20VC: Scaling Wait But Why to 600,000 Subs; Behind the Scenes on The Research Process, How to Learn Entirely New Topics Fast, The Writing Process and Building Good Habits & The Distribution Process and the Business Behind the Blog with Tim Urban

22:43When you talk about metabolism there versus whatever it was that you were talking about, I got no idea. It may be actually interesting past a certain level, but unlike the zeitgeist of AI, crypto, climate change, hot topics of the day, it's almost too intellectually challenging for an audience. Is that ever a question for you? No, because this is my job. So now my job, you know, basically as I read, right? So, you know, again, if I'm really trying to read a book chapter or good blog post, I'll read, you know, five or six books, maybe more. I'll skin through chapters of other books and a bunch of papers and YouTube, or whatever.

23:15It's a lot. And along the way, you come across a perfect metaphor that's a dopamine hit. You know, and I'm either going to use that metaphor and credit the person, or it stokes a metaphor that made me realize I have a better metaphor for this that I'm going to use. But I will note all these dopamine hit moments. I'm like, oh, that clicked, right? That's important. And at the end, basically my job is to, the origin of life is officially interesting, right? And now the question is, how deep do you go? So if you're like, you don't go deep enough. Now most educated people like, you're not teaching them something too new.

23:45You know, if you're just saying that there was a molecule that had the property of self -replication and that started happening, and sometimes it would replicate incorrectly, and then that was variation. And before you know it, there's like Darwinian evolution and that leads to all of the animals we see today. Okay, that's not like deep enough. Like people, I didn't really teach most people anything new there and it's not interesting because it's so broad So then you can go deeper right and it gets more to me gets more and more interesting And I know this because I use myself as the focus groups because I know what I just got dopamine hits from and I was like Oh, that is so cool, right?

24:15Okay, perfect because my readers are gonna think that's so cool too And then other things I'm like deep in this chapter and I'm like this is so boring It's like so specific now, you know, I'm getting to like the really really deep so I'm using the origin of life But AI is like this. You can go, I can explain chat GPT. Again, if you explain it the really broad way, you'd say something like, this is a large language model, which allows you to ask questions and you use it the whole internet as data to answer them. Okay, not saying anything new there. I can go deeper and try to explain how large language models work and how this complex process of choosing the next word, using a brute force of computation, whatever.

24:51And okay, maybe that's more interesting. You can go really deep and start to explain how transformers actually work. and all these jargon and now you get to really boring again, right? And so at any topic you mention, you can keep going, keep going, keep going, till it gets really technical and boring. And so my job is to basically have good taste for what is actually interesting to people like me. Reasonably smart educated people who are very curious, but don't know that much about this topic, but they like to know more. What's that sweet spot of, you know, one of the things and the ways of explaining that they're gonna make them, you know, if I had dopamine hit every hour while researching, I want them to have one every minute while reading my post.

25:24Have you ever had it where you think it's interesting you do it but post release it doesn't resonate with audience in the same way that you'll interest resonate it with it Yeah, definitely some of this hard to know what specifically within the post resonated I think I had more granular information on like this paragraph board 90 % of people I'd be like oh shit, and that's surprising to me I thought it was so I don't really know you know It's like I know how well the post in general did I think what would surprise me is which parts were most interesting Which post has done the worst that you thought would do while?

25:55It's a good question. In the first year of week, but why? My goal was to go viral most of the post. Then I started doing stuff that I thought would be fun to write about. But early on, it was like, let's get some readers here. And so, the first 10 posts, it was like, maybe this one, the mega viral. This one, mega viral. This one's hilarious. I'm like, nah, it wasn't hilarious. This one's going to be super controversial. I'm like no one cared. You know, there were definitely posts early on like that I thought this one like I wrote a post on something called like the Apple game that my friends and I love.

26:26So Apple has skin, flesh and then a core. So every person is kind of like that where the skin is like the vibe they give off when they first meet them and then the flesh is like who you their friends know they really are and the core is who they really are deep deep deep down. Maybe only their spouse or their best friends know maybe no one beside of them know. And so for each one of these you give a good or bad so someone can be like a good bad good means they have like a they come off really like well they're friendly but then you You get to know them better in their huge asshole, actually. And they like, we'll talk shit about those people that think they're friendly, but deep down, and they're sold, they're like, quite good.

26:54So it's like, they're a good, bad good. So anyway, this game is so fun, my friends, and I was like, this is gonna be like an internet sensation. I wanna publish it, it's gonna go everywhere. It's gonna be like the only thing people are talking about. No, it didn't catch. Meanwhile, then a couple weeks later, I write a post called Why Generation Why Yuppies Are Unhappy, which was the word that was before we called the millennials. It was like, right, before millennials became the topic, the term. But it was basically why millennials are unhappy. And again, it was the same exact feeling. I was like, this is gonna catch fire when I post it.

27:20This is like everyone's gonna, you know, this is gonna, and it totally did like that one God, 14 million people read that in a week. It was like a huge, so I thought that was gonna happen seven times before it actually happened. I think those are the hardest ones when you're like trying to go viral. That's like very hard to predict and you kind of get some luck. I think if I find it really interesting, there's at least a certain critical mass of my own readers that will usually agree with that. I constantly struggle with the element of something does well, and so I do more of it, versus doing it for myself and my own interest.

27:48I almost don't want to be swayed by the data, and I just want to focus on high -quality output. I find sometimes the best shows performing wise, because they feature, I'm not saying Elon Musk haven't had them on the show, but because you feature Neuralink or Elon, and it's a well -known name and brand association, or it's AI, or it's crypto, or whatever that is, versus what actually is natural and interesting. How do you think about that juxtaposition between the interest and the chasing viral? It's not that I don't chase viral anymore. For example, crypto would have been a perfect post. I know it would have been viral.

28:21It was right at the heat when everyone was talking about crypto. And I got a lot of requests to write about it. And I just know people just were dying to learn about it. I could have like dug in for two weeks, write everything, talked to a bunch of people, written like the full of clip crypto explainer. But I just didn't want to. And I think early on, if I knew that I had almost a guarantee million people in the first few days viral post, I would have done it. It was just that it was like, take that. I was amazing. People are going to... But I built up a readership now where it's like, one viral post doesn't do that much for that readership.

28:53And I kind of already have what I wanted during those early days was a regular sizable readership. So now that I have that, my external motive now is more about the existing readership and putting out something that they love. Like that's, that's great. Like if I think like my actual reader is well like, love this, then that's very exciting versus like, this is gonna like go viral and a ton of new people are gonna like learn about what I'm like, that doesn't, that doesn't do it as much for me. We mentioned the incredible research that you do, how you bring it all together. Now we need to get to the writing phase.

29:25What does the writing process look like for you? Literally like, where do you do it? How long does it take? How do you do it? Does it differ by article? Can you take me to that? Yeah, well, man. I mean, so blog posts is one way, right? It's like, I would have done all my research. I learned this shit out of the topic, right? Built the framework in my head for how I want to explain this psychological thing, and I've toiled over the outline and I know what I need to know, and I have this plan and now I'll go right. I can usually pound out. I can have some pretty big days there. If I have a deadline I've imposed on myself and I say, this post is gonna be up Friday, then I can like, probably write two or three thousand words a day, Thursday and Friday and get it up.

30:04My first real book that I just published in February, I tried to basically do it that way, to plan and research everything and then write, and that was just not okay, that's not how you do it. So it's just too big a book. You have to kind of read and research and outline and write all kind of intermingled as you go, at least. So I think blog post is a small enough thing that I think I can just kind of like get into a multi -day flow when you're just like my wife calls it like dead on the inside mode, that like she was in during law school finals, when it's just like you're in a certain zone where it's like someone like you know you haven't eaten anything and you just like abs and mind you like a granola bar and you're eating it while still typing and like there's no inclination to procrastinate or do anything fun because you're just like on a mission and you're probably usually for me because I'm I'm panic because I'm like I need to finish this thing.

30:46So that's a not a pleasant zone to be in but that's on a lot of weight but I've post have been written in that zone. A book you can't be in that zone for four months straight or however long it takes six months to actually type the words. So for this book I'm working on now I'm on on a pretty strict regimen of I have to do 800 words, new words a weekday. And if I get behind one day, because I'm doing extra research, then I have to catch up later that week. You have a high -five for Rites' blog. Yeah, I mean, I call it like a snag. I think fiction writers must really have like, a certain kind of writer's block when they just don't feel like they feel very like untalented, you know?

31:18And it's like, you feel like I used to do this. I don't know how anyone does this. I'm not going to do this. So I feel that sometimes for sure. But mine's a version of it like maybe a more nonfiction version where I'll just hit a snag where I don't like the structure here or something, or I don't know how to do this next, the structure of this next section, or I don't really understand the topic in this next part. Well, enough, and I have to go read, but I don't even know where to start. And you'll want to do anything other than this project, just hugely procrastinating inclination in that moment.

31:43So I have a huge moments of despair. And in those moments, and this is, I think, a lot of anyone doing creative projects, you just feel very, like, untalented at what you're doing. You feel like you're like, I don't know why anyone thinks I'm good at this. Like, I don't know how to do this. And that's like a very common feeling. And I definitely, definitely get there. What do you do when you hit the snag? Well, I think if I don't have the right external pressure on me, I procrastinate. It'll just destroy my productivity for weeks on end. While I just each day avoid getting into it and get into it and I'll research instead of trying to write, then I'll try to re -outline the whole thing and then I'll think that's a good thing in the next day I wake up and I hate the new outline and it's just unpleasant.

32:21I say two things on content and winning a content. One consistency is everything. You'll read a haste to know or you'll consume a haste to know when the next thing is coming. It needs to be a habit in the consumption. Do you agree with the importance of consistency? I think it's very important when you're getting started. It's critical. I think early on, I started with a new post every Monday and Thursday and then I changed it to every Tuesday. For the first year, while I built up my readership, sometimes it was Wednesday, even Thursday, but it was a new post every week. That was, I think, very important for the first year.

32:50And at that point I had a big email list and a big email list makes it less important to have consistency I still think it's better than not. It's not ideal the way I do things But I'm very inconsistent now. I'll disappear for a while and then I come out with something big and that'll disappear for a while The big email list and social platforms they make it less important because I can ping the email list is what it's done So it's like then they all come who to read it that as opposed to if the only way people are seeing yourself as if they think to come to your site to check if There's something new you've got to be consistent if that's the main thing going on Agreed.

33:19The nice thing I say is that she volume is everything to stay. It is purely a game of output. You need YouTube shorts, you need Instagram reels, you need TikToks, you need podcast apps, you need blog posts, you need Twitter threads, you need to be everywhere because attention is currency, and it is a game of volume and quantity to stay more than anything actually. I think you'll disagree but I'm intrigued to hear your thoughts. The way I view it is, where can this just without any work also create stuff on other platforms? So if I did drawings, which of those drawings are good standalone Instagram posts?

33:53Or tweets? Which ideas, as I did it, from the researcher from the post itself, like our good tweets or whatever? If and when I have a video podcast, okay, let's make clips for Instagram Reels and for TikTok. It's a very good bang for your buck too, basically photocopy parts of what you've already done onto these other platforms. I don't think that a new creator needs to be worrying about, oh, I only doing like writing and drawing right now, I need to also be doing TikTok. So we need to start doing video to make sure we have stuff on TikTok. I think they should focus on doing an A -triple plus.

34:25And then that one thing, spreading it on as many social places that make sense for that particular thing. And just focusing on that, that's what I think. I think someone who's crushing it on TikTok doesn't also need to have a big Twitter. I don't think they need that. The one argument to have something going on in every platform is platforms change and you don't want to have it's like diversifying your attention portfolio. You want a de -risk and not say, oh well, you know, if everything's in Facebook and Facebook comes unpopular, you just lost everything. So you want to diversify. I always say also whatever time you spend creating content, you should spend the same time or more distributing.

34:58How do you approach content distribution today? You press publish? What then? Honestly, we're not, we could be doing better at this. Like, right now if it's a blog post, I'll publish something and then I'll probably like, I'll pull out into a folder a bunch of things for Did this is a bunch of good Instagram posts that can come out of this post? Here's a bunch of tweets and you at least you might post it published them over the next couple weeks For the book that I publish like we can pull out a bunch of social content that can be done for the book But basically our day one we have a very specific regiment which is publish then basically put out a tweet Facebook Instagram and send it to the big email list Email list is the biggest thing for us So send it there, Patreon, be sure to let patrons know the night before, right when it comes out, be a little before everyone else.

35:39And that's about it, you know, and then after that, like extract some social media posts from this post for the next couple of weeks, I think other people probably are better than we are at this. But like I do a very basic 2015 technology job at this. I'm sure some people are very more sophisticated than I am. We have seven full -time and dual form video. Yes, well, I should be asking you the questions of the other way around. It's great as so much opportunity. Look how big you are without S. Do you enjoy being a brand yourself? I'm not sure I'm a brand, but as far as having people know me for the stuff I'm doing is totally great and gratifying.

36:14Specifically because the stuff I'm doing feels very true to me. It feels high quality and it feels like the real thing I should be doing. I think that I've enough experience this. Whether you're known publicly or just amongst people in the industry or whatever, for something that feels like this is what I'm doing now, but I really wanna do this. And I should be doing this, and I'm just doing this now because that's a bad feeling. It's like a little soul crushing doing your stuff. And that's why I think it's really important if you are gonna especially do like kind of create creative stuff. Do the stuff that like is the ideal thing for you to be known for, not just the thing that can get attention, quickest, because you can end up in a bad place.

36:49House to Carso has your growth in subscribe as being. People often think that it's like, I did this interview and it went bang and then it went flat and then I did this interview and it went bang and it's not true really actually there was no like bang moment it just gradually compounded over time was it was quite kind of staccato up flat up flat or was it much more linear okay so it's not exactly like the extreme is like it's right angles it's like straight up flat straight up flat right and then versus the other extreme is a perfect diagonal I would say I'm in the middle where it's like a steeper diagonal after a big post or or sometimes it's a tweet, you know, sometimes I'll put out a tweet that happens to go super viral.

37:27A bunch of new Twitter followers come in and then like the blog traffic spikes. And then most of those people will come and then forget about you, even if they like what they see. But the people that happen to love it, they'll stay. It's like a spike and then the dust settles like the base number's a little higher. So there'll be those steeper moments, but then it's never totally flat, specifically because of the nature of weep, but why is, like you meant it, certain posts that are evergreen, they're kind of out there being salesman all the time. So like there's always some traffic on the really popular posts even years after they're written.

38:00So when you put workout like that, it's always going to be building your audience. You're obviously going to be kind of building on its own, where people are, you know, someone retweets your tweet, you know, even though you wrote a bunch a long time ago, that tweet now just got you some few new followers. So I think it's more like steeper diagonal, like shallow diagonal, steeper diagonal, more shallow diagonal. Tim, what do you know now that you wish it known when you started? There's a lot in terms of all growth that I wish it known. What do you know now that you wish it known? I've gotten much better at managing my own issues.

38:31I wish I'd taken my own issues dead seriously from the beginning and been like, the first year or two. There was such excitement and such pressure to be consistent that that wasn't an external deadline. But when there's less of that, like I just described, I would go and hit a snag and and it's like three weeks. Now, I feel like I've gotten way better at managing my own situation. So if I have to do a certain amount per day, or else I have to pay my friends a whole lot of money, and they can see the Google Docs, so like it's no way to hide. The snack just doesn't last that long. You just push through it, you force through it.

39:03So I've learned a lot of mechanisms like that that are helping me be like a lot more productive and a lot less miserable during this process. What are the mechanisms worth for you? I love the pain. I do one more slide. like if I have a protein bar which I became addicted to, I will give $10 ,000 to a cools which I read this like. So there's two things baked into the 800 words a day. Thing I have going right now for this book. One is that yes, there's external pressure so you have to do it and then you can't hide and that feels like a school deadline. It doesn't feel good. It's specifically that negative feeling and it's negative because you can't escape.

39:36You have to do it so it's just like misery because I have to do this. And then you do it and then you feel so much better that you did it as opposed to that not as miserable, but you're in a light, simmering misery that lasts for weeks, because this is dread of this thing you have to do versus it gets much higher because you have to do it now, but then you do it. There's that aspect like the external pressure, but the fact that I'm saying 800 words a day, not like 1500 words, which I think old people would have said 1500 words a day, because I've done 1500 words a lot of times on a day, but that's a good day, and you can't expect a good day, so it's like what's like a four out of 10 day?

40:07Just to make sure you have at least a four out of 10 day every day, and that compiles. Why are 4 out of 10 days? You know, like, I'm always terrified of mediocries. Probably my biggest thing. Well, when I say 4 out of 10, I don't mean like the writing is a 4 out of 10. I'm saying that I just get a good hour, hour and a half of writing it. Which, you know, if I look at all the days I've written in the past, there are a lot of days better than that, where I've really gotten into a 3 or 4 hour flow and written 2 or 3 ,000 words. That's an 8 or 9 out of 10 days, as far as pure productivity. But there's a ton of zeros in there.

40:38A miserable zeroes, tons and tons of zeros, and so instead of having a bunch of zeros and then some huge days, let's try something different and let's try to have at least a mediocre productivity day every day because that compiles in, you know, eight months you finished a book. How do you deal with and handle the critics? The shit feed back, the ones that say you're an idiot and you're a moron and we hate you. As a blogger, I think first of all, some people just shouldn't do this. If you're going to be really upset by that, it's going to ruin your day. You know, there are some people who they can read 100 positive comments and then one negative one in their day is rude, right?

41:11And that's I think a lot of creative people are like that and they persist anyway, but it can be really discouraging if that's how you feel. And so the way I handle it mostly is I just remind myself of the big picture. So sometimes they will be, let's say, 500 ,000 people read a blog post and, you know, you can look at like how many shares and likes there are and there are like 80 ,000 or something like that. And then there are 300 comments, and 40 of those comments are really nasty and negative. 500 ,000 people read this. 80 ,000 people liked or shared it. 300. So this is a very small, non -representative sample of the big group, it's the kind of people who comment.

41:50300. And most of those, 85 % of those were positive or neutral. And so we're talking about 40. And so then I would think like if there are a stadium, a full of 80 ,000 people who shared it and liked it, Picture 40 people, you know, in that stadium that are like, it is sucks. Suddenly, it melts the rolls off your back because you're like, Hey, it's inevitable. Like, if you write something that has that about politics, it has a lot of attention. And it's not that, by the way, it's not that I think that only 40 people didn't like it. A lot of the 500 ,000 people who didn't like it aren't going to comment.

42:17So it's not that I'm like, everyone loved this. No, it's like, yeah, some people didn't like it, but it's inevitable. If you're doing something that has a strong point of view, especially on something controversial, you're going to piss people off. I think you can do these kind of thoughtless spirits. This is A, inevitable, B, if you look at the whole big number, it's a small minority. See, that person who was saying something nasty, there's a good chance they barely follow you. A lot of times these people aren't even fans of yours. They just came across it. And maybe that's their 12th negative comment to the day on a blog.

42:43Because they're in just the kind of person they're just going from blog to blog. So these kind of rational thoughts can just make the emotion simmer to being like, and almost like you kind of laugh and just move on. And it truly doesn't bother you if you can get there. Final one before we discuss one piece in particular and then we'll do a quick fight. What PC most proud of? I'm proud of some of those long explainers like SpaceX posts. I think was like there was a big story to tell there and I think I after a lot of like thinking and toiling like came up with a very good way to tell that story and I think I told it well so I'm very proud of like that.

43:13I know people that post like inspired some young people to go work at SpaceX and work in that industry and so I'm very happy about that. Which piece do you receive the most pushback on the most critic? Oh without question the stuff on this this last book I wrote and the series before, just anything to do with American politics. There is not any single thing you could write about American politics that some people won't hate in America. Hate. So without question, just waiting into the world of politics and political tribalism, again, I think a lot of people like those things, I think it clicked well with most of my audience, but there's a lot of, I'm so disappointed, this coming from you, I used to respect you as a lot of that.

43:47And, and you know, that's okay. I'm sad, I'm like, I wish all the readers liked it, but like, it's inevitable, and you don't write about politics if you can't handle some of that. And my mother always told me you never talk about politics or religion at dinner parties. Yeah, which is basically what I just did at a very public dinner party, so. Very, very interesting choice. I do have to ask about the AI article before we do a quick fight. As I said, I studied a year ago to hopefully get a job in venture at word. Well, for me, when you look back on the piece, it was 2015, so much has changed eight years on.

44:15What do you think you got right with the piece? I'm sure you've reflected on it a lot, especially recently. I think that the general principles are pretty much correct. The concepts that there's narrow intelligence and general intelligence and artificial super intelligence and that the implications of the danger of these things are intense and that AI is probably going to be dangerous not because it's going to be evil terminator robots, but because it's going to be super powerful with unintended consequences. I think, oh, that holds up pretty well. And to be clear, very little of that was my own research or principles.

44:49I had a few major sources there. I had Nick Bostrom, Rick Kurzweil, and James Barat. Basically, I synthesized what they were saying, and I tried to distinguish which camps we were rich, which is, again, part of my job is not necessarily to do the deep, deep research and actually come up with the original theories, but to try to summarize what the experts are saying and try to give a bird's eye view of what they're all saying, you know, and where's their agreement and disagreement? What's the best case scenario or worse? So I think it did its job. I'm proud of that piece. I think it holds up pretty well.

45:16Obviously, it's eight years later. So in a world that's of a technology that's changing so quickly, it's a snapshot of what we knew and thought in 2015. Is there anything you think you got wrong in the piece knowing what you know now? Is there anything you would do differently? I could have probably run it by a few real pros. I've heard some quibbles with some of like the technical specs I put in knowing what I know now. I could also just explain a lot more stuff. Well, you know, I understand it better, but I think I'll give myself a pass on most of that. I think 2015 it was about the best I could have done then with the information that I had then with a time crunch.

45:49I was running the other day listening to you on this week in startups with Jason, who we both like very much. You said of its ability and this is AI's ability to shape civilization to its core. As you've sort about it over the last eight years and now seeing it come into fruition more than ever, how do you think about the most dominant ways AI can shape civilization to its core? I mean civilization is just a bunch of people with a certain shared instead of understanding of the world and certain set of norms and processes and systems and institutions that we all share. Trusted, those are the support beams of the house for it.

46:26And AI is a giant seismic asteroid landing in a fairly fragile set of equilibria, and it can very quickly, what if we don't trust a video anymore? Every video might have been AI, it might be real people. No one knows, you know, you're listening to, you're seeing a tweet, you're listening to a podcast or a talking head on Zoom on a TV interview and you have no idea if that's a real person or not. I mean, there's a lot of assumptions that we all take for granted that create a lot of stability. I think about this a lot actually and I think actually, like, so number one verification as a layer becomes one of the most valuable but I think value accrues to existing media brands because verification becomes more and more challenging and so the authentic followership that we have becomes more valuable because it becomes more and more difficult to gain new authentic followership.

47:14Does that make sense? Yeah, I think, you know, trusted, that's what's, you know, part of what concerned me about, like so much of the media getting swallowed up by partisanship is like, we really need well -known media brands or personalities or science institutions that we all can say, well, they're saying it, it's probably true. That creates a shared reality. And I think that we already see, of course, the fractured of the shared reality, because of tribal narrowcast media, you know, each telling their own story and social media, creating bubbles of reality, and I think AI can just accelerate these trends, just the ability to spread misinformation, and to have multiple different sources of misinformation, AI can create mass panic with a certain kind of fictional news story, and that itself can then cause actual disastrous problems.

47:57Or someone with their AI can figure out how to shut down the power grid. I mean, there's just a lot of, you don't realize how much, you know, if the power grid goes down, we lose the internet, we lose all of our major pump functions, and every and just total chaos. You know, it's like, its civilization seems like it's all robust and works fine because like the power is always on reliably. The water is always coming out of the faucet. It's like, you just disrupt certain little keynotes here and there. You can shake these things that we all just think are automatic. So we should always like appreciate that it is, even though it's robust, what with the civilization we live in, it's also fragile.

48:29And something really is some major new source of power and intelligence just appearing on the scene. can absolutely like shake some of those fragile aspects. I've been prepping for a show with Vinnie Kostler, and he's spoken before about his concern around strong AI moving into the hands of the Chinese and de -globalisation becoming more and more prevalent with these very segmented silos of the world. Do you share his concern around segmentation of the world, de -globalisation and the ability for the Chinese to have such a strong hold on strong AI. Yeah, I mean, as an American who's used to feeling like America is the most powerful country in most ways.

49:10So you get really spoiled by that where you just kind of think we're safe because we have better technology and we have bigger economy and a bigger military and no one has the right to feel that way. No other country could like come in here and really do damage here because we were America. I think all Americans should, if they're used to that, they should stop getting used to that and think like, you know, it's maybe not going to be so stable and simple as it has been. But as far as like the bigger picture on like the effect of technology and geopolitics, I haven't done enough deep dive to really have a strong opinion in there that I'm not basically just regurgitating from some smart friend of mine.

49:42Well, you'd be a true VC if you were able to. Yeah. Yeah. And then I would tell you your funds should be raised today. I'd go on, on a one for a quick one. It's just given the breadth of your research and work and looking ahead, are you optimistic about the future for human civilization or does climate change levels of of that, dangers of AI overcome that optimism. Yeah, it's interesting. When it comes to stuff like climate change, those problems, I feel optimistic about because I'm like, AI, if things go well, I think we're gonna have so many answers in the near future. I think we're gonna solve so many problems that seem really hard to us for right now.

50:18You know, these problems won't be a match for 2050s humanity. I'm incredibly optimistic about what could happen with health and human lifespan and, you know, biotech and things like that. So things that had stressed me out, like the problems we currently have, I feel very optimistic about. The problem is that the same thing that makes me feel optimistic about those, which is AI, also makes me wonder whether the negatives of that thing are going to completely overwhelm the positives. If you don't have a stable society, none of this matters. Think of it this way. It's like there is a spaceship coming towards us with super intelligent aliens on it, and we're pretty sure that they will know how to solve all of our problems.

50:54We also don't know what their deal is going to be, whether they're going to want to hurt us, or whether they're going to not care about us, either way and they're going to just start building stuff and destroying our cities and without any concern for us either way. So what I feel optimistic, it's like on one hand, yeah, the problems we have on the aliens are gonna have answers, that's incredible. We've never had answers to any of these things. On the other hand, I'm like, the aliens are coming and that's pretty like terrifying. So yeah, the rational person to me would be like, no, I feel more pessimistic than optimistic, but I also am just kind of an optimistic person.

51:23I think a lot of times what comes with these answers come down to is, do you tend to be optimistic or pessimistic? And if you do, one you tend to be that here. So deep down, I still kind of feel like if I went into time machine and got out in 2080, I'd be entering an amazing world, not at a horrible dystopia. Listen, I want to move into a quick fire around my friend. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay? Let's do it. Okay, so what piece of content has been most transformative to your thinking in general? Wow. Now I always like to cite like the fountain head as a book that crystallized a really important concept in my head.

51:54It's about reasoning from first principles versus is reasoning by analogy. I think it's a great book and people should read it. And then like, I've had my whole world view clarified and sharpened by listening to great history podcasts over the last few years. Dan Carlin's hardcore history, strides, history of English, fall of civilizations. You know, so there's, I love history podcasts. And I've been like, I feel like I've learned a ton from those and just feel like everything's a little clearer after having listened through to hundreds of hours of good history podcasts. What's your biggest regret?

52:23First thing they've helped to mind is like all of my recent stock decisions if you could combine those all into one giant regret Just like the last three years of like any kind of investment decisions I was like let's do a huge huge investment right at the peak in 2021 before everything crashed I sold Tesla at like when it was at 700 before split so it was like one eighth or tenth of what it is now I made a couple good ones along the way, but it's like just just soul crushing What have you changed your mind on in the last 12 months? But AI, I had 12 months ago, I had any inkling that AI might steal my job within like two years.

52:59I would have guessed like 20 and that's one of a hundred different things that I've been shocked about with AI in the last few months, like everyone else. Do you change how you do what you do with that realization? Not really. It just makes me want to diversify a little bit. I was already going to start a podcast, but it makes me want to do that sooner. Because it's like, let's not have articles be the only thing. I'm going to do my thing and when that comes and changes things, I'll adapt then and and I'll figure out ways to do things in a new way if I have to. Will Elon Musk be successful with Twitter?

53:28You put me in a time machine five years from now? My gut is I come out and it yes, the answer is yes. Just because this guy does things well, and something that takes so while, right? And it's gonna be a lot of experimentation. It's gonna be a lot of failure along this experimentation way because that's how a real experimenter does things. They're fast and dirty and they make a bunch of decisions that they're like, oh, that was. So I think it's gonna be a rocky road, but I think it ends up in a place where we're like, oh wow, this actually now, it's like suddenly we realize like this app is better than any of these others and you know and it'll happen eventually You can choose a dinner party guest anyone that are alive Who would it be if there's no translator like Richard Feynman and if there is a translator or someone weird like Genghis Khan Just because like what the hell is he going on in his head like if we if I could just talk to him and be like tell me How you think about the world that would be cool I got asked one of penultimate one on the whole day the other day by a friend and they said, what questions do you least want to be asked when being asked questions?

54:23Probably at this moment, like, what are your thoughts on, like, you just did one of these, but it was more about Twitter. What do you think I'm like Elon? And it's like, I don't wanna dive into a world of very annoying arguments. When I just, I zoom out and I'm like, this guy is doing awesome shit. And so I'm sick of that question. I get it all the time, because I wrote a lot about him. So what a shit question. I mean, he would ask that, right? You're supposed to be different, because it was about Twitter. I don't mind that question. I just tweeted that X will be the most successful rebranding for the last five years.

54:52My Twitter is now like, this guy is the epitome of a moron. Yeah, it's one of the stupidest worlds to wait into right now. I've seen so many of those. Like, this guy is my joke of the day. And I'm just like, yeah, give it five years. And I think those people will look stupid. Final one. Tim, next five years for you, we sit down in 2028. Why do you want to be then? I would like to be doing what I'm doing now and delging my curiosities and making cool things for readers Except I'd like to be doing it maybe on a bunch of different platforms videos, some audio, some TV maybe some more books So I don't know I want to keep experimenting I hope I'll discover a couple new mediums that really work for me because I don't want to just get lazy and just stick with the one kind of thing that I Be started with so yeah, I hope I'm doing the same thing but on a lot more a lot more ways Listen, I've been such a fan of your work for such a long time having the chance to do this with you's immensely special for me.

55:46So thank you so much for being so open and for joining me stay Tim. Of course, any time, thank you. I mean, I just absolutely loved doing that. If you want to see more from us behind the scenes, of course you can watch the full video on YouTube by searching for 20VC. We always love to see you there. But before we leave you today, this episode is brought to you by Tegas, the GoTo Research Destination for Bold Investing. Tegas curates expert insights analysis and financial data to give you powerful perspective for your investment decisions, with lining fast access to over 60 ,000 transcripts across 20 ,000 companies.

56:21You'll discover a wealth of unique insights to fuel your fundamental research, gain perspectives, synthesise information and even model outcomes all on Tegas. As a 20 minute VC listener, try for free at tegas .com forward slash growth and spare you tools we can't live without like Tegas there. May for a helps companies protecting grow their cash automatically. I access up to $50 million of FDIC insurance and earn up to 4 .72 % interest on your deposits from a single account. After the failure of SVB and First Republic, it's clearly that the standard FDIC limited $250 ,000 is simply not enough for VC bad startups.

56:59So if a founder's that means finding a safe home for cash is now a priority and a major burden, well may fair can take care of that few in under 10 minutes, to his partner banks and suite providers Mayfair automatically spreads customer deposits across a network of over 200 banks, therefore multiplying the level of FDIC insurance coverage and limiting the risk of any single point of failure. Think for it like a high yield savings account, did it actually pay the high yield and it's actually safe? Go to getmayfair .com for what's slash 20VC to get started today. And finally, Secure Frame is the leading all -in -one platform for automated security and privacy compliance.

57:36secure for him simplifies and streamlines the process of getting and staying compliant to the most rigorous global privacy and security standards like SOC 2, KIPO, GDPR and many more. Secure for him's industry leading compliance automation platform, paired with their in -house compliance experts and former auditors, helps you get audit ready in weeks, not months, so you can close more deals faster and secure for him uses over 150 integrations, so you have built in security training, Vender and risk management and more to make compliance uncomplicated. Secure for your Mace it fast and easy to achieve and maintain compliance so you can focus on serving your customers, automate your security and privacy compliance with Secure Frame and you can schedule a demo today at SecureFram .com.

58:21As always I so appreciate all your support and we bring you an incredible episode this coming Wednesday with Brian Balfour at ReForge.