This Week in Startups - Ask Jason + LegalQ founder Zeb Anderson + OK Boomer | E1539
Episode Date: August 20, 2022Friday variety show! First up, Jason answers your questions on VCs investing in a downturn, winning founder qualities, and more. (1:24) Then, Molly interviews LAUNCH founder Zeb Anderson about his leg...al startup LegalQ. (16:36) Producer Rachel wraps the show with another edition of OK Boomer! (26:59)(0:00) Molly intros the Friday variety show!(1:24) Ask Jason: Why VCs slow investment pace in a downturn(7:00) Ask Jason: What qualities make Jason invest in a founder a second time after a failure(12:29) Jason explains the traction at Uber and Calm when he invested(15:06) Coda - The All-in-one doc for teams, get a $1,000 credit at https://coda.io/twist(16:36) Molly interviews LAUNCH Accelerator founder Zeb Anderson of LegalQ about his app connecting legal professionals and clients(25:34) This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp - Get 10% off your first month at https://betterhelp.com/twist(26:59) OK Boomer! Producer Rachel welcomes tech commentator and talks about the importance of curiosity when building your brand(37:03) iTrust Capital - Visit https://itrust.capital/twist to create your Crypto IRA today(38:10) Digital culture, banning TikTok, social media consent, and more
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Friday. You made it. We all made it. And we have a very fun show for you. First up, we have Ask Jason. He took some awesome questions from you, dear listeners, including such topics as YVC's slowdown investing in a downturn, what makes him invest in a founder multiple times, and the traction that Uber and Calm had when he invested. We're keeping the founder train rolling too because right after that, I interview one of our founders from the 25th cohort of the launch accelerate.
about his legal startup, which is super interesting.
And of course, we wrap with an awesome OK boomer segment from producer Rachel.
It's going to be a great show.
Stick with us.
This week in startups is brought to you by Coda is the all-in-one doc for teams.
If you've got a stack of niche workflow tools or if you're buried in docs and spreadsheets,
Cota is the dock that brings it all together.
Startups can get a $1,000 credit at coda.io slash twist.
BetterHelp provides access to easy.
affordable and private professional counseling anytime, anywhere. Get 10% off your first month at
BetterHelp.com slash twist and I trust capital. Did you know that you can invest in crypto
through your retirement account and still get the same tax advantages as a traditional IRA?
Visit I trust.com capital slash twist to start investing today. Why does a recession slow down
investments when they're supposed to be long term? Isn't it better to buy in a
market, shouldn't VCs be deploying more now? What a great question. I am trying to deploy more now.
There's a lot of reasons why VCs slow down. Number one, they have to do triage on their existing
portfolio. So you got those 50 names, a third of them can't raise money, a third of them are
raising money, people in the middle are doing layoffs. So essentially, you went from everything going
up and to the right, nobody needs any help, to almost every company needing your help.
That's a big distraction.
That's a lot of a general partner's time.
So essentially people circle the wagons in a down market.
They make sure their companies are going to survive, right?
So the PAC basically says,
let's protect all the little kids here.
We're under attack.
We don't want to go on some crazy adventure right now.
We're going to make a camp.
We're going to make sure our companies are safe and secure.
Number two, these GPs have to call down money from LPs.
Those LPs might have told them,
hey, probably good idea to not deploy a ton of
capital right now, don't make a capital call. So if you raise a $100 million fund, you may take down
five million of it. You may ask those LPs, give me $5 million, you deploy it. Six months later,
give me another $5 million, deploy it. Well, that process of just taking a little bit money down
and then deploying it from your LPs, your limited partners in a venture fund as a GP, the general
partner, the person who invests in the venture fund who works there, that process kind of slows
down because the LPs are like, you know what, we don't have a lot of cash around here,
our portfolios are getting killed. Just take.
your time. And so that's something subtle that happens behind the scenes that could be happening right
now. Also, there might not be a great deal for them to look at right now because the founders
have not accepted reality and they're still trying to raise at a higher price. And so we have said
over the last six months to many companies, listen, we really like the business, but we don't
understand the valuation right now. Right now, the valuation is 80 times, 100,000.
50 times revenue. And the public market comps are six times or seven times revenue. And the private
comps for high growth SaaS companies are 20 or 25. Yeah, we would need to, you're expecting a 75
times revenue. We expect 25. So you have a million dollars in revenue. We think the company's worth
$25 million. You'd think it's worth $75 million. The public markets would have valued it at $7 or
$8 million. It's high growth. Okay. So we triple it to $25, but you want to go much higher.
to 10 times what the public mortgage would value it at. And so you have this little bid and ask being
out of sync, which you also see in real estate. Somebody's like, oh, I bought my house for $5 million,
or I bought my house for $2 million. I stayed in it for 10 years. The market went crazy. I think it's
worth $5 million. And the buyer says, yeah, I know you think it's worth $5 million. And it probably
was worth $5 million last year. And somebody down the block sold for $5 million. I think it's actually
worth $3.5 million. Somewhere between the two you paid for it and the five that somebody else got
for a comparable home. And the seller goes, well, I'm not going to sell it. I'll just Airbnb
or rent it to somebody. I'll just use it. And then all of a sudden, the real estate market becomes
frozen because the buyers and the sellers can't agree on the price of these assets. For public market
companies, well, people need liquidity. It's a liquid stock. Your price discovery happens very fast.
Price discovery in startups and homes is very slow and painful. And the only person who has to sell
their home might be somebody who's getting divorced or moving from one city to another,
and so they'll take the medicine and accept the best possible price.
For a private company, the founder might say I have 12 months of runway.
I'll just wait six months.
Or I'll build the revenue up, hit break even, be default alive and I don't need your money.
So screw you.
That's what's happening in the markets right now.
And so it just takes a little time to work out.
And I don't think any VCs are bottom feeding or trying to, you know, get ridiculous deals.
I think they're just dealing with the reality of they overpaid for the last three years.
and they overpaid for three years
and arguably
maybe when I started investing
we underpaid for a couple of years
Uber and Com at 4 and 5 million
okay maybe you know
those should have been 10 million dollar valuations
but they should not have been
50 million dollar valuations
or 40 million dollar valuations
which is where some
early stage companies got to during all this
like Clubhouse at 100 million
with no revenue and 4 or 5,000 VCs using it
it was like really?
I didn't know none of us understood
it I might have made the I actually asked to invest
and I might have put a small bet in even at the $100 million.
I mean, I was trying to invest before then
because I thought it was such an interesting, intriguing new format.
No, of course, it got knocked off by everybody right quick,
but that is what's happening in the market.
And so it just takes a little time to find equilibrium.
I found two great SaaS companies.
We've done like four or five SPVs in the last month,
and I am really, really looking for a great SaaS companies' marketplaces,
consumer subscriptions with products in market, with just a hint of traction, 5,000 a month,
25,000 a month in revenue.
That's my sweet spot.
I know that you can get somebody to pay for your product, but you still have a lot to
figure out to scale it up and companies worth $5 million, $10 million, $15 million.
Then I can make a bet of a million dollars and own 15% of the company, 5% of the company,
something reasonable.
Knowing that 60, 70% of companies go to zero, I might hit a home run here.
I need to have the ability to imagine a 50x or 100x investment.
It's kind of hard to do that when the company's worth 100 million has no revenue.
So great question again from our friend, Beerscript.
Here's another question.
This runs it from Bones, Sky Pirate.
He asks, if, or she, if you or they, if you invest in a startup and it fails, but the founder
leaves and starts a new company, the email you asking you to invest in their new company,
what would make you say yes or no based on your past experience?
In other words, what makes you invest multiple times in a founder even if they fell the first time?
So if they worked hard and they built a great product and they were good stewards of capital,
one of my favorite investments to make.
I know that you worked hard.
You didn't get product market fit.
You couldn't clear market with investors.
For whatever reason, it didn't work out.
Your founder and you broke up.
The market crashed.
Okay.
What did you learn from that experience?
And then tell me about the new idea because now I know that the chances of you making that mistake again are zero.
you learn that lesson the hard way.
It's like if somebody crashes a plane
because they forgot to, you know, go full power on takeoff,
you think they're making that mistake again?
Well, no.
Or if they forgot to like check their air speed
when they were, you know, and their altitude, like, no.
If you crash a plane, you're going to, unfortunately,
in plane crashes, you usually die.
In startups, the great thing is it's like a video game.
You put it in another corner in,
you go fight Donkey Kong. It's fantastic in terms of learning. It's kind of like being in a
simulator, right? If we're in a simulation right now, startups are like this great simulation.
Hey, see if you can change the world with this company. Oh, it didn't work out. Put another
quarter in. The quarter is your venture money. It's okay. I don't mind. I got to roll quarters
over here. I don't mind giving you a couple quarters. If you're going to play the game right,
and you were focused on the game and it didn't work out, great. And I've done this multiple times
in my career. And I think it's like one of the great ways to invest in the arc of a founder's career,
because founders get better and better and better.
The only thing that can happen is they can run out of energy as they get older.
They just might not care enough.
They might not see the value in it.
When you're 50 or you're 60 and you can see like, okay, there's the finish line.
I'll be dead soon.
You're like, I'm 51.
And I'm like, okay, 60s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 70s, my parents are in their 70s.
80s, it's over.
If I'm lucky I got 30 years left.
I don't know if some, you know, some science nerds come up and get us to 100. Great. But I'm banking
on, like, maybe I'll be here until I'm 80. Maybe I make it to 85. But I just want to have a great
50s, 60s and a decent 70s. That to me would be wonderful. Therefore, you're like, do I really
want to build a company that I don't believe in? Or do I want to, you know, not go to my kids' graduation?
Do I want to sacrifice? I think a lot of people, when they get to their 50s and 60s,
are like, you know what, I want to go ski in Hokkaido.
Like, that's my big focus for next year's.
I want to ski in Hokkaido.
Like, I'm looking forward to that.
So am I going to be crazy like, you know, some 30-year-old who's like, yeah, I'll
go to Hokkaido when I'm 50?
It's like, well, I'm 50 already.
So you do have to take that into account.
Some people can run out of age.
Some people are animals, right?
Like Frank Sloopman, he seems to be 50 and he doesn't care.
He's going to just make it work no matter what.
Some people are animals and they can just be a samurai and a warrior.
and they're just going to get it done
no matter what age they are.
But more often than not,
I see people
they don't see the value
in that last 10-year sprint
to make something amazing in the world.
You'd have to have like a real sense of purpose.
Now if you're Elon and you really want to get to Mars,
yeah, that can be the sense of purpose,
but I don't think money will get you there.
Whereas young people, they really want to prove themselves,
they want success, they want money, they want power,
and they might really care about the mission,
they want to build a team, they want to be the boss.
Like, there's so many,
competitive aspects to young people.
And that's why they say it's a young person's game.
I'm not an ageist.
I'm just telling you what I see on the field is that the 40 and 50 year olds,
like they just can't dunk the basketball in the way the 25 and 35 year olds can.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't invest in a 50 year old or a 40 year old.
I think I would do that all day long if they are dedicated to it.
I just think the percentage that are actually dedicated to it goes down by half maybe.
Like half the people are just like,
I already made my money.
I want to do yoga.
Half the people check out.
Because you have a high degree of burnout in it.
You know, 30 years on the field.
You're just like, you ever see like these baseball or basketball players who retire early?
You're like, you still got two or three good years.
And they're like, I've done enough.
I'm good.
I'm going out on top.
I'm okay.
I don't need to do those extra two or three years.
I made my money.
I enjoyed it.
And you're like, but we want you to do another two or three years.
It's like, key word in that sentence is you.
You want to see me.
do another two, three years. I want to move on and be a commentator on, you know, inside the NBA
or be an investor or spend time with my kids or live in the same city for more than two years
at a time. People, you know, want to live their lives. So I do think it's something to think about.
This is why I encourage people. If you're going to do a startup, 30s is a great time to do it.
20s is a good time to do it. I think 30s is a sweet spot because you can work in two or three
other jobs. You can go on vacation and have a couple of adventures. Maybe have a little fun in your
20s. I went straight into it in my 20s. I'm not saying I regret it, but I probably should have
had a better time in my 20s if I'm being candid. I probably could have been less focused on work and a
little more focused on living. Could have done a couple more vacations. But no regrets. You can't go
backwards in time. But if I was advising my younger self, I would have said, yeah, take two weeks
of vacation every year. You don't have to be so hardcore. Okay, here's a great question from the
Notie Gang. If you don't know what the Noddy Gang is and you're listening to the podcast,
those are the people who turn on notifications on YouTube. So when I go live, they can come
to YouTube and basically interact with us.
So they ask me questions.
I talk to them.
YouTube.com slash this weekend.
You hit the subscribe button
right next to it's a bell.
You hit the bell.
You're now part of the Nodie Gang.
Francis Centora,
who is part of the Nodie Gang,
asks, what type of traction
did Com and Uber have when you invested?
Com had a very simple product
in the app store making,
I think, $10 per sale
and they had sold a thousand copies of it.
And it was very simple and basic,
and they had met with 40,
venture capitalist and professional investors
and nobody would invest in it.
Uber was in private beta.
They had two or three cabs on the road
in a very simple app that was invite only
and basically no revenue
and it was four and a half
or five million dollar post money valuation.
I think they actually was a priced round.
So yeah, they had very little traction
but what they did have were beautiful products
that solved the specific problem
with really dynamic founders.
And as I say all the time,
if you want to understand how to invest in
private companies, public companies I'm learning, private companies I know, the team,
which in the early days is really the founders. So you got a product they make, how good is the
product, how good is the product velocity, and then the customers. How much do the customers
love the product? How much are they paying for the product? What would they do if the product
didn't exist? How bummed out would they be? So you can just focus on those three things.
There's all different ways to ask questions in those three categories about the team, about the
product and about the customers. There's a lot of other things people talk about competitive matrix,
the culture of the company, the total addressable market. All of those are interesting discussion
points. I highly recommend that you focus on the core three, whether you're on either side of the
table. The founders, really focus on your team, really focus on your product, really focus on your
customers, try to block out everything else. Early stage investors, focus on the team, focus on the
product, focus on the customers, try to block everything else out. A lot of times you'll talk to a
founder and just look, they'll pitch you for 20 minutes and ask yourself how many minutes
were on the customer, how many minutes were on the product, and how many minutes were on the team.
And what you'll find is those three things might be a third of the presentation.
And they really should be a third each and really nothing else.
They should be 30% each.
Here's 30% about our team.
Here's 30% about our product.
Here's 30% about our customers.
Here's 10% about everything else.
Everything else is superfluous.
As far as this investor, who happens to have a pretty good track record, believes?
Okay, it doesn't matter how great your startup talent is.
If you can't mesh and work as a team, startups are not an individual game.
You need chemistry.
And that's why you use Coda, C-O-D-A.
It keeps everyone in sync.
It's the document that brings it all together.
It's one document to rule them all.
And Coda works right out of the box.
It's fully customizable, and it has templates for anything.
You can create a wiki for your team.
You could onboard new hires.
You can do OKRs.
You can adapt quickly to any change in this crazy environment.
And all your data, plans, objectives, and strategies can live in CODA.
All of your favorite tools will integrate seamlessly.
And here's an important one.
You can pull data, push out updates, and never leave your CODA dock.
If you want to see how amazing CODA can be, you need to check out this week in startups.com slash j-trading.
Now, the reason I want you to check this out is because my friends at CODA helped bill me a page to track each of my J-trades.
but it's pulling data live from the stock market and then doing calculations from all my J-trades,
what my cost basis was, and how I'm doing, and then it rolls it up to tell you how I'm doing across
all 7, 8, 9, 10 of my picks.
Brilliant stuff.
This is a limited time offer just for startup.
Sign up today at coda.io slash twist, and you're going to get $1,000 in startup credit on your first statement.
Think about that.
$1,000 off because Coda wants to support startup.
Codda.io slash twist.
TWAist. TWA. All right, thanks for listening to Ask Jason. I'm sure you learned a lot. And there's more to come. Check out this great interview that I did with a launch accelerator founder. Stick with us. So the launch accelerator just completed its 25th cohort. Yes, we are up to 25. I'm going to sit down with some of the founders from that cohort over the next few weeks to dig into their businesses. Remember, I already spoke with one, springeats.com founder, co-founder and CEO Anukampa Freedom Group de Fauner on episode 1460.
so go check that out.
Today, I'm very excited to have Zeb Anderson,
co-founder and CEO of Legal Q.
Zeb, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks, Molly, big time fan from back in the day
and excited to be here.
That's awesome.
Also, you may have the best Twitter handle of all
at all the internets.
You've got to be kidding me.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
I try to get it across all the platforms
and succeeded in about half of them.
That's absolutely amazing.
Thank you.
But I guess that's not what we're here to talk about. Tell me what does legal Q do?
Yeah, so legal Q is an app and a platform to basically solve for the problem that two-thirds of Americans have today, which is an ongoing legal issue of any kind.
And simply, we just wanted a simple way to fix that problem. And we gave people an app that they can download, iOS and Android, and a free 15-minute chat with an attorney, no strings attached.
and the attorneys basically get a potential client out of it.
Wow.
I understand you have a quick demo to show.
This is an interactive interview.
Yeah, yeah.
But you can sort of tell us what's happening for our audio people here.
So we see the phone screen.
Yep.
So basically, this is how they access the attorneys.
You choose your area of law and you type in your email and name.
And then after that, we basically get you to ask your question.
which is anything from I got a doy yesterday, what are my next steps to I want to cut down my neighbor's tree overhanging my yard.
You know, what are the property rights to think about?
Then you can see here it kicks it to an attorney who uses a web app because it sucks to text out six paragraphs of legalese.
So we gave him a website to use.
And this is Travis, an actual attorney on our platform responding to an anonymized user.
But basically, she got kicked out of her apartment, didn't know where to turn to.
and he gave her the next steps to hopefully put her on the right path.
I feel like that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area,
so I'm just assuming that legal tenant related issues are the number one usage of your platform,
but probably not.
It's up there.
It actually really is.
It's especially during the pandemic, it got crazy with how many with those we saw.
And that's the crazy part about this is, you know, some of those questions you would think
about asking an attorney all the time, right?
But it's just, it's such a barrier to entry to even know where to turn to that.
You got to Google it.
You got to sift through the like top 10 who has the best SEO or SEM.
And then basically call it five of them to talk to one of them to get a hold for two.
So we simplified that process and made it free.
Yeah, tell me more about the free.
How do you make money?
Yeah.
So basically it's free for the users, right?
We actually went in the market with the opposite idea thinking like, hey, I'd be, you know, I'd pay 10 or,
20 bucks to talk to an attorney for a chat, you know, for a little bit. But what we were finding was that
the users would get all the way through the funnel and then piece out on the paywall, right? Because
they're like, this is a free consultation. And to be honest, we have an access to justice mission,
you know, as part of our company to enable access to justice through, you know, free consultations.
And so we are more aligned with that. And then the attorneys basically pay us by consultation as a simple way to,
instead of kind of the old school way to do it would be, you know, to get an email or phone number,
have to do all the legwork of doing that.
Basically, they get a one-on-one consultation time with the user and, you know, on legal
queue, about one in five turn into a paying client for the attorney.
So it's a good kind of lead gen for them on that side, but also it's an access to justice issue
on the other side.
And pretty good traction, it seems like, right?
7,000 user downloads and more than 100 attorneys.
on the platform. How do you get them onboarded?
Yeah, thank you. It's been a process, three years in the making, but basically the attorney side,
we have a bunch of different channels to everything from cold emails, cold calling, which is always fun.
And then we do Reddit bots and a bunch of different other things to kind of get that in line.
And then on the user side, basically we can do performance marketing and, you know, other, you know,
partnerships with bar associations to basically try to get them in the funnel.
And it's it's just the simplest way to access an attorney.
So that's how we can draw both sides in.
And then so what is your pathway to 10 million and then 100, our classic accelerator question.
What's your pathway to 10 million and then 100 million?
Yeah.
It's a great question. So basically, it doesn't take a lot of attorneys on the platform to hit a lot of revenue. So at about 100 attorneys, we're at about a million in ARR. And at the end of five years, hopefully, we'll get to the 10,000 attorney mark, which would be about 100 million in ARR. And emphatically, that's just making it simpler to get them to people that are looking for legal help in a simple way and adding value to both sides while just
simplifying stuff that should be easy, right? It's 2022. This is a way too complex problem today.
And it is legitimately inhibiting access to justice by not making this a simple process.
And we are excited to be a part of the solution.
10,000 attorneys. How does this compare to an attorney charging hundreds of dollars per hour?
Like, what's in it for them? Is it that hard for them to have lead generation to?
Yeah, so basically, and for my sins, I'm an attorney.
And it is hard to, so there's a couple different methods that they have, right?
There's like the thumb tax of the world, which basically are, quote, non-exclusive lead companies,
which means that, and this actually happened, a version of it happened to me once where I was trying to get a mortgage.
I did an online broker and then thought I was going to go to one bank.
It got literally 25 calls within the first like half hour and I shut off my phone.
This is what a lot of users are experiencing today and the attorneys are as well when you just basically send them off into the wild and, you know, 10 attorneys click on the button and then that porcel gets 10 calls from these attorneys.
So it's really ineffective.
It's a bad user experience for both sides.
And on the attorney side, it's our, so there's 1.3 million attorneys in the U.S. today.
About a million of those are in firms of less than 10.
And that's kind of our sweet spot.
We want to, you know, not.
they don't have the marketing budgets of the big guys, but they also need an effective way to connect with users.
And legal queue is about 20% cheaper than market average by legal category to get them potential clients.
And on the user side, it's simply just a simpler way to access something that should be as easy as every other app that we use.
And historically, legal sucks at doing that for a lot of reasons.
And to be honest, it's one of the dark sides of the legal profession is that there's not a lot of incentive to innovate.
There's not a lot of incentive to be faster at your job if you're paying by the hour, right?
So sometimes it takes a global pandemic and a scrappy startup to kind of kick in the pants the potential for savings on that.
But long term, the vision for this is if you think about both sides of this, right?
So on the left side, the user asks their legal question by jurisdiction, by category.
On the right, the attorneys answered those questions and categories.
It's emphatically creating a training set for a machine learning algorithm that says,
hey, the last 5,000 times this question's been asked in California.
Here's the best answer for that.
And, you know, at first we can give it to the attorneys to say,
here's an assistance tool that they can look like a genius.
Longer term, we can, you know, license that to Google or something to give everybody
globally access to simple legal questions.
Love it.
Zeb Anderson is co-founder and CEO of LegalQ at legalcue.io and Twitter at all the
internet's Zeb.
Thanks so much for the time.
Thank you, Molly.
Appreciate it.
Okay.
And now a word from our sponsor, Better Help.
Listen, the startup grind can be very overwhelming, Molly.
Yeah, you guys never have a weekend.
You have your family, your bills to pay.
And of course, you're grinding it out.
work all day, every day. And let's face it, a ton of people in the startup world, they're dealing
with burnout on all sides of the table, capital allocators, founders, everybody in between.
Yes, so how can you help with burnout? You can support a healthy brain through all kinds of outlets.
Hey, listen, exercise is great. Don't I know it? I'm Schfeldth, I'm mountain biking, everything.
I only know how to relax through pain. I go on really, really long backpacking trips, but it
works for me. And just stay away from the snakes, please. So having a hobby is great.
painting, gardening, learning a new language.
But therapy, talking to somebody can also be a great outlet.
It's clutch. We all know that talking to somebody can make a huge difference.
And that's where BetterHelp comes in. So here's your call to action.
BetterHelp is online therapy made for the digital world.
They offer video, phone, and even chat-only sessions with a live therapist
so you don't have to see anyone on camera unless you want to.
And this is the key. It is much more affordable than in-person therapy.
and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours.
Twist listeners can get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash twist.
That's better h-elp.com slash twist for 10% off.
Next up, it is Friday, so you know producer Rachel is here with another great segment of OK Boomer.
This week's guest is Jules Terpak, a tech and digital culture commentator.
She got a big social media presence, as you might imagine on TikTok and Twitter.
But outside of that, she does youth research.
insights at Google. She co-hosted a podcast with Andrew Yang, which I'll try to forgive her for,
and has a Washington Post advice column that just came out because the Gen Zs are getting it done.
You may know her as one of the TikTokers, by the way, who received the White House briefing on Ukraine
back in March. During the conversation with Rachel, they covered how she got into the space,
how the internet is impacting our generation, and presumably how she got so awesome. That's up next.
Okay, Boomer. I understood the assignment.
Thank you so much Jules Turpec for coming on this segment of OK Boomer.
So full disclosure, Jules and I are friends outside of the world of, you know, podcasting.
We met on the internet like I have met most people in New York City, which some people think is kind of weird, but it's pretty normal in our field.
But I don't meet a lot of other women that do reporting and commentary kind of in this space.
Jules is a tech and digital culture commentator
and does a million and ten other things.
She's also a youth research and insights person over at Google.
She co-hosted a podcast with Andrew Yang.
She also has a very cool advice column, you know,
coming out in the Washington Post.
But I actually found Jules on TikTok.
And then we started talking on Twitter.
So thank you so much, Jules, for joining.
I'm really excited to be here.
I'm sure Jason is probably cringing that, you know,
TikTok creator is on it.
No, I honestly, I've been on a role with the TikTok creators. I'm not going to lie. This might be my third or fourth week of people from TikTok joining the show. I'm trying to push. I'm having more creators online. And I actually like having people that are creators talking on the show because I think they're better conversationalists than a lot of other people because you're already used to talking to a camera. So it goes well. And there's so many awesome founders, journalists, reporters, commentators, everything in between that are online nowadays. It's kind of like, why not have them on the show? So the
first thing I want to cover is how you freaking even got down this path. I feel like just being
like a digital and tech commentator, it's kind of a new feel to break into. And you're my age.
How did you even find out that this was a job? I got mostly in this field. I started creating on TikTok,
explored it in 2019, but didn't really go seriously into it until early 2021. And yeah, you, you know,
you gave a really good intro of what I do today. And how I got into this was, you know, like most
people. I went to college not knowing what I wanted to do at all. I ended up majoring in
healthcare supply chain, which, you know, was a very interesting field to me. I know that you
appreciate the supply chain field as well. Yeah, for sure. So it just definitely wasn't for me,
though, but it kind of goes back to the education system in high school, not preparing you for
such a big decision at the age of 18. I think it's like over 70% of college students
changed their major at least once, like at least once. And I was one of those people as well.
I went in his marketing. And also it kind of funnels.
into why only like 13% of the U.S. workforce is passionate about their careers. And I,
I don't think you necessarily need to be passionate about a career. I think you just need to be
more like deeply curious about a career to enjoy it. It goes back into high school of like,
you only under, you only have the concept of like what your parents did and work and what, like,
your friends' parents did in work and what your neighbors did for work and what you see in the
media, whether it's like actresses, actors, whatever, you don't really know all the possibilities.
So why the internet is so cool today and it funneled into,
what I do today is I got more into podcast, you know, my junior year, I went, was deep into
YouTube rabbit holes. And it was when I was having my first internships. And, you know, I believe over
everything in real life experience like internships is where I learned the most throughout college.
My part-time jobs throughout high school and college is where I very much learned the most and
took the most out of like life. Like literally all of my jobs combined, probably like 10x what I learned
in college in terms of value. So when I was having,
my first internships in supply chain, I was noticing a lot of, like, outdated work culture things.
And it scared me a lot because I was like, how Gen Z has grown up, we're at the oldest of Gen Z.
I just don't think this work culture is going to work.
I was like literally, the way we are relationship with technology and everything like that,
how it's exacerbated so much in our lives, this work culture is very outdated, like me
being construed to these hours from 9 to 5, whether like I work better at night or whether I get
my work done at 3 p.m.
It was very overwhelming to me.
So I was getting more into conversations about tech and how it can better our lives.
And I went to deep YouTube rabbit holes.
And I was also introduced, for example, to UBI by Andrew Yang on, like, I think it was
this Joe Rogan podcast in early 2020, maybe late in 2019.
And these things, like, I had never heard of someone within politics that I really resonated
with and that I feel like spoke for a lot of things that our generation thinks about and
talks about.
And he talked a lot about tech.
He talked a lot about work culture.
I was just fascinated by this.
And again, put me into these rapid holes.
Figured out I was Gen Z.
In 2019, Gen Z wasn't even a conversation.
It was mostly still focused on millennials.
I think there was maybe two YouTube videos about Gen Z at this time.
And it all just funneled into me becoming really like inspired by these conversations,
fascinated by them.
And I started creating content about them.
Because as I was learning about these things, I wanted to teach other people about them.
Like I don't think I'm some smart person at all.
I'm just like a normal stupid person who's very curious about these things.
And yeah, start creating content.
And it's resonated with people.
I love that.
And that I was watching somebody on YouTube the other day.
And it was more of like this productivity YouTuber.
But he said something that was kind of similar to, I guess, your journey.
But his whole premise was like, you don't have to be an expert to start writing about it.
And I really like that.
And I really support everybody that is interested in breaking into something that maybe is an traditional career path to just start,
even if you're not an expert.
I got really lucky in high school.
I talk about, you know, being somewhere where you're only influenced by your parents' roles.
I actually grew up on a military base and went to a Department of Defense high school.
So everybody's parent did the same thing.
Everybody's parents for the government.
But I took video production classes and I always knew I loved producing.
It was never a doubt in my mind.
But when I went to college, I was like, I'll probably work for the government.
So I did a major at Penn State.
And I know you went to school in Pennsylvania, too.
love that. We, I studied IST. I was like, maybe I'll work for the NSA. And now I'm still back
in producing because when I was in college, I was given the option, you know, to have a little bit
more free time. I'm scared at my own podcast and, you know, producing. I feel like, like you said,
it's one of those skills where everything's taught better in person. So by like doing what you want
to do before you're told to do it, I think is an incredible career path to pick. And you also mentioned
this acronym, UBI.
which Andrew Yang back, I believe in 2020, he said he would implement this thing that was called
the Freedom Dividend, which is a universal basic income of $1,000 a month, $12,000 a year,
and this would go to like every adult American, I'm pretty sure, over the age of 18.
So that was super interesting.
Why do you think that resonated with you so much?
Well, so, yeah, people talking about too, like wanting to clarify that it,
is kind of this money is obtained through a VAT tax on big corporations.
For example,
his focus was always big tech and the fact that they make so much money off of individuals,
data and that we should,
I think like we all talk about,
oh,
like owning our data.
And it's talking about data,
you know,
it's not a sexy thing at all.
And reality is what are people going to do?
Like if they have like control over their data,
a lot of people aren't going to take actions,
you know,
or really like make the moves there.
So kind of a way to benefit off of your data,
all this different stuff.
Why it resonated with me?
so much is, for example, there was a trial, and I believe it was Stockton, California, and a great
example of what happened there is, you know, a lot of people can't take a day off work. Like,
your living paycheck to paycheck, a day off of work can be the pivotal moment between you missing
a bill and not. So something like $1,000 a month, it could just, like people can't live off
the $12,000 a year. People aren't going to be lazy off of that. What it helps you do is it helps
you cover the basics. So, for example, in Stockton, California, there were a few examples of people being able
to take off a day of work to finally have those interviews of jobs that put them in a better,
you know, more fulfilling life position, all these different things. And that really resonated with me
at the time in 2019, 2020, because I was having those first internships. And I was figuring out, oh,
you know, like, I feel very stuck in my major. Like, I'm going to be making, you know,
not that much money out of college. I'm going to be in a hard position of like, how can I change
my career? Because, you know, I was so deep into this college major. Changing my major would have
me have to stay at college longer. I was already deep into student debt. I couldn't even
make that decision. That wasn't an option at this point. So hearing stories like that really,
really resonated with me, even though UBI obviously helps across the board of people with
health insurance, like just everyday life things. It also helps you. So after work, I was noticing
this when I was working in supply chain out of college, like, you know, you have your job and then
you're exhausted after your job or like all this money that you're making has to go to your necessities.
there isn't really room for like being curious and exploration can be a privilege in a lot of ways.
Like to luckily online it democratizes a lot and makes a lot of like curiosity and exploration free for you because there's so much information online.
We live in the information age, moving into the intelligence age.
But so much about exploring these things in real time and in your real life, you have to spend money to do those things.
So something like $1,000 a month could help people live more of physical.
fulfilling lives as well.
So yeah.
A bunch of asset classes have been hit hard so far in 2022.
But if you're a long-term believer in crypto, you might be looking to invest.
And if you're looking at crypto as a long-term play, well, you need to check out
I trust capital.
I trust lets you invest in crypto through your retirement account.
It's basically a crypto IRA.
This means you'll get the same tax advantages as a traditional IRA.
I trust capital has over two dozen of the most popular cryptocurrencies to invest in.
and unlike the stock market, you can trade 24 hours a day if that's what you're into.
The I trust capital platform is easy to use and it only takes a few minutes to create your account.
Setting up an IRA is free.
And I trust fees are low.
With a 1% fee per crypto transaction, visititrust.competal slash twist.
To start investing today, that's I trust.competal slash twist.
Disclosure, taxes and conditions may apply, fees apply.
cryptocurrencies are a speculative investment with a risk of loss.
I trust Capital, Inc. does not provide legal investment or tax advice.
So you're going to want to consult with a qualified legal investment or tax professional.
That's awesome.
And I do want to pivot a little bit because when I first heard you talking, first off on the podcast with Andrew Yang, it was over on TikTok.
And then I kind of deep dived into your own personal content where you do touch on not only politics, but you talk a lot about digital culture.
tech, obviously, big tech is something that you're inspired by as well. That's not just
Andrew Yang's thing. It's obviously your thing too now, which was awesome. Jason has been talking a lot
with Molly on the show and they've been debating. Is TikTok good or bad? And it's kind of a weird
question because it's a social media platform. Obviously, a lot of China influence. What are your
thoughts on TikTok? Like as somebody that is a creator that uses that as a big part of your reporting
and your commentary, what position does that put you in?
Especially as a tech critic.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I've been on breaking points, which if people are deep into YouTube, they might know that.
It's like a news show on, it's predominantly YouTube.
So I've talked about this on there.
I'm a TikTok creator.
That's, you know, where I grew my platform mostly on there.
That's my biggest audience.
I've said this since 2020.
I felt indifferent, not that I didn't care, but that I understood if TikTok were to get banned.
in 2020 when Trump first brought brought that to the stage.
I felt like like I'm like I get it.
You know, like this is this is not something to take lightly.
We don't really understand the value of our data yet.
Like we know it's a big conversation.
We know that it's important.
But so many people,
it's hard to fully comprehend how important something is until like you have a bad
experience with it.
So for me,
a bad experience like online with my data,
I guess was like when my Snapchat got hacked.
like I think it was in college.
And I just felt so violated.
Luckily,
I didn't have any suspicious things on my Snapchat camera roll.
But luckily.
But like,
I felt so violent.
I was like,
wow,
like this is stuff that I just like,
trusted on this platform.
I put it out there,
whatever.
And to know that someone has access to that.
And not only do they have access to that,
they have the ability to blast it off to the rest of the world.
And that is not something to take lightly today with today's algorithms.
Like something can blow up so easily today.
So that was my first, like, interaction with, because I think when we think data too, so many people just think numbers and like personal information that you like actually like type out on a platform. Like, no, this can go as far as like your saved drafts on the TikTok platform. So thinking about that, I'm like, I understand how valuable that is because TikTok is like no other platform before obviously in terms of its algorithm, but in terms of how personal people get on there. And I think it's kind of this paradox of you think like you mostly follow strangers. So when you.
put content out there, you kind of like psychologically assume only strangers are going to see it as well.
So people feel like this ability to be more personal than ever on that platform and are sharing
like crazy life stories. Like there's been the craziest trends on there, like your most
psychologically insane moments that you've had in your life and like, um, just, I don't know.
It's crazy. We could talk about this for hours. But I understand the value of that data and I
understand how it can be weaponized 100%. Who knows what the Chinese government is up to?
Who's no what the relationship between China and the U.S. is going to be in 10 years.
If they're trying to manipulate our politics at all, they can plant these videos and
like try to just like, you know, like manipulate politics.
Like we, I just think of so much of the stuff I posted when I was like, um, 11 through 13
online and it's still living today because I forgot like the email password or the passwords
in general for my accounts and they're like still online.
People aren't really going to find them.
They're not necessarily under my name.
But it could be figured out.
And like that stuff could be weaponized.
you change so much year to year, the culture changes so much year to year.
It can be, hopefully, I think people are going to have more empathy towards it in the future
because we're all going to have this digital footprint following us.
But in the meantime, it is pretty wild to think about because we all have this
compounding digital footprint on the internet.
A great book that actually talks about the impacts of like outside countries and our social
media presence and digital presence in general is the Wires of War by Jacob Helberg.
he was actually on the podcast to talk about it.
I highly recommend if anybody else is interested in things like geopolitical politics,
global, you know, internal policy, things like that.
Wires of War is your book.
Phenomenal.
But you kind of touched on this too, talking about your digital footprint.
And yesterday, you and I went out for coffee.
And we were talking about our parents posting stuff on Facebook about us
and how that is a point of contention for both of us.
And you're more like moms.
dad, like I don't want my personal information on the internet.
I'm more like, mom, stop taking bad photos of me and putting them on the internet.
But regardless, I don't want my parents putting bad photos on me, you know, nobody wants that.
Why are, is this a generational divide?
Like, why do our parents and the generation above us not care about their digital footprint?
And also, why should we care about our digital footprint?
So I think even like five years ago, I wasn't as sensitive to my parents posting like bad photos on Facebook or like posting about my personal, like,
like whereabouts on Facebook.
It wasn't as big of a deal because we all were mostly following and interacting with our friends and family online.
Now it's become increasingly about strangers.
And a lot of these strangers end up becoming friends and everything like that.
And you end up building communities with strangers online.
But you have, the internet has more reach than ever for the average person.
So it can get a little scary in those realms.
Yeah, I told you a story about how my parents were here over the weekend.
I was like, guys, let's just not post anything on Facebook.
they kind of just did these long paragraphs on Facebook.
And I was like,
we don't need to be posting this information to like your friends.
I don't know,
I don't know like the malicious intent of your friends.
I don't know if they like want to share this with other people.
And you just don't know the chain of,
chain of events online anymore.
And I think it's like our parents and everything are still in this headspace.
That is what social media is about like friends and family.
And we are now in this headspace of like it is so much bigger than that.
Totally.
And we know we've been online for what?
like over a decade now so we can see what we posted when we were young and how much maybe
we regret what we posted when we were young and there's so much online even month to month I find
myself deleting like deleting things I posted last month because I no longer resonate with them and it's like
I think it's important like it's important for you to feel like you have ownership over everything
that you post online and when it's like posted by other people you lose a sense of that ownership
because you're not the one who can easily press delete in that moment so it's how crazy like
apps like paparazzi exist where it's the entire app of paparazzi is actually for those of you who don't know
paparazzi is where your friends take photos of you tag you and then your whole profile is photos that your friends don't like that
yeah what are your thoughts about something like that yeah i've posted about this on tictock when i have a few videos about
about digital footprint one of my videos was for example i was reacting to someone's video and i blurred out their face
and everyone was kind of like why you blur out their face like because there's this whole thing online of like giving people credit and everything like that
like if you do someone's dance, you give them dance, Chris, you know, all this different stuff.
So I was reacting to their video about why adults are so disconnected with current tech.
And like, because he was talking about at work, like, they're asking him like the dumbest questions or something.
And I was talking about it and I blurt out his face, but on the video, it still had the credit of his username.
And I was like, I don't know.
And I made a video about replying to a comment asking why I did this.
Anyway, I was like, I don't know if this guy is going to regret this video in the future.
It was very aggressive.
It was very like, I think he was off base with it.
And I was like, I don't know.
He could really regret this video.
And so I gave him the credit via username.
It was kind of like a pseudonym username.
But I don't want, like, if he wants to take that video down,
I don't want him to have to feel like he's attached to my video.
Like he, like, and they're like, oh, can you take that down too?
I don't want him to feel like that.
I know how that feels when people stitch or do it at your videos and they're just like
ratting on you.
And now you have no control over that.
I also had a video.
Yeah.
That's so funny.
that's like new etiquette.
It's new etiquette on the internet.
Yeah, it's weird.
And then there was another video where this person went viral on TikTok, like this teenager.
It was at a BTS concert.
And it was like this older guy.
He was maybe in his 40s.
And they're like zooming in on him.
He was sitting while everyone else was standing.
I hate that.
That's so mean.
Yeah.
And it went viral.
I forget what the caption was.
It was something like mean or whatever.
It went viral on TikTok.
All the comments were trashing him.
I was like, he could just like not be feeling well.
Like the fact that this went like a TikTok of someone.
sitting at a concert while everyone else was standing went viral.
This guy was probably innocent.
I think he commented.
It was like,
oh, I'm sorry.
Like, he said something like,
I didn't feel well or something like that.
And yeah,
and I was talking about how Twitter has this new policy that people were freaking out about
a few months ago,
mostly in the political realm because they thought it couldn't mess with free speech,
was this thing of if someone post a picture of you,
you can't remember the exact language,
but you can now report it as like you don't approve of that.
And people were pushing criticism of it.
Very interesting.
Yeah.
Like people are pushing criticism because like,
uh,
some things are very important in like,
uh,
you know,
journalistic context of,
whether it's shootings or like,
you know,
um,
just more aggressive things that it's important to have documentation of online.
But that,
obviously there's rules around that.
Um,
that to me when reading this,
I was like,
it is targeting for the first time social media platform is targeting that like,
you can have a say in someone else posting you.
There's things like barstool had thrived.
thrived off of this over the years.
Like the college barstool accounts, like the, you know,
these drunk college students who get these videos sent in of them doing like really
dumb shit to barstool and barstool blasting it across the internet and them having like no say
and that being taken down or staying up.
And you know, that's pretty crazy that people can just do that.
So I think all this isn't like important to think about.
And yeah, like you're talking about like these new etiquettes that we have to consider
because these things do have real-world impact on people.
It's not just like this internet bubble.
Yeah.
I actually was on Barstool, and I wasn't, this wasn't for being like anything crazy.
I think I was on a slip and slide in genes.
I was of legal drinking age, and there was alcohol in the background.
But at the time, I was a part of an organization that doesn't allow photos of you to be on
the internet where there's alcohol being placed.
And even though the photo was taken before I joined that organization and I posted on a personal account,
before I joined that organization.
It wasn't allowed to be reposted
while I was a part of it, right?
And Barstall posted it.
And I remember being like...
Like the main account?
Yeah.
And I might have been the pen...
I think it was Barstall main, actually.
And they actually did end up taking it down, which was good.
But, and it wasn't, it wasn't a bad photo.
It wasn't, like, it wasn't...
I can't imagine being, like, somebody, like, you know,
like, you post a bikini pick and somebody repost it.
And then you were like, oh, my gosh.
now like I'm like being seen in front of this audience.
Like I can't imagine that happening.
And luckily that that did not happen to me.
Like like I said, I'm not embarrassed by the photo at all.
In fact, it might honestly still be up my personal account.
But I still felt like, damn.
I was like, don't do that.
And I can think that was like the very first time where I was like, you know what?
If it's on Instagram, it is fair game.
And there's no other way of putting it.
Like fair, it is fair game.
So if anybody out there, especially in college, is posting anything.
on the internet that you don't want to be picked up or circulated by anybody else,
just don't post it.
Like, do not post it.
And I think, going back to, like, the etiquette, I think this is a super weird time for
our generation being the older Gen C where we had Facebook.
And I remember, like, people would just start talking to guys, for example, or talking to
girls, talking to whatever significant other they had.
They post on their status.
They change their status.
They post photos of them.
Now there's this whole premise of, like, soft launching your significant.
significant other. I don't even want my significant others ever to be on my social media at all,
hopefully, until I'm always joking. I'm like, yeah, until there's like one year of marriage,
you know what I mean? I think I retweeted that tweet of yours. Yeah, you were like three years into
marriage I'll post. Right. And it was a joke. I mean, like, I don't really care that much.
But, um, I just think it's, it's more to, um, like, I was kind of exaggerating this like total
shift away from this, like, Facebook culture where,
we would post like every single friend of ours, tag them significant other to now having this
thing where you soft launch your significant other, which is basically posting a photo without
their face in it.
And then finally launching them, which is a photo with their face in it.
I'm like, this is so funny.
Yeah.
Like I'm like, this is so interesting.
And like I said, like I don't care that much.
But I do think it's interesting that it is become something that's just like more and more guarded.
And why do you think that that.
is like soft launching became a thing and launching your partner became a thing rather than just
like posting if you're in a relationship. I think it's kind of like over the years we saw people,
you know, breaking up, getting with other people and then like their feeds would have like multiple
boyfriends on it and people were kind of like, oh, this is like you notice like your digital trail now
and you know that these platforms are like your life archive and a lot of people when they would break up with
someone, you know, they're delete all the photos. Yeah, they're deleting the photos. That was a big thing.
But some people don't. And it was just kind of weird to go through.
profile you're like you're seeing their evolution of relationships. So I think people are kind of
realizing that and that you don't just like post you when you just start dating. It's more of a
serious thing now. And again, when like more strangers are being involved in your social media
platforms, it also gives people the opportunity to comment on your personal life more than ever
before. You take that, of course, more seriously because that has major effects on like your psyche
when you're just hearing everyone's opinions all the time. Totally. I think people are just like,
it's more, I think Gen Alpha, for example, like, Gen Alpha right now has no say in what's
being posted about them when they are below the age of 10. And even like up until like you're 16,
you don't really, again, have this conscious understanding of what it means to be posting on the
internet. You have these kids being used for vlog content. You have these kids being used for TikTok
content. And the parents are like, oh, well, they enjoy doing it. They don't understand what that
means to be blasted across the internet. Like, they don't know. They enjoy dancing and making a video.
and they enjoy just having fun.
They don't understand the internet.
And so it's like these kids are going to have this trail for them too,
like these videos that when they were like infants and again,
when they were like young toddlers and young teens that their parents just posted on
the internet.
And it's,
I think they're going to value privacy more hopefully because of that.
I think Whitney Cummings actually,
who's a comedian,
she made an interesting point on a recent podcast that like,
for example, Instagram's becoming uncool too because whatever your parents do
becomes uncool to teens.
Like if you see your parents on Instagram all the time,
you're like, well, I don't want to be on Instagram.
I want to be on the platforms that they're not on as well.
Yeah.
Even though other platforms are more engaging,
it's like that's also a factor of it too culturally.
So like I think because like, oh, like,
Jen Alpha, my parents and like all these older people were posting every aspect of
their lives, like I'm going to value privacy more.
Maybe we'll see that happen.
Yeah.
And if people are more, I am freaked out by family vloggers.
It freaks me the heck out.
I guess I wasn't really, we,
my parents could post.
on, um, they could have had a blog, but that wasn't really a thing when we were younger.
They could post us on Facebook, but still doesn't have this reach that we are seeing
over on YouTube.
For example, and a great person that breaks this down is Tiffany Ferguson.
I think her name's like Tiffany Ferg over on YouTube.
Um, and her, I think her YouTube channel, I'm totally, could be botching this whole thing.
Um, I think it's like the dark side of family vlogging.
And if like the title doesn't give it a way and off, like she's pretty critical of it.
And I think it's a great thing to dive into.
And, you know, it makes me think, like, I see people, another famous podcaster,
um, Dax Shepard, who does armchair expert, for example, doesn't post photos of kids on the
internet.
Or if he does, he puts like, like, emojis over their face.
And I'm like, wow, this is so interesting.
And then going back to relationships, it kind of got me thinking that, um, the first time
you kind of like, the, like, our parents generation showed off their significant other to
the world was on their wedding day.
Like, their wedding day.
It was their wedding.
You know what I mean?
Or, you know, maybe prom?
Like something where it's like an event where all your friends are there.
And now we have like an audience of people, even once we don't even know, scaled 10 times,
whatever you're probably having at your wedding, at our fingertips.
So I'm interested to see how our relationships, not just romantic, but with your family
and with other people, like down the line, could it get to the point where like I get hesitant,
honestly, even posting my own friends on my social media platform, any social media platform.
any social media platform I get nervous about,
unless I know that they're also chronically online and okay with it.
I try not to post them on the internet.
I also, we talked about this yesterday,
don't post my location ever,
like if I'm walking somewhere.
None of my Instagram stories are of where I am in that moment,
and I almost never used Snapchat anymore.
Almost never post on my stories because I don't want people knowing where I am.
Like, people are freaking creepy on the internet.
Oh, so creepy.
And I, yeah, but it's, it's,
It's crazy, though, now that we're going to, I feel like we had like stagnant photos on
Instagram that were really, really cool.
And now we're going more and more to seeing social media where it's like, what are you doing
right here right now?
Even with Be Real, it's like, where are you in this exact moment?
TikToks, people, the algorithm picks you up if you're posting every single day.
Like this instantaneous location giving information is being blasted.
How can we like teach the, you?
younger generation under us to guard their information and have better internet etiquette,
because we are not seeing it right now.
We are seeing people sharing things on the internet, my opinion, especially over on TikTok,
that I'm like, dude, you don't want a job one day.
And not to sound like prude or anything, but like there's some stuff that people are saying.
And I'm like, I don't know.
Like, how do we teach people to draw online?
Yeah, I think like, because I'm so passionate about these conversations,
like I make content exactly talking about these things.
I think if like you're curious about something or if you've had a life experience that can be a
teachable moment for others, the way to reach people and the way to educate young kids today is
literally on these platforms that they're navigating.
And, you know, they're going through all these things of these viral moments of, oh,
maybe I should start posting because like people are getting these opportunities.
Like they also need to hear this other side of social media and where you're going to help them
realize that because parents don't fully understand it at this point.
I think even Chmoth on the All In podcast was talking about like,
like, you know, just like with the pandemic and like this is the only way to socialize
with their friends and like how he couldn't really rein in like the social media addiction
that like all kids have today, everything like that.
Not even in a Chimas's wealthy position that he doesn't feel like he can fully comprehend
and understand that.
That's how all parents are who the people who need to educate kids on these are people like
our age who have been through these like threatening or like negative experiences and posting
on them so that they get on these algorithms, the for you pages of these.
kids and they can understand that side of social media too. It's actually really important.
So like we were talking about earlier, like as you are going through life and experiencing
learnings, like share, you have the ability to share that and make an impact on that with the
world. You don't have to be like, yeah, a child wellness expert to just be talking about
these things. People who have real life experience are the best to be talking about them.
That is a phenomenal note to end on. I hope more people can mose you on over if they do
TikTok over to your TikTok account. That's my favorite form of content that you do put out.
I know you have a YouTube channel as well. I know you have bunches of other platforms that
are creating amazing content in. And again, congrats on the Washington Post advice column dropping
in mid-August. Where can people find you on social media? That is evil, evil social media.
I know. So I'm mostly, I would say I'm a big Twitter junkie and I'm mostly on TikTok, obviously,
at Jules Turpac. I really recommend people send in questions to the Washington Post.
It's like the Ask Jules page. So the advice column is all about living online and our growing
relationship with digital. So if you have questions or if you have like questions that you
ponder that you think are good for other people to consider, send those in. I'm really excited
about that. It starts mid-August and yeah, I'll be answering all your questions there.
Amazing. Thanks so much, Jules. Thank you.
All right, everybody. That is it for the weekdays. Stay tuned though for Sunday.
because we have another awesome VC Sunday school and this week in climate startups interview.
We're talking in VC Sunday school about how to evaluate pre-launch and pre-traction startups.
And we have some super tactical advice about it.
And then another great climate founder interview.
This one is more mushrooms using fungus to turn waste into building materials.
Super interesting.
See a Sunday.
