This Week in Startups - Ye agrees to acquire Parler, Xi Jinping on the state of China, deglobalization & more | E1588

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

J+M break down Ye agreeing to acquire Parler and share some thoughts on the artist's current situation. (2:22) Then, they cover CCP President Xi Jinping's recent comments on the current state of China (22:39), and what the world might look like with less globalization. (28:58)  They wrap with a social media Startup of the Day (52:29) and a space-themed We Live in the Future! (1:04:40) (0:00) J+M intro today's topics! (2:22) Ye has agreed to acquire Parler, a free speech-focused Twitter competitor (15:35) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://linkedin.com/twist (16:49) More thoughts on Ye's current situation (22:39) CCP President Xi Jinping's recent comments on the state of China and his goals moving forward (27:27) Notion - Sign up for FREE at https://notion.com (28:58) Unwinding globalization, issues with codependency (38:31) Helpware - Go to https://helpware.com/TWIST to get $1000 off your first invoice (39:55) Where CCP policies went wrong, what other countries can learn from them (52:29) Startup of the Day: Gas is a new social media startup geared towards positive superlatives for high school friend groups (1:04:40) We Live in the Future: Spinlaunch's rotating arm that launches satellites into low Eather orbit FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood Subscribe to our YouTube to watch all full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkkhmBWfS7pILYIk0izkc3A?sub_confirmation=1

All right, everybody, it's Monday. Welcome back. Nothing has slowed down and it will not for the duration of your lifetimes. Yay, the artist formerly known as Kanye West has agreed in principle to buy Parlor, one of the alternative Twitter clones. And so we're going to talk a little bit about Kanye West, Ye's mental breakdown. And I have some strong feelings about the media, social media, predators and Malina have a really deep discussion about what to do in those cases and what's happening with Kanye slashier at this moment in time. Yep. Delicate discussion.

It's a delicate discussion and obviously one that we could not opt out of. Similarly, we have to keep our eyes on China and we are. We're breaking down some huge public comments from Xi Jinping, the president of China, some fallout from the U.S.'s decision to tighten restrictions on chip exports to China and just like what's happening geopolitically as we unwind globalism. It's kind of a big moment that we're in historically. Yeah. moment. Globalization being and the great decoupling. Yeah. And then we wrap with two very cool

stories. We have the startup the day from the creator of TBH, a new app that is basically like your yearbook, who's most likely to succeed, but done in a very positive, still anonymous way. It's a very beautiful product. And we talk about the dangers of anonymity plus teenagers, plus online. And then we have a we live in the future, a startup called Spin Lunch, that flings satellites into low Earth orbit using centrifugal force and really high G's. And we talk about both of those in the context of whether we would invest some tactical information for you. Yes, it's going to be a great job. Stick with us. This week in startups is brought to you by LinkedIn jobs. A business is only as strong as its people and every hire matters. Post your first job for free at LinkedIn.com slash

Twist. Notion is one place for notes, docs, projects, and everyday work that goes way beyond a wiki. Get started for free at Notion.com and Helpware helps you outsource the tasks that slow your team down. From data entry to world-class customer support, Helpware can help make you Bionic. Go to helpware.com slash twist to get $1,000 off your first invoice. So this Breaking News Alert came across my phone, I think last night as I was about to go to sleep. And I was, and then that was the moment that I was like, and good night. Like I just was like, nope, I'm just putting that away. And then I woke up this morning at 6.30 and it seemed to still be true.

So then I was like, maybe I'm just going to stay in bed all day, but I didn't. I dragged myself out so that we could talk about the possibility that has so far been announced to be a press release that Yay, formerly known as Kanye West, has agreed to purchase the free speech focus social app parlor okay now i want to stop talking all right well no no i just want to start there for a second i didn't know parlor was still going so exactly yes who does not want i understand doesn't want people to refer to him as conier west anymore what's to be called yay i guess so which okay fine it's going to take a little while for that i mean we could also just not do that we don't have to well i'm not a law i mean i want to respect people's names i guess i mean it doesn't

cost me that much, but I mean, just so people know. Yay. Okay, I'm going to say the artist formerly known as Kanyeu as referring to himself as yay for, I don't know, three months just until everybody understands that this change has occurred. Because if you just throw like yay into a sentence, it's really confusing. Yay, yeah, exactly. Yay, yeah. It's like, people you say, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Okay. Anyway, so yes. So Parlor's still in business. That was the most shocking part of this story is that Parlor still exists. Shocking to many. Mm-hmm. Yes.

So Parlor, so people know, is a. clunky version of Twitter that was designed at some point raised a bunch of funding it was like 2018 and um this was because i guess trump hadn't been thrown off of twitter yet but this was when i guess milo yianopoulos and some other folks had been thrown off of twitter right so the early deplatforming of yeah uh people i guess spurred the site the site and then there was what's the other one, truth social is Trump's. Truth Social is the newer one, and then there's Gab. Gab was like the really gnarly one.

Right. That used the Pepe the Frog meme. That was like pure trolling. And then there's Rumble, which is there's Rumble. The right version of YouTube. The video one. Yeah. And then there is locals, which is like subscriptions for people, right-leaning people like

the Dilbert creator, Scott Adams. Interestingly, this move is coming, obviously, right after Twitter and Instagram locked Ye's accounts because of the series of anti-Semitic posts. Then he was actually spotted not that long ago, just for context, with Candace Owens, who's like a right-wing provocateur. Yes. In these White Lives Matter T-shirts. Yes. And of note, listen, I'm just trying to like get the facts out here. Yeah.

But of note, Candice Owen's husband is the CEO of Parlor. Got it. And Parlor has been, has gone invisible, right? Like, it is more abundant at best. It seems to have had like an initial bump in popularity when it first launched and does not seem to be superactive. So certainly there are those people who are saying this is a very, you know, successful, predatory success on the part of this family who, just got a big old rescue for their platform. I wonder how much of the 56th they blew through.

Yeah, I don't know. He was, by the way, though, Kanye, yeah, joined really early. He was one of the early people to jump on this platform. Like, he got on it in 2018. It was like, you know, him and Candace Owens and, like some super right-wing senator whose name I can't think of right now.

You know, so he's been kicking around. We know he's been sort of kicking around this universe for a while. Yep. But lately has been... You know, I think he recently said that. He said that, I think this is a bro deal. I think this is a fire sale. There are definitely people on Twitter saying it's really predatory.

Like here he is and what is, it seems to be the middle of a pretty public collapse again. And, you know, these people are like, hey, buy my thing. So I have some strong feelings about this issue with Kanye specifically. He has been very upfront about mental illness. His partners in the past have been a little typo there. It's predatory and sucks. I basically just said, like, listen, when somebody's having a mental breakdown, and we saw this with a number of celebrities over the years, we have social media, which for a person having a mental episode is kerosene. You know, this is, you know, a way for a mind that is having a mental breakdown when your mind is broken at that moment in time.

Social media and the media are kerosene, you know, on this fire. It's an accelerant, and it's really unhealthy because you get a ton of, feedback. And then the feedback feeds whatever, listen, I was a psychology major. I'm no expert on a lot of these things, but I would say I'm well versed. So, and I'm not going to diagnose any specific celebrity here. And I'm not going to talk about the other instances of celebrities having this happen, but we know them because they come back and say, I'm sorry, I had a mental instance. There needs to be people around people who have these issues, kind of like a pause button. And I really think the media get very excited about having a celebrity specifically. So when you when you take mental illness, celebrity, social media, and the predatory media, I'm not talking about all media.

Well, you take Americans' obsessions with celebrity, right? Like, we have this gross celebrity culture. We're obsessed with that. Of course, which is fine. And celebrities opt into that. And it's a transaction. I totally get it. Some celebrities, you know, create these kind of breakdowns in order to get more attention, to promote something.

And so there's all kinds of using going on here. But when I saw Tucker interviewing Kanye last week, yeah. last week. Then I saw Kanye released this 30-minute video, which was completely brilliant at times. But at that other times, it was completely disturbing behavior. And I shared it in our group chat. He did like a 30-minute video, which was super creative, him going through areas of Japan, doing like a video game kind of motif, like recreation of a video game with him as the star of it. It was brilliant. But then he was like meeting with Adidas executives in this like attacking way, forcing them to watch porn videos. It was really nuts. And you really got the sense like, oh my God.

somebody needs to stop this person. And I think this is, you know, why certain people maybe remove themselves from the orbit of Kanye. I really question the media. And then somebody else did a three-hour interview with him, a YouTuber. I get it. It's a big deal to get Kanye West on your pod. It's a big deal to get Kanye West on your news program. I would love to have Kanye West here and interview him about entrepreneurship. I'd love to interview Kim Kardashian. You know, pick the person. But I would not do it when they were having a mental brain. I wouldn't. Or if I did and I didn't know they were having mental breakdown and they had a breakdown on the show, I would clip that part and not air it. Because this is really damaging to the person. Where is the just basic human empathy for a human being having a mental breakdown? And that's the big problem I have with this. Now, I don't know the social media companies can remotely diagnose a person having a mental breakdown and turn their account off or even... Well, they did.

Like, here's the part about, here are the two parts that I would add to that. Okay. One. Sorry, I, just very passionate about this. Yeah, no. And I think you're 100% right. And I will only add to those points that two things have happened. One, in the midst of what appears to be a break, you know, like a mental health episode.

Kanye tweeted, yay tweeted, profoundly anti-Semitic stuff and some other terrible things. and Twitter with a horrible typo in it with a horrible typo in it and Twitter locked the account right like this is

this is an now did they do it to protect yay no but did they do it to protect a community from these hateful things that he's saying

in the midst of this yeah I mean look crazy anti-Semitic stuff my family is Jewish yeah like my ex-hus my child

is Jewish like this is not acceptable to me no you want to know the day that I return the

on that car? Yeah. It was that mean. Yeah. So I don't want to cross our red line, but like that is really bad. Well, yeah. I understand. It's understandable.

So it's terrible. However, so then Twitter comes in and locks his account. So, but then you have wealth, right? You have these sort of factors that make this like, that go from like a small fire burning to a bomb. Because then you have somebody who's ostensibly worth $2 billion. You have predators circling. Yep.

And you have people who are like. like, you know where you could say whatever you want is our platform if you buy it. That by the way, is probably on the verge of bankruptcy that raised like $56 million. And then the last round was a $16 million series B. And like, we don't really know what state it's in, but it does not seem to be gathering the attention that it once did. And then all of a sudden, you turn that smoldering fire into something potentially really dangerous. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. You had the vector of great wealth with great celebrity, with mental illness, with predatory individuals who knows if the people at parlor are predatory or not, it sure seems like a crazy thing to do

to go into a major transaction with somebody who's having a mental breakdown clearly. And, you know, a shout out to LeBron James. I have my problems with LeBron James stemming from him not becoming a Nick during the decision and crying every time he gets fouled while being the world's best player. My eye! It's always the eye. But, you know, the, and LeBron didn't do the interview, but it's his show, I believe. You know, he's got to show the shop.

And they chop it up in a barbershop kind of thing. It's a really cool show, actually. I've seen a couple episodes. And Kanye was on it. You know what they did with the interview, Molly? Because he went on a couple tirades. You know what they did with it? Yeah.

Delete. They dragged it right to the garbage. Circular file. Yeah. That's it. That's the right thing to do. But Tucker Carlson wants the, you know, and then I think there is another vector. We talked about the celebrity vector.

We talked about social media. we talked about money and we talked about media. Okay, so there's multiple vectors here. Here's another one. Partisan politics. And I think for people on the right to get somebody who's highly influential in the African-American community in the black community to then leverage them with, you know, to get them on their side and to get them to wear a White Lives Matter shirt, this is also like using the person during a mental breakdown.

I don't know Kanye's exact politics. I think he, you know, supported Trump. So maybe he is right-leaning and that's fine if that's what he, that's what he truly believes. But during a mental breakdown to grab people and use them as a pawn, it's just the whole thing is so sad. It's a really sad, it's a really sad situation. And I do think that when you combine it then with the ability and means to own communications platforms, like it gets a, it gets, it's real messy, right? It just gets real messy. and if the reason for that is just now we're straying into the danger zone.

But like if the reason for that is just ideological and or in this case specifically partisan, like, I mean, it's not going to change parlor. But. Yeah. It's just a messy, messy, sad situation. There are people in the world who use people. And when somebody has a mental breakdown and they're vulnerable like this, you get to see who likes to use people. and you just keep a list in your mind mentally

of who is attaching themselves to Kanye at this moment. I just am cataloging it. Here are people. And I know some friends of his. I've got a, because he has dabbled in the, you know,

like many artists, you know, he's made friends with a, I know a dozen people who know him. And, you know, he has like really wonderful ideas.

He's an incredible artist. I mean, this is all obvious. He's a genius. Yes. It's an artistic genius. And it's not, And it's not just in one category. I mean, it's in fashion. It's in video. It's in stage production. It's in obviously music and producing rap. He's so talented across so many different genres that of course you're going to meet with him if you're in entrepreneurial. You have to. But what I would encourage people is like if somebody's having a mental breakdown, the first thing you have to say to the person is like, hey, how are you doing? Yeah. Do you need help? Do you need somebody to talk to? And knowing a lot of people in a circle, there are people who are doing that with him.

And then there are a group of people who are not doing that with him who are saying, oh, this is my window. This is my angle. I got my angle shot here. This is my chance to get in deeper with Kanye to build a relationship with him, to build a business, to get myself in a picture with him or get myself in a story with him. To get myself in a video with him. This is gross. You know, this is really like. That's gross. Yeah. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business because, listen, we're living in turbulent times. So you want to be 100% certain that you have access to the most qualified elite candidates. That's why you need to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs helps find the right people for your team faster, and they'll do it for free. And you can add your job and the purple hiring frame around your LinkedIn profile to spread the word that you're hiring. They've got tons of simple tools over there at LinkedIn Jobs to make screening questions easy. so you can find the candidates who really want the jobs.

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That's right. post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash twist. That's LinkedIn.com slash T-W-I-S-T to post your first job for free. Terms and Conditions Apply. I think that's really true. And it's not like this is going to have some huge impact on the social media ecosystem, right? Even if this occurs and it's, there's not a legal mechanism short of somebody declaring power of attorney, right? There's not a legal mechanism for anybody to say like, hey, you're not competent to make this decision right now.

Right. So this may happen. Who knows? It's not going to change the social media ecosystem very much. This is still going to remain a niche player in a small and very crowded field, ironically, of super right-wing platforms. What I think you're pointing out really is that the story is, this poor guy needs help. And instead, people are just like, this is my chance. Exactly.

And, you know, it's, I mean, he's a father. He's got kids. You know, just to have some basic humanity and compassion. And also, when he has these breakdowns, he says incredibly horrible, hateful things. Like, let's not, you know. Of course. Like, none of it. that is forgiven. None of that is forgiven. But what you would want to see here is if the person

gets control of their faculties again, they say, listen, I said these things, I'm going to take ownership for them, I'm going to atone for them, I'm going to talk to people. You know, that would be a really nice thing to see happen as well. Yes, totally. But I mean, we do have a special exemption in society for people who have a mental breakdown, a path for forgiveness, and that's a process. There's a literal process for it. And alcoholics, anonymous. and other things where you, you know, try to make amends. You know, when you tell people, hey, here's what I did. Here's, I know how hurtful it was and you describe what you did.

And I've had people do this to me before. I mean, ironically, Judaism has a whole holiday devoted to it. Just happened. Yeah. So like, you know, this atonement concept is like, I think everybody's here for it. So I'm just wishing him the best. And to the people who are just absolute leeches, we see you. We see what you're doing.

We see there's a list. I have a mental list of people I see do that. this kind of stuff. And I just, you know, there's Tucker Carlson, here's Candace Owens. And then MIA, you know, the rapper, she seems to be getting it on this. And I'm like, I haven't even heard from MIA for 15 years. What's going on with her? I do a quick Google search. Her new album's out, her comeback album or whatever's out. And it's like, ah, I hate to be cynical, but she's getting no attention. I assume, I mean, I don't know if anybody here has heard about MIA. I respected her artist as an artist as well. And she's like spouting off crazy

nonsense now and like going to this meeting of the minds with Candace Owens and of course she's going to I'm sure get in on this Kanye West grift with Candice and it's just all gross and it's you can just see through it. It's just people trying to take from other people. It is and and I mean the noties are pointing out I think somewhat rightly like he does have the means to get help and ask for help and he is on some level right like it is not on some level he is choosing not to do that too. So there's just, there's a lot happening here. And none of it's good. I mean, there's also the possibility that he's not having a mental breakdown right now.

He's just a horrible human being. I mean, who's crazy. I mean, I don't, I'm, but I think he might just, it might be both, like kind of horrible. And then breakdown just lets it out of the bag. Yeah, that's, that's all possible. Yeah. It does seem like when it comes back to his facilities, he apologizes for all this, right? Does he?

I don't know. Maybe. No, he has. Yes. Yeah. Probably. Like, I'm sure that doesn't get, that doesn't trend. time he wasn't crazy with Kim.

He was, you know, super repentful and apologizing. I said this, I said that. But then he stalked her and like attacked her Pete. And, you know, I mean, there was like crazy terrible stuff happening there too. Like, it's a, I don't know. It's actually a case where you might want to, if the person is actually saying, attacking things, that, you know, that does break the social media rules on most platforms. Like he did say violent things about Pete, which, you know, it only takes, you know,

there might be five. violent mentally ill Kanye West fans out there who then might do something terrible, John Lennon style, horrifically to Pete Davidson. So that you create a real security risk for Pete Davidson, you know, by doing that. I think you just talked yourself into content moderation. Well, not content moderation. I mean, that's why Twitter locked the account. That's why, you know, I mean, at some point, it's like a rules of, it's literally

rules. Content moderation, like the small subsection of content moderation, that is you say something violent and you create real harm in the world, like I'm all there for it, all there for that subsection, right? Yeah. Content moderation is just like such a wide term, you know, like, I think maybe putting a person like him, the idea I really like for these platforms is to put people on moderation like we used to do on message boards, like list serves. I don't know if you remember this, but like certain people could post to the list serve and then other people had their content held to be reviewed. Yes. So now this doesn't exist.

in the modern era, but if somebody like, let's say, Trump or Kanye, you know, had a one-year suspension or something, and they're coming back, you can say, sure, you can tweet, your tweets, you have to pay a thousand dollars a year. And you're on a six-hour delay, and our content moderators will read it just to make sure it doesn't break anything for six months. If for six months, and you pay for this privilege of having yourself moderated, just like somebody pays for their ankle bracelet or pays to have a, I think drunk drivers, right? They pay to have a device on their car, they have to blow into it to start the car. Like they've been a breathalyzer that exists.

Breathalizer, yeah. Yeah, so it's a probationary period where we're going to review your content. Why doesn't that exist? That would be perfect for Trump. That would be perfect for Kanye. It would be perfect for, you know, people who are, you know, we're trying to not give them a permanent ban from the public square. But so then put that in my list of ideas for a new owner of Twitter, if there ever is a

new owner of Twitter of a, you know. And by the way, it's a revenue model, too. Yeah. You're on Maud. It's going to cost you 10 bucks a day. I mean, why you're on penalty. All right. Anything else in the news?

Yeah. Let's talk about the CCP. For those who are not following this particular piece of global news, President Xi Xi Jinping is widely expected to be elected to, I made some air quotes. I made some air quotes in case you aren't watching the video, elected to a third term. Yeah. Appointed. Let's just say appointed.

It's a coronation, if you will. This is the week in which she is expected to be handed a third term as president after getting rid of term limits. And so this is like there's kind of an event happening that only happens every five years in China, which is the National Congress of the Communist Party of China meeting. So this is the 20th one of those meetings. And Xi Jinping gave this big speech on that that obviously touches on the tech industry quite. a bit. So we just have some notes in here about the major takeaways. I am really interested in this, Molly. I was up late trying to find a translation and I'm looking for like a transcript and everything of the full thing, but it wasn't out as of yesterday. But I'm fascinated by what he said here,

because it is, I think, going to be pretty important, not just for the United States in the world, but startups and technologists as well in terms of how he thinks. And there is a concept that I just want to make people aware of Xi Jinping thought. So this has been codified. I learned this this weekend

is that the way he thinks his thoughts for the people of China are becoming codified in a way. And it's sort of something you can look up now. So it's very important to

when he says something, understand this is kind of becoming doctrine. It's not like a speech. Not kind of. It gave a speech or Trump gave a speech. It goes from his thoughts into like kind of codified law. So just keep that in mind when we go through the story.

Yeah, it's fascinating. So among the major takeaways, I mean, this is sort of interesting because broadly speaking, in fact, I'll find this, this document. The United States also put out our 20, like our 22 national security document earlier the last week. And similar themes around self-sufficiency. Like what we're seeing in some ways is an unwinding of globalization. And this was a big part of this speech.

So, for example, President Xi focused a lot on self-sufficiency, national security, social stability. He specifically mentioned, he mentioned safeguarding the supply chains of food energy and other key products, said, quote, Chinese people must hold their rice bowls firmly in their own hands, signaling the importance of food, self-sufficiency. and security. That's an evocative metaphor there. See, this is when you know somebody's really good

at public discourse is when you can make a visual that you'll never forget. Yeah. Hold your rice bowls firmly in your hands. You'll never forget that. Like, keep a good grip

on your rice bowl is a really good operating principle for a country. Well done. Sheing-Ching Ping. And a speechwriter for him gets it. Bravo.

He focused heavily on security security over growth. So Goldman Sachs did this interesting chart on the frequency of mentions, right? Specific words that were mentioned. And they found that there was a huge growth in the mention of the word security versus growth. So this is super telling. Well, it's also another thing, by the way, that was that broke early this morning that is also super telling is that China announced this morning without explanation that it was delaying. indefinitely the release of economic data that had been scheduled for Tuesday morning,

including closely watched numbers for economic growth from July through September, which had been expected. I'm reading from the New York Times to show continued lackluster performance. Reminder that China is the world's second largest economy. It's kind of a big deal when they say we're not putting out any data and forever, indefinitely. It makes sense if things aren't going well. It's kind of like taking a company private.

You know, sometimes you have a public company. We talked about this like with Zendesk. It's a great analogy. Yeah. It's like, okay, let's just take a private. We'll fix everything. And nobody needs to be giving us any scrutiny for the next five years while we get this thing. And your things can be going really well.

But as I've told everybody, you know, if you participate in this country, you have to understand that it's top down control. And if you invest in this country, they will change the rules at any given point in time. And just be careful with investments over there. That's one of the reasons I haven't invested over there. Okay, if you're a startup, you need to know about Notion. You need to sign up today. Just head to Notion.com and sign up for free right now. And write a deal memo about your company and then share it with me,

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Go to notion.com to get started right now. You're going to love it. and share your deal memo with me. I think the most important part is the point of like globalization maybe being unwound a little bit. I think what we realized during the pandemic was that this codependency, at best, globalization means, hey, less chance of war, you know, cultural sharing. We get to know each other all good, trade, people visiting each other's country, fantastic, going to different schools, collaboration on space stations, whatever, all good stuff.

But then when it dips into codependency, and we saw that with, you know, drugs, PPE, semiconductors, it gets a little scary because then when you have a disagreement, you can kind of rug pull each other. And we see that with Russia and Germany. And so I think this is the, this race towards resiliency amongst countries is very important because it will make the relationship more stable. So while this feels unstable in the short term, this kind of equal footing will not allow people to rug pull each other. So if you've ever seen any dysfunctional relationship between two friends of yours who have kids and they don't have enough money to get a second home and they, you know, like they can't get divorced because they're in dad and the kids are in school and one of them wants to go to New York. I mean, and you see it like really ugly, but they can't pull the plug on it. They can't fully get divorced and just move on with their lives for whatever complications. Now, if they both had enough money, they both had independent careers, you know, and they could, you know, both read-in-a-th therapy, whatever.

All those things could add up and they could just, you know, you know, when you see Gwyneth, Paltrow and the guy from Coldplay. Chris Martin. Yeah. They're like, they have the resources to conscientiously decouple.

They're like, oh yeah, just buy a mansion next to my mansion and we'll, you know, whatever. You see celebrities do this all the time. Yeah.

We have to be able to conscious. Economic reliance is a big deal. Consciously on couple. So other things of note. And then let's talk about Apple in the context of this decoupling because it is, it is extremely interesting.

And exactly, I mean, this is such a massive, like, trend that's happening globally right now. But on Taiwan, I think we should note, she also pledged to make the most efforts to pursue a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, but said China will not commit to abandoning the military option, stressed that China must achieve and has the ability to achieve a complete reunification, and then required strengthening military training and battle preparedness. So there does seem to be some, so there's still a threat. And when you look at chip production, for example, TSM is the biggest semiconductor manufacturer and foundry in the world. And that's located in Taiwan where people have considered it to be sort of a safe place to do business. And she is quite clearly signaling here like, no, it's not.

Where's that still the plan? Like, the plan is still to take back Taiwan full stop, which is how we get to Apple. Yeah. I mean, we had a great philosophy, which was we would say at the same time, and this is really hard to keep in your head at one time. We believe in One China. That's their philosophy of there's one China, includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, while believing in the sovereignty and the people of Taiwan having some self-determination. That's what America's position was for a long time. Now, seems incredibly contradictory, and so... Right. It was always pretty untenable.

Yeah, and you just have to kind of keep that ambiguity as long as you can is the game that we've been playing with China for a long time. Now with Hong Kong, you know, the British gave it back and that's game over. And you saw what they did there. They just rolled over it. And the way he framed the Hong Kong stuff in this was there were a lot of bad actors in Hong Kong and we, you know, who were anti-China and we finally got them out. We cleaned them out. Yeah. Yeah, we cleaned it up, thankfully, and we saved Hong Kong. So that's the framing here. If they go into Taiwan, they're saving Hong Kong from these bad actors who are against the Chinese people. I don't think it's going to happen. I'll be honest. I don't think we're going to have a nuclear war of Russia. I don't think they're going to invade

Taiwan. I think we just have to get back to this concept of status quo and kicking the can down the road and allowing there to be some ambiguity here where we're not forcing people to, you know, resolve these issues and just kind of kick the can down the road and then let time go by because demographics change, people change, people evolve, societies evolve. You don't have to like force the issue. I'm hoping for an extended period of, you know, ambiguity with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba. Like, look at the ambiguity with Cuba. Like, has this been disastrous? You know, it hasn't been great for the people of Cuba, but we haven't had a war and we haven't had nuclear missiles there. So sometimes you can

wait people out and the young people in the country eventually decide they want their freedom, which is what's happening in Iran right now and you can support those freedom fighters. But you, you don't need to saber out all that much. And now we're in saber-rattoring, saber rattling territory and that's always bad news. Yeah, I mean, you can, we could settle, we could be very happy with ambiguity and I think we were for a long time. It depends on whether the, you know, folks on the other side of the equation are happy with ambiguity and we don't really know.

I was, I recently, I recently got subscribed to this interesting news service that's kind of a like, secret think tank for bigwigs. I don't really know. I did it like a thing for them. It was an Aspen connection. But they have been writing a lot about this, um, Kink alliance. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and how increasingly there's like, like Iran is sort of outsourcing nuclear testing to North Korea. And then, you know, and that there's this alliance that's

been building that is already essentially waging an economic war with the West. It's just it. It's an interesting, well, yeah, and then there were people on Twitter today, and this gets to kind of the tech angle part of this. There were people on Twitter today saying like, listen, you can't even, because one of she's, of course, big themes here is that we have to be technologically independent as well. And that just, you cannot overstate how good American technology is, how advanced it is. Like, they were quoting people from China saying, you know, like every breakthrough that China has made has basically been built by either stealing or grabbing open source code. Of course. From Microsoft, you know, from all of these companies. And there was also, speaking of China,

you know, last week we covered the U.S.'s new rules on chip exports. And as part of those rules, U.S. citizens are being prohibited from supporting China's chip development. At least 43 American execs are working across 16 semiconductor companies. And the U.S. is essentially debating. Like, are these employees just going to have to come home? They're just in limbo right now. Sure, come home. Yep.

It's not the end of the world. We'll find you a job. I mean, we're working semiconductors. I mean, we have the chips act. We're building here. We're literally talking about 43 people. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's the end of the world.

Yeah. And via anonymous sources at NICA, Apple has frozen, like the fallout of this is already starting. Apple has frozen plans to use memory chips from the Chinese company YMTC in its China-based iPhones. These were planned to be used only for iPhones sold in China. And Apple had been buying them because government-funded YMTC chips were 20% cheaper than competitors. But now that company is on this unverified list that the U.S. created on October 7th. And so Apple's like, okay, well, I guess we're not going to do business with them.

anymore. Like it's that again economic warfare warfare is occurring. Yeah. And great. You know, it's, uh, there you go. And at some point, you're going to have to look at the relationships between the countries and decide which things, uh, are accretive to your citizens and which ones aren't, you know, and this is a natural thing. We have to think about what's in our best interest. What I will say about this alliance of dictators and authoritarians is, uh, they're going to lose. They're going to lose. Why?

Because authoritarian don't get along well with each other. And capitalism and competition always breeds the best results. Now, we can complain on the margins about, you know, wealth inequality,

how fast people get rich, bad behavior on the part of CEOs or capitalism's unintended consequence. All of those will be true. Bad things happen in capitalism. The bad things that happen in capitalism, the worst days of capitalism,

the worst days of capitalism are better than the best days of an authoritarian country. So just let that sink in. There is nobody on this planet, no human being, who given the proper choices and education on, like, here's the choices of where you could live, would ever pick those four countries, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Put those four countries on a list of, you know, four other countries in the West, free countries. Canada, the U.S., U.S., U.K., Germany.

Germany, Sweden, I don't know, pick any country. Those four are coming and last every time. If citizens were going to pick where they want to live, 100% of the time. I mean, they have to be educated to understand exactly how great freedom is in those other countries. They'll lose. Now, they might have little pockets of winning here and there where they steal something or they can build a faster train because they can run over people's houses and take eminent domain. Yeah, of course. Dictators can have, you know, shining moments of authoritarianism that are highly effective, right? And they don't have very. red tape.

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China had this kind of directed for a while. This is the reason people thought it would be safe to do business in China. China had this kind of directed capitalism, right? Capitalism light model. It was like you could do, hold on, you could do business and they were going to allow competition to flourish, but it would be directed by the Communist Party. And for a while there, that was incredibly effective. And has been incredibly effective.

China has built millions and millions of miles of high speed rail. I'm getting to your exact point. What happened? But you should still look back and examine what does. And I'm certainly not arguing for an authoritarian regime here. But like, it came close. Right. And unfortunately, China regress to the ego to the extreme authoritarian model.

And she is just like, we're going to roll it all back. And the government's going to. to like cancel your listing and disappear Jack Ma. And all of that is always what can happen in an authoritarian regime. And that is not to say that China didn't get a lot done for a minute there. And what could we learn? But why is the quick. What can we learn about working together, right?

What can we learn about the idea of a collective good? Yeah, but before we get to that, the why? Yeah. Why did it collapse? Why did their incredible entrepreneurial run? Alibaba. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It collapsed because of authoritarianism.

Yes, because a single person was in charge. I need to be in charge. You know, the government was like, we're in charge, mainly she himself, who is clearly positioning himself as a future, you know, god king of China without a doubt. So that's the, that's the nuance there, I think. So that's why I was sort of getting at it's, I don't think it's a collective thing. What I'm saying is what could we do? In Russia, it's one person, Putin.

What could we do if we all rode in the same direction? Like, I've just been reading this. Other communists? You mean? All right, never mind. No, no, I'm saying. If you're saying, if you're saying, if you're saying, if you're saying, U.S. and Russia could, Russia and China could row in the same direction?

No, I'm saying, what could the U.S. do if we could row in the same direction? If we were persuadable, if we hadn't an idea. Okay. You don't think we're growing in the same direction? I mean, I think. Country? Yeah, I think we are. Right now. It's messy. Yeah, sure. I mean, we're arguing over stuff, but we are rowing in the same direction, ultimately, because we have freedom. So, like, the fact that we're going to have a vibrant debate as to who gets that seat and Xi Jinping just picked it for life, proof positive. You know, it's a messy system.

we have here. And yeah, it's never been, it's never felt more polarized. I'm sure it was as polarized in the 60s. I think it was as polarized. We just maybe just didn't experience it. Ironically, it's actually always been like if you look back at the presidential, um, election maps for like, I don't know, 100 years. It's exactly the same. Yeah. Like, it's, it's like almost exactly the same margin. Like, we're just, uh, we're just a half and half country. Yeah. I mean, are you talking about Anon's talk as, uh, New York Times piece? I'm talking about his new book. Yeah. He's got a new book that the New York Times piece is based on.

And it's a really fascinating. I haven't read the whole book yet, but I've read a whole bunch of excerpts and all of his writing about it. And it's just a, what he's proposing is like an approach of there's this, there's an actual technique called deep canvassing that's been very politically effective where you take, you know, groups of people and they go and talk to people one on one. And they're like 15 minute conversations. They can be very short and profoundly effective because it's just like, hey, deep canvassing. Canvassing. Got it.

So you want to make sure I got it. And it's just, it's like the concept of empathy, meeting people where they are, hearing them out, and then and then telling a positive story about like, hey, I hear you on this position. Here's my reasoned and positive argument about why I think that my policy might get us to a better place. And these people will go out and have these 15 minute conversations. I think it was, I interviewed somebody who worked on this for how we survive and it was used to best effect and maybe even somewhat invented during the, what was it, Prop 8, the gay marriage bill in California. Interesting.

So he has this whole book where he's just talking to people who are attempting to persuade. Like, not change your mind or convince you or brainwash you, right? But to have, to engage in a real actual understanding conversation, to meet someone where they are and say, hey, I, like, I hear. your feelings about this extreme topic. Let's talk about this openly and honestly. Let me accept your point of view. And then we figure out how we can move forward together.

So when do you demonize the person? I mean, listen, I'm not in a place to have this kind of empathy right now. When do you demonize the person? When do you tell them they're terrible in this? No, it's a great idea. I'm literally in that deep canvassing here. It's wonderful. It's wonderful.

So what I'm saying is how, so what I was trying to say is, how is there a version where we could achieve a sameness of purpose and a common goal without having an authoritarian. Like, I'm not trying to say that. But at some point, you do have to, like, the thing that the reason China was able to accomplish so much is that they were able to say, like, these are the okay ours for the whole country. Yes. And then this is what you will be judged on your performance toward those goals. And no, you didn't get the opportunity to agree on those goals. But let's say we use the process of democracy and listening and conversation and empathy to create common goals, then think about what we could accomplish and be freaking amazing.

It's incredible. Instead of being like, you know, I mean, there was, there have been a bunch of articles today about how the like environmental justice movement is setting back climate policy because they're just like, nope, if it's not, you know, killing all the oil and gas, we're not going to do it. True. Right. But anyway. Well, I mean, it takes.

We should have a nondon. I want to talk about this. Like, I just think that that is such an interesting. I would want to talk to a nond because. I think he's quite insightful. I find him a little pretentious and hypocritical at times, but I do like him. I mean, he, I know a rhetorical. He can be a rhetorical bomb thrower.

That's why I find this book so interesting. Because this book, even the book itself, it doesn't, his, his opinions are not really in there. It's just like all the people who are doing this work. I think he evolved from his first work, the winners, what was it, winners take all or something? It was an okay look. But, you know, he talks about like how capitalism is horrible.

And like, then the end, he's like, yeah, and by the way, like, you know, I was like an Aspen fellow flying on these guys' private jets and I was working at this thing. It was like, it was like, the whole thing was kind of ruined by. He's like, oh, he's just deep in this system, grifting. And I was just like, ah, Anand, come on. Yeah. Getting page and speaking fees.

Whatever. Grifting is a little strong. You can, like, you can be critical of a system that you live happily or comfortably with then. I felt like he was benefiting from the system and then, you know, found another angle to criticize it. Whatever. I'm open-minded to it. But I do like that.

this idea, though, of what you're saying, you know, if we could get everybody aligned on the important issues is one of the things I, you know, I've always tried to do is think from a little more first principles of like, what's the actual issue here? And if you look at the issue of immigration, which we keep talking about here, people keep sending people from Texas to Nantucket or whatever, Martha's Vineyard, like, or, you know, it's such a polarizing discussion, whereas it should just be a numbers-based discussion and a logic-based discussion, and we should separate it into like the three buckets, as I've talked about many times here.

And I think like this script, because I'm looking up the deep canvassing and the first word was scripts. And I started while we're talking, while you were talking, I pulled up the script to look at the abortion script. I'm looking at right now, like how to talk to people about abortion and choice

or transgender issues. It's actually a really interesting thing if you could just get people to a basic way of talking about this, which isn't they want to steal our job, you're a racist, right? And that's what the immigration discussion is. And, you know, both sides are, they keep framing this. And I always talk about framing here.

It's like, the framing should be for immigration is who do we need in America to make this country stronger? And who do we want to let in because it's the right moral thing to do? And then what can we reasonably, how can we reasonably hit those? goals in terms of having a plan. And if you don't hear any Republicans or Democrats, talk about it that way. What are the, what are the positions here that we can't fill that are holding back the country? Okay, we don't have enough nurses. Great. Are we recruiting enough nurses here? Are we making it equitable for people in America to get those nursing jobs? Okay, great.

Checkbox. Yes. Anybody in America who wants to be a nurse can get a free education as a nurse and get an ISA. That's actually true today, by the way. Any American who wants to be a nurse can get that job and not have to pay for the degree up front. They can get what's called an income sharing agreement and pay for it after they get the job. And the job pays an absurd amount of money. It's so in demand that nurses are making a quarter million dollars a year when they go on tour, like when they will come from Alabama to work at Stanford. I was talking to somebody.

Like they have these rotating nurses that they pay triple. Traveling nurses get paid like three or four times the amount. It's crazy. I know. And then it leads to like strikes in the hospitals because the nurses that are already there don't get paid that much. It's like. Yeah. And the nurses who are there are like, okay, you're coming from Alabama.

Alabama of Stanford, I'll go to Alabama. Yeah. And so it's just like it's a really gaming kind of thing. And so we could just literally go down the categories. Here are the positions we need. Okay, let's make sure Americans have access to it first. Great, that makes total sense. Okay, and now how many nurses do we want to get?

And what countries? And so if people are showing up at the border, we could say, okay, do you have a high school education? Can you speak English? Or are you willing to learn English? Great. Here's your nursing track. We'll accept you based on the nursing.

as opposed to just anybody shows up at the border or anybody flies in or anybody pays people off. And I like the idea of people buying citizenship. That to me is a genius idea. They have it in a bunch of countries. The golden passport visa. Malta. So Peter Thiel's buying Malta for 750,000 euros.

You can buy a passport there. Malta's only $750,000. No, he's buying a $750,000 from Malta. And then you also have to have a residence there for the two years or something during it. So they basically get you to rent it apartment for two years. It got super popular. Well, I think you have to buy property, right? It got super popular in Portugal, the Golden Visa thing. I don't know if Canada has a Golden Visa program where you

invest a certain amount. Yeah. I think it was like if you invested a million dollars in a real estate project. Like, yeah, let's go. Actually, Spain has it. Yeah. Barthalona. I'm in. I love it. Let's go. But I do, I do think. We go record the show at dinner time. I do think it's increasingly right. Let's do that. We get the show out by like 10 a.m. It would be great. I want to go to there. Let's do it. I do think though.

Let's do it for a month. I like the idea of trying to bias toward people who are trying to unite us instead of divide us. Because there is like, we have had enough of that and it is purposeful. It is purposeful because we are weaker. I mean, I think this is the point that I was clumsily trying to make about China. We are weaker when all we do is fight with each other. No, we got them. I just didn't understand which country you were talking about.

That was actually the person you were trying to convince was. God, let me finish my sentence. And then I'll get there. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was trying to understand it. All right. Hey, you want to talk about startups? Yeah, we are here on this week and startups.

We got a good one. All this stuff is related. I mean, I think there's, by the way, there is, there are editorial products and startups in this vector. So, you know, getting people to talk about these issues in the way we're describing here, that's a product, right? You can start thinking about products here that would actually be beneficial and creative ideas. I think the world's ready for it.

Did you see the hike going on between Mitt Romney and Mitt Romney and man, what's a guy, who's the guy who always votes to not spend on the Democratic Party? He's the 50th vote. Joe Manchin. So you get Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney went on a hike with their wives at a national park and did some photo ops. Hmm. Hmm. I've been saying crossover ticket for a long time. I wanted the Mitt Romney Hillary or the Bloomberg and Cheney. I want something like that. That to me would be, boom, right down the middle, a Republican and a Democrat.

Because by the way, did you know that's how the United States used to work? Second place became vice president. Yeah. I didn't actually know that until like maybe five years ago. I think we all learned it in Hamilton. I learned it in Hamilton. Yeah. But then I also forgot it.

And I was just like, wow. Hmm. Yeah. All right. I did know that. Well, okay, so good startups. Because today's startup of the day literally has all of these topics in it. It has better discourse and also possibly Chinese disinformation as a double whammy.

Okay. Startup of the day is called gas, G-A-S, like gas fees or the stuff that goes in your car for now. Gas is an app asking teens to complement each other via anonymous polls, which is super interesting. It's designed specifically to appeal to high schoolers. Users select which school I think they go to when they sign in and they can only answer questions about their classmates. But the questions, the polls, are designed to be really positive. you think is the most fun? Who do you think has the best hairdo?

And then you, if you're selected in the poll, like if you're, you know, the one who wins the, you know, from a boy in 11th grade, who should DJ every party?

And then they list these four people. Gas up your friends is the concept. Got it. Gaslighting, but not exactly gas. No, the opposite. It's a negative connotation.

Yeah. This is like to pump up your friend. Pump them up. Exactly. Huh. Um, yeah. And then you,

you know, you vote anonymously and it's supposed to be this really positive thing. And it's gotten extremely popular, very fast. It like had displaced Be Real and TikTok even. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was downloaded more than 500,000 times since its launch in late August. Now listen, you can debate whether this is going to go horribly wrong quickly. I don't know.

But what's super interesting about it is that, one, you have founders who are really trying to create like some positive space, which is delightful. Yeah. And also that its sudden increase in popularity coincided with a disinformation campaign. What? In which the founder tweeted a whole thread about gas getting caught up in a human trafficking hoax. I know this founder, Nikita. Yeah, Nikita Beer.

Yeah. B-I-E-R. tweeted a thread about how after an investigation, our team found several indications that the gas app human trafficking hoax was planted by an entity or person originating in China. TikTok. Our data shows users connecting from China

when the app first began growing, and the first fake review was posted that day. The review was then screenshoted and posted to TikTok the following day by an account with few to no US teen followers. And then subsequently led to gas app searches to auto-complete to gas app trafficking. The video was later deleted after the hoax gained momentum, and they have been targeted with denial of service attacks

with many IPs originating from China. This is the same team that brought us the TBH, to be honest, app, where you take anonymous questions, which obviously, you know, we talked about anonymity here. It's a very dangerous space with children. Yeah, I don't love it. We had a whole wave of suicides in Web 2.0. there was an app

called FormSpring there was an app called Secret Yes And we were investors in an app called Whisper Which was exactly like this A Positive Spin where you And all of these shared a common dynamic

Location and anonymity And then in some cases Address Book and FriendGraph Plus Anonymity plus location So some combination of those things Means you can find your friend group Without knowing who's saying what Now of course the app would probably know

And if the app knows, boy, that's super dangerous. But it eventually leads to bullying. And so, you have to tread very lightly. And here, I understand, I believe the founders have great intent, by the way. And I think the founders of those other apps had great intent as well. Whisper never got caught up in this, but FormSpring and Secret, I don't know if Secret, but FormSpring, there were a number of suicides. Now, there's a number of suicides that happened, sadly, in the world.

So if you were like, how many people ordered an Amazon package today and killed themselves, Not the Amazon story where we talked about, you know, specific things to kill yourself with. But just generally, people who used an iPhone today and killed themselves, there would be a correlation of 50% because they either used Android or, you know, iPhone. So just be careful with correlation and causation, right? This is obvious. But sometimes the press will run with things or social media with run with things. This is causing that. And it's just it would have happened anyway because tragically, some people commit suicide.

So anyway, in this case, because of these anonymity, that releases the ability of people to bully. And young kids experiment with bullying, sadly, tragically, because they're becoming adolescence and adults bully, kids bully. it's just part of the dark nature of our DNA. Yeah. And so you just have to be careful if you build a tool that accelerates that, right? Exactly. And accelerate it because the person on the receiving end may have never experienced, in person you could have five people bully you, right?

Or in the case of the movie Carrie, the whole school class bullied the one person at once. Right. She obviously had superpowers and murdered them all, but, you know, so be it. That's what makes that story so resonant, right? is that... So don't bully friends. Well, it is what makes it so resonate. That's why that became such a powerful story carry is because everybody's experienced bullying. And then you had, well, what would happen if the whole school bullied somebody and they could

actually, you know, take back their power? And of course, school shootings are part of that. And this is why it's a dangerous thing for entrepreneurs and technologists to get involved in this dynamic. Because there are edge cases. And as a parent, we both are attuned to them because we hear the stories when people come back from school of somebody who's been bullied. I think you can, I'm trying to figure out if in this case, yes, I mean, look, trying to predict

usage and control content is a fool's errand. Like, trying to say, this is a product that only exists for people to be nice to each other. It's just like, I mean, I think that maybe is what Mark Zuckerberg thought initially about Facebook, right? You will find cute girls because that's what they originally designed it for. And everybody will just want to be. friends here. And I think there were people legitimately at Facebook who had never considered what people are like, right? So that is always going to be a dangerous game. What is

interesting about gas is that appears that they have a set list of prompts. You can't enter your own. So it's just to like maybe they will increase the prompts over time and all you can do is enter names of people in your school. Right. So it's a super limited interaction. And the prompts are like, who would be the best DJ at a party? Right. Like, I saw one of them was like,

who would I most like to steal from their boyfriend or girlfriend, whatever it is. Yeah. The idea is that these, who do you secretly admire? Is that none of the prompts. The most beautiful person you ever met. Yeah. None of the prompts are user generated.

The prompts are not user generated. Exactly. You are not allowed to generate your own prompt. You can only to. somebody can say who's the biggest loser, who's the biggest dork, who has the most body odor, who's most likely to kill themselves. You could do something really horrific. Exactly.

To taunt somebody. They would, right? And people would. Of course they would. Because that's how people are. Now, I do think there's, you know, it's weird to have people voting on each other anyway, right? Like, because somebody's going to lose the poll. Like, I don't know.

But at least I will say they have put in the guard rails. I just think there are two interesting things about this. One is that they're experimenting with the guardrail so that you can't generate your own prompts. Good. Smart move. Good product decision. And that you're not voting on people you don't know. There's no sort of like it's, or at least that go to the same, don't go to your same school. Right. Smart. But two, that they seem to have been review bombed by China. I guess brigading would be the other issue here. It's like, could we all create a way to vote for a specific person for something the person didn't want? But I guess if the prompts are thoughtfully done, that would be hard to.

but this is basically the dynamic of the yearbook, but every day. So instead of on graduation, who's most likely to succeed? Right. Who's most likely to get married? Who's most likely to be prom, queen, all those kind of things. Which I really had a problem with. I thought those were pretty. We had all of those.

And we had most likely to end up in the state pen? Like, we had some messed up ones. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is like those were also a little bit. Yeah. That one was anonymous, by the way. We all, but it was just one guy. We all knew it. I'm a little bit of them up in the pen.

I don't know. I don't know. I kind of know. Yeah. I mean, just because you can vote doesn't mean you should, but I, I, this, this, this, uh, this, uh, founder, Nikita, I don't think he likes me. I think he's kind of dunked on me a couple times on Twitter, but I do think he seems pretty thoughtful and talented. Mm-hmm. And has tried this before. Like, he's trying to, he's trying to introduce positive discourse into, yeah, Gen Z and millennial life.

And this one seems to be catching on. I like the fact that, I, I like the fact that he has good intent. and he's trying to do something that is thoughtful. So I give him kudos for that. Also, there is, I think, between this and Be Real, we should take note and TikTok, we should take note of the fact that we do have one and a half generations like younger millennials and Gen Zs,

who are without a doubt looking for alternatives to the social apps they have. Yeah. It's kind of like Facebook was for boomers. Twitter is for and Instagram is for Gen Xers and maybe millennials TikTok is for Gen Z

and what's the generation after Gen Z? I don't know what they're called. Yeah, I don't know either. But whoever they are. Alpha? Whatever.

I mean, would 10 to 15 year olds be considered Gen Z right now? I don't think so. There's something else. Yeah, no, my son's Gen Z. He's 15. I think he's right there in the but without a doubt

I think even TikTok they're like, it's awesome, but they're willing to explore all this is a really ripe moment for something new. It is Alpha, right? Yeah. Look at those kids. Jen Alpha. The cool name. Great.

I like it. Jen Alpha's great. Yeah. Starting all over. Anyway, super interesting startup story. Super interesting opportunity, I think, to build things like more private, more positive, more controlled. People are just into group messaging, the one post a day.

Like, we're starting to hone in on some opportunities here. I think, you know, it's almost. like they're inoculating themselves to the viruses and the bacteria in the previous social networks. So they're like, oh, in that previous social network, you used it too much. Okay, how do we throttle addiction in this app? Okay, be real. Okay, in that other one, you bullied each other. Okay, how do we inoculate, you know, our peers from being bullied? Okay, great, let's do that. So, you know, nature finds a way, to quote Jeff Goldblum, like, and that's what is happening here. I think nature is finding a way to mitigate against what the previous things did poorly.

So kudos to good product developers. Good product developers, people understanding this opportunity, younger people building companies. I'm so happy they use that analogy because I've been saying this for years. Like social networking is really new. If you think about it, it is really new to our society. And so of course we didn't have an immunity to it. And now these next generations are evolving and starting to. to develop.

I deleted TikTok this weekend, by the way. Oh, really? Just off my phone, I'm like, I just, it was starting to become, I understand the habit it builds. It was starting to become like, I go to, when I turn my phone on, I go to Twitter, I go to podcasts, I go to Slack, I go to my email, and then TikTok got in that rotation. And I'm like, this is not adding anything to my life. Right. You're like, wait a second. And it's not serving a business purpose.

Mm-hmm. And it's a habit. And like, I'd rather have chess or, you know, grammarly or writing out. become a habit than this. And so I'm just looking at my habit and said, this was not adding to my life. Yeah. So, you know,

except that it did find me a We Live in the Future story, which I share. I know. And maybe a new entrepreneur. But yes. I mean, I guess there'll be moments there. Should we do that? Should we do that?

Should we do the, we live in the future? I think we should. I mean, I teed it up here. I mean, I basically saw a TikTok and I was like, oh, that's like, we live in the future segment, but done on TikTok. So let's draft off of that. And is it real?

That was my thinking. I was like, is this real or is this just like some sci-fi thing? Which is the point of we live in the future. I think you saw it. Actually, I really am going to, I want to start following. Or I would start following this account, except that as we have discussed many, many times, my TikTok is only for dogs and other cute animals. So I can't.

But she looks super cool, Galactic gal. And she has fabulous space-themed nails, like amazing nail game. And also pointed out to us this company called Spin Launch, which is making a rotating arm, a huge one, like Statue of Liberty size rotating arm, that can fling small satellites into low orbit space. Sweet. What? It is amazing.

Do you have the video? Can we do the video? Yeah, we're watching the video here. There it is. Wait, that's a real thing in the world? It's real. It, like, really exists. And it is John Doer personally and Kleiner Perkins were investors in the round.

They pulled off their 10th successful test launch. in less than a year, just a few weeks ago. They first raised funding in a $3.9 million seed round in 2015 and then raised a $71 million series B just last month in September, led by ATW partners at $171 million valuation. It is amazing. According to space.com, the customer payloads launched by the accelerator had to survive up to 10,000 Gs, 10,000 times the force of the Earth's gravity as this 108 foot long rotating arm hidden inside a white casing spun up. the payload faster than the speed of sound. And we have this slow-mo right now of this rocket shoot. Now, what I want to know, because actually it turns out that like jet fuel is a massive

emitter, like a massively polluting, right? And it's super dangerous. So I wonder how this thing is powered. And if it is by launching things into space, like do they need rocket fuel? Or are they just literally propelled? It seems like they're literally propelled. They need a lot of energy to do this, obviously. they're burning something.

I'm guessing they have some type of, they might have jet fuel or diesel or something to power those engines. I'm not sure electricity alone could do it. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe electricity could. I don't know how, you know, something going through a centrifuge or whatever works in terms of,

does it require a massive amount of thrust initially? Or can you slowly, you know, just add power to it, right? Exactly. And then centrifugal force would take over and then it would be like self-perpetition. I don't understand. And then I guess. A lot of questions. And then I, but it's, it's fun to look at and, uh, I wonder what you can put in there. So now, because of those G forces, there's G forces on rockets as well, right? So I, I don't

know, but I don't think they're 10,000. Yeah, I don't think it's 10,000. So then I wonder if what components would survive this or not. And then your question, is it going to use more or less energy and how much more or less? Because let's say these were star links or, you know, low earth orbit. I'm assuming this does low Earth orbit. If these do low orbit, and then there are components in there that can't survive the G's, well, then it's kind of worthless.

So if you can just chunk, you know, putting a brick of metal up into space does nothing for you, you know, but putting lenses and putting chips and memory chips and batteries. Like, does all that stuff just break when it spins that fast? Well, I guess it depends.

Right, they'd have to be encased and well encased. And then can they, do you, does the casing break off once it's in orbit? it? I don't know. Do those materials just crack? Does glass crack when you put it at 10,000 Gs? I don't know. No idea.

And like, does the glass that you need for, I'm assuming some of these satellites will have like glass or batteries or transistors that just can't survive this? So maybe you can't do Starlink with this. But then it's like, okay, well, what's the point? The low Earth orbit satellites need to have GPS, whatever in it. So that's going to be the real test. This is really interesting, though.

They say they do, in fact, aim to have an orbital launch system. it's cheaper and more environmentally friendly. That is the goal, yeah. And I like all of them. And they could shoot small constellations of satellites into low Earth orbit. This is so cool. I wonder how long it takes. Like, so can they shoot one an hour, one a day?

Like, does a centrifugal force take three hours to build up to this or three minutes? I mean, this is one of those where like, I don't want to have every entrepreneur when we talk about we live in the future necessarily, but I do what we can you guys call us? I think it should be. Yeah. I think you guys should come on. Like, I really want to know more. Absolutely.

So there's a microsatellite bus. Okay. So maybe that's what they're going to do, yeah. And maybe that's what they're going to, yeah. I love, I mean, I love the idea of just saying like, hey, you know, we've only thought about using rockets to get stuff into low Earth orbit. And that's really hard and really expensive and super polluting and dangerous. What if we instead just use like a catapult, right?

Like, that's just sort of human ingenuity. Like, hmm, we've always done it this way. But what if instead we just went, who? Well, what happened to the space elevator? Remember the space elevator concept? that was going to change everything. And it was the idea was you would just build this basically very long string with a weight on it. And then it would have an elevator attached to it.

And you could put something in the elevator, theoretically humans, but more likely payloads, it would go out into space. And as the Earth is rotating, you'd have this like trailing. Totally. There's actually, there's a really cool. There's these books called The Red Mars, of course, obviously. The Mars trilogy. by Kim Stanley Robinson. They were written.

They're so detailed that they almost feel like a history of colonizing Mars the way they're written. And they have space elevators. And at some point, spoiler alert, there's like a terrorist attack and they like blow the cables. Oh, that's the foundation. Wait, that's the foundation series, right? It's on Apple right now. Oh, no. No.

No. It's called the Mars trilogy. It's like red, red, Mars, green Mars, blue Mars is the three books. The Foundation series, this is why like we even started, uh, uh, we live in the future was the concept was in the foundation series and I just put the trailer here and they can zip up

into the trailer but spoiler alert there is a space elevator which is how everybody gets from Earth to space and there's a terrorist attack on it now this all happens in the first episode and it's in the trailer

so if you go to two minutes into the trailer you'll see the moment where that happens and obviously it's quite spectacular to blow up a space elevator with a city attached to it And the giant cable comes crashing down, you know, to Earth. It kills everybody on Earth. To the planet, rather, and kills like tons of people.

Yeah. There it is. Boom. But, yeah, I mean, that's got to still. I feel like the space elevator is still got to be coming. Anyway, I want to know more about the catapult. I love it. I think that's rad.

It would be pretty great, I think, if we could get more stuff up there quicker. I mean, the impact that low Earth orbit satellites are going to have, when we have three or four vendors up there, this is going to be nuts. like the impact that free or close to free internet's going to have on the world is just truly mind-boggling. I think every home is going to have two or three internet connection soon. But we talked about this last week. We talked about this last week and I love it.

I love the idea of it like as cheap backup internet. I mean, I love your entire concept of race to resilience like generally, right? That's a home-to-home thing. Like I have been saying to people, I'm like the story of the 21st century of this decade and the next few is going to be decentralized. naturalization. No doubt about it. Oh, I'm super into lower Thorbit as a place for manufacturing. Like, I think we're going to be able to do, Jeff Bezos even talked about this after one of the Blue Origin flights. Like, we're going to probably be able to situate factories in some manufacturing.

They've been actually doing a bunch of, you know, the International Space Station has a whole public-private partnership thing happening. And they're starting to work on manufacturing. And one of the things they can make is like fiber optic cables for internet transmission that have zero latency, but can really effectively only be manufactured in space because gravity introduces imperfections. But you could move a bunch of very, very dirty industries to space without polluting the planet and do manufacturing. I mean, this is obviously a far.

Yeah. That's really out there. But yeah. So if there was something we made on Earth, that was particularly gnarly. Dirty. Yeah. Dirty. Do it in space.

We could do steel production in space. Then the output would go into space and not hurt space, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. It's a great concept. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously, space mining, yes. I briefly considered, I think it's a little too early, which is my trend, but I briefly consider it instead of becoming a BC trying to become a space lawyer. Because I think space law is like one of the industries of the future without it. Seriously, like, when we start to fight about like who gets to mine an asteroid, who gets to be in low Earth orbit, are there parts of it that are like territorial disputes? Yes. There's like going to be war. There are all these. contracts, Luxembourg, the country of Luxembourg, this is what a freaking nerd I am, by the way. That all this stuff is not only stuff I know, but I'm obsessed with. The country of Luxembourg has set itself up as like a center for space law. They're like, this is one of the industries of the future and we're it, we're on it. Like the Zug in Switzerland for crypto, yeah, you could be like, hey, we'll do space law.

I mean, it's going to be who gets their first and who wants to fight. It's like, how much do you want to fight for this, right? I think it's going to become part of it. But it does seem who you're hovering above matter. So if you want to beam your satellites into a certain country, you've got to get that country's permission right now. Now, if you're far, I mean, but what if you said no, I don't care? Then I guess that country would just be like, okay, it's our sovereign airspace theoretically. Well, that's what China is doing in Russia.

They keep like blowing stuff up. They keep literally blowing up their own satellites and being like, debris be damned. There is a treaty. There is an international treaty, like a global treaty. that's supposed to govern this stuff. And then, you know, you have countries just being like, nah, not gonna. All right. Well, there you have a, folks. Another great day. We live in the future. We do live in the future. And start up the day, you know, just through the lens of like, would I invest in that company, by the way? A great founder, serial founder.

Amazing design. It's kind of an outlier in terms of, you know, how it works. I could see consumers subscribing to it. I think it's like, you're talking about gas. To be clear. We should clarify for the audience. We're talking about gas, not spin lunch. On gas, if I were to take it through my rubric of of investing, great design, serial founder, serial team has had an exit before, just a lot of the qualities I look for. And it's got a subscription model built in, right? Like it's easily people would pay to subscribe to that. That's got like a lot of checkboxes for me. And then, you know, in terms of the market size, it's huge. So that's a no-brainer to invest in. For the second one, for we live in the future one, if I put it through the lens, it's definitely an outlier.

But man, that's hardware is hard. Man, that's a hard one to do. That's going to be capital-intensive and it's going to be at a price that makes no sense, right? The valuation makes no sense compared to probably their revenue. So that's a real hard one to justify investing in unless you've got a fund specifically designed to make 20-year investments like Gervinson does. That's probably why, by the way, John Doer did it personally. I mean, I was going to say when you look at something that John Doer is in, you know it's like a big freaking dream that you might want to let somebody else have that dream. Yeah, well, it's a low chance of success with a high payoff. It does succeed, right?

So it's an outlier. It's an outlier. outlier, right? There's just no known path to profitability there or a low path to profitably, because while space delivery of satellites, payloads is proven, this technique is not proven. So it's really an outlier's outlier, but, you know, that's, that's, it's almost like it's making the bet. It's almost like an R&D investment, right? It's really interesting. Like you want to incentivize the R&D and you hope it works out. What do you think the realistic timeline of something like that is and the realistic footprint of

capital required to get there, it's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars, and I'm guessing a decade or two before it's viable. So if you have a 20-year horizon, great. Venture funds have a 10. So, you know, what is the LPs? You know, if you have LPs investing in, they better be LPs that are generational LPs, in other words, the people working at the, the people working at the institution that would fund a bet like this are probably not going to be in the job when this thing It's profitability. So think about that for a second. Somebody working at some pension fund makes the decision to invest in a venture fund that invest in this.

And the venture fund employees and the employees at that pension fund and the venture fund may not be in their jobs when this investment is realized. That's when did, I was just asking our producers as like, when did BC start investing in SpaceX? 2006. Well, yeah, I know, the Elon used to his own money. Okay, it's possible that Founders found pretty small... And when did they start investing in Tesla?

2004, I think so. Yeah, those are 20-year journeys, so. Now, one of them went public very early. Tesla went public early. Right. SpaceX hasn't. Spacex is still a, I mean, I think Elon is publicly described SpaceS as a furnace. A main burning furnace.

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I think that, Well, I guess they're probably counting Elon's investment as the first investment. And then I think shortly after Founders Fund did it, Luke Nossett gets credit for that. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, it's not like, it's not our model. It doesn't really. It's moot for us in terms of spin launch, although come on this weekend climate startups, certainly at a minimum and tell me all about.

Yeah. Could be the next. Also could fit in the next unicorns, too. It could be like a B bold. It's a B bold. For sure. All right. Got a great week coming on.

tons of great stories. We got through one day. We got through Monday. 20% of the way there or so. We're just waiting to see what the heck is going to happen tomorrow. But either way, you know what? We'll be here for you. Yes. And you will not hear our insights anywhere else. No. So there you go. Slowly. But sure. Exactly. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Bye bye.