37: Trevor McFedries - Creative People Should Be Rich

The broken and immature is the alpha and what artists are great at. This is like maybe as bizarre as like Duchamp's urinal. Duchamp being like, this thing you piss in is art, is not something that a market would value. You know, like Warholian tin can, that is effectively what, what bonding curves allow people to create a market and be like, no, actually this is important. And you're like, that isn't important, that's slop. And you're like, no, trust me. I think what like great collectors have been able to do historically is like take the side of that bet and be like, yeah, I want all these Warhols. And this Basquiat guy that can't draw, I think it rocks actually. And I think that, that is the opportunity on both sides of that market. I've been doing these kind of like, uh, gatherings at my home to connect Silicon Valley friends and artist friends. And I brought all these artists together who aren't on, you know, those, in those X feeds and aren't aware of this stuff, but have, you know, being all really important work. And they were here and the AI people were kind of assuming that they would like agree with that sentiment, but they were like, you know, the AI is don't have intuition, which is why they can't do great art. And all of the artists were like, I don't know, I think a lot of that stuff is really good. And they were kind of like, wait, what? Whoa. And so I do think there's absolutely going to be a moment where slop is punk, but I also think what's clearly interesting now are the models themselves. It will be probably uncomfortable for researchers at the big labs to be like, I'm the artist?

Welcome to Dialectic, episode 37 with Trevor McFedries. Trevor has lived a few different lives, including as a musician, an entrepreneur, a technologist, and a curious internet person, among other things. He's also spent much of his career trying to help creative people get rich, which we talk extensively about. That balance between music and entrepreneurship has extended throughout his career to this day. He's part of electronic dance duo Soft with his fiancée, and until recently they were touring. And he's also founder of a new company called Runner, where he's exploring how markets, attention, and prediction can affect culture and creativity. Runner will be launching soon. Looking backward on the music side, he started off as DJ Skeet Skeet and joined rap group Swayze when he was about 22 and had a top 10 album in America. He's been a longtime producer and been involved with all kinds of musical acts. And then he's also started multiple companies, including Brud, whose flagship asset, if you will, was Lil Miquela, who was one of the first digital creators. You could call her a CGI influencer if you wanted to, but what Trevor was really getting at and what he pitched me when we met around 2016 was that he wanted to create Marvel for pop stars. Brud created several characters alongside Mikaela and explored what it would mean to have a creator who wasn't bottlenecked by just a single person with an ego and everything else. Brud was acquired by Dapper Labs, where Trevor went on to run Dapper Collectives. And Trevor also, while running Brud, started FWB, or Friends with Benefits, which was a kind of novel type of DAO focused on building a community, maybe even new type of city. I've talked about FWB in in the past, both when I interviewed its former mayor, Alex Zhang, as well as when I interviewed Reggie James at FWB Fest, their in-person music, culture, and crypto festival in Idlewild. As I mentioned, we talked about how creative people can capture more of the value they create, including about how that might require new instruments. We talked about high and low and the ways that culture and capital intersect. I asked Trevor about the ways that he continues to just have a remarkable nose for weird and be ahead of cool, and also what it means to be on time when it comes to cool. He argues that unlike 20 years ago, it might actually be punk to sell out in the modern world. And he talks about why, how, despite it being so low status, he continues to return to crypto as a new way to explore how all of this might fit together. And he's particularly interested in prediction, the value created from it, and how value is captured there. I also pushed him to talk about how he continues to find new weird corners of the internet, including those that are illegible or even inaccessible to the rest of us. We wrap up by talking about optimism, particularly for the next generation, as Trevor is about to become a father, music and how it's been such a core part of his life, and even the brief period of time where he worked with and was bewildered and yet amazed by Kanye West. I hope you are inspired to be as vigorously curious as Trevor is as he spends his days. I know I was. Before we get into the episode, I would like to thank Notion, the presenting partner of Dialectic. Notion is a collaborative workspace for teams and people doing their life's work. And these days it's never been higher leverage and more powerful thanks to AI and the agents that take away the busy work and allow you to focus on the important creative collaborative work. Notion's how I prepare for all my episodes. I throw ideas and quotes and clues and excerpts into a big document, and then I synthesize them and try to find the patterns and the interesting points of conversation or questions that I want to dive deep on with my guests. And Notion's AI and agents are tremendously helpful for helping me find those patterns and make sense of it all. And Notion obviously becomes so much more powerful when you're working collaboratively with a team. It's no coincidence that so many startups and the world's best companies turn their ideas into action thanks to Notion. If you don't use Notion, you can check it out at notion.com/dialectic. I'm so grateful to them for supporting the show, and I'm thankful to you for listening. If you enjoy it, please give it 5 stars on Apple or Spotify, or like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. With that, Here is Trevor McFedries. Trevor McFedries, we made it.

We did it.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for coming by.

I'm very excited. This is overdue. I think we were going to try to do this like 6 months ago and yeah, here we are.

I made it. I love it.

We're going to start with, I think, one of the main throughlines of your life, at least your working life, which is— I think is a tweet from you. I think creative people should be rich.

Yes.

I think it's like kind of like your big quest almost, or one of them.

Yeah, I think it's probably because I'm old enough that when I— so when I was 22, I joined this like rap group called Shwayze.

Yeah.

We put out a big album, a top 10 album in the States. And I was kind of thrust into the dying corpse of the music biz. And I got to see a taste. Like, you know, I remember going to this record producer who I won't name who had like one kind of hit in the '90s. And he had this like $5 million house in the hills and this sick studio. And it like didn't really compute because we had like a kind of hit and I was still fucking broke. And so there was like a taste of what could have been with this deep desire for information to be free that I had as a product of the internet. And so there's always been this tension and I think that probably encapsulates it.

Why aren't creative people rich or richer?

Richer. I mean, I, I, I, there's probably a lot of reasons, but I think at, in my heart, I believe there's an instrument problem, right? There are like creative people producing a ton of value in Williamsburg 20 years ago, but the instruments that captured that value were properties. And so if you were a real estate developer or someone who owned a x amount of properties, you got very wealthy. You didn't produce any of the value in, you know, the day-to-day life of Williamsburgians. And I think as a result, that's probably why I got deeply into crypto, is it was like, here's an opportunity to create new instruments that can capture value and pass them back.

How do you think about the instrument thing in the kind of more traditional, like, capital versus labor thing? Is it the same? Are you getting at something more specific?

Historically, you know, I was kind of extremist, grew up super poor in the Midwest. Discovered Rage Against the Machine, was radicalized, like reading Eldridge Cleaver in my, like, you know, 5th grade, uh, English class. Teachers were concerned. I was very interested in kind of socializing things by bringing, you know, redistributing all of that wealth. Not actually almost like a true, like a creative supremacist, you know, where I'm kind of inverted and I think creative people should be billionaires and people that are effectively participating in this Forever 21 economy of just ripping off things and like, you know, uh, should be minimized. And, and, uh, It's probably been uncomfortable because it's explicit, but like, ultimately, I think the idea of labor versus capital is, is a limited framing. I think I'm interested in playing the game on the field. And if we're existing inside of, you know, as the Panthers would say, survival pending revolution, you know, it's probably like crass for folks out there who are familiar with literature to like apply that to this like modern venture-backed technology environment. But I think there's an opportunity to effectively play the game on the field and to create instruments that can pass value back to the people that make life worth living, not just those who know how I trade derivatives or bonds or stocks or whatever it is.

Is the internet like— what do you think the internet's role has been in this? And like, to what extent do you feel like the internet has like missed out or failed its potential? Or was like this the inevitable or like most likely outcome where we are now?

I mean, I'm old enough to recognize that it's probably the most likely outcome. I've been through a few cycles that this is going to change everything. You know, even like whether it was dance music, you know, with BlogHouse, and we're like, we're going to reinvent dance music and change everything. And it was like, wait, why is will.i.am here? And you're like, oh shit, like he kind of took all the sound and made millions and my homies are still broke driving DoorDash or whatever.

He's somehow everywhere.

But there are effectively those kind of participants in all kinds of culture. And I think you recognize it in like Silicon Valley, you see it in Hollywood, you see it in DC, people that can kind of like, you know, understand what's next and ride the wave. So obviously internet devalued media, like that's like table stakes for anyone who's a dialectic listener. I'm sure they can appreciate that. But I think the things that are underappreciated is that there are kind of these charlatans that oftentimes will like recognize an emergent trend and accelerate it and create all this pompous about how radical it can be, knowing that it will effectively change things more or less 5%. And if they can insert themselves into that 5%, they can get, you know, ludicrously wealthy. And I don't want to sound like some doomer, but I think that like, if that's ultimately the game on the field, I think the people that are coming up with like net new ideas and innovations should be that 5%, not the charlatans that insert themselves.

I think we'll come back to that. You might sound like a doomer a couple of times today, but I think you are decidedly not a doomer. So I think it's important to establish that up front. Maybe on that last note, like the extractor thing a little bit, like a different take there would just be like, so there's a cynical view that just says like the reason creative people aren't rich is there's these extractors, there's these opportunists who aren't even the creatives themselves. There's a maybe less cynical view that says like Drake's super rich.

Totally.

And depending on the medium, like music's complicated in a lot of reasons, but there like are very clear ways to get rich in music in a way that's probably less legible or less obvious if you are doing something more esoteric, if you're a ceramicist or you're a fine artist. Like, so maybe the less cynical view is just like medium matters a whole ton and some mediums are much more commercial than other mediums.

Certainly. Yeah. And I think, I think the word creator is thrown around a ton right now. And I think I like to decouple this idea of like creative supremacy or whatever I'm coining now, uh, from someone who is, you know, grabbing Tumblr pull their graphics off the internet and throwing them on t-shirts to someone who's like truly innovating. And I want to talk about creative people. I mean founders, I mean the scientists, I mean artists who are creating like, you know, net new things that are advancing this, this thing we call life. And so the challenge for me has always been that even in like the culture industries, there were this commercial space, and then there was kind of more institutions that recognized that their role was to recognize things that were advancing this thing called life that wouldn't necessarily play nice in the commercial marketplace. Now you can go to, you know, a museum and see a Kaws show. Yeah. Oh, you know, Kaws has done his thing. I won't go there. But like, Kaws has done financially really well in the commercial marketplace. You can walk into a Uniqlo and see Kaws. Do you need to go to a museum and see Kaws? I don't think so. And so you've kind of seen that proliferate everywhere across the culture industry. So the challenge for me and I was saying, okay, if we have this, this, this opportunity to rethink what we're doing, can we find a way to repatriate attention and value to people that are making these like net new things? And maybe not the people that have found a way to just package them and repurpose them and use distribution to capture the upside. Yeah. I, again, I recognize that probably isn't going to happen, but if we can move the needle 5% more, incrementally more, yeah, I would be elated.

You have a line, I think you mentioned to me, we were talking a while ago that it's easier for someone to raise $3 million than to raise $300,000, especially for like creative people.

Yeah.

Maybe this is getting at part of your last answer, which is like, you're almost talking about creativity through the lens of like ignition or like that that kind of like genesis of things or originality or whatever you want to call that? Like, why is that— maybe that specific example isn't quite the point, but like, why is that $300K over $3 million an important— like, what are you pointing at when you—

Yeah, I mean, it's a couple of things. I think one of the things we don't recognize, I think, is that catch-22 where in order to be given opportunity, you need to prove that you can do things. And oftentimes that challenge and that chasm prevents a lot of really brilliant people from being able to capitalize and provide value to all all this more broadly. And so you often get this, this, this conundrum where, I don't know, I grew up in Iowa and, you know, lucky enough to move to Los Angeles and encountered all these people who were celebrated and supposed to be really special. And I recognized they were not that much different than my friends I grew up skateboarding with, but because they had peers, friends, uncles that could get their foot in the door and in a mailroom or infrastructure, infrastructure, they could prove something and then be given a little more rope and be given a little more rope. And all of a sudden they're able to go raise a $1.5 million seed round and take a big swing. Uh, and so the, the, the, The challenge for me is that getting that initial, um, like $30,000 to create a t-shirt company to prove that you can build something is really hard. And people often don't cross that chasm. And so the idea that it's easier for folks, you know, even an established creator to raise $1.5 million to go do something really big and ambitious and fail, right? Then just do something small and prove it out and be able to incrementally get there is this interesting, you know, uh, I think thought that to me provoked startup ideas and other things that people could be solving for potentially, because there is probably something between venture and bootstrapping that will need to exist.

Yes. Yeah, it's, I think agency is this sort of like, it's almost like an escalator or something where like you, there's this reciprocal relationship. One of my, one of my favorite ideas is this guy C.T. Nguyen. He talks about games and like what a game designer is doing is that they're creating a tension between your abilities and your goals that's like not too far out of step, Yeah, because like, if you play level 1 of a video game and it's really hard, you're gonna get bored. And if it's too easy, you're also gonna get bored. And it's like, there's a sort of like part financial, part the world helping you. But it's like, yeah, those two things, $100K to go do a little bit, even, even if you're Elon Musk, by the way, building SpaceX, like it wasn't like, here's a billion dollars, go, go nuts.

Totally. Yeah, I've always appreciated that because we complex video games that are able to introduce complexity to you step by step and like walk you through. I remember when Game of Thrones was massive, there was this kind of like dominant narrative that like there's no more attention spans, people can't focus on anything. And I watched the first episode and it was like the white wolves of the north, like I had to take notes and I was like, complexity done well is the most powerful thing. And people have decided to like decline to even attempt. And so I love when games and films, those things introduce all that.

I like that a lot. You have— there's this quote from Yancey Strickler that you quote tweeted that I think is pointing at something really interesting. I'll read Yancey first. He said, the idea of quote unquote selling out implies a hopeful nostalgia of choice beyond market pressures. Among younger creators I talked to and whose brains the algorithm is directly embedded, not selling out feels like an impossible luxury from a faraway time, too risky to attempt, but a fantasy they dream of one day indulging. And then you quote tweeted and you said, increasingly feels like artists who opt out of the algorithm game and produce work that isn't algo-friendly are seen as posh, nepo, trust fund, playing the algo game to survive is optically punk and honest. This is really interesting to me. Like, first off, like, when did that change? When did it feel to you that it changed?

I mean, it's been a slow boil. Like, again, I'm old enough to remember like the Beastie Boys being upset their music used in adverts or— and then, you know, in kind of my gen, I remember hearing like Santigold in Budweiser commercials and there being a gen above me that was like, this is fucking selling out, this is terrible, why would you do that? And then living this moment where it's like, I can't afford to own a home, let alone like have a family. Of course I'm taking the Budweiser check.

Creator people should be rich.

Creator people should be rich. I think especially in the last 3 to 4 years, the kind of dominant understanding of how aesthetics flow and how ideas populate has, has really inverted from the kind of like Bushwick model people are familiar with, where it's like some interesting art person makes something and it gets its way to some Vogue person, gets Anna Wintour, she says it's important and it gets pushed down to a soccer mom in the Midwest. So now this more middle-out thing where, you know, effectively, I remember like, I forget which TV executive talked about making television that was, uh, the, the, the least inoffensive for the, you know, like the most inoffensive, uh, television you can make was the one that would keep people from changing the channel. It does feel like, you know, for you algorithms perpetuate a similar idea where you can go to East Berlin, you can go to Bushwick, you can go to Beverly Hills and see the same aloe yoga outfit on the street. And I think it's because culture is now middle out. You know, it's, it's, it's just the most inoffensive person is going to capture the most mindshare and people will optimize for kind of being that person in order to get opportunities of influence or whatever else. That isn't groundbreaking. Um, but I do think as a result of that, the only people who have been able for the last 4 or 5 years to play this kind of art game and opt out of the algorithm are effective effectively trust fund kids. Like, I don't need to name names, but I do love that meme where it's like, never ask a woman her age and like an indie musician while their parents' names are, have a blue under, blue link on Wikipedia or whatever. Like, to be truly indie and like participate in a purely artistic environment while playing the culture industry game, you, you need to survive. And it's just gotten so dire now that the only way to do it is to effectively be a trust fund kid. So. The most punk kids I know, you know, are playing social well, whether it's like Amel and the Sniffers, you know, Australian, like, you know, or like Turnstile, right? Like they've been able to like capture these mediums on their own terms, but they haven't opted out entirely.

Yeah, it's interesting. It's like one question that's really dumb that I found myself like wondering as I was thinking about this is like, are we going to get to the point where like Slop is punk? Or, or like, there's like, you're sitting inside of this tension, which is like, at what point can you like play the algo game and still do all that other stuff we were just talking about, about creating something actually new and still be like, by the way, regardless of what you think about Warhol, whatever, like being commercial can be really interesting.

Certainly. Uh, I think it's funny. I, I had a conversation. I've been doing these kind of like, uh, gatherings at my home to connect Silicon Valley friends and artist friends. And there's this like, this theme in Silicon Valley about taste and how taste is so important. Yes, yes, yes. And I brought together, you know, which is almost becoming slop.

Like that narrative is like at this point is so regurgitated.

Exactly. And I brought all these artists together who aren't on, you know, those in those X feeds and aren't aware of this stuff, but have, you know, being really important work. And they were here and the AI people were kind of assuming that they would agree with that sentiment, but they were like, you know, the AIs don't have intuition, which is why they can't do great art. And all the artists were like, I don't know, I think a lot of that stuff is really good. And they were kind of like, wait, what? Whoa. And so I do think there's absolutely going to be a moment where, you know, slop is punk and interesting. You're seeing some interesting, some examples starting to emerge. But I also think what's clearly interesting now are the models themselves and like, you know, creating in latent space. And I think that as people begin to appreciate that, as they have the kind of, uh, the contextual awareness of how these models work, they're going to really appreciate some of those things. And I think it will be probably on uncomfortable for researchers at the big labs to be like, I'm the artist, I'm making those interesting—

at least I'm making the medium or whatever.

Yeah, I'm making the most interesting cultural work of the moment. And I think a lot of artists would be like, yeah, absolutely, like, I clearly made this cool wall work, but like, what you're doing is, is absolutely reflection, the most important reflection of this current cultural moment.

I think it's really in— like, I think maybe I'm just too on Twitter. Like, I, I would be shocked if most people would have any intuition that like quote unquote real artists or serious artists felt that way. Like, and maybe part of that is that I should probably be careful here, but like the sort of midwit artist on the internet is just complaining about it. Like you say the words AI and they're going to like have a meltdown.

Yeah. I would say like capital A art, art world versus like, you know, uh, uh, uh, an art world that, you know, this is dangerous as well. Like, so I remember I really wanted to go to design school. I went to RISD. That was my dream. Um, I was a football player and I could go for that for free. So I ended up doing that instead, but I would take these summer programs.

So many possible timelines in your life.

Yeah. Bizarre. Um, I remember I went to Otis, uh, design school here in Los Angeles for a summer program. And I was just really intrigued as to like, you know, I was going to meet these artists that were just like me. And when I was confronted with the people that would just draw like anime and hentai and dragons, and they were really good at drawing dragons. but there weren't really any new ideas. And where I found the people that I was drawn to were actually in like, you know, the corners of 4chan or like random streetwear stores, places that were emergent and actually quite interesting. And people that wanted to find like net new forms of expression would kind of huddle around.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the relationship— I think this is very related and it's also a can of worms. Like, what do you think the relationship between authenticity and creativity is? Is authenticity I think one thing I've felt myself feeling is like authenticity is almost like ridiculous. Like at least when it became an aesthetic, like, is it even worth talking about? Like maybe the other part of this question would be like, is there such a thing as like pure art or creativity or originality?

I would say like there is conceptually, but when I talk about like creativity or even authenticity, it's like talking about Nirvana, you know, it's like this end state that I think you can like aspire towards, but I'm not sure that it is achievable. I do think authenticity was maybe like the buzzword. It was like the taste of 5, 10 years ago. And because we were doing Miquela at the time, that was often a question I was confronted with by like new hires or VCs or whatever. And what I always tried to explain to them is that like authenticity can take a lot of different forms. And I think ultimately what I'm looking for in great artwork is honesty, like a, you know, a connection to you who is themselves a divine bridge to something. And, you know, I actually— this is a bit of a tangent, but I was in that Timothée Chalamet-Bob Dylan moment. There was an interview with Bob Dylan where they were talking about his songwriting process, saying he wrote these songs so long ago, you know, and he more or less alluded to the fact he's like not able to do that anymore. And I thought it was like really compelling, also terrifying, because as someone who like wants to tap into that divine stream all the time, the fact that it can come and go. I'm very aware of it in a songwriting room because you watch writers that are just like, ugh, and you're like, whoa, where did that come from? But in building organizations and these kind of marathon things, it's less clear. That said, I think the authenticity piece and what I would relate that to is there are creative people who do commerce explicitly. And, you know, I was thinking about K-pop, you know, like, you know, they didn't write those songs, you know, they didn't style those clothes, they didn't choreograph those dance moves, but what a beautiful machine. What a beautiful machine. And they appreciated the machine. And I often will get into these these, you know, arguments with peers who are like, I don't understand why you love Rihanna but you hate these imposters and these people that you think are like taking attention from people that are actually creative. And I'm like, I love Rihanna because she's not telling me she's making a 2 Michelin star steak. She's like, here's a cheeseburger. And I'm like, I do love cheeseburger. This is fantastic. I get frustrated when someone's like, look at this 2 Michelin star steak. And I'm like, I know all of those references that you're biting just because you're, you know, repurposing them. Yeah. Or it's just borrowed nostalgia. Right. And I like, I actually seeing this, this thing now, which is quite interesting, like Silicon Valley has gotten into cultural critique and consciousness and kind of these more abstract concepts and the very uncool humanities are getting quite cool. And there's a new emergent founder who's like seen the Adam Curtis films who can be like, eh, and like paraphrase. And these VCs are like, wow, how do you know this?

Naaman McLuhan, we got it all. Yeah, I've done some of that myself.

No, but I think that's why you're especially able to connect these dots. But I think again, you can do it in a very honest way where you're learning and it's an interest of learning. And there are people that are like, I have this new idea. Yeah.

It's the first thing we talk about.

This is the thing. And that's the frustration I often have where I'm like, if you just want to get rich, like sell real estate, don't purport to be some poet or philosopher and just repurpose ideas for people that aren't familiar with them. That's where I get all riled up, Jackson.

Why the borrowed nostalgia thing came up a few times in my research. Like, why, what do you mean by that? And what, what do you, what is so frustrating about that? And specifically, like, I think you gave one example of Amy Winehouse, but like, what is the line between borrowed nostalgia and like, nothing's truly new, but it can be remixed in a way that feels really new?

Yeah. I mean, again, I think there's like, there are people who act as a divine bridge and they're able to interpret their environment and kind of share that moment and reflect on that moment with people in really honest ways. And I think, you know, Amy Winehouse, I always use, because people are like, Amy was doing nostalgia. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Amy was taking an interpretation and a style and then parsing it through her lived experience. You know, like talking about rehab, you know, through a jazz lens is new. It's novel. She's standing on the shoulder of giants, but she's parsing it through her lived experience. That's really important. I think that the reason the nostalgia piece is so tough for me is as a millennial, we had this generation that effectively was able to do that trick at scale.

Yeah.

A bunch of Gen X that didn't know anything. And we were like, fuck, I have the internet. I can just put on a gold chain and reference some '80s rapper and some K-Rock, you know, dude. ANR guy or, you know, radio programmer is like, whoa, this is a hip-hop aesthetic with a rock thing? This is crazy.

I've never heard anyone say it like that. It is so unbelievable. Like, it was like you got the answers to the test.

Totally. And you could, you could, you know, you could cheat in real time on the test and blow minds. And so there were all these people that effectively got to LARP all these different eras people weren't familiar with and kind of pass through these gates, which everyone wanted to tear down the gates. Like, a bunch of millennials, we were like, this sucks, I want to make the decision to I can tell this is dishonest. And then we removed those gates and we were like, maybe some, maybe some of the gates were good. The gatekeepers, can you bring them back? But that's, that's my war on nostalgia.

Yeah. I, before we go into the next thing, I just want to mention that the Bob Dylan thing, like, I think what I, the optimistic part of that would be, I don't know, you hear so many artists, so many musicians in particular, they just like the songs come from God or whatever. Like it came to me in a dream, whatever it's, whether it's Bob Weir or Rosalie or whatever. And there's this like loose grip on that. I think the 'I'm Bob Dylan and I did it in the past and I can't do anymore,' like, that's pretty tragic. But I wonder if you have like a looser grip on just like, 'Sometimes they come and I want to be ready for when they come.' Yeah, but oh man, I— it's got to be hard when you—

yeah, kind of two minds. I don't know much about soccer or football, but, um, my friend Alonso was talking to me about Messi as being this just like this gifted savant and Ronaldo being this like workhorse. I find a lot of that in songwriting and artistic practice. You know, there are founders, you talk to a Colston and you're like, oh, I don't have that gear. You know, like I just, I don't, I'm not going to get there. But maybe if I find other ways to create edge, I can, I can get to this thing that I'm really proud of. And I respect both. And to me, it's almost like a spiritual thing, right? Like there are monks who I imagine have like this divine light. They're just connected immediately. And there are people who have to spend spend a lot of time getting deep into themselves and closer to God. And that's how I interpret the practice. And I want to honor both. I'm actually probably more aligned with, you know, the Ronaldo, because I find myself like, I'm not a gifted musician. Like, I just poke buttons and turn knobs until it sounds cool. And it's a struggle. And when I go into sessions and people say, "Oh, that flat fifth isn't in that chord." I'm like, "I don't, is it this thing?" Or like, and it's heartbreaking, but It's also this blessing. I get to find something and let it kill me in a lot of different areas. Yeah.

It's almost like you're not a native speaker, but you're trying. Totally. The other thing that's interesting to me is, um, you, like Jerry Seinfeld comes to mind, but there's so many creatives who talk about this sort of like, uh, I was talking to Gabe Whaley actually about this with the stuff they do at Mischief too. Like they schedule their brainstorms. It's actually this like Seinfeld. It's like he goes in the room and he has to, he has the old legal pad. He doesn't have to write, but he's not allowed to do anything else for like 3 hours. And it's like discipline, scheduled discipline sort of is like giving you the best surface area for the inspiration to happen.

Agreed.

Which is maybe more Ronaldo. Like maybe you're not walking into the room as messy or whatever, but there's something I think beautiful about that too, which is like, I'm get— I'm ready for the inspiration if it ever comes.

Yeah. And it's interesting because you could kind of argue both, like, you know, what is it, Buffett and Bill Gates, so they don't have calendars or whatever. And like they're effectively doing the work, they're creating space to do the work, but they're also creating space for like the divine lightning to strike.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, I think a lot, again, it's, it's, it, to me, it is probably very spiritual. And the older I get, the more I could probably relate a lot of these things to spiritual practices, but ultimately they seem to be reflections of reflections. Like, you know, you can see the fractals in all of these things.

We talked about instruments at the very beginning. I want to talk maybe to set up our conversation about crypto. Uh, there's a couple of quotes from you and that I think are particularly interesting against this backdrop that like, depending on when you cut, slice it, although for many people crypto is like always low status, um, and just, there's a lot of disdain. Uh, this is you. Then this thing about blockchains, about tokens, the hyper-financialization of our lives. I've had such disdain for it. But if you invert that and try to create better instruments for capturing value, you can attribute that value and pass it back. Part of what you were just saying. And then another section from you. After reading Debt: The First 5,000 Years of Money by the late anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, Trevor found himself asking, like, what is value? And he followed that destabilizing thought to a liberating conclusion. It's whatever we collectively decide it is. One of the reasons that I love crypto or an internet of value is that we have really antiquated vehicles for representing value, he says. He believes crypto enables better instruments for assigning value to all things. This idea of like value being something we can tinker with seems at the core of that. Like, I guess I'm curious why you consistently find yourself being drawn back to this thing. Despite all of the cases for doomerism and all of the desain and all the hyper-financialization and the SBFs and all of that, like there's some hope, dream thing that you're seeing? Like what? What is that?

Yeah, I mean, there's so much in there. I think there is a spiritual and psychological war. Like, you know, there is, there is a desire to move people to a higher state of consciousness. I don't know. There are plenty of people doing doing that. God bless them. They're really good at that. Um, and then, and I think there are, there are a lot of people who are kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum are looking at purely utilitarian ways to like help people get to the next meal or to, you know, the next moment. And I think what I've uniquely been able to do because of my life trajectory is, you know, kind of live what I say from the squat to the yacht. Like I actively engage with like, you know, shithead crust kids, crusties, and like I still have all of like, Takunian anarchist friends who are on no-fly lists, and I have billionaires speak in my house about AI, you know. And I think that was a function of moving from Iowa to LA when I was 16 and having, you know, art aspirations, but kind of recognizing my place in the universe as being someone that can be this connective tissue. And I think I've joked in the past that, like, I've always wanted to be the chef that makes 2 Michelin-star corn like, I moved to LA, I'd never had sushi until I was 19. I had a California roll and I threw it up. It was like too advanced, you know? I was raised on like, not even Taco Bell, I was raised on Taco John's, you know, like knockoff of knockoff. And the idea that there were people who could contribute if they had some kind of connective tissue is what I was interested in. So there is this kind of like psychological and spiritual war. And they kind of need someone to say like, man, I actually know how venture capital works. Like, you can say 2 and 20 to friends of mine in like the art world, they have no idea what that means. And I also am like deeply rooted in the history of culture and music. And I'm interested in like the right people winning. And so if I can effectively be a low status person who can LARP as like a high status person, and maybe a high status person that can LARP as a low status person, I can be this translator and do this connective tissue. And I also think I think from the kind of more utilitarian angle, low-status games are often like the best way to repurpose value. Just historically, when you learn the history of Hollywood, I often, you know, talking to my contemporary art friends, I'm like, if I was just a pure artist, I would be in Saudi right now. You know what I mean? I'd be like, where else are you gonna find someone who's like, $3 million to like build a really compelling object? Like, take a flyer, but I want it to be here, and it's déclassé, and people in America would be like, ugh, Middle East money. But that's what, like, people in France were saying about America not that long ago. This was the déclassé. We are new money. We are low status, you know. Like, Ralph Lauren is a Jewish kid from the Bronx who changed— Ralph Lipschitz, who changed his name to, like, Ralph Lauren and started pretending to be a kid from Connecticut and was able to play this game so well that he created this whole fantasy that became real. And, and I think that's a tangent that I'm also interested in. Like, I love Lana Del because her dishonesty is so internalized, it's real.

Like, yeah, talk about authenticity.

Yeah, like Lana can tell you, you know, she was like living in a trailer park, like smoking meth with the local, like, rodeo guy, and I'd be like, I know it, I believe you, my whole chest, my whole heart. Even though you were like, your dad was a domain broker and had hundreds of millions of dollars or whatever it is, like, you've internalized these things so deeply that, like, you know, schizophrenia is real. Yes.

Yes, yes. There's an idea I've struggled to articulate over the years, but I think sort of more or less is that identity can be a projector and a mirror. And it's intuitive that it's a projector. Like if you put on, if you dyed your hair green or have a mohawk, like people are going to perceive you differently. But after enough time, you're going to perceive yourself differently, which is pretty profound.

Absolutely. Like we are who we pretend to be. And that fake it till you make it thing is, you know, one of, I think it's one of the things that's so easy to articulate, but to truly live it and to become that is a real blessing to experience. And watching people overcome that imposter or whatever it is and just live it, commit. And you see it in LA, like you see the Pirates. Yeah, they're still doing like an '80s hair metal thing and they live it. You're like, that rocks. Good for you.

Do you think there are a lot of people who are really living it in crypto?

There are obviously a lot of imposters, but a lot of them have left. I like crypto a lot right now. Yeah, people are in AI.

The weirdos are hanging around.

Yeah, it's just just like freaks and weirdos and people that are, you know, probably unemployable a lot of places. And they're, you know, I wonder— I haven't thought a lot about it, but yeah, I'm sure like you encounter it. Uh, you know, the other day I went to Shake Shack with my fiancée, get a cheeseburger, and she's pregnant. And I was like carrying all these things, and this guy just went above and beyond and helped us. I started talking to him, and he was just so articulate, so curious, so thoughtful. You know, I was asking what he do, he's going to school, told him I work in technology. He had all these thoughts about AI, you know, really like poignant stuff, like could explain a transformer, you know, which is like what most of the VCs I engage with like couldn't.

Right.

And so there is this kind of like neat Reddit, you know, kind of lost individual who's deeply curious, but maybe doesn't have the tools to kind of contain it, articulate it such that they can like, you know, it's parsable by whatever institutional powers it be. Yeah, she's not quite legible. And, you know, some, some part of me is really interested in identifying those people and giving them power and teaching them how to become legible. And I think crypto full of those people, which is so fun. I think that's one of the reasons I love hanging out on Telegram with a bunch of like racists and like insane anime PFP people.

Yeah. So there's some, there's somebody human underneath.

There is, there's someone human underneath who read the wrong white paper or the wrong something.

They read too much Curtis or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

There's, okay, so there's this thing that has been happening for a while that you, I think, are very interested in, which is that attention and capital are compressing. Interesting. Back to the idea of things being financialized. And I think this is interesting maybe through the lens of like things being legible, because part of what I think financialization of things does is it brings things to the forefront. This is you. You say, this is the definitive mutation of the early adopter. The 2000s hipster discovered bands in basements and hoarded their finds like trade secrets, terrified of mainstream contamination. Today's equivalent, what Nemesis calls the creative director, still wants to be early, but they want everyone else to show up too, preferably with liquidity. Creative directors aren't gatekeeping, they're shilling. Being first isn't about protecting your scene, it's about getting in at the bottom of the bonding curve and waiting for your idea to graduate to the decks. Cultural capital has merged with financial capital. Great writing.

Um, thank you.

Maybe with that backdrop of like the weirdos that the internet has always been good at sort of like having a place for, like, I'm curious how you think about when, when it— when attention and culture are like full financialized, does something about them fundamentally change? Do you actually have less room for the— this was at least selfishly, like, one of my frustrations of crypto is like the financialized part of it and the speculation part of it sort of like clouds everything else out. You have something that's bubbling up to the surface and all that weird stuff you were just talking about is like hidden away somewhere.

And I think what I am trying to figure out how to express is is that all of the stuff that's being obscured needs to be obscured because we're entering into a new era. And I think it's as uncomfortable as it was from the move from like modernism to postmodernism, you know, like the urinal, like Duchamp being like, no, this isn't art. I'd be like, that's not a fucking art object. Like, where is the craft? Where is the skill? Yes. And I think that's like the great tension. And I applaud people in Silicon Valley and the broader you know, technology world for wanting to champion what they see as art. But I, I think what myself and other artists have been talking about a lot, kind of behind the scenes, is that the act of creation is not that different from the act of speculation. If you squint, this idea that you have a belief about the future and you want to express it via a medium and have it, you know, validated or perceived by your peers, or maybe recognized in a market, is something that all of the artists that, you know, people who you can do, because those models are so antiquated or laggy, by the time you get your work to an art fair, by the time you get the album out, by the time you get the film out, it often feels dated, you know? And I think what's tough for people that are actually interesting is you watch a new Paul Thomas Anderson film and you're like, oh cool, like a conversation about like incels and like Civil War, and a bunch of like 60-year-olds are like, how rad Radical. This is, this is a reflection of our time. You're like, no, we're having that fight on Twitter 18 months ago. And so I think what, what I've recognized is that all, you know, and I talk about in that piece a little bit, is my group chats where my artists, you know, visual, uh, you know, music filmmakers, we used to talk about prestige television or, you know, new films or art fairs. We talk about Fed rate cuts. And you're like, wait, what happened? And I think what happened is they've recognized that there are instruments for expressing beliefs that now allow them to be right verifiably and with financial upside in the same way they could be with an art object.

But now it's like skipping the middle.

Yeah, skipping the middle and without a 50% vig to your, your curator. Right. And I think like meme coins and prediction markets are like bad instruments. But when the game before was you could bet on wheat futures if you understood weather patterns, like they have an information advantage because they're a meteorologist. Okay. Well, like I have an information advantage because I'm a cultural want, why can't I have 1,000x asymmetric upside? And so like that to me, I think is the great tension is these people have these very narrow ideas of what like an art community is and what a finance community is. And there's like the Patagonia vests and the Bushwick babes. But to me, I'm actually interested in saying like, instead of those people living in opposition, which is a fool's game for the Bushwick babes because these guys have nukes.

Yes.

And they have financial nukes. Yes.

Yes.

And you have like sticks, you know, bows and arrows. Arrows, like, we can give you nukes too. And you can have a real meaningful advantage against these people in markets and you can have asymmetric upside and the yachts. So like, why not?

So many of these things come down to like, don't hate the player, hate the game, I think too. Or like, and there's a lot of hating of the game. In a broader thing that I don't know if you've written about this publicly, but you kind of talk about this idea of the belief economy and you have this specific frame around making to framing to predicting that partially is encapsulated in what you just said, but I think it'd be helpful for you to talk specifically about like that. Danko has also written about this in the shift kind of post-postmodernism, but like, what is that shift? I think it's also worth hitting on the framing part. I think most people sometimes sort of feel like we're still in that.

Totally.

Because it's a thing in the past, and then obviously this new thing.

Yeah, I love Danko's piece. And so there's a group of friends which maybe I would call like the New Models extended universe, uh, and, and that goes to like Arthur Trust, uh, Cinderella, Jeffrey Cinderella, Holly Hernan, Matt Ihurst, um, you know, the Nemesis folks, like, uh, Dan Keller is here now, not part of the models. Like, I think we've been deeply frustrated because we're people that are interested in progress, and technology for us has all of this white space and all of this incredible opportunity for progress. But post, you know, Trump election, and I think the artistic world seeing technology as these enablers of dictators, of tyrants, as, you know, the Russiagate, whatever, like, yeah, you felt disenfranchised from both a bit. And so we've kind of had to talk in isolation for a bit about the world that we see in front of us and then the world we encounter when we go to a Biennale and just see like Aboriginal artworks and wall works and sculptures that could— they're not meaningfully different than they were 20, 30 years ago. And so I think, in my opinion, in Danko's opinion, in like the group chats, this kind of like thing that's ethereal and in the air that we're trying to pull out of it, it is this idea that the people who would've been articulating ideas about what's happening, what's going to happen, have taken different forms in society over the years. And the ones we're most aware of, you know, probably are, and the framing I had used in that piece were like the modernist era where the thing you produced had all the value to this postmodernist era we identified actually like the narrative and the framing around the thing had the most value to now what we're talking about with this belief economy where the thing you were able to call or predict has, has that same value. And I think it feels really uncomfortable for people because they're like, it's all fucking gambling now. And you're like, well, yeah, but like the always was meme, you know what I mean? Like, there are always decisions being made and there are market forces and there are, you know, there are outcomes that were more opaque. And if you choose, if you, if you choose to kind of, uh, make them more visible, it's uncomfortable, but I think it's very real and it allows for for, you know, new champions to emerge. And I think that's the part that like we're all really interested in is that predicting is very similar to creating. And if you squint, you know, making a wall work or having an opinion about prestige television is very similar to taking a position or expressing that belief in a prediction market, a meme coin, or, you know, betting on a meta on the thing I'm working on now.

It seems almost that maybe a little less so with the making part, but especially the narrative, the framing part, it's almost like we ran out of scarcity there. Like there's nothing scarce in the ability to, again, I talked with Gabe Whaley about this, like going viral is like, it's shots on goal. Like it's not even, there's no novelty there. There's no magic there. And it is interesting that sort of like consensus on the collective belief belief is maybe not fundamentally scarce, but relatively rare. And that's the thing that everyone's seeking. I wonder, like, I know one of the things I was thinking about a lot as I went through this is just like, this feels very reactionary, even if you're right. And I think there are optimistic parts of what you're saying. Like, don't we still want to incentivize people to make things? Like having all of our best people, all of our tastemakers skip over everything thing to the anticipating, reacting to what's going to be next, maybe we'll horseshoe, but like, I think that would, if I were to guess what the average sort of thoughtful person's reaction to what you're saying is, even if all of that's true, like, are we just going to be in a world where we're all like speculating on made-up memes?

Potentially. I think there's a lot there. I think, um, you know, talking about virality being shots on goal. The other thing that I maybe didn't highlight in that piece that I maybe should have talked about more is that like discourse is, is probably the, the, the, the probably the most important product of millennial culture. Like, you know, podcasts, uh, you know, everyone has Clubhouse voice. Every dinner party you go to, people are repeating the same, you know, New York Times podcast takes or whatever it is. And we live in this sea of takes with no way to sift through what's meaningful.

Yes.

Right. And so Marcus being a tool for seeking on information, I think is really interesting.

Yes.

So to speak to the part about like, you know, making actual objects, I think it's really important. I just think that like robotics and AI automation are going to devalue those things.

And so scarcity again. Yep. Yeah.

And so I think having lived through technology devaluing things, it's like, okay, who are people that you care about? I care about creative people and I want them to win. Okay, well then where do you shepherd them? I shepherd them to where the value is going. Like, and And I think what's— what I appreciate about Silicon Valley is they want creative people to do well, but they are effectively pushing them to where the puck is, not to where it is going. And that's why I feel like even if this is uncomfortable, I need to actively speak up and be like, hey, this matters. Go here, get the resources such that you can impose your will and point of view in the world because it's important that you do because you'll figure this out once you've won.

Must.

I mean, I think, yes, we'll figure it out once you've won, but I also think we're being quite thoughtful about it. Like, I, you know, and, and I think this is uncomfortable to hear as well, but part of growing up is that there are people that make decisions in the world, and you can either have a seat at the table and influence or not. And, you know, the All In podcast has, you know, extraterrestrial at this point influence. There's a Space Force. And if we can shepherd people from having conversations undialectic into having seats at the most powerful tables in the world, I would like that. In order to do that, they probably will need to have meaningful capital and meaningful amounts of verifiably correct takes.

Yes. Okay. So this is interesting. Um, one of the things you said a couple of times, you just got it at the end, is that markets are a way to get to at least one kind of truth. This is a pretty profound idea. Obviously the prediction market kind of stuff, lots of different things. It's a market-driven truth. I'm curious what you think about, if you have any thoughts broadly on like what that truth is and if it differs from other types of truth we might have. And then on top of that, like, does that truth line up with what creative people are trying to get closer to? Maybe back to the other thing around authenticity and honesty or whatever, whatever the things maybe creatives are normally sort of trying to get at.

Yeah. And this is a sticky one, right? So I guess the framing I would use is like in a pre-enlightened world, there's effectively like magic and like a divine interpretation of truth and like ideas. And I think in this post-truth environment, like there's so much takes, so much— you can find your truth in your research. There's been a return to magic. And I think what's interesting for me is that, again, like like, if you think about it in kind of like less contemporary terms, like in a tribe, there were kind of people that created magic and were able to like define what truth is.

100%.

And, and I, I think that like, you know, uh, obviously the narratives and the stories that like control our lives define those truths, whether it's capitalism or neoliberalism or whatever it is. And so the thing that I'm interested in truth right now and in markets being able to, I guess, reveal truth is that, and this is again an uncomfortable reality, truth is subjective in a lot of ways. And what you're seeing, I think, in capital markets at the highest level is this unwinding of this efficient markets hypothesis and retail effectively running over some of these value investors and Steve Cohens of the world. And you're like, what's going on? And I think the idea that we can stay retarded longer than you can stay solvent is quite poignant. The WallStreetBets thing, like, there, there are P/E ratios, and then there are a bunch of like retarded Redditors who are like, no, actually, those don't matter. And effectively, at some point, there's a tipping point where like a P/E ratio was just a meme, you know, it's, it's, it's truth, but it's, it's a collectively accepted truth.

Like, by the way, when we say truth here, I think what we kind of mean is consensus.

Exactly. And I think like, at some point, consensus tips. And, and I think that's— that again is the opportunity, right? And I think that's what like great— what I would describe as like creative people do. You can tell— you can be Karl Marx or the, you know, the Chicago School boys or whomever you want, and you can come up with a narrative that people internalize and manifest and, and turn into real actions in the real, like, material world. And all of a sudden, that is the dominant form of our, of our, of our everyday lives and truth. Yeah, um, again, you're pulling me into cancelable territory, but like, I think it's really interesting.

I think it's really interesting. There— I guess we've been talking a lot about it from the lens of like the creative person. Um, one of the first interviews I did, or early ones, was with Jacob Horne, and he had this line where he's basically like, the— there's a difference between speculation and gambling, um, along the lines of your belief economy, which which is like speculation is sort of putting weight behind or stakes behind something that you want to be more likely. I guess I'm curious how you're thinking about that now and how you're thinking about the ways that like having more hard incentives versus soft incentives from the like crowd to push the tastemakers or whatever else we want in a certain direction. Like one version of this, one instrument is meme coins.

Sure.

Like, I think a lot of people look at that and they're just like, what? Like, this is— this is— yeah, there's nothing here. What is— and you can be as specific or not specific as you like, but like, what is a version of this that is good for creatives, for all the stuff we talk about, for musicians, for visual artists, for like even just cultural tastemakers? Like, what do you think that starts to look like where regular people can be at home with their favorite creator or favorite artist or whatever and like speculate on them in a way that I'm investing in 5 likes or whatever?

Yeah, yeah, totally. Um, so I think, you know, kind of set the state of play right now. Jesse Walden kind of describes this current meme coin moment as like the 4chan moment. And there is like an emergent Reddit or Twitter moment that will allow people to kind of, to have these takes in a synonymous or anonymous, uh, way and find community and kind of do all the things that social media and those kind of those, those chans, those evolved chans enabled us to do. Um, the current state of meme coins. Is, you know, a bunch of degenerates in the wild, wild west effectively launching tokens that represent some idea or meme, and then people speculate on how much attention they will get. The problem, in my opinion, and I think I would say that the pros, in my opinion, are we've created an instrument that allows creative and cultural people, people at least aware of how information flows, Bushwick Girls or whatever, to bet, right? And it may not be Bushwick Girls yet, but there are, you know, It's the, the Telegram guys. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's honestly, it's like Fortnite kids. Yes. You know, and I think it's really unsexy for people to go look at a bunch of like spergy Fortnite gamers who are, you know, betting on whether Ani, Elon's like AI companion, will get enough attention or not. It feels bleak, but it also has opened the aperture such that you can squint and see a world where if you if you have an information advantage on whether skinny jeans I tweeted about will become popular again or mainstream again, I think it would be fantastic if you could express that belief and have the asymmetric upside that Bill Ackman has. Bill Ackman has fucking takes. Why listen to Bill Ackman?

More than ever.

Yeah, because, you know, he— because he has billions of dollars from taking asymmetric bets, I need to approach some girl and say, may I meet you? You know, like, why does he have influence and why couldn't the Bushwicks?

Being a witch, the internet may have memed that into being a real thing now.

I know it actually probably does bang. If I was a single man, I might go out there and see who's like brain rot as me at the local bar. But so I think, I think that what we, what we would need, I think, is a few things. I think you need attention instruments that can persist. The time horizons for meme coins right now are so small. I mean, even if you think Mom Donnie is going to be mayor, and there are 400 Mom Donnie coins, you're not going to pick the right one. But even if you do, it might pump and rug in 2 hours. And if you're a person who isn't your average Fortnite enthusiast, those attention spans are too small for you to pay attention and probably win.

On that note for a second, um, I think most people who have like ever heard that example are just like, oh, obviously it's prediction markets. Like prediction market— like, could you talk about maybe an example of something that you think is like better served by whatever it is that you're pointing to that's more nebulous rather than like— there's something about whatever sports and politics that are pretty deterministic.

Yeah. Like, so yeah, I think prediction markets are great at determining— I think things that have like kind of discrete outcomes. I think skinny jeans is a— maybe skinny jeans is a soft one, And so I think a couple of different things. Um, so we'll start with the obvious. I think there are soft things that don't have, uh, probably resolutions that everyone could agree on.

Tip the scale a little bit.

Yeah. And so the question for me often is like, okay, if this thing is soft and squishy and we can't get an elegant resolution, that's probably better served as a market where people can vote with their dollars. I don't know how much attention it's going to get. And you can just see a real-time scoreboard. The other thing is I think, um, you know, the illiquidity of prediction markets and the lack of fungibility.

Instability.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. To me, um, creates a lot of interesting challenges. And beyond that, like, bonding curves are magic, you know, like, if you haven't played with meme coins and you do, there's a very regular occurrence where people will bet $10 and make $100,000 because of the convexity of those bonding curves and, and the way they're shaped. On the other hand, you know, if you get a 20% return on a prediction market, that's fantastic. A 2x, 3x is fantastic. You know, because most of these markets, I think most of the liquidity in these books, whether it's sports or politics or anything, there are these sharps that are so advanced.

Yeah. Like the edge is so— 200%. It's interesting that you say that. Like, I think most people's intuition is actually like the correct thing is that you can get a 20%, like the prediction market thing, and that the $10 into $100,000 is actually like a broken novel feature of it just being weird and like immature.

Yes.

And you're almost saying the opposite. You're actually saying like, that's, that's the thing.

Yeah, I think like, to me, and I think this is like maybe as bizarre as like Duchamp's urinal, like the broken and immature is the alpha and what artists are great at. Like Duchamp being like, this thing you piss in is art, is not something that a market would value.

Yeah.

And I think that is, you know, like Warholian tin can, you know, soup can, like that is effectively what, what bonding curves allow people to create a market and be like, no, actually this important. And you're like, that isn't important. That's slop. And you're like, no, trust me. And what great—

well, this back to slop becoming punk, maybe.

I don't know. Totally. And I think what like great collectors have been able to do historically is like take the side of that bet and be like, yeah, I want all these Warhols and this Basquiat guy that can't draw. I think it rocks actually. And I think that, that is the opportunity on both sides of that market.

Hmm. I want to talk a little broader about speculation. I don't know. Feels like the gambling, the sort of speculation in culture is out of control. People are starting to talk about it. And your big kind of— maybe not counter, but at least thing that's cutting through a lot of it is it's rational to speculate. A couple of things from you. All the crypto ideologues will tell you that the trenches are the death of crypto and it's all extraction and brainless, but they're wrong. Obviously, from my POV, the trenches are a lot of people making very rational decisions about how they should spend their time and their energy to create the best outcomes for themselves and their loved ones. I also think they're underserved, lots of people building for devs, creators, vibe coders, whatever, but not a ton of people building for someone trying to turn $20 into $40 to buy Chipotle. Obviously, like, there's this sort of silly super micro version of this. There's the like broader financial nihilism thing. Like, what are you seeing? Like, what is happening for 20-year-olds? And like, why is, why is it rational to speculate?

I think a couple of things. I think often I get frustrated because the things that are happening for 20-year-olds are the same things that were happening when we were 20-year-olds in different moments, right? We We were like young people who wanted to make a mark on the world, and in order to do so, we needed to prove ourselves. And oftentimes we could go to like low status domains and do things in order to build up enough XP to get a shot.

Yeah.

Um, and, and in parallel you need to survive. And so whether it was flipping sneakers for a generation, yep. Or for me, like building eBay auction pages for like, you know, my grandparents, um, you're going to look for alpha. And so I think that's happening, but I think what's really awesome is like a version of the internet that I was drawn to when, as a young person reading Kevin Kelly, whatever is happening. There's effectively this entirely online economy that's existed. People are spinning up meme coins, they're paying people in digital currencies all over the world without permission to manage a Discord or a Telegram or to bag work in whatever way. And it's a totally like online behavior being paid in an online currency. I think it's what people dreamed of.

The irony is it's, it's not metaverse-shaped enough or something. And as a result, people are like, it doesn't look like EVE Online. And so it doesn't count.

Totally.

Or it's uglier than I wanted it to be.

Yeah. And what, what, What is, I think, you know, and I had similar sentiments until I started talking to the people in the trenches. Mm-hmm. And it's like, who are you? I'm 21. I live in Middle North Missouri. I work at a bookstore part-time. And while I'm there, I reply Guy Anselm with like CAs, like, you know, tokens he should buy. And I'm able to turn $20 into $100. You know, I make $12 an hour working at this bookstore. I could work 8 hours or I could just reply Guy Anselm for an hour a day. Yes. And be up $100. And I'm like, absolutely. It's rational. Absolutely. You should be doing those things. And it's speaks to probably what will come. And it's uncomfortable because it's new.

But I think, again, and because we don't believe in the underlying thing, to go back to the other thing, which is actually like being ahead of consensus, most people in the world don't believe is productive or something.

Yeah. And I think it's, it's, it's easier to be out of step when you're already low status and like perceived as like, you know, déclassé. And so I think that's often where the alpha is. Like, of course, if it's consensus, like any great investor, you know, contrarian, it's be contrarian and right.

And I think a lot of great investors these days, I don't I don't think are that contrarian.

No.

Which is maybe part of the—

And the momentum moment, which I also kind of think speaks to like the tipping of this efficient market thing, you know, is like, I think what a lot of investors have learned also is that, you know, we don't need to name any of them, but the really intelligent ones are like, you can create media arms and you can shape consensus.

Yes.

And so you can make yourself right by having the hordes follow you. So you can take gigantic bets, shape consensus, and be right, which is what Hollywood was so good at. That forever, you know, manufacturing consent.

And Hollywood forgot that, or they just lost their leverage?

They're still fantastic at it, but they've lost their leverage, right? Like, what they had was they had a corner, they had a monopoly on distribution and media. And so now that people can do it, I think the people that have capital and media arms are like, oh, we could try to pick, or we could just kingmake.

Hmm.

And be right long enough to exit.

It's funny how when you say it like that, it sounds a lot very similar to the new thing that's happening.

It's like, hmm.

One last thing on this, uh, there's an excerpt from, uh, the piece I referenced earlier that Danko wrote on this, uh, we're calling prediction kind of the successor to postmodernism. But he gets something interesting I'm curious for your take on, which is he says, how early or late you are to something is now an essential component of your relationship to that thing. The timelines and reels represent what is going on are increasingly about a single meta-topic: are you predicting it or is it predicting you? This has become the main thing that you feel, and it is a complete break from the postmodern aesthetic where your consumption was wrapped in an unthreatening fuzzy blanket. It doesn't matter what time of year you arrive at Whole Foods to buy strawberries, the farm stand simulacra is recreated faithfully. The prediction aesthetic is a new thing and rejects postmodernism. Quote, I want to feel something even if it hurts. And this is like, it, it at least sits next to the it's rational to speculate thing, which is like, is there something else also happening here which is like, we all want to feel something again? Like, gambling is both rational but also like, in a flat algorithmic society, it's like volatile.

Yeah. And I, and I think gambling and rat is rational is provocative. And there's, there's there's so much I can say, but I think, you know, there's a lot of that Dico piece I really align with. There's others that I'm not, but I think he's pulling exactly the right thread. I think one of the things you're pulling out here that I like is, and this is like kind of dark, but I remember I got on an airplane once to fly and, um, I was like, I should look at my tweets to figure out like what the last tweet I have as plane goes down. And like, it was like a crass thing to think, but in the exact moment after that, I had this thought where I was like, at least no more email, you know, like there was, we live in this life that like lacks finality to this extreme such that like, you know, at the end of my life, the kind of like the thought of it was like, damn, at least you would get, but you would be able to like not send email ever again. And it was, it was a bizarre thought, but it reminded me of the lack of finality in our lives, like more broadly, you know, like all of your ex-girlfriends, your 8th grade friends are in your cell phone, in your Instagram feeds. Like we lack finality in a lot of our lives. And I think I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's tough, right? Everything is so ambiguous.

Everything's frictionless.

And I think it's really comfortable to watch a basketball game and watch it resolve. And things that provide finality, a scoreboard, it's actually really comforting. And so I think there is something about staring at a hyper liquid perp and being like, damn, I'm up. Damn, I'm down. Like, it's concrete. And I think there's a, there's a difference there between gambling as how people understand it. I think there's a misconception, uh, that people think people go to the slots in Vegas and they go to win or to lose.

Like, they go to be in the machine zone.

They go to be in the machine zone. They go to disappear. Right. And I think that's very different from being confronted with the finality of you're up or you're down. I think like, yeah, you know, like Vegas does a good job of obscuring that. Right. And I think what—

Do you think crypto is more the machine zone or is it more the actual simulacrum of finality.

I find that the finality of crypto and they blur, which is concerning, right? It's like people have recognized that there are opportunities to implement more of machine zone into these things.

But that's probably more common in fantasy sports or whatever than—

Yeah, I mean, you could argue whatever, DraftKings or whatever. There's all kinds of places to get lost in the machine zone or in like, you know, just mobile games. Yeah. Um, but, but that said, I think it's everywhere else for that matter. Yeah. I think, but I know when I talk about the finality, like, yes, the hyper liquid perp, I think is compelling because you're like, I'm up or I'm come down. But also the scoreboard of like, I was right versus I was wrong on a take, on a belief. Like in the messy world where everything's so subjective and ambiguous, like Bitcoin hitting $100K was sick because I was rich, but it was sicker because I was fucking right. You know what I mean? And like, I think that's something that people feel across the board. Yeah.

I love that answer a lot. I want to shift a little bit. I think still connected.

You—

I've explained you to people many times over the years. And I always refer to you as sort of the person who's like most consistently like ahead of culture. And part of that, I think, is that I'm sure of everyone you know, you're not the most that, but you are. And maybe specifically, you're super on the frontier of both technology and of culture, which are like kind of orthogonal things. So many things like like obviously early music stuff, crypto, Micaela. Like there's a tweet from you in November 2020. Obviously, I— this was resonant to me. You said gaming is replacing music as the linchpin of emergent social scenes and it makes everyone 30+ I talk to really uncomfortable. You're the first person to ever mention Politigram to me. Like there's so many of these things. And critically, I think the edge of culture partially means what's going to become consensus, but critically it means weird for now. And so I guess my question is, what do you think— what do you think has caused you to develop such a nose for weird, particularly in one that actually resolves to consensus?

Yeah, it's a good question. I will say I'm actively trying to be more on time now. I think this is important for people that I care about, but it's a I think, so this is a tangent, but I'm going to have a child in March. And congratulations. I've, you know, obviously it provokes a ton of thoughts, but one of them is like, you know, what you hope to offer them. And to me, it's just so clearly curiosity. Like, I don't care what it is that, you know, he's going to be into, but I want him to be deeply curious. And for whatever reason, I mean, I could probably I could probably psychoanalyze myself and say, because I was like a poor Black kid who was good at sports, but put in like the alternative and gifted classrooms and like middle-class white Iowa, I was like consistently othered. And like, wanted to find places to impose my will, to create suffering for other people that made me feel uncomfortable. And so it was like, it's why I played football. It was partially to be good and loved. But Also to like break a quarterback's ribs when I like came off the corner, you know? And it was also the reason when we did times tables in math class, we're like, I was gonna fucking win, you know? Cause I want to feel good, but also I wanted to let you know that you're not better than me. And I think that that was also the sport. That's what Nemesis was talking about. Like in some respects, I grew up in a pretty anomalous era. Like I'm 40 years old. I was 15 in 2000. 2000, and I lived through this moment that I reflect on. I actually want to write something about— maybe I should— that's been, I think, pretty detrimental to a lot of millennial men. And that is like, historically, like, I'd watch Saved by the Bell, which is '80s, I don't know if you've ever seen, when I was young, and I was like, it's weird that the really buff jock guy is the cool guy, because I'm 14 now and the cool guy is the angular art guy. Like, the coolest movie in America is Garden State, and like Zach Braff is a sex symbol. And, and like Pete Wentz on the COVID of Rolling Stone with his shirt off and is the coolest guy. And when I went on LiveJournal or like these dating apps, the, the mode was effectively you put like the 5 books you like, I'll put the 5 books I like, and if you like the same books, we should date. And I was like, damn.

That may have been correct, honestly.

You know, and I think for like, for nerds, candidly, like it is. And then there was this cultural shift where like you watched technology, which was the dominant cultural force, move from the nerds who talk to their shoes to like the MBAs that took over. And you watch dating apps go from You Write Your Books and You Write My Books to like Tinder, which is like a really normal— we make eye contact at a bar, either we keep looking or we don't.

Yeah.

And Instagram, where it was like, dang, you look good in a bikini, lots of likes. Yes. And I was kind of knocked off guard because I was like, whoa, this is like hyper heteronormative and masculine and sexual. And I was taught to like meet a young woman, I should tell them that we should get married, and like they'll be my punk rock Princess. And then there's just like Zoomers being like, hey baby, we should link, you know. And so I think there— I lived through this like bizarre moment where nerds dominated culture, and it was, it was celebrated to go into a record store. And, you know, like, I remember as a kid, I, I went to a Christian sleepaway thing in Iowa, and my friend's older brother was in an MXPX cover band, which is just like kind of niche pop punk rock band. And I was a kid and I was watching him play and I was like, that was awesome. And I went to the CD store in the mall, North Park Mall in Davenport, Iowa, and I was like, I want to get this punk rock thing. I think it's like something XX. And they were like, NoFX. And I was like, yeah, that's it. And I got a NoFX album and I got in the punk and I went to the punk record store and I was like, I like NoFX. And they're like, that's fucking whack, you know, this is what you should be into. And they pushed me into like Fugazi and like, you know, all of this stuff that defined I'm still straight edge. I'm still punk. And like, it was really celebrated to be deeply nerdy and inquisitive. And so I think I wanted to win at that sport also. And so when I got into NoFX, I needed to get to grindcore or like, I needed to be at Noise shows where they're running vacuum cleaners through distortion pedals. Like, that was the final boss I had to get to. And I just don't think that's that compelling anymore.

It is interesting that I suspect if you surveyed, I don't know, 5 different generations, you would get like the— it's the pendulum swinging. It's like a sine curve. And like, maybe one thing that's weird about it is like, while you're kind of living it, media is lagging and pop culture is lagging. And so you're, you're sort of disoriented. I don't know, like, I also wonder if just like the extremely into something thing is always going to win out over— like, the extremely curious, the extremely curious always wins out. It maybe takes like a lat— like, you— I don't know what stretch of your life you weren't cool, but like, it probably didn't take that long ultimately for you to like, for things to resolve.

Well, I think that's the interesting thing is like, so obviously like cool exists on different axes.

Sure.

But like, um, if you were to talk about like pop cultural cool, it's not clear to me that being super curious is the path. Whereas I think like, you know, the people that I see winning the cool game right now—

Oh, maybe because those people are on time, to go back to your earlier comment.

Yeah, I guess they are curious, but they're curious of like the contemporary moment and they're less interested in the historical context. And I think it's because things move so fast. It's like not clear that you need to have that knowledge.

Yes.

And I think that's like, I remember that brat moment, the Charlie XCX brat moment, and it felt felt kind of like the last hurrah for like the world that I knew.

Yes.

Where it was like, here's Charlie, who honestly I've known since she was 16. We did some of our first sessions together in America in my bedroom in Silver Lake. And as someone who's always been so knowledgeable, so bright, so talented, and was finally able to make the music that responded to people. But I also think more importantly, a lot of the kind of Bushwick elite, you know, like the publicists, the people at Spotify, they were able to be I was like, this is what it should be. Like someone making interesting, most advanced, yes, accessible music that references a moment that's important culturally and kind of elevates it and twists it. And I remember at the height of that, going to look at the Spotify streams and being like, wow, this is amazing to see. And I look and I was like, oh, this song has like 200 million streams. That's crazy. And I just went to look at the most streamed artists at the moment. And like ahead of her was like The Neighborhood, you know, which is like like a band like that hadn't released a record in a long time and hadn't thought about, but made like really playlistable music. Or like Charlie Puth to me, who is like savant, but like, you know, quite boring. And so I took it as this accomplishment, but I'm still well aware that there are tons of things most people have never heard of that are going to do far bigger numbers than that, which was able to capture, you know, whatever it is Bushwick extended, the global Bushwick.

You started that answer by saying you're trying to be more on time. Yeah, it's not surprising you say it. Like, like, one thing that has been— like, Michaela is maybe the best possible example, but like, you've been early, arguably too early, to a lot of things. And I have to imagine that there's like some internal— like, the honest version of you is way too early, and that's awesome. But like, the back to commercial, like, I don't know, what is that? What is that feeling of, of the— obviously, on some level, like, being on time has really obvious positive outcomes, which is like, it's commercially resonant. Your things maybe actually get to go the distance versus be the thing that the kids today are inspired by. Yeah, but I'm curious what the psychological thing is there.

Yeah. And I think you also get old and tired. Like, I, and I think that, and you kind of hope that that slows you down. Like part of that Bob Dylan statement was like, oof, that's terrifying. Yeah. Um, and I will probably go on a tangent again, but, uh, one of my best friends is a guy named Sam Teller. Sam and Elon were looking for a place for the Gigafactory. And in parallel, I had been really fascinated with this idea. This is like 2016, 2017. With getting all of my favorite brilliant people to move to Iowa. Like, I was like, man, it's actually pretty awesome. Four seasons, drive Chicago in 2 hours where I'm from. Like, what if we just all went back and we did what you did in Williamsburg or in Silver Lake here? And you own property and you like, and, and that evolved in this thing called Actually, it's a ruling. And there was like a plan. And I was like, I think there's a way to reverse brain drain. It is kind of cliché tech for it to be like, I'll start a city. But I was like, we can go and we can basically work with economic development directors to give us incentives to move there. Um, and Sam was like, you're totally nuts, but like, we've been close to the people in Tulsa and, you know, we're talking about building a factory there. They're really into these kinds of ideas. You should just go and talk to these people. And so I went and long story short, I met this guy named George Kaiser, billionaire oil guy. Unbelievable, unbelievable guy. I think like famously was like the first person to identify Obama and like really back him and it was deeply unpopular, but I met him and he was probably like one one who was late '70s, if not early '80s. And he had built this like Disneyland in the center of Tulsa with free buses that go there. It makes me want to cry thinking about it. Um, and when I met him, you know, I met him and we were on this walk. He tries to walk multiple miles a day. And he was talking about how he wants to make Tulsa this like cultural center. And he's like, I love what you're talking about. Like, we should do this. We should bring this here. And he was like, I have all these consultants that are talking to me about what I can do to make this center of culture. And, you know, one of them said I should do like an eating M Festival. And he's like, I don't think that's right, you know. And he's like, I think for like a couple hundred million, I was like, move all of Broadway and theater and ballet here. And I was like, you're fucking right, dude. Like, don't let these 22-year-old McKinsey fucks tell you you're wrong. Like, you're fucking so right, you know what I mean? It's brilliant. It's like, so it's such an inspiration to me still. Wow. But what I also saw, like, in his eyes was this person who was looking, talking to me, and he was like, what you want to do, I need you to do it and do it now, because like the clock is winding down for me. And I have— and And it was like deeply inspiring, but also somewhat terrifying because I'm someone who's just had endless ideas. And I don't know that it will just stop one day. But I do know that I'll be confronted with a reality where it's like—

You're running out of time.

I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time. And so all that is to say, I think that like, you know, the Bob Dylan thing was terrifying, but also inspiring in that potentially I could slow down and be write and have enough resources that I could start to parallelize and do a lot of things and try to chew through this list.

Yes, yes.

And maybe you get satiated by the time the Grim Reaper comes knocking or Brian Johnson is able to extend me into perpetuity or whatever it is. But, but, but I think that's, that's part of the reason I want to be on time is this like, you know, very human fear of the clock stopping.

That's it.

Quite an answer.

On maybe a lighter note, uh, or maybe not, uh, what are you obsessed with today? Maybe outside of the speculation stuff we talked about, um, which I know you're spending a lot of time thinking about. Like, what are you obsessed with today that you think the rest of us are going to catch up on, hopefully soon?

Oh wow.

Or just anything else that's been firing that sort of sense. I know you were really interested in streaming streamers for a little while.

Yeah, yeah. Uh, I mean, I think that I'm absolutely interested in this. I'm trying to think of things that are maybe less obvious. Uh, I'm very interested in Telegram. Uh, I don't think— not because of crypto at all, but because I've been able to stumble into these portals where like teenagers seemingly can be very free. And like, because I'm a non, that's when they let me in. But there are these channels where they all upload MP3s and they talk about the music they're discovering. And it's really interesting to me to see the stuff that they're into and like the, the kind of like revisionist history of what they think was really important when I was 20 and then talking about it.

Yeah.

Um, but beyond that, like these channels where they're able to do what I was able to do on an internet that wasn't so neutered, um, like I often get really upset thinking about, you know, the Open Window was acceptable on YouTube or really any of these platforms save for maybe X. Like, I just don't think Tyler, the Creator could release the Yonkers video right now on YouTube.

Why?

Because he hangs himself, you know. And like, you know, there, there's the— you know, I went and watched, um, one of my— I was playing a show in San Francisco with my DJ duo, and I was reminded of this band Girls. That's a song called Lust for Life, and it's such a perfect encapsulation of San Francisco that I knew. It's like young, we like, like the 50,000 art hosts in San Francisco, like it used to exist. And like, if you watch that music video. Like, it's an encapsulation of like this—

killed it—

this radical band and these radical art hoes and like queer kids hanging out in bathtubs and clapping and jamming. What I was reminded is I don't even know that would be allowed because it's like, you know, young people nudity or whatever it is. And so in these dark corners of Telegram, you're seeing it— like, I'm watching them post and it feels like Tumblr in a lot, or like on blogs. There's like, you know, there's stuff that is horrible, like thinspo and like, you know, anorexia posting and cutting and, you know, all the goth clichés of Tumblr that I saw that felt somewhat like rites of passage. But while I had been probably misinformed to think that that stuff had gone away, that you were living in this really like, you know, progressive young— like, people are still dealing with all these demons and they're manifesting in the same ways that I'm familiar with. And we push them to the margins, but they still exist. And I think what's interesting for me is, you know, hearing them talk about culture and their experience. There are the clichés that I'm familiar with on YouTube. But when you talk to these people, and I've now kind of like doxxed myself as like boomer and some of them, they're able to just give me like unique insights. And so I guess some of the— maybe it speaks to like a pendulum that constantly swings that we're talking about. The things I'm interested in now are like these unfettered cultural spaces on the internet. Like, it sounds silly and quite trite because a lot of us remember that, but most of the stuff we interact with now is mediated by like algos, you know?

It's really interesting you say that because my next, the next thing I want to talk to you about, and that it's come up in so many conversations I talked about with a few people on the podcast, Eugene Wei, like the consensus view is actually that there are no subcultures on the internet anymore. The consensus view is that like, for whatever reason, lack of friction, so many other things. Like, we have this, like, total flattening. You, you've even talked about, like, Iowa City being more culturally interesting than New York. And I have to wonder or imagine that part of that is that it relates to something else you said, which is that New York is the soundstage for the internet. And because of that, like, everything in New York— it's the other thing, it's every Mexico City, New York, every, every coffee shop, it looks the same. It's really interesting to me that you have found, obviously for a while on Discord and now in this other place, it's like, where on the internet can you actually knock it in.

Yeah.

And that's what's allowing for the fertile ground and the flowering and the interestingness. And like, by definition, it can't be surveyed.

Certainly. And that was like one of my great gripes of like the woke moment was like, you know, inclusivity is incredibly boring, you know, as like the one Black dude getting VC funding. I was like, actually, like, this sucks. I think we should have boundaries. Boundaries are how you define society. And like, people should be accepted. Exceptional, and they should be of all kinds, of all walks of life. Absolutely. Yeah. But we shouldn't be like any old asshole in this place. Like, Berghain's not special because fucking suits get in, and increasingly less interesting because some suits do get in. Uh, and so I think like boundaries are absolutely important, and exclusivity is— like, I, I want to write this thing in praise of exclusivity, but I was still the CEO of a company, you know? And so I was like, maybe I shouldn't get fucking canceled. Uh, but I, I absolutely couldn't agree more. Like, and maybe that is at core of what I've, you know, I have very fond memories of getting fake IDs to get into shows, you know, and go places, and it made those experiences sweeter and richer. And maybe it's all psychological, but maybe it is those boundaries.

How do you, how do you find these? Like, is, is the finding of these Telegram groups sort of like getting into The Party, or is it something totally different?

Like, yeah, I guess I think what's nice is I've developed, I think, by doing doing homework have just developed a taste for bizarre— like, when I buy artwork, right, I buy stuff that I love or that I hate, you know? And I often find that, like, fuck, I hate that ends up being like, I love that in 6 months.

It's doing something to me that's causing a reaction. It's not, not— it's not the middle.

Yeah, but I think ultimately it's like this narcissism of small differences where you're like, this is so close to a thing that I am, but like this watered-down phone or this like this thing that I hate. I think the thing that kind of got me into this Telegram was some really wild super ADD, you know, clip to an old breakcore song that I vaguely recognized with just all kinds of like anime and like Wojaks and memes cut up. And it was shared from this— and you can see the forwarded thing in Telegram from Armageddon. I joined Armageddon and it was all this, and you know, it's people being blown up by drones in Ukraine, like Russian kids sharing, like, you know, Crystal Castles derivatives or whatever it is. And you can just start clicking into the other things that are being forwarded from— a lot of them sucked. Some of them were, like, really interesting. And then I just keep clicking and some of them get shut down or whatever.

Curiosity is the engine though.

Yeah. And I think just, like, developing a palate for, like, what is actually good. Like, I don't think a lot of people stop and think critically, is this good? Is it good? And that, that, that is oftentimes people are like, what can I do to be successful? I'm like, you can, you could just stop and do the homework. Like, why is your podcast so excellent? Like, you went and read all this stuff about me instead of like winging it. And most people don't have time to not wing it, or the kind of like wherewithal to do it, but just don't wing it.

But it also, it's just like, you have to care. Like, clear, like the reason you can do this is because you care.

Yeah, totally. I am, that's absolutely right. Whatever the Paul Graham bus ticket theory of excellence, whatever it's called, like it does true. Like, I, I do love this shit. I want to find new things.

Yeah, yeah. Speaking of at least some of the stuff you're talking about, particularly around exclusivity, uh, and another thing you were early to, um, probably not on time, although who knows, friends with benefits, uh, and DAOs, and, and obviously the bread stuff too, building Dapper Collectives. Like, I want to talk about the exclusivity part specifically, but maybe before we get there, like, I guess just what's stands out from that era of like a bunch of things, which is like crypto highs and lows, COVID, building, getting super into Discord, building kind of like the, at least the cultural DAO. And now you also have some distance from it.

Yeah. Um, still a member, still very excited about FWB. I think what stands out, um, I think what was clear to a lot of us is that what crypto is doing is effectively speedrunning like a history of markets and organizations. And most of of these trials, we're going to end up in the exact same place that we were. But I think it was important with this new coordination layer of the internet to be like, maybe things go different.

Let's, let's give it a go.

Let's give it a go. Right. And we can run these experiments pretty rapidly. And so let's give it a go. Um, FWB was interesting because I was still pretty, uh, I was still of the belief that people would like fork things, copy ideas, iterate on them. And I think at the moment we were in the crypto cycle, we were kind of more of like an extraction layer. And so the idea was to like come up with a primitive where it was like, hey, all you've ever known— this was before crypto was, you know, even remotely mainstream, in my opinion. And the idea was, okay, you've only known networks where all the value accrued to the people at the middle, the VCs and the founders and employees. Like, there's a world where you can create a network where the value accrues to the people who make it interesting.

Yes.

And we created like super dumb tokenomics.

But by the way, you made this, at least you messaged me. I got a message in fall 2020, which was pre any NFT stuff, like pre any Web3. Like this was quite, this was really, really primitive, I think, for people.

And I think the idea was just to like create a spark with the dream. And that's been some of like the bummer of Micaela and this is like, here's a primitive. Uh, it's exciting for you to go expand on it. And people were like, eh, we just want this. I'd rather just like cash out on this thing and like move on to the the next thing that has some momentum and then cash out. And so I think there's still plenty of room for people to create these, these spaces that, you know, value can accrue to people that make them interesting. Ethereum is doing a decent job of it now. I think one of the challenges was in the Gensler era, it was pretty impossible to kind of accrue value to a token without getting into trouble. And so their hands were tied, but now it's like better time than ever.

Well, that's kind of— yeah, one of the thoughts I had is like, oh my gosh, what a time to try to do a version of that.

100%.

You know, it's more maximally commercial or whatever, but yeah, maybe on a related note to that, like, what's the relationship between community and exclusivity? Like, can those two things actually— are they necessary for each other? Are they at odds eventually?

It's a good question. I don't know that I've really interrogated it like deeply, but like on the surface for me, at least, I think they, they live in harmony and live in tension. And I think I like to optimize for tension. Uh, like whenever like Bartle's taxonomy of players, you kind of need these griefers, you can fuck the achievers so that you they have something to play against. Uh, I often get like frustrated when people talk about politics and they're like, fucking AOCs and Tucker Carlsons. And I'm like, you absolutely need those things. Like, you need that dialectic, so to speak. And so I think for me, communities are places where boundaries can emerge, and they're like petri dishes, right? And so there's this kind of— there's this idea that you have, you know, this primordial soup that turns into a community, and the community can spawn like a lot more primordial soups that spawn into these like boundary communities. And I'm not totally sure how one emerges or one begets the other, but that's how I see it in my head.

Yeah. On that, maybe on that note, like, can— I guess my question was going to be, can these things scale? Maybe part of what you're saying is like scale doesn't mean them getting infinitely bigger. It means spawning off new replicas or remixes or something.

Yeah, I think at the height of FWB, what I loved is there are people that only hung in the trading channels and then there was like just the parenting bros that were just sharing and there were different parts of their lives. But to me it felt like, oh, there's the Greenpoint crew and like there's, you know, like the Red Hook crew or whatever. You're like, sick. And so yeah, I think, I think that's, that's how I view it. And I think those communities should have a kind of an active tension and, and, you know, outlets for resolution. That tension begets like really important and interesting things.

Yeah. We talked about it a little bit. Lil Miquela. I think you were— I met you, you had just started Miquela maybe. It was very, very early on. And even then you had these kind of two really prescient ideas, I think, which is one, and maybe this is a little bit controversial to say, but like the artist is the bottleneck. So I think one thing that you were kind of feeling around particularly the music side of things. And then maybe almost conversely, this is something you said relatively more recently, but celebrities are a team sport.

Yeah.

And I think like, it's so interesting to think about that. That was like 2014 or whatever. Like, we're in a world today— you mentioned this earlier— like, we use the word creator, and yet what we mean by a creator is the person who controls the distribution. Yeah. Like, we live in a world that is completely dominated by the individual who is like the leverage point of distribution. And even if there are other quote-unquote creative people behind them, they have no leverage. Um, bands are la la la. I guess I'm curious, one, like to think back to like what was in your head back then. And then more importantly, like it feels like things have gone the direction you were a little worried about, like even more extremely. Do you have hope for creativity feeling like a team sport again?

Certainly. And, uh, certainly. I think the thing I was responding to with the artist being the bottleneck is there are kind of diminishing returns and it's creating this crabs in a a barrel dynamic that I don't think is positive. And so there, I think, were opportunities to create, like, I think it was like pass-through vehicles, right? Like you could think of Rihanna as this like giant, like rent-seeking middleman. Like everyone's on set waiting and Rihanna's got another blunt of smoke in the trailer. Like, I guess we're all waiting. And so the idea that you could have these pass-through vehicles where you could, you know, have value created by the this entity on behalf of whoever is behind it, these visionary storytellers, choreographers, whatever it is, technologists. And yeah, Mickey, Mickey, 100%. And I think the things I like to pursue are things that are exciting kind of spiritually because they poke at something that I think is really important to the community that I care about, creative people, but also meet this tech moment. And for me, I think it was less about the technology stack purely as much as I idea of like zero marginal cost reproduction and like aggregation theory and all these ideas that I felt like were radically changing this world. I was like, okay, how can we judo that? How can we kind of use it against itself to kind of like reward people for being dismantled by it?

That's cool.

And so that, that was, I mean, and then I think what's more often than not in my life, when you start trying to do those things, maybe this is what like hippies mean when they mean like going with the universe or whatever, like you start doing those things and all these other things start emerging quite elegantly where you're like, oh Yeah. And they're spending a ton of money on AR. And so all of these, like, all the infrastructure is emerging that I can use to do this stuff. And spatial computing and digital goods, these ideas that I cared about, or generative media that I cared about, just like things started popping up and like, you know, Hugging Face emerged and Amazio connected me with Clem and I was like, this is fantastic.

We could scale to 2016, I think.

Yeah. And they were still a conversational kind of like chatbot tool. When you're, I think you can identify things that are kind of floating in the ether in two pretty like dominant parts of our lives, whether it's, you know, technology and culture and kind of start letting the ball roll in the right direction. You can kind of roll with it. I think the challenge, as you highlighted for me, is that people interpreted a lot of these behaviors and things that we did at like the surface level and they're like virtual influencers. And because we were so attached to the bit of being in the story for the Miquela thing, we didn't want to speak up and kind of break that fourth wall. And I think ultimately we should have made it clear, like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, we're building Disney. We're not building virtual influencers. Like, the reason people care about Manila Blahniks is not because Carrie was just shilling them, because she was fucking rad and she made you want to be her and you could be her by buying Manila Blahniks.

I think the other thing too is that unfortunately, because of the timing, like, people took Miquela at the gimmick. Yes. It was almost like it can never go farther than this because of how new it was. That was one of the first things you ever said to me is like, I'm building Marvel for pop stars.

Yeah.

Um, and specifically like this thing you've talked about plenty, which is like it ultimately came back to the narrative.

Certainly.

I think one challenge of the modern internet is that there's very little linear, like everything's constellation. It's fragmented world building. You're speaking to a moving army, like, and you're moving while they're The army's moving. I don't know if you ever read— one of the things that came up when I was talking to Gabe was this piece Brad Trammell wrote called Athletic Aesthetics.

No, but I love Brad.

It's like, it's worth reading. I'll send it to you after. And he sort of describes where we're going with this, which is just like, it's not even really about what you're saying or what you're making as a creative or influencer. It's just about like having the audience keep up with you. And yet I think you were really, really thoughtful about trying to tell like true narratives with Mikayla. I'm curious. What you think great internet storytelling looks like now.

Yeah. And I think it's— there's some contextual things there because it's, it's easy for me to forget even, but I started making Micaela in April of 2016. And there was still chronological feeds, we're like pre-Trump, right? And so there was a lot of adoration for tech. And when Micaela first started getting traction, you know, like Dazed, all these outlets were like, look how fucking cool and interesting and smart Trevor is, like visionary. 'Wow, wow, wow.' And then I think the Trump moment, you know, really kind of inverted the politics of celebrating technology. But also the changing from this— these chronological feeds to algorithmic feeds really presented a wrinkle for us as storytellers. Because the thing I always try to elicit with people we're hiring is like, this is panel-by-panel storytelling. It's the same as comic books.

People are keeping up with us.

Yeah, yeah, it's the same as a comic book. You're reading panel by panel by panel. How can we— how can we start to create a behavior where people learn to start Can we start from the beginning? You know, can we do some of these things that when you, when you go by The Sopranos, you don't just like start at last season, like kick it off at the beginning. And by the time we were starting to kind of like get some of those things worked out, it was like, surprise!

No way.

Oh, wow. Okay. So the challenge shifted, of course, to like, how can we participate in this more dynamic social media that I think brought stars like Cardi B to life? You know, she's so good at a clapback. She's like the opposite of like Cary Grant to me, where you just like stand up and perform the things that was written. Her whole skill is like, fuck you, Cardi B. She's like, fuck you, bitch, suck my dick. And you're like, yeah, wow, like you can't script that. That's amazing. That's Cardi. And so the challenge began.

She's a highlight reel almost.

Yeah, but also like, how can you be dynamic? How can you, you know, like in borrowing things from Hollywood, from game studios where they're working on these like, you know, these long time periods and producing a product, can you instead try to develop systems that can be dynamic? You know, weekly bibles, all those kinds of things.

Almost interactive.

Yeah, almost interactive.

Uh, unrelated to that, but related-ish to Michaela, about sort of like being a person who's a touring musician or a person on the road. You said, one of the things I was trying to do with Lil Michaela was create a model where people who were disenchanted with being public figures could share their work without having to deal with what it means to be a public figure. It can be miserable. The court of public opinion will try to destroy you as fast as they'll champion you. The idea that you could just create this figure, this avatar for you to share your creative wares through was really intriguing to me. And then there was another tweet I found, I think on the day Burdain died, where you said, what strikes me most is his passing while on the road working. The loneliness I felt while professionally DJing was such an isolating experience. How do you vent to anyone about a job or a life that is viewed as the dream? You've since been, been a tour touring musician, uh, after you wrote that, granted with a pal, a buddy. What has your relationship been like to that sort of— maybe especially with like the touring music bookends of so much of your life, like, or any reflections on that kind of that idea?

Yeah, I think DJing, you know, it's funny how you stumble into things in life, and life is largely a game of luck to me. But I was really lucky in that when I turned 19, I dropped out university, I, so they created this software called Final Scratch Pro where you could install Linux and then DJ with MP3s on traditional turntables. And I was like, that's crazy. And then Serato came out and it made it easier to do that. And it created this dynamic where I was in San Jose. That's a whole other long story about how I ended up there. But I ended up going there because I wanted to be close to Silicon Valley. Like I had read about—

This was for school? For school?

Yeah. So I went to San I just hated to play football and ended up hating it for lots of reasons and ended up there for lots of reasons I don't need to go into. So yeah, I was very lucky and I think kind of reframe it. It's like I was very lucky to be in San Jose at the moment that I was because I was interested in, in tech, interested in business and I was reading things and I was really frustrated that I didn't have, and I couldn't raise capital to start a business. And I was also reading these books about brand building and I was like, man, I'm actually pretty good at that. Cause I pirated Photoshop, I pirated Illustrator, I know how to build a website. I could do that part, but I don't have like capital to create a product. And then Serato came out and I was like, oh, I can like download MP3s for free and make myself the product and brand myself. I created a MySpace and this blog and all these things. And I think I was also very lucky in that I'm very good at being isolated. I can sit in front of a computer for 10 hours a day and get lost in it. And I'm very comfortable with that. And DJing, as I became quite popular, was a —of that. It was just, you know, me driving myself to the airport, me parking a car, like walking to the airport by myself, sitting on a plane for 6 hours, you know, saying hi to a promoter, going back to my room, preparing a set, playing this show where you have this really bizarre—

It's like a barbell almost. It's like complete isolation and then like in a mob.

Yeah, but the bizarre thing, and I think I wasn't able to maybe elicit with that Bourdain tweet, is the really difficult part is you're getting all this attention, but it's almost like empty calories, you know? Like, you're the center of attention and everyone's looking at you, but they're kind of looking through you.

It's like, hey monkey, dance! Kind of, yeah.

Like, they're like, you know, there are millions of times I'll be teaching, so I'm like, hey, do you know where the bathroom is? And it's like a nice reminder, like, yeah, I work here. Like, I'm an employee, you know? You can think yourself as a talent, but you're like, oh, it is that way. Sorry, you know? Not, I'm a big fan, where's the bathroom? Yeah. And like, very bizarre things where like, you you know, not— and this is maybe too crass for the Athletic pod, but like, you'd be DJing and there'd be like some rich guy in a booth and he'd be like, hey man. You'd be like, hi, hi. He's just like, I don't know what you're doing later, but I've always wanted to see my wife fuck a Black guy. And you'd be like, what? Like, and I think he understands you're contained here. Yeah. You know, like, you effectively like are like— you are like the monkey on stage. And so you're like, yeah, all right, like, I'm sorry, I had a very beautiful— not interested, thank you. Like whatever it is. But it's this very—

treat you like a person.

No. Yeah. You're dehumanized, but you're also getting all this attention. And it's very hard to come back to your friends and be like, I'm living the dream. But yeah, I'm 21 and flying all over the world to play music and making more money than my friends who are doing investment banking. But I'm also deeply unsatisfied in a lot of ways. And so that was like the really tough part with the Bourdain thing is like, you could ask people what the dream job is, like travel in the world and eat the best meals and be famous. Yeah. And I think it can be really really tough. Hmm.

What did you learn about identity through the Michaela process of either like running that account or even just thinking about the different personas you guys were going to create? Yeah.

And I've expressed this a little bit before, like some of the seedlings of Michaela stem from me being really intrigued with this idea that I could make a song and put it on SoundCloud or YouTube and have someone talk talk shit about it, I really feel bad viscerally, you know? And be like, one comment, by the way.

Yeah, one comment, no likes.

That snare sucks. You're like, damn, maybe I should change the snare. And you're like, ah. And you know, this, this idea that I had also been able to live as like a little script kitty hacker in these spaces on IRC, whatever, the kid that were like clearly very white, you know, they're like, weren't a bunch of— and like white people saying incredibly racist shit in chats, but I could kind of live inside of them and kind of embody this thing that was different. And there was this idea like, wow, wouldn't it be— and it probably isn't like a novel, but wouldn't it be interesting if people could effectively like embody another person physically on the internet and feel what it means to have someone be like, you know, you're ugly. Yeah. And what was bizarre is that like Working Model was very real. You know, like I've never been a woman on the internet and never in my life have I ever thought I should change my eyebrows, you know? But people would be like, look at her ugly eyebrows. And I'd be like, damn, should we change the eyebrows? And I'd be like, whoa, it must be fucking crazy to be a woman on the internet because I've just, you know, people will say a lot of things about this podcast, but I doubt they'll critique my eyebrows. And so there was a lot about identity. And I think one of the things we tried to explore was this idea of like post-physicality. And us being these post-physical creatures. And like some of the best moments were when we would get messages from young people who'd be like, I'm 13 and non-binary and live in like Missouri. And no one believes that I'm real. And like, you're not real, but you're doing amazing things. And that inspires me. Wow. Wow. That is so cool. Uh, and that stuff is like, you know, when I look back on it, making employees rich and making people who are fans of Mikaela feel seen and heard the way X-Men was for me. Like, that was always the dream, is like, I was this weirdo, and I remember being a kid being like, when I get my mutant powers, like, they're all gonna pay. Um, but like, that, that, that to me was like easily the best part of that stuff. That's awesome. I mean, with Mikaela, it was like gnarly. Like, walking first through the door, catch all the arrows. I remember reading that and being like, so fucking true. Like, wow.

I think you've done plenty of that too in your life. Yeah.

And I I think, like, yeah, I think, again, having a child has kind of reframed a lot of this stuff where it's like, it was just kind of me against the world. And again, we haven't talked about my personal life, but like, it's always kind of been me against the world. And that's been very liberating for me. You know, there wasn't a lot of collateral damage for me to like, you know, have my mom, my sister.

You can take risks.

Yeah, but we were already at zero. You know, there's nowhere else to go. And so it was like, either mom has a retirement plan or she doesn't. And so like, let's take a big swing. And if I fail, miserably. I was already supposed to be here.

A little bit about music. There's an article on Soft, the South Florida trance team. That's right. Uh, we want to not think too much with our brains and just feel the music with our bodies. You're a brilliant dude who is— I think people can tell— can like brain blast with the best of them. And yet, as I think both conceptually but also maybe even like physically, you've always done a really really good job of like both high and low. And I think that's like part of what's in that quote a little bit. But I'm curious how music has helped you with your ability to move between spaces and be in high-low.

And yeah, and I call it interesting because we're a bit trolly, but like there's this tension that's a product of being born when I was born. I didn't, I never had anything, but I was very lucky that it was very chic to have nothing. Like the Blur song Common People, you know, could blare through it like a nightclub when I was 20. And it was very real. Like, a lot of the rich kids wanted to be common people and go to the shithole dive bars and hang out where me and my actually, like, poor friends were, like, playing records. And it was comforting in that I could just thrift clothes and still participate in, you know, high-status Los Angeles society, at least. And in parallel, a bit heartbreaking. Like, there were definitely, you know, one of my best friends when I moved here was a guy named Adam Moonves. His dad is Les Moonves, former CEO, president of Viacom. And, you know, we had tons of amazing interactions just from being in proximity to him. I remember because his dad had a Viacom, was hanging out one day and he's like, dad, you should give Trevor a radio station. Like, he's fucking good at music. And like, we were young and I was like, honestly, I would crush a radio station. Like, no idea how to sell ads or whatever it is, but like, just being in proximity to people that could think that big was really comforting. But I also think that the ability to develop a palate, the ability to understand how some of these modes of thinking are our superpowers and the desire to pass them down was really interesting. And so, yeah, I guess like it's kind of the same answer I've always had, but like music and being good at music. And I guess I'm realizing now also provided me a lot of power because of exclusivity. Like because I was the DJ at hot nightclubs, I would regularly have people walk up to the booth because I worked there and be like, this is my business card. I'm a producer. At Warner, like, I'd love to come back here sometime if you ever need anything. I'd be like, damn, that's like a power broker, you know? And he'd be like, by the way, actually, we need a DJ for a movie that we're in, could definitely get you paid well. And I'm like, bet, I will text you and you will get back into the nightclub next week. Yes. And if you watch The Haunting of Molly Hartley, some like weird horror movie, there's a party scene that I got paid like $5,000 to DJ in for one night when $5,000 $100,000 was like an insane amount of money. Wow. You know, and so I think for me, what music was able to provide was like a path for a low status person to create something or create something of value or something that was scarce that people of high status wanted and the ability to transact. That would be like a really, like really kind of like crass way to view it. But I think that was increasingly important. I also said like getting a job at Spotify early, like being able to get people in North America Spotify, that was really be cool. Yep. Yep. You know, like Lewis Hamilton or whomever, like one of Spotify's like, bet, bro. I got you. Thanks, man. If you ever need anything, it's like, honestly, like I might. I think that's probably a pro tip for anyone out there that's looking to, you know, do things. It's like figure out places where you can create leverage and provide access to people that are of high status or high power. And you can call in favors when the time is right and skip steps.

This is, I'm sure, a can of worms. We don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but I found myself sort wondering, I don't know, I worked at UMG 10 years ago or longer, like if this sort of like music just sort of feels like it's at least with the internet structurally wants to be free more than maybe any other medium. And so I guess if that's true, is there a business model for music? Like, is it just real-world scarcity? Is it patronage? Like, do you, one, I guess, do you agree with that at all? And like, two, if so, does it tie into some of this other speculation stuff you're thinking about? Do you have any idea?

Definitely. I think it is interesting, like music, maybe more than anything else.

I think I wonder, I always wonder if that was like a function of file size because it seems like to me it's always, it's less about file size is obviously a huge part of it, but it's more that, um, like you, you hear a song once, you're not like, I'm good. You're like, I want to hear it more. Like you actually need, before you like it, you need to hear it 5 times. Good point. When you watch a movie, you're like, I saw it. I'm good. So it has a little bit more like, oh, you should have to pay $20 to see at once. Yeah. Music, listening to a song is a way to build fandom with the artist. Yeah.

You know, obviously I wrestled with this for a long time. I would say immediately, it's not clear to me that there's a business model that makes sense for selling music. I think one thing that's been great for Soft is we've built a fan base that deeply cares about music and they buy our stuff on Bandcamp and it's far more than I ever could have imagined through Bandcamp. Again, it's not, I can't live in this home on Bandcamp. But I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that. I think what is starting to emerge is that if you can build universes, there's lots of opportunity to sell things. Yes. And I think the brightest of the bunch understand that. Yeah. Whether they're capable of doing it is a whole nother task because it's, it's taxing. It's not what you love. It can be really hard. And so what I I think was most impressive about Charlie in that brat moment, she's so smart. She's so, so, so smart. Has always been so smart. And I think recognized the game on the field and was able to commit and do the thing. And, you know, we're not— when I see her, it's daps and highs. We're not close. But when I see her do, like, you know, big television adverse or converse things, I'm like, get it. You know what I mean? Like, you probably had to sacrifice a lot of emotional discomfort to commit to this bit and this story and this world that you building when you're just a really gifted songwriter. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, this is— I mean, in a much smaller level, this is even just the artists who love to make music and don't want to tour. Totally.

Yeah. And, and I think I've always tried to be a realist about this and told a story to musicians about when I was 16 playing in a hardcore band and there were two drummers and one had a car and we were like, he's the worst drummer but he's got a fucking car, you know. Like, we can go play shows other places. Basses. So he's the drummer.

A lot of life that's like that.

Yeah. And so in some respects, it's like, yeah, if you want to play shows, you got to have a car. If you want to be a famous musician, you got to make the fucking TikToks of Nuggies.

I got a handful of miscellaneous things before we wrap up. Okay. First, from our friend Alex Ng, he asked— I asked him what I should talk to you about. His question was, is there any point where culture actually prices into tech in business, like in this real way beyond just narrative and marketing? Like, is it actually become a core business driver? Maybe it's some of the stuff you're thinking about, but—

It's a tough one for me. I think the immediate answer for me is like, I don't know, you know? But I understand that I probably think about culture in different terms. And so my friend Julie Young, who's brilliant, Cheers. I think understands culture more than almost anyone. I don't think she would ever describe herself as someone, but is so adept at identifying things that matter, like OMG LOL dolls, you know, and like those blind boxes, like, you know, like she was so good at identifying that. And so I think in that Silicon Valley will be able to weaponize the young girl to shape like meaningfully meaningful societal change in the way that Holly Hollywood's been able to. I think there's a path there. It's still not clear to me that Hollywood has been able to make, or it's like, have I been able to actually shift from the kind of like early adopter crossing the chasm model of technology and like software adoption? I do see really intelligent investors thinking about that and trying to go downstream and shape the hearts and minds of really, you know, young people, especially young women, and then having that work upstream. For now, I still see like, go identify early adopters and then, you know, work upstream. And so I'm I'm not a buyer holistically of that just yet, but I imagine I have blind spots because I am somewhat of a fucking hater as well and probably refuse to see some of these things people are acknowledging.

I promise this is not a gotcha. Okay. Um, you once described your involvement with him as Kanye collected me for like 3 months, and then you also said he's the greatest of my time, he's a genius, I will ride with Ye forever.

Yeah, I mean, it's tough, but yeah.

What, maybe especially up close since you got to experience it, like what was so magical? What is so magical about that guy?

I think what was, I'll say it was magical for me and what is so magical about him, maybe more broadly, but, and it'll be a little bit of story time. Um, I got a text message from a big venture capitalist that said like, hey, Kanye's doing some investing, told him about you, he really wants to meet you, it's okay if I give him your phone number. And I'm driving to the Beverly Hills Hotel, the counter downstairs, honestly the spot, to try to like win back my ex-girlfriend at the time, who was kind of with me through the startup thing. And you can understand how partners who are dealing with people running startups can be miserable, was like, I'm not into it. I don't want to date this version of who you are. And I'm like, yeah, cool. I go to breakfast. And by this, you know, blessings of the Lord above, I'm like, hey, this is insane. I'm sorry, but Kanye's texting me. And he says he wants to meet right now. Like, would you be down to hang with Kanye? And I guess for added color, it was right after like the MAGA moment. So there was the kind of first break of like Kanye, she was like, yeah, of course. And so I'm texting Kanye, he's like, I want to meet right now. Like, are you in LA? He's like, yeah, I'm in Calabasas. Where are you? I'm like, I'm at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He's like, cool, I'll be there in 30. And I came to you. Yeah. And I was like, oh, uh, and we're sitting, we finish our meal. I get a text. I'm out front, silver Tesla. I'm like, cool. I told him I'm with, you know, my ex-girlfriend. Friend. It's like, great. We climb into the back seat of the Tesla and like kind of dap him over the top. And so there's a friend in the front seat. And what we started to reveal is that like what I love about Ye is that he's like a 13-year-old boy who's so curious and so excited. And he was so excited to meet me. It was bizarre, you know, where he's like, hey, uh, uh, uh, like, you know, I'm just like excited to hang out with you. You know, like we can do whatever you want. If you want We can go to Venice. I think he thought like tech people like Venice, you know? And I was like, I was like, oh, I don't, I don't need to go to Venice. He's like, oh, we can do whatever. Like, uh, like, yeah, we can go, we can go wherever. He's like, maybe we should go for a drive. And we start driving and we get on the 405 and he's like, uh, if you want, we can go to like Calabasas, you know? And I was like, oh, okay, cool. You know? And we're just talking. And, uh, my girlfriend at the time was in urban planning and an architect. And he's like, you're an architect. I love architects. We started talking about that stuff and we're both geeking out. And he's like, we should get you to work on some stuff. And I'm telling him about Bred. And he's like, Kim just invested in some nuclear stuff. I want to be investing. And it was infectious. You know, we went to the studio and he played me a bunch of the record with him and Cudi and we talked about it. And, you know, his homies were there challenging him about the MAGA hat while he was there, like very transparent. But, you know, we, we went to sit down and I had been wearing these Vivo barefoot shoes that I was obsessed with. I'm still very into. And he was like, what are those? And I was like, these barefoot shoes, I really fuck with them. And he effectively went on this like anti-nostalgia rant, which is one of my rants. Yes. You know, and I have my ex who's seen me give that rant a million times. He was like, I love to be on some new shit. Like, I get so tired of seeing these fucking same old like clones of Forces or whatever. And she just looks at me and she's like, you guys deserve each other. You guys deserve each other, you know. And I think what I, you know, what was so special about Ye was that boy-like energy. And I watched him meet Tyler, the creator, and like tremble, you know, in this moment Tyler's not Tyler who's won Grammys. Tyler is like this kid with a kind of cool thing. And he's like shaking, you know, asking him questions, like really in awe. And it's like, you're the guy. Wow. You are Kanye. And this is just Tyler, but like, and he approaches so many people that way. And he's so curious, so funny, so, so, so funny. And, you know, at the time he had bought all this property in Calabasas and wanted to build a new Rome. And, you know, it was like, you can be the tech guy, the clothing guy, the tech guy. And we flew to Italy to meet up with Vanessa Beecroft. And like, you know, I'm like an insane Kanye fan. And we're, we're at the, you know, the, the kind of private terminal at LAX and like getting carted onto the plane, you know, and like, we're flying whatever it is, 10 hours next to each other. And he's showing me stuff and we're talking, I'm giving him ideas. And I, and the thing I remember most about Kanye was like, I've always had ideas that are just crazy. Like you can't, you can't say them out loud. Yeah. You know, cause they're not feasible. And with Kanye, it was this constant process of like having an idea. And then, like, that's not something like Kanye would want to hear that. And I remember we were sitting at Axel Verboort's castle in, in Belgium with Vanessa Beecroft and Tremaine and a bunch of other people that he wanted to be like a part of like this new Rome and like build this world. And they're going through the designs of what the, the property could be like and talking about it. And it's up against the mountain and there's like air strip there, and they're showing me that, and it's up against the mountain. And I remember like the X-Men in the cartoon, you know, they would take off, a mountain would like open up and the Blackbird would like come out or whatever it was. And I was like, that'd be sick if the plane came out of the mountain. And I was like, I can't say that. And I was like, Kanye would want to hear that. And I was like, damn Kanye, what if like the air strip came out of the mountain? And he was like, we got to do that. Out of the mountain. And like, the architect is just like looking at me and it's like, we're not gonna get the rights to like have the plane come out of the mountain. And he's like, I'll call Donnie, you know, I'll call Donald, I'll call Donnie, like, we'll figure it out. The plane's coming out of the mountain. And I was like, honestly, rocks. Like, like, it's just cool to be around someone who's like so unafraid to be unabashedly nuts and like safe things and get, you know, an eighth of the way there. Uh, and so there was obviously a ton of other madness. And, you know, while we're sharing all the alpha with Dialectic, and because it's like less precious now, you know, there was a moment where he wanted to like buy Brud and have me run Yeezy. And then, and like, you know, imagine going to Sequoia Capital and be like, so here's the thing, how do you feel about Kanye West to exit. Like, what is the company? I'm like, it's an LLC. He owns 100%. Yeah. So it was, it was amazing, you know? And then, and like, like, it was all incredible. Like, Kim was brilliant and so sweet and like, so good with him. And that part was like tough for me. Cause like, we're not homies. Like, you know, I was part of life for a moment and Oxygen didn't go through and we stopped talking and 4 phone numbers later, like, you know, we didn't talk, but like, you know, it was, it was really incredible to watch Kim with him and the kids. And I think all of it was like inspirational in a lot of interesting ways. Cause I think he's, you know, I can be quite complicated and he's complicated in a more extreme way, but in similar ways. And it was, it was interesting to see what worked for what he had built around himself and what didn't.

What an amazing thing to be someone who inspires other people to say they're crazy crazy ideas.

Yeah, like a blessing. It really was super, super special.

Do you— if you could say anything to him, do you have— maybe you don't need to say it on, on the podcast, but I'm curious what— or even just like having watched the last few years, like, do you have any sense of what happened?

I— to me It's a lot of the things are Kanye is so good at intuiting what matters and where there is strife or where there are problems, where there are things to be addressed. He's not very articulate verbally. And I think people struggle with that because you got to hear a whole like kind of like rant for 30 minutes. And when you dig through it, you're like, whoa, actually that was really brilliant. But it's tough to parse. And in parallel, that boyish, like, wonder is a surface area for attack. Yeah. And I think there are people around him with good intentions. I think Rick Rubin was probably someone who, in a very unpopular time, had more libertarian beliefs in the music business. Um, and I think when people see like Rick and Tyler Cowen do a podcast or something, they're like, that's crazy. And I'm like, I don't think it's that fucking crazy. If, you know, if you've been to Malibu, there are a lot of people who are kind of like hippies who, who lean more libertarian than they do like classic, like, you know, civil, like, lib or something. And I think my read was that someone like Rick was able to show him what ideas are really important to Kanye to Ye. And, you know, Ye's boyish, like, wonder and curiosity was met with people that were able to exploit it for other means. And it's a trade-off, right? Because it's what makes him so special is this kind of like this ability to absorb and be deeply curious and to take things at face value and be kind of childlike. But I think it also has cost him a lot of pain. And I think that's like hard to watch. Yeah, it's tough because some part of me doesn't want to say that because it kind of gives, it makes me a Kanye apologist and he's an adult. But I also, just spending time with him, are aware of how impressionable he is. And that's kind of tough to watch. And that's like a, I think that's like a really hard thing to rock for people. Someone that can be so influential, so powerful, so wealthy, so, you know, someone with so much bravado and confidence can also be someone who will take something at face value from someone, you know, as someone who's like Tyler, the Creator at the moment was like so much smaller than he was, right? But he recognizes the kind of, you know, the aura has kind of been perverted by the internet, the aura of someone like he can kind of see you for who you can be and what you are and what you're bringing the world, not what you are. And I think that's, uh, that combined with the boyishness capabilities, uh, it can be a dangerous combo.

Yeah, it's interesting. The— when you first started talking about it, some of this, obviously a lot is clearly different, but the other person who obviously Kanye knew who has a boyishness that can be really frustrating to me but also manifests so amazingly is Elon. It's interesting that There's some, yeah. Um, I think a pair of separate, uh, ideas from you. One, you say a whole generation has come of age not knowing real criticism. I think that was a random tweet. And then computers are creation machines. iPads are consumption machines. When you think about the next generation, are you worried? Are you hopeful? Are you concerned? What are you most concerned about?

I am like long humanity. And so I think we'll figure it out and we'll be fine. It's funny, I like randomly delete so many tweets. I'm like, yeah, you found a lot of these ones.

There were a lot that were deleted. Yeah, I'm like, respect.

Uh, yeah, I'm not holding you to it either. No, no, I lifted the consumption one from some book I was reading and I think more or less said that. I really do believe that. Like, I would love for my child to spend time at a computer hacking at stuff, trying to make things versus like passively engage consuming something. I'm really not that worried. If anything, I'm like very inspired. Yeah. I think the kind of like making sense of Gen Z has been beaten into the ground. Gen Alpha, there's an artist named Tu Hollis. Yeah. And his mother Catherine is someone I've known for a very long time. And her other son is in a hardcore band called Start Today that I love. And when I look at Tu Hollis and I see what he's built, it's incredible. And I look at his Instagram and he's posting on Maine, pictures of him looking incredible with a song by Seven Angels, Seven Plagues, which is this like deep cut hardcore band from Milwaukee, I believe, that I was into when I was, you know, 15. I'm like, man, there are still people that are deeply curious and it is being rewarded. And I think that's fantastic. Both of them, by the way, both of them are kids. Start Today, Andrew Hollis, check him out.

I know of, uh, To All loss from Drew, but I, it's crazy when you, when both your kids are, are that there's something, mom's pretty cool. Yeah. Uh, maybe I guess on a slightly related note, but like on the optimism, there's something happening around the populist stuff. Obviously Zoran lately, like you're this weird sort of anomaly for so many reasons, including like sort of techno-capitalist, sort of anarchist. I know you were a big Bernie guy. AI, like, any views on like what's happening and where that's going?

I mean, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes. Uh, no, because it just feels like it's a, it's a status quo. Like, people who are comfortable with the status quo and people that aren't, you know. I think people can, can cut that and put that a million different ways, but to me, like, the Mondani thing is not that dissimilar from, you know, any populist thing. It's like anyone, like, you know, watching March Marjorie Taylor Greene say things she's saying in the last 2 weeks, you're like, and people resonate. It's like, yeah, people are frustrated. And I think that's the hard part with me, kind of like mainstream DNC politics is like people are very comfortable and they've had very good outcomes from the way things are, but most people aren't. Yeah. And, and I, I really struggle with that. I, yeah. And that's a whole other rant about growing up in Iowa, what most of my peers are doing and have multiple friends' parents kill themselves. Post-NAFTA, you know, we had Oscar Mayer plant, Alcoa plant, a John Deere plant. And when those plants left, or some of them did rather, like, the hurt was so palpable. People who were making $100 grand a year, $70 grand a year, and could provide for their children in unimaginable ways, all of a sudden couldn't get a job at 7-Eleven. And I remember that feeling. And actually, you know, funny enough, like the first time I used Claude 3.5, I felt I felt that feeling where I was like, oh my God, this is going to displace a lot of people who move cymbals on screen. And what white collar NAFTA could look like to me is still really scary. And hopefully people smarter than I are trying to figure out how to mitigate some of those pains.

Conversely, we talked about this at the beginning, and there's lots of potential black pills, you continue to lean on optimism. Why?

I think I'm just a believer in the human condition. Like, maybe it's silly and quaint, but I believe in us, and I believe in the goodness of us. And I think to lose that is almost worse than death, right? You know? And so I, I would like people— you know, I'm having a child and confident, like, are you going to have children? A lot of people, I don't want to bring kids into this world. And I'm like, you have to bring kids into this world. We need people like you who are good people to create children that have been raised right, that have like the right moral compass that are going to go and like make this place better. And of course, everyone's got their own beliefs. I don't want to push them on anyone, but like anyone out there who's morally righteous and a virtuous person, like crank them out. We need good ones, good little ones, fighting the good fight.

There's a really old— I think on like an old blog, like young skeeter blog— you say, the only peaceful constraints I've known in this world are music and friendships that allow for freedom. Damn. Uh, what did you mean? And any reflections on— do you even remember what you meant?

I definitely don't, but I also know— it's so funny, it's like that blog, it was like such a great outlet for me for such a long time. But I do think, you know, yeah, I felt so much discomfort in my life and music is again, this kind of like divine bridge. You can hear something and feel something. I often joke that like loud music and flashing lights, so simple, so primal.

That's kind of what I was getting at with the high and the low, right?

Yeah, the monkey in me is I was just like, wow, everything is fine. And good friendship, I think because of the circumstances of my upbringing and my kind of kooky family, I have been able to build different familial units. I'm always reminded around Thanksgiving, like my Friendsgivings have been the most important things in my life. And I just feel this, what a blessing And there's, um, I think it's like a DJ Boring song where he samples Bob Geldof. And Bob Geldof, you know, a popular figure, Live Aid, I believe, was the event he did back in the day, like help Africa, one of those big, like, get all the musicians together to do things. And as I understand the story, his wife was an MTV presenter. She interviewed the lead singer of INXS, this band. Anyway, they fell in love. He was a heroin addict. Bob had two daughters with this woman. She ends up overdosing. Lee Singer of INXS, you know, accidentally hangs himself. And later on in life, Bob's daughter Peaches, who I knew a little bit from just like partying in LA, also tragically passes. And he's sampled in the song talking about grief. And he's talking about grief and he's talking about life and he's talking about, you know, just more or less being on holiday with his family and like looking out from a dinner table and seeing his like grandkids and his kids dance and like that being all that matters, you know? And it's incredibly poignant, but like, for whatever reason that met me at the right time in my life. And it was like, that's, it is all that matters. I mean, it's like being a post-Hoffman me where like in my startup days, my like, you know, best friend Harley would be like, you want to get get coffee at 1 on a Tuesday? And I'd be like, no, I have work. But now I'm like, yeah, let's get a coffee. And like, I can get back to this thing later tonight or whatever it is. Like, spending time with loved ones is really important, so make time to do it. And again, so obvious, but took me a while to get there.

You brought it up a few times, you're having a child. Uh, how do you hope to be changed?

Gosh, in so many ways I can't even imagine. Already we were ultrasound, and they were showing, they're like, you know, showing parts of my son. And they kind of quickly move over his brain. And this thought of like, that's the brain, you have to protect the brain. It was like this primal thing where I was like, I gotta protect the brain. I've got to protect that thing's brain. And I'm really excited to be blindsided by those things. You know, there's the obvious stuff like, you know, I'll never get to experience ice cream again for the first time. I get to do it with like, and that's gonna rock to be like, wow, ice cream. Welcome to fucking ice cream, dog. Like there's so many cool ice creams for you to enjoy. Um, that's going to be great. Uh, other than that, I'm just kind of excited to be blindsided by the whole thing. I just know I can plan all I want. I just know I will say while we're sharing nuggets of wisdom on this thing, I go to this conference that I love and I always go, it's kind of an unconference. You sit around talk about cool stuff. But I go to the dad session every year. They let me go for like close to a decade now. And one year a gentleman was talking and he was like, how many of you think that you're a better parent, a better father than your father was? And a bunch of hands raised, a bunch of hands didn't raise. And they're like, how many of the hands raised have kids that are older than 18? And they all put their hands down. And they were like, yeah, like when my kids were 7, 8, 9, 10, I was 100% better father. By the time they're like 22, I was like, I don't I don't know, actually. And what the person who brought this up highlighted, he was like, everyone in this room, you're like world beaters. You're doing incredible things, impossible things. You make the world bend to your will. And he said, the thing I think is important for all of you, the younger parents, is that like, parenting isn't carpentry, it's gardening. And like, you may want this thing to be an oak tree, but it's a lemon tree. And you just got to make it the best lemon tree it can be. And I was like, wow, that felt really— so I've just tried to sit with that. And be like, you know, it's easy to have expectations of what my boy can be. And he's in the 95th percentile right now. So I'm like, we got a chance of the league, you know, do what you couldn't do. You do what I couldn't do. But again, if he wants to be, you know, God forbid, an artist, can do that too.

One last thing, uh, you actually mentioned it. I didn't know it was going to be a layup, The Man Project, but there's an old email of yours that I followed the link on, and there's a domain called actuallycerulean.com. The language on the, on the website is just this: okay, I see you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. Some people obviously know the reference, but what does that mean to you?

It's a quote from The Devil Wears Prada, which is, you know, one of my favorite films. But to me, I think it, it like reflects the sentiment I've probably brought up far too much in this podcast, that there are people that introduce important ideas into the world and they can be discounted and they can be made to feel small or unimportant. And I would much prefer a world that celebrated cerulean because it's not just blue. It's actually cerulean.

Trevor, thank you. Thank you very much, Jackson.

This was great. Yeah, pleasure.

Thanks for listening. I'd like to thank Notion again for presenting Dialectic and for being such an amazing partner as I explore and interrogate the wonderful, craftful, soulful people that I get to talk to who you are on the show. One thing that was exciting this past week, and I'll share the link on Instagram, I did a little feature with Notion where they asked me a handful of questions about how I'm thinking about 2026, what my goals are, what my process is, advice I have for creative people. I'll give you a hint. It's, as it took me too long to figure out, listen to yourself and then just start. And even how I'm using Notion as I create Dialectic. I'll link that in the description. Thanks again to Notion and thank you. I will see you next time.