Launch 1 Product Every Week: The "Idea Machine" Method | Alex Mehr

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1:22What I struggle to understand about people is, and maybe it's just because I was raised in the middle of woods with no money. I didn't have the luxury of believing things that weren't true or didn't have any like backing behind them as potentially being a successful strategy. So if you'll ask me, how can you support Elon Musk? Because the shit that he says, it works. You may not want to hear it and you may not want his lifestyle, but you can't deny the fact that when he says here is an executable principle that that principle is most likely accurate and most likely going to yield positive results like you just can't deny that and i literally you know if going on 45 i can't even i can't even be in the same room with people who are gonna who are gonna they're gonna allow or they're gonna be willing to discuss and or even pitch ideas that have zero receipts behind them as to them being successful just because they sound good.

2:27I can't even get my head around that idea. 100%. That's why I left San Francisco. So I lived in San Francisco for 15 years and I just had it. I'm like, okay, I can't do it. I believe that. I've had these little touches of Silicon Valley and different things that I've done. I pitched a startup that I was part of for a while, the PMP. And I've had these little touches and I just, I always feel like, you know, one of these things is not like the other. And that thing is me, you know, I just always feel that way. Or also, and I'd be super interested in your take on this, and then we can get into what we want to talk about.

3:05But like, I also kind of feel like a lot of people are pretending, like they'll say something. And, you know, it'll be more of like this ideology than based in reality. But you can almost tell by the conviction in their voice that they're saying it because they feel they need to, not because it's what they actually believe. And that is almost worse. Yes. That's even harder to be around. It comes from arrogance. So people are overly confident in their own ability to understand really complex things. And they oversimplify it and they go into one of these isms. and they're like, oh, it needs to be this because it is.

3:49I'm like, okay, go throughout history and look at the exact scenarios. Here's the thing about, you know, humanity is that it has lived many, many lives and the same scenarios have repeated multiple, multiple times. And a lot of them are happening at the same time right now. How about instead of trying my PhD, part of it was complex systems. And one of the things about complex systems is that it humbles you. Whatever you think is true is probably not true. So you have two ways of dealing with that. One is you say, I am smart and I know exactly what is right and wrong and and try to kind of approach it that way.

4:32The second one is just be humble. So look at, okay, so if I push this button, let's say we go, we become socialist, okay? What happens? And one, instead of trying to go right and wrong, how about I go and look at history and examples of this and try to collect data and try to actually have an informed opinion. So it's... But Alex, you understand, it just has never been implemented correctly. It's democratic socialism. That's the one that hasn't been done accurately yet. We just haven't tried that version yet dude i told you i left san francisco for a reason unfortunately it's followed up i used to you know one of the things i even though new york is it got some things a ton of things about it that i don't appreciate you know um i always felt insulated because of new york city i was like you know what at the end of the day there's a lot of greedy motherfuckers down there and I love that because I know they're going to keep things pushing in the right direction right they want to make money and yeah maybe they take a little too much from themselves once in a while but I'm okay with that because they're always pushing us towards prosperity towards growth towards technological innovation and all of that comes down and you can go get as much of it as you want as as hard as you're willing to work etc okay but now we got this Montami guy and and I'm watching like this isn't like Fox News spinning like literally what like he's on social media with the camera at his face saying shit that like is straight out of Mao Stalin I mean Hugo I mean it's like he's verbatim saying the same shit except at the end he smiles and goes but I'm a democratic socialist so so that makes it okay and you got all these morons behind him chanting his name and you're like you one google search one chat gpt or claude or whatever stupid one and you literally watch he's he's reading verbatim it's the same shit we're gonna give you all this free stuff except he now he just said the other day he wants to start capturing ip yes not just not just re repatriating a property he wants to start capturing ip which means you can't create a single thing in the city limits without him owning a piece of it.

7:05Yes. It's fucking bananas. It's bananas. I mean, that is ludicrous. Yeah, but I tell you something funny about Mamdani. So when he started running, I have friends in New York. They said, oh, it's a joke. He's not going to win. I'm like, watch. He's going to win. And I really think he's going to win. And again, look at Bolshevik revolution. Look at Mao Zedong. Look at Venezuela. It actually what it is, I think humanity goes through these waves. And unfortunately, in parts of this great country, we're going through that exact scenario where that populist message doesn't matter how many times in history it has played out disastrously.

7:48People are unable in masses, unable to actually put two and two together. So they're like, yeah, free grocery stores. So I'm like, great. That is it's like I'm like people fall for that. So it and people will fall for that. I really think he's going to win. I think he's going to win, too. Yeah, I absolutely think he's going to win. I have a question for you here. So I like I'm 100 percent willing to talk about politics. Right. Because I and there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. I'd say the two biggest are, one, politics directly impact my financial and lifestyle. So I want to have conversations and understand who's around me and where they are.

8:33We don't have to get into major debates, but I at least want to understand where your head is at. And the second is the psychology of how political messages are spread relates so closely to how business messages and movements are spread. And it's so incredibly important to understand. And here's where my question comes in. And there's a few other reasons as well, but here's where my question comes in. So many people that I do business with or that I work with, not my close circle, because obviously they wouldn't be in your inner circle of people if you weren't willing to have these kind of depths of conversations, but so many people I bump into, they're like afraid to talk about politics or mix politics in any way with business for a whole myriad of fears.

9:19and I can't get past that anymore. Like I feel like the reason we're here today is because like I'll give you an example. I was in a mastermind, 60 people in the room and the topic of politics came up and I stood up and I said, I think it is cowardice to play this. I don't talk about politics thing in business. I think that's pure cowardice. And you should have, it was like, dude, you would have thought that I just ripped the biggest fart in the middle of Catholic mass ever. I mean, it was like everyone was aghast at the fact that I would say that I thought it was cowardice. And it sparked this incredible debate that really didn't have a, we couldn't come to a conclusion.

10:04So, but the general sense was people are very, very nervous, incredibly nervous and scared about talking about politics in any way as it relates to business. like one do you think that that's a good thing and a good business practice and two like like how do you handle politics and political conversations in these topics because for who i do business with it's incredibly important to me at least to know where your head is at i don't have to agree with everything it's important yes and i i can tell you from personal experience So I've always been, you know, you can call me a right, you know, Republican or I call myself a libertarian person.

10:48I believe in individual liberty and, you know, the right of individuals to build and prosper and own property and provide for their family and all that. I immigrated to America for that reason. I came from a totalitarian country, and I came here because I read stories of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist paper and stuff like that. So to me, that is absolutely in the core, and I believe America is a very unique country in that sense. However, I did not myself talk openly about politics for years because it does hurt, especially living in San Francisco. It does hurt your ability to conduct business.

11:30People sort of shun you and they are like, you know, you kind of get grayballed, to put it mildly. But something switched. It wasn't actually business because, look, end of the day, I will survive because inside my head, my skull, I'm a free person. so you can put me in Venezuela, in the ghettos of Venezuela, in a totally dictatorial country, I'll be free inside my skull and I'm fine. The thing that flipped the switch for me was actually having kids. So once I had kids, I realized, look, I may be able to live and survive in any scenario, I don't really care. But do I want my kids to grow up in a completely like totalitarian?

12:24I wouldn't say we are like Mao Zedong level, but we were actually going in that direction a little bit. Especially COVID opened my eyes. I'm like, do I want to live in a country? So I started talking about it myself after years of being an entrepreneur, essentially after COVID. I'm like this I don't want my kids to have their individual rights and liberties being taken away by the country by the government and that's the whole purpose that's why we have first amendment second amendment we they have all these things that limit the the level of government involvement in our lives and that's why we have been a prosperous country because all the founding fathers, they were on board.

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13:52It's truly a no-brainer. Join for free today and get a new member bonus after minimum qualifying purchases. Just go to Rakuten.com. Download the app or install the browser extension. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Terms and conditions apply. Rejected the concept of a strong totalitarian government, and that's why they did what they did. So it's like, I got to do it for my kids. In other words, you said, you know, I need to do it for business and stuff, and I get it and I agree with you. To me, it's even one level more personal. I don't know if you have kids or not, but yeah. So for me, it is like, I don't want my kids to grow up in that country.

14:38So yeah, that's, that was a deal breaker. I'm like, now I'm going to talk. Yeah. So I completely agree. And, you know, I guess the context of the question was, I feel like people use business as an excuse. I actually share 100 % your reason for being vocal. I just don't think I'm willing to accept the consequences. any consequences that may come with someone not doing business with me because they disagree with me politically i've just accepted um and i just i struggle with why so many people like i just i struggle with this and i'll give you i'll give you another example so i i just did a speaking gig uh yesterday i had a keynote yesterday and uh the night before we went out for dinner and a couple beers with the people that were organizing it.

15:36And they brought in some, you know, some of the VIPs from the event, you know, standard kind of keynote thing. And it was great. And the guy who brought me into the event, he and I start talking about some of the crazy shit that's going on in schools right now to get to your kids thing. Yes. Living in New York, I shared with him that while my kids go to private Christian school, for all the reasons that I'm about to explain, I would take on 10 jobs if I needed to to pay for this private school to not go because on day one, there were my best friend or my older son's best friend, sixth grade. He had two furries, four lesbians and the teacher said, your pronouns and your gender identity will be kept 100 % secret from your parents and I have no obligation to tell them.

16:28So whatever you tell me to call you, whether it's dog or whatever, is completely acceptable. That's day one. That's the homeroom, day one, public school, New York. That's insane. Okay. So what's funny is all these people that I could tell were like kind of like ears up down here. As soon as the kids stuck, they all came down and then it became all like, this is absolutely crazy. How do we deal with this? Now they all like opened up. So my point in saying that is I feel like when individuals like you, like me, people who have platforms, people who have thought through these things at a deep level, it's almost become an obligation for us to share our ideas, to give others permission to kind of at least engage in some way.

17:15Does that make sense? It does, and you're right. So I think permission – and here's another way to think about it. Again, it's not left versus right. people who have self-made egocentric belief systems they're like i think this is needs to be blah blah blah whatever is it they are actually the ones who are more likely to be vocal about their opinions than people who think through things okay pragmatic people and that creates actually a problem the problem is pragmatic people they're all like you know they're reasonable people and they're thinking, doing cost-benefit analysis, and they're like, well, do I really want to offend people?

17:56Blah, blah, blah. And therefore, they're quiet, and the minority with crazy egocentric ideas are louder. So even though they're smaller, they have a larger platform, and it feels like to, even politicians are like, oh, I got to appeal to the base. That's what they do. Their only job is to be elected. So they listen to the loud minority more than the silent majority who are practical, reasonable people. So you're right. If you want change, the vast majority of pragmatic, logical people who actually look at data and history and examples and like create like common sense arguments. we want them to be louder because there are more of us and we are the we should be the base not the loud few people who have these crazy ideas and they want to shove it down our throats so so i i agree with you it's like it's essentially and people with a platform it's doubly as important which is why last year pretty much i went started talking about politics for first time on my Instagram and Facebook.

19:06I have a lot of followers and I got a lot of hate for it. It was painful actually. But I 100 % stand by what I said and it was totally worth it. And I encourage more people to do it. The term use is actually the exact right term, permission structure. So if people with a platform who have a lot more to lose risk talking about what is really common sense, more people who are pragmatic, they stand up and are like, you know what, I'm going to talk about it too. So we want to amplify the voice of the pragmatic good people. And yes, people with a platform are doubly responsible to talk about it. That's why I started talking about it after years of being silent about it.

19:52And, you know, now we're coming in and you wrote this book that the Conqueror's Code and we have AI coming into these conversations and we, you know, just seeing some of the early nonsense that Soar is creating and these different video platforms. And I mean, the sombrero is just amazing. You know what I mean? Like you have all this, you know, you have Chuck Schumer talking, but which is obviously AI with the, you know, Team Jeffries with the sombrero. And you're like, you're looking at this and you're seeing these kind of memes come out of the White House. and we live in this completely different age of understanding where we get our information.

20:32So being someone who has built so many companies, NASA, you've partnered with Tai Lopez, one of the best marketers of all time, you have this amazing platform, and now you've written this book and seeing AI coming, where do people get, let me frame that question better, How do people trust the sources or maybe what are the filters they need to use to find the sources that they can trust when they're starting to make their own decisions, right? Just like you said, we need to start being pragmatic, thinking through these things. And I say, okay, Alex, I absolutely agree with you. I want to start being more thoughtful in my opinions.

21:13But now I'm seeing the White House post AI-generated memes. I have, you know, my favorite marketing thought leader is now talking about, you know, transgender issues. And how the hell do I sort through all this to start to get to the actual truth? Yeah, the answer is my answer. Look in history, which is why I love history, because it's sort of it's macro. So you go back and you say this, no two scenarios are exactly the same, but the same themes repeat themselves over and over again. I go back in history. That's why I read a lot of biographies and history because opinion books are great. But more importantly, I'm like, what actually happened in the past and what was the outcome?

22:00Okay. And that to me is the ultimate way to predict what's the best course of action to take. Like I told you, like read biographies from modern day people like Elon Musk. I read his book line by line. Every email he sent, very few books I read like that. So I read it line by line because I know the outcome. The guy has made these massive companies that are every single one of them. All these people who hate on him. I'm like all of you combined cannot do one of his ventures all of you combined okay yet you have the audacity to question his method to the madness instead you got to go read his method to the madness and even if you want to use it for a different purpose even if you want to use it for your own whatever agenda it is you cannot argue with the success of his method to the madness so it's ultimate arrogance to not even pay attention to it okay and completely dismiss it The same is true in history.

23:03That's why that book is about history. Look at the great conquerors. Look at Alexander the Great. Look at things that went right and wrong. Look at Julius Caesar. Look at, you know, Mehmet II, who used like cannon for the first time to conquer Constantinople for the first time. and you just read it's mind-bending the similarities of those days like roman empire being a great example to the current day that we live in and how the republic fell and it's just like it's a it's an amazing thing to read and i encourage people you want to cut through noise look at history it's like it's like that's a that's an example and everything that people argue about, I say, well, believe it or not, this has happened in the history before.

23:58And you can ask ChatGPT, what are the historical examples of this particular scenario? And then look at what happened there. And it tells you, we have not changed that much. People think, oh, no, this is new. Yeah, the tools of the warfare has changed. But it also changed throughout history, like, you know, gunpowder, cannon, you know, electronic warfare, navies, like you name it. Atomic bomb, there's a good documentary about that on Netflix, how it panned out. And, and you look at how these new technologies like changed everything. And it's like, it's just another wave of that a new technological advantage and go back in history, look what has happened before probably happens again all these things that you say like brainwashing kids in school by the way happened in the roman empire so it's like towards the end when the roman empire after roman republic there was roman empire towards the end you can see the echo of what as what is happening in our in our country today at the end of roman empire exactly the western roman empire exactly it's like all these things that we feel are new hedonism like people just completely you know doing whatever they want and like the destruction of the family unit all these has happened in the roman empire you just like see the echo of history happening again yes yeah i'll tell you what woke me up to this and i'm looking for the quote there's a great quote um something like if you don't want your son To be a Roman Don't let him be taught By Romans or something I'm butchering the quote But the whole idea It's exactly what you said To the point of like The indoctrination Of our youth It's like If you don't want your kid To believe things like A man can be a woman Or that You know Sally in 6th grade Is actually a dog And should be Taking dumps in a litter box In the back of the classroom Then don't send them To a school Where that is accepted That does that Exactly Right Like these kinds of things.

26:04Well, I'll tell you what woke me up to the history was, um, and it seems to have died down a little recently, but the Winston Churchill was the bad guy in world war two argument that was going around for a while. At first I was like, this just sounds like some stupid meme. And then I saw like Constantine Kissin address it on trigonometry is a podcast that I really like. I don't know if you're familiar with that one. Um, but he started addressing him like, Oh my God, this is actually like a widespread idea that people are perpetuating. Like, you have not read a single word of history from that time if you are positioning Winston Churchill as the bad guy.

26:42Now, if you want to make a full-spectrum argument, was he a perfect human? Certainly not. He made plenty of bad decisions. But those were bad decisions as bombs are being dropped on his head while his people are dying in the streets from the blitzkrieg. He's trying to make the best decisions he can with the information. he has and yeah a couple of them didn't go the way that he wanted and now we're gonna position him as the bad guy like like we've you've lost touch with history if that's an argument that you're willing to make and um and I know that the guy that ultimately that was started off of that wasn't actually the argument he was made he was taken out of context I get all that part but but it it just hit me how hard we have lost touch and then I was talking to a friend of mine who you know is a good dude tends to skew a little more left but in general a good dude and he made this off-the-cuff comment that blew me away it was something like he was referencing the early 1900s as if they were archaic like neanderthals you know you know drumming on wood and and barely could understand fire and i was like they're us bro like like you you don't those are us they're no different than we they're in the same exact thoughts we're having right now they were having back then so like you you're you're trying to because maybe they didn't have cell phones you're somehow thinking that they're less sophisticated of human beings or they didn't not dealing with the same emotional pain that we are like are you fucking crazy half of them would go days without eating you know what i mean like when's the last time you went three days without eating because you couldn't get a job down at the dock that day right or the bread line ran out of bread and you just didn't eat like when's last time that happened for you so like we we just have this this whole idea of the end of history that was perpetuated around post-modern liberalism it is such a cancer to our methodology and to how we operate on a day-to-day basis that i don't know how to remedy that idea besides reading but how do you spread that to the masses

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30:18It's postmodernism. That's the main issue. It's like they think us as humans are very different and now somehow we are more advanced and like grew IQ points or something. Not true. We are the same biological systems, organisms, we lived back then that we are now. And that has been the case through the recorded history. okay so the human that lived during ancient egypt until now we have changed very little as like actual human species so all those arguments are come from a place of arrogance that's kind of what i'm what i'm saying it's like i am i am such an evolved human that i am not even comparable and i have the right to judge that person even though that person lived like hundreds, 200 ,000 years ago.

31:09And that person did this thing that according to my postmodern values, like they were not, they're not correct. Therefore, I'm going to judge that person. I'm like, okay, that literally comes from the place of ego and arrogance. But, but here's the good news. There aren't that many of them. They just happen to be have very high conviction, because high ego people, people with a large ego, are by definition louder. So it comes from the position of ego, and these are just loud people and they're minority. The problem that you pointed out, however, is correct. People who are not like that are in general tend to be quieter.

31:52And because of that, it feels like those other people. And also the other thing that happens is that our social behavior is contagious. So loud people, even though I say they're a minority, because the message is constantly repeated and repeated and repeated, it actually rubs on people. Just like I say, broke energy is contagious. Depressed energy is contagious. Happy energy is contagious. It's the same thing. So these people are kind of also rubbing and perpetuating these ideas by just pure repetition and being loud. So people get influenced by that. That has happened also throughout history.

32:34So a few people who were loud, they pushed really terrible ideas on people, Bolshevik revolution being the case in point. So most people were not on board with Bolshevik revolution. It was a very unpopular move at the beginning. But then these people were loud and like repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat the message. And over time, like people are like, ah, these people, you know, combination of them winning a little bit and then hearing the message multiple times. People get influenced just through the fact of repetitively hearing a message. So I think the solution is exactly what you said earlier, which is people that are grounded.

33:17Maybe that's the best term I can use. people that are grounded in reality and common sense and all that, they need to be louder because the gut reaction when I see a bunch of crazy people saying crazy stuff is for me to say, okay, I'm going to go take my ball and go play somewhere else. That's gut reaction, okay? If we do that, and if all of us do that repeatedly and for long enough, there will be no place to go. so it's so you said it's our duty yes it is our duty if we care about the next generation it is our duty to stand our ground even though it is counterintuitive and a pragmatic pragmatic person who wants to make a living and build a business or what have you the pragmatic answer is take your ball and go play somewhere else which is why i left san francisco yeah but but but is if all of us do that all the time for long enough, there will be no other place for us to take our ball to go and play it.

34:19That's essentially what happened throughout all these crazy revolutions that has happened over the years. Yeah. I want to transition a little bit to entrepreneurship. And you're a serial entrepreneur, very successful, spend a lot of time with successful entrepreneurs. So taking this concept of we need to be louder or at least more convicted in our convictions to turn a terrible phrase. How do we like it feels today like entrepreneurship was it feels very chaotic. I get a lot of questions. People people ask me a lot of questions and in some of them I don't have the answers which is why I love having individuals like your cell phone.

35:07There's so much hitting us. Start your own AI through lovable. Just type your idea and everything gets built and then you know or is it more like you know if ai is going to be everywhere should i be out cody sanchez and everything and buying plumbing businesses and you know like i feel i get a lot of questions from people who kind of see what's coming understand that that ai is absolutely coming down the pipe they're they're unsure of what that means but they see it and believe it's going to be a bigger part of life they see companies across the board, including in my own home industry, which is the insurance industry, you know, one of our largest organizations in our industry just announced they're dropping 4 ,000 people.