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Dalton + MichaelDalton + Michael

How to Find Consumer Startup Ideas

In this episode, Dalton and Michael discuss consumer startups. When they were consumer startup founders, just putting something online made it 10x better. The age of "just put it online" might be changing, but the opportunity remains the same: create luxury experiences and give them to the masses. Discussion includes: why really great consumer experiences start high-end, early experiences with Napster, Netflix, and Google Maps, Twitch inventing live streaming, finding premium experiences where the users have infinite resources, why it's hard for founders to find premium experiences, how to avoid the trap to make things 10% better, Brian Chesky's eleven star framework from Airbnb, how Uber did not invent black cars, and why founders should resist the urge to replace humans with chat agents to save money. Then Dalton and Michael brainstorm premium experiences for a variety of industries that might be changed with AI (travel, banking, education, healthcare, social media, retail and food delivery). – Standard Capital is the AI-native Series A fund. Learn more at standardcap.com – About Dalton: Dalton Caldwell is Co-Founder and Partner of Standard Capital. He spent 12 years at Y Combinator, where he served as Managing Partner, worked across 25 YC batches, and advised more than 1,000 startups. His investments include Whatnot, Brex, GitLab, PostHog, Retool, Rappi, Razorpay, and Oklo. Before becoming an investor, Dalton founded imeem and App.net. About Michael: Michael Seibel is a Partner Emeritus at Y Combinator, where he served as a group partner and leader of the early stage accelerator from 2014 - 2024. Michael also serves on the board of three companies: Reddit, Dropbox, and Kalshi. He moved to the bay area in 2006, and was a co-founder and CEO of two Y Combinator startups Justin.tv/Twitch (2007 - 2011) and Socialcam (2011 - 2012). In 2012 Socialcam sold to Autodesk Inc. for $60m and in 2014, under the leadership of Emmett Shear (CEO) and Kevin Lin (COO) Twitch sold to Amazon for $970m. – Are you an AI builder? Check out StandardDB. Discover offers, credits, tools, and partner programs from the StandardDB ecosystem. – Dalton Caldwell on X: https://x.com/daltonc Michael Seibel on X: https://x.com/mwseibel

Dalton CaldwellhostMichael Seibelhost
Aug 18, 202630mWatch on YouTube ↗

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  1. 0:00 – 1:32

    Consumer breakthroughs happen when you’re competing with “nothing”

    1. DC

      Really awesome consumer experiences for the masses start high-end.

    2. MS

      Yes.

    3. DC

      Like air travel-

    4. MS

      Yes. [laughs]

    5. DC

      ... used to be very high-end.

    6. MS

      Yes. [laughs]

    7. DC

      And now it's awesome that-

    8. MS

      Yes

    9. DC

      ... so many people in the world can afford to fly on a plane. Like-

    10. MS

      [coughs]

    11. DC

      ... everyone should have the same quality healthcare-

    12. MS

      Yeah

    13. DC

      ... that a head of state has.

    14. MS

      Yes. Yes.

    15. DC

      Total- And I think that's gonna happen. That's doable. [upbeat music]

    16. MS

      This is Dalton plus Michael. Today we're gonna talk about AI and consumer startups.

    17. DC

      Yep.

    18. MS

      We're familiar with consumer.

    19. DC

      Yes.

    20. MS

      We did a little bit of that.

    21. DC

      We- [laughs]

    22. MS

      Long time ago

    23. DC

      ... we were consumer founders back in the day.

    24. MS

      We were. We were, when we had no gray hair. To break this down, we were having this conversation that was really interesting. I think that the starting point was when you said, "Back in the day, just putting something online made something 10X better." And so, you know, oftentimes when we think about kind of new products, it's kind of taking something that's, like, really, really high-end that the rich people get and giving it to everyone. That's the Clayton Christensen kind of disruption. And you made this point that for so many things, just putting this experience online or on the phone made it delivering a premium experience to, um, everyone. Flesh that out a little bit more.

    25. DC

      Yeah. When you're competing with nothing, if the alternative is-

    26. MS

      Paper

    27. DC

      ... is- [laughs]

    28. MS

      [laughs]

    29. DC

      ... non-existent-

    30. MS

      Yeah. [laughs] Yeah

  2. 1:32 – 3:00

    Why Napster, Netflix, and Google Maps felt 100X better

    1. DC

      And so for me as a consumer, the first time I used Napster-

    2. MS

      Yeah

    3. DC

      ... I was like, "Okay, so this is all the music?" [laughs]

    4. MS

      [laughs]

    5. DC

      "And I can... And, and it's free? And, like, every C- I don't have to buy CDs?"

    6. MS

      And the alternative was, like, CDs were expensive. [laughs]

    7. DC

      I, yeah, I can't stress enough... I know, I know no one remembers this, and we're getting old.

    8. MS

      Yeah.

    9. DC

      But I can't stress enough how awesome it was to be able to listen to music without CDs.

    10. MS

      Would it be able to pick the two songs you wanted to listen to-

    11. DC

      Yep

    12. MS

      ... and not have to buy 15 songs that you didn't?

    13. DC

      It was incredible.

    14. MS

      [laughs]

    15. DC

      And the same thing with, with Netflix, with video streaming-

    16. MS

      Yes

    17. DC

      ... versus going to a video store.

    18. MS

      Oh my God.

    19. DC

      I can't stress how much better it was unequivocally-

    20. MS

      Yes

    21. DC

      ... in every way.

    22. MS

      Well, do you remember before you could watch movies on your laptop, and you're just sitting here like, "I have a laptop. I have a screen. On this screen, television screen, I can watch movies. On this screen, you're telling me that I can't watch m- [laughs]

    23. DC

      Yeah.

    24. MS

      Like, what is going on? [laughs]

    25. DC

      And, you know, something like mapping, like g- Google Maps, 'cause it was competing with nothing, right?

    26. MS

      Yeah.

    27. DC

      Like, there wasn't...

    28. MS

      Paper.

    29. DC

      So, so you, you could have on your phone a real-time dot that shows where you are in the world, and you would never get lost again. Again, I know if you're used to this stuff, you're like, "Yeah, whatever." I-

    30. MS

      Yeah.

  3. 3:00 – 4:20

    The bar is higher now: consumer products already moved online

    1. MS

      Good luck. So I think that perhaps the challenge is we're transitioning, and I think the analogy that I tried to draw is that, you know, when you see a country industrialize and go from kind of a farming economy to a more industrial economy, you get this massive increase in GDP, but you can't, like... You don't get that over and over again. Like, once the farmers left the farm, that, that's the game. And one might argue, once these kind of consumer experiences, directions, travel, like da da da da, the things we've talked about, move online once, the bar to making something in those spaces better goes way up.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      And so if you're a consumer startup today, you might feel pretty shitty, 'cause it's like, you're like, "Hey, Michael and Dalton, you just had to put it online." [laughs] You know?

    4. DC

      Yeah. I, I think the way I would riff on that is to say we did have it much easier.

    5. MS

      [laughs] Yes. Yeah.

    6. DC

      Because we were competing with nothing.

    7. MS

      Yes.

    8. DC

      Like, the internet was a new thing-

    9. MS

      Yes

    10. DC

      ... and there wasn't much on the internet.

    11. MS

      Well, and putting things online wasn't like it was, like, the easiest thing in the world.

    12. DC

      You might've just invite- invented streaming, dude.

    13. MS

      Live streaming.

    14. DC

      Like, there, there wasn't, like, people-

    15. MS

      No

    16. DC

      ... talking to their fam to the chat. [laughs]

    17. MS

      Didn't, didn't-

    18. DC

      You guys invented that

    19. MS

      ... didn't happen. Didn't happen.

    20. DC

      And so it's much harder for someone new to come up with a better version of Twitch-

    21. MS

      No

    22. DC

      ... because you guys didn't have to compete with anything-

    23. MS

      Yeah

    24. DC

      ... at the time.

  4. 4:20 – 5:19

    AI as the new consumer opportunity—if it enables premium experiences

    1. MS

      So there are now startups who are like, and I, I would've been this, I don't know about you, "I fucking hate this B2B SaaS stuff. Like, I don't wanna be doing these."

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      Like, AI is th- this opportunity to build great consumer startups. How should I use it? How would, how would we tell them to think about this?

    4. DC

      I think that the most reliable source of great ideas that we saw over the years is to look at what the most premium experiences in the world are-

    5. MS

      Yes

    6. DC

      ... that people with infinite resources have-

    7. MS

      Yes

    8. DC

      ... and use technology to make them available to everyone.

    9. MS

      Yes.

    10. DC

      And I would argue that is kind of technology in general. Like, we get to live like kings used to live-

    11. MS

      Yes. Yes

    12. DC

      ... [laughs] in a bunch of different ways.

    13. MS

      Yes.

    14. DC

      And so if you can build a technology that takes something that is seen as just super premium and way, way too expensive to be practical-

    15. MS

      Yeah

    16. DC

      ... and bring it to everybody in a cheap way, I think you're gonna have some success.

  5. 5:19 – 6:27

    How to discover ‘ultra-premium’ when you’re not rich: start with healthcare

    1. MS

      But I would argue this is tricky, 'cause I would say that, you know, we started our companies in our 20s when we were internet users, but we could easily see the things that weren't on the internet.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      And so if you're in your 20s now, seeing what a hyper-premium experience is, that's a little bit harder. That's not just, that's not just sitting around. Like, you-

    4. DC

      Yeah

    5. MS

      ... you might have to search for it a bit harder. How do you think about that challenge?

    6. DC

      I would think about what are the things that people care about the most, that put the most money into. And so one, just to-

    7. MS

      Mm-hmm

    8. DC

      ... give some specifics here.

    9. MS

      Mm-hmm.

    10. DC

      I think healthcare is a really big trend, um, in the, in the modern age.

    11. MS

      Yes.

    12. DC

      I think there's still room for improvement to make-

    13. MS

      Yes

    14. DC

      ... healthcare experiences way better. If you've ever, you know, been to a hospital or interacted with the healthcare system, it's not hard to see that there's room for improvement. [laughs]

    15. MS

      Yes.

    16. DC

      And I think the thought experiment is what- ... medical experiences are the most premium in the world. Like, what kind of health experience does a head of state have?

    17. MS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    18. DC

      [laughs] Like, how do they interact with the healthcare system?

    19. MS

      Yeah. Yes.

    20. DC

      Probably different than most people, and can you give whatever that experience that a head of state would have-

    21. MS

      Mm

    22. DC

      ... to everyone? I think that's a really good startup idea.

  6. 6:27 – 7:59

    Avoid the 10% improvement trap: go find the hidden premium tier

    1. MS

      I would kinda take that one step further. If you're interested in an area, let's say healthcare, probably the first thing you should do is try to figure out what is the most premium version of it that you're not gonna readily have access to.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      You, you should kind of assume you don't know what... I mean, depending on how you grew up, but for most people you should assume what you're getting isn't premium. I might argue the trap might be to start from what you're getting and try to make it 10% better.

    4. DC

      Yeah.

    5. MS

      And the opportunity might be assume there's an ultra-premium version you don't know about, go find it. I remember [laughs] I had this experience, I need to like edit some of the details, but I needed a doctor [laughs]

    6. DC

      [laughs] Fair

    7. MS

      ... for, for, for an injury that I had. [laughs]

    8. DC

      Okay.

    9. MS

      And it was really, really hard to get one who was good, and then I talked to a rich investor.

    10. DC

      I know who you're talking about. I remember this.

    11. MS

      And they were like, "Oh, there's this whole other thing over here."

    12. DC

      Yep.

    13. MS

      "And like for more money, but not crazy amount of money, you can have this like experience" and I was like, "Oh my God, I would have never known." Most people don't know. But then having that premium experience, it was like, "Oh, like the normal visit to a health system-

    14. DC

      Yep

    15. MS

      ... is not what this is like." And so I think you kinda have to dig and, and you pointed out that, that Brian Chesky at Airbnb, he kinda has a, a-

    16. DC

      Yeah

    17. MS

      ... a version of this.

  7. 7:59 – 10:34

    The “5-star to 11-star” brainstorming method (Brian Chesky/Airbnb)

    1. DC

      He would give a talk at, at YC.

    2. MS

      Yeah.

    3. DC

      And I think in a nutshell what he would do in planning meetings, like internal Airbnb planning meetings, is to, is to take whatever the idea was or the experience was-

    4. MS

      Yeah

    5. DC

      ... and then is, in the brainstorm say, "Okay, what's the five-star version?" Not the four-star. "Okay, what's the six-star?" And so for instance, um, he would talk about checking into an Airbnb.

    6. MS

      Yeah.

    7. DC

      You know, you show up and the app gives you access and whatever.

    8. MS

      Yeah.

    9. DC

      And so, you know, maybe the, the six-star experience is a car meets you at the airport-

    10. MS

      And takes you there

    11. DC

      ... and takes you there. Maybe a seven-star experience is they hold a parade for you.

    12. MS

      [laughs]

    13. DC

      Maybe the-

    14. MS

      For some people. [laughs]

    15. DC

      Maybe the 11 star experience is there's a parade and they put you on an elephant.

    16. MS

      [laughs]

    17. DC

      They march you down, down the street from the airport to your Airbnb.

    18. MS

      Yeah.

    19. DC

      And again, I, I don't believe they've built that feature yet.

    20. MS

      No.

    21. DC

      Um, [laughs] but at least for the sake of the brainstorm, it helps to stretch your brain-

    22. MS

      Yeah

    23. DC

      ... to imagine-

    24. MS

      Yes

    25. DC

      ... to think outside the box-

    26. MS

      Yes

    27. DC

      ... of what increasingly, uh, premium experiences are.

    28. MS

      Well, I want to extend that analogy because I think that one thing I wanna communicate is this idea that you might not have to invent these experiences. They probably exist, it's probably just that they don't scale very well or they're very expensive-

    29. DC

      Yep

    30. MS

      ... and so they're not widely available. But like oftentimes you don't... I mean, Uber didn't invent black cars.

  8. 10:34 – 12:40

    What not to build: cheap chatbot replacements that feel worse than humans

    1. DC

      Unfortunately, I feel like I see a lot of consumer AI startups that try to replace things being done with humans with like chatbots or voice agents. There are cases where that might be better. Like for instance, um, I don't enjoy calling in to certain places and being held on hold for an hour.

    2. MS

      Very.

    3. DC

      And so if you could pick up the phone immediately and fix my problem, okay, you know, check.

    4. MS

      I mean, yeah.

    5. DC

      But the issue is that a lot of the experiences aren't actually that much better than working with a human.

    6. MS

      No.

    7. DC

      And that the pitch that the founders have is that it's saving money and not that it's like-

    8. MS

      Or time, or time, yes

    9. DC

      ... and not that it's 100X better.

    10. MS

      No.

    11. DC

      And that's my issue. Like, like my theory of what will cause really big consumer companies to come out-

    12. MS

      Yes

    13. DC

      ... is the same kind of like magical feeling that we felt-

    14. MS

      Yes

    15. DC

      ... with these 100X better products that, that have come out.

    16. MS

      Yes.

    17. DC

      And I don't think that's by sort of approximating a 95%-as-good version of a, of what humans do. And again, like last thing on this, it's like when I interact with someone over email and I'm like, "Oh man, this is so horrible. This is probably someone's open claw I'm talking to."

    18. MS

      Yeah. Yes. Yes. Exactly, yes.

    19. DC

      [laughs] I'm like, "Oh, this is, this is horrible." And so if you're building a product-

    20. MS

      Are you having a premium experience? [laughs]

    21. DC

      If, if your experience is effectively someone's like, "Oh man, I think I'm talking to a claw. This is," you know, unsubscribe.

    22. MS

      Yeah.

    23. DC

      You know, that is not [laughs] what we're talking about. That is not a premium experience.

    24. MS

      Well, and, and what's funny is it's not a premium experience of the receiver of the email, but it's also not a premium experience for the sender of the email-

    25. DC

      Yeah

    26. MS

      ... and that's not talked about enough. If you're quietly just shitting on everyone you're trying to communicate with [laughs] That's not good for you. [laughs] Um, it's like, "Oh, but, but you answered DreamHost so fast," and it's like, "Yeah, but everyone you're talking to hates you." That's not, that's not good. [laughs] So I'd like to play a game. We have a list of products that have been very popular in the last 20 years that are consumer products, and I would love us to kind of brainstorm a little bit

  9. 12:40 – 15:42

    Travel beyond Kayak: the ‘fixer’ as the true premium experience

    1. MS

      about what 100X better could be. A weird product for me was Kayak. I would say that, um, Kayak was probably the first Web 2.0 product that I used that, like, kind of weirdly just completely blew me away.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      The product right before was, like, airplane sites. Airlines had websites. So you could go one by one and search each one of them, but you couldn't do that. And the product right before that was, like, you called a travel agent. [laughs] And, like, they couldn't search all of the, like... So I just remember the first time I could be like, "Here's every flight between these two places, and then I can drag this thing 'cause I wanna leave at, like, 4:00 PM, and I will just see those flights. I can sort by cheap and expensive." Like, that was mind-blowing to me. And now, as a more, um, experienced traveler, you know, if you're gonna make some chatbot that automates that process of finding a flight, like, like, that's not, like, you're not giving me the magic. I think that the magic comes from, like, what is an incredible trip if it's a business trip, or what is an incredible vacation? You know, I see founders who are like, "Oh, the AI can create my itinerary." What happens if you had to be responsible for me having an incredible trip? Is a premium experience to hand you an itinerary and say-

    4. DC

      No. [laughs]

    5. MS

      [laughs] I've gone on some incredible vacations, and the premium version of this is, um, actually this term I learned from No Reservations and Anthony Bourdain, is this term called a fixer.

    6. DC

      Yeah.

    7. MS

      And it's literally a human who is from that place you're going, knows it extremely well, and helps you do everything you wanna do.

    8. DC

      Yep.

    9. MS

      And doesn't just, like, do the things that you say. Like, they know the space really well. They're like, "Actually, you don't wanna go there. You wanna go here," or like, "Actually, da da da da da," or, and like, or, "You're not accounting for the fact that you're gonna have jet lag, so da da..." Like, they're incredible.

    10. DC

      Yeah.

    11. MS

      When you go on a vacation with a fixer, you're having a 10X better vacation than other people around you, even when you're, like, buying the same stuff. Like, I remember I had a little microcosm of this experience when I was traveling to Bologna and I was talking to some founders, and we went to this restaurant, my wife and I, and we had a mediocre meal, and then the next day, the founders wanted to go to the same restaurant, and I was like, "We hated that place."

    12. DC

      [laughs]

    13. MS

      And they were just like, "It's, like, o- one of the best restaurants. Just let us order." And we went back the second day and just ordered different stuff, [laughs] and it was one of the best restaurants, and I was like, "Oh," like, "Oh, I see." And so to me, if I were trying to be in the travel space, it would be like, I mean, when you're rich, you get incredible vacations.

    14. DC

      Yeah.

    15. MS

      Like, you get this personal experience. If you could simulate that for every peop- for everyday people at a reasonable cost, way above and beyond Kayak. [laughs] Way above and beyond. What about you? Like, is there, is there, like, a, can you imagine a premium version of a product that we all know and love?

  10. 15:42 – 19:07

    Fintech’s premium tier: a banker who knows you and makes things happen

    1. DC

      Yeah. I think one that I think about a lot is, uh, is fintech, and I funded a lot of-

    2. MS

      Ooh

    3. DC

      ... fintech-

    4. MS

      Yes

    5. DC

      ... at YC.

    6. MS

      Yes.

    7. DC

      I funded Brex-

    8. MS

      Yes

    9. DC

      ... and, you know, I, lots of experience. One of the things that I, that I noticed, um, setting up Standard Capital-

    10. MS

      Yeah

    11. DC

      ... and, uh, what have you, is I've interacted with what the high end of a banking experience is.

    12. MS

      Ooh.

    13. DC

      And this is an example of what you talked about earlier is-

    14. MS

      Yeah

    15. DC

      ... I don't think most people understand-

    16. MS

      [laughs]

    17. DC

      ... what it's like-

    18. MS

      Yes

    19. DC

      ... to have a really good banking experience.

    20. MS

      Humans will come to your office and they will- [laughs]

    21. DC

      And so effectively, the super premium banking experience is you have a person-

    22. MS

      Yeah

    23. DC

      ... who knows you-

    24. MS

      Yeah

    25. DC

      ... and knows your life story-

    26. MS

      Yeah

    27. DC

      ... and is very senior at the place they work.

    28. MS

      Can do a lot of things.

    29. DC

      And whatever problems you have-

    30. MS

      Yeah

  11. 19:07 – 20:01

    AI makes previously impossible premium businesses viable at scale

    1. MS

      Well, and, and I would argue that AI makes the business that wouldn't work before AI work-

    2. DC

      Yep

    3. MS

      ... after, right? These things that we're talking about fundamentally wouldn't work before, and if you're kinda still stuck in that mindset of like, oh, well, there have been a bunch of different kayaks and none of them worked, it's like you're not-

    4. DC

      Yeah

    5. MS

      ... getting it. Like, you're right on one hand, like making a 10% better kayak is not correct. On the other hand, what would amazing be?

    6. DC

      Yep.

    7. MS

      What would amazing be?

    8. DC

      And, and again, shockingly, I think a lot of people will work on a startup for years and not have an answer to the question-

    9. MS

      No

    10. DC

      ... of what-

    11. MS

      No

    12. DC

      ... what is an 11-star experience. At least have the thought experiment.

    13. MS

      No. Well, and it's funny 'cause, you know, just to bring it back to Twitch for a second, like the 11-star experience, and this just shows how old it was, was you can make content online and get paid. Like, that wasn't a thing.

    14. DC

      It's basic.

    15. MS

      It wa- it was that basic.

  12. 20:01 – 22:13

    Education as a massive opportunity: personalized learning for everyone

    1. DC

      And maybe to riff on one other thing that I think about a lot-

    2. MS

      Yeah

    3. DC

      ... is we are products of the school system, of the education system.

    4. MS

      Yeah.

    5. DC

      And I think... You know, I went to public school.

    6. MS

      Yep. Me too.

    7. DC

      So I'm a product of the, the Texas State-

    8. MS

      [laughs]

    9. DC

      Public edu- you know, or, and again, I'm a fan. It's not-

    10. MS

      Yeah. It, it worked out.

    11. DC

      But-

    12. MS

      It worked out. [laughs]

    13. DC

      It worked out for me. But, like, you know, there's room for improvement, I think is one way to say it.

    14. MS

      Yeah.

    15. DC

      And when you think about what the design challenges are of building an education system-

    16. MS

      Yeah

    17. DC

      ... it's you have to serve everybody.

    18. MS

      Yeah.

    19. DC

      And a lot of the weirder parts of the product of being educated, uh, by a society-

    20. MS

      Yeah

    21. DC

      ... is the trade-offs they had to make. [laughs]

    22. MS

      Yeah. Yes, yes.

    23. DC

      Like, we were all experiencing-

    24. MS

      To say yes to everyone, yeah. [laughs]

    25. DC

      Yeah, we went through a one size fits all-

    26. MS

      Yes

    27. DC

      ... um, education experience, and there's clearly room for improvement.

    28. MS

      Yes.

    29. DC

      And there are people that have a lot of resources-

    30. MS

      Yeah

  13. 22:13 – 24:50

    Competing with attention giants: joy vs addiction, and the pull of in-person experiences

    1. DC

      I think the same thing goes even for entertainment products, where maybe I have a less clear idea about what 100X better looks like.

    2. MS

      Yeah.

    3. DC

      But, um, when you think about it, TikTok is a very s- sophisticated algorithm. [laughs]

    4. MS

      It's 100X better.

    5. DC

      And what you all are competing with, if you're trying to do a consumer product, is a black hole for human attention-

    6. MS

      Yeah

    7. DC

      ... that is now many years in.

    8. MS

      Yeah.

    9. DC

      And again, not just TikTok, but Facebook too.

    10. MS

      Sure.

    11. DC

      But they have all the content, they already know kind of what you like, and they can siphon hours a day from a human's attention.

    12. MS

      Yeah.

    13. DC

      And so you have to be way more compelling-

    14. MS

      Yeah

    15. DC

      ... than that. And this is very different than building a consumer product 20 years ago when there was no TikTok. There, there was nothing else competing for these hours per day.

    16. MS

      No. I mean, you make a really good point. One, rich people are sucked into social media just like middle-class people, just like-

    17. DC

      Yes

    18. MS

      ... working-class people. So, like, I, I, I've never seen a rich person... I mean, maybe I'm not rich enough. [laughs]

    19. DC

      There's always another level.

    20. MS

      But I mean, Elon's on Twitter, so. [laughs]

    21. DC

      Well, he's... Yeah. Basically, what can we learn, what can we learn, um, from Trump and from Elon?

    22. MS

      [laughs]

    23. DC

      I think it's that using X is the most premium experience in the world, and that with infinite wealth-

    24. MS

      Yeah

    25. DC

      ... you would still choose to use, spend a lot of your waking hours on that freaking website.

    26. MS

      Literally. Literally.

    27. DC

      Right? Right? That's like the hi-

    28. MS

      Literally.

    29. DC

      It's at the highest-

    30. MS

      It's a hike. [laughs] That is, that is the highest it can-

  14. 24:50 – 28:47

    Premium commerce & food: ‘best product’ Amazon and ‘private chef’ DoorDash

    1. MS

      I wanna keep this going. I wanna do two more.

    2. DC

      Okay.

    3. MS

      And, and, and I'm gonna give you the choice, and I'll take the other. Amazon and DoorDash.

    4. DC

      I'll, I'll do Amazon. I think that one's easier.

    5. MS

      Okay. All right. Go ahead. What, what is, what is rich person Amazon?

    6. DC

      So the problem, the problem with Amazon is it has been SEO'd to heck.

    7. MS

      Oh, God. Yeah.

    8. DC

      And it's just full of crap, and the odds that you'll actually get a good product are very low.

    9. MS

      Yeah.

    10. DC

      And I think the high-end experience version of Amazon is you get the best version of something. It's like wire cutter type stuff.

    11. MS

      Hmm.

    12. DC

      But there's a, you could just ask someone. You'd be like-

    13. MS

      Hmm

    14. DC

      ... "Michael, what's the best X?"

    15. MS

      Hmm.

    16. DC

      And he'd be like, "Oh, it's this."

    17. MS

      Hmm.

    18. DC

      And then you have it. [laughs]

    19. MS

      All right.

    20. DC

      Like, Amazon did a really good job of speed of getting it to my house. I don't know how much more you could improve that.

    21. MS

      No.

    22. DC

      But man, they have a crap problem. [laughs]

    23. MS

      So I wanna, I, I wanna, I, I don't know the right poker term. I, I wanna, like, I wanna raise.

    24. DC

      You wanna raise? Okay.

    25. MS

      I wanna raise. I wanna raise you.

    26. DC

      Yeah.

    27. MS

      I wanna raise you. Okay. I would argue that, like, there are lots of Amazon purchases that I, that, that people do because they're trying to, like, maintain something in their life, maintain their household, maintain their wardrobe, maintain whatever. I wonder if that whole maintenance thing could just be removed.

    28. DC

      Yep.

    29. MS

      Right? It's like, not only is, is this service going to pick the things that it knows is good for me, it's going to take responsibility for whatever needs to be maintained, right? Like-

    30. DC

      Yeah

  15. 28:47 – 30:23

    Core takeaway: great mass consumer products start as high-end—and can be democratized

    1. DC

      What we're trying to say is really awesome consumer experiences for the masses-

    2. MS

      Yeah

    3. DC

      ... start high-end.

    4. MS

      Yes.

    5. DC

      Like air travel-

    6. MS

      Yes. [laughs]

    7. DC

      ... used to be very high-end.

    8. MS

      Yes. [laughs]

    9. DC

      And now it's awesome that-

    10. MS

      Yes

    11. DC

      ... so many people in the world can afford to fly on a plane.

    12. MS

      Yes.

    13. DC

      Same with cars.

    14. MS

      Yes.

    15. DC

      Owning a car was a ridiculous luxury experience.

    16. MS

      Ridiculous.

    17. DC

      And now, you know, a lot of people own cars.

    18. MS

      Exactly.

    19. DC

      That's a real... And so what we're trying to argue is to be inspired-

    20. MS

      Yes

    21. DC

      ... by the ideas of this stuff.

    22. MS

      Yes.

    23. DC

      But of course the point is to make it accessible to everyone.

    24. MS

      Yes.

    25. DC

      Everyone should have amazing healthcare.

    26. MS

      Yes. Yes, yes.

    27. DC

      [laughs] As-

    28. MS

      Well, and that's so important, because I think that, like, maybe today in our political climate, it's kind of like it's this glass half full, or like, you know, the pie is only so big, so we can't give those amazing experiences to everyone.

    29. DC

      Right.

    30. MS

      And it's like, no. No, no, no, no.

Episode duration: 30:25

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