1 00:00:02,480 --> 00:00:03,800 Speaker 1: Al Zone Media. 2 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:07,400 Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I am, of course 3 00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:20,400 Speaker 2: your host ed zeitron. I remain punished and hated forever. 4 00:00:22,079 --> 00:00:24,560 Speaker 2: Today I'm joined by Mike Masnik. He's the CEO and 5 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:27,680 Speaker 2: founder of tecta inventor of the Streisan defect, and now 6 00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:30,360 Speaker 2: a board member of the social network Blue Sky. Mike, 7 00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:31,760 Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me. 8 00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:33,159 Speaker 3: Yeah, happy to be here. 9 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:37,159 Speaker 2: So let's start with the streisand defect. Why don't you 10 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:39,519 Speaker 2: tell the story of how you coined that? That? Just 11 00:00:39,640 --> 00:00:41,720 Speaker 2: walk us through that one, because now that I've heard 12 00:00:41,720 --> 00:00:43,160 Speaker 2: about it, it's all I can think about. 13 00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:47,400 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's sort of there's two 14 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:49,680 Speaker 3: elements to the founding story, one of which is, you know, 15 00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:53,199 Speaker 3: what caused the term to be that and then me 16 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:56,440 Speaker 3: eventually naming it. The first was just the you know, 17 00:00:56,480 --> 00:01:00,320 Speaker 3: I was amazed by this story of barber strike and 18 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:05,360 Speaker 3: suing this guy I always forget his name, Ken something, 19 00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:09,440 Speaker 3: who was doing this project. He was a you know, 20 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:12,240 Speaker 3: he had been a fairly successful tech guy, but he 21 00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:15,840 Speaker 3: was very interested in conservation, and so he was like 22 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:20,440 Speaker 3: renting a helicopter every few months and flying along the 23 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:23,560 Speaker 3: west coast of the United States and taking a photograph 24 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:26,679 Speaker 3: every you know, every bit of the way, and his 25 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:29,200 Speaker 3: idea was to continue to do that every few years 26 00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:33,040 Speaker 3: and track the erosion of the West coast of the 27 00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,959 Speaker 3: United States. Okay, yeah, kind of an interesting project. You know. 28 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:40,840 Speaker 3: This is pre Google Maps, pre satellite easy access to 29 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:44,000 Speaker 3: satellite imagery, all this kind of stuff. And he created 30 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:47,000 Speaker 3: this website and it's still online and it is incredibly 31 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:50,640 Speaker 3: old fashioned where you could go picture to picture. You 32 00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:54,160 Speaker 3: couldn't you know, no map like modern mapping software where 33 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:57,000 Speaker 3: you could slide along. You could go picture to picture 34 00:01:57,040 --> 00:01:59,520 Speaker 3: along the way, and it had this ability for people 35 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:05,120 Speaker 3: to leave their own annotations. And somebody found Barbara Streisand's 36 00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:08,360 Speaker 3: house in Malibu and commented on it that this is 37 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,519 Speaker 3: Barbara Streisan the Streisand estate, I believe was the phrase 38 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:16,440 Speaker 3: that was put on it. And somebody, a Streisand lawyer, 39 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 3: found it and threatened him and then sued him for this. 40 00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:26,520 Speaker 3: And the story that caught my attention at least was 41 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:29,480 Speaker 3: that what came out in the court documents was before 42 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:34,000 Speaker 3: the lawsuit that image had been viewed. I believe it 43 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:38,639 Speaker 3: was eight times, two of which were from my p 44 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:42,239 Speaker 3: addresses associated with the law firm that was representing Barbara 45 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:46,200 Speaker 3: streisand so at most six people had seen the photo 46 00:02:46,760 --> 00:02:51,680 Speaker 3: prior to this lawsuit, and in the immediate aftermath, hundreds 47 00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:56,040 Speaker 3: of thousands of people saw the photo, and he eventually 48 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:58,560 Speaker 3: won the lawsuit. In fact, streisand had to pay for 49 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,880 Speaker 3: his legal fees. And I had written about at the 50 00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:04,160 Speaker 3: time and just thought this crazy story. But I kept 51 00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:07,240 Speaker 3: seeing other examples of that kind of thing, where people would, 52 00:03:07,600 --> 00:03:10,120 Speaker 3: you know, try and get something taken down offline and 53 00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:12,560 Speaker 3: the end result would be way more attention paid to it. 54 00:03:12,960 --> 00:03:15,720 Speaker 3: And so there was a story that actually happened. I 55 00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:18,720 Speaker 3: think it was almost two years after the original streisand 56 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:23,320 Speaker 3: lawsuit and everything, in which there was a site which 57 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:26,200 Speaker 3: also might still be online and also might be very outdated, 58 00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:30,000 Speaker 3: called urinal dot net to which. 59 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:31,000 Speaker 2: Is where I get my posts. 60 00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:34,560 Speaker 3: Yes, yes, well you know this is the early Internet 61 00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:37,720 Speaker 3: where anyone would pay anything online. Yeah, And they would 62 00:03:37,720 --> 00:03:40,200 Speaker 3: post photos of urinals and they were very specific and 63 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:45,040 Speaker 3: very clear that urinals only, no people, no body parts, 64 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:48,560 Speaker 3: just urinals from around the world. And they had pages 65 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:51,720 Speaker 3: of different ones, and there was some hotel or something 66 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:54,560 Speaker 3: or I can't remember. Somebody got very mad that a 67 00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:59,040 Speaker 3: urinal from their property was shown and sent a legal 68 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:02,320 Speaker 3: threat letter, And so I wrote about that, and in 69 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,640 Speaker 3: doing so said, you know, there should be a term 70 00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:09,120 Speaker 3: for this situation where someone, you know, where something is 71 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:11,960 Speaker 3: not getting attention, and then someone sends a takedown and 72 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:14,760 Speaker 3: suddenly that draws all this attention to the thing that 73 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:18,320 Speaker 3: they wanted gone. And then I just jokingly said, why 74 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:20,400 Speaker 3: don't we call it the Streisand effect and linked back 75 00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:24,720 Speaker 3: to my story about the streisand photo. And then somehow 76 00:04:24,839 --> 00:04:28,680 Speaker 3: I have no idea how that caught on. I didn't 77 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:30,520 Speaker 3: do much. I mean, I may have mentioned it again 78 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:34,599 Speaker 3: a few times, but people picked up on it and 79 00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:37,880 Speaker 3: it took on a life of its own, and most 80 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:39,120 Speaker 3: of which I had nothing to do with. 81 00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:43,000 Speaker 2: And I think it's I think it's ironic that despite 82 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:45,720 Speaker 2: the term's fame, it has not brought more attention to 83 00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:50,039 Speaker 2: the actual providence of the term. Yeah, but now it has. 84 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:53,360 Speaker 2: Now we have the better offline, not even remotely exclusive. 85 00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:56,240 Speaker 2: You probably told this story dinner parties for years. 86 00:04:56,480 --> 00:04:57,760 Speaker 3: I may have told it a few times. 87 00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:01,440 Speaker 2: Yes, it's a great story though talking about old websites 88 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:04,520 Speaker 2: tech der so it's come up on thirty years of 89 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:08,960 Speaker 2: running this site. Yeah, what has changed, because the design hasn't. 90 00:05:09,080 --> 00:05:11,839 Speaker 2: I doesn't say that negatively. I actually love the fact 91 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:15,880 Speaker 2: that it loads properly. There's not like some insane iframe situation. 92 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:18,800 Speaker 2: Yeah my phone isn't seven hundred degrees because I'm looking 93 00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:19,120 Speaker 2: at it. 94 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:23,480 Speaker 3: Well, yes, the well, the site has changed a few times, 95 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:25,719 Speaker 3: but it has not changed in a long time. So 96 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:28,960 Speaker 3: this is this is probably the third generation of Tector. 97 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:31,920 Speaker 3: But but I think it it hasn't really changed much 98 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:34,520 Speaker 3: since probably two thousand and six, two thousand and seven. 99 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:37,039 Speaker 3: It's probably the last time we did a major overhaul 100 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:41,039 Speaker 3: of the look and feel of the site. Yeah, I mean, look, 101 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:45,120 Speaker 3: I wanted to write about the technology industry and what 102 00:05:45,200 --> 00:05:47,040 Speaker 3: was going on, and I was very interested in it. 103 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:49,960 Speaker 3: And I started when I was in business school. And 104 00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:54,280 Speaker 3: just I originally started writing, I was old school. I 105 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:58,039 Speaker 3: was writing an email newsletter before email newsletters were crazy 106 00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:02,960 Speaker 3: idea the rage, and then I thought, like, you know, newsletters, 107 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:06,480 Speaker 3: who reads newsletters? I got to turn this into a website. 108 00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:07,560 Speaker 3: And so I. 109 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:10,440 Speaker 2: Also, just to we clear, it was entirely email based. 110 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:14,719 Speaker 3: Oh front yeah, oh when it started, baby, when it 111 00:06:14,839 --> 00:06:18,800 Speaker 3: started in nineteen ninety seven, it was entirely an email thing, 112 00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:24,200 Speaker 3: and then I turned into a website about six months 113 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:28,080 Speaker 3: after the email, and originally it was just hosting the 114 00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:30,839 Speaker 3: copies of the email newsletter, and then I started to 115 00:06:30,839 --> 00:06:35,880 Speaker 3: build it out. And then what caught my attention in 116 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:40,000 Speaker 3: early around sometime in nineteen ninety eight, I first saw 117 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:44,320 Speaker 3: slash dot, and this is before the word blog existed, 118 00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:47,760 Speaker 3: and I was like, Oh, this, this format and this 119 00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:51,320 Speaker 3: setup is really cool. I wonder if I could do 120 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:53,400 Speaker 3: that and turn the website into that, and so I 121 00:06:53,720 --> 00:06:59,039 Speaker 3: I got I used slash code zero point three. This 122 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:01,839 Speaker 3: was before they had released an official slash code, but 123 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:03,120 Speaker 3: they still offered it up. 124 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:04,920 Speaker 2: Well do you mean a slash code for that? 125 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:10,360 Speaker 3: Slash code was their software that they used to that 126 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:14,680 Speaker 3: was slash Dot. It was they they decided to release, 127 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:19,160 Speaker 3: you know, they uh god, what's his name? Rob Malda 128 00:07:19,360 --> 00:07:23,200 Speaker 3: was the guy who created slash dot, and he, you know, 129 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:26,360 Speaker 3: released the code he had written written, you know, one 130 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:30,280 Speaker 3: of the first sort of blogging type software products. And 131 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:34,600 Speaker 3: it was very messy and it took me and less me, 132 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:36,760 Speaker 3: but more a friend of mine who was willing to 133 00:07:37,040 --> 00:07:39,920 Speaker 3: get in and deal with the mess of code, which 134 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:42,520 Speaker 3: was not easy. It took us two or three months 135 00:07:42,520 --> 00:07:44,600 Speaker 3: to figure out how to actually get it just set up. 136 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:47,200 Speaker 3: And then suddenly like I could blog, and suddenly I 137 00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:49,880 Speaker 3: could write easily every day, rather than what I was 138 00:07:49,880 --> 00:07:52,840 Speaker 3: doing originally, which was like hand coding HTML files and 139 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:53,920 Speaker 3: FTPing them. 140 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:56,720 Speaker 2: To This was before you could just spin up these 141 00:07:56,760 --> 00:07:59,240 Speaker 2: blogs like on and. 142 00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:02,320 Speaker 3: Like none of that stuff existed. Again, the word blog 143 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:03,240 Speaker 3: didn't even exist. 144 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:04,120 Speaker 2: Where did you host it? 145 00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:10,120 Speaker 3: So I'm I'm not going to say, actually I had 146 00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:13,440 Speaker 3: found I had found a hosting company, and I still 147 00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:18,120 Speaker 3: do some work with that hosting company, and we used 148 00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:20,000 Speaker 3: to we used to advertise. I mean it is, it 149 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:23,360 Speaker 3: can be found if people are looking. But because we 150 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:27,160 Speaker 3: we occasionally and we're no longer Tector is no longer 151 00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:31,120 Speaker 3: hosted with them, but we still host some other stuff 152 00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:33,760 Speaker 3: with them because they've been amazing partners. And I just 153 00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:37,920 Speaker 3: found them completely randomly through probably searching Yahoo and found 154 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:42,640 Speaker 3: a random, little tiny hosting company. But because we sometimes 155 00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:47,560 Speaker 3: receive very angry legal threats and sometimes those legal threats 156 00:08:47,559 --> 00:08:53,000 Speaker 3: try and go upstream are our partner hosting company was 157 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:56,080 Speaker 3: receiving too many legal threats and said, hey, could you 158 00:08:56,280 --> 00:09:02,280 Speaker 3: not mention that you host with could you could you 159 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:05,439 Speaker 3: Now that's not I mean it's not, but I mean 160 00:09:05,520 --> 00:09:08,679 Speaker 3: and they're and they're like great, great guys, a very 161 00:09:08,679 --> 00:09:10,720 Speaker 3: small company, a tiny, tiny company. 162 00:09:11,040 --> 00:09:13,320 Speaker 2: Not so you should work with like for the for 163 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:15,400 Speaker 2: the smaller ones. I used to work with a very 164 00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:17,680 Speaker 2: small domain hosting company then got bought by a big 165 00:09:17,679 --> 00:09:19,920 Speaker 2: one and then it shied almost immediately. I'm not going 166 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:23,240 Speaker 2: to name them as their remarkable too, and. 167 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:25,240 Speaker 3: So yeah, but this was not you know this, they 168 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:27,440 Speaker 3: they were great in fact, like you know, as I said, like, 169 00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:30,280 Speaker 3: we still use them for certain projects and I trust 170 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:34,840 Speaker 3: those guys to be absolutely amazing. But but yeah, so 171 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:37,079 Speaker 3: we just found a small hosting company and they were 172 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:39,480 Speaker 3: the original host of Tector for a very long time. 173 00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:45,280 Speaker 3: And so but yeah, and and and eventually the word 174 00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:48,920 Speaker 3: blog came about afterwards, and I resisted calling Tector to 175 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:51,120 Speaker 3: blog for a really long time and then eventually kind 176 00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:55,080 Speaker 3: of realized, like, you know it is, did you finish 177 00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:58,080 Speaker 3: business school? I did finish business school. I have an 178 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:02,520 Speaker 3: m b A, and I so I because I started 179 00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:04,720 Speaker 3: when I was in business school. I got my MBA, 180 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:10,559 Speaker 3: I moved out to California and I started working for Well. 181 00:10:10,559 --> 00:10:16,120 Speaker 3: I interned at Intel and did my big tech at 182 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:19,000 Speaker 3: the time company experience for a little bit. I went 183 00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:23,360 Speaker 3: to an e commerce startup that was very big for 184 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:27,080 Speaker 3: about a week and a half and I joined like 185 00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:29,400 Speaker 3: a week after that. And so it got to ride 186 00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:35,480 Speaker 3: the the e commerce startup down a very big slope downward, 187 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:43,120 Speaker 3: constantly downward, for about it a year during the this 188 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:47,040 Speaker 3: was pre the burst of the dot com bubble. So 189 00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:50,720 Speaker 3: what yeah is I was there from ninety eight to 190 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:51,640 Speaker 3: ninety nine. 191 00:10:51,800 --> 00:10:54,240 Speaker 2: Oh prime, the good years. 192 00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:57,120 Speaker 3: Yeah, except except for us, right, So, I mean part 193 00:10:57,120 --> 00:10:59,240 Speaker 3: of the issue was we saw one of our competitors, 194 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:03,840 Speaker 3: you know, go public based on you know, I don't know, 195 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:08,079 Speaker 3: you know, nonsense and a power right yeah, yeah, this 196 00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:12,320 Speaker 3: was pretty and and so you know, we decided that 197 00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:15,960 Speaker 3: we had to go public too, and we had bankers, 198 00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:18,840 Speaker 3: like we had bankers and consultants and all this nonsense, 199 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:21,000 Speaker 3: and and they looked at what we had and they said, 200 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,800 Speaker 3: you know, you can't go public, like that's how bad 201 00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:27,000 Speaker 3: are Our situation was everybody was going public with zero 202 00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:33,000 Speaker 3: revenue and we couldn't. We had problems. 203 00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:35,880 Speaker 2: I might say that. So after that, did you go 204 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:38,160 Speaker 2: pro with with Tecta? Did Yeah? 205 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,439 Speaker 3: So basically, so I quit. There was a couple of 206 00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:43,760 Speaker 3: reasons why. I don't need to go into all the 207 00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:46,600 Speaker 3: history there, but I I eventually, you know, did a 208 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:51,560 Speaker 3: did a nice little quitting and and I sort of 209 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:53,520 Speaker 3: cast around and I sort of was thinking of doing 210 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:56,959 Speaker 3: another startup myself, and then like a whole bunch of 211 00:11:57,000 --> 00:11:59,360 Speaker 3: people are like, but the whole time, even when I 212 00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:02,280 Speaker 3: was at this company, you know, I was working on 213 00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:04,280 Speaker 3: Tector on the side, and it was just sort of like, 214 00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:06,720 Speaker 3: especially as everything was going terrible at that company, it 215 00:12:06,760 --> 00:12:10,120 Speaker 3: was kind of my release where I can write about 216 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:11,800 Speaker 3: all the shit that's going down. 217 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:14,560 Speaker 2: It's quite literally what I did in the start of 218 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:17,720 Speaker 2: my newsletter was because I was depressed due to professional 219 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:21,160 Speaker 2: personal things. I was like, I need to do something else. 220 00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:24,600 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, totally, and so like that's what I was doing. 221 00:12:24,760 --> 00:12:27,560 Speaker 3: And then and then I was like casting about for 222 00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:30,520 Speaker 3: an idea. I was working with some friends and I 223 00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:32,000 Speaker 3: was like, maybe we should do a startup, and we 224 00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:34,079 Speaker 3: were talking about different ideas, and then a couple of 225 00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:36,839 Speaker 3: people were like, dude, you seem to really like doing 226 00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:40,520 Speaker 3: this writing thing, and like Tector does you know? It 227 00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:43,680 Speaker 3: seems good and like maybe you could turn that into 228 00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:48,240 Speaker 3: a company and so, you know, so, yeah, so a 229 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:50,360 Speaker 3: few months later sort of said okay, I'm gonna I'm 230 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:51,480 Speaker 3: going to commit to this full time. 231 00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:54,480 Speaker 2: And was it just you for a while or how long? 232 00:12:55,160 --> 00:13:01,560 Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I mean the history is like there was 233 00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:04,680 Speaker 3: there was someone else there in the very early years 234 00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:07,640 Speaker 3: who sort of was helping me out and we were 235 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:10,440 Speaker 3: trying to get it. He was not full time, and 236 00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:11,920 Speaker 3: we're trying to get him to the point that it 237 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:15,280 Speaker 3: was full time, and that didn't that never worked out. 238 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:21,480 Speaker 3: And then but soon after that brought on basically, you know, 239 00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:25,560 Speaker 3: basically a small group of people who were you know, 240 00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:29,920 Speaker 3: we referred to as co founders now and and sort 241 00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:32,559 Speaker 3: of helped me out, helping helping me sort of build 242 00:13:32,559 --> 00:13:34,679 Speaker 3: it out. And how many people if you go it now, 243 00:13:35,640 --> 00:13:39,959 Speaker 3: we are very small. We are now for four. 244 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:44,280 Speaker 2: People cool and one of those is called Boat as well. 245 00:13:44,800 --> 00:13:49,680 Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, body his lesson. Sorry, Car is going 246 00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:50,240 Speaker 3: to kick my. 247 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:52,920 Speaker 2: Tweets. 248 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:56,960 Speaker 3: He is used to it. But yeah, so Carl, Carl 249 00:13:57,000 --> 00:13:58,880 Speaker 3: has been writing for us for for a long time. 250 00:14:00,960 --> 00:14:03,760 Speaker 3: I had him, I had him right for us at 251 00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:08,280 Speaker 3: one point. I think he did me a favor. I mean, 252 00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:13,080 Speaker 3: where I either it was I can't remember if either 253 00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:16,000 Speaker 3: I got married or I had paternity leave and I 254 00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:19,920 Speaker 3: needed someone to help write, and and he came in 255 00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:23,160 Speaker 3: for a couple of weeks and then yeah, later on 256 00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:25,760 Speaker 3: when when we were able to bring him on. 257 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:30,040 Speaker 2: So, how are you feeling about the tech media, Because 258 00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:32,120 Speaker 2: I say this with the reason I brought you on 259 00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:34,760 Speaker 2: is to also publicly say you're fucking awesome and tech 260 00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:37,560 Speaker 2: voks right, And I've been reading it for my entire career, 261 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,880 Speaker 2: and it feels like one of the only outlets that 262 00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:45,640 Speaker 2: has not changed tonally. Yeah, like you've kept you've been consistently. 263 00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:48,000 Speaker 2: I think you're one of the other people who gets 264 00:14:48,240 --> 00:14:50,880 Speaker 2: called like acerbic like I do, which I always get 265 00:14:50,920 --> 00:14:53,120 Speaker 2: pissed off with, which I guess doesn't help. 266 00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:58,280 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get. I don't know. I mean, 267 00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:02,080 Speaker 3: it's kind of weird, like I actually don't care too 268 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:07,520 Speaker 3: much what people think about me or saying so so 269 00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:11,240 Speaker 3: like none of that has ever concerned me that much. 270 00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:14,040 Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, I don't know. Caustic, I think 271 00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:16,160 Speaker 3: is a term that's been used. 272 00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:19,960 Speaker 2: Yeah, but it doesn't feel like you're fighty. It feels 273 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:23,400 Speaker 2: like you just are pissed off that people aren't more 274 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:25,840 Speaker 2: consistent and honest and upfront with stuff. 275 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:30,400 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's just like, you know, I've I have opinions, 276 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:32,720 Speaker 3: and this is a chance to express that. I'm not 277 00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:35,880 Speaker 3: going to hold back. And you know, it's like, I 278 00:15:35,920 --> 00:15:38,400 Speaker 3: don't know, I feel like a lot of people, you know, 279 00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:40,360 Speaker 3: I mean obviously, like if you're working for like a 280 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:44,320 Speaker 3: big media company, they're you know, there are limits put 281 00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:46,320 Speaker 3: on kind of what you can say. But also it 282 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:47,760 Speaker 3: feels like a lot of people who sort of get 283 00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,640 Speaker 3: into writing also you know, they kind of do it 284 00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:53,320 Speaker 3: to then like move into a role like they want 285 00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:56,240 Speaker 3: to get hired by I don't know, CNN, NBC or 286 00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:58,240 Speaker 3: something like that, And that was like never my goal. 287 00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:02,520 Speaker 3: So like, right, I never had this concern that like, oh, 288 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,320 Speaker 3: you know, like well if I write this, nobody's ever 289 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:08,760 Speaker 3: going to hire me because I'm not trying to get 290 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:12,480 Speaker 3: hired that way. So so that was never, you know, 291 00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:14,000 Speaker 3: never a concern of mine. 292 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:16,960 Speaker 2: But it feels totally like you at least had a 293 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:19,720 Speaker 2: mission though. Yeah, I've always been trying to get high 294 00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:21,640 Speaker 2: old of what that is in the best way. 295 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:25,800 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, I don't know, I mean 296 00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:29,560 Speaker 3: I have at some point I need to dig up 297 00:16:29,680 --> 00:16:32,280 Speaker 3: and find like and I know, I like sent this 298 00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:35,400 Speaker 3: to Carl and other people brought on new writers. I 299 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:39,440 Speaker 3: had sort of like an editorial like here's our mission, right, 300 00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:41,560 Speaker 3: here's what we're trying to do. But it's it's like 301 00:16:42,120 --> 00:16:44,040 Speaker 3: twenty years old at this point, and I haven't looked 302 00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:45,280 Speaker 3: at it, and I don't even know where I would 303 00:16:45,280 --> 00:16:48,560 Speaker 3: find it. But like, you know, my take on it 304 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:52,360 Speaker 3: was always like the key thing for me with Tector 305 00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:55,920 Speaker 3: is I actually and this is where like potentially I 306 00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:57,800 Speaker 3: don't know if I disagree with you or you might 307 00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:03,480 Speaker 3: disagree with me, Whereas like I am weirdly optimistic about technology. 308 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:07,719 Speaker 3: I actually do think technology is like a generally good 309 00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:09,360 Speaker 3: driving force, and like. 310 00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:11,679 Speaker 2: I actually fully agree, by the way, okay. 311 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:16,600 Speaker 3: And like innovation has all this amazing opportunity that I 312 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:23,880 Speaker 3: would love to see realized, and so like my focus 313 00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:27,040 Speaker 3: is on like anything that gets in the way of it, 314 00:17:27,119 --> 00:17:28,920 Speaker 3: and and so like, and I want to be really 315 00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:32,440 Speaker 3: careful here because like there's like the Mark Andresen view, 316 00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:35,760 Speaker 3: like who says something that sounds kind of like what 317 00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:38,040 Speaker 3: I'm saying here, right, But. 318 00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:43,160 Speaker 2: He's he's not an optimist, he mentions Nick Land. Yeah, 319 00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:48,080 Speaker 2: that's not the dark and enlightenment guys are not optimists. 320 00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:49,719 Speaker 3: Right, And and so his whole thing is like, you know, 321 00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:56,000 Speaker 3: this accelerationist approach to like technology and innovation, and and 322 00:17:56,440 --> 00:17:58,480 Speaker 3: my take on it is more like I want to 323 00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:01,359 Speaker 3: see all of these, like all the good stuff that 324 00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:06,120 Speaker 3: technology enables to become reality. I would like to see 325 00:18:06,119 --> 00:18:08,840 Speaker 3: it sooner because I only have so long to live, 326 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:11,399 Speaker 3: and the more of it that I can see, and 327 00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:13,439 Speaker 3: the more of it that will be available to my 328 00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:17,160 Speaker 3: kids and you know, everybody else I think would be good. 329 00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:21,760 Speaker 3: But that you know, there are ways to do that right, 330 00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:24,919 Speaker 3: and there are ways to do it better and to 331 00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:27,600 Speaker 3: take a long term view of how how do we 332 00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,640 Speaker 3: actually make the world better with these kinds of innovations. 333 00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:38,679 Speaker 3: And so I think, you know, poorly executed innovation is 334 00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:42,560 Speaker 3: bad and leads to problems. And so where I get 335 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:45,960 Speaker 3: upset is sort of and you know what sets me 336 00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:49,280 Speaker 3: off on various rants is like, you know, efforts that 337 00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:53,000 Speaker 3: get in the way of good innovation. Right, So it's 338 00:18:53,040 --> 00:18:56,919 Speaker 3: not like like the Andresan viewpoint is like anything that 339 00:18:56,960 --> 00:19:00,480 Speaker 3: gets in the way of any innovation is a problem. 340 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:03,720 Speaker 2: And you know, and also I don't the things. I 341 00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:06,240 Speaker 2: fully agree with you. I regularly get told a senek, 342 00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:08,240 Speaker 2: I'm a pessimist. I don't like this stuff. I love 343 00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:11,240 Speaker 2: the computer. Yeah, it's the only reason I'm a person. 344 00:19:11,520 --> 00:19:15,640 Speaker 2: Like like I'm like the drill crying tweet, but about 345 00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:19,240 Speaker 2: the internet, like my job, my friend, love ones, lovers 346 00:19:20,080 --> 00:19:23,080 Speaker 2: crying and Internet and it's now get the fuck out 347 00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:24,879 Speaker 2: of my office, which is the quote from the growth tweet. 348 00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:26,840 Speaker 2: I'm not saying this to Mike, but it's like, I 349 00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:30,120 Speaker 2: agree with you. It's these things may seem like we're 350 00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:32,840 Speaker 2: deeply interrogating them and attacking them, but it's like these 351 00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:36,919 Speaker 2: things are in the way of cool stuff happening. Yes, Centralization, monopolization, 352 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:41,840 Speaker 2: shitty regulations that stop actual innovation happens are the things 353 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:44,800 Speaker 2: that will stop cool stuff happening. Yes, And I think 354 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:49,879 Speaker 2: too regularly people kind of conflate that with hating. But 355 00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:51,919 Speaker 2: it's like you should hate the stuff that gets in 356 00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:53,640 Speaker 2: the way of the cool stuff exactly. 357 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:56,320 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, then yes, that is That is very much 358 00:19:56,400 --> 00:19:58,119 Speaker 3: my view of these things. I mean, I would love 359 00:19:58,160 --> 00:20:00,000 Speaker 3: to see more cool stuff than so stuff that gets 360 00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:01,719 Speaker 3: in the way of that I find problematic. 361 00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:16,280 Speaker 2: So my many complainers and haters. They hate me so much. 362 00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:18,960 Speaker 2: They they tell me I never like anything, But I 363 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:21,000 Speaker 2: want to talk about Blue Sky. Okay, you joined the 364 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:23,760 Speaker 2: board of yees. So how did that actually come abound? 365 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,280 Speaker 3: Yeah? So, I mean, you know, I don't know how 366 00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:29,360 Speaker 3: much you know about the history of Blue Sky itself. 367 00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:31,280 Speaker 2: I think it would be good to tell listeners. 368 00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:36,360 Speaker 3: Sure so, and I have some association with it, though 369 00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:41,639 Speaker 3: it's sort of semi random. Which was that, you know, 370 00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:44,879 Speaker 3: when this goes back to, like I think it was 371 00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:47,560 Speaker 3: like I had looked this up fairly recently, so that 372 00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:49,119 Speaker 3: don't hold me to the dates, but I think it 373 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:53,080 Speaker 3: was around like twenty fourteen or so. It was when 374 00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:58,640 Speaker 3: there was suddenly some controversies around the way that Twitter 375 00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:05,360 Speaker 3: and Reddit were hand certain content moderation controversies, and there 376 00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:09,080 Speaker 3: was you know, basically like really bad shitty content on 377 00:21:09,160 --> 00:21:11,480 Speaker 3: both of those platforms, and there was a big debate 378 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:13,840 Speaker 3: over whether or not those companies should step in and 379 00:21:13,960 --> 00:21:15,920 Speaker 3: take down that content, and whether or not that was 380 00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:18,600 Speaker 3: an attack on free speech or blah blah blah. You know, 381 00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:20,560 Speaker 3: we've heard all the debates, but that was really the 382 00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:24,120 Speaker 3: first one that really boiled through. Was around twenty fourteen 383 00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:28,960 Speaker 3: and I among the other things that I believe in, 384 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:33,640 Speaker 3: you know, strongly, is like free speech is a very 385 00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,560 Speaker 3: important concept to me. And again, like I always feel like, 386 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:38,840 Speaker 3: now I need to caveat that because lots of most 387 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:41,800 Speaker 3: people who say that they support free speech, don't. 388 00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:45,040 Speaker 2: They they support saying the N word. Yeah, that is 389 00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:45,760 Speaker 2: the big goal. 390 00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:49,439 Speaker 3: Yeah, they it's yeah, it's it's very frustrating to me. 391 00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:58,600 Speaker 3: I support actual free speech, yes, and that includes, you know, 392 00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:05,119 Speaker 3: the right of private platforms to say we don't want 393 00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:08,879 Speaker 3: to associate with you. That is a right of association, 394 00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:11,760 Speaker 3: which is considered a one part of the right of 395 00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:16,800 Speaker 3: free speech. But at the same time, I do appreciate again, 396 00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:21,080 Speaker 3: like the power of the Internet itself to be this 397 00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:26,800 Speaker 3: platform of enabling more good speech. Some bad speech, obviously, 398 00:22:27,119 --> 00:22:29,520 Speaker 3: but also an awful lot of really really good speech. 399 00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:33,200 Speaker 3: And I am very very concerned about an overreaction where 400 00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:36,600 Speaker 3: in an attempt to stop the bad speech, which again 401 00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:39,240 Speaker 3: is very much there, that we throw out a whole 402 00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:41,399 Speaker 3: bunch of really good and important speech. 403 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:45,600 Speaker 2: Can you give an example, just because because this is 404 00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:46,920 Speaker 2: a thorny topic, I think it's good. 405 00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:53,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I mean obviously, like you know me too, 406 00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:57,160 Speaker 3: Black lives matter. You know, these kinds of things came 407 00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:01,280 Speaker 3: about because of the Internet. The Arab Spring is another 408 00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:04,280 Speaker 3: one where the you know, the Internet was incredibly powerful 409 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,359 Speaker 3: in having these voices be able to speak out and 410 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:11,080 Speaker 3: to you know, form groups and organize and talk to 411 00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:16,720 Speaker 3: each other. That really was not particularly possible prior to 412 00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,679 Speaker 3: the Internet being there and enabling that kind of speech. 413 00:23:20,119 --> 00:23:22,560 Speaker 3: And I worry when we talk about, you know, stopping 414 00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:26,680 Speaker 3: certain kinds of speech, that that would enable people to 415 00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:31,199 Speaker 3: stop these these other kinds of of good speech, and 416 00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:33,679 Speaker 3: so that that was sort of like larger issue I'm 417 00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:37,399 Speaker 3: sort of thinking about, like, how do we protect you know, 418 00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:40,960 Speaker 3: the ability for people to speak out, to speak truth 419 00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,800 Speaker 3: to power in certain cases where it is really important. 420 00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:51,320 Speaker 3: Also protect the right of private you know, uh services 421 00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:53,760 Speaker 3: to say I don't want to associate with this content, 422 00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,640 Speaker 3: not be forced to host you know, Nazi content for example, 423 00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,159 Speaker 3: or or hateful content. How do we sort of balance 424 00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:05,879 Speaker 3: those things. And because I'm old and because I'm from 425 00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,040 Speaker 3: you know, I existed on the Internet in the nineties 426 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:11,840 Speaker 3: and I was like, I felt like the Internet was 427 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,840 Speaker 3: kind of different back then, and so I just started 428 00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:16,720 Speaker 3: thinking through these things and I said, well, you know, wait, 429 00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,080 Speaker 3: how did we get to this world in which you know, 430 00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:23,919 Speaker 3: I grew up pre World Wide Web on Usenet and 431 00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:26,840 Speaker 3: I r C all of these. 432 00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:29,640 Speaker 2: You know, I was a polarist man. If you remember polarist, 433 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:32,160 Speaker 2: I don't don't think I ow. It was a great 434 00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:33,920 Speaker 2: side client had colors and shit. 435 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,040 Speaker 3: It was okay, I don't even remember what I RC client. 436 00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,760 Speaker 3: I use it, but you know, and I used Gopher 437 00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,119 Speaker 3: before the web existed, Like, I don't know if you 438 00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:43,760 Speaker 3: remember Gopher. 439 00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:45,680 Speaker 2: I don't know Gopher. I'm looking it up now. 440 00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:49,040 Speaker 3: Okay. It was sort of like a text based uh 441 00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:53,480 Speaker 3: you know, menu systems like my protocol Jesus, yes, yeah, 442 00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,639 Speaker 3: so I would get the weather every morning by gophering 443 00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:02,520 Speaker 3: to a server finding out what the weather was. So, 444 00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:04,840 Speaker 3: you know, so I was like, we had all these 445 00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,000 Speaker 3: things and they were all protocol based and then anyone 446 00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,520 Speaker 3: could build, right, So you used a different IRC client 447 00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,080 Speaker 3: than I did. Anyone could build on it because it 448 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,399 Speaker 3: was all a protocol and anyone could build. And I 449 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,520 Speaker 3: was like, wait, you know, the world changed somewhere in 450 00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,960 Speaker 3: the last twenty years, and now we have all these 451 00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:23,280 Speaker 3: services that are wholly owned corporations, and they obviously have 452 00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,320 Speaker 3: their own interests, and that doesn't seem like a great world. 453 00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,480 Speaker 3: So I wrote a blog post it just kind of suggested, like, hey, 454 00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,400 Speaker 3: you know, why aren't these things built on protocols, why 455 00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,320 Speaker 3: are they all wholly owned corporations, Because that's where it 456 00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:39,360 Speaker 3: seems like a whole bunch of the problems come in. 457 00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:42,360 Speaker 2: And then I had these interoperable portals. 458 00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,560 Speaker 3: Yeah right, I mean it's like because like you know, once, 459 00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:48,440 Speaker 3: you know, I was kind of thinking, I was thinking 460 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,439 Speaker 3: back to usenet honestly, where it's like, yeah, you know, 461 00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,760 Speaker 3: you had bad, terrible people on unet. Yeah yeah, I 462 00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:57,600 Speaker 3: mean you know, depending on where you go, it's kind 463 00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,400 Speaker 3: of risky. But you also had like kill files, and 464 00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:02,919 Speaker 3: you had different use net servers that would ban different 465 00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:04,639 Speaker 3: groups different uh, I. 466 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,000 Speaker 2: Mean some of the early gaming groups I was in, Yeah, 467 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:07,960 Speaker 2: like I was playing Uo. 468 00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,560 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there there was all all sorts of stuff, 469 00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:14,639 Speaker 3: and but like you had methods of dealing with it. 470 00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,639 Speaker 3: But it was like community based. It wasn't like it 471 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,359 Speaker 3: wasn't like, you know, the president of usenet has to 472 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,000 Speaker 3: decide which which things are allowed in which or not, 473 00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:24,960 Speaker 3: But like as a community we can sort of figure 474 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,320 Speaker 3: out or through individuals, like with kill files and stuff 475 00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:30,520 Speaker 3: like you could say like I'm I don't look, I 476 00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:32,679 Speaker 3: never want to hear from it again, right, so like 477 00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:36,080 Speaker 3: I'm gonna make sure make sure that I'd never have 478 00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,800 Speaker 3: to deal with him, and so, you know, and I 479 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:40,600 Speaker 3: was like that was that was like a better world. 480 00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:44,119 Speaker 3: Whereas now, like everything because like Reddit is fully in 481 00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:46,880 Speaker 3: control of Reddit and Twitter is fully in control of Twitter. 482 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,359 Speaker 3: We're in this world where we are totally dependent on 483 00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:53,360 Speaker 3: the decisions that they make, and you know, like, yes, 484 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,480 Speaker 3: there is like one decider and so like in some 485 00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,840 Speaker 3: cases maybe that is useful, but you know, on the 486 00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:02,320 Speaker 3: who whole, it feels like a less great world because 487 00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:06,240 Speaker 3: the incentives that they have are also you know, not 488 00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,479 Speaker 3: always aligned with the users and certainly not aligned with like, 489 00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,160 Speaker 3: you know, what might be best for different us. It's 490 00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:18,280 Speaker 3: always going to be a single view and usually it's 491 00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,760 Speaker 3: like what is going to be the biggest profit, you know, 492 00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,400 Speaker 3: for for us? And so so I wrote this piece 493 00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:27,560 Speaker 3: sort of like theorizing like what would it look like 494 00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:31,760 Speaker 3: if we had a more interoperable, you know, protocol based 495 00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:35,200 Speaker 3: world for these kinds of services, And then I'd written 496 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,520 Speaker 3: a few more things about it, and at some point 497 00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:41,880 Speaker 3: in like twenty eighteen, the Night Institute of Columbia asked 498 00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,520 Speaker 3: if I would write a paper kind of outlining that idea, 499 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:47,439 Speaker 3: and that made me really sit down and sort of 500 00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,560 Speaker 3: think through it more systematically, and I wrote this paper 501 00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:58,240 Speaker 3: called Protocols Not Platforms, which I was, you know, went 502 00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,040 Speaker 3: back and forth with them on editing. There were two 503 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:06,119 Speaker 3: folks at the Night Institute who were really really good, 504 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,040 Speaker 3: like amazing editors, like really challenged everything I wrote, and 505 00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:11,600 Speaker 3: it was just like, but how would this work? Like 506 00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,320 Speaker 3: why would that? You know? And really made me, you know, 507 00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:18,280 Speaker 3: work hard at getting that paper right and we published. 508 00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:22,680 Speaker 3: They published that in twenty nineteen, and it got a 509 00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:25,200 Speaker 3: little bit of attention early on, and then it sort 510 00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:30,119 Speaker 3: of died out. And then Jack Dorsey found the paper 511 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:32,800 Speaker 3: and I kind of think I know how he did it, 512 00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,000 Speaker 3: I'm not entirely sure, and he reached out and he 513 00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,120 Speaker 3: was just like, hey, I read your paper, and I 514 00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,400 Speaker 3: think we want to do that with Twitter and so 515 00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,240 Speaker 3: to take one step back, like my thought and writing 516 00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:51,320 Speaker 3: that paper to create that world. So I was sort 517 00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,640 Speaker 3: of arguing that this world is a better world where. 518 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:56,880 Speaker 2: Every major platform would have a protocol that could be 519 00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:58,000 Speaker 2: connected to the other. 520 00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:00,840 Speaker 3: Or yeah, I mean there are a few ways that it 521 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,400 Speaker 3: could be done. But basically I was like, what can 522 00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,920 Speaker 3: we do to like take away the power of like 523 00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:10,160 Speaker 3: a Mark Zuckerberg or you know, a Sergey Brin or 524 00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:14,280 Speaker 3: whatever to like control a huge portion of the Internet 525 00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:17,880 Speaker 3: was kind of the underlying thinking. But still have the 526 00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:22,920 Speaker 3: benefits of these services, right, Like, like there are good things, 527 00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:25,960 Speaker 3: but you know, the problem comes in when you know one, 528 00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,640 Speaker 3: you're sort of stuck there, right. You know, if if 529 00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:30,960 Speaker 3: you you know, like the example and I use this 530 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:32,680 Speaker 3: in the paper and it comes up a lot is 531 00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:38,760 Speaker 3: like the email example, where you know, compared to like Facebook, right, 532 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:42,479 Speaker 3: if I leave Facebook, then I mostly have But you know, 533 00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:47,360 Speaker 3: when I leave Facebook, that means my family that uses Facebook, 534 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,560 Speaker 3: my cousins, my aunts and uncles that all stay in 535 00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,280 Speaker 3: touch through Facebook, I no longer know what's going on 536 00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,400 Speaker 3: with them because I don't. I don't want to deal 537 00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:58,200 Speaker 3: with Facebook anymore. But email, Like, if I don't like 538 00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,800 Speaker 3: my email provider, I can find an new email provider 539 00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:03,600 Speaker 3: and I don't lose touch with everyone that I email 540 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:07,560 Speaker 3: because I can just import my address book over. I said, 541 00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:10,200 Speaker 3: you know, why why can't we make all of the 542 00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:14,280 Speaker 3: Internet services that we like more like the email example 543 00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,760 Speaker 3: and less like the Facebook example, where where if I leave, 544 00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:20,520 Speaker 3: I can still stay in touch with people. 545 00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,520 Speaker 2: Where's the incentive for the platforms to do this? 546 00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,800 Speaker 3: So yeah, so if you read the Protocol's not Platforms paper, 547 00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,520 Speaker 3: you see, like I, I try to come up with 548 00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:35,440 Speaker 3: a bunch of incentives to effectively convince the companies to 549 00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,720 Speaker 3: recognize that there are potential benefits. Yes, obviously they are 550 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,440 Speaker 3: losing control, but my main pitch to them, and this 551 00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:47,600 Speaker 3: is the one that Jack seemed to buy, was you 552 00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:52,000 Speaker 3: also don't get blamed for everything anymore. And so whether 553 00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,960 Speaker 3: or not that is a good thing or not, it's 554 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:56,160 Speaker 3: just like cause I you know. 555 00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:59,239 Speaker 2: And then just so I'm clear, the downside is for 556 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,920 Speaker 2: them would be that they can no longer trap you there. 557 00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:05,640 Speaker 2: But in return, you're not totally at faults. 558 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:11,360 Speaker 3: Well basically, you know, it's like when you know. So 559 00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,960 Speaker 3: this is not again not a perfect analogy, but it's 560 00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,640 Speaker 3: like you think of email, email and spam, right, so 561 00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:19,680 Speaker 3: everyone's sort of like trying to deal with spam, but 562 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,479 Speaker 3: at no point are they like calling the CEO of 563 00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,640 Speaker 3: Email to testify before Congress because they're spam everywhere, Right, 564 00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,400 Speaker 3: you sort of recognize that it is a collective action issue, 565 00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,200 Speaker 3: and it's a collective problem that everyone has to try 566 00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,640 Speaker 3: to work on in different ways, and you had early 567 00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:37,760 Speaker 3: on at least you had different people sort of creating 568 00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,920 Speaker 3: different spam fighting tools, and the discussion was over that, 569 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,320 Speaker 3: like how do how do we better handle those things 570 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:48,640 Speaker 3: rather than you know, you, mister CEO of email, have 571 00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:49,480 Speaker 3: to fix this. 572 00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,719 Speaker 2: I think we're I'm a little confused. Yeah, but forgive 573 00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:56,280 Speaker 2: me for this is that how does this deal with 574 00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:59,040 Speaker 2: like trolls and spam and all that if they have 575 00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,440 Speaker 2: less responsibility than who does? So if there was a 576 00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:04,600 Speaker 2: is this is this, I guess federated? Is this what 577 00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,440 Speaker 2: you're suggesting like because or is this forget forget my ignorance? 578 00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,280 Speaker 3: No, no, no, it's it's not. It's it's a little 579 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:13,520 Speaker 3: bit complex to to wrap your head around. It's complex 580 00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:15,000 Speaker 3: for me to wrap my head around it. And so 581 00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,800 Speaker 3: it's fine, it's important. It's good to ask questions. No, 582 00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:24,120 Speaker 3: So my thinking was that what happens is if it's 583 00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:26,160 Speaker 3: and I didn't think of it as federated as in 584 00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:28,960 Speaker 3: like mastodon, right, I mean, we can get into like 585 00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,400 Speaker 3: specific debates about the actual like technical infrastructure and how 586 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,800 Speaker 3: it's built. I don't think that's as important. The idea 587 00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:38,800 Speaker 3: more was that if it is not wholly controlled by 588 00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:43,760 Speaker 3: one company, those companies can still you know, have a 589 00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:47,479 Speaker 3: responsibility in terms of keeping their part of it clean 590 00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,080 Speaker 3: in order to keep users. Because now, the way I 591 00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:55,200 Speaker 3: looked at it was, you know, if you know, so, 592 00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,640 Speaker 3: imagine a world in which there are lots of Twitters, 593 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:00,000 Speaker 3: and this is kind of the way I was thinking 594 00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,560 Speaker 3: that that could all interoperate and communicate across each other. 595 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,479 Speaker 3: If Jack Dorsey, you know at that time, still running Twitter, 596 00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,320 Speaker 3: does something really stupid or enables too many Nazis to 597 00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:17,400 Speaker 3: be too Nazi full, then people will leave right right 598 00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:21,480 Speaker 3: because there's now easy exit under this kind of system, 599 00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:26,120 Speaker 3: and therefore he has incentives to actually keep things clean. Now, 600 00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:28,920 Speaker 3: this is the part that some people get upset about, 601 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,440 Speaker 3: which is like, if it is a protocol, then you 602 00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:35,800 Speaker 3: could still have you know, Nazi Twitter, which is kind 603 00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:37,480 Speaker 3: of what we have now. 604 00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,080 Speaker 2: You can just say Twitter now. 605 00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:45,880 Speaker 3: Yeah or x right so, and you know, but in 606 00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:51,160 Speaker 3: that world, I think they can be much more isolated. 607 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:55,320 Speaker 3: Now this is partly theoretical in my belief. 608 00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,400 Speaker 2: But also you would be building a site on top 609 00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:00,360 Speaker 2: of a protocol. It would use the protocol. You would 610 00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,120 Speaker 2: be visiting a site. 611 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,600 Speaker 3: Right, so you you would still be using a site, 612 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,520 Speaker 3: and then but you would have one you would have 613 00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:11,600 Speaker 3: more control yourself because you could bring in your own 614 00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:15,200 Speaker 3: algorithms or other people's algorithms or so you know, other 615 00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:15,640 Speaker 3: you know. 616 00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,200 Speaker 2: And use that to called and off the Nazis rather than. 617 00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,440 Speaker 3: To courting off the Nazis. But again, like you know, 618 00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,120 Speaker 3: there are different layers here in terms of the stack, 619 00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,400 Speaker 3: in terms of who's doing which part of it. But 620 00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,520 Speaker 3: you could still have room for a company like a 621 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:33,440 Speaker 3: Twitter or now a blue Sky that has some moderation features, 622 00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,400 Speaker 3: and if people really dislike the way that they're moderating, 623 00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,040 Speaker 3: they could build their own from. 624 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,120 Speaker 2: The same protocol with the same us as with the 625 00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,360 Speaker 2: same accounts, right exactly. And that's what blue Sky is 626 00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,799 Speaker 2: really doing. Like blue Sky is on top of a 627 00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:48,960 Speaker 2: protocle or is it a protocol itself. 628 00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:51,560 Speaker 3: No, So blue Sky is on top of a protocol, 629 00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:57,000 Speaker 3: the AT protocol or AT protocol. And so you know 630 00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,640 Speaker 3: what happened was that Jack decided that Twitter would do this. 631 00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,360 Speaker 3: He was somewhat convinced by my paper and decided that 632 00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,400 Speaker 3: he would he would hire a small team of engineers, 633 00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,919 Speaker 3: give them some money, and have them go and build 634 00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,600 Speaker 3: a protocol, with the idea being that Twitter would adopt 635 00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:18,759 Speaker 3: that protocol eventually. And so that was the plan that 636 00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,840 Speaker 3: he sort of set in motion in late twenty nineteen, 637 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,880 Speaker 3: and he, you know, he announced it on Twitter and 638 00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:27,440 Speaker 3: he gave a shout out to my paper, but I 639 00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:32,160 Speaker 3: had no official anything. I had spoken to him after 640 00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:34,399 Speaker 3: he read the paper. I had a couple conversations with him, 641 00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:36,799 Speaker 3: and I got an alert the night before he sent 642 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:38,560 Speaker 3: out that threat saying he was going to do it. 643 00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,040 Speaker 3: He was going to announce it, but I had no 644 00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:45,280 Speaker 3: no role or any any association with it. And then 645 00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:50,520 Speaker 3: then well COVID happened, which I think probably threw off timelines. 646 00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:54,160 Speaker 3: But Twitter folks got a bunch of people who were 647 00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:57,600 Speaker 3: interested in decentralized social media together in an online sort 648 00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:01,880 Speaker 3: of you know, chat space using Matrix, which is another 649 00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:06,600 Speaker 3: decentralized protocol, and and you know, they basically talked about 650 00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,840 Speaker 3: ideas for a really long time, and it took Twitter 651 00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:13,359 Speaker 3: really very way too long, you know, basically another year 652 00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,960 Speaker 3: and a half until they finally decided that they were 653 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,680 Speaker 3: going to hire somebody to lead the Blue Sky project, 654 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,640 Speaker 3: and then that took a while and they eventually hired 655 00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:26,479 Speaker 3: Jay Graber. But again, Jay very smartly said, this needs 656 00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:28,600 Speaker 3: to be separate. It can't be a part of Twitter. 657 00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:30,719 Speaker 3: It needs to be independent from Twitter, because otherwise someone 658 00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:35,120 Speaker 3: could buy it and then destroy it. Yeah, we wouldn't 659 00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,080 Speaker 3: want that to happen. Yeah. So, so pretty prescient on 660 00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:38,640 Speaker 3: her partner. 661 00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:53,879 Speaker 2: And so, how did you end up on the bullet then? 662 00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:54,439 Speaker 3: Yeah? 663 00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,319 Speaker 2: So I was also in the thread and like one 664 00:36:56,400 --> 00:37:01,040 Speaker 2: hundred people mentioned me. So, I mean I have no qualifications. 665 00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:03,400 Speaker 2: I post a lot, I don't really know stuff. So 666 00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:04,799 Speaker 2: I mean it's unfair, you got it? 667 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, So I mean basically, I mean I had known Jay. 668 00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,759 Speaker 3: I'd known Jane from before all of this. Actually I 669 00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,680 Speaker 3: had met with her kind of around when the protocols 670 00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:17,280 Speaker 3: and platforms. 671 00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:19,680 Speaker 2: This is Jay Graver Graver who's the CEO. 672 00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:22,240 Speaker 3: I had met with her kind of when the paper 673 00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,040 Speaker 3: came out through a mutual friend. She had read the 674 00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:28,920 Speaker 3: paper and liked it, and we had lunch and just 675 00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:32,600 Speaker 3: very quickly, like I realized, like she she internalizes, she 676 00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,440 Speaker 3: understood it better than I did, and she understood my 677 00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:38,200 Speaker 3: paper better than I did and I wrote it and 678 00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:39,680 Speaker 3: that was like, I was like, wow, this. 679 00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,960 Speaker 2: Is that that rocks as far as the CEO CEO 680 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,360 Speaker 2: of a website actually knowing how it works. I'm not 681 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,479 Speaker 2: even being sarcastic here, no, I mean it. 682 00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:51,200 Speaker 3: Was it was. It was really eye opening. And this 683 00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,279 Speaker 3: is obviously before you know, blue Sky existed. And then 684 00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,279 Speaker 3: so she you know, you know, once Twitter announced blue Sky, 685 00:37:57,400 --> 00:37:59,040 Speaker 3: she she had made it clear to them that she 686 00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:03,200 Speaker 3: really wanted to run it, and Jack and Twitter like 687 00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,440 Speaker 3: really took a lot of time to actually realize that, 688 00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:08,960 Speaker 3: like she should run it, and like they interviewed a 689 00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,360 Speaker 3: lot of other people. They actually again I had no 690 00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,560 Speaker 3: official association. I never got paid, I never you know, 691 00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,239 Speaker 3: had no contract or anything. But they actually had me 692 00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,840 Speaker 3: interview people who might run the Blue Sky project at 693 00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:21,239 Speaker 3: one point. 694 00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:23,000 Speaker 2: That's really cool. 695 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:25,520 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. I was just kind of they just 696 00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,120 Speaker 3: asked me, and I said for sure, and then I 697 00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,440 Speaker 3: gave them feedback and I recommended that they hired j 698 00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:32,600 Speaker 3: though there were really good other people. 699 00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,480 Speaker 2: And actually there was a board of people setting up 700 00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:37,440 Speaker 2: Blue Sky just so the people know the organization. So 701 00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:39,239 Speaker 2: there was a board of people it. 702 00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:40,960 Speaker 3: Was yeah, it was mostly Twitter people. There were a 703 00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,600 Speaker 3: few outsiders, but it was mostly like senior executives at Twitter, 704 00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:46,920 Speaker 3: and they were still. 705 00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:48,560 Speaker 2: At Twitter at the time, and then they left or. 706 00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:53,359 Speaker 3: And no, oh oh. In terms of the people they interviewed, yeah, 707 00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,480 Speaker 3: none of the people they interviewed were Twitter. Sorry. All 708 00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:57,879 Speaker 3: the people that they interviewed, I'm sorry. The people who 709 00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:01,000 Speaker 3: were doing like the interviewing were Twitter people and a 710 00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,240 Speaker 3: couple outside people like me and a few others. 711 00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:04,279 Speaker 2: That's really cool though. 712 00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:09,560 Speaker 3: Yeah. And then and then they they and and there 713 00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,080 Speaker 3: were it was actually some really impressive candidates and like 714 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:13,879 Speaker 3: I was, like, I was kind of blown away by 715 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:15,560 Speaker 3: like how many smart people were thinking through how do 716 00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:20,239 Speaker 3: you actually build a decentralized social media protocol. And then 717 00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:24,439 Speaker 3: eventually they hired Jay and she start and she set 718 00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:28,600 Speaker 3: it up as an independent operation and then built out 719 00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:36,600 Speaker 3: the company. And the originally had so the board was herself, 720 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:41,719 Speaker 3: Jeremy Miller, who is still on the board and was 721 00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:47,840 Speaker 3: has a lot of experience in decentralized protocols and standards. 722 00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:55,239 Speaker 3: And then Jack was the third board member and in 723 00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,400 Speaker 3: the midst of all of this as well, then Elon 724 00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:03,600 Speaker 3: came along obviously, I think your listeners know what of him, Yeah. 725 00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:05,400 Speaker 2: And and everything zip To founder. 726 00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:08,880 Speaker 3: Yes, it's funny if you go way back in the 727 00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,680 Speaker 3: tector at archives, I have a post about zip To 728 00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:18,680 Speaker 3: where I called him Elton Musk at the time, which 729 00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:25,000 Speaker 3: I've never corrected, and so uh uh so, yeah, Jack 730 00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:27,600 Speaker 3: was on board. But somewhere around this time when Elon 731 00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:32,760 Speaker 3: took over, Jack discovered Noster, which is this other decentralized 732 00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:37,560 Speaker 3: social media protocol, and he became really really interested in it. 733 00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:41,280 Speaker 3: And this is actually about the last time I spoke 734 00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:45,680 Speaker 3: with Jack where he was like, oh, you should check 735 00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:50,080 Speaker 3: out Noster, like it is everything that your paper, you 736 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,800 Speaker 3: know that your paper described And I was like, okay, 737 00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:55,719 Speaker 3: that's interesting. And I was like, but what about blue Sky, 738 00:40:55,960 --> 00:41:00,840 Speaker 3: Like aren't you you're on the board And he's like yeah, 739 00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,040 Speaker 3: He's like they're they're too slow. Noster is going to 740 00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:04,800 Speaker 3: move much faster. 741 00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,640 Speaker 2: Okay, buddy, Yeah, how's how's Noster doing? 742 00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:10,799 Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like I checked it out. I actually do 743 00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,200 Speaker 3: think there are some really cool things about Noster, and 744 00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:19,719 Speaker 3: like technically it's it's a really interesting setup that He's 745 00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:21,960 Speaker 3: right that it does enable like a lot of like, 746 00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:26,240 Speaker 3: really some really cool things can be done by a NOSTER. 747 00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,600 Speaker 3: And it is interesting because both the technological underpinnings of 748 00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:34,000 Speaker 3: both Noster and the the AT protocol, which is what 749 00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,719 Speaker 3: Blue Sky is based on, both really come out of 750 00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:40,680 Speaker 3: this other decentralized protocol called Secure scuttle Butt, which we're 751 00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:42,879 Speaker 3: not going to get into and what that is and 752 00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:45,759 Speaker 3: what happened to it. But so both of them take 753 00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:51,280 Speaker 3: some of the technological thinkings from the same same core idea, 754 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,160 Speaker 3: and that's actually kind of interesting, and you know, if 755 00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:56,000 Speaker 3: you get into the technical weeds, it's it's kind of 756 00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:58,680 Speaker 3: neat how there are some similarities there. But he got 757 00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,080 Speaker 3: really focused on it mainly because it was like so 758 00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,480 Speaker 3: lightweight and so simple that people could build on it 759 00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,799 Speaker 3: very quickly, whereas Blue Sky was taking more time. But 760 00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,399 Speaker 3: part of the reason why Blue Sky was taking more time, 761 00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:12,239 Speaker 3: and part of the reason why I've always been really 762 00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:15,480 Speaker 3: impressed by Jay is that her approach to all of 763 00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,960 Speaker 3: this is like people, like, some people care about decentralization, 764 00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,799 Speaker 3: most people don't, And if you're going to build a 765 00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,960 Speaker 3: thing that works, like the fact that it is a 766 00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:30,880 Speaker 3: decentralized protocol underneath, shouldn't it shouldn't matter to most users. 767 00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,120 Speaker 3: They need to build it just a good service upfront, 768 00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:37,160 Speaker 3: like that's the most important thing. And so you know, 769 00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:41,640 Speaker 3: Jay's very very conscientious of that and thoughtful of that. 770 00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:45,080 Speaker 3: And so anyway, so that all happened, Jack was still 771 00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,759 Speaker 3: on the board, and then at some point he was 772 00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,240 Speaker 3: doing an interview and was sort of confronted about something 773 00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:53,520 Speaker 3: and he was like, oh, I'm quitting the board, and 774 00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:56,719 Speaker 3: so he quit the board, and suddenly there was an 775 00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:02,680 Speaker 3: empty seat on the on the Blue Sky board. And 776 00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:04,960 Speaker 3: and then yes, lots of names were thrown out in 777 00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:12,360 Speaker 3: in big threads on Blue Sky of potential replacement. But 778 00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,480 Speaker 3: I mean, I I have I had been in sort 779 00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:19,520 Speaker 3: of regular contact with Jay, you know, ever since Blue 780 00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:22,680 Speaker 3: Sky started, and there were different points where different things 781 00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:26,040 Speaker 3: popped up, and she had reached out to me for 782 00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:28,640 Speaker 3: thoughts and advice, and I'd had a few phone calls 783 00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,560 Speaker 3: with her, you know, over the time, and so basically, 784 00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:35,960 Speaker 3: like I think she had reached out because she wanted 785 00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:39,240 Speaker 3: some advice on something. And again this is all totally informal. 786 00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:42,400 Speaker 3: I had no official relationship or anything. And we started 787 00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,400 Speaker 3: talking and I tossed out the idea as like I know, 788 00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:50,799 Speaker 3: Jack left. If you want me to help find you 789 00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,440 Speaker 3: someone else, I am willing to like evaluate other people, 790 00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:57,920 Speaker 3: but also like, if you're interested in potentially having me 791 00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,600 Speaker 3: be that person, I'm also interested in that. And so 792 00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,960 Speaker 3: that's basically what I said. And we continue that conversation 793 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,760 Speaker 3: over the course of about two months, and I spoke 794 00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,040 Speaker 3: to Jeremy who's the other board member, and some other 795 00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,920 Speaker 3: folks as well, and then eventually, you know, they offered 796 00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:19,280 Speaker 3: me that spot cool. That's the basis story. 797 00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:21,719 Speaker 2: To wrap us up, I will ask you the question 798 00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,759 Speaker 2: I love to ask people, which is why should we 799 00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,800 Speaker 2: have hope right now? Because there's so much there's so 800 00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:30,080 Speaker 2: much depression. I'm not talking about politics. I'm just talking 801 00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:33,160 Speaker 2: about within the tech industry. There's so much shit, there's 802 00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,200 Speaker 2: so much grim shit. What gives you hope right now? 803 00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:41,120 Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean honestly, I mean stuff like Blue Sky, 804 00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,840 Speaker 3: And I will broaden that to say, like all of 805 00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:49,920 Speaker 3: the attempts at building new decentralized systems I find super 806 00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:54,720 Speaker 3: exciting and encouraging because it's showing that we can build 807 00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:58,560 Speaker 3: that world where it's like we can look at you know, 808 00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:04,160 Speaker 3: the the success of social media as a concept is 809 00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,920 Speaker 3: really interesting and it's cool, like it has allowed so 810 00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,239 Speaker 3: many people to connect, and yes, there are all sorts 811 00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:13,120 Speaker 3: of downsides, like again of course not denying what we 812 00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:16,320 Speaker 3: know are the downsides of social media, but like the 813 00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:22,759 Speaker 3: number of important friendships and you know, business contacts and 814 00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:26,880 Speaker 3: relationships that I've built through social media, and this concept 815 00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,960 Speaker 3: of people being able to communicate with each other so 816 00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:33,640 Speaker 3: easily is such a powerful thing that I think a 817 00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:37,200 Speaker 3: lot of people take for granted. And yes, what happened 818 00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,480 Speaker 3: was that that all sort of got locked in these 819 00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:43,759 Speaker 3: and shitified silos from these you know, giant companies run 820 00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:49,759 Speaker 3: by often terrible people and you know, with very misguided incentives. 821 00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,960 Speaker 3: The thing that I am really enthusiastic about with the 822 00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:56,200 Speaker 3: centralized social media is that we have a chance to 823 00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:58,200 Speaker 3: do it again, and we have a chance to hopefully 824 00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:00,600 Speaker 3: do it better. And this is something that I didn't 825 00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,600 Speaker 3: I didn't really talk about when I in my thinking 826 00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:05,799 Speaker 3: on the paper, and this is something that comes up 827 00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:07,680 Speaker 3: and I think it is worth addressing. Is that some 828 00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:10,400 Speaker 3: people say, well, Blue Sky is a company, it is 829 00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,759 Speaker 3: venture funded, you know, it's it's got to go down 830 00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:17,880 Speaker 3: that same route of intiitification, and that is a fear, 831 00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,000 Speaker 3: and I sort of view part of my role on 832 00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:24,879 Speaker 3: the board as being like stopping the intification and sort 833 00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:28,839 Speaker 3: of representing the best, you know, the best position of 834 00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:33,520 Speaker 3: the community. But you know, one of the things again, 835 00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:35,600 Speaker 3: another thing that has impressed me about Blue Sky and 836 00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:38,720 Speaker 3: Jay is that they have within their mission this idea 837 00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:42,680 Speaker 3: that the future company is a potential adversary. Right, everybody 838 00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,759 Speaker 3: knows what happened with Twitter, right, and so they are 839 00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:49,000 Speaker 3: building the protocol to be resistant to that. That doesn't 840 00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:52,080 Speaker 3: mean it won't happen, but it is being done in 841 00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:55,160 Speaker 3: a way that is much more difficult for them to initify. 842 00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:57,960 Speaker 3: And again, like I go back to the email example, 843 00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:04,360 Speaker 3: where where you know, most people have a Gmail account, Like, 844 00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:07,200 Speaker 3: lots of people use Gmail, and some people can argue 845 00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:11,359 Speaker 3: like Gmail's not great, but I don't think Gmail has 846 00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:17,080 Speaker 3: been as in shitified as other systems because the excentive 847 00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:23,560 Speaker 3: built because it's built on basic email protocols SMTP and whatnot. 848 00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,000 Speaker 3: And so if they make it really horrible, if they 849 00:47:27,040 --> 00:47:29,200 Speaker 3: were really like there were concerns you know early on, 850 00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,000 Speaker 3: oh Google's going to spy on all your email and 851 00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,640 Speaker 3: do advertising off of it and all this kind of stuff. 852 00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:38,759 Speaker 3: They you know, they sometimes make experiments in that way 853 00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,160 Speaker 3: and then they get you know, smacked down and stuff, 854 00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,600 Speaker 3: because as soon as they go down this path of 855 00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,560 Speaker 3: really making it horrible, it's so much, you know, it 856 00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:48,960 Speaker 3: just opens up the opportunity for somebody to step in 857 00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:51,000 Speaker 3: and say, well, it's easy, like you can switch, you 858 00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:54,759 Speaker 3: don't lose contact with anyone. Right, It's hard to leave Facebook, 859 00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,680 Speaker 3: it's easy. It's easier to leave Gmail. And so the 860 00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:02,239 Speaker 3: incentive structure then is for Google not to fuck up Gmail. 861 00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:05,320 Speaker 3: That's not to say, you know, Gmail has its problems, 862 00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:09,239 Speaker 3: but it's I think it's less less and shitified than 863 00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,879 Speaker 3: other services, whereas and Blue Sky and the way they're 864 00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:16,239 Speaker 3: designing Blue Sky and at protocol it is designed to 865 00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:20,319 Speaker 3: make it, you know, really difficult for future Blue Sky 866 00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:24,120 Speaker 3: to and shittify the service because if they do, all 867 00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,480 Speaker 3: of the pieces are set up that somebody else can 868 00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:30,239 Speaker 3: come in and create you know, new Blue Sky, green Sky, 869 00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,080 Speaker 3: whatever whatever you want to call it, that everybody can 870 00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:35,799 Speaker 3: just shift to with the push of a button, and 871 00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:39,560 Speaker 3: Blue Sky loses everything that they have as as a company. 872 00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,680 Speaker 3: And so the real challenge now is like, can we 873 00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:47,719 Speaker 3: build you know, a sustainable business and service on that 874 00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:51,600 Speaker 3: without making it awful for the users and the community 875 00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:54,759 Speaker 3: on that service. And but we've built in this sort 876 00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,520 Speaker 3: of commitment mechanism which is if if you know, we 877 00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,279 Speaker 3: try and do things that is exploiting our users, which 878 00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,239 Speaker 3: is like that's where the incentification curve starts. You know, 879 00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,040 Speaker 3: you reach this point where instead of providing value, we 880 00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:07,880 Speaker 3: now have to extract. 881 00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,839 Speaker 2: You've trapped them. Now they cannot be right. 882 00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,040 Speaker 3: And so you know, with Blue Sky, the whole point 883 00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:16,560 Speaker 3: is like we're setting it up as you know, not 884 00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:19,200 Speaker 3: me them, but you know, I'm I'm on the board 885 00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:22,560 Speaker 3: and I'm watching they're setting it up in a way 886 00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:26,759 Speaker 3: that they're setting a trap for themselves. That says, if 887 00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:29,000 Speaker 3: if we try and start extracting value in a way 888 00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,680 Speaker 3: that is awful to people, they can leave and they 889 00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:34,680 Speaker 3: can destroy our business. And therefore we can't do that. 890 00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:37,200 Speaker 3: We have to build a service that is good for 891 00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,360 Speaker 3: the community and that you know, provides value for the 892 00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:43,600 Speaker 3: community rather than is extracting value from the community. And 893 00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,120 Speaker 3: so that you know, who knows if it'll work. It 894 00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:48,640 Speaker 3: is you know, this is a lot of this is theoretical, 895 00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:52,120 Speaker 3: but you know, I think everything that they've done so 896 00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:54,760 Speaker 3: far has been in that, right. You know, they make mistakes, 897 00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:56,840 Speaker 3: everybody makes mistakes, but I think they're moving in the 898 00:49:56,880 --> 00:49:59,960 Speaker 3: right direction with it. And that has me really really optimistic, 899 00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,400 Speaker 3: because wouldn't it be great if we could have like 900 00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:05,719 Speaker 3: all of these benefits that we're talking about without you know, 901 00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,839 Speaker 3: without the awfulness, and without you know, it all being 902 00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:11,719 Speaker 3: dependent on some billionaire who's you know, trying to buy 903 00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:13,440 Speaker 3: up an island in Hawaii or whatever. 904 00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:16,640 Speaker 2: Okay, so maybe I have one more question. Okay, what 905 00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,600 Speaker 2: is the mechanism to stop blue sky and shit fying? Then? 906 00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:23,080 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's basically the fact that anyone can 907 00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:27,480 Speaker 3: can every every part of Blue Sky itself can be 908 00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:31,120 Speaker 3: recreated elsewhere while still allowing you to communicate with people 909 00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,440 Speaker 3: on Blue Sky. Right, So it is possible to entirely 910 00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:39,560 Speaker 3: remove yourself from Blue Sky and still communicate with anyone 911 00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:40,439 Speaker 3: else on Blue Sky. 912 00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:41,680 Speaker 1: Huh. 913 00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:45,680 Speaker 3: And so that's how it should be, yes, Right, And 914 00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:49,680 Speaker 3: so you know, if Blue Sky in shitifies and does 915 00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:52,000 Speaker 3: bad stuff, then somebody else is going to come along 916 00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:53,319 Speaker 3: and say, like, I don't like this, right, you know, 917 00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:56,640 Speaker 3: So just for example, right, you know, if they decide 918 00:50:56,680 --> 00:51:02,120 Speaker 3: to you know, start inserting you know, terrible ads everywhere 919 00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:04,960 Speaker 3: or whatever. Then it's like somebody comes along and says, well, 920 00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,200 Speaker 3: I'm going to build the infrastructure that is blue Sky 921 00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:08,359 Speaker 3: without the ads. 922 00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:10,640 Speaker 2: You know, and they would have access to all the 923 00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,160 Speaker 2: posts or the users, and. 924 00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:14,960 Speaker 3: Blue Sky can't do anything to stop that. 925 00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:19,160 Speaker 2: That's really cool. That is a better future. But blue 926 00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,840 Speaker 2: Sky can keep users by not being ship exactly exactly. 927 00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:25,239 Speaker 3: And so you know, there is the challenge of like, 928 00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:27,160 Speaker 3: you know, it still is a company. It is a 929 00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:31,239 Speaker 3: public benefit company, so we are allowed as a board like, uh, 930 00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:34,319 Speaker 3: you know, the fiduciary duty is to a wider set 931 00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:38,120 Speaker 3: of stakeholders, including the community, not just the investors. And 932 00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:41,120 Speaker 3: we can do that legally because of the public benefit corporation. 933 00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:46,440 Speaker 3: But like we have this technical infrastructure that says, you know, 934 00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:50,239 Speaker 3: we basically shoot ourselves in the foot if we make 935 00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:53,640 Speaker 3: it shipped for for the community. And and you know, 936 00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:55,960 Speaker 3: now the trick is like can can you build a 937 00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:59,560 Speaker 3: real sustainable business on top of that by actually providing value? 938 00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:02,279 Speaker 3: And that's you know, that's hopefully the next stage of 939 00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:03,600 Speaker 3: what the company is working on. 940 00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,520 Speaker 2: Mike, thank you so much for joining me. Where can 941 00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:07,440 Speaker 2: people find you? 942 00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:10,840 Speaker 3: So well? Thanks for having me this is a This 943 00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:13,360 Speaker 3: was a really fun conversation. I wasn't sure where it 944 00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:14,759 Speaker 3: was going to go, but that was that was good. 945 00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:19,680 Speaker 3: That's the Better of Line experience. And yeah, so I 946 00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:24,359 Speaker 3: am obviously on blue Sky m masnik at It's at 947 00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:29,640 Speaker 3: mmasnik dot b b sky dot social as my cout there. 948 00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:31,880 Speaker 3: It's easy to find me on blue Sky, obviously at 949 00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:36,320 Speaker 3: techtr and those those are the main things. So if 950 00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,280 Speaker 3: you want to read my articles, read them on tector. 951 00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,640 Speaker 3: If you want to see me, you know, ranting about 952 00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:44,600 Speaker 3: this or that at any point, find me on blue Sky. 953 00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:48,320 Speaker 2: Thanks so much, and you will now get the soon 954 00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,480 Speaker 2: to be updated Better Offline links following this. Thank you 955 00:52:51,520 --> 00:53:02,279 Speaker 2: for listening. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The 956 00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:05,520 Speaker 2: editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. 957 00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:07,720 Speaker 2: You can check out more of his music and audio 958 00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:11,560 Speaker 2: projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T T O 959 00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:15,920 Speaker 2: S O W s ki dot com. You can email 960 00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:18,399 Speaker 2: me at easy at Better offline dot com, or visit 961 00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:20,799 Speaker 2: Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links and 962 00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,960 Speaker 2: of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go 963 00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,120 Speaker 2: to chat dot Where's youreed dot ad to visit the 964 00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:28,960 Speaker 2: Discord and go to our slash Better Offline to check 965 00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:31,880 Speaker 2: out our reddit. Thank you so much for listening. 966 00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,400 Speaker 1: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For 967 00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:38,680 Speaker 1: more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia 968 00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:41,600 Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 969 00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:44,280 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 970 00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:01,240 Speaker 2: Fish Fosh School