Ryan Schiller: Librex and the Free Exchange of Ideas on College Campuses | Lex Fridman Podcast #172

1. 0:00 – 1:48

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Ryan Schiller, creator of Librex, an anonymous discussion feed for college communities, starting at first with Yale, then the Ivy Leagues, and now adding Stanford and MIT. Their mission is to give students a place to explore ideas and issues in a positive way, but with much more personal and intellectual freedom than has defined college campuses in recent history. I think this is a very difficult, but worthy project. Quick thank you to our sponsors, Allform, Magic Spoon, BetterHelp, and Brave. Click their links to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that Ryan, the young entrepreneur and genuine human being who quickly won me over, he's inspiring in many ways, both in the struggle he had to overcome in his personal life, but also in the fact that he did not know how to code, but saw a problem in this world and his community that he cared about, and for that, he learned to code and built a solution in the best way he knew how. That's an important reminder for us humans. Let us not only complain about the problems in the world, let us fix them. I also have to say that there's passion in Ryan's eyes for really wanting to make a difference in the world. His story, his effort gives me hope for the future. There is hate in this world, but I believe there's much more love, and I believe it's possible to build online platforms that connect us through our common humanity as we explore difficult, personal, even painful ideas together. This is the Lex Fridman podcast, and here is my conversation with Ryan Schiller.

2. 1:48 – 3:41

   Librex

   1. LFLex Fridman1:48

      Let's start with the basics. What is Librex? What are its founding story and founding principles, and looking to the future, what do you hope to achieve with Librex?

   2. RSRyan Schiller1:59

      Sure. Let me break that down. So what is Librex? Librex is an anonymous discussion feed for college campuses. It's a place where people can have important and unfettered discussions and open discourse about topics they care about, ideas that matter, and they can do all of that completely anonymously, with verified members of their college community. And we exist both on, uh, each Ivy League campus, and we have an inter-Ivy community, and actually this week, we just opened to MIT and Stanford. So now we have-

   3. LFLex Fridman2:31

      No, really? MIT? Yes.

   4. RSRyan Schiller2:33

      And Stanford. So we have MIT and Stanford communities, and I expect you to-

   5. LFLex Fridman2:37

      (laughs)

   6. RSRyan Schiller2:37

      ... sign up for your MIT account-

   7. LFLex Fridman2:38

      That's great.

   8. RSRyan Schiller2:38

      ... and start posting.

   9. LFLex Fridman2:40

      What are, for people who are not familiar, like me actually, which are the Ivy Leagues?

   10. RSRyan Schiller2:45

       Sure. So we started at Yale, which is my, I don't know, can you call it alma mater?

   11. LFLex Fridman2:50

       (laughs)

   12. RSRyan Schiller2:50

       Because I haven't technically graduated.

   13. LFLex Fridman2:52

       Yeah.

   14. RSRyan Schiller2:53

       Um, my home base.

   15. LFLex Fridman2:53

       What's that called when you're actually still there? My university?

   16. RSRyan Schiller2:57

       Uh, yeah, I guess ver- I guess we'll just-

   17. LFLex Fridman2:58

       Home.

   18. RSRyan Schiller2:59

       ... call it home. It's my home.

   19. LFLex Fridman3:00

       Educational home.

   20. RSRyan Schiller3:01

       Started at my educational home of Yale, and then we moved to, um... And we could get into the story of this eventually if you'd like.

   21. LFLex Fridman3:08

       Sure.

   22. RSRyan Schiller3:09

       And then we went to Dartmouth, and then quarantine hit. We opened to the rest of the Ivy League, and now we have... And the Ivy League, um, for those who don't know is Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, and Penn. Whew. I got it all in one-

   23. LFLex Fridman3:26

       (laughs)

   24. RSRyan Schiller3:26

       ... breath.

   25. LFLex Fridman3:27

       What's the youngest Ivy League? Penn? No. Columbia?

   26. RSRyan Schiller3:31

       I can't say. I-

   27. LFLex Fridman3:31

       Okay. (laughs)

   28. RSRyan Schiller3:32

       Not, not on camera. (laughs)

   29. LFLex Fridman3:33

       We'll edit it in post. I don't know.

   30. RSRyan Schiller3:35

       Yeah.
3. 3:41 – 7:48

   Deep Fakes

   1. RSRyan Schiller3:41

      Harvard."

   2. LFLex Fridman3:41

      There's actually a really nice, uh, software that people should check out, like a service, uh, which is using machine learning really nicely for podcast editing-

   3. RSRyan Schiller3:49

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LFLex Fridman3:49

      ... where you can y- it learns the voice of the speaker, and it can change the words you said.

   5. RSRyan Schiller3:57

      It's like some deepfake stuff.

   6. LFLex Fridman3:58

      It's deepfake, but for positive applications. It's very interesting. It's like the only deepfake positive applications (laughs) I see.

   7. RSRyan Schiller4:05

      I have a friend who's obsessed with deepfakes.

   8. LFLex Fridman4:06

      Yeah.

   9. RSRyan Schiller4:07

      What's great about, I think, deepfakes is that it's gonna do the opposite of sort of what's happening with our culture-

   10. LFLex Fridman4:13

       Yeah.

   11. RSRyan Schiller4:13

       ... where everyone will have plausible deniability.

   12. LFLex Fridman4:15

       Yeah. Exactly. I mean, that- that's the hope for me, is there are so many fake things out there, that we're going to actually be much more skeptical and, and think and take in multiple sources and actually, like, reason, like use common sense and use more, like, deep thinking to understand, like, what is true and what is not because, uh, you know, we used to have, like, traditional sources like The New York Times and all these kinds of publications that had a reputation. They are these institutions and they're the source of truth. And when you no longer can trust anything as a source of truth, you start to think on your own. That gives power to the individual. That goes, that takes us way back to, like, where I came from, the Soviet Union, where you can't really trust any one source of news. You have to think on your own. You have to talk to your friends.

   13. RSRyan Schiller5:03

       It's a tremendous amount of intellectual autonomy-

   14. LFLex Fridman5:06

       Yeah.

   15. RSRyan Schiller5:06

       ... don't you think? It... Think about the societal consequences.

   16. LFLex Fridman5:09

       Absolutely. I mean, we see so much decentralization in all aspects of our digital lives now, but this is like the decentralization of thought.

   17. RSRyan Schiller5:19

       Yes.

   18. LFLex Fridman5:20

       You could say it's sadly, or I don't think it's sad, it's decentralization of truth, where, like, truth is a clustering thing. We have these, like, this point cloud of people just swimming around, like billions of them, and they all have certain ideas. And what's thought of as truth is almost like a clustering algorithm when you just get a bunch of people that believe the same thing, that's truth. But there's also another truth, and there might be, like, multiple truths, and it's almost w- would be like a battle of truths. Maybe even the idea of truth will, like, lessen its power in society, that there is such a thing as the truth, 'cause, like, the downside of saying something is true is...... is, uh, it's a- always the, the downside of what people, like religious people, call scientism, which is like once science has declared something as true, you can't... No longer question it. But the reality is science is a moving mechanism.

   19. RSRyan Schiller6:20

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman6:21

       You're constantly questioning. You're constantly questioning. And then maybe truth should be renamed as, uh, as a process, not a, not a final destination. The whole point is to keep questioning, keep questioning, keep discovering.

   21. RSRyan Schiller6:36

       Kind of like we're going backwards in time to, like, back when, back when people were sort of finding their identities and we were less, um, globalized, right? Like people would, would get together, and they'd get together around a common value system, common morals, and a common place, and those would be s- sort of these clusters of their truth, right? And so we have all these different, like, civilizations and societies across, across the world that created their own truths, you know. We talk about the Jews and the Talmud and Torah. We can look at Buddhist texts. We can look at all sorts of different truths and how many of them get at the same things but many of them have different ideas or different articulations.

   22. LFLex Fridman7:14

       Yeah. Harari and Sapiens rewinds that even farther back into, like, caveman times. That's the thing that made us humans special is we can develop these clusters of ideas, hold them in our minds through stories, pass them on to each other, and it grows and grows, and finally we have Bitcoin. So... (laughs)

   23. RSRyan Schiller7:31

       (laughs)

   24. LFLex Fridman7:31

       Uh, which money is another belief system that, um, that, uh, that has power only because we believe in it. And is that truth? I don't know, but it has power, and it

4. 7:48 – 18:42

   Silencing of ideas

   1. LFLex Fridman7:53

      g-... uh, I'm willing to take heat for this, is they really are criticizing the administration, not the faculty, because the faculty oftentimes are the most brilliant, the b- the boldest thinkers that you th- Whenever you talk about, "We need, like, the truth to be spoken," the faculty are often the ones who are in the possession of the deepest truths in their mind in th- in that sense, and they also have the capacity to truly educate in the way that you're- you're saying. And so it's not broken, like, fundamentally, but there's stuff that, like, needs- that's not working that well and needs to be fixed.

   2. RSRyan Schiller12:43

      You kinda took my, you kinda took my words. That's what I, that's what... I thought you were gonna ask me if I think the Ivy League is broken.

   3. LFLex Fridman12:46

      (laughs)

   4. RSRyan Schiller12:47

      That's totally... That's exactly it.

   5. LFLex Fridman12:49

      So you don't think... Yeah. So on the question, do you think the Ivy League is broken, like what... How do you think about it? Uh, the academia in general, I suppose, but Ivy League, still I think it represents some of the best qualities of academia.

   6. RSRyan Schiller13:01

      Yeah, what more is there to say there? I think the Ivy League is tr- producing tremendous thinkers to this day. I think the culture has a lot that can be improved. But I have a lot of faith in the people who are in these institutions. I think, like you said, the administration, and I- I have to be a little careful because, um, you know, I've been in some of these committees, um, and I- I- I have talked to the administration about these sorts of things. Um, I think they have a lot of stakeholders, and unfortunately, it makes it difficult for them to always serve these brilliant faculty and the students in the way that they would probably like to.

   7. LFLex Fridman13:35

      Yeah. I mean, okay, so this is me speaking, right? The administration, I know the people, and they're oftentimes the faculty holding positions in these committees, right?

   8. RSRyan Schiller13:44

      Yes.

   9. LFLex Fridman13:44

      But it's in- in the role of, quote-unquote, "service," they, uh, they're trying to do well, they're trying to do good, but I think you could say it's- the mechanism is not working, but I could also say, my personal opinion is, uh, they lack courage, and one, courage, and two, grace when they walk through the fire. So courage is stepping into the fire, and grace, when you walk through the fire, is, like, maintaining that, like- like, as opposed to being rude and insensitive to the lived, quote-unquote, "experience" of others, or, like, you know, just not eloquent at all, like, as you step in and take the courageous step of talking- saying the difficult thing, doing it well, like doing it skillfully. So both of those are important, the courage and the skill to communicate difficult ideas. And they often lack them because they weren't trained for it, I think. So you can blame the mechanisms that don't- that allow 19-, 20-year-old students to have more power than the entire faculty.

   10. RSRyan Schiller15:00

       (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman15:00

       Or you could just say that the faculty need to step up and grow some guts and- and skill of graceful communication.

   12. RSRyan Schiller15:07

       And really, the administration.

   13. LFLex Fridman15:09

       Well, the-... Yeah, and the administration. Th- that's right, that's- the administration. -

   14. RSRyan Schiller15:13

       'Cause the faculty are sometimes m- some of the most brave, outspoken people-

   15. LFLex Fridman15:17

       Yes.

   16. RSRyan Schiller15:18

       ... within the bounds of their career.

   17. LFLex Fridman15:21

       Yeah. So, uh, so that- that takes a- that's like the founding kind of spark of a fire that, uh, led you to then say, "Okay, so how can I help?"

   18. RSRyan Schiller15:33

       Yeah, and I explored a lot. I explored a lot of options. I wrote many articles to my friends, talked to them, and I realized it sort of needed to be a cultural change, sort of needed to be bottom-up, grassroots. Um, something... I knew the energy was there, because you just look at the most recent institutional assessment from Yale, this was basically the number one thing that students, faculty, and alumni all pointed to, to the administration, was cultivating more conversations on campus and more difficult conversations on campus. So the people on campus know it. Um, and you look at, like, a Gallup poll, 61% of students are, um, on Ivy League campuses, afraid to speak their minds because of the campus culture. Um, th- the campus culture is causing a sort of freezing effect on discourse.

   19. LFLex Fridman16:27

       Can you pause on that again?

   20. RSRyan Schiller16:28

       Yeah.

   21. LFLex Fridman16:28

       So what percentage of students feel afraid to speak their mind?

   22. RSRyan Schiller16:31

       61% nationally. And you're talking about, you know, places nothing like, uh, the Ivy League, where I'd say I'd imagine it would be even worse, because of just the way that these communities kind of come about, and the sorts of people who are attracted or are invited to these sorts of communities. Um, that's nationwide that college students... And- and it's going up, that college students are afraid to say what they believe because of their campus climate. So it's a majority. It's not- it's not a conservative thing, it's not a liberal thing, it's a group thing. We're all feeling it. The majority of us are feeling it.

   23. LFLex Fridman17:08

       And basically just- it doesn't even- you don't even necessarily need to have anything to say, you just have a fear. (laughs)

   24. RSRyan Schiller17:17

       That's right.

   25. LFLex Fridman17:17

       So when you're, like, teaching, you know, metaphor is a really powerful thing to explain, you know, and there's j- just a caution that you feel that's just horrible for humor. Now comedians have the freedom to just talk shit, which is why I really appreciate, uh, s- somebody who's been a friend recently, Tim Dillon, who has- who gives zero, uh, pardon my French, fucks (laughs) about anything, which is very liberating, very important person to just tear down the powerful. But, you know, inside the- the academia, as a- as an educator, as a teacher, as a professor, you don't have the same freedom. So that fear is felt, I guess, by (laughs) a majority of students. It's, um, upsetting.

   26. RSRyan Schiller17:58

       And you were getting at something there, too, which is that, um, if you're afraid to speak- metaphorically, if you're sp- afraid to speak imprecisely...... it can be very difficult to actually think at all and to think to the extremities of what you're capable of, because these are the th- these are the mechanisms we use when we don't have quite the precise ma- mathematical language to quite pinpoint what we're talking about yet. This is the beginning. This is the creative step that leads to new knowledge. And so that really scares me, is that if I'm not allowed to sort of excavate these things, these ideas with people in the sort of messy, sloppy way that we do as humans when we're first being creative, are we h- are we going to be able to continue to innovate? Are we gonna continue to be able to learn? And that's what really starts to scare me.

5. 18:42 – 28:29

   Building Librex

   1. RSRyan Schiller18:43

   2. LFLex Fridman18:43

      So you've explored a bunch of different ideas. You wrote a bunch of different stuff. Uh, how did Leadbrix come about?

   3. RSRyan Schiller18:49

      It basically came to me that it had to be kind of a grassroots movement, and it had to be something that changed culturally, and it had to be relatively personal, people meeting people, people finding out that, no, I'm not the only one on campus who feels this way. I, I feel alone, and there are a lot of other people who feel alone. I, I, I believe this thing, and it's not as unpopular as I thought, you know, the- basically creating heterodoxy of thought. And it's creating that moment where you realize that your politics are personal and that your politics are shared by a lot of people on campus. And so I just started coding it. I, uh, I, I didn't have much coding experience but, uh, (laughs) went headfirst in and, uh, figured how hard could it be. You know?

   4. LFLex Fridman19:35

      Yeah.

   5. RSRyan Schiller19:36

      (laughs)

   6. LFLex Fridman19:36

      (laughs) I mean, this is really fascinating. So I, I talk to a lot of software engineers, AI people. Obviously, that's where my passion, my, uh, like interests are. Uh, my focus has been throughout my life. The fascinating thing about your story, I think it should be truly inspiring to, like, people that wanna change the world is that you don't have a background in programming. You don't have even, uh, maybe a technical background. So you saw a problem. You explored different ideas, and then you just decided you're gonna learn how to build an app, like without a technical background. Like, you didn't try to... (laughs) I mean, that, that's so bold. That is so beautiful, man. Um, can you take me through the journey of, of deciding to do that, of like learning to program without a programming background-

   7. RSRyan Schiller20:30

      Yeah.

   8. LFLex Fridman20:30

      ... and building the app? Like detail, like what do you actually... Like, how do you start? (laughs)

   9. RSRyan Schiller20:34

      Sure. I mean, you want to, uh, you wanna buy a Mac. I learned, and you had to buy a Ma- I, I'm just gonna go step by step, right?

   10. LFLex Fridman20:41

       Okay.

   11. RSRyan Schiller20:41

       I'll be as dumb as possible-

   12. LFLex Fridman20:43

       Okay.

   13. RSRyan Schiller20:43

       ... because it was, it was truly, it was truly, you know-

   14. LFLex Fridman20:46

       Yeah.

   15. RSRyan Schiller20:46

       ... like leading by your feet.

   16. LFLex Fridman20:48

       So you needed a computer for this?

   17. RSRyan Schiller20:49

       Well, yeah. I had a PC at the time, uh, and I was Android at the time, and I realized, you know, I, I realized it should be like an iOS app. And so, um, yeah, that was a decision. But, you know, I knew kids these days, they're always on their phone, and, you know, I wanted you to be able to say a passing thought, you know, in class, make a passing... Like, you're walking around and you have a thought, and you can express it. Or you're in the dining hall and you have your phone out, you can express it. So it was clear to me it should be an iOS app.

   18. LFLex Fridman21:15

       By the way-

   19. RSRyan Schiller21:15

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman21:16

       ... Android is great.

   21. RSRyan Schiller21:17

       (laughs)

   22. LFLex Fridman21:17

       You should definitely check out our-

   23. RSRyan Schiller21:18

       We also are now available on Android.

   24. LFLex Fridman21:20

       Yeah, yeah.

   25. RSRyan Schiller21:20

       But we'll get there, um, for the new Android users from MIT, Stanford, or the Ivy League. So back to how it happened. So I realized I needed a Mac, so went out and got-

   26. LFLex Fridman21:30

       Okay.

   27. RSRyan Schiller21:32

       ... a Mac. Um, and I realized I needed an iPhone for testing eventually, got an iPhone. Um, so those were the real roadbo- blocks to start with. Um, from there, I mean, there's, there's almost too much information out there about programming. The question is like, what, where do you start, and what's gonna be useful to you? And I, I... My first thought was I should look at some Yale classes, but it became very clear very quickly that that was not the right place to start.

   28. LFLex Fridman21:56

       Yeah.

   29. RSRyan Schiller21:57

       Um, that would probably be the right place to start if I wanted to get a job at Amazon, but-

   30. LFLex Fridman22:01

       Right.
6. 28:29 – 36:55

   How Librex took over Dartmouth

   1. RSRyan Schiller28:30

   2. LFLex Fridman28:30

      When was the moment that you felt like, "We've created something special"? Maybe a moment where you're proud of, that this is a ... This is, this has the potential to actually be the very, uh, implementation of the idea that I initially had.

   3. RSRyan Schiller28:49

      Ooh, there's so many, there's so many little moments. It's like ... And I bet there'll still be moments l- in the, in the future that make, that make it hard to, like, totally say, like-

   4. LFLex Fridman28:59

      Yeah, we should say this is the v- this is still very early days of Librex.

   5. RSRyan Schiller29:02

      It's been a year. Yeah. It's literally only-

   6. LFLex Fridman29:04

      It's only, it's only been a year?

   7. RSRyan Schiller29:05

      Since we've had, like, actual, like, a lot of people on the app, yeah, about a year.

   8. LFLex Fridman29:09

      Oh, wow. Okay.

   9. RSRyan Schiller29:10

      I mean, there are some crazy moments I could talk about sort of going to Dartmouth, 'cause it's one thing to, like, get some traction at your school.

   10. LFLex Fridman29:17

       Yeah.

   11. RSRyan Schiller29:17

       People know you, and you know, it's, it's your school, you know. It's another thing to go to another school and s- where no one knows you and sign up 90% of the campus overnight.

   12. LFLex Fridman29:28

       Wow. So tell me that story. You're invading another territory.

   13. RSRyan Schiller29:31

       It was literally like that. (laughs)

   14. LFLex Fridman29:33

       Did you buy, like, a Dartmouth sweatshirt? (laughs)

   15. RSRyan Schiller29:36

       Uh, purposefully ... I didn't want to defraud any- defraud anyone-

   16. LFLex Fridman29:39

       Yeah.

   17. RSRyan Schiller29:39

       ... but I was purposefully nondescript in my clothing.

   18. LFLex Fridman29:42

       Okay. (laughs)

   19. RSRyan Schiller29:42

       Yeah. No Yale stuff, no Dartmouth stuff. Um, just blend in. Um, I'll, yeah, I'll, I'll go back there. So what happened was ... This was like March of last year, um, so almost, almost a year ago today. And I really wanted to see if we could go from sort of one campus to two campuses. So I didn't know anyone at Dartmouth's campus, but I kind of ...... had some cold emails, some warm-ish emails. Um, and I went to people and I was like, basically, "Can I sleep on your floor for two days? During finals period."

   20. LFLex Fridman30:19

       Yeah.

   21. RSRyan Schiller30:19

       (laughs) I had a lot of people who said, "This is crazy." Like, "No one's gonna ... No one wants to download an app during finals period, a social app-"

   22. LFLex Fridman30:25

       Yeah.

   23. RSRyan Schiller30:25

       "... during finals period." But I emailed a few people and I was like, you know, "Can I sleep on your floor?" And one of them was crazy enough to say, "Sure, come to my, come to my dorm!"

   24. LFLex Fridman30:34

       Yeah.

   25. RSRyan Schiller30:34

       "I'll ... I have a nice floor."

   26. LFLex Fridman30:36

       (laughs)

   27. RSRyan Schiller30:36

       Um, and he ended up ... Today, he's still really close, (laughs) he's a really close friend. But, anyway. I take a train knowing nothing about this guy, besides his first and last name. And I arrive, and Dartmouth is really, really remote. Way more remote than you think. To the point where I'm like, "It's f-" He's like, h- he warned me. He's a really hospitable guy. He warned me, like, "It's gonna be hard to get to campus from the train station because it's really remote." And I'm like, "I'm sure it's fine, I'll just get an Uber."

   28. LFLex Fridman31:06

       Yeah.

   29. RSRyan Schiller31:06

       There are no Ubers in Hanover.

   30. LFLex Fridman31:08

       (laughs) .
7. 36:55 – 39:46

   Anonymity

   1. RSRyan Schiller36:55

   2. LFLex Fridman36:55

      So (sighs) what do you make of anonymity? 'Cause it seems to be a fundamental aspect of the power of the app, right? But at the same time, anonymity on the internet, uh, so it protects us, right? It gives us freedom to have a voice, but it can also bring out the dark sides of human nature, like trolls or people who want to be malicious, want to hurt others f- purely for the joy of hurting others, being cruel for fun and going to the dark places. So like what do you make of anonymity as a fundamental feature of social interaction, like the pros and the cons?

   3. RSRyan Schiller37:37

      Yeah. Just to break that down a bit, I would say a lot of those same things about a place like Twitter where people are very u- un-anonymous.

   4. LFLex Fridman37:43

      Yeah.

   5. RSRyan Schiller37:43

      Um, having said that, of course there's a different sort of capacity people have when they're anonymous, right? Well, in all- in all different sorts of ways. So what do I make of anonymity? I think it can be incredibly liberating and allow people to be incredibly vulnerable and to connect in different ways, both on politics, and there was a lot to talk about this year regarding politics.

   6. LFLex Fridman38:04

      Mm-hmm.

   7. RSRyan Schiller38:05

      And, you know, personally, vulnera- being vulnerable, talking about relationships and mental health. I think it allows people to have a community that's not performative. And of course there's this other side where, you know, people can sometimes break rules or say things that they wouldn't otherwise say that people don't always agree with or that people might find repugnant. And to an extent, these can facilitate great conversations, and on the other hand, we have to have moderation in place and we have to have community guidelines to make sure that the anonymity doesn't overwhelm the purpose, which is-

   8. LFLex Fridman38:40

      Right.

   9. RSRyan Schiller38:40

      ... that anonymity... First of all, anonymity is a tool f- in LibreX. It was not the purpose of LibreX. It is a way that we get towards these authentic conversations given our campus climate. And second of all-

   10. LFLex Fridman38:54

       So how-

   11. RSRyan Schiller38:54

       ... I would say it's a spectrum. It's not just, it's not just LibreX is anonymous, right? Um, because LibreX isn't totally anonymous. Everyone's a verified Ivy League student.

   12. LFLex Fridman39:07

       Right.

   13. RSRyan Schiller39:07

       You know exactly what school everyone goes to. You only have one account per person at Yale, meaning if, um, meaning that, I mean, what that amounts to is people have more of an ownership in the community and people know that they're connected and they have a common vernacular. So the anonymity is a scale and it's a tool.

   14. LFLex Fridman39:25

       But you can also trust... I mean, this is the difference between Reddit anonymity where you can easily create multiple accounts. When you have only one account per person, or at least it's very difficult to create multiple accounts, then you can trust that the anonymous person you're talking to is a human being.

   15. RSRyan Schiller39:45

       Not a

8. 39:46 – 49:13

   Private vs public life

   1. RSRyan Schiller39:46

      bot.

   2. LFLex Fridman39:46

      I try to be completely un-anonymous, uh, now in my all public interactions. I try to be as real in every way possible, like zero gap between private me and public me.

   3. RSRyan Schiller39:59

      Why, why exactly did you... It seems like this is a intentional mission. What made you want to sort of bridge that gap between the private sphere and public sphere? 'Cause that's, that's unique. I know a lot of intellectuals who would make a different decision.

   4. LFLex Fridman40:13

      Yeah. Interesting. I had a d- a discussion about, with Naval about this actually, with, with a- with a few others that have a very clear distinction between public and private.

   5. RSRyan Schiller40:24

      Something I'm struggling with, by the way, personally, and thinking about.

   6. LFLex Fridman40:32

      So one on the very basic surface level is, uh, if you carry with yourself lies, small lies or big lies, it's extra mental effort to remember what you, uh, like t- t- to remember what you're supposed to say and not supposed to say. So that's on a very surface level of like, it's just easier to live life when you are, have, th- the smaller the gap between the private you and the public you. And the second is, I think for me from an engineering perspective, like if I'm dishonest with others, I will too quickly become dishonest with myself. And in so doing, I will not truly be able to think deeply about the world and come up and build revolutionary ideas. There's something about honesty that feels like it's that first principle's thinking that's almost like overused as a term, but it feels like that requires radical honesty, not radical asshole-lishness, but radical honesty with yourself. With yourself. And I, feels like it's difficult to be radically honest with yourself when you're being dishonest with the public. And also, I have a nice feature, honestly, that, um, in this current social context, so we can talk about race and gender and, uh, what, what are the other topics that are touchy?

   7. RSRyan Schiller42:00

      Ethnicity and, um, nationality.

   8. LFLex Fridman42:03

      All those things. I mean, like-

   9. RSRyan Schiller42:05

      Family structure.

   10. LFLex Fridman42:06

       I, maybe I'm ineloquent in the way I speak about them, but I honestly, when I look in the mirror-... like, I'm not deeply hateful of a particular race, or even just hateful of a particular race. Um, I'm sure I'm biased and I've tried to, like, think about those biases and so on. And also, I don't have any creepy shit in my closet about women.

   11. RSRyan Schiller42:27

       (laughs)

   12. LFLex Fridman42:27

       Like, I haven't done... It seems like everybody, uh, I, it seems like a lot of people got, like, did a lot of creepy stuff in their life. (laughs)

   13. RSRyan Schiller42:36

       (laughs)

   14. LFLex Fridman42:36

       And I, I just feel like that's, uh, really nice and liberating. And especially now, you know, it's funny because I've gotten a bit of a platform, and, uh, I think it all started when I went... Uh, there's a, a fame- com- female comedian, Whitney Cummings, and, you know, I've, I've gotten a lot of amazing women writing me throughout.

   15. RSRyan Schiller42:57

       Mm-hmm.

   16. LFLex Fridman42:57

       But when, when I went on Whitney, it was like the number of DMs I get on Instagram-

   17. RSRyan Schiller43:03

       (laughs)

   18. LFLex Fridman43:04

       ... from women is just ridiculous. And, uh, I think that was a really important s- moment for me is like, I, I speak and I feel, you know, I really value love, longterm monogamy with, like, one person. And it's like, I could see where a lot of guys would now continue that message in public, and in private just start sleeping around. And so, like, that's an important statement for me mentally is like, nope. (laughs)

   19. RSRyan Schiller43:33

       The straight and narrow?

   20. LFLex Fridman43:34

       Just, just go straight and... And not out of fear, but out of, like, principle, and just, like, live life honestly. And I just, uh, I feel like that's truly liberating, uh, as a human being. Forget public, all of that, because then I feel like I'm on sturdy ground when I say, uh, difficult things, and at the same time, this is... Sorry, I'm b- I'm ranting on this. I apologize.

   21. RSRyan Schiller43:57

       I'm interested personally.

   22. LFLex Fridman43:58

       (laughs)

   23. RSRyan Schiller43:59

       So keep going.

   24. LFLex Fridman44:00

       (laughs) I, I honestly believe in the internet, in, in people on the internet, that when they hear me speak, they can see if I'm full of shit or not. Like, I won't be able to fake it.

   25. RSRyan Schiller44:16

       Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman44:16

       Like, they'll see it through. Uh, yeah, I... (laughs) So like, uh, d- I feel like if you're not lying about stuff, you have the freedom to truly be yourself, and the, and the internet will figure it out, like will figure who you are, uh-

   27. RSRyan Schiller44:32

       And people have a natural tendency to be able to just tell bullshit, and it makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, right?

   28. LFLex Fridman44:37

       Exactly.

   29. RSRyan Schiller44:38

       Like, why, why wouldn't, why... Like, of all the things that we could evolve to be good at, being able to detect honesty seems like one that would be particularly valuable, especially in the sorts of societies we developed into.

   30. LFLex Fridman44:52

       And then also from a selfish perspective, like a success perspective, I think there's a lot of folks that have inspired me, uh, like d- Elon is one of them, that shows that there's a hunger for genuineness. Like, you can build a business as a CEO and be genuine and, like, real, and do stupid shit every once in a while, as long as it's coming from the same place of who you truly are. Like, Elon's inspirational with that. And then there's a lot of other people I admire that are counter inspirations in the sense, like, they're very formal. They hold back, uh, a lot of themselves, and it's like, I know how brilliant those people are, and I think they're not being as effective of leaders, public faces of companies, m- uh, as they could be. I mean, to be honest, like, not to throw shade, but I will. It's like Mark Zuckerberg is an example of that. Uh, uh, Jack Dorsey's also a bit of an example of that. I like Jack a lot. I've talked to him a lot. I will talk to him more. I think he's a much more amazing pe- person than he conveys through his public presentation. I think a lot of that has to do with PR and marketing people having an effect. Listen, it's difficult. I think it's really difficult. It's probably s- many of the same difficulties you will face, is the pressures. Um, but it's, it's hard to know what to do, but I think as much as possible as an individual, you should try to be honest in the face of the world and the company that wants you to be more polished, and that being more polished turns you into a politician, and a politician eventually turns you into being dishonest, dishonest with the world and dishonest with yourself.
9. 49:13 – 53:56

   Building a sense of community

   1. RSRyan Schiller49:13

      and a movement.

   2. LFLex Fridman49:14

      I, I'll tell you actually why I didn't use the app very much, uh, so far, is, uh, th- there's something really powerful about the way it's constructed, which I felt like a bit of an outsider 'cause I don't know the communities. It felt like, it's like, it's a really strong community around each of these places.

   3. RSRyan Schiller49:33

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman49:34

      And so I felt like I was st- I ... It made me really wish there was an MIT one. (laughs) And so there's both discussions about the deep, like, community issues within Columbia or Yale or so on, uh, Dartmouth, and there's also the broader community of the Ivy Leagues that people are discussing. But I could see that actually expanding more and more and more. But which is a, it's a powerful coupling, just the feeling of, like, this little village, this little community we're building together, but also the broader issues.

   5. RSRyan Schiller50:06

      Yeah.

   6. LFLex Fridman50:07

      And so you could do both discussions.

   7. RSRyan Schiller50:09

      One thing that was important to me is talking about social media as concept, right?

   8. LFLex Fridman50:14

      Mm-hmm.

   9. RSRyan Schiller50:16

      I think the way people socialize is very much context dependent. So we're ta- we're talking about people understanding each other through language, through English.

   10. LFLex Fridman50:26

       Yes.

   11. RSRyan Schiller50:26

       And these languages are constructed ver- in a very nuanced way, in a very, sort of temperamental way, right? And you kind of need a similar context to be able to have productive conversations.

   12. LFLex Fridman50:41

       Mm-hmm.

   13. RSRyan Schiller50:42

       So to me, it's really important that these, these groups, they share peop- something in common, a really big lived experience, the Ivy League or their school community, and they have a similar vocabulary. They have a similar background. They know what's happening in their community. And so having social media that is community connected, to me, was fundamental. Like you talk about anonymity. To me, community is the, is the thing that I, when I think about Librex, I think what makes it different. It's the fact that everyone, everyone knows what's going on. Everyone comes from a similar context, and people can socialize in a way where they're, they understand each other because they're been through, you used the word lived experience, they've been through so many of the sim- same lived experiences.

   14. LFLex Fridman51:25

       Uh, one, like, clarification. Is there an easy way, if you choose, to then connect in f- in meet space, in physical space?

   15. RSRyan Schiller51:35

       So the, I guess, the sort of magic of it, and I was talking to a bunch of Harvard Librexers who I met off the app while I was in Boston, and, um, every time they told me, this is the fa- they're my favorite part of the app. This is what I love about the app. We have this matching system, which is an anonymous direct message that you can send to any poster. So s- like, I was talking to this guy who, um, he was really into coin collection, and he met other people who were really into coin collection through a post, and what they ... He would make a post about coin collection.

   16. LFLex Fridman52:07

       Mm-hmm.

   17. RSRyan Schiller52:08

       Um, and then someone would come to him, and they'd be li- and, and they, they could direct message him anonymously, and it would just show them the, his, it would just show him th- their school.

   18. LFLex Fridman52:16

       Mm-hmm.

   19. RSRyan Schiller52:17

       And then they could just text chat, totally anonymously, direct message, if he accepted the anonymous request.

   20. LFLex Fridman52:23

       Do they see the usernames, right?

   21. RSRyan Schiller52:25

       Um, there are no usernames on Librex. It's all just schools' names. So he made this post about coin collection, and he got a-

   22. LFLex Fridman52:34

       Really?

   23. RSRyan Schiller52:34

       ... direct message.

   24. LFLex Fridman52:34

       Yeah, I guess so, right?

   25. RSRyan Schiller52:36

       (laughs)

   26. LFLex Fridman52:36

       (laughs) I didn't ...

   27. RSRyan Schiller52:38

       No usernames.

   28. LFLex Fridman52:39

       'Cause I was just looking at the text.

   29. RSRyan Schiller52:41

       Yeah.

   30. LFLex Fridman52:41

       That's interesting. That's right.
10. 53:56 – 1:00:46

    Refusing to sell user data

    1. RSRyan Schiller53:56

    2. LFLex Fridman53:56

       And then a lot of people connect in this way. Uh, let me, let me step, take a small step into the technical. I, I read somewhere, I don't know if it's true, that, uh, one of the reasons you were rejected from YC, Y Combinator, in the final rounds, is because of one of the principles is to refuse to sell user data. Uh, can you speak to that? What's, uh, what ... why do you think it's important not to sell user data, and sort of which draws a clear contrast between other, basically any other service (laughs) on the internet?

    3. RSRyan Schiller54:31

       I mean-To be honest, it's quite simple. I mean, we talk about this platform, people are talking about their most intimate secrets, their political opinions, you know, what, how, how are they feeling about what's going on in their city, you know, during the summer, um, how, how are they feeling about, um, the, the political cycle and also their mental health, their relationships. These are some of the, like, most intimate thoughts that people were having. Point blank, I don't think it was ethical to pawn them off for a profit. I didn't think it was moral. I don't think (laughs) I could sleep at night if, if that was what I was doing, is turning these people's most intimate beliefs and secrets into a currency that I bought and sold. There's something very off about that. (laughs)

    4. LFLex Fridman55:22

       Yeah. I tend to believe that there is, uh, some room ... So like, like Facebook would just take that data and sell it, right? But there's some room in transparency and giving people the choice on which parts they can s- I wouldn't even see it as sell, uh, but, like, share with advertisers.

    5. RSRyan Schiller55:42

       Are you gonna give them a profit? Um-

    6. LFLex Fridman55:44

       So, right, so you have to monetize, you have to create an entire system, you have to rethink this whole thing, right? But if- as long as you b- give people control and are transparent and make it easy. Like, I think it's really difficult to delete a Facebook account or, like, delete all your data. It's-

    7. RSRyan Schiller55:59

       I've tried.

    8. LFLex Fridman55:59

       Or to download-

    9. RSRyan Schiller56:00

       It's very difficult. (laughs)

    10. LFLex Fridman56:02

        (laughs) So, like, just make it easy and trust in that if you create a great product, people are not going to do it. And if, if they do it, then they're not actually-

    11. RSRyan Schiller56:12

        I'll tell you something about

    12. NANarrator56:12

        What...

    13. LFLex Fridman56:12

        ... a deep loving member of the community. What's that? (laughs) .

    14. RSRyan Schiller56:16

        Um, so we very quickly realized that user privacy was something that, um, was not only a core value, but was something that users really cared about.

    15. LFLex Fridman56:25

        Yeah.

    16. RSRyan Schiller56:25

        And we added, we added this functionality. It's just a button that says, "Forget me."

    17. LFLex Fridman56:30

        Yeah.

    18. RSRyan Schiller56:30

        Um, you press it-

    19. LFLex Fridman56:32

        Yeah.

    20. RSRyan Schiller56:32

        ... like two clicks. Um, it's not that hard.

    21. LFLex Fridman56:34

        I love that.

    22. RSRyan Schiller56:34

        We just remove your email from the database.

    23. LFLex Fridman56:37

        Yeah.

    24. RSRyan Schiller56:37

        Um, (smacks hands) , yeah, you're good.

    25. LFLex Fridman56:40

        Beautiful. I think Facebook should have that. I, I honestly ... So call me crazy, but maybe you can actually speak to this, but I don't think Facebook ... Well, now they would, but if they did it earlier, they would lose that much money. If they allow- like transparently tell people, "You could just delete everything." They also explain that, like, in ways that's going to potentially, like, lessen your experience in the short term. Like e- explain that. But then there shouldn't be, like, multiple clicks of a button that don't make any sense. Uh, (sighs) I, I'm, uh, trying to hold back from ranting about Facebook-

    26. RSRyan Schiller57:23

        (laughs) .

    27. LFLex Fridman57:23

        ... and Instagram because ... Let me just say real quick 'cause I've, I've been locked out of Instagram for a month. Uh, and there's a whole group inside Facebook that are, like, supporters of, like, "Lex fre- help Lex."

    28. RSRyan Schiller57:35

        Free Lex?

    29. LFLex Fridman57:36

        Free Lex. Uh, I wasn't blocked, it was just, like, a bug in the system. Somebody was hammering the API with my account.

    30. RSRyan Schiller57:42

        Mm-hmm.
11. 1:00:46 – 1:07:35

    Moderation

    1. LFLex Fridman1:00:47

       Yeah.... uh, you- you've also kind of mentioned moderation, which is really interesting. So with this anonymity and this community, I don't know if you've heard of the internet, but there's trolls on the internet.

    2. RSRyan Schiller1:01:01

       So I've heard. (laughs)

    3. LFLex Fridman1:01:02

       (laughs) And, uh, even if they go to Yale and Dartmouth, uh, they, there's still people that probably enjoy, uh, the- the sort of being the- the guerrilla warfare counterrevolutionary and just, like-

    4. RSRyan Schiller1:01:18

       (laughs)

    5. LFLex Fridman1:01:18

       ... creating chaos in a place of, uh, love. So how do you prevent chaos from, and hatred, uh, breaking out in Librex?

    6. RSRyan Schiller1:01:28

       So the way I think about it is we have these principles. Um, they're pretty simple, and they're pretty easy to enforce. And then beyond the principles, we have a set of moderators, a moderator from every single Ivy League school, team of diverse moderators who enforce these principles, but not only enforce the principles, but kind of clue us in to what's happening in their community and how the real life context of their community translates to the Librex context of their community. And beyond that, we have conversation with them about the standards of the community, and we're constantly talking about what needs to be further elucidated and what needs to be tweaked, and we're in constant communication with the community. Now, if you want me to get into the principles that underlie Librex's moderation policy.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:02:15

       Yeah, please, maybe you can explain that there's moderators. What does that mean? How are they chosen, and what are the principles under which they operate?

    8. RSRyan Schiller1:02:22

       Sure. So how are the moderators chosen? The moderators are all volunteers. They're Librexers who reach out to me and respond to the o- opportunity to become a moderator. And the way they're chosen, um, is basically we want to make sure that they're in tune with their community. We want to make sure they come from diverse backgrounds, and we want to make sure that they're ... they sort of understand what the community is about. And then we ma- ask them some questions about how they would deal with certain scenarios, ones that we've had in the past and we feel strongly about, and then also ones that are a little more murky, where we want to see that they're sort of thinking about these things in a critical way.

    9. LFLex Fridman1:03:00

       Yeah.

    10. RSRyan Schiller1:03:00

        Um, and from there, we choose a set, and, uh, they have the power to, um, take down posts. Of course, everything, at the end of the day, depends my review, but they can take them down, and we can reinstate them if it's a- if it's a problem. But they can take down posts, and they can advocate for, you know, different moderation standards and different moderation policies.

    11. LFLex Fridman1:03:23

        So for now, you're the Linus Torvalds of this community, and (laughs) uh, so meaning, like, you're able to ... Like, people are actually able to, like, email you or, like, uh-

    12. RSRyan Schiller1:03:35

        Text me.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:03:36

        ... con- text you, contact you, and get a response. Like, you respond to basically everybody, and then you're- you're like really, you know, you're f- you're living that live-on-people's-floor life currently. That's not necessarily ... This is the early days, folks.

    14. RSRyan Schiller1:03:52

        (laughs)

    15. LFLex Fridman1:03:53

        I knew Ryan-

    16. RSRyan Schiller1:03:54

        Isn't it lovely?

    17. LFLex Fridman1:03:54

        ... before he was a billionaire and he was cool, and then he was in a mansion, uh, making, uh, meats on his barbecue. No. Okay. (laughs)

    18. RSRyan Schiller1:04:03

        Uh-huh.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:04:04

        But, you know, how does it scale? Um, like what ... I- I suppose how does- how does it scale is the question. I mean, with Linus, uh, I don't- I don't know if you're familiar with the Linux open source community, but he still stayed at the top for a while. It was really important. Like, leadership there was really important to drive that large-scale, really productive open source community. What do you see your- r- your role as Librex grows, and, um, in general, what are the mechanisms of scaling here for moderation?

    20. RSRyan Schiller1:04:36

        The way I see it, open discourse is fundamental to the purpose of the app, right? So as the, I guess you could say founder, CEO, what have you, um, part of my purpose has to be to enforce the vision, right? And part of the vision is open discourse, and that does come down in part to reasonable moderation and community-guided reasonable moderation. So I imagine that will always be something that I'm intimately involved with to some degree. Now, the degree to which, the way in which that manifests, I imagine, will have to change, right?

    21. LFLex Fridman1:05:13

        Yeah.

    22. RSRyan Schiller1:05:13

        Um, and hopefully, I'll be able to, just like you can hire a CTO, hopefully I'll be able to be in- integrated in hiring people who are, who understand the- the way that we are sort of operating and the- and the reasonable standards of moderation. And there can be a sort of hierarchical structure.

    23. LFLex Fridman1:05:33

        Mm.

    24. RSRyan Schiller1:05:33

        But I think when you have a product whose key purpose is to allow people to have these difficult conversations on campus that need to be had-

    25. LFLex Fridman1:05:42

        Yeah, that- moderation's-

    26. RSRyan Schiller1:05:42

        ... I can never-

    27. LFLex Fridman1:05:43

        ... core to that, yeah.

    28. RSRyan Schiller1:05:44

        I can never fully ... I don't think I can fully ever abdicate that responsibility. I think it, that would be like, I mean, that would be like Bezos abdicating e-commerce, right? (laughs) Right? Like, that is-

    29. LFLex Fridman1:05:56

        Yeah.

    30. RSRyan Schiller1:05:57

        ... that's part of the job.
12. 1:07:35 – 1:18:27

    Freedom of speech

    1. RSRyan Schiller1:07:36

    2. LFLex Fridman1:07:36

       So as a creator of this kinda community and place with anonymity and difficult conversations, what, uh, what do you think about this touchy three words that people have been tossing around and politicizing, I would say, but is at the core of the founding of this country, which is the freedom of speech? How do you think about the freedom of speech, this particular kind of freedom of expression, and, uh, do you think it's a fundamental human right? How do you define it to yourself when you, when you're thinking about it? I've, uh, I went down, especially preparing for this conversation, down a rabbit hole of, like, just how unclear it is, (laughs) wh- philosophically, what is meant by this kind of freedom. Uh, it's not as easy as people think, but it's interesting, pragmatically speaking, to hear what, how you think about it in the context of LibreX.

    3. RSRyan Schiller1:08:31

       Yeah. It's a tough one, right? There's a lot there. So I come from the background of being a math major.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:08:38

       (laughs)

    5. RSRyan Schiller1:08:39

       Maybe it's important to start with that.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:08:40

       Yeah.

    7. RSRyan Schiller1:08:41

       And I have found myself, um, in the middle of this question of freedom of speech.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:08:46

       (laughs)

    9. RSRyan Schiller1:08:46

       One, uh, one of the wonderful things is that, uh, the LibreX community is filled with PhDs and governance majors who have taught me a ton about this star- sorta thing, and I'm still learning. I'm still growing. I'm still probably going to lo- um, modify my perspective to some degree. Hopefully, (laughs) don't worry. Uh, I, I imagine I'll always, um, support free discourse.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:09:10

        Like, learning-

    11. RSRyan Schiller1:09:11

        Yeah.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:09:12

        ... how to speak about stuff is, is, uh, is critical here, because it's like, I'm, I'm learning that this, this is like a minefield of conversations, 'cause the moment you say, like, even saying freedom of speech is a complicated concept, people will be like, "Oh, we spotted a Communist." (laughs)

    13. RSRyan Schiller1:09:31

        Yep.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:09:32

        Like, they, they'll say, "There's nothing complicated about freedom. Freedom is freedom, bro." Eh, it's, it, it is complicated with, first of all, if you talk about there's, there's different definitions of freedom of speech. Uh, if you, if you wanna go Constitution, if you wanna talk about the United States specifically and what's legal, it's actually not as exciting and not as, uh, uh, beautiful as people think of. It's-

    15. RSRyan Schiller1:09:54

        Complicated.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:09:54

        ... it's, (laughs) it's complicated. I think there's ideals behind it that we wanna see h- what does that actually materialize itself in a digital world, where we're trying to communicate in ways that, uh, allows for difficult conversations and also, at the same time, doesn't result in the silencing of voices, not through, like, censorship, but through, like, just assholes being rude.

    17. RSRyan Schiller1:10:24

        Spam.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:10:24

        Spam, like, so it could be just bots.

    19. RSRyan Schiller1:10:27

        Racism.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:10:28

        Uh, racism.

    21. RSRyan Schiller1:10:29

        Go- going back to the name of the app, LibreX.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:10:32

        Yes.

    23. RSRyan Schiller1:10:33

        Libre, free, um, X was s- portmanteau for free exchange, and the free exchange of what? My purpose was to create as many, as much intercommunication of ideas, be them repugnant or otherwise, as possible, and of course, to do that within legal bounds, and to do that without causing anyone to be harassed or doxed, so to keep things focused on the ideas, not the people, and then no BS crap, you know, stuff. And so, to me, the easiest way to moderate around that, because as you said, figuring out what is hateful and what is hate speech is really hard, was to say, "No sweeping statements against core identity groups." And that seems to work, on the whole, pretty well, to be pretty light touch, and, you know-

    24. LFLex Fridman1:11:26

        It's hard to do, though.

    25. RSRyan Schiller1:11:27

        ... it's, it's difficult.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:11:27

        'Cause we like to generalize, we humans.

    27. RSRyan Schiller1:11:30

        It's difficult, but what it comes down to is, be specific.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:11:34

        Yeah.

    29. RSRyan Schiller1:11:34

        Um, and when you think about what are sweeping statements against core identity groups, right, oftentimes, these are, these are sort of hackneyed subjects. These are things that have been broached, and we've heard them before. They don't really lead anywhere productive.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:11:48

        Mm-hmm.
13. 1:18:27 – 1:22:43

    Scaling

    1. RSRyan Schiller1:18:27

    2. LFLex Fridman1:18:27

       But currently, LibreX is small in the sense that it's a- uh, it's a small set of communities that have a leak. And you mentioned to me offline that by design, you're scaling slowly-

    3. RSRyan Schiller1:18:38

       That's right.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:18:39

       ... very carefully. So how does LibreX scale? Is it possible? You know, Facebook also started with a small set of communities that were schools, and then now grew to be basically the, if not one of the largest social networks in the world.... do you see LibreX as potentially scaling to be beyond even college campuses, uh, but encompassing the whole world?

    5. RSRyan Schiller1:19:07

       It's a, it's a long timeline.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:19:09

       (laughs)

    7. RSRyan Schiller1:19:11

       I'll say this. This gets back to, like, where did Facebook go wrong? 'Cause clearly they did a lot right, and we can only, we can only speculate about what the objectives were of the founders of Facebook. Um, you know, I'm sure they've said some things, but it's always interesting to know what the, what the, uh, mythology is versus what the truth is of the matter. Um, so perhaps they ... and they've been very successful. I mean, they- they've taken over the world to some extent. At the same time, the goals of LibreX are to create these positive communities and these open conversations where people can have real conversation and connection in their communities in a vulnerable and authentic way. And so, to that end, which I imagine might be different than the goals of a Facebook, for example, one thing that we wanna do is keep things intimate and community-based. So each school is its own community.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:20:11

       Mm-hmm.

    9. RSRyan Schiller1:20:12

       And perhaps you could have a slightly broader community. Maybe you could have a ... I know, uh, the California system is an obvious one. Pac-10 might be an obvious one, and we can think about that. Um, but fundamentally, the unit, the unit of community is your school or your school community.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:20:31

        Mm-hmm.

    11. RSRyan Schiller1:20:31

        So that- that- that's one difference that I think will help us. The other thing is that we're scaling intentionally, meaning that when we expand to a school, we have moderators in place. We have moderators who understand that school's environment in a very personal level, and we're growing responsibly. We're growing as we're ready, both technologically but also socially, you know? But as we think we have the tools to, um, preserve the community and to encourage the community to create the sort of content that we want them to create.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:21:04

        And, you know, there's a lot of ways to define community, so f- first of all, there's geographic community as well. Uh, but the way you're kind of defining community with Yale and, uh, Dartmouth is the email, right? That's what gives you ... There's a power to the email (laughs) in the sense that, uh, that's how you can verify your, efficiently verify yourself of being an, a single individual in the university. In that same way, you can verify your employment at a company, for example, like Google, Microsoft, Facebook. Do you see your, uh, potentially taking on those communities? That'd be fascinating, getting, like, anonymous community conversations inside Google.

    13. RSRyan Schiller1:21:51

        100% crossed my mind. To some extent, this is, this is something where I understand the college experience. I understand the need.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:21:58

        Got it.

    15. RSRyan Schiller1:21:59

        And I f- ... I've never, I've never worked at Google. I don't know if they would hire me. (laughs) Um, hopefully, maybe as a product manager. (laughs) Uh, I- I think if there's a community that needs this product and has that an- and has that will, which I think, especially as LibreX continues to grow and expand and change and learn, and 'cause that's what we're doing, is we're learning, right? With each community, it's not just about growing. It's about learning from these, from each of these communities and iterating. Um, I think it's quite likely there are gonna be all sorts of communities that could use this tool to improve their culture, so

14. 1:22:43 – 1:30:03

    Yik Yak

    1. RSRyan Schiller1:22:43

       to speak.

    2. LFLex Fridman1:22:44

       So forgive me. I'm not actually, like, that- that knowledgeable about the history of attempts of building social networks to solve the problem that you're solving. Uh, but I was made aware that there was an app, a app or at least a social network called Yik Yak, uh, that was ... had a similar kind of, um, focus. Um, I think the thing you've spoken about that differs between LibreX and Yik Yak is that Yik Yak was defined ... Am I pronouncing it right even? Uh-

    3. RSRyan Schiller1:23:18

       You're good.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:23:19

       (laughs) I'm good?

    5. RSRyan Schiller1:23:19

       I met the founder, so I can confirm.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:23:21

       Okay. (laughs) You can confirm? Cool. Uh, (laughs) the ... that it was constrained to a geographical area versus, like, to the actual community, um, and that r- and that somehow had fundamental, like, actual differences in social dynamics that resulted. But can you speak to the history of Yik Yak? Like, how does LibreX differ? What lessons have you learned from that? Oh, and I should say that I guess there was controversial ... Um, I don't know. I didn't look at the details, but I'm guessing there's a bunch of racism and hate speech and all that kind of stuff that emerged-

    7. RSRyan Schiller1:23:54

       Absolutely, there was.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:23:55

       ... on Yik Yak. Okay, so that's an example of, like, "Okay, here's how it goes wrong when you have anonymity on college campuses." So how does LibreX going to do better?

    9. RSRyan Schiller1:24:09

       Yeah, Yik Yak had a lot of problems, content problems, but the content problems go deeper than maybe what the press would reveal. There's a lot to say, and-

    10. LFLex Fridman1:24:17

        Who cares?

    11. RSRyan Schiller1:24:18

        ... part of it is parsing exactly what to talk about when it comes to Yik Yak. And when you talk about startups, I mean, you know this. I- I- I- you- you know startups. Um, when you look at the postmortem, it's almost never what people think it is, and, and oftentimes these things are somewhat unknowable. And the, the, the degree to which people seek in confirmation bias to somebody who's seeking closure-

    12. LFLex Fridman1:24:40

        Yes.

    13. RSRyan Schiller1:24:40

        ... look to find a singular attribute that caused the failure.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:24:43

        It feels like the little details often make all the difference.

    15. RSRyan Schiller1:24:47

        Yes, and I think, I think the details are so little that, as humans, we are not capable of parsing even what they are. But I'll tell you, I'll tell you my perspective on it, um, knowing that I am also human with biases, um-

    16. LFLex Fridman1:25:02

        (laughs)

    17. RSRyan Schiller1:25:02

        ... in this particular case, very significant biases, right?

    18. LFLex Fridman1:25:05

        Yeah, yeah.

    19. RSRyan Schiller1:25:06

        Um-... I, um, so I started building Librex for its own merits. I, I, I, at first I wasn't aware of Yik Yak, but as I started to talk to people about this platform I was building, I, I was made aware of Yik Yak, and I built it from day one with a lot of the issues Yik Yak had in mind. The, so as you said, the diff- one difference between Yik Yak is the geographical versus community-based aspect. Going along with that, one thing I realized by researching social media sites is that the majority of the negative content, the content that's terrible and breaking all the rules, is created by really ... And the people who are not re- reformable, so to speak-

    20. LFLex Fridman1:25:52

        Yeah.

    21. RSRyan Schiller1:25:52

        ... the people who are not showing the best part of the human (laughs) -

    22. LFLex Fridman1:25:56

        Yeah.

    23. RSRyan Schiller1:25:56

        ... experience.

    24. LFLex Fridman1:25:57

        Yeah.

    25. RSRyan Schiller1:25:58

        Um, it's a really small minority, right?

    26. LFLex Fridman1:26:01

        Yeah.

    27. RSRyan Schiller1:26:01

        I remember, I was listening to the founder of 4chan, Moot, talk about this, how like one guy was able to basically destroy, like, large swaths of his community.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:26:13

        Yeah. That's part of what makes it exciting for that minority, is how much power they can have. So if, if you're predisposed to thinking this way, it's exciting that you can walk into, like w- I mentioned the party before. You have a party of a lot of positive people, and it feels, especially if you don't have much power in this world, it feels exceptionally empowering to just-

Episode duration: 2:26:41