My Conversation with Naval Megasode

Hello and welcome. It's been 5 years since The Almanac of Naval first came out. And to honor that, Naval and I

out. And to honor that, Naval and I wanted to do a special edition for you.

We spent the day together and recorded over 4 hours of our conversation. Now,

we're sharing that here with you, updating and expanding the key ideas in the book. Like everything else in the

the book. Like everything else in the Almanac of Naval, this version is being made available for free in addition to the audio book available on your favorite platform.

This book has grown as a word-of- mouth phenomenon, being gifted and recommended, ultimately reaching millions of people all over the world in 40 languages. I hope you will help these

40 languages. I hope you will help these good ideas continue to spread. Uh, thank

you for joining us. Let's dive in. over

the last few years seeing you go deeper and deeper into David Deutsch's ideas and at least from my seat see the explanations that he puts forth and the connecting threads that

you draw into your sort of existing theories about building wealth and the how the definition of wealth evolves and expands and becomes universal and applies you know at the civilization

level in the same rules all the way down to like the decisions that you make as an individual. Deutsch had a better

an individual. Deutsch had a better definition of wealth than I did. My

definition of wealth was very focused by my desire to make money. And so my definition of wealth was assets that earn while you sleep.

And so I wanted to break out of the 9 to5 trap of the input tied to output trap. And I didn't want to have to work

trap. And I didn't want to have to work hard. You know, I'm I always used to say

hard. You know, I'm I always used to say I want to be the most successful guy for doing the least work in every aspect of my life. Not just in business, but you

my life. Not just in business, but you know, even my personal relationships, even my day-to-day happiness, even my exercise and work. I'm like all smart people, I'm lazy, right?

What's the highest leverage solution?

That's right. Laziness is a form of leverage, efficiency, what have you. And

it's not lazy in the sense that I want to sit around and do nothing. It's just

that then I have time to do other things. I can focus on my health. I can

things. I can focus on my health. I can

spend time with my children. I can

educate myself. I don't just have to be a drone working away. And so my definition of wealth was around, okay, let's break out of the 9 to-5 trap.

Let's have my assets work while I sleep.

And what are those assets that can work while I sleep? Well, capital is an obvious one. You know, you invest money,

obvious one. You know, you invest money, but what is that capital actually doing?

When you quote unquote invest capital, what you're doing is you're giving up the right to future assets that uh society owed you for having done work in

the past, assuming it was all properly earned. And then uh you're giving that

earned. And then uh you're giving that up so that businesses can employ people and use uh capital machinery to build new things.

Well uh another asset that could earn while you sleep is just a piece of a business. It could be literally a

business. It could be literally a machine, a 3D printer working while you're sleeping. It could be a computer

you're sleeping. It could be a computer doing computation. It could be a GPU

doing computation. It could be a GPU cluster computing the next AI model. It

it could be a organization, a process of people who are operating a certain way and you kind of check in and make sure the assembly and the goals and all those pieces are correct and some of them working in different time zones in

different hours. Could be intellectual

different hours. Could be intellectual property.

It could be intellectual property. It

could be a piece of media that's out there that just continues to circulate um and people either pay for or it gets you access or notoriety or something else. So, exactly. So that was my

else. So, exactly. So that was my definition of wealth and I think it's a good practical definition of wealth if you're just trying to make money.

See, but David Deutsch's definition of wealth is deeper and more philosophical. Um,

and it extends and scales really nicely all the way from a society or civilization down to a single individual. And his definition of wealth

individual. And his definition of wealth is the set of physical transformations that you can affect. Effect as in bring into existence. So an example of that

into existence. So an example of that would be okay well if I have a lot of money stored up then I have wealth because I can go buy a machine and the machine could be as simple as a backhoe

that's digging trenches or building houses or it could be uh you know I can uh hire people to go do something or uh you know etc. So there's definitely a

huge stored capital component to it. But

the bigger part of wealth is again it's a set of physical transformations that you can affect. And the vast majority of the capability to create physical

transformations comes from technology and it comes from leverage technology.

Like 10 cavemen or 10 paleolithic people wouldn't have the same ability to change things as 10 modern humans do. And

that's because of knowledge. If you pay careful attention, you realize that knowledge is the big multiplier. It's

not the capital. So this is one thing where Marx was completely wrong. One of

the many reasons why Marxism completely fails. Leave aside the obvious that it,

fails. Leave aside the obvious that it, you know, wrong incentives is that the value is not in the capital. It's not in the factories. It's in the knowledge. If

the factories. It's in the knowledge. If

you removed Elon Musk from SpaceX, you can't capture his wealth. It disappears

because the knowledge just disappears.

SpaceX is less valuable. It is not a pie to be divided up. It is a a group of very intelligent people held together by a common mission who are continually affecting change and you're funding them

and betting on that.

It's not a piece of gold that you can slice off a chunk and take it and then melt it down. Um even that by the way doesn't have much value. Gold doesn't

have much value. Gold is a pointer to actual value. It's just a scarce metal

actual value. It's just a scarce metal you can use to trade value. But the

actual value is not in the gold. The

value is in the people doing things. So

as a society gains new knowledge, it becomes wealthier. as an individual

becomes wealthier. as an individual gains new knowledge, they become wealthier. Um, you know, yes, for

wealthier. Um, you know, yes, for example, I am wealthy by conventional standards, but my earning power is also the highest it's ever been. Why? Because

I have tremendous knowledge and people have knowledge that I have knowledge and so because of that, I can affect change at a very big level. What do I get famous for for doing my startups? No,

not really. Um, what am I proudest of startups? I don't know. Startups come

startups? I don't know. Startups come

and go, you know. I'm proud of it in the sense that I got to be a man in the arena and I got to actually do something. You know, what I seem to have

something. You know, what I seem to have gotten popular for is just for uh thinking through and then articulating things in a certain way and that's knowledge, right? And uh this brings me

knowledge, right? And uh this brings me back to earlier we were talking about, you know, timeless knowledge and wisdom and kind of modern knowledge. Modern

knowledge like knowledge about things, knowledge how to build cars and computers and robots and all that. That

knowledge is transmissible. one person

can discover it, they can convey it to the next person. The next person can then, you know, take it on and duplicate and copy it makes everybody wealthier.

Knowledge about human nature, knowledge about what is a good life, what is the purpose of life. Uh, you know, as Aristotle said, "Dudemania or I'm saying that wrong. I'm not I don't speak Latin

that wrong. I'm not I don't speak Latin or Greek."

or Greek." It's a lot of vowels.

Yeah, it's a lot of vowels, but it's basically like, you know, how do you live a happy life? Like that that's a very practical philosophy. That

knowledge, that wisdom is very hard to convey. Wisdom is very simple. If wisdom

convey. Wisdom is very simple. If wisdom

could be communicated, we'd all be wise and we'd all be done. But it always has to be stitched in with personal experience and it has to be recreated inside the listener. You cannot just

copy. It's not a process that you can

copy. It's not a process that you can copy. So wisdom is something that you

copy. So wisdom is something that you need to hear over and over and over again. And you need to hear it in a

again. And you need to hear it in a thousand different ways, in a thousand different contexts until you're going through your own life. And then you do something and then it clicks and you're like, "Oh, this guy said that in this

particular way and that resonates with me in this moment." And then you think it through and you stitch it into your worldview. It becomes part of your value

worldview. It becomes part of your value system. And the problem is if you've

system. And the problem is if you've already heard it said a certain way either too early or too many times, it's a cliche and everyone's going to roll their eyes, right? So like one of the things I think some of the greatest

wisdom in the world is in nursery rhymes, right? Like row row row your

rhymes, right? Like row row row your boat. like find me a greater piece of

boat. like find me a greater piece of wisdom than that. It's very hard. Row,

row, row your boat gently down the stream, right? Merrily, merrily,

stream, right? Merrily, merrily, merrily, my life is but a dream. There's

a lot of wisdom in that. Life is like a river, right? It is kind of flowing.

river, right? It is kind of flowing.

It's flowing at a certain pace. You do

want to rogue. You don't want to just sit there. You want to be gentle about

sit there. You want to be gentle about it. You don't want to splash around too

it. You don't want to splash around too hard. Um, you want to keep a good

hard. Um, you want to keep a good attitude. Merrily, life is a dream cuz

attitude. Merrily, life is a dream cuz the whole thing disappears and you're gone, right? So, there there's a there's

gone, right? So, there there's a there's a lot of wisdom in there. And it's

packaged in a clever way that it persists across time with rhyming and you can even commit children in simple words. But at the same time, if I gave

words. But at the same time, if I gave that to you as wisdom in a book, you would just laugh cuz it's too cliche.

It's too simple. You you heard it too early. Um in some ways,

early. Um in some ways, yeah, I feel like the the nal detractors quote unquote the most common criticism is like, oh, it's it's fortune cookie or it's a cliche or everybody knows that.

And my response is like that's Lindy.

Like yeah, cliche is Lindy. All I'm trying to do there is, and I'm saying it mostly for myself, so even when I edit my tweets, cuz I think I'm more likely to remember it in a different way than I originally

phrased it, is I'm trying to say something true in an interesting way. That's literally

it. And even if the truth has been said before, and any truth about human nature has been said before, it is a repetition by definition, I don't mind repeating it because it's in an interesting way, and

I just figured it out in such a way that it's going to stick with me. And maybe

someone else there will figure it out in a way that'll stick with them when I say it this way. And more interestingly, maybe they'll say something back which will cause me to re-evaluate and expand

what I just thought. Uh and maybe I'll meet someone interesting. That's why I tweet. Yeah.

tweet. Yeah.

And so anything having to do with any topic that is not brand brand new is going to be cliched. So if you want to only stick to brand new topics, what are you left with? Well, you're left with

contemporary storytelling like what did Kim Kardashian have for breakfast or what policies Donald Trump fighting with the Supreme Court justice or whatever over today. To me, that stuff is it's

over today. To me, that stuff is it's entertaining, but if that's all we're going to talk about, then please leave.

Like, I don't find that additive to my life in any way.

Or we can talk about things that are new. We can talk about the latest

new. We can talk about the latest breakthrough in an AI model. We can talk about the latest way to do image generation or we can talk about the latest like way that you know people are building drones or what have you, but

only a very very small number of people are qualified to talk about that.

They're not necessly putting all those breakthroughs on Twitter. Nor are you there to absorb deep technical information each time. Nor can most of us tell apart what's real from what's not and what's hyping and what's fake.

So I feel like if you're going to discuss anything important and timeless, you are absolutely going to run into cliches.

Yeah. David Deutsch, the definition of wealth connected with the ethics of wealth creation. I think

that was one seeing the connections between knowledge, wealth, and ethical wealth creation was a huge unlock cuz I think that's maybe the biggest precursor that gets people stuck before even

internalizing the rest of the ideas in the thread is like if you don't believe ethical wealth creation is possible, you will reject the whole game.

That's right. Yes. Uh you you will get bitter too early. Yeah.

And you know, it kind of sucks when people do that. Like the common critiques of capitalism are all around cronyism or sort of, you know, the Federal Reserve money printing or handing out favors to bankers and so on.

There's no question when when money is involved, when wealth is involved, not just a portion of the efforts, but the majority of efforts will go into siphoning controlling defending

fighting over, slicing up wealth. The

majority. If you look in nature, there are six times as many species that are parasites. as are sort of standalone,

parasites. as are sort of standalone, right? So most things are eating each

right? So most things are eating each other uh and trying to live off of something else. And there's a few that

something else. And there's a few that are like reaching for the sun in the sky and you know trying to survive. And so

it's just always seems easier to people to grab something than to create something. And when society ends up with

something. And when society ends up with too many people focused on slicing up the pie then baking it, then those societies collapse. And it's easy to be

societies collapse. And it's easy to be cynical. I mean, you watch the bank

cynical. I mean, you watch the bank bailouts. you kind of watch. But I I

bailouts. you kind of watch. But I I would argue none of that is free market capitalism. That is government

capitalism. That is government intervention through and through. You

know, picking winners, picking losers, which is not to say that capitalism means everybody plays fair. Well,

capitalism is you come up with a minimum structured set of rules, the minimum viable that allows people to play the fair game where a lot of the energy that would get directed into stealing

property or fighting each other gets channeled into creating property. So

that's why the basis of capitalism is respect for private property. If I

improve a piece of land or if I create something, I can keep that improvement.

And yes, you have to figure out how to deal with the externalities of pollution and with public goods and so on and so forth. But you know, basic free market

forth. But you know, basic free market capitalism figured that out to a pretty large extent and has been responsible for the greatest increase in wealth and you know, human flourishing in history.

And people forget that, you know, they they don't spend enough time looking at places where people are living on a dollar a day or don't have the ability to protect private property. Like those

society just melt down into full-on just warfare. Um

warfare. Um we don't think about like a capitalism quality score.

That's right. That's what it should be.

Like the US is what like onethird or 40% now socialist because that's how much is just GDP controlled by the government.

And then there's by state, federal, and local governments. And then you've got

local governments. And then you've got another 20 or 30% this is drawn by regulation or it's in sectors like education, healthcare which are basically quasi government run. So even

here the private sector is quite small and shrinking and it's just like how much of a load can that carry before you know people give up or they flee or actually the failure case for the US is the best and brightest no longer

immigrate here. Um so I I do think like

immigrate here. Um so I I do think like you can focus on all that. You can focus on the unfairness of that all uh and you can melt down and break down right there. But at the same time, this is the

there. But at the same time, this is the greatest period for wealth creation in human history. There's more knowledge

human history. There's more knowledge being created. There's more capital

being created. There's more capital being created. There's more leverage

being created. There's more leverage being created than any other time. So,

if you're moderately intelligent and you're not afraid of working hard and you're flexible, you can do extremely well. Uh, and you kind of have to get it

well. Uh, and you kind of have to get it outside of your mind that the whole game is rigged. Yeah. It's just like, look,

is rigged. Yeah. It's just like, look, in life, um, there is a lot of luck. The

fact that you even exist is luck. You

know, there's a lot of factors out of your control, but life is long. People

are very consistent. Compounding does

work. And you can rise past the luck just through sheer force of will and hard work. And if you don't believe in

hard work. And if you don't believe in that, then yes, you're a cynic. And

cynics, their beliefs are self-fulfilling. You will be stuck in

self-fulfilling. You will be stuck in the mud. However, people who are

the mud. However, people who are optimistic, willing to work hard, and willing to look past the unethical or luck based nature of it all, they're the only ones who have a chance. And at

least my experience has been is that those people do well on long time scales. So it might be 10 to 30 years.

scales. So it might be 10 to 30 years.

It's not going to be two years. There's

no get-rich quick schemes. Um you know that's just someone selling you something. Uh so on a long enough time

something. Uh so on a long enough time scale you can rise out of the muck. But

it starts with believing that it's possible. If you don't think it's

possible. If you don't think it's possible then yes it's impossible for you. Uh and I think this is a common

you. Uh and I think this is a common theme you will notice across the great entrepreneurs that Steve Jobs and Elon Musk you know they take on what they consider to be impossible tasks because they kind of look around they say well

if other people can do it why can't I?

Um so I I think that that mindset is super important. What I like about

super important. What I like about Deutsch also is that he has a very optimistic view on this. It's not just a belief. He really does structure it in

belief. He really does structure it in good explanations as to why human progress happens. And he says we should

progress happens. And he says we should be optimistic because we discovered this model in the British enlightenment which was their philosophical movement where

we basically figured out that we can advance science and society through the quest for good explanations which means that we are truth seeeking. We're making

conjectures. Those conjectures are open to criticism. Every conjecture can be

to criticism. Every conjecture can be criticized and then we hold them up to experiment. We test theories against

experiment. We test theories against each other. we find out what works and

each other. we find out what works and whatever works we uh circulate and promulgate to other people and then we advance society forward and he's shown that that is how we've been operating

for the last few hundred years and time periods like this have existed in the past maybe during the Italian Renaissance maybe during the Greek sort of enlightenment age um maybe during the industrial revolution onwards and we

would be foolish to lose that or extinguish that you know by by being anti-rational or saying there's no such thing as truth or by giving up the quest for good explanations by banning criticism. That's you know what uh

criticism. That's you know what uh censorship does um or by believing that certain people like you know big science always has the answers. So there is

reason to be optimistic as long as we don't let go of this method of advancing and this method of conjecture and criticism leading to good explanations is the real scientific method. You know

we get taught the scientific method when we're kids. That's not really how it

we're kids. That's not really how it works. That's like a very idealized

works. That's like a very idealized fiction test tube laboratory version.

But the reality is that under the right circumstances, given the right freedoms, we're constantly scientific about everything in our lives. Every person is trying to improve their life. So

everyone who cares about being healthy and fit is a little scientist running all the different experiments of which kind of diet works for me, which kind of exercise works for me. And uh you know,

they're constantly making new hypotheses. They're hearing new

hypotheses. They're hearing new hypotheses. They're trying new things.

hypotheses. They're trying new things.

They're seeing what worked and what didn't. So they're doing the same thing

didn't. So they're doing the same thing in their own way. And all truth seeeking systems work this way. So in science you can call it conjecture and criticism. In

uh technology and business you can call it uh you know innovation and just the companies going out of business, right?

Companies create things and the ones that fail go out of business. Um in

evolution you can call it you know mutation. The genes mutate. uh and then

mutation. The genes mutate. uh and then selection the ones that didn't uh you know didn't cut it are literally removed from the gene pool. But all truth seeeking work systems work this way

which is we we make conjectures either random conjectures like in mutation or deliberate conjectures like in science or through technology innovation or business innovation and then there is a

filtering process and even Talb talks about this in a completely different way. He has this whole skin of the game

way. He has this whole skin of the game thing. And skin of the game isn't just

thing. And skin of the game isn't just merely, oh, I have my own money at stake. Skin of the game is uh I get cut

stake. Skin of the game is uh I get cut out over time if I don't succeed. If I

take risk, I should bear the risk.

That's what he considers bad capitalism when other people bear a risk. You know,

that's what banksters do. Um good

capitalism is when I take a risk and then I bear the consequences or the rewards of that risk. Which is why to tell them the most ethical thing you can do is be a risk taker. you be an entrepreneur, you go and you bear risk.

Don't pass it off to other people or society. Um, and then the skin in the

society. Um, and then the skin in the game arises not from the fact that you had some skin in the game, but that over time the people who were bad risktakers got weeded out and they either lost

capital, they lost their lives, or they lost their reputations. And the people who were good risktakers ended up benefiting and then spreading the benefits that they gained to the rest of society. So even his skin of the game

society. So even his skin of the game phrasing is somewhat isomorphic to Deutsche's conjecture and criticism.

Yeah, I think that's a um that's why accountability was such an important reframe from entrepreneurs take risk because accountability bakes in this you personally bear the upside and the

downside. You don't want you don't want

downside. You don't want you don't want risk for risk's sake. You want to conspicuously directly and publicly take a risk.

Yeah. This is why I think Buffett and Munger were a little opposed to investment banks going public because investment banks used to be partnerships, LLC's where uh the

individual partners would take on risk.

LLC's only protect you so much. If the

partners do something bad, you can have risk flow through to them. On the flip side, once you go public as a big faceless corporation, you can hide behind the CEO. can be on the board and

you know they can take risks that can bankrupt society. Society has to bail

bankrupt society. Society has to bail them out um because they kind of levered up and they put the whole financial system at risk. Um but somehow they themselves still get paid and walk scot-free and get to keep their assets

their personal assets. They're fine. So

it's this pushing risk off into society through a corporate liability shield. I

think you know Buff and Mer pointed out that that was not a good thing. Yeah,

Mer is a great, you know, the people who make unethical behavior impossible are some of the effective saints of the civilization, right? So, he talks about double entry

right? So, he talks about double entry bookkeeping and a cash register and so on. Yeah. I mean, the problem is

on. Yeah. I mean, the problem is unethical is it's a fuzzy line, right?

Different people had different morality.

It's easier to be moral when you're not in the ring yourself doing anything or fighting anything or building anything cuz then you can just get on your moral high horse. So, academics and

high horse. So, academics and journalists can pretend to be the most moral people when they don't actually do anything, right? So uh on the flip side

anything, right? So uh on the flip side you have like for example in the AI race you know people are swallowing up all the copyrighted content then later saying oops you know sorry I ate your

homework and spit it back out. So it's

this is a difficult conversation it's not like a one-sizefits-all glib answer.

Is is there a sense where ethics and morals around how we conduct capitalism is like the bottleneck of progress? Um,

you're saying are ethics or morals a bottleneck to progress?

Yeah. As we think about like how effective capitalism is in relation to how many people are makers versus takers.

Yeah.

And there's culture and there's regulation and there's there's so many inputs to that.

Yeah, there are. I mean, I think the actually the biggest impediment to progress I think is believe it or not, I think it's size, right?

Of what? size of institutions, size of countries, uh size of groups because the larger the group you have, the more group think you have. And uh groups don't admit mistakes. Groups don't seek

for search for truth. Groups groups

search for consensus. Only individuals

are very small teams of people can search for truth. Large groups have to have consensus or they fall apart. They

fight with each other and they degenerate. So groups don't change their

degenerate. So groups don't change their minds. Groups don't apologize. You know,

minds. Groups don't apologize. You know,

it's mobs. And so I think the best situation comes from when you have small groups of people who are each responsible for both the benefits and

the losses. They have skin at the game

the losses. They have skin at the game that are able to take risks. Um so for example in religion you know you want to see uh back in Europe when it was hundreds of religions and they were each

trying their own thing and you know they came to the new world and then you kind of got to see which worked and which didn't. Um, in technology and in

didn't. Um, in technology and in business, you want to see lots of city states with different policies. You want

to see lots of companies competing with each other. So, humans do best when

each other. So, humans do best when we're small groups competing.

But the problem with this is that competition breaks into warfare. So,

religions, you know, responsible for a lot of bloodshed when they're next to each other. These little city states

each other. These little city states always end up fighting and being consolidated. Um, these little

consolidated. Um, these little businesses, uh, you know, they end up being swallowed up by larger ones or there's monopoly effects when one of them ends up in charge. So an ideal

society really understands how to federalize, how to create lots and lots of small competing but not in a physical

kinetic uh competition but in a virtual uh competition figures out how to get harness all of that energy that competitive energy to create great things. And so the US benefited from

things. And so the US benefited from being federalist from having 50 states with 50 different um regulatory systems and 50 different you know experiments being run on the governance level and it

benefits from capitalism which is lots of small companies competing. But where

it breaks down is when you have a small number of big monopolies or you have like big banks that have taken over the government or the government running education and healthcare or when you end up with uh all 50 states only being

allowed to compete in small things but you have three-letter agencies and giant federal taxes running everything from DC. So that's when the system starts

DC. So that's when the system starts breaking down. So I think that the most

breaking down. So I think that the most flourishing systems are the ones where you have small countries, you have small tribes and you have small companies competing against each other in a

nonviolent way. And the whole trick is

nonviolent way. And the whole trick is how do you keep them each sovereign and from not making it kinetic and overrunning each other physically. To

me, that would be the most moral system because you can't get us all to agree on what's moral and what's ethical, right?

That's an impossible thing. Uh that's

why the whole AI alignment thing is a joke. We can't even align humans. how we

joke. We can't even align humans. how we

going to align AIs. All AI alignment really boils down to his practice is the owner or inventor or creator of that AI, you know, wants to put on a leash and tell it what to do.

Yeah, it's very easy to be um sort of aligned with people when we have a focus only on what we ourselves and what we control and decisions that we make for ourselves. But as soon as I start to I

ourselves. But as soon as I start to I think it's morally and ethically necessary to control what you do now all of a sudden we have a real disagreement about morals and ethics.

That's right. There's incentive

alignment which is you know I can give you equity in the same business and then we're incentive aligned. Although you

may still choose to ignore that incentive and do something different.

But really all other forms of alignment tend to boil down to coercion. Right?

Maybe we're aligned uh because we're part of the same religion. We're part of the same tribe. We live in the same household. We're doing the same business

household. We're doing the same business together. But the moment you're talking

together. But the moment you're talking about aligning strangers who don't live next to each other that don't have kinship, I think the only way you can align them is by clubbing one of them until they pay. You know, they listen,

that's just authoritarianism. That's

just force. That's violence. That's

warfare, which undergurs everything.

Like society runs on this thin veneer of civilization, but ultimately underneath the people with the guns are always in charge. And sometimes they forget it for

charge. And sometimes they forget it for a decade or two decades at a time, but either they take back over or someone from the outside comes in and takes over. Which is why I think as a society

over. Which is why I think as a society we have too many frivolous laws being passed where people pretend like the law is not being enforced by people with guns. Every law down to like your

guns. Every law down to like your parking ticket is enforced by somebody with a gun because if you don't pay that parking ticket, then they're going to summon you to court. And then if you don't go to court, uh then they're going to send somebody to your house. And if

you don't answer that, then they'll put out a warrant for your arrest. And if

you don't uh turn yourself in, then people with guns will come after you.

So, at the end of the day, if you just follow that down, it's amazing how few people seem to realize this. But

everything is enforced by people with guns. And then those people with guns,

guns. And then those people with guns, you're giving them guns and telling them to enforce laws. And of course, it's human nature, especially as that organization becomes larger, they will start enforcing it preferentially. You

know, they'll enforce it a little bit harder against their enemies and a little bit softer against their friends.

It's like that South American dictator who famously said, you know, um for my friends, uh everything for my enemies, the law, right? Because the law is just

whatever the biggest gang agrees upon.

And as a society, we become very disconnected for that. Especially in

modern democracies where people who don't have any physical power, any stake in the system are voting to control people who do have physical power. It

creates an unstable situation. And you

know we we might end up in a situation where well I don't know this is this is actually a very interesting question. Do

we end up with more city states in the future? Do we end up with more small

future? Do we end up with more small dictatorships or small kinships of organized people with weapons carving out little thiefs? Or do we oify into a

small number of very large states? Um in

my mind there's nothing worse than a global government like a single government running everything cuz it's a one-sizefits-all. It's a panopticon and

one-sizefits-all. It's a panopticon and it's much more likely to end up like you know China or Russia kind of control them democratic the truly democratic

republic. Um and even because

republic. Um and even because democracies have a habit of electing dictators and that's a one-way street.

I want to see if we can play with some of the David Deutsch ideas in a business and judgment context. Right. Um if good explanations are hard to vary or good products hard to vary.

Absolutely. Good products are hard to vary. So hard to vary means that you

vary. So hard to vary means that you can't change the details without the thing breaking or falling apart or no longer being a good explanation. So one

of the ways you recognize them is you look back at the explanation and you say, "Well, how could it have been otherwise? There's no there's no other

otherwise? There's no there's no other thing which would fit all the facts."

It's like when you put a puzzle piece in the right spot in a puzzle like, "Oh, of course it had to be that one because no other piece will fit if it doesn't have this piece and this part and this part jutting out and this hole over here." So

the same way good products are hard to vary. So if you look at an iPhone for

vary. So if you look at an iPhone for example, uh it's hard to change the characteristics of the iPhone without breaking what makes it great. And in

fact, their original form factor when they launched, I think it was in 2007 is still quite similar to the form factor today. It hasn't really changed, right?

today. It hasn't really changed, right?

They nailed the basic form factor same way with like the laptop form factor, right? It still hasn't changed back from

right? It still hasn't changed back from the original days. So good products are very hard to vary. they do have a very unique set of interlocking parts that

then allows them to be greater than the whole. You know, there's this concept in

whole. You know, there's this concept in complexity theory called emergence. And

emergence is when you take a whole bunch of different parts and you put them together and something new emerges that you did not expect. A new capability emerges. But one of the interesting

emerges. But one of the interesting parts is that the parts that you put together below, you didn't give them more freedom. You gave them constraints.

more freedom. You gave them constraints.

You actually locked them together in certain ways. And by constraining the

certain ways. And by constraining the way in which they could operate, some new capability emerged above. So it was the constraints that created the capability above. And so that's a little

capability above. And so that's a little counterintuitive, right? Cuz you would

counterintuitive, right? Cuz you would think more freedom leads to more freedom. No, in this case was

freedom. No, in this case was constraints. Same way like if you look

constraints. Same way like if you look at a corporation or a contract, a contract is a voluntary constraints that we enter into to go create something in the future. Like a marriage contract is

the future. Like a marriage contract is to go create children in the household.

Or like a company is a contract to go create an equity bearing entity where we agree in advance how we're going to split up the proceeds and who's going to do the work and how you going to get the capital. So to be able to create things,

capital. So to be able to create things, you actually have to be able to constrain things. Once the things are

constrain things. Once the things are locked together, they're hard to vary.

You can't remove a component, nor can you change a component without the thing falling apart. And and that's why like a

falling apart. And and that's why like a good product is simple. It actually

remove by simple it doesn't mean like inordinately simple. It doesn't mean

inordinately simple. It doesn't mean like Eli 5 simple necessarily but it means that you remove the parts that are unnecessary.

Elegant.

Ele it's elegant. Yes. So there was a Antoine St. Exubery quote where he says

Antoine St. Exubery quote where he says you know the airplane wing is perfectly designed not because there's nothing left to add but because there's nothing left to take away. Right. You can't you can't take it away. It is platonic. It

is the platonic ideal of an airplane wing. It is hard to vary. So a good

wing. It is hard to vary. So a good product is similarly hard to vary. You

know, one of the conundrums that people come up with these days is why are all things converging on the same design?

Why do all cars look the same? Right?

It's because we're doing wind tunnel testing now and so we know that that's like the most efficient model and we want efficient. So all the cars now look

want efficient. So all the cars now look windswept. It's hard to vary out of that

windswept. It's hard to vary out of that design. Um unless you're doing it to be

design. Um unless you're doing it to be ironic or to stand out like maybe you know Elon with the Cybert truck like I got so much power I don't care. But I'll

bet you that thing is wind tunnel tested too. It's angular and wind tunnel tested

too. It's angular and wind tunnel tested as opposed to like streamlined and wind tunnel tested. Um, but good products are

tunnel tested. Um, but good products are hard to vary because they also encapsulate knowledge and as you gain knowledge, you put that into the product

and and what technology does is it's the automation of knowledge. You figure

something out and then you figure out how to automate it and then you figure out how to scale that automation. and

you figure out how to distribute that scale automation and that embedded knowledge is hard to vary cuz underneath that is a good explanation. Once you

figure out that, oh yeah, we can once you figure out how to make electric cars, once you have the knowledge for batteries, it's kind of inevitable that most cars will go electric. You may need some

off-road vehicles or military vehicles around gasoline for survivability reasons and disaster relief reasons, but for the average everyday consumer, they don't want to drive to the gas station and get smelly oil that can blow up on

them and put it into this Root Goldberg machine of parts and then have controlled explosions driving pistons while they, you know, go down the seat.

It's going to look in 50 years like the when you see those images of guys riding steam engines, you know, like the early cards are literally steam engines with boilers and coal. like it's going to look like that,

coal. like it's going to look like that, right? And once you figure out electric

right? And once you figure out electric cars, then you realize actually we we want electric cars. Not only so have to go to the gas station, they're less moving parts, it's easier to repair, it's less messy, it's less polluting. Uh

but also because if you want self-driving cars and electric cars do better cuz uh it's much easier for a car to recharge itself than it is for it to refuel itself. Uh and if you have

refuel itself. Uh and if you have swappable batteries, maybe you can operate 24/7 and very little downtime.

Uh and it can capitalize better, bring the cost down. So it becomes what it is.

Once you see electric cars working, you realize that that is a hard to vary product for the next generation. And so

I think all good products have this characteristic. Um, in a sense, if if

characteristic. Um, in a sense, if if you're selling multiple versions of your product, you better have a really good reason for that. Like a really good reason for that.

Well, that gets to the other one, which is good products have a surprising reach.

Absolutely. the great products just like good explanations they can reach to lots of applications that you never thought of. Um you know Steve Jobs and crew

of. Um you know Steve Jobs and crew never sat around with the iPhone or the iPad saying oh this will be great for uh you know Exxon and companies doing oil

work because there's a cool app for them for like figuring out their logistics and workflow and tracking. No, they

don't they don't go to that level. Or or

a more relevant example might be when the iPhone came along, you know, the Blackberry was entrenched in enterprise and Steve Bmer, God bless him, you know, made fun of the iPhone for not having a keyboard. Steve Bomber did lots of

keyboard. Steve Bomber did lots of things right, so I hate to pick him out.

I mean, he did very well for Microsoft and for himself, so maybe I won't call him out as much, but there were people who basically said, well, the BlackBerry is a keyboard. The enterprise will never tolerate a phone without a keyboard. And

what they didn't account for is that there's so many things solved by not having a keyboard, by having the multi-touch, and by having a great screen and software keyboard. And

nowadays voice, like nowadays, the last thing you want to do is add a keyboard to a phone. It's all going voice based thanks to AI. That once you've built that product, uh, it has reach and once

it reaches into every consumer's pocket, well, those consumers bring those products to work and they're like, why am I using a Blackberry at work and I'm using an iPhone at home and the iPhone is so much better? uh and the knowledge

is the Deutsch definition. Knowledge is

the thing that stays persistent in the environment. It replicates itself in the

environment. It replicates itself in the environment. Genes that are encode

environment. Genes that are encode proper knowledge on how to adapt into the environment, they replicate. Those

genes get passed down. Genes that are incorrect that are false. They do not replicate in the environment. They get

weeded out of the gene pool. The same is true of ideas. If I give you an idea for how to make money or if I give you even a general principle or I give you a specific thing to go out and do and it fails, you're not going to keep that

knowledge. You're not going to spread

knowledge. You're not going to spread that knowledge. So knowledge is

that knowledge. So knowledge is persistent in the environment. And once

you've created knowledge and once the knowledge of multi-touch screens was created, then the knowledge of keyboards was obsolete, at least in that context.

And the Blackberries got replaced by iPhones when people who brought their iPhones in from home and would use them at work instead of using Blackberries.

and the IT guys got outvoted cuz ultimately they're there to provide a service to the rest of the company and not to run the company. And then also technology has deeply winner take all

network effects. All technology does. It

network effects. All technology does. It

just is more obvious in some cases than others. Like something like a Facebook

others. Like something like a Facebook or a WhatsApp has an extremely visible network effect. Apple does too because

network effect. Apple does too because they're developer platforms. But even things like Amazon, which you would have thought would not have a network effect.

Back in the day, we thought there'd be zillions of e-commerce stores in um you know, involved in a uh in a death struggle to the bottom. Um turns out it's not the case. Turns out there's one huge winner and there just like the

internet does, which is it has one huge winner for everything and then has a long tale of very small players, but it destroys the middle. It destroys the mediocre middle, which was relying on geography or you know regulations to

survive. They get blown away by the mega

survive. They get blown away by the mega aggregator and then by a long tail. Um

but all of technology has network effects and has scale economies. So the

best product gets to amortize it development over the largest user base and so it has the most things thought through. It has the most support. Uh it

through. It has the most support. Uh it

has the most uh latest bleeding edge technology. Doesn't matter how rich you

technology. Doesn't matter how rich you are, you can't buy a better phone.

There's no amount of money you can spend to buy a better phone, the latest iPhone, the latest Android phone. Like

that's it, right? we all have access to the same phone because there is an R&D budget of hundreds of billions of dollars that has gone into the smartphone supply chain and into the current smartphone designs. So if you're

rich, all you can do is you can like encrust it with diamonds in a kind of a sad attempt to look special, but you really just look like an idiot. Or it's

like cars, like really expensive cars are not better. They're just weirder. Uh

I don't think there's a better car on the planet today than probably the Tesla Model Y. That's, you know, 2025. Like

Model Y. That's, you know, 2025. Like

objectively speaking, if you look at all the things that it does that other cars don't do, it's kind of the allaround best car. You can't spend a million

best car. You can't spend a million dollars to buy a better car. You can

just spend a million dollar to buy a goofier car um or a weirder car.

More extreme variables, more extreme. And then you're just

more extreme. And then you're just showing yourself as someone who's goofy and weird and trying to signal for status. And there's no worse way to

status. And there's no worse way to signal status than to be shown as trying to buy status.

I had this theory that as humans we're always searching for something perfect and permanent because that's the opposite of the life that we have which

is an imperfect and impermanent life and we can search for it in spirituality the quest for God we can search for it in science which is the quest for the grand unified perfect theory of everything

there is analoges in art and beauty in the cyine chapel trying to encapsulate something perfect for a long long period of time and So I feel like I personally

want to focus on that and there's a there's a struggle because you also want to look at new things. Um the world is always moving and advancing especially in the domain of things and objects and

learning and technology and science. You

want to look at the most recent things.

You don't want to learn the science from 30 years ago. You want to learn the science best we know today and the same about technology. And that has practical

about technology. And that has practical value knowing about AI or self-driving cars or robotics or what have you. So

it's always good to know about what's moving quickly and is on the forefront of knowledge but at the same time you also want to study the time lists and that's human nature human nature doesn't

change. So there you want to rely upon

change. So there you want to rely upon the olden people you know you want to read Schopenhau and you want to read you know the daqing and so on because uh or the Bible because people don't change

and so with my tweets I kind of struggle with uh or even with writing is podcasting thinking time that I spend what I struggle with is I want to spend a lot of time on the time list because that knowledge carries through the rest

of my life but I also want to spend time on the tying Lee which is the most modern stuff. Now there I have to look for the

stuff. Now there I have to look for the modern stuff that's actually useful.

It's actually the modern stuff about things like I want to know about AI. I

want to know about self-driving cars. I

want to know about robotics. I want to know about space travel and space exploration. I want to know about

exploration. I want to know about drones. But I don't want to know what

drones. But I don't want to know what you know Kim Kardashian is doing today.

Like that's useless knowledge. In fact,

I don't even need to know uh any lessons in human nature from her and her interactions with other people because those lessons have been written down better by Schopenhau or Kant or someone

like that in the past, right? Plato. So

when it comes to philosophy and human nature, that's timeless material. It's

worth learning. Uh it's somewhat cliched in the sense that uh we can get into what cliche is, but it's somewhat cliched. uh but at the same time it's

cliched. uh but at the same time it's very important to absorb because these are the deepest guiding principles you know philosophy is kind of the study of how to live a good life I think Aristotle call that udeania or something

like that probably saying the word wrong but uh that's worth studying but at the same time it's worth studying the ultraodern most recent stuff when it comes to the world of science and

technology and things at least for our book our work for our writing I don't like putting timely things in there and the trap is timely things that have nothing to do with knowledge of how

things work but rather knowledge of people or just gossip or news. I think a lot of people have said this Talb most recently that you know to see how worth it news is just read yesterday's newspaper right

what's the halflife of the information that you're consuming how long will it be relevant uh in the future is predominantly based on how long has it been relevant in the past

yeah this ties into a little bit with Deutsche's work which is he'll say good explanation one of the ways you know is a good explanation that is reach and reach across space and time so it

applies to lots of things that you didn't expect. Uh it explains things

didn't expect. Uh it explains things which you would think were out of its domain or or it was originally that theory was postulated to explain a local thing but it almost always ends up

explaining a global thing. Um so for example like in the axial tilt theory of the earth you know you might have come up with that to explain why there are seasons. Uh but then the seasons flip

seasons. Uh but then the seasons flip when you go to the southern hemisphere and you can't change that. You can't

take the part of the theory that explains seasons in the hemisphere in in the northern hemisphere and then throw it out when you get the southern hemisphere. That that theory has deep

hemisphere. That that theory has deep reach or wide reach. So the best theories are deep and wide. And you know another another completely different angle on

the same thing is Jed McKenna. He has

this uh I don't know if you ever read Jed McKenna, but he's kind of this crazy anonymous enlightened dude, right? And

he writes these really funny books starting with spiritual enlightenment as a damnest thing. And I highly recommend them for people who are not mystical, not spiritual at all, but yet they know something is off, something is missing,

something is wrong. It's like uh you know um I think it was Morpheus the way he describes the matrix. He goes a splinter in your mind, right? Do you

feel that Neo? It's like a splinter in your mind. Yeah. So if if you feel like

your mind. Yeah. So if if you feel like there's a splinter in your mind, uh Jed McKenna is a good starting point. And he

has this uh proof quote unquote of the existence of truth or God or what what have you. Mhm.

have you. Mhm.

Um and uh it's actually it's a rework of a very old proof by a monk named Anom.

Uh I don't know if he realized that, but it's a rework of an existing proof.

Anyway, it's not really a proof. It's

not a mathematical proof, but it does rely on this idea that hey, do you believe that truth exists? And if you believe that truth exists, then you know that's a different universe than one where you believe that there is no

truth, right? And if you believe that if

truth, right? And if you believe that if truth exists then do you believe that truth can be non-existent in a certain place or a certain time or it can be temporal and the answer is no. And so if

you kind of follow that chain of reasoning you realize that truth would have to have the widest and deepest reach. Again it would have to be this

reach. Again it would have to be this all-encompassing theory. So whether in

all-encompassing theory. So whether in science whether in spirituality whether in technology I think we're all just looking for something perfect and permanent. And as humans we're always

permanent. And as humans we're always going to be dissatisfied. the human mind will always be dissatisfied until it finds that and that's kind of the the drive for achievement and the more accomplished somebody becomes the more

they get to level up and go for something even broader even deeper even further so you know Deutsch for example isn't just content with being a mere physicist he's also studying what he

calls the four deepest theories computation theory of evolution by natural selection and epistemology because he's trying to explain everything in kind of a grand unified theory

Um, and you know, every philosophy at its core has to have some appeal to universality, right? To like explaining

universality, right? To like explaining everything. It's just it's just kind of

everything. It's just it's just kind of human nature. Even the whole current AGI

human nature. Even the whole current AGI craze, it's about like, oh, we're going to invent God. It's going to explain everything. This is the last technology.

everything. This is the last technology.

I don't know what it is about humans, but it keeps driving us towards that.

Everybody wants a theory of everything.

Is we're absolutists.

Yeah. Marxism is kind of that, you know, it's kind of like we're all equal. We're

all the same, you know, we're all consciousness. We're all just one. Where

consciousness. We're all just one. Where

obviously Marxism has lots of problems. I'm not going to sit here and critique Marxism all day long, although I would be happy to. But it is also that there's that universalist intent in there. So,

in a deep way, this quest for the answer to everything keeps seeping back into every endeavor of our lives. And whether

you realize it or not, it's always like lurking underneath.

You said that your sort of earning power is higher than it's ever been and been on a steady increase over time. I'm

curious to sort of break down the components of that. Like how has that changed? What are the inflection points

changed? What are the inflection points been? Even as you've sort of gotten more

been? Even as you've sort of gotten more retired, I guess you would say like less deliberate.

Yeah. To be fair, right now I'm like minimally retired. I'm working hard. I

minimally retired. I'm working hard. I

got a new company, right? Um in a way I'm probably I I'm probably putting in as much work as I ever have. Um, but you know, the vast majority of it goes into my new company, which I really care

about. Still in stealth mode. Um, but

about. Still in stealth mode. Um, but

you know, some of it goes into making a few investments here or there, helping out some people that I know in the ecosystem, plus my old companies. But in

terms of earning power, um, some of that comes from stored capital, so I can fund my own projects. Some of

that comes from reputation, so people will kind of trust me and, you know, fund me and so on. But a lot of it just comes through knowledge of knowing what to go after, how to structure a new

company, how to get it going, how to recruit good people, recognizing early on like, oh, don't bother recruiting that person even though they're good because they're too high ego, they won't fit in or don't sell too hard because

it'll just come unstuck later. Or go

after these kinds of people, you know, you need more technical builders at the beginning and less of the marketers and so on because otherwise you're just going to create too many requirements too early, etc., etc. So it's just a lot

of practical knowhow which has been folded into principles. You know there's kind of a there's learning curves to everything. I think it was it was either

everything. I think it was it was either Schopenhau or Senica is one of the two.

I think this was Senica where he basically said it's one of his letters to Lucilius. Uh he said something along

to Lucilius. Uh he said something along the lines of that uh the right way to learn is from the specific to the general and not from the general to the

specific. And what that means is like

specific. And what that means is like you do things in reality, you encounter reality, you test it, you learn from it, and then you generalize. And then that

lets you know when that maxim or that apherism or that principle or that value system, when it applies and when it does not. Because one of the problems with

not. Because one of the problems with picking up other people's values and apherisms, you don't know when they apply, when they don't. So when people say on Twitter, well, you contradicted yourself. It's like, well, using that

yourself. It's like, well, using that word a different way, it doesn't apply in this case. It's not, you know, even though I don't use a lot of adjectives, what I mean is in most cases, in the way that I'm thinking about it, this applies. And in other cases, the way I'm

applies. And in other cases, the way I'm thinking about it, this other thing applies. And I'm just giving myself a

applies. And I'm just giving myself a heristic, which is not to be blindly followed. And these people are looking

followed. And these people are looking for math proofs.

Yeah. You have the you came in with the frame of the specific when you created the general.

That's right. I created the general to help me uh navigate future specifics, but each situation is specific, you know, so it has it may have multiple general things applied to it that

compete and one of them overrides or multiple of them override. So that's how you go from the specific to the general.

But the opposite is when you go to academia. You know, you study too many

academia. You know, you study too many things in school. you learn all these grand theories and then out in the field you're spouting theories but you don't know which one applies where and when or you've just learned the wrong theory for

the current thing and that's when you kind of end up as what Nasim Talb says an IYI and intellectual yet idiot uh and it's basically someone who's overeducated and underpracticed

so is the recipe for building judgment then the combination of like these uristics these maxims these ideas and the experience to plug in to sort of lice them up

experience First you got to do first you know another televis is if you want to be a philosopher king first be a king right first become a king that's the harder one and that's the one that'll make you the process of becoming a king will turn you into a philosopher

automatically the process of become a philosopher will take you further from being a king and you won't be a very useful philosopher either by no hard and fast rules there are people who didn't do a lot practically speaking that were

incredible philosophers but they're very very very rare but yeah I mean you want to be in the arena like you know for example Elon I So you're working a book about him and he has general principles

but those principles come from doing things. He knows the value for example

things. He knows the value for example of speed right Elon is famous for how fast he does things and he gets to cycle time and things down and that is a core principle for him and he has a lot of

detailed implementations of what that means practically about okay engineers get to set their own requirements you know you always unblock everything you don't hide behind email he has all kinds

of I'm sure many many heruristics in his head that derive from that big principle but if I just sat around academia and somebody told me that speed is everything. Go with speed. I'd just be

everything. Go with speed. I'd just be kind of idiotic about it. I'd just be running around hyperventilating all the time. I wouldn't know how to apply it.

time. I wouldn't know how to apply it.

So, again, life is lived in the arena.

You have to do the things to learn the things. It's a mistake to just learn and

things. It's a mistake to just learn and not do. Uh when I was a kid, I was a big

not do. Uh when I was a kid, I was a big fan of reading and I used to read a lot.

I mean, I read hundreds, maybe thousands of books. I've lost count. And most

of books. I've lost count. And most

books I like I pick the books and I'll read them and I'll be like, "Oh [ __ ] I read this book 10 years ago. I just

forgot about it." And I'm like twothirds of the way through the book cuz before because I have a terrible memory for things that aren't that don't really stick with me or things that aren't incredibly useful. And I used to be

incredibly useful. And I used to be proud of that fact. And now I realize actually most of my reading was worthless. You know, it was all academic

worthless. You know, it was all academic book knowledge. A lot of it was just

book knowledge. A lot of it was just fiction. Uh and these days I read less.

fiction. Uh and these days I read less.

But I read very deliberately. I read

because I'm really interested in something and I'm trying to learn something or I'm trying to figure something out. and I'll read small

something out. and I'll read small amounts and then I'll think a lot. So,

I'll use that reading as more of a way to spark my own thinking rather than just kind of taking in things from other people and then regurgitating them back later. Um, like a lot of tallet doesn't

later. Um, like a lot of tallet doesn't stick with me. Like for example, his anti-fragile thing doesn't really stick with me cuz I can't find that many actual examples in my life where I can apply true anti-fragility cuz true

anti-fragility is not just resilience.

is that you actually get stronger through adversity and yes I can see some cases of that like you know her hor hermetic effects when you're you know weightlifting but there are a lot of cases where I don't find a practical

application of anti-fragility but I get why Taleb does it like his entire investing strategy is anti-fragile you know he the system collapses he makes more or it's just volatility in the system he makes more but I don't find as

many examples so the concept of anti-fragility doesn't stick with me and even though I know that's the book that most people think because I had the biggest impact on them and he values it the most. Uh it doesn't work for me. Uh

the most. Uh it doesn't work for me. Uh

so I don't read that book, but I'm always rereading a skin of the game. Uh

because that one has a lot of nuggets that I can apply that that that I can say, "Oh, that's the generalization of something that I had noticed in my specific life." So the minority rule is

specific life." So the minority rule is a good example. I keep seeing the minority rule show up everywhere. Um so

you you do you do need the practical applications in your life. you you have to do so even to the extent today that I want to become smarter and wiser that means I have to work yeah I was going to say you're

continuously injecting experience and principle correct yeah you start with experience you start with specific knowledge then the specific knowledge turns into more

generalized knowledge then you can take that and turn it into values which are you know to tie it into your existing values it improves your judgment and I think ultimately in this age of infinite

leverage Judgment is the most important thing. Like if you knew um where to

thing. Like if you knew um where to navigate, you know, people will pay you for that. The captain of a ship is

for that. The captain of a ship is chosen based on his ability to get the team together and tell them where we're going, inspire them to go there. Um so,

but where to go is the most important part. If you have two candidates for CEO

part. If you have two candidates for CEO of Apple, right, the most valuable company in the world currently, maybe it's Nvidia, but whatever. You have two candidates for the CEO of the company and one is right 80% of the time and one is right 85% of the time and the

company's worth trillions of dollars.

Who are you going to put in charge?

You'll pay that guy is right 85% of the time a lot more. Like you'll pay him billions of dollars more per year because he's steering a multi-t trillion dollar ship. And the direction matters

dollar ship. And the direction matters more than any other single thing. And

then finally I would say that judgment judgment is really important. Judgment

comes through experience and reflection.

So you you experience things, you have honest reflection about those things and you build your judgment and then at some point your judgment becomes so good that you cannot even explain it or articulate

it anymore. So there's a point early on

it anymore. So there's a point early on where you don't know what to do and you have to rationally think through what to do and you take feedback. Eventually you

get so good at making the decisions that you don't go to other people. Yes, you

can get a little bit of feedback to inform your judgment. But you're you know that you're in the best position to make up your mind. So you exercise the judgment and you can articulate to other people why did I do that. But there

comes a point where your judgment is so good that you can't even articulate it.

And that's when it's called taste, right? When you're just like I it

right? When you're just like I it doesn't feel right to me, right? This is

just the way we should do it. This is

the way I want to do it, right? But at

that point it's taste. And people who have gotten to that point like the Rick Rubins of the world where they have really good taste from the Steve Jobs of the world. I think those are the people

the world. I think those are the people who are the most creative and create the greatest works of art and business because they have really good taste.

Like I think I would guess that Musk for example on SpaceX he has taste and there are a few key engineers around him who have taste. Um, in if you look at the

have taste. Um, in if you look at the leading AI labs and you kind of see the tweet threads from some of the researchers there when they care to talk about how they're choosing which experiments to run, which ones not to

run, it boils down to taste. They have

taste about like I'm going to throw thousands of GPUs at this for hundreds of hours and spend lots of money and probably wind up with nothing. But my

intuition, my taste tells me, my developed intuition, which is my taste, uh, tells me whether to try it out or not.

Yeah, you had a tweet. It takes time to develop your gut, but once it's developed, don't listen to anything else.

Exactly. Yeah. And this is just another way of saying taste. It's your gut feel.

And it can be around people. Um, you

know, older people have very good judgment about other people because the one thing that we are always all gaining experiences in human interaction. No

matter what we're doing, we're interacting with other people. So, we're

building up experience about who to work with and who to trust and who not to trust and who not to work with. Um, and

that ends up your gut feel. And so as you get older, you got to trust your gut feel.

Is your investing now primarily feel like taste?

Yes. Yeah. Almost entirely. I hate

articulating it. And and a lot of times, you know, I I'll pass on things now.

It's not just taste on the company. It's

an understanding of my own tastes in the sense of what I like and what I don't.

So there's a lot of companies now that I don't invest in where I will I will I will pass up on the investment because I don't want to take a walk with the

founder. I didn't learn anything

founder. I didn't learn anything or uh I am just genuinely not interested in the category. I'm not curious about it. I'm not going to stay up late

it. I'm not going to stay up late reading about or thinking about it. So

it's going to feel like a chore. Or it

could just be like, you know, I've got one short life on this earth. Do I want to be associated with this way of making money? Probably not. There are other

money? Probably not. There are other ways to make money. So obviously that's a post-wealth problem or post-wealth taste. So it's not just taste about the

taste. So it's not just taste about the business. It's also an understanding of

business. It's also an understanding of what it is that I value, how I want to spend my time, what I want my legacy look like, what am I going to be proud of, what am I going to learn from. And

again, this is back to an effort to being lazy. And lazy means not working.

being lazy. And lazy means not working.

And not working means not doing things you don't want to do. If you want to do it, it's not work. So an ideal life would be where everything I am doing and everything that I am associated with

everyone that I'm associated with is something that I would do anyway you know almost for free and being with people that I really enjoy being around and learning from them. So for me that's

people who are very capable. They do

things uh they're very low ego so you have to deal with all the nonsense that comes with that. They're very

intelligent and uh so you're always learning from them.

Is it actually ideal to be paid purely for your judgment? That that's a thing you've talked about, but as we're like talking through this, it's like the the it's very hard to extricate your labor from your judgment at least to at some ratio right?

Yeah, that's right. You know, this is why another tweet I had, they do contradict each other if you want to talk math where it's like, you know, what you do and who you do it with is more important than how hard you work,

right? But sorry work as hard as you

right? But sorry work as hard as you can, but you know what you do and who you do with are more important than how hard you work. But you still have to work as hard as you can. So it shouldn't feel like work. You know, this goes back

to like it should feel like play to you but look like work to others. That's

really what you want to be doing. That's

idealized. You're not going to be able to do that, you know, the full time. You

know, it's obviously not just hard work.

Like how many companies is Elon running, right? The corner, the guy running the

right? The corner, the guy running the corner grocery store puts more hours in the grocery store than Elon puts into any one of his companies. So, it's not just purely about hard work. That said,

you don't get to be someone with great judgment and great connections and great capabilities without working hard and you will not build up your knowledge fast enough. It's when you're working

fast enough. It's when you're working super hard, when you're really intensely into something, that's when you actually make the biggest breakthroughs. So, I

remember back in college, I had this computer science project where we had to write a compiler. And a compiler is a difficult thing to write. You know,

compiler takes a high level programming language and breaks it down to lower and lower level programming languages until finally goes into a set of instructions that the computer can understand and

writing compilers up there in CS. It's

like you know uh other things in that level might be like writing an operating system right a simple operating system.

So it's no joke. And I just remember when I would go in the computer lab, it would take me hours and hours and hours just to load the problem into my head to go through my own code from the previous

few days to kind of come back to speed like, okay, this is what I meant over here and this is the part where I'm stuck on and this part over here is janky and this is a patch and this thing works over here and it's beautiful and

but it would just literally take me hours just to get back into it if I'd been out of it for a little while. And

so then I found that the most productive sessions that I had uh in front of that computer writing that compiler were 24 to 36 hour sessions where I wouldn't sleep. So I would just be up for 36

sleep. So I would just be up for 36 hours drinking Coca-Cas and just kind of coding or just thinking and walking and coding and thinking and walking and then when I finally fell asleep the problem would fall out of my head and then it

would take me a few days to recover and then I would have to reload the whole problem back into my head. Now, that's

an exaggerated kind of example, but I think in general, a lot of times a lot of breakthroughs happen when you're deeply into a problem. It just takes hard work and time. Like even with my

co-founder of my new company, who is just an amazing guy. He's brilliant,

just one of the smartest human beings I ever met. Super low ego, very pleasant,

ever met. Super low ego, very pleasant, um, and very hardworking. If he's awake, he's working. He's probably working

he's working. He's probably working right now while I'm goofing off recording this with you. You know, I've even noticed with him like we talk every day. We have deep conversations. We

day. We have deep conversations. We

catch up a lot. And it'll be an hour into the conversation when I'm already ready to hang up and give up and we've already covered all the topics. So,

we're just circling and shooting the [ __ ] that the big breakthrough will come. The big insight will come. We're

come. The big insight will come. We're

like, "Ah, but also this." Oh, yes. And

now it all connects together. It just

takes time for your brain to percolate through a problem. And so, the more time you devote to a given problem, uh, you know, the more likely you're to have a breakthrough. It's like if you're trying

breakthrough. It's like if you're trying to solve a really hard problem, one technique that I have is I want to load it into my background subconscious. I

want my intuition working on it so I can have that shower breakthrough 48 hours later. And you can't put that on a

later. And you can't put that on a schedule. You can't time that. So what

schedule. You can't time that. So what

you have to do is you have to so intensely focus on the problem that your whole mind absorbs it and even your subconscious figures out, okay, this is important. You're dreaming about it. And

important. You're dreaming about it. And

then on some unknown time scale, you'll have some insight or some creativity.

But you're not going to have that unless you did the hard work or working through all of it manually with your foreground with your neoortex early on. So I do think hard work is important. You can't

give it up. But um if it feels like work, if you're forcing yourself to go through the motions, then you're going to lose because somebody who doesn't feel like it's work is competing with you and for them it's entertaining or

fun or at least fulfilling. So then good judgment comes from a combination of like spending so much time on the explicit knowledge that it becomes sort of implicit.

That's right. Yeah. You spend time on the explicit and then it becomes implicit. And then there's a phase where

implicit. And then there's a phase where it's still it's implicit but you can still articulate it. And you know this is an analogy. This is not strictly correct but I would say there's a point

where you have to reason through it every time using logic and that's basic decision-m and there's a part where your subconscious can kind of enter into it and then I would say like now you

judgement and developing taste and then I think there's a point where your whole body reacts to it right cuz there is wisdom in the body there's knowledge in the body and at that point it's just taste and then you're done with that

thing I mean you're not done obviously it's always going to improve but now you're you're top of the craft John Cle, the guy from Money Python, had a great quote about this that stuck with

me, which is um you simply have to let your mind rest against the problem in a friendly, persistent way.

That's right. That's actually really well put. Yeah, he's right. Your mind

well put. Yeah, he's right. Your mind

has to be involved and you to focus on it, but it has to rest against the problem because that you're pushing on it, but in in a way you're not going to give up. And yeah, in a was it in a

give up. And yeah, in a was it in a friendly friendly persistent way.

Friendly and persistent. Yeah. You can't

give up. And friendly so you don't give up. Exactly. He's right.

up. Exactly. He's right.

Yeah. I think Yeah. him and uh Ogulv have like these really interesting ways of sort of activating their subconscious around um around problem solving.

Yeah. Everyone who I think is deeply creative both works really really hard um but yet knows that it has to be enjoyable otherwise you'll never get

there. Um there was a line by a painter

there. Um there was a line by a painter I think Pablo Des Soros Sorosoto something like that. Um, I don't remember the name, but the the line was good. And he said, you know, for 10

good. And he said, you know, for 10 years, uh, I've painted seven days a week, 16 hours a day, and now they call me a genius.

Does AI have judgment?

Uh, no. I don't think so. I wouldn't

count on AI to like exercise judgment.

What AI has is AI has incredible information retrieval capability. So it

can crossorrelate all human knowledge and if humans have figured out before it can give you the conventional correct answer which is going to be correct in most cases for solved problems. So you

know if you're trying to figure out like you know what is the law on a specific point it can like read all the legal texts and tell you what the current interpretation of the law is according

to all the conventional wisdom. But if

you're looking to do something creative or something brand new that no one has yet figured out or you're dealing with a highly complex problem with a very specific situation, um you don't have the AI make that judgment call for you.

So I don't think of the AI necessarily as having judgment, but I think of it as like the ultimate leverage information retrieval tool. Um also, humans have

retrieval tool. Um also, humans have values. They have points of view. They

values. They have points of view. They

have binding principles. They have

things that undergur the foundation of what they believe to be true and what they believe to not be true. And this is idiosyncratic to the person. It's

adapted to the environment they're in.

The AI is taking as a one-sizefits-all approach according to what's either in textbooks or conventional literature or what the data labelers labelers who are labeling the data into the AI thought of

it. I think AI just looks like magic to

it. I think AI just looks like magic to people because it just it's it's very hard to wrap into your mind uh you know what these incredibly huge data sets operating in all these highly

mathematical dimensions are capable of.

I mean the amount of information they can retrieve and crossorrelate is just astounding. It's like if you ran a

astounding. It's like if you ran a Google search every time and you read all top thousand results very carefully and then you cross-correlated them and you were able to stitch them together and you would make a few mistakes along

the way just like the AI does. But you

know that level of research combined with I do think it has some tremendous calculation abilities cuz it can write programs and it figures out um some algorithms you know below the level of

human creativity but above a mere calculator. So, I think the AI are

calculator. So, I think the AI are incredible shortcuts, but there's shortcuts to giving you answers to solve problems where you don't need a perfect answer. So, the one quick I heard was,

answer. So, the one quick I heard was, you know, AI is great when wrong answers are okay. Like, you're not going to die

are okay. Like, you're not going to die because the answer is wrong. You're not

going to lose a lot of money cuz the answer is wrong. Um, but for anything creative or requiring judgment at the edge, which is what you really get paid for, you get paid for creativity. So,

the AI lifts the boat for everybody. If

you have an AI, everybody's an AI. you

get the AI answer, everybody gets the AI answer. There's no there's no alpha.

answer. There's no there's no alpha.

There's no edge anymore. So, in that sense, the the AI raises raises the uh the tide. Uh and right now, you're going

the tide. Uh and right now, you're going to get an edge because most people aren't using AI or aren't using it for, you know, um a lot or they don't know how to use it well enough for bleeding

edge problems. So, again, like any piece of technology, um if you're early adopter, if you leverage it well, you're going to do extremely well. So this was my quip on Twitter that um it's not that

AI is going to replace software engineers that AI is going to let software engineers replace everybody else. And I stand by that because

else. And I stand by that because software engineers not cuz they're writing software because software engineers are always using the latest tools they're structured logical systems thinkers who are trying to build a system to solve a specific problem. And

now thanks to AI they can solve more and more problems. Um they can make cars drive themselves. They can make they can

drive themselves. They can make they can make robots walk around. they can make expert systems or AI systems that will make certain levels of decisions without humans having to be in the loop. Um, and

that just gives software engineers amazing leverage. So all the people

amazing leverage. So all the people saying that programming is dead, go learn art or the trades, they're idiots.

They're just completely wrong. And

software engineers are getting richer and more powerful than ever. And the

most recent proof of that just popped up with Mark Zuckerberg paying hundred million dollar packages to recruit individual machine learning engineers because the most leveraged engineers are the ones who are building these AI systems and then the ones below them are

the ones who are using these AI systems and then even below them is everybody's affected by these engineers using these AI systems. Yeah. You had talked before about like

Yeah. You had talked before about like the the robot revolution is already here. It's just packed into data centers

here. It's just packed into data centers and that was 10 years ago.

That's right. Yeah. The robot revolution has been here for a long time. There's

trillions of robots in the planet. Uh

but they're just packed into data centers. They don't need legs and arms.

centers. They don't need legs and arms. They're just computing.

But now there's AI and AI agents. And I

imagine, you know, the leverage that somebody who's fluent with those tools can get is orders of magnitude.

It's massive. I mean, now you can program them speaking natural languages.

Now they can uh access natural language databases. Um now you can program them

databases. Um now you can program them just by pouring in huge amounts of data.

Not even having to program them. They

program themselves that they program for you. Uh but it still helps to be a

you. Uh but it still helps to be a structured thinker. Like my most useful

structured thinker. Like my most useful classes when I was doing computer science and physics were actually things on you know like I love my courses on

computer hardware on computer networking on statistics on a lot of the deeper physics and not because I got to use those directly but because it just

helped me with concepts just helped me think in certain ways. So even if you aren't writing networking code, knowing how the computer is doing networking underneath is incredibly useful because

then you know what's possible. Uh Steve

Jobs and his team, their genius that allowed them to assemble things like the iPhone was because they understood at a very deep level what was possible, what was technologically possible, what was

in the bleeding edge, what was barely possible, what was almost impossible, um and what was actually impossible. So

they knew the lines between those different things and they knew it in terms of the material science. They knew

it in terms of manufacturing. They knew

it in supply chains and deliverability.

They knew it in costing. They knew it in computer programming. They knew it in

computer programming. They knew it in hardware. They knew in electrical

hardware. They knew in electrical engineering. They knew it in battery

engineering. They knew it in battery requirements and space requirements and knew in bandwidth requirements. They had

people who understood all these different pieces and could make the trade-offs to assemble this perfect jewel like little smartphone that all of a sudden was a true personal computer in your pocket. And that's what made the

your pocket. And that's what made the iPhone great. I would argue the greatest

iPhone great. I would argue the greatest product of the modern age is still the iPhone. I mean, I'm I'm in awe what they

iPhone. I mean, I'm I'm in awe what they mesh to do in AI. But if you just look at like the one device that every human craves and would not give up right now, at least this moment in time in 2025, if

you if if you went to people and say you can have one of anything you want. Uh

but if you don't take that thing, you can't have it at all. They would all take the iPhone. Um so and the last product before that that I think inspired that same level of desire was

probably the MacBook and before that it was a Macintosh. So kudos to Apple, but they were the best product builders on the planet because they understood all the hard trade-offs deep down at the

detail technical levels. Even if you'd given Jobs and his team in AI to do all the vibe coding, you know, and all the vibe design, they could not have built that good of a product without knowing

deep down what is the abstraction that the AI was hiding, where was it making mistakes, what did it not understand, uh, and how do all the pieces fit together? because they were truly

together? because they were truly creating something new. Uh and if you're creating something new, you still need to understand everything down to the deep deep detail levels. It's just the

AI at least as currently structured in 2025. These modern AIs, they will take

2025. These modern AIs, they will take the drudgery out of it for you. If it's

been done before, then you know with a small hallucination rate, they can probably do it for you today. And

they're getting better and better. So

eventually all the stuff that's been done before you can have them do. But

that's okay. You can't get paid in any meaningful way for things that have already been done before. Nor should you want to be. It's incredibly boring. One

of the things that, you know, a good entrepreneur will tell you is they hate it when they're doing the same thing day in day out. That shows that there's a failure of automation and a failure of imagination. Uh so good entrepreneurs

imagination. Uh so good entrepreneurs automate things. And that's why, by the

automate things. And that's why, by the way, there's no entrepreneur I've met who says, "Oh, AI is a bad thing." To an entrepreneur, it's a tool. It's an

opportunity. The entrepreneurs are not scared of AI replacing them, right? No

entrepreneur is going to be replaced by an AI. They might be replaced by another

an AI. They might be replaced by another entrepreneur who uses AI better. Uh, and

they need to get good with AI just like they need to get good with any tool.

Entrepreneurs are not afraid of AI replacing them any more than they were afraid of uh MacBooks replacing them or AirPods replacing them uh or self-driving cars replacing them. It's

just an another opportunity. Um, so I I mean I my my vision and belief and hope is that every human being wants to be creative. Every human being wants to

creative. Every human being wants to control their own destiny. Every human

being wants to make new things. Every

human being wants to be engaged and challenged. Um, and you know, maybe it's

challenged. Um, and you know, maybe it's too late for some people cuz they've given up right cynically. But I think certainly every child does. You know,

every child starts out super creative.

Every child starts out just wanting to alter their reality around them and to do new and delightful things. No child

wants drudgery. No child has given up hope uh on day one. So I I do think that newer generations will take advantage of these things.

Yeah. I think you know it's tempting for some people to see entrepreneur as a fixed class of people rather than something that everyone could aspire to be. And you said before, you know, there

be. And you said before, you know, there are 7 billion people on the planet. I

hope one day there are 7 billion companies. And I feel like a lot of the

companies. And I feel like a lot of the tools and structure were moving in that direction. It's a good thing. Happiness.

direction. It's a good thing. Happiness.

I really like the frame of it being a highly personal skill that can be learned like fitness or nutrition or as you we talked about wealth. Um and that really seems like a very common thread

of your ideas like the combination of foundational principles and personal application.

Yeah. I mean look happiness is it's one of those words that just means different things to different people. Some people

will say I don't want to be happy. Other

people will say what do you mean I'm naturally unhappy or I'm naturally not happy? Everyone has an excuse or a

happy? Everyone has an excuse or a reason or interpretation. It's such a personal topic, it's very hard for me to talk about. I mean, my latest thinking

talk about. I mean, my latest thinking on it is like there's no such thing as happiness, right? And so, I can give you 20

right? And so, I can give you 20 contradictory statements on it. Each one

of them, you know, either you'll dismiss as a cliche or absurdity or will make you think. Hopefully, it'll make you

you think. Hopefully, it'll make you think. Um, but my latest thinking on it

think. Um, but my latest thinking on it is like, I don't really care about happiness and I'm not even sure it really exists. You know, happiness is a

really exists. You know, happiness is a construct of the mind. It's an idea and it's a you have thoughts that say, "Oh, I'm happy now." And then when those

thoughts are gone, what's going on? Are

you unhappy or are you happy? There's

there's nothing there. Right? This is

the old Buddhist thing of like no self, right? When you have a thought, that

right? When you have a thought, that thought comes in. That thought claims to be the self. That thought emerges from somewhere from a an entity that we call the self that is very very poorly defined. And when you look for it

defined. And when you look for it carefully, it's very hard to make out what the heck that thing is. So in that sense happiness is just like the the self is itself is just a thought. So

happiness is just a thought and unhappiness is just a thought. And so

you can have happy thoughts or you can have unhappy thoughts and there's certain behaviors and mindsets that will lead towards more happy thoughts and there are certain behaviors and mindsets

that will lead to more unhappy thoughts.

However, if you identify with the thought, if you're like, I am that thought. It's me having that thought.

thought. It's me having that thought.

Then at that moment, you've created a mei that is happy while you're having that thought. And then when that thought

that thought. And then when that thought disappears, there's no me there anymore and there's no thought and there's no happy. And then when the unhappy thought

happy. And then when the unhappy thought is there and you identify with it, then you've created a thought that I'm unhappy and I'm having unhappy thought and that's me and I'm unhappy. And then

when that thought disappears, there's no one there and there's no thought and there's no unhappiness. And then that whole construct is created through thoughts that are kind of coming and going in your mind. And I even hesitate

to say mind because like where is this mind when you're not having a thought of the mind, right? It's like everything that we talk about here of this topic exists at the level of thought. But if

you are not strongly into those thoughts or identify with those thoughts, then you're not going to have a concept of happy or unhappy. And there's certainly no happiness outside in the world.

Both in very different meanings. One

meaning is there's no happiness outside in the world because this is a mental construct you have internally. And so

you can reinterpret your past. You can

reinterpret your situation to often change those things or your habits. But

the second is that there's no happiness in the outside world and that the outside world is incredibly impermanent.

It's out of your control. There are

always reasons to be unhappy for the outside world. the same way there's no

outside world. the same way there's no unhappiness in the outside world too.

You're making that up in your mind cuz it's not going the way you want it to.

Yeah.

And uh the world itself doesn't care.

And that outside world can't make you any more unhappy than you let it. Now

there are obvious exceptions to this.

Like if you're in physical pain, your body is unhappy. That will make your mind unhappy. That will make you

mind unhappy. That will make you strongly identify with the pain and you will be unhappy. Right? That's why in fact you could argue that the whole mind construct exists. uh it's to feel that

construct exists. uh it's to feel that thing uh to to respond to pain. You

know, one definition of love of pain is that uh pain demands a response, right? Pain is a thing. It's like pay

right? Pain is a thing. It's like pay attention to me right now. Drop what

you're doing. Stop daydreaming. Pay

attention to me right now. And emotional

pain is a variation on that.

Yeah.

Um but so happiness and unhappiness, these are these are very personal concepts. Um uh I would say my

concepts. Um uh I would say my new thinking on this, my latest thinking, subject to change. I'm not an enlightened being. I'm not a perpetually

enlightened being. I'm not a perpetually happy person. So it's literally just uh

happy person. So it's literally just uh one person's personal exploration. Um my

latest thinking on this is that I don't necessarily want happiness. I kind of want just, you know, the zen thing of being okay with things the way they are.

And I think it helps to be in that state when my desires are few and consciously chosen. Um when I am doing things for

chosen. Um when I am doing things for nonselfish reasons and that is selfish in a way. Like if I do things that are larger than myself, then I will be more okay with whatever the ultimate outcome

is. Like for example, if I'm genuinely

is. Like for example, if I'm genuinely trying to make the world a better place, I'm not saying I am, but say I was Mother Teresa or some equivalent and I was genuinely trying to make the world a better place. I wouldn't take it

better place. I wouldn't take it personally if the world wouldn't let me make it a better place, right? Because

it's not a personal mission. The same

way when like someone's doing it for God or someone's doing it for their children in a selfless way, it actually hurts less when you know things don't work out exactly the way that you want them to.

So having higher motives is helpful that way. You know, depressed people are

way. You know, depressed people are ruminating upon themselves. They're

really thinking about themselves. So not

thinking about yourself is, you know, is helpful. Uh, you know, my simple tweet

helpful. Uh, you know, my simple tweet on this was the more you think about yourself, the less happy you're going to be. It's that simple. Um, so, uh, I'm

be. It's that simple. Um, so, uh, I'm more interested in peace. Now, do I want peace all the time? I don't know. It

seems kind of boring. There's one

argument that boredom, this is a Schopenhau argument, that boredom reveals the emptiness of existence.

Because when you're not doing anything, when you're satisfied for one brief moment, all your desires are fulfilled, you're kind of just sitting around. What

happens? Boredom shows up immediately.

Why? Because existence itself is somewhat empty. And so then you want to

somewhat empty. And so then you want to go and do something else. This is the pessimistic viewpoint. The optimistic

pessimistic viewpoint. The optimistic viewpoint is actually that's the mind.

Your mind is addicted to pleasure and so it wants to jump up and go do something pleasurable because that's what it's used to. What may help to realize that

used to. What may help to realize that the all problems are mind created for for a good reason. I'm not saying the mind is a bad thing. It's there to protect your body, but we have a way of

taking on problems that don't affect us.

Politics is a good example. You know,

wars halfway around the world world or political parties or so on. And your

your mind just picks up problems and desires that are just not important. And

so, yeah, if you're Buddha, you can live in no mind. But if you're a normal person, you can at least a rational person can find some level of peace by cultivating an in strategic indifference

to things that are outside of their immediate control. Right? I've said this

immediate control. Right? I've said this better in the past, but I'm I'm caveatting it a little bit now because I'm I'm actually reconstructing on the fly rather than quoting because I think

you just have to catch yourself, right?

The the purpose of meditation is not to get you enlightened. It's not going to do that. It's not even necessarily to

do that. It's not even necessarily to make you happier immediately or to solve a problem or to calm you down. The

purpose of meditation is just to become self-observant. And when you're

self-observant. And when you're self-observant and more self-aware, you catch your mind doing things that are not in your long-term best interests.

And then you can reset it or you can stop and say, "Is this true? Is this

something I really want to go through?

Is this a really important desire? Is

this something that I need to suffer over? What's easier? reinterpreting this

over? What's easier? reinterpreting this

or actually dealing with the underlying problem because we're always just picking up things to do. So anyway, you know, if I just wanted to be quote unquote happy, right? Again, I'm not

sure there's such a thing. Like if I wanted to be peaceful, then I would just do nothing, but I would get bored. Uh

now, is that a problem? Yeah, I think that's a problem. I don't want to be bored. Now, could I rise above the level

bored. Now, could I rise above the level of the mind and be like a zen monk?

Maybe. But I also kind of like life, you know? I I like having certain gifts. I

know? I I like having certain gifts. I

like uh self-actualizing. I like doing things. Um you know, let's say that the

things. Um you know, let's say that the Buddhists are right, you know, and I am Brahman. Then why don't I just stay

Brahman. Then why don't I just stay Brahman? Why did I come here? Right?

Brahman? Why did I come here? Right?

It's the age old question. Why am I here? Right? And I think the only

here? Right? And I think the only practical answer to why am I here is to do what I do. And so if I just do what I do without overthinking it, uh then it's

naturally going to lead me to a place of happiness. This is back to row row row

happiness. This is back to row row row your boat, right? It's gently down the stream. As long as I keep rowing and I'm

stream. As long as I keep rowing and I'm doing gently, I'm kind of playing the game I'm meant to play.

Yeah. I think one of the things that is really that seem to resonate with people about this book is the combination of principles about wealth and happiness.

Like so many people talk about one or the other, but never the tension, the contrast between the two. And I think what a lot of people sort of look to you to for and whether you consider yourself

a good example of this or not, I'll be curious to hear is someone who's engaged but peacefully.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm completely peaceful. Uh but definitely more

peaceful. Uh but definitely more peaceful than I used to be. I'm not as peaceful as a Zen monk. Uh but I'm probably way more peaceful than your average nervous founder. Uh some of it

is a it helps to have money. I'm not

going to lie about it, right? Um, but I think I got more peaceful before I'd made a bunch of money. Um, and it was because I was actually in a very high stress period and I just had to figure out how to deal with it.

Uh, and I read some books, you know, Christian Morty and Osho and, uh, you know, yeah, I did some psychedelics, you know, like everybody else in the Bay

Area. Uh, but not in a way where, you

Area. Uh, but not in a way where, you know, I think some people they do, they go to Burning Man, they do their psychedelics, and they live for psychedelics. No, it's it's a it's a

psychedelics. No, it's it's a it's a message. you get the message, you hang

message. you get the message, you hang up the phone. Uh, and then I did a lot of meditation. Um, I did a lot of

of meditation. Um, I did a lot of reading. I did a lot of thinking. I did

reading. I did a lot of thinking. I did

a lot of introspection. And I can't point to any single silver bullet. But all of it helped. It

silver bullet. But all of it helped. It

helps me be then and peaceful while I go about the thing, you know, not be miserable. Um, again, I kind of want the

miserable. Um, again, I kind of want the lazy man solution to everything. So, I

want the lazy man solution to enlightenment. I want the lazy man

enlightenment. I want the lazy man solution to wealth. I want the lazy mindset solution to art and creativity.

And by lazy, I mean working on something that doesn't feel like work to me, right? So thinking doesn't feel like

right? So thinking doesn't feel like work to me. Thinking on the big questions, like it would be more work to not think about them than to think about them. Right? If I'm pacing around late

them. Right? If I'm pacing around late at night and it's midnight, I'm by myself. I will naturally start just

myself. I will naturally start just pondering like what is this all about?

You know, why how could you not be curious about your existence? Right? And

I think we all just give up. We're just

like, "Oh, yeah. Okay. There was a point where I was curious about my existence.

I got over that when I was a certain age. Uh, and now I'm just a monkey

age. Uh, and now I'm just a monkey that's going to, you know, do a bunch of things and then die."

I suppose it has fun. It depends whether you're having fun wrestling with those questions or whether you find them torturous.

I think they're inevitable. I think

everybody wrestles with them. It's just

not popular to acknowledge it.

Uh, I think by the contribution that I made to Twitter was not by doing something unique, but by being one of the first to do it. um you know now there's a lot of accounts that frankly say the same things or different things

in in very interesting ways. I was just early in doing that. And I I think people we draw boundaries in life, right? One of the reasons why Steve Jobs

right? One of the reasons why Steve Jobs was to me the apotheiois of entrepreneurship was because he was not just a business person but he was also an artist and you know he did LSD and

talked about it and he did his meditation. He almost became a monk um

meditation. He almost became a monk um and he was a Zen Buddhist. Um so he also tried to solve everything in life uh all the big questions and you know I thought it through and kind of what I came back

to is I had a recent tweet on this actually forget the exact wording of this tweet but I know the principles which is what's important the principles are first you have to stay healthy you're born healthy you don't finish

healthy and so the longer you can drag that out the better right so that's why we're inspired by people like Brian Johnson or you know whoever's your fitness guru is or health guru is you got to stay healthy that's the baseline

then you want to get wealthy. You'd be

lying if you said you don't want to be wealthy. Everyone wants at least some

wealthy. Everyone wants at least some level of wealth, right? Maybe not. Uh,

okay. Yeah, if you're virtue signaling socialism, maybe you don't want it. Or

if you're, you know, don't want to be too high above your peers, you don't want it. But you want some level of

want it. But you want some level of comfort and wealth. Yeah. You don't have to worry about money.

Nobody wants less wealth. They don't

want to go backward.

That's right. And and you know, what's the old line? Uh, you know, money doesn't solve all your problems, but it solves all your money problems. So you want to solve all your money problems

and then what remains right well every time I go around in circles on it I come back to just three things that I'm interested in and that is and it's going

to sound cliched but I'll dive into them is truth, love and beauty. Uh and truth is just I want to know all the things that are true and I want to eliminate all the things that are false and uh I

want to know all the things that are true on a spiritual level on a philosophical level on a scientific level on a technological level on a human nature level. Truth is permanent.

Truth is, you know the closest thing to perfect. Truth has wide reach. Uh truth

perfect. Truth has wide reach. Uh truth

will make my life better. Even if it makes my life worse, I want to know the truth. It's very unique in that way.

truth. It's very unique in that way.

Truth and love are two things where even if it makes your life worse, you would still take them. Like being in, you know, loving your kids, even if it makes your life worse, but makes them better off, you want to love your kids cuz it

feels good to be in love. It feels

fulfilling. And truth, even if the truth makes your life worse, like if it turns out that, yeah, we all Matrix brains in a bat, you know, you still want to know that. It's like, in fact, in the movie

that. It's like, in fact, in the movie The Matrix, you know, Keanu Reed's character, Neo, he breaks out of the Matrix. And Zion is worse than the

Matrix. And Zion is worse than the Matrix. It's a shitty existence, a real

Matrix. It's a shitty existence, a real city. And there's another guy, uh, I

city. And there's another guy, uh, I forget the name.

Cipher.

What's that?

Cipher.

Cipher. Yeah, Cipher. Cipher wants to go back in the Matrix cuz he'd rather eat the fake steak and drink the fake wine.

But Cipher is a pathetic character.

Cipher is a warning. Nobody says, "Oh, yeah, I'm Cipher." Right. Everybody

wants to be Neil because they know that you can't live a lie. So truth is super important. And in everything that I do,

important. And in everything that I do, in every in little things and big things, I want to know the truth.

You did say that the closer you get to truth, the closer you get to peace.

Yeah. I think the way I said is the closer you get to truth, the more silent you become inside.

So, and that's deliberately chosen. Um

because when you know what is true, you suffer less and you spend less time ruminating about falsehoods. And most of the thoughts that are going through your mind are concerned with falsehoods. And

the Buddhists would argue that the ultimate falsehood is a notion of the self which is this very poorly defined partial physical partial mental construct that somehow persists across

thoughts. And just the more things you

thoughts. And just the more things you resolve as being true or false, the less mental chatter you should have all the way to the point that like the super wise enlightened people are completely

silent inside because they've seen through the illusion of self and they have no they have no separate self. no

separate persistent self experience. So

if your mind is chattering less, that is a sign that you're heading in the right direction. That said, in my experience,

direction. That said, in my experience, your mind doesn't really chatter much less. But hopefully it it hopefully

less. But hopefully it it hopefully there's less anxiety. And this this happens in meditation. If you're doing meditation, you'll find that at least I find the first 20 minutes your mind goes

berserk all over the place. And then at some point it calms down and you're for about 30 40 50 minutes in it's just blank and it's actually a very blissful state. Um or it can be different

state. Um or it can be different depending on how you meditate but it's certainly not going to be chattering as much. And a lot of that's cuz you're

much. And a lot of that's cuz you're resolving problems and a lot of your problems don't need real world resolutions. They just need to be

resolutions. They just need to be acknowledged. One of the classic

acknowledged. One of the classic practices is when you have an emotion, when you have a strong feeling, you just pay attention to it and you deconstruct it and you're like, "Okay, there's a

little feeling associated within the body. Is that bodily sensation actually

body. Is that bodily sensation actually unpleasant?" Not really. It's just like

unpleasant?" Not really. It's just like a hollowess in the chest, for example, and doesn't feel that bad. And there's a thought associated with it. Well, is

that thought unpleasant? Well, the

thought itself can't feel pain. It's

just a you know, so who's classifying as unpleasant? Well, you are. Well, what is

unpleasant? Well, you are. Well, what is you in that case? It's just another thought. So, it's, you know, one thought

thought. So, it's, you know, one thought of your saying, I don't want this other thought here, and then associate with a bodily sensation. But really, when you

bodily sensation. But really, when you deconstruct it, you you'll realize like unless there's an actual emergency, there's not a whole lot there.

Um, and when you get good at doing that or when you sort of start seeing that game, it will help you get through unpleasant situations. So, I had one

unpleasant situations. So, I had one very unpleasant situation a few years ago, uh, where I was extremely unhappy.

Um, but I won't forget this. I There was also a part of me that was just watching that very unhappy part and just being like haha you know, it's a little act you're putting on to feel important, but

there's nothing actually here. There's

like there there's nothing is being attacked. Nothing is being hurt. You're

attacked. Nothing is being hurt. You're

not in physical pain. You know, it's just a situation that you're thinking through and you're you're conjuring up this deep unhappiness and you're creating a drama. You're you're creating a stage and a drama to feel important.

And I think a lot of times when we're unhappy, we're just we're obsessed with this idea of feeling important. And it's

back to this desire for permanence. We

want to feel important. We want to feel permanence. We don't want to feel our

permanence. We don't want to feel our own mortality. There's truth and there's

own mortality. There's truth and there's love and beauty. Right. So those are the other two things where Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And on love, I would say that, you know, once once your health is taken care of, once your material needs are taken care of, you pursue truth, love, and beauty.

We talked about truth. Love, I think, is important because people want to be loved because that helps them get over their mortality. It makes them feel a

their mortality. It makes them feel a little safer. You know, monkeys huddling

little safer. You know, monkeys huddling in the dark around the campfire, scared of scared of what's out in there in the woods. But one thing I've realized for

woods. But one thing I've realized for myself is that it's better to be in love than to be loved. If somebody loves you too much, like your mom's coming up and hugging you all the time, or you know,

some girl or some guy is obsessed with you, like it can get a little cloying, right? It feels like it's a burden. You

right? It feels like it's a burden. You

almost don't want that. But when you feel in love with somebody, that's when you're high. That's when you're elated.

you're high. That's when you're elated.

And so that's counterintuitive, but falling in love with someone or something is actually very beneficial to you. It does involve sacrifice. It

you. It does involve sacrifice. It

involves risk. But I think that people who give up on love in their lives, you know, it's kind of a sad life, right?

You get too jaded too fast. You don't

have to love people necessarily. You can

love, you know, universe, God, animals, what have you. But everybody needs to find something in their life that they love more than themselves. Their

mission, their their family, their children, uh their religion, otherwise it's going to be a miserable life. And

then lastly, you know, we are active creatures. So this is where I really

creatures. So this is where I really diverge from all the Buddhas and all the Zen monks and so on. Yeah, the chop would carry water, but that's not human flourishing, right? This is where

flourishing, right? This is where Deutsch comes in really helpful. We're

universal explainers. We're meant to solve problems. We're meant to reverse entropy. We're meant to advance

entropy. We're meant to advance civilization in the universe and knowledge. And so we can create.

knowledge. And so we can create.

Creativity is our highest art form. So

we should be creating. And you can be passive in the face of death and say, well, none of it matters. Or you can be active and say nothing matters. I'm just

going to create the best thing. I'm

going to live the best life by your own definition. So I want to create things.

definition. So I want to create things.

And what do you want to create? Well,

how do you know something is worth creating? Well, it's it's beautiful.

creating? Well, it's it's beautiful.

It's it's hard to vary. It has deep explanations and knowledge embedded inside of it. Um, people want to use beautiful things. So, you want to create

beautiful things. So, you want to create beautiful things that convey emotion that people want to use. And to me, that's why something like an iPhone is among the greatest works of art ever created because it is a beautiful

object. It's like a piece of jewelry,

object. It's like a piece of jewelry, but it's also incredibly useful. It

embodies a lot of knowledge. It's very

hard to vary. And it did change the world for the better.

Yeah. The exact tweet was, "Stay healthy, get wealthy, seek truth, give love, and create beauty."

That's it. That's what I want to do.

The one I want to tattoo on my eyelids is any moment where you're not having a great time, when you're not really happy, you're not doing anyone any favors. It's not like your unhappiness

favors. It's not like your unhappiness is making anyone else better off.

And I don't know why. I don't know where where it was modeled to me or you know if it's just me trying to take myself seriously but like there's something about cultivating unhappiness that

brings like seriousness to a situation like especially as a leader or a you know trying to take something seriously you sort of bring an unhappy version of yourself um I find and I know I know

that's a mistake I should tweet this afterward this down uh tweet break yeah tweet break acute unhappiness

happiness is real uh or is useful, but chronic unhappiness is an ego trip, right? Because chronic unhappiness is

right? Because chronic unhappiness is you just want to feel more you. You want

to feel separate. You want to feel important. You know, you have an

important. You know, you have an identity wrapped up in it. Like the

thinner your identity, the more you can see reality because identity is what often stands between you and seeing reality the way it is. It's the ultimate and motivated reasoning.

When something contradicts your identity, you're going to fight it.

You're going to fight it with your life.

You know, if if you're white and I say white people suck, like that's your identity, right? Now, you're going to

identity, right? Now, you're going to fight that or black people suck, whatever, right? So, it's that's that's

whatever, right? So, it's that's that's the problem with racism. Like, people

can't change their identity. And so,

when you're racist, you make enemies out of them immediately. Um, and it creates warfare. So, you got to keep your

warfare. So, you got to keep your identity thin. You don't want to choose

identity thin. You don't want to choose your identity, right? Identity is like what you can't get away from. But any

chosen identity is a straight jacket.

It's locking you in. And that's true for happiness, but it's it's true for for truth. And here I would say like people

truth. And here I would say like people who are unhappy like there was a time when it served them. I think I mentioned him earlier, William Glasser, who was

kind of my favorite psychologist type writer and he wrote a a series of really good books uh around something he calls choice theory. But one of his most

choice theory. But one of his most controversial observations is that depression is really a choice or it's a series of choices that was made. It's a

result of a series of choices that were made when you were a child that then became an unconscious habit and it's self-perpetuating. So when you were

self-perpetuating. So when you were young, you know, as a as a baby, you start out you're crying to get your parents attention and every time you cry, they come and they respond and then eventually you figure out actually with strangers crying doesn't work. It just

forces them away. So you start smiling or you start communicating but eventually you run into situations where you're trying to get someone's attention whether it's your parents or your teachers or your peers and they won't

give you the attention. So you cry internally. You signal that you you are

internally. You signal that you you are so unhappy that you're willing to hurt yourself. And that's what depression is.

yourself. And that's what depression is.

It's hurting yourself through your own unhappiness and you start ruminating on it. And it may be effective for a little

it. And it may be effective for a little period of time. It pulls some people closer together and it can lead to a situation where you are now unconsciously or subconsciously

ending up depressed not realizing that this is a learned behavior. Now I'm not saying that there couldn't be a chemical component there. There obviously always

component there. There obviously always is there chemical components to hunger.

There's chemical components to athleticism to intelligence you know genetic components but you can make it worse. And saying that it's all chemical

worse. And saying that it's all chemical imbalances doesn't explain anything.

That's like saying like why are we here?

Well, it's because of particle collisions from the big bang, right?

It's too reductive. So, the explanation has to be offered at the same level as the question. So, when we say like, why

the question. So, when we say like, why am I unhappy? Forget the chemical imbalance. You're going to change your

imbalance. You're going to change your brain, right? And doing drugs will just

brain, right? And doing drugs will just mess you up in other ways. Every person

who takes like these long-term drugs on these things, they they end up giving up something else fundamental about themselves. Um, and hey, a lot of the

themselves. Um, and hey, a lot of the best artists were crazy in other ways, right? So you don't want to average out

right? So you don't want to average out your your mindset. So uh the depression may be the result of a series of bad choices that then became bad habits and

they do create an ego cuz they create a separate identity of me and then you start identifying with that me so much.

It's like well who else would I be?

Well, I'm just an unhappy person but that's also what makes me brilliant, makes me special and makes me interesting. It makes me undiscovered

interesting. It makes me undiscovered and all that. So you can wrap a whole identity around it. And it's hard to undo that identity because then you're like, well, what what makes me unique,

but it's worth doing. By the way, this is like if you read Jed McKenna, right, spiritual atysis, what is he doing? He's

going through his whole identity and stripping it away.

I think he over dramatizes how painful that was. But it's kind of an

that was. But it's kind of an interesting interesting method.

That's a process that you went through.

No. No.

Deconstructing your identity?

No. Yeah, maybe a little bit. Not

consciously. I mean I I just um I I don't think any of the techniques that anybody lays out will work for you. I

don't think mental techniques work because the mind is infinitely complicated and capable of any thought and it's capable of reaching any point

in mental space to any other point in mental space in one jump. Right? And

because of that there's no pathway through another person's mind. So you

can be inspired by other people um but the right idea can change you in an instant whereas the wrong practice you know done 30 years every day will not make a difference.

I mean through that frame it's it's a very optimistic way to look at you know someone who's unhappy someone who's chronically unhappy like there's no limit to how fast you can change or how

positive that change could be.

That's right. The most important thing with getting wealthy and being happy is just realize you can do it. It's your

choice. You can do both and you can be both and there's nothing wrong with trying to do both.

The opening tweet of this whole section is uh the three big ones in life are wealth, health and happiness. We pursue

them in that order but their importance is reversed.

And I I was curious whether the order is should be pursued backwards or you think they're all like the optimal path is to sort of find balance and pursue them all in parallel.

I I don't feel strongly about the order.

I feel more strongly about the components, right? Um, you could pursue

components, right? Um, you could pursue them in different orders. Like some

people are just born happy, naturally happy, nothing destroys it. They're just

always happy and that's the greatest gift, right? So that's why I think it is the

right? So that's why I think it is the most important. Like even there's some

most important. Like even there's some people who will be unhealthy and they'll still be happy. They do exist and you know they're blessed. So if you can get that one, you're pretty much set. Um

because the others are just attempted routes towards those two things or prerequisites for those two things. But

if you don't need the other two as a prerequisite, if you're one of these magical people, then by all means, just go get happiness right away and be happy. Um, in terms of the wealth and

happy. Um, in terms of the wealth and health, yeah, I think the health is more important than the wealth. Ask any old unhealthy guy and they'll trade you a lot of money for getting their health back. Or it's the old Confucious line,

back. Or it's the old Confucious line, which I quoted before, but you know, um, a healthy manuh wants 10,000 things. A

sick man only wants one thing. And it's

very true. When you're sick, you'll, you know, you just want to get back up. So

health is very important and then wealth uh you know it solves all your material problems is also really important. I

wouldn't give up any of the three to be honest. That said if you can only choose

honest. That said if you can only choose one you know happiness would be the number one but you shouldn't have to choose one. You have three legs of a

choose one. You have three legs of a stool. Most people I think will want all

stool. Most people I think will want all three. And wealth is best pursued when

three. And wealth is best pursued when you're younger just cuz you're higher energy. You're more flexible. You have

energy. You're more flexible. You have

less obligations. You're more malleable in terms of where you live and what you do and all that. You're just more optimistic. You can pursue it later.

optimistic. You can pursue it later.

It's just harder. You know what does that old song go? Like for everything there is a season. And you know, if you're in your teens, you should be learning and doing. If you're in your 20s, you probably want to be uh working

very hard and in the arena, so to speak.

In your 30s, you want to start harvesting. That's when you have your

harvesting. That's when you have your contacts and you still have a lot of energy. In your 40s, you definitely want

energy. In your 40s, you definitely want to be harvesting. And this is where you really want to be watching your health.

And you better be getting happy by now cuz there's not enough time left. And

then when you're in your 50s and you can do your uh political gives backs and your uh you know contribution to society and be philanthropic and charitable and when you're 60s you can be a philosopher

because enough experiences happen you've thought through enough things. So there

is kind of a natural season to all these things. I think back in the Roman days I

things. I think back in the Roman days I don't I don't read much about the history of Rome but my sense is in in olden times when you were in your teens you would study. when you were in your 20s is when you would go to war. When

you were in your 30s, you would do your business. When you're 40s, you would

business. When you're 40s, you would serve in politics. In your 50s, you do your philosophy. Right? Something

your philosophy. Right? Something

something along those lines. Maybe a few years here and there in each each bucket. Um, so there is a season for

bucket. Um, so there is a season for everything. So, you want to get wealth

everything. So, you want to get wealth first. Health is a grant for granted

first. Health is a grant for granted when you're young hopefully. Then you

want to preserve your health as you get older. And then you better figure out

older. And then you better figure out how to get happy when you're, you know, at a certain point cuz you don't want to be that grumpy old person who's just getting angrier and bitter, more bitter and more cynical at the world as you get older. We've all seen that in very old

older. We've all seen that in very old people. There's there's only two

people. There's there's only two extremes that I see in old people.

They're either the ones who are fine with everything. You know, they've made

with everything. You know, they've made their peace with the world and the ones who are bitter about everything, right?

Uh because we become more of ourselves in whatever direction we're in as we get older. CS Lewis talks about this where

older. CS Lewis talks about this where you know to him morality is you know and free will mean that every little action you make they compound and you are the

product of 30 50 100 years of these compounding actions and you should take responsibility for each little action because it leads you closer to heaven or closer to hell and if you just keep

making small bad decisions they lead to medium-sized bad decisions lead to large bad decisions it's very hard to come back and you end up having a failed life. So yeah, I I think if you follow

life. So yeah, I I think if you follow the season's philosophy, for everything there's a season, you start with wealth, you preserve your health and then you get happy. But the importance kind of is

get happy. But the importance kind of is the reverse where the people who have who are just naturally happy, they have the greatest gift. They don't need the others. And the people who don't have

others. And the people who don't have their health don't really care about their wealth. So that's why I kind of

their wealth. So that's why I kind of stand by the ordering, but I don't feel super strongly about it.

Yeah. A failure mode that a lot of people fall into is they spend so much time pursuing wealth. They sacrifice

happiness. They sacrifice health and then they find out way too late that they've way overshot, you know, their their wealth bar. They've earned way more money than they need or they've

just become the identity become too enshrined for them to change. And you

know, yeah, I feel like the the the health part everybody figures out as they get older. Nobody wants to be less healthy.

older. Nobody wants to be less healthy.

Everybody wants to be healthier because the feedback loop and not being healthy is very tight. Pain demands a response and eventually the pain will show up. So

everybody wants to be healthier and so I feel like people figure that out especially once they get wealthy then you know they're they have more control over their time they can devote time uh to health and these days frankly you

know you have GOP ones so people can lose weight and obesity was probably the biggest mass market driver of unhealthiness so that is being solved but the happiness one is a tough one a lot of people don't even believe it's

possible I would say most of my contemporaries who have made a lot of money they are not happy people and not even just not happy. They don't have an

imagination that they can build their life on their own terms. They live very structured lives that are modeled after what they had in their youth and not

necessarily in a good way. I would say they're in straight jackets like in terms of like, you know, kids are in school so I can't travel. You know, I don't I didn't hire help because, you know, we're supposed to do our own dish.

These are like billionaires who who act like this, right? Um or they just they just don't think out of the box, right?

They go to obligation obligatory meetings or functions or festivals or ceremonies that are just tedious. You

know, it's like tedious meetings with tedious people, right? So I I just find too many of them are not able to hack

their life the same way they hack their career or hack their business. I mean

hack a good way, right? But

agency. Yeah.

Agency. Yeah. They're low agency about the rest of their life. They're very

high agency about their work. And then

their mindsets and temperaments, they're just not naturally happy. They're not

able to enjoy themselves. They're not

able to have a good time. They're not

genuinely enjoying what they're doing.

Or they have tough family lives or tough relationships. All of which kind of is

relationships. All of which kind of is is downstream of your own mental well-being.

That's one of the things that sort of drew me towards everything that you had shared over, you know, in decades now is a sense of high agency over everything in life.

I have an amazing life.

If people knew how good my life was, I'd be run out of town. My life is really good. I mean, basically, at any given

good. I mean, basically, at any given time during the day, I'm doing what I want to be doing. It's it's it's well thought through. It's considered. It's

thought through. It's considered. It's

not obligatory.

It's designed such a way that it does keep very good authentic relationships with my family and the people that I care about. But I'm not doing anything I

care about. But I'm not doing anything I don't want to do. And I'm enjoying what I want to do. And if I'm not enjoying it, I'm changing it very, very quickly.

And yes, it is not living by anybody's rules. Like everything is built for me.

rules. Like everything is built for me.

You've called yourself lazy, but I think it's actually probably a focus on the effort to output ratio.

Yeah. I I want the 8020 in everything. I

want I want to actually I want the 95 99 one the fractal 8020.

Yeah, exactly. uh I want to get the most that I can while doing the least but in every aspect of my life and then you know open up more business and actually even among the philosophers like I love Schopenhau because he's so truth

oriented but he did not look like he was enjoying his life right where someone like in Osho even though he's a bit of a whack job and I don't agree with everything he says so at least he was enjoying his life

Osho was objectively enjoying his life the orgies and 17 Rolls-Royces or whatever is in the documentary you know he I don't agree with any of that but he was definitely having a a

good time. Uh, and it it's more

good time. Uh, and it it's more interesting to me to listen to an Osho or Steve Jobs uh rather than somebody who was uh, you

know, very successful or even a lighten but just seems der or down or miserable.

Yeah.

Well, I think one of the sort of loadbearing pillars of the the happiness, you know, work, the happiness chapters, the happiness ideas is agency over perception.

Or perception. agency over perception of of understanding that like there I mean your tweet there are no external forces affecting your emotions like no matter what it feels like you can control how you interpret the things that are

happening.

Yeah. Changing your interpretation of the past. You don't store memories of

the past. You don't store memories of your past. You store interpretations of

your past. You store interpretations of memories of your past.

And so changing those interpretations or revisiting those interpretations can be painful but useful. It requires a certain level of humility.

You know the ego is a thing that stands in the way. The ego doesn't really exist. It's just a concept, but uh the

exist. It's just a concept, but uh the the the ego is just like you don't want to go through the painful thoughts of re-evaluating who you think you are and what you think makes you important. So,

you're not willing to reexamine your past. Like, let's say like for whatever

past. Like, let's say like for whatever reason, uh you know, you had conflict with your parents, right? And so, now you have an identity, an interpretation of your past where your parents were bad

people and you didn't get along with them and therefore you're in the situation that you're in. It's their

fault. Well, that's probably not true.

It's probably keeping you away from your parents. It's probably making your life

parents. It's probably making your life miserable. It's probably making them

miserable. It's probably making them miserable. And then when you have kids,

miserable. And then when you have kids, your kids don't have access to their grandparents. And the reality is, if you

grandparents. And the reality is, if you just went back and tried to be very objective, you know, neutral, and give them the benefit of the doubt and realize they're genetically very similar to you. They just had different

to you. They just had different circumstances and they made the hard choices they had to make that perhaps it wasn't entirely their fault and perhaps you can be more charitable about it. And

if you reinterpret that, then you could have an objectively better life with them. But it would require you to take

them. But it would require you to take the ego hit of no actually and you weren't wrong. So that means some of the

weren't wrong. So that means some of the things that went wrong in your life were your own bad choices. Now seeing that truth might allow you to make better choices, but it does mean that you take a ego hit. You have to have painful

thoughts. And this is where things like

thoughts. And this is where things like meditation or understanding the the nature of the self help because you guys those thoughts aren't you. There's gonna

be a bunch of pleasant thoughts and be a bunch of unpleasant thoughts and there'll be a bunch of pleasant thoughts again. These are just thoughts. Thoughts

again. These are just thoughts. Thoughts

don't actually have feelings. Thoughts

don't get hurt. Thoughts don't do anything. Thoughts don't mean anything.

anything. Thoughts don't mean anything.

And it helps to disconnect from them a little bit to be objective about it. So

that's part of the process of meditation. By the way, it also happens

meditation. By the way, it also happens in psychedelics where people will reinterpret their past and they'll come out happier not knowing why, but the real reason is because they've worked through problems in the past and they've

reinterpreted them. I think I did some

reinterpreted them. I think I did some of that. not not as a conscious

of that. not not as a conscious deliberate exercise or like well I'm going to go through my past and reinterpret it but it's just that when I was open-minded about it and I was like I just want to know the truth or you

know or or even like you're mentally suffering you just want to get over it you just want to get through it you're sick of it you're done with it right you're done with the suffering then it helps to objectively re-evaluate those

thoughts or even just to let go of them if they were you know the useful useful beliefs Um, even if it's a like you can't let go of it being a correct

or incorrect interpretation, like if it's useful to you for your future to reframe it.

Yeah. That's what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is you forgive them because you reinterpret what happened. You're

like, okay, maybe it wasn't entirely their fault. But another one is just

their fault. But another one is just like it was their fault, but I still have to genuinely forgive them. This is

hard, but I'm going to do it so I can move on so it's not occupying my mind and my brain. And I'm not sitting here spitting venom and blood and just feeling angry about the whole thing, just feeling terrible because anger

makes you miserable. Anger, you know, spikes your cortisol, gets your adrenal gland glands going, ages you, makes you feel bad. A lot of the vices and sins,

feel bad. A lot of the vices and sins, the traditional ones, they make you feel bad. The punishment is directly on you.

bad. The punishment is directly on you.

You you you feel the burden of it immediately. And so you get over it not

immediately. And so you get over it not because of them, not to forgive them, but to forgive, but to just get it out of your own mind, to clear your own mind.

Yeah. If you can't get yourself to forgive out of selflessness, you might be able to out of selfishness. A thought

experiment I like to play with is which human being, if we can measure everyone's sort of neurochemical levels over a month or a year, like which human on earth is experiencing the most

subjective happiness and who is that person and where are they and how are they living? What do they believe? and

they living? What do they believe? and

you know what are their habits? I think

it's highly likely that it's you know a religious plumber with a family of four or something volunteers.

Well, I mean one of the one of the things that's amazing about the internet is that there are actual enlightened people out there and in the past they were inaccessible.

You know there was you go to remote mountaintop and you meet the Buddha.

They were a myth seems like.

Yeah. Mythologically you would encounter a thousand people total in your life.

for the odds you're going to find the current living Buddha. Well, now thanks to the internet, there's dozens of them on YouTube, on Twitter. There were a couple on Air Chat. I've met probably close to a dozen of them. I've

interacted with them. I verified to my own satisfaction that they are enlightened after spending enough time around them. And, you know, I learned

around them. And, you know, I learned from them. So, these people exist. This

from them. So, these people exist. This

is all available. Like, you can go find people who are they're not happy in a conventional dopamine pleasure sense, but they're at peace at all times.

nothing bothers them like you know getting being told that they have catching get getting diagnosed with cancer to them is will invite the same level of fear and happiness that getting

a parking ticket would like they're funny with it you know and so these people exist they're completely approachable you can even hire some of them as your personal coach or you can watch infinite YouTube videos with them

I mean I can name you 15 of them right now it'd be great if you name a couple oh I mean there are better known ones like Rupert Spir and Muji or on YouTube, you know, they're they're not famous.

There's a guy Nardinan who I spent a lot of time with. He's now semi famous. Uh

he does Sidamaya yoga. He's kind of more the classic guru type. There's personal

friends I have. Steven Belchure who was on Air Chat with me. He's on Twitter too. Uh James Pierce,

too. Uh James Pierce, you know, he's tweeted a lot. Uh

Effortless Stoicism, Kapal Gupta, who I worked with in the past. There's

Ascendor who's on YouTube. I tweeted him out recently. There's another guy who

out recently. There's another guy who works as a waiter at some restaurant in the Midwest. I forget his name. I

the Midwest. I forget his name. I

tweeted him out. There's Saja. There's

so many of them. I mean, my YouTube is filled with them and I've watched enough of their videos enough that I know that these are the real deal. These are not fakers.

Is it a palpable difference when you're in their in their physical presence?

No, there's no like fancy aura where you're going to be floating on cloud9.

Uh I mean, a lot of that is hyperbole, but I think what you find is that they have the persistent experience of no self. M they uh they see through the

self. M they uh they see through the fact that the self is just a thought.

It's a constructed identity and there's no one there to actually really get happy or unhappy. So because of that they now live basically as pure

awareness or consciousness. And so they are essentially melded with their environment. They feel a sense of peace

environment. They feel a sense of peace because your awareness is the one thing that's never changed about your entire life. It is the one thing that is

life. It is the one thing that is perfect and permanent in your life from birth to death. and they are no longer confused or think of themselves as a separate body mind construct and so thing so nothing bothers them that's

kind of the common thing and the way I usually figure them out out is I just spend enough time around them that I see something genuinely bad happen to them you have to hang around long enough for something genuinely bad to happen to

them and then you see their reaction and there's not even a perturbation and that's how you know interesting and enlightened makes it seem enlightened is a super fancy fancy word.

I'm not sure there's such a thing.

Well, it makes it seem binary. Is that

But I I can't imagine that's how you see it.

It is binary. It is binary because uh and this is a little counterintuitive.

It's this not a path. It's not like a Osad Guru is another one by the way. Um

I met a bunch of them. I I I should keep a list. I have a seekers list on Twitter

a list. I have a seekers list on Twitter which is open which tracks not necessarily enlightened people that has a couple of those on there, but also people who are working towards it. They

care about it. They're genuine seekers.

That said, I'm not sure there's any such thing as progress because it's either you believe that you are a separate self or not. It's that simple. Not not even

or not. It's that simple. Not not even believe. Believe is the wrong word. You

believe. Believe is the wrong word. You

know, belief is not strong enough.

Belief will not suffice. So, either you know that you're a separate self or you know that you are not. Uh the reality is everyone's agnostic.

You know, we there there are very few actual atheists and there are very few actual religious people. If you were actually religious, you'd just be like, "Well, everything's in God's hands.

everything's fine. And if you were actually an atheist, you'd be like, "Well, none of this matters, so everything's fine." Right? But we're all

everything's fine." Right? But we're all agnostic.

Do these people have like relationships and kids and Yeah, I it's it's actually that's a great question, right? Because you think of first of all, the word enlightenment

is horrible. It implies that there's

is horrible. It implies that there's like some state that you end up in where everything is perfect and you're always happy. It's not the case at all. it's

happy. It's not the case at all. it's

just that you disappear and all that's like there's a great old uh philosophical puzzle uh called the philosophical zombie problem and I saw it referred to not it necessarily but he

starts off with like what are consciousness and all that right what is consciousness for it's exactly that question and the philosophical zombie problem basically says you know let's say you have to go through life you have

to solve problems you you have to like react to the environment you have to think through things what do you need consciousness for Why can't like there just be a robot doing all of that? Why

do you need to have this conscious awareness? Cuz a robot could be reacting

awareness? Cuz a robot could be reacting to stimuli, could be solving problems, could be doing all of those things.

Consciousness is completely unnecessary.

And so the question is why consciousness? And this is a very

consciousness? And this is a very western concept. Why consciousness? And

western concept. Why consciousness? And

all the enlightened people would tell you actually consciousness is the only thing there is. Everything appears in consciousness. It's made of

consciousness. It's made of consciousness and it disappears in consciousness and it's seen by consciousness. There's nothing other

consciousness. There's nothing other than consciousness. You don't experience

than consciousness. You don't experience anything in the outside world. You just

experience consciousness as consciousness. So that's all there

consciousness. So that's all there actually is. And the actual

actually is. And the actual consciousness observes everything including your body and your mind. So

it's not your body. It's not your mind.

It's its own thing and everything is made of it. So that's all that exists and that's all you are. So they would reverse the answer and say why zombie?

You know you're asking why consciousness? No. The answer is why

consciousness? No. The answer is why zombie? There's no zombie. The zombie

zombie? There's no zombie. The zombie

doesn't exist. There is no separate self. There's nothing else out there.

self. There's nothing else out there.

And so this is a completely different frame on it. So in that sense, there is no enlightenment. There's no separate

no enlightenment. There's no separate being to be enlightened. There's just

life. There's just stuff happening. You

know, there's just stuff happening.

There are thoughts appearing. There are

thoughts disappearing. They connect to each other. They talk to each other.

each other. They talk to each other.

They're valid. They exist. There are

bodies. There are minds walking around.

And there is an awareness of those things. And you're basically a localized

things. And you're basically a localized awareness. What you think you are is

awareness. What you think you are is localized awareness. And this goes back

localized awareness. And this goes back to the oldest question that I think you know Robin and Marshy used to talk about is just who am I? The one thing that I

think the the way the enlightened people again bad word get there is they have a persistent experience of no self and that becomes their new default. It is

binary. It's not a it's not a pathway to it.

And one of the ways that some of them get there some of them are just naturals almost born that way. Some of them they have a mystical experience. Some of them they have a psychotic break. That's

literally what a Krishna already had, right? Um he had this thing called the

right? Um he had this thing called the process which like kept coming back to him and it was just seems like a psychotic break plus his brother died and he went through a bad time. Uh some

people get there through meditation, you know, decades of meditation. Some people

get there through just kind of devoting their life service to others. Like their

self disappears, they see through it.

But the the the one that I found the most interesting was they just do what's called self-examination. And

called self-examination. And self-examination is just looking for the self, looking for this separate self.

You're convinced you're Eric. I'm

convinced I'm the wall. What do we mean by that? What is that? It was very fuzzy

by that? What is that? It was very fuzzy definition. What is that exactly? Find

definition. What is that exactly? Find

me this Eric that's constantly talking about himself, referring to himself.

Find me this Eric who suffers. Find me

this Eric who feels pride. Find me this Eric who thrives. Find me this Eric who feels good. Find me this Eric who feels

feels good. Find me this Eric who feels bad. Where is this guy hiding? Who is

bad. Where is this guy hiding? Who is

this? Like look for that. And what you find is if you look look look, you can never pin it down. It's always like it's always on the edge of your vision. It's

what Alan Watts described as like you take a a burning stick and you whirl it around and it looks like you have a flaming wheel. You don't have a flaming

flaming wheel. You don't have a flaming wheel. What you have is you have a lot

wheel. What you have is you have a lot of thoughts going around that convince you that there's this character in there called Eric. But there's no actual Eric.

called Eric. But there's no actual Eric.

The self is just a thought. These are

just thoughts that are happening that are convincing you there's someone there. So even when I'm speaking to you,

there. So even when I'm speaking to you, there's words coming out and there's thoughts coming out. That's not me.

They're just flying out. I'm not

controlling them. There's no separate me sitting there controlling them. And then

for a moment, I felt sort of proud of how I said this and articulated to you.

What is that feeling of pride? It's just

a feeling. Who is that feeling referring to? It's not referring to anyone.

to? It's not referring to anyone.

There's no one that's referring to. It's

just another thought. That pride was just another thought without a target.

Well, if I keep looking for that target long enough, then maybe I'll finally realize actually that target doesn't exist. And then when that realize that

exist. And then when that realize that target doesn't exist or that target has never existed. And if that target has

never existed. And if that target has never existed, then eventually those thoughts that were going towards a fake target will start dying down because they're false. They're useless. That

they're false. They're useless. That

knowledge will no longer be replicated in my mind in the Deutschian sense. And

then I will be at peace because I will no longer have these egotistical emotions and ups and downs and I'll realize there was never anybody here and it was all just consciousness all along.

And some people call that God.

It's going to take me a while to gro all that. But that's the point.

that. But that's the point.

Yeah. I mean maybe I mean some people are very lucky it happens for them right away and most people never want it so it's fine.

Yeah. Do you um the truly enlightened people if you ask them like you know like I I've gone through this with all of them in different ways but you know I've

tested them. I'm I'm kind of a a

tested them. I'm I'm kind of a a smartass about this, but I've tested them to see if they feel emotional pain in any way, right?

And my favorite way to test them like, well, you know, the best tests are subtle where they don't, you know, it's not obvious, but the one I like to ask them is, well, what if you weren't

enlightened? What if you lost your

enlightened? What if you lost your enlightenment? Or what if like you had

enlightenment? Or what if like you had never been enlightened? They're

completely okay with that, right?

Because the truth doesn't change if you know it or not. And if you are not around to know the truth, if you don't exist in any separate sense, it doesn't matter if you know it or not.

Yeah. And if it breaks under that question, then it was it was false.

It was part of your identity to the enlightened.

That's right.

Yeah. Interesting.

But going back to your question about like can they uh still go about their lives and you know have girlfriends and and businesses and jobs. Yeah.

Absolutely they can. They they do actually. Some of the people that I

actually. Some of the people that I mentioned, they have jobs, one of them is running a company, you know, um, one of them is like really good at dating, dates a lot, right? They

they just absolutely have full clarity of mind. They have fully functional

of mind. They have fully functional bodies. They even have desires. Uh, and

bodies. They even have desires. Uh, and

they even have wants and needs, but they're not egoic. That they're not wrapped up in a small sense of self that gets easily threatened and gets angry or

gets like depressed or any of that.

They'll take the actions that you and I would take, but they'll take them much more calmly and they won't take anything personally. So, they're still getting

personally. So, they're still getting feedback from the environment. They're

still reacting. And if anything, I would argue they're more capable than they ever were and their desires are more genuine. They're less mimedic. They're

genuine. They're less mimedic. They're

less status oriented. Now, are they less motivated than say someone like me?

Yeah, I haven't met enlightened person who's as motivated as me. On the other hand, I haven't met many people who are as motivated as me. Right? Maybe I' I think I may have met like five people in

my life who are more motivated. Right?

So, it's hard to intersect that set.

And would I take that trade, you know, being slightly less motivated for being a Sure. I was going to ask if you um

a Sure. I was going to ask if you um having been so close if you're seeking that or if you feel like you know it's impossible not to seek it even though I know that's a trap. It's

like the shiniest of the shiny objects.

Like, you know, why would you want to start the next great company when you could be the Buddha, you know, when you could be God himself? Like, who are the greatest people in human history that everyone knows? It's Jesus, Muhammad,

everyone knows? It's Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, you know, it's that bunch. It's

not it's not even the Caesars of the world. Uh maybe the Einsteins, right?

world. Uh maybe the Einsteins, right?

But essentially truth seekers. Truth

seekers are the most revered and artists. History remembers artists and

artists. History remembers artists and truth seekers. And the truth seeeking

truth seekers. And the truth seeeking artists are the highest of them all, right? The Daq Ching and so on. That

right? The Daq Ching and so on. That

said, it's another chase. It's another

chase for something permanent. It's

another chase for uh a shiny object.

It's a chase for things being different than they are. And the key thing about enlightened people is that they are fine with everything the way it is. And which

includes not being fine with the way things are. They self-actualize.

things are. They self-actualize.

They may self-actualize in more authentic ways that are different than how they would have self-actualized pre-enlightenment, but they still self-actualize. I'm really interested in

self-actualize. I'm really interested in the the ways in which you've broken these like false dichotoies, right? And

you mentioned one just there, which is, you know, the enlightened and unmotivated are potentially more effective. You know, you've gotten more

effective. You know, you've gotten more effective as you've become happier, even though everyone has this fear of like, oh, if I become happy or if I accept

what is, I'll be less productive.

Yeah. What What would you rather battle?

A terminator that is enlightened or a terminator that is wrapped in an ego.

Terminator wrapped in ego is much easier to manipulate. Might have guilt, might

to manipulate. Might have guilt, might have self-doubt, might have anger, will be less efficient. A term that is enlightened is a true terminator. You

need to get away from that right away.

It's interesting.

There is a place for emotions. Modern

society is very safe. So a lot of the anger that we feel is derived from times when anger was there for physical violence or physical reasons. But we now

take it on as mental. A lot of the modern suffering comes from we feel things chronically that were meant to be felt acutely for brief periods of time.

So I I just I don't think you are less effective because you're happier. You

will choose to do different things. So

it may look like, oh, you're changing for the worse because you may look less motivated or motivated for a different thing, but you're motivated for something that is going to make you more effective while you're being happy. By

the way, no one chooses to go back to being less happy.

Right. Yeah.

No, it's just like money. No one chooses to go back to being poor.

Strictly dominant strategy. Correct.

To become happy.

That's right. These are strictly dominance and dominant strategies. These

are unalloed goods. So when people say, "I don't value happiness," that's just not true. That's not true actions

not true. That's not true actions because every time you've been happy, you don't want to give that up. And

every time you do something that makes you a little bit happier, you're not going to give that up. Uh, you know, like one one of the things like as you kind of go through the progression of life, there's a point where you have roommates and you get to like not having roommates, right? You don't want to go

roommates, right? You don't want to go back to like the pre- roommate life, but then you have kids and you the worst roommates and the best. It's kind of sucks when the kids grow up and leave too, right?

Um, you don't want to go back to uh commutes, you know, if you've had long commutes and then you get that start walking to work or having a short commute. It kind of sucks to go back to

commute. It kind of sucks to go back to commutes. Um, retirement, you know, or

commutes. Um, retirement, you know, or or working for yourself. These are these are oneway doors. It's very hard to come back through those doors.

I I asked about the enlightened people in their relationships because um a lot of people ask me what's something I disagree with you on. I think as a test to see if I'm just a complete involved

sophant um and actually one of the things that I I wrestle with the most is this like you know only the individual ascends. All of your experiences are

ascends. All of your experiences are individual and like objectively I understand the correctness of the you know your perception as individual but I also know that so much of happiness like

in my lived experience in research comes from our relationships with the people around us. I have to imagine there's a

around us. I have to imagine there's a lot of nuance there. You can't control them but you are a participant in these relationships and they do affect your day-to-day happiness. Yeah, we we we we

day-to-day happiness. Yeah, we we we we will disagree because I think that uh it's very difficult to be happy if you're bound up in needy relationships

and just needing the relationship is needy. Now, obviously, I have my family

needy. Now, obviously, I have my family and I love them very much and they're very important to me, but I'm not going to stay in any relationship

that makes me unhappy. I will do my duty. I'll fulfill my obligations. I'll

duty. I'll fulfill my obligations. I'll

take care of them even if they don't like me. But I'm not going to create a

like me. But I'm not going to create a stay sustain in a false relationship.

And this is truth. Every relationship

you're in, you're in because that person provides some value for you or because in in your identity you're tied up and you have some obligation towards them.

And that's fine. But like if if literally your wife changed tomorrow, if she was inhabited by a demon who just did everything horrible to you, would leave, right? So every relationship

leave, right? So every relationship other than pure blood relationships which are different. They're run a genetic level. You know you see your

genetic level. You know you see your kids and you just go nuts in a good way.

Every relationship is transactional. It

does have a value exchange component. It

does have an expectation of give and take. And it's kind of you know it sound

take. And it's kind of you know it sound good but not true but false. And this

this is this is where truth is hard. If

truth was easy everyone would do it right. But this is where like these

right. But this is where like these false relationships and these false obligations are tough. So like I don't go to my friends birthdays unless I think the party is going to be fun. I

don't go to weddings for example because I think you know largely there just like enormous amounts of time taken out of your day you know of your week destination weddings. Oh my god right. I

destination weddings. Oh my god right. I

don't go to like obligatory things like oh so and so is having an anniversary so and so is having a this thing you have to go you know or the these people need you there for this. F no. That's like

that's like where I draw the hard line.

no obligations and relationships drive you into obligations and then the obligations drive you into pain. Now now

you're not having the pleasant part of the relationships. Now I'm left with in

the relationships. Now I'm left with in my life people who are similarly free, similarly low ego. We hang out all the time, but it's voluntarily. We all want

to see each other and we're all being at our best to each other because we want to attract the other person. We don't

take each other for granted, which is like the worst thing that can happen in a relationship. You have to invest into

a relationship. You have to invest into all your relationships because you want to keep them alive. If you value them, you invest in them. But there's no false attachment. You know, it's the neediness

attachment. You know, it's the neediness that destroys a relationship or creates a fake relationship. Um, obviously to have family, you have obligations and you fulfill them. Uh, and I actually

have I don't have a single estrange family member. Everyone everyone is in

family member. Everyone everyone is in my life. Everyone in family. So, you

my life. Everyone in family. So, you

know, it's not one of those your family's broken, you fix the world situations. the family's functioning

situations. the family's functioning really well, but at the same time, you have to be happy on your own. You know,

the secret to a happy relationship is two happy people. Okay? Uh cuz you can't be happy with your spouse. They'll drag

you down or you'll drag them down. Uh

so, it's important that each person find happiness. And happiness is personal.

happiness. And happiness is personal.

They each have to work on it. The the

worst thing you can do in a relationship is go to somebody else and say, "Cheer up. Be happy. You know, what's wrong

up. Be happy. You know, what's wrong with you? Why are you depressed?" Right?

with you? Why are you depressed?" Right?

It doesn't work, right? So it has to be tackled at an individual level and then once your own house is in order then you can form genuine relationships with other people. But putting relationships

other people. But putting relationships ahead of your own work and your own happiness I think is a mistake. You will

get neither.

I think that's a good formulation of like they are valuable and important.

You want to pursue them in that order.

And if I if I'm describing it correctly your approach, you want them to be maximally truthful. like you don't want

maximally truthful. like you don't want to go into a relationship trying to make someone else happy.

And I don't want them to do things to make me happy that are dishonest. I

don't want them to, you know, feel like I'm a burden or an obligation. You know,

like one of the issues I have is like, uh, as a parent, like I do things, you know, for my kids because I love them.

And people around me are always trying to train them to say thank you. They'll

say, "Oh, you know, your dad gave you something. Did you say thank you?" I'm

something. Did you say thank you?" I'm

like, "Don't don't do that. Don't train

them. They're not an animal." Like if they genuinely feel gratitude, it'll come out in some way. I don't need it.

I'm not doing it for the gratitude, right? And I don't want to train them

right? And I don't want to train them like an animal. If they're genuinely thankful, it'll come out, you know? And

if they're not, it won't. But don't

don't don't force it. I don't I don't want any forced obligations relationship in either direction.

Yeah.

The only relationships I I believe in are peer relationships. Like obviously

people work for you but even then you always want to treat them as much like a peer as you can given the circumstances uh because otherwise it ends up formalized it ends up ritualistic it

ends up false it ends up unhappy. um you

know where where do you find it's funny in if you go to an event like a wedding or you go to like a big party a lot of times you'll find a lot of show

about happiness you know people cheering yeah you know but like they're not the genuine article is rarely there you know the genuine happiness comes in smaller

interactions that are more genuine and less forced like if you're forced to wear a tux and you're forced to show up a certain time then you're forced to listen to a beach, then you're forced to do a toast and you're forced to go

around and it's just like that's not what actually makes you happy. If it was genuinely how it makes you what makes you happy, then you would be doing that every day. You'd be going to every party

every day. You'd be going to every party and every wedding and every bar mitzvah and everything you get invited to. But

at some level, those things are tedious.

You're doing them for other people and they're doing them for you. Like who's

doing it for themselves, right? So I I think like true celebration uh is a beautiful thing but it has been ritualized so much like Valentine's Day, having to send

flowers, you know, Hallmark cards, all this stuff is ritualistic [ __ ] Uh real happiness is when you're genuinely grateful with somebody else and you know

you do something kind for them because you just want to and you have to create space for that in your life and you have to create situations where you feel it

authentically for people to genuinely you know inspire that in you and I don't want anything ritualistic. I never want a card. I never want a you know a

a card. I never want a you know a ritualistic gift. I don't want a medal.

ritualistic gift. I don't want a medal.

I don't want an award. you know, all these things are useless.

I was gonna ask you about, you know, helping people sort of find the the courage to be that truthful in their lives. But, you know, I think it just

lives. But, you know, I think it just goes back to the long-term view like, you know, that the truth, even if it causes short-term pain of like, hey, I'm not I'm not going to do this to make you

happy. I don't want you to do this just

happy. I don't want you to do this just to make me happy, is the best way to create this long term.

That's absolutely true. But I think it's even deeper than that. It's that truth is non-negotiable.

like find me a single person who says I don't want the truth. That's a rare person right?

Well, the express preference I think there's probably plenty of people living uh choosing to live lies.

I think they don't want to disappoint other people and I think so we're all caught in this collective trap, right? Like one of the things co did

right? Like one of the things co did that was good was it broke the collective trap of commuting, right? It

legitimized work from home. Now some

people might take it too far and they just checked out completely. But overall

it it broke society of its addiction of commuting to un unnecessary commuting to unnecessary meetings and that was good.

So I think the same way like it would be good if we can break society of it addiction to pump and circumstance, right? like Valentine's Day, like that

right? like Valentine's Day, like that should be happening all the time with the person you love spontaneously and naturally instead of February 14th, everybody tries to get in the same overpriced restaurant and buys the same

overpriced flowers and gives the same overpriced checks the same box, right?

And if you don't feel like doing it naturally, then that means there's something wrong with your relationship that you should fix or you should move on to another relationship. But what's

not the correct answer is to do this falsehood of checking the box every year and kicking the can down the road just wasting everybody's time. Oh, I I had this whole thread on how a lot of the

great virtues are selfish. I I can reinterpret almost every every uh virtue as something you do for long-term selfishness. That's that's the trick,

selfishness. That's that's the trick, right? The modern devil is cheap

right? The modern devil is cheap dopamine.

Uh so I tweeted that and this was actually one of the reasons why I tweet because sometimes I get a great response. So, I tweeted, "The modern

response. So, I tweeted, "The modern devil is cheap dopamine." And someone responded, "Always has been."

It's true. The devil has always been cheap dope. You go back the seven deadly

cheap dope. You go back the seven deadly sins, it's all cheap dopamine. It's

basically saying, "Don't do something that makes you feel good right now cuz it's going to screw you over later." So

on the flip side uh you know one of the tweets that I sent out which I think Elon liked he commented on it uh was that uh virtues are the set of values

that if we were to all take them on individually would lead to a win-win outcome for society. So the virtues are things that are long-term good for you

as an individual and then which is which is selfish long-term selfish and they're long-term good for the collective because they allow us to play uh iterated prisoners dilemma or to play

stag iterated stag hunt kind of games uh in a positive equilibrium from a game theory perspective that lead to good game theoretic outcomes. If everybody in society followed the even the classic

biblical virtues, all society would level up and each individual would be better off. So that's true. But I also

better off. So that's true. But I also think that all the virtues if you were to follow them as an individual on a long enough time frame, they would make you individually better off. So it's the

ultimate marshmallow test. By the way, that experiment doesn't replicate. So,

sorry to bring it up, but it's one of those behavioral psych experiments everybody knows. But it is the in some

everybody knows. But it is the in some sense a lot of a good life is the marshmallow test. Um,

marshmallow test. Um, and and there are a lot of things that people think that you have to do it the standard way. Like philanthropy is a

standard way. Like philanthropy is a good example, right? You have to go like go volunteer for charity and help out people who are far away. Well, how about helping out people who are right next to you, right? People who live down the

you, right? People who live down the street, people who work for you, people who work with you. Generally helping out those people is selfishly very rewarding. You know, you you can you

rewarding. You know, you you can you could get some benefit back from it. So,

it's a good place to start with charity.

It's very local, very actionable. So,

you know, your money is not being wasted. You're not being tricked. It's

wasted. You're not being tricked. It's

not being redirected. And it's just a it's just a way to do something practical. Another tweet I had was your

practical. Another tweet I had was your family is broken, but you're going to fix the world.

Right? This is the whole modern activism disease where you're agitating about causes that are thousands of miles away that you've never laid eyes on based on what you hear because they're socially popular. But the reality is you could

popular. But the reality is you could just go walk down the street and help the homeless person or the vet um or the poor person looking for a job or what have you or you know literally go make amends with your uncle or your your

parents. Um what right do you have to

parents. Um what right do you have to say I know what's right to fix the world when you can't even get your local family going. Right? It's okay to help

family going. Right? It's okay to help people on the other side of the world, but don't agitate for saying, "I know what's correct." When you can't even

what's correct." When you can't even solve your own local problems. You get the right to solve global problems after you solve local local problems. That's true in environmentalism, too.

Everybody's worried about CO2. Well,

what about rivers and forests and so on?

And this goes back to your uh I think it was your tweet, the greater your ability, the greater your tribe. and the sort of iterative loop of like resource allocation where society gives more

trust and more leverage and more influence to people who are doing a good job of taking care of the people around them.

Yeah. Somebody asked me about Elon long time ago on Twitter. This is years and years years ago before he was the richest man in the world and all that.

Uh and somebody said, "What do you think of Elon?" And I said, well, you know,

of Elon?" And I said, well, you know, when when someone devotes their entire life to like giving society what it needs, then society has no choice but to give them everything they want, right?

And but you you can't rely on that. You

can't do it that selfishly or count that closely. But ultimately because his

closely. But ultimately because his desire was pure regardless of what people say about Elon today, forgetting with Elon, but when you have aspirations

that are larger than yourself, um then other people will align with you because there are other people who feel that okay, your motives are pure. I want that thing too. So let's line up and you

thing too. So let's line up and you become a shelling point. In game theory sense, you become a rallying cry for other people who want to see that thing to mess around. You know in that sense

if you say I want to go to Mars I want to make humans a space fairing species.

Well there is a large percentage of our technical builder population that shares that same vision that are brilliant that are felt stymied that now see a vehicle

to do that. So they will literally go and build a vehicle under SpaceX to go do that. So by having that mission be

do that. So by having that mission be larger than about yourself. You assemble

people. Similar like Martin Luther King when he says I have a dream speech it's very inclusive. It's very high level.

very inclusive. It's very high level.

It's very unifying. It's universal. And

so it pulls people together. Um it's

also the reason why Marxism has such a seductive appeal because, you know, Marx says, "No, it's a, you know, blank slate. We're all equal. We're all the

slate. We're all equal. We're all the same. Um Holy Spirit, it's all

same. Um Holy Spirit, it's all consciousness. Everybody get together."

consciousness. Everybody get together."

It's a it's it's a it's a religious pull towards universality. So the more

towards universality. So the more universal the mission, the more people it's going to pull together regardless of whether it's effective or not. That's

sort of the irony here.

Yeah. Well, this gets to the, you know, the mimemetics of an idea will will spread relative to its spreadability, not relative to its correctness.

It will spread according to it spreadability, but then it'll survive according to its correctness. So, a

civilization that uh adopts a bad idea because of its good spread characteristics wipes itself off the map kind of like the Soviet Union did. And

so, you're left with Russia now, but it's not the Soviet Union. It's

completely different structure. So uh

and for example the Chinese Communist Party you know when it was under Mao and they made the the great leap forward and there was all that suffering and starvation you know more Chinese people

died during that event than all the casualties in World War II and uh from for all people put together not the Chinese just Chinese deaths greatly forward versus all casualties in all

causes in World War II right so that just shows you like what a bad idea can do but then how did they survive well they switched to capitalism they started having local farms that could it's it's a it's a government controlled capitalism, but essentially they created

a capitalist section to their economy with private farming and uh eventually with private enterprises that are still backed by state money, but the more privatized they became, the faster they

came up. So eventually you have to adopt

came up. So eventually you have to adopt good ideas or good explanations because you'll just get wiped out. You the skin of the game will eliminate you. So

you're right, bad ideas can spread and unfortunately the way those bad ideas get taken out is not that we necessarily learn our lessons so much, but it's that the entities, the people, the institutions that had those bad ideas

don't survive. They get eliminated.

don't survive. They get eliminated.

So you really want to be an entity with a bunch of correct ideas so you don't get eliminated.

Yeah. my pseudospiritual take on Deutsche's um definition of knowledge u which he always laughs about when he mentions because he knows like I'm into it and it has a pseudospiritual context

to it which he's not into um is that truth is a crystal in the multiverse. So

if you go with the multiverse theory of quantum physics which is the most direct interpretation like if you basically believe there's nothing special about an observer that causes the collapse and

that observers unobserved and the observed are all the same then the most straight or or systems operating in those conditions are exactly the same which is the most straightforward

interpretation then the multiverse theory naturally emerges from that then it says no just because I look at something just because I look at the cat doesn't mean that the cat is alive or dead in Schwinger's cat. Um, it's that

the cat was dead in some parts of the multiverse and it was alive in other parts of the multiverse. And I just didn't know which universe I was in until I opened the box.

Mhm.

Um, and if you take that interpretation, then there is a multiverse of outcomes.

There's an basically infinite number of universes that are always differentiating into subsections based on did the particle go left or did it go right? Did this happen or did that

right? Did this happen or did that happen? And there are various things

happen? And there are various things that can cause those universes to diverge. Uh but if you were to look at

diverge. Uh but if you were to look at the content of those universes, knowledge is a thing that tends to spread because it's correct.

Truth survives because it it matches up.

It it does. You can do things with truth. You you avoid falsehoods. So

truth. You you avoid falsehoods. So

there are more universes in which the true thing is true than the falsehood because falsehoods are infinitely variable. For every truth I have,

variable. For every truth I have, there's unlimited false explanations.

where there is a finite number of truth explanations. Relatively speaking, you

explanations. Relatively speaking, you can have mostly true explanations. You

never get the absolute truth. But the

set of truth true explanations is much smaller than the set of falsehoods.

However, once the truth is found because it is hard to vary and because it spreads the falsehood gets eliminated.

So if there's a multiverse and there are infinite versions of you and again I think there's a pretty straightforward interpretation of quantum physics. If

there's a multiverse and there's infinite versions of you, then the ones that are flourishing the most and the ones that are most alike are actually the most true versions of you. The most

the ones that have found the most truth.

The false ones are differentiated in all kinds of ways. But the true ones are more similar to each other. And the

truth that each of them have realized that cuts through is more similar than all the variations of falseness. So what

you want to be is you want to be the most truthoriented version of yourself and that is the most true version of itself. And and now we can segue into

itself. And and now we can segue into Rick and Morty because in Rick and Morty there's infinite Ricks, right? There's

infinite universes, there's infinite Ricks and uh Rick is a hero scientist.

Uh and uh there's this council of Ricks where like the infinite Ricks because they can cross across the multiverse.

They meet up and one of the funny things you notice is that Rick C137, which is the hero of the story, uh he's like the most he's Rick, he's weird, but he's the most normal of the Ricks. The rest of

them are all weird in some way. They're

all false in some way. He and they even call him they say he's a Rickiest of the Ricks, right? So, I don't know if they

Ricks, right? So, I don't know if they thought this through or if they stumbled upon it or if it's just another principle that gets in here, but I I view that as like a funny example uh of the version of yourself that you want to

be. You want to be the Rickiest of the

be. You want to be the Rickiest of the Ricks. I want to be the most naive that

Ricks. I want to be the most naive that of all. You want to be the most Eric of

of all. You want to be the most Eric of the Erics. And that's the most truth

the Erics. And that's the most truth oriented version of yourself which and to find truth it means the least motivated reasoning which means the lowest ego which means the least self.

Uh which means the one who's operating at the highest level for the for the greatest most universal principles. uh

it's the one who is the most uh uh knowledgeable about science and about philosophy and uh you know is probably the one who's most likely to be creating

works of beauty and is just probably the happiest. How does the you think about

happiest. How does the you think about the interaction between lowering of ego and finding authenticity?

Like I think some people think of their identity as like the things that make them the unique and authenticity also as like leaning into the things that make you unique.

I I think of authenticity as just not putting on a fake persona, not having a mask. And why do we put on fake personas

mask. And why do we put on fake personas and masks? It's because we want to be

and masks? It's because we want to be seen a certain way. We care what other people think. We want to fit in. We have

people think. We want to fit in. We have

an image and an identity that we're trying to project. So when you're trying to project a self-image that doesn't match up to who you actually are, that's when you are inauthentic. So you need to

take that mask off. And if you take that mask off, then you face the risk of embarrassment, which is people say, "Oh, you know, you're not supposed to do that." Like when I was first tweeting, I

that." Like when I was first tweeting, I got, you know, messages from VCs like saying, "Oh, that's weird. My partner

say you're not backable. You're a

weirdo. You've gone off the rails." I

view authenticity as an output of not pretending to be someone or something other than you are.

So, uh, that's wearing masks. That's uh

trying too hard. Um, that's um signaling status. That's using jargon, you know,

status. That's using jargon, you know, to sound smart. Um, that's claiming to know something that you don't know or claiming not to know something you do know. Like humility is also a trap like

know. Like humility is also a trap like false humility you know people call it out know humble bragging but uh humility is also an ego trip uh you know if you're actually a low ego there's no

such thing as humility any more than there is such a thing as pride they kind of go together um so and authenticity leads to a a better life again the long

term like all the virtues so it removes the people who are around that you know are only there because they think you're someone that you're not so you can drop the pretense. You have to walk on

the pretense. You have to walk on eggshells around them. It removes you from situations where you're having to pretend or force or struggle or work hard to stay in. And so it helps you

navigate to the right answers in relationships and in situations. But

there's pain involved cuz there's change.

You know, part part of the thing is like yes, I'm lazy, but I will not accept bad outcomes. You know, I have an ability to

outcomes. You know, I have an ability to walk away from suboptimal relationships or situations. Even if it's painful, I

or situations. Even if it's painful, I just won't stay in them.

Is that only for a very specific subset of things that you choose to desire?

It's for everything.

How do you decide like where to focus that energy, those standards? Like,

um, that's a hard one. I mean, we're always falling into traps. Modern

society has a lot of traps, dopamine traps, right? You can get sucked into

traps, right? You can get sucked into politics. You can get sucked into drug

politics. You can get sucked into drug use. You can get sucked into screen

use. You can get sucked into screen addition addiction, scrolling, um you know, porn, um alcohol. There's just

there's just so many traps in modern society. They've legalized weed, which

society. They've legalized weed, which uh you know, the libertarian me wants to say, okay, consenting adult, do whatever you want. But in reality, I think it

you want. But in reality, I think it just sucks the energy out of young men.

Like, you can't be ambitious if you're stoned all the time. it'll literally

destroy your ability and desire to go and do anything. Um, and it's a band-aid. It's a band-aid that's

band-aid. It's a band-aid that's covering things up. Um, which may be fine for society. It's the modern bread and circuses, but not so good for the individual. And I don't care about

individual. And I don't care about society. I care about the individual.

society. I care about the individual.

Yes, society has to be functional. But I

I feel like modern society's given up on that. We we're taking the wrong part of

that. We we're taking the wrong part of libertarianism, which is we basically said not only you're free to do anything you want, but as long as it doesn't immediately hurt somebody else, um you

know, it should be celebrated. But then

society as a whole kind of falls apart because everyone's a hedonist. No one

has a long-term stake in the system.

There's no shared ethos. There's no

shared rules. There's no understanding of the basics. And then you end up with high crime. You end up with dirt. You

high crime. You end up with dirt. You

end up with um wasteful government. Um

and the state becomes a substitute for religion. The religious instinct is so

religion. The religious instinct is so strong in people. You know, religion is a cooperating system for people that if you don't have a religious system, then the state will take over and create one.

And I don't think the state's sense of virtue and ethics is much better than the older religions. You know, the older religions had a better grasp of virtue and ethics. Now, they were they didn't

and ethics. Now, they were they didn't modernize fast enough. So they were poorly adapted towards things like contraception and women entering the workforce and uh you know lesbian and gay rights and so on. But I think we

threw the baby out with the bathwater and I don't think the religious instinct is gone. Like people are going to search

is gone. Like people are going to search for it no matter what. You a great tweet that made me laugh is the problem with modern society is that atheism has reached the masses.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean like atheism in the masses is really bad because people need an operating system and most people are not going to figure it out for themselves and it has to be relatively common operating system. So

if you don't have one you either end up with anarchy or end up with the state dictating it which either means you're in an oligarchy or you're in a a

communist authoritarian hole. Um and

related to that is like I think a fool believes religious beliefs completely and another fool just believes it has no value. Right. Religion does have

value. Right. Religion does have tremendous value. It's just that

tremendous value. It's just that religion was meant as an organizing principle uh for people to cooperate and trust each other um and to work towards common causes. But it was also meant to

common causes. But it was also meant to have a strong personal exploration and virtue component uh and absolutely did not modernize enough and it was used for control. Um so again like my problem is

control. Um so again like my problem is always big stuff masses right. So I

think big religion causes a lot of problems but I think little religion is good.

Yeah. the village churches, village churches um maybe some higher level broad unifying principles um and

uh you know finally like the the deeper the principle the more personally it has to be explored and held and I think if people were to explore religious

teachings pick your favorite religion if you explore religious teachings everybody would find components of it that really resonate and will make their lives better and then you can sort of absorb Um um but I'm not going to have

the argument about which religion is better. And there was a great Far Side

better. And there was a great Far Side cartoon where there's like uh you know St. Peter at the pearly gates. You know

St. Peter at the pearly gates. You know

this one? And there's like hundreds of people standing there and like he yells out Mormon. The correct answer is

out Mormon. The correct answer is Mormon.

It's like rest of you are screwed.

I think uh by the way that's one of the one of the many flaws in Pascal's wager. You know

that it's not a coin flip. It's a

Yeah. Which god?

Right. That's the next question.

I'm one of your most iconic is your goal in life is to find the people, business, project or art that needs you the most.

Yeah, I really think that the uh this is one place where we diverge from our evolutionary past in a big way. And so

it's important to update your priors.

And in the past, you were in a tribe of a small number of people in a small society, a small civilization, and it was just people you could meet on foot.

So the consequences to making a bad choice, sort of getting rejected were really high. Um, so you got married

really high. Um, so you got married early, you, you know, if you were rejected by your suitor or the woman, then it was terrible for you. Your

reputation, you know, was all entirely local. You had to fit in. And now it's

local. You had to fit in. And now it's the exact opposite. It's a search function. Um, you can fly anywhere in

function. Um, you can fly anywhere in the world. You can enter any career if

the world. You can enter any career if you're young enough and motivated enough. Um, you can hang out with almost

enough. Um, you can hang out with almost any set of people. There's infinite

opportunity. Um, and that's daunting.

It's scary. It's actually really scary.

Um because then if you don't you don't make it, you get depressed and you feel like it was your fault. But the good news is you don't have to stay in any bad situation. Okay. Now, that argument

bad situation. Okay. Now, that argument where you want to find the thing that fits you the best, there's two parts of it. The first part is you have infinite

it. The first part is you have infinite choice, that's not necessarily good.

It's nerve-wracking. Um and it's kind of bad for society if there's no loyalty.

If everyone's always job hopping, if everyone's always location hopping, then you have no loyalty to your kinship or your tribe or your neighborhood. Or if

you're always relationship hopping, right? You don't build any permanence.

right? You don't build any permanence.

You have no children. Um but I think what it is is there's the exploration range is wide. So if you get rejected by someone, don't cry. It's like a bad

Google search result. Hit back and just search again or click on the next link.

There's infinite variety. I mean, you're going to meet 10, 20,000 people in your life. Um, and there's 8 billion and you

life. Um, and there's 8 billion and you know, you can click click click and find new ones to date all the time. Like

there's there's so much optionality. So,

you should explore widely until you find a fit. But then all the benefits in life

a fit. But then all the benefits in life come from compound interest. So, you

have to invest in something. You have to invest in a place. You have to invest in people. You have to invest in business.

people. You have to invest in business.

You have to invest in knowledge. You

have to invest in a career. Um so you you have to invest in your physical health and your body. So you know you find the work that feels like play to

you and looks like work to others. You

find the person who you uniquely you know they make you happy by being who they are and you make them happy by being who you are. You find uh the

location where you can like compound.

You can build a house. You can build a household. You have people around you

household. You have people around you that you like and trust. Um the weather matters a lot believe it or not. I mean

it's pretty prosaic but it matters.

That's why people talk about it so much.

Um you have to find uh the thing into which you can just invest and then you get compound interest. So

there's an exploration phase and there's the exploitation phase. Exploitation in

the military sense not in the you know slavery sense.

Execution execution phase or exploration phase and execution phase and or investment phase. Exploration and

then investment. M

so you explore explore explore until you find out what is the right fit for you and then it's almost effortless to invest in it and then once you start investing then you get the compound interest returns you can't skip either phase

so in some situations we explore too little usually in like job hunting we explore too little you know we'll spend like and I get it sometimes you're doing by financial constraints but you know people will spend 3 weeks looking for a

job and they'll be in the job for 5 years that's too little exploration and too much investment um but then on the other side Like people will stay single till they're 50 and then be like, "Oh, now I need to settle down." Well, too

much exploration and not enough investment, right? Uh or decide like

investment, right? Uh or decide like it's too late to have kids for whatever reason, too set in their ways or past the biological age. So,

um there's a balance to these, but I think uh I would say the modern society has made exploration a lot easier. And

so, you should just realize that the benefits are still all in investment. If

you never invest in anything, it's an empty life. It's a soulless life. you

empty life. It's a soulless life. you

know, you'll exit badly.

The transition between the two feels like where the rubber really meets the road. You know, it's avoiding kind of a

road. You know, it's avoiding kind of a local maxima or understanding whether you're actually in the right place to really root down and invest.

Yeah. I think this is where the experience comes in handy, right? So,

how do how do we learn? We don't learn through time. That that so that's where

through time. That that so that's where I think Malcolm Gladwell was wrong. It's

not 10,000 hours. Okay? He's completely

wrong about that. I mean, I get where he's coming from. I'm not criticizing Gladwell, but it's become a meme, right?

This 10,000 hours. What it really is is 10,000 iterations. And what are

10,000 iterations. And what are iterations? It's not 10,000 obviously,

iterations? It's not 10,000 obviously, but it's it's a repeated iterations is how we learn. And iterations are when you it's not repetitions. It's very

deliberate. Do not use the word repetitions. Iteration means you do

repetitions. Iteration means you do something, then you honestly reflect upon the outcome, you make a change, and you try again. Then you honestly reflect upon the outcome, you make a change, and

you try again. You do this enough times in any endeavor, it will develop your judgment.

And then once your judgment is welldeveloped enough, you will start not trying a whole bunch of things. You will

reject a whole bunch of things until finally you say, "Well, actually, I just want to be with this kind of person or I just want to live in this kind of place or I just want to do this kind of thing." And that's it. Now you're done.

thing." And that's it. Now you're done.

Now you can start investing.

Love, by the way, all this stuff is expost factor reasoning. I never really thought

factor reasoning. I never really thought this through while I was doing it. It's

like really easy to look back and see the pattern. It's very hard to see it

the pattern. It's very hard to see it when you're moving forward.

Yeah. Anything that we talk about, my guess is it will only resonate with somebody resonate. If they went through

somebody resonate. If they went through the experience themselves and they're like, "Ah, now I have a word for it."

And then they can attach a word for it and that helps them remember it more later. But you can't teach someone

later. But you can't teach someone purely in the abstract because they don't know when it applies to their situation. A lot of times people ask me

situation. A lot of times people ask me advice on Twitter or on Reddit and it's like way too broad. It's like I'm not in your situation. I can't give you the

your situation. I can't give you the answer. I just don't know. Yeah,

answer. I just don't know. Yeah,

all I can give you is a general principle which may or may not apply, right? So, this pretty unsatisfying, but

right? So, this pretty unsatisfying, but it's the truth. But this is where I like platforms like Air Chat and Clubhouse back in the day where someone could ask you a question, you could get into it with them. You could ask them the next

with them. You could ask them the next level question, the next level question, the next level question until you find like, okay, well, if I was in a situation given what you've told me, here's how I would handle it.

Yeah, there's kind of two levels you can engage on it, which is the the general or the specific, but anything in the middle is really difficult to Yeah. the the general requires people to

Yeah. the the general requires people to apply it themselves. So these are just mental hooks and you know may resonate may not.

One thing we talked about is the the environment being sort of upstream of your thoughts and environment determining so much of what you think how you think but that the enlightened mind sort of can choose its own

environment and so taking agency over that.

Yeah. It's it's there's a feedback loop, right? We are meant to adapt as living

right? We are meant to adapt as living creatures. We adapt to our environment

creatures. We adapt to our environment and we locally reverse entropy to make our environment more controllable. But

the first step of that is choosing your environment consciously. And so that's

environment consciously. And so that's why on relationships I was kind of saying don't get attached to a specific relationship even if it's not working for you. You don't have some obligation

for you. You don't have some obligation to struggle through unless you have kids or something then it's different, right?

Um you can change your relationship. you

can curate your relationship and then once you're in the right relationship, it's a lot easier because you're a better fit for each other. So, I think uh this kind of also goes into my tweet a little bit like the only true test of

intelligence is if you get what you want out of life, right? And I that was one of my favorites for myself because it's a two-part test. One is choosing what to want and then getting it. It's not just

like, oh, I want to be a 6'8 tall basketball player. It's not going to

basketball player. It's not going to happen. Um, so you have to want the

happen. Um, so you have to want the right things, things that are even achievable, but kind of at the edge of your range of achievability and where the process of achieving them won't make

you miserable. Um, and so you choose

you miserable. Um, and so you choose what to want and then you go and get what you want and then if you chose the right things and you got it then that's

the only external valid signal that can determine are you intelligent or not, right? Um, so I think related, you

right? Um, so I think related, you choose your environment and then you adapt your environment. But don't just get stuck in your environment. Don't

adapt it. Like one of the greatest gifts in modern society is that uh, you know, the first IQ test you have is do you stay where you were born, right? Like

where a lot of people end up stuck where they're born and maybe it was the optimal place for them, but usually I would guess not. Usually I would guess there was some place out there that was better than them. It might be the next town over. It might be another country.

town over. It might be another country.

It could be anything. Um, but people want better lives and the first step is where do you go for that better life. So

that is part of choosing your environment. But even then I feel like

environment. But even then I feel like you have to do something. I don't think you can go through life as just an advice giver. You know it it feels fake

advice giver. You know it it feels fake to me. It feels false

to me. It feels false to to me. An ideal life is one where you uh write for yourself and your children

and you uh do things that are useful and beautiful and true. Uh you learn for yourself and to the extent that you're giving people advice, it's because they

asked you and they asked you something specific and it can be helpful. You're

not giving advice to become an advice giver. My least favorite VC is the type

giver. My least favorite VC is the type who like says, "We're company builders.

We're the team behind the team." It's

like, "No, you're not. The founder built the company." You know, they took all

the company." You know, they took all the risk. You're taking a little bit of

the risk. You're taking a little bit of credit. You risk somebody else's

credit. You risk somebody else's capital, healthy capital. And yes, you were a good picker. There are a few VCs out there who really do get involved and who really do roll up their sleeves and

who really do take it personally. Um,

but there are few. They're very, very few and they're not not the more famous ones that you would think about. Well,

that's what's unique about your your Twitter is that you've exerted zero effort to actually acrewue a following.

You just share notes to self and yeah, people I sort I think see the authenticity of that and the value of it. I saw a connection between uh some

it. I saw a connection between uh some of your thoughts on envy which has been particularly I think useful and what you said about the real game of intelligence or the real test of intelligence is

whether you get what you want out of life. I find if you pass that test, if

life. I find if you pass that test, if you get what you want that you uniquely wanted, what is there to be jealous of?

Why would you be envious of anybody else?

That's that's a very good point. They do

coales together. That said, like it's very hard to pass that test. Our desires

usually outstrip our capabilities and we have a way of manufacturing new ones as soon as we get what we want. But yeah, I I have to remind myself to choose inspiration over envy. uh you know when

you see somebody somebody doing something successfully what I try not to be is I try not to be envious in the sense that there's no one on planet earth that I would swap my life with no

one not even these enlightened beings there's nobody that I would do a full wholesale substitute right so in that sense envy is not real but when you look at someone being successful you can say

well I mean there's the comment you can be like well they don't deserve it they got lucky okay sure they there's an element of that and with some people there's much more of that than others or they're being unethical about it which

is unfortunate. So those are true but

is unfortunate. So those are true but it's not good to fixate on those just like we discussed at the beginning if you fixate on all the unfairness in life you'll never get anything done.

So just on a very practical basis you want to find the part that's inspirational. So for example, one of

inspirational. So for example, one of the reasons why I'm doing a company is, you know, I'm inspired by guys like Elon and Peter Teal. And Elon inspired by because he does these companies and you know, he charges hard and he takes on

huge projects and he does difficult things. Peter Teal is a little

things. Peter Teal is a little different. Like Teal is talking about

different. Like Teal is talking about you should do important things, you know, create the definite future that you want to live in. But I don't see himself doing it, right? He's an

investor in philosopher. So I could just be that guy. I could just be an investor philosopher. But I choose to be inspired

philosopher. But I choose to be inspired by kind of the best part of what he's saying and doing and I sort of ignore the rest, which is not nothing wrong with it, but I I'm just I like the

inspiration part. But if I had to look

inspiration part. But if I had to look for like the pure inspiration, the guy that I never envied, I never swapped with him, but I was super inspired by Steve Jobs. Even when he was alive, it's

Steve Jobs. Even when he was alive, it's easy to be inspired and not envious when people are dead. I swear,

right? But even when he was alive, like I I think somebody said this the other day. They said, you know, since Steve

day. They said, you know, since Steve Jobs passed, Silicon Valley is missing its cultural leader, right? It's like

all these entrepreneurs like who do you look up to? I know Elon's pretty reviled now because of the whole thing with the administration and politics. People

always pick sides on that, but I think the honest people still like Elon and are inspired by him. But there is no single cultural leader where somebody looks at that person and says, "Yeah, I want my life to be that, right? This

person's building something incredible.

Um, they're not just doing it for the money. Uh, they have a they seem

money. Uh, they have a they seem relatively happy. They have a good

relatively happy. They have a good family life. Uh, you know, they have

family life. Uh, you know, they have some ethics and morals, although yes, Steve has negative stories about him, too. But, you know, you can't be an

too. But, you know, you can't be an extreme character without breaking some eggs. Like, it's just going to happen.

eggs. Like, it's just going to happen.

you're going to have some negative sides to your personality and people will want to elevate themselves by bringing those stories out, right? So, they'll want to unearth those stories and and pull this person down so they can be higher up on

the status ladder. But yeah, since since Jobs pass, there isn't that single inspiration. But maybe we're not living

inspiration. But maybe we're not living in that kind of world anymore, right?

There's everyone doesn't tune in to Walter Kankai for the evening news anymore either, right? So get your inspiration where you can. There's lots

of mini inspiration knowing that we are sort of inevitably mimedic creatures and we're going to be inspired by and pick up and follow people. You know,

deliberately selecting heroes or deliberately selecting traits of those heroes uh rather than sort of doing it on accident feels like maybe as good as most of us can do.

Yeah. And that's that's fine. I mean

like it's again it's going to be resonance. It is something in that other

resonance. It is something in that other person will remind you of something within yourself and then you can get some validation by saying well okay if that person can do

it I can too like I'll say like Steve Jobs like his having done calligraphy and art and you know having been a Zen Buddhist for a while and having done LSD

and uh you know um believing in Pixar and believing in next and kind of falling out of favor and then coming back in like All of those things gave me license to just mix the spiritual and

the scientific. I wasn't as afraid

the scientific. I wasn't as afraid because I was like, you know, and I don't think I thought about it consciously, but there was existence proof through jobs. Even if he wasn't running around like publicly lecturing people, which I appreciate about him

actually, that he wasn't out there trying to position himself as a philosopher or guru or anything like that. Rather, he was embodying it in his

that. Rather, he was embodying it in his products. And so I think that's that's

products. And so I think that's that's deeply inspirational and definitely there's resonance with parts of me. I

think I think every human is whole.

Every person is capable of everything.

You're you're capable of being the biggest angel or the biggest demon.

You're capable of being uh you know having the next breakthrough or just kind of spending your whole life smoking dope and playing video games, right?

You're capable of anything. And this is part of Deutsche's I I don't want to say philosophy. I would say it's part of

philosophy. I would say it's part of Dutch's science because he has shown that you know humans are to incomplete.

Tour incomplete means you're universal explainer. Um universal explainer means

explainer. Um universal explainer means you can simulate the all the laws of physics in your head. Anything that can be thought can be thought by you. You

can have any thought. You can have any breakthrough. You can have any amount of

breakthrough. You can have any amount of creativity. Everyone's capable of

creativity. Everyone's capable of everything. And I think deep down we

everything. And I think deep down we know that. And it's just uh we get

know that. And it's just uh we get limited in society by like oh you're a lawyer you have to think this way you went to this school you have to behave that way you know you're you didn't go

to college so therefore you can only think or talk about these things you can't talk about piss in public with that person you can't forge your life uniquely that way or on the other side like there are people who are weirdos

this San Francisco we're full of weirdos here but you know they're weirdos who are told you must hate money you're not allowed to make money or you're not allowed to, you know, look normal. You

have to be ironic. You got to be a hipster, right? You can you can kind of

hipster, right? You can you can kind of do whatever you want. Uh and the important thing is just figuring out what is going to get you what you want and wanting the right things in the first place. And I guess I would just

first place. And I guess I would just argue that all of us eventually figure out that you want the long-term things uh and the things that make you personally better off and then after

that you can do the things that make all of society better off because if you just obsess on yourself, you're not going to be happy.

Well, it's probably a grandio association, but it feels like you're you're writing your meditations. You

know, they're they're notes to self that are public that you're iterating on.

Well, meditations was more authentic because he didn't mean for his journal to be published.

Yes. So,

yeah, you have the observer effect.

Yes, mine is less authentic for sure. I

try to keep it as authentic as I can while being public, right? Just being

public has some level of inauthenticity baked into it. The guy I really admire, Schopenhau, cuz he wrote so much harsh truth while he was alive and nobody

liked him, but he knew he was telling the truth, so he didn't care. And now

he's posthumously incredibly famous or should be anyway. I think he's the greatest of the western philosophers that I've encountered. Maybe I'll write my real book and it gets published posthumously cuz I do live in this world

and now the world is super connected and I have kids and all that. But that's

when I tell all the harsh truths.

Yeah. One of the pieces of advice you gave somebody who was presently unhappy about finding purpose, finding meaning was god kids are missioned.

Yeah, that's right.

Um yeah, God kids are mission. I got to find one of the three at least. Uh I I was curious how those

at least. Uh I I was curious how those broke down for you personally.

I got all three.

Well, my God is personal, you know. I

can't even articulate it. I'm not even sure I use the word God, but it's there.

I have my own relationship with whatever this is. Kids definitely have them. Love

this is. Kids definitely have them. Love

them. Broaden that. Just family. Family

is great. Be close to family. Love your

family. Take care of them. There's no

substitutes. And expand your definition of family as you get older. Um, and

mission. Yeah. I mean, I have a product that I'm working on. I'm recording this thing with you. I'm trying to self-actualizing as to what I do best.

So, the mission is very is narrow to what you're working on now. It's not a grander human level, civilization level.

I'd like to be enlightened. I don't I don't feel like I have a right to lecture people on these esoteric topics without myself having explored them all the way through. So in some level part of the reason why I haven't written a

book is because I feel like it might be fraudulent. You know part of I'm just

fraudulent. You know part of I'm just lazy. So it's a good excuse but it might

lazy. So it's a good excuse but it might be fraudulent.

Can you overdose on introspection?

I think it would be a different thing.

Introspection if you're trying to find truth if you're like thinking like watching yourself and increasing your self-awareness. I don't think I don't

self-awareness. I don't think I don't think you can. I think you I think you get bored of it or distracted before you overdose on it. Um, but if you're ruminating, if you're basically like, "Oh, this shouldn't have happened and

this was wrong." And you know, you're you're caught in that mind loop um that depressed people have, then you can absolutely overdo it. So, it it depends what you're thinking about. If you're

observing yourself, that's different than if you're obsessing over yourself or you're obsessing over some problems, some of which can be real, but most of which are imagined. Like one of one of

the controversial takes I have people don't like this but if I'm reading a philosopher right one tweet I just put was like the more it matters who said it the less it actually matters I think

that is true like truth is truth regardless of who it comes from but at the same time there are philosophies of how to live your life and these aren't just like simple statements these are like this person's

entire philosophy right and I don't read books these days I read authors and I don't read authors I read philosophers Right? So I'll read Deutsch, I'll read

Right? So I'll read Deutsch, I'll read Osho, I'll read Krishna Moody, I'll read Schopenhau and because I like them, I'll read everything by them. And until I'm done reading everything by them, why would I read anybody else? Right? I'll

read everything by Talb, right? But I do judge these philosophers on the outcomes they got in their lives. So

if somebody has a deep philosophy but they seem like a really they were unhappy and they didn't get what they wanted. They were miserable about it

wanted. They were miserable about it then you know it's like that line from no country from old man like what good are your rules if they led you here? The

killer says that when the protagonist shows up in the wrong place right so it should lead you to a good place. So

there are some modern writers uh of of recent times and celebrities who I won't name but they basically kill themselves.

So I'm like, how great was that philosophy? Like I'm sorry you killed

philosophy? Like I'm sorry you killed yourself, but clearly whatever you did for as your philosophy did not work. Now

there might be individual truths in there I can pluck out, but I'm not going to invest deeply in your philosophy or raify your life because it ended badly.

You've got a great tweet. The real

truths are heresies. They cannot be spoken, only discovered, whispered, and perhaps read.

That's right. So it's my most humorous book.

Why is that though? Like why why are there so many oh society will lynch you?

Why why are there so many forces like working against truth?

Because society has to stay together.

Groups have to have consensus. And to

have consensus you have to have a shared set of beliefs that are false but make it easier to get along. And uh like one of those is everyone's equal, right?

Everyone's equal in the Holy Ghost and sense. Everyone's equal in this

sense. Everyone's equal in this consciousness sense. Everyone's equal in

consciousness sense. Everyone's equal in the universal explainer sense. Everyone

is not equal in almost any other sense, right? In terms of like how hard you

right? In terms of like how hard you work, how good are you doing for society or for yourself, uh how good is your product, um how high can you jump, how hard can you hit, you know, are you

qualified for this job or that job? Not

equal, right? But that is a shared fiction that we have to have to get along. If we don't have that shared

along. If we don't have that shared fiction, we don't get along. we start

fighting each other. So, some of these falsehoods are there for good reasons.

They prevent warfare. They allow the group to coexist, but they're not true.

So, I mean, that's a simple example.

There are many like you see this a lot in male female relationships, right?

Like what is the whole pickup artist thing, the pickup artist society? That's

all guys sharing truths about women that they're not allowed to say in public that seem to work on some number of women that allow them to go get dates.

You know, like one of the truths in that domain is that women are attracted to signs of social status in men. It's not

they're attracted to necessarily wealth, although wealth can be a sign of social status. They're not necessarily

status. They're not necessarily attracted to physicality or even character. Uh although I would argue for

character. Uh although I would argue for marriage, women are attracted to character, but you know, for dating, they're attracted to signs of social status in men. It's not even social status. It's signs of social status,

status. It's signs of social status, right? Right? So then men have to learn

right? Right? So then men have to learn how to hack signs of social status. That

creates this game phenomenon which is its own falsehood going back at women.

You know equivalently like women are taught to believe that like you know men are attracted to you for your character and your personality. Yeah they might stay with you for that later but the initial attraction is all physical right

and so that's another truth you're not supposed to talk about too much. These

are these are on the edge so I can talk about them a little bit. They're there

are truths I just cannot talk about them just way further down. But I I would tell you that some of the greatest philosophers of all time, they establish their truthtelling capabilities by

telling you the harsh truth. And because

of that, like they'll be read long after most of the rest of them are forgotten.

And that's part of the value of reading those permanent perfect books from dead people who are willing to tell the truth.

They're they're dead. and they either uh either the truth was told, you know, they published posthumously or they published anonymously u or they just didn't care.

It's interesting that some truths need to be some truths are self-perpetuating or self converging. Yeah. Like they are making themselves more evident and

others are need to be actively obscured.

Well, it actually goes back to what you said earlier which is some things are spreadable and some things are not. So

when you get a truth that spreads, it's cliche. It's conventional wisdom. If you

cliche. It's conventional wisdom. If you

get a lie that spreads, you know, that's fake news. That's all over. That's

fake news. That's all over. That's

politics. That's a lot of the combat that goes on. A lie that doesn't spread just disappears very quickly. And then

there's the truths that don't spread.

And those are actually the most interesting. And the reason they don't

interesting. And the reason they don't spread is because spread is a function of groups. To spread, there needs to be

of groups. To spread, there needs to be a group to spread within. So any truth that lowers group cohesion will not spread.

And then there's kind of like a 2x2 matrix right?

Yeah. It's a 2x2 matrix of truth versus spreadability versus spread. And

basically you have conventional wisdom, fake news, heresies and non-existence. Those are the four or

and non-existence. Those are the four or nonsense I would say.

Yeah. So, I mean the the problem is like everyone knows the conventional wisdom.

The heresies don't spread. So, most of the news is fake news.

Mhm. By definition, like conventional wisdom doesn't need to be spread because it's already out there. And heresies

don't spread because they're not spreadable and nonsense doesn't go anywhere. So, the only thing that makes

anywhere. So, the only thing that makes it through the environment is fake news.

Well, it's actually it's uh and Peter Teal's question is digging for heresies, right? That's right.

right? That's right.

If you want to be non-consensus correct, you need to bet on a heresy.

Right. Now, Peter only talks about business contexts.

Yeah.

But the real heresies are everywhere.

Like they're they're out there in they're out there in business. They're

out there in science. They're out there in um like the field of genetics is full of heresies.

Yeah. Demographics.

Yeah.

Demographics full of heresies. Uh social

science are full of heresies. Economics

is full of heresies.

Yeah, that's very interesting.

I'll read a clip and see if if this is updated at all in particular via through Deutsch. Um, my philosophy falls down to

Deutsch. Um, my philosophy falls down to this. On one poll, evolution has a

this. On one poll, evolution has a binding principle because it explains so much about humans. On the other is Buddhism, which is the oldest, most time-tested spiritual philosophy regarding our internal state.

Yeah, I mean, I still stand by that. I

think those are both still true. I would

just add to it that I think yeah through Deutsch um quantum physics is our uh is our best explanation for the world that we live

in the material world.

Um his epistemology and uh his his replacement of good explanations that are hard to vary and I I add on to that a little bit like it helps me to think of it also they often make risky and

narrow predictions.

Um that's kind of how you determine what's true from what's false.

epistemology. So that is an incredibly useful addition. Um and then um

useful addition. Um and then um computation and then the linkages between all of these. Um so quantum comp you know linkage between quantum

computation and u quantum physics and uh epistemology and evolution by natural selection and then also with Buddhist spirituality which I know Deutsch has

zero interest in and does not factor into his worldview at all. But that's

where your sort of the the practicality of your philosophy comes in of just like managing the humanness of our minds.

Like Buddhism is the the best expression of that.

Yeah, it's practical, but I also think it's true.

I don't necessarily live my life 100% this way, but intellectually I'm pretty convinced that the Buddhist interpretation is correct, that consciousness is everything and everything arises within consciousness,

that the self is a fiction. Do I live my actual life that way dayto-day?

But I do believe it to be true tentatively and I think it is a better model than saying that consciousness arises within matter. I think matter arises within consciousness.

Is is that compatible with Deutsch? I

mean his his thing about the human exceptionalism and we are the only known conscious beings.

It's comp it's completely compatible.

It's the one thing you can't determine is like is everything taking place in my consciousness or is my consciousness taking place in everything like it is there there is no experiment we know of you know

yeah will that ever be knowable it I don't want to say never but cuz someone might get very creative but I can't think of a way I'll hand to distinguish between the two um Deutsch has an experiment for the quantum

multiverse which is actually how he came up with quantum computing people don't realize this but he came up with the theory of comput quantum computation because he was trying to create a falsifiability experiment for the

quantum multiverse. And so to do that,

quantum multiverse. And so to do that, he had to create an AGI and treat that as an observer and get inside its brain and then see if uh wave function collapse happened inside the observer

rather than from the observer. And to do that, he was like, well then I need a quantum AGI. And for a quantum AG, I

quantum AGI. And for a quantum AG, I need a quantum computer. So then he worked out the equations for quantum computing. That's how quantum computing

computing. That's how quantum computing was born.

That's crazy.

Yeah. From quantum physics, from the multiverse theory. So I don't want to

multiverse theory. So I don't want to say never because he figured out he literally invented the field of quantum computing while trying to figure out a falsifiability experiment for the

quantum multiverse. So there may be a

quantum multiverse. So there may be a falsifiable experiment to distinguish whether materiality exists inside conscious or consciousness exists inside materiality.

That's a pretty alltime side quest.

Exactly. But even his experiment is not runnable yet.

Yeah.

You know it's you would need an AGI first and you need quantum computers first.

Um, you mentioned before that you wanted to write a blog post at some point about how you can map the tenets of Buddhism directly onto a virtual reality simulation.

Oh, shoot. I'd forgotten that one. Um,

yeah. I think the way it kind of goes is roughly something like if you were living in a sim, right? Let's say let's say you found a tomorrow. You're living

in the Matrix. There's a splinter in your mind like [ __ ] I'm in the matrix.

I need to get out, right? So that would basically be like the quest for enlightenment. You'd be looking for

enlightenment. You'd be looking for truth. You didn't know what it was. This

truth. You didn't know what it was. This

is what the matrix is all about, right?

And then you would find out, let's say you break out of it, right? And now you land in another matrix.

You land in Zion. How do you know that's not another matrix, right? You have an inception problem. How do you know which

inception problem. How do you know which dream you're in? Which dream level you're in? Because the moment you're

you're in? Because the moment you're out, it means you can get out, which means that you can't trust this is real either, right? This could just be a Sim

either, right? This could just be a Sim as well. So breaking out of the

as well. So breaking out of the simulation does you no favors. It puts

you in an infinite trap. And so then you're always trying to break out of the matrix. No matter where you are, you

matrix. No matter where you are, you never know if you're base reality or not. So there's only one way you could

not. So there's only one way you could be convinced you're base reality. Right

now, you could be dead, but if you're dead, there's no one to convince. You

can't have an experience of being dead.

So that's not valid. But there's only one way to truly break out of the matrix, which is the white room. In the

matrix, they go into the white room.

It's just blank. What is that? It's just

consciousness. There's nothing there other than just that pure awareness, right? If you're in pure awareness, that

right? If you're in pure awareness, that means you're not simulating anything other than just you're there. That's it.

You're the only thing you're simulating is I. So the equivalent to that in

is I. So the equivalent to that in Buddhism is when you realize you're just pure consciousness and everything else is just forms that come and go.

Everything else is matrix, right? It's

all simulation. Now, if you're that model, you're enlightened and you're in the white room in the matrix. They're

functionally equivalent. You're all you are is pure consciousness. It's really

boring.

And so what do you do before enlightenment or after enlightenment?

Well, there's a Zen saying like before enlightenment, chop would carry water.

After enlightenment, chop would carry water. So now you realize you're bored.

water. So now you realize you're bored.

And now you realize why the matrix or the white room generates the entire matrix or why God creates infinite forms or why you know you as God forget yourself and then go back into the game.

It's cuz it's boring out there. So you

go be cipher. So Buddhism and the same theory kind of lead you the same way.

So, if we managed to create simulations and we put ourselves inside the simulation, at first it would be really fun. You'd be like, I'm in a sim. I can

fun. You'd be like, I'm in a sim. I can

do anything. And you're like, wait, I control the sim. This is really boring, right? And so then you'd have to forget

right? And so then you'd have to forget that you're in a sim. You'd have to wipe your own memory in the sim so that you can actually enjoy the sim, but then you'd also feel fear and at some point you get this nervous feel like I need to

get out of the sim. And then when you try to get out of the sim, you're like, how do I know I'm out of the sim? And

then eventually get to the white room, you're like, now I'm out of the sim. But

now this is really boring and you create a sim, wipe your memory and dive back in. That's your rebirths. That's your

in. That's your rebirths. That's your

infinite cycle rebirths. So that's how I map Buddhism to this to simulation theory. The same outcome, but simulation

theory. The same outcome, but simulation theory to me is a lousy theory. Uh it's

unfalsifiable.

Uh you know, it just kicks the can up the road. All all it makes it makes a

the road. All all it makes it makes a probabilistic argument. It says like,

probabilistic argument. It says like, hey, we're likely to develop this and then do that and then do this and then do that. But there are too many ways it

do that. But there are too many ways it could go wrong in big mean like like the sim is always going to be lower resolution than reality. The people at the outside can always control the people on the inside. So there are all

kinds of problems with it. Uh plus I think we inherently have a craving for truth. So I don't think anybody wants to

truth. So I don't think anybody wants to live a lie. Even I myself like even if I were you know living in some other reality I would not create a fake reality where I would forget everything.

Or if I did I'd leave myself an out and eject button which I'd have to look really hard to find. Maybe that's called enlightenment, right?

Well, I like that the simulation theory I find is a useful belief because you see the people if if what you need out of life is to not take

yourself too seriously to be high agency to be active but not stress too much about what you're being active about.

Like it's actually pretty useful frame for most of life.

It's just religion. Religion would do the exact same thing for Exactly. with less steps, less

Exactly. with less steps, less computation involved, less programmers.

Who's the instead of calling it God, you're just calling it the great programmer.

Yeah. And and more friends probably.

Yeah.

So there's also a tendency in society that whatever the latest scientific worldview is, we layer that onto religion, right? So when it was uh you

religion, right? So when it was uh you know the sun, you lived and died by the sun, then the sun god ra was a sun god, right? And then when the king was in

right? And then when the king was in charge then it was a god king. And when

Newton came along we got the mechanical universe uh you know then it was like oh the universe like a big watch. It's a

mechanistic universe. God is dead. And

now because computers are ascendant you know the universe is a big computer.

Yeah. We have a way of taking the permanent problems and making them contemporary.

Yeah. We always view it through the contemporary lens of our greatest knowledge at that time.

Yeah. Uh but I would argue that like understanding things like relativity and quantum physics and you know studying cosmology and just sort of um physics is

more satisfying than saying the universe is a computer. Saying the universe is a computer is almost too reductive. You

know it's it's trying too hard. Like as

as a very simple example uh a computer is a state machine. State machine has steps. Uh steps means everything is

steps. Uh steps means everything is discreet. this happens and this happens

discreet. this happens and this happens and that happens. If this happens then take that branch, take that branch. But

everything is in a discrete sequence and that is kind of what quantum physics says. So quantum computation, quantum

says. So quantum computation, quantum physics says the universe is discreet.

But that is not what relativity says.

Relativity says the universe is continuous. And so right there you run

continuous. And so right there you run into a contradiction like any sim theory that says the universe is a computer relies upon a kind of computation that does not exist. Not even quantum

computation. It violates relativity. And

computation. It violates relativity. And

this is why all the computebased theories of the world like Steven Wolram's you know compute-based physics they run into this issue which is that reality is continuous. So he then he's got this whole other thing this

hypograph thing which I don't fully understand but I I just feel like it's it's too it's conveniently mapping the dominant paradigm of our times onto religion and then removing and then hiding God behind behind the curtain.

Yeah. Which is we should be suspicious of.

Yeah. I think it's easier just to this is the kind of thing you have to have your own viewpoint on because no one else will satisfy you. Nothing else will satisfy you. And I think if you can put

satisfy you. And I think if you can put a name to it, it's kind of problematic or if you can put a structure to it, it's problematic.

I really love this tweet as a capstone for a a lot of what you've shared because I feel like it ties together a lot of threads that um might seem to have an apparent contradiction, which is

live for something larger than yourself, but only on your own terms. Oh, I like that one. I'd forgotten about that one. I like that one. Live for

that one. I like that one. Live for

something larger than yourself, but only You know what? I'm going to go do exactly that.

I like that one.

It's a It's a really good way to dis disentangle everything.

Yeah, cuz society doesn't want to tell you to live on your own terms because they're afraid you're going to screw over society. you're just going to be a

over society. you're just going to be a criminal and a thug and a hedenist. But

that's a path for unintelligent people.

You know, the the person who doesn't know what they're doing is the one doing too many drugs or breaking too many laws or doing horrible things. Like, you

don't need to do that. You know, it's not it's not going to make you happy.

It's just a trap. It's a trap that you're caught in. You know, when we look at a drug addict, that's a trap that they're caught in. Uh the same way you see someone committing crimes, like there are better ways to get what you want. You will actually have a better

want. You will actually have a better life if you don't do that. Uh and that's where like a lot of progressivism comes from. You know, you still got to have

from. You know, you still got to have punishments to dissuade people, but at the same time, uh I feel like you do have to live life on your own terms or you're not going to do it, but you have to live for something larger than

yourself or it's going to lead to a very bad outcome and you're not going to be happy. So, yeah, I'm going to follow

happy. So, yeah, I'm going to follow that advice. Thank you for that.

that advice. Thank you for that.

I mean, if you weren't getting high on your own supply, it wouldn't be that it wouldn't be good substance.

I love finding my own tweet and be like, "Wow, that's really good.

You know, that's how I know uh that's how I know a book is almost ready when I pick it up again and it's better than I remembered it.

Yeah. The the great books are fractal, too. They like you you learn something

too. They like you you learn something new every time.

Like one of the things I like doing now is I found some, you know, Shopen Howard and Senica, for example, they have good they're good audio books and recordings of their stuff, but they're very high

density speakers and authors. So if you listen to their stuff, you miss a lot because it's it's it was written so it's meant to be read. Which is why I had this tweet about like um you know listening to books instead of reading them is like drinking your vegetables

instead of eating them, right? Like it's

more efficient, but it's you're getting kind of a sugar high. You're not taking it the way it was meant to be. You're

not getting all the benefits, but it's better than nothing, right? It's better

to do that than to like not consume it.

And so I've been listening to a bunch of authors who are normally written down.

And one of the things I had to come to peace with was just like, you know what, I'm only going to get like 20% of the throughput. Like Shopen especially,

throughput. Like Shopen especially, every sentence is crafted. Every thought

is crafted. That guy is a genius.

And so when you listen to him at spoken speed, I'm wait stop. Oh, I missed that.

Oh [ __ ] What was that? What was he referring to? Oh, I got lost in a

referring to? Oh, I got lost in a daydream. So I'm constantly pausing it.

daydream. So I'm constantly pausing it.

But then I finally had to give up on I was just like, you know, I'm just going to listen to what I'm going to listen to. I'm going to absorb what I'm going

to. I'm going to absorb what I'm going to absorb and I'll just go back and listen to it again later. like it was that good. And what I've realized is

that good. And what I've realized is even when reading you have the same issue. You read a paragraph, you'll be

issue. You read a paragraph, you'll be lucky if you pick up a sentence and it might be a different sentence every time, but the good books have the property that there's not much wasted

space. All the sentences are useful at

space. All the sentences are useful at some point to somebody. Um, and so I I really value that in an author and Schopenhauer has it in spades. I I can

go back and read the same essay 10 times over five years and I'll get something different out of it every time.

Yeah. You've got that, you know, read the the best hundred books over and over and over. Yeah. There's no point in

and over. Yeah. There's no point in reading the rest.

Yeah. The only the only books I would want to read are the timeless ones about human nature uh with people who are incredibly intelligent or very modern recent stuff where there's a fastmoving

field where I want to know what's on the cutting edge and I know that knowledge will be obsolete shortly. But the thing I can't do is like read contemporary history or sociology or you know you

know there there are these very smart people who seem to get a lot of value out of reading a lot of history and I've read some history but I don't need to read the details of the Roman Empire.

You know I love Will Durant.

I love lessons of history. I'm not going to read the whole story.

Yeah. Story of civilization all 12 volumes. It's like too much detail. his

volumes. It's like too much detail. his

other books, uh, like Fallen Leaves and Heroes of History and stuff, the the like really condensed stuff.

Yeah, Fallen Leaves is kind of sad. I

couldn't make it through it. I started

it and it was just like he was like, "Oh [ __ ] I'm getting old and this sucks and what was the point of all this?" Like

that's that's what the book is basically saying. They cast him in a light that I

saying. They cast him in a light that I didn't want to see him in. Maybe it gets better later, but I couldn't finish it.

And and by the way, even the lessons of history, if all you read was lessons of history, that would not work. You need

to have read enough specific history that you can see, oh yeah, I've seen this pattern before. So I've read plenty of history in my youth. So when I read the lessons of history, I be like, I know what he's referring to and I have a rough sense, but I'm not going to, you

know, I don't have time to read 18 volumes on Jangghaskhan now. Like it's

too late for that. I'll read one volume on Elon because it's highly relevant to my current world as well. Um, but the lessons of Jenga Khan have to be distilled down much more at this point.

We live in the Tik Tok generation. Yeah,

I imagine your your opportunity cost of book selection, like just paying very careful attention to what you're feeding yourself.

Yeah. And I think it's actually pretty easy. I think you just pick up a book

easy. I think you just pick up a book and you just glance through it and you'll know. There's no obligation to

you'll know. There's no obligation to finish a book or turn a page or even read in sequence or in order or any of the sort. Buffett has a good line. It's

the sort. Buffett has a good line. It's

like it's like, you know, like you can you can read the book, but you can't tell anyone about it. You can't tell anyone you read it. Yeah,

that's a sign of a good book.

Something I found myself wondering a couple times as I, you know, refresh on all these ideas.

Is everything best pursued indirectly?

I've seen, you know, wealth is best pursued by exploring your genuine curiosity. Learning is best done by, you

curiosity. Learning is best done by, you know, reading whatever you're interested in. Even status is best pursued by

in. Even status is best pursued by serving others. Happiness is elusive if

serving others. Happiness is elusive if it's pursued too directly. Yeah, it it may not be that everything is best pursued indirectly, but the things that

seem very elusive are that way because they're best pursued indirectly, right? The the stuff we have figured

right? The the stuff we have figured out, we don't talk about because we can pursue it directly. But the stuff that seems elusive is because it's best pursued indirectly. And and and there

pursued indirectly. And and and there are different reasons for different things. In the case of wealth, it's

things. In the case of wealth, it's because it's a competitive game. So

someone who's really into what they're doing will always out compete someone who's not into it. So that's where part of the indirectness comes from.

And then if you're doing something purely selfish, you won't get the best people on your side. Like for example, if you look at like porn or gambling or crypto, like especially the casino is part of crypto, you don't get the best

teams. You don't get good teams cuz the best people don't want to do that stuff.

They don't want to work with you. So now

you're in an industry where you just have like, sorry if I call them out, but lowquality people working alongside you. um and

then you're just gonna have a lower quality of life and you're gonna have people who are less ethical and kind of like you know more hedonistic. In the

case of happiness, you can't pursue it directly because the direct pursuit of pleasure causes addiction and that's leads to unhappiness that

causes dopamine burnout. Um so the the direct pursuit of that simply doesn't work. It burns out the receptor, you

work. It burns out the receptor, you know, that's that's that you're trying to like modulate in a in a good way over the others.

Status is best pursued by curving and supporting others.

Yeah. Status can't be pursued directly because uh status is hierarchy and it's a hidden hierarchy. Like it's very hard to tell who what status someone is. They

have to glee it out. And saying that you're high status is low status because if you're high status, you don't have to say it. Everyone knows it. And so

say it. Everyone knows it. And so

directly pursuing status is a low stat is a status lowering activity. So that's

why people try to be ironic or clever when they put people down. You know,

they try to bring people down by saying, "Oh, he oh, Elon's a Nazi. He's evil.

You know, he he did the salute." I'm

like, "No, you're a midweight. You're an

idiot. You should watch the video and see how many so-called salutes people do all day long when they're waving their arms around. So all you've proven is

arms around. So all you've proven is you're an idiot." But what they're trying to do is they're trying to bring him down to status. And so they're trying to elevate their own status.

They're trying to pursue indirectly. So

a lot of what we see as bad behavior from journalists or on Twitter or modern side with fake news is just the pursuit of status in in a covert way and love you you don't want to pursue

directly receiving love because love is needy and it's it's actually not the thing you want. It's giving love is the thing that you want. You can

manufacture love anytime you want. I

actually envy envy you know quotes not really envy but I there's a class of person who's just very loving you know and can give genuine love um without

talking about it the people who are you know saying oh love love love they use the word a lot they're pursuing status right um it's just another way to pursue status but the people who are genuinely

capable of feeling and giving love uh to large quantities of people like that that's a that's a form of an enlightened person Um, and they themselves always seem pretty happy. When's the last time

you saw a person who's extremely loving but miserable?

Is is this related to the Deutsch's fun criterion? It's not a good brand, but

criterion? It's not a good brand, but it's Oh, yeah. No, Deutsch has an independent

Oh, yeah. No, Deutsch has an independent version of the same principle. He calls

it the fun criterion, which is like if you're not having fun, don't do it.

Now, his is a little more extreme. Like

his like no, don't teach, you know, this is part of the taking children seriously thing. Like don't teach your kids math

thing. Like don't teach your kids math if they don't enjoy it. I'm like, "God damn it, my kids are going to be mathematically innumemerate and then too old to, you know, to pick it up later."

So, I'm not sure I follow it the whole way, but I get what he's saying and I believe there's huge merit to it. Yeah.

He call it the fun criteria. If you're

not having fun, don't do it. And I think he's right. Like, the older I get, the

he's right. Like, the older I get, the more I do things that are more fun, the more genuine it is. I'm not learning any less. If anything, I'm learning more.

less. If anything, I'm learning more.

It's just I don't beat myself up anymore about not knowing about things that I should know about. And instead what happens up happening is I end up learning the things that I'm genuinely interested in and then I learn more. I

learn faster. Actually this is related to you know I've started doing startups again and I'm doing a very difficult company right now. The name of the company is the the impossible computer company.

Okay. It's really hard. What we're

trying to do is really hard. It might be impossible. Uh and the literally the

impossible. Uh and the literally the name of the company is Impossible Inc. But you know we have Impossible Computer.com. So what we're doing is

Computer.com. So what we're doing is basically impossible. I talked to four

basically impossible. I talked to four people last week, technical experts, each in their domain, a little bit about what we're doing. All four of them told me it was impossible or four told me it was impossible for four completely

different reasons, right? So, it's not an easy task. But

right? So, it's not an easy task. But

I'll tell you, I've never learned faster in my life because I'm so curious about it. Like,

every time something comes up, I'm like, "All right, let me pull up the paper.

All right, chat GPT, fire up the 03 Pro engines, you know, fire up Gemini 25 Pro. Let's go. Teach me this. Teach me

Pro. Let's go. Teach me this. Teach me

this." No, no, explain like I'm fine.

No, no, back up. What about this? I call

my co-founder. I'm like, "We're doing a whiteboard session. I feel like an

whiteboard session. I feel like an idiot. What is this? What What do you

idiot. What is this? What What do you mean? You didn't tell me this. Oh, you

mean? You didn't tell me this. Oh, you

take it for granted. No, this is the hardest part, you know?" So, I'm learning so much, but because I'm motivated. I'm motivated to go out and

motivated. I'm motivated to go out and learn. I'm not I am a little motivated.

learn. I'm not I am a little motivated.

I want the answer to be a good answer, but I'm not truly motivated answer. I

want to navigate my way through the idea maze, you know, the bism of the the idea maze and figure out the right answer.

But the the concrete act of trying to do something and trying to build something is driving the learning curve. If I

didn't have that very concrete activity, then I would not be learning at anywhere near the same rate. And that motivation has been really important. It's really

accelerated my learning curve. Actually,

I'm not drinking caffeine partially and I'm kind of back on more of a health kick is because I want to be alert and awake all the time so I can just stay up with the company. I can keep up with it.

Well, and you're additionally motivated, I'm sure, by building something that has never been built before.

Exactly. And I'm pouring uh right now we're burning a million and a half dollars a month of my money.

So, that's an additional layer of motivation.

Use motivation, too. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. You're learning very fast when you've got What are we spending money on? What is

that half million dollar check you just wrote? Oh, okay. Damn it.

wrote? Oh, okay. Damn it.

So, you got a big a big carrot and a big stick and that a good recipe for learning.

Highly motivating. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I

was very inspired by Elon on this. I

think I uh you know the story where he said he made 200 200 million from um the sale of PayPal and he put a 100 he put 100 million into SpaceX and 80 million

into Tesla and 20 million into solar city to borrow money for rent.

I don't know if that's true but it's a great lie.

Very inspirational. So I'm like well if you can do that I can make a bet too.

Well, and that story even oversimplifies it a little because it happened iteratively, which for anybody who's on a burning platform knows like that's way more painful. Yes. Um, than a one time.

more painful. Yes. Um, than a one time.

So, he's sitting there with $200 million and he puts a hundred down and says that should be plenty to start these companies and get them there. And then

they're going to die. They're both look like they're on the verge of death. And

he has to write checks for all of his remaining money, including his house.

Yeah. like at the same time functionally to keep them both alive by a shoestring by a thread and they both lived.

Yeah. I don't know how real these stories are but they're good man. Fred

Smith has one, you know, the founder of FedEx of how like he had to go gamble the last money in Vegas to make peril and he did.

Yeah.

Or um Steve Jobs, you know, he poured a lot of his wealth uh post Apple. He

didn't he didn't have that much because the original Apple wasn't worth that much, but he sank it into Pixar into Next.

Yeah. um because those were all self- finance. Ross Perau, interestingly, was

finance. Ross Perau, interestingly, was a big was a big back room next after jobs. But um you know, he almost lost it

jobs. But um you know, he almost lost it there. So, it's not that it's not to say

there. So, it's not that it's not to say you have to risk the money to make it.

Um it's more just that you have to have the courage of your convictions when nobody else does. You have to get make it from zero to one. You know, the space between zero and one is infinite. To

make that leap requires everything.

Well, it's a good use of capital. You

know what? What else are you going to do with the earnings than put them into a mission that you believe in that's doing something that's unprecedented?

That could buy a really big house and look down on everybody.

Yeah. I think this is I mean that's part of why Elon I think gets so much respect is he put everything on the line.

I mean the guy will sleep in a tent on a log cabin, you know, for the Starship launch. And whatever motives people can

launch. And whatever motives people can ascribe to Elon, it's you can ascribe, if you want to be negative, you can ascribe an ego motive, but you can't ascribe a selfishness motive. Like he's

not trying to like hoard it.

Yeah.

Um he took too much risk.

Yeah. World's richest man was a byproduct, not a goal for him.

But because in similar to what you're doing, he is easily overlooked that he did the preede and the seed and the A and the B for both Tesla and SpaceX basically himself, right?

So not only founder but biggest funer. I

got two capstone tweets here. Either

create wealth or passive income or become a monk or do what you love more than money. What remains is taming the

than money. What remains is taming the mind and the body, seeking truth, creating love and art. The world has nothing to offer you and you are free.

That's a big checklist goals.

The the next one's even longer.

Uh we'll go through that one again.

either create wealth or a passive income or become a monk or do something you love more than money.

Okay, so that first line is my definition of retirement.

Like uh if you're doing something you love or if you're a monk or if you have a passive income or if you're doing some you know or if you have wealth now you can retire like you're basically done.

So retire and then what remains is taming the mind and the body seeking truth creating love and art.

Yep. So that goes back to truth, love, and beauty, right? Uh or uh my favorite tweet of mine is, you know, a fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. Like

those these things cannot be bought.

They must be earned. And that's again puts the same themes back in wealth, uh happiness, um health, and love in a calm mind.

Yeah. So knowing that, you know, anything that you do to achieve any of those has to leave you in position to get those things that can't be bought.

Right. Right.

Uh and then Yeah. Then there's the the long one.

Well, the world has nothing to offer you.

The world has nothing to offer.

Yeah. Exactly. Now, you know, enlightened person would say, well, I just found out I don't exist, so the world has nothing to offer me because the world doesn't exist. Like it's all just one big consensual conscious hallucination.

Yeah.

Right. Um, so that's an easier path. I I

guess I want to find happiness and spiritual enlightenment and all those things, but I'm not willing to give up my world for it. I'm a greedy one, right? I might be the greediest person

right? I might be the greediest person alive cuz I want to be uh, you know, I want to be Elon. I want to be a successful entrepreneur. I want to be

successful entrepreneur. I want to be teal. I want to be successful in

teal. I want to be successful in investor. I want a great household life.

investor. I want a great household life.

I want to be healthy as long as I can.

Uh, I don't mind being famous, you know.

Um, but I also want to light I'm not willing to give that up. So to me, you know, the people who are aspiring to just be wealthy and successful but not happy or enlightened, they're not greedy

enough. You know, maybe they need to be

enough. You know, maybe they need to be a little more selfish, a little more greedy.

And you know, it'd be amazing. An

amazing life is 70 80% in each of those categories without going 150 on one and zero in any other.

Yeah. you you get above the threshold on on each of them. I I don't think it's a coincidence that the Buddha story, you know, Buddha was a prince or if you read all the old enlightenment stories and

basist yoga, the ashtabakar gita, it's always the king or the prince who's becoming enlightened. It's rarely like

becoming enlightened. It's rarely like the peasant cuz they were smart enough to realize the poor man has to, you know, dig the fields. He has to figure out how to feed himself. He doesn't have the luxury of sitting around and

contemplating and saying who am I? So

that's why in the tradition either you're someone who gives up everything right at the beginning you go become an aesthetic or you and and then you can like focus on mental

freedom or you start as a prince and you realize it's all worthless. The hard one I guess would be having the energy and drive and motivation to become a prince and then be willing to give it all up. I

mean, that's a big hero's journey as you list all those things that, you know, you want to be Elon Musk, you want to be Teal, or you want to be a great founder, a great investor.

Yeah, I have to temper my expectations here cuz I'm, you know, I'm old, so I'm not I don't have the energy level of the 20-year-olds, so I do have to bound my desires accordingly.

Well, you've achieved a lot of them already. And I guess I'm curious, you

already. And I guess I'm curious, you know, can you hold those desires in like a very gentle way where they don't harm you? Have you found a balance with, you

you? Have you found a balance with, you know, still striving, still hoping but not?

Yeah. No, I think I think you can. I I

think it's you can it can definitely be easier than all the people who are like in therapy or doing drugs or mental wrecks or feel attacked. But I was that person too. I think some of it is just

person too. I think some of it is just aging. But a lot of it is just

aging. But a lot of it is just introspection and self-reflection and you know just realizing that this all goes to zero anyway. You know what what is the line in Christian shrouds have no pockets right? So, you don't take

pockets right? So, you don't take anything with you. It is all just a grand adventure. A friend of mine has a

grand adventure. A friend of mine has a good phrase that he uses where he says endgame content. You know, it's like I

endgame content. You know, it's like I don't know if you played the Mario games like Mario Odyssey or Mario 3D or Mario 64, any of those. And in those like you play the game, you run through all the

levels. You know, you chase Peach and

levels. You know, you chase Peach and Bowser the whole game. And at the end, you're done. And then they give you like

you're done. And then they give you like a level where it's just like all gold and toads and mushrooms and you just run around. and you jump and you play and

around. and you jump and you play and you know you're having it's it's fun but the stakes are very low, right? This is

all entertaining. It's endgame content and you can play it for a little while.

So, I kind of feel like I'm in endgame content where it's like I got nothing to lose at this point. Okay, I might lose some money, you know, little reputation.

I don't care about that. I'm fine

falling on my face in public, but I get to play without fear and that means that I can go for the highest goals. So the

downside to that is, you know, a good a VC might be like, "What do you mean you're playing with that fear? I want

you up all night. You know, I want you fearful. I want you working hard." But

fearful. I want you working hard." But

I'm not sure that's the only way to build something. I don't think Steve

build something. I don't think Steve Jobs was coming from a place of fear.

I don't even think Elon was coming from a place of fear, right? So I think it's better to operate out of inspiration.

And this means that I can try to do something that's really difficult and it's really worthwhile.

Yeah. there may be that some of those really aspirational projects can only be done from a place like that.

I think so. I I don't think it's a coincidence that like Apple and Tesla and SpaceX, I mean, these are self- financed companies. Um, most of the

financed companies. Um, most of the great companies are either self- financed or they break out very early before they really need venture capital.

So, Google broke out. They raised VC just to get John Door and Mike Merlin board, but they were already at escape velocity and they were done. Microsoft

as well. They took a tiny check from one investor, but they were already on off to the races. Same way with, you know, I think Amazon was profitable very quickly. They take a small investment,

quickly. They take a small investment, but it's not none of the none of these giant companies did like round after round after round grinding it out through the standard path. The truly

largest companies did not do that. They

either or Facebook got profitable very very fast, right? Because of the network effect. So either they got profitable

effect. So either they got profitable very quickly and they almost didn't need the venture capital or they were self- financed by a visionary entrepreneur.

But it's very rare that the one of the huge iconic great companies was built by round after round after round of venture capital.

H that's a heresy.

There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't have a lot of respect for investors. I don't disrespect them. I

investors. I don't disrespect them. I

think they're an important part of the ecosystem and you know I'm a capitalist but I don't think they need to pat themselves on the back. Do you think wanting some things are mutually incompatible?

I mean, they have to be, right?

Yeah. Well, you back to the, you know, the only true test of intelligence is whether you get what you want out of life. Like,

life. Like, I mean, the the biblical phrase like easier for rich man to pass through the for camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. What I interpret that as is like

heaven. What I interpret that as is like if you're pursuing material things, you can't pursue spiritual things, right?

you you can't both be successful in this material life and striving for it and living the life of a merchant then also be a Buddha. So they might be mutually contradictory. I think I was up late one

contradictory. I think I was up late one night and I was stretching and I was like man I should just make sure stretching is always part of my routine.

I was like what is my routine? What am I trying to do here? So then I just typed that out and then I tweeted that out and I got one of the highest compliments I got a tweet which is this guy I think M.

Mayor he said uh oh you wrote you wrote the book.

Yeah.

You put Yeah. You put a book in a tweet with this one. Um, and I've seen so many people replicate this, so it's clearly uh kind of resonant.

Yeah, there was a mistake in there, though, which kind of sucks. There was

uh one thing that I'll swap out at the end.

All right, correct me when I get here.

Fast lift sprint stretch and meditate build.

So, hold on. Fast lift, sprint, stretch, meditate. So, that's all the physical

meditate. So, that's all the physical stuff.

Yep.

Yeah. Kind of the morning routines, you know, daily workout thing. And and I like that it's first cuz you're starting with health as your first priority.

That's right.

Build, sell, write, create, invest, and own.

Yeah. So, this is the making money the wealth part. Yeah.

wealth part. Yeah.

Productize yourself. Build or buy equity in a business. Read, reflect, love, seek truth, and ignore society.

Truth and love along with a healthy dose of selfishness.

Make these habits. Say no to everything else.

Yeah. Habits. cuz that's the only way you stick with them.

Avoid debt, jail, addiction, disgrace, shortcuts, and media, right? So, I replace one part in here,

right? So, I replace one part in here, uh, which is I think I replaced shortcuts with sugar or something else. It's actually in the it's in the tweet. I have a followup on

that tweet saying, "Oh, I wish I replaced. I have to look it up, but I

replaced. I have to look it up, but I think that's what I wanted to replace."

And my favorite part is actually the kod here, which is relax. Victory is

assured.

That's right. Relax.

That's the gently down the stream part.

I'd say exactly what I was thinking. Do

it merily and go gently.

Exactly. Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you. Scrape.