Speaker 1: I'm Emily Chang and this is the circuit for two decades.
Speaker 1: Alexis o'hannian has a master of fortune, betting on ideas
Speaker 1: others overlook. He co founded Reddit when social media was
Speaker 1: in its infancy, found success as an early stage investor,
Speaker 1: and has helped launch the recent boom in professional women's sports.
Speaker 1: So you're running a vac firm, advising dozens of startups,
Speaker 1: raising two young daughters, trying to reinvent women's sports, all
Speaker 1: while maintaining a very public profile. What batteries are you
Speaker 1: running on? Because I want some of that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's caffeine, lots of it, a few cups
Speaker 2: a day, And I really genuinely love what I do.
Speaker 2: And then when the thing that you love doing also
Speaker 2: compensates you really well for it, why would I not.
Speaker 3: Want to do it.
Speaker 1: O'hannian has also been no stranger to controversy. I caught
Speaker 1: up with him in New York to unpack his exit
Speaker 1: from Reddit, hear the advice given to him by his wife,
Speaker 1: Tennis legend Serena Williams, and to learn about his efforts
Speaker 1: to relaunch dig as a social media platform where real people,
Speaker 1: not bots, are shaping what we see. Okay, so yes,
Speaker 1: are you ready for your ama?
Speaker 3: Bring it? Yeah? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: And what's nice you can say that we failed to trademarket,
Speaker 2: so it's all yours.
Speaker 1: So you have built your career around this idea of
Speaker 1: not waiting for permission? Where does that come from?
Speaker 3: I'm just a very impatient person.
Speaker 2: And I also I think the middle aged me was
Speaker 2: empowered by the Internet because, you know, I managed to
Speaker 2: talk to my parents and getting me a computer. I
Speaker 2: managed to talk them into you know, it's a big investment,
Speaker 2: and then an Internet connection, and.
Speaker 3: Even though they'd had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2: On that computer, I found strangers on the Internet willing
Speaker 2: to help me with learning how to code. And at
Speaker 2: the time, I mean even just HTMLCSS web design felt
Speaker 2: so empowering because I could build a website anyone in
Speaker 2: the world could see and didn't have to really ask
Speaker 2: freting permission. And there was something really powerful about that
Speaker 2: that I got addicted to. And I'll also never forget
Speaker 2: video games got me in a proming and I had
Speaker 2: downloaded the Quake two source code. I was able to
Speaker 2: change the power of the default blaster to instantly kill
Speaker 2: a monster which doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
Speaker 2: But as soon as I was playing a version of
Speaker 2: this game that I loved that I had just remixed,
Speaker 2: I had just changed the source code to make this
Speaker 2: thing do my bidding, it felt like a superpower. And
Speaker 2: so that feeling that software provided, and then the access
Speaker 2: to the knowledge freely given by experts to me a
Speaker 2: door key kid in my parents' house, was life changing.
Speaker 2: And I think that altered my brain chemistry enough to think, Okay,
Speaker 2: this tool can.
Speaker 3: Be so enabling, so empowering.
Speaker 2: And by the time I was getting ready to graduate
Speaker 2: from high school, my dad, who had been a travel
Speaker 2: agent in his whole life, he had started his own
Speaker 2: small travel agency a few years earlier, just before the
Speaker 2: rise of the OTA, the online travel agency. So my
Speaker 2: poor dad's business went from making a little bit of
Speaker 2: money every time you sold a plane ticket to zero.
Speaker 2: They were slashing agent commissions because the future of travel
Speaker 2: agencies was dead. And I watched software, This technology, the Internet,
Speaker 2: that I thought was just a fun toy, altered my
Speaker 2: family's entire trajectory, and I saw what it did to
Speaker 2: my dad and his business.
Speaker 3: Thankfully he endured.
Speaker 2: They pivoted and he figured out a way, never asked
Speaker 2: for a bailout, He just adapted the business. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: I want to be on the other side of this disruption.
Speaker 2: And so those forces shaped me entirely from middle school
Speaker 2: to high school and I just haven't gotten over it.
Speaker 1: I guess you named your firm seven seven six after
Speaker 1: the first Olympic Games. Yes, what is the thesis here?
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five AD.
Speaker 2: It was a nod to my daughter Olympia. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to name the firm after her, literally because my
Speaker 2: wife pointed out if we had another kid, and spoiler
Speaker 2: we had another kid, that kid would be jealous.
Speaker 3: So good call.
Speaker 2: And then the nice story that ties into it is
Speaker 2: in that first Olympics, the first event was a foot race,
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, that was run by a number of folks,
Speaker 2: you know, the best athletes in the world, and there
Speaker 2: was this cook who heard about the event. True story
Speaker 2: gets called up. Besides that, I'm going to go compete,
Speaker 2: runs this event and he's the first ever Olympic champion.
Speaker 2: He wins the race a cook. My god, what a
Speaker 2: great story, and it is. It's also an even better
Speaker 2: story when you realize he wasn't the best athlete in
Speaker 2: the world that day. He was the best athlete who
Speaker 2: got invited. The Greeks didn't invite a whole ton of
Speaker 2: people who just were outside of the Greek world, millions
Speaker 2: of people, many of whom were probably faster than that
Speaker 2: Greek guy. But worse, you know, women were not even
Speaker 2: allowed to watch the Olympics back then, let alone participate,
Speaker 2: so they were missing out in greatness in their own midst.
Speaker 3: And the lesson for us that we've.
Speaker 2: Architected the firm around is this idea of You know,
Speaker 2: when I reflected on my own career at that point
Speaker 2: five years ago starting this firm, I thought, well, damn,
Speaker 2: this feels like I'm kind of.
Speaker 3: Celebrating the cook, and yes, very proud of it.
Speaker 2: But our job, especially as the earliest investors in many
Speaker 2: of these ambitious ideas, is to not feel in any
Speaker 2: way comfortable with the fact that we've done enough to
Speaker 2: seek out greatness everywhere, and whether that is in the ideas,
Speaker 2: whether that's in the founder. We have to push ourselves
Speaker 2: because otherwise we're just celebrating that cook and this idea
Speaker 2: of always being on the starting line, that's our I
Speaker 2: ripped off the Jeff Bezos day one thing, but that's
Speaker 2: our version of it. And I know, I mean, I
Speaker 2: have the I have seven seven six tattoo to my body.
Speaker 2: This is the last literally literally on my bicycle. This
Speaker 2: is this is the last company I'm going to start.
Speaker 2: And I'm so proud of what we do and how
Speaker 2: we do it. And I do believe.
Speaker 3: You know, if I got to leave my daughters.
Speaker 2: In the morning to go work on the farm, I
Speaker 2: want a really good reason why. I do love the
Speaker 2: time I spend with them, and I'm choosing to work.
Speaker 2: But I'm choosing to work because I think one it's
Speaker 2: going to be financially beneficial for the family, but also
Speaker 2: more importantly, because I want them to be really proud
Speaker 2: of that and to see these are the things dad
Speaker 2: does to be useful and to have an impact and
Speaker 2: again provide outside returns, but at the same time do
Speaker 2: so in a way that aligns with values and in
Speaker 2: a way that I hope makes them really proud. When
Speaker 2: they're teenagers and they can ask me hard questions, I
Speaker 2: want to have the best answers possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you and your partners are on track to meet
Speaker 1: with a thousand founders or have a thousand meetings with
Speaker 1: various entrepreneurs over the course of the year. No, what
Speaker 1: makes your playbook different from everyone else's, Like, why should
Speaker 1: they take your money?
Speaker 2: The fact that you know that number is one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why. Because I've built an entire operating system
Speaker 2: called Cerebro that runs our firm, so we actually have data.
Speaker 2: We know where we spend our time, we know how
Speaker 2: many intros we make for founders, we know our median
Speaker 2: response time to founders. We literally put them live on
Speaker 2: the homepage because it was so frustrating to me that
Speaker 2: our entire industry kept talking about how useful they were
Speaker 2: and oh, how value add they were, but they never
Speaker 2: actually provided evidence. If I was out pitching my company
Speaker 2: and all I did was use adjectives to convince investors
Speaker 2: why people love my product, I'd get laughed out of
Speaker 2: a room. They'd say, just show us the data. What
Speaker 2: are you using all these words for? And yet every
Speaker 2: VC does exactly that. We're making the case to founders,
Speaker 2: So I let the data speak for itself. And we
Speaker 2: want to build a culture of accountability to our founders,
Speaker 2: to each other, and just build with software in order
Speaker 2: to scale our networks in order to scale our distribution,
Speaker 2: in order to scale all the things that software does
Speaker 2: really well.
Speaker 1: Most VC investments don't pay off, like most go to
Speaker 1: zero power law. How do you know when to take
Speaker 1: a ride and when to pass?
Speaker 2: This is the this is the billionaither question, especially at
Speaker 2: early stage, it is overwhelmingly the founder. I have just
Speaker 2: become more and more confident in that fact the more
Speaker 2: time I've spent being an early stage investor, and I've
Speaker 2: been very lucky to be in early check in amazing companies.
Speaker 2: I mean, Coinbase, instacart, row Health, Flock, Flexport, Patreon, the great,
Speaker 2: great companies. The commonality there always comes back to the founder,
Speaker 2: often the CEO, but at least one founder who is
Speaker 2: really the one that you're betting on. And it's understanding
Speaker 2: how much they empathize with the customer, how relentless they're
Speaker 2: going to be in building the taste that they have,
Speaker 2: And that kind of comes back to the empathy.
Speaker 3: It's one thing you have to have that foundational empathy
Speaker 3: for the customer.
Speaker 2: Then it's also crucial to have the taste to say
Speaker 2: like this is good enough for this isn't good enough.
Speaker 2: And then timing is the one thing we can't control
Speaker 2: where we still factored in, and I have to be
Speaker 2: sympathetic to that because you know why Combinator rejected the
Speaker 2: initial idea, which was my Mobile Menu or MMMM for short.
Speaker 2: It was a this is two thousand and five. I
Speaker 2: came up with that name too. See you didn't like it,
Speaker 2: but that's okay. And the idea was you could order
Speaker 2: food from your phone, but again it was it was five,
Speaker 2: so no smartphones. Was a text message, and because I'd
Speaker 2: worked in Pizza Hut and we would get those orders
Speaker 2: in the kitchen that would come into the printer, it
Speaker 2: just made sense to me that, you know, why not
Speaker 2: just send the message, have the customer send the message.
Speaker 2: Had that go through anyway? Why c thankfully rejected it
Speaker 2: because it was too early. The tech was going to
Speaker 2: be too hard to build into restaurants especially, and they said,
Speaker 2: come back with some other idea in the next day.
Speaker 2: As it goes, you know, we came back with this
Speaker 2: idea and met with Paul and ended up being read
Speaker 2: it software in a browser first, not on a phone,
Speaker 2: and so timing killed my company, but in the best
Speaker 2: way possible because we didn't spend the next God we
Speaker 2: would have spent the next four or five years trying
Speaker 2: to build, and then the smartphone revolution would have happened
Speaker 2: and we probably would have run out of money before then.
Speaker 2: So timing's one thing we have to try to anticipate
Speaker 2: best we can. Knowing the founder can't affect that, but
Speaker 2: really it's a bet on the founder.
Speaker 3: Can they pull this off.
Speaker 1: What's your snapshot on where venture capital is at the moment.
Speaker 1: It's been a really difficult environment.
Speaker 3: What's your take?
Speaker 2: So, like you said, it's a power law business. So
Speaker 2: a disproportion number of the returns that first fifty six
Speaker 2: xdpi fund that came from Coinbase Instacart, there were probably
Speaker 2: another fifty investments in that first fund that went to zero,
Speaker 2: and that's fine.
Speaker 3: It's the power law.
Speaker 2: So just like the power law dictates returns in venture,
Speaker 2: especially early stage, power law also dictates how venture firms
Speaker 2: stack up. And I think you're in a business where
Speaker 2: there are these outsized mega firms, right, the sequoias, the
Speaker 2: and reasons, but also the sort of newer generations like
Speaker 2: the thrives, and they will continue to get more and
Speaker 2: more capital as they clearly are you know, the big
Speaker 2: dogs with the war chest that can double down in
Speaker 2: those big winners at the later stage, and then at
Speaker 2: the early stage. There are firms I like to leave
Speaker 2: seven seven six is one of them that can win
Speaker 2: against all comers and that have a clear value proposition
Speaker 2: and want to be the best early and we'll tell down.
Speaker 3: In the bigger winners.
Speaker 2: We just wrote a check in the Stoke SpaceX competitor
Speaker 2: that's been doing well that we had seeded. But like
Speaker 2: there's a middle of VC firms that are just as
Speaker 2: the kids would say, mid that are probably going to
Speaker 2: have a really hard time because they can't get into
Speaker 2: the deals that the biggest and baddest firms can easily
Speaker 2: get into and have the capital to get into, and
Speaker 2: they're not able to get in or maybe even identify
Speaker 2: those early stage companies that we feel like we have
Speaker 2: an edge, and so I think it's gonna be a
Speaker 2: hard time for them, but also for.
Speaker 3: The industry as a whole. Look the biggest trend.
Speaker 2: I had a chat with Sama at the robin Hood Summit,
Speaker 2: that's the Foundation proud board member here in New York.
Speaker 2: I was interviewing him and one of my clips with
Speaker 2: him went viral because he said it's only a matter
Speaker 2: of time until there is a one person billion dollar company,
Speaker 2: and that has stuck in my head.
Speaker 3: It's echoed in my head actually for years since.
Speaker 2: You know, for pure software businesses, for sure, founders will
Speaker 2: need less and less capital going forward, which is a
Speaker 2: threat to venture. I think again, if you're in that middle,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have a hard time. If you're where we sit,
Speaker 2: and you know you can still be that first check. Really,
Speaker 2: what it means is less dilution. As founders can get
Speaker 2: to profitability sooner, they don't need to take on more funding,
Speaker 2: which means you're not getting deluted, just like they're not
Speaker 2: getting included. And I think I think it ends up
Speaker 2: still being a big win. And then it's interesting. You know,
Speaker 2: venture now has spent a lot more time in the
Speaker 2: more costly spaces. So just like I said, we did
Speaker 2: our first space tech investment five years ago, we're doing
Speaker 2: more hardware than ever. You had a great interview with
Speaker 2: Palmer Lucky. I was very proud to have been able
Speaker 2: to invest in mod retro Is Electronics and Ssumer Electronics company.
Speaker 2: Hardware has always been something that's really excited me as
Speaker 2: a software guy because it's always felt a harder as
Speaker 2: the name would imply, but it's as a software guy,
Speaker 2: you're very in awe of.
Speaker 3: Folks who build with atoms. I'll speak for myself.
Speaker 2: Software feels easy by comparison, and I love the fact
Speaker 2: that Venture is now pushing itself to be more ambitious
Speaker 2: so that we get to invest in companies that are
Speaker 2: building reusable rockets or video game consoles or supersonic jets.
Speaker 3: Are the things that we do.
Speaker 1: You were in the inaugural dominator class, Yeah, two thousand
Speaker 1: and five.
Speaker 3: With twenty one years ago, almost twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: With Sam Allman's good crew, Steve Hoffman, your co founder,
Speaker 1: a Reddit.
Speaker 3: The Twitch guys, Twitch guy's Justin Emett.
Speaker 1: What advice would you give founders today that's different than
Speaker 1: what you got back then?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Boy, lots Well obviously look why c's changed a lot
Speaker 2: since then. The easy one is the advice that I
Speaker 2: would keep the same, which Paul Graham put it on
Speaker 2: everyone's shirt, and I think it still holds true, which
Speaker 2: is makes something people want.
Speaker 3: In twenty years.
Speaker 2: Now, I can say, having started multiple companies, seated many
Speaker 2: many more, that founding principle never goes away. And if anything,
Speaker 2: in this new world where attention is so scarce, and
Speaker 2: you have to work so hard to get your first hundred,
Speaker 2: first thousand, first one hundred thousand, whatever customers. Making something
Speaker 2: that people truly want and best case scenario getting them
Speaker 2: to prove it by paying money. That's the thing you
Speaker 2: wake up for every morning. Even in building the Formula
Speaker 2: one of track and field with athlos all we tell
Speaker 2: our team day over day over day, no matter how
Speaker 2: much press we get the day before, no matter what
Speaker 2: big moment happens with a brand partnership, or we have
Speaker 2: to re earn attention all over again. The next morning
Speaker 2: everyone has forgotten the internet has moved on earn it again,
Speaker 2: and that mindset, whether it's earning it again with our athletes,
Speaker 2: with our brand partners, with our fans like that never
Speaker 2: goes away, and so that is more important than ever.
Speaker 3: Probably the biggest thing I would change is ooh Okay.
Speaker 2: So in two thousand and five, it was an eclectic
Speaker 2: group of folks in that first YC batch. It was
Speaker 2: not normal to want to do a startup in two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, and that was the genius of YC.
Speaker 2: They realized this opportunity before everyone else did.
Speaker 3: Let's give for us.
Speaker 2: It was twelve thousand dollars for two college kids to
Speaker 2: go build a company. Maybe it could one day be
Speaker 2: worth billions. Sam is the one exception. I think Sam
Speaker 2: very much. He knew exactly what he wanted to build.
Speaker 2: He knew I think he had a roadmap to what
Speaker 2: tech could be in the world. Speaking for myself, I
Speaker 2: was just happy to not have a boss. I was
Speaker 2: just happy to build something that I cared about every
Speaker 2: day and build something that just seemed fun. I think
Speaker 2: the founders for today need to know just how much
Speaker 2: responsibility they have, and actually most of them do in
Speaker 2: what they're building. We can't hide from the fact tech
Speaker 2: is undeniably the highest leverage industry in our world. And
Speaker 2: you can look at the market caps of the biggest
Speaker 2: companies in the world, or you can look at just
Speaker 2: the fact that this technology shapes so much of our world.
Speaker 2: And so what I would tell founders is look, and again,
Speaker 2: most of them have They're.
Speaker 3: Way less naive than I was twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: They are very aware of this fact, and so I
Speaker 2: would say, move decisively, move earnestly, be aware of what
Speaker 2: you're building, and know that like this responsibility starts right now.
Speaker 2: For building something that is going to have a very
Speaker 2: big impact in the world and if you are successful,
Speaker 2: that's undeniable now.
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it also raises everyone's game up because we can
Speaker 2: no longer just sort of dismiss it as like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: you know, we build an app for cute cat photos
Speaker 2: that people vote up. And it is I think very
Speaker 2: clear just how big this all really is.
Speaker 1: Your portfolio isn't as heavy on core AI as some
Speaker 1: other No investments in the frontier labs that I can see.
Speaker 1: Did you miss it or are they missing something?
Speaker 2: Look, I think as an early stage investor, those frontier
Speaker 2: labs have been priced out for a minute. We may
Speaker 2: or may not have some shares in Anthropic, though directly
Speaker 2: on the cap table, not those weird seven layer deep
Speaker 2: SPVs that I've seen flown around.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that is an you do have shares an Anthropic, yes.
Speaker 2: But you know, for an early stage VC, I think
Speaker 2: where I've gotten most fired up is at the application layer.
Speaker 3: So I seated Flock it was like a decade ago.
Speaker 3: Athellis is another one.
Speaker 2: Both computer vision startups back in like twenty fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 2: when it was still really basic computer vision. No one
Speaker 2: really called it ai because we still hadn't obviously crossed
Speaker 2: the threshold. But why those were compelling is that they
Speaker 2: were solving a real palm people were willing to spend
Speaker 2: money for, and it was, you know, a simple enough
Speaker 2: technology that like you could do today. Where we've gotten
Speaker 2: really excited is a good example of a company like Doji,
Speaker 2: based here in New York that is brought to life
Speaker 2: this fashion avatar, the.
Speaker 3: Thing we've all wanted since clueless.
Speaker 2: In this case, you take a few selfies, you take
Speaker 2: a couple full body photos, and you have a beautiful
Speaker 2: looking avatar that you can now drop in a URL
Speaker 2: for any shopping website at Khulou Vuitton. It could be
Speaker 2: old Navy and see yourself in those clothes here instantly.
Speaker 2: And so that was a company we had funded pre
Speaker 2: launched when it was just an idea, and a couple
Speaker 2: of founders Thrive actually just invested quite a bit of
Speaker 2: cash in that company in their latest round and we're
Speaker 2: hopeful like that ends up being where Again, if you
Speaker 2: go back to what makes a consumer app viable and popular,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of the same funding principles that have
Speaker 2: made Reddit successful and It's about building a great product
Speaker 2: that people love, and I think those foundation folks are
Speaker 2: going to keep thriving on some level. Obviously a lot
Speaker 2: of money is going into all that to keep building.
Speaker 2: But where I get excited is how our users actually
Speaker 2: going to fall. I love the product that does something
Speaker 2: so damn well that even when Google launch is there,
Speaker 2: I think Google had some version of like.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, try on your clothes.
Speaker 2: No startup has ever actually been killed by Google launching
Speaker 2: a product because they don't understand how to create a
Speaker 2: really amazing user experience in that way.
Speaker 3: And if anything, it just gives you more validation.
Speaker 1: So you're running a VC firm, advising dozens of startups,
Speaker 1: raising two young daughters, trying to reinvent women's sports, all
Speaker 1: while maintaining a very public profile. What batteries are you
Speaker 1: running on? Because I want some of that?
Speaker 2: I Emily, you should talk. You've got a prolific career yourself.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, what is it? I mean it's caffeine,
Speaker 2: lots of it, A few cups a day, and I
Speaker 2: really genuinely.
Speaker 3: Love what I do.
Speaker 2: I told you I hang a responsibility over me. That's
Speaker 2: probably not healthy, but it fuels me to do more,
Speaker 2: do better, really earn what I have, or try my
Speaker 2: best to And like I said, I mean, I do
Speaker 2: genuinely love it. And I think they're that adage, that
Speaker 2: cliche about oh, if you do what you love, you
Speaker 2: never work a day in your life. And I truly
Speaker 2: feel lucky that I've lived that. I've lived it basically
Speaker 2: since college. And it's a hell of a drug. And
Speaker 2: then when the thing that you love doing also compensates
Speaker 2: you really well for it, Like why would I not
Speaker 2: want to do it?
Speaker 1: How has being a dad of daughters changed the founders
Speaker 1: that you're drawn to and the problems that you think
Speaker 1: are worth solving.
Speaker 2: I'd like to think that I had a perspective before.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, it's only been eight years since becoming a dad,
Speaker 2: but I really can't think of what I was thinking
Speaker 2: back then, Like I feel like a very different person
Speaker 2: now in how I see the world, And so I
Speaker 2: don't know how much I'd attribute to I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think undeniably having a couple daughters, especially black daughters,
Speaker 2: just gives me a different perspective on navigating the world.
Speaker 3: And so look, at the end of.
Speaker 2: The day, I'm looking to make investments to generate the
Speaker 2: biggest returns. And I think it is a very obvious
Speaker 2: thing that our industry at tech has been largely defined
Speaker 2: by dudes and you know.
Speaker 3: A lot of white guys.
Speaker 2: But what's really interesting here to me is the more
Speaker 2: touch points I get into different industries, different cultures, just
Speaker 2: different things. For someone in this role, both as an
Speaker 2: entrepreneur and an early stage investor, I am trying to
Speaker 2: learn from every experience I have. This is probably to
Speaker 2: a fault, and my wife's commented on it a few
Speaker 2: times because apparently it's not a normal thing. I am
Speaker 2: trying to pay attention to everything because I'm trying to learn.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to connect some.
Speaker 2: Dot to something that goes back to some business that
Speaker 2: I have started or I have invested in.
Speaker 3: And I think that's probably what made.
Speaker 2: Me effective in that role building Reddit, because at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, you're just scrolling through infinite conversations
Speaker 2: trying to connect dots and understand community trends and all
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. And I think that's made me
Speaker 2: a very good investor. And look their companies. Oh there's
Speaker 2: one company hopefully we'll have announced by then. It's a
Speaker 2: robot that is a listing stylists or braiders in braiding
Speaker 2: natural hair. It's called Halo braid and this is a product.
Speaker 2: Very excited to invest it in Yinko, who's the CEO.
Speaker 2: She's going to build the Dyson of natural hair. And
Speaker 2: that is probably an easy, very obvious example of a
Speaker 2: thing that I would have been maybe aware of before,
Speaker 2: but now that I've lived through just how long some
Speaker 2: of these braiding sessions are and tried my best to
Speaker 2: help I understand and there's Look, there's an incredible tradition
Speaker 2: there that's important to preserve, and it's not removing the
Speaker 2: human from it, it's just making her life much easier.
Speaker 2: This can take six, seven, eight, nine, ten hours, like
Speaker 2: it can go for a very long time. And here's
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur solving a problem that probably a lot of
Speaker 2: other founders would not even be aware of. And yet again,
Speaker 2: I mean, you could take a quick search and realize
Speaker 2: just how big the industry is around all things natural hair.
Speaker 2: And if you believe that robotics are going to play
Speaker 2: a much bigger role in our lives and in our
Speaker 2: homes the next few years, as most of us do,
Speaker 2: a lot of folks are going to look at you know,
Speaker 2: how do I build the next robot that's going to
Speaker 2: wash dishes or clean up some trash, Which is fine,
Speaker 2: that's a big problem. There are lots of people trying
Speaker 2: to solve that. This is an industry laying in plain
Speaker 2: sight where you have a founder who's taking a different
Speaker 2: perspective that is not going to have real competition I
Speaker 2: think for a very long time and be able to
Speaker 2: dominate in a space that's going to be incredibly valuable.
Speaker 2: And so again it comes back to that starting line,
Speaker 2: how am I making sure we are seeing as many
Speaker 2: pitches as possible from as many sectors, as many founders,
Speaker 2: so that we're not just satisfied with the random cook
Speaker 2: who won that day. We're really finding greatness everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know who also talked about braiding hair on the circuit,
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2: Zuck did he spent time. Zuck is a great girl
Speaker 2: dad as well. Here's the other part too. I knew
Speaker 2: I was only having daughters. I will only have daughters,
Speaker 2: make sure of it, and I needed it. It was
Speaker 2: important for me. I think it softened me in really
Speaker 2: really important ways to understand, especially as an entrepreneur, you
Speaker 2: really get afflicted with this disease where you know, whatever,
Speaker 2: it's a thing you really think you're the most important person.
Speaker 2: You really think you are the main character. And I
Speaker 2: think guys in particular we have we're a little more
Speaker 2: prone to this affliction. Okay, And becoming a father is
Speaker 2: one thing because in that moment, you're like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: not the most important person like this little human is.
Speaker 2: But then when you have a daughter, it softens you
Speaker 2: in another way that it's hard to explain. Now, I
Speaker 2: haven't had a son, so technically I don't know what
Speaker 2: to compare it to, but I know how much having
Speaker 2: these little girls has given me a different window, because
Speaker 2: you know, I feel like I can sympathize or empathize
Speaker 2: with my wife to a certain extent, but there's something
Speaker 2: about it being your child where now all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: like you really are connected to me in a deep,
Speaker 2: deep biological and sentimental and just emotional way. And there's
Speaker 2: such a sweetness to these girls that just makes me
Speaker 2: feel I don't know, you see how I live my
Speaker 2: life publicly online, like I keep it a hundred with
Speaker 2: folks for better or for worse, because that's just how
Speaker 2: I'm wired but when I come home to them, I
Speaker 2: get that hug. It feels different, and these girls just
Speaker 2: they bring out the best in me in a way
Speaker 2: that I'd like to believe a son could.
Speaker 3: But it's a little different.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, I do feel like I
Speaker 2: never quite do enough as a husband or a dad.
Speaker 2: There is that tension, and I try to speak about
Speaker 2: it openly and plainly, because plenty of professional women have
Speaker 2: to deal with this day in.
Speaker 3: And day output like dads feel that too.
Speaker 2: Dads feel it too, And that was probably the best
Speaker 2: part about There were lots of great things about becoming
Speaker 2: a father, but one of my favorites was getting to
Speaker 2: know men who already really respected, wildly successful in so
Speaker 2: many industries, who then let me into this club once
Speaker 2: I became a father, and they started to tell me
Speaker 2: about the good times the bad times, And I'm like, guys,
Speaker 2: like this has been on your minds the whole time
Speaker 2: and you only talk to other dads about it, Like
Speaker 2: this conversation needs to get normalized. So young men, before
Speaker 2: we even think about having a family, are seeing this
Speaker 2: other path to excellence that is yes, career driven as
Speaker 2: all hell, but also aware of the fact that like,
Speaker 2: probably the best thing I'll ever do is going to
Speaker 2: be these little humans that I helped bring into the
Speaker 2: world and raise. And so I like seeing that there's
Speaker 2: definitely been a shift now in the meta. I feel
Speaker 2: like the last five years and you know, trying to
Speaker 2: do it all, Like everybody trying to do it all.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about dig. Are you trying to make money?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to take on TikTok? What's the vision?
Speaker 1: Who's the competition?
Speaker 3: Who is the competition for Dig?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Kevin Rose and I used to be
Speaker 2: arche Nemesis CEOs back in the day Reddit versus Dig.
Speaker 3: I hated his guts. I hated his guts.
Speaker 2: I had a gift of Kevin Rose. At a dignation event,
Speaker 2: someone had thrown a Reddit T shirt on stage.
Speaker 3: He picked it up, he held it to the crowd.
Speaker 2: They booed, and he blew his nose on the shirt
Speaker 2: and threw it to the side. And I used to
Speaker 2: watch this clip probably once or twice a week. And
Speaker 2: I have a folder I may still have it, a
Speaker 2: Dropbox folder where I would have all these things that
Speaker 2: just called up my wall of negative reinforcement. I had
Speaker 2: a literal wall when we were starting Reddit, right like
Speaker 2: when the Yahoo executive called us a rounding air, I
Speaker 2: put that on my wall. So every day when I
Speaker 2: went to the office, I could see this guy, You're
Speaker 2: a rounding air. I won't name him, he's still in tech,
Speaker 2: and it would motivate me. And then, of course the
Speaker 2: day that reddits are passed Yahoo in traffic, I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, we'll see rounding air.
Speaker 3: And so with Kevin, you know, it was an innocuous thing.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like he but he did this and it
Speaker 2: was so important to me because whenever I felt like
Speaker 2: a little tired, I felt like I don't really want
Speaker 2: to do this thing. I gotta do, man, I watched
Speaker 2: that clip and I remembered why I need to prove
Speaker 2: him wrong. And so it was great. We buried Dig
Speaker 2: and I felt like great, victory, awesome, But I never
Speaker 2: actually met Kevin and on some level, look, Dig was first,
Speaker 2: honest to god, I did not know about it.
Speaker 3: Neither of us did.
Speaker 2: I still had the email where I learned about it,
Speaker 2: and I send email to Paul Graham and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: we have a competitors called Dig. This was probably six
Speaker 2: to nine months after a dig had launched, so they
Speaker 2: were first and.
Speaker 3: I finally met him.
Speaker 2: This is now years later, it's probably four or five
Speaker 2: years ago, maybe six years ago, and we absolutely hit
Speaker 2: it off, and I thought to myself, God, why did
Speaker 2: this take so long. He's a girl dad, I'm a
Speaker 2: girl dad. We thought about the world in much the
Speaker 2: same way. We were building basically the same company at
Speaker 2: the same time, with a similar view on community and
Speaker 2: product and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: And if I'm being awesome myself, part.
Speaker 2: Of the reason I hated him was this kind of
Speaker 2: like jealousy and a competitive spirit, and there was probably
Speaker 2: I saw a version of me in him, and he
Speaker 2: was getting things I didn't get. Remember, they were, you know,
Speaker 2: venture funded front of magazines. They were the king they
Speaker 2: were the champions. We were the sort of runty other
Speaker 2: company for five six years.
Speaker 3: And so as I more understood where that.
Speaker 2: Jealousy came from and how that jealousy was really rooted
Speaker 2: in respect, and then I came to realized, like, I
Speaker 2: actually love this guy.
Speaker 3: He's great. Got to change everything.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, he told me he was buying back
Speaker 2: the domain and I said, Kevin, this is a great idea.
Speaker 2: Can I do this with you and so.
Speaker 1: So he is the goal to make money or to
Speaker 1: get for your jealousy.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, we're buddies now that but remember I
Speaker 2: have a wall of negative reinforcement. So the idea that
Speaker 2: we could build a platform in the AI age that
Speaker 2: has all the community tools that we know could be
Speaker 2: better with AI. So imagine a moderator's job is not
Speaker 2: ninety percent garbage and ten percent community management, but actually
Speaker 2: ninety percent community management and ten percent sort of garbage collection.
Speaker 2: AI is what enables that those tools help scale the
Speaker 2: work of the moderators that on most of these platforms
Speaker 2: spend a lot of their time doing like digital grunt
Speaker 2: work that's not satisfying. And then also in this age
Speaker 2: of AI, can we build a community platform that is
Speaker 2: authentically human? People are realizing now just how much of
Speaker 2: our social feeds are fake. I mean it's striking. I'd
Speaker 2: say at a minimum it's a third. I think, wow,
Speaker 2: with dead Internet theory, I really it could be as
Speaker 2: much as half are in some way compromised. And so
Speaker 2: that could be outright a bot that could be a
Speaker 2: human posting AI generated content sort of a scale, that
Speaker 2: could be an account that gets purchased in order to
Speaker 2: have the moderator rights in a community.
Speaker 3: And so, what do you do in an age.
Speaker 2: Where you know, because of AI, we are going to
Speaker 2: become more and more skeptical of every interaction we have.
Speaker 2: How do you reimagine a community first platform where you
Speaker 2: have verifiable humans without saying, oh, hey, you know, scan
Speaker 2: your retina?
Speaker 3: And so I think dig can be that. And then yeah,
Speaker 3: on a personal level, I would love nothing more than
Speaker 3: to see if we could do it again again or
Speaker 3: better both.
Speaker 2: I mean, how many founders get the chance to run
Speaker 2: it back in a similar product in a similar market.
Speaker 2: I mean you talk about Palmer is definitely one of them.
Speaker 2: There's a short list of folks who have done that,
Speaker 2: and it would be a lot of fun. It'd be
Speaker 2: a lot of fun to do.
Speaker 1: If the engine of virality is extremism and day is
Speaker 1: supposed to be the antidote, how do you drive engagement?
Speaker 2: I think what we found in authentic human online community
Speaker 2: is it's the last bastion of really high quality content
Speaker 2: and right now I don't think actually, I think most
Speaker 2: of it goes down in the group chats. I think
Speaker 2: that's where most of that happens today. And so whether
Speaker 2: you want to know an opinion about a movie, whether
Speaker 2: you want to know about a camera to buy. There
Speaker 2: is always going to be real, real value there as
Speaker 2: long as you can curate a space that people believe
Speaker 2: is authentic and human. And Lord knows, we know the
Speaker 2: lms will pay money for that content because they know
Speaker 2: how valuable that is to train on. But what I
Speaker 2: worry about is there is this flywheel of if we
Speaker 2: know these models are train on content that are now
Speaker 2: largely bodied or AI generated, that authenticity loop breaks down
Speaker 2: real quick, and that trust breaks down real quick. And
Speaker 2: so I think we will need to find repositories of
Speaker 2: real community that are verifiable and engaging. And I think
Speaker 2: the reason why people will want to come back to
Speaker 2: them is because you'll be surrounded by so much noise,
Speaker 2: so much slop. And the stop gap right now is
Speaker 2: in the group chats. But that's clearly not where it ends.
Speaker 2: There clearly needs to be some other version of you know,
Speaker 2: if you just want to show up and find a
Speaker 2: community of people who love cameras, where do you go
Speaker 2: to get authentic, real human reviews of those things.
Speaker 1: Reddit is actually one of the oldest social media companies
Speaker 1: because it was founded in two.
Speaker 2: Thousand and five, pre Instagram, after Facebook, pre Snap, pre snap.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you make of how.
Speaker 1: Far Reddit has come and how much work there still
Speaker 1: is to do?
Speaker 3: Oh? I mean this is the startups of the infinite game.
Speaker 3: It's not a startup anymore, that's true.
Speaker 2: Uh, I think there is. Look, I think everyone's playing
Speaker 2: an infinite game here. I'll put it this way. In
Speaker 2: the seventh cent and six portfolio, we have companies a
Speaker 2: year or two ago that we've had to have the
Speaker 2: hard talk with the CEO and say, look, your company
Speaker 2: was founded literally just two and a half years ago.
Speaker 2: Let's say, and you're a pre AI company, your DNA,
Speaker 2: it's a software company, but your DNA is from an
Speaker 2: era before we sort of normalized, you know, writing code
Speaker 2: with some sort of AI assistance. The speed at which
Speaker 2: you ship, the way in which you build is from
Speaker 2: this bygone era. And that was just a few years ago.
Speaker 2: So imagine any pure software company older than that. That
Speaker 2: is a massive shift in how you work in order
Speaker 2: to keep up with the modern era. And so I
Speaker 2: think any company, especially one a couple of decades old,
Speaker 2: is facing some kind of an existential threat or some
Speaker 2: kind of question that need to ask themselves, which is
Speaker 2: can this company be refounded as the type of company
Speaker 2: that moves like a company does today? Today we meet founders.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a group of people that can sit
Speaker 2: around a box of pizza and they're able to get
Speaker 2: to tens of millions in revenue, and soon they'll get
Speaker 2: to hundreds of millions in revenue.
Speaker 3: These are the outliers.
Speaker 2: But it's undeniable that this sort of navy c of
Speaker 2: software development, the small, cracked team, is going to be
Speaker 2: able to punch way above their weight in this new era,
Speaker 2: and so it's very hard for the incumbents to adapt.
Speaker 2: We'll see, I think some will, but my gut is
Speaker 2: a lot of them won't, and it'll be fun to
Speaker 2: see how that unfolds.
Speaker 1: A lot was made of the fact that you weren't at.
Speaker 3: The IPO, was it?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Really, why weren't you there?
Speaker 2: It was so funny. I was just asking. I was like,
Speaker 2: I personally don't feel like it was a thing. Why
Speaker 2: wasn't I there? Well, I wasn't invited. I did not
Speaker 2: expect to be invited. Though given back, given the fact
Speaker 2: that I resigned in protests in twenty twenty you know,
Speaker 2: that was a very public statement in order to get
Speaker 2: the company to finally ban some of these communities. I'd
Speaker 2: already had opposition about communities like watch people Die and
Speaker 2: some of these really violent and racist communities, and yeah,
Speaker 2: you know that was the way to get the change.
Speaker 2: The good news is it got it done. Those communities
Speaker 2: got banned, and I think it made the business better,
Speaker 2: which was good. It was certainly better for society in
Speaker 2: my opinion. But uh, yeah, I didn't get the invite.
Speaker 2: But the good news is, so there.
Speaker 1: Are some bad blood or hurt feelings or bruised.
Speaker 3: Egos, not for me.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, you know, the way I look
Speaker 2: at it, I've got plenty more IPOs to go to.
Speaker 2: So it just wasn't this one.
Speaker 1: And we did talk at the time, But why leave
Speaker 1: rather than lean in to fix what was broken?
Speaker 2: Well, when you're in a boardroom, especially when you've been
Speaker 2: like the founder and face of a company for fifteen years,
Speaker 2: you're in a boardroom with four other people and they're
Speaker 2: all telling you why the watch people Die community is
Speaker 2: an important part of Reddit, and why we need to
Speaker 2: preserve that community in spite of your protests because of
Speaker 2: free speech, and because of how helpful.
Speaker 3: It is for first responders whatever.
Speaker 2: When you come out of a board meeting like that
Speaker 2: and you go home to your wife, as I did, and.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, like, God, am I the crazy one? Like?
Speaker 3: Am I wrong on this?
Speaker 2: Because like I know, so this community is full of
Speaker 2: snuff videos, suicide videos, murder videos, mostly of people in
Speaker 2: the developing world.
Speaker 3: Because that's how that video footage gets leaked out.
Speaker 2: And there are millions of people on Reddit who come
Speaker 2: to this and discuss it and share and bond. And
Speaker 2: that feels vile. That feels wrong. It's not something I'm
Speaker 2: proud of. I don't think it's a good thing for
Speaker 2: the business. I don't think it's a good thing for
Speaker 2: the community. I don't think it's a good thing for society.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to steal man this and the best argument
Speaker 2: I'm hearing back as well, it's important for free speech,
Speaker 2: and it'll help people who have lived in war zones.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't think that's real. But when
Speaker 2: you're told you know, and the room is very obviously
Speaker 2: against you and told no, no, no, don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: You're wrong.
Speaker 2: It is a weird, very surreal experience. And so when
Speaker 2: you can't convince a board for other people that the
Speaker 2: thing you've spent your life building shouldn't have a community
Speaker 2: that feeds millions of people content of people dying on camera,
Speaker 2: you know you've got an uphill battle, right you have
Speaker 2: a different set of values. And then the really eye
Speaker 2: opening thing was, you know, it's one thing to have values,
Speaker 2: it's another one those get tested because I think if
Speaker 2: held up to public scrutiny, the response public was the
Speaker 2: same one, which was, well, this is an important free
Speaker 2: speech issue, et cetera.
Speaker 3: We're going to stick with it.
Speaker 2: I would have disagreed, but I would have respected the
Speaker 2: intellectual consistency. And instead, when the christ Church shooting happened
Speaker 2: and the media found out about watching people die, what
Speaker 2: was the response, We're banning violence, These communities shouldn't be here.
Speaker 2: That flipped the switch for me, because now I'm coming
Speaker 2: home to dinner, I'm like, so, I wasn't crazy, I
Speaker 2: wasn't wrong. It's just no one had the spine to
Speaker 2: do something about it. And so now you know, a
Speaker 2: month or two goes by and again on the surface,
Speaker 2: you're publicly as a company saying we stand in solid
Speaker 2: area with black lives. We're changing our logo where we're
Speaker 2: writing a blog post and again I'm having this conversation
Speaker 2: with members of the board. There are thousands of communities
Speaker 2: here I literally cannot name because of the words in
Speaker 2: their name. They are so racist and vile. And these
Speaker 2: are active communities. These are not one off posts. These
Speaker 2: are active communities normalizing. Hey, I can't reconcile a company
Speaker 2: that publicly is saying we're not about this, but literally
Speaker 2: harboring these communities. And so I took a lesson from
Speaker 2: christ Church and the Watch People Die community where what
Speaker 2: it took was a spotlight, what it took was sunlight.
Speaker 2: And so in that resignation, I could make public my
Speaker 2: request to have these vile, racist, violent communities banned, have
Speaker 2: myself replaced by director of color, and say you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm out. But hopefully this finally gets the change. And
Speaker 2: the greatest blessing has been in the last five years
Speaker 2: since my God to have had the success that I
Speaker 2: have had. I am so lucky in industry after industry industries, right,
Speaker 2: I didn't belong five years ago to show up and
Speaker 2: make such headway, have such success and forget the money
Speaker 2: and the accolades to be this effective and in a
Speaker 2: way that aligns with values that I know.
Speaker 3: When my little girl grows up and.
Speaker 2: She asks, Papa, how did you make all this money,
Speaker 2: I can tell her and feel so good about it.
Speaker 3: God, it feels good.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, there is a part of me
Speaker 2: that probably thinks, maybe I should have done it sooner,
Speaker 2: maybe I should have left sooner. But more importantly, maybe
Speaker 2: I should make sure that I'm never again in a
Speaker 2: room with four other people that see the world so
Speaker 2: fundamentally differently than I do. And you know, Serena clocked
Speaker 2: it real quick. She was like, no, those people are crazy.
Speaker 2: Watch people die as a horrible community, And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: And thank god I had one person in my life
Speaker 2: who at least was able to call that, and it
Speaker 2: just gave me a perspective. And I feel, like I said,
Speaker 2: I feel very fortunate that I'm never gonna have to
Speaker 2: be in a room like that again.
Speaker 1: You were at the forefront of defending Section two thirty
Speaker 1: at one point. Do you feel differently now about content
Speaker 1: and platforms and accountability?
Speaker 3: Not at all.
Speaker 2: I think Section two thirty exists in this same world,
Speaker 2: right you can want section two thirty and also say,
Speaker 2: I like to use the analogy of like a platform
Speaker 2: like Reddit is like a digital Javit center.
Speaker 3: Since we're here in New York.
Speaker 2: You're a private company that is hosting this infinite convention hall,
Speaker 2: and so you make the choice, oh, hey, we got
Speaker 2: the Pokemon convention over here, we have the Yankees conference
Speaker 2: over here, we have the Watch People Die conference over here.
Speaker 2: Like you're making an active choice around the communities that
Speaker 2: you harbor as a private business, and you have the
Speaker 2: right to say no, sorry, KKK, we actually don't watch
Speaker 2: you here because over here we're just trying to enjoy Pokemon.
Speaker 3: And so Section two.
Speaker 2: Thirty is an important issue because it protects platforms on
Speaker 2: the individual basis of the stuff gets posted. And that's
Speaker 2: like the random person walking into the Pokemon conventional saying
Speaker 2: something toxic that's different from hey, we actually are hosting
Speaker 2: the KKK here in our convention center.
Speaker 1: Text shift to the right. How do you feel when
Speaker 1: you see tech CEOs who used to say and do
Speaker 1: one thing saying and doing something different?
Speaker 3: Now, well, I just.
Speaker 2: Told you that last story, right, Having values only really
Speaker 2: matter when they get tested.
Speaker 3: So unfortunately it's not surprising. I do think I actually, okay,
Speaker 3: is it disappointing? You can't be disappointed after the stuff
Speaker 3: I've seen. You can't get disappointed.
Speaker 2: The bar is low I'm going to get I watch
Speaker 2: people die, Please judge for yourselves.
Speaker 3: How important for society and business? That is okay? So
Speaker 3: what do I think? I really believe that? And maybe
Speaker 3: I'm just a masochist.
Speaker 2: I think having this culture shift, I actually appreciate c
Speaker 2: it in that it's a test for my own values.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't feel very good if the things I believed
Speaker 2: flapped so effortlessly in the political wins. I think there
Speaker 2: are issues in text shift to the right that I
Speaker 2: actually agree with. This is by no means a monolith,
Speaker 2: like there are certain things that I think have been
Speaker 2: a good shift, But I do think overall, yeah, with
Speaker 2: this vibe shift, if you will, it makes it even
Speaker 2: more important for me to say the things I'm going
Speaker 2: to say, especially from the position of power that I have.
Speaker 3: And so, like I said, if I have.
Speaker 2: I think ten million people, like I said, saying, I mean,
Speaker 2: some just vile stuff about me on Twitter because I
Speaker 2: tell the story of my mom, who is an undocumented immigrant.
Speaker 2: Fun I would rather have that statement in the public record,
Speaker 2: and I know that there are millions more people who
Speaker 2: actually would read what I have to say and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's fairly reasonable policy, And I'd rather use the platform
Speaker 2: I have to say those things and again continue to
Speaker 2: be tested by the fact that, you know, if I
Speaker 2: had tweeted that five years ago, it wouldn't have certainly
Speaker 2: met that level of toxicity and criticism. So I think
Speaker 2: it's a great test of what one believes to be
Speaker 2: able to say those things in an environment where you
Speaker 2: have people saying awful stuff back to you.
Speaker 3: But I don't know that stuff doesn't affect with too much.
Speaker 1: You have daughters, But it's also a tough moment for
Speaker 1: raising suns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and ex truly.
Speaker 1: Kids are being pushed to the margins across the board.
Speaker 1: Does that worry you?
Speaker 2: I actually care more about the plight of young boys
Speaker 2: because look, in all I like Coilhood. Those are the
Speaker 2: guys that my daughters are going to have to choose
Speaker 2: from as partners, right, as life partners. I'm going to
Speaker 2: raise some kick ass girls. I need awesome young men
Speaker 2: for them to couple up with, right, And so I
Speaker 2: think in the pursuit of elevating young girls and women,
Speaker 2: we forgot or we in some cases pushed down creating
Speaker 2: those pathways for young boys. And again, I statistically, my
Speaker 2: daughters are probably going to want guys in their lives
Speaker 2: who are great too, who are self assured, who are
Speaker 2: capable or are confident, who are able to do all
Speaker 2: these things and be high functioning contributors to society, and
Speaker 2: so we should want that even as girl dads. And
Speaker 2: so I do think now that you have this tonal
Speaker 2: shift back, so there's more awareness of the plight of
Speaker 2: young boys and young men in particular, also at a
Speaker 2: time when I think there's enough data to show that
Speaker 2: in any population, having young men feeling hopeless and helpless
Speaker 2: is very bad for society young women. It's also not
Speaker 2: good if young women feel that way, but they tend
Speaker 2: to take out that marginalization in less toxic.
Speaker 3: Ways than men do.
Speaker 2: So I think we have a societal imperative to do
Speaker 2: more for these young men, especially at a time when
Speaker 2: you have many in a generation feeling like they're going
Speaker 2: to do worse than their parents, and when they are
Speaker 2: feeling all these I think very valid concerns, And again
Speaker 2: you can I guess kind of blame me for this.
Speaker 2: The conversation on social media has just it rewards the
Speaker 2: most extreme because it's either one side playing to their
Speaker 2: base or the other side antagonizing the other. And it
Speaker 2: seems like the generation coming up now gen Z has
Speaker 2: run its course with social media. They're looking for alternatives.
Speaker 2: They don't want to see their self worth measured in
Speaker 2: followers like millennials, and I hope that gives rise to
Speaker 2: some other opportunities to actually communicate and share ideas.
Speaker 3: But it's a big one.
Speaker 1: We seem to be going all in on this narrative
Speaker 1: that tech's going to just make our lives better, and
Speaker 1: yet at the same time barreling towards a future where
Speaker 1: we have less interpersonal skills, less jobs, people can't focus
Speaker 1: on multiple things at one time. Is it reasonable to
Speaker 1: leave that tech which got us here will get us out.
Speaker 2: I think so, and I think so one because I'm
Speaker 2: just a tech optimist, so I can't help that. I
Speaker 2: do think we have to build our way out of it.
Speaker 2: We talk about this a lot internally, to the skills
Speaker 2: that I want to make sure my kids have, and
Speaker 2: I hope our education system builds up in a whole
Speaker 2: generation of kids as well. Are a lot of the
Speaker 2: things that make us more human. So those interpersonal skills,
Speaker 2: the public speaking skills, the empathy, the creativity, like raw
Speaker 2: horsepower intelligence is now commoditized, which is great news for.
Speaker 3: Students like me. Like I said, it was a good student,
Speaker 3: it's not a great student.
Speaker 2: I really hope this is going to take a much
Speaker 2: bigger shift, but I really hope. I think APPA School
Speaker 2: is a great example as we can start elevating those
Speaker 2: softer skills, those interpersonal skills, actually in the school day,
Speaker 2: so that those are the things kids are spending time doing.
Speaker 2: And if they can spend an hour having an AI
Speaker 2: tutor help them through all the fundamentals in what would
Speaker 2: have taken a human teacher hours and hours and hours
Speaker 2: and tons of bullshit homework and all this stuff, I
Speaker 2: think that's a huge win for all of us. And
Speaker 2: so I'm still hopeful. And yes, there's all the memes
Speaker 2: of what is at the gen Z Stare. I'm really
Speaker 2: showing my age now, but there is what.
Speaker 3: It's like a blank stare, the gen Z Stay. It's
Speaker 3: like a whole thing.
Speaker 2: And so the good news is for that generation, any
Speaker 2: of the young people who are not wired that way have.
Speaker 3: A huge advantage.
Speaker 2: They are going to be head and shoulders above their
Speaker 2: peers when it comes to competition in terms of building
Speaker 2: companies are even working or all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But the cultures adapt quickly.
Speaker 2: I think technology overall is still a force for good
Speaker 2: and I think part of unfortunately, what it requires is
Speaker 2: the pendulum has shift far enough that enough people are like, yo,
Speaker 2: this is broken, Like he needs to shift back.
Speaker 1: Our kid's best friend is going to be ais though
Speaker 1: I know and I know you, and some will be
Speaker 1: I know you and Olympia spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: on chatchipt.
Speaker 2: We do, and I want her to be exposed, and
Speaker 2: that's with parental supervision. But we'll do like a big
Speaker 2: question and I'll force her every night. Some nights she
Speaker 2: really doesn't want to do it, and she'll just look
Speaker 2: at the salt shaker and be like, where does salt
Speaker 2: come from? I'm like, Olympia, you were not thinking about
Speaker 2: this question all day long, Like you just looked at
Speaker 2: the salt and just want to get through it.
Speaker 3: But it's fine.
Speaker 2: We do a lesson on salt and fun and so
Speaker 2: chatcheapt ends up becoming this brilliant, always on tutor that
Speaker 2: can help explain stuff, and okay, but I want her
Speaker 2: to see it as a tool, not as a friend.
Speaker 2: I do think realistically, some portion of the population will
Speaker 2: probably opt into these AI relationships, And if I were
Speaker 2: in a ballpark, it maybe ten or twenty percent. I
Speaker 2: mean there's already you know, there's always that story that
Speaker 2: goes viral. There's that married guy who's in love with
Speaker 2: an AI and he has a wife and a child,
Speaker 2: and the wife and child they're like, yeah, he's in
Speaker 2: love with his AI, and like that for sure is
Speaker 2: not a healthy thing. But I think if you talk
Speaker 2: to Sam Altman about this or any of those folks,
Speaker 2: they're all going to say, well, you know, users still
Speaker 2: need to use these tools as they see fit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think realistically ten or twenty percent of the
Speaker 2: population will have some deep affection for an AI. Now,
Speaker 2: how different is that from a deep video game addiction
Speaker 2: or a deep whatever. Like, I think it's a cousin
Speaker 2: of other things that our society has that's just found
Speaker 2: a new outlet. And then I think for eighty percent
Speaker 2: of the population it's a resource. In the best case,
Speaker 2: is the way I've used it personally is as a
Speaker 2: kind of executive coach to be able to give me
Speaker 2: and you really got you really got.
Speaker 3: To tell open Ai to give it to you one hundred.
Speaker 2: Don't be a sick of fan like give it to
Speaker 2: me real, but to give you feedback and give you
Speaker 2: this real time feedback loop on how you handle that,
Speaker 2: maybe a conversation or an email or just be a
Speaker 2: thought partner. I think that will be widespread. I think
Speaker 2: it'll be wonderfully healthy. I think it'll be a good
Speaker 2: thing and will help us be more effective. And then
Speaker 2: I do think from a career job standpoint, for sure,
Speaker 2: there will be a lot of change. My sister who's
Speaker 2: an RN, she asked me this for the last like
Speaker 2: ten years. She's like, have you built a company yet
Speaker 2: to put me out of business? And I'm like, you
Speaker 2: will never not have a job here a nurse. You
Speaker 2: are a superhero and the work that you do is
Speaker 2: so physically unique, creative, empathetic, strategically it's the last thing
Speaker 2: that we'll build a robot to do. But there are
Speaker 2: plenty of jobs that are going to be changed, upended.
Speaker 2: But I do think there's no limit to human ambition.
Speaker 2: Just like one of the biggest jobs in the world
Speaker 2: the kids aspired to you today in the United States
Speaker 2: is being a YouTuber or a creator thanks to you know,
Speaker 2: shout out mister beast seven seven six founder. Is this
Speaker 2: idea that didn't exist fifteen, twenty years ago or not
Speaker 2: really certainly not thirty years ago. And so yes, there'll
Speaker 2: be careers in jobs that don't exist, say that exist
Speaker 2: in the future that are thrilling and exciting and pay you.
Speaker 3: And then look, let's get spacefaring. You know there is
Speaker 3: no shortage of ambition.
Speaker 1: You think we should go to space.
Speaker 3: Look like I.
Speaker 2: Said early check in Stoke, it's a reasonable rocket company.
Speaker 2: I think there is a very significant importance for all
Speaker 2: of us on Earth to be very good at space,
Speaker 2: certainly as Americans. From even just a defense standpoint, it's
Speaker 2: really important for us to be there and have a
Speaker 2: big presence. And while I look to invest in space
Speaker 2: tech first and foremost to benefit us on Earth. Love Earth,
Speaker 2: want it to be around for a long time, want
Speaker 2: us to thrive here, I also know that as we
Speaker 2: continue to I do think improve things long term and Earth.
Speaker 2: I don't hate the fact that we can become a
Speaker 2: spacefaring civilization. I don't hate the fact that we could
Speaker 2: have maybe not my daughters, but like granddaughters grandsons wanting
Speaker 2: to pursue things outside of this world. That's dope to me.
Speaker 2: That sounds great, but not in lieu of Earth. Earth
Speaker 2: is still planning, really care about it.
Speaker 1: So there's hope for eighty to ninety percent of us.
Speaker 3: Yes, we still have to save this planet better. We
Speaker 3: still have to save this planet for sure.
Speaker 2: Even NASA has shown so much innovation that we help
Speaker 2: use here terrestrially, and I don't doubt there'll be one
Speaker 2: hundred times more from the private space endeavors that are
Speaker 2: happening now.
Speaker 3: They'll help us here on Earth.
Speaker 1: Reddit said in a statement that it was widely agreed
Speaker 1: upon to ban Watch People Die in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: that two thousand other communities were banned for violating Reddit's
Speaker 1: policy on hateful content in twenty twenty, the year o'hannian
Speaker 1: left the company. Reddit said Ohannian and the company's board
Speaker 1: of directors did not play a role in the decision
Speaker 1: to ban Watch People Die, and that quote policy decisions
Speaker 1: at Reddit are made cross functionally between our safety policy,
Speaker 1: legal and other teams. Reddit is committed to the safety
Speaker 1: of our platform and the health of our community, which
Speaker 1: is why we have a long track record of strengthening
Speaker 1: our site wide rules. Thanks so much for listening to
Speaker 1: this episode of the Circuit. Check out the full episode
Speaker 1: to see how Alexis o'hannion is creating a new sports
Speaker 1: league and making a big bet on the fastest women
Speaker 1: on the planet. I'm Emily Chang. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on x and Instagram at Emily Chang TV. You can
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