E99: Solana Millionaire Explains How To Invest Like a Pro and Profit In The Next Crypto Boom

32:58I have to, like the biggest regret that I would have is if I see something doing very well that I didn't do the work to try to understand. And then it turns out that, you know, they like really delivered something that the world wants. I don't think that, you know, missing out on like a meme coin doing really well or, you know, kind of a sector rotation where, you know, all the investors that were interested in layer twos are now interested in AI meets crypto. Like, fine, like, you know, let them do that. That doesn't mean that I need to try to front run them or join that pack. I want to focus on, you know, where I think we have an edge.

33:42Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that, especially for new crypto investors to understand, that's really important to understand is over a cycle, it's probably going to be one, two or three. Having one, two or three good bets that turn out to do really well is enough. You don't need to have 10 or 20. And if you're looking for the 10 or 20, you're probably going to miss everything because you're too spread out. Absolutely. When does the waiting game become too long, even for you? If the thesis is invalidated and you just have to be brutally honest with yourself. Look, the easiest person to lie to is yourself.

34:27And people lie to themselves all the time. Do you have an example of you lying to yourself? Do I have an example? I do, actually. Uh, uh, just about in 2021, you know, I thought like, Hey, I'm in reasonably good shape. Right. Like I may not be the fittest person, but like, I'm, I'm fairly healthy. Uh, and then I went and I started working with a physician who was more on the healthcare than the sick care side, you know, did like a DEXA scan, uh, where they measure your body fat and muscle percentage. And it was awful. it was really, really bad. And I had been lying to myself for years because I didn't look fat.

35:19And I was like, hey, I don't look fat. Like, it's fine. Like, you know, I'm pretty healthy. Like I can move, my body works, right? And then when I actually saw the numbers, I was like, oh my God, I've been lying to myself. Was it bad versus what you thought, where you thought you were or versus the kind of average other people? that you ever had this benchmark against right on this on this test i mean i was at like 35 body fat right uh so but at you know 180 pounds so you know like if you looked at me or if you look at old pictures like i don't look like i was fat but 35 body fat is like very high actually and uh you know specifically it was like visceral fat which is the least healthy kind to have and so i had I've been lying to myself about my workouts, about my diet for years.

36:13And finally, I found truth through objective measurement. What did you do after death? I went on an intense multi-year health journey. You know, just like controlled my diet, really dialed that in, worked out harder than I've ever worked out, and I quantified everything. So I did like a VO2 max test. and I was like, okay, I want to get that up. I did DEXA scans every few months and was focused on the numbers. For me, quantifying something makes it easier to improve because it's not subjective anymore. And I could see if I was making progress. And I added some accountability steps as well. Did you try macro counting?

36:59I did. Yeah, extensively. Pretty amazing how it works. It's just science. It's just science, right? Yeah. You're like, I just need to follow these things. I mean, I have someone who tells me, okay, every week I change, or every two weeks we change a bit the things. It's crazy. Like, you do like four, five hours work, sport, or workout per week, which is not that much. You count macros, complete change. Yeah, I think health is probably 75 % diet, 10 % exercise, and 15 % stress management. So exercise is actually the least important component of that. How do you manage your stress? I meditate every day, which helps quite a bit.

37:52I try to have a diversity of identities. I think if you are all in on your mental identity on one thing, then when something's going wrong there, it's like a portfolio, right? Like you're just down bad and it's awful and everything sucks because you only have one identity. But if you have a diversity of identities, then I think you get the benefit of like, okay, something's going wrong in my professional life. But, you know, like in my personal life, my, you know, my kids are really happy and they think I'm a good dad. It's like, okay, that helps me feel better. All right. Like that lowers your stress or it's, you know, something's going wrong in my family life.

38:41Maybe we're, you know, some fight or something, but, um, my garden is doing really well. And like, you know, like that's, uh, you know, feels good or, you know, I'm doing well, uh, on my health journey and my metrics are looking really good. And it's just like always having a diversity of identities. And it's probably often going to be at least one of these things that is not doing amazing any well, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, I think people make the mistake of like going all in and, sorry, I don't know if it's a mistake. Let me take that word back. They make the decision to go all in and it's a trade-off because I do think that going all in delivers results.

39:26I think you do get results, but I think it's extremely costly. And I think there's a trade-off between being successful and being happy. But you have to go all in to become successful and then work on happiness later. I believe so. Yes. I think that is the right order. I don't think happy people become successful. I do think successful people can become happy. What's the definition of success? It's different for different people, right? Like, look, there's no objective truth in this world, right? Like, there's no point, there's no purpose of life. It's not like, you know, it's a video game and you need to get these points or something, right?

40:10Like, you make your own purpose. You're just here to feel. You're just here to exist, right? You get to decide what success means to you. Success could mean, you know, having lots of kids and spreading your genes. Success could mean having lots of ideas and spreading your ideas and getting people to follow you mentally. Success could mean making a lot of money. Success could mean, you know, being a political leader. Success could mean a lot of things. Back to the investing questions. What are some ugly truths that no one wants to hear, but that are necessary to fully understand in order to make it in crypto investing?

40:54Some ugly truths. I would say one big ugly truth is there's only a handful of actual use cases for crypto. We are not seeing the many, many use cases that are very compelling. There's only a handful. Uh, and they're mostly around payments, trading and capital formation. Uh, and all of the other stuff has had a lot of excitement, but it's just not working. That doesn't mean it won't work, but all the data we have right now is that it's not working. Uh, so I think the ugly truth is you have to focus on the winners. You have to focus on what you do have a clear thesis and line of sight to product market fit and it working and i think you should not focus on the pie in the sky like oh the world would be so different kind of ideas um i think those um it's very easy for invest a lot of investors invest based on vibes and they're like oh this sounds cool this feels cool uh and they don't think hard enough about you know what does the world look like if this is successful How does this actually play out?

42:13How do you avoid the paralysis by analysis we're investing if you think so hard about everything? I don't. Like, I think I would rather be paralyzed than just like not think about it. All right. The only tool that I use to reduce this is my favorite meme on the internet is the IQ chart meme. And we talk about this at the investment team at Multicoin all the time. And our saying is, it's always easier to go left. If you're worried that you're mid-curving it, don't try to go right, go left. Dumb it down. Just look for the simple explanation. And that's probably the best tool that I have in the arsenal to avoid analysis paralysis.

43:09But I'm also not scared of analysis paralysis. Like my default is do nothing. So if I can't get excited about it, I'm not going to do it. Right. Or another way to put it is like, it's not a hell yes, it's a no.

43:28I mentioned Kiao before from Alliance. I mentioned that they're looking for a high degree of autism. I mean, it's kind of like a half joke, right? But to simplify, dump down, think less, right? To dump down what they're looking for into crypto founders. High degree of autism and childhood trauma. What do you, Tushar, Kyle, and Lotticoin look for as key traits to identify world-class crypto founders? uh that's a good question look for a variety of things i mentioned high agency earlier i think high agency is absolutely critical one way i would define high agency is you know imagine you are trapped in prison in some you know third world country who would you want working to try to get you out who's gonna find a way uh and like that person in your life who you immediately just thought of your you know i i see your your your mind turning that person is the highest agency person that you know uh and like that's the quality that i'm looking for uh another how do you identify that when you don't know the founder that well oh you can tell you look at their history did they always color in the lines like have they done things that are indicative of high agency people.

44:53An example is college dropouts. I've hired multiple college dropouts on our investment team because dropping out of college is a high agency move. It's saying, I don't care about the social cred and what everyone else thinks. I care about what is the best thing for me. That's just one example. I'm not saying that people who've graduated from college can't be high agency. That's not true. But you have to look at their behavior in the past. Did they stick around on a job, uh, you know, at a company longer than they should have because they felt an obligation to do so versus, or, you know, because it was status quo versus like, did they say, no, like this isn't working.

45:35I am leaving now. Right. Uh, so I look for high agency. The next thing I look for is, uh, intellectual honesty about my trade-offs. Uh, I really, I really dislike it when people are like, my approach is just better. It's just better in every way. And the way that people do it now is stupid. And the way that I'm going to do it is better. And there's no like incremental cost to that. And to me, like, no, you're not exhibiting the intellectual honesty of telling me what is the trade-off? Why does a system today work the way that it does? And, you know, what is going to be the cost for your version of the world?

46:20And if you can't articulate that, then that tells me that, you know, you're lying to yourself. You're fooling yourself. You're denying the cost. Intercultural honesty makes me think about something that there's quite a few projects I use in crypto. You said before we don't have use cases, or not many, right? Being very honest, I believe the same. there is this project that say I'm going to bring on the next 100 million users or the next billion users.

46:55What do you think about that when you think about intellectual honesty? And I've seen the opposite. I've seen some say forget the next billion forget the next 100 million forget the next 10 million start with the first 10. I mean, look, saying I'm going to bring on a billion users is more a statement of ambition and it's just it's just platitudes and i'm like look you don't have anything yet like you can say anything you want like i that's just a statement that like in one ear out the other i don't i don't care uh that's not what i mean by intellectual honesty what i mean by intellectual honesty is knowing that there are trade-offs to your approach being able to quantify or list out the downsides of your approach.

47:43If you can't tell me any downsides, that tells me you're not thinking honestly.

47:52I actually want to dig a little deeper here because I think this is a really common trait amongst people where, like, for example, people who think that they're always right. And like, I mean, think about the people in your life, like significant percentage of them, like in their head they're always right they have never made any mistakes anything bad that has happened wasn't because of them it was because of the world it was because of other people it wasn't them all right and that's what i'm trying to weed out i want people who are honest about like no i i can be wrong uh bad things can happen uh because of what decisions i made I can make mistakes too and maybe my approach is wrong and here's, if I was wrong here's why I would have been wrong and that's I think critically important Multicorin is known for being big Solana bulls why are you betting so big on the Solana ecosystem and let's add in what you just talked about what's the downside of being so big on solana where could you be wrong so let me answer that question in order right like what am i excited about i think users only care about three things when it comes to a blockchain they want it to be cheap they want it to be fast and they want it to be easy that's it i don't care about any of this other stuff you You can pontificate and intellectualize about, you know, oh, you know, all these different layers, all this stuff.

49:38Like people don't care. They want cheap. They want fast. They want easy. They don't want to think. And I think Solana delivers cheap, fast and easy. Obviously, transaction costs are cheap. They have the fastest block times and settlement of anyone. And they're working on making that even faster. uh you know and it's easy it's just one wallet one chain you're not having to deal with a bunch of bridging and like i have five different versions of eth you know i have the polygon eth and i have the arbitrum eth and i have the l1 eth and i it's just like awful um so like that's the crux of my solana thesis and yes there are new chains that have come out after Solana that offer that same cheap, fast, easy combination.

50:35But I think that what they struggle with is they're not that much better. Right. Like Solana was the first one that was cheap, fast and easy. And if you want to unseat the incumbent, you must be significantly better than the incumbent. Otherwise, you will not overcome the inertia of the system. and so solana right now has the inertia and you know if there is a competitor that will unseat solana they will have to be significantly better and that's really hard right i don't know what to mention you can be significantly better in there's probably something i it's just i don't know it. So that's why, you know, we're so bullish on the ecosystem is they have the thing that users care about, cheap, fast, and easy.

51:28And they have the inertia, which will prevent a newcomer with the same properties from unseating them. Now, to address the second part of the question of like, you know, what could cause us to be wrong? There's a number of things like you could see a significant breakthrough in like zero knowledge technology that leads to like layer twos being the right answer. Now, it's very hard for me to underwrite that. I'm not, you know, one of the world's foremost experts on zero knowledge. It's just, it's very hard to wrap your mind around like how does zero knowledge actually work? But it could be an unknown unknown, right?

52:14Like it just comes out of left field, there's a big breakthrough. Some academic paper comes out and like the whole landscape entirely changes. And like, that is a real possibility that can happen. I also think Solana has some risk based on the fact that they're based in the U.S. and like, if the regulatory regime is not friendly, right? Like, look, Anatoly and Raj live in San Francisco. they founded the company in the United States. Solana now is global, but they started in the US. And if we see the government try to go after them because they're high profile, then that could be very, very bad.

52:58And I do believe that the future is path dependent. I don't think anything is inevitable. I don't think anything has to play out a certain way. I think that the world is a weird and wacky place. And there's just a lot of chaos in there. So there's a number of things that could derail the path. So far, you were really right on Solana. But it wasn't a smooth sail. Napoleon Bonaparte said, my downfall raises me to infinite heights. Heights, heights. you went from zero to hero in the crypto space in just a few years, especially with your early soil bet that made you over a billion dollars. And then went back to being ridiculed about your Solana ecosystem bets after the FTX collapse and your fund being down more than 90 % in 2022.

53:59How do you deal with FUD when all the haters come out to celebrate your downfall? oh i just block them

54:12i don't care like i i i mean like one of my greatest strengths is like i don't care what people think never cared i just don't care um like it it doesn't bother me like i don't need the social approval like sure you hate me good for you like that sounds like your problem you know the haters they can keep hating i i don't have to let their statements penetrate my brain like i have no obligation to listen uh and yeah we have a lot of haters um the journey has been extremely volatile right like in 2021 i think we had uh the best year of any fund in the history of capitalism like it was it was a complete insanity complete insanity uh what was happening in your mind at that time when everything is so crazy so fast because crypto is things happen fast right both sides uh i did my best to not let it get to my head but it definitely got to my head somewhat like look i'm only human uh and you know when when this is happening like you're just like oh my god like is this is this real i just kept asking myself like is this real is this like this is everything that i like you know wanted but like now it's happening um i also really did my best to try to savor the moment it's like you know people too often they get on the hedonic treadmill it's like okay what's the next thing what's the next thing what's the next thing.

55:57And I was like, this is probably the best year of my career of my life. Like, you know, it's going to be hard to top this. Right. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Let me enjoy it. Let me, let me savor the moment. How? Just sitting and, you know, thinking about it and being at peace and being like, you know, just be honest with yourself of like where you are. Right. Like one mental tool that I use frequently is i pretend i am watching the movie of my life i'm like okay what part of the movie is this uh and it's just like you know trying to not identify as closely with yourself and like try and put yourself in a third person perspective and i think that that lets you zoom out and i think it increases appreciation so you know i would just be like okay i want to zoom out i want And I think about like, if I was making a movie about my life, what would this moment be?

56:57And like, that's a mental tactic that I use to enjoy a moment. So you mentioned 2021, then 2022 happens. But you're in this kind of weird spot because despite the fund being down 90 plus percent, you're still up like 13x from inception, 12 or 13x, right? Which is pretty incredible. it also shows how crazy crypto is but there is a concept called anchoring in investing

57:30and loss aversion bias how do you and your investors felt and maybe your investors and you were feeling in a different fashion I don't know how did you and your investors felt when you're both up 13x from inception but down 90 % from all-time high, how much does the loss aversion bias hit? How much can you be happy? Because, hey, we're doing well. But, hey, this is the benchmark now because we have this anchor.

58:08Look, the numbers are generalized, right? Like from inception, is it necessarily like the experience that all the investors have had? And I can't comment on the very specific returns because those need to be precisely right if I'm going to comment on that. But different investors experience different returns based on when they came in. So we had investors who came in in 2021. We had investors who came in in 2017. So they're different cohorts of people, and they experience different returns. So we saw, you know, a dispersion there of like, you know, how they felt. But as for me, like, I felt awful.

58:52Uh, you know, it was just, when FTX was happening, I felt personally betrayed. Um, I felt, uh, immensely stupid. Uh, it was awful. Uh, like, that's probably the only word I can, uh, use to describe it. It was extremely stressful. I thought you know man like we blew everything up like uh and obviously like things are never as good as they seem but things are also never as bad as they seem in the moment and so I used my tactic that I was saying and I said okay I'm watching the movie of my life what is this and I was like oh this is the adversity this is the yeah this is the period of adversity that I have to overcome like you know you have the uh the hero's journey and like there needs to be the period of adversity uh the highs only feel good if the lows feel bad absolutely right so i try to reframe it as gratitude for it feeling bad which i was like then this makes me sensitive to the highs right like if all you get is dopamine all the time then like more dopamine doesn't feel good but if you got some downs then like the ups feel good uh so look it's a bunch of cope honestly but like the cope helps and it makes me feel good and so i'm like okay like that's how i coped it's the same when you're really breakup when you're really uh heartbroken right you can say i could never go through a relationship in my life but never really feel anything i could be crazy in love but also be crazy sad i better choose i mean depending on the person but i think most people would rather choose to feel something, go through the big ups and big downs than choose nothing.

1:00:36Maybe it's cope too. No, I agree with that. Because I'm single. And I remember my last break, it was painful. But yeah. Yes. I think, like, fundamentally, like, my goal in life is I want to feel the emotions. I think that's all you can experience. That's all, like, you actually know is real, is how you feel. Everything else, like, you know, have you heard of brain in a vat theory? No. I could, in some theoretical science fiction world, put your brain into, you know, like a vat with some wires coming into it. And I can simulate this entire experience. The Matrix is an example, right? Like, you know, they plug a wire into your brain and like, you live in this fantasy world.

1:01:23What is the only thing that you know for sure is real is how you feel about that world. You don't know if the inputs are real. You don't know if anything that's happening is like, you know, the real world versus some simulation or you have no idea. All you know is that, you know, how you feel. And so to me, I would, I strongly agree. I'd rather feel the highs, feel the lows than, you know, sit there feeling nothing. You said I felt all full. We blew it up.

1:01:57But you didn't sail. What ultimately was the bottom? In investing and entrepreneurship, judgment plays a huge role, and it's often built through experiences and pattern recognition. What previous life entrepreneurial or investing experiences helped you recognize the FTX crash? I mean, I wrote, as an opportunity for some people, or at least an event where you should not sell what ultimately became the bottom when everyone was so depressed and thinking it was the end of Solana. What did you go through in the past that made you realize that's when you stick in, that's when you stay there, maybe double down if you have more capital from investors that came on board?

1:02:46It's a good question. And it was experience. This wasn't our first crash. You know, we had been through the 2018 crash. We had been through the COVID crash. oh man that was a scarring experience is remember march 12th 2020 debate will never leave my mind you know i was sitting there i thought bitcoin was going to go to zero on some exchanges like literally like you just saw the liquidations happening and there's no buy liquidity and the market structure just broke and like here's the thing you can like tell yourself oh it'll come back and you know but sometimes when something breaks it's just broken enough right like you're not it's not guaranteed to come back no right like you you could break the market structure and like that's it uh and you know like at that time like we made a painful mistake um and i learned from that mistake uh so you know in hindsight like i'm glad we made that mistake what was the painful mistake uh we de-risked coming out of that uh and like that was painful Now, you know, look, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it changed anything.

1:03:58I've run the math. But emotionally, it was very painful. And that taught me a lesson, which is don't make big changes to your portfolio during periods of extreme volatility. Don't do anything. Exactly. Just pause. Yeah. It's too late to make the decision now, probably, right? Yes. Yeah. everything's already you know like it's already happened yeah right like if you told me before the crash and i didn't do anything like that you know that's different but like afterwards like it's already happened and you know just like wait be patient uh you know one belief i have is like you never want to be forced to trade don't be a forced buyer of anything and don't be a forced seller of anything you should always trade on your own terms i was loathing about the 2020 march 2020 because I'm one of those forced sellers.

1:04:55I lost all my crypto that day. I was on BitMEX, levered 2X on Ether. But, and I remember that exactly, it was morning and I was in Switzerland and the perspiration drops there. And I was like watching the chart going to zero basically. But then I felt that when I was liquidated, I was like this sense of like calm, like it's over. I don't feel the pain anymore. anyway at least the pain is gone i mean the pain is there but like the pain of not knowing like it's gone money's gone

1:05:32have you ever struggled with mental health um i've struggled with anxiety uh for sure um but i would say mild nothing too extreme So I've been fortunate in that sense. How do you concretely deal with these gigantic paper gains and losses that can occur over the course of just a few weeks or a few months in crypto, especially at that level where you are at? Look, it's a different answer today than it was a few years ago, which is a different answer than it was a few years before that. today the way that i deal with it is i look back at experience i'm like look i felt the highest of highs and i have felt the lowest of lows uh i know uh that things are never as good as they seem and they're never as bad as they seem and uh you know just uh i zoom out and i think about you know where am i in that movie and that's how i deal with the volatility um and you know another thing that I try to do is I try to not look at the price, which is a weird thing for a hedge fund manager to say.

1:06:50But actually, I had a rule that I no longer do this, but I did do this last year, all year, is if I looked at the price without the intention to trade, I had to do 10 push-ups or 10 squats. How many push-ups and squats did you end up doing? I don't know, a million. uh it was a lot uh but it trained like i was like okay at least i'll get a benefit yeah at least i'll get a benefit right because like you know i i'll tell you a story um i was meeting once with uh one of our lps and this guy you know he's like mega wealthy uh super successful in his tradify career he's older and uh you know he's investing in crypto and as we're sitting there talking, right?

1:07:40Like he's just sitting there refreshing prices, you know, on, on his phone, right? Just like constantly refreshing, constantly refreshing. And I thought to myself, like, this guy has more money than he could ever spend. Like the money doesn't change anything for him. You know, he doesn't need to be doing this, but he's just like, it's the dopamine hit of like, what is it now and what is it now and what is it now and i told myself like i do not want to do that i don't uh like i really don't want that to be my life right and so i remind myself of that when i sit there wanting to compulsively check because like it's a natural instinct right like it's like okay so what is it now especially on days where it's volatility or you know you're just like how good could it get how bad could it get you know like every 10 minutes you want to refresh the page.

1:08:36A good tip for that is to probably not use leverage. The worst is like when you're trading on leverage, I mean, especially for retail people, right? You're trading on leverage, it's literally impossible to not look, right? Because you never know if... I mean, it's basically this dopamine addiction, but on leverage, right? On steroids. You can still not look. It's fine. It just depends on the amount of leverage. Look, if you're 100x lever, Like, you know, the way I think about it is like, you should look if it's going to change your decision. If it's not going to change your decision, if you can't do anything about it, then what are you accomplishing?

1:09:18Yeah. Wasting time and energy. What are your top favorite, your two favorite teams in crypto and why? Define team, a project. Look, it's obviously like Solana has to be number one. That's like the position size also tells you that. Also, there's some bias there, right? Like that's the main thing that we made the money on, made the returns. It's from there. So you have to feel a sense of gratitude to that and appreciation. um so you know that that's one type of favorite which is uh you know like there's different kinds of favorite right like there's favorite of like this is the most undervalued underappreciated thing and like i love it for that reason and there's the oh this is changing the world and like uh you know it's uh been really powerful and like you can love things for different reasons um right a founder that you think is extremely inspiring founder that i think is extremely there are several um i've already talked about solana enough so i won't talk about toli uh though he is extremely inspiring you know in terms of how he deals with the haters he just never gets flustered never attacks people.

1:10:50Never. He and Vitalik are inspirational to me for that reason, because they never attack people. They focus on the ideas. They get attacked so many times, and they never attack back. They're the grownups, and the people attacking them are the children. So I really respect and appreciate that. Other founders that I really appreciate, I really appreciate Cindy and David from Drift. What I appreciate about them is they have been through some really hard times, really awful times. Their protocol got hacked, right? All the money was gone. They had to find a way to, you know, like raise money to like fill the hole and pay everyone back, which was, you know, just like emotionally awful roller coaster of an experience.

1:11:43and one thing I look for in founders is someone who gets punched in the face, falls down and then decides to get back up and, you know, decides to get back up and again and again and again and, you know, that they have that and they've been punched in the face hard several times and they got back up every single time. So I appreciate that. Another one is Ariel from Hivemapper. just like single pure clarity of vision. He knows what he wants to do. He has a very clear view on how he wants to do it. Is able to explain the trade-offs of that view and be intellectually honest. But just, you know, always moving forward and just like absolute clarity.

1:12:35Absolute clarity. There's no uncertainty. And I appreciate that a lot.

1:12:42You said in the beginning, when I asked you, who are you? You said I'm a husband and a father. You recently started a family. Why? That's an interesting question. Why did I start a family? There's many where I want to get to is. There's more and more people of our generation who do not want to start a family or do not want to have kids. it's a growing problem for the humanity it's a problem then people do whatever they want right but I think it's because I recognize and respect my own mortality is why I know that I will die it's gonna happen no one has ever not died alright not yet no everyone's gonna die you may be able to extend your life I'm a nice man, but it's not going to be indefinite.

1:13:44And it's only a question of time, right? But everyone will die. I believe that it's inevitable. And the only way that we persist is through the next generation. And I think this actually comes back to the identity question, because one thing I've worked on is your identity is not just yourself. Your identity is bigger than you. Right. Like part of my identity is my family. Part of my identity is my community. Part of my identity is humanity. Right. As a whole. It's like, I'm just, you know, I'm a cell in the body of humanity. Right. And so I have a role to play for the greater organism in a sense.

1:14:33um so why did i decide to have a family is i recognize my own mortality um i think that uh i think that it's my responsibility to uh you know serve the longevity of humanity right like it would be extremely dishonorable to my ancestors yes i was just like look at all you know everything that they went through to for you know life to continue to now and i just choose to not continue i think is just like the height of dishonor to them um so you know it just was never a question and look last but certainly not least like it's fun i just i love it i love i just love watching the brains develop. I love how they think.

1:15:28I love watching and like reliving my childhood through them and just like being present. And so part of it is selfish. I think it's more fun. People think it's fun to like go out and like, oh yeah, I'm going to travel a lot and I'm going to party. And I'm like, yeah, look, that's fun. I've done that. It's great. This is way more fun. what's something you believe in that most people would not agree with

1:16:04oh there's so many things i'm just trying to decide which one um i think the self-sufficiency point that we talked about earlier most people would not agree with me on uh a lot of people would disagree with me on you know self-defense and guns, which I believe quite firmly, actually, like I'm a very pro Second Amendment person. I think, you know, it's probably the most important right that you can have is the right to defend yourself because otherwise your right to vote doesn't really matter. Your right to speak doesn't really matter like this. The right to defend yourself is the fundamental right on which all of the other rights are built on.

1:16:48Because if you do not have that right, then the other rights are privileges. They're not, you can't enforce them. You are hoping for the goodwill of the people in power to lead you those rights. So I think people would disagree with me on that. I think a lot of people disagree with me on kids, right? Like a lot of people in our generation don't want to have kids. Why do you think that's the case? Why do you think there is a growing proportion of our generation who don't want to have, who do not want to have children? I think it's a combination of things. I think it's, one, just like this doomerism that's perpetuated, where it's like, man, the world is so terrible and everything is bad.

1:17:36An example of this is just like people talking about climate change all the time. I'm like, yes, climate change is bad. I agree. it's real and like i want to see us reduce carbon emissions all this stuff but also like the world's not going to end you know like and the media has portrayed this image of like man the world's going to end and like they're just like everything is bad and like no actually we should have a more hopeful image of the world look at the positives look at the bright side of this and like our culture right now is so pessimistic that it a lot of people are like why would i want to bring kids into this.

1:18:14But when I look at the world, I'm like, the world is amazing. Yeah. The doomerism sounds more like an excuse for people who are maybe very selfish on life, or maybe they're worried about, ah, it's going to be hard financially, all that stuff. But like the doomerism to me sounds like an excuse that, or one of these ideas that you were talking about before, that doesn't come from yourself, but it's basically repeated so much that you end up believing it um i don't know that it's selfish to not have kids i i you said it's you know driven by being selfish i don't think so i i don't because i i have kids because i am selfish i think the selfish thing to do is to have lots of kids because you are increasing like i think it makes you happier i think also like if you don't have kids and i do have kids then like my children will inherit you know reality right like so you are selflessly giving that up right so i i actually view that as um selfish and and the last thing i'll say on this is you know like i'm a darwinist i believe in survival of the fittest and evolution as the fundamental driving force of our existence.

1:19:38And the number one rule is multiply or die. That's the number one rule in Darwinism is you have to perpetuate or look, if you don't make it, it's because you weren't the strongest. Right? And so to me, this is like a fundamental truth is the strongest survive. All right. And I want to be the strongest. I don't want to be in the other group. What's your biggest prediction for the next 12 months?

1:20:19Define biggest, like most controversial, most impactful.

1:20:27most impactful on the word doesn't have to be crypto.

1:20:36I think we're probably going to see another war. I think the tensions keep rising in multiple areas of the world. And I think that there's going to be a shock when that happens. I think people aren't ready. I think the era of American hegemony is ended. Pax Americana is over. And we are living through that now. This doesn't, you know, it's not a state. The U.S. is going to be fine, right? Like, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the rest of the world can no longer depend on the U.S.'s security guarantees. And we are seeing that play out. Ukraine, Israel, I think there's going to be something else.

1:21:24And I don't think people are ready. Thank you so much for doing this. Tushar, that was an amazing conversation. Absolutely. Thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here. you