E49: Arthur Breitman: AI, Tezos, Music, Maths and Biohacking

28:23And you can say, well, why wouldn't you be happy? You're fine, there's someone else who has exactly the same goals as you. And so those goals are going to be carried out. And so you should be fine. And like, no, because I don't just want these external goals to be reached or this external state of the world to be reached. I actually want to experience it. So it's neither pure experience, not pure external goals. And fundamentally it means we can't get what we want. And, you know, it's just like creates a bunch of paradoxes that we don't have either of those things and so we fundamentally cannot be satisfied.

28:54So once you understood that it's a bunch of paradoxes, how did you navigate that or change a few things? Or you just accepted that? Or you said, oh, this is how I'm going to kind of change my life to make it more kind of meaningful and eventually become happier? Not purely. But the thing is like I don't necessarily think we also want to become happier. And, you know, just like... Why? Because it's just like one aspect, you know, being happy is just one aspect of life. There's other things. What are the others? And also like, it's not just about being, not being happier. It's like you don't want to, you know, you don't necessarily want to change what makes you happy.

29:35Like, you know, if I offered you tomorrow, take a pill and then I would say everything will make you happy. You probably wouldn't, you might not necessarily want that because you care about other things. So you want to be, you're not just looking to be happy. again you're not just looking for the inner reward you want to be happy because it's a reflection on desirable properties of the world that you're looking for so it's tough like I did you know if I could I would try to like modify myself as little as possible but to nudge myself in the direction of like caring more about the state of the world than my experience of it but it's tough because you think that your impact on the state of the world is eventually what's going to make you happier than kind of like focusing on yourself, right?

30:26I mean, people in general. I think if you care about the state of the world, then your experience of it, it's a lot easier to cope with mortality, for example, because you can create systems, institutions, or whatever that can carry out its goals, as opposed to like fundamentally having to experience them. But then again, I'm doing the piano and that's the opposite of that. The whole point is like, no, I'm actually focusing on internal experience. So I don't know. It's very frustrating. I don't think we're capable as a specie of having a coherent answer or satisfactory answer to the question of the meaning of life.

31:08Do you believe that when people say ignorance is bliss? Yeah. Basically, the less you think, the happier you're going to be. Because when you start to think about everything, you know, like you realize actually like it's almost impossible. And like that might just make you less happy. Yeah. Ignorance is bliss, but I don't think everyone is motivated just by bliss. So let's get back to New York. Yeah. Finance. Yeah. First job in finance. Yeah. What did you do? Actually, no, my first job in New York, I was going to, I did my master's in financial math in New York. And during the day, I was working for a small startup.

31:45Okay. Doing semantic web. What is that? The idea of the semantic web was that you would annotate different parts of the web, web pages with micro formats. So things like RSS or RDF. So let's say you have a shopping website. You would have like little structured information about each item. and it would make it easier after that for large search engines or other applications to go through this page and have something that was machine readable. And it turns out that after, you know, 13, sorry, 25, so after 20 years, it was actually easier to solve artificial intelligence than it was to get anyone to put structured data on their website.

32:27Like we now have completely solved natural language understanding and we can generate those microformats using AI. That was easier than convincing people to adopt the semantic web, which is crazy to think about. So I did that, but quickly then I started working as an intern for Newman Brothers at first and then a few hedge funds. What did you do there? Statistical arbitrage was the main thing I got into. What is that concretely in the world of finance, statistical arbitrage? Yeah, so the idea of statistical arbitrage is when you find statistical patterns of price discrepancies, where the signal is strong enough that you know that they're going to recur.

33:08They don't recur for sure, but statistically they should happen. And then you put on trades in public markets which basically let you profit from these statistical discrepancies. This is all made automatically? This is all made automatically, yeah. So this is the high-frequency trading? Not necessarily. So some startup is low-frequency. Some people will do startup and like rotate their position every quarter. You know, like you could notice statistically that say, oh, wow, stocks with low PE and low PEG and like you could do different indicators tend to overperform other stocks. And then every quarter you build a long short portfolio of that.

33:52So that's one model of startup. That's probably the lowest frequency type of startup. And then you have a startup also that takes place on like a day-long type of horizon, minute-long, or even sometimes, you know, like second or microsecond long. So how long do you do that for? Well, I really would say I started in 2006. Actually, I was also working a little bit as an intern. So like internships and such, like starting 2004. My full-time job started in 2007, and I did it until 2016. How affected were you by the great financial crisis? I mean, I just started with the great financial crisis. So I joined a startup hedge fund at the time, who obviously didn't raise as much money as they thought they were going to raise, based on that.

34:38But other than that, I don't think it affected the prospect of this fund. But other than that, I don't think it affected me all that much. So you said until 2016, right? Until 2016? Until 2016, yeah. But you started Tezos before that, 2014. I started working on Tezos in 2014. How did you do the move from traditional finance to crypto? What was your aha moment? Well, I mean, I didn't actually. I moved from traditional finance to robotics. So in 2016, I went to work for Waymo, which was Alphabet's cell driving core division. Actually, it was part of Google X at the time and then became Waymo. So I did this for a year and a half.

35:17But the crypto was a hobby. And it caught up with me because it became huge in 2016, 2017. So you started Tezos in 2014 as a hobby? Yeah. Wow. Okay. So what was the goal? Like why? Why? It was interesting. It was an intellectual challenge. It was an intellectual challenge and people were wrong on the internet. So you put the white paper out there in 2014 just as an intellectual challenge. so there was a position paper and a white paper but generally speaking i think for me it was an opportunity to explore like topics around smart contracts for first take all of that and i figured you know if it were just a hobby maybe i would just like have written blog posts and so on so forth you know i hire a small team and put money into building it but i figured this is uh i looked at it as an option essentially saying like this might be nothing but at the minimum it'll be an interesting calling.

36:17I'll be something interesting that I've done. You know, I don't know where it'll go, but it will be, I will learn something doing this. You started that with your wife, 2014? No, my wife, I mean, she was, she was, she was pregnant from the beginning, but she really, she really joined, I would say, more full time in 2016. Like, that's when she became involved. Is it not super risky to build a business or company with your life partner for the relationship? Yeah, no, it's a risk, definitely. If things go poorly and, you know, things did go poorly. Like we had everything, every problem thrown at us in 2017.

36:56So it's definitely a risk, but there's also like a huge benefit, which is that, you know, I would say, especially if you've known someone for, there's a value of having known someone for a long time, right? Which can happen outside, of course, of a married relationship. Some people start companies with people who've known for 10 years, right? but there's a value of like really knowing the other person very well, knowing that you're compatible and in general like spending a lot of time together. Is there a moment where the business or the project basically put so much strain on your relationship that you almost put the relationship at risk?

37:33No, of course. No, no, no, of course. Of course, it's like it's extremely draining and we went through like the most traumatic version of that possible where we were personally naming like six thousand lawsuits. We had a psychopath in Switzerland trying to bankrupt us. I mean, you know, it was like definitely the most pressure. I would say there's very few, you know, companies and startups that goes through like the type of pressure and plus being slandered and oppressed like for like six months by writers. So it's pretty up there. So you say you start 2014 as a kind of like hobby. 2016, what's the moment where you start to realize I should leave my job to go full into that?

38:18I didn't leave my job until August 2017. Wow. And the Tezos Foundation raised$230 million in July 2017. I liked robotics. So, wow. I really wanted to work on self-learning arts. So, you still had a full-time job when you raised$232 million for Tezos in 2017. But I didn't, it was a Tezos Foundation. So at the time I had my job, loved my job, there was an interest in Tezos. And I was like, well, it would be nice if it launched and had a life of its own and so on and so forth. And so at the time I'm thinking, well, the model that Ethereum used to launch with the Swiss Foundation and so forth is a good model.

39:01Let's see if we can do something like that. And so I go to Switzerland, meet with the same lawyers that had met with Ethereum and they propose a structure with this external foundation and essentially the deal looks like there is money, they launched a network, I'm making a bit of money for myself as well because I'm selling the company and the IP to them but basically it lets the project have a life of its own and I can focus on my interest at the time which is in AI and robotics. Then it become a much larger fundraiser than it was set up uh set of four a much bigger hit and uh and success how did it even happen like i mean there's probably no if i do a comparison to for example music i used to be a dj for five years i was doing some intros for like big dj like avici and like the guy before being famous they knew already he would become famous my manager would tell me oh yeah look we are in march 2010 the guy cost 3.5k euros to come for two hours this summer is gonna be 100k right because everything is pre-programmed in music in every industry was it the same in crypto or is it more kind of like something that kind of a succession of a few things that went really well like so sort of luck that made this one of the biggest ICO ever like how did this even happen um I don't think I don't think it was programmed in any sense.

40:35Although, you know, like I would say through like 2017, I would say we had a sense of like what the outcome would be like shortly before. But, you know, the crypto markets crashed shortly after this anyway. So these things are extremely volatile. I think the timing was a big factor. I think the idea resonated a lot with people. this was a time where CRM was not a lot of stress and they were not a lot of stress in terms of their governance in terms of smart contract security and those are topics which were addressed in the Tesla's paper in 2014 people all of a sudden were like wow this is extremely prescient and that's really interesting and it was a few things so like for example you could contribute to the foundation using Bitcoin from an exchange which is not something that other people would do, other people would just make make their contributions tradable tokens on Ethereum.

41:33So little things like this, I think, made a difference as well. But also I would say people saw the value of the project and bought into the notion of decentralized governance and what it could bring. So basically it was, what are the key problems with Ethereum? Oh, there is this project out there that sort of exists since three years. They seem to solve a bunch of these. Therefore, we should invest in that. And that's basically the kind of spark in the beginning. And what's important to note is, Thales was not created in reaction to Ethereum. It's being created around the same time as Ethereum.

42:11So Ethereum is mentioned, but it's like a very nascent project at the time. So it was not created somehow to fix problems with Ethereum. It was created to fix theoretical problems. That you anticipated. That you anticipated would happen in general. but because it was just like such a fit around the narratives at the time a lot of people to this day think that oh yeah Tezos was created in reaction to Ethereum doing this and that no no no no that was actually like those were like just very good calls early on so kind of like almost accidentally like this happens 2000 so July you say you raised 232 million in Bitcoin ETH USD The Jesus Foundation raises$270 million in Bitcoin and ETH.

42:56Okay. How much of that was sold? Or all kept in Bitcoin and ETH? Because this is basically the perfect timing to raise money in crypto, given how much is going to go up in the next six months. No, actually. This happens in July. So actually, the crypto markets kind of go down quite a bit after that. and then they pick up again in December and go down. They sold some. They kept a lot in Bitcoin. So, you know, as a result, like the treasure of the Tudor Foundation has evolved over the year. Yeah, I think in by maybe September, October, it's around like 1.5 billion or something like that. So it ballooned.

43:39Okay.

43:43So, but this sounds like, this sounds like the basically crypto dream, right? In terms of like, I mean, if you look just from the outside, right? In terms of results. We put out this white paper. Then like there is all this money raised. Then it's always in Bitcoin kind of like at the right time. Okay, there is like maybe the summer it goes down a bit, but then it goes up like crazy into like in the billions. Yeah, yeah. So it sounds from the outside like the crypto dream. And then there's this story that happens with the president of the foundation. Yeah. What's the key learning from that? Don't do business with this guy.

44:16I wish there were like something really deep to learn you know like some deep life experience but like so much of it is just so idiosyncratic and you know like you said a lot of things went right but also a lot of things went wrong and you know it was not just this guy a lot of things had to basically go wrong and align for this to happen right like first of all this guy had to be a psychopath there was one director on the board who was instructed by the lawyers of the foundation. He says, like, you know, you have a legal duty to actually, like, vote to fire this guy. And he still decides to ignore the lawyer and to trust some other lawyers that's been, like, brought by the crazy person.

44:59So, like, we had basically a two out of three failure in the board of the Texas Foundation. It's not one out of three. Two out of three failures. The lawyers also, like, get really, really sheepish around this time in Switzerland because they know they've physically committed malpractice. They were also, you know, they never mentioned it, but there was a lawyers of the crazy guy that they suggested. And they knew he was bankrupt. So there's a lot of like malpractice that happened from him and me at the time. But there's also like, and then, you know, there's lawsuits being filed. And so like it's busy and it's a perfect storm.

45:33Like everyone wants, you know, to have their kind of like ICO story. And so much of it was dirty in a space. And so people just assume it's like, oh, it's probably just as bad. And so let's just like dig on him. And at the same time as well, there had been a lot of transparency. And so there's this massive transparency tax because for like very lazy wire reporters, it's easier to pick up on Tezos because there's more information. So they just go there. And, you know, like after years of like lawyers go in and say like, it's going to be a slam dunk because these things are like, you know, so loose.

46:05And yeah, after like years of trying to soothe it, they don't actually like find anything because the thing is clean but it's uh so we we kind of paid for like a lot of the uh like scandals who were operating in the space how did you personally leave this situation so both at that moment where obviously like you have all this kind of like bad type of attention and also shortly after the market peaks everything goes down and these swings You have just the swings in wealth, net worth, all this. It's complete madness going up like crazy, going down like crazy. And then you have also this kind of aspect.

46:50How do you personally live this? I mean, the price swings were not really affecting me that much. It was more about the constant public slandering was a bigger issue. Because I was thinking of what was happening to me. at that time, you know, there's like the risk of bankruptcy, everyone getting on us and so on and so forth. And I'm thinking at the time, it's like, well, this is really weird and really bad what's happening. But at the same time, you know, like people get diagnosed with cancer every day and getting cancer would be worse than this, clearly. So, you know, isn't that bad what's happening to me?

47:24And what didn't occur to me until years later is like one key difference between what was happening to me and like getting things like a really bad medical diagnosis was a public eye. You know, one of the biggest differences, It's not just like I have these bad things happen to me in private. It was basically like the constant slandering in the press was pretty bad. What did you do concretely with that? Did you pick up meditation or like did – or you just – how did you go through that? Oh. On the mental health side of things? I mean, I guess one step at a time. And, you know, the thing is, it's like it's a very – it was a very exogenous situation.

47:59I think for a short period of time, I think I took some anxiolytics. Okay. How did it help? It helped greatly, but I think it really varies. Some people will get... I think they're quite addictive. Some people can get addicted to them. So I don't want to be a human billboard for anything like that. And they were prescribed by a doctor. But I was lucky enough that at the time, I took them for a short period of time. They were able to help. And then I didn't have a problem not taking them after that. But it may be atypical. I think people can get very addicted to depressants like this. Do you try some therapy?

48:35Have you ever tried? Yeah, over the years, like on and off. Okay, what do you think of it? I think it really depends on the person. For you? I mean, yeah, I guess I'm the only, I can only speak to my experience. But yeah, it's, I would say it's a positive effect, but it's moderately positive. Something else helped better? I don't know, sport, clean food, meditation, maybe, or music? Yeah. Or just time? No, I think time. I mean, usually I've been like, I've tended to be a pretty happy person through my life. So I tend to be pretty resilient to these things. But it was a lot. What happened after that?

49:31so basically 2018 there's a mega bear market yeah how much involved are you in the whole like okay now we're going to bring this tezos thing to the next level are you even able to concentrate on the future of tezos when you're in the middle of this kind of storm nope that's okay that's pretty bad until the end who was so who was focused on the future of tezos when well kind of like the leaders are in the middle of this storm there was an evil like the board of the foundation like went from like evil and actively trying to tank everything to being well-meaning but not very competent like in 2018 and then you know maybe even well-meaning is even nice but at least you know not actively hostile to just kind of passive and so the project was you know like was what it was for for a couple of years.

50:29And I was mostly focused on like trying to trying to basically like recover. I was, you know, doing some, you know, like some speaking, trying to talk to the community, trying to match people with each other, make introductions. And of course, you know, like the losses were quite time consuming. What are you guys focused on now? well personally I'm trying to I'm trying to help the ecosystem in a way that I can so like now a difference from like the past is that I'm on the board of the Foundation. I'm also a director here in London in a company called Trinitech that works on as part of as a member of the ecosystem in helping you know grow the protocol grow adoption so to the extent that I can do that I do a little bit of I do R &D so I worked on some technical ideas for the development of Tezos, basically a bit of representation going to conferences and talking about evangelizing for Tezos and trying to help a little bit different entities in the ecosystem with their recruitment and finding good senior people.

51:43And I would say today the priority is, one, on the Tezos Foundation side, for the Tezos Foundation to be on very sustainable ground. They have a very large treasury, but they've also increased spending a lot in 2021. So it's gradually gone down but it's important to ensure that they are. I would say it's a different market now. There was a time where it was like, hey, if this spending can help with this protocol, it's a good idea because right now there's just like not enough stuff happening and an excess of treasury. Whereas now it's a lot more like budget driven saying like, okay, what's the budget for this year?

52:17How much can be granted into like this type of area, this type of area? and also trying. So, I would say Tesla is very successful as a technical project. It's probably one of the best technology that's out there. But it needs to have more success on the adoption side. It's found like great and very fertile ground of adoption in the art space. Absolutely. Among generative artists, it's been absolutely beautiful. But we need more seeds like this growing in the Tesla ecosystem. them so one of the things that's really interesting is like especially in crypto it's so volatile and crazy being an investor an entrepreneur that obviously is not good for mental health physical health right and people in the space and also entrepreneurs in general who goes through these really intense times of building a company try to think about how can i kind of like optimize my brain or my body to like function better yeah have you done some things like that in sort of biohacking space yeah i've tried to do things over the years uh not much has like much of an effect you know like in terms of like i've never been on i've tried everything you know i've been on carnivore diets keto diets all of the different types of diet i've tried all types of supplements and and all of that the like connectively easy the the main thing that that makes a difference is like one is getting enough sleep.

53:47Yeah. Back to the basics. It's like, you know, people won't do, people will take like, we'll try like weird cognitive enhancers and not get enough sleep. Like this makes a big difference. So it's just like getting enough sleep. And I know that, you know, like I mentioned, like ketogenic diets, carnivore diets. I know that for some people it makes a huge difference. And especially like people who have certain like conditions being like depression, for example, like that can make very big differences to them. But it's not the case for me. Like I don't really get a difference from it. And I remember getting into this like, what, 15 years ago and trying like, oh, maybe, you know, like puracetam and paramaracetam and all this stuff can do something.

54:31And it's just like not, barely does anything. The one thing that I've like, that I've tried that actually has an effect is, you know, like stimulants in general. For example? You know, like amphetamines or modafinil. Okay. Clearly, they have a cognitive effect. What's the cost or the downside of that afterwards? The downside of it, I mean, I have... What's the experience on it? I've tried amphetamines in my life. I've never taken them regularly at any point. I think the downsides are known. I would say they raise your heart rate, they raise your blood pressure when they happen. they can be addictive people crash after using them.

55:15I mean there's clearly a time and place for them. I don't know if you're in the trenches and it's and you have to raid the other side, would you take amphetamines before doing it or not? Of course yes, you'll do it with a crash later right now what matters is this. Same thing if you had a really high stake exam for example. There are circumstances where it all makes sense and please don't do anything without talking to a doctor Modafinil is different it doesn't seem to have as much bodily effect and its effects also vary widely around people, it's not exactly understood how it works it seems to be safe like people have odied on caffeine, people have not odied on modafinil even though people have tried so the safety profile is actually better than caffeine the side effects are better than caffeine the main downside with modafinil is that it has a very long half life and so basically it can make it hard to go to sleep if you're going to be up for I think it's like a half-life of 12 hours or something like that.

56:16So it's not great. And then if your sleep schedule gets screwed up then the result is worse. So the world still awaits for the creation of something like monethanol with a half-life of four or five hours which actually exists. There's an intumere of monethanol which actually does that. It's just not commercialized. But you had access to it? No, no, no. Okay. I mean, it's hard to produce. Like you would have to produce it and stuff. It's not even being produced. So back to the basics. Basically, it's sleep, exercise, diet. I mean, a decent diet. People say that about exercise. I haven't noticed that it makes a difference for me.

56:55But the diet? You said you lost 50 pounds? I did. I lost 50 pounds. How did you do that? And I'm very happy with it, but I don't think it makes a difference in my mental clarity. I'm happier in the mirror. I feel like I have a bit more energy, but it's not like, it's not like, oh my God, I'm getting this mental clarity all of a sudden. But it might make a difference on your life. Yeah, no, it is. It's good. It's a positive difference. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What do you think about the longevity space? You said you spent a lot of time studying that, right? I did. I, you know, I fell into that rabbit hole as well.

57:27There doesn't seem to be all much that can be done in terms of longevity and supplements. Again, you know, with the caveat of like medical, blah, blah, blah. I think some people get benefits from metformin. At least they are. Well, I mean, definitely diabetic people get benefits from metformin. But I mean, people have been taking it for longevity. Like there's maybe some indication that it does something. For a while, I took, what's it called? Resveratrol. That was a big thing in 2010. What is that? Resveratrol. It was this, I don't know, it was this molecule that was supposed to, And if you give it to rats, apparently they'll live longer.

58:03But then there were monkey studies that showed no benefits. The thing is, like, a lot of very short-leaf species, like rats or flies, you can extend their lives pretty well. And then it doesn't translate into longer-leaf species. And it happens very often. And it was a case for resveratrol. Like, it was lots of promise. Like, oh, it makes fasting and all of this. And, like, even calorie restriction, like, for larger organisms doesn't seem to do all that much. so would you go as far as saying that all these kind of longevity experts, I mean a lot of experts online but like it's more of a marketing thing to kind of almost make money out of it rather than an actual proven thing, because the clear example is I'm following a few of these guys about longevity and it's always the same dudes out there talking about that and every year they change their mind because there is new, so they're justified by new information now which is why but it makes it like very hard to kind of believe you know like hey like and also like as you said everybody's different right and if everybody's different especially regarding diet and everything like there's not this one thing you can do everybody can do to extend their life or become healthier everybody's different so everybody should try all that stuff and you know the more you try the more you get lost the more should you not just like look up the basics again like did I sleep enough do I feel good today and instead of going down, because you said you went down to the rabbit hole, but they kind of like came out without concrete answers, right?

59:34Well, I mean, you know, I did come up with an answer. The answer, it was like, there's probably nothing that really works. That was the main answer. Is there another big topic that you went down the rabbit hole and came out saying, there's not really an answer. There's not really anything working. Human morality, I went into a big moral philosophy rabbit hole. Do you want to develop on that? Yeah. So I got interested into, I would say, libertarian political philosophy starting around 2005, 2006, maybe a little earlier than that. And then it got me interested into deontology. And you're looking at something like this.

1:00:25and I was like taking a very natural rights approach to it. And then you think about the ontology and then you say like, well, what is the underpinning of like ethics anyway? And then you'll find different theories and, you know, utilitarian theories, the ontology theories, there's a virtue and all of that. And then you are going to like basically hit see, yeah, is odd problem at some point. It's like, well, you know, you can't really have a positive account for morality. It is what it is, but there's no... The weirdest thing is when people say this is what morality should be. It shouldn't be anything.

1:01:03It is what it is but the notion that it should be something is you can't make a normative judgment about a normative system.

1:01:15My conclusion is that fundamentally morality is a type of preference that we have. we don't experience it the same way as I don't experience my desire to act morally in the same way that I experience my desire to get sugar or other things. But just because I don't experience it the same way doesn't mean that it's not fundamentally a preference. There are preferences partially shaped by evolution. But as a result, I think the main insight is the content of those preferences are wrong. Like people who say like, oh, you know, we have what we have is some intuition of an external system. That's that's that's that's actually the valid one.

1:01:55You can't do that. You need to ground it on something. And the best thing you can ground it on is human intuition. So you end up with some like, I would say, an underwhelming view of ethics because you don't have a grand system to to explain all of it and say, well, this is what you should do in life. no it's just like it's a missed set of human preferences who will vary among humans and will vary a little bit among cultures but broadly speaking they'll tend in the same direction Do you think it's possible to be to act in a very kind of morally correct way in business and be extremely successful?

1:02:33Yeah I think so I think a lot of people have been I think a lot of people have been very successful in business well of being moral actors. I mean, I would say different people with different views on ethics might disagree with that. I think it's, I do think it happens. I do think analytical behavior in business happens, definitely. I think the trope of saying like, oh, I'm not successful because I'm not doing all the analytical stuff that anyone is doing is just scope. Like 99 % of the line is scope as a complete excuse. However, I also think it's, you know, like it's generally not said by people who are like 90 % successful.

1:03:13But I also do things that, yeah, I would say like if you are, so basically you have two possibilities. One is that it's never an advantage to do something, you know, immoral. Like morality is always in your advantage. And if you do something immoral, you're making like a business mistake. And that seems like it would be extremely hard to believe that that would be the case. Right. To believe in karma? No. I mean, not. Because it's linked. like if I do something bad now like karma is going to kind of punish me later in business for example I don't believe in karma but I do believe in the fact that like we have moral preferences because it's of a purpose like evolutionarily for example you have the preference you know like you don't want to betray people you don't want to betray other people and the reason is like because otherwise you'll be tempted you might say like well I won't betray because I know that it's my interest it's in my self-interest to be perceived as a non-betraying person.

1:04:07And as a result, I'm just not going to betray people, not because I don't want to betray them, but because it would hurt my reputation. But in practice, that requires a lot of cognitive overload. And evolutionarily, it's more stable to just have a preference not to betray. Right. And so the question is like when people think that they're being like clever and say like, ah, you know, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to like betray on this deal. Well, they do end up having a bad reputation. And so there's a wisdom that exists in moral rules that can be lost when people break them. It's a whole plot of, what's it called?

1:04:49Crime and punishment, right? I don't want to spoil the book, but it's been out for a while. But if someone, the main character essentially actually like doesn't, says like, look fundamentally, becomes a nihilist and says like, Essek is not grounded in anything, goes out, commits a murder and then realizes like, oh no, I feel bad about this now and I have all this problem. So yeah, I don't think it's, I think it's a case that a lot of people who like will try to behave unethically or like try to get an advantage from behaving unethically are probably fooling themselves and are probably going to hurt themselves.

1:05:26But at the same time, it would be fantastically unlikely that the best possible court of action in the business would be to be always 100 % ethical. So if you take a pic of like the most successful businesses, it would also be unlikely that there was nothing unethical happening. I don't know if that makes sense. It does. Why do you think that crypto attracts unethical people? Oh yeah, absolutely. Why? And obviously I want to The prospects of easy money in general? Because there is the trial of Seinberg Manfred now. So it's basically, I want to come to that because there is this crazy example, especially last year, of what happened, where you would think the dude is in front of the Congress, he's like the god almost, and we're thinking this dude is bringing us towards mass adoption and people understanding us, etc.

1:06:19And then this stuff happened. Yeah, pretty bad person. And this is a typical example of actually, you know like so i don't know to which extent this is sincerity right but the guy at least represented himself as like some bintamist youtube italian and you could still like conceive a story of saying like well i did all these unethical things because i plan on giving the money and saving all these people and so you know i think it makes sense i don't i don't even believe that but even arguendo let's say there was a case he still failed at this uh and it was also he was also bound to fail. This is not a case of him rolling the die.

1:06:54He was going to get caught, just stealing customer deposits. That was not a business he could get out of. There was no way to cash out. The fraud was not sophisticated enough for that. So this is a good example of someone thinking they can get an edge by not acting deontologically and fooling themselves.

1:07:17What would you tell your 19-year-old self if you met him today? we can't do stock tips, right?

1:07:28And, you know, it's like, it's so hard because there's just like, there's just so many things, like so many very small things that can completely transform my life. But if I try to answer the spirit of the question as best I can,

1:07:48like if I'm given like the type of generic advice, I would give someone like a 19-year-old. Take more risk early on in your 20s. Do you think you did so? I didn't take any of risk. Exactly. Take more risk early on in your 20s because your opportunity cost is much lower. Do you think it's easier to say that when you've been really successful?

1:08:14No, because it's something that I also realized I should have done before being successful. could have been and also like i and also like i could have presented a good argument for it even even without success because the whole point is like you know if you let's say you try entrepreneurship like in your early 20s and you try it for like two or four years and it fails you know you've lost like three years of your of compensation as like a junior employee and you've gained like a lot of experience which is relevant anyway so really like your the option value of doing that is very high. What's the moment someone should stop trying?

1:08:48And this is like, this is not, you know, assuming you can afford to do that, which is not necessarily everyone, maybe like, maybe you have responsibilities, like people you need to take care of and so forth. That's not necessarily for everyone. But, you know, if you have the possibility of trying that, it's definitely worth it. When do you stop trying if you're not successful, you know, consistently not successful?

1:09:10I don't know. Because there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there, you know. Entrepreneur? yeah wantrepreneur want or want wantrepreneur well the thing is like don't be a wantrepreneur be a trepreneur or not just don't be a want amazing that was amazing thank you so much man for your time thanks for having me thank you