Ep: 224 - Brian Armstrong vs. Bryan Johnson, RFK + Kid Rock, MrBeast's Business Breakdown, Big Fundraising from Thrive and Dragonfly, Special Guest Jose Mejia on "taste discourse", Girl Scout Cookies Business Breakdown, OpenClaw

[00:00] Mama, maybe mash my M&Ms. [00:02] Are we good on audio? [00:03] Good, good, good. [00:05] East Denver for Republicans. Yeah. So sent a newsletter this morning with the subject line, "Eath Denver for Republicans." [00:13] Really thought I was going to get some more... It's early. It's early. Some more hype for that. We're just getting started here on this day, Wednesday, and people are waking up. They're checking their inbox. They're not ready for that type of riz coming in on the phone so quickly. What is East Denver for Republicans? So there's a gathering today in Mar-a-Lago. [00:34] Florida. [00:36] oh i'm familiar i know i'm just thinking like not mara lago rewind start over cut rewind you're wondering how i got here no i am curious how close is it to very close [00:50] very close okay yeah it's like the difference between uh maybe where your mom's farm is and [00:55] Woodstock. Very close. Okay. [00:58] like traffic will, I mean, it's not... [01:01] - 'Cause Mar-a-Lago's in like Boca Raton, right? You tell me. - Yeah, it's in Boca. Well, no, it's actually in like West, like Palm Beach-ish area, I think. - Okay. - So it's not that close. I guess it's like 40 minutes, 45 minutes. - Okay. - From where I grew up. - Okay. - But like, Mar-a-Lago's very much like a thing. It's always been like a thing. - Yeah. - Totally. [01:18] It's a thing today as well. There is some sort of gathering for World Liberty Financial, a summit, a conference. For those who are unfamiliar, World Liberty Financial is the... [01:30] Trump,

[01:31] crypto project, Trump family crypto project. And there's a token associated with it. It's, it just had a, and you reported on their event that's happening there today. Yeah. So there's a summit and we see this often in crypto every day, every week. Yeah, certainly. Which is, yeah, some project puts together a summit a day thing. We go to a lot of them and it's, [01:54] this is World Liberty Financials Day. [01:56] Today is Ash Wednesday. This Ash Wednesday. [02:01] And... [02:03] there are some [02:04] Funny folks. Characters. Headed there. You had a very funny newsletter. For those who do not know, maybe we can actually... [02:10] if it's there, if it's close, put up the QR code to subscribe to the newsletter. So you too, [02:16] can get the type of emails that say ETH Denver for Republicans in your inbox? Nikki Mnage is headed there. You've referred to her as what'd you say? A conservative thought leader. Let me just pull up the agenda actually because I think it's conservative thought leader. Also this incredible live stream that you're witnessing here today is brought to you by our amazing partners Octant [02:46] This time together is made possible by them. [02:49] We love them. [02:50] There it is. There's the world liberty form and then we'll get an octant logo up here. [02:56] as well. [02:57] So anyway, just kind of a funny thing that's happening today. Brian Armstrong's going. Brian Armstrong. A couple senators are going. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the president of FIFA...

[03:09] Which FIFA... [03:10] is just mired in scandal, I think, corruption scandal. Oh, FIFA, yeah. So I feel like that, I don't know, like, brand-wise. Meeting of the minds there. And then... [03:21] Kevin O'Leary. I'm not a big Shark Tank person, but I understand he's a he's Shark Tank, right? He's Shark Tank. And he's also he was also Marty Supreme. [03:29] Oh, was he? Yeah. He had quite a role in Marty Supreme. Okay. And so he's kind of having a moment. Okay. I see. Yeah. They cast him perhaps for that, on the back of that appearance. And, yeah, no, actually... [03:41] There's speculation that part of why he was in Marty Supreme was to, but clearly he doesn't give a fuck, distance himself from Trump, like to rebrand himself in Hollywood with the Hollywood elite. Well, he took one step backwards. Yeah, two steps forward, one step backward. [03:56] Anyway, so that's what's happening. [03:59] of course it's happening at the same time as eath denver which for those who don't know eath denver is i'd say probably the biggest u.s [04:06] Ethereum conference that happens each year in Denver, high altitude, dry skin, chap lips. Terrible. I've never looked worse than that week. Every year. I'm like, I can't believe I'm here doing this. Yeah. But it's, it is for... [04:22] A lot of folks in the community, especially the US crypto community, it's a real... [04:26] moment in the calendar so lots of people like it. [04:28] We don't have to be such haters about it. [04:31] Totally. No, we don't need to be haters about it. I have been four years in a row, so I couldn't possibly be that much of a hater. But it didn't happen this year. And I don't know.

[04:40] somewhat grateful. [04:42] to be [04:43] Here. [04:44] with you. [04:45] I know. I got to stop touching my mic. [04:47] It's just drooping, you guys, and it constantly does. Maybe I should go a little higher. [04:52] Thank you. [04:52] Okay, great. I can do that. Okay, do you want to hear a funny story about Brian Armstrong? I was once on a date with a man who worked in crypto. [05:00] And we were chatting and we're talking, whatever. And... [05:04] It was towards the end of the night so that I get a pass for this. But he was like talking. I was like, are you into Trump? Like, are you mega? And he was like... [05:13] "No, butt." And I was like, "Classic Kripcho dude." Like... - That butt is... - Load-bearing butt. [05:20] - Yeah. [05:21] - And also, yeah, like I was like, okay, I'm interested to hear what you're like, basically, [05:27] personal motivations are here apart from your like political beliefs. And so we started talking about it and he was like, I don't know. And, you know, one day I could see like Brian Armstrong being secretary of the treasury and he's like talking about like that. [05:43] And I was like, Brian Armstrong being secretary of the treasury. And I was like, [05:47] That's a crazy, crazy idea. And he was like, I don't think that's... [05:51] That crazy of an idea. And I was like... [05:55] Did you think he was so good about Brian Johnson? Oh my gosh. I thought he was, in my head, it was Brian Johnson. Yes, of course. And I was like, of course I know who Brian Armstrong is. Of course he do. Of course I do. Of course he do. But like something about, and I was like, you want to know what that is? Too many Bryans. Too many Bryans brain rot. Too many Bryans and plus brain rot, plus perhaps two glasses of blind. Yeah, three Negronis.

[06:17] Anyway, I just remember being like, [06:20] Oh, right. And I was like, the erection guy? And he was like, what? And I was like, oh, oh, Armstrong, Armstrong, Armstrong. Anyway, so now every time... [06:30] every time brian armstrong comes up which is a lot in our circles [06:35] I'm brought back to that moment. Totally. Fair. That's fair. I will say, like, it's funny, ha-ha, as a joke, but, like, with the video that RFK put out yesterday, Brian Johnson actually holding some sort of position in the government [06:49] It would not be a stretch. No. It would not be a stretch. Wellness guru, lifestyle coach. Should we pull up the video of... [06:59] The fever dream? Which one is it? RFK. It's RFK and I was like RFK Brad Johnson. [07:05] - No. - Yes. - RFK and Kid Rock. - Yeah. [07:09] We can, I don't know if we can bring up the video, but we can certainly tell folks about it. Okay, so for those who are unfamiliar... [07:17] RFK. Yeah. Secretary of Health. What's his title? Health and Human Services. No, he's not. Make America healthy again. Yeah, he's the food guy. He's the agriculture position. Yeah, he's the one who did the food pyramid with Brian Chesky recently. But honestly, the food pyramid was pretty good. So I hate to say that, but like the website was sleek and they did a great job. I love a contrarian take. It wasn't Brian Chesky. It was Brian Chesky. [07:42] No, it was the third guy at Airbnb who was the designer, who's not Brian Chesky. Oh, it wasn't Brian Chesky? I don't think it was Brian Chesky.

[07:49] I don't know. Who knows anymore? Who gives a fuck? Anyway. Okay. [07:53] Hello. [07:53] - Let us know. Him, RFK, Kid Rock, did a video. - Yes. - In which what can only be described as a homoerotic fever dream, of them shirtless, [08:06] Working out. [08:07] Cold plunging. Cold plunging. Sauna. [08:10] Lifting weights for some reason when RFK is getting into a... [08:16] Cold plunge. He's wearing jeans. [08:19] Unexplainably. He did not want to show off those legs. He was like, and there was, did you ever watch Arrested Development? A couple of times. Okay. There's a character, but it's not, [08:29] Oh my gosh. I can't remember. Buster. [08:31] What's his name? [08:32] Interested Development, did you guys watch me? [08:34] that murder [08:34] David Cross's character? David Cross's character. Yeah. He was never nude. So he would always wear jean cutoffs. He would never take them off. Yeah. And so there was a lot of comparison on Twitter of like, oh, and one of the jokes that he has is that there's hundreds of them. He was like, there's hundreds of us never nudes. And so I saw a really funny tweet that there was like, there's hundreds of us. [08:54] and anyway um crazy stuff them like the republican party going so hard in the paint for kid rock is unexplainable yeah we were talking about this before we started rolling film here which was that they need to reach for another guy stretch an arm wait there's well the vons right there the von is right there's right there i'm sure seems available for anything at this point totally

[09:24] - The two brothers. [09:25] The Paul brothers are right there. Oh my God. That really could have gotten them totally into a different demographic as well. [09:30] What do you think Mr. Beast's political... [09:33] I think he's keeping it... Very quiet. Yeah. Smart. I think he's not going to... I don't think Jimmy's going to tell you who he voted for in the last... Who's dead name. His dead name. [09:45] Anyway, I will just say on the note about Kid Rock, I live in Nashville. As you know, there is... [09:52] Kid Rock's big honky tonk experience. There's a big Kid Rock multi-level. - Honestly, they could just walk down Broadway, [10:00] Every experiential restaurant, [10:03] Totally. Miranda Lambert. I don't know. That's maybe not Miranda Lambert. Oh, yeah. Miranda Lambert, potentially. What's the other one? The big one, Bobby Flay? Bobby Flay does not have a Nashville experience. There's... [10:16] The guy every the Sirius XM radio guy that everybody loves. I actually don't know if he's a Republican. [10:21] Come on, you guys. Country. Big country. He's only found... [10:26] Yes, he's only found on SiriusXM. [10:29] shelter. [10:30] potentially. Blake Shelton has a, I think he has a restaurant on Broadway in Nashville. [10:34] Name some other country stars. [10:36] uh [10:37] Brad, please. [10:38] Brad Paisley. [10:40] Kenny Chesney does not. Luke Bryan. There's one that's like three names. Anyway. [10:45] Garth Brooks is who I was thinking of. I don't think Garth Brooks. I don't think Garth is. I would... [10:52] I don't think, I think Garst is saying it. Anyway, Republican Party.

[10:57] Faith's on the right side of history here. Anyway, give us a call. We'll help you. We'll help you, Souris. We are neutral. I will say one thing is that there was an ice storm in Nashville a couple weeks ago. [11:09] there i had to be downtown in a hotel we lost power was the whole thing but [11:13] the only restaurant that was still open. [11:16] and serving food. Kid Rock. Was Kid Rock. Honky tonk experience. And people were in there getting... [11:21] wasted and it was just... [11:24] Having a good time. Yeah. Having a great time. [11:26] Having not following the food pyramid. Okay. So quick shout out to Octant before we get too deep in here. Kate works so hard. Kate just slaving over there. Quick shout out to Kate. Working so hard. [11:37] Here we go. Our supporting sponsor, Octant, well known in Ethereum circles for its tireless contribution to the Ethereum ecosystem through research and millions of dollars in grants and public goods funding. [11:51] 2026 is their product era. Octant is now laser focused on vaults, which enables orgs and communities to build sustainable funding systems through these yield generating products, direct your yield towards your own orgs runway or funnel it to broader ecosystem efforts. It's all fair game with Octant's new institutional grade vaults. [12:12] earn, allocate, and grow Ethereum with DeFi. And some exciting news today, actually, is Octon's [12:19] official migration day. So I think probably quite a stressful day for them, but very exciting. All Octant users now get to experience their new app. If you visit their @OctantApp on X to learn more.

[12:32] And we love you, Octant. We love you, Octant. I think one of the things that I love about Octant is the product that they have today came out of... [12:40] a need that they had and then it worked so well for them that they were like, "This is a product other people need." Yeah. And I feel like those are always the best products. Yeah. When you, when it's coming from a true place. Totally. And also a very thoughtful team. Very thoughtful team. Very thoughtful team. We love them. Okay. Should we discuss, there's a lot we could talk about. There's a lot happening on the timeline. I think we could talk about Mr. Beast. Let's talk about Mr. Beast. Okay. So, for some reason, [13:06] the the deal book new york times deal book uh extravaganza which happened in december i believe so [13:12] There's a clip of Mr. Beast and the CEO of... [13:16] Of Mr. Beast. Of Beast Industries. Of Beast Industries were on... [13:22] a panel and for some reason this clip is going around town right now honestly less than that [13:26] - A lesson in that. - Lesson in that. You never know. You never know when that clip's gonna travel. [13:30] Terrifying, honestly. [13:32] And the CEO, I forget, I don't know his name. I wish I did. It's talking about sort of the makeup of their business, where there are, what the revenue generators are, what the... [13:41] sort of breakdown and pie of the various projects [13:46] and like business revenue streamlines come from. And so he was saying 50% of their revenue comes from YouTube, TikTok, [13:55] streaming, or not streaming, reels, all of that revenue. And his show. And his Netflix show, Mr. Beast Games. Yes, Beast Games. Beast Games. Yeah. Okay. And 50% comes from that. The other 50% comes out of either like,

[14:11] products, toys, [14:13] consumables, lunchables, and an action figure, which I... [14:19] The number one, he said the number one selling action figure. Yeah. You want to know what I think that represents? People don't buy action figures anymore. Oof. I just think, I don't know. Who's buying the Mr. Beast action figure? Literally. Because also when you start to watch Mr. Beast, you're too old for action figures. So I don't, at least that's the experience with my kids. I don't know. I don't know what's happening in the action figure market these days. I don't think it's as big as it once was. Dare I say. Dare you say. Yeah. And then the last part was like a platform that they are building that is essentially [14:49] or [14:51] And YouTubers, very high-end YouTubers and Fortune 1000 companies to basically matchmake. Matchmake, yeah. Which both of you and I thought felt like a really small business. And then Kate was like, you guys are so dumb. That's for like the big YouTube stars who are making millions and millions and millions. And they're just taking a cut of that. So I think that was a good shout out by Kate. Interesting. But personally, it feels like a little bit of a distraction to these other two big... [15:15] But anyway, that's not my business. I also feel like people have tried and failed to do that so many times. Yeah. Like an influencer marketplace. I've never seen it work, but if there were anybody to figure it out, I'm sure it's him. Did you see him on Hot Ones? Hot Wings? I did not see him on Hot Ones. I only saw the... [15:31] clips I think that's how you I don't think anyone watches the full hot ones episode although I don't know maybe Kate does once or twice but you have I have oh okay how long are they to say like 15 20 oh okay they're short it's not like an hour long no no no no I'm watching um I don't know Channing Tatum eating wings for an hour like check wellness check no I watched uh I can't remember the there's a few that I've watched that have been good anyway whatever I saw I'm sorry I didn't mean to judge

[16:01] I genuinely didn't, I don't know. - It's totally all good. [16:05] But just, I don't watch any Mr. Beast. I know, like, I should if I'm going to be working in media, but, like, it's just genuinely not for me. He... [16:15] is riz-less. Like, I've actually very rarely seen someone who lacks riz to this degree. Like, it's crazy. Yeah. And just, I think... [16:25] I wouldn't... It's juxtaposed against... [16:28] how big of a star he is. - His fame, yeah. Yeah. - And I feel like my exposure to, [16:33] being 33. [16:35] who I have seen who is famous are people with star power. Unbelievable riz. Like, they've made a living off of it. And so to see someone who is very famous, a celebrity, too many... [16:48] with absolutely just... [16:50] like flatlining yeah it's really shocking well i think like that could be a product of him [16:57] Like his fame is almost, he engineered the algorithm to... [17:03] work in his favor. Like he, he backed, he, he reverse engineered a successful show based on [17:10] what would go viral. And that was like these game show and giveaway types things. And like, I'll put fit 1000 cars in a stadium and see who can get out for like those types of competitions. And so, [17:20] - It's not about him. - It's less about him, more than it is about, like, these concepts that he... [17:26] engineered to perform on YouTube. And that's not to take away, like, that's, [17:31] genius in many ways. But yeah, I don't think it's him. Honestly, what I was struck by is exactly what you're saying. Like, oh, that he is...

[17:39] an unbelievable business mind if he has this little charisma and has made [17:45] this big of a business. Totally. There's this thing, a tweet that went out recently that was about how he doesn't, like one of the weird things about him is that when he smiles, [17:55] His eye, he doesn't smile with his eyes. Like his smile ends here. And that's like part of what makes him like kind of weird to look at. Because when he's smiling, he's not like, it's not a full face. There's no light in his eye. Yeah, it's not a full face smile. It's, um... [18:06] Tyra Banks. Yeah. No, he needs it. He needs some spice. Have you seen all the... I have. What's going on there? There's a new documentary series out about... [18:16] exposing basically... [18:18] Okay, we'll have Kate on later to talk about it. There's a lot to say. Great. Anyway, Jimmy, Mr. Beast, I do think that this is... He's trying to grow up something around this business and going to DealBook instead of VidCon or some of these other more YouTuber, creator-centric places felt like an intentional move. Yeah. He's a serious man. He's trying. Yeah, yeah. Even him going on Hot Wings. He's branching out, which I think is also a product of I saw some news about... [18:46] decline of [18:48] his YouTube views. Yeah. And that that's suffering and... [18:52] all these other endeavors and other revenue streams for his business are requiring more attention. Because I'm sure that that pie, the equation of that pie is going to change over time. Yeah. Well, he just acquired Step, which is a Gen Z banking app. We wrote a newsletter last week.

[19:10] and has a banking license, I think. [19:12] through some sort of [19:14] through that or through, or at least applied for a patent to be working in financial services, not a banking license. Oh, they actually talked about that very briefly on the DealBook interview. [19:25] and also beast mobile uh wireless phone service leveraging mr beast's audience so mobile [19:32] financial services, [19:34] and i don't know i don't know if he can thread the needle to these other people to trust him with his with their money totally [19:41] But... [19:43] Maybe. Maybe. Okay. Should we hit on one other story before we bring up our guest? Yes. I have a lot of- We hit Kid Rock. That's done. Lots of money being raised? Yes. [19:53] There's some, this is a short hit, but two big things. [19:58] funds, [20:00] announced raises yesterday or Tuesday or Monday. [20:03] Thrive Capital. [20:05] Jared Kushner's. [20:08] Fund, 10th fund, $10 billion. [20:11] That's... [20:12] A lot of money. And they have backed... [20:16] the [20:16] - The best, the best, the brightest over there. - Yeah. SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe. [20:21] Skims. [20:22] Huge. Wow. Yeah. So anyway, and a bunch of others, but their sort of thesis as a fund has been that they are very loyal. So when they invest in a particular company, [20:33] founder business that they're sort of like a ride or die mentality where they don't back rivals essentially okay i honestly think that that should be for everyone i don't think if you're a venture fund you should be able to back rivals totally i also think that it means that because they're sort of have this category not exclusivity but like thoughtfulness that it means that if those businesses are doing well they're they're like always going to follow along for their next raise

[21:03] It's a sexy place to be. I see. I said this before we started filming, but I do want to get it on camera that I do think that Ivanka is going to be running [21:11] in 2028 and I think that I'm going to put some money [21:15] on the market. Behind it. [21:17] - Wow. - Today. - Today? - Today, yeah. Because right now her odds are at like 1%. - Oh. - So I actually would-- - Get in now. - Get in now. Yeah, I mean, I don't want everyone to get in. Wait, I'm actually-- - Nevermind. [21:30] - But the reason is because she put up this, [21:32] -post yesterday for Chinese New Year, [21:35] That was her like in a suit and it was talking about how... [21:39] New beginnings, exciting momentum. [21:42] And I was like, here it is. Presidential. We're starting. Yeah. A presidential moment for her. And she was like looking up to the right. I mean, if she does. [21:52] Yeah, whatever. Anyway, next fund that announced Dragonfly... [21:57] Crypto fund, $650 million. I can't believe that. Fourth fund. I can't either. I cannot believe that. Me neither. [22:03] Crazy. And the headline from, I believe it was Fortune. Did they pivot to AI or is it still? No. Crypto venture firm Dragonfly closed a $650 million fourth fund, even as blockchain VCs face mass extinction. That was the Fortune headline. It's their fourth fund. And... [22:20] -Hasib, who's like the guy. -Hasib. -Hasib. -Hasib. [22:24] The guy at Dragonfly. I mean, there's four of them, four men. And they, he went on TVPN, talked about sort of their thesis and essentially was like,

[22:34] the thesis that we all have come to know and love for crypto these days. Let me guess. Go for it. Stable coins and enterprise institutional? [22:43] Yes, and. Okay. Basically saying that all of these bots... [22:48] Oh, the financial future is in in automation and in yeah, in those payments. [22:54] Crypto is going to be their native payment platforms. And that design... He said that crypto is designed for machines more than it was designed for humans. I believe that. And actually, I do want to bring Jose up, our guest. But there is one thing that I saw on the timeline this morning to that point, which was... [23:11] about an open-claw... [23:15] plug in something to do [23:18] or maybe it actually wasn't related to EvanClaw, but basically someone has built a... [23:25] - Asian mechanism. - Oh, yeah. Okay. [23:28] So the issue with like using OpenClaw and all these agents is that, [23:32] It's a little bit like your relationship to when you go to the doctor and you have no idea how much it's going to cost. Yeah. You know, like you go to, you go get a procedure done. You're like, I have no idea. Like some bill will show up a couple weeks. And you're like, how much is it going to be? And they're like, we don't know. Oh, they have no idea. They have no idea. They're totally removed from that. They're like, actually, could you never ask me that? Yeah. That's kind of been my experience with working with our OpenClaw team. [23:52] related to the token usage and like how much it costs because it's like I you just it's hard [23:58] You just don't know like how much, how many tokens you're using. Like I can go back into the cloud backend and check it and make sure we're not like spending thousands of dollars on the stupid things that we're asking our...

[24:09] open cloud, but it is a little bit like [24:11] - Totally. I saw this tweet the other day of this founder, [24:15] This woman who said... [24:17] We have a user who, it was like an early stage AI tool, [24:22] I... [24:23] product. And she was like, we have a user who's on a $49 a month plan who just racked up like a $5,000 bill for us. Yeah. Like that, that... [24:33] That is totally possible and terrifying. And... [24:38] Anyway, so like that's really on my mind is just like token usage and cost. Anyway, this guy put out this tweet yesterday or the day before that was about, [24:45] he built an agent that... [24:49] It has to fund itself. [24:51] Yes, I saw that. And it can create a wallet and generates revenue to basically pay for its own compute. And as soon as it's able to do that, like it's able to keep... [25:02] working and keep like spinning up your regions, I think. Incredible. Which is crazy. Guys, I wonder, we might need to open that door just as a... [25:09] Is Jose here? [25:10] He's here. Oh, he's back there. Yeah. Oh, I thought you were trapped in the vestibule. And I was like, poor guy. Sorry. No worries. Great. Great. Uh, should we bring Jose up? Before we do that. [25:26] Anchorage. [25:28] Digital. Jose, you can come on up as we talk about Anchorage. Our other partner whom we love very much is... [25:37] is Anchorage Digital. And this episode is brought to you by Anchorage Digital. Founders and protocol builders stressing about your TGE, you need to get in touch with them. They're the first federally regulated crypto bank in the US, which means they can offer crypto startups and other disruptors actually reliable USD banking services without the usual headaches. They're a one-stop shop that can support you end-to-end on everything from minting and distribution to treasury management.

[26:06] They also just raised $100 million strategic investment from Tether last week, yet another big flex since they already custody for the big boys like Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, A16Z, and Visa. So protocol founders, TGE with confidence, and Launch with the support that's helped some of the biggest and most complex businesses in the world go to market. Visit Anchorage.com to learn more. We love you, Anchorage Digital. They are great and very, very good. [26:35] legitimate yes okay jose come on down [26:40] We have some very fun things to talk about with you today. It's gonna be great. How's it going? [26:44] This is. [26:45] Well, it depends on where I'm going. Okay. But it's always an everything bagel. Okay. Absolutely. There's no other option for me. I'm not a scooper. No, I like as much bread as possible. This is how I know that you're a good person. Thank you. A scooper is like, [27:02] - Yeah, you have problems. - Problems. That's too much. - Why are you denying yourself something good? - Yeah. And it's too much dairy. Like, why are you filling that thing up with cream cheese? - Oh, interesting. - Absolutely. - It brings the ratios off. - Ratios way off. Okay. My ideal situation is that there's some sort of a chive cream cheese. - Yes. - And some sort of fish. Usually like a smoked salmon of some kind, a red onion tomato. [27:25] And hot sauce, of course. [27:27] I'm not a monster. Thank you. Egg and cheese. Oh, great. Yeah. I do have a question. Don't you feel sometimes it's dry? Yes. With a bagel. Do you do? A little ketchup. I know you don't like ketchup. Okay. I'll do a little bit of ketchup and have a great time. Okay, great. What about you?

[27:41] Same as hers basically. It's chive cream cheese always, some kind of smoked fish, a little bit of onion and one slice of tomato. Nice. Toasted? Oh, nice. Ideally you get there and have the experience I had where the guy's like, I know this guy's a good guy. Totally. We just got these out of the oven. But otherwise, like a light toast. Light toast. You don't want it to hurt your mouth, you know? No, I don't want to eat it like a hockey ball. I think the tomato is controversial because often it's a… Well, because tomatoes are mostly bad and bioengineered garbage, but yes. Exactly. [28:11] - I just want like a little wet slice of something in there. - Exactly. Are you biting or are you open face? [28:18] that depends on the place uh-huh if it's a good bagel it's not like one of those weird massive oversized bagels so you go for a straight bite okay i will take off the top half and eat it open face okay classy um okay what are we talking about with jose we're talking about two things this is jose from scene infrastructure company [28:36] We love seeing infrastructure. We've worked with them for many of our [28:40] Very fun events. And we're talking about... [28:44] to [28:45] Crazy, crazy things. Logan Paul. [28:48] And... [28:50] taste discourse taste paul here's the thing we've avoided it on this podcast we really have so far yeah i so i'm the sacrificial lamb that you brought on to finally jump into this terrible terrible discourse great okay but do we want to start with logan paul do we want to start with taste we got to start with logan paul okay great um do you want to tell us what happened this week or i can either way you go for it okay so logan paul famous youtuber again not somebody that

[29:17] He's not for me at all. He sold a Pokemon card. [29:23] it seems live on some sort of streaming situation for 16.5 million dollars. It was a Pikachu [29:33] Pokemon card and the like most expensive trading card on record, I believe. Of all time. Of all time. He had Guinness in like in the room. Ready to go. Certifying it like right away. It was very orchestrated. Okay. Okay. The buyer. [29:49] of said card. [29:50] Do you want to take this one? AJ Scaramucci, who's the son of Anthony Scaramucci. Real outstanding guy. [29:57] Which is such a strange... [30:00] detail. Very weird. In this story, but AJ Scaramucci, I guess, is a venture capitalist. And I guess this is [30:06] part of some sort of venture. [30:08] He called it the first acquisition of a planned planetary treasure hunt, in quotes. Okay, I do. I did hear a hot... Maybe it's not that hot of a take, but I did hear a take last night from a person I really respect that said... [30:20] archetypes, no, artifacts, artifacts and physical goods, art, art, [30:28] that that is just going to, in the age of AI, just continue to increase in value exponentially over the next few years. So I guess maybe that this falls into that thesis, but... [30:40] Not like anyone's ever used those things for like money laundering or scans of cash, right? That's a thing that people would never do. Never even think to do. No, never. I do want to just say, just to give folks the sense of the scale for this as an industry, the global Pokemon trading card game market is estimated at $10 to $12 billion annually.

[31:01] And that's not, they're bigger than sports card, biggest segment of the trading card collectibles market. [31:08] And that's, yeah, that's not the resale. Is that resale? - So, Pokemon cards or Thrive Fun 10, basically. - Yeah. - Okay, but there is some controversy with what happened. Do you want to tell us about the controversy? - Yeah, I mean, I hate that I know this stuff, but back in the day, I think when he first bought the card, he paid, I think, [31:29] around four or five million, something like that. And then proceeded to attempt to tokenize fractionalized shares. It was 2021. That's what we did during those times. I mean, I guess. It's just interesting. I think that was the second platform. I don't remember if it was CryptoZoo was his first failed crypto project. That was an NFT project, right? It was meant to be like a game that you played and the NFTs were your characters. In the metaverse, naturally. Exactly. But he sold, he attempted to sell 51% [31:59] 5.4% for some reason. Okay, okay. And then the site went down mysteriously after a period of time, so people couldn't even see that they had access to the shares of the card. Okay. Oh, okay. And from what I remember, there was a… It wasn't on the block? [32:12] -Change? -I don't know. -Canadian lawsuit, which didn't name him. They named the owners of the site. [32:18] He claimed that he had no idea how the site went away or what happened to it. Okay. And then I remember him basically saying that he bought back the shares. Yes. I saw that. Which I don't really understand. We couldn't get a fact check on that. I couldn't get, so that's the thing. I was doing a little bit of like reading about this stuff when I first saw it and I couldn't see anywhere that proved. Yeah. That he actually made investors whole. Totally. So it's just like this like weird slop tokenization thing where it's like, yeah, it's tokenized and yeah, you own it, but no, you don't. It's mine and I'm going to resell it.

[32:48] - Yeah, also I could see there being like some fine print where it was like, we tokenized the digital asset version of it and not the actual card. - Right, exactly. - Not the card. - Sure. - And that being some loophole that sucks that no one [33:01] For the really good people who really thought Logan Paul, I trust them. [33:07] Yeah, crazy situation. There was so much... [33:11] feelings on the timeline for many a folk who had no skin in the game, actual skin in the game, but feel personally wronged by this story. And then as you get into it, you realize, [33:25] the way that it's being positioned mostly on crypto Twitter is [33:28] somewhat incorrect. Yeah. And that, like, I saw one take that was like, he actually didn't make 16 million dollars from this card. He made 19 million dollars from this card, which I'm like, that's actually fun and not accurate. But [33:42] Anyway, that's what happened. $16.5 million for a Pokemon card. They're... [33:48] that's wild situation, there are easier ways for... [33:53] What's his name, Ali Scaramucci, to tell us he's a virgin? Ali Scaramucci. Can I actually talk about what bothered me the most about it all? Please. Did y'all see him at the Olympics? [34:04] - No, that's his brother. - Oh, that's his brother. - That's Jake, right? - Okay. - We had to get clarification on that. - We also thought that too. [34:11] My point still stands. The amount of emotion that Logan Paul showed in the video of when, like, the card sold... - Yes. - ...is commensurate with the amount of emotion that Jake showed when his partner won. - - And I don't know what that says about them as people, but it's really interesting. - It's really interesting. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like, he was borderline in tears when the Guinness, like, certificate came out. - Yeah, he was so excited. - Yeah.

[34:34] Why do I feel like he had his shirt off? No, it was just a sleeveless. Yeah, it was sleeveless. He was in like wrestler mode. Totally. Wow. Okay. I love that as a take. Should we get into your one-sided Paul Graham beef? Sure. You had a viral tweet. [34:48] I think it counts as viral, right? What's the threshold now? Well, [34:54] One million? [34:56] Okay, well, on the small internet, you went viral. For those who don't know, Paul Graham, technology philosopher and founder of Y Combinator, [35:10] was... [35:11] was responsible for helping businesses like... [35:15] Airbnb, Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox, I think, are a few. All of them, probably. All of them. In the 2009, 10 era of companies, he was... [35:27] the big dog. Um, and, uh, [35:31] He writes a lot of essays. Legendary blogger. Yeah. Blog. I will give him that. Yeah. The man blogs. He does. So what happened this week? [35:40] Ugh. [35:41] So actually, I feel you should give it. [35:45] A high-level overview of the taste discourse. I don't even know where to begin. I think so many other people have kind of... [35:52] I mean, number one, it's cyclical, right? Like, this is not the first wave of arguing about the nature of taste that has happened in, like, [35:59] tech and crypto Twitter in recent memory. And it's the thing that people have been arguing about for years. Like I was really happy to see people surface like Steve Jobs quotes about how Microsoft has no taste. Like this is a constant debate.

[36:10] in the world of technology. I think, I don't even think the Paul Graham essay was the catalyst this time around. I don't remember, [36:16] where he came from, but the Paul Graham essay was a response to something else, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that. And it was him sort of codifying this idea that, you know, taste is really important, and it's the only moat that you're going to have going forward, yada, yada, yada. It's the same thing that most people are saying on the internet these days in those circles. Yeah. [36:34] I thought was interesting about it. Every personality hire is saying that, me included. Yeah, pretty much. Exactly. [36:40] When he started responding to people engaging with the essay, he made what I think is a fatal flaw. Mm-hmm. And said that clothing doesn't matter. Okay. Clothing is not a component of his vision for what the future of taste looks like in this world in which taste is the only thing that can save you from AI. Okay. And then he proceeded to post this photo of Einstein. Mm-hmm. [36:59] and saying like, yeah, Einstein just like optimized for comfort. He was just focused on the mission of being a great scientist when I know for a fact, and this is what my response was, is like, [37:08] that exact photo, I've seen it on the internet since like 2007 on men's wear forums. So people being like, yo, Einstein is the most swagged out guy ever. Totally. Where can I find a vintage sweatshirt like this? Like I could see this in a throwing fits [37:20] 100% yeah absolutely. [37:22] And so I think that the interesting responses I've seen from people like Haaland or Emma Joel Johnson point out that like, [37:29] Number one, taste has always been a part of the discourse in tech, outside of tech. There's no escaping it. It is a part of how you see and interact with the world around you. [37:38] it is not like the finished product. It's not necessarily a skill. I called it a totalizing force, right? It informs everything you do. That was a real banger. People really like that. And I think that folks in tech that are just sort of coming around to the idea of taste as a quality that matters,

[37:54] often try to reduce it down to this like quantifiable measurement of like [37:58] your ability to choose pixels well or your ability to shape the language around a product announcement [38:05] And it's so much deeper than that. I think we're gonna lose a lot of what it means to have taste, to have opinions, to express them cogently, if we just treat it as like this thing that you can learn in a couple of weekends by reading a few books and going to a few museums and like wandering into Ralph Lauren. Yeah. It actually reminds me, I saw this, there's this video that's going viral of Fran Lebowitz. And she is talking about... [38:30] I can't remember exactly what time period it is. I think she's talking about like the 1950s and some piece of... [38:36] a play that was like really famous during that time. And she was sort of, [38:42] She was saying essentially that part of what made that play so special and what made it so impactful in that period of history was not only the... [38:51] excellence that the writer and the producers and the actors had, but it was also the excellence of the audience. And that the audience like plays their taste and their contribution to a piece of work or art or experience is... [39:07] part of what makes something elevated and beautiful and timeless. And she was saying, like, we've lost-- [39:14] there's a lot that's been lost in the audience. And it's like sort of this... [39:18] cycle that happens and we get lower and lower and sort of like the quality of what we're producing because of the audience and someone was retweeting it and talking about withering heights and they're like uh case in point which i thought was really funny but i think yeah you're you're sort of speaking that to that too in the taste discourse yeah absolutely it's there's uh

[39:38] dialogue that exists between like the person experiencing the thing, the context within which they're expressing their interest in that thing, who they're expressing it to, right? I can think of scenarios in which like, [39:50] your taste in a particular type of [39:54] sweatshirt or music, like in one context, people don't get it. In another context, people are like, yes, absolutely. And like, those are your people, right? I think there's something about the fact that [40:05] people in tech, especially folks like Paul Graham, not to like single him out specifically, but [40:11] we've spent 15 years building and backing technologies that like shred the [40:17] opacity and like the mystery that's required to like form communities that like, [40:23] produce culture that's net new. And the idea that all of a sudden now we're going to somehow... [40:29] apply this like really thin veneer of like knowing what looks good, feels good, etc. without preserving what it means to like [40:37] discover what your sense of taste is in a community of people that like it feels safe to do so within is just ridiculous. Yeah. [40:44] Wow. [40:46] Preach. Do you think that tech companies can have taste? [40:52] Like, do you think that... [40:54] - Anthropic has taste? - I think that taste is something that is usually attributable and traceable back to like individuals inside of companies. [41:04] I don't think that like a company as a whole can have taste, but I think that there's always companies that

[41:11] you know, their merch hits a little bit different. Their events are really fun and well-considered. [41:15] And that's usually the result of one or a few people who actually like really care. - Yeah. [41:21] I don't know, I used to work a bit in like the hospitality space and adjacent to it. I think of like, [41:26] Will Goddard's book of unreasonable hospitality and the idea of like going above and beyond to show how much you care about your customers at these restaurants. And I think that it's the same kind of feeling of [41:37] There's usually people, if you are smart and hire well, that want to go above and beyond to express like, [41:43] this is what this company stands for. This is how we want to show up in the world. These are the feelings that we want people to have when they interact with us. [41:49] And yeah, there are millions of companies that don't have that. But I think it's really usually [41:53] about people and not about some sort of like overarching like [41:57] look or feel that you can construct out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. [42:00] I think what sometimes I... [42:04] annoys me about the taste discourse [42:07] when it comes around is that it sometimes feels like people are like that becomes a proxy for certain [42:14] style or for a certain kind of aesthetic that's actually quite rigid that's [42:20] that I actually don't think reflects what you're speaking to. But I do think that like people have that fill in for like, oh, this thing has taste or it doesn't have taste because it either fits to this aesthetic or doesn't fit to this aesthetic. And that could be personal style. That can be interior design. That could be the way that a website shows up. But like, to me, I'm like, when I see some of this stuff, I'm like, man, you guys are talking about like a fairly like,

[42:45] homogenous aesthetic that like, [42:48] Honestly, like it's [42:50] boring for [42:52] Most people. Most people. And like, I think that that's like what I get annoyed about because I'm like, whatever, like read the Rick Rubin book or not. Like it doesn't like that. That doesn't define you having taste or not. So that's actually the interesting flip side about this to me. And it brings to mind two things. One is I was having a conversation with my friend Ross, who is an amazing trader, but also like one of the most stylish people I know on the planet. And what he pointed out that I thought was fascinating. And he's like, not... [43:17] following this stuff on Twitter. He just saw Derek Guy retweet me. And he was like, the flip side of this is people who are deeply in like the culture industries who are, you [43:28] I use gatekeeping as a good word. I need to come up with a better word for people who are doing what you're saying, which is like, [43:33] really strict rules that are like really strongly held opinions that in most cases aren't really informed by what they genuinely care about, but more so what they think is like, [43:43] acceptable or appropriate by the people around them. It's like the Soho house-ification of it. Correct. Yeah. Correct. And it's, yeah. Yeah. It's like, it lacks perspective in my opinion. Right. It's like the beautiful thing about taste is like, I don't know, I made a joke also with someone on Twitter that like, imagine it, the years 2045 and the tech bros finally discover John Waters, right? Like I can't imagine. Yeah. [44:04] the people who are talking about taste having to figure out camp. That's insane to me. Their brains will melt. [44:09] But I think that what you're saying is really interesting, which is even outside of tech world, just like squarely in fashion or design or art, you do have the sense that there are people who...

[44:18] think it's their job to uphold certain like rules around like what's good or not and i don't think that [44:26] a obsessively held strong opinion that isn't informed by your lived experience counts as taste. Yeah. I also think this is something that you've taught me about taste and [44:37] really about what is cool and, [44:42] One of the things that you have said over and over again, which I think is very true, and I have tried to bring into my life as much as possible, is that like... [44:49] the coolest thing you can be is your truest self. And you can feel it when someone's [44:55] Like when someone's like, man, she's just, or he's just like so cool. And usually almost a hundred percent of the time that's coming from, they are like so self-assured. Like they are so certain of who they are. And that shows up in all these ways and all these interesting ways because they have unique perspective or they like things that other people don't. And they have some sort of counter-cultural perspective. And that is coming from a place of self-assurance, not from a place of wanting, like searching [45:25] always you can feel. And [45:27] And I think the taste conversation is adjacent to that. And like similar in many ways. I'm curious if you think that taste... [45:35] can and should and currently does [45:39] live [45:40] within [45:42] Cons-- like, capitalism. [45:44] And like how much capitalism and taste can be... [45:47] You married one.

[45:50] Can we just cut to an unlicensed clip of the Cerulean Blue speech from the Timberware's product? Because I think that would just answer that question perfectly. Great. We'll do a cut down on that. No, but I think like that to me was, you know, in the middle of a beautiful, wonderful film, one of the most [46:09] interesting pieces of cultural commentary from that era, which is recognizing the fact that [46:14] capitalism, [46:16] at least in that [46:18] up until that point. [46:20] Yeah, like people kind of chose stuff for you if you were following current trends and to be tasteful. [46:28] required you to [46:30] search and dig and find interesting things from the past that maybe had fallen out of taste or like not been interesting for a while. Yeah. And repurpose them or reinterpret them. And that that sort of friction [46:42] is what A, like leads you to developing your sense of taste, like, oh, I like [46:47] I don't know, drain pipe pants instead of like flares, right? Like, cool. Great. [46:52] Wear them, rock them, like be the self-assured you that you are in them. [46:55] I think what's happened and what is happening... [46:58] and God forgive me, I'm working on an essay about this, is [47:02] Everyone's obsessed with markets. [47:05] to a point that I think is becoming detrimental. And this idea that markets are perfect arbiters of truth [47:11] I think is like we're at a tipping point where [47:14] pricing things too soon and trying to sort of like monetize ideas before they've had a chance to gestate

[47:22] is like the final death knell of our ability to produce anything interesting culturally. Things need time to kind of like [47:29] be weird and difficult to find and you have to like work your way to like understand what the thing is and I think that like [47:37] if we don't build [47:39] tools [47:41] plug that allow that to happen, like the internet and real life are both going to collapse into this weird world in which everything is like, [47:51] this weird flash in the pan meme that like explodes. And yeah, some people make money off of it. And then it just dies as quickly as it arrived. Yeah. When you said you need to give things time to... [48:02] Marinate. [48:03] The first thing and person that came to mind, which I think, I don't know why, and I think is incorrect, but I'm curious your take, was Addison Rae. [48:11] - Absolutely. - Okay. - Perfect example. - Okay. - Yeah. - Okay. - Hell yeah. - And I like, I watched her, I have such a weird relationship with Addison Rae and her stuff and, [48:22] Wait, go deeper really quick. What's your take? Okay, well, like, there's moments where I'm like, this is so contrived. I can't with this. Like, it's so... [48:29] And then there's moments where I'm like, oh, is that the joke? Like, is it actually one step beyond that where it's like, yeah, obviously all of this is contrived. And so like, and so then I kind of like her and but I go back and forth and I think she as a. [48:44] person and the things that she's willing to do, I respect, like, so much. And I think she's really... [48:50] she has to have a sense of humor, a good sense of humor. - She's fully in on the joke. - Exactly. She's, I mean, I've seen interviews with her where it's very clear that like,

[48:57] it being contrived as the point. - Yeah. - I think it was on Chicken Shop Date where she talked about how, like, what if people just tried? - Yeah. - And what was interesting about her rise is that, like, [49:08] we saw her go from this thing that was like, oh yeah, it's like an influencer. And then like the uncanny valley of her going from like a girl who dances to a girl who's in like, [49:19] bad remakes of movies from our childhoods to pop star like we bore witness to all of that [49:26] And I think that it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that [49:30] I think for the most part she's pulled it off. Yeah. And getting to see someone do that is probably what it felt like to watch someone [49:38] program a beat on an 808 in like 1987 or watching like, [49:43] I don't know. [49:45] the guys from Joy Division after Ian Curtis died, like, become a part of, like, New Wave, right? As a genre. And those things aren't often revealed to you unless you're, like, localized to the scene that's creating that culture. Yeah. What's more interesting to me is figuring out, like, how do you get more Addison Rays across, like, every vertical possible? What tools do they need in order to, like, contrive/build the world that they're trying to invite us into? [50:10] And how do you kind of undo a little bit of like the past 10 years of like, [50:14] if you see the effort, it must not be good, which I think is something that's been kind of baked into culture for a while now. Yeah. Are you building something that you're... [50:21] I don't know, maybe. It sounded like we were leading up to a pitch. I'm not here to pitch yet. I respect that. I'm here to yap. I respect that. Okay, we're coming up on time, but I didn't prep...

[50:35] be with this question or this thought, but I am curious your take on [50:38] the end of jobs. [50:41] Let's go. What are your thoughts? What do you think we're, we should all be doing here? You just accidentally set me up for a pitch and I don't like that. Great, great. I want to hear it. I want to hear it. I think that there's a few people who have this thesis and I think we're all working towards a similar future. And I think that, [50:58] I talk about this a ton with folks, but I think that at the end of the day, if AI eats the value of most things that are digital, [51:05] The things that will matter are [51:08] A, things that are driven by real people, real personalities, maybe the T word that we just talked about. Mm-hmm. [51:14] But I think also provably like [51:18] lived experiences are important. I think that in the future more and more people will wake up in the morning, drink coffee, and like believe themselves to be some kind of like experience creator or event producer or gatherer of people, whether it's like a run club or like [51:33] classes sharing things that you know like i think that [51:36] Building a tool that allows those people to run their businesses effectively is kind of what we're aiming to do at SIC. But more broadly speaking, I think what's also interesting is like, [51:48] there hasn't ever been a technology we've invented that doesn't create more and new different jobs [51:55] even as it's destroying whatever the jobs that it destroys are. [51:59] And so what I think is also interesting is wondering about like, [52:03] what weird thing is someone going to make a living doing that is...

[52:07] fully, fully empowered by AI that we can't even imagine right now. [52:11] but [52:12] Yeah. Abundance mentality guy. [52:16] Unfortunately, I'm kind of an optimist. I really love that. I respect it. I'm very happy to hear a positive take. How do you two feel about the future? I'm abundance. I try to be abundance mentality about it. I think you're right in speaking to like. [52:31] there being old... [52:33] Yeah, we're us trying to port over sort of what happened to what's going to happen. And that is impossible. And that... [52:40] And there's like lots of opportunity and new things that are emergent that like we can't predict and that a lot of those things are going to be very good. And I think that I can see a world where AI creates this world of abundance. And that's what I'm choosing to live into. What post AI job do you want in the future? I mean, I think we have a post AI job. Unfortunately, podcasters are like the last man standing. So I think that I'm going to try and hold on to this one. [53:10] tweet that absolutely killed me that you put in the newsletter last week it was take my work take my dad to work day and he just brings his podcast literally it's me it's me um jose thank you so much for coming on always a good yap you're welcome anytime [53:25] And everybody, how should they find you/SceneInfrastructureCo? It's SceneInfra on Twitter. I'm JoseRMegia, M-E-J-I-A on Twitter. [53:36] Nice.

[53:38] -Really? -No. -Oh. -Seen him. [53:41] Oh, wow, that's true. Oh, true. It's S-C-E-N-E, like cause a scene or be a part of a scene. There it is. Okay, nice. Good call. Should we change the name? We should discuss. [53:57] Okay, we can put some music on. [53:59] And [54:00] Thank you. [54:07] . [54:07] *music* [54:37] you [54:50] *music*

[55:20] Thank you. [55:29] What a great guy. So fun. So fun. [55:34] I really appreciate people who... [55:36] are [55:38] really into tech. [55:40] And... [55:41] really optimistic about technology, but are really tapped into technology. [55:46] culture and the scene. Yeah, totally. And have, I think those people are very important to have in this industry. Yeah, it's really valuable. Okay. [55:52] We have a few things that we want to talk about, but first... [55:56] Word from our sponsor. And Kate. [55:58] - Are you about to TGE? Stop, put the spreadsheet down. If you need reliable USD banking and crypto infrastructure for your launch, you want Anchorage Digital. They're a one-stop shop. Minting, distribution, and treasury management once your token's live. But wait, there's more. Anchorage Digital Bank is the first federally chartered crypto bank in the US. Translation, you can get reliable USD banking for your crypto business. End-to-end support. No one is doing it like Anchorage. So, if you're heading into TGE, [56:27] And you want to launch like a grown-up business? Go to Anchorage.com and get set up. Supplies are limited. Tell them Boyz Club sent you. [56:34] Wow. [56:36] Kate. Crush. Crush. No, it's not Vanna White. Was it Vanna White who was on? She was. Who was the? [56:45] she's a real fortune um there's a famous qvc or i can't remember who she is but kate really jennifer uh lawrence in that movie yeah um yeah man give kate a creative brief and she'll go to town she will deliver i love it i love i love it okay we have two other things we want to discuss on today's episode we want to talk about the open claw acquisition

[57:06] And we want to talk about Girl Scout cookies. Yes. Let's start with this really cute girl, Pim. Kate, I just dropped a link into the private chat. Maybe you could pull it up so that we can get her... [57:18] Adorable face on screen for a moment. [57:25] No worries. [57:26] So we're going to talk about this tweet that went viral. Pennsylvania Girl Scout 6 breaks record selling 87,000 boxes of cookies. [57:34] She's quote unquote unstoppable. Her name is Pym. Let's pull her a photo. She's an icon. She is so cute. She's a legend. [57:42] She... [57:43] inspires me. [57:45] Me too. We're going to talk about her... [57:49] And then I want to zoom out a little bit and talk about Girl Scout cookies more broadly as a business. As a biz. I got really deep on it this morning. Quote unquote unstoppable is... [57:58] perfect it's absolutely perfect um okay do you want me to pull it up kate [58:03] Oh, there she is. I couldn't love this little girl more. I love her. What's her name again? Pim. Pim. Also, Pim is a great name. You know what I'm obsessed with? This. Yeah. His cute little hands clutched together. So cute. So sweet. Oh my God. Okay. So Pim goes viral this week. Also, I can see Pim in 65 years. Like Pim. [58:24] Yeah, she's timeless. She really is. She... [58:29] set a record for the most Girl Scout cookies sold ever in a single season. So she's at, she's actually higher than 87,000 boxes now. She's gone viral. So she's been hitting it. I tried to go to her counter this morning and it's broken. What is the counter? Her online shop? Yeah. There's

[58:46] all of her oh it kind of reset but like we're it's weirdly bugging out like we can't see yeah she's breaking the internet she's yeah she's breaking the internet basically what happened is she just set her mind to this that she was going to sell a lot something to be learned in that there's a lesson in that exactly less than that and then her mom of course helped and or not of course her mom helped and started [59:09] helping her sell through local Facebook groups and not local Facebook groups. It's always local Facebook groups. Always. And TikTok. Yeah. [59:17] And it just started taking off. And honestly, the lesson in this is that it became about the storytelling of her and the boxes and wanting to sell a lot of boxes. And she... [59:29] Built a funnel. [59:32] Build it and they will come, Pim said. Literally. And it was a time-bound story, right? Like the... [59:39] They're only out for a certain amount of time. It brought some urgency to the story. She's adorable. There's also this top prize that we win a trip to Niagara Falls. [59:47] And so there was like her drive to go to Niagara Falls and do this trip. Okay. And also part of the story is that her mom had said she wanted to sell cookies instead of having getting Christmas gifts. So that was like part of the framing and of the whole story. Anyway, Ecom Queen packaged all this up. Wow. Took it to the Facebook groups, took it to TikTok. Great job. Set up the funnel and started selling like a machine. Sell, sell, sell. Yeah. What's the fulfillment process of...

[1:00:16] Not her job. Not her job. Not her job, no. Oh, she's just an... [1:00:20] affiliate marketing. Like a commission driven sales. Post AI job selling. Yeah. Fully distributed sales force. [1:00:31] So, okay, so the story broke, got into it. There's some takes in it that like this is problematic or whatever. I'm not going to get into that side of the story because I think it's just [1:00:40] sweet and like wholesome. I did a little digging on the Lifetime cookies. Right. Like, okay, so she's selling 87,000 this season. Who else has done numbers? And basically there's this motivational speaker. I don't know this girl, Katie Francis. She sold 180,000 boxes. But she did that [1:01:00] over the course of her career. - Her career. - Nine years. Nine years, yeah. So you look at her numbers and-- [1:01:07] -I was like... -Pim is gonna blow her out of the water. -Totally. She's like, she never got above... [1:01:12] Oh, she had 44,000 boxes in her last year. Loser numbers. 2020. Loser numbers. But literally, I know. I'm like, man. So then, oh, really funny tweet here that I'm going to pull up on screen. Tony Soprano, my best earner here. Really funny. Anytime we can pull a Tony Soprano, I mentioned. Okay. So then I was like, okay, what's happening with Girl Scout Cookies genuinely? Yeah. [1:01:33] What's the business behind them? [1:01:36] how big are they? And so... [1:01:38] in a normal year question yes girl scout cookies [1:01:43] Were you a Girl Scout? No. There was like a Christian Girl Scout thing that I did for a few years.

[1:01:49] Kate? [1:01:50] No. [1:01:51] Royal Rangers was the boys. Tubbies? Okay. Cubbies. Royal Rangers was the boys. I can't remember the girls. [1:01:59] - He was. We'll find it. - And it was a Christian offshoot? - It was a Christian offshoot. Was it affiliated? No. [1:02:08] with no no no no no it wasn't affiliated with the higher up there was a firewall between okay totally um so yeah i were you a girl scout [1:02:18] Okay, no. [1:02:20] yeah okay you can do that now were you in the christian one [1:02:26] Heritage girls? American heritage girls. That sounds like the dolls. Anyway, it was rooted in Jesus. Yeah, in the Bible. A lot of memorization and such. Did they sell cookies? [1:02:38] i'm sure but i didn't really participate in that kind of thing that wasn't for me okay i did the magazine sales and the um [1:02:45] the um [1:02:46] Wrapping paper. [1:02:47] frontier girls and you were in frontier girls for a time for time for it wasn't it [1:02:54] Mm-mm. [1:02:54] Like my parents, mom, they couldn't really handle the like... [1:02:59] extracurriculars they were just like that's not for us i was like okay fine yeah um but i did i did go hard on the wrapping paper [1:03:07] Selling it? Selling it. Door to door. Knocking, knocking on doors, selling wrapping paper. I don't know why or how or what that was about. But anyway. Girl Scouts. Oh, when you sell the cookies. Yes. Yes.

[1:03:20] There is a cut that goes to the little girl? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, so here's a breakdown. It's not a multi-level mortgage. No, it's not MLM. There is, okay, so a $6 digital cookie sale. Roughly, they're selling for $6. Actually, I think it's really quite cheap. Yeah, $6 a box. Yeah, in this economy feels they should maybe raise the prices. So roughly $1.50 of that will go to the Troop. [1:03:42] or management, the local troop. Okay. [1:03:45] a lot of it tends to stay local. Okay. [1:03:48] Half of that will go to the bakery and distribution. So that's like, and like fulfillment and stuff like that. Oh my gosh, my best fucking... [1:03:56] Oh, the Tony's a fan of me? So good. The truth leader. That's so funny. So yeah, 50% will go to... [1:04:05] the... [1:04:07] manufacturing distribution. Okay. 50% will go to split between the troop, local troop, [1:04:12] a tiny little bit for what they're calling rewards, which I'm sure is like funding that Niagara trip for this girl, 10 cents. So like a tiny, tiny amount. Like she... [1:04:23] Like, [1:04:23] for the amount that she sold. Yeah, crazy. Send her to men every year. Until she turns 18. Yeah. And then half of that goes to, it seems like leadership development, program support. So like, [1:04:35] Basically, and the Girl Scouts is a nonprofit organization. Okay. [1:04:40] And the lesson that they want you to take from the breakdown of, or the takeaway that they want you to have from the breakdown of those funds is that it stays local. They kept saying that over and over again when I was doing the research and I was like, hey, no problem. I didn't, like, you're being defensive about something that I had. I don't care. But also, like, they were so defensive that I was like...

[1:04:58] Why are you being so defensive about this? When you say they, are you chatting with them directly? No, the Girl Scouts website. Oh, okay. It stays local, stays local. Okay, okay. Whoa. Whoa. You're inviting an argument that's nobody's... There must be something there that I'm not clear on the lore, but maybe some people were like, oh, this just goes to fund corporate Girl Scout. I don't know. Okay, whatever. Anyway, volume. In a normal year, Girl Scout sells about 200 million packages of cookies. [1:05:28] It's like, [1:05:29] - One for every two. - Wow. Yes. A lot of cookies. Especially for... - Wait, did you do the math? $6? [1:05:36] I did the math. I also did the math. Yes. Talk to me. So, but before that, just want to remind people it's seasonal. [1:05:43] So it's a window. It's a window. It's their full year. It's the budget. But like 200 million in a seasonal D to C model. Crazy. [1:05:52] Oreos does about $20 billion a year, just for context. So we have a sense of it. But that's in every supermarket every day, all the time. Everywhere, everywhere. Throughout the whole year. So yeah, $200 million is not bad for seasonal, limited, direct-to-consumer. Limited dish. Totally. Back a napkin. [1:06:10] let's call it $6. [1:06:12] one billion one one to 1.5 billion. Wow. Spending. Wow. For these cookies. Wow. [1:06:18] That is crazy. So the Girl Scout organization is doing numbers. Yeah. They got a lot of money. They got to pay for those cute little uniforms. Totally. Well, I'm sure the mom's paying for those too. Yeah, I know. I think they are too. Roughly, I did some more math and...

[1:06:34] who [1:06:35] It seems like average boxes per Girl Scout is around 285. [1:06:41] Which honestly, that checks out because my experience of the Girl Scout cookies is someone has... A little table. A little table in a legal vendor booth in front of a grocery store. Yeah. And they're selling them there. And I think like given food traffic and everything, like if you're hitting that for a weekend... [1:06:56] - You're doing 200 boxes. - Yeah, that's pretty good. - I think that's pretty good. - I feel your son, [1:07:01] He has an entrepreneurial spirit. I feel he should be involved. - Yeah, we could sell some cookies. We could sell some cookies for sure. - Totally. [1:07:07] What's your choice? Yeah, the mints, thin mints and Samoas do the heavy lifting in terms of products. And they try to innovate. And like there was this like raspberry flavor and everyone like hated it. And they shelved it. So that's kind of the business of it. Mine is thin mint for sure. I don't have any other. I don't have any interest in any of the other cookies. Yeah. I'm pretty particular about my cookie though. And I only ever want to eat a cookie with a glass of milk. [1:07:29] Nice. I don't need a cookie without it. Nice. Any, like Oreo, a dry, raw Oreo, you're never going to find me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But a little glass of milk. Nice. Love it. Nice. Cow's milk. [1:07:40] Full of cow's mom. Of course. I will say... [1:07:43] not to be this way about it but do not show rfk the thin mints the calorie permit permit yeah that high i don't know how they can stuff so much into a calorie dense little cookie but man the way that i've had to approach it when i've gotten the boxes is [1:08:02] I keep them in the freezer.

[1:08:05] right there's no other way to store them okay yeah i take three out uh-huh i put it back in the freezer yeah [1:08:12] I can't go back in the freezer. No. So that helps. Because if they're there, oh my gosh. It's like, oh my gosh. It's like, no, totally. 150 calories per cookie. Oh, no way. You're wrong. I think it might be. [1:08:22] That would be good. We're going to get a fact check on this. Either Samoa or Sinman. [1:08:29] calories per serving and let's see how big the serving size is [1:08:33] It's got to be, I think it's three crookies. [1:08:35] Yeah. [1:08:36] Oh, four cookies for hundreds. Oh wait, what cookie is that? [1:08:39] Yes. [1:08:40] Great, okay, that checks out. [1:08:44] approximately contains [1:08:45] - Wait, hold on. - That checks out. - One cookie is 40 calories. - 40 calories? - Yeah. I'm gonna put an order in. [1:08:58] - I didn't realize that. For some reason I thought I was doing it per cookie. - Okay, that's Girl Scouts? [1:09:04] Girl Scouts. So support your local Girl Scout. The cookie season is about to end, I believe. [1:09:10] Yeah, I think we're coming up on it. I saw when I was in San Francisco this past weekend and I passed a Girl Scout. [1:09:16] table yeah and honestly my feeling was [1:09:20] That's your stoop. [1:09:21] I don't need to buy cookies from you. Why? It was like a beautiful home. I was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, right, right, right, right, right. I don't feel like you, I don't need to support you. Yeah, the storytelling for that one was off. Off. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Go on the corner. Yeah. Don't go on the stoop. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[1:09:38] The last story here that we just, I know we've touched a little bit on it, but I think that there's... [1:09:44] I think the listeners would want to hear from us on the Open Claw acquisition. [1:09:49] So Peter [1:09:51] Steinenberger. Steinenberger. [1:09:54] Steinenberger. [1:09:57] - A creator of OpenCloth. - Yes. He is joining OpenAI to work on, quote, "next generation of personal agents." Yeah. [1:10:07] They are saying that open claw [1:10:09] will remain open source but will move into the foundation of open ai we've heard this from open ai before calling yeah it's like [1:10:19] We've heard it... [1:10:21] Just... [1:10:22] Fool me once, shame on you. Exactly. Fool me twice. Exactly. And that opening, I will continue to support it. The main takes are a few things. One, the first thing. [1:10:33] Under three months. Start to finish. - Start to finish. - Crazy. - Wow. Cool. Undisclosed amount. [1:10:42] for the acquisition. Wait, sorry. Under three months start to finish from him starting the project to exiting to... [1:10:49] Yes. OpenAI. So just so we're clear, it wasn't a three-month negotiation to purchase it. It was three months from creation to... Unbelievable stuff. And the acquisition amount undisclosed, but both OpenAI and Meta reportedly... [1:11:04] made billion-dollar acquisition offers to OpenClaw before he chose OpenAI.

[1:11:11] And there was a lot of FUD on the timeline. A few things that I'd just like to clear up on the timeline is that one, that people like to talk about Peter's story. And they, he basically created PDFs. [1:11:24] the technology that allows for pdfs he sold that company for i think just a new one sarah please didn't create the technology to create [1:11:32] PDFs. It was something about like, [1:11:34] The kit. Like, he created a technology that allowed PDFs to be opened on a certain type of... Like, it was actually more niche than that. But it was related to opening up PDFs on a computer. Okay. Sold that for around $100 million. A lot of money. Is the acquisition. Then went dark. And then the FUD on the timeline is that he then... [1:11:57] Tried 46 other failed. You corrected me on this this morning because I was going to report fake news here. And 46... [1:12:05] GitHub. [1:12:07] projects that were failures. Yeah. And then the 47th was open claw. Yeah. [1:12:13] That is incorrect. Yeah. All of that, 46, was building to the 47. Was related to, yeah. So it's, that's FUD. People want to have like... [1:12:22] entrepreneurial, like, we're in the trenches, we're all doing it, we're all failing together. And like, that just wasn't true. He just, you know, he's two for two. Shots on gold. This guy. The other was that it was the first solo founder, solo operated company that had ever been acquired for a billion dollars. [1:12:41] And then I saw in the timeline that it was actually $30 million. Nobody knows. Okay. So that's not true either. Totally. All these independent one man entrepreneurs who are like, that's going to be me. It's probably not. Just to set the record straight. And the other was generational fumble from Anthropic who sued him instead of trying to acquire him. Yeah, Anthropic and I would say Zuck at Meta.

[1:13:06] Meta in all the AI stuff has been trying to position itself as like the open source, like friendly place. Yeah. They have a model llama that's open source. And so that would have been probably a good move by them, but it didn't come together. And Anthropic... [1:13:23] also [1:13:24] And the sort of lore behind the anthropic thing is that he, Peter had initially named it Claudebot, [1:13:30] And then... [1:13:32] there was like... [1:13:33] legal action that Anthropoc took because they have something called Claude Bot. [1:13:38] He was spelled with a W. They had it spelled Claudebot, which is like some sort of whatever. He had a pun. It was a pun. It was a pun. Yeah. And... [1:13:46] there was some sort of legal action that was either threatened or taken by Anthropic to Peter. And then he renamed it Moldbot and then realized that was like the worst name in the world. And so then changed it. [1:13:57] to open claw. Yeah. [1:13:59] And [1:14:00] Then, and yeah, just like sort of within that anthropic, [1:14:05] just didn't they didn't have vision they didn't have vision correctly there yeah i when i wrote an [1:14:11] the week that this went crazy i think it was two weeks ago and about the [1:14:17] thrice naming of it. [1:14:19] And I do have to tell you, as a brand marketer, I had some feelings. About Moldbot? No, about like... [1:14:27] If you have a great product, it doesn't really matter. [1:14:30] About the name. [1:14:31] about branding like yeah they fumbled like they renamed it three times in one week and it had absolutely zero effect on

[1:14:41] the efficiency of how quickly it distributed for brand marketers really tough to follow so that was tough but you know [1:14:48] Also, this might be a once in a lifetime technology that we're seeing from this man. Yeah. So there's also that. Although I'm starting to see stuff today that's like, everyone be honest. You guys don't have a use case for your open clause and you're all just like saying it. And so maybe the tides are turning on open clause. I love it. We use it. We have one in our Slack, but. [1:15:09] I could see like being... [1:15:12] an individual like if [1:15:13] the people that are using it to like manage their own schedules and stuff. [1:15:16] I don't know. It does kind of feel like overkill for stuff like that. But certainly for businesses and for the way we're using it, it's great. A few questions for you. One, do you have any fears on the privacy front at all? A hundred percent. Okay. A lot of fears. In fact, I'm nervous even saying that we have an open claw bot on our Slack because... [1:15:35] I do think that they're working very hard and very quickly to patch up any security vulnerabilities. And I think there's a lot of people who are incentivized to make sure that [1:15:43] Totally. Stuff stays tight. It's secure, yeah. But like, I certainly am being very diligent with what access we give it and what... Honestly, what I'm more... [1:15:53] concerned about is [1:15:55] Like, for example, with like social profiles... [1:15:58] I haven't given it our... [1:16:00] logins and stuff. And there's kind of workarounds where you can like log in on the computer and you don't have to share the logins and it can kind of access it. But I'm more concerned about like an unintentional leak thing

[1:16:12] versus like the open clogged [1:16:15] doing something malicious itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Like there being some bigger... [1:16:20] - Yeah. - Systemic. - Systemic leak versus something smaller. So that's what concerns me there. [1:16:27] And then second... [1:16:28] Can you just high level walk through the process of setting it up? It's, [1:16:32] I... [1:16:34] You're in terminal. [1:16:36] Let's continue that. [1:16:38] - You're in terminal. - On a different device. - Yeah, so basically-- - You give it its own device. - Yeah, and the reason that you wanna give it its own device is-- [1:16:46] for those security reasons. [1:16:48] primarily. You want it to have its own sandbox to play in. So did you wipe that computer? I bought a Mac mini. You did buy... Oh, you bought a Mac mini? Bought a Mac mini. They're about 500 bucks. I went to Costco and bought one. Oh, cool. Yeah. I mean, it's expensive, but it's not like buying a new laptop. Yeah. And you have it, you set it up on its... [1:17:06] Mac mini, [1:17:07] Or that you don't have to get a Mac Mini, you can get other things, but that's what we got. And... [1:17:13] you want it on its own device so that it is sandboxed? [1:17:16] with what it can access, like firewalled against your other stuff with what it can access. And also it can stay, you can keep it always on. So like, [1:17:25] our cloud bot that's in our Slack is always responsive because I have the settings set up on that Mac Mac on that mini Mac that [1:17:32] It means it stays on all the time. Okay. So those are the reasons. And... [1:17:37] setting it up, like, it doesn't take that long. [1:17:40] You have to choose a model, like an LLM. What model do you want to plug it into? It's open, so you can plug it into...

[1:17:48] You could plug it into Llama. You could plug it into Anthropoc stuff. And so... [1:17:54] you're in terminal following like, [1:17:56] prompts prompts and then [1:17:58] you're going over to troubleshoot on like the CloudBot Discord. Okay. And, but it's fairly simple. [1:18:05] There's stuff, this... [1:18:08] questions and like weird stuff starts to come up mostly when you're [1:18:12] trying to, when you're trying to then integrate it to other systems that you have, like pulling it into Slack. [1:18:19] was fairly complicated because I had to like create an app. Like that's where it gets... [1:18:24] harder. [1:18:25] more than setting it up okay making it work for you is where like the work is the tension is and then now [1:18:30] training it totally [1:18:32] your patience with it. I like have gone back and forth. There's one chat that's like, I think there's 175. Literally, I was like, [1:18:39] I'm sorry that happened to you or I'm happy. Like, I think it was that. I think we were almost hitting 200. I was like trying to get it to... [1:18:49] Be smart. Be smarter. Be smarter. It was doing some stupid things. [1:18:53] But honestly, we keep talking about this K-shaped economy. You're either using AI or you're in the generational... [1:19:00] Permanent underclass. And I just, I'm not willing to... [1:19:04] risk it. I'm not willing to risk that when it's right here and it's easy. It's easy at least at this point to be [1:19:11] messing around with and seeing how we can make it work for us. I will say like it's terrible at creative work. [1:19:17] Really bad. Really bad. Have not cracked that yet. Its ideas are like really bad. The ideas, but also like there's all these tweets that are going viral that are like, oh, I set up my Gaba to make a thousand UGC videos that are all going viral on TikTok on my viral TikTok content farm. Yeah. And...

[1:19:36] that to get from where we are to that, I have not yet found that path. I think that people [1:19:42] that might be [1:19:44] I don't know, maybe if people have figured it out, if so, let me know. But for us, what's been most [1:19:49] useful is like operational... [1:19:52] organizing stuff, pulling news briefs. Yeah, you, it read us to... [1:19:57] absolute filth it did on monday [1:20:00] You said, can you run a report based on your monitoring of our Slack on optimization opportunities [1:20:07] and efficiency gains using automations. [1:20:11] And Gigi Claudide said, based on scanning 53 channels, which we have too many channels, there's five of us who work at Boys Club. Here's what I'm seeing. [1:20:20] One, analytic reporting is manual and painful. Two, invoicing and expense tracking. Hashtag operations. Content pipeline has no central tracker. Guest booking is ad hoc. Link slash trend sharing is high volume but unorganized. Partner channels have fragmentation. Social post tracking... [1:20:39] Basically non-existent. Quick wins. And then in each one, it's like... [1:20:44] you guys suck at this. Yeah, totally. Like, this is fragmentation, [1:20:51] messy link dropping links in here and there wrong channels i was like okay i think we may need to [1:20:58] Delete. [1:20:59] And start again. Yeah, totally. Yeah. But I will say, I don't know. I'm just like, I'm committed to figuring it out. You really are. And I am grateful and...

[1:21:09] feel... [1:21:10] I know I need to lock in on it and I just... You can ask at any time to do anything you want. I know, I know, I know. But like, you can just, anything you think of, you can ask it. Yes. To do. [1:21:20] Just try it, because then it will... [1:21:23] you'll learn like what it [1:21:25] can do or what it can't do. But even like, [1:21:27] What was a big time saver for us, Kate? Oh, we had it downloading videos. Yeah, that was huge. But that's the only useful thing I've seen it do. [1:21:33] That and analytics on social stuff. [1:21:35] Everything else feels like it. - Analytics, news polls. It is useful for news polls. - Okay. [1:21:42] it does lie. It does lie. It hallucinates. Yeah. There was something that came with the other day that I was like, where did you get this stat? And they were like, oh, we just like wanted to bolster your argument. And I was like, what? That's lying. We just wanted to bolster your argument. Okay. So that's that. Well, thank you for being here with us today. Such a fun. Yeah. And chat. [1:22:04] And [1:22:06] Thank you to Jose and Octant and Anchorage for this episode. [1:22:12] This was fun. Thank you.