The Pomp Podcast - #480: Rahul Rana on Moonshot Ideas

Episode Date: January 28, 2021

Rahul Rana is an Associate at Lux Capital and the Author of “Making Moonshots." In this conversation, we discuss what a moonshot is, why they are important, how the best entrepreneurs go after moon...shots, and why iterative progress in science and technology is not enough. ======================= Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space, and we’ve teamed up to offer an exclusive discount for you, as listeners of the podcast. Sign up for Exodus today using my promo code Exodus.io/pomp. This is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights - go sign up today.  ======================= With over 5 Million users, Crypto.com is the easiest way to buy, and sell over 90 cryptocurrencies. Download the app at Crypto.com and get $25 with my code: POMP. When it’s time to spend your crypto, nothing beats the Crypto.com Visa Card, which pays you up to 8% back instantly, with no annual, or monthly fees to worry about!  Get $25 when you download the Crypto.com App today using the code “POMP”  ======================= Download the top-rated DraftKings Sportsbook app NOW and use promo code POMP when you sign up to get one hundred to one odds on any football game THIS WEEKEND. That’s code POMP for new players to get a shot at one hundred dollars on any football action this weekend.… for a limited time, only at DraftKings Sportsbook! =======================

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Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Raul Rana is an associate at Lux Capital and the author of Making Moonshots. In this conversation, we discuss what a moonshot is, why they are important, how the best entrepreneurs go after moonshots, and why iterative progress in science and technology is not enough. I really enjoyed this conversation with Raul, and I hope you do as well. But before we get into this episode, let's talk about our sponsors. First up is Exodus.io. E-X-O-D-U-S. That's right. I can spell Exodus.io. They're one of the most popular cryptocurrency wallets and has been around
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Starting point is 00:03:36 Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. What's going on, guys? Bang, bang. I've got Rula here. Thank you so much for doing this, sir. Awesome. Thank you for having me. Yeah, for sure. Now I feel weird calling you, sir, given that you are in college, but that's a good start for us. Let's just jump
Starting point is 00:04:16 into your background. You wrote this book, Making Moonshots, but before we get into the book, just tell us kind of where'd you grow up and what was the kind of things that you did before you actually wrote the book? Yeah, of course. Awesome. So basically grew up my, I've lived my entire life in in central jersey um i go currently go to ruckers i'm studying finance and astrophysics actually i'm a sophomore um but yeah basically you know my journey into you know uh before before i got to my book and everything so my dad my entire life he's worked at bell labs right so you know sure all the tech people out there know like how you know innovative and breakthrough bell labs was in the past century so that was basically my childhood right i go to all the labs right see
Starting point is 00:04:56 all the you know the bronze plaques on you know all the famous scientists and the nobel prizes on the inventions. I became super obsessed with that so early on. And, you know, it was kind of funny. Once I hit high school, I actually just blocked off all my curiosity for science and tech and just fell into like the business and sort of like the finance crowd and everything. And that was basically what I did for like four years. I actually went to a business administration magnet program, right? So for four years, right, I was always, I was doing all things like business and, you know, sort of like non-technical stuff, you know, right. Sales, operations, marketing, you know, like, you know, focusing on all that stuff. And then got to college, thought I wanted
Starting point is 00:05:30 to do investment banking and um i was just like i don't know if i don't know if this is for me right and actually it's funny so like recruiting season is like now for for internships i'm still determined like do i go you know full force into that or not but nonetheless i i realized like all right like i my my truest passion sort of you know science tech right deep tech all that sort of you know research heavy things and i was like all right like how do i combine that with finance and yeah i just thought you know venture capital specifically deep tech vc was just like the the perfect sort of combination and and then specifically like if i could be in this position where i could not only you know invest and support into moonshot companies where we're going to deep
Starting point is 00:06:03 tech companies but also build them so you know incubate them in-house that would be just like the coolest job ever right just like you know why solve one problem you can solve multiple ones so that was basically just like you know how my journey started my passion started there so that was around you know freshman year first semester and then um i was just like all right i want to do something bold like i have all this energy like what do i do with it and again like i don't know if it was just the universe looking out for me serendipity or luck or fortune but just like I came across this one one of my mentors who eventually brought me on the book writing process so it's just I had I met him on LinkedIn actually it was kind of funny like I just you
Starting point is 00:06:35 know struck up a conversation with him and he was like oh like you know he he likes to mentor you know typically professionals not not not typically students but just like yeah he likes to mentor people and write new books and everything he's just like a passion of his so I was like hey like again I have all this passion I have all this energy like I know I'm by no means I'm an expert but like I want to become an expert and he was just like all right like you know he took that chance on me and that yeah I ran with it so started writing the book exactly one year ago actually January 2020 um and and and yes the rest was history it was just like I sort of had it was kind of funny like I had this like you know dual mandate right I had to not only improve my writing
Starting point is 00:07:10 craft right I wanted to be like an actual book right not just like you know some sort of like side project rubber wanted to be a really really good book and also I had to become an expert right so you know right 12-13 hours a day just again putting in the research and stuff you know doing tons and tons of interviews I had to master that cold email you know sort of strategy because you I was talking to all these, you know, big time VCs and founders and whatnot. And, you know, here I was a freshman in college. So it's kind of funny. And then, yeah, again, yeah, the rest is history.
Starting point is 00:07:34 It just made the most of like COVID and everything, you know, being at home and whatnot I had all the time in the world. So yeah. And then, yeah. When you start writing the book, how long did it take and kind of what was the research process like to write this book, Making Moonshots? Yeah, of course. So the research process was basically, you know, I had to really, really improve my contents
Starting point is 00:07:54 think that was probably the biggest thing um you know look where others aren't right like i had to do a lot of you know i did like a lot of like profiles onto you know some of the moonshot companies out there that you know really sort of inspire me and you know sort of had to formulate you know solid like thesis and everything and and it made like a solid outline of like what actually do i want to you know put forth and basically you know my reasoning behind you know moonshots and whatever is just like you know these are really like the companies that actually you know have some solid impact in the world but not only that but they're also you know financially just staying right there. They're solid businesses. And I just think it's just, it's, it's heroic at
Starting point is 00:08:25 the end of the day. And I just really am inspired by all these, these sorts of, you know, moonshot companies. And, um, you know, I, I took sort of like a multifaceted approach, right. I didn't want to write just, you know, another boring, you know, management book or business book or whatever. I really wanted, you know, something dynamic. So the way I went about my research, um, you know, as, as I told before, right. So I focused on, right. The psychology, right. The mindset of these, you know, moonshot founders, right. The philosophies that they, that they sort of, you know um that they that they use and take in by mental models and so forth and then also your strategies right how to get sort of started on this you know moonshot sort of journey and and
Starting point is 00:08:56 also sort of you know end with like the the ecosystem right how can we improve government education startups academia um vc and whatnot and and you know sort of how all they interact and stuff and so you know i tried to take like a different sort of approach to you know companies and and and startups and whatnot so um you know did deep deep sort of research into those tons and deep dives um a lot of you know i include a lot of like um you know sort of minor sort of small case studies of you know as examples in my book and whatnot so i did a lot of you know things for that but then i think like the biggest thing was honestly the interviews um tons i think i did around like 100 or so interviews of you know all the best sort of uh vcs and and and
Starting point is 00:09:35 and found and found i talked to some awesome people and it was like really cool just like you know being this outsider honestly again college freshman right like not not at like a target school or whatever but just like you know i got you know 30 minutes an hour with these awesome people and and that was probably the most sort of impactful things in terms of research because got some awesome stories awesome thoughts and so forth so yeah who are the people that uh were like the most um kind of like oh my god i can't believe i'm talking to this person in the book yeah yeah of course so um i think the go-to answer will obviously be josh wolf um i interviewed him for a book he ended up hiring me you know a couple months after so that's really
Starting point is 00:10:08 cool um just like lux capital and you know there's like there's like a few vc firms out there right Like, you know, Lux Capital, you know, Social Capital, APC Coastal, all these really top tier deep tech funds. Like, they're just so inspiring to me. I absolutely love what they do. So, it's really cool. Like, I spoke to a couple of people at those various firms and whatnot. And, yeah, I would say, yeah, the go-to answer is definitely Josh Wolf. Because, you know, he's high up there in the deep tech world, right?
Starting point is 00:10:30 Everyone knows him. And I was just like, wow, like, pretty cool to get a call with him. So, yeah. So, let's talk a little bit about the idea of a moonshot versus, like, incremental progress of technology and science. why are moonshots so important yeah of course so again at the end of the day um there there's so many aspects i mean the way the way i sort of consider it is like all right like there's so many you know there's so many you know different random companies out there right i you maybe want to call them shallow tech and normal companies like whatever you want to call them that's great
Starting point is 00:11:01 and all but like we i feel like we're sort of lacking in like you know the people who are actually solving like you know really really big problems in the world right everything from space to, you know, cancer to like the oceans and whatnot. And then, you know, rebuilding sort of, you know, infrastructure and, and, and whatever may be right. There's poverty, homelessness, food scarcity. I mean, you name it, there's so much out there. Right. And it's just like, I really just wanted to, you know, create sort of like, um, you know, it's like one piece of literature on like how anyone can actually, you know, make, make, you know, said, you know, solve said problem or whatever may be like, you know, by means of, you know,
Starting point is 00:11:33 startups and whatnot. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's just like, they're so heroic to right they're they're so like you know like they actually change the course of humanity and you know put us back on this like um you know the sort of you know this rate of scientific and technological progress like i love sort of you know thinking about uh progress and whatnot as a as a whole sort of as an ecosystem right you know as like as a human kind and whatnot and again these are the companies or the projects or you know um the organizations that actually you know push forth humanity like in in the sort of you know track that we're on um you know you have everything from right the apollo missions right the original moonshot that's where the term came
Starting point is 00:12:08 um that came came about so you know everything from you know the policy right so you know you have um all these like your government projects right the era of big science back in the past century but then you have nowadays right literally like you know single um companies right or you know people like elon musk but you know there's a lot of other people that like like elon that don't have the media presence but are doing you know such amazing things so again like it's just like this inspiring sort of um you know you know empowering sort of thing that that people go on on. And I just want to, you know, create literature on how anyone can, can do so. So, yeah. And when you think through this, I know there's a part of the book that basically covers what
Starting point is 00:12:44 government, what educational institutions, you know, kind of the environment components and the investment side can do to increase the number of moonshots. Walk through like what you learned there. Why are there not more moonshots and what can we do to increase the amount of moonshots? Yeah, of course. So yeah, I love thinking about it on an ecosystem level. So, I mean, for example, right like in terms of government um you know all right so like you know one of the uh one of the sort of aspects of you know making you know a moonshot moonshot right so there's a lot of sort of um interaction between right the private and public sector right so you got you know startups you got academia you got you know bc funding and you also have the government um right the original
Starting point is 00:13:20 sort of you know paula missions right that's what it was that right this like this awesome collaboration between you know all things private and all things public and stuff so you know in terms of government i mean i feel like there's a lot of sort of um systemic sort of reasons why we don't pursue moonshots right like for for for an example right um politicians for example right two years four years and six years right six years for senators right they're only thinking in terms of right two four and six years right uh representatives presidents and and senators and whatnot so if you think about it like why would they care about a 10-year sort of you know project or or some like really you know probably going to fail a risky sort of you know breakthrough or
Starting point is 00:13:56 whatever may be or you know putting putting you know funding or attention or whatever maybe your policy around such a such a topic that probably won't even happen in sort of you know their sort of you know um uh you know them being you know the politician that they are and whatnot so again i just think there's there's so many sort of uh ways in which the government's just like not fundamentally like you know thinking in the long term right so that's like one thing really that's like one thing we could fix also you know there's things like um you know special interests and whatnot i mean like um in in in the recent sort of election one thing i one thing i saw you know in regards to the debates, for example, the debate around, you know, sort of oil, gas and things like
Starting point is 00:14:33 that versus clean energy, right? Again, like, it's, what's so interesting to me is that there's a lot of, you know, special interests that are, you know, holding us back in terms of energy and whatnot. And again, it makes sense, right? People's like livelihoods depend on, and, you know, oil and gas and whatnot. But then on the other hand, right, you have nuclear energy, right? You have, you know, clean energy and, you know, all things like, you know, climate and whatnot, and fusion even, like, there's like so many things that we could do that are you know much more cleaner much more sustainable but at the end of the day like it's it's so you know heavily politicized right there it's so complex and again that that's just another right oh that's another thing right
Starting point is 00:15:08 hyper politicization and stuff like that i think fundamentally is is stopping sort of you know moonshots from happening and so forth so you know there's i can go on and on but nonetheless like what i what i realized in terms of you know government education whatnot it really comes down to three things right there's the you know the the sort of the social infrastructure social attitude and also um social incentives right i think if we could you know focus on those three things right that that could really create this it's really this ecosystem that's really you know conducive to these you know big time sort of you know um r&d heavy projects and whatnot so um so yeah yeah so if that answers your question walk me through the anatomy of a moonshot in the
Starting point is 00:15:47 sense of if you want to be successful with a moonshot what are the things that need to go into it in terms of the team the vision capital discipline like just walk me through that yeah absolutely so you know it it all starts with you know again it all starts with the team and everything and sort of you know having this this this long-term sort of you know 10-15 year vision about you know what what what's sort of this preferred future and and how can we get to that so um you know it starts with this really really you know ambitious bold you know dreaming big sort of vision and whatnot and again again you have to have the right team and everything but one thing i found interesting right in regards to the team there's a lot of moonshots out there that
Starting point is 00:16:26 are not done by credentialed experts and i realized like all right like maybe you don't you don't need like a phd right to solve some sort of you know science heavy project right you don't need some you know um formal credentials or whatever there's you know even like elon musk where well like he only has like a bachelor bachelor's degree in like what like um physics i think an econ or whatever and look at him right so again he's just you know one example the the easy example i can think of But, you know, that's one thing. Right. So, you know, building, building like a solid, solid team, but not necessarily needing, you know, credentialed experts and whatnot. I thought that was really interesting and and how it is sort of like the barriers to actually, you know, make such a big sort of impact or a big sort of company or whatever is actually falling. So that's really cool. So nonetheless, like, yeah, you have the you have the team and everything. Right.
Starting point is 00:17:09 You know, once you have the team, right, taking advantage of the ecosystem, as I mentioned before, right. You know, VC funding, what not, you know, storytelling is a big thing. Right. Again, probably the go-to story or example of storytelling is Theranos, for example. Again, it was a moonshot company and it was this grand vision, but at the end, I think the way they tricked investors and the general public is that they over-story told. They were really, really good storytellers and whatnot. Again, you have to attract capital, you have to attract talent, you have to do all these things and then to do so, you need to be good storytellers.
Starting point is 00:17:46 know not not too much to the point of like you know like theranos level but nonetheless like you have to be good at that and and you know everything like that so you know there there's you know all things sort of um you know storytelling right working with you know the bleeding edge of all you know technology remember the cutting edge of science and technology right deep tech is just you know that's the core of what a moonshot is right again like as i mentioned before right there's three things in the moonshot right there's a deep tech sort of you know advanced science technology right frontier tech emerging tech all those synonyms right you got um the the radical solution right so you know sort of you know something that's disruptive something
Starting point is 00:18:18 that's never done before i'm saying it's really radical old ambitious right all these synonyms and whatnot and then um you know three and and last right solving this really big uh problem in the world having having an actual sort of yeah global impact and impacting a million to five billion of people so you know in regards to that that sort of three-part framework it's sort of again building a company around those three things and um you know one right again solving solving a big problem right once once you get you know those barriers down once you get hired hired the right team right with right right vision and whatnot all right you know that then you go to you know the whole commercialization process so that's a whole other thing right again um you know that
Starting point is 00:18:53 that's where sort of academia and startups sort of you know interact with and then you know what then you go next stage right vc funding right so you know being a solid storyteller and you know that whole process and then you know working with like you know the government for example and you know all the grants that they give and as for all the resources that they have and um yeah and then then And it just becomes, right, like a, you know, a typical sort of startup, right, typical sort of company and, you know, all the stuff that comes with that. So basically, you know, in regards to like my book, I basically say like, all right, like I'm going to tell you everything that comes right before actually sort of scaling a startup, right? I'm not one to speak on, you know, how to run a company, right? I've never done that.
Starting point is 00:19:28 But nonetheless, like in regards to actually getting started on the process, that's sort of, you know, how I think about it. What are the areas from a moonshot perspective that you think are really interesting? like if you were to start a company today what areas would you look at to create the next moon shot oh absolutely space space again it's basically the easiest sort of go-to answer i absolutely love that um honestly if i could choose any part of space though space is space right so like what what part of space all right so um maybe you've heard of it right recently like barter space right that one of my favorite companies ever um it's just you know sort of you know lower earth orbit manufacturing one like that's that's like again that's a moving
Starting point is 00:20:06 chat right and it's just so inspiring and you know i think one thing that's really that would really be cool is if is if someone can sort of lay the infrastructure for um you know space exploration right sort of you know um sort of you know mega scale engineer or whatever like you know that's things that go in orbit right that can you know bring us to you know the moon and to mars and you know to hopefully other planets in the future right so someone who's like you know laying the infrastructure for things in space and further exploration there's like some really cool things right? Like I've seen, you know, at my time at Lux, for example, like I've seen like one company to do like, like orbital transfer vehicles, right? So, you know, the, the way to get things actually
Starting point is 00:20:42 to space and, you know, from whatever factories in space or whatever it may be, or another company I've seen really, really cool. They're doing like lunar manufacturing. Like that's insane, right? Like, like how cool is that? Right? Like, again, that's why I just love moonshots. It's just like, so like, again, inspired, right? It's so like amazing, like, like lunar manufacturing, but like, you would think it's like some like bold, probably impossible thing, but I was talking to a founder and he's like no he's like serious about it like like there's like actual like legitimate research around it it's it's maybe you know maybe it's going to take like 15 years or so like it's like i honestly think it's going to happen so it's like really really cool so you
Starting point is 00:21:14 know and anything that's sort of you know deep space like i i absolutely love uh looking at all that so when you think through this uh what do you want to do with your career like you wrote the book you're working with josh lux and josh is fantastic and uh not only does he have a great track record but he's also a fantastic human being um what do you want to do do you want to build a company? Do you want to be an investor? Do you want to write more books? Do you want, are you just crossing your fingers, hoping you graduate college? I mean, to your point, yes, absolutely. But yeah, so in terms of, you know, what I want to do next. So I absolutely love, so, you know, I mentioned this before, but like, I absolutely love the model of VC firms
Starting point is 00:21:50 that, you know, not only invest, but they also build in-house or they incubate in-house. Absolutely love that. I definitely want to be in, you know, maybe, I don't know, like a moonshot venture studio or whatever, maybe just in a position where I could, you know, not only, you know invest in support but also build multiple ones like i i have so many problems like i just want to solve them all like i don't know i'll do that somehow we'll see what happens but you know there's that but also like you know down the line like honestly like like maybe even you're starting the next you know bell labs or the next you know xerox park or whatever maybe like all these things that are sort of rooted in history and whatnot like i want to get back to sort of you know put
Starting point is 00:22:23 us back on track in terms of you know scientific and technological progress so anything to anything to support that like by all means i'd absolutely love to do it and you know i don't know like whether that means you know government right working in the education space like even like entertainment that's like actually one thing one thing that's really really cool like if you think about it like you know the like some like movies for example really social network the martian right all these movies that really inspire just like the general public like if we could just like make science cool in some way possible and that's like my love school right so make science cool right like get everyone's you know attention in it and stuff and then yeah so we'll see how I
Starting point is 00:22:56 do that i'm not too sure at the moment but yeah i love hey listen don't uh don't ever count on any dream i love it um all right so people can go where to amazon and they can buy the book making moonshots they can learn all about uh kind of the anatomy of a moonshot and everything from the environment to uh to really many many of the conversations you had with some of the people who are spending the most time on this um i ask everyone three questions before i end and then you get to ask me one question the first is what's the most important book you ever read you can't say your own book so what yeah of course of course so there's one book it's called it's called letting go um i think it's by richard dawkins if i'm not mistaken but um he's like a psychologist and
Starting point is 00:23:38 whatnot and again like like this book like you know it's all about sort of you know letting go like sort of surrenders and in regards like your your emotions and whatnot and you know sort of getting through whatever hardships that you're you know dealing with and honestly like like that book was i i i read that book while i was reading my book sort of i'm sorry when i was writing my book um in terms of like there's so many you know tough days right you know blood sweat and tears i put into this book and a lot of days you know i'd burn out right a lot of days i'd sort of you know just like you know like break down and have like a mental breakdown and i'd read this book right it's called letting go absolutely amazing just like you know the way he sort of um uh writes
Starting point is 00:24:10 about you know anger and and and you know burnout and like you know love and and happiness and whatever it may be just like all sorts of emotions and stuff so i honestly love that book i'd recommend it to anyone so yeah that's a great suggestion second question is about your sleep schedule you're in college so i'm assuming you don't sleep too much i used to be the same way but one is that accurate are you not sleeping that much and two uh any rituals or anything you do around sleep yeah so actually upon viewing some of your your podcast episodes i i have been thinking about it more um i also i see you know like like that one could be like eight sleep or something i see a lot of people that's the sponsor man yes i told i told mateo the ceo i said listen i gotta
Starting point is 00:24:53 stop asking this question at some point because everyone just keeps telling me i got an eight sleep i already own it it's amazing i'm like this is garbage it's not fun but it's eight sleep yeah i don't know like everyone's everyone's just so hyped about it i kind of want to try it but it's amazing it really is amazing i sleep on it every night uh it's like this like thermoregulation so basically just uh it chills the bed um and so you know as you know if you sleep in a colder environment you get better uh deep sleep um you just wake up more refreshed so i hate the fact that mateo is the one who uh always is uh sleeping so well because i feel guilty when i'm around if i haven't slept but other than that it's i know i absolutely know
Starting point is 00:25:36 like yeah like some days it's just tough right like like you know i'm doing full-time at lux full-time student you know was working on this book last semester so it was definitely tough to you know get get enough sleep in but um now i i realized like i you know um that what's a uh i was giving that one book um like why we sleep or something everyone yeah matthew walker exactly i'm just like all right like i need to focus on this you know actually like i want to be healthy and whatnot so it's starting sort of you know like um being more intentional around it right like you know cutting out sugars right before like you know at a certain time or stop eating at a certain time right the temperature definitely i've been trying to do that um not on a thermo
Starting point is 00:26:13 regularly in bed but you know typically like you know ac and heater and whatnot but you know all these things i'm slowly getting there yeah i love it uh last question you could ask me one aliens if you're so obsessed with space are aliens real or no you believe 100 um i'm actually 100 you think that might come to earth i think they've been here already i'm not even joking so all right so one thing and actually um i know in your interview with with mike salon right he he said that you know there's evidence of you know ufos but he's neutral on aliens i think because there are ufos aliens exist and and what i what i mean by that so all right so i was actually talking to one of my friends he's a ufo researcher not you know not as conspiracy theorist but like actually like
Starting point is 00:26:56 he worked for you know norad right he worked for congress and whatnot in terms of you know ufo research and whatnot so he's you know pretty high up there and he was talking so like all right so he told me this one story and um i'm sure have you seen those you know the those like leaked videos from like the navy for example right yeah yeah i'm sure a lot of people saw that right so he was telling me this the story of that and i was just like wait so um basically you know how how that that sort of instance went is that like all right like they were you know tracking the sort of you know ufo flying throughout the air and whatnot and the it was on like a navy ship where he was saying and and um the person was running like sonar like radar or something i
Starting point is 00:27:31 forgot what um he noticed that this sort of ufo it sort of violated all sort of everything that we know about physics right it was just not in line with what we know and you know it was going from you know like like mach 31 or mach 30 like you know 31 or however many times you know is this the the speed of you know uh sound and whatnot or or lighter i'm mixing it up but nonetheless like you know it's going this crazy speed you know it's making all these turns that are just physically impossible and i was like all right like great that's great and all right it's all well documented it's not like you know random sort of you know conspiracy theories but like all right like if it's doing that and that's not humanly possible like what's the other sort of you know um sort of
Starting point is 00:28:08 explanation of that like i i think i i feel like that's like pretty clear like obviously there is no evidence of you know aliens actually you know existing but nonetheless like it's not human so if it's not human what else can it be that's sort of how i think about it so so yeah maybe it's a new version of a dinosaur who knows who knows i'm that'd be pretty cool i'm joking i'm joking i'm joking all right what questions you got for me to uh to finish up yeah yeah of course so actually you know um i know you're a big big crypto guy and i know you like that so one thing i'm really curious about and you know one thing i write about in my book actually just like the cultural aspect around you know all these you know frontier tech right and and and sort of um
Starting point is 00:28:49 emerging tech right all these sciences and whatever maybe so i'm curious like how do we change culture so that people are more sort of you know accepting of bitcoin or crypto for example or just you know in general just you know of of these sort of you know really emerging sciences and technologies you don't have to change anything they're going to be accepting of it either way because what ends up happening is that you're going to get the people who determine culture will eventually realize what this is so if you notice recently meek mill you know uh joe budden um a bunch of other people that i don't know if they want it publicly known or not that they're they're participating but like people in the hip-hop culture right athletes uh celebrities
Starting point is 00:29:28 All these people start to kind of warm up to it. And then they see, you know, they're just like, yeah, this is the thing. Right. And when that happens, culture just naturally shifts because they set culture. And if they become interested in something, the culture will follow. And so I think that it's less about like, yes, I mean, sure, you could go like educate them on it or give them some or whatever. But I just think that it just is natural, just kind of progression over time. And I'm actually a big believer that like you don't want to short circuit the kind of natural adoption of technology, because when you do that, you actually make it more likely that it will be unsustainable over a long period. So I think that it's just a natural thing that's going to happen. It's already happening. And I think it only continues. So we'll see what happens. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, we'll see. Where can I send people to find you on the Internet? it yeah of course so super super active on twitter um arana03 underscore um you know linkedin as well um and so i'm trying to you know start up like a blog and everything around you know deep tech and moonshots and stuff so it's all my twitter like i do everything on twitter now all right so what was your twitter handle oh arana03 underscore r r so r r a n a zero three and
Starting point is 00:30:38 zero three and underscore what's the three four um i'm the third child so i just like always have three it's been like i'm the third my my grandfather my father so i was like hey maybe you're a third too yeah yeah for for for like baseball a little again i always use three like every sport i played just like three it's almost my thing that's awesome all right man let's thank you so much for doing this role i think that people are gonna absolutely love this and uh i think that you're onto something with the moonshots man it's uh it is very obvious that uh you know going after moonshots are better than kind of the just iterative approach to technology and science innovation.
Starting point is 00:31:16 So I appreciate you coming on and I appreciate you writing the book. You should go check it out, Making Moonshots. You can get it on Amazon. Go read, go educate yourself and know what to do to get in the future. Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

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