Why I’m Doubling Down on Analog in a Digital Era

27:55It was just so fast. You feel like a superhero with clawed perplexity, GBT, Meta's infrastructure starting to get very impressive. A 16-year-old in seven years, that's gonna be like... Basic. By the way, a 22-year-old next year or the year after, maybe 24 months, that becomes the most basic of basic. To remind everybody who's listening, your grandmother in the office did not have internet, did not have AI, did not have social media, didn't have an office to your point, did not have mobile computing, did not have computer in office, did not have internet. Like, yeah, I mean, this is just technology.

28:43But do you feel that we're in this period of time and we are like 1 % of grasping technology, do we need to run faster to make the most out of it? Well, it depends on the human ambition. I mean, I think a lot of people are gonna check out of this era. I think there's a lot of people who've made a lot of, let's talk about Silicon Valley. I have a lot of Silicon Valley friends who were psycho, all in, going so hard during early Web 2, 2005, 6, 7, 8, blogging, podcasting, and then social, who made enough money and are in a different part of their life now who have given a shit about AI and blockchain.

29:19Could kill us. I feel like this is just such an opportunity and it's unique for the next 10 years. I feel like we have this year and then it's basic for everyone. I don't think so. I think that makes sense that you think that and I understand that. I think you and I will see each other in 10 years and be like, man, you were right. It's just, as much as it looks like AI creates a winner takes all world, I have a funny feeling it's not going to. Okay. Because don't forget. Hey everybody, hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. make sure you follow the podcast that's why I'm interrupting let's keep going on this show but follow the podcast it'll make my mom super happy there is the human like there's it's gonna take too much time like you know what people don't do well hang with me for a second let's play this game let's take that point let's say 10 companies won everything do you literally think that 8 billion people are gonna be like yeah that's awesome no okay so that's it it's just funny to hear this from you because you're the one like, hustle, do this.

30:21Yeah, but hustle, do this if it makes you happy. People don't like to take my sentence in its totality. Hustle, go hard if you complain and are a crybaby and you don't realize that accountability can help you. Hustle, if you like it so much that you would do it if it was free. I would build businesses if it was free. Meaning like it made me, like it's my joy. I build companies the way people like to go golfing and cooking and watching movies. It's more fun to me. You know, it's so funny. We put on a pedestal someone who's a philosopher or a great reader. Someone who reads books all day in the room is a real thinker and writes, oh wow, so noble.

31:07That's what I do. I just do something with it. On the other side. You know what I mean? So I think hustle, if it makes you happy, one could argue that the extreme opposite of hustle is what I also do, which is complete simpleness, complete lack of materialistic stuff, completely checking out, detached. I mean, the more you know me, the more you would realize I'm incredibly detached from my career or my public persona. I'll make it very blunt. I don't give a fuck about Gary Vee or my Vayner empire. I do not think it makes me better then. Who cares if I'm good at business? Some people are good at skiing.

31:51Some people are good at singing. Some people are good at writing. It just happens to be something I'm good at. I have my self-worth wrapped up into who I show up as, as a human, to people in my life. That I'm a nice guy. Is that a switch ever in your life? Absolutely not. Never. It was ingrained in me by my mother and my circumstances is in my DNA.

32:17What would you say to someone who thinks their worth is tied to their results? And that makes them very anxious in this era. Correct. I would tell them that, first of all, it depends on what results, right? You know, if you're saying financial results. I don't know. I'm in Silicon Valley. Great. Your company's valuation. I would say I understand. It's a very common human trait. I would also say that almost everybody I know on earth that is wrapped up in that metrics mindset has incredible anxiety. And anxiety sucks. How do you separate yourself? I feel like it's easier to say for you because you have all the millions followers already and millions of dollars.

32:54You're saying that because you don't know me. If my friends that have known me my whole life will tell you that I have the millions of followers and dollars because I've always been this way. That's the reason. Right. My detachment because I have an incredible relationship with losing. I like it. What do you tell yourself when you lose? That I sucked and that was funny and let's not try to do that again and what can we do different? I love the challenge. I was the kid when I was losing in sports or ping pong or pool. I loved playing again. I loved playing again. I loved playing again. I didn't think me losing in front of my sister or mom meant that I was lesser then.

33:36I also grew up with bad grades. So I very quickly had a relationship with the machine that was quite healthy, which was, oh wow, I'm really not good at this, but I don't have my self-esteem wrapped up in being a DNF student. Look how well I'm liked. Look at this stuff I'm doing off the schoolyard in business, selling my trading cards lemonade. So I played outside of this short-term validation framework and I also was incredibly structured to not struggle with peer pressure in high school and in college when so many of my contemporaries did everything for validation amongst their peers, I did not.

34:15And that was just tremendous parenting, luck of the draw with DNA, and the circumstances I grew up with, you know? You know, when you're growing up Soviet, but you're growing up in America in that era of the 80s, I just had a different framework. What are you telling your kids? Well, they're not me. I'm trying to leave deposits on that, but they're growing up in a very different environment. Now, luckily, my children share a lot of mine and my ex-wife's DNA and are also a little bit cocooned. Like, my 17-year-old daughter does not live her life for her friend's or boy's attention. So she's cooking with gas.

34:54My 13 year old son also, I would have said three years ago, he's already starting to really develop this. And so, look, DNA is a real fucking thing. And then when you have parents that are conscious and are pushing you on the right things, the only core thing that for sure they have different is environment. I grew up in an environment with very little. They've grown up, my son defaults to thinking, yeah, you go to a Knicks game, you sit courtside. I sat in the last row, literally, actually, actually in my first Knicks game. So I think it's, I don't have this ideology for my children to be exactly like me or just like me or they need to be hungry like I was.

35:40I want them to be happy and lack anxiety like I was and that comes into this, not anything else. This. Any tip how to teach that? What's that? I have a four-year-old and a six-year-old, and I feel like they really rely on what other kids think of them. What do you tell your kids? I pounded that narrative into my kids verbally. You just tell them like you. I think it's, like, as young as that, I would tell my children, like, people making fun of you, people saying you're awesome, means nothing. How do you feel? What do you like? Yeah, and learning not to react to positive things and negative. The reason I can deal is I today have 95 % validation, 5 % skepticism and pushback.

36:30It's the goat emojis in my Instagram posts that I have to not pay attention to. Not the you suck Gary or you got lucky or you're a snake oil. To me it's not hearing the accolades. I'm telling you that that's where the lack of anxiety comes from. I don't need to have a house or a plane or a third home or a Nobel Peace Prize or 40 million followers or an exit to impress Bill Gurley, you, Kevin. I don't need that. It is not what my life is about. I like it but I feel like I'm an athlete who wants to be great on the field but off the field that is not the man that I think I am. I absolutely love this mindset and how people, I feel like everybody should learn this type of mindset especially now because also I have this question from my team please who read your piece a I split people into architects and masons yes and half of my team thinks they're masons but they have the ability to become an architect so how do you deploy that mindset when you know you're losing right now yeah AI is replacing you but how do you go to the next step of your career utilizing this mindset that I don't need external approval and this mistake of failure is a means how do How do you lose 25 pounds when you know you're not feeling great?

37:50I'm asking you. Well, it's either or. You die sooner than you don't. Yeah, there's that outcome, but how do you do it? I'm not saying what the outcome is, and you're right about that. Like, I don't know, I don't have this problem. Right. My husband has this problem. Okay. He loves sugar. Yeah, me too. So, yeah, he just feels worse. And for him, it's stopping sugar completely. Yep. It works. Yep. Like completely. But it's hard. It is. Like I go through patches where I also cut it out. So I'm your husband. I have the same issue. Sugar is the real bane of my existence. To me, let me tell you how I stopped drinking soda for every beverage 13 years ago.

38:34I hired a full-time person literally 12 years ago. There would have been a man in here right now to make sure I didn't take a sip. Really? For one year. I took an extreme measure of babysitting to get me into the discipline. He suffocated me to then get into patterns to get into the discipline and then it became my norm. If you are a mason and you want to become an architect, you can cry about it. You can stop and start. We all stop and start in health, in wellness, in work. But you need for it to become your actual pattern. It becomes your norm. To your point, sometimes it's cold but it starts here first.

39:15Like if I had that whole team right now, I'd be like, listen, you can do it. You have to believe that. If you don't, what are we gonna do? Like it first starts mentally and then it starts physically. Like you need to start using these tools to help you think better, to put in the work. You need to start reading. You need to start doing this. You need to start hanging out with these people. Like you need to start taking from your leisure which you're using to get an escape from your concern and you need to allocate some of your leisure time into more work. You have to go to the gym and eat better.

39:45That starts with your mind, but then it has to happen with your actions. And then you just have to stay into that conversation. Like this is staying in a conversation. The reason the world is so tight right now is we've stayed in the negative conversation for 10 years. But like my newsfeed is not politics. My newsfeed is not telling me that the world is going to shit. My newsfeed doesn't tell me that my parents had it better than me. Like, you're in control of your algorithm, you're in control of the people that you spend time with. Look at all the people that are listening to this right now. These people chose to follow you and listen to you.

40:24Some are here because this is the first time they're listening to you because they follow me. Knowing enough of your platform and definitely knowing my platform, these are people that are choosing offense. These are people that are choosing optimism. These are people that are choosing to try to figure it out. That same person could have a twin sibling who right now, this is a Saturday morning that you and I are filming this, who might be watching Netflix this morning, which is lovely and you should have leisure, but why are they watching it? Are they watching it because they have a little side dish of leisure and enjoyment?

40:55That's beautiful. But if it's their main course and they're doing it because they had an anxious week and they're devastated that they have to go back Monday, now I'm concerned. Does that make sense? Totally. To me, leisure and escapism needs to be side dishes and a moose booshes, not the main meal. When it's the main meal, you are escaping your actual life that isn't going well. And that's what I think. And the idea of hiring someone, you can totally hire an AI coach who's going to plan out, like you hire someone who took soda away from you. You could. That could be an AI coach. You could. What's even crazier with AI is your AI coach can be the AI itself, which is a whole new phenomenon.

41:38Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's fascinating. how it works. You just, you get your strategy, talk to it maybe once a week, updating on your strategy creates a plan for you so you have something that you talk to. You know, it's funny, I, so I have this company called VFriends. It's my Pokemon meets Marvel meets Disney meets Sesame Street Universe. Collectibles, toys, cartoons. I'm really loving it. 250 plus characters. There's a character that I'm about to write a kid's book about called Curious Crane. So I have a character and be friends called Curious Crane. Crane is a bird for everyone who doesn't know this.

42:14I'm excited about it because I actually think curiosity is going to explode in cultural value because I think it's a trait that makes you very conducive to doing well in the AI world. I would tell a lot of your masons to get their curiosity up. Yeah, and it's something that's really empowered by AI. Incredibly. Because you can go down the rabbit hole and all information in the world. Okay, let's talk about people who are watching who are immigrants, because I have a lot of immigrants watching. You came to America at age three. I came when I was 25. For someone who arrives today, what is the first thing they should be doing?

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43:33It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate seed. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. I think it's a framework. It's funny we used curiosity. I think it's a framework of self-awareness, humility, and curiosity. So self-awareness is if you come from Guatemala, Poland, South Korea and you're here in the US or by the way, you're an American who's deciding one of those people which you're allowed and you're moving to Sweden or you're going from India to England or England to Argentina.

44:19No matter what shift you're making, a lot of people listening here will move to other countries because of jobs. Their wife's the big executive, they're the entrepreneur and she just got a big job and now you're moving to Portugal. When you are new, in an entirely new country, immigrant, I think there's three things to rely on. Number one is self-awareness. Who are you, right? When I came over, I was a kid, but the older generation, these people were engineers in the Soviet Union and they were literally cleaning toilets. That was the second part, humility. You know, humility is a superpower. You know, I'm aware that my humility does not show up on the internet, because that is not the way I communicate.

45:03But I will tell you that in my real life, behind the scenes, it is one of the beacons of my success. I've never gotten away from the kid that immigrated. Like, with all the stuff on paper, I still don't think I'm better than. I don't think I have earned the ability to not put in the work or to be gracious or to be kind or whatever it might be. So I would say self-awareness. Who are you? What are you good at? You have to then see if that's available to you in the country. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's not. Nuclear engineers from the Soviet Empire literally had to clean toilets because America wasn't just giving them jobs.

45:43And then they had to build themselves up and they owned a pharmacy later on. You know how it all worked out, right? Humility. I know that you were the big dog in India but maybe here in Poland that doesn't work. or you were amazing, you were a good creator in America but now for some reason you live in Indonesia and you don't have that many followers in Indonesia. Humility, right? And then back to curiosity. For me, I would just, again, face got ripped off like that John Travolta, John Travolta, Nicolas Cage movie. Reputation lost. I find myself in Peru. This is where I'm going. Who am I? I have good people skills.

46:19I have work ethic. I know how to buy and sell. I know consumer behavior. Next. Humility, I'll go work in a store as a cashier. If I have nothing, if I have nothing. And then curiosity, at night after I get back from the store, what's going on here in Peru? Like where's my angle? What can I do? What can I sell? So that is my advice, that emotional framework. And then you have to act on it. Humility, it means like you're teaching yourself or you are, you have this trait, remembering where you come from, right? That's right. But even I believe based on my mother and based on how she would have parented me that even if I wasn't an immigrant, even if I was my brother, the third in the family, born in 1987 in America when we were on our way to middle class, I still think if I had the same exact DNA and I have the same mother, I think humility is there not because I came from Russia and remember.

47:19It's just because I think it's icky to be the other way. I don't think it's like a, I remember where I came from, though there's part of that, I'm sure. It's more like, I just don't understand, well, actually, let me rephrase, I do understand. I'm just not insecure enough to not be humble. Love it. Ego is just pure insecurity. Ego is just pure insecurity. Posturing, trying to be the big dog, that just means you're fucking scared. That means you're a bitch. And that places limits on what you're doing because you're trying to feed your ego versus built up. Yeah, you're just, you are not good internally, thus you must render your peacocking to trick everyone around you.

48:00And by the way, I'm not mad at it. Do you know that I'm not mad at people that are like that? I'm sad about it. I wish they could like themselves for all, do you know how many shortcomings I have? Plenty, we all do.

48:15Okay, if someone's watching right now and they're like, okay, I'm gonna work on all of this, but I really want to build in this AI era. What do you think is the biggest opportunity right now? It goes back to the last question. There's a million of them. I just don't know the person that's listening right now. Are they some, I mean, for example, if you're overly charismatic, the biggest opportunity is to go live streaming on the internet and then drive all of that audience to an AI app that you built that's 10 bucks. Before it's automated by AI because have you seen in China how they're doing this live streaming?

48:50Of course. They just basically put an item in front of the camera and it's automated and there's this AI person already wearing it or showing it. That's right. Including the influencer is AI. It's me and I put your face on me and I'm a woman selling makeup. When I think about this, why would I start if it's already being automated? Because everything you learn along the way will set up your next thing. What are you going to do? Lay down and cry? I don't know. Find something else. Like this is, because I feel like a lot of, because I'm talking a lot of entrepreneurs, they're in this stage. They're like, oh, I really want to do this?

49:25But then, yeah, it's just gonna be taken away by a big company. You're too young for this, but in 2005, 6, 7, 8, 9, in Silicon Valley, the same thing was being said. Why would I start this? Google's gonna copy it. You're just talking to fake entrepreneurs. Okay. Real entrepreneurs are willing to lose. real entrepreneurs know that the two years they work on something that Claude fucked up was two years of them working on something that sets up their next thing. Real entrepreneurs don't know how to do anything else. Real entrepreneurs don't lay down and cry. Real entrepreneurs don't say fuck it I'll just go get a job.

50:07Real entrepreneurs are real entrepreneurs. They just do what they have to do. This is why there were so few of them before the internet. Entrepreneurship got cool. so now people do it because it's cool do you know how many entrepreneurs you talk to that are actually executives disguising as entrepreneurs let me give you the answer most real entrepreneurs have no idea what the fuck you're talking about like you should have seen what my chemicals were doing when you brought that up like bouncing what are you talking about a real entrepreneur is swimming in the ocean and when you say, well, we're not gonna make it anyway, let's just drown to the bottom, like it's life and death for a real entrepreneur.

50:50You can't do anything else. Yeah, that goes back to knowing who you are. Correct. And by the way, let me say something right now. This is actually a beautiful segue. I need everybody to hear this. If you're listening right now and you think you're an entrepreneur but these last three minutes of this talk are triggering some weird feelings, do you know how awesome it was to be the number seven at Facebook? Do you know how incredible it was to be the number nine at Tesla? Do you know how epic it is to be number 34 at LinkedIn, Microsoft? I mean like. How cool it is to be a podcaster? Correct. Like this concept that like, again, I grew up entrepreneurship wasn't even a word.

51:31Being a businessman was not cool. And then I, ironically, was part of the movement that kind of made this thing cool. but I have been talking for 10 years of like, please, it's only cool if you are that. It's not cool to be a teacher if you're not a teacher. It's not cool to be, you know, fuck, it's not cool to be anything if you're not actually, you know? Yeah. That is a good ending. And I have a few questions that are fire - Rapid. Like, yeah, 15 seconds. What are your top three favorite AI tools that you use daily? GBT, Claude, and honestly, the Mangus is really, like, is really, yeah, Meta's, like, I'm, I'm like just a couple weeks going in, but it's.

52:19Do you use it for Instagram? Yeah. Yeah, because I feel like they have access to all the data. Correct. They can do better analytics than anyone. Correct. Okay, that's a good one to work on. What's your favorite prompt? My favorite prompt is me intuitively feeling something that's happening in culture. I'll give you one right now. Does the baggy pants movement for men have another domino to fall? That's a very advanced prompt. So you know exactly what's happening and you're trying to predict what's next. Correct. Almost everything I'm doing is that. For me, for what I like to do professionally and personally.

53:02Okay, college degrees in 2026, yes or no? For 50 % of the people that are listening right now, yes. They need that degree to do the profession legally, in medicine. For the most creative and entrepreneurial people, yes, if mommy and daddy paid for it, because 18 to 22, as a full-pledge vacation, to hang out with other 18 to 22 year olds is a lot of fun. It is. And you will work your whole life. No for 18 to 22 year olds that are taking on substantial debt who are creative and entrepreneurial. Makes sense. One industry to stay away from. None. Everything's in place. I mean, look. Betting your whole life to be an admin who doesn't think.

53:58An admin that's a mason, not an admin that's architect, bad. Admin that's architect, huge. I'm gonna hire people that have the power of 13 admins for me and she or he is gonna sit at the top of that and I'm gonna pay that person a fucking fortune to make my life effective. Yeah, and the last one. What's the most misunderstood thing about AI right now? The counter to whatever anybody's thinking. so for the people that are delusionally thinking this is the greatest thing ever the counter of the negatives that are gonna happen and for the people that think everyone's fucked and China and perplexity and Anthropoc and America and Russia there's gonna be nine countries and nine companies and everybody else is fucked are out of their fucking minds the counter to the extremism of what people think thank you for your positivity and energy you're welcome it's really charging right What you're saying gives energy to create.

54:57Versus like, just lie down. And I think that sits, thank you, and I want to end with this. That doesn't sit in some blind optimism or even the great parenting that I was given. It sits in historics. It is historically true that we were scared of electricity and it wasn't. We were historically true to get off the farms. We did so much more. Humans are great. I know we're told that we're not. but 99.99 % of us are either neutral or great and if I am wrong here's why I'm this way and if I'm wrong I promise you you're not going to worry about your job. If I'm wrong we're all dead anyway. So either I'm right that you should choose practical optimism and there's going to be a million opportunities for you if you go insular and work on you or if unfortunately I'm wrong I'll see you in fun fucking heaven.

55:54Like, you know, you know, like this, I mean, I don't get it. It's not practical to be pessimistic and cynical. It is not practical. Yeah. Love it. Thank you. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this.