#33 - Alexandra and Andrea Botez - Competition, Sisterhood and the Social Media Game

0:00Which of you two is actually more competitive? We know the answer to this. As a kid, I always felt really bad that I was never as good at chess as her. She was like this cool, popular girl in high school. I was not a cool, popular. I was not popular. Yes, you compared to me? So Alex was the popular chess girl. Popular chess girl is such an oxymoron. Yeah, but now look where I got you. Like, you are the popular chess girl. What's the way to say this ever happened to you during a game? Oh, the guy next to me. Oh, God. Did you ever have a nemesis? Yes. Who was your nemesis? Her name was. And what's she doing now?

0:34I have no idea. So I guess I won. I just started feeling really depressed and not fulfilled, even when the numbers would be good or I'd do something that sounded good on paper. And I realized that when I was in poker, I knew that it would be a competitive advantage for me to lead into, like, the way out. But at the same time, I had this conflict inside me. It was so ingrained to me to appeal to, like, the male gaze that I was doing it so subconsciously. I acknowledge I would not even have any career without my looks. My two-thirds, he used anal beans. A hundred.

1:18Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having us. So yeah, this is a podcast about competition primarily. and so that's mostly what I want to dig in with you guys today about and to start us off I have to ask the question which of you two is actually more competitive we know the answer to this I feel like I'm more competitive she's definitely more competitive really I've come to the conclusion because when I was younger it was really frustrating for me like our dad had a graph of our chess ratings on the fridge and there was one moment when I passed and then all downhill from there and as a kid I always felt really bad that I was never as good at chess as her.

2:01I didn't get in Stanford but then I realized my strength is creativity and I'm not as passionate as about getting rating or points and Alex definitely has dad's genes. They're both hardcore gamers. Dad loves poker so I will give that one to her because she deserves it. I'll take it. So wait you had ratings of each of you on the fridge and this was like a thing every age every year of your life where you were so as a way to actually show you like this is the benchmark you need to be hitting yeah it was not super healthy um but it was only there for a year but my dad would definitely try to use one try to use me to motivate andrea which it works in some sense but i don't think it worked for chess.

2:48Why not? Well I think the main now looking back on it I just don't think I was ever as passionate about chess as my sister was like she really loved playing tournaments and for me it was just like this is my gateway into college I have to play but I didn't really enjoy studying and I was really depressed playing chess for a minute but Alex had a great time competing so we just had very different childhoods when it came to chess. Although I've also reflected back and I think a big reason why i like chess is because i needed to be good at something and it was just the thing that i was best at like i almost like chess more just for some easy to track progress than for the game itself which is a little dark interesting yeah that's that's the thing i was reflecting back when i was a kid because i was so competitive as well right i had to be i remember like when it would be we'd find out who the end of the year the tests you know what we got in science or geography or whatever the exam was and not only did I care about what my score was you know my grade but I had to know what the other same girls got I mean I went to an all-girls school so it was only girls I could compete against but had to know what everyone else got and thinking about it my dad would often ask me he's like okay so what did you get oh I got 89 he's like okay that's good what was the highest score in the class and it was that i i'm not looking back on it i'm like is that healthy or is it not that's the question i was wondering too our dad definitely did the same like you'd come home with an a he's like well but who got the a plus or the same a 99 why is it not 100 yeah that was exactly our parents mentality as well well that one feels slightly less because that makes you compete against yourself which i think that if if i had to like try and summarize what what is healthy versus unhealthy competition it's like it's healthy when you use it as when you look against versions of yourself and you're like okay I can do better I mean I guess actually what's healthy is when you're having fun I think that's the most important thing like am I still having fun being competitive okay yes but it's when like I noticed when I was being feeling like icky about my competitiveness it was when I would see other I was always comparing against like other perceived rivals so it sounds like you guys were encouraged to somewhat be rivals from a young age well Andrea was quite a bit younger so seven years right six and a half close enough if anyone asks we're two years apart but yeah we're twins all the time so it doesn't matter but um no but I think it didn't feel like competition for me because she was so much younger i said i had such a head start that i was like she'll never catch me but when i saw that graph that one year she was better than when i was at her age it did make me sweat and panic a little bit honestly i always saw alex as a role model like and everything so she was always a person i looked up to which was great i think she has been my greatest role model so it was never someone like i'm competing against her so i yeah yeah and i didn't see it that either because the age gap was large i think if we were like within two years it would have been more relevant because you could have actually directly played against each other years like we never saw each other in school because she was always in high school when i was in middle in college when i was in high school so different story do you think it's a common ingredient of all great chess players that they were from a young age had parents who were very let's say encouraging to put it politely i think definitely and also that they were very competitive because at the end of the day you have to put in so many hours into chess and you have to be fiercely competitive to keep wanting to improve did you like see chess as like when you were going out as a so like let's say you were when did you start actually playing in tournaments both of you i think when i was seven or eight same for andrea tournament was six or seven and did you see it as like oh this is a fun pursuit i do like you were playing for the love of the game or it's just like were you not old enough to really realize it was just like this is our lives?

6:46I was not old enough to realize. I would just show up at chess and I don't remember being too stressed. Even when I won the first national tournament I competed in, I didn't really think much of it. Chess was such an inherent part of our lives. I remember just my first memories are my dad teaching our chess club in Canada. Alex always going to tournaments. It was just something as a kid you'd do, you'd go, and you didn't really know what was happening, but you're like oh if i win nationals i get free pasta at a tournament in greece and we're staying at an all-inclusive hotel although i do remember when i won my first national tournament and i was on this like local newspaper my coach came to me as an eight-year-old and he said it's easy to get to the top it's hard to stay on top and i remember that spooked me a bit and then i that was the first moment when i started realizing oh shoot is it gonna be a lot harder than i thought i mean that's like that's so interesting that that's like you remember that from that age like that's a core memory that was a core memory oh how how was your relationship with other kids on the tour right because presumably you make friends with kids of your own age group so we had somewhat different experiences for me we moved from canada when i was 13 and i got really isolated and just really honestly didn't feel like i made truly close friends until i got to college so then And chess was sort of my escape.

8:05And most of my closest friends were chess players. Whereas for Andrea, she was like this cool, popular girl in high school. I was not popular. Yes, compared to me? So Alex was the popular chess girl. As in like she dated the chess players. She would travel. She was really hit at the chess. Popular chess girl is such an oxymoron. Yeah, but now look where it got you. Like you are the popular chess girl. Like we are where we are because you took that and made it like, you know, a business. But in high school, I really wanted to dance and I loved music and art. And it's funny speaking to my parents now because they would never encourage it.

8:41They're always like, you have to play chess because you're never going to be as good at music or dancing as you are at chess. And now my dad kind of regrets it because now I'm actually doing stuff with music. But as a kid, when people asked me what I would do, like, I'd always be like, I'm at a dance tournament. I'm not at a chess tournament just because I didn't really bond with any chess players, which has changed as an adult, which is really nice. But as a kid, I never felt like it was my world. so very different stories did you how how was it when so you say you did have you know friends they were kind of your only friends it was the nerdy kids i admit it's fine we got along we all cared about the right things how was it when you would play against them well i i wouldn't play against i wouldn't often compete against my friends in chess i guess i had one close friend um I didn't like playing against my friends but I had to sometimes so like I when I won U.S.

9:34girls nationals I had to play against one of my best friends in chess and beat her but you know there's a full ride scholarship on the line you do what has to get done whoa how like did it create any tension between you guys as a friend no honestly everybody understood that at the chess board there are no friends right so you actually knew that from a young age because people often it's a question I get asked as like a poker player like wait you win money sometimes you end up at the same table as your best friend and you're literally going after each other bluffing each other trying to wind each other up put them on tilt to win when I was a kid I would ask my dad if I can offer draws to my friends but like eventually the stakes got so high that I couldn't do that anymore so I grew out of it at like 10.

10:18Wow did you ever have a Nemesis? Either of you? Yes. Who was your nemesis? Her name was Miriam Roy. She was this girl who was really good at chess, and we'd always be competing in the same tournaments, and she was the only one who I felt like could give me a real run for my money. But then she stopped playing, so. Yeah, what's she doing now? I have no idea. Hmm. So I guess I won. My nemesis was a boy, because there was only one other kid at my chess club who was in high school who was also ranking in the top and then he ended up going to Stanford for chess. That was my dream school that I applied three years and got rejected and then I came to Stanford recently to film as a YouTuber to film some videos and then I ran into him and I was like you know I was like I'm actually happy that I don't feel like this was my place but it's very funny because I remember as a kid like I was so upset about it but now it was it was actually very cool to see him at Stanford and just a different life.

11:20So you wanted to go to Stanford what did you end up doing you did end up doing this full time right? So when I when we started officially streaming together I would always make appearances when I was like 15 but right when the pandemic began Alex came home obviously because we had a quarantine and she was streaming and I graduated senior year a couple months early because all the schools got shut down. I was supposed to go to University of Toronto but then everything was online, started streaming so we're like you know what this is going well let's see where it's at let's take one gap year because what's the point of doing online school for your first year?

11:56We did one gap year like this is kind of going really well and so then we moved to Austin to do one more. I was like I like Austin. I applied here in Austin at UT Business Honors. I got in I was like great I'm gonna live in Austin with my sister's dream go to business school that's the dream. one year later we're like actually we want to move to LA because we want to be bigger than Twitch we want to be YouTube so I'm like okay I applied to UCLA I got into UCLA I'm like I'm gonna go to school in LA by the third year I'm like I'm not going to school so I never went to college my mom wasn't happy about it at first but she's now accepted it you are you are doing applied business that's the thing yeah it's like you go to business school to learn how to do business or you can just do business I completely agree but our parents are well they wanted us to school eastern european immigrants yeah they wanted engineers and doctors when we did not give them that yeah i mean i don't think you can remind me saying like he he was you know he got his parents moved out just as the berlin war was falling out of soviet russia got them you know better life in germany they can go and get good education and then igor final year of math you You know, he's amazing at math, but he was making so much money playing poker.

13:10He's like, every day that I don't do this, I'm just like, you know, and what I would get an entry level job if I graduate for like a fraction of what I'm earning. He's like, this makes no sense. I'm doing applied math already. But to this day, you know, even after he's gone and had these crazy jobs, worked for Elon, his mom's still like, so when are you going to go back and finish your degree? When you made the decision to become full-time streamers and then YouTubers, what were your parents' reaction? Was that like a specific conversation you had to have? So I had finished Stanford. I had worked on a startup for three years and the startup had failed.

13:50And instead of going to get a real job, I told my parents, I'm moving to New York and I'm going to stream chess online. so my mom was like i can't believe she wasted her degree on this and she would say that her friends would ask what i'm doing and she would just lie and say i'm a consultant so they were very very confused we also have to think like where they're coming from romanian immigrants who fled communist romania like start worked multiple jobs just to get their degree and to have us even now they understand it more and we've been doing it for so many years and i remember being in high school when Alex started streaming and it's just like a lack of understanding mom be like your sister's just playing chess on the internet and it's obviously so much more but like it took me and I was like a young kid who grew up with the internet so many years to be like oh this is the point of this yeah but I just yeah honestly it was not just them like even our investors from our old startup he said you know you have to get a real job eventually my friends from college were like you're just playing chess now so I felt like that's why I actually moved from the Bay Area because I was like nobody's gonna get this it's so insane that if it doesn't work I'm gonna look like an idiot what is it about games that you love so much or is that a non-question I love games personally and for me it's completely engulfs my focus and I enter a flow state and it feels incredible.

15:20And I also just, I like winning. So when I'm losing at a game, I don't like it as much. It's funny because, so like my relationship with games is something like I've put a lot of thought and I really had to come to terms. And same with Alex, obviously, everyone loves when you're winning. I definitely had less wins. But, and now I can understand the flow state, which for me I've been able to find that with music like when I'm I'm it's the first thing in my life that I can work on like eight hours in a row and I'm just like it's just such a magical feeling and I don't know if I really felt that with chess just because I was always so distracted like even when I was really focused on a goal I don't know if it was just maybe I wasn't as passionate about chess or maybe just a different way but I now that I've experienced an actual flow state with something that I know I'm really passionate about I don't know if I ever experienced it with chess but I definitely enjoyed that for me yeah I liked the entertainment value of games like when it came to playing chess I love like as soon as you can bring in conversations and dynamics and just everything else but you don't really have that in regular competitive chess but we did once we built our own world around chess.

16:31Can you describe a little bit more of what this flow state is for you? Well, there's, I am very ADHD and it's very hard for me to hyper fixate on one thing, which never happens in a chest. Like sure, you're sitting there thinking five hours, but you're thinking about a move. You start thinking what you're going to do tomorrow. We're going to have for lunch. Then you have to bring yourself back. And it feels like you're constantly in a battle with yourself to try to get yourself to focus on something. But let's say I'm preparing a DJ set for Berlin and I'm just like going through my music I'm gritting it I'm cueing it I'm doing transitions for me it's just something that comes naturally and like all the ideas like I feel like I'm in a very creative zone and I don't have to force any out of ideas and I also just naturally don't think about anything else like I'm so engulfed in what I'm doing and like I have once I reach it I can build the entire set in like a couple hours whereas if it's like a day where I'm not exactly there I can spend triple amount of time and it's like way less productive just because like I don't feel extremely creative but I don't know it has to be different with chess I don't know for me I just lose track of time so like I would sometimes just play chess on the internet even not streaming five hours have passed and I feel like it's an hour and I just entered a different state so it it sounds like the like the common thread is that you just yeah like it's like a different state of time a different state of consciousness yes yeah you're just so engrossed Yeah.

17:57But what's also interesting, the way you describe how you feel when you're playing, when you're DJing, it sounds like you're almost, you're not using your logical brain anymore, right? It feels like it's a different part of my brain. Intuition or something? It's, I don't even know, like, that's why music has been so cool because, and it's not even like, it's not the live performance. So like, I will spend three weeks preparing for one live performance. like the way I push DJing is very different from everyone else. And I think it's also my strength was able to like grow very quickly. And I kind of treat it like a chess match.

18:32I like, I like to have every transition planned. And the whole thing about DJing is playing for the crowd. I'm like, no, I'm there to give them a show and a story. I want the entire track list. And it takes hours to do that. So you're on a music software and like, you're just going through your thousands of songs and like kind of whatever comes naturally to you and then seeing what lines up. And I like thinking of it as a puzzle because I'll have like in my head I want to start with like with this dark dramatic emotion and I want to go high energy then I want to change genres and it's like I have the journey but then I have to put all the tracks together which once you get in the nitty-gritty of DJing whatever but the puzzle solving of music is actually really fun which I do feel like there were some parallels to the same puzzle solving in chess but it's it's kind of hard to explain what's the difference between a puzzle and a game in both good question because i feel i feel like i can tell like there's a tangible difference but it's actually interesting to try and define i feel like games have multiple puzzles in them and it includes other things as well puzzle for me just feels like a structure you have to solve and come to like kind of one end conclusion but a game there's so many different outlets that you can win a game maybe chess like not necessarily you have a crazy tactic maybe you're just playing solid moves all the time so there's different outlets to win and i guess obviously the biggest difference between like the puzzle of DJing and the game of chess is that there's a clear finite goal with with chess right or same with poker or whatever and it's classically a zero something right one of you wins the point one of you doesn't whereas DJing it's purely that's why it's so interesting because it's actually very like positive sum it's very win-win in that it's like how big of a thing can I make it's you know you can play an okay set and people will have an okay time or you can play an amazing set and people have the best time ever but there's no it's much harder to quantify that's and that's exactly what like completely changed my perspective to how i was approaching my sets because every dj it's improv like they've been they play shows every other day they know that they just go in there load their usb pick stuff but i'm like i want to have it all predetermined and mostly solved before and like working on my set with an end goal just completely changed the way that I would think of my sets so like actually trying to have it solved before I go made the process so different for me like what is your flow state from it yeah so I there was a period of time where poker would be a nice flow state for me certainly early on when I first started playing the game and I was in love with it um but I and we've talked about this before and I want to dig into that with you this there was at some point where it was after I'd won like my first big major the EPT I found it harder and harder to get into that flow state and it was more like I was sort of just going through the motions of like okay this is my job now I need I have to perform I've got I've got my sponsorship patch on and it no longer it was no longer really a puzzle or something um so now what is my flow state honestly my flow state now is writing um I I haven't been actually posting that much but I've just started doing more writing the most flow state I was ever in was when I made that moloch film where I locked myself in a hotel it was something you're so passionate yeah and I mean I literally I made it in a garden shed in the house we were staying in in Oxford at the time it was like freezing cold that was the only place I had like silence and I would just went mad in this little shed making this thing every single bit and but it was the most fun yes like a whole month went by or however long I was in there three weeks Igor would be like I would disappear off some point in the morning and I I would crawl in at night and he was like, okay, good, you're still alive.

22:11And I'd have the contacts in looking crazy, dressed as this creature. But that was, I think, the most flow I've ever been. It was just lost in the creative process. And I want to figure out how to hack that for more stuff. What you said about poker, it's just exactly what you were saying. As soon as you brought sponsors, my favorite creative is Rick Rubin. I listen to all of his podcast episodes. and he did an episode with the Daily Stoic where he was talking about coming back to your initial intention when starting something and how the greatest death for an artist is as soon as you start doing it not for yourself and for other people, which is impossible once you've tasted success.

22:50Like when you're a writer and you're making a book, if you're thinking about how you're gonna market it and everything else, you need to first write the story for yourself and then once the story is done, you can go through that second lens and very much the same with music. Like the first DJ set I made, it was so magical and then it went viral. I tasted success. I tried to recreate what went and like I completely stopped enjoying it. It felt like a job, felt like a chore. You wouldn't get lost into it but like especially that zone you were in on your Moloch video because it's the first time you're doing something.

23:17It's your idea. It's for no one because it's never been done before really and that's just so special and it's so easy to lose that as soon as it turns into a job and like that's something I bet with games, I bet with music, people experience with writing. I struggle that with content and honestly Honestly, I think my own competitive drive sometimes hijacks me because I just care way too much. And I've learned how to reel it in over the years because at some point, even with content, it becomes a competition where you're just trying to get more numbers or more views. And I've come to the conclusion that that is the wrong way to do it.

23:51And ultimately, I need to be enjoying the process and doing it for the right reasons versus that. So it's been something that I've been trying to retrain my brain in and calm that inner Fiend because I see it myself and then I see her and we're thinking an idea and then she starts thinking of oh But how are we gonna announce this what platform is I'm like wait? I'm like you haven't finished the idea don't let yourself start thinking about the packaging when you haven't even you're already Restricting yourself and putting yourself through a different filter Has there ever been a point where you guys did feel like you were getting stagnant in your content?

24:25yes this last year all the time this year has been for me personally the hardest year in content and we tried doing multiple transitions so at the start of the year we were streaming like four times a week maybe five times a week and we switched to streaming like once a month or three weeks of every two months and changing our content so we just have been pivoting a lot and our content numbers you know i still stress about them a lot they're not where i would like them to be but that's not what I'm as excited about anymore because I think it's the wrong focus and it's very short-term thinking right that was like the tyranny of metrics I like to call it like that's the problem with metrics can be useful and that they're like a way to sort of know if you're kind of on the right track but it's as soon as a measure becomes the goal it ceases to be a good measure yes so how did you train yourself because I mean I'm struggling with this right now even like doing this podcast was telling you about like oh the numbers aren't doing what I feel like it should be doing this is important and then I get like despondent and kind of like self-loathing and like well what's the point how do you how do you train that out of yourself is it just that you reach a certain threshold do you like is it like a gratitude thing you look back and go well look I did achieve this or mine is kind of dark I just started feeling really depressed and not fulfilled even when the numbers would be good or I'd do something that sounded good on paper and I realized that when I was just chasing these metrics of success, like winning a chess tournament or getting a lot of views, even when I hit it, I wouldn't feel fulfilled.

25:57So I thought, this is the wrong metric. It's much more, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And eventually I just felt so bad. I was like, okay, I need to change it and align with my inner self. What about you, Andrea? That's so sad. It's true though. This has been recently something that I've been putting a lot of thought into. And like, I completely separate when I'm in my creative zone and when I'm in my analytical, like, okay, assessing the content for what is. And for example, if I was doing a podcast, I would think, okay, genuinely, what is the thing I wanna get out of this episode? Not thinking anything about what I think people will click on or what people want me to talk about.

26:37First, I make the content for myself. And when you're brainstorming, I just try to feel like I'm in a safe zone, which is so hard. Like, I come up with my best ideas when I'm not in my office and I'm anywhere. like in a plane or like stuck in Sweden or just anywhere where I don't feel like all these external factors are influencing my thoughts and then after that when it comes to okay now I actually have to think how this is successful then maybe I'll have like a session where I'm like looking I'm doing running a b tests on our YouTube looking at different titles looking at what other people are doing but that's not when I'm brainstorming brainstorming and the analysis it just has to be two different even places and so yeah so you're doing different places and do you literally plan out your week like today is a brainstorming day and this is an the hardest thing we were so bad at that it's honestly like the reason I go to Europe to work on music and even for content I have a lot of my best ideas is it's so hard at home because that's funny my other ADHD friends thing us for telling me how ADHD people compartmentalize spaces with what you're doing so let's say you have an office and you work there but you've also done other things there and you play and you have fun, it's hard for your brain to untrain that.

27:46So for me, being in like in a foreign environment, whether it's like at a coffee shop or at Nature in a different country, I need to be in a different space. So I can't even do that when I'm at home because we do so many things in our house. We're filming, we're brainstorming, we're hanging out. Our house is our office. So I think for me, it comes down to the space, not the time, but I don't know if that's the right answer. For me, I've tried putting in a less rigid structure recently. I read this book on why success cannot be predetermined and it talks about how like in our society we always tie what we're doing to an objective but maybe it's not always correct to have an objective and at some point you need to allow space for playful discovery and because I'm just I think I've been just trained most of my life to be kind of like a robot who's like achieve this do whatever it takes it's sort of I sort of stopped giving myself space to actually figure out what I want to do and and also explore different ideas.

28:40So that has been my recent attempt. How much has audience capture been a struggle for you guys? Big difficulty right now because a lot of our audience on YouTube is chess focused. And if you do wanna work in different niches, you start a different channel. Andrea has her DJ channel. I tried doing a poker channel, which was very helpful for at least growing a poker audience. So it is something we're currently trying to figure out. I think, yeah, I mean, it's a deadly trap that like all of us fall in. For example, chess. We had this one format that would go viral every time, which is like us playing hustlers in the park.

29:17Same title thumbnail. You put a catchy one-liner. They're insulting you. You beat them. We did that. And we did that idea for like two years in a row. And it was so, and at some point you're just like, it's not even doing that well. And maybe for people, it's like you're totally not doing it for yourself. It's such a soulless action. so I've been so aware of to try to not fall in the same trap where you're just doing the same because you have to notice as soon as you're losing passion for something and also the content just loses quality as soon as you can tell you're not really in it but that's the thing I think we stopped doing if the videos were still getting millions of views I think we'd still be in the trap because like you can sacrifice or at least I can sacrifice not liking something if it's doing well or at least I could in the past but when you don't like it and it's not doing well it's a lot easier to jump out okay i'm done hi pardon the quick interruption but just to let you know that unfortunately the audio quality from here on out is going to be a bit worse because these stupid microphones decided to just all turn off for no apparent reason which means we have to use like ambient audio so apologies for the decrease in audio quality but do stick around because this conversation just keeps getting better and better and better it's worth the tinniness i yeah i think it really depends on the content because what I learned about it is you need to find your niche and although ours was chess content I feel like our strengths were our personality and like our conversations so when I kind of figure out what do I think I'm best at when people enjoy then I try to put it and like oh this is actually can also be really interesting in vlogs and in podcasts and things maybe outside of just the same one-off chess matches so finding like the niche of what you're doing well but then also how figuring out how to use your strengths in a different format maybe completely different out-of-the-box activity as well i have a question for you if it was just you doing what you want for you where do you think if you thought of your podcast from first principle yes yes that's a very good point i think i would think about what i would find entertaining yes actually what what would make me be like this is an exact i cannot miss this this is something I've never seen before that speaks to me yeah deeply like oh shit yes there's a new episode yeah it's like everything goes on pause that's what I would do and I haven't done that I've been trying to think of what other people would like what is one of those topics or do you have any in mind or can I go back to it later well actually I'd be curious what you would find personally in here and that's exactly what it should be I mean people people who have successfully solved coordination problems in like big areas because that's like my passion area Can you define a coordination problem?

31:53Yeah. Noobs, not for me. So the one example I always go to is these beauty filters on Instagram. Oh, don't get me started on those. Right. We're all those women. We know that everyone else is using them. Yes. So we feel that need to keep up with the Joneses, essentially. And yet they make you feel miserable. At least for me. Sometimes they don't feel better than them. yeah it's looking worse right but generally they give you a competitive advantage but they don't make you feel good about yourself but everyone's doing it anyway so you kind of have to and so i think in a if we could all influencers would like coordinate and be like let's just agree let's do a pact we won't use these yeah we'll just stick with makeup and we'll all agree this is this is it we don't need to go down that rabbit hole but we can't all coordinate because hundreds of thousands or millions of influencers at this point and there's always the incentive to be the like person who defects and like secretly uses them yeah and so that coordination never happens that's a classic example of a coordination problem and that's what Moloch is like the god of and so that was kind of what inspired me to like create this was like what is first of all what is the inverse of Moloch Moloch is the god of lose-lose yeah uh what's what's the god of win-win I couldn't get beyond win-win um but you know what are the different mechanisms we can design such that games we play don't end up with that you know aren't vulnerable to those kind of dynamics and do you know any examples where a coordination problem has been solved one of the best examples is the ozone layer so back in it's probably a bit before you guys it's time so but like when I was growing up it was like we're all going to die because the ozone layer is getting depleted people are polluting yeah you know the cfcs um but like cfcs are so cheap and easy to use like how will we ever coordinate to get everyone to stop you know countries to stop using them um but then this thing called the montreal protocol was created and it basically was like a law that was like you can't use these and luckily the thing the thing that really coincided with it that wouldn't have been sufficient by itself at the same time there was an innovation made that basically was as good as cfc's but without the pollution so it was that sort of one-two punch of like got it a law or regulation so like the stick saying no you can't do that the negative incentive and then also the positive incentive of actually we have a really good innovation essentially um that solved the problem for a period of time although i last checked the ozone is now on the shit again a little bit but that's plenty of other ones to worry about but you know we managed to coordinate through kind of yeah like it makes sense that it needed a solution an alternative that was just as good it's like for the beauty filter example you know if everyone could magically make themselves look like they want it they wouldn't need them but i guess you can't actually find the innovation in certain areas yeah i mean exactly if health if there was a you know vitamin you could take yeah just like makes you the like glowingest youngest looking a version of yourself your happiest version that's why everyone's getting their bbls now and like people are just gonna keep thinking they're upgrading and where's that can take us but yeah i was have you guys like felt it's actually that's a topic i want to get into it's like being females in the sort of competitive world of both social media and also games how has that manifested for you guys in terms of like because for me like as a you know when i was in poker i i knew that it would be a competitive advantage for me to lean into like the way i look of course yeah you know i would not have had the career i had had i not been a girl but at the same time i would feel a bit i've had this conflict inside me being like am i you know i at the same time i respect myself as a player i know i could be an amazing poker player if i'm putting too much energy into this part of the game then that comes at a sort of cost of this So how have you guys tried to navigate that?

35:59I used to have big issues with it. Before I was on social media, some chess photos of me would go viral, and I'd feel so disgusted because I know they'd go viral for the wrong reasons. But now I've sort of come to it, similar with poker, you play the hand you've been dealt. Some people are extremely funny. Some people are extremely smart. As a female, you can stand out for different reasons. So I said, okay, well, then I should lean into it because I'm going to have to deal with the negative consequences where I'm going to, you're much more likely to have things like body dysmorphia if you're a female on social media than males on it, right?

36:31So if I have to deal with the negative things, then I should use everything I can because social media is already so inherently competitive that just being a female or even if you're considered an attractive female, that's not even enough. So to downplay it, you're not doing yourself any favors. Yeah, I think my journey with this has really just been first like even being aware of it because when I started being on the internet and I was like 16, 17, I remember all the girls I would look up to and I tried, I would do so much makeup, like all these fake eyelashes, I would wear giant push-ups. I started like wanting to wear push-up bras when I was like 14 because I was like, oh, these girls have boobs.

37:06And I remember starting the stream with Alex and now, okay, I've had enough time where I can look back to it and slowly realize it's so sad because getting into it, I like, it was so ingrained to me to appeal to like the male gaze that I was doing it so subconsciously I didn't even realize it and now obviously do the same thing I acknowledge I would not even have any career without my looks and not be where I was but okay I have that but now what are actually the values and the strengths that I see myself outside of my looks that I want to emphasize and not focus so much on looks anymore but it was so hard to even realizing that I was subconsciously doing it because and of course you know looking naturally beautiful is going to help your content go more viral and stuff like that but at least it's not something you're like hyper fixating it's just okay it's a natural thing but that's not going to be a priority but for example andrea to film one short she goes through like five outfit changes yeah i mean i have a terrible body but that's makeup but that's feels like i hate how i look on camera no but what i'm trying to do is like there's a price and drip yeah yeah what she's doing that people don't understand yeah i see it as a double-edged sword where like certain advantages and certain disadvantages and you're going to have whatever niche you are yeah yeah in poker they used to i don't know if they still do it but certainly when i was like climbing up through the ranks the most common thing like if women in poker were mentioned in the media it would be these are the top 10 hottest female players yeah yeah which is awful now i hate that so much now i can finally be aware i'm like doing my best to get away from that like i never want to do hot girl chest branding again like i just uh but i didn't even realize it was all happening it's it's so interesting that because again it's kind of like the one of these like moloch type traps you know where it's like you know that it's not really good for you but at the same time it's good for your career short maybe in the short term and it's so hard to not lean into that stuff and it's also if you don't try the amount of negative comments towards your appearance you can't not look good You can't not look at it because then you're getting even more negative feedback.

39:14Yeah. I think it's just not making your looks your personality, which is like so many people go viral just because of the hot female creator at this game. Like that can't be all you have. Like, cool, your looks helped you get viral. But now like show them everything else you got. Like whatever. We should use that to our advantage. Get the discoverability. But then show people you actually have a personality and a sense of humor and interest and try to share those with the world. Maybe looks help get the click. Exactly. You've got to keep them there for the right reasons. it's fine if they click because they think you're cute but actually show what else you've got in store how much of the because you mentioned like the male gaze is is the main driving force of this like pressure of yes women to sort of play up to that role how much of it comes from females well appealing to other females you're saying no as in like or from other girls doing this so you're doing right other girls are doing it so you feel like the need to lean into it so this is something i was thinking a lot on my recent trip because i had a lot of time to think i was working on music i was just in a random and i my favorite artist to look up to is billy eilish one of the most popular artists in the world since she was so young and she's a young girl and the coolest thing and i realized just like having different role models how much that shifts your perspective because again my role model when i started streaming were like the top e-girls on twitch and it's a very different image.

40:35And what I thought was so interesting about Billie is that she does all her performances in like giant sports jerseys and basketball shorts and she'll go on Jimmy Kimmel and wear a giant sweatshirt. And I'm like, I also feel way more comfortable on camera and being myself if I'm more covered up. But I've always felt like it's just not appropriate and like I have to wear tank tops because that's only what I would see other women doing. So I really think like, and it's hard because obviously there's gonna be both on the internet. It's just your choice who you're going to look up to. but I think just being aware of it and then finding the proper role models like she gave me so much confidence I'm like oh you know I can do that too and feel comfortable wearing a turtlene it's fashionable yeah exactly it's more effort to look fashionable but that's not a bad thing but it's something I didn't even think existed because I saw so few girls dress in that way and still be successful in my field for me I had actually a different experience and the biggest influence on me trying to look better on camera was actually my sister.

41:32Because when I started streaming, like, look, I'll be honest. You look so beautiful. I loved her. And I love, she's going back to that. You like the fact that I had the same tank top in multiple colors. Oh, okay. Okay, she didn't care about, I was saying, like, when you have your hair in a bun and you have no makeup, I think you look the most beautiful. And I love when she streams again. And now she does a lot of this. And I understand that, but when you're the older sibling, like, your super beautiful, cute young sister who's also fashionable and does her makeup and always looks good on camera starts coming and of course the audience what it's going to do is it's going to constantly compare you right and it started actually giving me insecurities that i didn't have before just because i'd be constantly compared and it put a huge pressure on me to just try harder well competition there you go right but it's not and not in a way that i have any negative feelings towards andrea but i I was just like, I have no choice.

42:20But I felt the same way, which is crazy. People are going to be constantly commenting and comparing. So like, I need to level up my game. Well, I do think whenever like we're going out, I'm like, oh, Alex looks so good. I'm like, shit, I need to go change. Or when we're streaming and I'm like, I just want to wear a t-shirt today. And then I see Alex looks so good. I'm like, shoot, she raised the bar. So I mean so much because we're in each other's environment. What I love about you guys is that you have such open conversations. Yeah, exactly. Have you ever had moments where you noticed there was a competition arising?

42:50We're always open. I actually don't like competing with Andrea. The funny thing is when we played classical chess this year for the first time, she was way more excited to try to beat me than I was trying to play her. Because I'm obviously the underdog. She has nothing to win or lose beating me. I have everything to win and not much to lose. But regardless, I don't want to compete with people I like, for serious stakes at least. If it's for fun and it's something goofy, like if I beat her, She runs around in a little conehead costume. Oh, I love it. But if it's a serious steak, it's hard. This, but also before our last match on interview, she goes, if it was your dying wish to get a draw against me, I would still not give it to you because of sportsmanship.

43:30So sure. That's out of respect, though. When she shows up to the board, she is stone cold. She's not a human. She's a robot, and she has no emotions. So don't listen to anything serious. That's because that's the respect I would want. And that's how it should be treated. The biggest insult is if someone doesn't take you seriously in competition. But chess competition and social being compared look-wise, I think, are very different. Because one, you can completely separate yourself from, and the other, you can't really. We've always been so close, but I also feel like our relationship's been the healthiest the last couple months.

43:58We've also been taking less time streaming. And we've always been really open about our body dysmorphia with ourselves, which just makes me feel so much better. Because I think my sister's the most beautiful person on the planet. And I think my sister's the most beautiful person. When I hear the thoughts she has about herself, I'm like, how could, where are these, how can you ever, like, she's like, I look so bad in this. I'm like, you look the most beautiful. And so, like, if she can think that way about herself, like, oh, and she thinks the same. So, at least it's like, it's kind of like looking through a mirror.

44:27Like, how people were like, you know, think about the little girl you were when you were four. And imagine saying to her what you're saying to yourself now. Like, just how you can talk to yourself. And you're so unaware of it until you see, like, your mirror image doing it to themselves. it makes you a lot more like oh it's it's one of the most powerful it really is exactly it's like how would you feel if i was talking about myself exactly yeah yeah and everyone says that but you're still like i'm always doing top shit to myself like i don't care right that four-year-old little girl like she's gone you know but when i see my sister doing it it's different that's one thing you know i grew up as an only child yeah and i mean i have like a half sister but she was much much older yeah i saw her and so on and like i never like seeing like the bond that you guys have it's just like it's irreplaceable it's it's really it's yeah it's gorgeous um you made a really amazing video recently which is about the it was like a sort of there's an analysis of this situation of the it was like so the dina the chest by her head there was some controversy had come about because she had posted some sort of lingerie sexy lingerie pictures of her playing chess it seemed like really split the chess community where and particularly female chess players um one particular uh player is an elizabeth let's elizabeth piets elizabeth piets tweeted saying i thought it was hardly possible to even top the latest poll on women's chess unfortunately i was wrong what a disgrace so in other words like she's she's a gm right yeah um um and she she's presumably a little bit older but she felt that this was um very bad thing for women's chess so i'd love to like hear you guys's sort of arguments because i can to me it seems like a real dynamic like i can see her point of view of why it might be but i can also totally see the like point of view of like it's dino should be free to express herself however she likes and you know if she's having fun doing it and again it's like this idea of like play to your advantages so i kind of want to like do an exercise in almost like steel manning both sides to see if we can kind of solve this problem yeah andrea do you want to start you should start because you made the video and i have a lot of thoughts and dina's close to me so like i have to really sit and think here yeah i mean i also saw both sides on dina's end she actually stopped doing that type of content since um but at the time as a female content creator doing that kind of content will be like 95 % of your revenue.