Troy: Do you like my sweatshirt?
Alex: I think you should turn off the blur.
That's what I think.
Troy: Alex.
I never wanted to be a video star.
I never even
Alex: here you are.
Yet here you are.
Brian: uh, the reluctant podcaster that that's wasn't that Alex's role.
Troy: I'm happy to do a podcast.
I just don't want to be like a YouTube character.
Like I, it is not my jam.
Alex: I don't wanna wear pants, but here we are.
Brian: Perfect analogy.
Alex: Exactly.
Troy: you got a sermon to give Brian?
Brian: Well, uh, I do actually.
Welcome to people versus Algorithms.
I'm Brian Morrisey, joined by Troy Young with a blur on his camera.
Troy, you got a Zi in, you're ready to go.
Troy: Ready to go.
Brian: I saw a guy in an airport earlier today, earlier today, yesterday, who, he was wearing shorts in Detroit and like a backwards baseball cap.
And I was thinking, that's the Zis guy.
And sure enough, he, he popped one in.
so that was fun.
And Alex Schleifer.
Alex, welcome.
I.
Alex: Glad to be here.
Troy: a sec? Can we talk about it?
Did you wanna start with a
Alex: That's all you want to talk about.
Why not?
Brian: What Zens
Troy: well, I bought, I, I just wanted to try, I'm looking for the perfect Zen and there's European zis and there's American zens.
The American ones are much better, in my opinion.
Some of them are like wet and they're, they're not nice.
So I tried this, this, new product called, athletic, just like an athletic nicotine sin.
Brian: Athletic,
Troy: I've got it,
Alex: That's like the athletic greens of nicotine addiction.
Troy: multiple flavor.
And you can see why it would appeal to someone that you're having a product that's an athletic,
Brian: there's a non-alcoholic beer caught athletic too is that's not
Troy: so their slogan, their, their line is taste, victory.
It's just kind of catchy.
And I think they have, they actually had Rick Rubin and Joe Rogan on their website.
I don't know if they're official sponsors, they, they're, it's notable because they have a 1.5, which is very light, and they have a no taste one like I do threes, but you can go up to like nines, like nines are like crazy, crazy.
Threes are nice.
1.5 light, little buzz.
Anyway.
they suck.
They're no good.
I, and I don't mean, you know, good luck to the people that are making them, but the thing is that the packets that enclosed the, the, the, the beautiful powdery nicotine on the zens cannot have not been, you know, beaten.
And these are the best.
Alex: And this is the content you guys come here for.
This was our nicotine patch review corner, so don't buy athletic.
Troy: I've struggled with nicotine addiction for a long time, and it, it
Alex: Oh.
Troy: make me feel good about myself.
I, I,
Alex: Me both buddy.
Troy: if
Alex: and me both.
Troy: you, you know that, I, as a, as a boy, I like cigarettes as I got, I'm like Obama, I like a cigarette.
And then I went into the gum phase and I had gum, but there was gum everywhere in my house.
Underneath every surface there was, Jill used to yell at me about gum everywhere.
Then I started hitting the
Alex: I think we lost like a third of our audience just now, but keep going.
Troy: the, but the mince, the mince were nice, but I got so addicted to the mince.
I was doing like a, like, at least a bundle of mince a day.
And the whole problem was, is that I kept, like, when I would go to Europe or when I would like, you know, be like a quiet moment away from the house, I might sneak a cigarette here or there.
So I was always trapped in this addictive cycle.
And these keep me there, but they prevent me from smoking.
The thing is, is that I just need to cut the nicotine habit 'cause it's a 30 year habit.
But, it brings out the best in me, as you've seen in this podcast.
Brian: Yeah.
Well, it's worth it, Troy.
good luck with your addiction, but for now at least it's given you some leverage on the podcast.
YouTuber front.
I wanna start by talking about something that I wrote about in the newsletter.
I'm trying to, in my newsletter, I'm trying to link the two a little bit more.
it was kind of about how tech is creating this alternative media ecosystem.
Slowly but surely it's putting together the pieces.
And, we had talked about this TBPN, the Technology Brothers Programming Network.
and I think it represents something important to where the media business is going, particularly in tech because as we know, everything is downstream of tech.
but it's a live streamed three hour YouTube show hosted by entrepreneurs John Coogan and Jordy Hayes Coogan was a co-founder of Soylent, and apparently he was in on some nicotine gum product.
Troy: Loosies.
He did
Brian: Lucy, do you know them?
Troy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brian: What are they?
Good?
Troy: No, it's people putting a brand on a product that's inferior.
Brian: Oh my God, nobody would ever do that.
Never, not in DTC.
That would be crazy.
Anyway, TVPN is, it's a fast growing, it's, it's nicely produced.
I think, I see it mostly all over X, which is my addiction.
I don't have a nicotine addiction.
I have, I have an X addiction.
Alex: You still have that, it's probably worse for you than nicotine
actually.
Brian: I'm blowing past.
I'm like, don't remind me until tomorrow.
I'm fine for today.
I can quit
anytime I want.
Troy: those dudes are handsome too.
Brian: Yeah, they're handsome.
And they also have it, it has all the trappings of CNBC.
It has a running ticker, it has multiple tickers.
It has like three tickers.
It has tech, it has all these tech sponsors.
they have, they do this three panel sort of shot where the guest is like in the middle.
And then the two dudes who are handsome are on the sides.
And anytime I see it on XI know I. It's the technology brothers, and I don't know, it's being shoved down my throat or I'm just finding it.
and they have all these, you know, entrepreneur guests and, and whatnot.
And I thought about it, it's kind of in many ways the what all in used to be, it was before it veered into, its Manosphere lane.
but TBPN, like they have, they basically are the tech world's version of CNBC.
And it's like a place where you're not gonna get like hard hitting like interviews or adversarial quote unquote journalism.
I mean, in fact, Coogan was in EIR at Founders Fund.
Okay.
And Founders Fund has, they've already spun out pirate wires, which is another element of this.
Okay.
And then I was looking at other sponsors 'cause I was, wow, you got a lot of sponsors and like half of them are founders fund portfolio companies.
So this is a great model.
Right.
Like, and I think that
it's part,
Troy: your conspiratorial juices flowing.
Brian: it's not, it's not a conspiracy.
I am, I am, I have taken over a room in my house to like, you know, take over the wall.
Troy: it's a media conspiracy.
What you can see is in the product is because they started with sponsors.
They made room for sponsors in the interface.
You can see them all over the, the top one is ramp,
Brian: Yeah.
It's like a nascar.
I love it.
No, we, I, that's, that's my goal.
I want to have
Troy: But that skill, Brian.
Brian: company sweatshirt.
I wrote about them and then he like followed me on X. So I think like he's, it, it
Alex: you're even more addicted.
it's crazy that I hadn't heard, heard about it.
I, it's the first time I hear, heard about it was when you guys discussed it as a, as a topic.
But yeah, I, it's funny that the, the format is very CNBC and it maybe shows that, you know, like there's still some valid formats out there.
You just need to change the cost structure and simplify everything.
And it, it can build a, you can build a beautiful media business.
It's not
Brian: Well, well, here's the thing, Alex, you don't only change the cross structure, you change the entire business model.
Necess, like, so this is one of them, but there's a lot of these outlets because to me, this is a typical instance of an arbitrage opportunity.
Media has a tremendous amount of influence.
You know, the influence is high, but the market value is low, and it's never been lower.
Really for, for media it's really difficult, to make money in media.
I don't know if you know that, but traditional journalism is expensive.
It's slow, it's constrained by institutional norms, you know, all this fact checking and nonsense, but still shapes, narratives, sets, agendas.
It gives legitimacy.
I mean, I think that Elon Musk buying X was actually a good investment.
so I think that basically tech is looking at media in order to have a different type of business model.
Now, Andreessen Horowitz is like really deeply involved in the, into the, into this go direct movement.
Right.
And I think this is the updated playbook.
'cause it says it's a media company that just monetizes through investing.
Right.
And I, I know a lot of people kind of use versions of that, but I think there's something there.
I mean, just this week, Andreessen Aqua Hired, Eric
Troy: What do you think of that homepage image?
Brian: I, it's fine.
I, I like it.
Alex: You're talking about the Andreesen side.
Troy: Yeah,
Alex: Yeah, it's got a
big coin with, uh, is it,
Troy: that's American exceptionalism right there in a coin or some kind of golden,
Brian: it like a challenge coin?
I'd like to have one of those.
Alex: yeah, it's maybe a, a, a shit coin.
but yeah.
Sorry, you
Troy: interrupt.
We interrupted your long narrative
Alex: I'm trying
Brian: Try I let you do here.
I thought you said you wanted us to prepare.
I prepare a little whole like
Troy: it.
I'm taking it in, man.
I made notes.
Go.
Alex: Yeah.
Brian: it's fucking bullshit.
Alex: After breaking your flow, let this guy cook.
He was just, he just,
Troy: Yeah, he's cooking.
Brian: anyway, I think like, you know, all in showed the way with this because, you know, they, they monetize completely differently than regular media.
And you, you see this in the tech, tech media space.
They kind of gave up on the journalistic side of media.
You know, they used to spend a lot of time working the refs.
Nick Denton was on here, few weeks ago, and he talked about how Mark Andreessen and, and Musk and the others were sending him notes and trying to get him to like, write about this or write about that.
And that was the old way of doing things.
Now it's like we're gonna create our own media, which, you know, Andreessen does.
And now with Turpentine, they'll, they'll control more media, but a lot of times it's using that sort of soft power.
They're backing other kinds of media.
There's friendly media.
The incentives are out there.
If you're on Substack or in a podcast and you know you're friendly enough, you're gonna get the right guests.
And Mark Andreessen, you know, pops up a lot.
He'll, he'll promote it and he'll get a lot of people there.
It's not exactly a new thing, but I think that there are building a really interesting ecosystem, and it's no surprise that the two totems of this are Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund, from Peter Thiel.
Those are my, that's my conspiratorial.
I don't think it's conspiracy, I
think it's just out in the open.
Alex: if you take a step back though, isn't it just that, it's just becoming infrastructure, you know, like every company has become a tech company or needs to be a tech company.
Right?
and that every company today needs to also be a media company.
And media is just infrastructure.
As part of building a, a, a, a, a solid company.
It gives you influence, it gives you reach, it gives you access to, to your customer base.
It is 100% what, you know, 50% of our time in our studio is developing media because we want to own the audience.
And we think that by the time we release the game, having an audience is going to be very valuable.
but the fact that they're doing it the way they are being in, in an industry like kind of VC and tech, which is about back scratching and that they're using that playbook, is also not surprising.
You know, but they're good at it too.
Right.
Brian: Yeah, I mean, I think, like from what I've like heard, you know, having, having like a video studio as part of like your setup, in, at tech companies or VC is just the regular, regular thing.
And the fact is, despite the camera troubles that Troy has and, and I do, it's never been more accessible than ever, to do this.
And it's not like they're, they're lacking money and you can buy distribution in lots of places.
And, I think what's interesting is it presents, it takes on a lot of the conventions of.
Sort of traditional media.
Like if you look at the TBPN, it looks like a regular, you know, cable news program.
Right.
And I'm not saying, look, the, the content itself is, is pretty good from what I see.
You know, I haven't watched any three hours of it, but I have seen plenty of clips in it.
And I think that there's a place for this.
I think it's just really difficult.
It, it's, it's yet another participant in this marketplace and you know, it, it's got a, what do they call in Silicon Valley, an orthogonal strategy to it.
Alex: Hmm.
But I, I mean, that's the thing, right?
They, they have an orthogonal strategy.
Their cost structure is completely different.
They record like a ton of, so, you know, they just sit down and start recording video.
There's always news.
They, they have a, a system of bringing people on that are, friendly, right?
And it becomes kind of, and everybody's got different media companies.
So you do kind of that audience capture of bringing people to your podcast.
And then what they have very likely is a group of editors that go in and slice up stuff into little soundbites that addicts like, you get to like, just like gobble up on Twitter.
It's a great, it's a great strategy.
I think.
I think they're doing a great job.
Like I kind of wanna watch it now.
I find it, I find all the tickers and everything really mesmerizing.
I mean, it's very maximalist.
What do you think of the design, Troy?
Brian: It's definitely that.
Troy: well, it looks a little like the Onion News Network, but the, it's the green maybe,
Alex: I
mean, it could be an onion news network thing.
tech bros. Channel 24 7 Tech bros. Just talking about themselves.
Brian: Well, they're, they're owning the tech bros thing, which is fun.
Troy: yeah, they're owning that.
I like that.
a few observations I would have just while you were talking, Brian.
One is they have this skill today.
They talked about Kevin Strom complaining about in court about, Zuckerberg starving Instagram of, financial resources early on, a post-acquisition as sort of testimony to the fact that he was buying a competitor.
They talked about that for like half an hour.
I just talked about it.
That's it.
There's not a lot to talk about.
And so I think that's a great skill.
They do that on, obviously they do that on M-S-N-B-C, on CNBC, on CNN, just people bullshitting endlessly.
This, this kind of skill to just talk, talk, talk.
Which yeah,
Brian: do that.
I saw, I talked for two and a half hours yesterday.
Troy: yeah.
Alex: we
Troy: blah, blah, blah.
I
Alex: blah.
Brian: ever do that?
Two and a half hours straight
Troy: no, so, so they
Alex: Troy.
Troy, do you ever like sit down and pontificate for a long amount of time?
Just going
Troy: I mean, I've been known to try to talk things
Alex: You just, you just started this podcast by talking about Zen for 15 minutes.
Troy: yeah.
The other thing is, is that people are building media businesses on Twitter.
I think they're probably the biggest distribution for these guys is clips on Twitter.
Right.
And, and now their, their ad product is built into the video stream.
It travels on Twitter.
Like Twitter.
Twitter is, is back.
They just traded the audience out.
And, you know, kids love Twitter.
it's the only place, it is really the only meaningful text-based social network.
everybody that counted it out was
Alex: That's crazy.
You're
Troy: It you, you were wrong.
All of the libs were wrong.
Alex: insane.
This is, this is like, this is the moment everyone listening to the podcast.
This is the moment we turn all in and next election cycle, Troy is.
Has some sort of like Twitter czar status.
What are you talking about?
Twitter
Troy: People release news on Twitter.
The government uses Twitter.
The tech bureaus use Twitter.
Like pe My kids use Twitter, pe people like Twitter People Act.
Brian loves Twitter.
I actually
Brian: I hate it.
I, I'm addicted to
Troy: It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Brian uses Twitter and regrets it, but he uses it
Brian: called x.
Alex: I, I don't think Twitter is, I don't think Twitter is dead.
I'm, no, I refuse to call it XI don't, I don't think Twitter is dead.
I think it's, it's, it's probably doing fine, but there is more, there are more options today than ever and every one of these guys on every single network.
Twitter definitely has its pockets of like, especially people who have built
Troy: Twitter is still massively influential.
There's always gonna be, you
Alex: Traffic was down and, and, but, but I would say like for these guys, like.
This is, this is, this is not a Twitter success story.
This is like a YouTube success story.
This stuff is like this stuff.
YouTube is so huge.
It's the everything network, all these shorts and everything like that that are happening on
Troy: I, I agree that that YouTube's big part of the formula, but distribution on Twitter is really important.
If you look, look, look at, look at the number of subscribers
Alex: a, it's a part of it.
It's a part of
Troy: Hey buddy, why don't you do this?
They've got 5,000 subscribers on, on, YouTube, it's nothing.
Now go pop over to X and look at the brothers.
Brian: the technology brothers,
Troy: Yeah.
Are they actually brothers?
Brian: no.
Alex: No,
Brian: You know, brothers.
Alex: they have 50,000 'em next.
Brian: Brothers.
Like with a, with an
Troy: So, so, so they have 10, 10 times the distribution on
Alex: But look, let's look at some tweets.
Let's look at some tweets like.
Like you, you're talking out of your ass.
This got like seven re this is
like two hours,
Troy: as Brian would say,
Alex: but, but it's like they've got 20, they've got 20 retweets for something they posted 18 hours ago.
I don't know what their distribution is, but
Troy: Hey, hey Alex.
I'm not talking outta my ass.
They have 58 people watching it on YouTube right now.
Alex: it maybe we're just talking about something that nobody's watching.
Troy: Yeah.
Brian: It could be.
It could be.
But like, here's the thing, it's like they are getting like the, they are getting like real guests on here and it is, I think, look, you can buy distribution like, right?
Like I think in some ways I. Carlos Watson was, was on to something like, you know, he was creating, he was creating, he was just ahead of his time with, you know,
the media entity that he
Alex: these, I mean, so this is, this is a great topic actually.
Troy: This is good.
Alex: tech has a group of successful people.
Right?
I don't think, I don't think CEOs and founders outside of tech has have ever had the status of being celebrities, but we know for a
fact that bringing on some of these, CEOs on your podcast will make your Zuckerberg happening, appearing on your podcast.
Brian, Chesky, my old boss appearing on a podcast.
It brings an audience with it because all of these guys are huge
Troy: Maybe we can get 'em on our podcast
Alex: Well, you know, I haven't been trying not to use like my, you
Troy: Yeah.
No,
Alex: people out.
Maybe I should.
Maybe I should,
Brian: that would be a terrible idea.
Troy: it's
Alex: a
great model, like, you know.
Troy: but Alex, while you're at it though, it's interesting to look at the, at the distribution formula.
'cause there isn't a single video on YouTube that has more than 2000 views.
Okay.
So, so, so it's, it's pretty, pretty niche on YouTube.
If you go here, they have 50,000 followers.
I don't know what the reach is on a post, but it doesn't look like it's massive.
They're doing, they're pretty aggressive on Instagram.
Would you mind flipping over to Instagram
Alex: Yep.
PN live on Instagram.
Brian: Look, it's very well produced.
I guess.
It's easy to do these
Troy: They
have
Alex: four
Brian: Little too
close up.
Alex: They have
Troy: no
I
Alex: What are we talking about here?
Maybe we're TikTok.
Troy: What?
Alex: You see this is like, it's, it's outsized influence because you're just bringing people on Dev.
2200 70,000 followers on TikTok.
So this is something we should really look into.
Troy: how old is this brand?
How long they been in
Brian: So they started doing it daily, I think, in January.
Cogan just left Founders fun as
Z-E-I-E-I-R.
But this is, so this is it.
So you have very little of a footprint, right?
This is what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
I don't wanna, they used to call it AstroTurf media, right?
Where it's just becomes, it's just, you know, RT and whatnot.
Like, you just like set up things that look like media, but actually is something else.
I'm not saying that this is, you know, that, but it's kind of like this version where it looks completely like, you know, regular startup media, but no, it's not.
This is, this was incubated out of a venture capital fund and so all of a sudden you, I look at all of those sponsors and I was like, oh my God.
Wow.
Like this is like, this is like a big thing.
Troy: The guy on the left though looks like he's gonna star on a show about a banker that becomes a serial killer.
Brian: I think that's the soy link guy.
Alex: It just like there's not even enough data on Google Trends to have them.
This is it.
I mean, I think it's a very, but here's the interesting thing.
I think this is a very insular, kind of, group of people that can get each other on the podcast because the entire VC and tech industry is about this kind of back scratching
Brian: a lot of industries are about this and I guess I think about it a lot 'cause I was talking to like a
Alex: No other industry.
No Brian, no Under industry has, a kind of, such a wide network of people with that footprint, with like clear success stories to talk about with like media savvyness and stuff.
Like we're not seeing the petroleum com, petroleum industry do this.
We're not seeing the car industry do this.
We're not seeing any other industry do this.
We're not even seeing the media industry do this.
And you guys love to talk about yourselves.
I
Brian: That's
Troy: Oh, that's true.
Thank Guilty.
Hey, Brian, I guess we're in the media industry.
uh, the, the thing is, is that per just an observation, so this is a nascent.
Media startup.
Really nice idea unfolding in public.
As I've said many times, everybody in media lies.
Typically what you would do at this stage of the development of the company is talk about how big you are and grow into that, right?
Except that you live on platforms, so everything is transparent, and you can see that there's not a tremendous amount of distribution across any of the channels.
The thing is, is this format of two guys talking about Kevin's system for a half an hour is really boring.
Like the, the, you know, transplanting the sort of CNBC format onto YouTube in a live thing with account, it, it's really hard to get audience and to kind of amass it into a kind of time and place.
So you then rely on the editing and the cutting and the distribution across other, other channels, and hopefully that's how you kind of realize the potential of the brand.
And it hasn't happened yet.
Brian: Well, I, I keep fine.
It hasn't happened yet, but like, let's, let us remember Cheddar, okay?
Just for a moment,
let us remember.
No Cheddar, cheddar sold for, let me get how
much Cheddar sold for
million.
Like John is the best salesperson in the world, next to his dad, who apparently is the best real estate salesperson in the history of Manhattan.
do you know Cheddar?
we must have talked about it before
Alex: I know Cheddar.
I just, I, I
Troy: Yeah, you probably saw it at the
gas
Alex: all those, I got
Brian: That.
Thank you.
I was part of that.
anyway, it was, it was basically trying to create this kind of cable news network for the distributed world.
I mean, they didn't like start off on, on YouTube, which was probably a mistake.
they just tried to go on all platforms, particularly Twitter.
anyway, I think you're gonna see more of these kind of things because name's Cheddar.
There's Cheddar.
yeah, the logo for Cheddar is also Swiss too.
That was also a tell, but it
Alex: But, but I wanna, I wanna call out like the, the format, you know, Troy was kind of blaming that, that format, the format does work.
I mean, if you look at like, you know, political pundit slash gamer, destiny and Hassan and these types of guys, this is what they do.
They sit at a computer and they just pontificate about like, whatever else they've got.
Like, I mean, you know, they've got this kind of crazy chat going on and, you know,
Troy: are different kinds of guys, Alex, that's a different kind of format really,
Alex: is it though, I mean, are they not just trying to transplant that format of like, just like, talking it
Troy: me it's not something reminiscent of CNBC, which is a sort of news-based, talking heads thing.
It's opinion.
It's more like Rush Limbaugh.
And I think that that kind of format works and it works as an audio product and, and then it, you know, people watch it, you know, either sort of half tuned in or not on, on YouTube.
Brian: all right, let's leave it there.
Let's move on to the chaos economy.
Troy, this is your time to shine.
tell us what you're seeing in the chaos economy.
Troy: Well, it was a really, you know, well, maybe I can combine good product into this, Brian, if you would.
I mean, it was a beau, it was a beautiful day in Brooklyn,
Brian: Of course I've heard this like from like everyone in New York City.
It's like, there's one good day and like you, you, you,
Troy: a couple
of 'em, Brian, and it's, you know, it's sort of, you know, God's country when it's a beautiful spring day and people are out getting pastries and
Alex: It's never God's country.
I'm sorry.
Troy: Okay.
So maybe that was a little bit of a detour.
I was walking around and I, you know, using, you know, I was on the internet and then I was on the street and I was thinking, you know, there's.
An insane amount of innovation in this country.
And there, you know, you were, you, you're sort of simultaneously trying to process this insane macro narrative, which is, you know, Trump is destroying the country.
You know, tariffs are gonna suffocate, you know, companies large and small.
all of which may be true by the way.
and that, that, you know, we're heading for, for a cliff.
And then you, you see on the other hand, just like this is like Hustle Nation, you know, like there is, there's something like you can, this is the most resilient country, you know, because
under, and, and, and it just got me wondering like, are we approaching a kind of very new industrial sort of innovation structure where I.
You know, it doesn't matter if Harvard isn't doing basic research.
It doesn't matter if we've, you know, kind of, strangled, you know, Walmart's, you know, business in selling low-cost Chinese products to people, we will just kind of soldier on.
And there's a really fundamentally new kind of ingredient in the economy, which is ai.
And it's empowering people to, in a very kind of micro fashion, to kind of build, to create like, you know, all the, the theory that used to exist about corporations.
Why do they exist?
Because they, they're more efficient than markets in making decisions, in moving information.
They internalized trust.
Everything is in a negotiation.
It made me wonder if, like, the fundamental structure of corporations isn't changing to a, you know, smaller, more nimble.
Kind of entity empowered by technology and that the fundamental kind of modern reality of media, which is people and platforms, right?
These great big platforms that allow you to create, distribute, kind of manufacture any type of media isn't coming to the
rest of the economy where we can use all of this crazy technology at an individual or, you know, small group kinda level.
that we're, you know, kind of in a new period where we're just gonna see a, a new wave of, of growth and innovation powered in the most distributed way that will apply to kind of virtually every industry.
And even though it feels completely chaotic out there, you have this kind of economy that lives inside of the chaos.
This, that where people are, you know, kind of imp like everybody's kind of entrepreneurial and everybody has access to incredible tools and people are building new things.
And, and so that, that's what I was wondering about.
And you know, I'll leave it there and then I have a kind of related thing, but to me it started in media.
We see it in retail, we see it in EDU education and, and are we gonna see it in industry where new types of factories kind of, you know.
Provide AWS like capabilities to entrepreneurs that wanna make things that are powered by kind of machines and robotics.
And, and I think that's the big fear right now is that that particular capability of atoms, of creating, you know, physical things has been lost in this country.
And there's no kind of, you know, capability to, to, to kind of create the atoms space side of there's no platform for atoms
in this country that, that needs to get fixed and that some type of industrial policy has to kind of figure that out.
But, you know, there are things that need big coordination, right?
You know, transportation, you know, military, maybe home building, stuff like that.
But there's a lot of things that are just gonna like rocket forward because of this tremendous in, in, in innovation potential of AI connected to platforms.
And so, so that was my, my thought on that.
Alex: there's a lot there.
I mean, I think what, what maybe you're talking about is that it's, no longer linear, you know, and that, it used to be that you used to go into field and had a clear path in front of
you and, that the industry and opportunities that the country would provide were clearly laid out in front of you, so that if you went down a path of getting educated, because you
mentioned universities and getting proficient at something, you could go down this, this, path and then the country would get better at, better at, say, building cars or airplanes, et cetera.
And it now feels much more chaotic and non-linear because, you know, industry has been not only shipped out, but will.
Get automated.
and and yeah, exactly.
Turned into like an a Amazon AWS that provided service for everyone who wanted to build a tool.
Now maybe you can just start printing out, you know, physical products out of that.
And the fact that you started off in one career path and ended up, you know, selling custom ashtrays, that are manufactured 3D printed somewhere is just a path that people are gonna take.
And that's going to not only apply to individuals, you know, starting businesses, but also, potentially like industries as a whole.
And so it feels kind of messy right now, but it maybe isn't that bad because AI is gonna save us.
Brian: Yeah, I've noticed like an interesting thing, about that.
'cause I think that the pendulum is kind of swinging back towards, you know, small versus big.
'cause it, it was always like if you were starting something new, people would say, well, how many people are you?
Yeah.
Like, and it was always, the idea was the more the, the number it that was bigger, that meant like it was, you were more successful.
And so I, I feel like that is changing, like, to some degree.
like, you know, I had a, I had a podcast conversation with Janice Min, who she was behind, like the rise of Us Weekly in the, two thousands.
And then she took over Hollywood Reporter and, and did, its like reinvention.
she's like very well known in the magazine world, right.
And she, she's now running the Anchor, which is, it's on Substack, you know, and they have like 14 people.
And she had said basically that, you know, the game now is about, about like how, how, how, like lean you can, you can be for as long as, as you can.
and I think that is like changing because you have, and I think it's just at the, the start of it.
I know for myself it's, you know, when I read a lot of, like Barack Obama was, was out talking about ai, which is always like interesting when, you know, the politicians are talking about to see how they frame it.
You know, he's a master communicator and he was like sounding basically the alarm.
And he was doing it with, with, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, but with analogies about the automation that came to manufacturing.
And that obviously had a major impact on, employment there and that at coming to just about every area.
And, you know, people go to like Cody now and how, it, it is, it is evaporating those jobs.
I mean, bill Gates was, was saying, you know, I, nobody even flinches at these things now.
He was talk, talking about doctors and teachers being replaced by AI in 10 years,
Troy: And, but I guess if you look at it and, and you know, I apologize that my thesis isn't crisply articulated, but the, small teams are building planes.
New companies are creating new types of, you know, really important companies in the defense industry, like Andel.
all kinds of small businesses are creating and challenging packaged goods companies.
We've seen that, of course, with DTC people.
Alex, if you look up on YouTube, are 3D printing the most amazing things like, you know, gaming, peripherals and like crazy stuff.
People are making it, you know, in their houses.
and, and then you, you, you look a little further and you're like, wait, Foxconn, the company that makes and assembles iPhones is about to turn, is about to make cars.
And they're gonna look like, you know, conceivably had it not been for this, you know, kind of tension between the US and, China, you would see like, why can't they make a car for Apple?
Why can't they make a car for somebody else who wants to make a car?
you know, the production of something that is a major driver of the industrial economy is being created by a company that puts, you know, boards together with batteries and screens, primarily driven by software.
And you, you know, you gotta look at it and wonder if it wasn't, you know, abandoning whatever kind of approach they took to the, you know, their entry into the automotive
industry beyond just CarPlay that all of these firms, Zomi, Huawei, Alibaba, and Baidu are in some shape or form building automobiles.
Chinese technology firms that previously made, you know, mobile phones
or other types of software products.
Alex: Yeah, it's, it's all true.
I feel that the, the change is happening, which is, you know, like more distribute, more ways to distribute, which we, which we've talked about, about, but now also more ways to get things into
production is really benefiting small industries, or small startups, because it's much easier to apply those changes to certain types of products.
But the one thing that will come in between that, you know, where we are today in Utopia, is the fact that all of that production capacity lies in China.
And that's a huge, I think geopolitical risk long term.
Because, you know, Troy, you still need to build big airplanes and big ships and big buildings and big factories and, and all of that stuff is, is,
Troy: Those are the, the physical platforms that you need.
Alex, I
think we,
we, we own, we own the communication platforms, but we don't own the physical platforms.
Alex: The communication platforms are easy to replace because at some point, you know, you just need to turn off the internet on your side of the country and launch your whole own internet, which China did, right?
And so it's, it's, it's not a very defensible position to be in.
And, and the West and America specifically has been kinda building this service IP communication, media based industry, that is, you know, now at risk of not looking as,
there is like this utopian world where you have.
Lot of, a lot of the knowledge work that can be done with ai, so a small team can do that.
Then we have all the means of distri, of distribution and communication that are your fingertips.
And now the means of production where you can outsource things big and small.
You know, friend of mine gets like custom PCBs done so that you can build these custom computers.
They come back from China, they're amazing.
and you could absolutely also build a car, right?
The infrastructure for building cars as platform is available.
It's in China right now, which is why there's like an explosion of electric cars.
All of the issues that we're gonna face, all the down, the, the, the headwinds that we're gonna face seem to be geopolitical because you just need to turn that faucet off.
Like if, if AWS was, Amazon's AWS which to people might not know is where, you know, a lot of the internet hosts their sites and it's, it's, it's compute on demand.
If that was a Chinese company, You would always be at risk of that stuff being turned off.
And, I think that's going to severely slow down this,
Troy: Yeah, which is kind of my point about this chaos economy.
I think in the, in the innovation space, in the chaos space, we're, we're going to, we're gonna do really well.
I think the American economy is really well suited to that type of innovation.
But when you need big, coordinated things, that require industrial policy and potentially public investment and lots
of coordination, whether that's roads or military or transportation or, you know, healthcare things we're, we're terrible at it.
Brian: Well, I mean, this is the centralized versus decentralized you, right?
I mean, we, like America is Android, I mean, and, and China is, is Apple to a degree.
I mean, that's like a top down system and you know, we're, we're not, we never will be.
Troy: I wonder about, by the way, related to this and, and I think this might make you cringe, but this won't be the first time or the, last, the, you know, Elon's got a problem because he, he fucked up the Tesla brand.
Maybe Apple could take it off his hands and then they'd be in the car business.
Alex: they could.
That's an exit.
Brian: I just to, to put a point on, on that, just not in the car economy, but windsurf, the coding assistant, I guess OpenAI is looking to buy it for 3 billion 170 employees.
Alex: and they tried to acquire Cursor, which is probably the leader in the field of like AI programming and, cursor refuse.
So Windsurf is the next best thing.
yeah, a hundred million dollars, in revenue.
For a company that's small, there is a lot of, there is a lot of money to be made right now.
Troy: What is that?
10 to $15 million in employee?
Alex: yeah,
Troy: nice.
Brian: I mean, this is, this is the sort of new math I guess, that can exist in some of these kinds of companies in the sort of knowledge outside of the, the bits, the actual, you know, the Adams space,
Alex: the, the paradox with these types of movements is that the, the fact that you can kind of generate so much revenue so efficiently means that there's going to be so many competitors and that revenue is going to be peanut butter.
Throughout that, right?
Like through the first movers, get a huge advantage of showing like the efficiency and, and you know, the same way when you were moving first
into YouTube or podcasting, you got there early with your team of two and all of a sudden your podcast was making, you know, $10 million a year.
I think, we're gonna have these like, you know, small teams creating artisanal state software that generates a lot of revenue, but it's going to get a lot of copycats.
Like it's, and, and, and somebody's going to figure out how to do it with three people and how to, you know, provide the service for, for $8 versus $9.
it's why I would've sold if I was dead,
Brian: Did you, I don't know if you saw, there was some clip going around in Jeffrey Hinton talking about, what I wished we had anonymous background for this, how we were, you know, the, the human brain is not actually, you know, rational.
It's an analogy machine and how we need analogies to make sense of things.
this, this, this hit close to home for me.
I mean, I think we're entering, 'cause Troy, you've made this period where we're entering into a period, particularly with ai, where a lot of this stuff is so complex.
Then when we get into quantum computing, it's, it's like, forget about it.
is that the only way sort of normal people can sort of make sense of it?
Is, is through analogy and really we have kind of all along this is how, this is how we do it.
And I noticed whenever you look at like how politicians talk about things like they always are using.
Analogies to, to try to communicate to.
And anonymous banker who unfortunately was not able to be here, was, was talking about how, you know, 'cause the rational sort of explanation about things in a very technical is, is like one form, but it doesn't really break through.
Like, and I, I feel like that is, particularly as the world becomes more complex, that we're gonna lean on analogy more than ever.
Troy: Who was the OG there, wasn't it?
Douglas Hofstadter the philosopher or the, or?
Douglas, I think his
Brian: is, is that his brother?
Troy: he's the cognitive science guy.
He wrote that book that everybody referenced in college.
You know the, maybe you can bring it up, Alex, if you just search Douglas Stader.
Brian: I, I think it's Richard Hoft.
Troy: Well, we'll find out really soon.
Brian: This is tension.
I
Troy: yeah, let's see.
Alex: there we go.
Would you, who do you think is right?
Troy: Yeah.
And what was the name of the book?
There it is.
Go to Cher Bach.
That's the one.
Click on that.
Find that book.
Alex, I love bossing you around like you're the guy on all in.
Yeah, this one.
The Eternal Golden Braid.
He's the guy.
You know what his thing is?
Analogy is the core of cognition.
That's his take
Brian: What is it?
Troy: that we think in analogies.
Alex: We also have to think in analogies when the subject matter becomes so complicated that our brains have trouble processing it.
Right.
And, I think what AI is actually really good at is analogizing all sorts of things for us.
So that, I mean, it, it's helped me tremendously.
Like I've always, used analogies, to communicate and learn and teach things because it really helps me, you know, kind of understand and, and, and store things in my brain.
Troy: wonder if it'll help you tracking a time on your schedule.
Alex: I had to, well, yeah, I mean, I think if you create a calendar for analogy, like maybe it's a glass of water that gets fuller and fuller, and if I let it spill over, it'll, But I have a funny story about analogies.
I was known to really like analogies at, at, at work, and I once got a, a text from someone that I worked with that said for the person who loves analogies, but, iOS truncated it.
So it just said for the person who loves anal,
and I didn't know if I should, if I should tap on it.
I was, I was, I was kind of,
Troy: Was it a, you thought it was a gift guide?
Alex: I thought it was, I, I genuinely, like so many thoughts went through my, I said, this is somebody
Brian: could be some affiliate
Alex: texting, texting me something by mistake.
and, I nearly, yeah, I, I, it was fun.
but yeah.
Troy: That's a great story, Alex.
Alex: Thank you.
It's what?
It's what the listen.
Brian: All right.
Are we done on analogies?
Troy: I mean, what El what?
What El?
I mean, Brian, you know, I don't know what else to say 'cause I don't know anything about it other than I do know that you are an exceptional narrative thinker.
That's what you do.
Maybe it's just years and years of writing stories.
Brian: I think it's years and years of writing stories.
I mean, analogies are how people relate to information that they're unfamiliar with.
I always find like there's this engineering brain that is a little bit different than the narrative brain, and the reality is that there's different forms of intelligence and, I think what
Obama was saying, and I don't necessarily think this is, is true, he was like, you're better off with a liberal arts degree because we're entering into a period where a lot of technical
knowledge, and we talked about this last week, is being commoditized and we're, we kind of are not, we're not ready for intelligence as we understand it very narrowly to be a commodity.
We, we were ready for, physical strength to be a commodity or, you know, being, you know, having manufacturing technical expertise be a com commoditized.
But for some reason we always think that the intellectual will not be commoditized.
But it seems pretty clear that AI is going to commoditize a lot of the, you know, what we thought of as, as being, you know, high level intellectual work.
I mean, we
see this with
Alex: But doesn't that just like, doesn't that just maybe clarify that a lot of this intellectual work isn't really high level and it is in fact just muscle?
It is in fact just like kind of, you know, you know, turning the.
The, and so maybe what happens, and I don't want to kind of become too like, you know, tech utopian on this, is that actually when you, in a world where you can instantiate any idea that you have and make it real, whether it's
digital or you know, physical or narrative, that the most important thing becomes like your own power of like creating the, the, the, the prose or whatever it needs to be.
That like instantiates, that thing, right?
And that's the way you stand out in a, in a world of full abundance where you can just ask the computer to do anything.
It's the asker that gets most of the power versus a computer.
Troy: Yeah, I agree.
I think it's a, I think it's an emergent skill actually.
I think that, you know, I was frustrated to.
Today because, I mentioned this to you, Brian, I was taking a walk, beautiful.
Good product, Brooklyn.
And, I was thinking about all the innovation that's happening, how much chaos is in the world, but how beautiful it was in that moment.
And I was like, you know, how resilient is our world?
you know, I'm worrying like, you know, everybody's worrying about, you know, what happens to my investments and you know, what,
where the economy's going and all of the other, you know, kind of geopolitical risks that we've, it feels like we're living in.
And then I was like, how do I reconcile that with what appears to be a tremendous amount of kind of economic activity centered around innovation and how good America is at product service, software innovation.
And it's just like a long, long, long and experiential innovation.
There's a long history there, and that actually has been where the value has accrued, and suddenly we're nervous that that has both left out a lot of people and that it's a risk to, you know, a, a a, a bigger Thank you Alex.
Brian: Alex is showing Brooklyn, very stereotypical Brooklyn.
Troy: yeah, that's, that's a
nice
Brian: Troy's part.
Troy: Yeah.
Anyway, you know the story and I came back and I started asking chat GPT to help me work that question through.
And I prompted, and prompted and prompted, and I got a response back.
And then I said, write me an essay on it.
And I wanted to hand it over to you guys as kind of a prompt that we could use in the podcast.
And to me, the, the.
A, being able to ask those questions and to create scenarios that technology response to is really, an important new skill to think about.
You know, questions, hypotheses, things that need to, you know, get, get, you know, researched and, you know, things that you want to kind of compare and dig into and analogize and all of that.
The output, can be very, very frustrating because it never quite comes out the way you want it.
it's either too literal or you send it down the wrong, into the wrong place because something that you've said sends the, the LLM to, you know, a kind of, you know, just not entirely relevant part of the knowledge space.
but, I think that that people, that there will be people, there are people that are good at doing this and people that are not.
It's a, it's a
Alex: skill.
I've been thinking about this because I think it's a new skill and it's, it's one that's hard to, triangulate our brains around because I think it is, it is kind of a mixture, an uncanny mixture of using a tool and managing a person.
And I don't, you know, I don't mean to anthropomorphize the ai, but I think there are, it, it, it's, it's so counterintuitive, intuitive
because we are actually, kind of programmed by the world around us to say like, okay, this is how you manage a tool, which is very specific.
It follows a set of rules and how you manage a person, which is much more, you know, emotionally tinted and, and all of that stuff.
And yet here we have this tool where you have to learn how to do both.
It is both a tool and, and, and dealing with an individual in a way.
And I think it's, it's a really completely new way of interfacing with a computer and I don't think it's going to change.
Overnight, right.
Even if they come up with a GI, I think the E, even to the point that I sometimes have clawed and chat GPT open and I get clawed to help me write the prompt that will do a certain thing for chat GPT and I get better results.
That makes no fucking sense.
That shouldn't
Troy: you
know, a Alex, I think about it too in everyday like, process, type questions.
So for example, I have a couple of friends that are creating a new energy drink and I had looked at it 'cause they, I spoke to them about investing in the company and you know, I was looking at,
you know, how the fundamental challenge of how this particular product would stand out in a, you know, dramatically c cluttered environment inside of a bodega or, you know, whole Foods or wherever.
And their, their answer was, well, we'll just go hire an agency and get them someone who's made you know, a good can before to make a can now.
And I'm like, that's not how I would do it anymore.
And what I would do is I would really think through the prompt, right?
Which is, what is unique about this drink?
What is the positioning?
Why do we think it's gonna resonate with an audience?
I would start working back and forth on essentially what the problem statement is and how we're gonna, you know, position it for the consumer.
And then I would start literally making designs like with different, with different, you know, names and different kind of positioning hierarchies.
And I would feed in a project file, the LLMA bunch of other examples I would, and a bunch of influences and stuff that I liked.
And I would literally get to a place where I had 10 examples that I was happy with, that we could then mess with, you know, by hand, you know, that
you could tweak inside of a design, a piece of design software because the, the, getting very specific with words to design is very hard to do.
Alex: It, it, it is.
And I, and, and I'm so happy you said that.
I,
Troy: No, no, but just let me, let me finish Alex.
And then what I would do is I would quickly take those out to everybody I knew and I would line up the 10 cans and I would say, tell me what you're thinking, what you're
feeling.
Help
me understand.
Yeah.
And as opposed to like briefing a design agency and going through that whole process, you would never do that.
Brian: So wait, so unpack, so basically you would get to start quicker, right?
And it, it's going back, but this is not replacing the designer in the
Troy: it's, you know, I think you need the designer at the end of the process.
I think you need them to refine some of the ideas, and I think you need them to, to make the mechanical art perfect.
But, actually Brian, get to start quicker.
I was having lunch with the person and I just started doing it at lunch.
I just did it.
On chat, GPT, I'm like, let's just break down the hierarchy of kind of, you know, what of benefits of, and, and, and let's start designing cans.
And it was
like we have a perfect conversation around a design product like we used to in the old days, but would've taken weeks.
Brian: Wait, lemme say one thing, I'll get to you on this because I think that is like the skillset that is gonna be more important almost than like raw intelligence.
'cause I wish AB was here 'cause he was talking about IQ and I've got a thing about IQ because it's a specific type of intelligence, but like that is gonna get, a lot of that kind of intelligence will be commoditized.
That's why we have so many experts right now, because it's easy to read up on something and get briefed on it by, or whatever, and pass yourself off as like a quasi expert, right?
But like that sort of like, you know, in the valley they call it high agency, like the willingness, like to dive in and like get to start.
That is probably a bigger skillset, a more important skillset to have, which really, you know, bothers me as someone who's, who sometimes struggles with it than, you know, raw, like, you know, IQ horsepower.
Troy: That's important in the chaos economy.
Alex: it is, I, I developed this, way of working, which I think applied well to me because I was a designer and, and, I could make, you know, I could make things real and I would always say like, that's what I like to do.
I like making things real.
And it was never about, is it a, is it words or is it images or is it photos or is it fonts or is it graphics?
It's whatever.
You need to get the job done to remove these layers of abstraction between your idea and what it is that you're making.
Right?
So sometimes it could be clay or it could be like, pick a right set of fonts or just drop some colors in there and, and this and this idea that you started with a document, which is why sometimes
I, I get confused for somebody who doesn't like words, but I, I think that you, the having the format set the intention of what you're trying to build completely changes what you're building.
And, and, and yesterday we had an amazing like five hour meeting where we just had a, a Figma board or mirror board or whatever tool you use.
And it's not like we were writing words or images.
We had screenshots in there.
We had.
We had little digital PostIts post-its, we had graphs, we had examples of fonts.
We had somebody scribbling something down and, and then you kind of pull that out and we call it, we call it shaping, but you pull that out and you make it as real as possible so that you can put it in front of people.
If it's a car, make it out of clay.
If it's a soft drink, make a fake can, you know, like whatever it is.
And, and this idea of like writing a spec, bringing it to an agency that's dead.
If you're doing that right now, you're, you're, you're, you're setting yourself up to be 10 times slower than any anybody else to get your idea out to market.
And, and that's, and that's the biggest skill.
And it's not about being dogmatic about which tool you use or how you express yourself, but maybe, maybe kind of this new technology like ai.
Not only is giving us more capabilities, but it's also teaching us like what maybe we kind of need to be multimodal.
Maybe we need to be like video and image and text generators supported by this tool.
Like generate yourself a fake ad. Make it, see how, how you feel, see if you're going in the right direction.
It's so powerful.
Computers are so powerful.
And yet we've like forced ourself down this like archaic academic kind of path of like, well you first, you set this up and then you turn it into a list of to-dos.
And then you give each one of those to their own professional, you know, who owns a piece of that slice.
And the problem is, if you do that, if you individualize like, well, you do this, you do this, you do this, everybody's doing 5%.
Everyone's 5% becomes their a hundred percent.
And nobody's, you know, nobody's looking at the whole
picture
Troy: the truth is that the distance briefs were usually stupid and designers usually didn't really pay much attention to them.
Alex: no.
Troy: what I mean?
It's just like
we, we spent,
Alex: We're feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting creatures.
Right?
And we always wanna imagine our own thing in it.
And the more you allow for that abstraction to happen, the more it happens.
Troy: as Gavin Newsom would say, here, here,
Brian: Okay,
Alex: No it guy would say on his podcast And now for an ad break
Brian: is he's monetizing very heavily.
Troy: uh, iHeartRadio is monetizing heavily.
Brian: love that.
Does he read them?
I don't listen to it.
Does he
Troy: He, no, he's not a
Brian: That would be great
Alex: the way, can we talk about
30 seconds?
30 seconds That the Governor of California has ads on his podcast is a and more than most is absolutely fucking insane.
Brian: And I meant that question asking if he, if he was reading them, it was completely plausible.
Like if he was like reading an an Athletic Greens act,
Alex: Right before we go, before, before we return to Kanye West, let's listen to an ad for MeUndies.
Brian: you know, I, that's why did you ever listen to like Ben Shapiro's
podcast
or something?
He just, all of a sudden there's no like interlude or any sort of break.
He'd just be like, you know, like about like cancel culture and then he'll be like, boom.
And he's running, he's like reading out like with gusto, like
a
Alex: He's amazing, huh?
He's
amazing.
Brian: he's great.
Alex: you know, tr Troy and I make fun that you're shameless at plugging, but like, you know, you need more of that Shapiro energy.
Brian: Yeah, I'll do it.
No problem.
did you see, I don't know if you saw it, but Pete Buttigieg, went on to, the Andrew Schultz podcast.
What is that?
What is this podcast
Troy: I love this.
For those that can't see it, it's like, it's like Ben Shapiro, A-S-M-A-M-R.
It's just like we're talking and he we're just, we just have a talking head beside us of Shapiro.
Oh, he looks good now.
You see what he, he's got a beard now.
Budgie.
Brian: Yeah, Buttigieg has a beard.
He went on Flagrant, which is the, um, very popular, Andrew Schultz podcast.
he's also part of this, this, this Manosphere Media, which is, I'm trying to unpack.
I'm, I'm also doing a conspiracy, sort of the matrix for, for that.
But anyway, Pete is famous for going on Fox News and to the Lion's Den and holding his own.
And he, he did the same, he did the same in, on flagrant.
And, you know, he took a lot of like, you know, the jokes and all the, the, and, you know, coming and he took them in stride and I, and.
From everything I've read and whatever I saw, you know, he did real well.
and so I think, I think we're starting to see a, in, you know, we're talking about people emerge on different sides of the, of the political spectrum who are willing to go into these environments.
You know, on the, on the contrast
Troy: we're sorting through the talent based on a different medium.
By the way.
He should r up a bit.
He should TRT that shit.
Alex: Yeah, you should, you think he should wear a baggy t-shirt and start wearing a chain like Zuckerberg?
I
Troy: I think he should start, he should start doing the jab and
Alex: needs to
go,
Troy: Well, the linen, the, the, the, the, the royal blue linens.
Yeah.
He could,
Alex: but,
but, uh, but it is, it is true.
And, and so I was, I was listening to, I don't love it, but I was listening to Hassan speak about, the topic that that the
Democrats should really put themselves out there and keep pushing because Americans are more, ma more malleable than we think.
Like media really influences people and the more you go out and, and, and, and, you know.
Talk your book on all of these podcasts, the more you're gonna kind of start incepting some of these ideas in people's heads and they're finally doing it.
And I don't think that, and else, I think that they're doing it with mediums that actually don't only reach people just in numbers, but just like emotionally, right?
Because I think these, these things no longer work on c,
Troy: Yeah, and by the way, you just need to be a better bullshitter.
Like he's good.
He, I mean, he's, I find him to be a sort of compelling thinker,
Alex: he says, but
Yes.
Troy: I don't
Alex: Yeah,
Troy: is,
is a term for not,
Alex: Yeah,
Brian: yeah,
the bullshitters are, well, are actually really well positioned for for the future, I think.
Alex: I mean, people can just talk.
I mean, that's the power, right?
Troy: Brian, if you don't mind me hijacking your agenda a little bit.
I was on the phone with you before the podcast and you started rendering out the battles inside of the kind of manosphere pod podcast world as if it was a, you know, an epic wrestling match.
Would you, would you do that for, for the, for the
audience And just break,
Brian: So basically I was spurred down this, this path with the Douglas Murray character and he, 'cause I, I remembered seeing
Troy: people who Douglas
Brian: so Douglas Murray.
But I remember seeing him before, 'cause he is, he's conservative.
He's like a, he's a British journalist,
Troy: anti woke
Brian: know, anti
woke.
And so I thought of him as like conservative side and also he's got like a knit to pick with, you know, with Islam.
I always like, heard him like talking, you know, a lot of stuff about, about Israel Palestine and, and, and that, and, and then he
Troy: He worries about sort of sovereign purity.
Brian: He worries about the decline in fall of Western civilizations.
You know, that, that's his, that's his lane.
and he is got the British accent.
So, you know, Americans,
you know, they la this up?
Yeah.
20 20, 20 to four.
I mean, this is, this is how agencies, you talk about those briefs, I mean this, every single, every single planner is British for a reason.
and so he went on Joe Rogan and just went and went right after him and went right after him for platforming, Holocaust deniers and whatnot.
And, he had Joe on the ropes.
Joe brought this comedian, Dave White, who we talked about.
Who?
No, Dave Smith.
Sorry.
Dave White.
It could be Dave White.
It's like the most anonymous name.
Nobody's actually ever seen him be funny, but I've only seen him basically just be libertarian on these things.
And so he really held his own because Joe is the kind of, you know, king of this area.
But then after the podcast.
He goes on to Sam Harris's podcast.
Now, Sam Harris was formerly linked with Elon Musk
and he St
Good friends, but then they broke up o over Covid and then, he still kind of buddies with Joe Rogan, but they're, they're trying to, they're trying to have an intervention
Troy: is like the thinking man, Joe Rogan, right?
Like he's like smart and sensitive.
Brian: but he's also very, he also has a, has a problem with Islam too.
So they, they like kind of allied on that because the Douglas Murray guy is, is promoting his book Democracy and Death Cults.
and so basically then Joe Rogan has.
It's Joe Rogan and that guy, Tim Dylan, who I guess is a comedian, but he's also involved in this, this, this weird world where the
comedians and the sort of libertarians are, are overlapping and they're making fun of Douglas Murray for, his British
Troy: So they climbed so Rogan and this other guy climbed up on the ropes to body slam.
Doug Murray.
Brian: because like, he, so basically, Douglas Murray was the first one to, you know, really go into Rogan and smack him around a little bit.
And, and so he's become a bit of a hero to people who absolutely disagree with him nine times outta 10.
But you gotta, you know, you can't pick, you know, we were aligned with, with, with Stalin during World War ii, which is something that a lot of these guys are obsessed with.
Anyway, I'm still trying to unpack it, but
Alex: but
this is the, but this is this is the Joe Rogan playbook, and this is why people actually, if you look at that, there, there, I mean, elephant Graveyard has done some of
that where Joe Rogan, actually in the moment might not be that great at defending his views because he's pretty malleable, right?
And he's pretty, and even when people fact check him, saying things like, well.
Where are you getting that from?
And somebody will cite a very reputable source and it's like, well, do we really trust him?
Or even especially like kind of getting a little dismantled during his own podcast and then afterwards using his massive platforms to just try to destroy people.
I mean, these are, it makes, I, I think there's, there's a few cracks happening and a few different alliances and it does feel like there's a very game of thronesy thing happening.
Like, well, okay, well we both hate these people, but we kind of like this guy and so we're gonna get together and then we're gonna make fun of this dude.
And the fact that comedians are in the center of all this is insane.
Troy: Yeah.
And then Joe Rogan comes out just to kind of be a little bit disruptive and says he likes puppies and due process.
Brian: Yeah, but it's like, I think it's a form of this participatory nature of media in some ways because it's, you know, it's WEI mean, a lot of what's going on with Trump and Trump is like, you know, the U-F-C-W-W-E President, right?
And, you know, you, you create drama, you have people who turn, heal, you know, all of a sudden they were, they were tag team partners and now they're like sworn enemies and then you have a battle royale and
Troy: Tim Dillon the guy that, that, that, that was on all in that last week?
Brian: Yeah.
So they, they, they all, that's why I'm saying like, so all in left this sort of sphere of like, sort of Silicon Valley media and like moved into this area.
' cause
Troy: Great observation.
Yep.
Brian: Is sort of the mass, you know, the top, there's more niche areas.
I haven't mapped it all out yet, but I'm gonna work
Troy: No, it's like us, you know, you get tired of talking about technology and stuff.
You gotta move into other
Alex: But I mean, it's, you know what this is, this is though, it's it is a, a YouTube phenomenon that's been happening for a while in some of the younger, with the younger YouTubers, including
folks like Destiny and some of the gaming streaming and stuff like that, is that there's that whole meta narrative of all the drama.
There's, there's channels.
If you, if you YouTube that there's channels based just on YouTube drama, it's like, the, the, you know, the housewives of YouTube, is happening in the background and it's a massive ecosystem of like.
Like, you know, like Tabloidy drama and people love it.
I don't know how much of it is manufactured, but the amount of times this type of, oh, this guy did that on his stream and you know, cheated on this guy's, you know, girlfriend and whatever.
and it's all happening there.
And YouTube is this massive place where all of this is happening, which is why, going back to your point, Troy, I don't think X is the big, is the big driver of all that.
Everything is happening on YouTube.
Everything is happening
Brian: Yeah.
But, and I think what's interesting is podcasting has be, has basically been swallowed by YouTube.
You see basically the podcasters adopting all of the YouTube gimmicks and, and you know, that's where the debates all came.
I was like, why is everyone doing these debates on these podcasts have been listening to?
And it's because it's a YouTube format.
Alex: yeah.
It's a YouTube.
A podcast is now a YouTube show that you also distribute as audio only.
I.
Troy: Yeah, I wanna make a point about our podcast right now.
I, I, I may, I had the misfortune of following it on YouTube.
Alex and I, I don't, I don't love, you know, playing in, in the, in the video space.
But if we could do it like this, this is great.
I just like,
Alex: like this.
Troy: like,
Alex: people still listen.
People still listen to it.
Troy: Alex is basically surfing the web as we talk and it's, it's kind of soothing, it's relaxing.
I really, really like it.
And I'm actually enjoying making the podcast more because as we sit and talk you're bringing up references and it's, it's kind of cool, like, I think we've stumbled onto To may maybe what our, our format is that that's acceptable.
And actually, you know, because our format on on YouTube doesn't work in my opinion.
'cause it's, you know, three aging white guys talking and it just doesn't work.
Alex: I mean, that's what we got to work with, but we can, we can embellish it.
Brian: I can't change that.
Troy: Yeah.
Brian: I guess I could.
Alex: also, it, it, it, we, can you live in Miami?
Of course you can change that.
Just need some big fat lips and some hair plugs, and you'll be good.
All right.
I have a hard stop.
So do you have a good product?
Except this podcast, the video version of this podcast is a great product.
Troy: Yeah.
If we could keep it up.
Alex, thank you for doing it.
I, I already told you my good product.
It's New York on a Spring day, plants
down.
Alex: good product is, the Insta 360 link to webcam that allows you, to record your video really well and not look like, in a
Brian: I'm telling you, send me the link and I'll use it.
So I have a good product, but it's, it's a bad product, but I think it, it highlights a good product.
So I, I was in the Detroit airport yesterday and I passed by one of the, the economists branded stores.
And it, like right near, it was a Wall Street Journal store.
They were the exact same store.
And so all of these media
brands, you know, in the airport, retail, like there's a Buzzfeed,
Troy: They're just dumb licensing agreements.
Brian.
Brian: Dumb licensing agreements.
And so they just like do 'em as cash grabs.
It's the same neck pillows in as in any store.
And I think it's a disservice to the brands to treat it this way compared it to like someone like Monocle who makes it like a real business line with their airport retail like experiences.
You gotta like tend to these brands and I think it's like, it's pretty bad when, you know, look a lot, we've talked a lot on this podcast
about how, you know, IP harvesting, brand harvesting, whatever you wanna call it, is a big part of the future of a lot of these brands.
Well put some effort into it, like don't just slap your, lap, slap your logo that you've, you know, is hard earned respect over so many years of journalism on like the same old neck pillow store.
I would like to go into like a very economist
Troy: you think a neck pillow is a good, good product?
If I see you in the airport with a neck pillow walking
Brian: No, look, it's a very con look.
It's very controversial in, in comfort.
Plus you wouldn't know it at the front of the
Alex: Yeah.
Troy, there's the, the seats at the back of the plane, Troy, they don't turn into beds.
It's really
Brian: Yeah.
Nobody makes your bed.
There's no pajamas.
That's why people wear their pajamas onto the plane.
You
know?
Troy: So do you have a neck pillow?
Brian: I own a neck pillow.
Yeah.
I don't use it most times.
Troy: That's it for this episode of people versus algorithms where each week we uncover patterns shaping media culture and technology.
Big thanks as always to our producer, Vanja Arsenov.
She always makes us a little clearer and more understandable and we appreciate her very, very much.
If you're enjoying these conversations, we'd love for you to leave us a review.
It helps us get the word out and keeps our community growing.
Remember, you can find People vs.
Algorithms on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and now on YouTube.
Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next week.
That was great.
Thanks Alex.
thanks for the visuals that'll make the show better.
Appreciate it.
Brian: cool.
Troy: All right.
Alex: Alright.
Brian: Bye.
Troy: Bye.
Alex: Bye.