This Week in Startups - Apple vs Twitter, app store duopoly, YouTube's efficiency, Snap goes back to the office | E1623

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

First up, J+M cover Twitter vs. Apple and the app store duopoly (2:10) before breaking down Google's employees per department. (32:48) They wrap up talking about Snap announcing a return to the office for all employees (37:09) and more crypto chaos. (58:18) (0:00) J+M tee up today's topics! (2:10) Twitter vs Apple (9:23) Mayfair - Get 4% APY on your idle cash automatically at https://getmayfair.com/twist  (10:53) Apple/Google app store duopoly, Steve Jobs's original App Store pitch (21:43) Blueground - Get up to $1000 off your booking at https://promos.theblueground.com/twist  (23:15) App Store as a blocker for startups, Apple's interesting priorities (32:48) Google's employees per department breakdown, YouTube's insane efficiency (35:40) Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub - Apply in 5 minutes, no funding required, sign up at http://aka.ms/thisweekinstartups (37:09) Google's dramatic headcount increase since 2019, Snap asks employees to return to the office 80% of the time starting in February, end of entitlement in tech (58:18) BlockFi goes bankrupt and sues SBF, Miami nightclubs see ~99% decline in crypto payments FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood Subscribe to our YouTube to watch all full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkkhmBWfS7pILYIk0izkc3A?sub_confirmation=1

All right, everybody, it's a big show on a Tuesday. First up, we're going to talk about Twitter and Apple, having a little Donnie Brooke, let's call it. And we're going to deep dive into the duopoly that Google and Apple have in the app stores. And one of the co-founders of Android became a reply guy. And let's talk about the history of the app stores, even a little Steve Jobs clip from the archives. That is just a fun watch. We're also going to talk about in this age of layoffs and riffs and ways to get rid of

employees that she just couldn't stop hiring less than a year ago. We're going to talk about Google's headcount, the insane efficiency that is YouTube in terms of revenue per employee and Snapchat sending employees back to the office for four days a week starting next year. The old gentleman's riff. And then a little crypto craziness talk, blockifies bankruptcy, and we pour one out for 11 and the end of crypto bottle service. It's going to be a great show.

Stick with us. This week in startups is. brought to you by Mayfair helps venture-backed companies earn 4% on their idle cash automatically. No market risk, no switching banks required. Go to getmayfair.com slash twist

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It's Tuesday. How you doing Molly? It's Tuesday. It's Tuesday. It is just Tuesday. I know it feels like second Thursdays. We're like living every day twice here. It feels like second.

It feels like we're doing like the fifth show over the week, six show of the week. the news just does not stop. And, well, just starting out today, I don't know if you saw, there was a little back and forth between my pal, Elon, and Apple, just over Apple's advertising on Twitter and the App Store. And I had tweeted back and forth about this on the Twitter. Elon said Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its app store, but they won't tell us why, yada yada. And I just tweeted, hey, I wonder what I missed

and put a little Tim, because we were on the pod yesterday, and Elon responded to me and said something to the effect of a revolution against censorship in America. So, yeah, there's a back and forth about the app store rules

and who gets into the app store. You know, we talked about this before, putting aside Elon's my friend and he bought Twitter, I do think that this is like going to become one of the issues of our time is this duopoly in the app store. And I think that Apple, and this predates Elon buying Twitter, but I have been saying for a couple of years now, Apple should allow you to have alternate app stores if you press a button

like in your settings, like I take ownership of my phone. Because there is something to be said for the role of the app store in, you know, vetting apps and making it a delightful experience, like with my kids, I don't know about how you feel about it. I like the fact that the App Store is doing some sort of vetting process because I don't want them to load Spyware or something like that. And when I'm on an Android phone, you get a lot of spyware and weird apps and that kind of stuff. But I also would like to be able to load apps on my phone in the same way I do on my desktop, which is I can go through the Apple App Store or Windows has an App Store or you can just load stuff directly if you want to assume that risk.

And there is some risk to it, right? But the interesting thing that happened in the this tweet storm was, guess who showed up? Rich Miner showed up, who for people don't know is one of the co-founders of Android. Yep, and said, it's not so simple. Had there been multiple app stores on Android and iOS, it would have been a major point of friction for app distribution and adoption. You would never have had apps or smartphones, for that matter, grow so quickly and app developers would not have been so successful. What would your take on that? I mean, I think that's true. And also, we have a duopoly in phones that's bad for consumers.

Like, and that's not new. You know, the hardest, the only thing that's hard for me about this conversation is the idea that we're just discovering that, at least one person in that Twitter thread is just discovering this now. Yeah. Because this is obviously a longstanding and ongoing issue. Amazon has been fighting with Apple about the 30% take on in-app purchases. Epic, of course, sued. Apple over this, it's been a point of contention for, I think Spotify had a lot to say for a lot of

years, Apple and Netflix. And Netflix and all of that. And so I think like, yeah, we're in a situation where both of these things are true, actually, that smartphones were brand new, that app stores were a reliable discovery and delivery mechanism and that Apple's rules in particular protected consumers and also let developers make a crap ton of money. Like, we all remember that particular moment in time in the Bay Area where everybody that you talked to was an app developer.

Like every Uber driver, every waiter, it was like how when you're in L.A., everybody's an aspiring actor and writing a screenplay. But in the Bay Area, everybody was writing an iOS app because you could make a lot of money. And, you know, it was like, it's a double-edged sword. And I think it's instructive. And to confirm your point there, here is Spotify's policy for a long time. You know, Spotify has just said,

listen, you're not going to use. You can make that three times bigger, maybe. If you currently pay for premium with Apple's in-app payment system, it's easy to switch to subscribe direct with us. So they discontinued this, and they're just telling people, hey, cancel. Don't go through the store. Come to the website, sign up,

and then just log in with your credentials. This creates unnecessary friction. I understand why... You cannot buy a Kindle book on the Amazon app on the iOS. You still can't. You have to go. You still can't because they are like, no, we're not giving away that 30%.

Yeah. And so they audible, somehow they came to some agreement. And now Audible, you can order an audio book inside the Audible app. So that changed like with the credit. Because you do the credit system that you've already paid for somewhere else, either through your subscription or having purchased it. Yeah. The credit thing is how they get around it.

Oh. So you bought, I see, there's ways around, but to the point, to our point, like, yeah, there are ways around Apple's 30% fee. You just tell people you have to sign up and pay on the web. Right. Which is kind of lame. You don't have to pay it. Sure, it's lame.

But you don't have to pay it. I mean, this is such a weird, again, this is such a weird feeling because I think it's like a bad faith jihad on the one side. And on the other side, the doopoly is bad for consumers and like has been for a really the long time. Yeah, I mean, there is also the issue of should the app store be deciding what, let's just widen the discussion here. So, yeah, I don't get aggregated. But if you're a publishing platform, medium, blogger, Twitter, any other publishing platform where people are publishing their words, does the app store need to get involved in policing what gets published on those? And that is a big question,

I think. Yeah. And so... It's always been the question. I mean, it's, you know, and nobody... It's always been the question. Everything is content. And the reason that people, you know, I mean, Apple is very puritanical.

Like, very... Yes. I mean, if you think about the weird media world that we live in, in some ways, it's because of Apple. And there were... Somebody was saying the other day, they think Steve Jobs personally wrote the rules about nudity in the app store. Like, there won't ever be any. You know?

He did say that, yeah. And it was never a monopoly before. Like now Apple is to the point in market share where it's not a monopoly, technically. It's a duopoly. It is a, we live in a duopoly. And it's. But when you say duopoly, it's essentially a monopoly, right? Two people controlling something, one person controlling it.

It's too few. It's terrible. It's too few. We have the same thing with like broadband. We have the same thing with health insurance. We have the same thing with, you know, it's all like, It's all of an anti-competitive piece, no question and the kind I have been ranting about for like a decade. Inflation and rates are two of the hottest topics right now.

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Yeah. People forget how fragmented things were. In the early days of apps, you had to do a deal with carriers, headset manufacturers. and so you would have to get HTC, Nokia to put your app on their phone or Verizon or both. It was a mishmash of agreements you had to do. And it was essentially like a triopoly. I made that word up. I don't know that that's exactly a word.

But the carriers, Verizon, AT&T, and usually there was like one third one that made up a significant portion of, you know, like T-Mobile. I think it kind of switched to was number three. But you had to get their permission. People forget this. But that's how you had to go to each of them. So my friend Gordon Gould had created a company called UPAC, which was kind of like the original Twitter.

It was like an SMS, you know, group chat kind of situation. They had to do deals and they had to pay to get coverage. So the way it worked was you had to go give AT&T and Verizon money up front to allow people to have the app or you paid per insol. So I thought it'd be instructive to play the clip of Steve Jobs. announcing the App Store. People forget. Yeah. You know, Steve announced this and he had to sell it.

Even Steve Jobs had to sing for his supper. He had to sell developers on doing this. And so thanks to the exceptional producers here, hardworking and innovative as they are on the street startups. We're pulling this clip. The App Store is going to be the exclusive way to distribute iPhone applications directly to every iPhone user. Now, developers are going to ask, well, this is great, but what's the deal, right?

What's the business deal? We think we've got a great business deal for our developers. First of all, the developer picks the price. Pick whatever price you want to sell your app app at. When we sell the app through the app store, the developer gets 70% of the revenues right off the top. We keep 30 to pay for running the app store. There are no credit card fees for the developer. We take care of all that.

There are no hosting fees. For us hosting the app, we take care of all that. There's no marketing fees. The developer gets 70% of the revenues, and it's paid monthly. This is the best deal going to distribute applications to mobile platforms. Now, we talk about the 70-30 revenue split, but the developer gets to pick the price. And you know what price a lot of developers are going to pick? Free, right?

So when a developer wants to distribute their app for free, there is no choice. for free apps at all. There's no charge to the user and there's no charge to the developer. We're going to pay for everything to get those apps out there for free. The developer and us have the same exact interest, which is to get as many apps out in front of as many iPhone users as possible. All right, Molly, what sticks out to you in this 14-year-old video, 2008? This is from 2008, God. I missed you. This is like how I grew up in the tech industry.

industry is watching Steve, I mean, literally like one of the first, my first job in tech media was with a magazine that covered Apple. And one of my first assignments was an Apple keynote where Steve Jobs unveiled the like new the IMAX with color, like the Bondi blue one and IMac TV. Yeah, I cannot get over then and now like developers clapping at like why would there ever be a charge on a free app? They're just like, wait, my app that I made for free and distributed at your store to make your platform better. You won't charge me to do that. Thank you. Like that cult is as strong as ever.

It's amazing. And, you know, that is in reaction to the fact, as I mentioned before we played the clip, that you had to pay to get carriers to put your app on. So there were these gatekeepers. So we went from gatekeepers who were charging, even for a free app to come out. Then we moved to a duopoly that did make things better. There was standardization. There was marketing, as he points out.

You get to be in there. You get to, you know, people can find you. There's no hosting fees. He pointed that out. They used to charge you to host your app. I mean, it was a freaking great deal just like the 99 cent. Song download. Like, it was the best deal going.

14 years ago. And it doesn't meet, right? It's sort of like, just because it was a great deal then doesn't mean it's a great deal now, especially when there are far fewer options. I mean, you remember like five minutes after this Windows phone came out. We thought there might actually be another platform. Blackberry stuff. existed. It was not a duopoly then. There was competition. Yes. And now there is not. Like the

entire history of American capitalism as we experience it right now is anti-competition. Yeah. And this is where, you know, I think Lena Khan can be, you know, since she does have strong feelings about future competition, we talked about this on the show, she wants to preserve future competition, want to preserve future competition in the world. You know, I was trying to think of where I see the most anti-competitive behavior. For me, it's App Store's number one. And then I felt like some of these house brands, you know, that Amazon was doing was kind of felt icky to me the way they were doing it because they had people's information data and they could, you know, then do that. And even the social networks, I think, you know, owning people's data or graphs and not having

an ad-free version available where you could pay to opt out of advertising. Some of these things felt like sort of, and Google search, putting ads above and organic stuff above search, which Google has faced headwinds in Europe about. So I feel like it's a small subset of things, but they're very hard to go after Google, very hard to go after Apple. It's easier to go after like acquisitions like Winicon has done. The other thing I'll point out. But because within the confines of existing monopoly law.

like Apple's not, its behavior might be anti-competitive, but it's not illegal because it's not an illegal monopoly. And so this is where like there's some stuff that Lena Con may or may not be able to do. And I hate like making it all about this one human. You know, like, you should go after this instead of this and whatever. There is still the confines of the law in existing regulation. And what really needs to happen actually is that Amy Klobuchar bill that sort of has been languishing but might actually get pushed through in the next legislative session, which would actually, because we have to, like, if we don't figure out how to define antitrust to include a situation where there's a duopoly and both players engage in anti-competitive behavior, because right now the law doesn't

cover that. It just flat out doesn't. I think you just made an excellent point that I was sort of about to punch up, which is, why don't we just change monopoly law to duopoly? And we say, if any two parties have the majority of a space, that is something that should be treated as acute. That should be something that's treated the same as a monopoly or close to it. And so if you're in a duopoly, Windows Mac, Android and iOS, Facebook's collection of social media assets and TikTok, maybe, if you put those two together, is it a duopoly? I'd have to look at the numbers because you have so many other social networks. Sorry, AWS and, oh, sorry, you were on social networks.

I was looking up to AMcClembishar Bill. Well, no, AWS plus Google Cloud plus Azure. I wonder if Google's like the far third. I think AWS and Azure are considered effectively a duopoly. And then Google is sort of a distance. On a percentage basis, I wonder what percentage of cloud hosting they are. I think actually they're probably combined less than 60, 70%. So it's probably.

If you put the two together, do they equal 80%, 85%, let's say. If you put the top two players together, do they hit 85%? If you have any one player, are they more than 75%. That's where I would put it as like, this is having an impact. If you look at search, Google clearly has over 75% in almost every market. And if you look at cloud computing, it probably doesn't equal 85%. If you look at handset manufacturers, it definitely is 90%, maybe 95% Android Plus. iOS.

A couple of other notes about this presentation. How charming is it that it looks like it's being done in the Marriott and there's like 50 people in the audience.

It's like a row. It's like 10 people. And Steve is like and it's a one camera shoot. I don't know if you noticed that but like they're like moving the camera follow Steve. And they're like Steve,

no, stay behind the podium. He's like, F that. I'm not staying behind the podium. Which is so weird. Wander. That was the age of like big, fancy presentations. It must have just been like kind of a small developer thing.

I think this is kind of when... Pre-WWDC. Maybe. Like you would have the big consumer shows, right, announced that, because the iPhone had been announced the prior year. So that developer community like barely even existed then. It probably was 50 people developing for iOS. Actually, just got a note from our exceptional producers.

AWS Azure and Google Cloud are 66% of the cloud computer market together. Oh, all three together. All three together. Yeah, see, I think it's pretty fragmented. Because there's Oracle. Yeah, there still is some.

Yeah. There's a long tail of one, two, three percent players, I think. Yeah. But, you know, it could become. So it's something to monitor, right? And there's probably things like, yes, to Duopoly, 100%. Every time, I mean, the Duopoly is, it's a stranglehold.

There's no doubt about it. But there are also potentially regulations and new laws that could be introduced that actually impact behavior as opposed to market size, right? And that's the question. It's like, is your behavior anti-competitive and harmful potentially regardless of your market share? Or even if your market share, I think Apple, you know, in the U.S. is like 56% we decided. But it still should. I just cannot help but find it ironic that for years and years and years and years and years, journalists have been saying this. privacy advocates and, you know, like, sorry, but Elizabeth Warren. And all of a sudden,

all of a sudden, some folks on the tech industry care about this industry that they never cared and I'm like, hmm. Remote work is here to stay. We all know that. And I'm sure a ton of you are listening right now and you've gone fully remote. And a lot of remote workers love living that digital nomad lifestyle. Don't I know it? You see me during ski season. I'm out there doing the executive CEO, a little 90 minutes of skiing in the afternoon, skip lunch, eat at your desk. Well, if the nomad life is for you, and I know it is, you need to check out Blue Ground. Blue Ground is a network of stunning, stunning, move-in-ready apartments that come with everything you need to work remotely.

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it does feel like the app store now is a blocker for startup specifically. Don't forget, though, you know, Tumblr got removed at some point from the App Store. In 2018, I think they had some CSAM issues to use the acronym. You can look it up yourself. Ew. Yeah. I had C-Sign initial. Yeah.

I don't want to say the actual words here. But they, and so the App Store is like a backstop against companies not doing their own policing, or at least Apples is, where they will. Because I think they also took down parlor at some point, the right-wing MAGA kind of platform. And so this is where it's going to get super interesting. At what part of the stack are you immune or it's not your responsibility? It's, you know, the other person's responsibility. I think Google probably takes a lighter hand with us.

And Steve Jobs' legacy was always to take a more firm hand on some of these things. the original content moderators. Like in many, many ways, Apple is the original content moderators. They were like, we will control, and it is their legacy of control. They're like, we will control every single aspect of your experience here, and you will love it. You will love it. And for a long time you did? Yeah, Google remove Parlor following the January 6 capital attacks.

That was, yeah. Apple did, did they? I think so. Yeah, I think they got booted everywhere. And so this is like, I think, going to be one of the discussions as well. There's... They did, yeah. Yeah, they did.

And so this is, I think, going to become one of the... There's parallel issues here. One is, like, the Vig is 30% too much. Two is consumer choice. Is this reducing community choice? And then three is, hey, like, are you policing your platform enough for our taste? And then this is going to require, I think, given the political environment we're in, I think we're going to have to have more transparency of exactly why, you know, a social platform

is banning people or not banning people. And then the app platforms being more transparent. Here's why we're blocking this, you know, social platform or publishing platform. And then those two things are going to, I mean, we're just going to have to have a little more disclosure of why people are doing what they're doing. and then, you know, at least consumers can understand, like, okay, Tumblr allows adult content, you know, the app store bans it, but Google Play allows it, or, you know, it's allowed in certain app stores or not. Just a little more transparency would be good here, and then appeals process as well. I think that exists, doesn't it? Apple also, we should note that Apple did under some of this pressure last year change its cuts.

to 15% for developers who make less than a million dollars in annual sales per year. Yeah, I think you have to apply for that. Yeah. Perhaps. Yeah. I mean, they said that would be the vast majority of iOS app developers. Yeah. Also, the App Store makes craft ton of some money.

Like, look, there's stuff that I've been complaining about Apple doing for almost 20 years, right? Like the thing where they charge you for dongles and they use the proprietary standards and I mean, it's very interesting. I don't know. It's like, everything is fine when you're tiny and everybody loves you. Scale is what, you know,

makes it the problem. Yeah, I mean, you, and I think the app stores have been opaque about their choices. I think the, if something is removed or not approved, it should be transparent.

Like, they should, just like Google is very transparent about when they get subpoenas, they have that like web page where you can go see, you know, hey, here's who's asking for information on your user account and stuff like that. Google, just so we read the policy here, all apps on Google Play that feature user-generated content, UGC, are required to implement robust moderation practices that prohibit objectionable

content, provide an in-app system for reporting objectionable UGC, so that's interesting. In-app, it has to be. Take actions against the UGC where appropriate and remove or block abusive users who violate the app's terms of service. terms of use and or user policy. So that's not Google's terms of service, but they're saying you have to have a policy for abusive users and you have to, I guess, execute on it.

And I guess people have to understand that. Yeah. Kind of interesting that we're now hitting this moment in time, I think, where this is going to become a major issue. It's been interesting to see who has skated under the enforcement radar, right? Like, you look at all the times that Sundar and Mark Zuckerberg were called before Congress, and it's because their bad behavior was less welcomed by consumers, right?

Like, Apple has benefited for a decade of kind of like big tech backlash from having everybody love them. and Microsoft, I think, has benefited from being really boring. Even though both of them are engaged in very similar behaviors, and Apple is building up an unbelievable data moat. If you look at data as an antitrust issue and it is, Apple has an incredible data mode that nobody's really talking about. And so I think it's actually going to be really interesting to see if Apple is vulnerable at this moment of

kind of realization of all the various ways that we're being controlled or that these companies control our interactions. Yeah, I just love the idea. It's a very simple solution that I think sometimes there are very simple solutions to this that the Justice Department, the FTC regulators could just fall back on for consumer choice. And I think these are in the best interest also of the people who have duopolis or monopolies. I've given two very specific examples over the years that still have not been implemented. If I own an iPhone or an Android, an Android you can do this pretty easily. Having to gel break it is lame, right? Like, that sucks. You're constantly then having to wipe your phone, reload it. You're all of a sudden,

like, you're driving a 1970 Mustang where you have to change the carburetor and spark plugs yourself. like, you know, now it's like your hobby, right? It's going to be 100 hours a year of this nonsense. Why not just have a button inside your settings that say, I would like to side load apps. I would like to load apps, and I understand that this breaks my warranty for the software. I don't get to get tech support or whatever. And if I click that button, I'm just assuming some amount of risk.

Apple could very easily implement this. So if I want to load the Epic Games or, you know, Spotify, direct, or Kindle directly and work with them directly and just go to Spotify.com slash iPhone and it allows me to download the apps directly from them that it might have features that Apple doesn't agree with. Let's say adult content, right?

Or more risque content. Which is my right. Like if I want to have Tumblr and Tumblr's got some, you know, stuff on it or OnlyFans wants to have an app. I don't know if OnlyFans has an app. That's a good question. Or I want to do gambling, right? I want to load casinos or I want to load some wallet that, you know, is a crypto wallet or a gambling

app. I should just have the right to do it. The Apple nanny state. Exactly. Just like let me. Let me. And then for Facebook, you know, just having a, I'll pay you $8 a month, $12 a month, whatever it is, do not track any of my information.

Do not save any of my data. The end. You know, these would be common sense solutions. And I think that's where politicians, if they're listening, could really actually settle this with duoplies or monopolies. I also, honestly, I am excited about a possibility where the market solution for this is the mobile web. Remember when the mobile web was going to be how you accessed everything? And then everybody was like, well, I can get a lot more data from you if I make you download my app.

And Apple was like, I can make a lot more money if everybody downloads apps and buys stuff within the app. Like, literally we had a decentralized censorship-resistant solution for this. Yes. And it was the freaking browser. Yes. And apps ruined everything. You know, apps are delightful and faster and snappier than the mobile web, I guess. And so, you know, it's easier.

Only because that's just developer attention, right? Like, it doesn't have to be that way. It's because they build for app first. Yeah, exactly. Build for the mobile web and then just keep all your money and let me, you know, I'm just saying. Well, I was all for it. HTML 5, let's go. Speaking up, Google, somebody tweeted the number of employees per department on, yeah, from, I think it was the information.

I don't know where they got the data from if it's available and if Google discloses it. But I was just shocked in this chart at the small number of people who work inside of YouTube. Now, these numbers here, if you look at the chart, show each division. So you have like Nest and you have YouTube, you got Android, you got search and assistant that's kind of bundled together. And the number, the headcount basically for each of those divisions. Now, I'm also told that these numbers, like there might be some centralization of, like some YouTube functions might be in the cloud portion of these numbers, right? Right. There's probably some economies of scale that happen in a multi platform, multi-brandt, right, like the data. Yeah. So like YouTube might not. Like I'm sure sales and partnerships, that covers it all. That's not just like one part.

The YouTube sales and partnership numbers and the cloud computing numbers are probably listed under cloud and sales and partnerships, which are the biggest numbers here on the chart. 50,000 plus people in cloud, 30,000 people in sales and partnership. But then only 6,000 people in YouTube. anyway, if we were to even, you know, double that number, you know, it's still super impressive. When you look at it, and I think we're having this moment in time where people are saying, well, how many people do you actually need to run these divisions and the bloat in tech and I guess a bunch of hedge fund saying, hey, maybe get a little bit smaller and be more profitable in the down market. But I just thought YouTube was the standout here for me on the chart. you know, they have 30 billion in revenue in 2022 with around 7,500 direct employees. It's 4 million per employee.

If you were to double, it's, if they had other employees, it'd still be 2 million per. But that reminds you to be of really the goat in all of this. Craigslist had over $1 billion in revenue in 2019 with only 50 employees. So if you all are looking at how efficiently can a tech company be run, Craigslist is actually the one that people forget about.

Now, of course, Craigslist looks the, exact same as it did 25 years ago. They have, they do not. I mean, it's comical. Has not changed it. I don't think, does Craigslist have an app? I don't even think they have an app.

They're just like, yeah, it's the web, guys. We're just using the mobile web. If those numbers are holding, and listen, Craigless could have more revenue now, because it's three years later. It could be $2 billion. It could be $1.5 billion. And they could have double the number of employees. But anyway, if we just take the two numbers we do have and triangulate it,

and I've heard these are directionally correct. It's 20 million per employee. I mean, my lord, the efficiency of this website is just unbelievable. All right, everybody. I want to take a moment to thank our friends at Microsoft. Today we have Lahini Aranachulam with us. She's a senior director of platform and growth at Microsoft. She actually created the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Jason. Thanks for having me. So tell us a little bit about the Founders Hub. Why did you create it? Yeah. So we built Founders Hub based on the feedback.

from hundreds of founders. We spoke to founders at all stages of their journey, so ones that were just starting out with an idea, to those that had actually built successful companies, just to better understand what their challenges and pain points were as they were building their businesses. And we found three challenges that kind of rang true regardless of where they were in their journey. The first one was that founders need access to coaching and advice to get to that next milestone. The next is that they need to accelerate the time it takes to actually build an MVP or their second product or their next set of features. And of course, founders need capital to actually keep them afloat as they continue to build their companies. And so Microsoft for

Startup's Founders Hub is a digital platform built to help founders with these challenges. Thanks so much, Lahini. If you would like to check it out, go to the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub and they have no fundraising requirements open to anybody. If you're a founder, they want to support you. It takes five minutes to apply and startups can get up to six figures. of benefits instantly. Sign up for the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub today at aka.m.s slash this week in startups. What's interesting about this is that this started, the information story started as a piece

about Google dramatically increasing its headcount between 2019 and 2022. And though that chart comparison, I don't know if we can pull that up, but it's pretty astonishing actually and shows how much Google has been plowing into cloud. Like that bar goes from, I'm looking at the information story right now, like 25,000 employees in 2019 to 52,000 employees by 2022, which makes you wonder if the like revenue, speaking of revenue per employee, yeah, has been commensurate. Like they've plowed money and they're trying to catch up with Azure and AWS. Yes.

But it does make you wonder if, like, people alone was the right thing to throw at this. I don't know. Who knows? They're still kind of distant third. We have a limited amount of information in terms of how these are broken up. But the overall trend has been take people off the market. Craigslist does have an app. Sorry.

Yeah. I had no idea. I know they spent years stopping people from, they've had a really, aggressive approach, which I don't think is unwarranted, by the way, of not letting people scrape their data. A lot of startups I know will pitch me on like, we made an app, we scrape this data from here. And I'm like, you're going to get a letter from Craig Newmark. Like, I wouldn't do that. Like, the second your app becomes popular, you have to respect their terms to service and their data. They don't want to share it. You don't have the right to share it.

And then they, there were many people who created Craigslist apps, you know, to kind of scrape it or wrap it in some ways. This chart of alphabet and meta and the total employee accounts are just extraordinary, obviously. And Google still has not announced a riff, but they have announced performance reviews. Yeah. And Facebook did say they're going to get rid of 10,000 people. So I think these lines will go sideways. If you're looking at them, they're just up into the right, incredible amount of hiring.

I wonder if the right thing to do is ignore Wall Street, let your stock crash and just take all this talent off the market if you're Google and ignore, uh, to the extent you can, you know, with your, your, um,

yeah, Google said they're going to slow hiring. I wonder if that is the move is to just ignore anybody giving you advice and just keep spending like crazy. There was a, there was a really good piece actually that I saw not that long ago that was basically like, you know,

layoffs are this old, our old guard mistake. It was like, everybody always does this. Yeah, it was in Bloomberg. Um, and it was like,

everyone always does this when there's a downturn. Yeah. You lay off to save money. But the thing is that in a downturn, I have been having this exact conversation with a friend of mine who's like a big wing, you know, at a company under a lot of pressure to do a lot of layoffs. And she's like, yeah, but we need to build on, we need a new product layer in order to take us into the future, right?

And now is the time to do it. But if we lay everybody off, we are literally not going to have the human capital to be able to do it. So in order, so, and then when we come out of this, we're going to have to hire and restaff. We will have lost institutional knowledge. Hiring is super expensive. Severance is super expensive. And so you put yourself in this like weird flywheel of assuming that you must have overhired. And that was a mistake.

But you're definitely right to lay off now. That's not a mistake. And it's like, well, wait a second. Maybe both of these things are some version of a mistake. Yeah. overhiring. And as I tweeted the other day, I think this is the, we are now in the end of excess and entitlement and going into austerity and exceptionalism. The pressure is now going to be on everybody to perform in a down market. And when I said this, you know, I was

very clear. I was talking about VCs management teams and founders. Of course, people are saying, like, well, what about the employees? You hate the employees. I was actually saying the opposite. it. I think if an employee, I don't know how many times I have to say this to how many people, if an employee gets free lunch, who gave them the free lunch? If the employee gets, you know, I don't know, unlimited vacation or whatever, this was something that was created by Google, copied by everybody, it became the management standard, and maybe people went too far with it, you know, and maybe it did create entitlement in the employee class. But this started with VCs, the most entitled group of people in the world. And then,

founders also super entitled and management teams also super entitled. The entitlement came top down, not bottom up. Employees would have brown bagged it like we all did 20 years ago. Nobody asked for Neiman Ranch steaks. Google provided them. I remember this because I went to Google one time and they were like Neiman Ranch steak. And I was like, did I just have that at like a five-star Michelin restaurant or two-star Michelin restaurant? Like you have Neiman Ranch stakes at Google? It's not the employee's fault. This goes, this is straight on the heads of management.

And now, you know, it's the painful process of reversing some of this. Snap told staff with 90 days notice, assume default in person. I don't know if you saw that headline. I didn't think that's going to go, my life. 80% of the time, not great. Like, how is that going to go for Evan Spiegel? You know, it's, I'm doing an event with the ask. Aspen Institute about work, future of work stuff.

Fancy. Stunning. It was pretty stunted. It was pretty stunted. I have to admit. I was like, oh, finally. It's not in Aspen or anything, but, you know, it's... Oh, stunning.

Yeah. Oh, stunning, Molly. Wait a second. Have you bid to the Aspen Institute and stayed at those apartments on their campus? No, I never have. Oh, I got invited there one year. That's why I'm making friends out here. That's why I'm out of your friends.

Oh, man, the Aspen Institute, that's high living. I got, you know who's part of that? The guy who wrote, who's the guy who hates tech who. wrote winners take it all. Anand. Anand. Garadar Garadhar. Garadalis. Giridar. I feel terrible about this. I know.

I always say it wrong and I always skip an entire syllable. I just say Anand right now and apologize for, I need to practice. I like his writing a lot. He just wrote that the whole book about finding common ground. Oh, yeah. I got to read that. Oh, yeah. But anyway, my favorite part of his book was he's like, yeah, I was like, you know,

Aspen Institute fellow flying on billion-dust private jets. And then I realized I hated the industry and I blame them. But oh my Lord, you go, Nick Denton and I did a fireside chat at this Aspen Institute in the summer. And I was hanging out. I made friends with all these celebrities. I was hanging out with this woman from the L word. We were everybody staying in these like beautifully designed apartments on campus. They're feeding you.

Gorgeous. You're walking through the Aspen Woods. Man, you got to get in on that. Fingers crossed. Aspen Institute. I know. Oh, that's why I'm like, that's good living. That's why I'm pretty stoked.

I'm starting small. And then next. But anyway, the point of that is that the thing is about work, making the economy work for everybody, the future of work. You know, it was this whole conversation, too, about productivity and care work and like flexibility and older workers and all the things that kind of contribute to people leaving the workforce or not working very hard. And it was really funny because it was like, oh, yeah, it turns out all the stuff that happened in the pandemic. in some cases makes work more accessible for more people, right? Like you get help, financial help for finding care. You get flexibility, which like 70 or 80% of workers want some flexibility, right, to work from home.

You get... 100% want it. Yeah. I mean, who doesn't want flexibility, yeah. But also, like the Harvard Business Review is like, yeah, no, productivity went way up when people worked from home. Way up. Well, they couldn't go out at night because of cover. Remember that.

You weren't allowed to go out and go to a restaurant. Sure. But you also didn't commute. You worked more hours. People worked more hours. I mean, yes, there was nothing else to do. And so it'll be interesting to see how that normalizes. But now they're starting to be like, huh, when we brought some people back to the office

and put them back in that open floor plan that doesn't work for everybody, anybody, then their productivity went down. So now you see these companies that are attempting to kind of blunt force reverse all of the trends of the past three years in ways that are very likely to lead to, to employees being like burned out and or less productive or being like, yeah, I don't want to go. You're, I had everything I needed to kick ass at my job. Yeah. And now you're trying to take that all the way and also tell me to work harder.

And it's people are like, yeah, I don't, I'm not sure. I'll tell you what's happening here. Not sure. I don't think that's entitlement. I'll tell you what's that. He wants to do another riff. He wants to do a loyalty test. He wants to go hardcore.

And so he's like, okay, you know what? We're losing. The stock market doesn't believe in my leadership anymore. Maybe I'm sitting course side of too many Warriors games. I'm not just saying, you know. And not even having fun? Not even like, yeah, I mean, he is, yeah, restrained guy. He just has fun on the inside. He screams inside his heart. Exactly. But here's the thing. He has gotten his ass kicked by the stock market. Stock market believes he's not, he's asleep at the the wheel. They believe he's lost his edge. They don't want to buy his stock. When your stock gets pummel to this level, at some point, and this is the back channel, I'm going to give you the secret back channel with CEOs, board members of these companies, et cetera. Secret back channel

is that now the leadership, the CEOs, I'm just talking about the CEO class like Evan Spee. They are realizing if they, um, they, um, um, um, get everybody back to work, and they lay off people who, in some cases, maybe they don't like working with to begin with, the more they do that, the more their personal net worth goes up. So that's how crazy things have changed for CEOs. They were rewarded last year for hiring people and going for growth. This year, they're being rewarded for laying off people, demanding people come back to the office, and showing profits. And so, you know, it's, it is the biggest swing I've ever seen in the history of tech in terms of operating philosophies.

But he's just doing this because if his stock was going up right now, he would not be doing this. But he's got to try something. Just like Zuckerberg finally bent the knee and was like, I'll cut 10,000 people. Fine. I'll bend the knee. That's what the stock market wants. We'll see if Google bends the knee. but, you know, there's,

ultimately it's like that Bob Dylan song, you've got to serve somebody. These CEOs are now realizing, like, they can't have their stock be on the floor. It's going to affect their personal network, it's going to affect morale, and it's going to affect their ability

to have cash to invest in products. Yeah. That's why he's doing. Sucks to be the people. Just like it always does. Well, I mean, we we I think probably the rest of the world like people this is what I love on certain social networks when these things happen people are like oh my god you know people who are truck

drivers or you know work in retail or on a farm or in a factory are like oh you have to go back to an office four days a week and eat free food I'm sorry you know this is like the This is the cultural battle of our time. Important to recognize two things. One, the CEOs created this entitlement. The CEOs created this culture. Full stop. Number two, if their stock prices weren't collapsed,

it wouldn't be doing this. They wouldn't change the thing? Yeah. It wouldn't change a thing. I have now come to the conclusion that there are three groups of people, Molly, and I have the actual numbers. I have done the announces. There are three group of people.

of people. There are people who work harder and better and are more productive from home. There are people who are more productive. There are people who are equally productive and there are people who are less productive. It turns out, Molly, based on my deep analysis and research, everyone is the same. Correct. This is breaking news. Not everybody's the same. And I actually did the statistics and the Numbers came out irrefutable and perfectly round. First time in history. Amazing. 20% of people are more effective working from home.

20% of people are equally, equally productive at home as in an office. And exactly down to two decimal points, 60.00% in my very astute analysis in detail. are less productive from home. 60% are less productive from home. Now, I know it's hard to believe because you're part of the top 20%. You're part of the top 20%. So you can't imagine. I'm just, no, I'm just saying Harvard Business Review came up with exactly the opposite

numbers. During the pandemic. Now it's now that people can go out in Yolo and go out at night, there is a full 60.0.000, 0.0001%. It's a little, you know, it's about 5.0.0. You start to see the differences. Those people are the ones, the 60%, and now, listen, in your company, I might be 40, but I'm just looking at it in my analysis.

Those are the people ruining it for everybody else. Those 60% who are quiet quitting or over-employed and working two jobs or doing side hustles or effing around so they find out, those are the people who are screwing it up for everybody. So you have two choices. You know, we have but two choices. One, you need to get those people out of the company. So the other 40% become 100 as a manager or you're going to do the gentleman's riff like Evan Spiegel is doing and doing default together.

That's it. That's where we've come to. Remote work don't scale. It's too hard to scale. That's, I think, what people are learning. So you think 60% of people were definitely working nonstop? Eight hours a day. Just killing it.

Eight hours. 10 hours. Oh, no, I don't think that. I don't think that. I think it was. I don't think anything changed. I don't think. Who's working at an hour?

Eight hours. Okay. There is plenty of evidence to show that even at an eight hour work day, if it's in the office from nine to six, that they only work four to six hours. Like, every organization has hitters and sitters. So maybe 60% of people were sitters, wherever they're sitting, whether it's on the couch or in the office. But also, just that 60% kind of number is maybe where people think that you don't like the workers so much. Yeah.

I'm just saying. Just saying. It is a complicated. That's every, that's the world. We live in. The power law, like the reason I am drawn to the power law as a principle of investing is because, the power law plays out in life constantly. Constantly. Like constantly. Not everybody is equally skilled, has an equal work ethic, has an, you know, like there are always, there are

outliers in every scenario that you're going to encounter, and that includes work. So, you know, when we look at the Pareto principle. Give people like, assign their worth based on their work ethic. I think they're still probably only fine. Well, here's what we're getting to in management. In an age of excess, aka low interest, money flowing, people just look at the top line number. Things are going in the same direction. We're not going to worry too much about this.

Because everything's headed in the right direction. The money's flowing. Stock's going up. nobody cares. In a down market, everybody does a little self-examination. And everybody should just remember the 80-20 rule, the power law rule, Pareto principle in terms of efficiency. Yeah, I agree. 20% of people doing 80% of the work. So what happens in always? So what happens in a down market is people look at and go, okay, you know what? Peretto Paredo Paredo principle is true. Great. Let's find out who the 80%. If 80, if, if, 20% are doing 80, or who's the 80 doing 20? Let's fire them. Or let's, if we're not courageous enough to do the Rift, let's force them to come back to the office, because 57% of people said they would quit their jobs, according to a recent study, if they were forced to come back to the office. There's a Fletjob survey. That's what's happening here. I think that's happening and I think

that's the wrong call. Like, if you're going to get rid of people, just get rid of them. And I understand the, look, I get it. Like, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who's a startup CEO and she was like, I'm kind of freaking stoked that we can finally tell people like, hey, actually, I need you to go ahead and do your job. Like, I need you to not talk about you. You know, she was like, I'm thrilled that there is a downturn so that I can now. And I was like, I get it. Like it's because there are hitters and sitters and then there are people who talk about their feelings all the time at work. And you're like, you know what? It's work. I don't want to, I'm a gen Xer. Like, I don't want to talk about your feelings. Just do your work. All of that is

true. But then trying to do a riff by getting people to come back to the office means you're going to lose some of your 20 percenters because they have been kicking ass at home and they are mad that you are telling them that they're not. And so to me, it's like, you know what, suck it up and lay them off, Evan and have fun at the basketball game. Well, I bet you what they're doing is always in these situations. There is a little, you know, of course, if you happen to be a hitter and you need additional flexibility, right, you know, as Elon says, like, yeah, if your manager takes responsibility for you being a hitter, and they put their, you know, name on the line so you can work from home, sure. But it's on the manager then to say, okay, I'll make sure this person

is, in fact, a hitter. But yeah, this is, it's a new era. And founders are just not going to be given the ability to run buck wild in terms of spending. They're going to be held accountable, even the billionaire ones, you know, the billionaire class that rules, in this, you know, age of excess are now being held accountable. And like, Evan Spiegel's net worth is down what? If he's 100% of his net worth's in that company, 99% and if that company's down 80%, can you imagine you went from like being worth $10 billion and now you're worth $500 million? You're like, whoa, whoa, what happened?

What happened? You know, like the guy from Peloton was, I mean, what was the original, what was it, John what was Folli John Foley What was John Foley was probably worth like

$10 billion and now he's worth like $100 million like I know like for anybody who's not worth $100 million dollars this is like a holy cow

like $100 million is incredible sure but man you might have you might have taken out $500 million in margin loans on your $10 billion and thought I'm good

5% of my margin loans so Peter Notobom one of our notice now he's selling rugs brutal he's a rugs salesman. Oh my God. You people are savages. Just cold his ice.

Wow. Now he's a rug salesman. Listen, change is hard. Like, changes here and change is hard. I'll tell you what's going to happen. These stocks are going to pop. I'm going to be j-trading this through the holidays because I think now, like, everybody has given up that there's any way out of this mess. Yeah. We're in complete capitulation right now. We need to be, honestly, the sooner the better. Sell your Apple. What was it was it was a Bucco Capital who was tweeting that he was like stop trying to pretend that this is all sell it sell it. Yeah, sell your Apple so I could buy it. I'd like to increase my Apple position. Jay Powell. Jay Powell. How he will not be stopped until you roll over and show that white belly. I'm not selling it. No, I'm not selling my Apple. I'm not selling my

Amazon. No, I'm doubling down. I'm not selling anything. You don't lose. You haven't lost anything until you sell. Exactly. Exactly. The comeback's coming. Speaking of a comeback that's not coming. Speaking of pure capitulation. Oof. All right. Molly, I tried to understand this in our group chat. I know BlockFi file for bankruptcy.

I know Sam Bankman fraud. I mean, Freed. Good one. Did you make that up? Amazing. I stole it. I like all good things.

It's like a Twitter. Some reply guy. I'm all about the reply guys. I've decided I'm going to become a reply guy on Twitter. I'm no longer going to do my own primary tweets. I'm just going to be like dropping replies in. I'm going to be a reply guy. But some reply guy dropped the Sam Bankman fraud.

That's funny. Okay. So, okay. Explain to me this show name because I mean, I'm going to try. I'm going to try to explain it. What I'm going to do first is read the tweet that I have been referring to as the a rubiros tweet. Okay.

Aruburos, of course, the snake that eats its own head. So tweets, AECO 2718. I was looking that up as you were talking. It's a really cool tattoo. It's not a good way to run a business. So BlockFi is a creditor to FTA. that lent to Alameda that lent to Emergent, which is a shell company owned by SBF that bought Robin Hood chairs

that were pledged as collateral to guarantee to BlockFi, the loan to FTX that was used to bail out BlockPie itself. Cricket. I need to ask Brennan. Producer Nick, you got to keep that break in the show. All right, hold on. Israel, too. All right.

So basically, Rock FI has declared bankruptcy because apparently, none of that snake head eating situation worked out. I just want to, okay, wait, you need to keep that tweet up for one more second here. Just so I can explain how confused. BlockFi is accredited to FTX. They have a claim against FTX, which has also gone bankrupt. So these are two bankrupt companies. Yep.

BlockFi is saying they're accreditor to FTX. FTX lent to Almeda, their sister company, which was a trading firm. Right. that lent to emergent, which was a shell company. Alameda lent to Emergent, which was a shell company. Alameda lent to Emergent. Emergent is a shell company owned by SBF. FBF owns both of these entities, including all three of these entities.

All three. Including the shell. SBF bought Robin Hood shares. I remember that. The shares went up. Thank you. He bought like 70% of Robin Hood. And those were pledged.

Those Robin Hood shares that SBF bought were pledged as collateral. to guarantee BlockFi a loan to FTX. But FTX used that loan to bail out BlockFi? Holy crap. Okay, so BlockFi got a loan. BlockFi loaned money to FTX. And then FTCS was like, no problem. We're totally good for this.

We put these Robin Hood shares up as collateral, which A or one, pledging shares as collateral is a dangerous game because turns out the stock market goes both up. And down, but okay. And then FtX got this loan from BlockFi and then turned around and used the loan from BlockFi to bail out BlockFi. Okay. All right.

Cool, cool, cool, cool. Sounds good. So anyway, BlockFi went bankrupt, not surprisingly. Well, you know, congratulations. And is now suing, by the way, Sam Bankman-Fried. That was the headline that started that started this whole. led to this tweet, which is the headline is that BlockFi just filed for bankruptcy on Monday and is now suing Sam Bankman-Fried for unpaid collateral. The collateral, of course, being the Robin Hood shares.

Terrell Luna, 3AC, Voyager Celsius, FTX, and BlockFi, all of these are insolvent and or bankrupt today. All of those a year or two ago were the biggest geniuses in the world. Yeah. I just want to point out, like, you have to wonder where the money is in this. So where did the money go? Now, some of the money never existed because people were saying this money exists in this company, this company, this company, and this company when it was, in fact, one instance of money.

And some of the money was, here is a billion tokens that we value at a dollar each. So there's a billion dollars over here. But only that valuation was based on $10 million in tokens that had been bought. So 990 million of that actually never existed in the world. So there's multiple amounts of money that either were stolen, counted twice, or never existed to begin with, because they were paper wealth. I just want to pause for a second, say, though, there was some money. There were bagholders, consumers, investors who actually put cash into these things, venture firms, all number of people bought into this group delusion that these tulips were worth something, that they were. were never worth. There was no core value in the majority of this, the overwhelming majority of

it. But I do know where some of the money went. Do tell. Bottle service in Miami. Because I was in Miami and I was watching somebody's crypto kids. I went out with sacks like at the tail end of the remember that moment where we got the vaccines and then like the next 60 days. Everybody's like, I got the vaccine. Crazy. There's COVID can't transmit. I'm a blocker. I can't ever get COVID. because I've had double vexed. So Sacks and I go pop some bottles. We're hanging out having a good time. And all these people coming up to me,

giving me glasses of champagne at this hot club in Miami. And what do you do? I'm in NFTs. I got a Tao. I got a token offering. I'm a crypto investor. Do, da, da, da, da, I see O. IPO, blah, blah.

I got a marketplace. I got in early on Bitcoin. All of this money, I believe, can be found in the podcast. of club promoters and bottle service. I don't mean to be sexist here, but waitresses, because I don't, I think I've ever seen a bottle service waiter. Um, bottle service servers. I mean, they got the money.

Hardly any women in this industry. So I think we can assume that they were sending out the, the female servers. Yeah. I mean, literally, one of the quotes in this article about how Miami nightclubs are now feeling the pain. they're literally in the cottage industry collapse. Wah, Miami nightclubs are hurting because they became flooded with people who made all this money off of crypto.

There were all these quotes that were just like, yeah, it was all these young men. Here we go. Quote, 95% men young with kind of a nerdy style. You wouldn't be able to tell they had a lot of money if they were just walking around. That's according to the former director. of Groot Hospitality, Andrea Verma-Kaddy, Bimmer-Kati,

which operates clubs like Live, story, and Swan. So basically, all these young guys were rolling with all their crypto money. There was another incredible quote that was like, rich people don't usually show you their wallets, their literal wallet.

She was like, but I've seen more crypto wallets over the last two years than I ever would have to. People would just be like, check out my crypto wallet. You bring me some Dom. Um, there's a club called 11 that's spelled E1-1-E-V-E-N, uh, I think. I've never been to it.

I have been, uh, threatened to be dragged there many times. Every time I go to Miami, but come to 11, come to 11. I'm like, I'm, let me explain to you. I'm 50, too, as of yesterday. 50. I just say 50 and then nobody's hearing of us. Two. Um, that's my new process. Fifty. I like it. I like it. Anyway, there's nothing that's, happening at the club at three, four, or five a.m. That is more interesting to me than sleep. Yes. Full stop.

Yeah. Full stop. It's such a good place to be in life. Listen, I have been to the greatest clubs at the peak of many bubbles, you know, like at the end of the millennium, you know, century, whatever. And I was at Arbazel last year during all this craziness. and I was talking to Mike Beeple, you know, Beeple, the NFT artist. Oh, yeah.

You are a real artist. I already forgot all about people, but yeah. People's a real artist who makes stunningly beautiful art that people put into NFTs. But he also makes beautiful boxes with the art in it. Like I've seen these things that are gorgeous. I would buy a Beeple and put it on my wall. I'm not an art guy, but I would consider buying a Beba's artist. And he said, hey, well, what's your take, Jake Al, a big fan, blah, blah, blah.

I said, anybody wants to buy any NFT with you, sell everything you got. One of a thousand, one of 10,000, one of a million. Just sell everything as fast as possible. Trees don't grow to the moon. This thing's going to be over soon. Sell everything. This was December of 2021. And he said, really?

Hold on a second. He brought over somebody who works with me. Can you say that one more time to him? And I guess, you know, they were, you know, maybe. being, I don't want to say precious, but they were being judicious about selling stuff, you know, and holding stuff, like specifically NFTs. I was like, sell it all. Get it out the door.

Get cash. Build up the cash reserves. You're an artist. You can always make more art. You've got to war haul this shit now. Yeah. If they want a Campbell soup, make a hundred, make a thousand. Until they stop wanting Maryland Monroe, you're making them.

Get them out the door and get that cash. Full stop. Anyway. According to the Financial Times, 11 started accepting cryptocurrency payments. Yeah. And they processed six million transactions last year. I hope they sold that crypto on the way. Immediately.

As soon as it came in, they just processed it for cash. Now they say in the past three months they've only processed less than 10,000. Down 99%. Like crypto guys are gone. That money is gone. Hopefully they stacked cash those nightclubs. Wait till we see. the autopsies on these dead corcuses.

You know, like when they cut the shark open and they find a license plate in it, like when they cut these things open, man, there is going to be some gnarly stuff in the belly of these defunct dead crypto companies. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My favorite so far is FTX's bar tab. I don't know if you saw that.

This is the greatest thing you've ever heard in my entire life. It turns out that FTX, which is the story gift that never stops giving. Do we have our guys coming on tomorrow? We have the roundtable tomorrow. No, next Thursday? Next week. But we can call them if you want an emergency. No, no, let's let it build up.

I can't talk about crypto every day of my life. Exactly. We can let it build up. I sound like get off my long guy. But the way the FTX story just keeps giving is unbelievable. And the latest nugget is just a teeny little nugget. It turns out that FTX does have a big outstanding debt, a $50,000 debt, which, relatively speaking, not that much.

But they, it is owed to a Bahama-based. Margaritaville. Aw. They hope 50 times. So wait, you're telling me that it kind of is on brand. These guys who are on speed. Right?

They're on speed. They're in a polycube. I mean, if you're on speed playing League of Legends, you're not going to drink like some Japanese whiskey. You're not drinking wine,

you know, from Italy. You're not even great. You're drinking peanut kale. You're just peanut. a strawberry, what do they call a strawberry collada? Like, these are the people who ordered sugar drinks. They're ordering strawberry dafferies.

It's no offense, Molly. But the Polycute is going to play some legal legends. They're going to get hopped up on some speed patches that their doctors gave them. They're going to smash strawberry margaritas, daqueries, until their brains are frozen. And then they're going back and they're going to trade some crypto at 2 a.m. Yeah. 50 dimes in 50 times. What is it?

a Dackery cost in the Bahamas? This was in the bankruptcy filings. Margueriteville, I'm going to say, is probably low on the list of creditors. I'm sorry. You know John McDougal from FTX, formally. You know John McDougal? No, from FTX? Oh, here he is, by the way.

This is a video they caught of him last week. He can't afford to go to the club anymore, but he met a girl. Yeah, at the basketball game. That's John McDougal. I love this video is the greatest thing ever. It's like this, you know, stunning blonde. She's gorgeous. If you are not watching this video, first of all, you should be because we look amazing.

It's so great. No, but because this young man at a basketball game is trying to impress this gorgeous young woman with what appears to be his Costco gold card. She's impressed. It's a gold card. She's like, oh, what? He said an afternoon basketball game. He's like, listen, me and you.

after the game. We hit Costco. We get the, you know, uh, 12, the 24 pack of croissants. I'll also get, uh, they have some really great, uh, moucerelle. And I'll make us some, uh, croissant pizzas. Come back to my place. We'll hit cost. We'll split the, you know, we'll get the croissants. We cut them in half. We put them in Ziploc bags. You freeze them, half of them. And then the other half you eat, but you got them as backups. This is a thing. Yeah, this is where we're at. This is where we're at folks in the cycle.

Guys are trying to impress chicks with Costco cars. That's the point in the cycle. By the way, that's not an FTX guy. We've moved that up. It's not an FTX guy, by the way. It's not an FDX guy. But yes, we've moved from showing off the Bitcoin wallet. This is how you know we're getting back to fundamentals.

Because your crypto wallet is meaningless, but your Costco gold card, that's get your value. All right, everybody. That's the show for today. That's it. That's a lot of show. It's a lot of show. What time is it? Is it 12?

All right, everybody. We'll see you next time. Bye bye. Bye bye.