Digital Social Hour - Unlocking AI Superpowers for Entrepreneurs | Zach Wilson DSH #1267

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Unlocking AI superpowers for entrepreneurs has never been this exciting! 🚀 In this episode of the Digital Social Hour Podcast, Sean Kelly sits down with tech expert and entrepreneur Zach Wilson to explore the incredible power of AI and data in revolutionizing businesses. From building digital twins and leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT to scaling productivity and creating impactful personal brands, this conversation is packed with valuable insights you can’t afford to miss. 💡 Zach shares his journey, from working at major tech giants like Netflix and Facebook to launching his own company, Data Expert. He dives into the importance of high-quality data engineering, the future of AI, and how entrepreneurs can harness these technologies to gain a competitive edge. 🌟 Whether you're looking to stay ahead in the tech-driven world or simply curious about the latest AI trends, this episode is for you! Tune in now to learn how to unlock your entrepreneurial potential with AI. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🔥 Don’t miss out—join the conversation today! 🗣️ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:28 - Yearly Focus and Goals 00:49 - Importance of Data Analytics 02:24 - Apple's AI Update Overview 03:55 - Creating a Digital Twin 05:00 - Sponsored by Kinsta 06:50 - LinkedIn Strategy Insights 07:53 - Salary Growth: From 30k to 600k 09:17 - AI's Impact on Job Market 10:37 - Companies Adapting to OpenAI 12:48 - Overview of Meta’s LAMA Model 13:32 - Daniel's Opinion on Zuckerberg (2018) 16:49 - Anticipating Netflix's Success 20:49 - Recent 10-Month Journey 23:59 - Benefits of Taking a Year Off 24:35 - Netflix Severance Package Explained 28:37 - OpenAI vs Elon Musk Discussion 30:35 - Twitter's Current Landscape 34:00 - Decline of Clubhouse 36:34 - Netflix Options Surge 38:27 - Airbnb's IPO Stock Crash 41:19 - If You Could Be Any Animal 42:00 - Entrepreneurial Aspirations 43:10 - ADHD as a Superpower 49:51 - Following Zach's Journey 49:59 - Data Expert Academy Overview 50:13 - Farewell and Goodbye APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Zach Wilson https://www.instagram.com/eczachly https://www.dataexpert.io/ SPONSORS: KINSTA:  https://kinsta.com/dsh LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ #aiautomationagency #aiautomation #aicopywriting #ainews #dataengineer

He's done a lot of good for Twitter over the last couple years. Like, I know, I mean, that's a very hot take for a lot of people in San Francisco. But like, I know that like it's where the free speech and the AI that he's doing, he's deployed so many AIs there. Because like, I know, I remember 2019, 2020 Twitter, like so many bot. 2020 Twitter like so many bot All right guys, Zach Wilson here one of the smartest guests I think I've ever had on thanks for joining us. Awesome. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah. What's been your main focus this year so far? Just building out my company a data expert and just trying to teach the world about data and

AI because AI is coming quick. It's coming really fast. It's gonna be way faster than we think. Yeah. Yeah. I think people know AI is coming. I'm curious coming really fast. It's going to be way faster than we think. Yeah. Yeah. I think people know AI is coming. I'm sure it's about data though. What's important with data? So one of the things that people forget about with AI is that AI is only as good as the data that you feed it because it's all about the knowledge that is fed into the AI is what makes the AI smart. And so there's this underlying layer that is less sexy than AI. It's called data engineering, which is this layer of building out high quality,

valuable data sets that then are fed into AI that then allow them to be smarter and make better decisions. And I think that that's, it's kind of the whole, you gotta walk before you run sort of mentality. And that's, a lot of companies get this layer very wrong. Right, even the best ones, because I've been on chat GPT and it'll have the wrong source

and then the answer comes out kind of wrong, you know? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And there's a lot of other interesting techniques that you can do to like ground chat GPT and if you have other data that you want to bring in this thing called RAG, Retrieval Augmented Generation, which is a way of bringing in your own local data to allow chat GPT to not hallucinate as much because it's a very chat GPT is actually just pulls in the entire internet. And I don't know if you know, but not everything on the internet is true. There's a lot of things on the internet that is very like kind of sketchy and it kind of just pulls it all in and we're at the mercy of whatever those engineers decided that was quality and what they picked and what they didn't pick like as they were like scraping the internet.

Right. And so like and that's where you can have other engineers kind of build on top of chat GPT with your own high quality data that allows it to hallucinate a lot less. That makes sense. Yeah. Have you seen Apple's new AI update? Um, I have not I don't think so Okay, basically, um when you open your text now, it summarizes it for you. Oh, that's amazing Yeah, like it's there's gonna be so many cool like productivity changes I've I mean I use chat GPT and Gemini and all the stuff just if you're not using these things like you're falling behind right because it's like, I've been noticing that even in my own life, like when I'm like coding or building stuff, like I'm still hesitant

to like give the control to the AI because I'm like, I know what I'm doing, I don't need any AI, but then I know if I let the AI do it, wow, I get 30 minutes back now and I can do something else like, or I can go have fun, right? And enjoy my life more Instagram has a eyes that talk to people now. Yeah, so exciting. It's crazy Yeah, some people get a lot of messages and they can't answer everyone

Oh, yeah And that's that's gonna be a much better option than like many chat because I've been using many chat many chats decent But it's very like algorithmic and it feels very like body right? Yeah at all, right? And so if you have something that's a little more AI has and especially if you can train on Your and can learn who you are as a person so then it kind of can it talks back to the the user and the fan kind of like as you that would be Yeah, it's it's gonna be very amazing to see what happens with like a personal brands cuz now like you can kind of scale yourself

Right, you can literally make clones of yourself to talk to thousands of people at the same time on like a one-on-one again. That is something that is That is one of the most exciting parts of our time for sure have you made a digital twin yet of yourself Oh, yeah, I mean I've done that like with in my in my courses. We actually go over that That's actually one of the big things I do when I teach AI is teaching them how to build Zach GPT, which is where we build an AI that has all the transcripts

from all my videos and all my LinkedIn posts and just consume all of that data and then build an AI on top of that. And then it can like, it's scary how good it is. It's scary. I'm like, when I talk to him, I'm like, wait, that's me. But I'm me. Like.

That's what Spiderman means. Yeah, right? It is, exactly. Dude, that's scary. I'm like when I talked about Mike, wait, that's me and I'm me How accurate are the answers like Especially if it's gonna be something that I've talked about and since I've made like 5,000 posts on LinkedIn that's where that's why content creators are So far ahead in this AI world because they have created so much high quality information that you can just pull from. I mean, that's one of the things, you're in an amazing position here too

of all these like recordings of all these really amazing people. Like you'd be able to synthesize all of that. And like, there's gonna be a lot of applicants. Hey guys, shout out to today's sponsor Kinsta. Running an online business is already a challenge. Your website hosting shouldn't make it harder, and I've been there, dealing with slow load times, confusing dashboards, and unreliable support.

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Just visit Kinsta.com slash DSH to get started. That's K-I-N-S-T-A dot com slash DSH. Cations, right? Yeah, that'd be cool. I've had AI companies offer just to buy my raw data to train their AI models. Oh yeah, yeah. They're gonna try to do podcast AIs.

Yeah, I think Google already has one, right? Oh yeah, they have that where you can turn, you can turn a document into a podcast. Like it goes the other way around, right right where it's not like podcast the document but you can actually turn a document into a conversation. When I saw that I was like what is going on like why do we need this though right? To be fair some people have different learning styles so to learn auditorially they can retain it more than just reading a document.

Definitely. I could see some use case for that retain it more than just reading a document. Definitely. I could see some use case for that. But man, those podcasts are sound super accurate. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy times. Why do you choose to focus on LinkedIn out of every social media

platform? Part of it is I started on LinkedIn like four or five years ago when I was working at Airbnb. And part of it is I had an unfair advantage on LinkedIn because I worked at Facebook, Netflix, Airbnb.

And if you just say that on LinkedIn, like you just get tons more views, right? Because it's just, it's unfair. It's just how it works. Especially if you work at Fang, right? Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, those five, right? Then like you have just, everyone's like this, whatever this guy says is correct, right? And there's like this unfair advantage that you get on that platform versus other platforms. And so, and then I just got into the habit of like, in the morning when I'd go to work at Airbnb, I would go and write my paragraph on LinkedIn.

And then after a while, like I noticed, I was like, whoa, this is snowballing. I'm getting hundreds of thousands of followers. And I'm like, then it got to a point where I'm like, I don't think I need to work at Airbnb anymore. I think I can just do this content full time now, cause it's very, uh, I can see the potential and see the momentum.

Yeah. And prior to that you were, so your first job was 30 K a year, right? Yeah. And you went all the way up to 600 K a year. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. That was in, uh, so that was 30 K in 2014 and then, um, 600 K in 2021 in seven years. Dude, that's insane. Yeah, that was in so that was 30k in 2014 and then 600k in 2021 in seven years.

That's insane. Yeah, I did not know jobs were paying 600k a year, if we're being honest. Yeah. And that's keeping in mind that this is not a VIP position or a director position or a manager position. No, I didn't. I had no reports. No, no one under me. Right. This is me making $600,000 a year writing code, right? And writing code and producing a lot of architecture designs and stuff to further the technical vision of Airbnb and Netflix. But yeah, it was no managers though. That's nuts. Does that still exist or is AI going to replace that? Oh yeah, no, those roles are going are going I actually think that those tools are actually going to become even more prevalent

Really because there's a side of it that's like well if I am a technical person who knows how to do architecture and vision and Concepts one of the things that I am slowed down by is just I can only write so much code in a given day, right? That's just that's a it's a fundamental thing I can only type as much as I can possibly type. And so that's where AI is going to kind of like, if you can kind of fill out all of the bigger picture things like this database, this piece, this piece,

AI can kind of fill in the middle pieces. This is one of the things I noticed when I quit my job and I've been building a data expert over the last year or two is, when I'm writing the platform, it feels like I have five hands or six hands where I'm like, well, okay, I just have come up with the architecture and then the actual implementation, just let ChatGPT do it. And then it makes it so that all I have to do is come up with the design.

And that is, and I think that's where AI is going. So AI is going to replace some of these technical jobs, though, for sure. It's not like there's no disruption here. It's especially this is where there's a lot of people on LinkedIn are talking about. This is like the death of the junior engineer. Because AI is going to take a lot of these junior roles, like the people who are like trying to get into the field now. It is very difficult.

It's very difficult to get like a junior entry level role in tech right now because of AI and you're competing with these roles. But it's complicated, though, because it's like, well, what do we do when all the senior engineers die? Because it's like we have to have juniors now to replace them later. But like I think that the senior if you're a senior engineer or a staff engineer, there's never been a better time to be in tech. Yeah, as long as you can embrace using AI Yeah, yeah for sure You have to embrace using AI to like give yourself those superpowers, but you should be actually able to make substantially more money

Hmm. That's good. Do you see any companies catching open AI catching up to them? Oh, yes There's I oh a bunch of them. I think there's, well, Anthropix, close with Claude. I alternate between those two, between Claude and OpenAI. Those are very close. Then there's also the Chinese guys, DeepSeek. They did some crazy stuff, where they pulled. But DeepSeek showed was that any company that releases a model, you could just copy it.

You could just copy it. And then you can essentially steal their model. And that's why OpenAI was like, it was comical what OpenAI was said though, because they were like, DeepSeek, you stole our model from the data that we stole from everybody else. Right? And it's like kind of like, it's very comical, like how all of this is playing out because, you know, OpenAI kind of infringed on a lot of copyright, right? They stole so many things from the internet that were legally allowed to take, right? But it's like, it's very hard for like, you know, us to sue, like an individual content

creator trying to sue OpenAI, like very difficult, right? So yeah, but I think that that's one place. I think another important thing is I think we get caught up in this battle of these big companies. But another place is that small companies who have who build their own local models. That is a different way because another thing to think about is a lot of people don't use open AI because of privacy. They're not going to,

they're not just going to ship all their data to OpenAI and be like, hey, sorry. And so what they want to do is build their own models. This is where Meta is. I rage quit Facebook in 2018 because I actually did not agree with Mark Zuckerberg's leadership. Now I actually think that Zuckerberg is doing a lot of really good. The stuff he's doing with Metta, the stuff he's doing with Lama, the Lama models, because the Lama models are like essentially what OpenAI should be. Because OpenAI is like, no, we're not going to give you our model. But then the Lama models are like, here's the model.

You can look at all of it. You can go all the way into it. It's very open and transparent. And that's where I really think that Meta is doing a very good job in that space. What's the Llama model exactly? So Llama is gonna be a competitive model with GPT-4. But the thing is, it's completely open source. So you can actually look at what it's trained on

and the weights of the model and how it makes decisions. Because with GPT-4 and these other models, you have to treat it as like a black box. It's kind of magic, right? Where you just put in your prompt and then it gives you something back. But with Llama, you can actually like see what it's doing underneath, right?

Because it's open source. They give you everything that it's doing, right? And that's what Meta is all about, right? And they have two models. They have like a 70 billion parameter one and like a seven billion parameter one, depending on like how smart you need it to be and or how lightweight

you want it to be. Dang, that is crazy. Yeah. Zuck has grown on me. I'm not going to lie. Yeah. I wasn't his biggest fan. Why didn't you like him in 2018? So in 2018, I left Facebook. So I worked there 2016,

2017, 2018. I worked in core growth there, like helping them scale up users. In that period, like we went from 1 billion users to 2 billion users. Damn. Yeah, Facebook was like on the, that was like peak Facebook in some regards. And one of the things that happened though in 2018 was a privacy scandal broke. There's a thing called a Cambridge Analytica. I remember that one. That privacy scandal broke and it was all about like Facebook mishandling data and supplying

way more data than was allowed. Like, it essentially made it so that like if you signed up for an app, you didn't just give your data away. You gave your data and all your friends' data away. That's what it did, right? And that was the crux of the scandal. And that's what allowed the Cambridge Analytica company to harvest like a million. It was like a hundred million accounts or something like that. Right. And, you know, they used that to allow

Trump to win. That was actually a very critical thing for Trump to win in 2016, which is it's an interesting and interesting result from that. Right. But personally, what happened for me was I found that they just didn't care about data privacy. And from my side, as someone working in data there, I like saw all this negative news come in. And then I was looking at what was actually happening on the ground and on the data privacy things that were happening on the ground because Zuck was essentially being like, well, this was the past, right? Because a lot of the profiles and stuff was actually like harvested in like the early 2010s, it was like 2011, 2012.

And Zuck was trying to market it as like, no, this is the past, we're a new Facebook now. And then, you know, but then I'm there looking at what was going on at the company and I'm like, no, I see this problem and this problem and this problem. And there's still a lot of other privacy problems that I see going on right now. And so like I felt like to me that Zuckerberg was straight up just lying to my face. Right. And then it made me feel like I want to go somewhere else. So I left and that's when I left and I actually joined Netflix because I was like, I feel like Facebook was very hated at that time. And I was like, I feel like people don't really hate Netflix.

They might think that the shows suck or whatever, but they don't like hate it. They don't like, they might go, it's boring or like not that good, but no hatred there. And Netflix is an interesting company too. Yeah, that was before they started their originals, right? Yeah, that was right around then was like when I joined and they were they just started making those like big billion dollar investments. Was it chaotic back then? Oh yeah, for sure.

Definitely. Because they weren't making money back then. They were not making money. And then also my second year at Netflix, that's when they Disney Plus came out and people were like, oh, they were like Disney. They were very nervous about what the implications for Disney plus were for the company. And like, yeah, the stock got cut in half, like people were very like anxious. I could tell like about that competition. I know they feel differently now because I feel like they actually kind of crushed it.

Like Netflix has done a very good job. It took them a couple of years there to like find themselves again. But like, yeah, definitely is. They rebounded well. Yeah, for sure for sure yeah now they're probably number one streaming service oh yeah but yeah dominant again for sure did you see that happening um i i was not sure i think for me like what ended up happening for me was i i joined netflix and i learned a very hard lesson at netflix which was that just because you have the technical ability to do a job doesn't mean it's the right job for you. Right? Because Netflix is a crazy company. The way they pay is they say, we're going to pay you your top of personal market, which means if you go and interview at another company, say I go interview at Google and they give me a 30% raise, I can take

the offer back to Netflix and be like, Hey, Netflix, give me a 30% raise and they'll give you a 30% raise. Because they want that because they're like, we're going to pay you as much money as you can possibly make. That's like their whole philosophy. And one of the things when I was there, I was like, this is crazy. And I was really young when I worked there. I was like 24, 25 when I was working at Netflix.

And I loved it. But it was also a lot. Because they pay that much, they also have sky high expectations. It's similar to like, you know, kind of like working at like a hedge fund or like one of those other like, you know, those places that they just expect the moon from you. And I learned that like the thing that I was missing was I didn't actually have the social skills. I didn't have the soft skills necessary to say no to people and put up boundaries. And even though I was able to write a bunch of code and deliver a lot of very good value,

I just got super, super burnt out. And that's one of the things I learned is even if a company is paying you really well and you're learning a lot, sometimes it's still not the right job for you because of like it's going to burn you out. It's going to it's going to be something that like is unsustainable. Right. Was that the first time you experienced burnout? Yeah, for sure. For sure. And that was I did.

This was right before the pandemic. All right. This is like January, February was when I realized I'm like, I don't think Netflix is for me. I think I need to go and do some soul searching. And it was wild because I actually put in my notice and I quit on March 2nd of 2020. And I told my coworkers, I'm like, I'm going to quit my job to travel the world. And then, you know, two weeks later, the world was like, no, you're not. No, you're not. You're not. You're not traveling the world. We're going to shut the world down. And I was like, what? I didn't think No, you're not. You're not traveling the world. We're gonna shut the world down.

And I was like, what? I didn't think that that was even possible, but all right. Like freaking crazy. Talk about bad timing. Right, oh yeah, terrible timing. Right? So you got stuck somewhere?

Yeah, I was in Puerto Rico, actually. I got stuck in Puerto Rico for like a couple months because I could have left, but there was no flights out. The only way to get back to the mainland US is by taking a boat You take a boat right and I was like I was like, uh, I'll just stay in paradise. I'll just stay here Right. Yeah, it's hard to be Puerto Rico. All right. Oh, it was great I just like swam in the ocean every day and just like it was weird though

Cuz Puerto Rico locked down really hard and like they like they like banned the forest you couldn't go to really forest like and like they like banned the forest. You couldn't go to forest like and like they were and they're like they early in the pandemic like if your license plate ended in an odd number then you could drive Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And if it ended in even number you could do Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and then everyone could drive on Sundays. And like I'm like I didn't think I don't know of anywhere else that did that. Right. They were like, you know, you can only drive half of the days.

Right. It's like and they would pull you over and give you a ticket. I got a ticket for having an even numbered license plate on a Tuesday. Right. And I was like, I'm like, I'm like, I was like, this is the most arbitrary bullshit I have ever seen in my life. For sure. What does it say on the ticket? Right. It was like a fifty dollar ticket for it was violating pandemic like procedures and lockdown procedures. Wow. At least it's only $50.

Yeah, it was only $50. I just got a $680 for speeding. Yeah, right. I was like, how much are tickets these days? Yeah, right. Dude, $680? $680 is a lot. I would wreck a lot of normal people, right?

100%. Like if you're making like minimum wage, that would. Yeah, that's like your whole paycheck. That's not cool, man. Yeah. Man. So you live in Puerto Rico though. I did for three months. Yeah Oh, yeah from like it was like March to June Yeah, would you spend the last ten months cuz you took a year off I took a year off and then I came back and then I got a dog

That dog is very special to me. She's actually like my logo and my brand and everything love it. And so we did She's actually like my logo and my brand and everything. I love it. And so we did because I still wanted to travel. And so I saw I took that dog to every national park in the West. So I did everything in Utah, Arizona, like Glacier, Olympic, Redwoods, like everything. And that took I was like a three month like thing. And then I came back to San Francisco and got really stressed about the 2020 election. I feel like it's interesting because my whole life has shifted because back then I feel

like I was very, very, very nervous about Trump getting reelected. I was super nervous about it. And this time around, right, in 2024, I didn't care. I didn't care. I voted third party. I didn't vote for either of them. I just didn't care. But in 2020, I was very nervous and I was like, we got to get Biden in. We got to get Biden in. This is freaking really nervous, really nervous. It's interesting to see how, like, that year, like, media had just a foothold with everybody. It had it did a very good job at making people scared. Oh, yeah. And and and now I'm like, I don't even really care. It's like I'm like, whose president doesn't matter that much to me anymore.

Right. And but like back then, that was the only thing I could think about, especially like September, October, November of 2020. That was the only thing I thought about. And like after that, I was like, well, and then in December, my girlfriend at the time was like, Zach, you got to do something with your life. You can't just like be just chilling. Right. And she's like, and because the other thing I was trying to do during that period was I was just playing a lot of Call of Duty Warzone.

And just like because I wanted to be like a pro Warzone player. I had a dream as a kid I played a lot of halo halo was my game and I wanted to be like a professional Halo player and then I saw war zone as like the new thing and I Got like over a hundred wins in warzone. Okay, it was a lot. It was grinded it out. Yeah, and but like I went to a couple tournaments Lost every time. Got wrecked. And I was like, OK, there's there's always some like 16 year old Asian kid who just wants it more than I do.

And then in December, my girlfriend is like, I'm breaking up with you. Like, you're not going to be a professional gamer. And I was like, whoa, damn, right. And then that's when I started making content. She broke up because you were addicted to video games? Yeah, addicted to video games. And just in a very negative headspace about the election, I was like too very negatively obsessed about that. Wow. And then that's when I was like, oh, wow, I need to like go get another job.

And I started to make content. That's when I started in December of 2020, it was when I started making content on LinkedIn. And then in January was when I got the job at Airbnb and started like just picking my life back up and started started moving and getting into getting into a much better space. And that's cool. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It actually turned around pretty quickly for me after that. And like, yeah, it was really exciting. Like, I like, I think a lot of people should take a year off. I like I think a lot of people should take a year off like it's something that like is very scary for some people I know for me it was The one thing that I made it easier is Netflix is another thing about Netflix is they say this when they hire you is they're like They are like it's very intense here. And If you want out we'll give you severance because we would rather you leave

And if you want out we'll give you severance because we would rather you leave Quickly then stay around and not and hurt the a players essentially That's like they're like what they're trying to build like the the dream team or a team right and so they give you four months Of severance and yeah, and so long as I've heard yeah Yeah, and so like I was like okay I'll take that and like and so it made it very easy for me to quit because I was like okay I have like that's good money good that. And like, and so it made it very easy for me to quit. Because I was like, okay, I have like, that's good money, good money to go and leave. And so like, I know for other people, like taking a sabbatical is trickier, because they see this like, cliff, like a fine, like a financial

cliff of like, well, if I jump, dude, then I'm I'll never financially recover from not working. And, but sometimes what happens is I know for me the thing that happened during that period was I discovered myself. I discovered content. I discovered writing. I discovered a lot of this entrepreneurial spirit because before that my dream was I want to be a principal engineer in big tech. I want to work at Google. I want to be the top engineer at Google. That was like my dream job. I want to work at Google. I want to be the top engineer at Google. That was my dream job. And now I look at that and I'm like,

that just seems absurd. Very absurd. That seems like a lot of stress for not that much money. It's decent money, but it's a lot of stress for not that much money versus what you can do building a business. Yeah, because you're probably making the same, if not more, doing what you're doing now.

Oh yeah, way more. Way more. Yeah, it's millions of dollars a year now. Yeah, for sure. 100%. And you're way less stressed,. Oh yeah, way more. Way more. It's millions of dollars a year now. Yeah, for sure. 100%. And you're way less stressed, right? Yeah, way less stressed.

Yeah, it's both. When I look back on my time at Netflix in particular, I was like, wow, I was so stressed making... At the time, I thought making the most money I would ever make in my entire life. 600K, right? Yeah, 600K. I thought that that was... I was at...

I peaked, right? It was my pinnacle. Right. And now I look back on that and like, wow, like I should have like not treated it as as like intensely as I did. And I think part of that just growing pains, though, of like being very new, being young, not realizing like like what is even possible in your life. Right. I think that that's the other big thing that taking this year off, even though there was a lot of depression, a lot of sadness, it did unlock something in me that allowed me to see the world in a very different way, in a way of like, hey, I need to just give

a lot of value and get known, get known. And that will eventually allow me to do that And it's kind of set the stage for my now my content creation journey Hmm, that's a good point though because not a lot of people take time to reflect Yeah, cuz they're so work heavy like you were probably working 80 hours a week Yeah for sure so you had no time to just sit back and think what's not it was just always about what the next deliverable was It was all about what the next the next Milestone was and the next promotion and the next

raise and the next like it was. They're very good at that in big tech about like they're very good about the carrots and the sticks. Right. Where they're like, well, if you do really well, we're going to give you another hundred thousand dollars a year. But if you don't do very well, we're just

going to fire your ass. Right. It's like very good, like poking you and then rewarding you. And like they're very good at like putting you in that. and if you are Like a certain type of person you can thrive in that environment You can thrive in it and I definitely did I definitely did for many years Like I I think my personality has shifted now to a point where like I don't think I would thrive in that environment anymore

I even I have like this last year I've like kind of I put out some feelers just to see like what I what kind of offers I could get in Big Tech because I interviewed at OpenAI and Meta last year just to see what was out there because OpenAI is like I'm like well I would go work there for a year just to learn right just soak it up soak it up. And like, but I realized, like after interviewing there, I'm like, wow, my mind is so different now. It's so different.

It's like when you think like an entrepreneur and you think like a boss, it's very like it's very hard to go back to being an employee. It's very hard. That's like that's something that I think in some ways like one of the things I told myself when

I quit my job was like, you can always go back. I treated it like a two-way door and now that I've been doing it for a couple years I'm like that door was a little bit more one way than I thought it was right. Especially now that you're making more. Yeah right very difficult now that I'm making more for sure. Where do you side with the open AI versus Elon stuff? Oh that's a good one. I think in that space, like, I think Elon had a very kind of idealistic vision of OpenAI, of this idea that it's going to be AI for good and AI for, it's going to be like a pure vision, like, prop here for pro or pure nonprofit vision for that company.

And in that way, like, it is, it feels like OpenAI is deviatingating from that path that pure intentions path, but at the same time like What company has ever gotten to that level being nonprofit like The only one that comes to mind for me that is even close is like the bill of Melinda Gates Foundation And again, the only reason they're big is because of Microsoft, right? And they all got just billions of dollars of shares of Microsoft, right?

And so it's like, they're just super funded by a for-profit entity at the end of the day. And so like, I'm very nuanced on this because I feel like Elon has a very solid point from like an idealistic perspective of like what OpenAI should be. But then from like a perspective of like if you actually want open AI to be as big as possible to reach the most number of people, it does need to be for

profit. It needs to make money. It needs to like bring stuff in and be self-sustaining. Otherwise, investors are going to keep burning burning money. Right. And that's like where it's kind of I'm kind of neutral. I I don't have a great perspective on Sam Altman. I think he's kind of like in the middle, like as a leader, it seems like I don't really trust him. I don't really know why, though. I don't know why. There's something about I trust Elon a little bit more than Sam Altman in terms

of like just those two personas. And that's, I don't know. Well, Elon's all about transparency. Right, he is for sure. Like even though it sounds like you're not a conservative, but like he, at least he's honest. Yeah, for sure. Like he's showcasing what's going on right now, right? Definitely. Yeah, so I like that he's doing that on Twitter.

Oh yeah, I love Twitter for that reason. I actually, I feel like he's done a lot of good for Twitter over the last like couple of years. Like I know, I mean, that's a very hot take for a lot of people in San Francisco, but I know that it's where the free speech and the AI that he's doing, he's deployed so many AIs there. I know, I remember 2019, 2020 Twitter, just so many bots, so many fake accounts, so much just crap right and now I'm like I'm like I'm like when was the last time I saw a bot on Twitter. It's been a long time

I feel like I might see like one bot a month now or something like that. It's very rare It's actually he's done a very good job of either like pushing that content down or like the spam filters are very good now Yeah, he said he would do that too. Yeah, and he delivered Yeah, it's crazy that he did that and he delivered on making the product better with 20% the engineers. He's like, I'm gonna fire 80% and make the product better. Those two things together feel like, whoa. How did that make you feel because you're an engineer? Oh yeah, I mean, I had a lot of friends who actually got let go from that and I actually, personally I actually benefited from that a little bit because I got some referral bonuses to Airbnb. So some of my I got some referral bonuses from to Airbnb

So like some of my friends went who jumped from Twitter to Airbnb because like he did let go Talented people he'd let go like brilliant talented people too cuz like if you fire 80% You're not just gonna fire the bottom 80% right you're gonna fire definitely gonna let go people who have good skills, too so like I personally think it makes sense in some regards because there's a side of it that's like you need to have, because at Netflix, Netflix is a company that their headcount is, they're very lean, they're very lean on headcount because their goal is to essentially let go 5 to 10% of the company every year. They have that, that's the part of, that's like the intensity of it.

It's like you need to be an A player or otherwise we're going to let you go. And so that's where Twitter wasn't like that. Twitter was kind of ran like, I don't know, like, kind of like a, like, it was kind of like a liberal agenda machine. It was very, very, very bizarre. That company in particular had a lot of bloat to it. So there was a side of it. Do I think 80% was a little bit excessive?

Probably. Right. But 50% is probably what was necessary to actually get it to where it needed to go. So initially, I definitely, it was funny too because this is another thing where like I feel like I've my mind has changed right because when Elon bought Twitter and fired people I definitely was part of that group of people who were like Fuck you on we're going to mastodon I hate Twitter right and then I went I got on mastodon and I have like I have like almost 10,000 followers on mastodon I know I'm never on mastodon now at all ever not even once because it's like it kind of like there was like this big

Spike when everyone hated Elon and then it just kind of died out because it doesn't have the stickiness that Twitter does Because that's where Jack Dorsey did a good job You built a really good product Twitter is a great product like at its core The soul of it is really good and that's where like when you try to like replicate it, you need you need something else. That's why Blue Sky, you know, is kind of in that space a little bit because it's kind of more that is kind of has his soul in it. But like it's still still doesn't be Twitter. Yeah. Twitter pretty much put Clubhouse out of business. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Like Clubhouse was hot. Oh yeah, for sure. I actually interviewed

at Clubhouse when it was at its peak and like I got rejected and I was depressed about that. I was like, dude, because I thought I got rejected from like the next Facebook, like from the next I thought I was going to get in really early. It was hot. It was so hot, but then it just gone. Right. Just Twitter space is the same thing. It's like Clubhouse is a feature in other apps. Right.

So what do you think caused them to fall off? I think that's a big part of it is that they weren't able to capitalize on that attention of like building out other spaces because like you need to have more than that. Like it's like it's similar to like you know like Skype. Skype's I think another interesting example of a company that's like where they did video call right. And they actually were Skype was also very big for a while. There's a lot of a lot of people, you know, and, you know, they're actually getting rid of Skype. They're decommissioning it in like next couple months.

And it's like going under. Skype has gone forever. And like I think part of it is you need to capitalize on that moment and get people to adore the brand. But Clubhouse as a brand was never like, it didn't, they didn't do a good job. They didn't do a good job of like building a brand that was like sticky of like, I like this platform.

You went there because there was cool people there. They kind of like, they put themselves in a very precarious situation of like, they were like, oh, the famous people are here, so everyone is here. But then when those people left, it's like, okay, now no one's here. And it's like kind of dies out, like where it's like, oh, the famous people are here, so everyone is here. But then when those people left, it's like, OK, now no one's here. And it kind of dies out. Whereas other places, they have more sticky, grassroot kind of communities.

That's why I think places like Facebook, even though people say Facebook's dying, there's also so many like, think about all the mom groups on, I know I'm a part of this Magic the Gathering group on Facebook that I'm like, I know these like grassroots communities are never ever ever gonna leave Facebook. And so they have that stickiness to them. Where Clubhouse was like, it was like a blockbuster, like one hit poem, one trick pony, like one hit wonder, and they didn't like do anything grassroots, and they just kind of capitalized on viral. And once that sugar high ran out,

it was like, I guess we're gonna go somewhere else. Fell off quick. Yeah, right, yeah, for sure. It was like a year, right? And I feel like Snapchat too kind of fell off. Yeah, definitely. I don't use Snapchat anymore. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

I used to use it all the time. Didn't they get an offer from Zuck? Yeah. You try to buy them, right? Yeah, that was a while ago though. That was when they were on the up, for sure. I used to use it all the time. Mm-hmm. Didn't they get an offer from Zuck? Yeah, you try to buy them. Yeah, that was a while ago though. That was when they were on the up for sure I think that like that was back when their shares were at like 30 or 40 dollars and I think they're at like $10 now Yeah, for sure. You hold all your stock from all the companies. No, I mean I only Netflix. I'm very long Netflix I have not I've I've hold that for freaking like because Netflix their compensation structure is very interesting.

We're like so they pay you all cash, right? Which is different from other companies. Most companies, especially when you're like a senior or a staff engineer, 60 to 70% of your money is actually in stock and 30% is in cash. Whereas at Netflix they pay you all cash. But then they also allow you a sliding scale. So they're like, okay, well, we're going to pay you 100% cash, but then they also allow you a sliding scale. So they're like, OK, well, we're going to pay you 100% cash, but you can also pick whatever percent you want as options.

And so it's like a leverage scale. And for me, I picked 15% of my money to be paid out as options. But these options are very special because most options that you buy on the market, you can buy a two yearyear horizon so it's like You buy it and then you have to exercise in the next two years That's the longest the longest dated option you can buy it publicly But the options that you got in Netflix were 10-year options there so like and so for me like my my My first options were in 2018 so I have to exercise like in 2028. And so I'm like, just keep holding.

Yeah, I have a ton on those. Oh, and they have gone to the moon, dude, because there are options. So they're leveraged too, right? So it's like in that time, Netflix has done 200%. But that position has done like a thousand percent, right? Because of the leverage involved with options. Holy crap. So like definitely like Netflix is a crazy company in that way. Whereas like other companies like Facebook and Airbnb, they pay you in just like a regular stock like RSE use like restricted stock. Yeah. It's just like the more traditional way of doing things.

It's like Netflix is a wild company. They they they definitely think they're successful for that reason, though. They're successful because they're different. I could see that. So you sold the Facebook stock. Yeah, for sure. I did. They're successful because they're different. I could see that. So you sold the Facebook stock? Yeah, for sure. I did. I mean, I shouldn't have.

I definitely was right about Airbnb, though. I was right about Airbnb. Because Airbnb has been like... That one crashed, right? I lost an unbelievable amount of money on Airbnb. Because I joined Airbnb one month after IPO. And so the stock was at like 200. And so I joined as a staff engineer, which is like

a top 1% engineer in big tech. And so I got like 1.5 million dollars in stock. Damn. Just for joining? Yeah. But it's over four years. So I get that money over four years. So it's like something like 300, 400K a year in stock over four years. But the thing was, that's at the $200 price point. And then the stock went from $200 to $80. So the 1.5 mil turned into like $500k. And that was in six months. And I was working at Airbnb for six months and I was like, did I just lose a million dollars in six months? What is going on? This company is like, what is what? And it hasn it was like, cause and the, it hasn't come back. It hasn't come back.

Like Airbnb has been, has been trading flat, right? It's been like, it's been between like 100 and 150 for the last like five years, right? And it has been just very like, cause they're having a harder time. They have a lot of like pressures, a lot of like regulatory things, right? Where, you know, they're getting pushed out in New York city.

They're like, there's a lot of different things, you know, there's a lot of- It's got a band here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. They're like, there's a lot of different things. You know, there's a lot of- It's got a band here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Cause it's, it has a lot of negative effects on- Communities. Communities. Cause it's like, what if you want to rent a long-term apartment?

Cause what it does is like, cause Airbnb is a more profitable way to use your space. And so it's like landlords are incentivized to do short-term rentals at the expense of people looking to do long term rentals and it's like Long term rental people should not have to pay more money just because there's less supply, right? And so there is a it's an interesting trade of like, okay How do we like balance these two things so that like landlords are able to still get the right balance of that with?

But Airbnb I think, should exist. I think it's like a very good thing that allows for you to have a more authentic travel experience than like a sterile like Marriott or like, you know, Hilton experience that's just literally exactly the same in every country on the earth or

whatever. And like, but it's like, how do you balance that so that the long the long term residents do not suffer? And I think that's like a it's a very hard balance like, you know, New York, what they do is like, OK, you do not suffer and I think that's like a it's a very hard balance like is you know New York what they do is like, okay, you can do an Airbnb But it's like you have to book for like 30 days damn, right?

And it's like yeah, it's essentially like the book a month, right? And it's like it's like and that's a lot Yeah, that's way too long, right? Term anymore, right? I don't like leaving my dogs more than like three days. Yeah. Yeah, right. I got two dogs Yeah, yeah dogs are great. I got a dog. I know you dog I know you got a husky yeah I taught my Australian Shepherd how to howl oh yeah that's great huskies in power yeah my dog howls all the time yeah the noise of howling is just so soothing it is it is for sure I love that when I'm like hey Lulu I would just like so good if you could be any animal what would you be so my spear animal is a giraffe. I'm a very giraffe. I find giraffes to be very otherworldly.

They feel like they shouldn't exist on this planet in some ways. They feel like they're from another planet. And I always feel kind of out of place. I'm between like a giraffe and like, I don't know, something fast, like a cheetah. Yeah, it'd be fun to have that speed Yeah, for sure. I go Eagle usually Eagles good Fly around the predator because you don't want to be prey. Yeah, definitely not. It's a tough life out there You know rabbit would be terrible You get a lot of sex but that's it You ever want to start your own company, Yeah, yeah. I have a company, Data Expert.

Well, no, like your own app or something. Oh, my own app? Yeah. So Data Expert is actually, it's a double play. So I have my, Data Expert is teaching people data and AI skills. And then below that is a platform called Tech Creator. So Tech Creator is a platform that allows people to build their own communities. Have you ever heard of school? Yeah, Alex Moseley. creator. So tech creator is a platform that allows people to build their own communities. Have you ever heard of school? So it's similar to that. Like it's similar to school, except the difference is like it's for technical people. It's for people who teach code or teach data and it allows them to build their own cohorts. And so data expert is one community on the tech

creator platform. So that's my app that I build. So I do two plays at the same time because like I want to build long-term value here too, not just like teach because I get very, like I'm very ADHD. So I have to like, if I'm doing too much content, I get burnt out. But if I'm doing too much code, I get burnt out. So I have to like kind of do a little bit of everything to like soothe the brain. Find that balance. Yeah, I actually have ADHD too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Some people these days say it's a superpower. It is. It is. I it's a balance. Right. I think that there is a side of it that is very, very useful. It allows you to lock in and focus and like that hyper focused part of it of

like I'm going to do this one thing every day for seven years right when and a lot of people look at you and like dude that guy's that guy's nuts like but then but then you look at it like because what ad that hyper focus and that kind of like addictive kind of side that adhd has is it allows you to build that compound interest right of like I mean being able to like what you've been doing like you're doing like eight episodes today or something like that. I'm not even tired. Yeah, yeah, not even tired. It's like you're like, I could do 16.

And like and then it's the combination of doing the intensity that you can do in one day multiplied by the consistency that you can do over years. And then that creates this compound interest effect that like ADHD people are able to generate more. Right. And that's the whole like, you know, if you have ADHD, you're 700% more likely to start your own business. Damn, I didn't know that. That's the stat. And you're also like 100% more likely to get divorced. Right. So it's like there's and the data is really crazy.

So like and like, you know, the ADHD also on average takes nine years off your life. No. Yeah, it's yeah. Yeah. Why? A couple of things there. Like ADHD, people are a lot more likely to like smoke. Smoking is a big part of it. So if you're an ADHD or who doesn't smoke, it the data looks a lot better. Right. It's like cigarettes or weed. Cigarettes. Cigarettes in particular.

And that the jury's still out on weed in terms of like it seems like with weed The big thing is like it only has a really negative effect on your life expectancy If you smoke more than 21 times a month damn so like which is not not that many people smoke that much, right? It's like essentially but those are the people who like smoke weed every day those guys Those guys exist that was me for a long time actually and oh yeah. Yeah for sure drug tested out the companies Oh, I only in Utah when I grew up. I got drug tested in For those first couple jobs my first couple of big data jobs in Utah the big tech companies do not drug test really yeah Oh wow yeah, I haven't had a drug tests in like 10 years. I thought they did for some yeah

Yeah, definitely not like though the last. My last drug test was for research innovations. I worked there in 2016 They were like a military contractor for the US government. It makes a lot more sense for them for sure Yeah, yeah, I guess they don't care as long as you're productive. Yeah, right Well, like I think there's a side of it or is like such a large percentage of programmers smoke weed. It's similar to the NSA. The NSA used to have a very strict no cannabis policy and they actually removed that because there was not enough cybersecurity people who don't smoke weed to fill the roles. So they had to actually relax that policy in order to get enough hackers on the team at the NSA. And so I'm sure the big tech companies are very aware of that as well.

Like the number of people and it's like they're all in California, too. So it's like I know for me, there's a side of it where I'm like, I'm drawn to California for that reason, too. So that's interesting because when I smoke it, I get lazy. But for you, does it make you more focused? Yeah, a little bit. It depends. I think for me, there's a side of it where I have rules with it, right? Yeah, a little bit. It depends. I think for me, there's a side of it where I have rules with it, right?

Where it's like my rules are like if I'm smoking in the AM, my life is a mess. Right. It's like for me, my rule is usually I can only smoke after 7 p.m. 7 p.m. After 7 p.m., like it's fine. It's fine. Right. It does allow me to kind of chill. It allows me to be more content because my mind is like, you know, I have a Ferrari mind with bicycle brakes. So it's a I have a Ferrari mind with bicycle brakes right so it's like very hard for me to like stop and that's where cannabis is just that makes sense right yeah for sure I wouldn't say I use it to be productive it

is good for writing I've noticed it's good to for like like coming up with like divergent thoughts like thinking like kind of sideways. It's very bad for thinking Convergently and like trying to like solve a specific problem, but thinking about all the problems that you could solve It's better for like brainstorming. Yeah. Yeah the crazy part about cannabis to me like for you said it calms you down for me It gives me anxiety. Yeah for sure and the same thing We're smoking the same cannabis, but just different effect and and well and there's data and I think for me I took a break like back in September. I have not smoked since September because it's like it's been like six months now and one of the reasons was like I read a lot of data on this stuff so cannabis for a lot of people it does calm them down in the moment but then if you look at

the data over 14 days or a month they actually have higher levels of anxiety throughout the day. Oh, wow. So like it does when they're smoking, they're calmed down, but then like you, you pay a cost just the rest of the time. It's similar like with people who drink, right? It's very similar to with people who drink because they have the same thing where they they drink to calm their nerves, but then their their GABA is all out of whack for the rest of the the rest of the week or the rest of the month because it's like they're they need to get their GABA back in out of whack for the rest of the the rest of the week or the rest of the month because it's like they're they need to get their GABA back in balance to like not have anxiety.

Interesting that is so fascinating. Was that your only substance that you were doing? Yeah I mean well so I mean I'm prescribed Adderall for ADHD so that one's like I don't like to use the word I do Adderall. It makes it sound like a drug right when it's like I'm prescribed Aderall. It's what I use for my medical diagnosis Take it every single day. Yeah for sure like I mean I'll take a break like Maybe every 10 days or so cuz there's a there's a point where I'm like, dude I just need to have like a really nice amazing day of sleep because does, I notice it does like take like 10 percent off the top on my sleep, which is not great.

But like it's it's worth it to me because it makes it so I can get all my stuff done and then the one day I don't take it, then I sleep amazingly. And that like allows my brain to like reset. Yeah. I'd be curious if you would microdose mushrooms. Yeah. Oh, micro dosing is great. I mean, that's a big thing because they decriminalized in San Francisco now. Oh, no. Yeah, you can literally do it.

And like I tried that in twenty twenty two. The one thing about that that I've noticed is like getting the dose right is hard. It's like like whether you're doing like point one or point two grams. And I noticed with that, like I did that for a while. The only thing is like my stomach just doesn't tolerate it as well. Like it's like it works.

It actually gives me a very similar effect to Adderall. But like then I'm like, but I have like this like queasy stomach the whole time. And I'm like, oh, dude, I wish this is so close. It's so close to like the perfect like a supplement. But it's just a little bit off once they could fix that. Yeah. Well, yeah, they can figure that out. But yes, some of it grows on like cow poops. Yeah, right.

Yeah, makes sense, right? I just had it. Yeah. And I got nauseous. I got pale. Yeah, it's rough. But dude, it's been awesome. Where can people learn from you and keep up with you?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, the big ones are going to be my socials are going to be exactly. It's my handle everywhere. And my YouTube is Data with Zach. It's going to be the big one. Just my website, Data Expert. I run a bunch of cohorts. If you're very interested about becoming very dedicated about learning AI, that's where

you can join my academy. Perfect. Yeah, check them out guys and stock up on AI domain. Yeah, let's go! See you guys next time. Bye!