WEBVTT - The Streisand Effect with Mike Masnick 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:03.800 Al Zone Media. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.400 Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I am, of course 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:20.400 your host ed zeitron. I remain punished and hated forever. 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.560 Today I'm joined by Mike Masnik. He's the CEO and 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.680 founder of tecta inventor of the Streisan defect, and now 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.360 a board member of the social network Blue Sky. Mike, 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:31.760 thank you so much for joining me. 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:33.159 Yeah, happy to be here. 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.159 So let's start with the streisand defect. Why don't you 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.519 tell the story of how you coined that? That? Just 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:41.720 walk us through that one, because now that I've heard 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:43.160 about it, it's all I can think about. 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.400 Yeah, I mean, you know, there's sort of there's two 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.680 elements to the founding story, one of which is, you know, 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.199 what caused the term to be that and then me 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.440 eventually naming it. The first was just the you know, 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:00.320 I was amazed by this story of barber strike and 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:05.360 suing this guy I always forget his name, Ken something, 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.440 who was doing this project. He was a you know, 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.240 he had been a fairly successful tech guy, but he 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.840 was very interested in conservation, and so he was like 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.440 renting a helicopter every few months and flying along the 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.560 west coast of the United States and taking a photograph 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.679 every you know, every bit of the way, and his 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.200 idea was to continue to do that every few years 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:33.040 and track the erosion of the West coast of the 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.959 United States. Okay, yeah, kind of an interesting project. You know. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.840 This is pre Google Maps, pre satellite easy access to 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:44.000 satellite imagery, all this kind of stuff. And he created 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.000 this website and it's still online and it is incredibly 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.640 old fashioned where you could go picture to picture. You 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.160 couldn't you know, no map like modern mapping software where 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.000 you could slide along. You could go picture to picture 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.520 along the way, and it had this ability for people 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:05.120 to leave their own annotations. And somebody found Barbara Streisand's 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.360 house in Malibu and commented on it that this is 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.519 Barbara Streisan the Streisand estate, I believe was the phrase 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:16.440 that was put on it. And somebody, a Streisand lawyer, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:22.400 found it and threatened him and then sued him for this. 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.520 And the story that caught my attention at least was 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.480 that what came out in the court documents was before 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:34.000 the lawsuit that image had been viewed. I believe it 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.639 was eight times, two of which were from my p 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.239 addresses associated with the law firm that was representing Barbara 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.200 streisand so at most six people had seen the photo 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.680 prior to this lawsuit, and in the immediate aftermath, hundreds 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.040 of thousands of people saw the photo, and he eventually 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.560 won the lawsuit. In fact, streisand had to pay for 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.880 his legal fees. And I had written about at the 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.160 time and just thought this crazy story. But I kept 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.240 seeing other examples of that kind of thing, where people would, 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.120 you know, try and get something taken down offline and 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.560 the end result would be way more attention paid to it. 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.720 And so there was a story that actually happened. I 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.720 think it was almost two years after the original streisand 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:23.320 lawsuit and everything, in which there was a site which 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.200 also might still be online and also might be very outdated, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.000 called urinal dot net to which. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.000 Is where I get my posts. 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.560 Yes, yes, well you know this is the early Internet 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.720 where anyone would pay anything online. Yeah, And they would 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.200 post photos of urinals and they were very specific and 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:45.040 very clear that urinals only, no people, no body parts, 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.560 just urinals from around the world. And they had pages 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.720 of different ones, and there was some hotel or something 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.560 or I can't remember. Somebody got very mad that a 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.040 urinal from their property was shown and sent a legal 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.320 threat letter, And so I wrote about that, and in 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.640 doing so said, you know, there should be a term 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.120 for this situation where someone, you know, where something is 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.960 not getting attention, and then someone sends a takedown and 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.760 suddenly that draws all this attention to the thing that 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.320 they wanted gone. And then I just jokingly said, why 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.400 don't we call it the Streisand effect and linked back 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.720 to my story about the streisand photo. And then somehow 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.680 I have no idea how that caught on. I didn't 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.520 do much. I mean, I may have mentioned it again 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.599 a few times, but people picked up on it and 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.880 it took on a life of its own, and most 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:39.120 of which I had nothing to do with. 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.000 And I think it's I think it's ironic that despite 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.720 the term's fame, it has not brought more attention to 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.039 the actual providence of the term. Yeah, but now it has. 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.360 Now we have the better offline, not even remotely exclusive. 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.240 You probably told this story dinner parties for years. 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:57.760 I may have told it a few times. 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.440 Yes, it's a great story though talking about old websites 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.520 tech der so it's come up on thirty years of 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:08.960 running this site. Yeah, what has changed, because the design hasn't. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.839 I doesn't say that negatively. I actually love the fact 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.880 that it loads properly. There's not like some insane iframe situation. 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.800 Yeah my phone isn't seven hundred degrees because I'm looking 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:19.120 at it. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.480 Well, yes, the well, the site has changed a few times, 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.719 but it has not changed in a long time. So 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.960 this is this is probably the third generation of Tector. 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.920 But but I think it it hasn't really changed much 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.520 since probably two thousand and six, two thousand and seven. 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.039 It's probably the last time we did a major overhaul 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:41.039 of the look and feel of the site. Yeah, I mean, look, 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.120 I wanted to write about the technology industry and what 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.040 was going on, and I was very interested in it. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.960 And I started when I was in business school. And 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.280 just I originally started writing, I was old school. I 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.039 was writing an email newsletter before email newsletters were crazy 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.960 idea the rage, and then I thought, like, you know, newsletters, 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.480 who reads newsletters? I got to turn this into a website. 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:07.560 And so I. 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.440 Also, just to we clear, it was entirely email based. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.719 Oh front yeah, oh when it started, baby, when it 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.800 started in nineteen ninety seven, it was entirely an email thing, 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.200 and then I turned into a website about six months 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:28.080 after the email, and originally it was just hosting the 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.839 copies of the email newsletter, and then I started to 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:35.880 build it out. And then what caught my attention in 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:40.000 early around sometime in nineteen ninety eight, I first saw 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:44.320 slash dot, and this is before the word blog existed, 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.760 and I was like, Oh, this, this format and this 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.320 setup is really cool. I wonder if I could do 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.400 that and turn the website into that, and so I 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:59.039 I got I used slash code zero point three. This 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.839 was before they had released an official slash code, but 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:03.120 they still offered it up. 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:04.920 Well do you mean a slash code for that? 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.360 Slash code was their software that they used to that 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.680 was slash Dot. It was they they decided to release, 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:19.160 you know, they uh god, what's his name? Rob Malda 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:23.200 was the guy who created slash dot, and he, you know, 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.360 released the code he had written written, you know, one 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.280 of the first sort of blogging type software products. And 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.600 it was very messy and it took me and less me, 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:36.760 but more a friend of mine who was willing to 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.920 get in and deal with the mess of code, which 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.520 was not easy. It took us two or three months 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.600 to figure out how to actually get it just set up. 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.200 And then suddenly like I could blog, and suddenly I 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.880 could write easily every day, rather than what I was 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.840 doing originally, which was like hand coding HTML files and 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:53.920 FTPing them. 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.720 To This was before you could just spin up these 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.240 blogs like on and. 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.320 Like none of that stuff existed. Again, the word blog 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:03.240 didn't even exist. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:04.120 Where did you host it? 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:10.120 So I'm I'm not going to say, actually I had 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.440 found I had found a hosting company, and I still 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.120 do some work with that hosting company, and we used 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.000 to we used to advertise. I mean it is, it 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.360 can be found if people are looking. But because we 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:27.160 we occasionally and we're no longer Tector is no longer 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:31.120 hosted with them, but we still host some other stuff 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.760 with them because they've been amazing partners. And I just 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.920 found them completely randomly through probably searching Yahoo and found 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:42.640 a random, little tiny hosting company. But because we sometimes 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:47.560 receive very angry legal threats and sometimes those legal threats 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:53.000 try and go upstream are our partner hosting company was 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.080 receiving too many legal threats and said, hey, could you 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:02.280 not mention that you host with could you could you 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.439 Now that's not I mean it's not, but I mean 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.679 and they're and they're like great, great guys, a very 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.720 small company, a tiny, tiny company. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.320 Not so you should work with like for the for 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.400 the smaller ones. I used to work with a very 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.680 small domain hosting company then got bought by a big 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:19.920 one and then it shied almost immediately. I'm not going 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.240 to name them as their remarkable too, and. 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.240 So yeah, but this was not you know this, they 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.440 they were great in fact, like you know, as I said, like, 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.280 we still use them for certain projects and I trust 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:34.840 those guys to be absolutely amazing. But but yeah, so 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.079 we just found a small hosting company and they were 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.480 the original host of Tector for a very long time. 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:45.280 And so but yeah, and and and eventually the word 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.920 blog came about afterwards, and I resisted calling Tector to 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.120 blog for a really long time and then eventually kind 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:55.080 of realized, like, you know it is, did you finish 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.080 business school? I did finish business school. I have an 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.520 m b A, and I so I because I started 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.720 when I was in business school. I got my MBA, 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:10.559 I moved out to California and I started working for Well. 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:16.120 I interned at Intel and did my big tech at 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.000 the time company experience for a little bit. I went 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.360 to an e commerce startup that was very big for 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.080 about a week and a half and I joined like 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.400 a week after that. And so it got to ride 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:35.480 the the e commerce startup down a very big slope downward, 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:43.120 constantly downward, for about it a year during the this 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.040 was pre the burst of the dot com bubble. So 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.720 what yeah is I was there from ninety eight to 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:51.640 ninety nine. 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.240 Oh prime, the good years. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.120 Yeah, except except for us, right, So, I mean part 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.240 of the issue was we saw one of our competitors, 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.840 you know, go public based on you know, I don't know, 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:08.079 you know, nonsense and a power right yeah, yeah, this 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.320 was pretty and and so you know, we decided that 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.960 we had to go public too, and we had bankers, 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.840 like we had bankers and consultants and all this nonsense, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.000 and and they looked at what we had and they said, 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.800 you know, you can't go public, like that's how bad 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.000 are Our situation was everybody was going public with zero 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:33.000 revenue and we couldn't. We had problems. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.880 I might say that. So after that, did you go 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.160 pro with with Tecta? Did Yeah? 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.439 So basically, so I quit. There was a couple of 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:43.760 reasons why. I don't need to go into all the 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.600 history there, but I I eventually, you know, did a 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.560 did a nice little quitting and and I sort of 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:53.520 cast around and I sort of was thinking of doing 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.959 another startup myself, and then like a whole bunch of 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:59.360 people are like, but the whole time, even when I 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.280 was at this company, you know, I was working on 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.280 Tector on the side, and it was just sort of like, 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:06.720 especially as everything was going terrible at that company, it 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.120 was kind of my release where I can write about 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:11.800 all the shit that's going down. 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.560 It's quite literally what I did in the start of 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.720 my newsletter was because I was depressed due to professional 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.160 personal things. I was like, I need to do something else. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.600 Yeah, yeah, totally, and so like that's what I was doing. 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.560 And then and then I was like casting about for 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.520 an idea. I was working with some friends and I 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:32.000 was like, maybe we should do a startup, and we 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.079 were talking about different ideas, and then a couple of 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.839 people were like, dude, you seem to really like doing 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.520 this writing thing, and like Tector does you know? It 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.680 seems good and like maybe you could turn that into 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:48.240 a company and so, you know, so, yeah, so a 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.360 few months later sort of said okay, I'm gonna I'm 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:51.480 going to commit to this full time. 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.480 And was it just you for a while or how long? 0:12:55.160 --> 0:13:01.560 Yeah? Well, I mean the history is like there was 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.680 there was someone else there in the very early years 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.640 who sort of was helping me out and we were 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.440 trying to get it. He was not full time, and 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:11.920 we're trying to get him to the point that it 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.280 was full time, and that didn't that never worked out. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:21.480 And then but soon after that brought on basically, you know, 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.560 basically a small group of people who were you know, 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.920 we referred to as co founders now and and sort 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.559 of helped me out, helping helping me sort of build 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.679 it out. And how many people if you go it now, 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.959 we are very small. We are now for four. 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.280 People cool and one of those is called Boat as well. 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:49.680 Yeah yeah, yeah, body his lesson. Sorry, Car is going 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:50.240 to kick my. 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:52.920 Tweets. 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.960 He is used to it. But yeah, so Carl, Carl 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:58.880 has been writing for us for for a long time. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.760 I had him, I had him right for us at 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:08.280 one point. I think he did me a favor. I mean, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:13.080 where I either it was I can't remember if either 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.000 I got married or I had paternity leave and I 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.920 needed someone to help write, and and he came in 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.160 for a couple of weeks and then yeah, later on 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.760 when when we were able to bring him on. 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.040 So, how are you feeling about the tech media, Because 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.120 I say this with the reason I brought you on 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.760 is to also publicly say you're fucking awesome and tech 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.560 voks right, And I've been reading it for my entire career, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.880 and it feels like one of the only outlets that 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:45.640 has not changed tonally. Yeah, like you've kept you've been consistently. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.000 I think you're one of the other people who gets 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.880 called like acerbic like I do, which I always get 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.120 pissed off with, which I guess doesn't help. 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:58.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get. I don't know. I mean, 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.080 it's kind of weird, like I actually don't care too 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:07.520 much what people think about me or saying so so 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.240 like none of that has ever concerned me that much. 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.040 But yeah, you know, I don't know. Caustic, I think 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:16.160 is a term that's been used. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.960 Yeah, but it doesn't feel like you're fighty. It feels 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.400 like you just are pissed off that people aren't more 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.840 consistent and honest and upfront with stuff. 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.400 Yeah. Yeah, it's just like, you know, I've I have opinions, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.720 and this is a chance to express that. I'm not 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.880 going to hold back. And you know, it's like, I 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.400 don't know, I feel like a lot of people, you know, 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.360 I mean obviously, like if you're working for like a 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.320 big media company, they're you know, there are limits put 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.320 on kind of what you can say. But also it 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:47.760 feels like a lot of people who sort of get 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.640 into writing also you know, they kind of do it 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.320 to then like move into a role like they want 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.240 to get hired by I don't know, CNN, NBC or 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.240 something like that, And that was like never my goal. 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:02.520 So like, right, I never had this concern that like, oh, 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.320 you know, like well if I write this, nobody's ever 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.760 going to hire me because I'm not trying to get 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:12.480 hired that way. So so that was never, you know, 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:14.000 never a concern of mine. 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:16.960 But it feels totally like you at least had a 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.720 mission though. Yeah, I've always been trying to get high 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:21.640 old of what that is in the best way. 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.800 Yeah. Yeah, and you know, I don't know, I mean 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.560 I have at some point I need to dig up 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.280 and find like and I know, I like sent this 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.400 to Carl and other people brought on new writers. I 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.440 had sort of like an editorial like here's our mission, right, 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.560 here's what we're trying to do. But it's it's like 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.040 twenty years old at this point, and I haven't looked 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:45.280 at it, and I don't even know where I would 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.560 find it. But like, you know, my take on it 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.360 was always like the key thing for me with Tector 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.920 is I actually and this is where like potentially I 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:57.800 don't know if I disagree with you or you might 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:03.480 disagree with me, Whereas like I am weirdly optimistic about technology. 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.719 I actually do think technology is like a generally good 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:09.360 driving force, and like. 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:11.679 I actually fully agree, by the way, okay. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:16.600 And like innovation has all this amazing opportunity that I 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:23.880 would love to see realized, and so like my focus 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.040 is on like anything that gets in the way of it, 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:28.920 and and so like, and I want to be really 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.440 careful here because like there's like the Mark Andresen view, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.760 like who says something that sounds kind of like what 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.040 I'm saying here, right, But. 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:43.160 He's he's not an optimist, he mentions Nick Land. Yeah, 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:48.080 that's not the dark and enlightenment guys are not optimists. 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.719 Right, And and so his whole thing is like, you know, 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:56.000 this accelerationist approach to like technology and innovation, and and 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.480 my take on it is more like I want to 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.359 see all of these, like all the good stuff that 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:06.120 technology enables to become reality. I would like to see 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.840 it sooner because I only have so long to live, 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.399 and the more of it that I can see, and 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.439 the more of it that will be available to my 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.160 kids and you know, everybody else I think would be good. 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:21.760 But that you know, there are ways to do that right, 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.919 and there are ways to do it better and to 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.600 take a long term view of how how do we 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.640 actually make the world better with these kinds of innovations. 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:38.679 And so I think, you know, poorly executed innovation is 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.560 bad and leads to problems. And so where I get 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.960 upset is sort of and you know what sets me 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.280 off on various rants is like, you know, efforts that 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:53.000 get in the way of good innovation. Right, So it's 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.919 not like like the Andresan viewpoint is like anything that 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.480 gets in the way of any innovation is a problem. 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.720 And you know, and also I don't the things. I 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.240 fully agree with you. I regularly get told a senek, 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.240 I'm a pessimist. I don't like this stuff. I love 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.240 the computer. Yeah, it's the only reason I'm a person. 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.640 Like like I'm like the drill crying tweet, but about 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.240 the internet, like my job, my friend, love ones, lovers 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.080 crying and Internet and it's now get the fuck out 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:24.879 of my office, which is the quote from the growth tweet. 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:26.840 I'm not saying this to Mike, but it's like, I 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.120 agree with you. It's these things may seem like we're 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.840 deeply interrogating them and attacking them, but it's like these 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.919 things are in the way of cool stuff happening. Yes, Centralization, monopolization, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:41.840 shitty regulations that stop actual innovation happens are the things 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.800 that will stop cool stuff happening. Yes, And I think 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:49.879 too regularly people kind of conflate that with hating. But 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:51.919 it's like you should hate the stuff that gets in 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:53.640 the way of the cool stuff exactly. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.320 Yeah, yeah, then yes, that is That is very much 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.119 my view of these things. I mean, I would love 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.000 to see more cool stuff than so stuff that gets 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:01.719 in the way of that I find problematic. 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.280 So my many complainers and haters. They hate me so much. 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:18.960 They they tell me I never like anything, But I 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.000 want to talk about Blue Sky. Okay, you joined the 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.760 board of yees. So how did that actually come abound? 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.280 Yeah? So, I mean, you know, I don't know how 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.360 much you know about the history of Blue Sky itself. 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:31.280 I think it would be good to tell listeners. 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:36.360 Sure so, and I have some association with it, though 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:41.639 it's sort of semi random. Which was that, you know, 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.879 when this goes back to, like I think it was 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.560 like I had looked this up fairly recently, so that 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.119 don't hold me to the dates, but I think it 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.080 was around like twenty fourteen or so. It was when 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:58.640 there was suddenly some controversies around the way that Twitter 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:05.360 and Reddit were hand certain content moderation controversies, and there 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.080 was you know, basically like really bad shitty content on 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.480 both of those platforms, and there was a big debate 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:13.840 over whether or not those companies should step in and 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:15.920 take down that content, and whether or not that was 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.600 an attack on free speech or blah blah blah. You know, 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:20.560 we've heard all the debates, but that was really the 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.120 first one that really boiled through. Was around twenty fourteen 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.960 and I among the other things that I believe in, 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.640 you know, strongly, is like free speech is a very 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.560 important concept to me. And again, like I always feel like, 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:38.840 now I need to caveat that because lots of most 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.800 people who say that they support free speech, don't. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:45.040 They they support saying the N word. Yeah, that is 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:45.760 the big goal. 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.439 Yeah, they it's yeah, it's it's very frustrating to me. 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:58.600 I support actual free speech, yes, and that includes, you know, 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:05.119 the right of private platforms to say we don't want 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.879 to associate with you. That is a right of association, 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:11.760 which is considered a one part of the right of 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:16.800 free speech. But at the same time, I do appreciate again, 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:21.080 like the power of the Internet itself to be this 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:26.800 platform of enabling more good speech. Some bad speech, obviously, 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:29.520 but also an awful lot of really really good speech. 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.200 And I am very very concerned about an overreaction where 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.600 in an attempt to stop the bad speech, which again 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:39.240