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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;00;00 - 00;00;17;07
Pri
Hey, guys. Happy Valentine's Day.
00;00;17;08 - 00;00;27;11
Chris
And happy Valentine's Day. Nothing says love, romance and special, special people like being on the frontier of, crypto x I.
00;00;27;13 - 00;00;34;00
Aaron
I thought you were going to say nothing says romance like buying a Meebit, because that's the big, the big news, right?
00;00;34;03 - 00;00;40;14
Chris
Talk about hyper station, You, claim to be the king of the moves, and then one day, you are the king of the news.
00;00;40;16 - 00;00;41;25
Pri
He manifested that.
00;00;41;27 - 00;00;43;02
Aaron
What I did.
00;00;43;05 - 00;00;46;28
Pri
I'm so detail really manifested this for himself.
00;00;47;03 - 00;00;56;25
Aaron
Yeah, so mean folks. I'm sure by the time you're listening to this, you probably absorbed it. But maybe it's have been acquired by what, one confirmation. Or is it a separate entity?
00;00;56;28 - 00;01;15;28
Derek
Well, it's, Yeah. So, it's so seguito some, some may have seen him around the NFT space for a while. He. My understanding is he created a new cow, called me company, and that company took some financing, from one confirmation, which is, crypto investor.
00;01;16;01 - 00;01;16;23
Aaron
Nice.
00;01;16;25 - 00;01;38;26
Derek
And but bought the IP and and I think even some of the many bits, the underlying thing from, from UGA directly and it sounds like things are already starting to move here. He's launching a, something called bits, which is, it seems like a it's, rewards system for, for transacting over OpenSea across the different asset types.
00;01;38;26 - 00;01;48;23
Derek
And, in the, collection. And he is, he seems like he's, he's moving forward here, proven the move. It's thesis is alive and well.
00;01;48;25 - 00;02;08;16
Aaron
Yeah. I like the moves. I'm bullish on the me. That's an Chris. You feel definitely that they're the least offensive IP in all crypto. So I think they're I think they've got a bright future ahead of them. It's exciting to to kind of see other people see their their utility and value. How are you feeling about this, Chris?
00;02;08;19 - 00;02;11;20
Aaron
I feel like you you're not as bullish on the bits.
00;02;11;22 - 00;02;13;02
Pri
Are you okay, Chris.
00;02;13;05 - 00;02;35;27
Chris
Am I okay? Of course I'm okay. Because, look, so do he does a great guy. He's truly passionate about this. And if anyone can spring Meebit back from irrelevancy into, I don't know, a semi interesting voxel art collection. It's digital so it's a big world. Everyone has their own taste, everyone has their own things. There is great provenance around the project.
00;02;35;27 - 00;02;50;15
Chris
It is a very deep project, a lot of interesting traits. No one knows. No one knows that better than Zito. And so congratulations to him. Do we know how this affects other side or there's still a part of that? Or.
00;02;50;18 - 00;03;11;28
Pri
I was actually wondering that myself. Like, I mean, I'm sure that there's going to still be like me, but interoperability to other side, right? Like, I'm sure they'll create worlds around it and still support it. I feel like it'd probably be in Hugo's interest to do that. And in a way, this is like a it's almost like giving it to it's community members or member, especially the person who heralded it.
00;03;11;28 - 00;03;27;00
Pri
And then you just kind of making it something that they don't necessarily have to worry about. But like the tech that they're building can help facilitate that community, I would assume. But it's a good question. It doesn't actually say anything. I do like the name Meme Co, though. It's the websites meme Coco.
00;03;27;03 - 00;03;47;03
Aaron
Yeah. Like that. I think it's smart. I mean, I think that, you know, the same core thesis that and if NFT sets will support big, you know, well-known mass market IP. I do think that that's going to manifest at some point. And I think it takes time to kind of build out those IP brands. And it feels like me, that's is a good candidate there.
00;03;47;03 - 00;03;49;18
Aaron
So thematically, I really like it too.
00;03;49;21 - 00;03;51;20
Pri
Do you think this ever happens? Oh, thanks.
00;03;51;22 - 00;04;10;15
Aaron
I don't know. Yeah. I mean it's kind of that same thesis. I mean, you kind of you seen a little bit of that with, like pages. It feels like doodles maybe moving in that direction too. And I just think it's tricky to zoom out into the future and think about what's going to matter. But I do think IP does matter.
00;04;10;15 - 00;04;35;10
Aaron
Brand does matter, creativity does matter. And some of these IP brands I think are a bit under undervalued. Now, internet native metaverse ready in the case. To me that's at least I don't know. I could see this looking like a genius move and in ten years I can also see that feature not manifesting. But I lean a little bit more towards, viewing this as a as a 40 chess move in a couple of years.
00;04;35;12 - 00;04;44;26
Pri
Do you think there's going to be any single one Meebit? That is the face of all Meebits like it's brand Meebit and he trade because, you know, Flamingo has a shirt.
00;04;44;28 - 00;05;05;20
Derek
We do have a shirt I, I it's a really good question. I I like I'll give you guys a couple of my favorite traits if that's if that's, that's interesting but I, I've always been a sucker for the tie dye shirt. I think it's like a pretty it's a pretty notable and like eclectic and unique and unique, garment for the collection.
00;05;05;22 - 00;05;24;22
Derek
I am a sucker for the pigs. I think the pigs just, like, look great. I think they did an amazing job on on on designing those pigs to kind of, like, follow suit with that, with the brand guide of of me. That's probably I also, I used to actually have a robot. I sold it to Circuito. So I'm now kicking myself.
00;05;24;24 - 00;05;38;13
Derek
This was way back when. So I don't think that there was any, any knowledge on, on, his part. This was probably a year and a half ago or two years. But I really like the robots. I think they're super clean. And I'm kind of kicking myself now that I don't have one.
00;05;38;16 - 00;05;54;12
Pri
You know, what they should do is create, like, merch. Like actual fashion merch out of the Meebits collection. Like some of the items from that collection, like imagine having like the Flamingo shirt IRL or the tie dye shirt you can kind of like wear with the meme they're wearing.
00;05;54;14 - 00;06;11;08
Derek
It'd be cool. I've seen people, I've seen people wear like the zombie shirt from the Meebits collection, like IRL, I can't remember somebody made them. It could have been so fro, but I remember I distinctly remember seeing people wearing that shirt in real life, at some events, over the last couple of years.
00;06;11;11 - 00;06;18;25
Pri
Maybe it's going to be the next pugs, just creating cool merch that we're going to see, like target. I can actually kind of see that.
00;06;18;27 - 00;06;40;21
Aaron
I think they're really just primed for, you know, more digital use cases. Right? Like I think even, Serge Ito pop it into what, look like Sora or one runway or something like that, and it just comes out really clean. I just think it's good IP for kind of the, the emerging AI, AI wave. Maybe that is kind of like the intersection of crypto.
00;06;40;21 - 00;06;46;07
Aaron
And I, I'm in a we're in a weird way. Yeah. Maybe it's or the intersection of crypto and I.
00;06;46;10 - 00;06;52;21
Pri
Will put like an AI brain in amoeba. And there you go. That actually would be cool. I could see it for sure.
00;06;52;26 - 00;07;19;18
Derek
The UGA team has spent a lot of time rigging those assets for immersive environments, AR and VR and 3D and and making them, like, quite technologically useful in, in different ways. And I don't know if that work has, has come to light like I know that they've spent they've spent a lot of resources getting those things immersive environment ready, in a way that they just weren't when they, when Matt and John first launched the project.
00;07;19;21 - 00;07;57;05
Derek
And I think there is something like there has always been something, but I definitely think there's something now there's, you know, Sergey to being the helm here, to starting to combine some of that immersion ready asset library with, with with agents with AI, with, with 3D and, and everything that we love about these, these spaces. So yeah, I, I tend to agree I think like of course there's I will probably buy Meebits physical shirts, but I also think like there's this huge design space for, for with the right founder behind it to kind of like start exploring some of the things that we're waking up and seeing every day at the bleeding edge of,
00;07;57;13 - 00;08;00;14
Derek
of some of these tech stacks converging together.
00;08;00;16 - 00;08;05;21
Chris
I mean, sure, you could do something useful with it, or you just, like, migrated to Solana and issue a coin.
00;08;05;24 - 00;08;08;22
Pri
Or there's always that. There is always.
00;08;08;29 - 00;08;11;03
Aaron
That is always an option. Yeah.
00;08;11;06 - 00;08;34;09
Pri
But you look at migration, you know, there's thinking about or what I saw recently, which was a real throwback for me is, the Alex token. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. He's like, I mean, I read it really quickly, but he's like porting the Alex token potentially to Solana, which is just like full kind of just around the circle where it's like we had social tokens last cycle.
00;08;34;09 - 00;08;44;23
Pri
And you're really excited about that. And like, Ari, seeing all these tokens and now porting that over for, for meme tokens, kind of fascinating. Fascinating to see like that influencer token type of thing coming back a little bit.
00;08;45;01 - 00;08;52;24
Derek
I'm just like recalling so back into this was like 2020, back or maybe 2019, but I remember. Yeah. Was it that.
00;08;52;24 - 00;08;58;25
Chris
Long? No, no, I just it wasn't that long ago because I participated in the Alex sale. And so it would have been probably 2020.
00;08;59;02 - 00;09;21;10
Derek
I feel that sounds right. But I remember I, I played around with a couple of these communities. There's one I don't know if you guys remember Brian Flynn I ended up backing. Yeah. Leading his round for Rabbit Hole which is now boost. He launched the Flynn token back in like 2019 or 2020. And I remember there was we like whatever he launched it like people could buy it.
00;09;21;10 - 00;09;38;12
Derek
It was trading for maybe like 50 K like or the market cap was like 50 K or 75 K or just something like totally de minimis. But I remember like the there was weekly meetings at one point where everyone would jump into a discord call and we would talk about what what we could do with the Flynn token.
00;09;38;15 - 00;10;12;29
Derek
And there was nothing I mean, like it was obviously destined for destined to be sunset. But I just remember how fun it was at the earliest stages of like, personal tokens and social tokens, where these founders or like these individuals were launching these assets that were their scribed value based on like their performance, whether they were writing blogs or doing things or and shipping, kind of like MVP of products on chain and, how fun it was to kind of explore that and how far we've come since then, since those, very earnest days.
00;10;13;02 - 00;10;28;11
Pri
And I remember people would have tokens for meeting times, too, like if you had ten tokens, you could get like a meeting time with someone or like, yeah, to your point. Like if you had a certain number of tokens, you could like commission a specific write up. Like that kind of stuff is so interesting. Yeah. You know, it's funny.
00;10;28;11 - 00;10;46;10
Pri
It's like we've kind of pulled away. It's definitely more Guy Debord now, like society respectable, where it's like the actual action with the token is just totally abstracted. And there's really no need to tie any action to a token. You can just kind of be like, yeah, is the Alex token like, I want to just there doesn't need to be anything with that.
00;10;46;10 - 00;11;08;15
Pri
It's just this is the same Morpheus token that I have. And you're seeing a lot with, like, the web two kind of people we talked about this last week jump into that. You're also seeing recently, this week. And I don't know if you guys follow, like the Dimes Square subset of creators, like the the Red scare girls and a few others starting to launch their own tokens, like this week, too.
00;11;08;18 - 00;11;16;10
Pri
But it's like hitting these different corners, which is, like, odd and interesting. But yeah, the creator tokens. Influencer tokens are kind of coming back.
00;11;16;12 - 00;11;17;27
Aaron
What do you think about on that?
00;11;17;29 - 00;11;23;23
Pri
Like a the dime square entry into, into tokens?
00;11;23;25 - 00;11;25;02
Aaron
Yeah, exactly.
00;11;25;04 - 00;11;43;28
Pri
I guess I'm not surprised. I mean, this is kind of a post internet. Our internet, our type of community. So a lot of these people are already like they were already adjacent to crypto for quite a long time. And so the notion that, you know, they're going to launch a shit coin, especially after Trump did, is not super surprising.
00;11;43;28 - 00;12;04;29
Pri
I feel like it's kind of the Venn diagram of people around that is like very, you know, there's a lot of overlap. So I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. Like there was also jokes about, like tokenizing some of these iconic Times Square bars like Clandestino and stuff and river and river. And then it's just like, I wonder if they're going to start adding meme coins of these.
00;12;04;29 - 00;12;23;07
Pri
Like maybe even the dimes meme coin. Who knows? But I wonder if it ends up heading in that direction too, where it's just like these institutions that a lot of that core constituency frequents will also become tokenized. I could see it. Why not? I don't have a thought on it outside of like I'm not surprised. And it's like kind of weird and interesting.
00;12;23;09 - 00;12;36;09
Chris
You know, considering, I don't know, that whole circle kind of likes to flirt with reactionary things and, you know, faux edginess coming in late to the personal token party feels very on brand for them. So.
00;12;36;11 - 00;12;37;25
Pri
And now we need a teapot token.
00;12;37;26 - 00;12;51;15
Chris
Oh my God, what do you think that last six hours before it, devolves into infighting and, people have never done anything practical in their lives arguing for ever and ever and ever over optimal implementations.
00;12;51;17 - 00;12;59;22
Pri
I guess actually, on that note, welcome to Net society. It's me, Chris, Aaron and Derek here. We're,
00;12;59;25 - 00;13;04;04
Aaron
We're all hardcore capitalists. Just to be very obvious.
00;13;04;06 - 00;13;23;07
Pri
And we're exploring world of digital art, crypto, AI, tech and more and and definitely a lot more, actually, we're gonna bring you deep insights, fresh perspectives, and hit you with some themes that we tend to explore. Costs a lot of different DAOs. And yeah, let's kick it off. Just, FYI, these are our own opinions and not that of our employer.
00;13;23;07 - 00;13;28;23
Pri
And sometimes they're not even our own tenants, as we've noted today. So, thanks for joining us.
00;13;28;25 - 00;13;33;25
Aaron
Do you guys see that, Wisconsin owns $300 million of Bitcoin?
00;13;33;27 - 00;13;44;28
Derek
I did see that. I use, Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund is bidding our bags. They bought, $500 million worth of, the spot ETFs this quarter.
00;13;45;01 - 00;13;45;10
Aaron
That's what.
00;13;45;10 - 00;13;59;11
Derek
I have. Yeah. Which is a it's a big deal. I mean, it's like a big signal for, other sovereign wealth funds. And, I mean, like, all of this stuff risks the asset. But anyway, it's a it's good to see the, the Saudis are bidding.
00;13;59;13 - 00;14;02;19
Chris
We like the oil to digital oil pipeline. There.
00;14;02;24 - 00;14;05;02
Derek
There you go. Dude, it really is that simple. Well, I.
00;14;05;02 - 00;14;24;05
Aaron
Have been thinking a little bit about this. I just think at the end of this ethe schism that I feel like it's happening, like what people are going to realize is that bitcoin and ether, both monetary assets, they're just competing and it just starts to look a heck of a lot more like Bitcoin, where you just don't need to do much more to it, like it.
00;14;24;06 - 00;14;25;24
Aaron
The setup is actually pretty good.
00;14;25;28 - 00;14;39;13
Derek
Let me ask you, Aaron, what do you think? I'm curious. Do you think it will ever try to enshrine scalability at the L1 or do you do you feel like they're just they're totally they're totally tethered to like this vertical scaling strategy. At this point you.
00;14;39;13 - 00;14;58;17
Aaron
Know, like what you were saying last week actually here. Unnecessary, Chris I've been kicking it around my head for the whole week, this channel partnership idea. And I just think eath actually is set up to have like a whole host of these channel partners. And you saw like Coinbase kind of ripped through with like really strong earnings this quarter.
00;14;58;19 - 00;15;33;04
Aaron
And I just increasingly think it will start with traditional finance. Eventually people forget about traditional finance, but they're going to be channel partners for Eath in different ways. You're going to have like an Eath staking ETF. I think they're already things in motion kind of related to that. And if there's not I'd be shocked if there wasn't soon and you just kind of see more and more people falling into like the eath camp and the fact that it has like a native the fact that it has just like a native interest rate really with the staking yield just sets it up to be just a, a nice complement to bitcoin, right.
00;15;33;04 - 00;15;58;06
Aaron
Bitcoin has it's like hard core hard money Austrian economics view to it which is great. And I think there's a lot of benefits to it. And then really like eath is like a dynamically set fed if you think about it right. There's a base interest rate. It's based on activity, like digital activity, not like the activity of what the interest rate gets set on today, which is, you know, human labor, all these other things that go into GDP and growth, etc..
00;15;58;08 - 00;16;21;08
Aaron
So I just think they're going to be viewed as they've kind of always been viewed as like two sides of the same coin or and I just don't know if other ecosystems are really going to be able to play in that, that game. So I think we're kind of in this transitory period with these reminds me of the the transitory period that Bitcoin had, where for a while like, you know, and, you know, if you read Satoshi's white paper they talked about bitcoin as payment system.
00;16;21;08 - 00;16;40;20
Aaron
Like they dropped that piece. You know like 20 1516 for the most part I think those dreams kind of migrated to ETH. And I think those dreams are in some of the other alt news or based on blockchains like Solana, but it's just not a big part of the narrative. So I think that's what's going to happen to eath at the end of the day.
00;16;40;27 - 00;16;46;18
Aaron
So like in many ways, like it all just kind of doesn't matter. Like the system set up. And it's pretty, pretty darn nice.
00;16;46;22 - 00;17;12;27
Derek
I agree, I just think the big the albatross around the neck right now is the fact that all of these entities have tokens, and there's not a very clean way to kind of like tax or, or ascribe value back to east as a settlement layer and as a token in its current form. And I know, like Vitalik has played around with like the halving or halving Harvard's tax heart, I guess the the baseline.
00;17;12;27 - 00;17;16;28
Aaron
It's I struggle with that one to the harbinger I thought is harbinger.
00;17;17;01 - 00;17;17;12
Derek
Harvard.
00;17;17;19 - 00;17;24;21
Chris
Harvard. You're right. Harvard. The Harvard. Right. You're getting fees with like, a halving. You're like a bringer of something. And yeah, that's right.
00;17;24;24 - 00;17;51;02
Derek
We're basically, like, functionally, what it is, is just like, fees that pay down our scale, with fees that get generated or revenue that gets generated. But or just like a flat tax or just an increase percentage, that alts can pay down to, ones. But yeah, I just with I think the difference between bitcoin and, and like the network extensions of Solana and some of these other scaling strategies is like there's tokens that are kind of like getting price to market based on growth right now.
00;17;51;02 - 00;18;23;05
Derek
And as a result of like people are hand-waving like sequencer fees as a way to kind of back into value for like these L2 tokens, which is diluting the point you're making, Aaron, which is like ETH as commodity money for like these channel partners. And I just wish that there was like some more discussion around either curbing some of these tokens or having proper flow back down to east or east itself, just trying to scale out, and make some like tough decisions around scaling to, to kind of like capture and create some of that value back to the ether again.
00;18;23;05 - 00;18;27;12
Derek
But yeah, I think I, I agree with you. I just wish in practice that was a little cleaner.
00;18;27;15 - 00;18;35;29
Aaron
Yeah. Well, I don't know if you need to make it so express. Right. Like in many ways Bitcoin doesn't have that express relationship and I think that's benefited it. I don't know the answer to it.
00;18;35;29 - 00;18;36;23
Derek
Yeah I don't either.
00;18;36;23 - 00;18;59;29
Aaron
But I feel like that's the endpoint of the conversation. At the end of the day. I do think that there's like a lot more downside to being the casino chain than I think crypto Twitter is willing to acknowledge. It's like advertising networks, right? Like they people are going to want to have their assets secured in a fairly neutral place, in a secure place, but also not in a place that's like littered with junk.
00;18;59;29 - 00;19;16;27
Aaron
Right. And it can be fun. It can like be attention grabbing. But I do think there's like a downside to that. And I just don't know of, like how much more eath actually needs to do outside of kind of hardening at some of the scalability points like you're noting and maybe some of the like core crypto economic pieces.
00;19;16;27 - 00;19;38;15
Aaron
But that oftentimes is just above my pay grade that my, my, my gut tells me that that's going to get sorted out. Just like it kind of got sorted out in Bitcoin land. You had this like era of disillusionment, a little bit of frustration, and then it just kind of cleared cleared its way out. And I just think that staking is kind of like a killer mechanic that Ethereum has, that Bitcoin doesn't.
00;19;38;15 - 00;19;53;29
Aaron
And it just means that a lot of these channel partners are going to are going to be part of the network. They're going to hold ether on their balance sheets or in different ways. Right. And I think that that's a unique advantage that Ethereum has against Bitcoin, and one that I think will prove pretty killer in the long run.
00;19;53;29 - 00;20;14;16
Aaron
We've been hearing it from different members of the DAOs. Right. Like it's much, much harder in this cycle to spend than it than it was before because it has like a store value aspect to it now. Like as staking is kind of matured, you really are kind of weighing the monetary aspects of Ethereum against its use cases, which which happened to Bitcoin, you know, just five years earlier.
00;20;14;21 - 00;20;22;26
Aaron
So maybe there's just like a certain natural physics to how these blockchain networks mature. It feels like it's going through it's a Bitcoin cataclysm.
00;20;22;28 - 00;20;46;02
Chris
It's a hard time if you want to be by deploying eath. In some ways that is a good problem, right? Like it does force maturity. It does force better practices. It does for sustainability. Because, you know, every time you send eath on something that then goes on to lose value, well, there's there's ether, you don't have it right.
00;20;46;02 - 00;21;08;26
Chris
And so hard choices should matter. And there's a space like we should be far more selective in where and how we deploy capital. And getting that disciplined is a lived experience. It is something you have to feel you have to do, you know, and so, I don't know, I guess we were looking for like silver linings to the environment right now.
00;21;08;29 - 00;21;13;24
Chris
It's forcing us to get better, you know, steel, sharpened steel or whatever that expression is.
00;21;13;24 - 00;21;15;22
Aaron
And iron forges iron.
00;21;15;26 - 00;21;16;24
Chris
There we go.
00;21;16;26 - 00;21;33;22
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I don't think I think it's actually it's healthy, right. Like, it's not even a it's more than a silver lining leads to me like, I, I personally think a lot of the meme coin stuff, it's great at a capturing attention, but it's creating this like gen death spiral where every three months there's like a run on it.
00;21;33;23 - 00;21;55;04
Aaron
People play with digital assets, they get burned, and it's not creating like a positive flywheel. So I just don't I don't know if at the end of the day that's sustainable or healthy and it and it is different than like the ICO era where there was like a positive flywheel that did emerge, like there was could projects could tag that kind of help, help build things up.
00;21;55;08 - 00;22;04;29
Aaron
I don't know, I feel like if you take like a longer view and like take a step up, I think it's all like kind of net healthy. But it's not fun to watch the watch that process always.
00;22;05;01 - 00;22;30;20
Chris
That's all you can do right now is take the longer view. Right. You have to believe to some degree that like austerity, you know, in terms of like holding back today and, you know, for the benefit of the future is the right play because financial nihilism, in which you have no belief in austerity and you have to act in the moment, is then largely negative for the vast majority of the space.
00;22;30;20 - 00;22;31;19
Chris
The last couple of years.
00;22;31;19 - 00;22;49;19
Aaron
And I think that's like my rationalization or at least interpretation of like that exhaustion that people have felt. It's kind of this like d gen debt spiral that we, we have to go through and has to go through this process in order to, to kind of have enough green shoots on the other side. It's like the purging.
00;22;49;26 - 00;23;05;02
Pri
I don't know if I like the idea of like even becoming, more of a store value asset. To me, that's just like, not how I think about the asset itself and how I think about the chain and what's being built on it. Like. But I see that that is actually that would actually explain what's happening right now.
00;23;05;02 - 00;23;12;29
Pri
But I don't know. This doesn't satisfy me. Yeah. I think need a compute chain. Not as like a let's get into it.
00;23;13;04 - 00;23;32;07
Aaron
But that's the same. That's the same thing that happened to Bitcoin right. There was viewed and many as a as really a payment system and a currency. Right. And that's not where it landed. And so you know and that that did cause like a schism for folks. And I still don't know if people are going to like build on bitcoin.
00;23;32;09 - 00;23;42;16
Aaron
Right. Like is that actually the smart thing for bitcoin or does it make sense for it to maintain and even like double down on its conservative posture? And the answer probably is that it makes sense to double down on it.
00;23;42;22 - 00;23;48;06
Pri
The Michael Saylor approach just names of meaning like I generated cakes.
00;23;48;09 - 00;23;50;09
Aaron
That's that. That's the end of the day for.
00;23;50;12 - 00;23;54;07
Pri
Bitcoin on it. Yeah yeah maybe maybe that's the input brief.
00;23;54;09 - 00;24;12;03
Aaron
Yeah. But or maybe now takes a more conservative posture and it's going to look into the morass of the casino chains and see what's working and what's not working and adopts it and kind of sits there, kind of like The lion on the Hill as opposed to the the club in the trenches. And maybe that's a good thing too.
00;24;12;05 - 00;24;39;04
Chris
We tend to live in a world where there's two things and people take polar views of them. And BTC is certainly established itself as a traditional store of value, doesn't do a lot and doesn't damage itself in the process. And so it makes sense, you know, just from a, again, like an ideology is like an easy way to map things, even though, like, you know, they can hold multiple positions.
00;24;39;06 - 00;25;01;04
Chris
It does make sense for like ether to be the opposite of BTC. And really there are only two choices. It's a big world. You know, you can have any number of other technologies out there, but in terms of like power laws and you know, where networks aggregate like you, you do like over the last 20 years only tend to get to two of a thing.
00;25;01;04 - 00;25;30;10
Chris
Right. And then it's your choice between Kang or Cotto's. And so I mean, it's like I mean, both of them feel like they're they're set up to, you know, like you said, R and B, two sides of a coin. And, you know, each has like, certain things and depending on what your needs are, you know, very quickly, okay, I just need to hodl on BTC or I need to deploy, an application on eath in which I'm trying to create economic value through productivity.
00;25;30;12 - 00;25;47;14
Aaron
Yeah, that feels right to me, Chris. I just have crypto. Twitter can learn this. So we can stop getting like it's. I think what you said, I think the Bitcoiners learn how not to be self-destructive. And it's like it's gets beyond its teen teenage years, which always has some self-destructive behavior. Hopefully it learns that lesson, too.
00;25;47;17 - 00;25;55;08
Chris
Yeah. I mean, you can only bang your head against the wall so many times before coming to the conclusion that, you know what it can't put my head through the wall.
00;25;55;10 - 00;25;58;19
Aaron
I don't know, I think Solana is gonna have to learn that, that same lesson.
00;25;58;22 - 00;26;05;15
Chris
Everyone has to learn these lessons. It's like we're all rediscovering the world over and over constantly.
00;26;05;15 - 00;26;07;28
Aaron
Again, it's a fair point.
00;26;08;00 - 00;26;31;06
Pri
I thought your, comment on, having a bit about how we never got to true communism, and how you're just sick of people on the timeline talking about just, I guess, the political spectrum. And I don't know, I mean, we can go anywhere with that. Just crypto and ideology. Crypto is in many ways, either upstream or downstream of hot politics and ideology.
00;26;31;06 - 00;26;57;28
Pri
I can't even figure out which is which. Like some of these people come to crypto, ideological, and then some of them come to crypto for whatever reason and then become ideological. Kind of depends on the person. But it's just kind of funny to to think about because there is a quote. What's interesting about crypto that I've always really enjoyed is like, there is a really mix of political minds like you have like Dallas, for example, you have arguments on the right and left on why they're interesting crypto.
00;26;57;28 - 00;27;12;16
Pri
Similarly, arguments on the right and left as to why it's interesting. And so there's like a lot to touch on that's been around for many, many, many years since the beginning of crypto, honestly. And so, I was just kind of baiting you, but we could talk about it if you want.
00;27;12;19 - 00;27;19;17
Chris
Well, now that we've put that much airtime to it. Let's start off with the disclaimer, because I don't want to get lit up. Okay.
00;27;19;20 - 00;27;20;09
Aaron
Let's go.
00;27;20;10 - 00;27;39;29
Chris
I'm ready. I'm not looking for true communism, all right? I'm not a commie. I'm not someone out there, believing that if we destroyed property rights and tried to split the party equally, everything would be fantastic. And so I just want to get that out of the way. Look, you know, Vitalik made a joke to make communism great again.
00;27;39;29 - 00;28;04;12
Chris
It was a reference to an old blog post he did on April Fool's. But you know, these in a tricky spot where a lot of people are rankled at that. We're also in a place and a point in time, you know, that is, very, very strongly ideologically split right now. But like, it's not done. And I don't know, you know, the most proper cleansing.
00;28;04;12 - 00;28;26;20
Chris
Right. And so I just the whole true communism thing, right. Like we didn't get to communism, we got Bolshevism, right? The Bolsheviks were like the first out of the gate. They were the first to capture a government. And they were win it all cost gangsters like, I don't know if people know this or not, but Stalin, like, robbed an armored wagon transporting money from a bank, right?
00;28;26;20 - 00;28;50;01
Chris
Like threw grenades at soldiers and shit and, like, really off with a bank heist and gave it to Lenin. I didn't know that. Yeah. Wow. No, Stalin was a straight up gangster. And so, like. Yeah, the Bolsheviks like, if you get into your, Russian revolutionary history, like, they were just the worst lot. They were a terrible group of, like, when it all costs people.
00;28;50;04 - 00;29;15;04
Chris
And because they did win and they set the template for what communism is, right? Like we'll never know what communism could actually look like. And I wasn't terribly lo I wasn't alive back then. But, you know, I wouldn't be terribly optimistic about, what it would actually be. But, you know, that's just one thing. And, you know, around the, the, the ideology stuff, right?
00;29;15;07 - 00;29;35;10
Chris
Ideology is a is an easy pattern match for human beings. It's a way to say this world is really complicated. There's a ton of things I need to absorb match to. I can't do it all. And so I need like some simple wrappers to, to help me cope and manage in life. And ideology is one of those wrappers.
00;29;35;15 - 00;30;02;04
Chris
And because it's kind of like a default, offshoring of your beliefs into you know, this prepackaged set of ideas and conditions, you can really start distorting ideology, you can really twist it around, and you can saddle a ton of things into it. And so, you know, there's just like, back to this whole communism Bolshevik thing, right? Like the political circle, the political spectrum.
00;30;02;06 - 00;30;42;23
Chris
It's a circle and the far right and the far left. Me, one opposite end. And so, you know, I'm just saying, like communism, the Bolsheviks win at all costs, far right, authoritarian, far left authoritarianism doesn't look all that different from, like, behavior we're seeing in politics today. Right? It just it happens to be right wrapped and so, I don't know, I decided a little where like, you know, people can cheer Trump on till like the end of days when if you get below a layer of ideology and you actually look at behavior, right, and you throw off this wrapper of beliefs, it's they're not all that different.
00;30;42;25 - 00;31;01;22
Aaron
I hear that, Chris. I mean, I think to me, like, I, I kind of feel like some something new is going to come out in the next ten years just in terms of political ideologies like, I think there's going to be just a mixing and merging or kind of rethinking a lot of the stuff as we move deeper into like the internet.
00;31;01;29 - 00;31;10;24
Aaron
And I, I just think it's like shaking up the snowglobe quite a bit and some new ideas and, and new permutations are going to come out of that.
00;31;10;26 - 00;31;13;18
Pri
And new religion and new religion emerges.
00;31;13;18 - 00;31;36;21
Aaron
Yeah, I don't know. I just think you're going to like, have to reorder society in different ways. And that usually manifests as like a political ideology. So I thought that that comment was a little low. It was it didn't land well. But I do think, like you should constantly be looking at all these different ideologies and thinking about kind of what the future state of society should look like, especially now.
00;31;36;27 - 00;31;48;07
Aaron
So I'm assuming that that came from a reasonably good place, like in the Tao. It's hard. When he was kind of making that joke or, or or suggesting that in some sort of way.
00;31;48;09 - 00;31;49;13
Pri
Yeah.
00;31;49;15 - 00;32;17;28
Chris
You know, you can think of these, like, not as necessarily like there's, there's like beliefs in the layer of ideology and then there's tactical postures, like things that actually work well for you in the current operating environment. And I think one thing that would be useful for people are spaces to be able to separate those two things and not actually group them together to say, oh my God, working together, that's communism, and communism is bad.
00;32;17;28 - 00;32;49;18
Chris
And therefore like, this is terrible. You know, like our space isn't performing very well right now. And part of that, I do think, is to a result of like extreme individualism, extreme like go it alone. And I don't just mean that like on a personal level, I mean it on the level of like projects, thinking I can throw my one Erc20 out against like the millions of other tokens, that are out there, and I'll somehow magically make it rather than like federating and working together.
00;32;49;25 - 00;33;15;19
Chris
And so, you know, like I do kind of look at crypto right now is taking like very, I don't know, individual go it alone sort of postures in tough market environments when they should be working together. Because, you know, as we've been talking about the last couple episodes, like waiting in the wings are a group of people who are exponentially better at capitalism than our current actors.
00;33;15;19 - 00;33;28;07
Chris
And in this environment, like, do you really think a project, you know, drop in shit coins and Solana can like, compete or can work at the same level of Blackrock? No. So yeah.
00;33;28;07 - 00;33;51;13
Aaron
It's fair. Yeah. No. Yeah I mean I, I, I working together you know like making in different structures. I'm all for that. I think the, I think the, the challenge is when you, when you label an ideology like communism, there's so much bad stuff that came from that. And I do think like at the root of whatever comes out of this, there's going to be like a capital component to it just because capital, maybe all that's left.
00;33;51;13 - 00;34;12;07
Aaron
Right. So it actually feels like to me like that, not the notion of working together or making things like more, more fair work process, but just the idea of kind of organizing your entire worldview around labor just feels like a dead end at this point, to me at least. But I don't think it's going to have, like, some sort of Bolshevik revolution.
00;34;12;09 - 00;34;15;07
Aaron
I don't think that's how it's that gangster you're describing. Chris.
00;34;15;09 - 00;34;24;22
Chris
No, no. Solar folks are not going to rob armored wagons and give them to get coins.
00;34;24;24 - 00;34;46;22
Aaron
Yeah, exactly. I do, I mean, on the east side, it was good to kind of see the, the foundation kind of moving a bit more and playing around more in DeFi. I was kind of excited about that this week and just kind of seeing seeing that emerge as I just think there's just so much noise and chop just on Twitter and just like it all, like just doesn't matter at some level, this, this wheel of digital asset adoption is just happening.
00;34;46;25 - 00;35;10;04
Aaron
You just have to wait, wait, watch like the new cool tech like merge and and kind of move on but cannot get kind of caught in these like side sidebar dramas. The other thing I was going to say, just when you were talking about this, like individualism, I do wonder, do you think that some of the AI stuff, just like this idea and this notion of like a solo founder, like crushing it and it just feels like a lot there's a lot more weight on on going it alone now.
00;35;10;04 - 00;35;19;24
Aaron
Right? Like, you don't need any people. You can just, like, enlist like an army of agents to do what you want. And there is like kind of a bit more pressure, like to atomized then work together.
00;35;19;27 - 00;35;53;23
Derek
I definitely agree, and I think Chris probably agrees. He's the one, solo writing, huge novel and accompanying music videos and music songs right now. I mean, he's a one man literal one man band, and author over there, but, but I'm also seeing that behaviorally with my cofounders, which, you know, many of them have in some cases, just like large engineering teams, and they're playing around with Curser and spending time on the weekends whiteboarding new ideas and taking them from, from idea to, to prod, like very quickly, just on their own.
00;35;53;23 - 00;36;21;11
Derek
And, and I think, like a lot of them are coming to the realization that, you know, like there are there are massive efficiency gains to, to building with this technology. And so I suspect that over the long run, like the, the terminal vision here is probably close to what you're, you're touching on Aaron, which is just like solo individuals or maybe small groups of individuals creating, you know, billion dollar protocols or platforms quickly, just with the use of these tools.
00;36;21;11 - 00;36;43;11
Derek
And, and I think, like, you know, crypto's largely proven that there's massive leverage when you do it on, in spaces that are kind of like global ledgers that run 24 seven. I mean, Hayden deployed the first version of Uni V1 and grew that thing to $1 billion protocol, you know, largely with a him. It is like, is that original code and a couple other folks helping around the edges.
00;36;43;11 - 00;36;48;24
Derek
And I think, that that that convergence is only going to speed up now that we have things like cursor.
00;36;48;27 - 00;37;07;01
Aaron
Yeah. But I think like, you know what, just a tie. Like what you were saying Chris, at the same time, like you gain a lot of leverage from crypto, but it really is human centric, right. Like it's all about having X number of nodes operating right of a distributed group of people fundamentally running those nodes, like at the like around the planet.
00;37;07;01 - 00;37;34;19
Aaron
Right. Like there is like a group aspect of crypto that makes it different than I think. I think you're right. It's very like lonely and and singular. And I think that's super cool. But it's going to fray if, unless there is this like kind of human focused network that like supports it in some capacity. But it's wild to see like some of these are numbers from cursor and runway right there like 510% teams that are just crushing.
00;37;34;19 - 00;37;35;13
Aaron
It's wild.
00;37;35;16 - 00;38;03;12
Chris
And it might require a shift in thinking right where production can now become atomized. You know, very small, very tight. But distribution and awareness isn't in the same position necessarily. Capital may not be in the same position. And so you have this weird dichotomy where if you can't hold contradictory positions in your head, you might not be setting yourself up for success.
00;38;03;12 - 00;38;35;13
Chris
I think marketing is in distribution is more of a learned and lived experience than coding necessarily is. And I'm not saying that, you know, you can just walk in and pick up coding or like you know, good design, good, building practices. Right? Like that too, is a lived and learned experience. But like, you can largely do that on your own through trial and error marketing distribution, like getting yourself out and known into the world does require relationship building.
00;38;35;13 - 00;38;54;27
Chris
A partnership formation, like it's a whole other set of skills that I or like, you know, the these other recent trends of technology haven't caught up to me. Never will. Because, you know, to your point around, it is, a human human thing that requires, like, multiple people to give a shit.
00;38;54;29 - 00;39;01;18
Aaron
Yeah, completely. I mean, I, I increasingly think that crypto is how humans stay in the loop. At the end of the day.
00;39;01;21 - 00;39;22;26
Pri
I would push back a little that, crypto has taken more of an individualistic attitude. I though I think that's the case, like the underlying of crypto is, you know, if you look at like, even just crypto Twitter as like a as like this, like human manifestation of what we are doing in crypto. I would say that crypto Twitter has got to be in adjacent to like VC tech.
00;39;22;26 - 00;39;42;02
Pri
Twitter has got to be one of the most active groups of people, you know, on Twitter, like one of that most active Twitter sub communities. And I think that's because, like, the token itself is a reason to connect with other people. Like you saw that with NFTs as well, like the, you know, discord activity across a lot of these people, you know, communities and people are is really high.
00;39;42;02 - 00;40;00;28
Pri
And and so there is this connective tissue to a token that's decentralized that I think is very different than maybe what we're suggesting before about the fact that, like, okay, people are taking more of an individualistic approach, launching a token and just moving on with it, which, yeah, I'm thinking they can do it alone without working with other people.
00;40;01;06 - 00;40;20;16
Pri
Like I see that element there. But like the core of crypto is really about other people. And those groups, working with another. It is interesting to think about AI on the other side, where it's like purely individualistic. It's like cool to think about this 1 to 2 person unicorn. People pride themselves on that in AI, and using AI.
00;40;20;16 - 00;40;55;17
Pri
And I mean, as those two merge, I wonder if crypto does become more individualistic over time. Yeah, that's like one end of the spectrum. You have AI, which feels like a little bit more individualistic, capitalistic, and then her crypto on the other end, at least in my view, that feels like more communal and communist, dare I say. I think it's an interesting conversation to think about in light of, like two technologies that are really going to make up whatever the future of what three is, how those two interact, and how that gets translated through political ideology and, and how people work is going to be really interesting.
00;40;55;19 - 00;41;15;02
Aaron
But I think cryptos, it's not communist. It's at all I think what it is is it's net new because it it's fundamentally like a capitalist system where people have to work together just in flatter structures, which is really what makes it novel and new. And that's why anybody that looks at it, whether you're like a hardcore libertarian, you're like pumped about blockchains.
00;41;15;05 - 00;41;33;28
Aaron
And if you come from more of a communitarian perspective, you're also pumped because it is like the delta of different ideologies that have been dominating the world for like, I guess at this point over 100 years. And it isn't that new like it is kind of the pathway forward in my mind, at least.
00;41;34;00 - 00;41;58;14
Chris
It is a neutrally credible ledger. Hey, Derek, have you seen this profile of merge yet with some of these, you know, frontier tech companies where, you know, let's just say like the resource allocation within the company is, you know, like one third engineering production and two thirds marketing and distribution, or have we not gotten to that point yet?
00;41;58;17 - 00;42;25;02
Derek
Yeah. Is your question just like, is it can I see patterns in terms of just like the best practice of so like, I mean, I think the, the question you're asking, let me know if I have this right is like, you could point to a consumer products company in 2010 and say 8% of revenues need to go back into marketing and the question is like, are we at a point yet where, like, there's a granular math equation around the cost structure of how these protocols or businesses are running?
00;42;25;02 - 00;42;26;13
Derek
Is that do I have that right?
00;42;26;13 - 00;42;52;10
Chris
Yeah, largely like looking to put a fight or point on it. Right. If the moment in time is such that the the creation side of things, the engineering, the production, right, like AI is coming on the scene and dramatically reducing that overhead, but at the same time, marketing, distribution, awareness like that, that side still requires people. It still requires, yeah, large amounts of capital.
00;42;52;10 - 00;43;18;18
Chris
Have we seen have you seen anyone yet? Because, you know, the tech company profile is typically inverted, right? I'm saying have you seen any of these companies flip that on its head and say, you know what? We can we can do so much with such a small group in engineering and software and where we actually need the weight and the muscle and like the manpower behind us is on awareness, marketing, distribution.
00;43;18;20 - 00;43;31;18
Aaron
Yeah, I think that's a really great point, Chris, because that's the constraint, right? Like the constraints are not going to be the software anymore. It's going to be around distribution, go to market, all those other bets. It's a really great insight.
00;43;31;21 - 00;43;57;08
Derek
Yeah I'll tell you a little how I'm thinking about it. But I tend to agree, like with the kind of the the general conclusion there. So for me it's so segment specific in terms of just like, do I want to back a team that has some of this proficiency already? Do I do I think, do I want to back a team that's going to be kind of, understands that, like distribution and marketing and messaging is a huge critical part of that individual protocol or platform success.
00;43;57;08 - 00;44;28;12
Derek
And do they have like the resources in place, or at least the plan in place to kind of execute on that vision for others? I will say over the last five, six years, I investing in crypto for me has really been some of these outcomes can get very big for very specific segments without a reliance on kind of like the traditional 7 to 10% of revenues need to be spent on the marketing and messaging line item because like, you know, there's their target markets are forming networks on the internet from people who are more like native to these spaces.
00;44;28;12 - 00;44;49;16
Derek
So, I don't know, an example could be like Roblox, which is there are I mean, they did $2 billion in GMV like over the last few years, in the aggregate since, you know, the since those, the, the objects themselves are wealth preserving and people want to store value in them and speculate on their upside, just like traditional art and at around a very small end.
00;44;49;16 - 00;45;08;15
Derek
I mean, like only a few hundred thousand people have ever owned like an art piece. And so, like, that's a huge asymmetric outcome. And very little money and resources has been spent trying to kind of break out of that box into kind of a more mainstream segment. And so, yeah, I guess you can run this back with like Uniswap, right?
00;45;08;15 - 00;45;26;26
Derek
Like, you know, to provide liquidity in a pool like that, they're not really going to need to like put signs up on a New York subway. That being said, like, we are now at a point in 2025 where like there are real consumer applications that do need to reach a mainstream audience in order to kind of get those real flywheels going around business models.
00;45;26;29 - 00;45;43;10
Derek
And so I do agree more and more, there will be a re-engineering around the distribution and messaging parts of these cost structures that hasn't existed in the past as more of like the the infra app layer, let's call it, was really tailored towards a different audience.
00;45;43;12 - 00;45;57;16
Chris
By the way, Derek, when you throw out these like 7 to 8% of revenue numbers, it just shows me like how wildly different this is from industry to industry, because, you know, the company I co-founded, Mint Mobile, at 40.
00;45;57;16 - 00;45;58;27
Derek
Percent, I at.
00;45;58;29 - 00;45;59;09
Chris
30.
00;45;59;09 - 00;46;00;08
Derek
Five. How how big?
00;46;00;09 - 00;46;02;05
Chris
3,540%.
00;46;02;07 - 00;46;02;23
Derek
Yeah.
00;46;02;25 - 00;46;05;28
Chris
Nine figures, nine figures. And annual spend.
00;46;06;01 - 00;46;06;27
Derek
So, Chris.
00;46;06;29 - 00;46;27;04
Aaron
Is that what you think it looks like. Like so like it'll be. Let's say you used to have several thousand engineers. You'll have ten engineers. Right. And then the rest of the revenue will just go towards distribution marketing. So that would be great. That means it's kind of bullish for the tech teams that are not in the valley then.
00;46;27;04 - 00;46;37;28
Aaron
Right. Make more like organizations that are LA style or New York style, because I feel like that's that tends to be where you get companies that are good at that type of, of work.
00;46;38;05 - 00;47;03;06
Chris
I mean, yeah, by the way, there are many different profiles of companies and there are many ways to do this right, like my industry. And the scale required to succeed really required that level ascend, right? Like mobile, like being a wireless carrier is a high marketing cost industry. And so I'm not saying like every company out there on it spend 40% of revenue.
00;47;03;08 - 00;47;25;19
Chris
And we didn't write we didn't do that until a certain point in time. Right. Like you reach a critical mass where you understand your product works, you understand like there is a good value proposition here. Like you, you have to get to that point where everything's flying on all cylinders. So to want to open up and want to spend that level of money.
00;47;25;19 - 00;47;53;01
Chris
But I mean, to be able to go from, you know, 500,000 subscribers to 4 million subscribers, you do have to flip that switch. And so if you're a small company and you're looking to go from like 50,000 users to 150,000 users, you know, some sort of SAS model, no, you don't need to spend that. But if you're looking to reach millions of people, it is like it's a different, it's a different posture.
00;47;53;01 - 00;48;00;21
Chris
It's a different operating tactic that requires. Yeah, you allocate in radically different ways than like a lot of other people do.
00;48;00;25 - 00;48;26;19
Derek
I totally agree with what Chris is saying. I think there's, it's all about sequencing as well. It's just like startups have no business marketing in the, you know, to the degree at like 40 or 50%, unless they feel like they have the opportunity to reach escape velocity from from a consumer adoption perspective. And I and Chris is spot on, like the business he, he started reached a point where that was the way they grow, not through just like a 0 to 1 killer product in market.
00;48;26;21 - 00;48;46;19
Derek
But for a lot of the protocols or platforms are companies and crypto historically they're trying their best to find like product market fit. And I would argue that a lot of resources or more of the resources should be spent on engineering and product at those earliest stages while they're trying to refine and like, you know, build something that that could scale.
00;48;46;26 - 00;49;12;08
Derek
But at a certain point in their life, and I would I would maybe say, like some of these things are starting to hit that, like I helium is a great example, which is they have product market fit. They've got these plans that are out in market. They grew to their first 100,000 users. They've got, you know, a bunch of crypto people that are now, you know, buying the phones and paying for the plans to grow that business, to go from 100,000 users to, you know, tens of millions, like they're going to need to get the word out.
00;49;12;10 - 00;49;25;27
Derek
And I would say a lot of that the cost structure of a of a later stage startup really does need to orient to, to, to growth levers, which I think to Chris's point, we'll probably start to see here in crypto land, in short order.
00;49;25;29 - 00;49;40;13
Aaron
So let's say, Chris, you were you see cursor. Right. It's what when the fastest growing products to 100 million in revenue. So would this strategy be copied and then just go on a marketing blitz to market to all that potential developers?
00;49;40;15 - 00;50;08;04
Chris
Yeah. So cursor is interesting to me. And if I want to just pattern match like to my old company and you know this this is obviously apples to oranges. But when in mobile, our biggest problem was teaching America how to provision their own phone, how to use a SIM card that, you know, they ordered off the internet, pop it in their phone like there was a lot of smoothing, and there was a lot of like, behavior changing that took us years to get right.
00;50;08;07 - 00;50;33;19
Chris
And that's like, you know, you make the product a little better, you market more, you make the product a little better. Right? Like it is a feedback loop that you can kind of like refine, refine, refine. I think cursor is still in the early stages of that, where people who are comfortable with ideas, people are comfortable with, you know, deployment and or just looking to speed up the the hard task, right cursor is great for them.
00;50;33;25 - 00;50;56;00
Chris
But if you're someone who, you know, like, say me, right? Like I can't code for shit. I know, like SQL and HTML, I've never deployed anything other than, you know, like uploading into, like FTP. You know, like GitHub. You know, like, I know how to use GitHub. I couldn't do anything complicated with it. Right. So cursor is still a step removed for someone like me.
00;50;56;05 - 00;51;22;07
Chris
If I were them right, I would continue to focus on people comfortable in the world of development already. And as the product gets better, only then when I start looking into audience expansion and into like that next level beyond and somewhere right in that lifecycle, in that process, they they may want to make a decision point about, okay, and who knows what cursors numbers are.
00;51;22;07 - 00;51;43;09
Chris
Let's say they have 500,000 developers using it today. Let's say to get to three 3 million developers using it today. But then their growth starts to slow and they look a step beyond. And they say for us to get from 3 to 10 requires pulling in this whole other level, and our products go. And to that point, that's when you flip the switch and that's when you market the hell out of things.
00;51;43;12 - 00;52;09;17
Chris
Running product. Being an operator at a certain scale is about like managing a hit driven business and knowing when you're about to exhaust that hit and you need to find something fresh, but you still have like that revenue base that installed, you know, like you still have that aircraft carrier that sustains your business to make the leap off from, so that you can go looking for the next thing.
00;52;09;17 - 00;52;34;03
Chris
Like, as Derek said earlier, it's very much about sequencing and, you know, like being strategic when you jump out. And so I would say cursor as a product isn't quite at that point in time yet. But like something like sumo is. Right. Like sumo is something where I would like if I were running sumo, I'd actually start flipping the switch.
00;52;34;03 - 00;52;43;18
Chris
I would get, you know, eight figure marketing budget and start seeing how much of the world actually wants to make their own music.
00;52;43;21 - 00;52;49;29
Aaron
Yeah, which is probably a ton of people. Right. And then it's finding who that audience is delivering a compelling message.
00;52;50;01 - 00;53;09;10
Pri
Yeah. Why? Curser. Why why would you do that? It's, you know, over a cursor. Cursor probably has like, more users, more adoption, you know, more mainstream, frankly. I mean, not mainstream, but at least like in any tech community, it's a brand name almost at this point you could like they I mean, if anything, they probably should be flipping the switch.
00;53;09;10 - 00;53;20;23
Pri
You know, I think it's interesting cause it's more of a consumer play that could hit a larger audience of people. Like, in fact, really anyone. But I do think like Curser could probably lean in pretty heavy now if they wanted.
00;53;20;25 - 00;53;41;18
Aaron
Well, yeah. The reason I was asking that, Chris, is because it just feels like stuff's going to get commoditized a lot faster in software now, right? So what's going to probably happen next on the AI assisted coder. Right. You're going to see a bunch of competitors. They're going to drive down any any pricing. Right. Like that happened probably pretty quickly.
00;53;41;21 - 00;53;48;11
Aaron
Like the core functionality will stabilize. And then it probably is all just marketing and distribution at that point. Right?
00;53;48;13 - 00;54;10;29
Chris
Yeah. And so let's let's bring up the example of Squarespace. Squarespace is instructive about that point of commoditization and that tipping point in terms of who wins, who loses, who gets up front by paying a ton of money. And for anyone who doesn't know what, Squarespace is just a website builder, right? It's like what every florist hairdresser, you know, use sports team, whatever.
00;54;10;29 - 00;54;32;25
Chris
Like when they need to put up a basic three page website like Squarespace is there for them. That's a business where, you know, they're their stack has been built. I can't imagine Squarespace has a very large engineering line item spend, but where does Squarespace stand? I think they still advertise like I think I think they're still on the net.
00;54;32;25 - 00;55;02;26
Chris
Jersey. They rent a Super Bowl ad, right? Like that's that's kind of that when you have to cross that chasm and they're a better website builder. Products out there. At the time that Squarespace was separating itself. But you know what? Only Squarespace really went for it that hard. And now that it's like, you know, just the most basic commodity service on Earth, they're they're real edges in recognition and network.
00;55;02;26 - 00;55;06;09
Chris
It has nothing to do with like what sits underneath the hood, don't you think?
00;55;06;09 - 00;55;37;03
Aaron
Also, that's why some of these like come on, just calling like increasingly commoditized AI tools, they'll have to network themselves at some level. Right. Like if GitHub and Curser like had a rough night and had, you know, a child, it probably would be those two platforms combined into one. Like, why do you need GitHub? Like, wouldn't it make more sense for GitHub and all those like deep kind of management, you know, code management functions to sit alongside your editor.
00;55;37;05 - 00;55;55;19
Aaron
So is it just like even more vertical vertical ization of it and you know GitHub advantages. It is a bit of a network right. Like you find stuff you share, stuff you build on, stuff like I can't see that completely going away. That feels like it has to be the, the and state to write. That's how you prevent the commoditization.
00;55;55;21 - 00;56;42;11
Chris
GitHub right is probably GitHub is pretty darn safe. You know, in terms of like its future relevancy. But that's not to say like there is an opportunity for someone like a cursor to graft that utility on in the name of improving their own product. Right. Like, these things aren't mutually exclusive and they're not necessarily competitive. Like what we're really talking about is what is necessary for market expansion and and for cursor to get past that, like hard core developer into, you know, the square space of 2028 is going to be kind of pulling that whole deployment stack and into this like AI assistant model and, and unify and combining all of that to the point
00;56;42;11 - 00;56;54;05
Chris
where, you know, Squarespace is a primitive version of this, that, you know, some future version of cursor is the the decade later, like more advanced, side of the house.
00;56;54;11 - 00;57;13;11
Aaron
Well, I guess I'm saying, like, I think GitHub is not safe, right? Like, how much work would it take for them to make it easy to manage a repo there? What is that like a three week project for the AI powered engineers at cursor to just begin to manage some of that functionality better, or maybe it's not three weeks.
00;57;13;11 - 00;57;33;07
Aaron
That's to like two glib, but like a quarter, two quarters. Like, how long would it take for them to pixel by pixel, you know, replicate all the functionality or the complexity of GitHub, but probably not that much. So why wouldn't they go deeper and then network the heck out of themselves so that they they're in a safe spot and GitHub no longer is in a safe spot?
00;57;33;09 - 00;57;33;23
Aaron
You know what I mean?
00;57;34;01 - 00;57;56;07
Chris
I think we're looking at it like in slightly different ways. I'm looking at it from cursor has a potential audience expansion thing where you GitHub has its legacy because many of those repos are things that people are going to incorporate into their own code base, like has a bit more locked in. But the difference from like going from growth mode to harvest mode.
00;57;56;11 - 00;58;08;27
Chris
Yeah, GitHub maybe has hit that tipping point or you know, where like it's not going to be as dominant as it used to be. And all that new growth will come from, you know what you're talking about.
00;58;08;29 - 00;58;35;29
Aaron
Yeah. It's interesting because I think all the like web2 net like quote unquote networks, I think they're all going to be at risk pretty soon because if, if you believe this thesis that like the the quality of the output that's AI generated or generated with AI assistance is is better than what we can do by ourselves. And I feel like every day we're getting closer to that, like all those platforms need to incorporate this stuff in their macro or they're they're just kind of they're done.
00;58;36;02 - 00;58;45;05
Aaron
They're cooked. So I don't know, I feel like all these like, web2 giants are really going to struggle. I don't know if it's this year or next year, but at some point pretty soon.
00;58;45;07 - 00;59;01;09
Chris
Yeah, I mean, that's the cycle of life. You know what happened away? What happened to digital, you know? Right. I mean, HP exists today is what, like a government defense contractor slash reactor company. You know, I mean, these things do evolve and then they get forgotten about.
00;59;01;09 - 00;59;05;14
Aaron
But the YouTube is the next NPR. Is that what what I'm hearing, Chris.
00;59;05;17 - 00;59;08;17
Pri
Oh, soon as the next YouTube.
00;59;08;19 - 00;59;15;17
Chris
That's one way to look at it. By the way, this is net society and I'm not a communist.
00;59;15;20 - 00;59;19;16
Aaron
Just for the record, it's clear I don't think anybody here is not.
00;59;19;17 - 00;59;23;15
Chris
And there are no communists on this call. And this isn't that society.
00;59;23;17 - 00;59;26;25
Aaron
I don't even know what that means, guys. All right, I'm gonna have up.
00;59;26;28 - 00;59;27;21
Pri
Okay.
00;59;27;23 - 00;59;29;11
Chris
By the.
00;59;29;13 - 00;59;30;05
Aaron
Light. Guys.
00;59;30;08 - 00;59;49;09
Derek
Please grow.