The Common Thread of All Technology: Monitoring the Situation, Ep.1

1. 0:00 – 2:23

   The Coherence of a16z’s Investments

   1. ETErik Torenberg0:00

      [gentle music] We're excited to do our first episode of, of Katherine and I's new podcast series with a16z, where we run through the, the stories of the internet. Eddy, th- w- thank you for being our, our, our, our first guest. I, I thought an appropriate topic to, to, to sort of begin as, as we have you from, from the crypto team, I'm, I'm trying to do more of these mashup episodes with people from, from different teams, is w- one thing we, we see a little bit, uh, Katherine, is some people say, "Oh, how is a16z coherent in that they, you know, really are leaning into the American Dynamism brand with Ar- Art Deco and, and all of our investments, but also on the other side, I see all these consumer investments. How does that make any sense?" Um, more, more seriously, how, how should one, one think about sort of the, the variety of what we do and, and how it is coherent and cohesive, um, to do s- you know, something as serious as, as American Dynamism but to also do, you know, consumer internet, for, for example?

   2. KBKatherine Boyle0:55

      Yeah. Well, I always get the question, or someone put on the internet maybe a week ago, like, h- how, how do games, like how do games-

   3. ETErik Torenberg1:02

      Right

   4. KBKatherine Boyle1:02

      ... have anything to do-

   5. ETErik Torenberg1:03

      Yeah

   6. KBKatherine Boyle1:03

      ... uh, with American dynamism? And I always answer that question with one word, which is Palmer. Uh, because Anduril would not have happened if not for Oculus. Oculus would not have happened if not for Palmer's obsession, uh, with gaming. Right? Like, like, there, there's, there's, there's, there's so much continuity in the world of tech that I sometimes think people, um, silo things a- almost, almost, like, because, you know, we silo things, right? Like, we're, we're in very different worlds.

   7. ETErik Torenberg1:27

      Yeah.

   8. KBKatherine Boyle1:27

      We have very different types of expertise in terms of what we're looking for as investors. But sort of the continuity of what is building and what is technology, it spans all sorts of realms. Um, and, and frankly, it spans every industry, it spans every realm of human life, that to, to say, "Oh, well, like, games have nothing in common," or, "Crypto has nothing in common-"

   9. ETErik Torenberg1:45

      For sure.

   10. KBKatherine Boyle1:45

       "... or these people have nothing in common," um-

   11. ETErik Torenberg1:48

       It, it's, it's all one boiling, boiling mass. It's like, uh, there, it's all interconnected. I mean, I was... Like, uh, GPUs still internally use all the logic of showing things on a screen. You know, you buy, like, a GPU for a data center, it still has little ports on the back to connect a monitor to it. They'll never be used, right? Like, it's all, it's all inter- it's all deeply intertwined. Every piece of technological progress can be reapplied somewhere else. That's the whole beauty of software. That's the whole beauty of computing.

   12. KBKatherine Boyle2:14

       Totally.

   13. ETErik Torenberg2:14

       Like, I, I... So I, I don't even, I don't even understand the question, Erik.

   14. KBKatherine Boyle2:18

       Totally.

   15. ETErik Torenberg2:18

       That's how I'd put it. I don't even understand the question.

   16. KBKatherine Boyle2:20

       Well, and I, and I always say, Erik, I've been, I've been begging you and

2. 2:23 – 4:12

   The Techno-Optimist Manifesto & Founder’s Journey

   1. KBKatherine Boyle2:23

      telling you, we have to have The Techno-Optimist Manifesto-

   2. ETErik Torenberg2:25

      Yeah. [laughs]

   3. KBKatherine Boyle2:25

      ... on the front page of our website, right? Because it's like, to me, that is the coherent thesis of what all building is. It's, it, it's the thesis of, of every t- like, every founder's journey, right? Like, the founder's journey is pretty universal across every sector. Um, it's sort of a, a universal story arc in terms of what they experience, even if they're building in different realms. Um, I think the sort of atoms and bits sort of playful, uh, battles between our founders is, is actually more of... You know, it, it's sort of like a, a humorous thing versus one that's really grounded in philosophy because at the same time, everyone's going through the same thing of building, and no one can predict. Like, you could have, you can be directionally correct on where you believe the future is headed, but no one can make predictions that... You know, no one would've ever looked at Palmer in his, you know, in his, uh, in his, in his, uh, motor home living outside his parents' house when he was trying to build Oculus and, and say, "He's going to remake American defense." Like, n- not... I don't even think Palmer would've said that about himself, right? So it, there, there's something about the, the hero's journey and the building journey that is, is very universal that brings all of these categories together where, where tech is, is, should be aligned on these things and shouldn't necessarily have infighting or think of these categories as very different. Um, and I know, Eddy, we're gonna get into, like, where are the sort of unique kind of, I don't know, philosophical overlaps between American dynamism and crypto, which I actually [laughs] think there are, there are many kind of similar personality profiles of, of the founders that are attracted to these categories. Um, but I think, you know, i- if people question, how can you do it all, or what is the unifying force between all of these categories, it's like, go back and read Marc's Techno-Optimist Manifesto, right? Because that-

   4. ETErik Torenberg4:01

      Yeah

   5. KBKatherine Boyle4:01

      ... that to me, um, exemplifies how all of these, all of these things are, are really on the same hero's journey.

   6. ETErik Torenberg4:08

      Uh, yeah, I think, you know, to, uh, to riff on Chris Dixon's great line,

3. 4:12 – 6:11

   Toys, Games, and Innovation

   1. ETErik Torenberg4:12

      uh, what is it? You know, "Everything great looks like a," or, "starts looking like a toy." It's like, um, toys or, or games can inspire so much be- beyond that, can sort of be a playground to experiment with new, new technologies that can then, you know, um, sort of be the inspiration for, for, for something way bigger or, or, or, or, or, or very different. Um, and then to your point, it's, it's all a boiling pot. But I, but I also think that toys or games or, or platforms themselves are underrated just as is. I remember, you know, uh, Thiel's famous line, "We wanted flying cars. We got 140 characters." Turns out 140 characters is, you know, way more impactful than, than, than flying cars. Or, or, so these, these toys or games or, or products are underrated ju- just on their, on their own merits-

   2. KBKatherine Boyle4:49

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg4:49

      ... separate from them being inspiration for, for other, other things.

   4. KBKatherine Boyle4:52

      I, I actually have a great story, a very timely story about this. We were just in Washington DC, um, with Marc, and, and a, a senator who I won't name was, was, you know, in the meeting and was talking about what could be very valuable for the defense world. And he was talking about, um, basically in Ukraine, just how this, like, just-in-time manufacturing then feeds into building things in the trenches very quickly and basically doing this, this iteration live with, with people who are then using the products, you know, uh, changing the products every, every few days. And his, his, his sort of question was, "Why can't we do this inside the defense industrial base?" And Marc actually responded to him and he said, "Well, you know, we do this with toys. Like, this is how we, this is how we build hardware toys. Of course, we can do this with hardware in America because this is how any type of toy is built, any type of hardware is built. Like, you, you iterate very rapidly and you iterate, uh, you know, in the f- you can iterate in the field. It's only in defense where we don't do this, right? Because there, there's infrastructure that makes it impossible for us to do this, but it is very possible and we do it in consumer land." And so I thought that was, like, a very interesting thing. You know, you could kind of see the light bulbs going off, like, oh, we, American dynamism actually does exist in various categories, and you can bring some of those learnings from consumer land into defense land, and it will be incredibly impactful, and clearly that's what the Ukrainians have done.

   5. ETErik Torenberg6:05

      Yeah. It, it- to, to then, let, let's segue to sort of, uh, the crypto American dynamism

4. 6:11 – 9:36

   American Dynamism Meets Crypto

   1. ETErik Torenberg6:11

      interplay. Eddie, I remember we were at a tr- retreat a few years ago, and, and someone smartly asked, "Hey, um, you know, how do we think about, on the one hand, we're trying to strengthen American power and strengthen the dollar and, you know, strengthen our influence, um, you know, globally, and on the other hand, crypto, um, you know, seems like it could be a threat to that d- d- to some degree." How, how do we sort of think about how American dynamism and, and crypto are, are interlinked or, or, or from a philosophical or practical level?

   2. ELEddie Lazzarin6:36

      Yeah, so the, the, the, the trick here is that, like, American whatever, all right, i- is kind of hiding what values are underneath it, right? I think of crypto as freedom-promoting technology, right? Now, in the case, in the horrible case, and I don't think that's the case today, where America becomes not freedom promoting, right, then you could see, I guess, you could see crypto as a hedge, and that's kind of what Satoshi meant, you know, when he was talking about the banking system failing, right, and he wanted to create this technological option. I think of him as trying to create in software a way to represent those same values that was in some sense immune to whatever the states happened to be doing at the time. Uh, so I don't think that they're necessarily replacements. I think that they're complements, right? They're trying to get at the same underlying value system, the same concepts about freedom to move capital, property rights for individuals, the ability of, uh, you know, capital to fro- flow freely, payments to flow freely, uh, for people to be able to own things, uh, just two different mechanisms for, uh, putting them in place, and I don't think that they're replacements by any means. Like, there will be states for the foreseeable future. There will be the internet for the foreseeable future. You know, how do you want them to actually represent these things? I think they can be incredibly complementary, right? And they can, uh, you know, if, if, if you think about it, there's another spin on it kind of connecting to what we were talking about now is experimentation. Being able to experiment with the means of ownership and the means of, uh, the, the, the means of morphing and moving around capital, uh, that's hard to do because you have to do it in the construct of the state, and the state has, uh, you know, certain degrees of freedom that it can take, right? It c- has to be very, very careful and very protective of these things for totally good reasons. If you can allow those types of experiments to happen in a totally open source and visible way out in the public for everybody to scrutinize, uh, in a way that doesn't give anyone outside the state asymmetric power, then you allow for those exact types of experiments, right? I mean, another way to put it is, you know, does the state really want someone outside the state to have all the power [laughs] and to, like, make all these experiments? I don't think it does. I think that what the state would like to see, if the state is freedom promoting, and in America it certainly is, I think the state would like to see people doing these experiments in a way that's totally visible and legible, right? And that's exactly what crypto does. So I see there being profound conceptual overlaps. Like, we haven't even talked about, like, privacy. We haven't even talked about, like, uh, you know, ways that consumers can be actually protected. I have a whole riff on how the p- whole point of crypto, of crypto is actually to protect consumers from software developers, right? [laughs] And that's, that's really what it is, but anyway.

   3. KBKatherine Boyle9:26

      I mean, the, the things that I've anecdotally seen the connection on, and again, I'm not a, a crypto person. I, I consider myself kind of a normie.

   4. ELEddie Lazzarin9:33

      [laughs]

   5. KBKatherine Boyle9:33

      Um, but the things that I've picked up on over, over 10 years

5. 9:36 – 11:56

   Philosophical Alignment of Founders

   1. KBKatherine Boyle9:36

      of investing i- is, is really, like, philosophical alignment between the types of founders who start crypto companies and the types of founders who start American dynamism companies, so much so that some founders that we have backed, I will not out them without their permission, but some founders that we have backed that are now, you know, leading unicorn companies in American dynamism were toying with the idea, "Do I wanna start something in crypto, or do I wanna start something in American dynamism?" And people would say, like, "That's crazy," right? Like, one's like hardware. One's, you know, like, these are completely different things. But from a philosophical level, the conversations we were having about what does America need, like, what are the biggest problems for our generation, like, these people are very aligned at what the problems are.

   2. ELEddie Lazzarin10:16

      100%.

   3. KBKatherine Boyle10:17

      Um, and, and I think that, that's probably where there's the most alignment, right? Like, you can come to, to different results. Like, I always say, like, Balaji and I have a ton in common. We come to completely different ends on, on where we end up in many cases.

   4. ELEddie Lazzarin10:27

      [laughs]

   5. KBKatherine Boyle10:27

      But we have a ton in common on what we agree is the problem, right? And so I think in some ways there's, there's, like, a, a unifying sort of philosophical connection between the people who operate in these, in these ecosystems. And then the, the other thing that I always point out that's an anecdote too is, like, the first time that, like, I've, you know, like the sovereign individual and sort of like the canonical books that, like, you know-

   6. ELEddie Lazzarin10:46

      Yeah

   7. KBKatherine Boyle10:46

      ... led to people really investigating is this a category, all of those people that, that introduced those books to me, like, 10 years ago when I first moved to The Valley, those people are, like, all American dynamism, hardware, early SpaceX investors, early Palantir, right? Like, like, they, they, these, these people have a lot in common philosophically. And, you know, when, when you look at sort of the, you know, e- even just the way I describe myself, like, as an American dynamist, like, I always describe myself as a federalist, like someone who is in, in deep favor of, like-

   8. ELEddie Lazzarin11:17

      I thought you said you're a normie. [laughs]

   9. KBKatherine Boyle11:20

      I'm a normie, but I'm a federalist. Right, like I have deep [laughs] right, yeah, maybe [laughs] yeah.

   10. ELEddie Lazzarin11:23

       Yeah.

   11. KBKatherine Boyle11:24

       Normie, right?

   12. ELEddie Lazzarin11:24

       Uh.

   13. KBKatherine Boyle11:25

       Uh, but, like, I believe in federalism. That's why I live in Florida. Like, I believe in the federalist experiment, right? I think that's something that's, like, under-discussed about what makes America extraordinary and unique, and sort of the, the, the where is decentralization most prominent in the tech community. It is in the crypto world, right? Like, that's, that's where you actually-

   14. ELEddie Lazzarin11:41

       Totally

   15. KBKatherine Boyle11:42

       ... use words, and it's very much aligned to, I would say, a, a, a strain of, you know, political philosophy that really focuses on sort of the federalist experiment as the unique part of America, not necessarily the, you know, the other parts that, that people always

6. 11:56 – 13:48

   The Uniquely American Startup Culture

   1. KBKatherine Boyle11:56

      point to-

   2. ELEddie Lazzarin11:56

      Yeah

   3. KBKatherine Boyle11:56

      ... as, like, makes America great. So in some ways I think, like, there's, there's a ton of alignment between how the people view, um, why it's so necessary to build for America in a startup versus why it's, you know, why, you know, a- anyone could go into government. They could go into other means to serve their country. Um, but I think there's a lot of philosophical alignment from, like, why you need American dynamism companies and why de- decentralization is important in tech.

   4. ELEddie Lazzarin12:19

      Yeah, I totally agree with that, and I, I, I'd put the bluntest, the, the most blunt point I can put on it is that-It's incredibly obvious that crypto is American culturally. Like, the crypto ethos is a uniquely American-

   5. KBKatherine Boyle12:33

      Yeah

   6. ELEddie Lazzarin12:33

      ... cultural phenomenon.

   7. KBKatherine Boyle12:34

      I didn't know if we were allowed to claim it, um, but glad to do. [laughs]

   8. ELEddie Lazzarin12:36

      Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot of things that people don't appreciate are really American that feel like-

   9. KBKatherine Boyle12:41

      Yeah

   10. ELEddie Lazzarin12:41

       ... they're, uh, global now, but-

   11. KBKatherine Boyle12:43

       As w- as is the startup. The startup is an American concept.

   12. ELEddie Lazzarin12:46

       Totally.

   13. KBKatherine Boyle12:47

       Founder is an American concept, right? Like, why do we call them founders? Like, you know, it, it... We don't use the French term, we don't use entrepreneur, you know?

   14. ELEddie Lazzarin12:54

       [laughs]

   15. KBKatherine Boyle12:55

       We're founders, right? Like, it is a very American thing, what we do.

   16. ELEddie Lazzarin12:57

       Yeah.

   17. KBKatherine Boyle12:57

       Well, not what I do, but what, what the people we support do.

   18. ELEddie Lazzarin13:01

       Yeah. It is interesting how, um, or ironic that China ha- got sort of a early lead on some of this open source A- A- AI stuff. And, and going back to, you know, Katherine's mention of, of some of the meetings in, in DC, one of the things, you know, senators were asking Mark is, um, you know, just about the US-China, um, sort of AI race and, and what, what we should do. And, and Mark has this phrase which is, um, you know, "Are we gonna win by being more like them or, or more like us?" Uh, more like our, our values and leading into what, what made us so great. And I, I, I found that a really, uh, compelling phrasing. And it- it's just interesting as we're at a time where sort of AI policy is, is, is, is, is going to be l- you know, litigated and, and then set as, as, uh, in terms of how we compete. Maybe let's, uh, use that as a segue into, uh, into the, the stories of the day. There's, there's been a lot of, uh... Or stories of the week. There's been a lot in healthcare,

7. 13:48 – 20:27

   AI, Healthcare, and the Wisdom of Crowds

   1. ELEddie Lazzarin13:48

      uh, th- this week. We had Dr. Bhattacharyya on the, the day of the, uh, autism a- announcement. Uh, you, we were joking that, uh, the administration has previously been so friendly to Silicon Valley startups. But now-

   2. KBKatherine Boyle14:00

      [laughs]

   3. ELEddie Lazzarin14:00

      ... with, uh, this, this work in reducing, uh, autism, you know, it seems like a grave threat. Um, no, and on, on a serious note, Katherine, what, what, uh, what, what struck you about some of the, the, the health-related news of the week?

   4. KBKatherine Boyle14:10

      One of the things that I've been r- reflecting on a lot, um... And again, I know we're gonna talk about Eddy has a new arrival to his family.

   5. ELEddie Lazzarin14:17

      Yeah.

   6. KBKatherine Boyle14:17

      Um, I'm gonna have my third, um, child, uh, just here, um, in, in a few months. Um, but there, there's something about, like, the way that this generation pers- like, understands medicine that I actually think comes from, like, the internet is your doctor now, right? Like, and, and, and maybe 10 years ago there was a lot of fear around that. Uh, there was a lot of, "Oh, you can't trust the internet. You can't trust, um, you know, information sources that are not, you know, r- reviewed by government and aren't, aren't passed down by experts." And I think we're just living in this, like, completely different reality, um, where the people who are having children now who are sort of entering their, their 30s, their 40s, um, and, and really vocal around a lot of these topics, grew up in an age of just completely distributed information, particularly around things like medicine. Um, and they follow the wisdom of crowds. They've been pitched ... I, I, I just posted about sort of the, the, the history of OxyContin, right? Where it's like there was a whole decade where they were preparing class ac- action lawsuits against Pur- Purdue Pharma before 2013 when FDA, uh, you know, took the, the drug off the market, and it had been on the market for 20 years as sort of this miracle drug. And so I think what you're seeing from this generation, um, isn't, like, skepticism of experts. It's, it's, like, it's not how it's portrayed. Like, uh, you know, The New York Times had this, this big, uh, expose maybe a week ago where they were like, "You, you can't trust these, these sort of internet quacks," right?

   7. ELEddie Lazzarin15:43

      [laughs]

   8. KBKatherine Boyle15:43

      And it's like, like, Gwyneth Paltrow's been selling us weird stuff for like 15 years.

   9. ELEddie Lazzarin15:48

      [laughs]

   10. KBKatherine Boyle15:48

       And like, it, it's like-

   11. ELEddie Lazzarin15:49

       Yeah

   12. KBKatherine Boyle15:50

       ... you, you... Like, it, it's so part of our DNA now that you can't call it quackery. You can't... You, you kind of have to call it, like, wisdom of crowds. And I f- you know, I have a lot of doctor friends. I have a lot of people I, you know, grew up with who are in the medical community. And the way that these doctors practice medicine now is they realize that you're not just practicing it in the, the, you know, the, the, the doctor's office. Like, you're competing with all of these different information [laughs] sources.

   13. ELEddie Lazzarin16:14

       Yeah.

   14. KBKatherine Boyle16:14

       All of these different backgrounds. People are a lot more open with their questions. I'm having my third child. I joke it's my ChatGPT baby because I upload every single medical diagnostic, every blood report, everything to ChatGPT, and it gives me a ton of data that the doctors don't have time to give me. I share it with my doctors. They think it's cool. It's like we're just in this totally different generation where people are a lot more open-minded.

   15. ELEddie Lazzarin16:37

       Yeah.

   16. KBKatherine Boyle16:37

       And they expect things to swing faster than the Purdue Pharma case, which was a 20-year, you know, it was a 20-year issue where it went from-

   17. ELEddie Lazzarin16:46

       Yeah

   18. KBKatherine Boyle16:46

       ... this is a miracle drug to this is terrible for you. And I just think people have expectations of speed.

   19. ELEddie Lazzarin16:52

       Yeah. My, my wife has been the same. Like, she's a total expert on all this stuff. I would frame it as a, and I, I, I really st- channeling this through the lens of, like, seeing my wife, uh, really spend so much time on this, is, like, it's just a higher information standard. It's a higher epistemic standard. It's not just skeptical of experts. It's maybe re- resisting the idea to accept, like, un- un, uh, un- unchallenged what the first expert you talk to said, right? That, that's how I'm seeing it. We, we see doctors ch- and but we come t- we always come to the doctor now informed by a bunch of research, and that's also not taking for granted even what ChatGPT says. To be honest, I'll send the same thing to ChatGPT, Anthropic, and Groq at the same time, force them to fight against each other, [laughs] and then end up with just kind of a list of interesting sources that I put in front of the doctor, right? [smacks lips] Like, that's like, that's, that, that's the, that's the feedback loop now. Uh, and I think that's far better. Of course, it's so funny when people say LMs make mistakes. Like, yeah, of course they make mistakes, but so do human doctors. So what's the [laughs] you know, so what's the answer, right? The answer is obviously a more rigorous standard of information, more information sources, uncorrelated channels of information, right? How do you do that? How do you do more information processing? Well, computers and the internet, [laughs] right? And, and AI models. It's like, it's all... It's actually not that complicated a way to see the world.

   20. KBKatherine Boyle18:15

       Totally.

   21. ELEddie Lazzarin18:16

       It shouldn't be so miraculous to see it this way. Like, yet it is, right?

   22. KBKatherine Boyle18:19

       Totally. Well, and it's, it's so funny. I was, I was having this exact conversation with my phlebotomist at LabCorp. Like, I, I'm like, "How often do you see people come in and talk to you about, like, what they've uploaded to ChatGPT?" He's like, "All the time."He's like, "This is like one of the number one use cases like of," you know, like he did say use cases, right? He's like a normie.

   23. ELEddie Lazzarin18:36

       [laughs]

   24. KBKatherine Boyle18:36

       But he was like, "Yeah, like no one just goes to the doctor. No one just comes here and then gives their results to the doctor and has them read them out. Like, everyone is putting them into ChatGPT. Everyone is having some sort of additional analysis, and it's been o- like, it's been eye-opening for people."

   25. ELEddie Lazzarin18:51

       Yeah.

   26. KBKatherine Boyle18:51

       And this is, and, and in some ways I feel like we should feel really good that like America is adopting, um, you know, like, like adopting-

   27. ELEddie Lazzarin18:58

       It's fantastic

   28. KBKatherine Boyle18:58

       ... like questioning, wanting more information, like this is a good thing. In some ways I feel like-

   29. ELEddie Lazzarin19:02

       Yeah

   30. KBKatherine Boyle19:02

       ... you know, when, when people were always talking WebMD [laughs] it was like, that, yeah, maybe that was like 1.0, but like here we are now and people really want more information.
8. 20:27 – 26:58

   ADHD, Autism, and the Incentives of Diagnosis

   1. ETErik Torenberg20:27

      rates have significantly increased the, the past couple of decades. I wanna segue this to ADHD in a, in a, in a second, but do we have a pet conspiracy theory on, on w- why, um, or is it just purely a diagnosis, um, thing?

   2. KBKatherine Boyle20:39

      Well, I mean, I wanna get to the, the ADHD o-

   3. ETErik Torenberg20:41

      Okay

   4. KBKatherine Boyle20:41

      ... like I actually think w- le- let's move to ADHD-

   5. ETErik Torenberg20:44

      Sure

   6. KBKatherine Boyle20:44

      ... because I think that one, uh, one, I'm more familiar with it, I'm not gonna say personally, but like more familiar-

   7. ETErik Torenberg20:50

      [laughs]

   8. KBKatherine Boyle20:50

      ... with the data, right? I have sons.

   9. ETErik Torenberg20:51

      Yeah.

   10. KBKatherine Boyle20:51

       So I'm like preparing myself for the-

   11. ETErik Torenberg20:53

       Yeah

   12. KBKatherine Boyle20:53

       ... inevitable ADHD diagnosis.

   13. ETErik Torenberg20:55

       Yeah.

   14. KBKatherine Boyle20:55

       Um, and that's like even a weird thing to say, right? I have, you know, a four, a four-and-a-half-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old, and just looking at their energy levels, I always joke, like I have to run them before they go to school.

   15. ETErik Torenberg21:06

       [laughs]

   16. KBKatherine Boyle21:07

       Um, because if I don't get the energy out like, like a dog before they go to school-

   17. ETErik Torenberg21:10

       [laughs]

   18. KBKatherine Boyle21:10

       ... like something, something will happen in school and it will be, oh. And, and I can already kind of see, and, and I don't blame, again, I don't blame teachers for this, I don't blame doctors. These are more like systematic issues. Like if you, if you have an energetic boy, it's mostly boys, right? Like I think the, the New York Times expose that came out a couple months ago, um, basically said that 17%, or no, no, 23% of all 17-year-old boys have been given an ADHD diagnosis. So w- that's, that's one in four boys in America, there's something wrong with them, right? Um, and you can say, "Okay, there's clearly something wrong with all these boys," or you can say, "Okay, we're, we're, we're medicating boyhood." But what is it about, you know, what, what is it about why, like why is it incentivized that doctors give them this diagnosis and why is it, why is it, you know, something that, that I think teachers in some ways, I don't, I don't wanna say encourage, but, but it is sort of this strange thing where if you have a child who is very energetic in a pre-K, they, they sort of say, well, t- you know, next time at their four-year-old checkup, maybe talk to them about some of these behavioral things, right? And like now my son is like an angel. He's like grown up like a little bit and they're like, "Oh, he's doing great in school," right? But for like a year we were like, oh, he clearly, clearly is just a high energy boy. Um, and the, the incentive systems around a lot of these things are, like if you go to the doctor, y- parents, one, want these ADHD, you know, want, want, want these diagnoses. And the reason the parents want them is because it gives you extra time, it gives you extra resources. You can then opt your kid out of certain things in school. It makes school more manageable for high energy boys. The reasons the school wants it is because they get more dollars from the state if they have special needs students across a variety of different special needs. Everyone knows this, that the schools will tell you this, right? So it's like it is better if they have a student who needs additional attention or in, in their words, or needs something special, for them to get the diagnosis from the doctor. Again, the diagnosis is not something that anyone stigmatizes anymore, and then the school can get more dollars from the state. But what that means is that both parents and teachers are incentivized for a number of different reasons, especially if you're like, "Wow, like my kid's about to take the ACT and I want them to have an extra hour so that they can perform higher than the other, you know, 25% of, of children who have this diagnosis." So like there's a systematic reasons why people are actually asking for the diagnosis. And you know, what I, what I joked with both of you all is it takes like a very disagreeable, sadly principled mother to be like, "No, like I'm not getting my hyper-

   19. ETErik Torenberg23:36

       Yeah

   20. KBKatherine Boyle23:36

       ... energetic boy a diagnosis for life, and I'm definitely like not gonna put him on drugs," because I, I, I realize the incentive system that's set up. And, and it's funny, like again, like a couple years ago if you talked about this you were an absolute quack, and then this piece comes out in The New York Times, you know, in, in April, and it's like, oh yeah, actually the medical community kind of agrees that like this ADHD, like Adderall pill mill thing might be a huge problem. And so I, I think there's something about, you know, if you, if you look at Purdue Pharma, if you look at ADHD, and you look at sort of our generation's experience with the medical community, you know, it's like it, it is this like consistent experience of all the incentives of s- of large systems that go beyond individuals are pushing you to one thing, and years later you might find out, as Erik has found out, you didn't need Ritalin.

   21. ELEddie Lazzarin24:24

       Right.

   22. ETErik Torenberg24:25

       Yeah.

   23. KBKatherine Boyle24:26

       You're just an energetic guy. [laughs]

   24. ELEddie Lazzarin24:27

       Yeah.

   25. ETErik Torenberg24:27

       Yeah.

   26. ELEddie Lazzarin24:28

       And-

   27. ETErik Torenberg24:28

       Oh, same.

   28. ELEddie Lazzarin24:28

       And there's no downside to a diagnosis. That's the thing.

   29. ETErik Torenberg24:31

       Yeah.

   30. ELEddie Lazzarin24:31

       You have total optionality on whether you wanna take the medication.
9. 26:58 – 34:46

   Rethinking Education: Alpha School & Learning Models

   1. ETErik Torenberg26:58

      in. And, um, I think it's an interesting segue to Alpha School, which is getting a lot of attention right now. And I know, Eddy, uh, in just having a newborn, you're, you're thinking about fu- future, future schooling, and obviously, Katherine, you've, you've thought quite a bit about it. Alpha School is interesting because one of their main KPIs is do kids love school? And my school was ... I don't know about you guys, but my, my was like a prison. Like, I didn't have any ins- inspiring teachers in elementary school or middle school. Like, it was so boring. Um, and so it's exciting to see kind of d- different, different models. And I, I've, you know, parent friends who are starting to homeschool their kids and just think about kind of alternative. Um, E- Eddy, how have you been thinking about it?

   2. ELEddie Lazzarin27:34

      I mean, I, I feel like there's three branches now, right? There's three possible ways. There's the traditional school system, and by that I mean both public and private schools, right? I just mean, like, conventional school system. There's this somewhat growing alternative school system. I think Alpha School is a really cool example that I'd love to learn a lot more about. I saw this fantastic interview on, on-

   3. ETErik Torenberg27:53

      Yeah

   4. ELEddie Lazzarin27:53

      ... X a couple weeks ago about it. And then the third is, like, something that I've heard people talk about but maybe doesn't exist yet, and maybe that actually just gets ended up merging into branch two, which is, like, the AI tutor world, right? Where, like, every kid gets a Socrates, right? Like, that's-

   5. ETErik Torenberg28:07

      Yeah

   6. ELEddie Lazzarin28:07

      ... that, that, that, like, that line. I think they're all so, so interesting, but what has really leapt out to me, uh, about, like, the Alpha School and e- even the Socrates option is it turns out there's, with all this great development in software, we can put an infinite treadmill in front of kids about things that they can learn, right? At a z- a low cost, infinite treadmill where they can just train and learn whatever they want to arbitrary depth. And designing something that is rigorous enough and gives them strong enough feedback and kind of encourages them to really maximize that, that seems like the educational challenge of the 21st century to me. You couldn't do that before, right? You couldn't do that 30 years ago when you had to put them in a space with, like, specific teachers. You have specific strengths and have to get specific, you know, expensive books and stuff. Now it's just, like, an unbounded road ahead. I'm very, very excited about the prospect of being able to give kind of arbitrary depth to whatever interesting, challenging topic is available to my, to my son.

   7. KBKatherine Boyle29:06

      And in, what's interesting about our children versus how we grew up is that arbitrary depth couldn't be nurtured when we were kids around random things, right? Like, you would have to go to the public library and see if there's a book on septic tank installation, which my son was into about six months ago. Like, deeply into septic tanks. Um, now he's into garbage disposals. There is no book in the public library that has ... that, on garbage disposals and how they work.

   8. ELEddie Lazzarin29:33

      Absolutely not. Of course not.

   9. KBKatherine Boyle29:34

      But there are hundreds of YouTube videos, right? Like, on how to install your own garbage disposal, how does it work? Like, like, diagrams, like, all the things that he's interested in as a kid [laughs] who's obsessed with garbage disposals.

   10. ELEddie Lazzarin29:46

       That's so cool.

   11. KBKatherine Boyle29:46

       So, so in some ways, it, it's like our kids' play comes before they go to school, and their play is so hyper-specialized and their entertainment is so hyper-specialized. And if you're, like, a very hands-on parent and your kid's like, "I wanna learn about septic tanks," like, you, you help them learn about that in a way that, like, parents before, like, unless you knew a lot about septic tanks or had a friend in that business, how are you gonna educate your kid-

   12. ELEddie Lazzarin30:10

       Totally

   13. KBKatherine Boyle30:10

       ... on how that works? So I think there's two-

   14. ELEddie Lazzarin30:11

       And, and, and, and some people may react to say, like, "What's the point of your kid learning about septic tanks," right? Or, like, garbage disposals, right?

   15. KBKatherine Boyle30:17

       Yeah. [laughs]

   16. ELEddie Lazzarin30:17

       And the thing is, it's so obvious to me that if you really learn a lot about how a garbage disposal works, like, you really, like, get into the wee- Like, you see a c- a one cut in half and a diagram, and you see the pipes and you kinda learn about ... Like, there's so many... proximate or adjacent things to that that end up generalizing-

   17. KBKatherine Boyle30:35

       Yeah

   18. ELEddie Lazzarin30:35

       ... I promise you that a kid who becomes an expert in it, just how a garbage disposal works, a little kid-

   19. KBKatherine Boyle30:40

       Yeah

   20. ELEddie Lazzarin30:40

       ... they, they're so primed to learn about, like, other mechanical systems, other hydraulic systems, uh, like, the, the manufacturer of, of, of, like, d- bespoke appliances. Like, there's so many cool things next to that. I just think of when I was a kid and I was learning those types of things as much as I could, and which is not nearly as much as you could now. And you end up just applying, reapplying, reapplying that knowledge. Like, the compounding nature of knowledge is maybe its most interesting part. W- if you can el- really allow a kid to lean as deep as possible into that, into that thing, just go as deep as you conceivably can, uh, I, I, I, I s- I think the benefits are unbelievable. So I, I'm, I'm excited to find how to do that for my kid. You know, I don't, I don't know yet. I'm really excited about Alpha School and weird stuff like that. I do wonder, though, like maybe to put the other spin on it, how much of that is a selection effect, right? Like, the incredible results of Alpha School, I actually believe them completely. Like, I totally believe these positive results. I just wonder to what extent those results are crazy-ass parents who did a ton of work [laughs] and have, like, infinite resources at their disposal to jam them into this obscure school. Like, these are obviously not normal families that are doing it, right? [laughs] So I, I, I, I want to ensure ... I mean, I'll exploit every tool at my disposal, obviously-

   21. KBKatherine Boyle31:55

       Yeah

   22. ELEddie Lazzarin31:55

       ... for my kid. But I'm, I'm also think about, like, you know, what are the kinds of things that we can learn and apply to all, uh, all kids.

   23. KBKatherine Boyle32:03

       Totally.

   24. ELEddie Lazzarin32:03

       Yeah.

   25. KBKatherine Boyle32:03

       Totally. And the other thing that's really interesting is, like, you know, I, I, I'm not ... I, I'm very sympathetic to the homeschooling movement. Um, I'm not a homeschooler, for obvious reasons. Uh, but you can, like, do a lot of the homeschool stuff on the weekend. Um, and one of the things [laughs] that I've become much more sympathetic to now that I have, you know, kids who are exhibiting their own passions and sort of own personalities, like, there is probably something good about being a, a slightly weird kid in a school. You know? Like, I remember that experience of being, like, kinda bored or slightly weird and being in a normal school around normal people, and that was, like, a very good fit. Like, I look back on them like, that was probably very good for me. And it's probably very good for, for p- like, you know, there's, there's one school of thought which is you have a, a bright kid or a weird kid or someone who's really interested in something and you put them in Alpha School and, like, let them go down the rabbit hole. Which, like, again, I think that's awesome. But then there's the other thing, like, boredom's actually good. Like, a lot of our life is-

   26. ELEddie Lazzarin32:57

       Yeah

   27. KBKatherine Boyle32:57

       ... pretty boring. Like, it is important to learn how to work in big systems. Like, it is important to [laughs] kind of realize that, like, not everyone's gonna, like, entertain your weird rabbit hole. And so there is something about, like, getting that lesson early and having that sort of, "I'm bored, I, I hate school, I'm gonna figure out how to make it interesting for me," that, like, could be very valuable for kids as well. So I'm always, like, on the fence. Like, I feel like you can kinda dabble in different things-

   28. ELEddie Lazzarin33:21

       Yeah

   29. KBKatherine Boyle33:21

       ... and, like, you know, on the weekends teach one thing, during the week-

   30. ELEddie Lazzarin33:24

       Right
10. 34:46 – 41:41

    Parenting, Family Structures, and Modern Challenges

    1. KBKatherine Boyle34:46

       Eddie, I wanna hear how, how fatherhood has, has been. Uh, I always, I always feel like the first few months of, you know, becoming a new mom or dad, you have, like, all these, like, weird insights that are partially driven by sleep de- deprivation-

    2. ELEddie Lazzarin34:59

       [laughs]

    3. KBKatherine Boyle34:59

       ... and then partially driven by this new important experience that happened in your life. So I'd love to hear the high-level takeaways as they're fresh.

    4. ELEddie Lazzarin35:07

       Yeah, that's a great question. So much has crossed my mind. Uh, it is, it is, it is crazy. I mean, I, I would say the most, the thing that has struck me the m- I'm only a w- a month in, right? So, like, am I a father? I don't even know if I'm a father, right?

    5. KBKatherine Boyle35:20

       [laughs]

    6. ELEddie Lazzarin35:20

       Like, I, I, I like this little guy who's around, but, like, am I a dad? Or, like, I, I'm not, I'm no different.

    7. KBKatherine Boyle35:25

       How do you know yet? [laughs]

    8. ELEddie Lazzarin35:25

       Right? So I'll say that. But I am struck by how obvious it is how totally helpless they are, right? They are, like, functionally blind, deaf.

    9. KBKatherine Boyle35:35

       [laughs]

    10. ELEddie Lazzarin35:35

        Like, they're like a little ball of, like, nothing, right? It's ridiculous. It really am- it really, uh, strike- this is such a dorky thing to have observed, so I almost regret. But, but the, um-

    11. KBKatherine Boyle35:46

        [laughs]

    12. ELEddie Lazzarin35:46

        It's just, it's so obvious how, uh, human intelligence, uh, is the reason why they are allowed to be so pathetic when they're born, right? Because we're so capable of extremely specialized caregiving-

    13. KBKatherine Boyle36:01

        Yeah

    14. ELEddie Lazzarin36:01

        ... that they would never have survived without it. So, like, their helplessness is kind of the mirror of our capability.

    15. KBKatherine Boyle36:07

        Yeah.

    16. ELEddie Lazzarin36:07

        And we should, like, take that, we should, like, really lean into that. Like, that is what human beings are, to some degree, specialized for.

    17. KBKatherine Boyle36:14

        Mm-hmm.

    18. ELEddie Lazzarin36:15

        I, I, I feel that so intensely. Uh, I also feel like incredible, uh, empathy for people who don't have, like, who don't have maternity or paternity leave or, uh, don't have resources to put it ... 'Cause my God, if I had to, like ... I, I took a couple weeks off and my wife is on m- maternity leave still. It's, it's great. Without that, it would be incredibly difficult.

    19. KBKatherine Boyle36:38

        Yeah.

    20. ELEddie Lazzarin36:38

        And it ma- it, it makes it very obvious to me how, why, um-In some sense, like fertility is declining because the opportunity cost of this suffering is massive, right? It's a massive cost. Now, it's totally worth it. I know the hackneyed thing you hear from parents like all the time, like, "It's horrible. Also, it's great. Do it." [laughs] And you're like, that's like-

    21. KBKatherine Boyle36:56

        [laughs]

    22. ELEddie Lazzarin36:56

        ... that's like the thing you always hear.

    23. KBKatherine Boyle36:58

        Right.

    24. ELEddie Lazzarin36:58

        I heard the same thing. I'm gonna repeat exactly that same thing. Uh, but, uh, but it, it, it, it highlights for me that, you know, the more opportunity you have and the more things that you could be doing, which is just obviously the case in light of progress, like general technological progress, the more you're kind of giving up, uh, when you do it. And I think people find that choice in advance very daunting and very scary. Now, I would encourage them to take the leap, but I understand why it's daunting when you hear all these stories.

    25. KBKatherine Boyle37:27

        Totally.

    26. ELEddie Lazzarin37:27

        It's very... That's very fresh on my mind.

    27. KBKatherine Boyle37:29

        Totally. Totally. And that's, that's one of the... I, I, I always point to like the, um, you know, the rise of cheap airfare, um, and sort of international travel also becoming sort of like a widespread middle-class phenomena, right? Like, it's, it's not like you have to be, uh... You know, like when we were growing up, if you, if you knew someone who went to Europe, you were like, "Seriously?" Like, "How? How'd you do that?" Right? Like, [laughs] it was like it was a very l- a luxurious elite thing to do. And I think, you know, when, when you look at sort of the, the sort of... That is like a... You know, if you, if you're fortunate enough to, to go to university, like, you know, you can travel abroad anywhere, right? Like universities like, you know, make that a, like make that a possibility, where it's like life has become so much more interesting, as you said. Opportunity costs across a wide degree of sets, um, where the, y- you, you are having to think through, okay, like you might have the most interesting life. You might get to go to brunch, right? I don't get to go to brunch anymore.

    28. ELEddie Lazzarin38:22

        [laughs]

    29. KBKatherine Boyle38:22

        But you might get to go to brunch, and like that might be an enjoyable thing you do every Saturday. So like that, that is, that is definitely I think a huge part of it. Um, the other thing that, that I'll point out, like my, my experience of, um, I'm fortunate enough to have my, my mother live with us, uh, but she's been a godsend in holding these babies, um, as they cry, um, for, for those of us who, you know, who, who are, are working and that sort of thing. And it's like there used to be sort of a, a familial unit that took care.

    30. ELEddie Lazzarin38:49

        Oh, yeah.
11. 41:41 – 52:04

    Internet Culture, Fragmentation, and Social Platforms

    1. ETErik Torenberg41:41

       segue to another topic I wanted to talk about. You know, we, um... And it's related to the Charlie Kirk as- assassination, and we, we released an episode, um, that, that Katherine did on, on Bari Weiss's podcast, Honestly, which was a beautiful sort of, you know, uh, you know, commentary on the assassination and, and Charlie's martyrdom. And we had the, the funeral the other day, which was one of the most moving things I, I, I'd, I've ever seen. And Eddy, we were talking o- offline, and you, you talked a, a little bit about how just sort of the, the reactions to, to the assassination a- as it sort of played out on the internet sort of demonstrated a, a, a bit of a gap between sort of Zoomer culture, internet culture, and, uh, and sort of the, you know, the, the, the rest of the population. Why- why don't you sort of, um, share that reflection?

    2. ELEddie Lazzarin42:19

       Well, so- something that really stuck out to me was how I think, uh, there's a, there's a, there's a pervasive... Well, there was a belief maybe that as the internet became mainstream, internet culture would become mainstream, right? And that i- in some sense, like culture and internet, the, the line between so-called internet culture and mainstream culture would dissolve, right? Because of its mainstreaming. And there's a lot of truth to that, right? A lot of people are kind of-Oh, uh, uh, parts of the normal memetic and cultural milieu is internet-based. But I was really struck by how what I considered, 'cause I'm kind of like, I mean, I'm like a normie here in these kinds of settings, Erik, like on a, on a podcast. I'm a little bit ... I'm a specialized-

    3. KBKatherine Boyle43:04

       [laughs]

    4. ELEddie Lazzarin43:05

       ... but, uh, whatever. But like in real life, uh, you know, [laughs] in real life I have like a, a Discord of a bunch of my friends who are like, I've been running for like eight years, and I play video games, and you know, my brother's like-

    5. KBKatherine Boyle43:16

       Eddie and I met on the internet.

    6. ELEddie Lazzarin43:17

       Yeah, no, yeah. [laughs] No, I know, it's, it's crazy. Uh, you know-

    7. KBKatherine Boyle43:22

       Now you're a real person. [laughs]

    8. ELEddie Lazzarin43:23

       I, it, it, it's uncanny, yeah, that's true.

    9. KBKatherine Boyle43:26

       [laughs]

    10. ELEddie Lazzarin43:26

        But the, you know, there's, there's like this whole universe that I've been in and like most of my friends are in, right? And like, even like crypto culture, like part of why my crypto network in the Bay Area started like very online and whatever, whatever, whatever. But, um, I was struck by how when they shared a lot of the memes and references that the shooter was engaging in and sort of the kind of culture he was in, it was a culture I'm very familiar with, right? Uh, uh, just like Discord, gamer, online Zoomer culture. Like, there's many concentric circles. I'm not, uh, so much in furry culture, [laughs] you know, but l- but like it's adjacent to cultures that I'm in. So all the refer- even like the Helldivers f- 500 kg bomb, like, uh, arrow sequence is like something my friends and I know, right? Like, uh, it was obvious to me, and when I saw a lot of people on my Facebook, like people I, I hardly check my Facebook, my big, big blue Facebook, I saw so many people speculating about the meaning of these things, right? And they were so off. They were just unbelievably off. Uh, it was like they were a- scrutinizing like an alien culture. And it really struck me that although there have been elements of internet culture that have mainstreamed, we've, we have managed to create isolated pockets that will just permanently remain separated. And I, I, it's like, let me try, let me try to put a really fine point on this one thing is because the internet is so open by default, and you know, anyone can make an account anywhere, I think there's this assumption that it's all accessible, right? And therefore should permeate, right? But we have managed to create new gradients, new selection methods to create isolated little corners of the internet. Like gamer culture, you can't learn those things unless you play games, right? [laughs] Like, you have to play a bunch of video games and know a bunch of people who play video games to be a part of that. We've still, despite things being more connected than ever, there are still these distant branches and rabbit holes, and it just got me really thinking about like the diversity of online culture and what leads to the proliferation of many diverse online cultures and their mutual unintelligibility. That's-

    11. KBKatherine Boyle45:31

        I, I love that you brought this up, Eddie, because I had a conversation with a, with w- my best friend, um, Normie, um, throwing that out. I, I am a creature of the internet, um, clearly, but, um, but, but I was having a conversation with her at one point last week and I, I explicitly remember saying to her, "Your Insta is not my X."

    12. ELEddie Lazzarin45:51

        [laughs]

    13. KBKatherine Boyle45:51

        Like, we're in totally different worlds.

    14. ELEddie Lazzarin45:54

        Oh, yeah.

    15. KBKatherine Boyle45:54

        Like, like what she was saying, uh, from, from her takes on things on Instagram last week was-

    16. ELEddie Lazzarin46:00

        Yeah

    17. KBKatherine Boyle46:01

        ... wi- wildly different than what I had seen on X, right? And I think there's, there's something about ... I actually think X is sort of a unifying platform from all of the different pockets that you talked about because if you're a, if you're a power user of X, th- a lot of the early data that was coming out, um, on anything, I, I, I mean, not just, not just Charlie Kirk's assassination, but, but on, on anything, things get to X early. People really do [laughs] the investigative work early.

    18. ELEddie Lazzarin46:26

        Yeah.

    19. KBKatherine Boyle46:26

        Last week I was saying, you know, it's, it, it probably, like, I don't know if the FBI or if intelligence agencies actually have people. I mean, there's that whole meme of like the, you know, the, the show that was just taken off the air because maybe [laughs] for a variety of reasons, but that whole meme of like people looking at the internet and saying like, "Is... What's going on here? What are these kids talking about?" Right? But, like, there is probably some truth to the fact that it's so siloed from what, like, just real world law enforcement or real world government officials, like, w- the worlds they live in, that the information gets to them late. There's an information lapse.

    20. ELEddie Lazzarin47:00

        Yeah.

    21. KBKatherine Boyle47:00

        Like, you really wanna know what's going on, on anything, uh, whether it's, you know, a, a, a, a tragic event or even the election, right? Like, I think, you know, I, I talked to a lot of people about the election in 2024, and I said, like, it, you know, the, the, the meme X is not real life. Like, no, no, X was the only place ... If you were spending time on X-

    22. ELEddie Lazzarin47:18

        Yeah, yeah

    23. KBKatherine Boyle47:19

        ... you knew exactly what was going to happen.

    24. ELEddie Lazzarin47:20

        And I feel really strongly about it. I, I, I check e- I check so many sources. I mean, Reddit for many years. I even check Bluesky occasionally, uh, In- Instagram, Facebook, like I, I, I, I'm all, you know. And I will h- honestly I can say with total conviction that although there's of course a lot of like misinformation on X as there would be on any-

    25. KBKatherine Boyle47:41

        Yes

    26. ELEddie Lazzarin47:41

        ... rich and complex and highly engaged system-

    27. KBKatherine Boyle47:44

        As is there misinformation in your PTA group, right?

    28. ELEddie Lazzarin47:47

        Ab- absolutely.

    29. KBKatherine Boyle47:47

        Like, the PTA moms share misinformation all the time. [laughs]

    30. ELEddie Lazzarin47:50

        If you wanna find, like, the ground truth and you do the legwork and you kind of like follow the right people and you kind of go through and really, like, look for it, the answer is probably on X in a way that is unlike other places, and I really struggle with that. I wonder whether that's like a cultural thing, like it has to do with the type of people on it, right? It's, it's roots as a journalistic, you know, outlet and so on, or is it something technological, right? Does it have to do with the fact that it's an open graph, quote tweets, and sort of like correcting people is a part of the norm in a way that is just totally not on Facebook or on Instagram. You know, they, they even lack that technical capability, right? Is it the inn- so in other words, is it, like, the product features that lead to this sort of dialogical conflict that often ends up with the truth, or is it, or is it just the people? I, I don't know really, but it's an interesting thing.
12. 52:04 – 59:13

    The Evolution of Media & Social Networks

    1. ETErik Torenberg52:04

       a focus group on some idea in, in, in a way.

    2. ELEddie Lazzarin52:06

       Yeah.

    3. KBKatherine Boyle52:06

       Totally.

    4. ETErik Torenberg52:06

       And, and there's, another ... I remember this funny, uh, anecdote where Jan Lekun got so frustrated at X that he started posting on LinkedIn. He would respond to people on LinkedIn and someone quote tweeted him and was like, "Come to X and fight me like a man, you coward."

    5. ELEddie Lazzarin52:19

       [laughs]

    6. ETErik Torenberg52:19

       That's, that's ... This is where, uh, [laughs] the actual arena is.

    7. KBKatherine Boyle52:23

       This is the arena.

    8. ELEddie Lazzarin52:25

       Yeah.

    9. ETErik Torenberg52:25

       Yeah. And one thing that's interesting just more broadly is, you know, the internet has become even, even just since COVID more fragmented and more sort of intellectually diverse. Like, um, you know, um, I remember, you know, Mike Solana was, uh, complaining, um, or was sort of, you know, uh, observing, uh, the sort of activism on, on Instagram around BLM and he's like, "Instagram is the butt app. Why, why are you bringing the ... You know, in Twitter the word app, like if you ha- have ideas, h- go here. What, what, what is the point of Instagram?" But I just around BLM, around, uh, Ukraine, remember, you know, sort of when, when Mark had the current thing discourse, there was a lot of sort of, uh, legible unification. Like dissent was on the group chat. Dissent was private and it didn't seem to be this like public place for dissent in the same way that, you know, things like October 7th, things like the Charlie Kirk assassination, these are current things but, but in a much more diver- like the response to it is not unified across ac- across the board. And I, I wonder i- is that a response to just social media fragmenting in a different way whereas like Blue Sky is seen as way more l- you know, legitimate than Gab ever was for or, or, or, or sort of, you know, Parler or something? Um, or if it's just these, these issues are, uh, you know something, uh, the, the vibe shift is ... I, I don't know. To Eddy's question if it's technological or if it's, um, actual shift-

    10. ELEddie Lazzarin53:39

        Yeah. Well, I, I don't think, I mean although they're ... I mean, I don't think what makes Blue Sky Blue Sky is technological really.

    11. ETErik Torenberg53:45

        Yeah. [laughs]

    12. ELEddie Lazzarin53:45

        I think that [laughs] I think that has a lot to do with, uh, like it's interesting I, I always thought that like the at protocol, the underlying like protocol, uh, was interesting. It was interesting. The effort was to be a more decentralized open sort of censorship resistant, uh, network. I think what makes Blue Sky Blue Sky today has to do with the people who sort of seeded it in its early days, right? And then, and then later, uh, the people who kind of exodus-ed to it, uh-

    13. ETErik Torenberg54:12

        Yeah

    14. ELEddie Lazzarin54:12

        ... in reaction to like different, you know, things on X and so on. Uh, and it's interesting how, how important that is, right? The seeding culture and-

    15. ETErik Torenberg54:21

        Yeah

    16. ELEddie Lazzarin54:21

        ... leading to the downstream culture. It's sort of a, a, you know, it's a ... Yeah.

    17. ETErik Torenberg54:25

        One just quick comment. One old Curtis Yarvin idea is he would say, "Hey, Jeff Bezos can take over the Washington Post. Washington Post not gonna change. You could take over The New York Times, it's not gonna change. You could take over X, it's not gonna change." And I, I think the last few years have disproved him in a number of way, that idea in a number of ways, but Elon taking over X actually did change the whole sort of makeup of the-

    18. ELEddie Lazzarin54:42

        Mm-hmm

    19. ETErik Torenberg54:42

        ... o- o- o- of, of the platform and so it just requires an owner who's willing to [laughs] willing to do, do what it takes.

    20. ELEddie Lazzarin54:49

        Yeah. Yeah.

    21. KBKatherine Boyle54:49

        You could also make the argument, um, as a former postie, um, that Jeff Bezos taking over the Washington Post and infusing it with limitless capital actually did change the Washington Post.

    22. ETErik Torenberg54:59

        Sure.

    23. KBKatherine Boyle54:59

        Like it changed it in the opposite direction of where people would have thought, right? But it's like if, if, if you have a struggling ... Like part of the reason he left the Washington Post was because it was about to go into bankruptcy.And if you have a business that's actually, you know, forced to, to rethink its, its views based on competitive dynamics and where the market wants it to go, if it, if, you know, if one of the richest people in the world buys it, um, and infuses it with cash and doesn't have a strong opinion of where it's going, like you could make the argument that part of the reason why The Washington Post, you know, why it took so long for it to sort of, I would argue it's now normalizing, right? Like normalizing to where its, its readership was-

    24. ELEddie Lazzarin55:32

        Yeah

    25. KBKatherine Boyle55:32

        ... when I was there, which is, is still left of center, but n- not nearly what it was in, you know-

    26. ELEddie Lazzarin55:37

        Yeah

    27. KBKatherine Boyle55:37

        ... Democracy Dies in Darkness land.

    28. ELEddie Lazzarin55:38

        Yeah.

    29. KBKatherine Boyle55:39

        There's a, there's an argument that the actual like infusion of cash was actually the thing that radicalized, um, that I think most people don't talk about when they talk about sort of these media properties and, and sort of the-

    30. ELEddie Lazzarin55:49

        Yeah

Episode duration: 59:18