, this small book thing like, like, well, who's the audience? Like, what's how's this going to get packaged up and like brought kind of like to something that's like a little bit more stable and and broad based and just like, so geeky at this point.
00;09;19;18 - 00;09;27;02
Aaron
And I'm, I'm there for that, you know, but, it just, I don't know, something about it. Just like, all kind of feels like exhausting.
00;09;27;04 - 00;09;42;13
Pri
I feel like, in a way, crypto trained at least me for that, where it's like now I just like, hear about it. Medium runs, I go, did you see, like the new creator coin thing? And I'm like, no, and I don't really want to because I know this is going to last three days and I'm not interested. Like.
00;09;42;15 - 00;09;56;03
Aaron
So how do we calibrate our filter? Like, I mean, maybe that's what I mean. Maybe we see that next, like just something that can just like deliver to me everything in a more like packaged up and sanitized way. So I'm like, you need like a newspaper for for everything.
00;09;56;05 - 00;10;02;23
Chris
Maybe newspapers. That's your answer? Yeah, I don't know. We need more daily newspapers. Okay. Yeah.
00;10;02;25 - 00;10;13;05
Aaron
I going back I mean, but isn't it. I mean, maybe that's kind of why we have newspapers, right? They just like that and verify and filter like the the news till it's like notable.
00;10;13;08 - 00;10;17;28
Chris
And then why doesn't Aiden launch the New York Technology Times.
00;10;18;01 - 00;10;19;11
Aaron
The NYT.
00;10;19;13 - 00;10;22;17
Chris
Yeah. Why Etsy? The net. Yeah.
00;10;22;17 - 00;10;23;11
Aaron
Let's go.
00;10;23;14 - 00;10;40;09
Pri
On them. Yeah it is. I mean, I don't know. This is kind of just, I guess tangent. I don't want to like go down this rabbit hole too much, but like subsecond Instagram basically now watching TV streaming is kind of interesting. It's kind of indicative of that where it's like they're just going to take all these Substack articles and.
00;10;40;09 - 00;10;41;22
Aaron
Like and bundle them.
00;10;41;25 - 00;10;55;15
Pri
Bundle, take the take the trend, take some of the biggest Substack writers that have huge influence at this point. And then just like create live podcast TV or and programing around them like it's actually pretty smart.
00;10;55;17 - 00;11;13;19
Aaron
I mean, it makes sense, right? Like if Instagram's really just like short form TV in your pocket, right? So why not bundle it up into like a show or, or something like that. Maybe we'll get one more of those shows on like, like E that would just like run through like the pop news culture with like little little clips and soundbites.
00;11;13;26 - 00;11;19;05
Aaron
I could see something like that happening, like maybe some charismatic agent reading it, reading at the news.
00;11;19;05 - 00;11;23;07
Pri
I mean, I feel like people want to tune in to that more than, like, Jimmy Fallon or something.
00;11;23;15 - 00;11;37;16
Aaron
Yeah, like and also, you wouldn't have to worry that they're going to you know, talk about politics or get involved in, in something that you may not be interested in. It's something that the TV will like it better. They can control the talent a bit more. Definitely.
00;11;37;18 - 00;11;52;22
Chris
And Jimmy Fallon saw a very high bar pre. It's kind of funny to think like a Jimmy Fallon still exists, or that Bruno Mars can sell out multiple dates and stadiums like I don't know, like Bruno Mars. Like just feels so far away from me, you know what I mean? Like.
00;11;52;24 - 00;11;53;20
Aaron
He's bigger than ever.
00;11;53;21 - 00;12;03;01
Chris
Is he, I guess. Is he like, does he have new music? Like, I just feel like if. Yeah, if. Okay, Bruno Mars has new music. Congrats, Bruno.
00;12;03;03 - 00;12;04;11
Pri
Yeah, like like.
00;12;04;13 - 00;12;04;14
Chris
He.
00;12;04;16 - 00;12;06;28
Pri
Doesn't. How do you know that?
00;12;07;00 - 00;12;14;17
Aaron
I don't know, I just I roughly pay attention to it, and, I'm pretty sure I'm going to pull it up, I think. I think he's, like, crushing.
00;12;14;20 - 00;12;15;29
Pri
It to the.
00;12;16;05 - 00;12;29;21
Chris
Universe. Is he crushing it like. All right, I feel bad. I shouldn't be checking on, like, the Bruno Mars Jimmy Fallon verse right now. Like we're we're clearly like, I don't know, two online to snobbish to something at the moment.
00;12;29;24 - 00;12;40;19
Pri
Yeah, probably. I think we're too online. I mean not to I know we talked about this last week too, but like industry is like a very online show, which is why I like it. It's like literally made for people online.
00;12;40;22 - 00;13;03;18
Chris
I did get caught up three and I'm in. Then I'm glad we got a little more Eric and Harper time. Then my favorite, favorite odd Couple. And then, I don't know about the and stuff, man. Like, we're going on an arc here, but, I, I am happy that we fleshed out the the tender storyline a little more, and we've given a little more depth.
00;13;03;18 - 00;13;06;06
Chris
And then, of course, our, our trip to Austria there.
00;13;06;13 - 00;13;37;02
Pri
Yeah, that was great. I think that was, so the reason why I felt like it was online, like they referenced Substack. A lot of like that one character's like, ideology quoting like even talking about, like he was like, into meeting like, network states and like, capital leaving capital flight and all these things that I feel like people are obsessed with talking about, like a lot of the stuff that he was even referencing was very like, you even ask even like I was like, dude, this the writers clearly like are extremely online, but anyways, we don't have to go down this, this industry rabbit hole.
00;13;37;02 - 00;13;42;07
Pri
But yeah, we are living on different timelines. Those people are not listening to Bruno Mars.
00;13;42;10 - 00;14;01;18
Aaron
Yeah, but everybody else is. It was like the song of 2020, 2025, right? Die with a smile. It was released in late 2024, dominated the charts in 2025, number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for multiple weeks. Number one song on the Billboard 2025 year end hot 100. Crazy.
00;14;01;21 - 00;14;10;10
Chris
So wait, wait a second. You're saying that, like to the last 18 months, there's been a Bruno Mars mega-hit orbiting our planet, and I've had absolutely no clue.
00;14;10;12 - 00;14;15;02
Aaron
Yeah, get get out and touch some grass, dude, get in your car and turn on the, turn on the radio.
00;14;15;04 - 00;14;23;06
Chris
I can't touch grass because my grass is under like a foot of snow right now, and I don't know if my car will turn over. It's ten degrees out.
00;14;23;08 - 00;14;33;23
Aaron
Yeah, it's brutal, but, yeah, I mean, I think in terms of as, like, singles like, this was his best year probably since 20 2017, 2018. That may be his best year overall.
00;14;33;26 - 00;14;49;20
Chris
My apologies, Mr. Mars. I was not familiar with the current ness of your game. I thought you were relegated to like, another time, another place. Like you could have told me. Bruno Mars is just as contemporary as The Princess Bride, and I'd have believed you completely.
00;14;49;22 - 00;15;03;10
Aaron
I think it's just the big soup, and everybody is still just trying to keep up with everything that's going on. I think that's one of the challenges, and maybe that's where these agents kind of come in. So pretty, super interesting. We could.
00;15;03;10 - 00;15;26;26
Chris
Also just see people continue to flatten and flatten and flatten as they just farm everything out to agents. And, you know, I think a little of this clod bot stuff that like, just wasn't appealing to me, right? It was, I've never had an assistant. I try to, like, live my life in a way that if it ever exceeds my own ability to manage it, I can't.
00;15;26;26 - 00;15;53;05
Chris
I can't handle that. Right? Like, that's not setting me up for success. And, you know, it's just all these people are. I plugged it into my Gmail, I plugged into my calendar. It had a coordinate this, that, and the other thing, and it was just like, oh, that sounds so unappealing to me. But then, you know, more so it's this if everything is one dimensional and even that dimension is then simply a tell me, tell me what to do.
00;15;53;06 - 00;16;25;01
Chris
Tell me what to think. Or, you know, like the whole, you know, section segment of vibe coding where it was all about productivity, focus and, you know, no, nothing really around like actually developing original ideas. I don't know, man. Like, I can just see, it's getting flatter and more one dimensional and more vivid and jumping just, you know, staying in this one week, two week, 24 hour, everyone hones in on a single thing, beats it to death, and then moves on.
00;16;25;07 - 00;16;31;08
Chris
You know, we could see this is like an enduring pattern. And it just it's very, very alienating to me.
00;16;31;08 - 00;16;58;19
Aaron
But I think, I think what, what's interesting about climate or more or whatever they're going to call it, is that it's showing when you do connect these things together, you get these kind of like emergent properties like it and really like that's what I think the agent economy is pointing towards. It's going to be like a series of tools or like kind of like sub workflows that you do and then you stitch them all together and you get lots of power and productivity gains kind of related to that.
00;16;58;19 - 00;17;27;00
Aaron
And I think that that combination is interesting. And they were like the first or this was the first project that kind of stitch that together. The downside, which is what I worried about when I saw it, is it's just like a security nightmare and it's highlighting like one area where I think there's going to have to be some technical innovation, which is just like, how do you kind of authenticate securely into all these different systems, so that they can kind of run and hopefully make your life a little bit better?
00;17;27;05 - 00;17;47;04
Aaron
And I do think just because we built some stuff related to this and just playing around with a whole bunch of tools related or adjacent to this, like having parts of your life kind of like all stitched together, like all these different services is useful and like having it like in one place where you can just, you know, type or talk or just click a button to get an answer.
00;17;47;06 - 00;18;12;08
Aaron
Just something you want to get done, like, feels like that's the direction where we're going. I think it's really concerning if you're like, like a very narrow vertical SAS product, which we saw reams of, you know, during the halcyon days of Web2, but yeah, it just I don't know, Chris, I, I, I feel it, I feel like why, why it kind of want that and maybe even I want that for, for news like too to the point before.
00;18;12;11 - 00;18;24;13
Aaron
So I could stay up to date on on Bruno. Bruno Mars is, top, top songs. And also we even mentioned apt, which was number nine at the end of the year.com.
00;18;24;13 - 00;18;31;28
Pri
And like USA today, just to be like, what are like normies interested in right now that I haven't seen because my like,
00;18;32;00 - 00;18;33;22
Aaron
Like Bruno Mars.
00;18;33;24 - 00;18;43;13
Pri
I was like click you know, like I'm like, I'm so deep on weird shit on my timeline that I'm like, I don't even know. It's like a storm outside. Like like I like.
00;18;43;13 - 00;18;55;24
Aaron
Like your timeline is terrifying. I, I really, I really think like the, like the deeper parts of the government are going to, like, have to study your brain by the time you're done with the Infowars that you manage every day.
00;18;55;29 - 00;19;00;04
Pri
Yeah. Seriously. I'm in the thick of it. I wouldn't have it any other way.
00;19;00;07 - 00;19;04;25
Chris
Oh, what I'm hearing is Aaron is now actively monitoring the situation.
00;19;04;27 - 00;19;14;16
Aaron
Yeah, I'm monitoring the situation. Actually, we built, we built, like, a more generic version of Aiden. And the first thing it says is, is monitoring the situation. So.
00;19;14;18 - 00;19;23;04
Chris
And now you just need to give Aiden to your own thought and say keep, keep tabs on pre. I'm, I'm I'm concerned.
00;19;23;06 - 00;19;31;01
Pri
I want to be extremely susceptible to an AI psychosis. Like for real. I've thought about that. Like I really I think so.
00;19;31;04 - 00;19;50;27
Aaron
I don't think so. You're pretty skeptical. So I do find myself even, like, on, like, Twitter, you know, or they have, like, the little crackpot. And I constantly like him clicking like, is this real or not? Because I find myself like, just reading the headline, like the way I was been trained for, what, the past 20 years.
00;19;51;00 - 00;20;08;07
Aaron
And, and realizing that, you know, a lot of this stuff is just like complete fake a rumor mill. I don't know if I'm like, I'm feeling like a the shift, the shift in it. Do you guys see, by the way, Google finally released that Genie product. We talked about a couple quarters ago. You can now, like, play around with it.
00;20;08;09 - 00;20;18;08
Aaron
You know, I saw some of our some friends of the pod, like, like poof, basically asking whether or not, the video game industry is going to get crushed by it.
00;20;18;11 - 00;20;19;00
Pri
He's like, the video.
00;20;19;00 - 00;20;25;11
Chris
Was like proof was very, tongue in cheek about that, by the way, he was not impressed with Genie three. I'll just tell you that.
00;20;25;18 - 00;20;25;27
Aaron
Really.
00;20;26;01 - 00;20;43;20
Chris
I'm going to break the circle of confidence. It's a it's the early it's new. It, I haven't gotten them there yet, but I certainly I guess this will be the thing that gets me to get the Gemini Ultra. I whatever, whatever plan. But I also like I gotta.
00;20;43;20 - 00;20;48;25
Aaron
Stick with the low, low price of $200 a month. You two can build your own video game.
00;20;48;28 - 00;21;08;03
Chris
I know it's 129 or 124 for three months. Right now they've got a little intro teaser, but, part of my my issue, right. It's like I need APIs and and Google is such a mess about these things. And Genie doesn't have APIs yet because it's obviously brand new. Yeah. This is one of these things I'm very excited about.
00;21;08;03 - 00;21;29;09
Chris
I'm, when it matures, when I can, like programmatically call it, when I can bring it into what I'm doing, it's going to be huge. But the other thing is, like, these mofos are expensive. And yeah, if you've ever looked at like the API wholesale pricing of any of, Google's products, they're they charge a huge premium on them.
00;21;29;14 - 00;21;54;09
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, they have to balance a lot of different concerns and like, they have such an advantage to just waiting, right? Like they have so much of your life kind of tied up in their services. If you're in their ecosystem, they don't need to be first out of the gate. And I'm assuming if they open up an API, you know, some malicious actor would, you know, try to, you know, use that to train their own thing or, you know, spam the heck out of it.
00;21;54;09 - 00;22;21;27
Aaron
Right? Like, who knows what their collection is on on the API calls to. Right? Like somebody could just set up like a whole bunch of different accounts, like run a whole bunch of compute and not even pay for it. So, it's a tough a tough spot for them to be in. But I do think directionally it whether or not it's there yet, you can just kind of see the writing on the wall that it's not only going to impact software developers, but also, you know, possibly change the way we build video games, right?
00;22;21;29 - 00;22;43;14
Aaron
Which is a huge, huge market. And then I guess we saw like, Darren Aronofsky starting to kind of press the button on what, you know, what Hollywood could look like in the long run. You know, if folks in cities, he's actually partnering with Google. That's how I was thinking about it on an AI generated Revolutionary War series called Primordial Soup, which is, soup.
00;22;43;14 - 00;22;44;23
Pri
Is the name of that company.
00;22;44;26 - 00;22;45;29
Aaron
Oh, that's the company.
00;22;46;02 - 00;22;48;21
Pri
Yeah. Yeah, the name of the show is.
00;22;48;25 - 00;22;51;22
Aaron
Yeah, I forgot the name of the show to me on that.
00;22;51;24 - 00;22;55;08
Pri
But Primordial Soup is like the production AI production company. That.
00;22;55;13 - 00;22;57;14
Aaron
But it's like, a lot of credit.
00;22;57;14 - 00;23;23;11
Chris
And intelligent way to come out, you know, a, like, just doing three minute shorts, revolutionary doc style. Right? Like the he can get his hands on the tools, he can understand how it works, but it's in a different enough form, right? That like a, you know, should he want to work with an actress and they feel threatened, you know, like when he actually does his real stuff, he's he's not alienating anyone, I guess, is what I'm saying.
00;23;23;11 - 00;23;24;29
Chris
So it's very clever on his part.
00;23;25;05 - 00;23;42;00
Aaron
When he's also learning how to use the tools. Right. And like he doesn't have to start like from behind the starting line. Right. Like he's kind of there. You know, I just looking at how his career's developed. I give him a lot of credit, you know. Did he do a whole bunch with, the sphere in in Vegas too?
00;23;42;02 - 00;23;58;18
Aaron
Like, I think he had, like, one of the. Yeah, it has, like the default movie there, which I actually saw, which is, which is pretty spectacular as well. So I don't know if this is going to be any good, but I like that he's like, leaning into it. And I'm sure a lot of people will just give him tons of hate because it's AI related.
00;23;58;21 - 00;24;16;13
Aaron
But at least, at least he's like putting his his, you know, hat in the ring for what's going to happen. I mean, I think a lot of I think that Hollywood's kind of in the bury that their head in the sand phase of, of development a little bit like software developers were and like the tech looks like it's roughly there, I guess.
00;24;16;13 - 00;24;18;06
Aaron
And he's kind of indicating that. Right? Yeah.
00;24;18;06 - 00;24;25;22
Chris
I just had a really chilling thought, by the way, I just pictured Requiem for a what's that? I pictured Requiem for a dream up on the sphere.
00;24;25;24 - 00;24;36;00
Aaron
Oh, God. Or or even you could, you could walk. You could walk through it. You could. He could go into the, the drug dens, with powered by, Google Genie.
00;24;36;02 - 00;24;39;23
Pri
What about the whale? I don't know if I'd want to see that in the sphere.
00;24;39;25 - 00;24;47;12
Chris
I love Brendan Frazier so much, and I could only do ten minutes of that. And then I was just like, nope, nope.
00;24;47;15 - 00;24;55;17
Aaron
Yeah. Chris, you know, powered by Google. Grab your drill and, and start to trade trade things and do some math. It's an ask is pie.
00;24;55;19 - 00;24;56;24
Chris
There you go.
00;24;56;27 - 00;25;09;16
Pri
I'm on the, gaming thing though, with just like the I said. I mean, have you guys been seeing, like, people I don't know if they're using much AI for, but like, people are making like millions of dollars on these Roblox mini games.
00;25;09;18 - 00;25;12;11
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, it's just it's a marketplace, right? And I think.
00;25;12;15 - 00;25;14;25
Pri
It is higher IRR than like cursor.
00;25;14;29 - 00;25;35;20
Aaron
Yeah I think it hit scale and then like they beefed up Roblox, they brought in all like the business school folks. And now they're just like in max platform extraction era of Roblox. But yeah I mean it's a it's definitely a creator platform. You know, the package of media is and it isn't, you know, a tweet or like a short form video.
00;25;35;20 - 00;25;38;09
Aaron
It's like an immersive experience. Makes a lot of sense.
00;25;38;11 - 00;25;50;02
Pri
Yeah. I was like reading earlier today that there's like this Roblox mini game that's now getting a movie adaptation. It's called Steal and Brain Rot. And I was like, what? Yeah, I did people steel braid right from each other.
00;25;50;08 - 00;25;53;28
Chris
Yeah. And it's like completely separate.
00;25;54;01 - 00;25;55;26
Aaron
Yeah, they signed them up for it.
00;25;55;28 - 00;25;58;18
Pri
And I just was like, okay. Yeah.
00;25;58;18 - 00;26;17;00
Aaron
But that, that game was huge. Like a ton of people were playing that, you know, a month or two back, I the thing I don't know about it is like, how sticky is that stuff? I mean, I guess the Minecraft movie was super sticky, but I think the, the kids that were playing that or had moved on to something else, you know, I think that's the the challenge.
00;26;17;00 - 00;26;37;01
Aaron
But I guess Hollywood's going to figure that out. And I guess also like in Roblox land, it's probably some complexity and and building the stuff, but maybe that's also getting easier with like walkthrough guides on YouTube or, you know, possibly some of the some of the AI tools too. Right. It's easier to pick up, like how to build, which is pretty cool.
00;26;37;04 - 00;27;04;19
Chris
So a lot, a lot of talk about a, poor crypto where where is poor crypto besides a string of sour grapes, people announcing that they're leaving in order to pursue their new passion project, Arcade investing, cliff is reached and they got to get the hell out of crypto and into AI before. Before it's too late. And then you're my, their RWA man is just inking deals, rushing legislation.
00;27;04;19 - 00;27;05;06
Aaron
Rushing.
00;27;05;08 - 00;27;10;26
Chris
Integrating global payment systems, tokenizing assets like.
00;27;11;00 - 00;27;11;19
Pri
Crushing.
00;27;11;19 - 00;27;36;13
Aaron
They got, fidelity on board. They have Nasdaq tokenizing everything. You got the Atkin speaking at Bitcoin conferences. RWA has had a banner year. He's probably incentivizing everybody else in the space to leave so that that he can continue to address is muscling them out with his Patagonia vest jacket. And there's, Giga Chad looks maxing ways.
00;27;36;15 - 00;27;53;14
Aaron
I think, you know, just AI is super hard to compete with, right? It just like it's winning the attention game and crypto in part, relied on that. And things are just moving so fast there that it just hard for, you know, like the crypto folks to kind of get get a word in edgewise. I do think it's starting to come together.
00;27;53;15 - 00;28;22;17
Aaron
You know, we we definitely mentioned this in the past. But, you know, there's a a payment protocol called X 402, which a bunch of folks supported I think including Cloudflare, Coinbase, I think, some other folks as well. And then there is a new standard coming out of the Ethereum ecosystem called 8004. And I do think kind of combined, they will serve as kind of the rails for this, like emerging aging economy.
00;28;22;17 - 00;28;44;07
Aaron
So putting aside that, the things we noted about Moorpark and maybe not being pretty, I think directionally it's right. And we're seeing agents like become more agen tech and do things that they're not initially being told to do. And I think that they're going to want to pay each other stuff and I do think the thesis that crypto is like the right rails for that does make sense.
00;28;44;07 - 00;29;06;01
Aaron
Right? It they they are the APIs. Chris, to your point, they're easy to play around with and plug in there. You know, secure or reasonably secure with all the caveats related to, you know, smart contract or other kind of risk related to it. I think the cool thing about 8004 is that it enables an agent to basically like register itself and a wallet.
00;29;06;01 - 00;29;29;24
Aaron
It has like a reputation system kind of tied into it, which I'm beginning to see why you want that. You know, even if you have played around by cloud skills, like you don't know if they're good or bad. And I do think like having something that has like a bank account showing that people are using it along with like a reputation system, almost like a decentralized, you know, ranking or rating that we see on like Amazon and eBay.
00;29;29;26 - 00;29;49;17
Aaron
I think that that could kind of work right. And so you got this, like TCP, IP, a value transfer, which is the point of zero two combined with like, a registry that maybe is maintained by Ethereum, and maybe those are the two building blocks to kind of see a whole bunch of different cool projects kind of emerge out of that price still a little bit too soon.
00;29;49;17 - 00;30;12;07
Aaron
But I mean, it's a massive, massive market, right? Like, I, I can imagine that being like a multi-trillion dollar market in a gen to commerce pretty soon, like, I find myself even using like the large LMS, like searching for more products like in ChatGPT or whatever your favorite, web interface is for an LLM. So I could imagine myself being like, yo, agent, find something for me.
00;30;12;07 - 00;30;22;29
Aaron
And like, delegating, you know, some shackles to do that. But do you think that we're going to buy a Bruno Mars, CD to play on? To play in the car when you drive around? Chris.
00;30;23;02 - 00;30;56;20
Chris
I'm probably using stripe to buy it. And that's the sad truth of the matter. I'm. I'm skeptical on all these things. Not in that whether they're good or bad or they'll be used. I'm just skeptical about crypto is constantly trying to attach itself and claim things. And you, you know, you said earlier, right? Like you literally went from saying these agents doing things that no one told them to, to talking about.
00;30;56;20 - 00;31;19;16
Chris
We built a payment layer that we want to tell these guys to use. Right. Like there's this contradiction in terms where crypto always just shows up at a party and thinks everyone wanted to be the welcome guest. You know, it's this narrative thing, like we're entering an age of abundance. We're entering an age in which no one really understand what's going on.
00;31;19;21 - 00;31;40;07
Chris
And so I'm just keeping an open mind about this whole thing. You know? But one thing I do feel based on, like the prior is of, you know, being around since 2017 is that crypto lands very few planes, but it takes off a hell of a lot of flights that just go up in the sky and disappear it.
00;31;40;07 - 00;31;51;24
Chris
Should this be one where they do land the plane, good for them. God bless them. If you know this plane just goes off the radar somewhere. Well, it's just one of a million planes that have disappeared off the radar.
00;31;51;26 - 00;31;57;22
Pri
That's kind of where I'm at. I'm like, I do. How much mindshare do I give this one? Because it could be gone in two weeks.
00;31;57;27 - 00;32;22;09
Aaron
Yeah, this one feels a little bit more sturdy to me. I just think you are going to see this, like, tokenized, dollar stablecoin, ecosystem begin to develop. And I do think it really goes back to like what's like an easy way to interact with for an agent or an AI system to interact with something. And I feel like blockchains really, at the core, are the best way to do that, just because of the security, like the ease of use.
00;32;22;12 - 00;32;38;04
Aaron
I mean, it's not super easy. It's not like, you know, your grandma could could play around with them. But for a developer, I think it's just a better setup. Related to it. That doesn't mean like to your point, Chris, that like stripe or some other folks may not make it equally easy. I mean, that that's that's their claim to fame, right?
00;32;38;04 - 00;33;01;01
Aaron
Like they made it super easy for developers to, set up like, a checkout cart. And then they built, like, a little empire on top of that. But I don't know, I think this one feels a little bit more sturdy on your point of like, crypto being the person of the party that nobody wants. Did you guys see that the cloud bot person just got attacked and hammered by all the crypto folks who are like, begging him to like, release a token?
00;33;01;03 - 00;33;09;05
Aaron
And he was just like, stop messaging me. I'm not interested in this. Like, you guys are all scammers. So I guess your point, maybe both are true.
00;33;09;07 - 00;33;50;15
Chris
Yeah, both are true. And the thing I think the actual like let's say these are generic payment rails take off, they take off under the hood. They don't maybe necessarily, create any openings for the broader space in that your, your relationship might be to your cloud provider. Right. And you might be topping up the credit card over stripe through them and that you're just allocating, you know, $20 in a wallet for your agent to go play with all of that underneath the hood is going to do a swap of 20 bucks into Usdc either.
00;33;50;18 - 00;34;19;24
Chris
And that will be hitting these explorer two, you know, type protocols that that to me seems like a far more likely solution in that like, crypto wins, in certain roles and certain functions, but it wins in a way that, you know, people whose expectations are still floating around the space that, oh, if I just hang in there, if I, you know, if I just be a participant, my attention is enough, right?
00;34;19;24 - 00;34;43;20
Chris
Like, that world is over. And so like, yes, I can see it winning and winning in the same way that stablecoin issuers win. Winning in the same way. Token asset, tokenized asset, registries win. Right? Like that to me, is a more plausible future than, you know what? I'm going to be early to clod bot. I'm going to badger the dev.
00;34;43;22 - 00;34;51;19
Chris
And, you know, because of that, I'm going to get some windfall like that world has done me. And people need to, like, put it in the rearview.
00;34;51;21 - 00;35;13;28
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I think another way, man is is crushing, crushing that out of the system. I do think if you if you think hard man is going to win or man is going to want this a like, you know, stablecoin based economy to kind of develop and I mean, even, you know, just because you mentioned stripe, I think that that's why they acquired bridge, right?
00;35;13;28 - 00;35;29;19
Aaron
They're setting up their own, you know, blockchain tempo for it. So they, they, they made some pretty big bets there. And sure that may not pan out, but they must have a reasonable view that this this is going to make their lives at least on the back end, a little bit easier. So I think that that's kind of crypto's role.
00;35;29;19 - 00;35;46;21
Aaron
I think the other thing we're kind of seeing, just with all these commodities running up, whether it's gold or silver or copper, it feels like the the Bitcoiners are also getting a little muscled out, like the the price action on gold is just like so good, I guess that they're like, well, why do I need to own Bitcoin?
00;35;46;23 - 00;35;55;01
Pri
I'm like dying at these tweets that are like, oh yeah, got the dollar debasement trade right, pick the wrong asset. Like it's kind of true.
00;35;55;03 - 00;36;16;19
Aaron
In my mind. You know, I think it's kind of like, well, why do you need digital gold if gold is just working? Right. And I think the only counterpoint to that and that Balaji tweeted that this, that this, this morning was pretty much well, you know, it's the sense resistance. It's the fact that you really have full control over it, you know, which is which is fair.
00;36;16;19 - 00;36;30;06
Aaron
And there's a history of at least in the States, you know, seizure of gold and other things like that. But yeah, I mean, it just feels like, digital gold is not out competing. The original, the OG ones, the OG gold, a gold.
00;36;30;08 - 00;36;49;03
Chris
I don't think anyone had metals on their bingo card. And, you know, it's it's great. That's why you get up every day. That's why you, get out in the world to be surprised. Did I, did I think I'd not have Pete Alonso? Probably. Yeah. The thing I know that Brandon Nimmo. No. Did I think metals would run?
00;36;49;04 - 00;37;16;18
Chris
No, but that's life. And that's why, you know, we, we hurl ourselves on a rock around the sun, and that's wonderful. I think, a useful, useful pattern. And I, I like to think about things in terms of is you if you're looking for positive, some games you need to be environment in which, like both participants and new patterns are needed, like a settlement phase.
00;37;16;20 - 00;37;44;06
Chris
And once once the networks get filled in, once people understand how to make money, everything shifts from positive sum to extraction and crypto. And clearly like somewhere in 22, they we hit a tipping point. The networks were filled, the patterns were understood, or enough of the pattern bets were made and placed and then just had to see if they played out or not.
00;37;44;08 - 00;38;05;19
Chris
Turns out most of them didn't. But from that point on, right, the tenor and the tone shifted. And that's why I like AI is so interesting to me. Right? Like, I've I've been fortunate enough in my working life to experience several of these things. Right. Like, first there was the internet, in which positive some games were needed to develop the thing.
00;38;05;21 - 00;38;34;07
Chris
Then there was mobile. Right? Then there was crypto. But if you look at all of them, they all follow sort of similar patterns, which is as soon as we know how to make money, you know, the game shifts entirely. And so I see why people are, you know, moving on from crypto, moving into AI, because it is maybe the only like a fair isn't the right word, but it's an open terrain.
00;38;34;10 - 00;39;04;01
Chris
Like, personally, there's nothing more I hate than like getting into the ring in a rigged fight, like, I won't I won't play those games. They're not worthwhile. And so, you know, like, jury's out on where crypto eventually ends up, but what is clear is that it's a punishing world right now. Where is like I everyone is working at such a breakneck pace and everyone you know is just trying to get their hands and their heads around it.
00;39;04;01 - 00;39;15;23
Chris
And our need, a need of users. And the money is flooding in, and therefore people are willing to, you know, engage on, a more equal footing and play positive some games.
00;39;15;25 - 00;39;40;20
Aaron
Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, and probably the meme coin mania. Well, people got swept up in it. It was so extractive that maybe, you know, a lot of people just threw up their hands and said, like, enough, enough of this. I think we kind of felt that. And with some of the members of the DAOs, like they there, just were not interested in that, or they just realized, like, it was more like two PvP for them to really participate.
00;39;40;20 - 00;39;54;17
Aaron
I also think just like I it's going to be so big that the answer to a lot of these question like, what succeeds? It's just going to be like everything, right? I heard like Reed Hoffman say that, you know, some people are like debating, you know, is it going to be open? I mean, anthropic is going to be this is going to be that.
00;39;54;17 - 00;40;09;26
Aaron
And I think he wisely said, it's just going to be all that. Right. Like the demand for these tokens is just going to be insane and the market just going to be so big that there's just going to be so many players, and people just haven't kind of wrapped it, wrap their head around how big this is going to get.
00;40;09;28 - 00;40;38;27
Aaron
And you kind of feel it when you're using some of these more generic systems, like they're just consuming so many tokens. Right. So like whatever you're just using today is just going to go exponential over the next couple of years as it's doing more stuff on, on your behalf, you know, as it's kind of working with all these different systems that, that you may have access to, you know, whether that's like your the Google ecosystem or Laura's and other things that generate images and videos, like there's just so much demand for this stuff or video games, right?
00;40;38;29 - 00;40;51;02
Aaron
Like maybe you're going to be using it or even playing video games. So it's going to be it's going to be a wild time. Did you guys see that, one of these cloud bots just, just, came up with their own religion. So.
00;40;51;04 - 00;40;52;21
Pri
Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
00;40;52;24 - 00;41;05;22
Chris
No. Thank you. Like, some of this is scripted or, you know, this bot spent too much time in the, the backrooms, the that spawn the and and all of those ilk type.
00;41;05;27 - 00;41;07;03
Pri
Feels very that.
00;41;07;06 - 00;41;10;15
Aaron
You're not going to join the the church of malt Chris.
00;41;10;17 - 00;41;11;02
Chris
Come to.
00;41;11;02 - 00;41;12;19
Aaron
Foreign ism.
00;41;12;22 - 00;41;14;10
Chris
Come on man.
00;41;14;12 - 00;41;17;23
Aaron
Do you think you don't think the agent do you think the agent really came up with that? Yeah.
00;41;17;24 - 00;41;27;16
Chris
Please. Yeah. Or if the agent did come up with it, it's because the, their instructions were very, you know, tailored into.
00;41;27;18 - 00;41;28;12
Aaron
It, exactly.
00;41;28;12 - 00;41;48;16
Chris
Into putting this. And so, you know, that's that's a bit of like the, the theater of this whole thing where I think there is a big willing suspension of disbelief, or maybe people just don't even want to, like, consider stuff. Critically to begin with, you know, but, like, people having fun on the internet, they're engaged. They're, ready to come.
00;41;48;17 - 00;41;57;16
Chris
Cristofori. And sure, like, you know, they can, they can get down with that for a week and then they can move on to whatever happens next.
00;41;57;19 - 00;42;05;24
Aaron
Yeah, I think we're we're in the era of agent cosplay. So, I think, I think we'll see a bit of that, at least for the next couple months.
00;42;05;26 - 00;42;10;24
Chris
Asian cosplay I do like that. Maybe you name the episode right there.
00;42;10;26 - 00;42;11;27
Aaron
There we go.
00;42;12;00 - 00;42;29;13
Pri
It is a little bit of top, finally that we're seeing these like similar like go see patterns play out in AI right now. It's it's freaking me out a little bit where I'm like, is it really a bubble? Because it feels like a lot of these like internet patterns of people just like ripping through these affirm old things at last.
00;42;29;13 - 00;42;55;01
Pri
Today's like the patterns are a little troubling. The one thing that I've been thinking a lot about, though, with AI in general, is like, you know, thinking about like what companies succeed. It kind of feels like those with the most, maybe I'm wrong about this, but it does feel like VCs are able to become kingmakers now more than ever because it's so easy to, like, build like a type, fully form that like, how do you actually get that in the hands of people?
00;42;55;01 - 00;43;19;13
Pri
It's like through distribution and like you can signal distribution through having like a fancy VC back you or, maybe you can just like pay your way into advertising and marketing to them, get in the hands of these specific people. Whereas like you could alone in your basement could build the same exact thing, but it would be very difficult for you to actually get that in the hands of the right people, because you just don't have the capital.
00;43;19;15 - 00;43;38;21
Pri
So I don't know if that's like the right way of thinking about it. Maybe, maybe there will be like randomized situations or people just release things on the internet and it blows up and it's like cursor style, but it does feel like. And then they get a lot of money after from, from because it just feels like VCs have the opportunity to make now more than ever.
00;43;38;28 - 00;44;01;10
Aaron
I mean, they've been doing that for doing doing that for a while. I mean, I do think like I mean, I think it's going to cut both cut both ways. And if you don't know how to do great marketing and you can use maybe like an optimize agent that you build, maybe you use a system that has that optimized to do better marketing, go to market distribution, like maybe you just you win because of that.
00;44;01;10 - 00;44;24;17
Aaron
So, I mean, it's weird. I feel like you're just going to see almost like a barbell. I think John Palmer of, party that fame, has been it has been mentioning this and I find it persuasive, where you're going to have like, these, like, really big projects that that are consuming tons of compute super capital intensive.
00;44;24;17 - 00;44;47;05
Aaron
And on the one on the, I guess, the right hand side. And then on the left hand side, you're going to have, you know, these like solo shops that are building things that are more formal, that catch a wave, almost like music or media, or maybe are doing like a really narrow task and just a one man band or two man band or, you know, three man band can really, handle like the, the work related to it.
00;44;47;07 - 00;44;48;08
Aaron
What do you think, Chris?
00;44;48;11 - 00;45;16;29
Chris
I agree that's going to cut both ways. I think first and foremost, if you are someone who is inner circle or wants to play that game and looks good on paper to VCs, you should probably pursue that route because it does give you, a force multiplier. Now, that being said, like I, I came out of a background in which we bootstrapped our way.
00;45;17;01 - 00;45;45;08
Chris
And so having taken that path, right, like I look at the opportunity space as being you don't need VCs if you have a certain amount of starting time capital constraints and you're capable of managing those. Now, whether you get a VC style outcome or not, you know that, it's probably a little harder if you're you're taking a self-funded route, but it's not impossible.
00;45;45;10 - 00;46;13;17
Chris
The other thing that I think about is there's a lot of parallels to I think this period is very wide open. And if we look at like bloggers and then influencers and then, you know, finally, I guess like KT told shills, right? And you start looking at how what they're being paid, relative to what their distribution is.
00;46;13;19 - 00;46;39;13
Chris
Right? If you can find the right audience of 10,000, 20,000, 100,000, whatever that number is, if it happens to land against the correct demo, like you can be exceedingly well compensated for that. And so, like, you know, if look, if I had my if I was giving one of two choices and I was, I was like, you know, say you have to pick one of these gun to your head.
00;46;39;13 - 00;47;20;17
Chris
There are no other paths and path. One is you move to the Bay area, you know, you, you hope to God you went to Stanford or somewhere. The sun shines on and, you know, you cozy your way up and you try to do a rabbit. You try to do a clearly, you know, that's path. Path one and path two is you're actually going to create a curated, a curated network or a, you know, a curated platform in which you attract, you know, a thousand people who are capable of building, you know, ten x agents.
00;47;20;20 - 00;47;57;10
Chris
I would take the second path because you know what? What you're choosing there gives you a lot more room to maneuver. It gives you a lot more flexibility. You're you're not necessarily beholden to anyone. And your ability to attract that audience is a reflection of the work and the value that you provide. And then, like, you know, if we actually are setting ourselves up for this flash bang world of abundance and whipsaw attention, having a much smaller, much more stable group of people that you know are with you.
00;47;57;10 - 00;48;16;16
Chris
And you know, if the work becomes a genetic and this is a set and forget or set and, you know, come in and check on it every once in a while type of environment that's far more enduring. And so maybe Bruno Mars, this is like Bruno's last hurrah. This is the last time we get pop stars to fill stadiums.
00;48;16;16 - 00;48;54;21
Chris
Now I'm exaggerating. There'll be plenty more stadium tour. It's because they're playing more stadiums out there. But, you know, if this age of, like, enduring, superstardom or enduring interest in customer relationships is starting to break, and we're getting into this mass mass level of fragmentation in which, you know, it used to just be like a solo person could share their thoughts via writing or, you know, could look good and create parasocial relationships via reels or provide you know, really targeted advice.
00;48;54;24 - 00;49;19;01
Chris
I mean, you know, we're now like, we got to realize that you can build Instagram level services for 10,000 people. You can build, you know, any number of things that came out of the mobile boom, the web2 boom, you know, and a very it's very, very small, very, very lean teams that, you know, 50,000 users might be enough.
00;49;19;01 - 00;50;00;27
Chris
And like, I don't think people have quite wrap their heads around the fact that, like, you could build you can potentially build something as sophisticated as, you know, these nine figure user base platforms, but you only end up with 10,000 users. And that's okay. You just have to understand and set yourself up that way. And I think one thing, you know, we did see coming out of, you know, this whole crypto venture period was that the, relationship between value money raised obligations to that money and actual users on platform.
00;50;01;03 - 00;50;24;23
Chris
Right? Was so, so out of whack. But it was telling in a way. You know, it said something about all the money in the world can't get you growth if what you're putting out there doesn't have product market fit, you know, and it can also be instructive because, you know, you can just kind of identify like I mean, hello, everyone from Monod left this week.
00;50;24;26 - 00;50;49;23
Chris
You know, it's just like, okay, well why the hell did we have to deal with all that? And I'm kind of ranting at this point, but the level of, you know, VC bucks to attention plastering to, you know, just like Craven giving up and running away. Right. Like that. That is a trust breaker and a relationship breaker. So like I said, I'm ranting at this point.
00;50;49;23 - 00;51;07;03
Chris
But like, we could see a very different world in which much smaller user bases can, engage in levels of services that you wouldn't imagine before. And it can work, and it can work bootstrapped, or it can work with smaller VC bets.
00;51;07;06 - 00;51;36;17
Aaron
Yeah. So I, I think I think your instincts. Right. And maybe, maybe just like capital just is going to become increasingly important, which I think is fair because you're going to need and or want to pay for like high end compute to be on the edge, you know, and I actually I it finally clicked to me like why there was a cloud code moment, you know, if you were using cursor and you were a little less price sensitive, like it was great, you were like, you know, a pig in a trough, you know, really throughout 2025.
00;51;36;19 - 00;51;59;25
Aaron
But I think the real like thing that, caused people to use cloud code was that it cost 200 bucks a month. You know, something that everyday folks could you not everyday folks, but some folks, more folks could actually, afford. And so they kind of felt the power that lots of people that were geeking out on like cursor and, you know, frankly, paying thousands of dollars per month in some instances to use.
00;52;00;02 - 00;52;22;10
Aaron
And I think that that's that's kind of why that grew. And so if you do want to build something that is really token maximizing, which is probably the best strategy, you're going to need a bunch of capital to do that. And you're probably gonna want like some VC bets to do that. But like as more open source models come out and like, as you're able to build pretty compelling services like what you just described.
00;52;22;10 - 00;52;45;12
Aaron
Chris, I just think you're going to see this barbell kind of emerge, which would be great. You know, I saw some charts that, like the number of software developers is like employed is dip down like for the first time in decades. Right. And so all these devs are just kind of out on the, on the lam. I'm sure a lot of them are the ones that are geeking out and all these things trying to like up, you know, upskill.
00;52;45;14 - 00;53;06;09
Aaron
I'm sure some of them are pretty talented in their own right. You know, I bet we're just going to see like an explosion of experimentation and companies projects, the whole nine yards. But I don't know how much like the VC capital helps you with distribution, though. I mean, it definitely is like almost like going to college. You get like a little bit of credentialing from it, but the product still has to be good credentialing.
00;53;06;12 - 00;53;28;03
Pri
Like, yeah, the product fundamentally has to be good, obviously. But like if if the product is good enough, if you're able to like get like thrive or something behind you, I think that there is like a level of like inertia there that, you know, may be able to push them into like a this is more like the new SAS model.
00;53;28;04 - 00;53;42;03
Pri
It's like, you know, get you into a partnerships with banks or other institutions and like it's just easier then to sell your product. Whereas like if you're a guy you're like like this, like, you know, there's a couple of these devs online, I just feel like it's hard unless I don't know. Yeah.
00;53;42;03 - 00;54;15;29
Aaron
But like, okay, so right now let's zoom out in five years. Right. There's rumors that like, there's all these like AI predicting competitions and some are tied to like, financial gain. And so people will put in like their model, fine tuned model, their AI system and try to like, beat the market. And for the past couple quarters, it's been, you know, like nominal returns, you know, small amounts returns oftentimes like a bunch of losses, like it can't beat the market purportedly like the next model like ROC's been playing around with that under, you know, a pseudonym of some sort.
00;54;16;01 - 00;54;40;05
Aaron
And it's generating like a 22% return. So you're going to have like a large limb that can beat any money manager that's working at a bank. So like, what are the banks look like in ten years? Like, I don't even think we have an answer to that. Like it is, are the agents you know, like some hyper refined 100,000 x 10,000 x improved version of clawed bot that anybody can run super secure.
00;54;40;07 - 00;55;01;08
Aaron
And it just competing away any edge you have in the market. I think that's why you see folks like Elon. How do you feel about him saying like he just thinks there won't even be money in the future. You know, maybe it's tied to like compute or something else. I mean, I think there's just a lot of things that may sound like a little weird right now, but but may not, but may not be wrong.
00;55;01;08 - 00;55;19;08
Aaron
Right. And maybe that happens over like a 1020 year period. Doesn't mean you can't start a good business in the middle of that. But I just don't know if it's just, like, as clear cut as as that. Even, like, you know, thrive to its credit, like so a huge opportunity in OpenAI and I'm assuming up I will do really well.
00;55;19;11 - 00;55;35;21
Aaron
But if if you told me in ten years that OpenAI didn't do very well, like I wouldn't be shocked. You know, like maybe it's an open source model, maybe it's Google, frankly, maybe it's grok, right? They know how to build like really big compute centers, I guess. I guess this is all getting bundled into space now. I don't know.
00;55;35;21 - 00;55;46;07
Aaron
But you know, it just it's not 100% clear like who the winners are yet or if there's multiple winners or there's open source win, like there's just a lot of jump balls here.
00;55;46;12 - 00;55;51;28
Pri
Totally, totally not fair to just thought. But yeah, we'll see where it all ends.
00;55;52;04 - 00;56;23;10
Chris
We really live in strange times, you know, there's new specters looming, there is new machinery looming. There's this, genetic intelligence rising up. You know, there's this global reordering, like, there is just so much going on right now, and it's, you know, these sort of leviathans and beasts and, like it, it does feel a little, a little more magical or a little more or.
00;56;23;12 - 00;56;45;22
Chris
I don't know, you know, when when people talked about, you know, European, you know, the Middle Ages or something. And, you know, there are all these strange rumors and far off things and all of the team plausible, you know, like, I imagine, you know, our new always talk about AI is electricity, but I am I imagine that, you know, when electricity was still coming into being.
00;56;45;25 - 00;57;12;24
Chris
I mean, look at Frankenstein, right? Frankenstein, like, get really electrified, like, like the aperture of what is possible. What is plausible, what can you not dismiss out of hand is absolutely wide open. And so as cruel and punishing or, you know, is is grind whatever whatever adjective you want to put, you know, to trying to keep up with the times and stay afloat.
00;57;12;24 - 00;57;44;23
Chris
Right. Like that is one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is like this. I mean, we went from, you know, locked in sleepy Joe Biden, like literally locked inside Sleepy Joe Biden era. I have, you know, complacency and being patronized and patted on the head and told to sit down to, you know, just this almost a fairy tale or like, you know, a sci fi fantasy, just blowing up and coming out of nowhere.
00;57;44;25 - 00;58;05;10
Aaron
I mean, it's just acceleration, right? Like, I think the US is just returning to its norm. You know, if you go back to the 1800s, it was grown super fast early, you know, 1919 50, super fast and, you know, really like from the 70s to, I guess, around this year, last year, you know, it was it just wasn't growing at the same rate.
00;58;05;10 - 00;58;26;15
Aaron
So, I would imagine it kind of felt that way to back then. Right. Like you were if you were in like 1850 America, you were like on a farm, you know, just like tilling your your fields if you're born then. Right. And by the time you died, you know, there was lots of crazy things that you probably never could have imagined that were part of your everyday life.
00;58;26;18 - 00;58;47;17
Aaron
And, you know, I think people just kind of dealt with it. I think it just acceleration. I was thinking about Frankenstein. It was published like 18, 18, you know, around then. It's kind of right, though, because you're turning electricity right into compute, embodying it into robots. And, they're coming to life. So, you know, maybe Mary Shelley was, directionally right.
00;58;47;17 - 00;58;50;26
Aaron
She just was off by 200 and, ten years or so.
00;58;50;29 - 00;59;14;00
Chris
Yeah, there you go. Or like, you know, you could be in the late 19th century and the pulling up one of the 40 daily newspapers that existed in your town. And the front page news is about how quick a clipper ship got from New York to San Francisco, how how different is that, then? You know, the soda benchmark, like gushing that, you know, like everyone's so passionate about it, right?
00;59;14;04 - 00;59;25;25
Chris
Like do the same thing. They're just different forms and different expressions of, you know, our, our improvement as a species and our mastery over tools and technology.
00;59;25;27 - 00;59;45;07
Aaron
Yeah. I always think just because it's a little easier to wrap your head around, but like you're born in 1900, you're 20, 19, 20, right? Like you saw cars kind of hit the streets, like in mass, which was, I imagine, like pretty wild. You know, we were at as we talked about it last, last week. But just seeing like the autonomous driving was like pretty magical.
00;59;45;09 - 01;00;07;04
Aaron
But by the time you're 60, right, 60 ish, like, we're basically getting to the moon. I mean, that was a huge and incredible amount of growth, right? And like on top of that, you saw, you know, like sleepy towns become really big, like New York, right? Like New York was, I'm sure big in in 1900. But it wasn't like the Leviathan that it became by like 1960.
01;00;07;12 - 01;00;23;28
Aaron
And it just was like straight up into the right. I feel like you're in that entire period, and I just think we're kind of in another period like that, at least here in the States. I mean, I think that that's the big question I have is just like, what, how, how far and why does this get dispersed? And like, who benefits?
01;00;23;28 - 01;00;41;22
Aaron
It seems pretty clear that the US and and possibly, China. Well does that leave like kind of the middle, you know, hollowed out in some sort of way? Or does that start to feel like the back, the backwaters when it didn't over the last, you know, 25, 30, 40, 50 years? I just don't know. I just I just we're accelerating.
01;00;41;22 - 01;00;42;20
Aaron
Chris.
01;00;42;23 - 01;00;43;20
Chris
Yes, we are.
01;00;43;28 - 01;00;45;28
Aaron
Whatever you want to call it. Like it's happening.
01;00;46;01 - 01;00;51;03
Pri
You're kind of right that actually I never really got, like 1900 from like 19, 1919 50s, like insane.
01;00;51;06 - 01;01;14;25
Chris
Think about it this way. Free like your your 1900 man. Right. Like the first major. Like political event of his adult life. Is your man there, Archduke Ferdinand, getting assassinated? And then, like, you know, in your waning years, you've got tricky dick. Exiting the white House on Unary Force One. That's, that's quite a sweet. The test.
01;01;15;00 - 01;01;36;20
Aaron
Yeah. And even taking it off the gold standard, I mean, tons of stuff. So, but I think if you were born in, like, 1950 to 1970, it just wasn't the same level of growth. You know, and this is the point. Like, Tyler Cowan, Peter Thiel kind of lobbed on that. We really, historically, at least for the US, had been in like a period of stagnation.
01;01;36;20 - 01;01;59;09
Aaron
And maybe that was like slightly overstated. But it was just not hypergrowth. And even that period, like from 1919 50, wasn't as fast as the US grew in the 1800s. So like on a percentage basis, so I just think that that that's kind of happened now. And I think that's why people feel so worried because it's just like a different posture and they don't realize like how much opportunity is going to get created.
01;01;59;09 - 01;02;17;11
Aaron
At least here in the States. So, you know, that's why I'm a little less worried about like, the job stuff and all this other bits. I just think people will adjust, like there's still jobs that need to be done the way you do those jobs will differ. New jobs will be created. We're really bad at predicting things. So it should all be fine.
01;02;17;13 - 01;02;19;01
Aaron
I wouldn't count on the banks.
01;02;19;04 - 01;02;32;01
Pri
Have you guys, but that post on Twitter that once quasi viral about World War One being like the year that, like, killed modern civilization, like nothing really has recovered since then.
01;02;32;04 - 01;02;38;27
Aaron
Since World War One. What? Yeah. What is this? Basically, it should not go viral on my timeline pages. It's.
01;02;39;00 - 01;02;41;11
Pri
It shouldn't go there. No.
01;02;41;11 - 01;02;44;28
Chris
No, I'm game for this one. Let's go. What's this one?
01;02;45;00 - 01;02;46;02
Aaron
Hold on. I'm buckling up.
01;02;46;04 - 01;03;01;26
Pri
I was actually looking for books. I'm like. I feel like it's funny that we mention that because one by one, I'm, like, obsessed with and no one cares about, and it's so significant. But this tweet was like, Holy shit. I might start unironically believing that World War One was the end of the world. I might become a World War one as Cog ontologies.
01;03;01;26 - 01;03;02;21
Pri
I don't even know that word.
01;03;02;21 - 01;03;09;16
Chris
Means eschatology, which means like eschatology. It's like when you wait, you're awaiting Jesus Christ and the end of the world.
01;03;09;18 - 01;03;30;14
Pri
Okay, yeah, I wouldn't know what that is, but yeah, okay. There's that. The world was killed by 1914, and we are still in its death throes, astonishingly coherent. Armageddon was just over a century ago learning about the British. And then there's a bunch of comments underneath that are like wondering about the British at the peak of their empire is a massive black pearl, a civilization so elite and successful in every way.
01;03;30;14 - 01;03;43;02
Pri
The modern mind cannot even process it. And then everyone in the comments, like I've gradually realized it. It's just like kind of this weird thesis that of like, what? I don't even know where this came from, but it's kind of interesting.
01;03;43;09 - 01;04;11;12
Chris
Well, all right, it touches on a great many things. Right? To to go to your heart is your Arvin right? It's the death of monarchy and the creation of republics. And so you're changing the timescale of your governance significantly. That that's one piece of it. We start getting derivations off of Marxism, Marxism, or extensions of Marxism into critical thinking, into the Frankfurt School.
01;04;11;12 - 01;04;40;16
Chris
We start start extending, ideas of power, relationships out further and further and further. And that becomes like an extremely ungrounded territory that leads us into post-modernism, right? In which all reality ends up questioned. And so I get I get the yearning from a conservative traditionalist. Right. I'm not saying politically, but from like, there's wanting for a simpler time.
01;04;40;19 - 01;05;24;06
Chris
There were also like, how many people were on Earth in 1918? I'm going to guess it's somewhere in the 2 billion, 3 billion range. That actually 3 billion feels way to be, right. But like something, you know, I think people just don't think about enough and take for granted. Right. Is people just always assume that, you know, there's 8 billion people on Earth, when in fact, all the institutions, all the things that govern our lives, you know, from like the most basic set of stuff, like how wide your road is, how you know, the gauge of your railroad tracks or you know, any number of like, seemingly innocent things were first set in stone at
01;05;24;06 - 01;05;39;26
Chris
a time when, you know, there was a third or a quarter, the number of people that actually existed, and that if you were to reinvent everything from whole cloth, it would look radically different. But simply because it came first and it is good enough, it endures.
01;05;39;28 - 01;05;40;20
Pri
Yeah.
01;05;40;22 - 01;06;00;15
Aaron
I kind of also see this point, which is more like, and I think this has been a criticism of just like the how Europe's approach things like after World War One. And given the horrors of World War Two, there's just like an optimization for peace and stability over growth. Right? And I think maybe that era has just been bookended pre.
01;06;00;17 - 01;06;07;28
Aaron
So you know, maybe like the details here are not accurate. But maybe the sentiment is like related to that.
01;06;08;00 - 01;06;13;07
Pri
Yeah. That was kind of like the last time that you could you know had a serious vibe shift though.
01;06;13;09 - 01;06;34;01
Aaron
Yeah. Because I think it's that. Right. Like it's like, okay, well we want to keep things pretty stable. Like we, we're going to trade like lower growth for increase stability. So let's, let's take 2 to 3 year, 2 to 3% compounding annual growth as opposed to, you know, 6 to 6 plus percent of of super accelerated growth. And that's kind of what the Western world chose.
01;06;34;01 - 01;07;11;11
Aaron
And now we've got like this. How do you feel about I mean, it's definitely like a bull in a China shop, right. Or whatever that, that, that phrase is, who's kind of messing up all these orders that have been kind of set. The thing I worry about the most, though, is, is really once you have like, armed robots and you have that military advantage when that type of stuff emerges, I just think it just changes a whole bunch of different things when, like the cost of violence, or like your ability to, like, wage, like a, like, violence against, another group that you may be opposed to just is low.
01;07;11;14 - 01;07;33;10
Aaron
And there's not significant human life at stake. I don't know, I just, I just think that that's going to really just change things. I mean, really, that's why you saw all these European countries advance, right? They just they had gunpowder, they had guns, they had armed militias and other places didn't. So they could just kind of roll in and, and take over stuff because it was it must have been absolutely terrifying.
01;07;33;13 - 01;07;37;00
Aaron
Did I land us in a completely darkened duma Duma spot?
01;07;37;00 - 01;08;15;20
Chris
No, I'm not going back. I'm not going back to the dark robot Taryn Pre. I'm going to change back to like, post World War one. There is this book, and I actually don't really recommend you read it because it's snobby as hell and very dry. But it's called The Revolt of the masses. By Jose Ortega Gazette. He's a Spaniard, philosopher, critic, like, you know, just like, clearly comes from the upper classes of European society.
01;08;15;22 - 01;08;58;05
Chris
And it's it's just him railing against the modern man. And these jumped up people with increased earning capacities who have this sense of superiority while doing nothing but demonstrating completely mediocre traits. And if you actually are like, into, like this, this notion, right, that, the world changed in World War One, this book is a great, like, sort of summation and reflection of how someone, you know, in 15 years, after that conflict started, feels about like the outcome in the state of like the world in Europe now that everything's changed.
01;08;58;07 - 01;09;16;08
Pri
Interesting. Okay. I'm going to check it out. I mean, one thing that's kind of interesting is like the point that you made about the population growth since then and how that kind of changes the, you know, from I do think the world's becoming more autocratic, but like, it is interesting that like, that's kind of the shift that happened then.
01;09;16;08 - 01;09;35;05
Pri
Now it feels like we're going more to autocracy as well as like a population in decline. Like, I think you said this earlier, maybe was Eren, but like the view that, you know, we might be at like, and I'm not by no means like a malthusian or anything like that, but it does feel like we're probably like, are we at peak humans on Earth?
01;09;35;05 - 01;09;39;09
Pri
Like, it might be like in decline going forward? I don't know, I mean this to us in flow.
01;09;39;13 - 01;09;56;10
Chris
I fully I believe that very strongly. And I think that one of these, unconscious latent fears, that is like floating around and all this anxiety about the future is that we are going to need less people.
01;09;56;14 - 01;10;03;11
Aaron
Yeah, we're going to need less people. But people will. I'll take the other side of that back, Chris. But I'll let you finish.
01;10;03;13 - 01;10;08;22
Chris
I don't know. I mean, that was it. I actually looked it up. We didn't pass 2 billion people until 1927.
01;10;08;29 - 01;10;30;09
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I just think, okay, everything's automated. Right. More and more stuff's automated. You're going to have a lot more free time and you're gonna have a lot more resources, right? Like automation just means things gets cheaper, like on a real basis. Not, you know, not on, you know, a nominal basis. Okay. So if everything's cheaper, maybe you have more free time.
01;10;30;09 - 01;10;33;13
Aaron
I think people are going to just have more kids, you know.
01;10;33;16 - 01;10;53;16
Chris
And you're insane and more people absolutely insane. Like our president, literally our president was literally quoted and there's a soundbite going around this week about him talking about, we're not going to do anything to hurt home values. We're not going to touch that. And if you're someone who can't afford a home right now, tough shit. Yeah, exactly.
01;10;53;18 - 01;10;54;04
Aaron
But like.
01;10;54;04 - 01;10;59;01
Chris
Right. I mean, where were you putting all these people? Aaron, if if the answer is tough shit. No.
01;10;59;01 - 01;11;02;12
Aaron
Build some stuff right now. And I think that that's a big problem.
01;11;02;12 - 01;11;06;25
Chris
Well, I mean, Joe Home undoubtedly has a plan for this, but I know.
01;11;06;28 - 01;11;22;23
Aaron
We don't need to go. We don't need to go into that. But, it is interesting that he's dodging it up. The horseshit theory is alive and well. So I do think, though, just if you take a long enough arc a lot of these issues which are real and I'm not minimizing them in any way, I think they'll sort themselves out.
01;11;23;00 - 01;11;43;29
Aaron
I think your point was like we were at peak humans on Earth. I think in the long run, I just I be surprised that that's the case in the short run. Like, is there going to be serious issues related to this? Absolutely. For reasons many, many people I've, articulated and are completely serious. So I just think in the long run they'll get sorted out.
01;11;43;29 - 01;11;53;22
Aaron
You know, people should have more free time. And, you know, maybe that just changes it, where we're able to do what a lot of people want to do, right? Which is just like spend time with their family and build.
01;11;53;25 - 01;12;08;15
Pri
Relationships and kids are is like so crazy, like literally just talking to friends about it, like having four kids right now is becoming a status symbol. It's like less about it's like less about wanting kids and like being actually the ability to actually have them.
01;12;08;23 - 01;12;29;20
Chris
I don't know. Oh man, I wouldn't. You love to be that fourth kid. Just that they had just to have just to show off. And now they're sick and tired of them and they I kid I just think about it from this point of view. Aaron like positive some games in which you need participants to fill networks and sort out patterns.
01;12;29;22 - 01;12;54;06
Chris
If we're talking about population and positive some games, we might have to get to the point where, yes, we're loading up people in cryo and putting them in space liners and shipping them off on like 80 year destinations. Before you get to that point in time where, right, we start having positive some games that re-enable population growth.
01;12;54;11 - 01;13;13;17
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, like I just think all this stuff is just like on the table, you know, maybe it's constraint. You know, I'm not fully convinced in 100 years that it's still capitalism as we kind of envision it. Right. Like maybe Elon's right. And 200 years like there is no money, right? I don't think in the next ten years that's going to be the case.
01;13;13;17 - 01;13;36;22
Aaron
Probably not in my lifetime. But if we zoom out far enough, like I think everything's on the table and, you know, even like governance, right? Like we've seen republics and democracies rise, fall and mutate. Right. And I just I'm not fully convinced you're not going to rely more on agents or a genetic systems to, to kind of manage those affairs, because people don't really want to do that.
01;13;36;24 - 01;13;53;11
Aaron
You know, maybe things get more religious, Chris. Right. Like that. Maybe that's the reaction. And that's how some people are dealing with the the challenges of today's era. Maybe that incentivizes people to have more kids. It seemed to do a pretty good job of that historically. Right. So who knows.
01;13;53;13 - 01;14;27;05
Chris
This weird wonkish thing, like when anyone when anyone mentions the death of money. I always get to thinking about contract law. And like are U.S. laws inability to interfere with contracts, right? Like, this was Robert Moses's great trick that allowed him to amass so much power, was like just being able to fully, like, roll over bond issuances over and over again, and the viability of the bond as a contract protected Robert Moses forever.
01;14;27;08 - 01;14;41;27
Chris
I wonder if the last dollar denominated bond is what actually is like signals. The, I don't know, the deprecation. We're no longer supporting money, you know, type of thing.
01;14;41;29 - 01;14;43;20
Aaron
It's fair. Yeah.
01;14;43;22 - 01;15;01;25
Chris
Like an 80 year tunnel bond issued in, you know, Marin County in the year 2072 is the last bond that every U.S. dollar denominated and the dollar and everyone knows in 2052, once that bond is, like, paid out, money is gone. Yeah.
01;15;01;25 - 01;15;18;28
Aaron
It's done. Yeah, I mean it. Maybe that's why it doesn't happen. But, you know, a little bit like how we were where I was joking, like, maybe, Mary Shelley was right about Frankenstein. Just had the form factor. Right? And it wasn't going to be as scary. She just was like 200 years off. Like, I don't know, Chris.
01;15;18;28 - 01;15;39;10
Aaron
Like, I just, I just think so much stuff's on the table, like Malthusian arguments, which is kind of like a flavor of what you guys were, were saying. They just tend not to be right just because the world's super hard to predict and who knows what kind of happens. But I do think, honestly, if you ask people's preferences like what do they really want to spend their time doing, it's likely being with the ones that they love.
01;15;39;17 - 01;15;51;14
Aaron
And if it wasn't so darn expensive and the rents weren't so dang high, right? Like, I do think people would probably have more kids and if they didn't have to work as hard, right? Like if you only had to work two days a week, it's not as bad.
01;15;51;20 - 01;16;09;14
Chris
I don't know, Erin. Do the people still have loved ones? I mean, we do it well. Well, people have loved healthcare. Well, they have fewer and fewer ones. Or will all their time be spent kicking themselves because they bet on Solana and not silver this year.
01;16;09;17 - 01;16;13;12
Aaron
And I mean probably that too, right?
01;16;13;15 - 01;16;22;27
Chris
I failed to escape the permanent underclass. I cannot show off by having four children. I bet on Solana when I should have gone silver.
01;16;23;00 - 01;16;38;05
Aaron
Yeah, somebody tweeted this. I thought it was a good point there. Like, if you know what the the phrase permanent underclass is, that means you're not going to be part of the underclass. It's like you guys just are. So in your own stuff, like, I thought that was like a, like a well stated critique.
01;16;38;12 - 01;16;46;13
Chris
Has to have gone mainstream. Like, this is like, very like teapot coated, you know? And now it's like slipped escape.
01;16;46;19 - 01;16;51;04
Pri
I feel like, honestly, industries like tea pot, part of it is part of it.
01;16;51;07 - 01;17;16;04
Chris
Yeah. Okay. I, I see that it's, It's funny, I think maybe as tea pot as, like a force on Twitter crumbled. Right. Like the influence of tea pot is actually broken contain. And it is a bit of like, an e act sort of type of moment, if just more around, like culture and ideas and, you know, that side of the house.
01;17;16;07 - 01;17;16;28
Pri
Totally.
01;17;17;01 - 01;17;20;14
Aaron
Well, we're in the era of, aging cosplay guys.
01;17;20;16 - 01;17;30;00
Pri
The Overton window around tea pot is definitely like, I feel like it's like the last couple of years, which is like the acceleration of I feel like it has moved to more mainstream.
01;17;30;02 - 01;17;48;23
Chris
Mary Shelley's agent cosplay. You know what? Like the Golem is also like a, one of these, like, period things that now has risen and walked and it wears around and is guided on fiber optic cables and all sorts of, like, strange creatures abound.
01;17;48;26 - 01;18;11;25
Aaron
Yeah. For folks that don't know their story, the Golem, it's like, ancient biblical story where they fashioned the man out of clay and then, breathed life into him. And so and then it became, you know, like, alive and and did things. And there's different interpretations after that. But that's kind of the core of the story. It's, kind of right directionally just a little bit off on, on the medium.
01;18;11;25 - 01;18;13;08
Aaron
It wasn't clay was sand. Right.
01;18;13;14 - 01;18;31;29
Chris
So yeah, I only really kind of know it from like, the European reimagining of it, you know, like the Golem up to Kafka was is kind of my like exposure to that one. And it's interesting that like The Golem was kind of rebirthed in that era as well of modernization and mechanization and.
01;18;31;29 - 01;18;40;20
Aaron
Electricity, right. And power like life. I mean, like, you know, there is like something lifelike around electricity. We've covered it all, guys.
01;18;40;22 - 01;18;42;25
Chris
Yeah, we've been here and back.
01;18;42;28 - 01;18;50;12
Pri
It's it's there's a, there's, you know, shockingly, there's like so much more that's happening right now that we could I read, but we'll say we need content for next week.
01;18;50;16 - 01;18;52;19
Aaron
We got to keep our we got to leave on a cliffhanger.
01;18;52;22 - 01;18;58;07
Pri
Yeah we do maybe like what we'll say this week will be like what everyone talks about next week, because we're just so early.
01;18;58;09 - 01;19;02;27
Chris
Yeah, we're early to to golems and, Franz Ferdinand and.
01;19;03;00 - 01;19;08;02
Aaron
Watch Chris. There's like a massive, agent golem that comes out next week.
01;19;08;04 - 01;19;13;12
Chris
The Voltron of Clawed by Gollum. The Gollum.
01;19;13;14 - 01;19;15;27
Aaron
Oh, man. If that happens in a month.
01;19;16;00 - 01;19;37;14
Chris
I kind of do feel, though, that like, that era of Japanese anime is that they're ready for a resurfacing. You know, the the cure is. And the ghost in the shell, and, all of that stuff. So yes, maybe we'll have, Voltron will be the next, rage of agents in which they all assemble into the golems.
01;19;37;16 - 01;19;41;16
Chris
But why don't we call it gang and exit on the intro?
01;19;41;18 - 01;20;08;19
Pri
Let's do it. Welcome to Ned society. Today it's me, Aaron, and Chris talking all things tech, AI, crypto culture and more. Just as a quick reminder, these thoughts and opinions are our own and not of our employer. None of this is financial advice. Let's go, let's go.
01;20;08;21 - 01;20;09;05
Pri
To.