1 00:00:00,180 --> 00:00:02,250 Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy Podcast. 2 00:00:02,250 --> 00:00:04,230 This is Ryan Rutan, joined, as always by 3 00:00:04,230 --> 00:00:06,450 my friend, the founder, and CEO of startups.com. 4 00:00:06,510 --> 00:00:12,930 Will Schroeder Will, this is our last episode of 2025. 5 00:00:13,500 --> 00:00:15,870 We're gonna do a little, little December sabbatical. 6 00:00:15,870 --> 00:00:19,050 We're gonna take a little break from endlessly talking about all 7 00:00:19,050 --> 00:00:22,170 of the things that make founders have all the feels in startup 8 00:00:22,170 --> 00:00:24,090 land, and we're going to do it. 9 00:00:24,780 --> 00:00:27,390 On one of the topics that I think has brought out more 10 00:00:27,390 --> 00:00:30,540 feels than any other topic in a long time, which is 11 00:00:30,930 --> 00:00:35,010 what the hell is AI gonna do to kind of everything. 12 00:00:35,160 --> 00:00:36,930 I mean, today, I think specifically we're talking 13 00:00:36,930 --> 00:00:40,830 about the fact that AI is going to create a whole 14 00:00:40,830 --> 00:00:41,910 bunch more startups. 15 00:00:42,030 --> 00:00:43,680 That startups are gonna start popping out everywhere. 16 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:46,800 But because of the future of employment, because 17 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:48,180 employment as we know it. 18 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:50,430 He's about to go away, right? 19 00:00:50,430 --> 00:00:52,650 We're about to see the death of the org chart, so I 20 00:00:52,650 --> 00:00:54,420 guess long live the Kanban. 21 00:00:56,190 --> 00:00:58,320 I'll tell you what I think what's fascinating is when 22 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:02,040 people see AI coming and they see, Hey, this job's 23 00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:04,200 getting displaced and this job's getting displaced, they 24 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:06,990 look at that and they say It's net bad, and I get it. 25 00:01:06,990 --> 00:01:08,910 Look, I don't wanna sound for a second. 26 00:01:09,240 --> 00:01:11,220 Like I don't have any feelings for the folks that, 27 00:01:11,220 --> 00:01:12,570 that are looking down the barrel of a gun right now. 28 00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:14,130 It's, it's scary as hell. 29 00:01:14,550 --> 00:01:15,510 I've also been here before. 30 00:01:16,494 --> 00:01:18,565 In 1994 when I was running around talking about the 31 00:01:18,565 --> 00:01:21,505 Internet's coming, this is exactly how everyone felt. 32 00:01:21,804 --> 00:01:26,095 Everyone basically frozen time, 1994. 33 00:01:26,545 --> 00:01:30,630 And they said, look, if you sell something on the internet. 34 00:01:31,320 --> 00:01:33,660 No one's gonna go into a physical store anymore. 35 00:01:33,660 --> 00:01:35,250 By the way, some of that actually did happen. 36 00:01:35,250 --> 00:01:38,100 You know it, it Blockbuster was right, correct. 37 00:01:38,100 --> 00:01:38,280 Right. 38 00:01:38,429 --> 00:01:40,080 They're like, what's gonna happen to Blockbuster? 39 00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:40,259 Right. 40 00:01:40,259 --> 00:01:41,910 You know, no one's gonna watch movies anymore. 41 00:01:41,910 --> 00:01:42,119 Yeah. 42 00:01:42,300 --> 00:01:43,169 Actually they are. 43 00:01:43,619 --> 00:01:48,780 And what people always fail to understand at the dawn of 44 00:01:48,780 --> 00:01:52,619 a transition is how things look on the other side. 45 00:01:52,619 --> 00:01:53,520 All they think about. 46 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:53,580 Yeah. 47 00:01:53,580 --> 00:01:57,060 Again, they freeze time and they say everything's 48 00:01:57,210 --> 00:01:58,410 is the way it is now. 49 00:01:58,470 --> 00:01:59,190 And I'll give you an example. 50 00:01:59,190 --> 00:02:00,119 You and I were talking about this. 51 00:02:00,525 --> 00:02:02,175 Before the industrial revolution, turn of the 52 00:02:02,175 --> 00:02:06,915 century in, in America, nearly 50% of America was in a a 53 00:02:06,915 --> 00:02:08,355 greater agricultural society. 54 00:02:08,415 --> 00:02:08,625 Right? 55 00:02:08,625 --> 00:02:09,345 They're farmers basically. 56 00:02:09,405 --> 00:02:10,095 What else would he do? 57 00:02:10,605 --> 00:02:13,095 Machines came around and now less than 2% of 58 00:02:13,095 --> 00:02:14,415 our economy are farmers. 59 00:02:14,745 --> 00:02:15,765 At the time. 60 00:02:16,125 --> 00:02:19,455 At the time, everyone was like, this is gonna be 61 00:02:19,455 --> 00:02:20,865 bad for farming, right? 62 00:02:20,895 --> 00:02:21,135 Yeah. 63 00:02:21,225 --> 00:02:22,425 No, people are gonna eat just fine. 64 00:02:22,725 --> 00:02:24,110 We're just about to make a whole bunch of new shit. 65 00:02:25,095 --> 00:02:27,750 And, and I think that all of a sudden created far more 66 00:02:27,750 --> 00:02:29,790 companies and opportunities and entrepreneurs, et 67 00:02:29,790 --> 00:02:31,530 cetera, and that's what we're gonna talk about. 68 00:02:31,950 --> 00:02:32,220 Yeah. 69 00:02:32,399 --> 00:02:32,579 Yeah. 70 00:02:32,579 --> 00:02:35,250 I think as we, if we look at, at jobs as we know them becoming 71 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:37,950 obsolete, then, then I think we have to look at as saying that, 72 00:02:37,950 --> 00:02:40,529 like doing your own thing, be taking entrepreneurial path, 73 00:02:40,529 --> 00:02:43,019 becoming a founder starts to become ascendant, right? 74 00:02:43,019 --> 00:02:45,029 As, as roles evaporate. 75 00:02:45,450 --> 00:02:47,610 Something has to appear to take their place. 76 00:02:47,610 --> 00:02:47,850 Right. 77 00:02:47,850 --> 00:02:49,770 And I, I hope that, that, that ends up being ownership 78 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:52,980 and that people just have a little bit more agency over, 79 00:02:52,980 --> 00:02:53,670 over what they're doing. 80 00:02:54,090 --> 00:02:54,450 Yeah. 81 00:02:54,450 --> 00:02:57,000 I, I, I think what's interesting about that is right now, 82 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,190 again, this is the equivalent of everybody being farmers, 83 00:02:59,190 --> 00:03:00,240 everybody being employees. 84 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:01,350 It's all people know. 85 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:02,160 Yeah, 86 00:03:02,190 --> 00:03:04,045 but it's about to go away, like, yeah. 87 00:03:04,049 --> 00:03:04,260 Yeah. 88 00:03:04,260 --> 00:03:06,660 And I don't want this to sound apocalyptic because 89 00:03:06,660 --> 00:03:10,019 this, this is more like, it burns down only for the forest 90 00:03:10,019 --> 00:03:11,280 to grow 10 times bigger. 91 00:03:11,490 --> 00:03:14,010 It's just when it's burning down, it still feels like 92 00:03:14,015 --> 00:03:14,805 it's burning down, right? 93 00:03:14,805 --> 00:03:14,815 Yeah. 94 00:03:15,750 --> 00:03:16,389 You feel the heat, you feel the heat. 95 00:03:16,630 --> 00:03:19,060 If you look at jobs like a customer service shop, 96 00:03:19,329 --> 00:03:20,799 customer service is going away. 97 00:03:20,950 --> 00:03:24,489 The job where you get employed to answer emails and answer 98 00:03:24,489 --> 00:03:27,579 the phone is not going to exist in five or 10 years. 99 00:03:27,579 --> 00:03:30,730 The time horizon does not matter, but I can guarantee 100 00:03:30,730 --> 00:03:33,850 you we will look at that as one of the most old 101 00:03:33,850 --> 00:03:36,070 school jobs that you could possibly imagine, right? 102 00:03:36,070 --> 00:03:36,130 Yeah. 103 00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:38,680 Like there was a time when you had to like talk to a person. 104 00:03:38,950 --> 00:03:41,739 It reminds me of when people used to come and pump out, 105 00:03:41,769 --> 00:03:44,530 pump your gas at the gas station like the 1950s, right? 106 00:03:44,799 --> 00:03:45,940 It sounds like oldie timey. 107 00:03:46,679 --> 00:03:47,670 So you go to Europe? 108 00:03:48,359 --> 00:03:48,600 Yeah. 109 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:48,840 Yeah. 110 00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:50,970 But still holding timing. 111 00:03:51,209 --> 00:03:54,269 But I, I think what we're looking at as, as part 112 00:03:54,269 --> 00:03:57,209 of this change is the death of big employment. 113 00:03:58,170 --> 00:04:01,230 Yeah, I think the concept and, and what, what I'm calling 114 00:04:01,230 --> 00:04:04,440 big employment is going to be these massive employers 115 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:07,079 that had, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of 116 00:04:07,079 --> 00:04:10,500 people in some case that hoarded all of the resources. 117 00:04:10,529 --> 00:04:13,440 And you could only be Amazon or Walmart or, you know, if 118 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:16,680 you, if you had this level of resource and that's going away. 119 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:17,099 Yeah. 120 00:04:17,250 --> 00:04:20,820 I mean, scale used to mean bodies and now it means compute. 121 00:04:21,235 --> 00:04:21,505 Right. 122 00:04:21,505 --> 00:04:23,215 It's things changed completely. 123 00:04:23,395 --> 00:04:23,725 Right? 124 00:04:23,755 --> 00:04:26,695 And so for the folks that you know, the idea was I'm gonna 125 00:04:26,695 --> 00:04:29,215 go out into the workforce and those big companies are gonna 126 00:04:29,215 --> 00:04:32,065 come and, and employ me and I'm gonna build a career around it. 127 00:04:32,065 --> 00:04:33,415 I'm gonna go to college, I'm gonna, you know, 128 00:04:33,475 --> 00:04:34,405 get that degree. 129 00:04:34,405 --> 00:04:36,505 I'm gonna update my LinkedIn and I'm gonna go work for 130 00:04:36,535 --> 00:04:40,015 for big Co. Yeah, that was a path right up until Big Co 131 00:04:40,015 --> 00:04:41,065 doesn't have room for you. 132 00:04:41,594 --> 00:04:43,844 Right up until the job that you were being 133 00:04:43,965 --> 00:04:46,065 groomed for doesn't exist. 134 00:04:46,065 --> 00:04:46,125 Yeah. 135 00:04:46,424 --> 00:04:49,724 I was talking to our CTO the other day and I said, if you 136 00:04:49,724 --> 00:04:51,585 were 22 years old, right. 137 00:04:51,585 --> 00:04:54,015 If you could go back to 22-year-old, you, and I 138 00:04:54,015 --> 00:04:56,625 mean, to be fair, he's not that far past that person. 139 00:04:56,805 --> 00:04:57,585 That's also true. 140 00:04:57,585 --> 00:04:58,245 It's also true. 141 00:04:58,724 --> 00:05:00,554 But I said, if you could go back to, to that person now. 142 00:05:01,350 --> 00:05:03,030 What career advice would you give them? 143 00:05:03,420 --> 00:05:04,350 He's like, I don't even know. 144 00:05:04,650 --> 00:05:06,720 And he's like, get some work experience. 145 00:05:06,750 --> 00:05:09,270 I mean, like, I don't know that the job that was supposed 146 00:05:09,270 --> 00:05:12,810 to be the, the, the most highly sought after job will 147 00:05:12,810 --> 00:05:13,950 even be there anytime soon. 148 00:05:14,310 --> 00:05:14,490 Right. 149 00:05:14,490 --> 00:05:15,720 It's certainly not in the way that it was. 150 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:18,060 That's a frigging CTO, right? 151 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:18,540 Yeah. 152 00:05:18,540 --> 00:05:20,010 Like this is like one of the smartest people know 153 00:05:20,010 --> 00:05:20,485 that's top of the stack. 154 00:05:21,105 --> 00:05:21,555 Yeah. 155 00:05:21,885 --> 00:05:23,025 Top of the food chain being 156 00:05:23,025 --> 00:05:24,855 like, huh, well that happened. 157 00:05:25,185 --> 00:05:27,225 I think it's interesting 'cause like I feel like we're at this 158 00:05:27,225 --> 00:05:30,735 point now where we're starting to see labor and capital costs 159 00:05:30,825 --> 00:05:34,035 drop significantly and, and so we're starting to see moats 160 00:05:34,035 --> 00:05:36,345 move away from money, which is what it used to take to 161 00:05:36,345 --> 00:05:37,935 start a startup to momentum. 162 00:05:38,325 --> 00:05:38,475 Right. 163 00:05:38,475 --> 00:05:39,585 Which is a lot easier to gain. 164 00:05:40,145 --> 00:05:41,615 And I think it's an interesting competitive advantage for 165 00:05:41,615 --> 00:05:44,495 startup companies because, you know, yes, big, big cos 166 00:05:44,495 --> 00:05:46,625 and big employment have a lot of momentum, but it's in 167 00:05:46,625 --> 00:05:47,825 a very particular direction. 168 00:05:47,825 --> 00:05:50,105 And, and we're starting to see what are they doing to 169 00:05:50,105 --> 00:05:51,065 be able to change momentum? 170 00:05:51,395 --> 00:05:52,505 They're shedding the headcount. 171 00:05:52,625 --> 00:05:54,695 They're necessly, they're, they're doing that. 172 00:05:55,085 --> 00:05:57,665 And so the other thing that I think is kind of fun, right? 173 00:05:57,665 --> 00:05:59,135 If you can find some fun in all of this. 174 00:05:59,609 --> 00:06:03,659 Is that what was safe is becoming less safe, and what 175 00:06:03,659 --> 00:06:05,640 was less safe, meaning the entrepreneurship route is 176 00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:06,929 actually becoming more safe. 177 00:06:06,989 --> 00:06:08,159 You're gonna have more agency. 178 00:06:08,190 --> 00:06:08,669 How crazy. 179 00:06:08,669 --> 00:06:11,400 And a lot of those initial barriers have 180 00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:12,210 dropped now, right? 181 00:06:12,210 --> 00:06:14,190 The things that used to be there that were, were really 182 00:06:14,190 --> 00:06:17,849 big and scary and and costly have just kind of gone away. 183 00:06:18,359 --> 00:06:20,820 And so it doesn't have to be a moonshot to work 184 00:06:20,820 --> 00:06:23,159 anymore, which I think is, is, is super encouraging 185 00:06:23,159 --> 00:06:25,919 as we make this shift away from big employment as that 186 00:06:25,919 --> 00:06:26,715 boat, as that ship sinks. 187 00:06:27,585 --> 00:06:30,045 Let's look at almost everything that a company 188 00:06:30,045 --> 00:06:33,495 has to put money toward that creates their cost basis. 189 00:06:33,525 --> 00:06:36,045 And again, remember for folks listening, that cost 190 00:06:36,045 --> 00:06:38,655 basis is also a competitive moat for everybody else 191 00:06:38,655 --> 00:06:41,205 trying to compete with them because they don't have 192 00:06:41,205 --> 00:06:43,845 that investment because they can't afford that cost basis. 193 00:06:44,055 --> 00:06:46,215 They can't afford 500 customer service people, 194 00:06:46,215 --> 00:06:48,225 so they can't offer that level of service, right? 195 00:06:48,705 --> 00:06:51,945 Until that, that service is just an API that you call that 196 00:06:51,945 --> 00:06:55,155 has automated person that picks up the LLM that was trained on 197 00:06:55,155 --> 00:06:56,535 your particular business, right? 198 00:06:56,655 --> 00:06:57,975 Or pre-trained for your industry. 199 00:06:57,975 --> 00:06:58,965 So it already knows all your shit. 200 00:06:59,475 --> 00:07:00,225 Like, whoa, okay. 201 00:07:00,405 --> 00:07:01,290 That's sort of available to everybody. 202 00:07:02,430 --> 00:07:05,700 Or you look at your marketing staff or your marketing cost, 203 00:07:05,700 --> 00:07:08,370 when it used to have a massive number of people to generate 204 00:07:08,370 --> 00:07:11,160 unique creative, to be able to manage campaigns, to be able to 205 00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:11,280 do 206 00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:11,430 all 207 00:07:11,430 --> 00:07:13,290 these things, keep eyes on all the data and make sure 208 00:07:13,290 --> 00:07:15,120 we're reacting to every little movement, right? 209 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:17,010 Had a person staring at each metric. 210 00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:17,910 Unbelievable, 211 00:07:17,910 --> 00:07:18,120 right? 212 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:20,220 Like, I mean, it's almost inefficient. 213 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:21,780 In the not use in future. 214 00:07:21,780 --> 00:07:22,679 Oh it is, right. 215 00:07:23,789 --> 00:07:24,150 It absolutely is. 216 00:07:24,150 --> 00:07:24,989 It always was. 217 00:07:24,994 --> 00:07:25,289 Right, right. 218 00:07:25,289 --> 00:07:26,280 It just wasn't an alternative. 219 00:07:26,700 --> 00:07:26,969 Yep. 220 00:07:27,030 --> 00:07:30,599 And so all of the things that contribute to these 221 00:07:30,599 --> 00:07:34,440 companies being big companies are all imploding now. 222 00:07:34,469 --> 00:07:34,650 Yeah. 223 00:07:34,919 --> 00:07:36,809 Again, this is what we said at the top of the show. 224 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:39,270 You start to look at that by saying. 225 00:07:39,539 --> 00:07:41,729 Oh, all the jobs are going away, but you're 226 00:07:41,729 --> 00:07:42,719 missing the full picture. 227 00:07:42,719 --> 00:07:44,760 And we'll get to that, you know, we'll, we'll get to where 228 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:45,659 that starts to change things. 229 00:07:45,659 --> 00:07:48,719 But I, I wanna say this, you've now done two things. 230 00:07:49,140 --> 00:07:52,500 You've let a ton of people who are experienced in the 231 00:07:52,500 --> 00:07:56,669 market go, okay, you've let in-house lawyers go because 232 00:07:56,669 --> 00:07:57,570 you've got AI that can do it. 233 00:07:57,570 --> 00:07:59,340 You've got highly competitive markers go. 234 00:07:59,340 --> 00:08:01,110 You've got product developers, you've got coders. 235 00:08:01,500 --> 00:08:05,099 All these people you've let go, okay, because AI can do the 236 00:08:05,099 --> 00:08:07,680 job and you flooded the market. 237 00:08:08,370 --> 00:08:11,549 People who really need to get shit done to pay the bills. 238 00:08:11,700 --> 00:08:12,000 Okay? 239 00:08:12,690 --> 00:08:16,739 Then on top of that, you have prevented the absorption of 240 00:08:16,919 --> 00:08:20,130 all of these new people coming into the job market, right? 241 00:08:20,310 --> 00:08:22,200 That are like, Hey, I'm gonna go to college to learn next. 242 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:24,090 And like all the jobs go away. 243 00:08:24,450 --> 00:08:26,439 Not quite that apocalyptic, but like, yeah, yeah. 244 00:08:26,549 --> 00:08:29,490 But, right, because remember, it's two forces 245 00:08:29,490 --> 00:08:30,810 converging As, as one. 246 00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:33,015 When Google, lets go of a whole bunch of engineers. 247 00:08:33,810 --> 00:08:35,940 The first place those engineers get reabsorbed 248 00:08:36,150 --> 00:08:38,940 is in other companies that still need engineers at 249 00:08:38,940 --> 00:08:42,030 the expense of anybody new coming into the market. 250 00:08:42,210 --> 00:08:42,420 Right? 251 00:08:42,420 --> 00:08:42,690 Right. 252 00:08:43,020 --> 00:08:44,220 This happens all the time, you know, during 253 00:08:44,220 --> 00:08:45,210 recessions, et cetera. 254 00:08:45,330 --> 00:08:48,030 Experienced people basically take the job away from 255 00:08:48,030 --> 00:08:48,930 inexperienced people. 256 00:08:49,170 --> 00:08:49,380 Yep. 257 00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:50,280 We saw this during COVID. 258 00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:51,390 A hundred percent. 259 00:08:51,630 --> 00:08:52,290 A hundred percent, yep. 260 00:08:52,560 --> 00:08:55,920 And so what ends up happening is, uh, you create this 261 00:08:56,040 --> 00:09:00,360 vacuum of lots and lots and lots of people who need 262 00:09:00,360 --> 00:09:01,260 to make something happen. 263 00:09:01,785 --> 00:09:04,125 That is exactly how companies get started. 264 00:09:04,545 --> 00:09:06,734 And sometimes it's fear, sometimes it's greed, 265 00:09:06,734 --> 00:09:07,694 sometimes it's both. 266 00:09:08,354 --> 00:09:11,415 But you, we are gonna have an absolute flood of humans 267 00:09:11,564 --> 00:09:14,234 all around the world that all need to get shut, something 268 00:09:14,234 --> 00:09:16,995 done practically overnight, but to be a whole lot of 269 00:09:16,995 --> 00:09:19,094 motivation to start something because there's 270 00:09:19,094 --> 00:09:21,165 not gonna be anything for you to just walk into. 271 00:09:21,375 --> 00:09:22,905 And that's, so we're hopeful, right? 272 00:09:22,905 --> 00:09:25,245 We're hoping that the, the unemployment line turns into 273 00:09:25,245 --> 00:09:26,625 the incorporation line, right? 274 00:09:26,834 --> 00:09:28,125 So that like people are just. 275 00:09:28,605 --> 00:09:30,704 Outta labor and you gotta go somewhere. 276 00:09:30,704 --> 00:09:31,214 At some point. 277 00:09:31,214 --> 00:09:32,084 You gotta do something. 278 00:09:32,084 --> 00:09:34,545 And so I I this, I mean, again, this is our hope. 279 00:09:34,964 --> 00:09:36,074 This is what we hope we see happen. 280 00:09:36,074 --> 00:09:37,574 I mean, there's, there's a lot of ways that this could go 281 00:09:37,574 --> 00:09:37,995 played out. 282 00:09:38,175 --> 00:09:41,115 I'm a 33-year-old computer engineer, right? 283 00:09:41,115 --> 00:09:42,405 You know, a developer, right? 284 00:09:42,795 --> 00:09:45,375 And I get displaced from whatever, a corporation, 285 00:09:45,375 --> 00:09:46,310 because you only need. 286 00:09:46,964 --> 00:09:49,275 Fraction of the, of, of the developers to do my job anymore. 287 00:09:49,694 --> 00:09:49,964 Okay. 288 00:09:50,204 --> 00:09:52,125 And I'm using, I'm using a developer specifically 289 00:09:52,125 --> 00:09:54,735 because this is a highly employable person at present. 290 00:09:54,735 --> 00:09:54,855 Yep. 291 00:09:55,125 --> 00:09:58,275 I look around for jobs and the problem is every other company, 292 00:09:58,545 --> 00:10:01,485 or almost every company is kind of shedding in the same way. 293 00:10:01,814 --> 00:10:02,145 Right? 294 00:10:02,204 --> 00:10:02,355 Yeah. 295 00:10:02,385 --> 00:10:04,844 So it's not only the fact that they're not hiring, they're 296 00:10:04,844 --> 00:10:08,060 also flooding the talent or the talent pool With my competition. 297 00:10:09,180 --> 00:10:09,329 Yep. 298 00:10:09,359 --> 00:10:11,670 The, the people that I, I'm otherwise trying to take 299 00:10:11,670 --> 00:10:13,349 their job and they don't even have a job, right? 300 00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:17,910 So now it doesn't take me long to realize that me 301 00:10:17,910 --> 00:10:19,680 getting reabsorbed into the bloodstream of big 302 00:10:19,680 --> 00:10:20,849 corporate ain't gonna happen. 303 00:10:21,209 --> 00:10:24,239 And at the same time, realizing the only way I'm going to get 304 00:10:24,239 --> 00:10:27,000 paid is if I control my destiny. 305 00:10:27,359 --> 00:10:29,189 Combine that with all the people coming into 306 00:10:29,189 --> 00:10:30,359 the market being shit. 307 00:10:30,359 --> 00:10:30,785 There's no jobs. 308 00:10:32,265 --> 00:10:35,265 In both cases, we create a condition that says, look 309 00:10:35,265 --> 00:10:38,265 man, from now on, if you want to eat, you gotta hunt and 310 00:10:38,265 --> 00:10:39,944 kill your own stuff, right? 311 00:10:40,035 --> 00:10:42,165 Which is how this starts, which is how this starts. 312 00:10:42,555 --> 00:10:46,245 The challenges now are around like capability velocity, 313 00:10:46,485 --> 00:10:49,275 like what are you able to do and, and how do we, 314 00:10:49,275 --> 00:10:49,995 how do we leverage that? 315 00:10:49,995 --> 00:10:53,475 So as we start to see big companies shedding staff, 316 00:10:53,895 --> 00:10:56,835 as that starts to stop up the entire works, as you've 317 00:10:56,835 --> 00:10:58,725 just described me, that new incumbents, like people, 318 00:10:59,115 --> 00:11:01,155 the incumbents are there yet new people coming in. 319 00:11:01,455 --> 00:11:02,370 Um, there's nowhere for them to go. 320 00:11:03,100 --> 00:11:06,520 I think the way we look at that, uh, in, in part is that yes, 321 00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:09,100 that starts to happen at the employment level, but my hope 322 00:11:09,100 --> 00:11:12,040 is that at the, at the company level, that the big incumbents 323 00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:14,710 don't stop the smaller players from coming in, right. 324 00:11:14,710 --> 00:11:16,960 That this does, that there is room in there to be able 325 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:19,480 to learn, ship iterate faster than those big incumbents. 326 00:11:20,064 --> 00:11:21,444 And to take little bits of market share. 327 00:11:21,444 --> 00:11:23,814 I mean, for a long time, I mean, basically since the 328 00:11:23,814 --> 00:11:24,925 internet started, right? 329 00:11:24,925 --> 00:11:26,725 So we go all the way back, like we, we think about how, 330 00:11:26,785 --> 00:11:27,655 how things have progressed. 331 00:11:28,075 --> 00:11:30,265 You know, we, we went from being agrarian to industrial, 332 00:11:30,265 --> 00:11:31,765 to pc, to internet, to ai. 333 00:11:31,825 --> 00:11:32,064 Yeah. 334 00:11:32,215 --> 00:11:35,725 We moved from muscle to machine, to software to models. 335 00:11:36,085 --> 00:11:37,855 My hope has been really since the beginning of the 336 00:11:37,855 --> 00:11:41,155 internet, was that this would allow people with really 337 00:11:41,155 --> 00:11:42,865 small ideas, really narrow. 338 00:11:42,895 --> 00:11:45,415 Like they just wanna serve like this really specific population. 339 00:11:45,685 --> 00:11:46,735 Now all of a sudden they can. 340 00:11:47,729 --> 00:11:48,719 They can just go out. 341 00:11:48,719 --> 00:11:51,930 I, I will always go back to this clarity call I had with 342 00:11:51,930 --> 00:11:57,209 a guy that wanted to start a, a business to build and ship 343 00:11:57,510 --> 00:12:01,589 like, basically like modular, ready to pop up chicken coops. 344 00:12:02,400 --> 00:12:05,040 Imagine trying to do that before the internet, before 345 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:06,930 you could reach all the backyard chicken farmers 346 00:12:06,930 --> 00:12:08,790 at scale never work, right? 347 00:12:08,790 --> 00:12:10,170 Like you, you, how would you find them? 348 00:12:10,170 --> 00:12:10,829 All right? 349 00:12:10,829 --> 00:12:13,380 But the minute you can aggregate that, that demand 350 00:12:14,040 --> 00:12:16,650 globally, well this was just, uh, national in the us. 351 00:12:16,950 --> 00:12:18,225 All of a sudden you've got a business. 352 00:12:18,585 --> 00:12:20,625 And so I guess my hope is that we start to see people 353 00:12:20,625 --> 00:12:25,155 just attack these really micro niche type businesses and, and 354 00:12:25,155 --> 00:12:26,955 be able to grow millions and millions and millions of 'em. 355 00:12:27,015 --> 00:12:29,295 And again, I think we're at a really interesting point. 356 00:12:29,295 --> 00:12:32,415 AI is both gonna create the need to do this, but the, 357 00:12:32,415 --> 00:12:35,205 the cost of tech, the cost of deployment, the cost of 358 00:12:35,205 --> 00:12:37,875 customer service, all these things coming down actually 359 00:12:37,875 --> 00:12:39,315 allow you to do that, right? 360 00:12:39,315 --> 00:12:42,165 Because you can't build a 60 person company that 361 00:12:42,165 --> 00:12:43,305 does what he wanted to do. 362 00:12:43,980 --> 00:12:46,170 You can build a two person company, particularly if the 363 00:12:46,170 --> 00:12:49,320 tech that you want to build the infrastructure, the email, 364 00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:52,380 the, the, the e-commerce, all that stuff costs peanuts 365 00:12:52,380 --> 00:12:55,230 compared to what it costs even 10 years ago to do that. 366 00:12:55,410 --> 00:12:57,960 And I think, so the, so the conditions are being created on 367 00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:00,300 both sides, both the condition, the condition of necessity 368 00:13:00,300 --> 00:13:01,080 that we have to go do this. 369 00:13:01,875 --> 00:13:03,824 The conditions that make it possible at the same 370 00:13:03,824 --> 00:13:06,255 time, which is, yeah, a lot of hope is coming from 371 00:13:06,255 --> 00:13:06,824 right now for me, when 372 00:13:06,824 --> 00:13:09,194 the cost of entry, see that's the part that 373 00:13:09,194 --> 00:13:09,704 people are missing. 374 00:13:09,704 --> 00:13:11,175 They keep, ah, you know, we're losing jobs. 375 00:13:11,444 --> 00:13:11,685 Yeah. 376 00:13:11,685 --> 00:13:14,594 But we're also bringing down the cost of entry, which by the 377 00:13:14,594 --> 00:13:18,405 way, is a huge problem for big companies who survived a very 378 00:13:18,405 --> 00:13:21,525 long time because they had the moat of being a big company. 379 00:13:21,885 --> 00:13:22,094 Yeah. 380 00:13:22,125 --> 00:13:25,094 Here's a great example of watching this in action. 381 00:13:25,245 --> 00:13:25,515 Okay. 382 00:13:25,755 --> 00:13:27,555 In, let's say the 1980s, we're not going that 383 00:13:27,555 --> 00:13:29,114 far back in the 1980s. 384 00:13:29,235 --> 00:13:31,785 There were basically three dominant networks in the 385 00:13:31,785 --> 00:13:32,865 United States, right. 386 00:13:32,865 --> 00:13:34,035 Uh, television networks. 387 00:13:34,335 --> 00:13:38,475 And if you wanted to be on tv, you had, you had a number of 388 00:13:38,475 --> 00:13:41,145 time-based slots, you know, from the evening news to, you know, 389 00:13:41,145 --> 00:13:42,375 late night with Johnny Carson. 390 00:13:42,705 --> 00:13:43,575 Um, and that was it. 391 00:13:43,725 --> 00:13:44,715 That was it. 392 00:13:44,775 --> 00:13:46,275 That was all that was available. 393 00:13:46,545 --> 00:13:48,855 And there was a very small number of companies that 394 00:13:48,855 --> 00:13:50,235 controlled that flow. 395 00:13:50,550 --> 00:13:50,939 Okay. 396 00:13:51,449 --> 00:13:55,680 Now you fast forward to today, literally anybody can, can 397 00:13:55,680 --> 00:13:57,030 have their own show, right? 398 00:13:57,030 --> 00:13:57,089 Yeah. 399 00:13:57,089 --> 00:13:59,550 My 9-year-old son has a YouTube channel. 400 00:13:59,729 --> 00:13:59,969 Okay. 401 00:14:00,540 --> 00:14:04,560 The highest paid person in Hollywood is some 20 something 402 00:14:04,560 --> 00:14:06,089 year old dude in North Carolina. 403 00:14:06,150 --> 00:14:06,810 Mr. Beast. 404 00:14:06,900 --> 00:14:06,959 Yeah. 405 00:14:07,109 --> 00:14:07,439 Right. 406 00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:10,079 Like who's never acted a date in his life. 407 00:14:10,079 --> 00:14:10,469 Right. 408 00:14:11,190 --> 00:14:14,400 I don't think when, when people see the, the snowball effect 409 00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:17,250 here, they really understand these knock on effects. 410 00:14:17,250 --> 00:14:18,060 So lemme explain. 411 00:14:18,060 --> 00:14:18,180 Yeah. 412 00:14:18,450 --> 00:14:21,840 It's not that Mr. Beast is Mr. Beast, it's number one 413 00:14:21,930 --> 00:14:24,840 that there's no longer a gatekeeper to his success. 414 00:14:24,900 --> 00:14:26,400 He did nothing special. 415 00:14:26,460 --> 00:14:28,680 You know, he's worked his ass off, but like he did 416 00:14:28,680 --> 00:14:29,970 nothing unique or special. 417 00:14:30,545 --> 00:14:30,905 Right. 418 00:14:31,055 --> 00:14:33,425 He's just some random dude that made content. 419 00:14:33,905 --> 00:14:34,685 But here's what happened. 420 00:14:35,135 --> 00:14:38,015 A whole bunch of other people started to make micro content. 421 00:14:38,315 --> 00:14:41,135 They became influencers in all of these categories. 422 00:14:41,135 --> 00:14:42,995 Categories you couldn't possibly imagine. 423 00:14:43,505 --> 00:14:46,895 I know like 10 people in the woodworking business, like 424 00:14:46,895 --> 00:14:50,135 you know, this very specific niche business that have 425 00:14:50,135 --> 00:14:54,515 seven figure incomes off of their YouTube channels, right? 426 00:14:55,470 --> 00:14:58,110 Talking about building fucking bird houses, right? 427 00:14:58,350 --> 00:14:59,459 So let me build on that. 428 00:14:59,520 --> 00:14:59,790 Okay. 429 00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:01,140 Here's what happens. 430 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:05,730 A whole bunch of people that see them do it, go, oh, I 431 00:15:05,730 --> 00:15:07,829 guess a creator could be a job. 432 00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:10,680 It wasn't five minutes ago, but I guess it's now a job. 433 00:15:10,709 --> 00:15:12,360 My son thinks he can be a creator. 434 00:15:12,390 --> 00:15:12,975 Maybe he can and 435 00:15:13,020 --> 00:15:14,130 and he can, right? 436 00:15:14,220 --> 00:15:15,510 I think that's what's so amazing about the whole 437 00:15:15,510 --> 00:15:17,670 thing, is that we, we had a couple things come together 438 00:15:17,670 --> 00:15:18,750 at the same time, right? 439 00:15:19,050 --> 00:15:24,030 Your cost of creation hits near zero marginal costs, right? 440 00:15:24,450 --> 00:15:27,780 So curiosity essentially goes infinite, right? 441 00:15:27,780 --> 00:15:28,830 Curiosity goes infinite, right? 442 00:15:28,830 --> 00:15:31,740 This is why little will can go and be like, Hey, I'm curious. 443 00:15:31,740 --> 00:15:32,520 I'm gonna go try this. 444 00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:34,110 There's no cost in doing that. 445 00:15:34,680 --> 00:15:36,990 And then on the other side, to your point, the, 446 00:15:36,995 --> 00:15:39,720 the gatekeeping around distribution, distribution 447 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:42,090 essentially came, became infinite at the same time. 448 00:15:42,510 --> 00:15:46,290 So when creation cost hits zero and distribution 449 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:48,930 becomes unlimited, all of a sudden you have these 450 00:15:48,930 --> 00:15:50,910 crazy, crazy conditions. 451 00:15:51,420 --> 00:15:53,940 For kind of as many people as want to enter the market 452 00:15:53,940 --> 00:15:55,200 with their own specific thing. 453 00:15:55,710 --> 00:15:57,300 It can exist, right? 454 00:15:57,300 --> 00:15:57,840 It really 455 00:15:57,840 --> 00:15:59,160 isn't an upper limit to it. 456 00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:00,300 That's only the start. 457 00:16:00,450 --> 00:16:02,250 'cause when, a moment ago when you were saying, Hey, 458 00:16:02,250 --> 00:16:04,230 there's, there's all these micro markets, right? 459 00:16:04,470 --> 00:16:04,560 Yep. 460 00:16:04,590 --> 00:16:07,770 Woodworkers showing you how to build Birdhouse or DIY or a 461 00:16:07,770 --> 00:16:10,530 living room or something like that, is a very specific market. 462 00:16:10,770 --> 00:16:11,130 Cool. 463 00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:11,670 Right? 464 00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:15,720 However, there's now huge markets of people who make 465 00:16:15,720 --> 00:16:16,735 software for creators. 466 00:16:16,905 --> 00:16:20,010 There are now huge markets of agencies that help 467 00:16:20,010 --> 00:16:21,420 promote creators, right? 468 00:16:21,420 --> 00:16:23,040 Like it's the picks and shovels for 469 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:23,580 miners, right? 470 00:16:23,580 --> 00:16:25,590 Like you, the, the tools that are required to mine the gold. 471 00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:29,130 None of this stuff existed like five years ago. 472 00:16:29,160 --> 00:16:31,200 Now someone's gonna say, oh no, think there's this one thing. 473 00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:33,540 There was teal tequila on my space in, you know, 2007 or 474 00:16:33,540 --> 00:16:35,910 like, dude, no, that's uhhuh. 475 00:16:35,910 --> 00:16:37,680 That was a glimpse of what's coming. 476 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:38,400 Right. 477 00:16:38,550 --> 00:16:40,740 It has nothing to do with where we are today. 478 00:16:40,740 --> 00:16:40,800 Yeah. 479 00:16:40,950 --> 00:16:43,620 And where we are today is a glimpse of where 480 00:16:43,620 --> 00:16:44,550 we're about to be. 481 00:16:45,060 --> 00:16:49,020 This illustrates so beautifully and so visibly where we're 482 00:16:49,020 --> 00:16:51,630 headed because when you take two things happen. 483 00:16:51,930 --> 00:16:54,960 You took the cost to, to enter, to go to almost zero. 484 00:16:54,990 --> 00:16:56,520 You don't have to be NBC anymore. 485 00:16:56,670 --> 00:16:56,940 Okay. 486 00:16:56,940 --> 00:16:58,770 That's, that's a big deal. 487 00:16:59,100 --> 00:17:02,910 Second thing, you took the change in consumption so that 488 00:17:03,060 --> 00:17:04,349 anybody could consume it. 489 00:17:04,815 --> 00:17:05,415 Anywhere. 490 00:17:05,474 --> 00:17:08,625 The moment YouTube was, was viably streaming on a phone. 491 00:17:08,835 --> 00:17:10,545 It changed everything, right? 492 00:17:10,545 --> 00:17:11,595 It, it changed everything. 493 00:17:12,255 --> 00:17:15,915 When you bring down the cost of consumption, uh, and the cost 494 00:17:15,915 --> 00:17:17,204 of production at the same time. 495 00:17:17,415 --> 00:17:18,944 Crazy shit. 496 00:17:19,365 --> 00:17:19,995 Happens. 497 00:17:20,295 --> 00:17:20,565 Yeah. 498 00:17:20,745 --> 00:17:22,455 I mean, dude, it's, it's the internet playbook 499 00:17:22,455 --> 00:17:24,225 repeating itself in a slightly different way. 500 00:17:24,225 --> 00:17:28,395 Unit costs fall, consumption swells, new categories emerge. 501 00:17:28,455 --> 00:17:31,125 This is the same thing happening again, and I think 502 00:17:31,125 --> 00:17:34,155 we'd all be foolish to think that it all ends in disaster. 503 00:17:34,615 --> 00:17:35,725 Or that it's not gonna happen. 504 00:17:36,565 --> 00:17:36,655 I 505 00:17:36,655 --> 00:17:37,855 think it, it is happening. 506 00:17:38,185 --> 00:17:42,175 No founder worth their salt can overlook how every time 507 00:17:42,175 --> 00:17:43,495 there's a seed change like this. 508 00:17:43,495 --> 00:17:43,555 Yeah. 509 00:17:43,795 --> 00:17:47,155 It creates a hundred x more opportunity than it tears down. 510 00:17:47,155 --> 00:17:47,215 Yeah. 511 00:17:47,605 --> 00:17:50,185 Again, having lived through the internet, I've been through this 512 00:17:50,185 --> 00:17:51,565 chicken little scenario before. 513 00:17:51,750 --> 00:17:52,080 Right. 514 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:53,880 It was the Internet's coming. 515 00:17:53,880 --> 00:17:55,710 It's the death of all business. 516 00:17:55,710 --> 00:17:57,690 Everything's gonna be an e-business and all 517 00:17:57,900 --> 00:18:00,030 regular businesses won't exist, number one. 518 00:18:00,030 --> 00:18:01,200 Nothing happens that fast. 519 00:18:01,230 --> 00:18:02,580 'cause people are dumb and slow, right? 520 00:18:02,580 --> 00:18:06,000 So like, trust me, I tried, I tried to move people faster 521 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:07,230 and, and it took a long time. 522 00:18:07,650 --> 00:18:11,040 But the second part is what we fail to understand is 523 00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:16,740 how that new change creates far more, uh, opportunities 524 00:18:16,830 --> 00:18:17,805 than there were before. 525 00:18:18,025 --> 00:18:18,325 You see. 526 00:18:19,335 --> 00:18:21,915 When we have like, like a, let's call it a slower 527 00:18:21,915 --> 00:18:23,835 paced society, right? 528 00:18:23,835 --> 00:18:24,945 The farming community. 529 00:18:24,975 --> 00:18:27,375 Before we were an industrialized community, industrialized 530 00:18:27,375 --> 00:18:29,745 community before we were a computer information tech 531 00:18:29,745 --> 00:18:32,475 community, computer industry before, uh, the internet, and of 532 00:18:32,475 --> 00:18:33,735 course the internet before ai. 533 00:18:34,305 --> 00:18:37,575 What we keep missing is we keep thinking that everything 534 00:18:37,575 --> 00:18:39,195 should play by the same rules. 535 00:18:39,375 --> 00:18:41,055 It's just fucked up over this new thing. 536 00:18:41,774 --> 00:18:43,665 When computers came out, accountants like up, 537 00:18:43,695 --> 00:18:44,774 I guess no one's ever gonna need accounting. 538 00:18:45,570 --> 00:18:46,440 I guess we're done with accounting. 539 00:18:46,440 --> 00:18:48,720 You know, like I put away the abacus, right? 540 00:18:49,230 --> 00:18:51,690 And they fail to understand that it's gonna create so 541 00:18:51,690 --> 00:18:53,550 many more companies, right? 542 00:18:54,210 --> 00:18:57,030 All of the most profitable companies in the SS and P 500, 543 00:18:57,030 --> 00:19:00,060 not all of them, but most of them are companies that didn't 544 00:19:00,060 --> 00:19:02,220 exist 10, 20, 30 years ago. 545 00:19:02,490 --> 00:19:06,000 Not only did they not exist, they would've been inconceivable 546 00:19:06,540 --> 00:19:08,160 20 or 30 years ago, right? 547 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:10,560 So many things have changed that just like weren't, did, 548 00:19:10,620 --> 00:19:11,670 couldn't, couldn't exist. 549 00:19:12,060 --> 00:19:13,170 There's entire categories. 550 00:19:13,170 --> 00:19:16,530 There's entire industries based on things that could not have 551 00:19:16,530 --> 00:19:18,330 existed even 10 or 15 years ago. 552 00:19:18,360 --> 00:19:18,600 Dude, 553 00:19:18,810 --> 00:19:20,250 like can you imagine trying to explain social 554 00:19:20,250 --> 00:19:21,150 media in the seventies? 555 00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:21,750 Yeah. 556 00:19:21,990 --> 00:19:23,670 Or the fact, even the fact that you'd have a phone that 557 00:19:23,670 --> 00:19:24,660 wasn't connected to your house. 558 00:19:24,750 --> 00:19:24,990 A phone. 559 00:19:25,530 --> 00:19:25,680 Yeah. 560 00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:25,740 I 561 00:19:25,740 --> 00:19:30,780 mean, dude, our home screen on our phone is literally a museum 562 00:19:30,990 --> 00:19:32,520 of yesterday's Impossible. 563 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:32,880 Yep. 564 00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:33,180 Right? 565 00:19:33,185 --> 00:19:35,370 Like none of that shit could have happened. 566 00:19:35,370 --> 00:19:35,490 Right. 567 00:19:35,490 --> 00:19:36,570 You couldn't have had any of that. 568 00:19:36,570 --> 00:19:39,330 And now we literally carry around a bunch of 569 00:19:39,330 --> 00:19:40,890 impossibilities in our pocket. 570 00:19:41,250 --> 00:19:43,590 Right, and it will continue to repeat and scale. 571 00:19:43,950 --> 00:19:44,040 You 572 00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:46,620 know, something that's really funny about everything 573 00:19:46,620 --> 00:19:50,100 we talk about here is that none of it is new. 574 00:19:50,340 --> 00:19:52,950 Everything you're dealing with right now has been done a 575 00:19:52,950 --> 00:19:56,760 thousand times before you, which means the answer already exists. 576 00:19:56,760 --> 00:19:57,580 You may just not know it. 577 00:19:57,850 --> 00:19:58,629 But that's okay. 578 00:19:58,990 --> 00:20:00,820 That's kind of what we're here to do. 579 00:20:00,820 --> 00:20:03,459 We talk about this stuff on the show, but we actually 580 00:20:03,459 --> 00:20:07,600 solve these problems all dayLong@groups.startups.com. 581 00:20:07,659 --> 00:20:10,959 So if any of this sounds familiar, stop guessing 582 00:20:11,020 --> 00:20:13,990 about what to do, let us just give you the answers to the 583 00:20:13,990 --> 00:20:15,370 test and be done with it. 584 00:20:15,790 --> 00:20:19,149 So you have two things happening at the same time, and I'm always 585 00:20:19,149 --> 00:20:20,830 fascinated by macroeconomics. 586 00:20:21,310 --> 00:20:23,949 One is that the cost of consumption, uh, the 587 00:20:23,949 --> 00:20:26,439 cost of production rather comes down exponentially. 588 00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:27,550 Okay. 589 00:20:27,970 --> 00:20:30,730 Um, on so many things, things that you can't even 590 00:20:30,730 --> 00:20:31,810 quite wrap your head around. 591 00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:32,890 I'll give you an example. 592 00:20:33,250 --> 00:20:35,710 For retailers, uh, traditional retailers, let's, let's say 593 00:20:35,710 --> 00:20:38,050 it's a Best Buy or it's, you know, Abercrombie and Fitch, 594 00:20:38,050 --> 00:20:39,790 you name it, or somebody doing more traditional 595 00:20:39,790 --> 00:20:43,540 retail, their biggest issues and biggest cost centers, 596 00:20:43,540 --> 00:20:44,950 that, that drive them insane. 597 00:20:45,310 --> 00:20:46,875 Aside from making sure they have the right products, 598 00:20:46,930 --> 00:20:49,330 you know, in merchandising our customer service. 599 00:20:49,995 --> 00:20:52,845 It's a hard cost that, that you wanna invest in 600 00:20:52,845 --> 00:20:54,825 as little as possible, but not too little because you 601 00:20:54,825 --> 00:20:56,475 don't, you don't want the thing to go sideways, right? 602 00:20:56,925 --> 00:20:57,795 That goes away. 603 00:20:58,425 --> 00:21:02,175 Retailers who work off of a razor thin margin, if you can 604 00:21:02,175 --> 00:21:05,475 all of a sudden say, here's 5% of your p and l, that doesn't 605 00:21:05,475 --> 00:21:08,565 exist anymore, and you can go reinvest that, they get bigger. 606 00:21:09,525 --> 00:21:10,665 Here's the other thing that happens. 607 00:21:11,565 --> 00:21:14,325 How many times are, are you on social media and you see 608 00:21:14,325 --> 00:21:17,565 ads for some random clothing company, right, that you've 609 00:21:17,565 --> 00:21:18,495 never heard of before? 610 00:21:18,885 --> 00:21:21,225 Every time you click, you go straight to a Shopify site. 611 00:21:21,465 --> 00:21:21,705 Right? 612 00:21:21,705 --> 00:21:24,015 Which, you know, got set up five minutes ago and it's 613 00:21:24,015 --> 00:21:25,185 something shipping from China. 614 00:21:25,815 --> 00:21:29,745 The cost to be Abercrombie right, has gone to 615 00:21:29,745 --> 00:21:31,035 almost frigging zero. 616 00:21:31,395 --> 00:21:33,135 You know, it costs people retail fashion. 617 00:21:33,930 --> 00:21:36,780 To design it, to set up your supply chain, to get 618 00:21:36,780 --> 00:21:38,610 it out there and sell it to service, the demand, 619 00:21:38,610 --> 00:21:41,040 the returns, everything else is just plummeting 620 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:45,900 Lower cost grows the long tail right and and the long tail is 621 00:21:45,900 --> 00:21:48,030 exactly where founders feed the 622 00:21:48,030 --> 00:21:48,690 creator economies. 623 00:21:49,230 --> 00:21:49,379 Is 624 00:21:49,379 --> 00:21:50,730 the essence of Long Tail. 625 00:21:50,850 --> 00:21:51,720 Yes, Mr. Beast. 626 00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:53,910 And you know, there, there's some other folks at the top. 627 00:21:53,910 --> 00:21:54,629 There always is. 628 00:21:54,930 --> 00:21:55,889 Same with podcasting. 629 00:21:55,889 --> 00:21:57,995 You know, for what we do, there's the Joe Rogans of 630 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,210 the world, but for every Joe Rogan, there's a billion 631 00:22:00,389 --> 00:22:01,440 people in the long tail. 632 00:22:01,740 --> 00:22:03,690 We have some number of people that are really 633 00:22:03,690 --> 00:22:05,160 passionate about this topic. 634 00:22:05,774 --> 00:22:07,695 Have listened to us for years, and that's awesome, 635 00:22:07,995 --> 00:22:08,865 but that's all we need. 636 00:22:09,074 --> 00:22:11,504 Like we don't have to be Mr. Beast in order for this to work. 637 00:22:11,685 --> 00:22:12,225 It's amazing. 638 00:22:12,435 --> 00:22:15,764 And so again, two, two giant forces converging. 639 00:22:16,215 --> 00:22:19,304 You've got the cost of of building stuff going 640 00:22:19,304 --> 00:22:20,835 down exponentially. 641 00:22:21,345 --> 00:22:24,405 On the other side, you've got the ability to consume 642 00:22:24,675 --> 00:22:26,835 because costs are coming down, meaning products come down 643 00:22:26,835 --> 00:22:29,324 and there's more products in the market going up. 644 00:22:29,835 --> 00:22:30,585 Incredible. 645 00:22:31,125 --> 00:22:31,755 Here's an example. 646 00:22:32,025 --> 00:22:34,305 This is probably a bad example because it's, it's the biggest, 647 00:22:34,425 --> 00:22:36,435 like hard good I can think of, which would be a house 648 00:22:36,855 --> 00:22:38,955 if, a house back in the day you had to chop down the, 649 00:22:38,955 --> 00:22:41,295 the lumber yourself and, you know, and, and kind of mill 650 00:22:41,295 --> 00:22:42,525 it yourself in your backyard. 651 00:22:42,525 --> 00:22:42,535 Yeah. 652 00:22:42,915 --> 00:22:45,285 Cost 10 years to, took 10 years to build. 653 00:22:45,285 --> 00:22:47,115 Probably not, but let's just pretend you 654 00:22:47,115 --> 00:22:48,465 get one house, right? 655 00:22:48,465 --> 00:22:48,525 Yeah. 656 00:22:48,525 --> 00:22:49,245 Like that's kind of it. 657 00:22:49,335 --> 00:22:51,105 And that house is gonna go on to your kids and 658 00:22:51,105 --> 00:22:52,065 their kids and their kids. 659 00:22:52,065 --> 00:22:52,245 Like, 660 00:22:52,250 --> 00:22:54,345 yeah, you certainly weren't thinking of moving every couple 661 00:22:54,345 --> 00:22:54,525 years. 662 00:22:54,525 --> 00:22:55,065 Absolutely not. 663 00:22:55,065 --> 00:22:56,265 You're like, you know, I don't like this neighborhood. 664 00:22:56,265 --> 00:22:56,535 Let's go. 665 00:22:56,535 --> 00:22:59,145 So it's like, no, dude, like grandpa built this house. 666 00:22:59,290 --> 00:23:00,825 We, we don't need a house anymore. 667 00:23:01,005 --> 00:23:02,835 And in most countries, that's still the way, by the way. 668 00:23:03,075 --> 00:23:06,105 But a crazy thing happened one day on the job site. 669 00:23:06,105 --> 00:23:08,085 A dude showed up with a power saw, right? 670 00:23:08,355 --> 00:23:11,685 A circular saw, a chainsaw, whatever, and was like, Hey. 671 00:23:12,054 --> 00:23:13,284 I can cut that down faster. 672 00:23:13,645 --> 00:23:16,135 Now, initially, the damn lumberjacks and, and 673 00:23:16,135 --> 00:23:17,965 craftsmen were like, well, fuck you, right? 674 00:23:17,965 --> 00:23:18,834 You just took my job. 675 00:23:19,195 --> 00:23:21,475 Now people, you know won't need lumberjacks or craftsmen. 676 00:23:21,834 --> 00:23:22,435 Not true. 677 00:23:22,735 --> 00:23:25,885 Now you can build fa houses, houses faster, which makes 678 00:23:25,885 --> 00:23:27,985 them cheaper, which means more people can buy them. 679 00:23:28,524 --> 00:23:30,925 Now all of a sudden, more people have houses. 680 00:23:31,044 --> 00:23:32,605 You know what happens when more people have houses? 681 00:23:32,784 --> 00:23:35,094 They need curtains, lawnmowers, furniture, 682 00:23:35,094 --> 00:23:37,135 like all of these things. 683 00:23:37,740 --> 00:23:41,760 Right, like I call them nodes where you create a new node and 684 00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,730 that new node expands to lots of other demand categories. 685 00:23:45,180 --> 00:23:46,440 Look at your phone right now. 686 00:23:46,860 --> 00:23:49,770 Every app on your phone likely represents a company that 687 00:23:49,770 --> 00:23:51,540 didn't exist before, right? 688 00:23:52,140 --> 00:23:53,160 10, 20 years ago. 689 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:54,840 But it's likely a billion dollar company. 690 00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:57,390 If it made it to your, your phone, Uber when it came out. 691 00:23:57,450 --> 00:23:59,580 People are like, oh, it's gonna upset the taxi industry. 692 00:24:00,345 --> 00:24:04,425 Uber had 1.5 million people in the state of California alone. 693 00:24:04,425 --> 00:24:07,335 This is years ago that they employed in some capacity 694 00:24:07,995 --> 00:24:10,875 for a service no one had even conceived a few years prior. 695 00:24:11,295 --> 00:24:13,815 It's all of a sudden when you, when you lower the cost 696 00:24:13,815 --> 00:24:17,295 of things, when you introduce new vectors, you get so much 697 00:24:17,295 --> 00:24:20,805 more demand, which guess who services demand startups, 698 00:24:21,525 --> 00:24:23,730 quite specifically that how these things get created. 699 00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:26,340 I think it's interesting too 'cause as we start to 700 00:24:26,340 --> 00:24:28,620 look at things like just price collapse, right? 701 00:24:28,620 --> 00:24:31,139 Where do those create an, an opening for premium 702 00:24:31,139 --> 00:24:32,340 experiences too, right? 703 00:24:32,340 --> 00:24:35,159 So it's, it's not just a race to the bottom in terms of costs, 704 00:24:35,669 --> 00:24:39,090 but when we drive costs down on things that weren't actually 705 00:24:39,090 --> 00:24:41,980 the important part when we have to pay for things like. 706 00:24:42,915 --> 00:24:44,205 Trans global shipping. 707 00:24:44,355 --> 00:24:44,595 Yep. 708 00:24:44,715 --> 00:24:45,044 Right. 709 00:24:45,044 --> 00:24:47,115 As opposed to micro local production. 710 00:24:47,595 --> 00:24:50,054 We're not just driving the price down to zero, 711 00:24:50,054 --> 00:24:52,695 we're just creating an, an opportunity to have something 712 00:24:52,695 --> 00:24:54,345 way better at the same price. 713 00:24:54,375 --> 00:24:54,585 Right. 714 00:24:54,585 --> 00:24:54,705 Right. 715 00:24:54,705 --> 00:24:57,044 Or to create a premium experience because you don't 716 00:24:57,195 --> 00:24:59,985 putting cost and and money into things that didn't 717 00:24:59,985 --> 00:25:03,165 actually pass through to the consumer in, in a positive way. 718 00:25:03,620 --> 00:25:06,590 So I think there's all kinds of super interesting things 719 00:25:06,590 --> 00:25:07,459 that can happen there. 720 00:25:07,850 --> 00:25:10,129 And by serving a smaller audience, at least, like 721 00:25:10,129 --> 00:25:12,800 theoretically, you can give a lot higher love. 722 00:25:12,804 --> 00:25:13,004 Right? 723 00:25:13,010 --> 00:25:13,189 Right. 724 00:25:13,189 --> 00:25:14,990 Like if you and I had to respond to the number of 725 00:25:14,990 --> 00:25:17,990 people that Joe Rogan responds to, our responses be a lot 726 00:25:17,990 --> 00:25:19,070 briefer as it is right now. 727 00:25:19,070 --> 00:25:21,560 You and h write about a page and a half to everybody who ever 728 00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:24,409 has said hi to us, which means that your net promoter score 729 00:25:24,409 --> 00:25:27,110 is up, your retention's up, you know, your average revenue 730 00:25:27,110 --> 00:25:28,730 per, per, per user goes up. 731 00:25:28,730 --> 00:25:28,820 Yep. 732 00:25:28,820 --> 00:25:31,010 All of these things happen, which is net 733 00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:32,209 positive, not net negative. 734 00:25:32,730 --> 00:25:35,400 Every one of those startups that gets created, this is 735 00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,160 the part people are missing, creates infinitely more 736 00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,010 jobs, which then go on to create infinitely more jobs. 737 00:25:41,220 --> 00:25:43,800 Uh, again, that's the part, like Amazon didn't 738 00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:45,120 make retail go away. 739 00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:47,040 They moved retail to online. 740 00:25:47,070 --> 00:25:48,960 I mean, to the extent that they did, Walmart's still 741 00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,270 around, they're still doing okay, but now they, they 742 00:25:51,270 --> 00:25:54,990 have like 1.5 or 1.6 million people that they employ at 743 00:25:54,990 --> 00:25:56,490 generally fairly high wages. 744 00:25:56,610 --> 00:25:58,500 You know, uh, warehouse workers now withstanding 745 00:25:58,980 --> 00:26:01,200 around jobs that just simply didn't exist before. 746 00:26:01,260 --> 00:26:01,560 Yes. 747 00:26:01,765 --> 00:26:04,825 Where this gets interesting is AI is fundamentally 748 00:26:05,095 --> 00:26:06,865 a creation engine. 749 00:26:07,045 --> 00:26:09,265 That's quite literally what it's generative. 750 00:26:09,385 --> 00:26:11,125 It creates new shit. 751 00:26:11,455 --> 00:26:15,205 So as founders, our ability to use AI to help us 752 00:26:15,205 --> 00:26:17,275 concept new stuff, which you and I do all the time. 753 00:26:17,595 --> 00:26:17,895 Right. 754 00:26:18,285 --> 00:26:20,595 Then use AI to help us bring it to market. 755 00:26:20,625 --> 00:26:22,575 Then use AI to help keep us in market. 756 00:26:22,575 --> 00:26:24,435 You know, virtue a marketing and in customer 757 00:26:24,435 --> 00:26:27,345 service means so many more people come to the plate. 758 00:26:27,675 --> 00:26:30,885 Now, when a lot more people come to the plate, they're not just 759 00:26:30,885 --> 00:26:32,145 gonna do the same exact thing. 760 00:26:32,145 --> 00:26:33,825 It's not one person selling lemonade. 761 00:26:33,825 --> 00:26:35,595 The next person selling lemonade, the next person 762 00:26:35,595 --> 00:26:38,415 selling lemonade, each new person has to say, well, 763 00:26:38,415 --> 00:26:39,555 nobody's selling pink lemonade. 764 00:26:39,675 --> 00:26:40,875 Well, no one's selling berry lemonade. 765 00:26:40,995 --> 00:26:42,675 Well, no one's selling le lemonade with caffeine. 766 00:26:42,675 --> 00:26:43,665 No one's selling like right. 767 00:26:44,630 --> 00:26:47,990 All of a sudden the choices get staggering once again, 768 00:26:47,990 --> 00:26:50,660 similar to the creator economy, if you look at something like 769 00:26:50,660 --> 00:26:54,050 Spotify in what it's done for music, you know, in the same 770 00:26:54,050 --> 00:26:56,690 way how before becoming a creator meant you had to get 771 00:26:56,690 --> 00:26:59,720 signed by a label, et cetera, Spotify all of a sudden put 772 00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,930 every song that's ever been made in your pocket for 20 bucks. 773 00:27:03,385 --> 00:27:05,750 Do you remember, like back in the day, going to the 774 00:27:05,750 --> 00:27:09,440 CD store and you get to pick one artist, right? 775 00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:11,480 In the same way you to only get to pick, pick one video game. 776 00:27:12,045 --> 00:27:12,345 Right. 777 00:27:12,795 --> 00:27:14,565 And it's like, I can picture this. 778 00:27:14,565 --> 00:27:18,615 I remember sitting in those plastic CD racks going through 779 00:27:18,615 --> 00:27:21,195 and trying to figure out like, am I gonna get digital 780 00:27:21,195 --> 00:27:22,305 underground or Metallica? 781 00:27:22,365 --> 00:27:25,425 Because these were two very big choices, uh, you know, 782 00:27:25,430 --> 00:27:26,895 in, in that, uh, in that era. 783 00:27:27,255 --> 00:27:28,695 And that's all I could get. 784 00:27:29,325 --> 00:27:32,745 And so I couldn't take a chance that I was gonna spend 785 00:27:32,745 --> 00:27:35,445 my money on anybody that wasn't a proven commodity. 786 00:27:36,584 --> 00:27:39,225 Now, by the way, uh, GP t's connected to Spotify now. 787 00:27:39,344 --> 00:27:42,014 So I, I was using it last night and I was having to go through 788 00:27:42,014 --> 00:27:43,965 all my music and like, create all new playlists and stuff. 789 00:27:44,024 --> 00:27:46,215 And what I told it, I said, give me people I've 790 00:27:46,215 --> 00:27:46,965 never heard of before. 791 00:27:46,995 --> 00:27:49,064 Give me like, you know exactly what my tastes are. 792 00:27:49,245 --> 00:27:49,455 Yeah. 793 00:27:49,455 --> 00:27:50,554 It's like, gimme people I've never heard of. 794 00:27:50,554 --> 00:27:50,774 Don't worry, you got 795 00:27:50,774 --> 00:27:51,645 plenty of those now. 796 00:27:52,094 --> 00:27:52,395 Right? 797 00:27:52,395 --> 00:27:52,695 Right. 798 00:27:52,814 --> 00:27:55,034 Now think of how many artists I'm about to listen 799 00:27:55,034 --> 00:27:57,465 to that I would've never had a mechanism Yeah. 800 00:27:57,794 --> 00:27:58,574 To ever find. 801 00:27:58,995 --> 00:28:01,185 And now all those people have a new source of income. 802 00:28:01,215 --> 00:28:02,774 They're gonna get, you know, some fraction of a penny. 803 00:28:03,345 --> 00:28:05,175 But it's, it's more than they would've been paid before. 804 00:28:05,205 --> 00:28:07,185 So, so this is super interesting, and I wanna stick 805 00:28:07,185 --> 00:28:10,695 on this for a second because this actually touches on a 806 00:28:10,695 --> 00:28:12,975 bit of devil's advocacy that happened in a conversation a 807 00:28:12,975 --> 00:28:15,135 few weeks ago where we were just starting to play around 808 00:28:15,135 --> 00:28:17,325 with this and say like, okay, and we picked, we picked 809 00:28:17,325 --> 00:28:19,725 sports in that case, you, you've just done it with music. 810 00:28:20,205 --> 00:28:21,465 But we picked basketball. 811 00:28:21,465 --> 00:28:23,925 And we said, okay, but so if, if things start to fractionalize 812 00:28:23,925 --> 00:28:25,335 and there's just a whole bunch of niches, does this 813 00:28:25,335 --> 00:28:28,455 mean that essentially, like rather than watch NBA games. 814 00:28:28,905 --> 00:28:30,225 And we're just using it as a metaphor. 815 00:28:30,285 --> 00:28:30,345 Yeah. 816 00:28:30,345 --> 00:28:30,495 Right. 817 00:28:30,495 --> 00:28:33,105 Not, not truly like, uh, but are people gonna wanna go watch 818 00:28:33,105 --> 00:28:34,545 community basketball instead? 819 00:28:34,605 --> 00:28:36,195 Meaning like, as we niche down. 820 00:28:36,345 --> 00:28:36,465 Mm-hmm. 821 00:28:36,466 --> 00:28:38,055 And we try to create things that are more special as well. 822 00:28:38,205 --> 00:28:38,625 Well, okay. 823 00:28:38,625 --> 00:28:39,645 But that's not really niching. 824 00:28:40,245 --> 00:28:44,700 That's just going to a. Probably lower quality of, of output. 825 00:28:44,700 --> 00:28:45,990 And so we were trying to decide like what 826 00:28:45,990 --> 00:28:46,590 that looks like, right? 827 00:28:46,590 --> 00:28:48,420 So I think music's a really interesting one. 828 00:28:48,900 --> 00:28:50,760 Um, because it's nearly infinite, right? 829 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,260 In terms of the, the amount of creativity you can 830 00:28:52,260 --> 00:28:54,120 apply, like the number of ways you can combine stuff. 831 00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,640 There were some other things like sport for example, right? 832 00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:58,590 Like I don't think that just because we could create 833 00:28:58,590 --> 00:29:00,210 micro leagues that all of a sudden everybody wants to 834 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,090 consume and watch, you know, your neighbor's team play 835 00:29:03,090 --> 00:29:04,950 as opposed to the LA Lakers. 836 00:29:04,980 --> 00:29:06,300 Let me give you a different version of that. 837 00:29:06,750 --> 00:29:08,100 eSports, right? 838 00:29:08,190 --> 00:29:08,370 Yep. 839 00:29:08,370 --> 00:29:09,475 Who the fuck saw that coming? 840 00:29:10,169 --> 00:29:10,470 Right. 841 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:11,730 Who saw that all the 842 00:29:11,730 --> 00:29:14,220 sweaty nerds in the eighties were just hopeful for it? 843 00:29:14,220 --> 00:29:14,490 Uh, no. 844 00:29:14,490 --> 00:29:14,580 I 845 00:29:14,580 --> 00:29:17,189 mean, I was just thinking about this this morning. 846 00:29:17,220 --> 00:29:20,850 I've got a younger brother and our best pastime as brothers 847 00:29:21,179 --> 00:29:24,720 would be to sit in front of our Commodore 64 computer and play 848 00:29:24,810 --> 00:29:26,610 every game like pixel by pixel. 849 00:29:26,610 --> 00:29:26,760 Right. 850 00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:29,070 Because back then you, you had to relish your game 'cause there 851 00:29:29,070 --> 00:29:30,090 wasn't another one after it. 852 00:29:30,209 --> 00:29:32,459 And I just think of all the great times he, he and I had 853 00:29:32,459 --> 00:29:34,770 like just scarfing down Doritos, like till four in the morning 854 00:29:34,770 --> 00:29:35,730 playing like wastelands. 855 00:29:36,129 --> 00:29:36,399 Right. 856 00:29:36,639 --> 00:29:36,879 Yeah. 857 00:29:36,879 --> 00:29:37,600 No, going deep. 858 00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:37,840 Right. 859 00:29:37,929 --> 00:29:40,510 But my point is, back then we had very few 860 00:29:40,510 --> 00:29:41,620 options for consumption. 861 00:29:41,620 --> 00:29:41,710 Yep. 862 00:29:42,070 --> 00:29:44,830 And back then, the idea that we'd some someday 863 00:29:44,830 --> 00:29:47,470 there would be professionals who do what we do, right. 864 00:29:47,679 --> 00:29:49,659 Would seem bananas. 865 00:29:49,929 --> 00:29:50,620 Bananas, right? 866 00:29:50,649 --> 00:29:51,669 Yeah, absolutely. 867 00:29:51,669 --> 00:29:55,330 And now e-gaming is a massive, massive target. 868 00:29:56,145 --> 00:29:57,525 For, um, it's, it's incredible. 869 00:29:57,525 --> 00:29:59,745 Like I've had some friends who were invested in that 870 00:29:59,745 --> 00:30:02,265 industry saying it's bigger than traditional sports, and I 871 00:30:02,265 --> 00:30:03,285 actually just don't believe it. 872 00:30:03,615 --> 00:30:04,125 But it might be 873 00:30:05,505 --> 00:30:08,085 for all I know from an access distribution, I 874 00:30:08,085 --> 00:30:10,215 mean, yeah, I could see, I could see how it could be. 875 00:30:10,455 --> 00:30:12,645 Yeah, because you remove the physicality and 876 00:30:12,645 --> 00:30:13,545 the, the necessity of. 877 00:30:13,850 --> 00:30:15,620 Some of the stuff that has to happen with, 878 00:30:15,679 --> 00:30:16,669 with traditional sport, 879 00:30:16,909 --> 00:30:18,860 but, but it goes back to, to what you're saying is like you 880 00:30:18,860 --> 00:30:20,750 were thinking about Will, will there be a smaller league of 881 00:30:20,750 --> 00:30:21,949 the NFL or something like that? 882 00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:22,639 Maybe not. 883 00:30:22,639 --> 00:30:24,709 Maybe it'll be a league of something like virtual 884 00:30:24,709 --> 00:30:27,169 sports is gonna be a massive, massive industry 885 00:30:27,590 --> 00:30:31,399 and so you'll have entire teams of virtual athletes. 886 00:30:31,685 --> 00:30:34,264 For games that you can't even fathom right now, the 887 00:30:34,264 --> 00:30:35,075 equivalent of Fortnite. 888 00:30:35,105 --> 00:30:35,415 Right, right. 889 00:30:35,615 --> 00:30:37,774 For games that you can't even fathom right now, that are 890 00:30:37,774 --> 00:30:39,784 gonna be the biggest shows for shows that, that you, 891 00:30:39,845 --> 00:30:42,095 that don't even exist, and those are gonna be careers. 892 00:30:42,395 --> 00:30:45,725 In addition, there's gonna be a ton of people who service 893 00:30:45,725 --> 00:30:46,985 all of those people, right? 894 00:30:47,075 --> 00:30:49,145 The people who make the VR headsets, the people who 895 00:30:49,145 --> 00:30:50,764 make you know, this Ready Player one style, right? 896 00:30:50,975 --> 00:30:53,135 The, the people make the gear, the people who sponsor it, 897 00:30:53,135 --> 00:30:55,955 like it creates this whole new economy on top of that. 898 00:30:56,250 --> 00:30:58,740 People who come by and sell the hot dogs and popcorn at your 899 00:30:58,740 --> 00:31:00,810 house now because you're no longer at the stadium, right? 900 00:31:00,900 --> 00:31:03,120 Like, we'll, we'll find a way. 901 00:31:03,150 --> 00:31:03,870 Some founder's 902 00:31:03,965 --> 00:31:07,470 gonna do it, so, but okay, some founder's going to do it. 903 00:31:07,470 --> 00:31:09,330 So let's bring it back to the, the core here. 904 00:31:09,690 --> 00:31:11,910 The point of all this, and this is, this is like 905 00:31:11,910 --> 00:31:14,880 1994 internet all over again except on steroids. 906 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:20,190 Think of how many founders were born in the era of the internet. 907 00:31:20,625 --> 00:31:22,185 I wanna take you back, Ryan, because you know, we 908 00:31:22,185 --> 00:31:23,175 grew up at the same time. 909 00:31:23,475 --> 00:31:25,965 When I was coming into this market in 94, I was starting, 910 00:31:26,024 --> 00:31:27,675 you know, one of the first web design companies. 911 00:31:28,064 --> 00:31:29,955 And at the time, no one had ever heard of the internet. 912 00:31:30,014 --> 00:31:31,845 No one had ever heard of web design and certainly 913 00:31:31,845 --> 00:31:32,595 nobody had ever heard of me. 914 00:31:33,254 --> 00:31:37,125 But more importantly, I had never heard of founders before. 915 00:31:37,395 --> 00:31:39,314 Like Michael Dell was a thing back then. 916 00:31:39,314 --> 00:31:41,955 Bill Gates was a thing, but they were like total 917 00:31:41,955 --> 00:31:44,054 one-offs and nobody really thought much about it. 918 00:31:44,685 --> 00:31:47,564 And that was the beginning, the very beginning, the 919 00:31:47,564 --> 00:31:49,605 dawn of the young CEO. 920 00:31:49,935 --> 00:31:51,254 People don't think about this anymore. 921 00:31:51,284 --> 00:31:52,784 'cause it's like, of course there's young CEOs, mark, 922 00:31:53,205 --> 00:31:53,955 you know, not anymore, 923 00:31:54,014 --> 00:31:54,855 but there, there wasn't. 924 00:31:55,065 --> 00:31:55,245 Right? 925 00:31:55,245 --> 00:31:55,335 Yeah. 926 00:31:55,335 --> 00:31:57,705 Like, like good luck finding good, good luck finding 927 00:31:57,705 --> 00:31:59,475 A-A-C-E-O without gray hair. 928 00:31:59,475 --> 00:32:01,030 Good luck finding a CEO with hair, right? 929 00:32:01,030 --> 00:32:01,190 Yeah. 930 00:32:01,195 --> 00:32:01,274 Right. 931 00:32:01,274 --> 00:32:01,784 Exactly. 932 00:32:01,875 --> 00:32:02,145 Right. 933 00:32:02,175 --> 00:32:05,655 And so I look at that and I say, man, there was a time when 934 00:32:05,655 --> 00:32:10,305 we couldn't even conceive that a 22-year-old could possibly 935 00:32:10,305 --> 00:32:11,895 be the CEO of anything. 936 00:32:12,165 --> 00:32:13,725 Of anything, right? 937 00:32:14,024 --> 00:32:16,635 And within five seconds, they were the CEO of everything. 938 00:32:17,235 --> 00:32:19,575 Right now, here's where that gets really interesting. 939 00:32:20,055 --> 00:32:23,685 What really happened is that inspired lots of other 20 940 00:32:23,685 --> 00:32:26,115 something year olds to say, oh shit, that's a thing. 941 00:32:26,115 --> 00:32:27,360 Now I can be a CEO. 942 00:32:28,140 --> 00:32:29,640 Yeah, I didn't have that benefit. 943 00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:31,380 Like I was at the, the dawn of that. 944 00:32:31,770 --> 00:32:35,190 So, uh, when I walked into, into a client's office, you know, 945 00:32:35,190 --> 00:32:38,100 because I was running an agency, I was a side show to people, 946 00:32:38,340 --> 00:32:39,660 they were like, look at him. 947 00:32:39,660 --> 00:32:41,250 He still got pimples, right? 948 00:32:41,250 --> 00:32:42,300 And I was like, yep, great. 949 00:32:42,420 --> 00:32:43,770 Like I couldn't have been more disrespected. 950 00:32:43,770 --> 00:32:43,920 I got a 951 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:45,810 lot of dad's suit questions. 952 00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:46,800 Oh yeah, exactly right. 953 00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:47,310 Yeah. 954 00:32:47,310 --> 00:32:47,610 Shoot 955 00:32:48,180 --> 00:32:50,070 the interns here when the CEO e showing up. 956 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:50,940 Oh God. 957 00:32:51,030 --> 00:32:51,300 Yep. 958 00:32:51,870 --> 00:32:53,490 So, but, but I guess what I'm saying is, but now 959 00:32:53,490 --> 00:32:54,270 that's not a thing anymore. 960 00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:56,700 What changes is stigma? 961 00:32:57,285 --> 00:32:57,585 Okay. 962 00:32:58,035 --> 00:32:58,995 A couple things happen. 963 00:32:59,055 --> 00:33:01,005 Number one, I think the most important thing 964 00:33:01,005 --> 00:33:02,775 is, fuck that guy. 965 00:33:02,775 --> 00:33:03,735 If he can do it, I can do it. 966 00:33:03,735 --> 00:33:06,195 I think that is such an important argument, right? 967 00:33:06,225 --> 00:33:07,635 'cause it, it drives a lot. 968 00:33:08,025 --> 00:33:12,255 The second is this greed of Mr. Beast has a channel, he makes 969 00:33:12,255 --> 00:33:13,605 hundreds of millions of dollars. 970 00:33:13,605 --> 00:33:14,655 Dude, I'm gonna create a channel. 971 00:33:14,655 --> 00:33:15,105 Yeah, right? 972 00:33:15,375 --> 00:33:16,815 In that, that greed to get it done. 973 00:33:17,025 --> 00:33:19,875 But the most important is, this is even possible. 974 00:33:20,294 --> 00:33:21,465 This is even possible. 975 00:33:22,095 --> 00:33:22,215 Yeah. 976 00:33:22,215 --> 00:33:25,485 Wait for the next few years where you see 1, 2, 3 person 977 00:33:25,485 --> 00:33:27,524 companies become a hundred million dollar companies. 978 00:33:27,794 --> 00:33:28,034 Yep. 979 00:33:28,185 --> 00:33:30,405 And we'll see it and all of a sudden people are like, 980 00:33:30,495 --> 00:33:31,905 wait, I could do that. 981 00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:33,660 With three people. 982 00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,180 Like I don't have to go raise VC or learn all this business 983 00:33:36,180 --> 00:33:39,000 stuff everybody's talking about I'm in, which is exactly what 984 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:39,930 happened in the creator economy. 985 00:33:40,470 --> 00:33:42,330 Like everyone said, wait, I can do that. 986 00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:42,990 Sure, yeah. 987 00:33:43,380 --> 00:33:43,500 Yeah. 988 00:33:43,500 --> 00:33:44,280 You can make a makeup channel. 989 00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:44,610 Barriers 990 00:33:44,610 --> 00:33:46,950 entry, cost of entry, cost of the equipment, 991 00:33:46,950 --> 00:33:47,940 cost of everything. 992 00:33:47,940 --> 00:33:49,020 Just went to. 993 00:33:49,410 --> 00:33:51,570 As close to zero as as possible. 994 00:33:51,570 --> 00:33:53,400 And in many cases, like you just happen to already 995 00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:54,330 have it sitting around. 996 00:33:54,330 --> 00:33:54,480 Right? 997 00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:56,760 You already had a laptop, you already had a phone. 998 00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,130 Now you have everything you need to have a creator studio. 999 00:33:59,310 --> 00:33:59,460 Yep. 1000 00:33:59,460 --> 00:33:59,610 Cool. 1001 00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:02,460 I get this great guy that I follow, uh, uh, woodworker. 1002 00:34:02,460 --> 00:34:04,050 It's called Bourbon Moth Studios. 1003 00:34:04,110 --> 00:34:05,490 He's just, you know, kind of like this 1004 00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,050 gregarious, woodworker guy. 1005 00:34:07,050 --> 00:34:07,230 Right. 1006 00:34:07,230 --> 00:34:08,370 He's actually very telegenic. 1007 00:34:08,370 --> 00:34:11,130 But, uh, anyway, he, he has another show that he 1008 00:34:11,130 --> 00:34:12,965 does that he talks about the production of the show. 1009 00:34:13,625 --> 00:34:15,514 And he's got like a million followers on YouTube or 1010 00:34:15,514 --> 00:34:17,315 did years ago, so I'm sure he has more now. 1011 00:34:17,585 --> 00:34:19,325 He's like, everybody asks me like, you know, what kind of 1012 00:34:19,325 --> 00:34:21,605 production I'm doing on this thing, like to keep up with and 1013 00:34:21,605 --> 00:34:22,775 what my teams look looks like. 1014 00:34:22,775 --> 00:34:25,985 He's like, dude, I have like an $8 app on my phone. 1015 00:34:26,165 --> 00:34:29,255 He's like, the whole show is me putting my phone on a tripod, 1016 00:34:29,615 --> 00:34:32,855 hitting record, and then editing on my phone and hitting upload. 1017 00:34:32,855 --> 00:34:33,485 He's like, that's it. 1018 00:34:33,545 --> 00:34:35,795 That is the entire production cycle, right? 1019 00:34:36,245 --> 00:34:38,225 And, and yet this is his full-time job now. 1020 00:34:38,655 --> 00:34:40,965 I think what we're going to see with a lot of folks 1021 00:34:41,085 --> 00:34:44,385 is they realize that what they need is already in 1022 00:34:44,385 --> 00:34:45,555 their pocket, so to speak. 1023 00:34:46,125 --> 00:34:47,264 And it's kinda what I said a moment ago. 1024 00:34:47,805 --> 00:34:49,784 It's gonna be a combination of greed. 1025 00:34:49,935 --> 00:34:50,955 Like, Hey, screw that guy. 1026 00:34:50,955 --> 00:34:53,565 You know, I wanna be able to make that kinda money in fear. 1027 00:34:53,685 --> 00:34:56,385 Like if I don't do this, I don't really have another choice. 1028 00:34:56,715 --> 00:34:58,925 Like I need income, so this is what I do. 1029 00:34:58,925 --> 00:34:59,020 Yep. 1030 00:34:59,745 --> 00:34:59,895 Yeah. 1031 00:34:59,895 --> 00:35:01,545 If you get ejected from the cubicle, something's 1032 00:35:01,545 --> 00:35:02,595 gotta give, right? 1033 00:35:02,865 --> 00:35:04,004 Because there's a lot of people that are feeling 1034 00:35:04,004 --> 00:35:05,415 this is like a wave, right? 1035 00:35:05,415 --> 00:35:06,884 Meaning that there's, there's this thing coming 1036 00:35:06,884 --> 00:35:08,714 to hit them and it's, it doesn't feel like that to me. 1037 00:35:08,775 --> 00:35:11,685 It feels like the sea level is just rising across the 1038 00:35:11,685 --> 00:35:13,964 board, which yes, comes with some downsides, right? 1039 00:35:13,964 --> 00:35:15,315 You gotta move to higher ground. 1040 00:35:15,315 --> 00:35:17,055 But I think that's what we're gonna start to see, right? 1041 00:35:17,055 --> 00:35:18,194 It, it's gonna force that. 1042 00:35:18,645 --> 00:35:20,850 Um, but I think we're gonna start to see that and like in, 1043 00:35:20,855 --> 00:35:24,015 in your mind, what breaks first? 1044 00:35:24,015 --> 00:35:26,535 Like what, what actually breaks when founders 1045 00:35:26,535 --> 00:35:28,725 100 x like education? 1046 00:35:29,115 --> 00:35:31,125 Regulation funding. 1047 00:35:31,215 --> 00:35:31,395 Right? 1048 00:35:31,395 --> 00:35:33,195 Like what actually breaks there? 1049 00:35:33,645 --> 00:35:35,565 One of the, one of the challenges, one of the pushbacks 1050 00:35:35,565 --> 00:35:37,785 that I've gotten to all of this, um, because, and, and like 1051 00:35:37,785 --> 00:35:39,135 when we were talking about the devil's advocacy before Yeah. 1052 00:35:39,135 --> 00:35:41,115 I was on the other side of it in the last, I, I 1053 00:35:41,115 --> 00:35:42,315 can't argue against it. 1054 00:35:42,380 --> 00:35:44,055 Like I, I know how to argue the fore side. 1055 00:35:44,055 --> 00:35:44,985 I don't know how to argue against it. 1056 00:35:44,985 --> 00:35:45,045 Yeah. 1057 00:35:45,345 --> 00:35:47,235 But in this case, one of the, one of the pieces 1058 00:35:47,235 --> 00:35:49,965 of pushback was, look, if we start running more and 1059 00:35:49,965 --> 00:35:51,885 more big businesses, right? 1060 00:35:51,885 --> 00:35:54,075 So if you got, you know, uh, three people doing, 1061 00:35:54,075 --> 00:35:56,895 you know, 150 million or, or $200 million company. 1062 00:35:57,600 --> 00:35:59,430 What about the people they would've employed before? 1063 00:35:59,460 --> 00:36:01,800 And, and so are, can everybody do that? 1064 00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:02,790 Maybe not. 1065 00:36:02,790 --> 00:36:04,020 Like where does the money come from? 1066 00:36:04,020 --> 00:36:05,550 Isn't there kind of a zero sum game here? 1067 00:36:05,550 --> 00:36:07,260 So if it starts getting, you know, if we start collecting 1068 00:36:07,260 --> 00:36:09,630 more money into less businesses, less employment, 1069 00:36:09,750 --> 00:36:10,800 who actually buys this stuff? 1070 00:36:12,330 --> 00:36:14,790 And so a big part of the question is like the order 1071 00:36:14,790 --> 00:36:15,870 of operations here, right? 1072 00:36:15,870 --> 00:36:19,740 So if we start to make, you know, education either way 1073 00:36:19,740 --> 00:36:22,590 cheaper, way more accessible, or just unnecessary, 1074 00:36:22,950 --> 00:36:24,030 what breaks, right? 1075 00:36:24,150 --> 00:36:27,030 What about, you know, things like regulation of, of 1076 00:36:27,030 --> 00:36:28,230 how these things happen? 1077 00:36:28,470 --> 00:36:29,490 Does funding break? 1078 00:36:29,490 --> 00:36:30,540 Do we even need it anymore? 1079 00:36:30,540 --> 00:36:32,040 Like what are some of the outcomes? 1080 00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,040 What are some of the pitfalls gonna be as we start to see 1081 00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:36,120 this thing move because it will. 1082 00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:38,580 Right, and, and where, I guess really what I'm looking 1083 00:36:38,580 --> 00:36:40,410 for, like the rate limiting factors in your mind. 1084 00:36:40,529 --> 00:36:40,770 Yeah. 1085 00:36:40,770 --> 00:36:43,740 Well, I, I think one of them is the fact that you're gonna have 1086 00:36:43,859 --> 00:36:47,100 exponentially more companies out there with smaller staffs. 1087 00:36:47,279 --> 00:36:50,700 If we take ourselves as a microcosms@startups.com, we 1088 00:36:50,700 --> 00:36:53,640 don't really have a single open hire right now, because 1089 00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,100 if we did, we actually we're not sure what we do with them. 1090 00:36:56,549 --> 00:36:58,109 And Ryan, you and I were talking about this earlier 1091 00:36:58,290 --> 00:37:00,600 with the stuff we're about to build next year. 1092 00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:02,859 The stuff we're about to do for startups.com is like 1093 00:37:02,859 --> 00:37:04,089 next, next, next level. 1094 00:37:04,089 --> 00:37:04,180 Yes. 1095 00:37:04,299 --> 00:37:04,730 Yeah, yeah, 1096 00:37:04,730 --> 00:37:04,740 yeah. 1097 00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:06,279 Well, you and I have been around a long time. 1098 00:37:06,279 --> 00:37:07,720 We've seen nothing like what? 1099 00:37:07,720 --> 00:37:10,720 What's about to come out and the resources that it would've taken 1100 00:37:10,720 --> 00:37:14,710 us to do this two years ago, two years ago would be like. 1101 00:37:15,795 --> 00:37:18,495 400 people, you know, to get this done right. 1102 00:37:18,915 --> 00:37:22,485 And so when I think about, uh, like again, this is, this is the 1103 00:37:22,485 --> 00:37:24,345 germinating effect startups.com. 1104 00:37:24,375 --> 00:37:27,165 We're gonna work next year and beyond to create 1105 00:37:27,345 --> 00:37:28,695 so many more startups. 1106 00:37:28,725 --> 00:37:31,275 So many more startups, like 10 x, the number of startups 1107 00:37:31,515 --> 00:37:34,725 we're gonna take, the costs of starting down to near zero. 1108 00:37:34,935 --> 00:37:36,945 So we're talking like legal incorporation, like 1109 00:37:36,945 --> 00:37:37,905 all that boring stuff. 1110 00:37:37,905 --> 00:37:39,555 But more importantly, the stuff you spend more money 1111 00:37:39,555 --> 00:37:42,465 on, like branding and logo development and marketing and 1112 00:37:42,465 --> 00:37:43,425 funding and like all this stuff. 1113 00:37:43,970 --> 00:37:48,530 We're gonna make it so much faster, cost damn near zero, and 1114 00:37:48,530 --> 00:37:52,730 do so many things for you that even if you just have a a shitty 1115 00:37:52,730 --> 00:37:55,760 idea, we'll be able to build a real business out of it for 1116 00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:56,990 you in a short period of time. 1117 00:37:57,500 --> 00:37:57,620 Yeah. 1118 00:37:57,620 --> 00:38:01,040 Now I say this to say, think of how many new businesses 1119 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:02,300 we're going to help create. 1120 00:38:02,330 --> 00:38:06,440 Like I, it blows my mind to think of the net impact of 1121 00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,260 what we're about to do, but it also blows my mind to 1122 00:38:09,260 --> 00:38:12,740 think that we need so few resources to make that change. 1123 00:38:13,140 --> 00:38:14,040 That's the crazy part. 1124 00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:14,279 Right. 1125 00:38:14,279 --> 00:38:16,049 And I think that that, and that carries over, right? 1126 00:38:16,049 --> 00:38:17,759 So then there's, there's a long tail to that as well, 1127 00:38:17,759 --> 00:38:20,009 which is as we start to lower the cost of failure, 1128 00:38:20,340 --> 00:38:21,660 we raise the rate of tries. 1129 00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:22,230 Correct. 1130 00:38:22,230 --> 00:38:25,110 And so all of a sudden you're gonna see this exponential 1131 00:38:25,110 --> 00:38:27,330 increase in, in the number of people who are building 1132 00:38:27,330 --> 00:38:29,549 that just because, not just outta necessity, but I 1133 00:38:29,549 --> 00:38:30,779 think outta desire, I think. 1134 00:38:30,779 --> 00:38:30,900 Right. 1135 00:38:30,900 --> 00:38:31,860 I think at some point people are gonna look at 1136 00:38:31,860 --> 00:38:33,690 this and go like, okay, so. 1137 00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,620 I used to look at entrepreneurs and go, man, I like a lot 1138 00:38:37,620 --> 00:38:38,640 of what they've got there. 1139 00:38:38,670 --> 00:38:40,350 Like, I like the idea that there's some time freedom. 1140 00:38:40,350 --> 00:38:41,610 I like the idea that they're working on shit 1141 00:38:41,610 --> 00:38:42,480 they really care about. 1142 00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,550 I like the idea that they get to pick who sits next to them 1143 00:38:44,820 --> 00:38:46,680 in the tank, all that stuff. 1144 00:38:46,740 --> 00:38:47,010 Yeah. 1145 00:38:47,100 --> 00:38:49,950 But I don't like the fact that like it meant going a 1146 00:38:49,950 --> 00:38:51,000 couple years without income. 1147 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:52,830 I don't like absolutely idea that the income could just 1148 00:38:52,830 --> 00:38:53,700 go, I don't like the idea. 1149 00:38:53,700 --> 00:38:53,850 Right. 1150 00:38:53,850 --> 00:38:56,220 So there's all of these other pieces that I think 1151 00:38:56,220 --> 00:38:59,400 that because so much of the, that failure cost. 1152 00:38:59,745 --> 00:39:02,985 We're tied up in things that just don't cost anything anymore 1153 00:39:03,015 --> 00:39:06,315 or are more easily avoided because we have visibility. 1154 00:39:06,315 --> 00:39:08,805 We can validate, we can do all these other things that used 1155 00:39:08,805 --> 00:39:12,015 to just have to come by, build it first, and then push it out 1156 00:39:12,015 --> 00:39:14,235 and then see what happens when it, when the weather hits it. 1157 00:39:14,865 --> 00:39:15,735 We can simulate all that. 1158 00:39:15,735 --> 00:39:19,245 Now we can move so much faster and so much further with 1159 00:39:19,245 --> 00:39:20,955 very little risk and cost. 1160 00:39:21,195 --> 00:39:23,595 I think the biggest thing that I'm seeing right now in, in the 1161 00:39:23,595 --> 00:39:26,745 startup market that's changing the fastest is certainty. 1162 00:39:27,060 --> 00:39:30,180 Which is kind of cool at a time where pretty much 1163 00:39:30,180 --> 00:39:33,900 everybody is scared shitless because of the uncertainty 1164 00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:34,770 about what's gonna happen. 1165 00:39:34,770 --> 00:39:34,860 Right? 1166 00:39:34,865 --> 00:39:34,895 Right. 1167 00:39:34,900 --> 00:39:38,340 I'm actually seeing a rise in, in the certainty of what you 1168 00:39:38,340 --> 00:39:39,779 can now go and do as a founder. 1169 00:39:40,110 --> 00:39:42,510 Which I think is gonna empower a hell of a lot of people, do 1170 00:39:42,510 --> 00:39:43,560 a hell of a lot of cool stuff. 1171 00:39:43,590 --> 00:39:47,520 Let's build on that because I think one of the major shifts 1172 00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,640 you're going to see that come out of this is the greatest rise 1173 00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,780 in entrepreneurship that we have ever seen on a global level. 1174 00:39:54,810 --> 00:39:57,090 I think the global level's the important one because 1175 00:39:57,150 --> 00:40:00,615 up until now, even for, for as much as things were go-go 1176 00:40:00,615 --> 00:40:03,510 from the nineties till about now with entrepreneurship. 1177 00:40:04,035 --> 00:40:06,524 This is of course a very American view, but I've, I 1178 00:40:06,524 --> 00:40:09,345 believe that most of that came from the US and maybe it didn't, 1179 00:40:09,345 --> 00:40:11,415 but that's, that's how I saw it, because I've been here. 1180 00:40:11,415 --> 00:40:11,535 Sure. 1181 00:40:11,835 --> 00:40:15,044 I think there was a bit of a moat that got created. 1182 00:40:15,044 --> 00:40:16,785 We see this all the time with founders that come to 1183 00:40:16,785 --> 00:40:17,805 us looking to raise money. 1184 00:40:18,285 --> 00:40:19,995 They're like, Hey, uh, startups.com. 1185 00:40:20,024 --> 00:40:21,944 You know, can you guys help me understand how to raise money? 1186 00:40:22,095 --> 00:40:23,055 But I'm in Bangladesh like. 1187 00:40:24,089 --> 00:40:24,899 Probably not right? 1188 00:40:24,899 --> 00:40:27,540 And not really, but like it's gonna be exponentially harder. 1189 00:40:27,930 --> 00:40:29,939 Or you're coming from Africa or you're coming from Australia, 1190 00:40:29,939 --> 00:40:32,220 you're coming from, and again, I'm not saying you can't do 1191 00:40:32,220 --> 00:40:35,729 it, I'm saying the cost and time to do it is a lot higher. 1192 00:40:35,850 --> 00:40:36,120 Okay. 1193 00:40:36,779 --> 00:40:38,669 But what if you didn't need that money to begin with? 1194 00:40:38,970 --> 00:40:40,919 What if the very thing that was preventing you from 1195 00:40:40,919 --> 00:40:42,569 getting started just goes away? 1196 00:40:42,959 --> 00:40:43,290 Right? 1197 00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:45,089 That's where it gets really interesting. 1198 00:40:45,270 --> 00:40:47,100 I'm gonna go back to the the creator analogy. 1199 00:40:47,775 --> 00:40:51,134 Five or 5, 10, 20 years ago, you needed to have a 1200 00:40:51,134 --> 00:40:54,495 production studio and a bunch of people in distribution and, 1201 00:40:54,500 --> 00:40:57,315 and, uh, relationships with networks, et cetera, in order 1202 00:40:57,315 --> 00:40:58,575 to get your show distributed. 1203 00:40:59,115 --> 00:41:01,425 And now you can, like, like my, my bourbon moth 1204 00:41:01,425 --> 00:41:03,555 woodworking guy just recorded on your thing and, and have a 1205 00:41:03,555 --> 00:41:04,695 million people following you. 1206 00:41:04,935 --> 00:41:06,884 There's just no, uh, barrier. 1207 00:41:07,305 --> 00:41:08,410 Well, now a lot of people can start. 1208 00:41:09,045 --> 00:41:10,185 My son got started, right? 1209 00:41:10,185 --> 00:41:10,875 He's got his channel. 1210 00:41:10,875 --> 00:41:13,335 He has exactly nine subscribers so far. 1211 00:41:13,484 --> 00:41:15,045 We refuse to tell anybody what the channel is. 1212 00:41:15,045 --> 00:41:18,855 That might be part of it, but the idea is he has, it took him 1213 00:41:18,855 --> 00:41:20,145 five seconds to get started. 1214 00:41:20,714 --> 00:41:23,895 Now, here's the other side in his cost of failure is very low. 1215 00:41:24,134 --> 00:41:26,085 Now it's a bit of a straw man argument for a 1216 00:41:26,085 --> 00:41:27,555 9-year-old because he has no. 1217 00:41:27,865 --> 00:41:28,795 Consequence of failure. 1218 00:41:29,095 --> 00:41:32,485 But what I started to see with Shopify stores, uh, 1219 00:41:32,485 --> 00:41:34,315 with how quickly you could get, get up and running as a 1220 00:41:34,315 --> 00:41:36,955 retailer with Etsy stores, how quickly you could get up and 1221 00:41:36,955 --> 00:41:39,865 running, uh, as an individual with gig economy work. 1222 00:41:39,865 --> 00:41:42,295 You know, whether it was Instacart to Uber, et cetera, 1223 00:41:42,325 --> 00:41:45,535 Upwork, for that matter, how quickly you could get engaged 1224 00:41:45,535 --> 00:41:48,295 and start making money from your services directly. 1225 00:41:48,925 --> 00:41:51,835 All of those things are the equivalent of what's about to 1226 00:41:51,835 --> 00:41:54,535 happen, except now all of those things are gonna be people 1227 00:41:54,535 --> 00:41:55,435 starting their own stuff. 1228 00:41:56,065 --> 00:41:57,775 I mean, you could, you could argue that, uh, an 1229 00:41:57,775 --> 00:41:59,935 Etsy seller is by all means a small business, right? 1230 00:42:00,085 --> 00:42:03,715 And so I think you're going to see so many more people 1231 00:42:04,015 --> 00:42:05,665 offer their thing, right? 1232 00:42:05,665 --> 00:42:08,035 Whereas maybe, maybe you worked in a team of a hundred 1233 00:42:08,035 --> 00:42:11,095 accountants doing accounting, you're now a team of three 1234 00:42:11,095 --> 00:42:11,995 accountants doing accounting. 1235 00:42:12,705 --> 00:42:14,115 You're doing the same stuff, you're still doing 1236 00:42:14,115 --> 00:42:15,884 counting, you're probably using different tools, but 1237 00:42:15,884 --> 00:42:16,935 it's with a smaller team. 1238 00:42:17,115 --> 00:42:18,645 I think instead of startups, you no longer 1239 00:42:18,645 --> 00:42:21,705 need like pooled resources, pooled assets to have a 1240 00:42:21,705 --> 00:42:24,194 competitive advantage or to have, even to be able to be 1241 00:42:24,194 --> 00:42:26,834 at a cost where you can afford to deliver at, at any level. 1242 00:42:26,895 --> 00:42:27,134 Yep. 1243 00:42:27,254 --> 00:42:27,464 Right. 1244 00:42:27,464 --> 00:42:29,475 And I think once that goes away, then it, it 1245 00:42:29,475 --> 00:42:30,944 just opens so many doors. 1246 00:42:30,944 --> 00:42:32,685 Because again, to your point, like imagine 1247 00:42:32,685 --> 00:42:33,915 just go, go back again. 1248 00:42:33,975 --> 00:42:35,790 15, 20 years woodwork guy. 1249 00:42:36,420 --> 00:42:37,590 Guy couldn't have produced that show. 1250 00:42:37,710 --> 00:42:39,330 Not only would there have been nowhere to distribute it, it 1251 00:42:39,330 --> 00:42:40,740 was Bob Villa for 40 years. 1252 00:42:40,740 --> 00:42:41,020 That was it. 1253 00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:42,360 Bob Villa for 40 years. 1254 00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:44,130 Right, because he got one of those coveted 1255 00:42:44,130 --> 00:42:45,060 network slots, right? 1256 00:42:45,060 --> 00:42:45,150 Yep. 1257 00:42:45,150 --> 00:42:47,550 He got, he got the distribution side and he had 1258 00:42:47,550 --> 00:42:48,540 an entire production team. 1259 00:42:48,540 --> 00:42:51,420 Imagine what a single episode of that cost versus 1260 00:42:51,690 --> 00:42:54,840 imagine the cost that it's, it's woodworking guy's time 1261 00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:55,800 and nothing more, right? 1262 00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:56,460 An $8 app. 1263 00:42:56,610 --> 00:42:59,785 If, if I think we, if we zoom out and we say, this 1264 00:42:59,785 --> 00:43:01,905 isn't a matter, none of this is a matter of when 1265 00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:03,540 it's going to happen, like. 1266 00:43:04,485 --> 00:43:05,265 Pretty soon. 1267 00:43:05,385 --> 00:43:05,505 Yeah. 1268 00:43:05,535 --> 00:43:05,715 Yeah. 1269 00:43:05,715 --> 00:43:07,515 It's a matter of how big this thing gets and how 1270 00:43:07,515 --> 00:43:10,305 transformative it becomes, I think for a lot of founders 1271 00:43:10,305 --> 00:43:13,035 where they're like, ah, it is bullshit again, again, I think 1272 00:43:13,035 --> 00:43:15,285 that argument's harder and harder to, to stick behind, 1273 00:43:15,675 --> 00:43:16,665 and it's a losing argument. 1274 00:43:16,785 --> 00:43:19,665 Like if, if you think AI bad, you know, I, I 1275 00:43:19,665 --> 00:43:20,385 wanna stay away from it. 1276 00:43:20,385 --> 00:43:20,985 I wanna avoid it. 1277 00:43:20,990 --> 00:43:22,500 I. Dude, I've been through this. 1278 00:43:22,770 --> 00:43:25,020 I watched it happen when the computer stuff happened. 1279 00:43:25,020 --> 00:43:26,970 I watched it happen when the internet stuff happened. 1280 00:43:27,029 --> 00:43:27,330 Right. 1281 00:43:27,540 --> 00:43:28,560 You lose every time. 1282 00:43:28,859 --> 00:43:29,160 Right? 1283 00:43:29,189 --> 00:43:29,250 Yeah. 1284 00:43:29,250 --> 00:43:32,339 It, it's, you don't wanna be on the wrong side of this argument. 1285 00:43:32,339 --> 00:43:35,490 I, I, I buy all of the arguments of what AI can do wrong. 1286 00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:36,310 I agree with all of them. 1287 00:43:36,705 --> 00:43:37,065 Right. 1288 00:43:37,544 --> 00:43:37,694 Yeah. 1289 00:43:37,725 --> 00:43:40,424 And you don't want to be on the, uh, the wrong side of this. 1290 00:43:40,904 --> 00:43:44,625 Our right side@startups.com is we're gonna build the engine 1291 00:43:44,625 --> 00:43:45,825 that builds millions of engines. 1292 00:43:46,154 --> 00:43:47,654 You know, we're gonna build the engine that makes it 1293 00:43:47,805 --> 00:43:51,134 easier than it's ever been to start a company, to scale a 1294 00:43:51,134 --> 00:43:54,134 company, to operate a company, uh, so that more founders, 1295 00:43:54,315 --> 00:43:55,245 uh, don't need capital. 1296 00:43:55,785 --> 00:43:55,995 Right. 1297 00:43:56,024 --> 00:43:57,674 You know, certainly not in the same way. 1298 00:43:57,674 --> 00:43:59,444 No one's gonna miss kissing the asses of, 1299 00:43:59,504 --> 00:44:00,404 of venture capitalists. 1300 00:44:00,404 --> 00:44:02,745 I'm sure they'll find other people to, to throw money at. 1301 00:44:03,044 --> 00:44:04,815 We're gonna create an environment where 1302 00:44:04,815 --> 00:44:05,805 people with just. 1303 00:44:06,465 --> 00:44:07,575 A decent idea. 1304 00:44:07,605 --> 00:44:09,225 It doesn't have to be big idea. 1305 00:44:09,315 --> 00:44:10,635 It could be, it could be, Hey, I'm gonna have 1306 00:44:10,665 --> 00:44:11,595 the raspberry lemonade. 1307 00:44:11,715 --> 00:44:12,045 Right. 1308 00:44:12,345 --> 00:44:13,395 I'm gonna mix two lemonades. 1309 00:44:13,395 --> 00:44:13,635 Right. 1310 00:44:13,635 --> 00:44:14,565 And that's the idea. 1311 00:44:14,775 --> 00:44:15,225 It's enough. 1312 00:44:15,795 --> 00:44:17,535 Just like the creator company, there's a market for that. 1313 00:44:17,895 --> 00:44:18,225 Right. 1314 00:44:18,615 --> 00:44:19,725 And that's exciting to me. 1315 00:44:19,755 --> 00:44:22,875 I, I think, you know, for a lot of people that opens up doors 1316 00:44:23,145 --> 00:44:25,455 that never existed before, especially in, in developing 1317 00:44:25,455 --> 00:44:27,255 countries, which would've never had this opportunity. 1318 00:44:27,750 --> 00:44:27,990 Play 1319 00:44:27,990 --> 00:44:28,170 it out. 1320 00:44:28,170 --> 00:44:30,990 I mean, like, think about what funding, when, when funding 1321 00:44:30,990 --> 00:44:32,310 becomes optional, right? 1322 00:44:32,430 --> 00:44:32,520 Mm-hmm. 1323 00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:35,550 Then think about what ends up happening when revenue 1324 00:44:35,550 --> 00:44:37,620 is greater than debt, which is greater than equity, and 1325 00:44:37,620 --> 00:44:40,470 we can avoid, avoid dilution completely before we, we 1326 00:44:40,470 --> 00:44:41,730 hit product market fit even. 1327 00:44:41,970 --> 00:44:42,150 Yep. 1328 00:44:42,150 --> 00:44:42,360 Right? 1329 00:44:42,720 --> 00:44:43,740 Imagine what happens. 1330 00:44:44,100 --> 00:44:45,870 Imagine what happens because again, like we, we avoid some 1331 00:44:45,990 --> 00:44:47,910 of these scenarios where we see what otherwise would've 1332 00:44:47,910 --> 00:44:48,960 been great businesses. 1333 00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:50,670 They get to a point where they've taken on venture 1334 00:44:50,670 --> 00:44:54,240 capital, they get to that mid-level income, right? 1335 00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:55,830 They're, they're now mid-sized revenue company. 1336 00:44:56,240 --> 00:44:58,370 They can't make distributions to themselves or the team. 1337 00:44:58,370 --> 00:44:59,780 They can't do anything they want to with their cash. 1338 00:44:59,780 --> 00:45:00,080 Why? 1339 00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,420 Because that won't pay back vc. 1340 00:45:02,420 --> 00:45:03,350 They've gotta grow. 1341 00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:04,610 They got three outcomes. 1342 00:45:04,940 --> 00:45:05,600 We can IPO. 1343 00:45:06,270 --> 00:45:09,839 We can get acquired or we can, uh, take on another round of 1344 00:45:09,839 --> 00:45:12,480 liquidity and take another rent and create liquidity, right? 1345 00:45:12,569 --> 00:45:16,230 So all of a sudden you have all these other options 1346 00:45:16,230 --> 00:45:19,770 that just stay on the table, which is a huge part 1347 00:45:19,770 --> 00:45:20,669 of de-risking it, right? 1348 00:45:20,669 --> 00:45:21,930 If you could have even gotten the funding in the 1349 00:45:21,930 --> 00:45:23,549 first place that applies, that applies, you could have 1350 00:45:23,549 --> 00:45:25,830 gotten in the first place, which most people just won't. 1351 00:45:25,830 --> 00:45:27,540 Statistically, they won't, right? 1352 00:45:27,540 --> 00:45:30,000 We take that off the table, all of a sudden, that's just one. 1353 00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:32,220 That's just one vector, and just the, the, you 1354 00:45:32,220 --> 00:45:32,910 know, the cash reductions. 1355 00:45:32,910 --> 00:45:34,379 We've talked about this in other, other episodes. 1356 00:45:34,379 --> 00:45:35,044 You've touched on it today. 1357 00:45:35,925 --> 00:45:38,175 But as we reduce the need, right, when we no longer 1358 00:45:38,175 --> 00:45:40,995 need to build a massive moat with people, you know, to 1359 00:45:40,995 --> 00:45:43,725 do the marketing, a massive moat of people to build the 1360 00:45:43,725 --> 00:45:46,425 technology, a bunch of cash to pay all those folks, all of a 1361 00:45:46,425 --> 00:45:50,355 sudden we don't have to think as big to achieve success. 1362 00:45:50,355 --> 00:45:53,265 So we can actually aim small absolutely. 1363 00:45:53,265 --> 00:45:53,355 And 1364 00:45:53,355 --> 00:45:53,850 achieve something really cool. 1365 00:45:54,585 --> 00:45:56,535 That's a big deal for an awful lot of people. 1366 00:45:56,714 --> 00:45:58,694 Yeah, and I think, I think what people are missing 1367 00:45:58,694 --> 00:46:01,995 right now is they think that we're in the age of ai, and 1368 00:46:01,995 --> 00:46:02,955 I understand that, right. 1369 00:46:02,985 --> 00:46:05,384 A AI is pervading everything in the same way we thought 1370 00:46:05,384 --> 00:46:06,345 we're the age of the internet. 1371 00:46:06,944 --> 00:46:08,714 But AI is just a tool. 1372 00:46:08,850 --> 00:46:11,025 The the reason it becomes meaningful, like what 1373 00:46:11,025 --> 00:46:13,035 it creates in the world comes from founders, 1374 00:46:13,065 --> 00:46:14,205 it comes from startups. 1375 00:46:14,535 --> 00:46:14,714 Yep. 1376 00:46:14,775 --> 00:46:17,505 What we're about to be in is the age of the startup. 1377 00:46:18,070 --> 00:46:21,130 Every single person has a meaningful shot to create 1378 00:46:21,130 --> 00:46:24,280 a startup, their own dream, their own product, their own 1379 00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:26,890 market in a way that we've never seen at a scale that 1380 00:46:26,890 --> 00:46:28,360 we've never seen before. 1381 00:46:28,420 --> 00:46:30,610 And I gotta tell you, as somebody, and I know you share 1382 00:46:30,610 --> 00:46:34,570 this with me, Ryan, as someone who helps startups for a living 1383 00:46:34,570 --> 00:46:37,360 and believes so strongly in founders, I feel like you 1384 00:46:37,390 --> 00:46:40,480 and I have been waiting for this age for our entire life. 1385 00:46:41,250 --> 00:46:43,110 Overthinking your startup because you're going it alone. 1386 00:46:43,500 --> 00:46:46,380 You don't have to, and honestly, you shouldn't because instead, 1387 00:46:46,410 --> 00:46:49,500 you can learn directly from peers who've been in your shoes. 1388 00:46:49,590 --> 00:46:51,930 Connect with bootstrap founders and the advisors 1389 00:46:51,930 --> 00:46:54,360 helping them win in the startups.com community. 1390 00:46:54,510 --> 00:46:59,160 Check out the startups.com community@www.startups.com 1391 00:46:59,250 --> 00:47:00,180 to see if it's for you. 1392 00:47:00,390 --> 00:47:01,470 Could be just the thing you need. 1393 00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:02,640 I hope to see you inside.