Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440

so I was trying to figure out how to do

photo realistic AI photos and it was

stabil diffusion by itself is not doing

that well like the faces look all

mangled y um and it doesn't have enough

resolution or something to to do that

well so but I started seeing these these

um base models These Fine tun models and

people were training on porn and I would

try them and they would be very

photorealistic they would have bodies

that actually made sense like body uh

Anatomy um but if you look at the

photorealistic models that people use

now still there's still core porn there

like of naked people so I need to prompt

out the nak and everybody needs to do

this with AI startups with imaging you

need to prompt out the naked stuff you

have to keep reminding the model you

need to put clothes on yeah don't put

naked because it's very risky I have

Google Vision that checks every photo

before it's shown to the user to like

check detor oh nfw detector because you

get the journalists get very

angry the following is a conversation

with Peter levels also known on X as

levels IO he is a self-taught developer

and entrepreneur who designed programmed

shipped and ran over 40 startups many of

which are hugely successful in most

cases he did it all by himself while

living the digital Nomad life in over 40

countries and over 150 cities

programming on a laptop while chilling

on a couch using vanilla HTML jQuery PHP

and SQL light he builds and ships

quickly and improves on the fly all in

the open documenting his work both his

successes and failures with a raw

honesty of a true Indie hacker Peter is

an inspiration to a huge number of

developers and entrepreneurs who love

creating cool things in the world that

are hopefully useful for people this was

an honor and a pleasure for me this is

Alex Freedman podcast to support it

please check out our sponsors in the

description and now dear friends here's

Peter

levels you've launched a lot of

companies and built a lot of products as

you say most failed but some succeeded

what's your philosophy behind building

the startups that you did I think my

philosophy is very different than most

people in startups because most people

in startups they they build a company

and they raise money right and they hire

people and then they build a product and

they find something that makes money and

I don't really raise money I don't use

VC funding I do everything myself I'm

designer I'm the developer I make

everything I make the logo so for me I'm

much more Scrappy and and because I

don't have funding like I need to I need

to go fast I need to make things fast uh

to see if an ID works right I have an

IDE in my mind and I build it build it

like a mro mini startup um and I launch

it very quickly like within you know two

weeks or something of building it and I

check if there's demand if people

actually sign up and not just sign up

but if people actually pay money right

like they need to take out their credit

cards pay me money and then I can can

see if the idea is validated and most

ideas don't work like as you say most

feel so there's this rapid iterative

phase where you just build a prototype

that works launch it yeah see if people

like it improving it really really

quickly to see if people like it a

little bit more enough to pay and all

that that that whole rapid process is

how you think of I think it's it's like

it's very rapid and it's like um if I

compare to for example Google you know

like our big tech companies especially

Google right now is kind of struggling

like they made like Transformers they

made all they invented all the AI stuff

years ago and they never really shipped

like they could have shipped jet gbt for

example I think I heard in 2019 and they

never shipped it because they were so

stuck in bureaucracy but they had

everything they had the data they had

the tech they had the engineers and they

could Didn't Do It um and it's because

these big organizations it's it it can

make you very slow so being alone by

myself on my laptop like you know in my

underwear in a hotel room or something I

can ship very fast and I don't need to

like I don't need to ask like legal for

like oh can you vouch for this you know

I can just go and ship you always code

in your underwear the your profile

picture you're like slouching a couch

and your underwear chilling a laptop no

no but it's I do wear like shorts a lot

and I I usually just wear shorts and no

T-shirt cuz I'm always too hot like I'm

always overheating thank you for showing

up not just in your underwear but

wearing shorts I know you know I still

wearing this for you but thank you um

thank you for dressing up I think it's

cuz I since I go to the gym I'm always

too hot what's your favorite EX in the

gym man over press over press like like

shoulder press yeah okay but it feels

good cuz you're doing like you do you

win cuz when you what is it I do 60

kilos so it's like 120 lbs or something

like it's it's it's my only thing I can

do well you know in the gym and you

stand like this and you're like I did it

you know like a winner pose yeah Victory

pose uh I do bench press squads

deadlift hence the uh the mug yeah

talking to my therapist it's a deadlift

yeah because it acts like therapy for me

you know yeah yeah it is which is

controversial to say like if I say this

on Twitter people get angry physical

hardship is a kind of therapy yeah I

just rewatched uh Happy People year in

the tiger that Warner Herzog film where

they

document people that are doing trapping

they're essentially just working for

survival in the wilderness year round

yeah and there's a deep happiness to

their way of life because they're so

busy in it in nature yeah 100% like

there's something about that physical

physical yeah toil yeah my dad taught me

that my dad always do does like

Construction in the house like he's

always re renovating the house he breaks

through one room and then he goes to the

next room and he's just going in a

circle around the house for like the

last 40 years so but so he's always

doing construction the house and it's

his Hobby and he like he taught me when

when I'm depressed or something um he

says like get a big like what do you

call like a big uh mountain of sand or

something from construction just get a

shovel and uh bring it to the other side

and just you know do like physical labor

do like hard work and do something like

get set a goal do something and I I kind

of did that with startups too yeah

construction is not about the

destination man it's about the journey

yeah yeah sometimes I wonder people who

are always remodeling their house is it

really about the remodeling or is it's

not is it about the project Journey the

puzzle of it no he doesn't care about

the results well he shows me he's like

it's amazing I'm like yeah it's amazing

but um then he wants to go to the next

room you know but I think it's very

metaphorical for work cuz I also I never

stop work I go to the next website or I

make a new one right or I make a new

startup so I'm always like like give you

something to wake up in the morning and

like you know have coffee and then uh

kiss your girlfriend and then you have

like a goal not today I'm going to fix

this feature or today I'm going to fix

this bog or something I'm going to do

something you have something to wake up

to you know and I think um maybe

especially as a man also women but you

need you need a hard work you know you

need like an Endeavor I think how much

of the building that you do is about

money how much is it about just a deep

internal happiness it's about fun cuz I

was cuz I was doing it when I didn't

make money right that's the point so I

was always coding I was always I was

making music I made electronic music

drama based music like 20 years ago and

I was always making stuff so I think a

creative expression is like a meaningful

work that's so important it's so fun

it's so fun to have like a daily

challenge where you try figure stuff out

but but the interesting thing is you

built a lot of successful products and

you never really wanted to take it to

that level where you scale real big

andell it to aan something like this

yeah the problem is I don't dictate that

right like if more people start using IF

Millions people s start using it and it

becomes big um I'm not going to say oh

stop signing up to my website and pay me

money but I never raised funding for it

and I think because I don't like this

the stressful life that comes with it

like I have a lot of um founder friends

and they tell me secretly like with

hundreds of millions of dollars in

funding and stuff and they they tell me

like next time if I'm going to do it I'm

going to do it like you

because it's more it's more fun it's

more Indie it's more chill it's more

creative they don't like this they don't

like to be manager right you become like

a CEO you become a manager and um I

think a lot of people that start

startups when they become a CEO they

don't like that job actually but they

can't really exit it you know but they

like to do the ground work the coding so

I think that keeps you happy like doing

something creative yeah it's interesting

how people are pulled towards that to

scale to go really big and you don't

have that honest reflection with

yourself like what actually makes you

happy because for a lot of great

Engineers what makes them happy is the

building the the quote unquote

individual contributor like where you're

actually still coding or you're actually

still building and they let go of that

and then they become unhappy um but some

of that is the sacrifice needed to have

a impact of scale if you truly believe

in a thing you're doing but like look at

Elon he's doing things million times

bigger than me right and

um would I want to do that I don't know

you can really choose these things right

but I really respect that I think elon's

very different from VC Founders right VC

start it's like software there's a lot

of bullshit in this world I think

there's a lot of like dodgy Finance

stuff happening there I think um and I

never have like concrete evidence about

it but your gut tells you something's

going on with like companies getting

sold to friends and VCS and then they do

reciprocity and this Shady Financial

dealings with Elon does not he's just

raising money from investors and he's

actually building stuff with he needs

the money to build stuff you know hard

Hardware stuff um and that I really

respect you said that there's been a few

low points in your life you've been

depressed and the building is one of the

ways you you get out of that but can you

talk to that can you take me to that

place to that time when you were in at a

low point so I was in Holland and I

graduated University and I didn't want

to like get a normal job and I was

making some money with YouTube because I

had this music career and I uploaded my

music to YouTube and YouTube started

paying me like uh with AdSense like

$22,000 a month $2,000 up and all my

friends got like normal jobs and we

stopped hanging out cuz people would

like in University hang out you know you

chill each other's houses uh you go

party but when people get jobs they only

party like in the weekend and they don't

hang anymore in the week because you

need to be at the office and I was like

this is not for me I want to do

something else and I was starting

getting this like I think it's like

Saturn return this you know when you're

turn 27 it's like some concept where

Saturn returns to the same place in the

orbit that it was when you're born I'm

learning some it's some astrology thing

you know so many truly special artists

died when they were 27 exactly sum of 27

man and it was for me like I started

going crazy because I didn't really see

like my future in Holland buying a house

going living in the suburbs and stuff so

it flew out I went to Asia started

digital nomading and did that for a year

and then that made me feel even worse

you know CU I was like Alone um in hotel

rooms like looking at the ceiling like

what am I doing with my life like this

is uh like I was working on startups and

stuff and YouTube but it's like what is

the future here you know like uh is this

is this something while my friends in

Holland were doing really well and with

a normal life you know um so it was

getting very depressed and like I'm like

an outcast you know and my money was was

shrinking I wasn't making money anymore

lot making $500 a month or something and

I was you know looking at the ceiling

thinking like now I'm like 27 I'm a

loser and that's the moment when I

started building like startups and it

was because my dad said like if you're

depressed you need to you know get sand

get a shovel start shoveling doing

something you can't just sit still which

is kind of like a interesting way to

deal with depression you know like it's

not like oh let's talk about it it's

more like let's go do something and um

and I started doing a project called 12

startups in 12 months where every month

I would make something like a project

and I would launch it with stripe so

people could pay for it so the basic

format is try to build a thing put it

online and put stripe to where you can

pay money for it yeah add a stripe check

I'm not sponsored by stripe but add a

stripe checkout button is that still

like the the easiest way to just like

pay for stuff stripe 100% like I think

so yeah it's a cool company they just

made it so easy you can just click and

yeah and they're really nice like the

CEO Patrick is really nice behind the

scenes it must be difficult to like

actually make that happen cuz that used

to be a huge problem like just Merchant

just just adding a thing a button where

you can like pay for a thing dude it's

dude I know this because when I was when

I 9 years old I was making websites also

and I tried to open a merchant account

there was like before tribe you would

have like um I think it was called World

pay so I had to like fill out all these

forms and then I had to F them to

America from Holland with my dad's facts

um and my dad had to it wasn't my dad's

name and he to sign for this and he

started reading these terms and

conditions which was like he's liable

for like 100 million in Damages and he's

like I don't want to sign this I'm like

Dad come on I need a merchant account I

need to make money on the internet you

know and he signed it and we sent we fax

it to America and I had a merchant

account but then never nobody paid for

anything so that was the problem you

know yeah but it's much easier now you

can sign up you add some codes and um

yeah so 12 startups in 12 months yeah so

what how do you what startup number one

what what was that what like what what

were you feeling what were you sitting

behind the computer like how much do you

actually know about building stuff at

that point I could I could code a little

bit because I did the YouTube channel

and I made a website for I would make

websit for like the YouTube channel it

was called panda mix show and it was

like these electronic music mixes like

dubstep or dral base or Tech in our

house I saw one of them had like flash

were you using flash yeah my album my CD

album was using flash yeah yeah I sold

my CD yeah kids flash was Flash was

software this is like the the break like

Grandpa you know but flash was cool yeah

and there was what's it called boy I

should remember this action script

there's some kind of programming

language scpt yeah yeah script in flash

back then that was the JavaScript you

know the JavaScript yeah and I I thought

that's going to that's supposed to be

the dynamic thing that takes over the

internet I invested so many hours in

learning Steve Jobs killer Steve Job

said flesh sucks stop using it every was

like okay that guy was right though

right yeah I I don't know yeah well it

was it was a closed platform I think and

Clos but it's ironic cuz Apple you know

they're not very open right but back

then Steve was like this is closed we

should not use it and it's as security

problems I think which sounded like a

copout like I just wanted to say that to

make it look kind of bad um but flash

was cool yeah yeah it was cool for a

time yeah H listen animated gifts were

cool for a time too yeah they came back

in a different way yeah as a meme though

I mean like I I remember when gifts were

actually cool not ironically cool like

there's like on the internet you would

have like a Dancing Rabbit or something

like this and that was really exciting

no you had like the you know Lex

homepage you Le everything was centered

yeah and you had like Peter's homepage

and then the on construction yeah GIF

which was like a guy like with a helmet

and the lights banners uh yeah that's

how before like Google AdSense you would

have like banners for advertising it was

amazing yeah and and a lot of links to

porn I think yeah where the Merion

accounts people would use for people

would make money a lot only money made

on internet was like porn or a lot of it

yeah it was it was a dark place it's

still a dark place yeah and but there's

Beauty in the darkness anyway so you

were uh you did some basic HTML yeah

yeah but I had to learn the actual like

coding so I uh this was good it was a

good good idea to like every monom lunch

a startup so I could uh learn to code

learn basic stuff and but it was still

very Scrappy because I didn't have time

to which was on purpose like didn't have

time to spend a lot of um I had a month

to do something so I couldn't spend more

than a month and I was pretty strict

about that um and I published it as a

blog post so people I think I put it on

Hacker News and people would check like

kind of like oh did you actually you

know I felt like accountability because

I put it public that I actually had to

do it do you remember the first one you

did I think it was playing my inbox cuz

back then my friends we would send we

would send like cool was before Spotify

we would send like uh 2014 we would send

music to each other like YouTube links

uh like this is a cool song this is a

cool song and it was the these giant

email trads on Gmail and they were like

unnavigable so I made an app that would

log into your Gmail get them emails and

find ons of YouTube links and then make

like kind like a gallery of your your

songs like essentially Spotify and my

friends loved it was it scraping it like

what was no it uses like poop like pop

or IMAP you know it would actually check

your email so that like privacy concerns

because it would get all your emails to

find YouTube links but then I would I

wouldn't save anything um but that was

fun it was like and that that first

project already would get like pressed

like it went on think like um some tech

media and stuff and I was like that's

cool like it didn't make money there was

no payment button but it was uh it was

actually people using it I think tens of

thousands of people used it that's a

great idea I wonder why like why why

don't we have that why don't we have

things that access Gmail and extract

some useful aggregate information yeah

you could tell GMA like don't give me

all emails just give me the ones with

YouTube links you know or something like

that yeah I mean there is a whole

ecosystem of like apps you can build on

top of the Google but people don't never

do this I've seen a few like Boomerang

there's a few apps that are like good

but just I wonder what maybe it's not

easy to make money I think it's hard to

get people to pay for these like

extensions and plugins you know cuz it's

not like a real app so it's not like

people don't value it people value oh

this a plugin should be free you know

when I want to use a plugin in Google

Sheets or something I'm not going to pay

for it like it should be free which is

but if you go to a website and you

actually okay I need this product I'm G

to pay for this because it's a real

product so even though it's the same

code in the back it's a plugin you know

yeah I mean you can do it through like

extensions like Chrome extensions

through from the browser side yeah but

who pays for Chrome extensions right

like barely anybody so nobody uh that's

not a good place to make money probably

yeah that sucks like chromic extension

should be a extension for your startup

you know you have a product yeah oh we

also have a Chrome extension you know I

wish the Chrome extension would be the

product I wish Chrome would support that

like where you could pay for it easily

cuz like imagine I can imagine a lot of

products that would just live as

extensions like improvements for social

media like it's like gpts you know gpts

yeah like these CH gpts they they going

to charge money for it now and you get a

ref ref share I think from an open AI I

made a lot of them also why we'll we'll

talk about it so let's rewind back it's

a pretty cool idea to do 12 startup in

12 months what what's it take to build a

thing in in in 30 days like at that time

how hard was

that I think the hard part is like

figuring out what you shouldn't add

right what you shouldn't build because

you don't have time so you need to build

a landing page well you need to make the

you know you need to build the product

actually because it need to be something

they pay for um do you need to build a

login system like maybe no you know like

maybe you can build some Scrappy login

system like for fot you sign up you pay

strap checkout and you get a login link

and when I started it was only a login

link with a hash and that's just a

static link so it's very easy to log in

yeah it's not so safe you know what if

you leak the link and now I have real

Google login but that took like a year

so keeping it very Scrappy is very

important to because you don't have time

you know you need to focus on um what

you can build fast uh so money stripe uh

build a product build a landing page um

you need to think about how are people

going to find this so are you going to

put it on Reddit or something how are

you going to put it on Reddit without

being looked at as a spammer right like

um if you say hey this is my new startup

you should use it no nobody's it gets

deleted you know M um maybe if you find

a problem that a lot of people on Reddit

already have on subreddit you know like

and you solve that problem say sub

people I made this thing that might

solve your problem and maybe it's free

for now you know like uh that could work

you know but you need to be very you

know um narrow it down what you're

building time is limited yeah actually

can we go back to the you laying in a

room feeling like a loser yeah I still

feel like a loser sometimes what's what

can you can you speak to that feeling to

that place of just like feeling like a

loser and cuz I think a lot of people in

this world are laying in a room right

now listening to this and feeling like a

loser okay so I think it's normal if

you're young that you feel like a loser

first of all especially when you're 27

yes yeah especially there's like a peak

yeah yeah think a peak and so I would

not kill yourself it's very important

just get through it you know but uh

because you have nothing you have

probably no money you have no business

you have no job you have you like Jeremy

Peterson said this I saw it somewhere

like the reason people are depressed

because they have nothing they don't

have a girlfriend they don't have a or

boyfriend they don't have a you need

stuff you need like or a family you need

things around you you need to build a

life for yourself if you don't build a

life for yourself you'll be depressed so

if you're alone in Asia in a hostel

looking at the ceiling and you don't

have any money coming in you don't have

a girlfriend you don't of course you're

depressed press is logic but back then

if you're in a moment you think this is

not logic there's something wrong with

me you know yeah um and and also I think

I started going I started getting like

anxiety and I think I started going a

little bit crazy where I think travel

can make you insane and I know this

because I know that there's like digital

Nomad that they kill themselves and I

don't I haven't checked like this the

comparison with like Baseline people

like suicide rate but I have a hunch um

especially in the beginning when it was

a very new thing like 10 years ago that

it can be very ecologically taxing and

you're alone a lot back then when you

travel alone there was no other digital

Nance back then a lot so you're in a

strange culture you look different than

everybody like you're in I was in Asia

like you everybody's really nice in

Thailand but you're not part of the

culture you're traveling around you're

hopping from City to City you don't have

a home anymore MH you feel this rooted

and you're constantly in the outcast in

in that you're different from everybody

else yes exactly but people treat like

Thailand people are so nice but you

still feel like Outcast and and then I

think the the digital n i met then were

all kind of like it was like shady

business you know but they were like

Vigilantes cuz it was a new thing and

like one guy was selling illegal drugs

was American guy was selling illegal

drugs via UPS to Americans you know on

this website they were like a lot of

drop shippers doing Shady stuff um

there's a lot of shady things going on

there and they were they didn't look

like very balanced people they didn't

look like people I wanted to hang with

you know so I also felt Outcast from

other foreigners in Thailand other

digital Nomads and I was like man I made

a big mistake and then I went back to

Holland and then I got even more

depressed you said digital Nomad what is

digital Nomad what is that way of life

what is the philosophy there and the

history of the movement I I struck upon

it on accident because I I was like I'm

going to graduate University and then

I'm going to I need to get out of here

I'll fly to Asia because I've been

before in Asia I studied in Korea in

2009 like study exchange I was like Asia

is easy Thailand's easy I'll just go

there figure things out and it's cheap

it's very cheap changai I would live

like for $150 per month rent for like a

private room pretty good so I struck on

this on next I was like okay there's

other people on laptops working on their

startup or working remotely back then

nobody worked remotely but they worked

on their their businesses right um and

they would you know live in like

Colombia or uh Thailand or Vietnam or

Bali they would live kind of like a more

cheap places and it looked like a very

adventurous life like you travel around

you build your business there's no

pressure from like your Home Society

right like you're American so you're you

get pressure from American soci telling

you kind of what to do like you need to

buy a house or you need to this stuff I

had this in Holland too and you can get

away from this pressure you can find

kind of feel like you're free you're

kind of there's nobody telling you what

to do but that's also why you start

feeling like you go crazy because you

are you are free you're dis attached

from anything and anybody um you're

disattached from your culture you're

disattached from the culture you're

probably in because you're staying very

short I think France kofka said I'm free

therefore for I'm lost man that's so

true yeah that's exactly the point and

yeah freedom is like it's the definition

of no constraints right like anything is

possible you can go anywhere and

everybody's like oh that must be super

nice you know like Freedom you must be

very happy and it's the opposite like I

don't think that makes you happy I think

constraints probably make you happy and

that's a big lesson I learned

then but what what were they making for

money what what so you're saying they

were doing Shady stuff at that time for

me you know because I was more like a

developer I wanted to make startups kind

of and and it was like um it was like

drugs being shipped to America like diet

pills and stuff like non FDA proofed

stuff you know and they would like there

was no like e they were like they would

would save beers they would laugh about

like all the dodgy shit kind of they're

doing you know ah that part of okay kind

of vibe you know like kind of sleazy

Ecom Vibe I'm not saying all Ecom is SLE

you know but right but you know this

Vibe it could be a Vibe and your your

Vibe was more buol shit that's ethical

you know the guys with sports cars in

Dubai these people you know yes Ecom

like oh bro you got a drop ship and

you'll make 100 million a month like

those people was this shit and I I was

like this is not my people yeah I don't

I mean there's nothing wrong with any of

those individual components judg but but

there's a

foundation that's not quite ethical I

what is that I don't know what that is

but yeah I get you no I like I don't

want to judge it was more I know that

for me it wasn't my world it wasn't my

subculture I want to make cool shit you

know but they also think their cool shit

is cool so you know uh but I wanted to

make like real like startups and that

was my thing I would read Hacker News

you know like why combinator and they

were making cool stuff so I wanted to

make cool stuff I mean that's a pretty

cool way of life just if you romanticize

it for a moment it's very romantic man

it's very it's colorful you know like if

I think about the memories I mean what

are some happy memories just like

working working cafes or working

in just the

freedom that that uh envelops you from

with that that way of life cuz anything

is possible you can just get up was

amazing like we would work like you

would I would make friends and we would

work until you know 6:00 a.m. in Bali

for example with like um with Andre my

best friend who who still my best friend

and we and other friends and we would

work until like the morning when the sun

came up because at night the co-working

space was silent you know there was

nobody else and I would wake up like 6

p.m. or 5:00 p.m. I would drive to the

cing space on a motorbike I would buy

like uh 30 hot lattes from a cafe how

many 30 cuz there was like there was

like six people coming or we didn't know

sometimes people would come in and did

you say

3030 yeah nice and we would drink like

four per person or something you know

uhhuh man it's B I don't know if they

were powerful lattes you know but they

were lattes and um we would put in

plastic bag and I would drive there and

all the coffee was like falling you know

everywhere and then we'd go into course

and have these coffees here and we'd

work all night we'd play like techno

music and everybody would just work on

their like this was literally like

business people they would work in their

startup and we would all try and make

something and then the Sun would come up

and the morning people the you know the

the yoga uh yoga girls and yoga guys

would come in you know after the yoga

class at 6 and they say hey good morning

and we're like we look like this you

know and we're like what's up how are

you doing and we didn't know how bad we

looked you know but it was very bad and

uh then we'd go home sleep in like a

hostel or a hotel and do the same thing

and again and again and again and it was

this lockin mode you know like

working um and that was very fun so it's

just a a bunch of you music blasting all

through the night yeah more like like

indust not like see I for

me it's such an interesting thing

because the speed of the beat affects

how I feel about a thing So the faster

it is the more anxiety I feel but that

anxiety is channeled into productivity

but if it's a little too fast I start

the anxiety overpowers don't like drama

base music probably not no it's too fast

I mean for working I have to I have to

play with it it's like you can actually

like I can adjust my level of anxiety

this must be a better word than anxiety

it's like uh productive anxiety that I

like whatever that is it also depends

what kind of work you do right like if

you're writing you probably don't want

drama based music I think for codes like

industrial techno this kind of stuff

kind of fast it works well because you

really get like locked in and combined

with caffeine you know you go you go

deep you know and and I think you

balance on this edge of anxiety because

this caffeine is also hitting your

anxiety and you want to be on the edge

of anxiety with this techno running

sometimes it gets too much like stop the

Techno stop the music it's

like but uh but those are good memories

you know and also like travel memories

like you go from City to City yeah and

it feels like it's kind of like Jet Set

life like it's it's feels very beautiful

like you're you're seeing a lot of cool

cities and what was your favorite place

you remember you visited I think still

like uh Bangkok is the best place and

Bangkok and changai I think Thailand is

very special like I've been to the other

place like I've been to Vietnam and I've

been to South America and stuff I still

think Thailand wins in how nice people

are how easy of a life people have their

everything's cheap yeah good well bangok

is getting expensive now but changai is

still cheap I think when you're starting

out it's a great place man the air

quality sucks it's a big problem so um

and it's quite hot but that's a very

cool place um pros and cons I love

Brazil also my girlfriend is Brazilian

but I do love not just because of that

but I like Brazil brail uh the problem

still is the safety issue you know like

it's it's like in America like it's

localized it's hard for Europeans to

understand like safety's localized to

specific areas so if you go to the right

areas it's amazing Brazil is amazing if

you go to the wrong areas like you maybe

you die MH right yeah yeah I mean that's

true it's not true in Europe feel in

Europe is much more true more average

you're right you're right there it's

more averaged out yeah I like it when

there's strong neighborhoods when you're

like you cross a certain Street and

you're in in a dangerous part of town

man yeah it's I I I like it I like

there's certain cities in the United

States like that yeah I like that and

you're saying Europe is you don't feel

scared well I don't I like danger BJJ no

not even just that I think danger is

interesting so danger reveals something

about yourself about others also I like

the full range of humanity yeah so I

don't like the mellowed out aspects of

humanity I I have friends like theom

friends that are exactly like this like

they go to like the the kind of broken

areas you know like they like this

reality they like this authenticity more

they don't like luxury they don't like

oh yeah I hate luxury yeah it's very

European of you like wait was that

that's a whole another conversation so

you uh you uh quoted Freya Stark quote

to awaken quite alone in a strange town

is one of the most Pleasant Sensations

in the world yeah uh do you remember a

time you awoken in a strange town and

felt like that we're talking about small

towns or Big Towns or man anywhere I

think I wrote it in some blog post and

like it was a common thing when you

would wake up and this was like because

I have this website I started a website

about this D Nom like called Nomad

list.com and there was a community so it

was like 3, and other digital no man

because I was feeling lonely so I built

this website and I stopped feeling

lonely like I started make organizing

meetups and making friends and um and it

was very common that people would say

they would wake up and they would forget

where they are yeah like for the first

half minute and I had to look outside

like where am I which country which

sounds really like privileged but it's

more like funny like you literally don't

know where you are because you're so dis

rooted um but there's something man it's

like Anthony berdan you know there's

something pure about this kind

of vagab Bor travel thing you know like

it's behind me I think I don't like now

I travel with my girlfriend right it's

very different but it is romantic like

memories of this kind of like Vagabond

individualistic solo life but the thing

is didn't make me happy but it was very

cool but it didn't make me happy right

it made me anxious there's something

about it that made you anxious I don't

know I still feel like that it's a cool

feeling it's scary at first but then you

realize where you are and you and I

don't know it's like you'll awaken to

the possibilities of this place when you

feel like that it's like great and it's

even when you're doing some basic travel

I go to San Francisco or something El

yeah you have like the novelty effect

like you're in a new place like here

things are possible you know you you

you're you don't get bored yet

and and that's why people get addicted

to travel you know back to startups you

wrote a book on uh how to do this thing

and gave a great talk on it how to do

startups the book's called make

bootstrappers handbook yeah I was

wondering if you could go through some

of the steps it's idea build launch grow

monetize automate and exit there's a lot

of fascinating ideas in each one so idea

stage yeah how do you find a good idea

so I think you need to be able to spot

problems so for example you can go in

your daily life like when you wake up

and you're like what is stuff that I'm

really annoyed with that's like um in my

daily life that doesn't function well

and that's a problem that you can see

okay maybe that's something I can add

right code about you know code for and

it will make my life easier so I would

say make like a list of all these

problems you have and like idea to solve

it and see which one is like viable you

can actually do something and then start

building it so that's that's a really

good place to start

become open to all the problems in your

life like actually start noticing them I

think that's actually not a trivial

thing to do to realize that some aspects

of your life could be done way way

better yeah cuz we kind of very quickly

get accustomed to discomforts exactly uh

like for example like door knobs yeah

like design of certain things like new

cream and door off well that when I know

how much uh incredible design work has

gone into it's really interesting doors

and door knobs just the Design of

Everyday Things forks and spoons it's

going to be hard to come up with a fork

that's better than the current Fork

designs yeah and the other aspect of it

is you're saying like in order to come

up with interesting ideas you got to try

to live a more interesting life yeah but

that's where travel comes in yeah

because when I started traveling I

started seeing stuff in other countries

that you didn't have in Europe for

example or America even like if you go

to Asia uh like dude especially 10 years

ago nobody knew about this like weads

all these apps that they already had

before we had them these everything apps

right like now elon's trying to make X

this everything app like WeChat the same

thing like in Indonesia or tand do you

have one app that you can order food

with you can order groceries you can

order massage uh you can order car

mechanic um anything you can think of is

in the app and that stuff for example

you you know that's called like

Arbitrage you can go to back to your

country and build that same app for your

country for example so you start seeing

um problems you start seeing solutions

that other countries already other

people already did in the rest of the

world and also traveling in general just

gives you more problems cuz travel is

uncomfortable you know um airports are

horrible airplanes are not comfortable

either there's a lot of problems you

start seeing just getting out of your

house you know but also you can I mean

in the digital world you can just go

into different communities and see what

can be improved by the in that yeah yeah

but what specifically is your process of

generating ideas do you like do idea

dumps like do you have a document where

you just keep writing yeah I used to

have like a because when I was when I

wasn't making money I was trying to like

make this list of ideas to see like so I

need to build I was thinking

statistically already like I need to

build all these things and one of these

will work out probably you know so I

need to have a lot of things to try um

and I did that right now I think like

because I already have money I can do

more things uh based on technology so

for example AI when I found out about

when stable diffusion came or C gbt and

stuff all this thing all these things

were

like I didn't start working with them

because I had a problem I had no

problems but I was very curious about

technology and I was like playing with

it and figuring out like first just

playing with it and then and then you

find something like okay this generates

St Fusion generates houses very

beautiful and Interiors you know so it's

less about problem solving it's more

about the possibilities of new things

you can create yeah but that's very

risky because that's the G is like a

solution trying to find a problem yeah

and usually it doesn't work and that's

very common with with startup FS I think

they they have Tech but actually people

don't need to Tech right can you

actually explain it'd be cool to talk

about some of the stuff you created can

you explain um this photo.com yeah yeah

so it's like fire your photographer the

idea is like you don't need a

photographer anymore you can train

yourself as AI model and you can take as

many photos you want anywhere in any

clothes uh with facial expressions like

happy or sad or poses uh all this stuff

so how does how does it work so this is

uh you send me a link to a gallery of

ones done on me which is so on the left

you have the prompts the Box yeah so you

can write like so model is your model

this Lex Freedman so you can write like

model as a blah blah blah whatever you

want y then press the button and it will

take photos take will take like photos

what are you using for the hosting for

the compute replicates okay replicate

decom they're very very goods okay it's

cool like this interface wise it's cool

that you're showing how long it's going

to take this is amazing so it's taking a

I'm presuming you just loaded in a few

pictures from the internet yeah so I

went to Google images St in Lex Freedman

I added like 10 or 20 images you can

open them in the gallery and you can use

your cursors to yeah so some don't look

like you so the hit or miss rate is like

I don't know say like 50/50 or something

but when I was watching your Tweet like

it's been getting better and better and

better it was very bad in beginning it

was so bad but still people sign up to

it you know

uh there's there's two luxes is great

it's getting more and more sexual it's

making me very uncomfortable man but

that's the problem with these models cuz

no we need to talk about this cuz the

models the fusion yeah so the

photorealistic models that are like fine

tuned they were all trained on porn in

the beginning and there was a guy called

Hassan so I was trying to figure out how

to do photo realistic AI photos and it

was stable diffusion by itself is not

doing that well like the faces look all

mangled yep

um and it doesn't have enough resolution

or something to to do that well so but I

started seeing these these um base

models these fine tune models and people

would train on porn and I would try them

and they would be very photo realistic

they would have bodies that actually

made sense like body uh Anatomy um but

if you look at the photorealistic models

that people use now still there's still

core of porn there like of naked people

so I need to prompt out the nak and

everybody needs to do this with AI

startups with imaging you need to prompt

out the naked stuff you need to put a

you know naked um you have to keep

reminding the model you need to put

clothes on yeah don't put naked because

it's very risky I have Google Vision

that checks every photo before it's

shown to the user to like check foror oh

nfw detector because you get the

journalists get very angry if they you

know you if you sex there was a

journalist I think that would got angry

that used this and was like oh it it

made me it showed like a nipple because

Google Vision didn't detect it so

there's like these kind of problems you

need to deal with you know that's what

I'm talking about this is with cats

but look at the cat face it's also kind

of mangled you know I'm I'm uh I'm a

little bit disturbed you can zoom in on

the cat if you want like like yeah this

is a very sad cat it doesn't have a nose

it doesn't have a nose but this man but

this is the problem with AI startups

because they all act like it's perfect

like this is groundbreaking and but it's

not perfect it's like really bad you

know half the time so if I wanted to

sort of update model as yeah so you

remove this stuff and you write

like whatever you want like in Thailand

or something or in Tokyo uh in Tokyo

yeah and then you can say like at night

with neon lights like you can add more

detail to make I'll go in Austin do you

think you'll know in Texas in Austin

Texas cowboy hats in Texas yeah as a as

a

cowboy as a cowboy it's going to go so

uh towards the porn Direction it's it's

man I hope not this is the end of my

career

or the beginning it depends we can send

you a push notification when your photos

are done all right

cool yeah let's see oh wow so this whole

interface you've built this is really

well done J cury so I still use J cury

the only one still after this day you're

not the only one the entire of the web

is PHP thep and jur yeah and SQL lights

you're just like one of the top

performers from a programming

perspective that are still like openly

talking about it but every everyone's

using PHP like if you look most of the

web is still probably PHP 70% it's

because of Wordpress right cuz the blogs

are that's true yeah um true I'm seeing

a Revival now people are getting sick of

Frameworks um like all the JavaScript

Frameworks are so like what do you

called like wieldy like they're so it

takes so much work to just maintain this

code and then it updates to a new

version you to change everything BEP

just stays the same and works yeah and

can you actually just speak to that

stack you you build all your websites

apps startups projects all of that with

mostly vanilla HTML yeah uh JavaScript

with J jQuery PHP and cool white so that

that's a really simple stack and you get

stuff done really fast that can you just

speak to the philosophy behind that I

think it's accidental because that's the

thing I I knew like I knew PHP I knew

HML um CSS you know because you make

websites and when my startup started

taken off I didn't have time to I

remember putting on my to-do list like

learn node.js cuz I it's important to

switch you know cuz this obviously is

much better language than PHP and I

never learned it I never did it uh

because the time I I these things were

growing like this and I was launching

more project and I never had time it's

like one day you know I'll I'll start

coding properly and I never got to it I

I sometimes wonder if I need to learn

that stuff it's still to-do atem for me

to really learn node.js or or flask or

these kind of react yeah react and it's

there it feels like a responsible

software engineer should know how to use

these but you can get stuff

done so fast with vanilla versions of

stuff yeah it's like software developers

if you want to get a job and there's

like you know people making stuff like

startups and if you want to be

entrepreneur probably you maybe

shouldn't I wonder if there's like I

really want to measure performance and

speed I think there's a deep wisdom in

that yeah I do think that Frameworks and

just constantly wanting to learn the new

thing this complicated way of software

engineering gets in the way I'm not sure

what to say about that because

definitely like you shouldn't build

everything from just vanilla JavaScript

or vanilla C for example C++ When You're

Building Systems engineering is like

there's a lot of benefits for a pointer

safety all that kind of stuff so I I

don't know but it just feels like you

can get so much more stuff done if you

don't care about how you do it man this

is my most controversial take I think

and maybe I'm wrong but I feel like

there's Frameworks now that raise money

they raise a lot of money like they

raise 50 million 100 million 300 million

dollars and the idea is that you need to

make the developers the new developers

like when you're 18 or 20 years old

right um get them to use this framework

and then add a platform to it like where

the framework can it's open source but

you probably should use the platform

which is paid to use it and the the cost

of the platforms to host it are a

thousand times higher than just hosting

it on a simple AWS server or VPS on

digital ocean right um so there's

obviously like a monetary incentive here

like we want to get a lot of developers

to use this technology and then we need

to charge them money because they're

going to use it in startups and then the

starts can pay for the bills um but what

that it kind of destroys the

the information out there about learning

to code because they you know they pay

YouTubers they pay influencers developer

influen is a big thing to like um and

same thing what happens with like uh

nutrition in Fitness or something same

thing happens in developing they pay

this influen to promote the stuff use it

make stuff with it make demo product

with it and then a lot of people like

wow uh use this and I started noticing

this because when I was ship my stuff

people would ask me what are you using I

I would say I just PHP JQ why does it

matter and people would start kind of

attacking me like why are you not using

this new technology this new framework

this new thing and I say I don't know

cuz this PHP thing works and I don't

really I'm optimizing for anything just

doing it just works and I never

understood like why uh like I understand

there's new technologies that are better

and it should be Improvement but I'm

very suspicious of money just like

lobbying there's money in this developer

framework scene there's hundreds of

millions that goes to ads or influenc or

whatever it can't all go to developers

you don't need Developers for framework

and it's open

source to make a lot of more money on

these startups so that's a really good

perspective but in addition to that is

like when you say

better it's

like can we get some data on the better

because like I want to know from the

individual developer perspective and

then from a team of five team of 10 team

of 20 developers

yeah uh measure how productive they are

in uh shipping features how many bugs

they create

how many security holes uhp was not good

of security for a while but now it's

good in theory in theory is it though

now no no now as as you're saying it I

want to know if that's true because PHP

was just the majority of websites on the

internet could be true is it just over

represented same with WordPress yes

there's a reputation that WordPress has

a gigantic number of security holes I

don't know if that's true I I know it

gets attacked a lot because it's so

popular it definitely does have security

holes but maybe a lot of other systems

have security holes as well anyway like

I just sort of questioning the

conventional wisdom that keeps wanting

to push software Engineers towards

Frameworks towards

complex like uh super complicated sort

of software engineering approaches that

stretch out the the time it takes to

actually build a thing 100% And it's the

same thing with big corporations 80% of

the people don't do anything it's like

it's not efficient and and if you if

your your your benchmark is like uh

people building stuff that actually gets

done and like for society right like if

we want to save time we should probably

use technology that's

um that's simple that's pragmatic that's

like that works uh that's not overly

complicated doesn't make your life like

a living hell you know and use a

framework when it obviously solves a

problem a direct problem that you of

course you yeah of course I'm not saying

you should code without a framework you

should use whatever you want

but yeah I think it's suspicious you

know and um and I think when I talk

about on Twitter like there's a lot this

this Army comes out you know this this

these framework armies yeah man

something my gut tells me you I want to

ask the framework Army what have they

built this week it's the Elon question

what did you do this week yeah did you

make money with it you know did you

charge users is it a real business and

um yeah uh so going back to the Cowboy

first of all some don't look like you

right but some do every aspect of this

is pretty incredible I'm also just

looking at the interface it's really

well done so this is all just jQuery and

yeah this is really well done so like

tell take me through the Journey of

photo AI like you don't know much most

of the world doesn't know much about uh

stable diffusion or any of this any of

the generative AI stuff and so you're

thinking okay how can I build cool stuff

with this what was the origin story of

photo AI I think uh it started cuz

stable diffusion came out so stable

diffusion is like this the first like

generative image mod model AI model and

um I started playing with it like you

could install it on your Mac like

somebody forked it and made it work for

MacBooks so I downloaded it and uh

cloned the repo and started using it to

generate images um and it was like

amazing like it would I found it on

Twitter because you see things happen on

Twitter and I I would post what I was

making on Twitter as well and you could

make any image you could write a prompt

to essentially write a prompt and then

it generates a photo of that or image of

that um in any style like they would use

like artist names to make like a Picasso

kind of style and stuff um and I was

trying to see like what is it good at is

it good at people no it's really bad at

people but it was good at houses so

architecture for example I would

generate like architecture houses um so

I made a website called this house does

exist. org and it generated like they

called like house porn and that one like

house porn it's like a subreddit so and

this was stable diffusion like the first

version so looks really you can click

for another photo so it generates like

all these kind of non-existing houses it

is house point but it looked kind of

good you know like especially back then

now things look much

better um this really really well

done wow and it also generates like a

description and you can up vote is it

nice up vote it man there's so much to

talk to you about like the choices here

is this is very Scrappy in the bottom

there's like a ranking of the most up

voted houses so these are the top voted

if you go to old time you see quite

beautiful

ones yeah so this one is my favorite the

number one it's like kind of like a um

how is this not more popular it was

really popular for like a while but then

people got so bored of it I think cuz I

was getting bored of it too like just

continuous house porn like everything

starts looking the same but then I

thought it was really good at interior

so I pivoted to interior ai.com

where um I tried to like upload first

generate interior designs and then I

tried to do like there was a new

technology called image to image where

you can input an image like a photo and

it would kind of modify the thing mhm so

you see it looks almost the same as

photo it's the same code essentially um

nice so I would I would upload a photo

of my interior where I lived and I would

ask like change this into like a I don't

know like maximalist design you know and

it worked and it worked really well so I

was like okay this is a startup because

obviously interior design Ai and

nobody's doing that yet so I launched

this and it was successful and made like

in within a week made 10K 20K a month

and now still makes like 40K 50k a month

uh and it's been like two years so then

I was like how can I improve this

interior design I need to start learning

fine-tuning and fine tuning is where you

have this existing AI model and you fine

tune it on the specific goal you wanted

to do so I would find really beautiful

interor design make a gallery and um

train a new model that was very good at

interior design and it worked and I used

that as well and then for fun I uploaded

photos of

myself and here's where it happened uh

and to train myself like and this would

never work obviously and it worked and

actually it started understanding me as

a concept so my face worked and and you

could do like different styles like me

as a like very cheesy medieval warrior

all this stuff so I was like this is

another a startup so now I Avatar ai. me

I couldn't get the do and this was uh

this was yeah Avatar ai. me well now it

forwards to phot because I pivoted got

it but this was more like

cheesy thing so this is very interesting

because this went so viral it made like

I think like 150k in a week or something

it's the most money I ever made and um

and then big this is very interesting

the big VC companies like lenza which

are much better at iOS and stuff than me

I didn't have IOS app they quickly build

the IOS app that does the same and they

found technology and it's all open

technology so it's good and I think they

made like $30 million with it yeah they

they became like the top grossing app

after that um and it was how how do you

feel about that I think it's amazing

honestly and it's not like you didn't

have like a feeling like ah fuck no I

was a little bit like sad cuz all my

products would work out and I never had

like real Fierce competition and now I

have like Fierce competition from like a

a very skilled High sent like iOS

Developer Studio or something that and

and they already had an app they had an

app in the app store for like um I think

retouching your face or something so

they were very smart they add these

avatars to there it's a feature they had

the users they do a push notification to

everybody who have these avatars Yeah

man they made C I think they made they

made so much money and um I think they

did a really great job and uh I also

made a lot of money with it but that was

I I I quickly realized it wasn't my

thing because it was so cheesy it was

like kit you know it's kind of like um

me as a Barbie or me as a you know it

was too cheesy I wanted to go for like

what's a real problem we can solve

because this is going to be a hype this

is going to be and it was a hype this

Avatar um it's like let's do real

photography like how can you make people

look really photorealistic and it was

difficult and that's why these offs word

because they were all like in a Cheesy

you know Picasso style and art is easy

because you interpret the the all the

problems that AI has with your face are

like artistic you know if you call it

Picasso but if you make a real photo all

the problems with your face like it just

you look wrong you know mhm so I started

making photo AI which was like a pivot

of it where it was like a photo studio

um where you could take photos without

actually needing a photographer needing

a studio you don't just you know you

just type it and I've been working on it

for like the last yeah it's really

incredible that journey is really

incredible let's go to the beginning of

photo AI though cuz I remember seeing a

lot of re really hilarious photos I

think you were using yourself as a case

study right yeah yeah so what uh there's

a tweet here

sold

$100,000 in AI generated avatars yeah

it's a lot like it's a lot for anybody

it's a lot for me like uh making 10K a

day on this you know that's

amazing that's amazing and then the

nested tweet like that's a launch tweet

and then the before there is like the me

hacking on it oh I see so that

okay so October 26 2022 I trained an ml

model on my

face sure because my eyes are quite far

apart I learned when I did YouTube I

would put like a photo of like my DJ

photo you know my mixure and people

would say I look like a hammerhead shark

was like the top comment so then I

realized my eyes are far apart uh yeah

the internet helps you realiz who how

you look you know boy do I love the

internet first first

trap what what is is this wait it's

water from the waterfall but the

waterfall is in the back you know so

what's going

on so this is how much of this is real

it's all AI it's all AI yeah that's

pretty good though for the early days

exactly so but this was hit or miss so

you had to do love curation cuz 99% of

it was really bad MH so these are the

photos I uploaded how many photos did

you use only these I will try more up to

date picks later these are the these are

the only photos you uploaded yeah wow

wow wow okay so like you were learning

all this super quickly what uh what are

some like interesting details you

remember from that time for like what

you have to figure out to make it work

and for people just listening he

uploaded just uh just a handful of

photos that don't really have a good

capture of the face and he's able to or

I think it's cropped it's like a cropped

by the by the the layout but they're

they're Square photos so they're 512 by

512 mhm because that's stable fusion um

but nevertheless not great captures the

face like it's not it's not like a uh

collection of several hundred photos

that it's like exactly like I I would

imagine that too when I started I was

like a this must be like some 3D scan

technology right yeah so I think the

cool thing with AI it trains the concept

of you so it's literally like learning

just like any AI model leurs it learns

how you look so I I did this and then I

was getting so I was getting DMs like

telegram messages like how can I do the

same thing I want these photos my

girlfriend wants these photo so I was

like okay this is obviously a business

but I didn't have time to code it uh

make a whole like app about it so I made

a HTML page um registered a domain name

and this was not even it was a stripe

payment link which means you have uh

literally link to stripe to pay but

there's no code in the back so all you

know is you have customers that paid

money then I added like a some uh a typ

form link so Ty form is a site where you

can have create like your own um input

form like Google forms so they would get

a email with a link to the type form or

actually just a link after the checkout

and they could upload their photos so

enter their email upload the photos and

um and I launched it and I was like here

first sale so this October

2022 and I think within like the first

24 hours was like I'm not sure it was

like a thousand customers or something

um but the problem was I didn't have

code to automate this so I had to do

manually so the first few hundred I just

literally took their photos uh train

them and then I would generate the

photos with the prompts and I had this

text file with the promps and I would do

everything manually and this quickly

became way too much so but that's

another constraint like I was forced to

code something up uh that would do that

and that was essentially making it into

a real website right so first it was the

type form and they uploaded through the

typ form strip check out form yeah and

then you were like that image is

downloaded did you write a script to

export down download the images myself

it's a zip file unzip file you unzipped

it un yes and then I no I'm because you

know do things don't skill Paul graah

says right so uh and then I would train

it and then I would email them the

photos I think from my personal email

say here's your here's your avatars you

know and they liked it they were like

wow it's

amazing you emailed them with your

personal email it didn't have an email

address on this domain and this is like

a 100 people yeah and then you know who

signed up uh like man I cannot say but

really famous people like really really

like billionaires famous Tech

billionaires did it and I was like wow

this is crazy and I sent I was like so

scared to message them so I said thanks

so much for using my sites you know he's

like yeah amazing app gra work so it's

like this is different than normal

reaction you know it's Bill Gates isn't

it can say

anything just like shirtless P gdpr you

know like privacy European regulation

canot share anything but I was very I

was like Wow and uh but this shows like

so you make something and then if it

takes off very fast you're like it's

validated you know you're like

here's something that people really want

but then also I thought this is hype

this is going to die down very fast and

I did because it's too cheesy but you

have to automate the whole thing how'

you automate it so like what's the AI

component like how hard was that to

figure out okay so that's actually in

many ways the easiest thing because

there is all these platforms already

back then there was platforms for uh

fine-tune St diffusion um like now I use

replicate back then I use different

platforms um which was funny because

that platform when this thing took off I

would tweet cuz I tweet always like how

much money these websites make and then

so the the you called vendor right the

the G the platform that did the gpus

they increased their price for training

from $3 to $20 after they saw that I was

making so much money so immediately my

profit is gone because I was selling

them for

$30 and I was in a slack with them like

saying what is this like can you just

put it back to $3 they say yeah maybe in

the future we're looking at it right now

I'm like what are you talking about like

you just took all my money you know and

they're smart well they're not that

smart because like you also have a large

uh platform and a lot of people respect

you so you can literally come out and

say that they're not I think it's like

kind of dirty to cancel a company or

something I I prefer just bringing my

business elsewhere but there was no

elsewhere back then right so I started

talking to other um AI model ml

platforms so replicade was one those

platforms and I started dming the CEO

say can you please create like it's

called dream Boo this fine tuning of you

yourself can you add this to your site

CU I need this cuz I'm being price gods

and he said no because it takes too long

to run it takes half an hour to run and

we don't have the gpus for it I said

please please please and then after a

week they said we're doing it we're

launching this and then this company

became it was like not very famous

company it became very famous with this

stuff because suddenly everybody was

like oh we can build similar apps like

Avatar apps and everybody started

building Avatar apps and everybody

started using replicate for it um and it

was from these early DMS with like the

CEO like Ben Fish very nice guy and he

was like

they never price go me they never treat

me bad they always been very nice it's

it's a very cool company so you can run

any ml model any AI model llms you can

run on here and you can scale yes they

scale yeah yeah and I mean you can do

now you can click on the model and just

run it already it's like super easy you

log in with GitHub um that's great and

by running it on the website then you

can automate with the API you can make a

website that runs the model generate

images generate text generate vide

generate music generate spech find two

models do anything yeah it's very cool

company nice and you're like growing

with them essentially they grew because

of you because it's like a big use case

yeah like the the website even looks

weird now it it started as like a

machine learning platform that was like

I didn't even understand what it did it

was just too to ml you know like you

would understand because you're in the

ml world I wouldn't understand now it's

newb friendly yeah exactly and I didn't

know how it worked and um but I knew

that they could probably do this and

they did it they built the models and

now I use them for everything and we

trained like I think now like 36,000

models 36,000 people already but is

there some tricks to fine tuning to like

the collection of photos that are

provided like how do you like yes man

it's so many Hecks the hack it's like

100 Hecks to make it work what what's

what are some my secrets now well not

not the secrets but the more like

insights maybe about the human face and

the human body like what what kind of

stuff get messed up a

lot I think people well man it's thing

people don't know know how they look so

um yeah they generate photos of

themselves and then they say ah it

doesn't look like me yeah but it then

you know you can check the training

phones it does look like you but you

don't know how you look so there's a

face dysmorphia of yourself that you you

have no idea how you look yeah that's

hilarious I mean I've got to one one of

the least Pleasant activities in my

existence is having to listen to my

voice and look at my face so I get to

like

really really have to sort of uh coming

to terms with the reality of how I look

and how I sound and everybody and but

people often don't right like you have a

distorted view perspective I know that

like I would if I would make a selfie

how I think I look that I that's nice

other people think that's not nice but

then they make a photo of me I'm like

that's super ugly but then they're like

no that's how you look and you look nice

you know so how other people see you is

nice so you need to ask other people to

choose your photos yeah you shouldn't

choose them yourself because you don't

know how you look

yeah you don't know what makes you

interesting what makes you attractive

all this kind of stuff and a lot of us

this is dark aspect of psychology we

focus on some small flaws yeah this why

I hate plastic surgery for example

people try to remove the flaws when the

flaws are the thing that makes you

interesting and attractive I learned

from the hammerhead shark eyes this the

stuff about you that looks ugly to you

and it's probably that What Makes You

original makes you nice and people like

it about you and it's not like oh my God

and people notice it people notice your

Hammer had eyes you know but it's like

that's me that's my face so I'm I love I

love myself and that's confidence and

confidence is attractive yes right

confidence is attractive but yes

understanding what makes you beautiful

it's the breaking of symmetry makes you

beautiful it's the breaking of the the

average face makes you beautiful all

that yeah and obviously different for

men and women at different ages all this

kind of stuff but be Underneath It All

the personality all of that when when

the

face comes alive that also is the thing

that makes you Beau beautiful but anyway

you have to figure all that out with AI

yeah one thing that worked was like um

people would upload full body photos of

themselves so I would crop the face

right because and then the model knew

better that we're training mostly the

face here but then I started losing uh

resemblance of the body because some

people are skinny some people are

muscular whatever so you want to have

that too uh so now I mix full body

photos in the training with face photos

face crops uh and it's all automatic

like um and I know that other people

they they use again AI mod to detect

like what are the best photos in this

training set and then train on those but

it's all it's all about training data

and that's with everything in AI like

how good your training data is is in

many ways more important than how many

steps you train for like how many months

or whatever with these gpus like um the

golds do you have any guidelines for

people of like how to get good data how

to give good data to find tune on like

the photos should be diverse so for

example if I only upload photos with a

brown shirt or green shirt the mulle

think that I'm training the green shirt

so the things that are the same every

photo are the concepts that are trained

what you want is your face to be the

concept that's strains um and everything

else to be diverse like different so

diverse lighting as well diverse yeah

Outside Inside uh but there's no like

this is the problem there's no like

manual for this and nobody knew we were

all just especially two years ago we're

all hacking trying to test anything

anything you can think of and uh it's

frustrating it's one of the most

frustrating and also fun and challenging

things to do because with AI CU it's a

black box and like carpati I think says

this like uh we don't really know how

this thing works but it does something

but nobody really knows why right like

we cannot look into the the model of an

llm like what is actually in there we

just know it's like a 3D Matrix of

numbers right um so it's very

frustrating CU some things you that

would be you think they're obvious that

they will improve things will make them

worse and there's so many parameters you

can tweak so you're testing everything

to you know improve things I mean

there's a whole field now of mechanistic

interpretability that like studies that

tries to figure out tries to break thing

apart and understand how it works but

you know there's also the data side and

the the actual like consumer facing

product side of figuring out how do you

get it to generate a thing that's

beautiful or interesting or naturalistic

all that kind of stuff and you're like

at the Forefront of figuring that out

about the human face and humans really

care about the human face yeah very vain

yeah like me you know like I want to

look good in your podcast for example

yeah for sure and one of the things I

actually would love to uh like

rigorously use Photo AI because for the

thumbnails I take portraits of people I

didn't I don't know shit about

photography uh I basically used your

approach for photography I like Google

how do you take photographs yeah

camera lighting and also it's tough

because maybe you could speak to this

also but like with

photography no offense to any they're

true artists great photographers but

like people like take themselves way too

seriously think you need a whole lot of

equipment you definitely don't want one

light you need like five lights I know

like and you have to have like the

lenses and I talked to to a guy an

expert of uh shaping the sound in a room

okay and cuz I was thinking I'm going to

do a podcast Studio whatever I should

probably like treat the do a sound

treatment on the room and like when he

showed up and analyzed the room he

thought everything I was doing was

horrible and then that's when I realized

like you know what I don't need experts

in my life he kick him out of the house

no I didn't kick him I me I said Thank

you thank you very much thank you great

tips all I just I just felt like there

is you know focus on whatever the

problems are use your own judgment use

your own instincts don't listen to other

people and only consult other people

when there's a specific problem and you

consult them not to offload the problem

onto them but to gain wisdom from their

perspective even if their perspective is

ultimately one you don't agree with

you're going to gain wisdom from that

and just I ultimately come up with like

a PHP solution PHP and jQuery solution

the PHP Studio like have a little

suitcase I use like uh just the the

basic sort of uh consumer type of stuff

one light it's great yeah and look at

you you're like one of the top podcasts

in the world and you get millions of

views and it works and the people that

spend so much money on optimizing for

the best sound for the best studio they

get like 300 views you know so what is

this about this is about that either you

do it really well or also that a lot of

these things don't matter like what

matters is probably the content the

podcast like you get interesting guest

focus on the stuff that matters yeah and

I think that's very common they called

gear acquisition syndrome like gas like

people in any industry do this they just

buy all the stuff there was a meme

recently like you buy what's the name

for the guy that buys all the stuff

before he even started doing the hobby

right um marketing you know marketing

does that to people they want to buy

this stuff yeah but like

man you you can make a you can make a

Hollywood movie on an iPhone you know if

the content is good enough it's it and

it will probably be original because you

would be using an iPhone for it you know

so that said I so the reason I brought

that up with

photography there is wisdom from people

and one of one of the things I realized

you probably also realized this but how

much power light

has to uh to convey emotion you just

take one light and move it around say

you're sitting in the darkness mooving

around your face the different positions

are having a second light potentially

you can play with how a person feels

just from a generic face it's

interesting like you can make people

attractive you can make them ugly you

can make them scary you can make them

lonely all of this and so you kind of

real start to realize this and uh I

would definitely love AI help in uh

creating great portraits of people guest

photos yeah guest photos for example

that's a small use case but for me

that's

a I suppose it's an important use case

because like I want people to look good

but I also want to capture who they are

maybe my conception of who they are what

makes them beautiful what makes their

appearance powerful in some ways

sometimes it's the eyes often times it's

the eyes but there's certain features of

the face can sometimes be really

powerful and I can't it's it's also kind

of awkward for me to take yeah yeah yeah

photographs so I'm not collecting enough

yeah photographs for myself to do it um

with just those photographs if I can

load that off fun to Ai and then start

to play with like lighting you should do

this and you should probably do it

yourself like you can get use photo but

it's even more fun if you do it yourself

so you train the models you can learn

about like control net control net is

where for example your photos and your

podcast are usually like from the angle

right so you can create a control net

face posst that's always like this so

every model every photo you generate

uses this control net uh pose for

example I think it would be very fun for

you to try out that stuff do you play

with lighting at all do you play with

lighting with with man actually this

like this week or recently there's a new

model came out that can adjust the light

of any photo but also AI image uh with

stable diffusion uh I think it's called

relight and it's amazing like you can

you can upload kind of like a a light

map so for example red purple blue and

it uses that light map to change the

light on the photo to you you input it's

amazing so there's for sure a lot of

stuff you can do uh what's your advice

for people people in general on how to

learn all the state-of-the-art AI tools

available like you mentioned new models

coming out all the time yeah like what

how do you pay attention how do you stay

on top of everything I think you need to

join Twitter X you know X is amazing now

and the whole AI industry is on X and

they're all like anime avatars so it's

funny because uh my friends asked me

this like what who should I follow to

stay stay up to date and I say go to x

and follow all the AI anime model that

this person is following or follows and

I sent them some URL and they all start

laughing like what is this but they're

real like people hacking around in AI

they get hired by big companies and

they're on X and most of them are

Anonymous this is very funny they're

they use anime avars um I don't um but

those people hack around and they they

publish what they're discovering um they

talk about papers for example uh so yeah

definitely X it's great I almost

exclusively all the people I follow are

AI people people yeah it's a good time

now it well but also just brings

happiness to my to my soul cuz there's

so much turmoil on Twitter yeah like

politics and stuff there's battles going

on it's like a war zone and it's nice to

just go into this happy place to where

people are building stuff yeah 100% I

like Twitter that for that most like

building stuff like yeah seeing other

cuz it inspires you to build and it's

it's just fun to see other people share

what they're discovering and then

you're like okay I'm going to make

something too it's just super fun and so

if you want to start go on X and then I

would go to replicate and start trying

to play with models and when you have

something that kind of you you manually

enter stuff you set the parameters

something that works you you can make an

app out of it or website can you speak a

little bit more to the process of it

becoming better and better and better

photo yeah so I had this photo and a lot

of people using it there was like a

million or more photos a month being

generated and I discovered I was testing

parameters like increase the step count

of generating a photo or changing the

sampler like a scheduler like you have

DPM two caras all these things I don't

know anything about but I know that you

can choose them when you generate image

and they have different resulting images

but I didn't know which one was were

better so I would do it myself test it

but then I was like why don't I test on

these users because I have a million

photos generated anyway so un like 10%

of the users I would um randomly test

parameters and then I would see if they

would because you can favor it photo or

you can download it I would measure if

they favored or like the photo and then

I would AB test and you test for

significance and stuff uh which

parameters were were better and which

were worse so you're starting to figure

out which Which models are actually

working well and then if it's

significant enough data you switch to

that for the whole you know all the

users and so that was that was like the

Breakthrough to make it better just use

the users to improve it themselves and I

tell them when they sign up we do

sampling we do testing on your photos

with random parameters and that work

really well I don't do a lot of testing

anymore because it's like I kind of

reached like a diminishing point where

it's like it's kind of good um but

that's there was a breakthrough yeah so

it's really about the parameters and

models that CH and letting the

users help do the search in the space of

models and parameters for you yeah but

actually so like stable diff Fusion I

used 1.5 two 2.0 came out as stab Fusion

XL came out all these new versions and

they were all worse and so the core

scene of people are still using 1.5

because it's like it's also not like

what do you call neutered like they they

neutered like to make it super like with

safety features and stuff so most of the

people are still on stable diffusion 1.5

and meanwhile stable diffusion the

company went like the CEO left um a lot

of drama happened because they couldn't

make money and yeah so they gave us it's

very interesting they gave us this this

open source model that everybody uses

they raised like hundreds of millions of

dollars it all they didn't make any

money with it or not a lot they did an

amazing job and now everybody use this

open source model for free and they did

you know it's amazing like it's a it's

amazing you're not even using the latest

one you're say no and the strange thing

is that this company raised hundreds of

millions but the people that are

benefiting from it are really small like

people like me who make these small apps

that are using the model and and now

they're starting to charge money for the

new models but the new models are not so

good for people do not sell open source

right yeah it's interesting because open

source is so impact in the AI space but

you wonder like what is the business

model behind that but it's enabling this

whole ecosystem of companies that yeah

they're using open source models it's

kind of like those Frameworks but then

they didn't you know bribe enough

influencers to use it um and they didn't

charge money for the platform you know

okay so back to your book and the

ideas we didn't even get to the first

step uh generating ideas so you had the

notebook and you're filling it up how do

you know when an idea is a good one like

what you you have this just flood of

ideas how do you pick the one that you

actually try to build man mostly you

don't know like mostly I choose the ones

that are most viable for me to build

like I cannot build a space company now

right would be quite challenging but I

can build something actually write down

like space company no I I think asteroid

mining would be very cool because like

you you go to an asteroid you take some

stuff from there you bring it back you

sell it you know it's but then you need

to do and you can hire someone to launch

the thing so all you need is like the

robot that goes to the asteroid you know

and Robotics interesting like I want to

also learn robotics so maybe that could

be I think both the asteroid Mining and

the robotics is yeah

together I feel like no exactly this is

it this is says we do this not because

it's easy but because we thought it

would be easy exactly that's me with

that's me with Aster mining exactly

that's why I should do this it's not

Nomad list.com it's it's

you have to like build stuff you have to

gravity is really hard to overcome yeah

but it seems man I sound like idiots

probably now but it sounds quite

approachable like relatively

approachable you don't have to build a

rocket you oh you use something like

SpaceX SpaceX to send your your you know

this dog robot or whatever so is there

actually exist a notebook where you

wrote Don estro might no I used back

then I used Trello Trello yeah but now I

don't really I use telegram I write down

like saved messages and I have like idea

I write down you type to yourself on you

know like cuz you use WhatsApp right I

think so you have like message to

yourself thing also yeah so yourself on

telegram yeah you use like a notepad not

forget stuff and then I pinets you know

I love how like you're not using super

complicated systems or whatever you know

people use obsidian now there's a lot of

these um yeah a notion where you have

systems for not taking you're not you're

notepad you're notepad.exe guy if you're

a Windows user man I saw some YouTubers

doing this like there's a lot of these

productivity gurus also and they do this

whole like iPad with a pencil and then I

also had an iPad and I also got the

pencil and I got this app where you can

like draw on paper like um draw like a

calendar you know like like people

students use this and you do coloring

and stuff and I'm like dude I did this

for a week and I'm like what am I doing

with my life like I can just write it as

a message to myself and it's good enough

you know speaking of ideas you shared a

tweet explaining why the first idea

sometimes might be a brilliant idea the

reason for this you think is the first

idea submerges from your subconscious

was actually boiling your brain for

weeks months sometimes years in the

background the eight hours of thinking

can never compete with a Perpetual

subconscious background job so this is

the idea that if you think about an idea

for 8 hours versus like the first idea

that pops into your mind yeah and

sometimes there is

subconscious like stuff that you've been

thinking about for many years that's

really emerges I wrote it wrong because

I don't know I'm not native English but

it emerges from your subconscious right

it comes from the like a water here your

subconscious in here it's boiling and

then when it's ready it's like ding it's

like microwave comes out and there you

have your idea you think you have ideas

like that yeah all the time 100% it's

just stuff that's been like there yes

yeah and I also it comes up and I bring

it I send it back you know like send it

back to the kitchen boil more yeah and

it's like a soup that of ideas that's

cooking it's 100% this is how my brain

works and I think most people but it's

also about the the timing sometimes you

have to send it back not just because

you're not ready but the world is not

ready yeah so many times like starter

fins are too early with their idea yeah

100% robotics is an interesting one for

that because like there's been a lot of

Robotics companies that failed yeah

because it's been very difficult to

build a robotics company make money

because there the manufacturing like the

cost of everything the intelligence of

the robot is enough is not sufficient to

create a compelling enough product from

which to make money so all so there's

this long line of Robotics companies

that' tried they had Big Dreams and they

failed yeah like Boston Dynamics I still

don't know what they're doing but they

always upload YouTube videos and it's

amazing but I feel like a lot of these

companies don't have a it's like a

solution looking for a problem for now

you know military obviously is usess but

like and do I do I need like a robotic

dog now for my house I don't know like

it's fun but it doesn't really solve

anything yet I feel the same kind of

with VR like it's really cool like apple

Vision Pro is very cool doesn't really

solve something for me yet and that's

kind of the the tech looking for a

solution right but one day will when the

person on computer when the Mac came

along there was a big switch that

happened it somehow captivated

everybody's imagination you could like

the application the killer apps became

apparent you can type in a computer but

did they became apparent like

immediately back then they also had like

this thing like we don't need these

computers uh they're like a hype and um

and it also went like in kind of like

you know W yeah yeah but the hype is the

thing that allowed the thing to

proliferate sufficiently to where people

Minds would start opening up to it a

little bit the possibility of right now

for example with the robotics there's

very few robots in the homes of people

exactly yeah the the robots that are

there are roombas so the vacuum cleaners

or they're Amazon Alexa yeah or

dishwasher I mean it's essentially a

robot yes but the the intelligence is

very limited I guess there one way we

can summarize all of them except Alexa

which is pretty intelligent

but uh is is limited with the kind of

ways it interacts with you it's you know

that that's just one example yeah I

sometimes think about that is like if

some people in this world were kind of

born in their whole existence is

like they were meant to build the thing

yeah you know like I sometimes wonder

like what my what I was meant to do you

have these plans for your life you have

these

dreams I think you're meant to build

robots Okay me personally maybe maybe

um that that that's a sense I've I've

had but it could be other things it

could hilariously enough be the thing I

was meant to be is to talk to people

yeah which is weird because I always was

anxious about talking to people it's

like a really yeah I'm scared of this I

scared yeah exactly I'm scared of you

it's just anxiety throughout social

interaction in general I'm an introvert

that hides from the world so yeah it's

really strange yeah but that's that's

also kind of Li like life brings you to

it's very hard to um super intently kind

of choose what you're going to do with

your life it's it it's more like surfing

you're surfing the waves you go in the

in the ocean you see where you end up

you know yeah yeah and there's Universe

has a kind of sense of humor yeah I

guess you have to just yeah allow

yourself to be carried away by the wayes

yeah exactly yeah yeah have you felt

that way in your life yeah all the time

like yeah that's like I think that's the

best way to live your life so whatever

to happen like do you know what you're

doing in the next few years is it

possible that it'll be completely like

changed possibly I I think relationships

like you want to hold relationships

right you want to hold your girlfriend

you want to become wife and all the

stuff but uh you should I think you

should stay open to where like like for

example where you want to live like I

don't know we don't know where we want

to live for example um that's something

that will figure itself out it will

crystallize where you know you will get

you will get sent by the waves to

somewhere where you want to live for

example what you're going to do I think

that's a really good way to live your

life it's I I think most stress comes

from trying to control like hold things

like um it's kind of Buddhist you know

you need to like lose control let it

lose and then things will happen like

when you do mushrooms when you do drugs

like psychedelic drugs the people that

starts that are like control freaks get

bad trips right because you need to let

go like I'm pretty control freak

actually and um when I did mushrooms

when I was 17 I I it was very good and

at the end it wasn't so good cuz I tried

to control was like ah now it's going

too much you now I need to let's stop

bro you can't stop it you need to go

through with it you know and so I think

it's a good manhor for life I think

that's you know very tranquil way to

lead your life yeah actually when I um

took

kaasa that lesson is deeply within me

already that you can't control anything

yes I think I probably learned that the

most in Jiu-Jitsu so just let go and

relax yeah and that's why I had just an

incredible experience there's like

literally no negative aspect to my iasa

experience or any psychedelics I've ever

had some of that could be with my

biology or my genetics whatever but some

of it was just not trying to control and

just surf the way for sure I think most

stress in life comes from trying to

control so once you have the idea yeah

step two build how do you think about

building The Thing Once you have the

idea I think you should build with the

technology that you know so for example

um Nomad list which is like this website

I made to figure out the best cities to

live and work as digital Nomad uh it

wasn't a website it launched as a Google

spreadsheet so it was a public Google

spreadsheet anybody could edit and I was

like I'm collecting like cities where we

we can live as eom with the internet

speed the cost of living um you know

other stuff and I would I tweeted it and

I would and back then I didn't have a

lot of followers I had like a few

thousand followers or something and it

went like viral for my skill viral back

then you know which was like five

retweets and um and a lot of people

started editing it and there was like

hundreds of cities in this list like

from of the world with all the data was

very crowdsourced and then I made that

into a website so figuring out like what

technology you can use that you already

know so if you cannot code you can use a

spreadsheet if you cannot um use a

spreadsheet like whatever you can always

use a for example a website generator

like weeks or something or Squarespace

right like you don't need to code to

build a startup all you need is a idea

for a product um build something like a

landing page or something um put a

stripe button on there and then make it

um and if you can code use the language

that you already you know and start

coding with that and see how far you can

get you can always rewrite the code

later like the tax stack is not actually

it's not the most important of a

business when you're starting out a

business the important thing is that you

validate that there's a market that

there's a product that people want to

pay for um so use whatever you can use

and if you canot code use you know

spreadsheets landing page generators

whatever yeah and the crowdsourcing

element is

fascinating uh it's cool it's cool when

a lot of people start using it you get

to learn so fast yeah uh like i' I've

actually did the spread sheeet thing you

share a spreadsheet

publicly and I made it editable yeah

interesting things start happening yeah

I did it for like a a workout thing cuz

I was doing a large amount of push-ups

and pull-ups every day yeah I remember

this man yeah and like and and IDE

Google Sheets is pretty Limited in that

everything's allowed so people could

just write anything in any and they can

create new uh sheets new tabs and he

just

exploded and uh one of the things that I

really enjoyed is there's very few

trolls um because actually other people

would delete the trolls there would be

like this weird war of like of they they

want like to protect the thing it's an

immune system that's inherent to the

thing it becomes a society you know in a

spreadsheet and then there's the out

Outcast who go to the bottom of the

spreadsheet and they would try to had

messages and they like I don't want to

be with the cool kids up at the top of

the spreadsheet so I'm going the bottom

yes it's fast I mean but that kind of

crowdsourcing element is really powerful

and if you can create a product that use

that as a to his benefit that's that's

really nice like any kind of voting

system any kind of rating system for A

and B testing is really really really

fascinating so anyway so NAD list is

great I would I would love for you to

talk about that but one sort of way to

talk about it is

uh through you building uh Hood Maps

yeah so you've you did an awesome thing

which is document yourself building the

thing and doing so in just a handful of

days like three four five days so people

should je definitely check out the video

in the in the blog post um can you can

you explain what Hood Maps is and what

this whole like this process was so I

was traveling and I was still trying to

find like problems right and I would go

I would I would discover that like

everybody's experience of a city is

different because they stay in different

areas yeah so I'm from Amsterdam and

when I grew up uh in Amsterdam or didn't

grew up but I lived there University I

knew that Center is like in Europe the

centers are always tourist areas so

they're super busy they're not very

authentic the cult they're not really

Dutch culture it's Amsterdam tourist

culture you know so when people would

travel to amam would say don't go to the

center go to you know Southeast um of

the center the yordan or the pipe or

something more hipster areas like a

little more authentic culture of

Amsterdam that's where I would live you

know and where I would go um and I

thought this could be like a app where

you can have like a Google Maps and you

put colors over it you have like areas

that are like color coded like red is

tourist green is Rich you know green

money yellow is hipster you can figure

out where you need to go in a city when

you travel because I was traveling a lot

I wanted to go to the cool spots so just

use color color yeah yeah and I would

use a canvas so I thought okay what do I

need I need to did you know that you

would be using a canvas no I didn't know

it was possible cuz I didn't no some

this is the cool this is the cool thing

people should really check out this how

it started because like you honestly

capture so beautifully the The Humbling

aspects of the embarrassing aspects of

like not knowing what to do it's like

how do I how do I do this and you like

document yourself yeah you're right dude

I feel embarrassed about

myself oh really yeah it's called being

alive nice um so you're like you don't

know anything about so canvas is a way

is HTM yes HTML

five thing that allows you to draw

shapes draw images just draw pixels

essentially so yeah and that's there was

special back then because before you

could only have like elements right so

you want to draw a pixel use a convos

and I knew I needed to draw pixels

because I need to draw these colors and

I thought like okay I'll get like a

Google Maps iframe embed and then I'll

put a div on top of it with the colors

and I'll do like opacity 50 you know so

it kind of shows um so I did that with

convos and then I started drawing um and

then I felt like obviously other people

need to edit this cuz I cannot draw all

these things myself so I crowdsourced it

again and I uh you would draw on the map

and then it would send the pixel data to

the server it would put it in the

database and then I would have a robot

running like a Cron job MH which every

week would calculate or every day would

calculate like okay so mm Center there's

like six people say it's tourist this

part of the center but two people say

it's like hipster okay so the tourist

part wins right it's just an array so so

find the most common value in a little

pixel area on a map so so that so most

people say it's tourist it's tourist and

it becomes redh and I would do that for

you know older GPS Corners in the world

can we just clarify do you have to be as

a human that's contributing to this do

you have to be in that location to make

the label or no people just type in

cities and go like go berserk and start

drawing everywhere would they draw

shapes or would they draw pixels man

they drew that crazy stuff like

offensive symbols I cannot mention they

would draw penises I mean that's

that's obviously a guy I would do the

same thing draw penises that's the first

thing when I show up to Mars and there's

no cameras I'm drawing penis on the same

man I do it in the snow you know but the

penises did not become a problem because

I knew that not everybody would draw a

penis and not in the same place so most

people would use it fairly so just if I

had enough crowdsource data so you have

all these pixels on top of each it's

like a layer of pixels and you choose

the most common pixel so yeah it's just

like a bow but in visual format and it

worked and uh we didn't we had enough

data and and and it was like cities that

did really well like Los Angeles a lot

of people started using it uh like most

datas in Los Angeles because uh Los

Angeles is has defined neighborhoods

yeah and not just in terms of the the

official labels but like what they're

known for yeah what are the do you did

you provide the categories that they

were allowed to use as labels the colors

yeah as colors so it used like I think

you can see there there's like hipster

tourist rich

business so there's always a business

area right and then there's a

residential residential is gray so I

thought those were the most common

things in the city kind of and a little

bit Mimi like it's almost fun to label

it as yeah I mean obviously it's

simplified and but you need to simplify

this stuff you know you don't want to

have too many categories and it's

essentially just like like using a you

know paintbrush where you you select the

color in the bottom you select the

category and you start drawing there's

no instruction there's no manual um and

then I also added tagging so people

could like write something on a specific

location so don't go here or like here's

like um nice cafes and stuff and man the

memes that came from that and I also

added up voting so that the tags could

be upvoted so the memes that came from

that is like amazing like people in Los

Angeles would write crazy stuff it would

go viral in all these cities you can

allow allow your location and it will

probably send you to Austin okay so

we're

looking uh oh boy uh drunk hipster

uh air bro and Bros air bro BR hipster

girls who do cocaine I saw a guy in a

fish costume get beaten up here yep that

seems also ACC overpriced and

underwhelming uh let me see let me make

sure this is accurate uh let's

see 36th for people who know Austin know

that that's

important to label six street is uh

famous in Austin dirty six drunk Fat

Boys accurate drunk Fat Bros continued

on six very well West Sixth drunk douche

Bros go from frat to douche douche I

mean it's very accurate so

far uh they only let hot people live

here

that's I think that might be accurate uh

it's like the

district exercise freaks on the river

yeah that's true dog Runners accurate

saw a guy in the fish costume get beat

up here I want to know the story like so

that's that's all user contributed yeah

and that's like stuff I couldn't come up

with it because I don't know Austin I

don't know the memes here in the

subcultures and then me as a USIC can

upload or downlo this so this is

completely Crown cuz of RIT you know up

down vote took it from there hey that's

really really really powerful single

people dogs accurate at which point did

it go from colors to the actually

showing the text I think I added the

text like a week a week after and uh so

here's like the pixels so that's really

cool the pixels how do you go from that

that's a huge amount of data so there's

yeah uh we're now looking at an image

where it's just a sea of pixels that

call of different colors in in a city so

how do you combine that to be a thing

that actually makes some sense I think

here the problem was that you have this

data but it's like it's not locked to

one location yeah so I had to normalize

it so when you click when you draw on a

map it will show you the specific pixel

location and you can convert the pixel

location to a GPS coordinate right like

latitude longitudes but the number will

have a lot of commas or a lot of

decimals right because it's very

specific like it's like this specific

part of the table so what you want to do

is you want to take that pixel and you

want to normalize it by removing like

decimals um which I discovered so that

you you're talking about this

neighborhood this or this street right

so that's what I did I just took the

decimals off and then I saved it like

this and then it starts um going to like

a grid and then you have like a grid of

data you get like a pixel map kind of

and then you said it looks kind of ugly

so then you smooth it yeah I started

adding blurring and stuff I think now

it's it's not smooth again because I

liked it better people like the pixel

look kind of yeah a lot of people use it

and it keeps going viral and every time

my my maps Bill uh like map box I had to

stop using first used Google Maps it

went viral and Google Maps it was out of

credits so I and I had to so funny

during when I launched it went viral um

Google Maps the map didn't load anymore

it says over the limit you need to

contact Enterprise sales and I'm like I

but I need now like a map so and I don't

want to contact Enterprise sales I don't

want to go on a call schedule with some

calendar so I switched to mapbox and

then had mapbox for years and then it

went viral and I had a bill of $20,000

was like last year um so they helped me

with the bill they said you know you can

pay less and then I now switch to like a

open source kind of um map platform so

it's very expensive project and it never

made any dollar money but it's very fun

but it's very expensive what do you

learn from that so like from that

experience cuz when you leverage

somebody else's through the API yeah I

mean I don't think a map hosting service

should cost this much you know but uh I

could host it myself but that would be I

don't know how to do that you know but I

could do that yes it's super complicated

I think that the thing is more about

like you can't make money with this

project I tried to do many things to

make money with it and it's it's uh it

hasn't worked you talked about like

possibly doing advertisements on it or

some somehow or people sponsoring it

yeah well it's really surprising to me

that people don't want to advertise on

it I think map apps are very hard to

like monetize like Google Maps also

doesn't really make money like sometimes

you see these ads but I don't think

there's a lot of money there um you

could put like a banner ad but it's kind

of ugly and the project is kind of like

it's kind of cool so it's it's kind of

fun to like subsidize it it's kind of a

little bit part of nomad list like I put

it on Nomad list in the cities as well

um but I also realized like you don't

need to monetize everything like some

projects are just cool and you know it's

like it's cool to have Hood Maps exist I

I I want this to exist right yeah

there's a bunch of stuff you've created

that I'm just glad exists in this world

that's true and it's a whole another

puzzle and I'm surprised to figure out

how to make money off of it I'm

surprised Maps don't make money but

you're right it's it's hard it's hard to

make money cuz there's there's a lot of

compute required to actually bring it to

life also where do you put the ad right

like if you have a website you can put

like a ad box or you can do like a

product placement or something but

you're talking about a map app that

where 90% of the interface is a map so

what are you going to do you're going to

like like it's hard to figure out where

is this yeah and people don't want to

pay for it no exactly because if you

make people pay for it you lose 99% of

the user base and you lose the

crowdsource data so it's not fun anymore

it stops being accurate right so you

kind of they pay for it by crowdsourcing

the data but then yeah it's fine you

know it doesn't make money but it's it's

cool but that said NAD list makes money

yeah so what was the story behind Nomad

list so Nomad list started because uh I

was in Chang maai in Thailand which is

now like the second City here and I was

you know working on my laptop um I met

like other NS there and I was like okay

this seems like a cool thing to do like

work on your laptop in a different

country kind of travel around uh but

back then the internet everywhere was

very slow so the internet was fast in

for example Holland or United States but

in a lot of parts in in you know South

America or Asia was very slow like 0.5

megabits so you you couldn't watch a

Youtube video um Thailand weirdly had

like quite fast internet but I wanted to

find like other cities where I could go

to like work on my laptop whatever and

travel and but we needed like fast

internet so I was like let's you know

crowdsource this information uh with a

spreadsheet and I also also needed to

know the cost of living cuz I didn't

have a lot of money I had $500 a month

so I had to find a place where like the

rent was like you know $200 per month or

something where I had you know some

money uh that I could actually rent

something and um and there was NAD list

and it still runs now I think it's now

almost 10 years so just to describe how

it works like I'm looking at Chang ma

here there's a total score it's rank

number two yeah that's like a number

score 4.82 uh like by members but it's

uh it's looking at the internet in this

case it's fast yeah fun temperature

humidity air quality safety food safety

uh crime racism or lack of crime lack of

racism educational level power grid

vulnerability to climate change income

level it's a little much you know

English speak it's awesome it's awesome

walkability keep adding stuff cuz for

certain groups of people certain things

really matter and this is really cool

happiness I'd love to ask about that not

life free Wii by

AC uh female friendly freedom of speech

AP and not so good in tit you know

values derived from National statistics

my yeah I like how that one has I need

to do that because the the data sets are

usually National they're not on City

level right so I don't know about the

freedom of speech between Bangkok or

changai I know in Thailand I mean this

is really fascinating so this is for

City yeah it's basically raiding all the

different things that matter to you in

Internet and this is all crowdsourced

well so it started crowdsourced but then

um I realized that you can download more

accurate data sets from like public

Source like World Bank they have a lot

of public data sets United Nations and

you can download a lot of data there

which you can you know freely use like I

I started getting FR cross data where

for example people from India they

really love India and they would submit

the best scores for everything in India

and not just like one person but like a

lot of people they would love to pump

India and I'm like I love India too you

know but uh that's not valid data so you

started getting discrepancy in the data

between people where people wear from

and stuff so I I started switching to

data sets and um and now it's mostly

data sets but one thing that's still

crowdsource is so people add where they

are they add their travels to their

profile and I use that data to see which

plac are upcoming and which places are

popular now so about half the ranking

you see here is based on actual digital

NAD who are there you can click on a

city you can click on people and you can

see the people the users that are

actually there and it's like 30,000 or

40,000 members so these people are in

Austin now and 1,800 remote work is in

Austin now now of which eight plus

members checked in U members who will be

here soon and go yeah so we have meetups

so people organize their own meetups and

we have about I think like 30 30 per

month so it's like one Meetup a day and

I don't do anything they organize

themselves so I just it's a whole Black

Box it just runs and I don't do a lot on

it it pulls data from everywhere and it

just

works cons of Austin is too expensive

very sweaty and humid now difficult to

make friends difficult to make friends

interesting right I didn't know that

difficult to make friends Austin but

this all crowd but mostly it's Pros uh

safe fast internet I don't understand

why it says not safe for women to check

the data set it feels safe the problem

with a lot of places like United States

is that it depends per area right so if

you get like City level data or Nation

level data it's like Brazil's worst

because the the range in like safe and

wealthy and and not safe is like huge so

you can't say many things about Brazil

so once they actually show up to the

city how do you figure out what uh what

area like where to get fast internet for

example like for me is all it's

consistently a struggle to figure out

like hotels with fast Wi-Fi for example

like a place okay okay I show up to a

city there's a lot of fascinating

puzzles and I haven't figured out a way

to actually solve this puzzle when I

show up to City figuring out where I can

get fast internet

connection and uh for podcasting

purposes where I can find a place with a

table that's quiet right that's not easy

construction sounds all kinds of sounds

you have to learn about all the sources

of sounds in the world and also like the

the quality of the room because the more

um the the emptier of the room and like

if it's just walls without any curtains

or any of this kind of stuff then

there's

uh echo in the room anyway but you you

figure out that a lot of hotels don't

have tables they don't have like normal

this weird desk right yeah they have

it's not a center table yep and if you

want to get a nicer hotel where it's

more spacious and so on they usually

have these like Boutique like fancy

looking like modernist annoy tables that

don't it's too Desy it's too design

they're not really real tables why don't

you get Ikea buy Ikea yeah before you

arrive you order an Ikea like n this

they get desks I feel like you should be

able to show up to a place and have have

the desk like it's not unless you stay

there for a long time just the entire

assembly all that Airbnb is so

unreliable it's the the the range and

quality that you get is is is

huge hotels have a lot of problems pros

and cons like hotels have the problem

that the pictures somehow never have

good representative pictures of what's

actually going to be in the room and

that's a problem like and you fake

photos man if I could have the kind of

data you have on NAD list for hotels

yeah man I would and I feel like you can

make a lot of money on that too yeah the

booking fees affiliate right I thought

about this idea because we have the same

problem like I go to hotels and there's

specific ones that are very good and I

know now the chains and stuff and but

even even if you go some chains are very

bad in a specific City and very good in

other cities and each individual hotel

has a lot of kinds of rooms yeah like

you you some are more expensive some are

cheaper and so on but you can get the

details

of what's in the room like what's the

actual layout of the room what is the

view of the rooman I feel like as a

hotel you can win a lot so first you

create a service that allows you to have

like high resolution data about a hotel

then one hotel sign signs up for that I

would 100% use that website to look for

a hotel instead of the crappy

Alternatives that don't give any

information and I feel like there'll be

this pressure for all the hotels to join

that site and you can make a shit ton of

money cuz hotels make a lot of money I

think it's true but the problem is with

these hotels like it's it's same with

airline industry why does every Airline

website suck when you try book book a

flights yeah it's like very strange like

why does it have to suck obviously

there's competition here why doesn't the

best website win what's the explanation

of that man I thought about this for

years so I think it's like I have to

book the flight anyway like I know

there's a route that they take and I

need like I need to buy book for example

Qatar airlines and I and I need to get

through this process

so the the the and with a hotel is

similar you need a hotel anyway so so do

you have time to like figure out the

best one not really you kind of just

need to get the place booked and you

know you need to get the flight and

you'll go through the pain of this

process and that's why this process

always sucks so much with hotels and

Airline websites and stuff because they

don't have an incentive to improve it

because generally only for like a super

upper segment of the market I think like

super high luxury it affects the actual

booking right I don't know I think that

that's a good interesting Theory I think

that must be a different Theory my my

theory would would be that great

Engineers like great software Engineers

are not allowed to make changes yeah

basically like there's some kind of

bureaucracy there's way too many

managers there's a lot of

bureaucracy and uh great Engineers show

up they try to work there and they

they're not allowed to really make any

contributions and then they leave and so

you have a lot of mediocre software

Engineers they're not really interested

in improving any of the thing and like

literally they would like to improve the

stuff but the

bureaucracy um of the place plus all the

bosses is all the high up people are not

technical people probably they don't

know much about web web dev they don't

know much about programming so they just

don't give any respect like you have to

give the freedom and the respect to

Great Engineers as they try to do great

things that feels like an explanation

like if you were a great programmer

would you want to work at America

Airlines or no no I'm I'm torn on that

cuz I I actually as somebody lost

program would love to work at America

Airlines so I can make the thing better

yeah but for I would I would work there

just to fix it for myself you know yeah

for yourself and then you just know how

much suffering you alleviated how

much just oh you imagine all the

thousands maybe millions of people that

go to that website and have to click

like a million times it often doesn't

work it's clunky all that kind of stuff

you you're making their life just so

much better yeah but there there must be

an explanation has to do with managers

and bureaucracies like I don't I think

it's money do you know

booking.com sure so it's the boooking

it's the biggest boooking website in the

world it's dutch actually and um they

have teams CU my friend worked there

they have teams for a specific part of

the website like a 10 by 10 pixels area

where they they run tests on this so

they run tests like and they're famous

for this stuff like oh there's only one

room left right with this red letter

it's like one room left book now you

know and they got a fine from the

European Union about this kind of

interesting so they have all these teams

and they run the test for 24 hours they

go to sleep they wake up next day they

come to the office and they see okay

this performed better this website has

become a monster but it's the most

Revenue generating hotel booking website

in the world is number one so that shows

that it's not about like user experience

it's about like I don't know about

making more money and you know not every

company but you know if they if if

they're optimizing it's a public company

if they're optimizing for money but you

can optimize for money by disrupting

like making it way better yeah but it's

always startups they start with

disrupting like booking also started

startup 1997 and then they become like

the old shit again like you know Uber

now starts to become like a taxi again

right it was very good in the beginning

now it's kind of like taxis now in many

places are better they're nicer than

Ubers right so it's like the circle I

think some of it is also just it's hard

to have Ultra competent Engineers yeah

like stripe seems like a trivial thing

but it it's hard to pull off like why

was it so hard for Amazon to have buy

with one click which I think is a genius

idea make buying easier

like make it as as frictional as as

possible just click a button once and

you bought the thing yeah as opposed to

most of the web was a lot of clicking

and it often doesn't work like with the

airlines remember the forms would delete

you could CLI next submit and would 404

or something or your internet would go

down your modem yeah man and I would

have an existential crisis like the

frustration would take over my whole

body and I just wanted to quit life for

a brief moment there yeah yeah I'm so

happy to form stays in Google Chrome now

when something goes wrong but that's so

Google somebody did Google improv

Society with that right yeah and one of

the challenges of Google is to have the

freedom to do that they don't anymore

there's a bunch of bureaucracy yeah go

there's so many brilliant brilliant

people there but it just moves slowly

yeah I wonder why that is maybe that's

the natural way of a company but you

have people like Elon who rolls in and

just fir most most of the folks and

always oper like push the company to

operate as a startup even when it's

already big yeah but I mean Apple does

this I like I started in business school

Apple does competing product teams that

operate as startups so three to five

people they make something they have

multiple teams who make the same thing

the best team wins so you need to I

think you need to emulate like a a free

market inside a company to make it

entrepreneurial you know yeah and you

need entrepreneurial mentality in a

company to to come up with new ideas and

do it better so one of the things you do

really really well is learn a new thing

like you're trying to you have an idea

you try to build it and then you learn

everything you need to in order to build

it you have your current skills but you

need learn just the minimal amount of

stuff so you're a good person to ask

like what how do you

learn how do how do you learn quickly

and effectively in just the stuff you

need you did um just by way of example

you did a 30 days learning session on 3D

yeah where you documented yourself

giving yourself only 30 days to learn

everything you can about yeah I tried to

learn virtual reality CU I was like this

was like same as AI it came up Suddenly

like 2016 2017 with I think HTC VI this

big VR glasses before Apple Vision Pro

and I was like oh this is going to be

big so I need to learn this so I I know

I know nothing about 3D I installed like

um I think unity and like blender and

stuff and I started learning all this

stuff

um because I thought this was like a new

you know n technology that was going to

be big and if I had to skill for it uh I

could use this to build stuff and so I

think with learning for me it's like it

I think learning is so funny because

people always ask me like how how do I

how do you learn to code like should I

learn to code and I'm like I don't know

like I'm Every Day I'm learning it's

kind of cliche but every day I'm

learning new stuff so every day I'm

searching on Google or asking out cat

gbt how to do this thing how to do this

thing every day I'm getting better at my

skill so you never stop learning so the

whole concept of like how do you learn

well you never end so where do you want

to be do you want to know a little bit

do do you want to know a lot do you want

to do it for your whole life or so I

think taking action is the best step to

learn so making things like you know

nothing just start making things okay so

like how to make a website search how to

make a website or nowadays you ask jbt

how do I make a website where do I start

it generates codes for you right copy

the code put it in a file save it open

it in Google Chrome or whatever you have

a website and then you start tweaking

with it and you start okay how do I add

a button how do I add AI features right

like nowadays so it's like by taking

action you can learn stuffff much faster

than reading books or actually I'm

curious let me ask perplexity how do I

make a

website I'm just curious what it would

say I hope it goes with like really

basic vanilla Solutions Define your

website's purpose choose a domain name

select a web hosting provider choose a

website or Builder or CMS website build

platform like wi for Squarespace is what

I said yeah landing page

what what do I how do I say if I want to

programming it program it myself design

your website create essential Pages yeah

even tells you to launch it right like

start your website cool well I mean you

could do that yeah but this is literally

it like it's this is if you want to make

a this is the basic like Google

analytics but you can't make Nomad list

with this way so with Wix like with ah

no you can you can get pretty far I

think these website Builders are pretty

Advanced like all you need is a grid of

images right that are clickable that

open like another page yeah you can can

get quite far how do I learn to

program choose a programming language to

start with yeah free code Camp is

good work through a resources

systematically practice coing regularly

for 30 60 minutes a day consistency key

join programming communities like

reddits

yeah yeah it's pretty it's pretty good

yeah it's pretty good so I think it's

it's a very good starting ground because

imagine you know nothing and you want to

make a website you want to make a

startup this is like that's why the man

the power of AI for education is going

to be insane like people anywhere can

can ask this question and start building

stuff yeah clarifies it for sure and

just start building like keep build

build like actually apply the thing

whether it's AI or uh any of the

programming for web development yeah

just have a project in mind which I love

the idea of like

12 startups in 12 months or

like build a project almost every day

just build a thing yeah and get it to

work and finish it every single day

that's a cool experiment I think that

was the inspiration there was a girl who

did

160 websites in 160 days or something

like lit mini websites yeah and uh and

she learned to go that way so I think

it's good to set yourself challenges you

know like don't you can go to some

coding boot camp but I don't think they

actually work I think it's better to do

like for me outto deduct like

selflearning and setting yourself like

challenges and just getting in but you

need discipline you know you need to

discipline to keep to keep doing it and

coding you know coding is very it's a

steep learning curve to get in it's very

annoying working with computers is very

annoying uh so it can be hard for people

to keep doing it you know yeah that

thing of just keep doing it and don't

quit that urgency that's required to

finish a thing that's why it's really

powerful when you documented this the

creation of hood Maps or the like a

working prototype that there's a just a

constant frustration I guess it's like

how do I do this and then you look it up

and you're like okay you have to

interpret the different options you have

you're like and then just try it and

then and then there's a dopamine Rush of

like o it works cool man it's amazing

and it's I I live streamed it it's on

YouTube and stuff people can watch it

and it's amazing when things work it's

look it's just like amazing that you I

look very not I don't look far ahead so

I only look okay what's the next problem

to solve and then the next problem and

at the end you have a whole app or

website or thing you know but I think

most people look way too far ahead you

know they look it's like this poster

again like you shouldn't you don't know

how hard it's going to be so you should

only look like for the next thing the

next little challenge the next step and

then see where you end up and assume

it's going to be

easy yeah exactly yeah be naive about it

because it's it's you're going to have

very difficult

problems a lot of the big problems won't

be even Tech we'll be like public right

like maybe people don't like your

website like um you will get canceled

for a website for example like a lot of

things can happen what's it like

building in public like you do like

openly where you're just iterating

quickly and you're getting people's

feedback so there there's the power of

the crowdsourcing but there's also the

the negative aspects of people being

able to

criticize so man I think haters are

actually cuz I think a lot of haters

have good points and it takes like

stepping away from the emotion of like

uh ah your website sucks because blah

blah blah and you're like okay just

remove this your website sucks because

it's personal you know what did he say

why did he didn't not like it and you

figure out okay he didn't like it

because the sign up was difficult or

something or it wasn't the data they say

no this data is not accurate or

something right okay I need to improve

the quality of data this hater has a

point think it's dumb to completely

ignore your haters you know and also you

man I think I've been there when I was

like 10 years old or some you're on the

internet you just shouting crazy stuff

that's like most of Twitter you know or

half Twitter so you you have to take it

with grain of salt um yeah you man you

need to grow a very thick skin like on

Twitter on X like people say but I mute

a lot of people like I found out I muted

already 15,000 people recently I checked

so in in 10 years I muted 15,000 people

so that's like like that's one by one

manual 15 yeah oh wow so, 1500 people

per year and I don't like like to block

cuz then they get angry they make a

screenshot and they say ah you block me

so I just mute and it disappear and it's

amazing so you mentioned Reddit So Hood

maps that make it to the front page of

Reddit yeah yeah it did yeah yeah yeah

it did it was amazing and my server

almost went down and I was checking like

Google analytics was like 5,000 people

on the website or something or crazy and

it was a night and was amazing um I man

I think nowadays honestly Tik Tok uh

YouTube Reals Instagram reals a lot of

apps get very big from people T making

Tik Tok videos about it so let's say you

make your own app you can make a video

for yourself like oh I made this app uh

this is how it works blah blah blah um

and this is why I made it for example

and this is why you should use it and if

it's a good video will take off and you

will get man you I got like

$20,000 extra per month or something

from a Tik Tok from one Tik Tok video

like it made a photoi by you or somebody

else by some random guy so there's all

these AI influencers that they write

about they show AI apps and they then

they ask money later like when a V video

goes vir all I can do it do it again and

send me $4,000 something I'm like okay I

did that for example but it works like

Tik Tok is a very big platform for user

uh um acquisition yeah and organic like

the best user acquisition I think is

organic you don't need to buy ads you

probably don't have money when you start

to buy ads so use organic or write a

banger tweet right that's can make an

app take off as well well I mean yeah

fundamentally create cool stuff and have

just a little bit of a following enough

to like for for the cool thing to be

noticed and then it becomes viral if

it's cool enough yeah and you don't need

a lot of followers anymore because that

on on X and a lot of platforms because

Tik Tok X I think Instagram reals also

they have the same algorithm now it's

not about followers anymore it's about

they test your content on a small subset

like 300 people if they like it it will

gets tested to thousand people and on

and on so if the thing is good it will

rise anyway it doesn't matter if you

have million followers or a th000

followers or 100 what's your philosophy

of monetizing how to make money from the

thing you build yeah so a lot of stter

they do like free users so you could

sign up and can use the app for free

which is um it never worked for me well

because I I think free users generally

don't convert and I think if you have VC

funding it makes sense to get free users

because you can spend your funding on

ads and you can get like millions of

people com in predictably how much they

convert and give them like a free trial

whatever and then they sign up but you

need to have that flow worked out so

well for you to to make it work that you

need like it's very difficult I think

it's best to start and just um start

asking people for money in the beginning

so show your app like what are you doing

on your landing page like make a demo

Whatever video and then if you want to

use it pay me money pay $10 $20 $30 I

would ask more than $10 per month like

Netflix is like $10 per month but

Netflix is a giant company that can you

know they can afford to make it so cheap

relatively cheap if you're individual

like an indie hacker like you are making

your own app you need to make like at

least

$30 or more on a user to make it uh

worthy for you you need to make money

you know and it builds a community of

people that actually really care about

the product also yeah making a community

like making a Discord is very normal now

every AI has a Discord and you have the

developers and the users together in

like a Discord they talk about they ask

for features they build together it's

very normal now and um and you need to

imagine like if you're if you're

starting out getting a thousand users is

quite difficult getting thousand pages

is quite difficult and if you charge

them like $30 you have 30k a month

that's a lot of money that's enough to

like live a good life yeah live a pretty

good life I mean there could be a lot of

cost associated with hosting so that's

another thing I make sure my profit

margets are very high so I try to keep

the cost very low I don't hire people um

I I try to negotiate with like AI

vendors now like can you make it cheaper

you know which is I discovered this you

can just email companies and say can you

can give me discount cuz too expensive

and they say sure 50% I'm like wow very

good and and I didn't know this you can

just ask and especially in like like now

it's kind of recession you can ask

companies like I I need a discount or I

kind of need to like you don't need to

be asshole about it say you know I kind

of need a discount or I need to go maybe

to another company so maybe like a

discount like here and there and it says

sure a lot of them will say yes like 25%

discount 50% discounts because you think

the price on the website is the price of

the API or something it's not like you

know and also you're a public facing

person oh that helps also and there's

love and Good Vibes that you put out

into the world like you're actually

legitimately trying to build cool stuff

so a lot of companies probably want to

associate with you because you're trying

to do yeah it's like secret heck but I

think even without good person it

depends how much discount they will give

you know they'll maybe give more but you

know that's why you should shit post on

Twitter so you get you know discounts

maybe yeah yeah um but and also the when

it's

crowdsourced I mean paying does prevent

spam or help prevent spam also yeah yeah

it gives you high quality users and free

users are s but they're horrible like

it's just like millions of people

especially if AI startups you get a lot

of abuse so you get millions of people

from anywhere just abusing your app just

just hacking it and whatever like

there's something on the Internet you

mentioned like forand discovered Hood

Maps yeah but I love fortune they I

don't love fortune but you know I mean

like they're so crazy especially back

then like that's it's kind of funny what

they do you know I actually uh what is

it this new documentary on Netflix

antisocial Network or something like

that that was really was fascinating

just fortun just the you know the spirit

of the thing Fortune Mis understand

Fortune it's so much about freedom and

also like the humor involved in fucking

with the system and fucking with man

it's just anti-stem for fun the the dark

aspect of it is you're having fun you're

doing anti-stem stuff but like the Nazis

always show up and it's somehow bad shit

started happening it starts drifting

somehow yeah like school shootings and

stuff so it's a very difficult topic but

I I do know it's especially early on I

think 2010 I would go to for for fun and

they would post like crazy offensive

stuff and this was just to scare off

people so we' show to other people say

hey do you know this internet website

for just check it out yeah and it' be

dude what the fuck I'm like no no you

don't understand that's to scare you

away but actually when you go through a

scroll there's like deep conversations

yes and there would already be this was

like a Normy filter like to stop yeah so

kind of cool but yeah goes dark it goes

dark and if you have those people show

up they'll for the fun of it do a bunch

of racist things and all that kind of

stuff you're saying but everything's I

think it was never man I'm not a

fortunate but like I it was always about

provoking it's just provocateur you know

but the the provoking in the case of

hood Maps or something like this can can

damage

the uh good thing like you know a a

little poison in a town is always good

it's like the the Tom weights thing but

you don't want too much otherwise it it

destroys the town it destroys the thing

they're kind of like pen testers you

know like penetration testers hackers

yeah they just test your app for you and

then you add some stuff like I add like

a I add like a NSFW W list they would

say like bad words so when they would

write like a bad word they would get

forwarded to YouTube which was like a

video

was like a a very relaxing video that's

like kind of ASMR with like glowing

jelly streaming like this to relax them

you know or cheese melting on the toes

to chill them out I like it like but

actually a lot of stuff I didn't realize

how much originated in forchan in terms

of memes Rick Roll I didn't understand I

didn't know that Rick Roll originated in

forchan like there's so many memes like

most of the memes that you think the

word role I think comes from forun like

not the word role but like in this case

in a mem used like you would get like

roll doubles cuz every it was like post

IDs on fortun so they were R they were

kind of like random so if I get doubles

like this happens or something so You'

get like two two anyway it's like a

betting Market kind of on these doubles

on these post IDs this so much funny

stuff yeah I mean that's internet that's

purest but yeah again the dark stuff

kind of seeps in yeah and you you it's

nice to keep the dark stuff to like some

low amount it's nice to have a bit of

noise of the darkness but not too much

yeah and but again like you have to pay

attention to that with um I mean I guess

spam in general you have to fight that

with NAD list how do you fight spam man

I use gp4 now it's amazing so so I have

like um user input I have reviews people

can review cities and they don't need to

actually sign up it's Anonymous reviews

and they write like whole books about

like cities and what's good and bad so

uh I run it through gp4 now and I ask

like is this a you know is this a good

review like is it offensive is it racist

or some stuff and and it sends me a

message on telegram when it rejects

reviews and I check it and it's man it's

so on point a yes and it's so accurate

it understands double meanings um I have

gb4 running on the on the on the chat

Community it's a chat community of

10,000 people and they're chatting and

they start fighting with each other um

and I used to have uh human moderators

was very good but they would start

fighting the human moderator like this

guy's biased or something I have GPT 4

and it's it's it's really really really

really good it understands humor it

understands like like you could say

something bad but it's kind of like a

joke and it's kind of not like offensive

so much so it shouldn't be deleted right

understands that you know it's I would

love to have a gbt 4 based filter of

like of different kinds of for like X

yeah I fought this week like I tweeted

like a fact check like you can click

fact check and then gp4 look gp4 not

always right about stuff right but it

can give you a general fact check on a

tweet like usually what I do now when I

write something like Difficult about

economics or something or AI I put in

gp4 I say can you fact check it because

I might have said something stupid and

the stupid stuff always gets taken out

by the reply is like oh you said this

wrong and and then the whole tweet kind

of doesn't make sense anymore so I asked

gbt for to fact check a lot of stuff so

fact check is a tough one yeah but it

would be interesting to sort of

um rate the thing based on how well

thought out it is and how well argued it

is yeah that that seems more doable that

seems like more doable like it seems

like a GPT thing because that that's

less about the truth and it's more about

the rigor of the thing exactly and you

can ask that you can ask in the prompt

like I don't know like for example do

you think create like a ranking score of

X Twitter replies where I should this

post be if we rank on like I don't know

Integrity reality like fundamental

deepness or something inness um and it

would give you that with a pretty good

score probably I mean Elon can do this

with groc right he can start doing using

that to to check replies cuz the reply

section is like chaos you know and

actually the ranking of the replies is

not doesn't make any sense doesn't make

sense no and I I would like to sort in

different kinds of ways yeah and you get

too many replies now if you have a lot

of followers I get too many replies I

don't see everything and I I a lot of

stuff I just miss and I don't I want to

see the good stuff and also the

notifications or whatever it's just

complete chaos yeah it'd be nice to be

able to filter that in interesting ways

sort in interesting

ways cuz like I feel like I miss a lot

and I what's surfaced for me are just

like a random comment by a person with

no followers that's positive or negative

it's like okay if it's a very good

comment it should happen but it should

probably look a little bit more like do

these people have followers because

they're probably more engaged in the

platform right oh no if it's I don't

even care about how many followers if

you're ranking by the quality of the

comment great yeah but not just like

randomly like chronological just a sea

of comments yeah yeah yeah it does makes

sense yeah uh X could be very improved

of that I think one thing you you spouse

a lot which I love is the automation

step so like once you have a Thing Once

you have an idea and you build it and it

actually starts making money and it's

making people happy there's a community

of people using

it you want to take the autom step of

automating the things you have to do as

little work as possible for it to keep

running indefinitely can you like

explain your philosophy there what do

you mean by automate yeah so the general

theory of stter would be that when when

it starts like you start making money

you start hiring people to do stuff

right do stuff that you like marketing

for example do stuff that you would do

in the beginning yourself um and

whatever Community Management and

organizing meetups for nist for example

that would be a job for example and I

thought like uh I don't the money for

that and I I don't really want to run

like a big company with a lot of people

because there's a lot of work managing

these people so I've always tried to

like automate these things as much as

possible and um and this can literally

be like for this it's literally like a

it's not a different other stars was

like a web page where you can organize

your own Meetup set a set a schedule a

date whatever you can see how many

Nomads will be there at that date so you

know there will be actually enough

Nomads to meet up right and then um when

it's done it sends a tweet out on the

nist account there's a Meetup here it

sends a direct message to everybody in

the city who are there who are going to

be there and then people show up on a

bar and there's a Meetup and that's

fully automated and for me it's like

it's not it's so obvious to make this

automatic why would you why would you

have somebody organize this like um it

makes more sense to automate it and this

with most of my things like I figure out

like how to do it with code and I think

especially now with AI like you can

automate so much more stuff than before

because AI understands things so well

like before I would use if statements

right now you ask GPT you put something

in GPT for and in the API and it sends

back like this is good this is bad yeah

so you basically can now even uh

automate sort of subjective type of

things this is the difference now and

that's very recent right but it's still

difficult to I mean that step of

automation is difficult

to figure out how to is you're basically

delegating everything to code and it's

not trivial to take that step for a lot

of people

So when you say automate are you are you

talking about like Crown jobs Yes Man a

lot of crown jobs a lot of crown jobs

it's like uh I literally I log into the

server and I do like pseudo Chron tab d

e and then I go into the editor and I

write like hourly and then I write

PHP uh you know do this thing. PHP and

that's a script and that script does a

thing and it does it then hourly that's

it and that's how all my websites work

do you have a thing where it like emails

emils you or something like this or

email somebody managing the thing if

something goes wrong I have these web

pages I make they're called like health

checks so like Health check. PHP and

then it has like emojis like a has like

a green check mark if it's good and a

red one if it's bad and then it does

like database curious for example like

what's the internet speed in for example

um Amsterdam MH okay it's a number it's

like 27 point megabit so it's accurate

number okay check good and it goes to

the next and it goes on all the data

points did people sign up in the last 24

hours it's important because maybe the

sign up broke okay check somebody sign

up then I have um uptime robot.com which

is like for uptime but it can also check

keywords it checks for an emoji which is

like the Red X which is if something is

bad and so it opens that health check

page every minute to check if something

is bad then if it's bad it sends a

message to me on telegram saying hey

what's up uh it doesn't say hey what's

up it sends me like alert like this

thing is down and then I check so within

a minute of something breaking I know it

and then I can open my laptop and fix it

yeah but the good thing is like the last

few years things don't break anymore and

like definitely 10 years ago when I

started everything was breaking all the

time and now it's like almost it's last

week was like 100. z% up time and these

health checks are part of the uptime

percentage so it's like everything works

yeah actually making me realize I should

uh I should have a page for myself like

one page that has all the health checks

just so I can go to didn't see all the

green check marks just it feels good to

look as you know it just be like okay

yeah all right we're okay everything's

okay yeah and like you can see like when

was the last time something wasn't okay

and it'll say like never or like meaning

like you've you've you've you've checked

since you've last cared to check it was

all been okay for sure it used to send

me the the good health checks like yeah

you know this all works it all works but

it's been so often and I'm like this

feels so good but then I'm like okay OB

is not going to we need to hide the good

ones and show only the bad ones and now

that's the case I need to integrate

everything into one place I automate

like everything yeah have also just a

large uh set of cron jobs a lot of the

publication this podcast is has done all

everything is just on automatically it's

all clipped up all the all all this kind

of stuff yeah but it would be nice to

automate even more like a translation

all this kind of stuff would be nice to

automate yeah every JavaScript every PHP

error gets sent to my telegram as well

so every user whatever user it is

doesn't have to be page user if they run

into an error um the JavaScript sends

the JavaScript error to the server and

then it sends to my telegram from all my

websites so you get like a message so I

get like a uncut variable error whatever

blah blah blah and then I'm like okay

interesting and then I go check it out

and that's like a way to get to zero

errors because you get flooded with

errors in the beginning and now it's

like nothing

almost so that's really cool but mat

that's really cool but this is the same

stuff people they they pay like very big

size companies like New Relic for right

like to manage the stuff um so you can

do that too you can use off the-shelf I

like to build myself it's easier yeah

it's nice it's nice to do that kind of

automation I'm starting to think about

like what are the things in my life I'm

doing myself that could be

automated uh in the ask your gbt you

know like give your daily your day and

then ask it what part you to automate

well one of the things I I would love to

automate more is my consumption and

social media yeah both the the output

and the input man that's very I think

there's some startups that do that like

they they summarize the cool shit

happening on Twitter you know like with

AI I think the guy called s wyx or

something he does like a newsletter it's

completely AI generated we have the cool

the cool new stuff in AI yeah I mean I

would love to do that but also like

across Instagram Facebook LinkedIn all

this kind of stuff just like okay can I

can you summarize the internet for me

for today summarize internet.com yeah

cuz I I feel like it pulls in way too

much uh time but also like I don't like

the effect it has some days on my psyche

because like haters or or just general

content like no no just general like for

example like Tik Tok is a good example

of that for me I sometimes just feel

Dumber after I use Tik Tok I just feel

like I don't use it anymore empty

somehow and I'm like

uninspired yeah it's funny in the moment

I'm like ah look at that cat doing a

funny thing and then you're like oh look

at that person dancing in a funny way to

that music is and then you're like 10

minutes later you're like I feel way

dumber and I don't really want to do

much for the rest of the day my

girlfriend sat she saw me like watching

some dumb video and she's like dude your

face looks so dumb as well your whole

face starts going like oh interesting

you know

so I mean with social media uh with uh

with X sometimes for me too is I think

I'm probably naturally gravitating

towards the drama yeah aren't we all

yeah so there following AI people

especially AI people that only post

technical content has been really good

cuz then I just look at them and I and

then I go down rabbit holes of like

learning new papers that have been

published or uh good repos or or um just

any kind of cool demonstration of stuff

and the the kind of things that they

retweet and that's the rabbit hole I go

and I'm learning and I'm inspired all

that kind of stuff

it's been tough it's been tough to

control it's difficult you need to like

manage your your your platforms you know

I have a mute word list as well so I

mute like politics stuff because I don't

really want it on my feet and I think

I've muted so much that now my feet is

good you know I see like interesting

stuff and but the fact that you need to

modify you need to like mod your app

your social media platform just to

function and not be toxic for you for

your mental health right that's like a

problem like it should be doing that for

you it's some level of automation

I that that would be interesting I wish

I could access X and Instagram through

API easier you need to spend $42,000 a

month which my friends do yeah you can

do no but still even if you do that that

you're not getting I mean there's

limitations that don't make it easy to

do like yeah automate because they the

thing that they're trying to limit like

abuse or for you to steal all the data

from the app to then train an llm or

something like this but if I just want

to like figure out ways to automate my

inter action with the X system or with

with Instagram they they don't make that

easy but I would love to sort of

automate that and explore different ways

to how to leverage llms to control the

content I consume and and maybe publish

that maybe they themselves can see how

that could be used to improve their

system so but there's not

enough uh access you can screen cap your

phone right can be an app that watches

your screen with you you could yeah but

I don't really know like what it would

do like maybe it can hide stuff before

you see it you know like I I have Chrome

extensions I I write a lot of Chrome

extensions that hide parts of different

pages and so on like for example for my

own on my main computer I hide all views

and likes and all that on on YouTube

content that I create so that you it

doesn't yeah so you don't pay attention

to it um I also hide Parts there I have

a mode for X where I hide most of

everything so like there's no it's same

with YouTube the same I have this

extension like uh well I wrote my own

because it's easier because it keeps

changing it's like it's it's not easy to

keep it dynamically changing but they're

really good at like getting you to be

distracted and like starting related

accounts related post I'm like I don't

want related and like 10 minutes later

you're like or something that's trending

I have a weird amount of friends

addicted to YouTube and I'm not addicted

I think because my attention span is too

short for YouTube but uh but I I have

this extension to like YouTube on hook

which like it hides all the related

stuff I can just see the video mhm and

it's amazing and uh but sometimes I need

to like like I I need to search a video

how to how to do something and then I go

to YouTube and I had these YouTube

shorts these YouTube shorts are like

they're like algorithmically designed to

just make you tap them and like I tap

and and then I'm like five minutes later

with his face like and you're you're

just stuck and he's like what happened I

was gonna open I was going to play like

the coffee mix you know like the music

mix for drinking coffee together like in

the morning like jazz I didn't want to

go to shorts

so it's it's very uh it's very

difficult I love how we're actually

highlighting all kinds of interesting

problems that all could be solved with a

start up okay so what what about the

exit when and how to exit man you

shouldn't ask me because I never sold my

company and you've never all the

successful stuff you've done you've

never sold it yeah it's kind of sad

right like I I've been in so I've been

in in a lot of acquisition like deals

and stuff and I learn a lot about

Finance people as as well there like

manipulation and do diligence and then

changing the valuation like people

change the valuation after uh so they

they a lot of people string you on to

acquire you and then it takes like six

months it's like classic it takes six to

12 months they want to see everything

they want to see the the your stripe and

your code and whatever and then um in

the end they'll they'll change the price

to lower because you're already so

invested so it's like a negotiation

tactic right I'm like no then I don't

want to sell right and the problem with

my companies is like they make you know

90% profit margin so the multiple they

companies get sold with multiples kind

of multiples of profit or revenue and

often the multiples like three times

three times or four times or five times

revenue or profit so in my case they're

all automated so I might as as well wait

three years and I get the same money as

when I sell and then I can still sell

the same company you know what I mean I

can still sell for three five times so

financially it doesn't really make sense

to sell yeah unless the price high

enough like if the gets to like six or

seven or eight I don't want to wait six

years for the money you know but if you

give me three like three years nothing

like I can wait so I mean the really

valuable stuff about the companies you

created is not just the interface and

the and the crowdsource content but the

people themselves like the user base

yeah but nor list it's a community yeah

so I could see that being extremely

valuable I'm surprised but normally this

is like it's like my baby it's like my

first product I took off and I don't

really know if I want to sell it it's

like something you would nice when you

you know when you're old that you're

still working in this you know it's like

a it has like a mission which is like um

people should travel anywhere and they

can work from anywhere and they can meet

different cultures and that's a good way

to make the world get better if you

learn if you go to China and live in

China you'll learn that they're nice

people and a lot of stuff you hear about

China's propaganda a lot of stuff is

true as well but it's more you know you

learn a lot from traveling and I think

that's why it's like a cool project to

like not sell uh AI projects I have less

emotional feeling with AI projects like

guy mhm which I could sell yeah yeah the

thing you also mentioned is you have to

price in the fact that you're going to

miss yeah the company you cre and

meaning it gives you right there's a

very famous like depression after

started fin a Solar Company like they're

like this was my this was me like who am

I and they immediately start building

another one you know they never can stop

so I think it's it's good to keep

working you know until you die just keep

working on cool stuff and you shouldn't

retire you know I think retirement is

bad probably so you usually build the

stuff solo and mostly work

solo what's the thinking behind that I

think I'm not so good working with other

people not like I'm crazy but like I I

don't trust other people to clarify you

don't trust other people to do a great

job yeah and I don't want to have like

this consensus meeting where we all like

you know you have like a meeting with

three people and then you kind of get

this Compromise result which is very

European like it's very in Holland we

call po where you put people in the room

and you only let them out when they

agree on the compromise right in

politics and I don't think it I think it

it breeds like averageness you know you

get an average idea average company

average

culture um you need to have like a

leader or you need to be solo and just

do it you know do it yourself I think

and I trust some people like now I like

with my best friend Andre I'm making a

new AI startup um but it's because we we

know each other very long and he's one

of the few people I would build

something with and uh but almost never

yeah so what does it take to be

successful when you have more than one

like how do you build together with

Andre how you build together with other

people so he codes uh I shit post on

Twitter literally like I promoted on

Twitter I I we said like product

strategy like I said this should be

better this should be better but I think

you need to have one person coding it he

codes in Ruby so I cannot do Ruby I'm in

PHP so you literally so you have you

ever coded with another person for

prolonged periods of time never in my

life

so uh what what do you think is behind

that I don't know it was always just me

sitting on my laptop like like goting no

like you've never had another developer

who like rolls in and like I've had once

where F I like there's AI developer

Philip I hired him to do the because I I

can't write Python and AI stuff is

Python and I needed to get models to

work on replicate and stuff and I needed

to improve photo ey and he helped me a

lot for like 10 months he worked and uh

man I was trying Pyon working with numpy

and package manager and it was too

difficult for me to figure this shit out

and I didn't have time like I think 10

years ago I would have time to like sit

you know go do all nighters to figure

this stuff out with python I don't have

the and I don't have the it's not my

thing it's not your thing it's another

programming language I get it AI new

thing got it but like you've never had a

developer roll in look at your PHP J

query code and be and yes like you know

like in conversation or in impr they

talk about yes and like basically all

right I had for one week understand and

then it ended because he wanted to

rewrite everything in the no that's the

wrong guy I know he wanted to rewrite in

what he wanted to rewrite to he said to

JY we cannot do this I'm like okay he's

like we need to rewrite everything think

in view VJs I'm like are you sure come

just like kind you know like keep jaker

he's like no man like and uh we need to

change a lot of stuff and I'm like okay

and I was kind of like feeling it like

this you know we're going to clean up

shit but then after weeks this it's not

gonna it's gonna take way too much time

I think I like working with people where

like when I approach

them I pretend in my head that they're

the smartest person who has ever existed

wow so I look at their code or I look at

the stuff they've created and try to see

The Genius of their way like you really

have to understand people like really

notice them like really and then from

that place have a conversation about

what is the better approach yeah but

those are the top tier developers yeah

and they those are the ones that are

Tech ambiguous so they can work with

they can learn any teex Tech and they

can and that's like really few like it's

like top 5% cuz if you try hire deps

like no offense to devs but most devs

are not man most people in general jobs

are not so good at their job like even

doctors and stuff when you realize this

people are very average at the job

especially with death with coding I

think so sorry I think that's a really

important skill for for developer to

roll in and like understand the

musicality the the style of and like

empathy it's like code empathy right

code empathy yeah it's a new word but

that's it you need to understand like go

over all the code get a holistic view of

it and man you can suggest we we change

stuff for sure but um and look jur is

crazy it's crazy I'm using J Cur we can

change that it's not crazy at all jQuery

is also like beautiful and powerful and

PHP is beautiful and Powerful especially

as you said recently in the in the in

the as the versions evolved it's much

more serious programming language now

it's super

like PHP is really fast now it's cat

JavaScript much Ruby really fast now so

if speed is something you care about

it's super fast um and like there's

gigantic communities of people using

those programming languages and there's

Frameworks if you like the framework so

there whatever it doesn't really matter

what you use but like also you if I was

like a developer working with you like

you are extremely successful you've

shipped a lot so like if I roll in I'm

going to be be like I don't assume you

know nothing assume Peter's a genius

like the smartest developer ever and

like learn learn from it and yes and

like notice Parts in the code where like

okay okay okay I got it like here's how

he's thinking and now if I want to add

another uh like a little feature

definitely needs to have

Emoji yeah in front of it and then like

just follow the same style and add it

and my goal is to make you happy to make

make you smile like to make you like ha

fuck I I get it and now you're going to

start respecting me and like trusting me

and like you start working together in

this way I I don't know I I don't know

how hard is to find developers no I

think that exist I think you need to I

need to hire more people need to try

more people but that cost a lot of my

energy and time but it's 100% possible

but do I want it I don't know things

kind of run fine for now and I mean like

okay you can say like okay nor looks

kind of clunky like people say the

design is kind of clunk okay I'll

improve the design it's like next to my

to-do list for example you know like I

can I'll get there eventually but it's

true I mean you're also extremely good

at at what you do like I'm just looking

at the interfaces of like Photo AI like

you would Jake by the way jQuery right

like how amazing is jQuery but like you

can these Cowboys are getting these are

there's these

Cowboys this is a lot it's a lot but I'm

glad they're all wearing shirts anyway

the interface here is just really really

nice like I could tell you know what

you're doing and with Nomad list

extremely nice the interface thank you

man and that's all you yeah that's

everything is me so all of this in every

little feature all say it looks kind of

ADHD or add you know like it's so much

because it has so many things and design

these days is minimalist right right

right I hear you but this is uh a lot of

information and it's useful information

is delivered in a clean way while still

stylish and fun to look at so like

minimalist design is about like when you

want to convey no information whatsoever

and look cool it's very cool it's

pretentious right pretentious or not

that the function is like is useless

this is about a lot of information

delivered to you in a clean and when

it's clean you can't be too sexy so it's

sexy enough yeah this is I think how my

brain looks you know like there's a lot

of shit going on it's like drawing based

music it's like

very yeah but it's still pretty the

spacing of everything is nice the font a

really nice like very readable very

small I like it you know but I made it

so I don't trust my own judgments no

this is really nice thank you the Emojis

are somehow like it's a style it's a

thing I need to pick the Emoji it takes

a while to pick them you know there's

some something about Emoji is a really

nice memorable like placeholder for the

idea yeah like if it was just text it

would actually be overwhelming if you

was just text the Emoji really helps

it's a brilliant addition like some some

people might look at it why do you have

emojis everywhere it's actually really

for me it's really tell me to to remove

the Emojis people don't know what

they're talking about and then

the I'm sure people will tell you a lot

of things this is really nice and then

using color is nice small font but not

too small and obviously you have to show

maps which is really tricky

yeah yeah this is this is no this is

really really really nice and all of I

mean like okay like how this looks when

you uh hover over it yeah as transitions

no I understand that but like I'm sure

there's like how long does it take you

to figure out how you want it to look do

you ever go out down Rabbit Hole where

you spend like two weeks no it's all

iterative it's like 10 years of you know

add a SE transition here or or do this

or well was say like see these are all

these are rounded now yeah if you wanted

to like H round is probably the better

way but if you wanted to be rectangular

like sharp Corners what would you do you

just so I go to the index. CSS and I do

command F and I search border radius

12px and then I replace with border

radius zero and then I do command enter

and it's G deploys it it pushes to the

GI Hub and then sends a webbook and then

deploys to my server and it's live in 5

seconds oh you often deploy to

production you you don't have like a

testing ground no so

I so I I'm like famous for this Cu uh

I'm too lazy to set up like a staging

server on my laptop every time so I

nowadays I just deploy to production

yeah and um it's man I'm going to canel

for this you know but it it works very

well for me CU I have a lot of I have

like PHP lint and J lint so it tells me

when has error so I don't deploy but my

literally I I I have like 37,000 git

commits in the last 12 months or

something so I make like small fix and

then command enter M uh and sends to

GitHub GitHub sends a web to my server

web server pulls it deploys the

production and it's there what's the

latency of that from you pressing one

second can be one two seconds to make a

change and then you're getting really

good at like not making mistakes

basically man 100% you're right like

people are like how can you do this why

you get good at not taking the server

down you know like because you need to

code more carefully but it's look it's

idiotic in any big company but for me it

works because it makes me so fast like

somebody um will report a bug on Twitter

and I kind of did do like a stopwatch

like how fast can I fix this bug and

then two minutes later for example it's

fixed yeah and it's fun cuz it's cuz

it's annoying for me to work with

companies where report a bug and it

takes like 6 months yeah it's like

horrible and it makes people really

happy when you can really quickly solve

their problems so but it's it's crazy

I'm I admit I don't think it's crazy I I

mean there's I'm sure there's a middle

ground but I think that whole thing

where there's a a phase of like testing

and there's the staging and there's a

develop and then there's like multiple

tables and databases that you use for

the state like it's fing it's a mess and

there's different teams involved it's

it's not good I'm like a good funny

extreme on the other size you know but

just a little bit safer but not too much

it would be great yeah yeah I'm sure

that's actually like how X now how they

doing rapid Improvement they do because

there's more bugs and people complain

about like oh look he bought this

Twitter now it's full of bugs dude he's

shipping stuff like things are happening

now and it's a dynamic app now yeah the

bugs is actually a sign of a good thing

happening the bugs of the feature

because it shows that the team is

actually building shit 100% well one of

the problems is like I see with YouTube

there's so much potential to build

features but I just see how long it

takes so I've gotten a chance to uh

interact with with many other teams but

one of the teams is uh MLA multilanguage

audio I don't know if you know this but

in YouTube you can have audio tracks in

different languages for overdubbing and

that there's a team and not many people

are using it but like every single

feature they have to meet and agree and

like there's allocate resources like

Engineers have to work on it but I'm

sure it's a pain in the ass for the

engineers to get approval to like

because that it has to not break the

rest of the site whatever they do but

like if you don't have enough

dictatorial like top down like we need

this now it's going to take forever to

do anything multilanguage audio but

multilanguage audio is a good example of

a thing that seems Niche right now but

it quite possibly could change the

entire world when you have when I upload

this this conversation right here if

instantaneously it dubs it into 40

languages yeah man and everybody consume

every single video can be watched and

listened to in those different it

changes everything and YouTube is

extremely well positioned to be the

leader in this they got the they got the

compute they got the uh the user base

they got like they have the experience

of how to do this so like multilanguage

audio should be high priority feature

right yeah that's high priority like and

it's a way you know Google is obsessed

with AI right now they want to show off

that they could be dominant in AI That's

a way for Google to say like we used AI

like this is a way to to to Break Down

The Walls that language creates the

preferred outcome for them for them is

probably their career and not the the

overall result of the the cool product

you know I think they they're not like

selfish or whatever they they want to do

good there's something about the machine

organization organizational stuff that I

have this when I report bogs and like

big companies I work with I get I talk

to a lot of different people DM and

they're all really trying hard to do

something they're all really nice and

I'm the one being kind of asshole cuz

I'm like guys I'm talking to 20 people

about this for six months and nothing's

happening and say man I know but I'm

trying my best and yeah so it's systemic

yeah so what it requires again I don't

know if there must be a nicer word but

like a dictatorial type of top down the

co rolls in uh and just says like for

YouTube it's like MLA get this done now

this is the highest priority I think big

companies especially in America a lot of

it is legal right you need to pass

everything through legal yeah and you

can't like man the things I do I could

never do that in a big Corporation

because it's everything has to be

probably get deployed has to go to Legal

well again dict tutorial you basically

say Steve Jobs did this quite a lot I've

seen a lot of leaders do this ignore the

lawyers ignore coms ignore PR ignore

everybody give power to the engineers

like listen to the people on the ground

get this shit done and get it done by

Friday yeah that's it and the law can

change like for example let's say you

you launch this AI dubbing and it

there's some law legal problems with

lawsuits okay so the Law changes there

will be appeals there will be some

Supreme Court thing whatever and the Law

changes so just by shipping it you

change society you change the legal

framework and by not shipping being

scared of the legal framework all the

time like you're not changing things

just out of curiosity what uh what IDE

do you use let's talk about like your

whole

setup given how ultr productive you are

and that you often programing your

underwear slouching in the couch is

there does it matter to you in general

is there like a specific ID you use vs

code yeah vs code before I use Sublime

Text I don't think it matters a lot I

think I'm I'm very skeptical of like

tools when people think it they say it

matters right I don't think it matters I

think uh whatever tool you know very

well you can go very very fast in like

you know the shortcuts for example IDE

you know you know like um I love Sublime

Text because I could use like multic

cursor you know you search something and

I could like make Mass replaces in a

file with the cursor thing and uh VOD

doesn't really have that as well it's

actually interesting Sublime is the

first editor where I've learned that and

I think they just make that super easy

so like what would that be called

multi-edit multi multi cursor edit thing

whatever I'm sure like almost every

editor can do that it's just probably

hard to set up yeah's not so good at it

I think or at least I try it but I would

use say to like uh process data like um

data sets for example from World Bank I

would just multic cursor Mass change

everything um but yeah vs code I man I

was bullied into using vs code because

Twitter would always see my screenshots

of sublime text and say why are you

still using Sublime Text like Boomer you

need to use vs codes and I'm like okay

I'll try it I I got a new Macbook and

then I I never install like I never copi

the old MacBook I just make it fresh you

know like a clean like format C you know

Windows like clean start and I'm like

okay I'll try vs code and it's stuck you

know but I don't really care like it's

not so important for me wow you know the

format see reference huh dude it was so

good you would install Windows and then

after three or six months it would start

breaking and everything was like get

slow then you would restart go to Doss

format C you would delete your hard

drive and then install the Windows 95

again was so good times and you would

design everything like now I'm going to

install it properly now I'm going to

design my desktop properly you know like

yeah I don't know if it's peer pressure

but like I use zMAX for many many years

and I know you know I love lisp so a lot

of the

customization is done in lisp it's a

programming language it partially was

peer pressure but part of was realizing

like you need to keep learning stuff

like the same issue with jQuery like I

still think I need to learn node.js for

example yeah even though that's not my

main thing or even close to the main

thing but I feel like you need to keep

learning this

stuff and even if you don't choose to

use it long term you need to give it a

chance so you your understanding of the

world expands yeah you want to

understand the new technological

Concepts and see if they can benefit you

you know it would be stupid not to even

try it's more about the concepts I would

say than the actual tools like expanding

and that can be a challenging thing so

going to VSS code and like really

learning it like all the shortcuts all

the extensions and actually installing

different stuff and playing with it that

was a interesting challenge it was

uncomfortable at first yeah for me too

yeah yeah but you just dive in it's like

neur Flex like you keep your brain fresh

you know like this kind of stuff I got

to do that more like have you given

react a chance no but I I want to I want

to learn I want to I I understand the

basics right

um I don't really know where to start

but would you like I guess you got to

use your own model which is like build

the thing using it no man you're so I

kind of did that like I kind like the

the the stuff I do in Jer is essentially

a lot of it is like I start rebuilding

whatever Tech is already out there not

based on that but just an accident like

I keep goinging long enough that I built

the same I start getting the same

problems everybody else had and you

start building the same Frameworks kind

of so I essentially I use my own kind of

framework of so you basically build a

framework from scratch that's your own

that you understand it kind of yeah with

ax calls but essentially it's same same

thing look I don't have the time I don't

and this is I think saying you don't

have the time is like always a lie

because you just don't prioritize it

enough my priority is still like the the

running the businesses and improving

that and and AI I think learning AI is

much more Val out and learning uh a

front end framework yeah like it's just

more impact I guess you should be just

learning every single day a thing yeah

you can learn a little bit every day

like a little bit of react or I think

now like next is very big so learn a

little bit of next you know but I I call

them the military industrial complex so

if I but you need to know you need to

know it anyway so you got to learn how

to use the weapons of war and then and

then you can be a peace neck yeah yeah I

mean but you got to learn in in in the

same exact ways we were talking about

which is learning by trying to build

something with it and actually deploy it

the Frameworks are so complicated and it

changes so fast so it's like where do I

start you know and I guess it's the same

thing when you're starting out making

websites like how where do you start as

gp4 I guess but it yeah it's just so

Dynamic it changes so fast that I don't

know if it would be a good idea for me

to learn it you know um maybe some

combination of like few next with PHP

laravel laravel is like a framework for

PHP I think that would be uh it could

benefit me you know maybe Tailwind for

CS like a styling engine that that stuff

could probably save me time yeah but

like you you won't know until you really

give it a try and it feels like you have

to build like if maybe I'm talking to

myself but like I I should

probably recode like my personal one

page in laral or yeah and even though it

might not have almost any Dynamic

elements maybe have one Dynamic element

but it has to go end to end in that

framework or like end to end build it in

node.js some of it is I don't figuring

out how to you even deploy the thing

have no idea all I know is right now I

would send it to GitHub and it sends it

to my server I don't know how to get

JavaScript running I have no clue yeah

so I guess I need like a a pass like a

like versal right or uh you know Heroku

kind of those kind of platforms I

actually kind of just my gave myself the

idea of like I kind of just want to

build a single web page like one web

page that has like one Dynamic element

and just do it in every single like in a

lot of Frameworks like just ah on the

same page same same page kind page

that's a cool prodct like learn all

these Frameworks and you can see the

differences yeah that's interesting how

long it takes to do it yeah stopwatch I

have to figure out actually something

sufficiently complicated because it

should probably do it should probably do

some kind of

thing where it accesses the database and

dynamically is changing stuff some AI

stuff some llm stuff yeah maybe some it

doesn't have to be

aii call Api call to something to to

replicate for example and then you have

yeah that would be a very cool project

yeah yeah and like time it and also

report on my happiness yeah I'm going to

totally do this cuz nobody benchmarks

this nobody's Benchmark happy developer

happiness with Frameworks yeah nobody's

benchmarked the shipping time just take

like a month do this how many Frameworks

are there there's how many how many

there there's like five main ways of

doing it so there's like this is no

there's back end front end and this

stuff confused me too like react now

apparently has become back end yeah or

something used to be only front end and

you're forced to do now backend also I

don't know and then but there's not

really you're not really forced to do

anything so like B according to the

Internet so like there's no um it's

actually not trivial to find the canical

way of doing things so like the standard

vanilla like you you go to the ice cream

shop there's like a million flavors I

want vanilla if if I've never had ice

cream in my life can we just like learn

about ice cream yeah I want vanilla

nobody actually sometimes they'll

literally name it vanilla but like I

want to know what's the basic way but

not like dumb but like the standard

canonical want to know the dominant way

like 60% of developers do it like this

it's hard to figure that out you know

that's the problem yeah maybe LMS can

help maybe you should explicitly ask

what is the dominant they usually know

like the dominant you know they they

they give answers that are like the most

probable kind of yeah so that makes

sense to ask them and not I think

honestly maybe it would help is if if

you want to learn or I would want to

learn like a framework hire somebody

that already does it and just sit with

them and make something together like

I've never done that but I thought about

it that would be a very fast way to you

know take their knowledge

Tred these kinds of things what happens

is depends what kind of if they're like

a worldclass developer yes often times

they themselves are used to that thing

and they have not themselves explored in

other options so they have this dogmatic

like talking down to you like this is

the right way to do it it's like no no

no we're just like exploring together

okay show me the cool thing you've

tried which is like it has to have U

open-mindedness to like you know node.js

is not the right way to do web

development it's like one way and

there's nothing wrong with the the old

lamp PHP jQuery vanilla JavaScript way

it just has its pros and cons and like

you need to know what those people exist

you could find those people probably

yeah like if you want to learn AI

imagine you have karpati sitting next to

you teach you L like he does his YouTube

videos is amazing he can teach it to

like a 5-year-old about how how to make

llm it's amazing like imagine this guy

sitting next to you and just teaching

you like let's make LM together like

holy shit it would be amazing yeah I

mean well

Kath has its own style and his like I'm

not sure he he's for everybody but for

example 5-year-old it depends on the

5-year-old yeah but he's like super

technical but he's amazing because he's

super technical and he's the only one

who can explain stuff in a simple way

which shows his complete genius yes

because if you can explain without

jargon you're like wow and build it from

scratch yeah it's like top tier you know

like what a guy but he might be anti

framework cuz he buil from Scrat exactly

yeah actually probably is yeah uh he's

like you but for AI yeah so maybe

learning framework is a is a very bad

idea for us you know maybe we should

stay in PHP and like script Kitty and

the but you have to Maybe by learning

the framework you learn what you want to

yourself build from scratch yeah maybe

you learn Concepts but you don't

actually have to start using it for your

life right yeah yeah

and you're still a Mac guy was a Mac guy

yeah yeah I switched to Mac in 2015

because uh it was CU When I wanted to

start traveling and my brother was like

dude get a Macbook is like the standard

now I'm like wow I need to switch from

Windows and I had like three screens you

know like Windows had this whole setup

for music production I had to sell

everything um and then I had a Macbook

and I remember opening up this MacBook

box like ah and it was so beautiful it

was like this aluminum and then I opened

it I removed the you know the screen

protector thing mhm it's so beautiful

and I didn't touch it for three days I

was just like looking at it really and I

was still on the Windows computer and

then I went traveling with that so I and

all my great things started when I

switched to MEC which sounds very

dogmatic right but what great things are

you talking about all the business

started working out like I started

traveling I started building startups I

started making money it all started when

I switched to Mech listen I I kind

of you're making me want to switch to

Mac so I use either use Linux inside

windows with w SL or just UB ontu Linux

but windows for most stuff like editing

or any like uh

any yeah yeah well you could use I guess

you could do Mac stuff there I wonder if

I should switch what do you miss about

Windows what was the pros and cons I

think the finder is horrible MEC like

it's like it's it's the what is horrible

the finder oh you don't know the so this

the Windows Explorer

yeah is amazing finder is strange man

there like strange things this's this

bug where if you if you send like test

your photo on WhatsApp or telegram it

just selects the whole folder and you

almost accidentally can click enter and

you send all your photos all your files

to this chat group have it to my

girlfriend she starts sending me photo

photo photo photo photo so F finder is

very unusable but it has Linux like the

whole thing is like it's Unix based

right so you use the command line like

yeah all the time like all the time and

the cool thing is you can run I think

it's like Unix like Debian or whatever

you can run most Linux stuff on MEC OS

which makes it very very good for

development like I have my engine X

server you know if I set if I'm not lazy

and set up my staging on my laptop it's

just the engine X server the same as I

have on my Cloud Server right the same

where the websites run and I can use

almost everything the same config files

configuration files and it just works

and that makes Mac a very good platform

for Linux stuff I

think yeah yeah real Ubuntu is like

better of course but yeah I'm in this

weird situation where

I'm somewhat of a power user in Windows

and let's say Android and all the much

smarter friends I have all using Mac and

iPhone and it's like but you don't want

to go through the peer pressure you know

it's not peer pressure it's

like like one of the reasons I want to

have kids is that there's a lot of like

I I would love to have kids as a base as

a baseline but you know there's like a

concern maybe there's going to be a

tradeoff for all this kind of stuff but

you see like these extremely successful

smart people who are friends of mine who

have kids and are really happy they have

kids so that's that's not peer pressure

that's just like a strong signal works

for people it works for people and the

same thing with Mac it's like

yeah like the the fun like I don't see

fundamentally I don't like closed

systems so like fundamentally I like

Windows more because there there's much

more freedom same with Android there's

much more freedom it's much more

customizable but like all the the cool

kids the smart kids are using Mac and

iPhone it's like all right I need to

really I need to give it a real chance

especially for development since more

and more stuff is done in the cloud

anyway yeah well anyway uh but it's

funny to hear you say all the good stuff

started happening maybe I'll be like

that guy too when I switch to Mac all

the good stuff started happening I think

it's just about the hardware it's not so

much about the software the hardware so

well builds right the keyboard and yeah

but look at the keyboard I use so that

is pretty cool

that's one word for it uh what's your

favorite place to work uh on the couch

does the couch matter is the couch at

home or is it any couch no any like

Hotel couch also like in the room right

in yeah but I used to work like very

ergonomically with like a standing desk

yeah and everything like perfect like

eye height screen blah blah blah and I

felt like man this has to do with

lifting too I started getting RSI like

uh repetitive strain injury like

tingling stuff and it would go all the

way on my back and I was sitting in a

co-working space like 6:00 a.m. sun

comes up and I'm working and I'm coding

and I hear like a sound or something so

I do like I look left and my neck get

stuck like and I'm like wow fuck and

um I'm like what's am I dying you know

and I thought I'm probably dying so I

don't want to die in a cing space I'm

going to go home and die in like you

know peace and honor yeah so I close my

laptop and I put it in my backpack and I

walked to the to the street and got on

my motorbike went home um and I lie down

on like a a pillow like with my legs up

and stuff uh to get rid of this like

because it was my whole back and it was

because I was working like this all the

time yeah so um I started getting like a

a laptop stand everything ergonomically

correct but then I started lifting and

since then like it seems like uh

everything gets straightened out your

posture kind of you're more straight and

I never have RS RSI anymore rep injury I

never have tingling anymore uh no pain

and stuff so then I started working on

the sofa and it's great like it it feels

um you're close to the I I sit like I

sit like this yeah legs together and

then a pillow and then a laptop and then

I work are you like leaning back I'm

kind of

like together like legs and then where's

the mouse using using the No No so every

St bed on the Mac OS on the MacBook I

used to have the Logitech MX Mouse the

perfect economic Mouse doing like this

little with thing one screen one screen

and I used to have three screens so I

come from the I know where people come

from I I had I had all the stuff but

then I realized that having it all

condensed in one laptop it's a 16-inch

Macbook so it's quite big but having it

all there is amazing because you're so

close to the tools you're so close to

what's happening you know it's like

working on the car or something it's

like so um like man if you have Tre skin

you look here look there you get also

neck injury actually so it's well I

don't know this this sounds like you're

part of a cult and you're just trying to

convince me but uh I mean but it's good

to hear that you can be ultra productive

on a single screen that's I me that's

crazy command tap you alt up like when

is alt up Mac command you switch very

fast so you have like one the entire

screen is taken out by vs code say you

look at the code and then yeah and then

like if you deploy like a website you

what switch screens mon to Chrome I used

to have this swipe screen you know you

could do like um different screen spaces

yeah I was like it's too difficult let's

just put it on one screen on the MacBook

and then and he can be productive that

way yeah very productive yeah more

productive than before interesting

because I have I have three screens and

two of them are vertical like the size

code right yeah for code you can see a

lot no man I love it like I'm I love

seeing it with friends like they have

amazing like Battle Stations right it's

called It's amazing I want it but I

don't want it right like do you like the

constraints there's that's it there's

some aspect of the constraints which

like once get good at it you can focus

your mind and you can man I'm suspicious

of like more you know yeah you really

need all the stuff like it might Slow Me

Down actually it's a good way to put it

I'm suspicious of more me too I'm

suspicious of more in all in all ways in

all because you can defend more right

you can defend yeah I'm a developer I

make money I need to I need to get more

screens right I need to be more

efficient and then you read stuff about

like mythical man month where like

hiring more people slows down a software

project project that's famous I think

you can use that metaphor maybe for you

know tools as well then I see friends

just with gear acquisition syndrome

buying so much stuff but they're not

that productive they have the best be

most beautiful Battle Stations desktops

everything they're not that productive

and it's also like kind of fun like it's

all from my laptop in a backpack right

it's kind of noat minimalist take me

through like the perfect ultr productive

day in your

life like say like where you get a lot

of shit done yeah are you uh and it's

all focused on getting shit done what

what when are you waking up is it a

regular time super early super late so I

go to sleep like 2: am. usually

something like that and uh before 4:

a.m. uh but my girlfriend would go sleep

midnight so we did a compromise like 2:

a.m. you know MH so I wake up around 10

11 then more like 10: um shower make

coffee I make coffee like drip coffee

like the V60 you know the filter and I

boil water and I put the coffee in um

and then chill a little with my

girlfriend and then open laptop start

coding check what's going on like bugs

or whatever how long how long are you

like how stretches of time are you able

to just sit behind the computer coding

so I used to need like really long

stretches where I would do like all

nighters and stuff to get shit done but

I've gotten trained to like have more

interruptions where I can like cuz you

have to this life like there's a lot of

distractions like like your girlfriend

asked off people come over whatever yeah

um so I'm very fast now I can lock in

and lock out quite fast and I heard

people developers or entrepreneurs with

kids have the same thing like before

they're like ah I cannot work but they

get used to it and they get really

productive in like short time because

they only have like 20 minutes and then

shit goes crazy again so another

constraint right yeah it's funny so

think that works for me um yeah and then

you know cook food and stuff like have

lunch steak and chicken and eat a bunch

of times a day so you say coffee what

are you doing yeah so a few hours later

cook foods we get like locally soures

like meat and stuff and vegetables and

cook that uh and then second coffee and

then coat some more maybe go outside for

lunch like you can you can mix fun stuff

you know how many hours are you say in a

perfectly productive day are you doing

programming like if you were like to

kill it are you doing like all day

basically you mean like the special days

where like girlfriend leaves to like

Paris or something and you're alone for

a week at home which is amazing you can

just coat it's like and you stay up all

night and eat chocolate and yeah

chocolate yeah you know okay okay let's

remove girlfriend from picture social

life from picture it's just you man that

shit goes crazy like cuz when shit goes

now she goes crazy okay okay so sh you

let's let's rewind are you still waking

up there's coffee there's no girlfriend

to talk to there's now we wake

up like 1: p.m. at 2

p.m. cuz you went to bed at 6 a.m. yeah

cuz I was coding I was finding some new

AI shit and I was studying it and it was

amazing and I cannot sleep because it's

too important we need to stay awake we

need to see all of this we need to make

something now and but that's the times I

do make like new stuff more so I think I

have a friend he actually books a hotel

for like a week to like leave his and he

has a kid too and his girlfriend and his

kid stay in the house and he goes to

another hotel sounds a little suspicious

right going to the hotel but all he does

is like writing or coding he's a writer

and he needs like this alone time this

silence and I think for this Flow State

it's true you know I'm better

maintaining stuff um when there's a lot

of disruptions than like creating new

stuff I need this it's common it's flow

it's this uninterrupted period of time

um so yeah I wake up like 1 2 p.m. um

you know still coffee shower we still

shower you know uh and then this code

like nonstop maybe my friend comes over

uh comes over some distraction yeah he

also Andre codes too so he comes over we

code together we listen you know it

starts going back to like the Bali days

you know like yeah coor days like you're

not really working with him but you're

just both working because it's nice to

have like the vibe where you both sit

together on the couch and coding on

something and you actually it's mostly

silent or there music you know and

sometimes you ask something and but

generally like you're really locked in

and what uh what music are you listening

to I think like like um techno like

YouTube techno um there's a there's a

channel called h o r with a o Loud Like

H O like double dot it's it's Berlin

techno whatever it looks like it's they

film it in like a toilet with like white

tiles and stuff and very cool and they

always have like very good like kind of

industrial like indust so fast kind of

aggressive you know

like that's not distracting to your

brain that's amazing like I think

distracting man Jazz like I listen

coffee Jazz with my girlfriend when I

wake up and it's kind of like this piano

starts getting annoying it's

like it's too many tones it's like too

many things going on this industrial

techno is like you know this African

like rain dances

like it's this transcendental trans

that's interesting cuz I I I actually

mostly now listen to uh Brown noise

noise yeah wow like pretty loud wow and

one of the things you learn is your

brain gets used to whatever so I'm sure

to techno if I actually give it a real

chance yeah my brain would get used to

it but like with with noise what happens

is something happens to your brain I

think there's a science to it but I

don't really care you just have to be a

a scientist of one like study yourself

your own brain for me it like it does

something I discovered it right away

when I tried it for the first

time after about like a couple minutes

your

everything every distraction just like

disappears and it goes

like you can like

hold focus on things like really well

it's weird like you can like really

focus on a thing it doesn't really

matter what that is I think that's what

people achieve with like meditation you

can like like focus on your breath for

example it's normal Brown It's not like

binar no it's just normal

Brown yeah white noise I think it's the

same it's like pink Noise White Noise uh

Brown noise I think is when it's like

basier like yeah it's more diffused more

dampened yeah dampened yeah I can see

that no sharp yeah sharp brightness yeah

bright yeah I can see that and you use a

headphone right yeah headphones yeah

actually like walk around in life often

with brown noise dude that's like

psychopath shit but it's cool you know

yeah yeah yeah when I murder people it

helps it it drowns out their screams

Jesus Christ sorry I said too much no

I'm going to try Brown noise with the

murder or for the coding yeah for the

coding yeah okay good uh try it try it

but you have to like with everything

else you give it a real chance yeah I

find I also like I said do uh techno

type stuff electronic music on top of

the brown

noise uh but then control the speed cuz

the faster goes and more anxiety so if I

really need to get shit done especially

with programming I'll have a beat yeah

and it's great it's cool I say it's cool

to play those little tricks with your

mind to study yourself yeah I usually

don't like to have people around because

when people even if they're working I

don't know I like people too much

they're like interesting no that's my

yeah in coworkers space I would just

start too much yeah yeah so there's a

source of distraction yeah we would do

in the cob space we would do like a a

money like pot like a mug so if you

would we would work for 45 minutes and

then if you would say one like per word

you would get a fine which is like $1 so

you'd put $1 to say hey what's up so

three $3 you put in the mug um and then

10 15 minutes free time like we can like

party whatever and then 45 minutes again

I'm working and that worked but you need

to shut people up where they you know I

think there's um

there's an

intimacy in being silent together that I

might maybe I'm uncomfortable with like

but you if you need to make yourself

vulnerable and actually do it like with

with close friends to just sit there and

silence for long periods of time and

like doing a thing dude I watched this

um this video of this podcast it was

like this Buddhism podcast with people

meditating and they were interviewing

each other or whatever and like a

podcast and suddenly after a question

it's like yeah

yeah and they were just silent for like

three minutes and then they said that

was amazing yeah that was amazing I was

like Wow pretty cool you know elon's

like

that and I I really like that when

you'll ask a

question like uh I don't know what's a

perfectly productive day for you like I

I just asked and you just sit there for

like 30 seconds thinking yeah he

thinks yeah I don't know that's so cool

I wish I was

was I wish I could think more about but

I want to like I want to show you my

heart you know I want to show you go

straight from my heart to my mouth to

like saying the real thing and the more

I think the more I start like filtering

myself right and I want to just throw it

out there immediately I I do that more

with Team I think he has a lot of

practice in that I I do that as well in

the team setting when you're thinking

brainstorming and you allow yourself to

just like think in silence yeah just

like because even in meetings people

want to talk

yeah it's like no you think before you

speak and just like it's okay to be

silent together yeah and if you allow

yourself the room to do that you can

actually come up with really good ideas

yeah so okay this perfect

day how much caffeine are you consuming

in this day man too much right cuz uh

normally like two two cups of coffee but

on this perfect day like we go to like

four maybe so we're starting to hit like

the anxiety levels so four cups is a lot

for you well I think my coffees are

quite strong when I make them it's like

20 gram of uh coffee powder in the V60

so like my friends call him like nuclear

coffee cuz it's quite heavy it's quite

strong um but it's nice to hit that

anxiety level where you're like almost

panic attack but you're not there yet so

but that's like man it's like super

locked in just

like it's amazing but I mean that's

there's a space for that you know in my

life but uh it's uh I think it's great

for making new stuff it's amazing start

starting from scratch creating a new

thing yes I think girlfriends should let

their guys go away for like two weeks

mhm every few no every year at least you

know maybe every quarter I don't know

and just sit and make some shit without

you know they're amazing but like no

disturbances just be alone and then you

know people can make something very very

amazing just wearing cowboy hats in the

mountains like we showed exactly we can

do that there's a movie about that with

the laptops they didn't do much

programming though yeah you can do a

little bit of that okay and then a

little bit of shipping you know do

both it's a different broke they need to

allow us to go you know you need like a

man cave right yeah to ship yeah to ship

get shit done yeah it's a balance okay

cool what about sleep naps and all that

you're not sleeping much I don't do naps

in a day I think it's power naps are

good but I don't really I'm never tired

anymore in the day uh man also because

of gym I'm not tired I I'm tired when I

want to when you know when it's night I

need to sleep me I love apps I don't

care I don't know I don't know why brain

shuts off turns on I don't know if it's

healthy or not it just works yeah I

think with anything mental physical you

have to be a student of your own body

and like know know what the limits are

like that you have to be skeptical

taking advice from the internet in

general cuz a lot of advice is just like

a good Baseline for the general

population but personalized yeah you

have to become a student of your own

like of your own body of your own self

of how you work yeah that's I've I've

done a lot of like for me fasting was an

interesting one because I used to you

know eat a bunch of meals a day

especially when I was lifting heavy like

as everybody says to you have to eat uh

kind of a lot you know multiple meals a

day but I realize I can get much

stronger feel much better if I eat once

or twice a day man me too yeah it's

crazy I never underst do this small meal

thing yeah didn't work for me let me

just ask you it'd be interesting if you

can comment on some of the other

products you've created

we talked about Nomad list interior AI

photo AI therapist AI what's remote okay

it's a job board for remote jobs um

because back then like 10 years ago

there was uh job boards but there was

not really specifically promote job job

boards so I made one B I made like first

on Nomad Le I made like Nomad jobs like

a page and a lot of companies started

hiring and they pay for job post so I

spin it off to remote and now it's like

the number one or number two biggest

remote job boards and uh and it's also

fully automated it and people just post

a job and people apply it has like

profiles as well like it's kind of like

LinkedIn for remotes work just focus on

remote only yeah it's this it's

essentially like a simple job board I

discovered job boards are way more

complicated than you think but um yeah

it's a jobboard for remote

jobs but the nice thing is you can

charge a lot of money for job posst it's

man it's good money B2B you can charge

like you start of$ 299 but at the peak

during when the FED started printing

money like 2021 I was making like 140k a

month with remot k with just jaob posts

and I started like adding crazy upsells

like rainbow colored uh jaw post you can

add your background name it's just

upsells man and you charge $5 for an

upsell it was crazy and uh all these

companies just UPS so up so yeah we want

everything jobst would cost

$3,400

$4,000 and I was like this is good good

business and then the fat stopped

printing money and it all went down and

it went down to like 10K a month from

140 yeah now it's back it's I think it's

like 40 was good times you know uh I got

to ask you about back to the digital

Nomad life yeah you uh you wrote a blog

post on the reset and in general like

just giving away everything living a

minimalist life yeah what did it take to

do that like to get rid of everything 10

years ago was like this trend in the

blog back then blogs were so popular was

like a blogosphere and it was like the

100 things challenge what is that the

100 things I mean it's ridiculous but

like you you write down every object you

have in your house and you count it you

make like a spreadsheet and you're like

okay I have 500 things you need to get

it down to 100 why you know this was

just a trend so I did it I started like

selling stuff started throwing away

stuff and I did like MDMA and easy like

2012 kind of and uh after that trip I

felt so different and I felt like I had

to started throwing shit away like I

swear yeah and I started throwing shit

away and I felt that was like it was

almost like the drug sending me to a

path of like you need to throw your shit

away you need to start you know go on a

journey you need to get out of here and

um and that's what the MDMA did I think

yeah how hard is it to get down to 100

items well you need to like sell your PC

and stuff you need s you need to go on

eBay and then man going eBay selling or

your stuff is verying because you

discover Society you mat you meet the

craziest people you meet every range

from Rich the poor everybody comes to

your house to buy stuff it's so funny so

interesting I recommend everybody do

this just to meet people people that

want your shit yeah it was so like I I

didn't know was I was living in

Amsterdam and I didn't know I have my

own you know subculture whatever and I

discovered the Dutch people like as they

are from eBay you know so I sold

everything what's what's like the

weirdest thing you had to sell and you

had to find a buyer for not the weirds

but like what what's memorable so back

then I was I was making music and I we

would make music videos with like a

Canon 5D camera back then everybody's

making films and music that and uh and

we bought it with my friends and stuff

and

it was kind of like I had to sell this

thing too because it was like it was

very expensive like 6K or something yeah

and but it meant that selling this meant

that we wouldn't make music videos

together anymore I would leave Holland

this kind of like stuff we were working

on would end and I was kind of saying

this music video stuff we're not getting

big we're not getting famous in this or

successful we need to stop doing this

this music production also it's not

really working and it was kind of like

felt very bad you know for my friends

cuz we would work together on this and

um to sell this like camera that we make

stuff with and it was a hard goodbye was

just a camera but it was like it felt

like uh sorry guys it doesn't work and I

need to go you know who uh who bought it

do you remember was some guy who

couldn't possibly

understand the journey motion of it yeah

yeah he just showed up here here's the

money thanks yeah but it was like a it

was like cutting your life like this

shit ends now now we GNA do new stuff

and I think it's beautiful I did that

twice in my life give away everything

everything everything like down to just

pants underwear

backpack I think uh I think it's

important to do it shows you what's

important yeah I think that's what I

learned from it like you you learn that

you can live with very little objects

very little stuff and um but there's a

there's a counter to it like you you

lean more on this on the stuff on the

services right like for example you

don't need a car you use Uber right or

you don't need kitchen stuff because you

go to restaurants you know when you're

traveling so you lean more on other

people's services but you spend money on

that as well so that's good yeah but

just letting go of material possessions

which it gives a kind of freedom to how

you move about the world yeah it gives

you complete freedom to go into another

city to yeah with your backpack with a

backpack there's a kind of freedom to it

there's something about material

possessions and having a place and all

that that ties you down a little bit

Yeah like spiritually it's good to take

a leap out into the world especially

when you're younger to like man I

recommend if you're 18 you get out of

high school do this go travel and uh uh

you know build some internet stuff

whatever if your bring your laptop and

uh it's it's amazing experience I five

years ago it's still going to University

but now I'm thinking like no maybe don't

maybe skip University just go first like

travel around a little bit figure some

stuff out you can go back to University

when you're 25 you can like okay now I

learned I being successful in business

you have money at least now you can

choose what you really want to study you

know because people at 18 they go study

what is probably good for the job market

right so it probably makes more sense

like if you want that go travel build

some businesses and go back to

University if you want so one of the

biggest uses of a university is the

networking you you uh you gain friends

you gain like you meet people it's a

forcing function to meet people but if

you can meet people out into the World

by traveling man and you meet so many

different cultures I mean the problem

for me is like if I traveled at that

young age I'm attracted to people at the

outskirts of the world like for me like

where no mean not geographically oh like

the the subcultures the sub yeah like

the weirdos the darkness yeah me too but

but that might not be the best

networking at 18 years

old no but it man if you if you're smart

about it you can stay safe and I met so

many weirdos from traveling you meet

that's how travel works if you really

let lose you meet the craziest people

yeah and it's the most interesting

people

and it's just I cannot recommend it

enough well see the thing is when you're

18 I feel like depending on your

personality you have to learn both how

to be a weirdo and how to be a normie

like you still have to learn how to fit

into society like for a person like me

for example who's always an outcast like

there's always a danger for going full

Outcast yeah and that's a harder life if

you like if you go to like go full

artist and full like Darkness it's just

a heart of life you can come back you

can come back to normally that's a skill

that's like I think you have to learn

how to how to fit

into uh like polite Society but I was

very strange Outcast as well and I'm I'm

more adaptable to normally now you know

learned it after 30s you know you're

like yeah but you mean it's a skill you

have to learn yeah I feel man I feel

also the you start as Outcast but the

more you work on yourself the less like

shit you have you kind of start becoming

more normally because you become more

chill with yourself and more happy and

it kind of makes you uninteresting right

a little bit yes yes like the most the

crazy people are always the most

interesting if you've solved your

internal struggles and your your therapy

and stuff and you kind of become kind of

you know it's not so interesting anymore

maybe you don't have to be broken to be

interesting I guess is what I'm saying

yeah what kind of things were left when

you minimalized so the backpack yeah uh

MacBook uh toothbrush uh some clothes

underwear socks um you don't need a lot

of clothes in Asia cuz it's hot so you

just wear swimpants swim shorts he w

walk around flipflops uh so very basic

t-shirt and uh I would go to the lroom

mat and wash my stuff and I think it was

like 50 F or something yeah yeah it's

nice there's uh as I mentioned to you

there's the the show alone yeah they

really test you cuz they you only get 10

items and you have to survive out in the

wilderness and an axe like everybody

brings an

axe some

people uh also have a

saw wow but usually a does the job you

basically have to in order to build a

shelter you have to cut down cut the

trees and make and like learning

Minecraft you know everything I learn

about life I learn Minecraft

bro yeah yeah you can it's a it's it's

nice to create those constraints for

yourself to understand what matters to

you and also how to be in this world and

one one of the ways to do that just to

live a minimalist life but like some

people like I've met people that really

enjoy material possessions and it brings

him happiness and that's that's a

beautiful thing yeah like for me it

doesn't but people are different it

gives me happiness for like two weeks

yeah I'm very quickly adapting to like a

baseline hedonist hedonistic adaptation

very fast yeah but man if you look at

the studies most people like like

getting a new car six months you know

getting a new house six months you just

feel the same you're like wow should I

buy all the stuff that studying

hedonistic adaptation made me think a

lot about minimalism like and so you

don't even need to go through the whole

journey of getting it just just focus on

the the thing that's more permanent yeah

like building shit yeah like people

around you like people you love nice

food nice experiences meaningful work

those things exercise you know those

things make you happy I think make me

happy for sure you wrote a blog post why

I'm unreachable and maybe you should be

too what's your strategy in

communicating with people yeah so when I

wrote that I was getting so many M as

you probably have you have a million

times more but um and people were

getting angry that I wasn't responding

and I was like okay I'll just close down

these DMS completely M then people got

angry that I Clos my DMs down that I'm

not like man of the people you know it's

like you changed man yeah you Chang you

guys you know like this and I'm like

I'll explain why I just don't have the

time in a day to you know answer every

question and also people send you like

crazy shit man like stalkers and like

people write like their whole life story

for you and then ask you advice like man

I have no idea I'm not a therapist I

don't know I don't know this stuff but

also beautiful stuff no absolutely sure

like life story I've posted a coffee

form like if you wanted to have a coffee

with me and I've gotten an extremely

large number of submissions and when I

look at them there's just like beautiful

people in there like beautiful human

beings really powerful stories and like

breaks my heart that I won't get to meet

those people you know like and so this

part of it is just like there's only so

much bandwidth to truly see other humans

and help them or like understand them or

hear them or yeah see them yeah I have

this problem that I try I want to try

help people and like also like oh let's

make startups and whatever and it's I've

learned over the years that generally

for me and it sounds maybe bad right but

like I help my friend Andre for example

he was he he came up to me in a cing

space that's how I met him and he said I

want to learn a code I want to do

startups how do I do it I said okay

let's go uh install engine X let start

coding and he has this self energy that

he actually um he he doesn't need to be

pushed he just goes and he just goes and

he asks questions and he he doesn't ask

too many questions he just goes goes and

learns it and now he has a company and

makes a lot of money has his own

startups so and the people that that I

had to kind of like that asked me for

help but then I I gave help and then

they started they started debating it

you know do you have that like people

ask you advice and they go against you

say no you're wrong because I'm like

okay bro I don't want debate you ask me

for advice right and the people who need

this push generally it doesn't happen

you need to have this energy for

yourself well they're searching they're

searching they're trying to figure it

out but often times their

search if they successfully find what

they're looking for it'll be within

sounds very like spiritual Sonny but

it's it's really like figuring that shit

out on your own but they're reaching

they're trying to ask the world around

them like how do I live this life how do

I figure this out but ultimately the

answer is going to be from them working

on themselves and like literally it's

the stupid thing but like Googling and

doing like yeah I think it's

procrastination I think sending messages

to people is a lot of procrastination

like Lex how do you become successful

podcaster bro just you know start like

just go yeah and uh just go I would

never ask you how to be a successful

podcaster like I would just start it and

then I would copy your methods you know

I would say ah this guy's a black

background we probably need this as well

yeah try it yeah try it and then you

realize it's not about the black

background it's about something else so

you find your own voice like keep trying

stuffa imitation is a difficult thing

like a lot of people copy and they don't

move past it yeah you should understand

their methods and then move past it like

find yourself find your own voice you

imitate and then you put your own spin

to it you know and that's like creative

process that's like literally the whole

cre everybody always Builds on the

previous work yeah uh you shouldn't get

stuck 24 hours in a day eight hours of

sleep you like break it down into a math

equation uh 90 minutes of showering

clean up

coffee it just keeps whittling down to

zero man it's not this specific but I

had to make like a you know an average

or something firefighting I don't like

that one hours of groceries and errands

I've tried breaking down minute by

minute what I do in a day yeah

especially when my life was simpler it's

really refreshing to understand where

you waste a lot of time yeah and uh what

you enjoy doing like how many minutes it

takes to be happy doing the thing that

makes you happy and how many minutes it

takes to be productive and you realize

there's a lot of hours in the day if you

spend it right yeah a lot of is wasted

yeah for me has been the the the biggest

battle for uh for the longest time is

finding stretches a time where I can

deeply focus into really really deep

work just like zoom in and completely

focused cutting away all the

distractions yeah me too that's the

battle Yeah it's unpleasant it's

extremely unpleasant we need to fly to

an island you know make a a man cave

Island where we can just everybody can

just goat and for a week you know just

get shit done make new

projects yeah yeah but man they called

me psychopath for this because it says

like one hours of sex hugs love you know

man I had to write something you know

and they were like ah this guy

psychopath he plans his sex know in

specific hour like bro I don't but have

a counter for hugs yeah exactly like

yeah like click click click H it's it's

just a numerical representation of what

life is yeah

it's like one of those like when you

draw out how many weeks you have in a

life oh dude this is like dark yeah man

don't want to look that too much yeah

man how many times you see your parents

Jesus like man yeah it's scary man

that's right it might be only you know a

handful more times yeah man you just

look at the math of it if you see him

once a year or twice a year yeah

FaceTime today yeah

yeah I mean it that that's like dark

when

you see somebody you like like seeing

like a friend that's on the outskirts of

your friend group and you realize like

well I haven't really seen him for like

three years so like how many more times

do we have that we see each other yeah

do you believe that like friends just

slowly disappear from your life like

they kind of your friend group evolves

right so like it does it does like you

don't want to there's a problem with

Facebook you get all these old friends

from school like when you were 10 years

old back when Facebook started like you

don't really you would friend them and

then you're like why are we in touch

again just keep the memories there you

know like it's different life now yeah I

have you know I don't that might be a

guy thing or I don't know there's

certain friends I have that like we

don't interact often but we're still

friends yeah like I every time I see

him I think it's because we have a

foundation of many shared experiences

and many memories like I it's like

nothing has changed like we've been

almost like we've been talking every day

even if we haven't talked for a year

yeah so that like yeah that's deep yeah

so that so I don't have to be

interacting with them for them to be in

a friend group and then there's some

people I interact with a lot so it's it

it depends but there's just this network

of good human beings that

can I have like a real love for them and

I I can always count on them if like if

any of them called me in the middle of

the night I'll get rid of a body you

know I'm

there I like how that's a different

definition of friendship but it's true

it's true true friend you've become more

and more famous recently how's that uh

affect you it's not recently it's this

gradual thing right like it keeps keeps

going and uh and I also don't know why

it keeps going does that put pressure on

you to cuz you're pretty open on Twitter

and you're just like basically building

shit in the open yeah and just not

really caring if it's too technical if

it's any of this just being out there

does it put pressure on you as you

become more popular to be a little bit

more like collected and man I think the

opposite right like because the people I

follow are interesting because they say

whatever they think and they and they

ship or whatever it's so boring that

people start tweeting only about one

topic yeah I don't know anything about

their personal life I want to know about

their personal life like you do podcast

you ask about LIF stuff about

personality that's the most interesting

part of like business or sports like

what's the behind this for the athlete

right behind the entrepreneur that's

interesting stuff to be human yeah like

you you share that you know like I Shar

the Tweet went too far but like we were

cleaning the toilet because the toilet

was clogged you know but like it's just

real stuff because Jansen hang the

Nvidia guy he says he started cleaning

toilets you know that was cool you you

tweeted something about the the Denny's

thing I forget yeah it was recent Nvidia

was started in a Denny Diner uh table

and you made it somehow profound you're

almost yeah this one this one uh Nvidia

three $3 trillion company was started in

a Denny's an American Diner people need

a third space to work on their laptops

to build the next billion or trillion

dollar company what's the first and

second space the home office and the in

between the island I guess yeah the

island yeah you need a space to like

congregate man and I found history on

this so 400 years ago in the coffee hous

of Europe the like the Scientific

Revolution the enlightenment happened

because they would go to coffee houses

they would sit there they would drink

coffee and they would work they would

work they would write or they would and

they would do debates and they would

organize Marine routes right they would

do all the stuff in coffee houses in

Europe in France in Austria in UK in

Holland so we would always be going to

we were always going to cafes to to work

and to have serendipitous conversations

with other people and start businesses

and stuff and when I like you asked me

to come on here and we flew to America

and the first thing I realized was that

I've been to America before but but we

were in this Cafe and like there's a lot

of laptops everybody's working on

something and I made I took this photo

um and then when you're in Europe like

large parts of Europe now you can't you

cannot use a laptop anymore it's like no

laptop which I understand but that is to

you a fundamental place to create shit

is in that natural organic uh co-working

space of a coffee for a lot of people a

lot of people have very small homes and

co-working spaces are kind of boring

they're kind they're not very they're

private they're not

serendipitous kind of boring um cafes

are amazing because they random people

can come in and ask you what are you

working on or you know and not just left

those people are also having

conversations like they did 400 years

ago debates or whatever things are

happening and man I understand the the

Aesthetics of it like it's like oh

startup bro shipping his uh bullshit

startup you know

like but there's something more there

like there's people actually making

stuff making new companies that the

society benefits from like we're we're

benefiting from Nvidia I think as the US

GDP for sure is benefiting from Nvidia

European GDP could benefit if we build

more companies and I feel in Europe

there's this Vibe and this you have to

connect things but not not allowing

laptops and cafes is kind of like part

of the vibe which is like yeah we're not

really here to work we're here to like

enjoy life I agree with this Anthony

bdan like this tweet was quote tweeted

Anthony Bain photo with him with

cigarettes and a coffee in France and he

said that's this is what cafes are for I

agree but there is some element of like

entrepreneurship like you have to allow

people to dream big and work their ass

off to to towards that dream and then

feel each other's energy as they

interact with that's one of the things I

liked in Silicon Valley when I was uh

working there is like the cafes like

there's a bunch of dreamers that there

you can make fun of them for like

everybody thinks they're going to build

a trillion dollar company but like yeah

and it's a not everybody wins 99% of

people will be bullshit but they working

their ass off yeah they're doing

something and and you need to past this

startup bro like oh it's startup Lev no

it's not it's people making cool shit

yeah and this will benefit you because

this will create jobs for your com your

your country in your region and I think

in Europe um that's a big problem like

we have a very

anti- um entrepreneurial mind dream big

and build shit this is really inspiring

this is pin tweet of yours all the

projects that you've tried and the ones

that

succeeded has very few mute life it was

for Twitter to mute uh to share the mute

list your uh mute words fire calculator

no more Google maker rank how much is my

site project worth climate finder ideas

AI Airline list still runs but it's

doesn't make money Airline list like

compares the safety of Airlines CU I was

nervous to fly so I was like let's

collect all the data on crashes for all

the airplanes BC cable nice that's

awesome uh Village NORAD gear 3D and

virtual reality Dev play play my inbox

like you mentioned there's a lot of

stuff yeah man I'm trying to find some

embarrassing tweets of yours you can go

to the highlights tab it has all the

like the good shit kind of there you go

this was Dubai POV building an AI

startup wow you're a real

influencer and people copy this photo

now and they they change the screenshots

it becomes like a meme of course you

know

this is good this how Dubai looks it's

insane that's beautiful architecture

wise it's crazy the story is behind this

story behind for sure so this is about

the European economy where like European

economy landscape is ran by dinosaurs

and today I studied it so I can produce

you with my evidence 80% of top EU

companies were founded before 1950 only

36% of top us companies were founded

before 1950 yeah so the median founding

of companies in US is something like

1960 and IM Med median the top companies

right and IM median in Europe is like

1900 or something yeah so it's um here

1914 and 1963 so there a 50-year

difference it's a good um representation

of the very thing you were talking about

the diff difference in the cultures

entrepreneurial Spirit of the peoples

but Europe used to be entrepreneurial

like there was companies found in 1800

1850 1900 it flipped like around 1950

where America took the lead and uh and I

guess my point is like I hope that

Europe gets back to because I'm European

I hope that Europe gets back to being an

entrepreneurial culture where they build

big companies again because right now

the all the old dinosaur companies

control the economies they're lobbying

with the government they're Europe is

also that's like they're infiltrated

with the government where they create so

much regulation like I think it's called

regulatory capture right where it's very

hard for a newcomer to join to enter an

industry because there's too much

regulation so actually regulation is

very good for big companies because they

can follow it I can't follow it right if

I want to start a AI startup in Europe

now I cannot because there's an AI

regulation that makes it very

complicated for me I probably need to

get like notaries involved I need to get

certificates

licenses um whereas in America I can

just open my laptop I can started AI

started right now um mostly you know

what do you think about eak effective

accelerationist movement man you had

Beth jzos on I I love Beth jzos and um

he's amazing and I think iok is is very

needed to similarly create a more

positive uh outlook on the future like

because people people have been very

pessimistic um about Society about the

future of society um you know climate

change all this stuff uh eok is like is

a positive outlook in the future it's

like technology can make us you know we

need to spend more energy we should find

ways to of course get like clean energy

but we need to spend more energy to make

cooler stuff and you know go into space

and build more technology that can

improve society and we shouldn't shy

away from technology technology can be

the answer for many things yeah build

more don't spend so much time on uh

fear-mongering and cautiousness and all

this kind of stuff some is okay some was

good but most of the time should be

spent on building and creating on like

and doing so unapologetically it's a

it's a refreshing reminder what made

United States great is all the builders

like you said the entrepreneurs like we

can't forget that in in all the sort of

discussions of how things could go wrong

with technology and all this kind of

stuff yeah it goes SC look at China

China is now at the stage of like

America what like 1900 or something

they're building rapidly like insane and

obviously China has massive problems but

that comes with the whole thing that

comes America and this beginning also

massive problems right

um

but I think it's very very dangerous for

a country or region like Europe to you

you you get to this point where you're

kind of complacent you're kind of

comfort

and then you know you can either go this

or you can go this way right you're from

here you go like this and then you can

go this or this I think you should go

this way and uh OB yeah go up and and

uh I think it's the problem is the the

the Mind culture so eok I made eok which

is like the European kind of version um

I made like hoodies and stuff so a lot

of people wear like this this make your

grade again head um I made it red first

but it became too like Trump so now it's

more like you're being blue you know

make Europe great

again all right

um okay so you had a incredible

life very successful built a lot of cool

stuff so what advice would you give to

young people about how to do the same

man I would listen to like nobody just

do what you think is good and follow

your heart right like uh everybody peer

presses you into doing stuff you don't

want to do and like they tell you like

parents or family and society and tell

you but like try your own thing you know

because it probably it might work out

you can you can steer the ship you know

it probably doesn't work out immediately

you probably go into very bad times like

I did as well relatively right but in

the end if you're smart about it you can

make things work and you you can create

your own little life of things as you

did you know as I did and I think that

should be more promoted like Do Your Own

Thing there's space in economy and in

society for do your own thing you know

yeah it's like um you know like little

Villages everybody would sell I would

sell bread you would sell meat every can

do their own little thing you don't need

to you know be a Normy as you say you

you you um you can you can be what you

really want to be you know and like go

all out doing that thing yeah you got to

go all out cuz if you do if you have

assets you cannot succeed you got you

need to go lean into the to the outcast

stuff lean into the um being different

and and just doing whatever it is that

you want to do right you got a whole

asset yeah

yet this was an incredible conversation

it was an honor to finally meet you it

was honor to be to talk to you and uh

keep doing your thing keep inspiring me

and uh the world with all the cool stuff

you're building thank you Matt thanks

for listening to this conversation with

Peter levels to support this podcast

please check out our sponsors in the

description and now let me leave you

with some words from Drew hon Dropbox

co-founder by the way I love

Dropbox anyway Drew said don't worry

about failure you only have to be right

once thank you for listening and hope to

see you next time