This Week in Startups - News! The cult of Bitcoin maximalists, Bezos is going to space, & Facebook’s smartwatch | E1230

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

First up, Jason covers "Bitcoin Toxicity." Are Bitcoin maximalists exhibiting cult-like behavior? (1:19) Then, he assesses the risks of Bezos going to space: is the potential upside worth the risk of ruin? (36:16) Finally, he wraps with news of Facebook's rumored smartwatch. Have Apple's recent privacy measures forced Facebook's hand into the wearables space? (40:59)

Hey everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of this week in startups. We're going to do some news today because there's been so much news backing up that I want to comment on it. And really three things I want to talk about today. One is Bitcoin toxicity, which has been spreading like wildfire during the Bitcoin conference in Miami. Maybe the chances that Bezos dies going to space. He's announced that he wants to be the first billionaire to go to space. And that's really just a crazy idea. We're going to talk about some of the statistics there. And then Facebook versus Apple, the privacy war, continue and Facebook wants you to wear a watch and wants to put a camera, a pedometer, a location, and a microphone on your watch. And you really want to do that? This week in startups is brought to you by Snack Magic. Sending Gifts has never been this easy. Snack Magic is a stress-free way to treat your global team, clients, or sales prospects with a build their own snack box.

Get 10% off with code 20. Twist at snackmagic.com slash twist and Silicon Valley Bank. For over 35 years, Silicon Valley Bank has been providing banking and financial solutions for every stage of the startup journey. Learn more at SVB.com slash twist. Let's talk about Bitcoin toxicity up top here because I think this is a really important moment for the Bitcoin community. We've been talking about Bitcoin on this podcast for a decade. I own Bitcoin, seven figures worth, as I've always told people, we were lucky to get in under $100 and then again under $200. So we actually own a significant portion of Bitcoin in our household, and that's great. But Bitcoin toxicity is a really new trend. And this, I call

the syndrome, TBM, toxic Bitcoin maximalism. And, you know, if you've heard the term Bitcoin maximalists before, it's a very simple concept. It basically means people believe that Bitcoin is the only digital asset we will need in the future. All other projects are garbage. You should not talk about, be involved in anything other than Bitcoin. And Bitcoin maximalists really feel a little like a cult and feel very religious about it. And now they've added a new thing to Bitcoin maximalism. it's not just that they believe fervently that Bitcoin is the most important currency, which it might wind up being. It's obviously the largest right now, although Ethereum is really, you know, a better technology, you know, in terms of programmability and extensibility,

and probably the more sophisticated technical product. But putting that aside, because already my feed is going to be filled with people saying, I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm an old fat Greek. Like literally the attacks get really personal from the people's suffering from TBM. And Bitcoin toxicity is when a Bitcoin maximalist decides to attack as a strategy, anyone who questions the supremacy of Bitcoin in any way. So even the most modest of criticisms of Bitcoin, a person who is suffering from TBM, who's a toxic Bitcoin maximalist, they are going to attack you brutally, violently, and relentlessly until you decide to become a Bitcoin maximalist. And this is an explicit strategy because Bitcoin must be adopted in order for it to become

the currency of the future. So if you feel very religiously about it, you become even beyond a missionary, you become a mercenary missionary who feels like they need to attack. people and go on the offensive. And if you don't join the religion, you are murdered, excommunicated, etc. And so Bitcoin's biggest convention ever was held this past weekend in Miami. If you're on social media, you know this because it was just insane. Obviously, there were some, you know, great speakers like Jack Dorsey and the mayor of Miami predictably gave some opening remarks. But the conference go is received an email. How to prepare for Big. Bitcoin 2021. That email included a Bitcoin-only rule. Rule number two. This is a Bitcoin-only

conference. Please stay focused and on topic at the event. Say, if conversations about other protocols and cryptocurrencies for outside the conference, this is a classic cult-like behavior or a religious zealot behavior or, you know, a dictatorship's behavior, only care about this religion. There is only one true God, and that God is X, Y, or Z. We only follow this one leader. All other leaders are not to be spoken, not even their names. So at the Bitcoin conference, if you were to mention another cryptocurrency, you were booed and attacked.

And some of the crazy moments are just nuts. First, there's a guy named Nico Zem. He's a CEO of something called BitVolt Mining. And he had just this ridiculous Bitcoin toxicity quote. It's 16 seconds, and I'll see you on the side. So not only do I think Bitcoin toxicity is important, I think it's absolutely necessary. And if you're against Bitcoin toxicity, you're against Bitcoin. And if you're against Bitcoin, you're against freedom, period. Okay. So you can see how this cult is now shaping up.

And he does not represent everybody, but you can hear a lot of whoops from the audience and some cheering. It's obviously an outstanding ovation in everybody. But this is how a lot of people are thinking now, if you're against Bitcoin toxicity, then you're against Bitcoin. And if you're against Bitcoin, you are excommunicated and you're against freedom. So this is what Scientology, Catholicism, you know, during the missionary period, and other places, you know, indoctrinated people into, which is you can, you will not be part of this group if you even speak the word of another group. So if you're against Christianity, if you mention something other than Christianity, you're out. And you're against the enlightenment. You're against freedom itself. This is really crazy behavior.

And it is not isolated. This is a trend. And all you have to do if you want to test this is go on to social media and say, I think Bitcoin is wonderful, but it will be replaced by a better product. During the next panel, Eric Voorhees, an early Bitcoin entrepreneur and the CEO of something called Shapeshift.io, called out the prior statement. And he got booed for it. I'll see you after 27 second clip. Before we begin, did I hear someone in that prior panel say, if you're against toxic maximism, you are against Bitcoin and you're against freedom? Yeah, that's some bullshit.

All right. We got them, we got them warmed up. Okay, so you hear it there. He said, before we begin, I hear that some of you, someone on the prior panel said, if you're against toxic maximalism, you're against Bitcoin and you're against freedom. Yeah, that's some BS. and he gets that smattering of claps, but more booze than anything. And in one of the craziest moments of the event, Max Kaiser, who I knew from the dot-com

era, he did something called the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which was a really clever idea to create a market for celebrities where you'd buy and sell value in celebrities, just like this other bit something project that came out where you can buy and sell social media influencers, et cetera, and make a cryptocurrency around them. And so he got on stage and to discuss Bitcoin, I guess, with Michael Saller, who will talk about in a moment. And he went absolutely insane on stage. We gigacad, Michael Saler.

Come on. And you see, this is manic behavior and everybody stands up. This is also part of cult behavior. If you've ever seen Keith Reneery in The Vow or you've seen other cults or groups, one of the things they try to do is to get you to experience. in a very big cathartic, emotional high. This is how you get people to join your cult. You can have people singing the gospel in a church

and jumping up and down and they get that incredible rush. You've seen Tony Robbins do it, who is kind of cult-like, right? You meet the Tony Robbins folks. They feel like Tony Robbins is the one true God in some cases, and he has to put out a documentary that says, I'm not your cult leader

or something was the name of the documentary. The reason you have to come up with a documentary, like that is because of the cult like behavior happening at your event. So here you see Max riling up the crowd. So you get your energy up for the keyword Bitcoin. This is a hypnotist technique. This is a cult leader technique. This is a religious technique. And Elon responded on Twitter hilariously. Dot, dot, dot is a hell of a drug. I mean, it does look like this person is on some hell of a drug. And I would say Bitcoin is a hell of a drug. And people are just like, my God, where do we go wrong with this? In business, it's important.

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many different countries. So you can get 10% off right now if you use the code twist at snackmagic.com slash twist. Go ahead and check out snackmagic.com slash. twist. My favorite clip was the absurdity and the joy of the Doge Army, the cryptocurrency based on the dog, the joke cryptocurrency, which I own some of as well. And I bought it as a joke and I've been telling you, if you're in crypto, it is straight up gambling. Consider it like wagering on sports or playing blackjack. Do not take all this too seriously. If you want to spend one or two percent of your money playing blackjack every year or put it into cryptocurrency

or bet it on a crazy startup. I understand. I have that addiction as well. I like to gamble. I like to bet on startups. This doesn't happen to be my bag, but it could be yours. And I love the absurdist nature of not taking this seriously.

And that's what Bitcoin was. Bitcoin was a group of like pirates who stole this great version of the world. And then now you have all of these hucksters, charlatans, and bagholders trying to convince you and make you feel bad, these Bitcoin Maximilus, these toxic Bitcoin folks. trying to make you feel bad about yourself for not being part of their cult. And if you don't join the cult, then they are going to tell you, have fun staying poor. They're going to attack you. They're going to tell you're old, stupid, fat. You don't get it. Just like cult leaders and religious

people say, you just don't understand my religion, my cult. And here he goes, a classic doge bomb. I mean, it's the first one. But I think this is a classic doge mom. I cannot encourage you to on stage and do this at other conferences when somebody says the word Bitcoin, but I would be highly entertained anytime I saw this. So I'm, again, to be clear, I'm not encouraging it. But I do find this level of absurdity awesome. So we're really excited about the progress of LDK. We have a very urgent announcement. All right. I don't know what's... And you can see exactly how joyless, anxious and ugly the Bitcoin community has gotten here. They can't take a joke. Everybody is freaking out. Oh, my God, somebody said the name Doge at a Bitcoin conference.

Literally, these Bitcoin maximalists are so sensitive. They are so absolutely in their own bubble that they can. will not allow people to mention another cryptocurrency. And if you do, you'll be carried off the stage or booed like Floyd Mayweather was. They invited Floyd Mayweather to come to the event. And I don't think, I think everybody should work together. And what I always did was I believed in myself. Before anybody else believed in me, I believed in myself. And I believe that it's going to be, you know, another cryptocurrency that's going to be just as large as Bitcoin someday. It's okay.

He said he thought that everybody could be independent and he thinks that there'll be other technologies that will come that will be even better than Bitcoin, which is a very world positive thing to say. That would be like saying Tony Robbins is great. I bet you there'll be another person who's even better than Tony Robbins the future. My God, Judaism was awesome. I bet you there'll be another religion in the future like Christianity. That'll be better.

or Christianity, there'll be a better Christianity at some point. Well, who doesn't want to like see the world improve? Well, Bitcoin people who have this toxic, toxic maximalism. And, you know, this does not mean that I don't believe Bitcoin is a supremely, supremely important technology, an incredible project, an incredible feat of technology, and important for the world. I do. But I think that this behavior is super concerning.

And a few days ago, people started showing me this clip of Bitcoin Maximus Michael Saler. And I think this is an important one. Just for a little bit of context here, Michael Seller is the co-founder and CEO of Micro Strategy, which tells business to business software that connects data sources to create graphics charts and other ways to track metrics. They've been public since 1998. The company's kind of gone sideways from what I can tell. Here's a quote from an interview he did. If I told you, I know how it all ends, right?

once you know how it all ends, the only use of time is, how do I buy more Bitcoin? But take all your money, buy Bitcoin, then take all your time, figure out how to borrow more money to buy more Bitcoin, then take all your time and figure out what you can sell to buy Bitcoin. And if you absolutely love the thing that you don't want to sell it, go mortgage your house and buy Bitcoin with it. And if you've got a business that you love because your family works for the business that's in your family for 37 years and you can't bear to sell it, mortgage it, finance it, and convert the proceeds into the hardest money on earth, which is Bitcoin.

So what I would say is use all your time to acquire Bitcoin, finance entities, and weaker currencies to buy Bitcoin, or educate yourself on why this makes sense if you're not sure, and then educate everybody around you. You know, if you're working for a company that's got $100 million in the treasury, you ought to convince the CEO and the board of directors to convert the treasury to Bitcoin. That's the most of creative thing you can do. That'd be worth billions to them. It's like, if you were to say to me, Mike, it's the year 2000, you're in Argentina.

What's the best use of your time? The best use of my time is figure out how to get all of my money converted into dollars and get it out of Argentina because I'm going to lose 99.5% of the money. If I don't, nothing else matters. All right. So take all your money, buy Bitcoin, figure out how to borrow more money and buy more Bitcoin. Go mortgage your house and buy Bitcoin with it.

This is from a clip that was released, I think, in March of 2021. Bitcoin was about $56,000 at that point. And today, obviously, it dipped down to $31,000 this week. It's probably in the mid to high 30s right now. You know, nobody knows exactly why Bitcoin goes up. up and down, to be totally honest, because there is no core use case, aside from the speculation, aside from this cult, aside from people maybe fleeing countries and wanting to, or ransomware. But, you know, I think it's around 36,000 right now. And so this is where you have to be super,

super careful as an individual. If you tell people to go mortgage their house, to sell and to take every dollar they have and move it into Bitcoin, people might actually do that. And so you'll always see me try to say here is I always will say that when I'm giving advice this is an advice but here's how I would advise my brother or my mom and dad or my cousin just to give you an indication that this is how I would tell a loved one to do it. You still have to make your own decision. So Michael Seller is welcome to give his opinion but this is a quick way to get yourself sued. I don't think you would lose the lawsuit but you've got to be very careful giving people advice because what if somebody took their money, mortgaged their house, and then put it into Bitcoin at $64,000 or whatever, $60,000,

and now it goes down to $30,000, $35,000, maybe it goes down to $5,000 again. Who knows what could happen? Now, it could also go to $250, and you'll look like a genius. But my lord, be careful. So I tweeted this, and I put the clip in my tweet, and Ache, Michael, to his credit, came in, and he asked me, what advice would you have to offer the citizens of Argentina during the past two decades as their currency collapsed, what advice would you offer the billions of people living in countries with collapsing currencies right now? Bitcoin is a solution over the long term. Fear is not.

And, you know, my advice to anybody in authoritarian country is you only live once. You should try to get out of that country. You should try fleeing. This is an obvious statement. Of course, the Bitcoin maximalists and the people with this toxic Bitcoin can't even perceive that that is a possibility, but that is actually pretty good advice, I think. Now, and I put in the next sentence, If you can't get out, which people just totally disregarded saying I was like clueless, you know, to tell people to leave an authoritarian country. I think that's probably the best advice you could give people living in an authoritarian country. And I follow it up immediately. If you can't get out, I would be careful buying Bitcoin due to the non-zero chance. That'll be banned by authoritarians who are historically and by definition. They're called authoritarian for a reason. Not fans of seeding control. Continued, if you live in an unstable and mismanaged democracy, which is different than an authoritarian country where they would literally put you in jail or murder you. if you were to do something against the law, like, say, owning cryptocurrency, if you live in an unstable and mismanaged democracy, and it's legal to do so, sure, you can put your percentage of your wealth into Bitcoin, Euros, US dollars, diamonds, and gold

because your currency could be devalued. And I put actually a picture of the Argentinian chart of, you know, the buying power of their dollars to U.S. dollars. And it's not pretty, obviously. And, you know, he responded. The Argentinian government devalued 90% of everyone's USD and ARS balances overnight by edict about 20 years ago. It's fairly easy for them to accomplish. It would be 10 billion times harder to do that today if everyone held Bitcoin and their own keys instead of cash in the bank. And this is true.

Bitcoin is amazing for money laundering, ransomware, hiding money, doing illegal transactions, terrorism, or fleeing a country with your money. All of those share something in common, which is you can memorize a series of words and then unlock that money in another location. It's pretty amazing, right, as opposed to diamonds, which you might have to swallow or put in another orifice or hide on your person somewhere, and you will get caught with them easier than getting caught with a series of words you can memorize. So, sure, I don't think any of us debate this, but there is a naivete in the Bitcoin community that Bitcoin can't be stopped by dictators. dictators in China have stopped religions, social movements, books, and VPNs.

And they do it through something called torture, murder, and jailing people. And it's pretty straightforward to do it. Micro Strategies, his company, and I like Michael, I love to have him on the program because I do think he makes some good points about freedom and Bitcoin being about hope and freedom. He actually owns, I think, the domain named Hope.com. Goodn nice purchase. And I kind of like his approach, which I don't, he doesn't, Even though he's a maximalist, Michael does not seem toxic to me.

I could be wrong. I don't know the full body of his work, but he does not seem to be toxic. He does seem to be drunk and a maximalist on Bitcoin, which is fine. People are allowed to get drunk on a certain technology. But there's a difference between talking your book, right? Being a promoter of being a maximalist and being toxic. If you're talking your book, that's like me saying, oh, my God, I'm a huge fan of Robin Hood, Com or Uber, because I own shares in it.

And I made a bet there. So obviously, if I made the bet and I own the shares, I am going to be supportive of that company and supportive of that trade. And that's called Talking Your Book. So my opinion on Uber or meditation or stock trading is obviously I placed a bet. So therefore, I'm talking my book. Then there's promoting. And promoting is slightly different than talking your book, but there's a little overlap in each of these phases. And promoting is, you know, I want you to buy and invest in this company. Now, When I syndicate a deal, some might argue I'm promoting it by sharing it. I wouldn't call it promoting because it's done privately.

I'm not buying ads telling you you should invest in this company, Robin Hood. But I might email my investment club, which people have opted into. I might share with them. I'm investing in this company. If you would like the opportunity to do so, fill out this form and we'll give you an allocation. And that's a business relationship. And you could put that into promoting or they actually call up people who do SPACs, promoters. So there's talking your book, promoting, and then there's maximalism, which is,

you know, everything else is garbage. This thing is the best. Okay, now you're getting a little more intense, but it does not need to be toxic. And then there's toxic, which is destroy anybody, attack anybody, run sciops, which is what religious people have done as well. This fair game doctrine. And I think that's where Bitcoin is right now. And it's actually kind of sad because Bitcoin was so much better when it was joyful and world positive, as opposed to now where people are really upset about this latest crash. It used to be when Bitcoin crashed. The Bitcoin community would laugh about it. First time, oh, yeah, we deal with this all the time. We have diamond hands. We are on the roller coaster. They would share memes, and they thought it was funny.

It was a chance to re-buy-in. This time, I think people have so much money in this and they've become so maximalist that when Bitcoin crashes, you know, it's really, really significant for people because Some people have drunk the Kool-Aid, and maybe they are taking Michael's advice and mortgaging their homes. And so losing half their money really does make you sick in the pit of your stomach. This is why people talk about diversification and why that's so important. You need to be diversified so that you can sleep at night. If you have, you know, seven different things in your portfolio, and they all represent five to 20 percent of your wealth, well, if one of them gets cut in half, the max you're going to, you know, suffer is you're going to go from, you know, 100,

percent of your net worth to 90. Whereas if you have 100 percent of your money and, you know, like Michael is advocating here, if you have 100 percent in one thing, Bitcoin, or if I had it in Uber or Robin Hood, or you had it in your home, if that thing gets cut in half, man, you're not going to sleep at night. You might get an ALSA. And looking at micro strategy, the company was, had annual revenue of 580 million in 2014, 500 in 2018, 486 in 2019, 481 in 2020. So the company has gone down. and not growing. But in August of 2020, when Bitcoin was at just 11,500 micro strategy announced, they would adopt Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset by purchasing $250 million in Bitcoin.

Since then, they've done three bond sales to raise money to purchase Bitcoin. And according to the Wall Street Journal, this Monday, June 7th, Micro Strategies, barring $400 million in junk bonds to finance their most recent purchase. Again, according to the Wall Street Journal, based on their current price of Bitcoin, the value of micro-strategy's total Bitcoin holdings is around $3.5 billion, 92,079 Bitcoins owned by Micro Strategy, according to Barron's June 7th. And so as a stock, MSTR is up over 250% in the last 12 months and has outperformed the majority of the software industry, obviously going up two and a half times. MicroStriety's current market cap 4.8 billion, which if you subtract their Bitcoin

holdings, means micro strategy itself is worth $1.3 billion-ish. And Microstrategy's market cap was slightly over $1 billion just before they announced their Bitcoin transactions in August of 2020. A long way of saying, they're basically sideways in terms of the Bitcoin holding. So Bitcoin went up and, yeah, the underlying business has not appreciated. So they probably should just sell the underlying business and just call themselves a Bitcoin stock holding company or something. But I think the rules are different.

So somebody has to educate me. If you move your treasury to Bitcoin, does that make you a cent? And people start trading you? Does it make you like an ETF? It is now micro strategy is an ETF for, or, you know, some kind of proxy for buying Bitcoin and why wouldn't you just buy Bitcoin as opposed to Micro Strategy? I don't understand what the concept here is, but it's pretty clear that, you know, micro strategy is now a Bitcoin company. I think they should just sell micro strategy

the core business and just start buying, you know, cryptocurrency companies for things that build Bitcoin, right? I mean, if you have this platform, why not? And, you know, they're basically tied together. This week in startups is brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank. What's next? What if? Are we ready? Now what? These are the questions that can keep founders up at night, and no one understands this quite like Silicon Valley Bank. For over 35 years, Silicon Valley Bank has helped thousands of high growth companies by providing scalable financial solutions, along with insights and expertise that many other banks just can't. From health care to hardware, software to infrastructure, SVB works with companies across the innovation landscape at all stages of the journey,

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Bitcoin is moving from something that was playful, fun, promising, interesting, visionary, to now something that is really serious for people. They have a lot of skin in the game, and it's causing this sort of maximalism and or toxicity. So that just, to me, says, hey, is this a cult? And if you look at the cult Education Institute's website, we found 10 warning signs. Number one, absolutely authoritarianism without meaningful accountability. I don't know if you could apply this here because you don't have a central person in charge of Bitcoin. So I would put that one ahead, but no tolerance for questions or critical inquiry is the number two concept here. So there is no thought leader in charge of Bitcoin, but you could argue, you know,

Elon buying it and selling it and talking about it. He became, you know, in a way, the default leader of Bitcoin for a moment because there is no leader because Satoshi, we don't know who that is or who they are. It could be multiple people. But if you just look at any critical Bitcoin tweets or anybody who thinks Ethereum is more interesting, you will see the lack of tolerance for any questions or critical inquiry. And this is where you know Bitcoin is going to go off the rails. This is probably the most serious risk for Bitcoin right now is this maximalism and toxicity because it is driving people away from wanting to own this asset. And nobody wants to be involved in a cult or this kind of toxicity. So there's a small number of people who will. This is now going to become something

that repels people from wanting to be part of the project. It really is, I think, as a big of a risk factor as governments banning it or taxing in it, which I think will be coming, more banning and more taxation is clearly, and regulation is coming. There are no meaningful financial disclosures regarding budget expenses such as independently audited financial statements. This is, again, according to occult education institutes website, because Bitcoin is not an organization that doesn't really apply. Number four, unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies, and persecutions. My God, this is so, so accurate when you look at the cult of Bitcoin and people suffering from toxic Bitcoin maximalism. They really are fearmongering and, you know, that the U.S. dollar is going to collapse and the world's going to collapse. And then, you know, every society is in the current is going to collapse. And that is in fact, that thread is why, Bitcoin went up during the pandemic, I believe. People were doing the end of the world trade, the calamity trade, the catastrophe trade. The catastrophe is over. MRNA solved it. So now we're

back to the real world. And people are like, why would I need Bitcoin? We have the US dollar. And the US dollar is doing great. And companies are doing great. I could buy Disney. I'm pretty sure Disney has a better chance of being here in 10 or 20 years than Bitcoin. Again, just even making that statement and having that belief that Disney and Marvel Star Wars, Pixar, and those characters in the Disney library have a better chance of long-term monetization, that is considered something that Bitcoin maximalist would attack. There is no legitimate reason to leave. Former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil. Number five, right? I mean, you just have to look at Elon selling some of his Bitcoin or being slightly critical of the project or talking about

about, or anybody who talks about the environmental footprint, they're evil and they are wrong for leaving the cult. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern or grievances. You see that all the time in the Bitcoin community. It's the same thing over and over again. You don't get it. You know, we're using hydro, just on the energy issue, or, you know, proof of stake or, you know, whatever. They have a million reasons and a million anecdotes that they will repeat over and over again, including memes kind of fall into this, right? Have fun staying poor. Have some faying for. Number seven, there are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group or leader. That's probably just starting for

Bitcoin with this podcast. Eight, followers feel they can never be good enough. I don't think that applies here. There's no negging going on. The group leader is always right. That's clearly, you know, you can't question the white paper. You can't question the architecture. Can't question anything. The group leader is the exclusive means of knowing truth or receiving validation. No other process of discovery is really accepted credible. That kind of applies half and half. If you are not going by the Bitcoin Bible essentially, the white paper, the original vision, then maybe, you know, you're not credible.

You know, I have always felt that it's possible for Bitcoin Zero to happen. And the fact that people don't believe Bitcoin Zero can happen, but we have zero. Beta Max and VHS tapes and CD-ROMs, you know, I've gone away. All technology gets replaced with a better technology. This happens, folks. You know, you probably haven't taken a horse and buggy for a while. So Bitcoin will, of course, be replaced by something better someday. Will it happen in our lifetime?

I don't know. Sometimes changes happen quick. Sometimes it happens slow. But Bitcoin Zero is something I've talked about just to put it on people's radar because I've seen that the first couple of technologies almost invariably get replaced with something better. So, you know, there were a dozen search engines of note and then Google. There were dozens of social networks, then Facebook, Instagram, and the latest crop.

Right now, I was thinking back in 2018 when Bitcoin went down to, you know, the 3,000, 4,000 range, that there's a chance that it could go down to $1,000. And, you know, Bitcoin zero, I consider $1,000 in honor. In other words, losing 90% of its value, 95% of its value, whatever. the drop is at a particular point in time. And so do I believe it has a 60, 70% chance of Bitcoin zero now? I don't. I believe every couple of years that it survives and more people buy into it, obviously, the chances of that go down.

But I do think it's a possibility. It's not a probability anymore for me because I think that these maximalists and people putting in their treasury means it's very hard for it to go away. And the technology has not been hacked. So I think it's unlikely that it'll be hacked. I do think the 20 to 30% chance of a Bitcoin zero. or close to zero, you know, under a $1,000 coin scenario would be based on taxing some type of disruptive hacking.

You might not be able to hack the core protocol and take the servers down, but you think of like a denial of service or a lot of end hacks happening on a regular basis. It could become hacked so frequently like Windows was for a period of time. People went to Mac just to get away from the viruses and the hacking. So it is possible, but not probable at this point. I think there's also the possibility that Ethereum or other. projects are going to move faster and change quicker, have better use cases. And then you would see the slow flippening where Bitcoin's market cap would become half of Ethereums or some other projects.

And then there would be three projects that were twice or three times or four times bigger than Bitcoin. And this is absolutely making people who are Bitcoin maximalists and who have toxic Bitcoin syndrome. They are going nuts right now. Just even hearing me say that Bitcoin is not going to be number one. So it is basically a cult is what I believe at this point. Okay, next up, Jeff Bezos is going to space. Three people will be going on an 11-minute flight on July 20th, 2021. Basically, six weeks from now or so, five weeks from now, Jeff Bezos asked his brother in video on his Instagram to come with him, who he calls his best friends, and then the one other person will be bidding on that seat, according to the company's site. Bidding is currently have $4 million for the seat. And this is only 15

days after Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO on July 5th. Bezos explained this reasoning in this video, which you can watch, and we'll listen to it now for 57 seconds, and we'll talk on the other side. You see the Earth from space. It changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It's one Earth. I want to go on this flight because it's a thing I've wanted to do all my life. It's an adventure. It's a big deal for me. I invited my brother to come on this first flight because we're closest to friends. I really want you to come with me. Would you? Are you serious?

I am. I think it would be meaningful. I have my brother there. I wasn't even expecting him to say that he was going to be on the first flight. And then when he asked me to go along, I was just awestruck. Seriously? If you're willing, if you want to. My God. Yeah.

What a remarkable opportunity, not only to have this adventure, but to be able to do it with my best friend. I love you. I love you too. So he's always wanted to do this and he's going to do it. The company's motto is grad atom ferocitor. I hope I'm pronouncing Latin correct. I didn't take Latin in school.

Step by step ferociously. I like that motto. The company's goal, as stated on the website, enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth in order to preserve Earth. Blue Origin believes that humanity will need to expand, explore a new energy and material resources and move industries that stress the Earth into space.

Great mission. Obviously, SpaceX and Blue Origin. are on two different timelines, and NASA has been giving their big contracts to SpaceX, and Blue Argin has been losing that race. They're way far behind SpaceX. You know, obviously, Elon wants to colonize Mars. Blue Argin, privately funded by Bezos, with an estimated $3.5 billion in funding, and has 3,400 employees to SpaceX's, I think, over $8,000, maybe $9,000 at this point. So, they're two very different companies, but, you know, the thing I look at is, you know, Blue Origin, I think, has done 20 or so missions, and now you have SpaceX at 120.

Him going to space is really dangerous. It's a non-zero chance. He will die. And so looking at the number of people who've gone to space, the number of individuals who've gone to space, about 600. The number of people who died is around 30 in training on the launch pad, going to space, coming back from space. 14 of those, I think, were the space shuttle, which I think most people would agree was perhaps say flawed construction, if you were to take those out, somewhere around a dozen people have died out of 600 who've gone to space. So, but some of those people have gone multiple times. It might be, you know, one in 500, one in a thousand. You know, obviously 15 out of 600 is more than that. It's, you know, more like, you know, whatever, one or two percent. So we'll see exactly how dangerous

this is. There's a lot of different ways to look at it. You could look at the fact that I think One or two of the SpaceX missions, one or two of the Blue Origin missions ended in catastrophe or, you know, the rocket blowing up, basically. Thankfully, in all those cases, it was not the technology. There were no humans on it. And I think if you look at SpaceX's track record, the last five, they haven't had a malfunction. I think it's six years. All this is on the Wikipedia. You can look at the charts and graphs there. But obviously, I think Blue Origin had one or two failures out of the first 22. If I'm Bezos, if I'm Elon, if I'm Richard Branson, I'm waiting. I'm waiting until maybe the 200th, 300th, or 400th of any technology to go up there and maybe have 100 to 300 missions without, you know, a fatality. And then I might think about it. But man, the risk of ruin is something very real.

Yeah, not a great idea. And I guess Morgan Stanley on Jeff Bezos going to space. Putting the world's richest man and one of the most recognized figures in business into space is a massive advertisement for space as a domain for exploration, industrialization, investment. And, you know, obviously Richard Branson wants to get there before them by pal Lex Friedman pointed out. Jeff Bezos just made the friendly competition space a bit more exciting. This is going to be a fun decade for engineering. Yeah, it's going to be fun and it's going to be exciting unless he dies. God forbid. And I think that is just way too much risk for somebody

that important with that much to live for to take. You know, I'm not saying that the other people flying and astronauts flying to space is worth the risk either. I mean, we have to take risk in life, but man, if I was Bezos and I had this much to live for kids, etc., I wouldn't do it. I think it's a really bad decision on his part. I think it's, I think it's his ego out of control. I'll be totally honest. Or maybe not out of control or just maybe I think this is a little bit too too much ego. And maybe Richard Branson doing all these crazy stunts to build his business. If you're Bezos, you don't really need to take those stunts. It's just far too much risk. for him to take, and I think it's selfish, actually, you know, as a parent and as a person

running a company who, you know, could contribute a lot more to society. I would, I would not make this decision. Bad decision on base of sport. My, just my opinion. Facebook is building a smart watch as we wrap here on Wednesday, June 9th of Ridge reported that Facebook is building their own smart watch with plans to release it next summer. Front camera exists primarily for video crawling. 1080p. Auto-focus camera on the back can be used for capturing foot when detached from the stainless steel frame of the wrist. So you're going to be able to take this off, which is kind of cool and take pictures.

So it's going to be this tiny little, you know, secret device for doing covert recording. What could go wrong? A $400 price point target. And why are they doing this? The idea is to encourage owners of the watch to use it in ways smartphones are used now. Part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg planned to build a more consumer devices that circumvent Apple and Google.

So the war with Apple is real. The war with Google is real. Obviously Google bought Fitbit. Facebook was supposedly going to do that. And I think, you know, Zuckerberg is realizing with all this money and Oculus going very well, I just got the new Oculus and played Beat Sabre for the first time last night, I mean, man, it's massively compelling. And I was laughing and having a great time with it.

I think actually that VR stuff, you know, in a $200 or $300 device and the advances they've made, it's pretty compelling for playing games. And I think, you know, this seventh or eighth time we've had VR queue up as a potential platform. I think this might be the time it sticks. It's a pretty compelling product. And I'm very cynical about virtual reality because of my motion sickness. But I didn't get motion sick playing with it for maybe 15, 20 minutes. So that was the first time for me. So the fidelity is clearly there. But if you're going to trust Facebook with this watch, you are insane. There is no reason to trust Facebook at this point with any of your data, let alone putting a microphone, a camera in your home or on your wrist. And Zuckerberg knowing your health patterns, this is a recipe for disaster. Consumers are getting much smarter and the marketplace of ideas is really starting to work. Tim Cook's awesome vision

to make you confirm your privacy and they're making that. Their rallying cry is brilliant and it is going to demolish companies like Google and Facebook, I think, in the arena. I think this is going to have a material impact and I think that governments are going to look at what Apple's doing and say, you know Google, you know Facebook, you are talking about how it's impossible to do these kind of things and it's too arduous. Well, Apple's doing it and making commercials. So why aren't you doing it? And it's going to give the high ground to Apple and it's going to give the high ground to governments to write laws that make tracking consumers go away. And, you know, if you just look at what Apple's done, their recent moves in privacy are nothing

short of inspiring, outstanding, and just extraordinary. You know this because when you open your phone if you're an iPhone user says allow maps to access your location while you're using the app allow while using the app allow once don't allow they've literally made it harder and harder for app developers to compromise your privacy you've seen this before and app tracking features in their April 2021 ios 14.5 update uh they allowed users to choose which apps they allowed to track them outside of the app they announced even more privacy features at the wdc the worldwide developer conference on Monday. There's a privacy dashboard now in iOS 15. It's going to make it easier to see which apps are collecting your data and when. And this is a continuation of this Apple

app tracking transparency feature, which they rolled out in 14.5 for iOS. You're going to be able to monitor who's using your data and how and how often it's accessed. And they also edit email privacy. So they're in the mail app on your phone. It's going to be hard to track your email or tracking pixels in and they're taking third-party tools, which have existed like bad email and these Chrome extensions that tell you if somebody's trying to track you, well, they're going to be running things through proxies now. So all this idea, VPNs, proxy servers and not letting tracking pixels pop up in the podcast player, et cetera, this means that when you consume an email from a marketer, let's say you get a Nike email. Well, normally they would send a tracking pixel

that is unique to you so they know you open the email, just like some software will let you know, hey, somebody opened your email. Those tracking pixels are going to be loaded from some proxy server. In other words, another computer loads that image and then that proxy server shows you the image. And this is all going to start to be native

inside the app and inside of browsers. So there are already privacy browsers that you can use that will use an IP address that's not yours to load stuff. And obviously there's the Tor network, which allows you to have multiple hops when loading data. And these things are going to become the standard in Apple products, and they're

going to be unbelievable. Also, you know how Siri never works, and when you have a bad data connection, it sucks. Well, they're moving Siri and all that processing to your phone. So the audio is never going to leave your phone or iPad. Again, this is just to help unwanted audio

recordings and to make Siri respond faster. But this is the beginning of headwinds for Facebook and Google that I think will hit Facebook more acutely because Facebook uses a psychographic and all these data points to do ads whereas Google you type something into a search box.

So even if Google didn't have any tracking of consumers and who they were and their profiles, I think Google is still going to be okay because you typed, you know, I want to buy a used Tesla or I'm going to Kauai on vacation. Those things are still going to work really well over at Google. But Facebook, man, Facebook uses all

the data points it has about us to target ads. And that's why I think they're freaking out. And I think that's why they're going to raise the ante by adding hardware to their mix. So do not be surprised if Facebook starts selling PCs with operating systems on them, Facebook creates its own browser, Facebook creates its own mobile phone, iPad, laptop. It's a no-brainer for Facebook to try to hit Apple where it could hurt them, which is wearables, and to maybe even do a smartphone. So, And, you know, if they were to fork Android or create their own operating system over time, obviously they've got unlimited resources. There's thousands of people working on the Oculus as an example.

So Facebook is taking the threat seriously and they want to stick it to Apple. I think Facebook's making a huge mistake. What Facebook should do is they should just start a subscription business. If you want to use Facebook and not be tracked, it's the same price as Netflix. $15 for a family plan, $8 for an individual, something in that range. and you can get all these extra features on Facebook, Instagram, etc. And just try to get 10% of the user base to convert over. You can still have the ad business,

but you could build a base of purely profit like Twitter is doing with the Twitter Blue service. Okay, it's been a great episode. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.