Latest / Great Houses / 31. Zack Fava of Methean.io Talks Great Houses

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31. Zack Fava of Methean.io Talks Great Houses · Great Houses

• 0:00
  Gregory Treat: All right.
• 0:00
  Hello, everybody.
• 0:01
  Welcome to another episode of The Great Houses Forum, uh, where we, we…
• 0:06
  There's, there's two pieces, right?
• 0:07
  One, one on The Great Houses Forum.
• 0:09
  We always, we're talking about great houses, what it takes to form them,
• 0:12
  what it takes to defend them, what it takes to build these, these wonderful
• 0:16
  business-owning, family-holding, uh, multi-generational institutions
• 0:20
  that I think are really a better way of, of, of organizing our society
• 0:24
  or, or really potentially the only way of organizing our society.
• 0:27
  And so as we keep chopping them down, as we keep chopping down the
• 0:30
  pillars of our civilization, we have just less and less pillars.
• 0:32
  And so at a certain point we have to figure out how do
• 0:34
  we rebuild these marvelous civilization-holding institutions.
• 0:39
  And the other piece of what we're doing is the forum.
• 0:41
  So, uh, we wanna talk to people, to, to guys that have thought deeply about
• 0:47
  these topics and are building, you know, the tools to, uh, to help us as we, as
• 0:53
  we, as we build these marvelous things.
• 0:54
  Um, so today we're gonna talk to Zach Fava, uh, who is an entrepreneur.
• 1:00
  He's a, he's an exit man.
• 1:01
  Um, you know, there's three communities that, that, that are closely related and,
• 1:05
  and, uh, to this, this, uh, this podcast.
• 1:08
  That's, uh, obviously the Exit Group.
• 1:11
  Um, then there's, uh, Alex Petkas's the Classical Society and Joshua Seach's
• 1:15
  Radical Personal Finance, and then more recently, the Natural Law Institute.
• 1:19
  Uh, just very happy to have members from all of those communities here.
• 1:23
  And so, uh, you know, Zach started… Uh, I think, I think the, the correct
• 1:27
  way to pronounce it is Methian.
• 1:28
  Is that, is that, is that the right way to say it or did I… Methian?
• 1:31
  Zack Fava: Uh, Methian, yeah.
• 1:33
  like Pro- Pro- Promethean.
• 1:34
  Gregory Treat: Promethean.
• 1:35
  Very good.
• 1:35
  Methian.
• 1:36
  Well, well, I, I, I apologize.
• 1:38
  I heard you say it and I was like, "Okay, that's different than how
• 1:41
  I've been reading it this whole time," but so I, so I did my best.
• 1:43
  Methian.
• 1:44
  So he's here to talk about Methian, which is, uh, his AI, uh, you know, h- home
• 1:49
  educator, household educator startup.
• 1:52
  Um, so thank you so much for being here, Zach.
• 1:55
  Uh, you know, tell, tell us a little bit about yourself and, and, and
• 1:58
  what, uh, brings you into our world.
• 2:00
  Zack Fava: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 2:01
  Um, so I, I spent roughly 15 years working for Department of Defense then, now
• 2:08
  Department of War.
• 2:09
  Gregory Treat: Okay.
• 2:10
  Zack Fava: Um, in that time, I, I kinda had a strong focus on systems
• 2:15
  engineering, quality assurance, um, at the weapons level, avionics level.
• 2:21
  So I learned everything from soldering on a bench all the way up
• 2:25
  to running, you know, a, a department of a couple thousand people.
• 2:29
  So in that time, you know, I kinda learned how architecture works, and not
• 2:35
  architecture as in a physical piece, but architecture anywhere, whether
• 2:39
  it's people, software, whatever.
• 2:42
  You know, You
• 2:43
  gotta have the right pieces in the right places.
• 2:45
  So, uh, my wife and I, uh, we've been married for 18 years.
• 2:49
  We, we have five kids, three of whom we've been, um, homeschooling
• 2:54
  now for about six years.
• 2:56
  and we kinda jumped into it like most people do, you know,
• 2:58
  not really having a clue.
• 3:00
  Um, oh, let's try this curriculum, let's do, let's do that.
• 3:04
  and we never really found anything that fit.
• 3:07
  Um, you know, we, we would kinda piece part a lot of stuff until I got to
• 3:10
  the point where I was just… We were building our own curriculum for our
• 3:13
  kids, and everything was kind of offline.
• 3:17
  Gregory Treat: Yeah
• 3:18
  Zack Fava: Um, so Methane kinda came just as-
• 3:21
  Gregory Treat: how long ago was that, that you start, kind of started
• 3:23
  that, that homeschooling journey?
• 3:25
  And how many kids do you have, by the way?
• 3:27
  Zack Fava: Uh, so we, we have five kids,
• 3:30
  and three of which are
• 3:32
  of
• 3:32
  Gregory Treat: shows your commitment, you know.
• 3:34
  It shows your commitment to, uh, to the cause, let's
• 3:36
  Zack Fava: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:37
  You know, I built it because it's what, um, I wanted.
• 3:41
  And, and I built it out of a, a need and a want.
• 3:44
  So, um, yeah, it, it literally just came across because it was like, well,
• 3:50
  there's nothing out there like this right now, and I have the ability to
• 3:53
  do so, so I'm gonna jump on and do it.
• 3:56
  And it kinda started off with a governance and sovereignty being
• 4:02
  the, the main focus of what this is.
• 4:06
  Um, because the Department of Education is, it's a joke.
• 4:10
  Um, public school ha- has become a nightmare.
• 4:13
  But, you know, parents at home, they don't really have a lot of
• 4:17
  tools, and if they do, they're kinda scattered throughout the wind.
• 4:20
  You gotta chase them down, figure out what's really going to work for you.
• 4:25
  Um, so I kinda jumped on the, the train, as a lot of people have.
• 4:30
  Um, I, I'm not an absolutist when it comes to AI, but I also see the benefits of it,
• 4:36
  and the benefits of it is it actually offers, you know, sovereignty.
• 4:39
  So that, that's kinda where, where Methion started and, you
• 4:44
  know, where, where hopefully it's, it's gonna take a lot of people
• 4:48
  Gregory Treat: Yeah.
• 4:48
  I mean, it's, it's, it's been really interesting.
• 4:50
  You know, I've, I've been doing a series of, of where I think AI is going.
• 4:54
  And, um, have, have, have you seen … I'm sure you've seen the, the, the video of
• 4:58
  the guy with the robot hands, and the, the hands are turning a bolt really,
• 5:01
  really fast, and somebody sticks their finger in and the hands just stop, right?
• 5:05
  Um, w- the thing that I think is most interesting about that is
• 5:09
  that's a safety protocol, right?
• 5:11
  That's to make the robot safe.
• 5:13
  But it also means, like, the tolerances involved in being able
• 5:19
  to do that allow for … Like, that's, that's crazy precise, right?
• 5:25
  Like, the, the ability … That, that means that you can hold something
• 5:28
  so precisely and move it so quickly that if you've got three or four of
• 5:31
  those robots, there's just a ton of industrial processes that b- by nature,
• 5:36
  like, that robot can physically do.
• 5:38
  Now, maybe they, you know, do some kind of, like, New York, you know, 3D
• 5:41
  printing law where they try to nerf the capacity to do it with software.
• 5:45
  But if you've got a thing that can phys- that physically has the tolerances and
• 5:51
  the, the, the, that level of control, that level of precision, that is a
• 5:54
  mighty powerful thing to have at, at the household sovereignty level.
• 5:58
  I mean, maybe … I mean, I think a lot of people are assuming that, that
• 6:02
  it, it will have the, the kind of precision that would allow it to build
• 6:05
  another one of itself, or at least to fix itself to a degree that, that, that
• 6:09
  people would find remarkable compared to the past, you know, 50 years of
• 6:13
  hardware, like, let's say, right?
• 6:15
  And again, you can't take that out unless you remove the safety protocol,
• 6:20
  which I, I don't think is gonna happen.
• 6:22
  Um, so that's really interesting as a, just as a technological,
• 6:26
  you know, uniqueness.
• 6:28
  Very different than what we've had.
• 6:29
  Zack Fava: Oh, for sure.
• 6:30
  And to kind of hit on the tolerance issue and how important and how difficult it is.
• 6:36
  So coming from the aeronautics background, we would have to
• 6:39
  build in tolerances for hardware.
• 6:41
  And the tighter your tolerance, I mean, you would see your budget just explode.
• 6:46
  So the fact that you can just like that is-- it's a huge cost saver.
• 6:51
  But then a lot of people just see it as a cost saver.
• 6:54
  But the true entrepreneurs see something like that, and they're like, "Oh,
• 6:57
  that's an opportunity for me, for you, for him, for her, for everybody." So
• 7:04
  Gregory Treat: Yeah.
• 7:04
  I mean, there was, there was a startup recently, Figure, Figment, something
• 7:07
  of this nature, um, I talked about them, uh, last week on the, on the,
• 7:11
  on the show, that was able to increase their, their factory, their assembly
• 7:16
  line by 300 times, uh, by adding in the robots that they were building.
• 7:20
  So the robots are, are the ones prime- doing a whole bunch of the
• 7:23
  building of, of their own, their own r- r- of, of other robots like them.
• 7:28
  It … This is a game changer.
• 7:29
  These are, these are game changing kinds of things.
• 7:31
  Um, so yeah, so, so, so tell me about, um, about Methean and kind of what,
• 7:39
  what, what you see as the … You have some, some really cool things on, on,
• 7:42
  uh, you know, your, your website about we want this to be parent-focused.
• 7:45
  We want, we wanna preserve the parents' sovereignty.
• 7:48
  Tell me about kind of what you're … I mean, obviously there's, there's lots of
• 7:50
  stories about Alpha School and some of these other AI, uh, education programs.
• 7:55
  What would you say the, the kind of the big failing, the big miss of those
• 7:59
  programs is, and how is Methean different?
• 8:03
  Zack Fava: I, I won't necessarily say that it's a failure because I know that
• 8:06
  a lot of people still want their kids to go to a physical place, you know,
• 8:12
  a school.
• 8:13
  And I understand that, you know, I'm not hitting on that.
• 8:16
  I built this for the people that want to pull their kids away from the
• 8:21
  institution of school and essentially build their own administration at home.
• 8:27
  Gregory Treat: Угу
• 8:29
  Zack Fava: so whi-while I see some, some good points with, you know, alpha
• 8:33
  schools, um, I, I also see that it's still a little too closely linked
• 8:38
  to what the problem is right now.
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  You know, you… Instead of teachers, you have guides.
• 8:44
  Instead of this, you have that.
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  So to me, it's not so different to whereas removing yourself and your kids
• 8:54
  from the system as a whole, but having all the tools that you need to make it
• 8:59
  your own while also being confident that, oh, well, I'm not leading my kid astray,
• 9:05
  um, but I'm also not leading them to the wolves.
• 9:08
  So there, there's just so much, um, to, to being a parent, you know.
• 9:13
  Any parent can admit to that, that you, you want the absolute best for your
• 9:17
  kids, and education is, is no different.
• 9:21
  So I wanted to… This essentially was born from the, the desire
• 9:26
  to provide the best for my kids and then for everybody else's.
• 9:30
  So,
• 9:31
  you know.
• 9:34
  Gregory Treat: So, uh, so tell us, you know, kind of like what, what are the,
• 9:37
  the core features of Meathian and what, what, what, what are the use cases
• 9:41
  that you're, that you're aiming at?
• 9:42
  And kind of give, give me, give me your distinctives.
• 9:44
  What are the, what are the, the selling points that it can
• 9:46
  do that other things can't do?
• 9:49
  Zack Fava: Well, um, as I said, it, it started as more of a, a
• 9:53
  governance and sovereignty platform.
• 9:56
  Um, and then it just-- I kind of grew it from there.
• 9:58
  Um, I was originally just going to, to have it to where it would, um,
• 10:04
  handle every… 'Cause it- state to state, every requirement is different
• 10:07
  for homeschool, so I wanted to
• 10:09
  make Sure
• 10:09
  that that was taken care of.
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  Um, you know, that it's not a worry for anybody, whether you're in a
• 10:15
  really strict state or a really, you know, a completely free state.
• 10:18
  So that's taken care of.
• 10:20
  Um, the scheduling tool is 100% determined by the parents.
• 10:25
  Um, the parents can even determine how much input the AI itself has in, um, the
• 10:31
  parents' end, but also the kids' end.
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  Um,
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  they can determine how, how deep, um, the, the tutor can, can
• 10:39
  really walk a kid through it, or it could be totally base level.
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  So there it's… I made it as customizable as possible
• 10:46
  without being a, just this gigantic headache.
• 10:51
  Gregory Treat: Yeah.
• 10:51
  So, so this is like if you're, you're a homeschooling family, you,
• 10:55
  you're like, you know, a Charlotte Mason or, or a, uh, you know, there,
• 10:59
  there's a couple of different, you know, Montessori, classical,
• 11:02
  you, you traditional unschooling.
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  Um, you know, you, you've got something where you're, in many
• 11:07
  ways, designing your own curriculum.
• 11:09
  You might have templates, right?
• 11:10
  The Charlotte Mason people have a bunch of templates, but, but there's
• 11:12
  still quite a bit more parent design.
• 11:14
  Um, and I mean, even, you know, you're, you're doing the lesson plans, right?
• 11:18
  So you, you have your, your desires.
• 11:22
  Maybe you have a full curriculum, maybe you have a desire for a curriculum
• 11:24
  as a parent, and you go into the system, and you can either upload what
• 11:29
  you've got or the AI can help you.
• 11:31
  Is that, is that right?
• 11:33
  Zack Fava: Correct.
• 11:33
  Yeah, so I, it's a total hybrid system to where
• 11:36
  you can come in with, you know, with books, um, as long as you provide
• 11:41
  the, the publication, like the book, the publication table of contents.
• 11:46
  Gregory Treat: Угу
• 11:47
  Zack Fava: can provide, um, lesson plans for that, you know, external book.
• 11:52
  Um, or you can literally just use it as like a tracker, an, an
• 11:55
  extern- like a curriculum tracker.
• 11:57
  So like I said, it can be as in depth as you want it to be.
• 12:01
  You can utilize, um, the curriculum that I'm building out within it 100%.
• 12:06
  You can hybridize it.
• 12:08
  Um, I just wanted it to be kind of an all-encompassing homeschooling operating
• 12:14
  system for any family that wants to use it
• 12:18
  Gregory Treat: Okay.
• 12:18
  So tell me, like, when, when you say tracking, what does,
• 12:20
  what does tracking mean?
• 12:23
  Zack Fava: So is, say that they're doing, um, like a Saxon math book.
• 12:28
  Um, you would go in there and, you know, take a snip- or a
• 12:33
  snapshot of the table of contents,
• 12:35
  and then as the parent, you would go in and say, "Okay, well, here's the lesson
• 12:38
  plan." Or you can have the AI, you know, say, "Your, your children should
• 12:43
  be doing this, that and the other these days," and then it would just track it.
• 12:47
  You or your child could go in and track it.
• 12:50
  You could put scores in, whatever.
• 12:52
  Um, but essentially it's mastery-based.
• 12:55
  So it's not just a click in the box, okay, go to the next, um,
• 13:00
  subject or, or the next lesson.
• 13:03
  It wants to actually make sure that you know what you're doing
• 13:06
  and it's going to progress you or progress you along, um, as such
• 13:12
  Gregory Treat: So, so are you, is it possible for you to set it up so that
• 13:15
  your, your kid is actually, like, taking the math problems in inside of
• 13:19
  that system, or are they, they, they writing them out and then feeding
• 13:21
  their answers into the AI in some way?
• 13:24
  What is the… I mean, I suppose you could do both, but what is the,
• 13:27
  what is the workflow like there?
• 13:29
  Zack Fava: Yeah, so it, it is both.
• 13:31
  Um, I'm… I have it to where you can take pictures of items to plug in,
• 13:37
  you know, take a picture of a page,
• 13:39
  um, and, and plug it in.
• 13:40
  Or, um, like I said, you can utilize the, the AI build out, so you could
• 13:45
  put in, um, the book that you're using, and it could even create lessons
• 13:48
  based on that book if you wanted to do it all, um, online right there.
• 13:53
  So,
• 13:54
  Gregory Treat: Well, does it do like the Khan Academy thing where
• 13:56
  you're, you're kind of solving the problems in the, in the system?
• 13:59
  Or is it, is it, is it, is it not quite that?
• 14:03
  Zack Fava: Not quite that,
• 14:04
  no.
• 14:05
  Um, you're, you're maintaining the, the answers currently,
• 14:09
  um, outside on your own.
• 14:11
  Um, I'm in the process of, of wrapping that up, so that's
• 14:14
  the part of the design aspect.
• 14:17
  Uh, right now curriculum-wise, I literally have the text.
• 14:21
  So all the text is in place, um, and now I'm essentially making it more usable
• 14:26
  for, for the child rather than just a sheet of paper with, with text on it.
• 14:31
  You know, I want them to actually engage with it, um, enjoy what they're doing
• 14:35
  and, you know, actually learn from it.
• 14:38
  Gregory Treat: Very cool.
• 14:39
  Very cool.
• 14:39
  So one of the things you have is, is that y- it helps parents produce, like,
• 14:44
  required documentation for homeschooling.
• 14:46
  I mean, one of the, one of the things that I, I've said before that I think AI will
• 14:49
  really help with is compliance, right?
• 14:52
  I think that, you know, right now there's, there's a lot of things that
• 14:55
  are-- where t- in order to be compliant, you have to, um, you have to basically
• 15:01
  be at the scale of a, of a Fortune 500 or maybe a Fortune 1000 company where
• 15:05
  you can a- afford to employ a floor of accountants and lawyers and people
• 15:10
  that are gonna, you know, generate all this paperwork and send it off.
• 15:13
  And I mean, if the question is-- 'cause, you know, AI, unless you do a bunch of
• 15:18
  work in it, um, is it tends to produce, you know, it's very obviously AI written.
• 15:23
  It's AI slop, as they say.
• 15:25
  Um, but compliance paperwork does not care if it's AI slop.
• 15:29
  Like, right?
• 15:30
  If it, if it… I mean, in many ways it kind of currently reads
• 15:33
  it's just human slop, right?
• 15:34
  Right now.
• 15:35
  So the AI can generate endless amounts of that and be able to, you know, put
• 15:40
  that, you know, uh, if, if what you need is to have filed a bunch of pieces of
• 15:44
  paper, it can do that very, very quickly.
• 15:47
  Uh, so tell us, tell us about what, what, uh, what your AI does in terms of like
• 15:51
  required documents and mastery records.
• 15:53
  So you're-- y- basically it's about producing those in case you need to.
• 15:57
  Um, you know, there's, there's states where you have to, uh, maybe not take
• 16:01
  a test, but you have to file something of your, of your lesson plans on like
• 16:04
  an annual or quarterly basis, right?
• 16:06
  Something of, something of that nature.
• 16:08
  Um, for- fortunately, I'm in the state of Texas, which doesn't, doesn't,
• 16:11
  doesn't generally do stuff like that.
• 16:12
  But, um, um, yeah, there's many states where that's not true.
• 16:16
  Zack Fava: Yeah.
• 16:17
  Yeah.
• 16:17
  So, um, we, we do have a compliance section where you go in, you select,
• 16:22
  um, your state, and then that whole section will give you every
• 16:26
  requirement for your specific state.
• 16:30
  Um, but before that, you're building out your, your children's, um, profile,
• 16:35
  so then it'll also carry that over.
• 16:37
  So it's not just gonna be like a, "Oh, well, I'm doing it for this kid, now I
• 16:42
  have to go back and do everything for the other…" You know, it, it expedites
• 16:46
  the process, makes it more efficient.
• 16:48
  So it takes all of your information that you're building in upon signing
• 16:52
  up, carrying it over to, you know, let, let's say you're in Maryland,
• 16:57
  Gregory Treat: Угу
• 16:58
  Zack Fava: and then every requirement within Maryland, it'll… So i- if you
• 17:03
  have to file immediate documentation, it'll take care of that for you and
• 17:08
  essentially just say, "Do you approve?"
• 17:10
  Yes, you approve.
• 17:11
  Kick it off.
• 17:12
  Um, anything that needs to be tracked, you can pull any documentation that
• 17:17
  you need at any time, um, because at the end of the day, it's, you
• 17:21
  know, it's your documentation.
• 17:23
  It's not the state's.
• 17:24
  The states may like to think that it is, but it's yours.
• 17:28
  Um, so being able to provide it is a click of the button away.
• 17:33
  And like you said, this state compliance, any type of compliance documentation is
• 17:38
  essentially like technical documentation.
• 17:42
  That stuff has read like AI slob for nearly 100 years,
• 17:46
  so this stuff handles it like that,
• 17:48
  so.
• 17:48
  Gregory Treat: yeah.
• 17:49
  Absolutely.
• 17:49
  So now, um, does, does the system, is there a way for it to help
• 17:52
  with grading and stuff like that?
• 17:55
  Zack Fava: Yes.
• 17:56
  So that'll be built into the AI tutor itself.
• 18:00
  Um, if you're utilizing that, if you're pumping in, um, your answers
• 18:04
  along with the questions, it'll run through, grade it all, and provide
• 18:10
  feedback, um, to the kids and to you.
• 18:13
  And like I said, how at the beginning you, you essentially gauge the amount
• 18:19
  of input that the AI itself has.
• 18:22
  Um, it'll feed-- Like, if you say it's 100% limited, you have to pass
• 18:26
  everything through me as the adult
• 18:28
  or as their parent, it'll kick back to you every single, um,
• 18:33
  assignment that your child does.
• 18:35
  You go in and approve it and say, "Yes, they're clear to go on to the
• 18:39
  next one," or you can hand it off to the AI, um, to essentially do the same
• 18:44
  thing, or you find a middle ground.
• 18:46
  So
• 18:46
  I, I built, I built a, a gauge to where the, the parents can
• 18:50
  decide how they want that handled
• 18:53
  Gregory Treat: Very cool.
• 18:53
  So, I mean, uh, in terms of the, the, the technical side, what,
• 18:56
  what, what models are being used?
• 18:58
  What level… Is this, is this something where you're hosting or
• 19:01
  you're, you're bundling, you know, a, a, a compute setup from some,
• 19:06
  some provider or set of providers?
• 19:08
  How does, how does that work?
• 19:10
  Zack Fava: So I, I'm building it to be completely online for anyone who
• 19:14
  wants to, you know, utilize the cloud.
• 19:16
  What, you know,
• 19:17
  just h- how any other AI kind of tool works currently.
• 19:21
  But then also on the back end, it is being built to be able to pull offline.
• 19:26
  If you want to self-host, um, you can put it on your machine and self-host
• 19:31
  Gregory Treat: Oh, very cool.
• 19:32
  Zack Fava: Yeah
• 19:33
  Gregory Treat: Very cool.
• 19:34
  Yeah, that's really interesting.
• 19:35
  So it's sort of, it's sort of model agnostic in that sense.
• 19:38
  Zack Fava: Yes, exactly
• 19:39
  Gregory Treat: Good stuff.
• 19:40
  Good stuff.
• 19:41
  Um, and then, you know, one of the things that, that, uh, that there's a, there's
• 19:45
  a group in Exit, uh, called the Paideia Project that's been, that's been talking
• 19:48
  about these ideas and thinking about them.
• 19:51
  Uh, you know, one of the things that, that I think is, is coming is people
• 19:55
  being able to have, like, uh, you know, projects that show their mastery
• 20:01
  and, um, and, and be able to, to share those and, and kind of document those.
• 20:05
  I mean, even, even to the extent of, you know, you know,
• 20:09
  I prompted the AI to do this.
• 20:10
  That's still, you know, going to be a thing that you wanna be
• 20:13
  able to- to- to show people and, and explain what you're doing.
• 20:17
  Um, you know, one of the, one of the things that I've- I've found is e- even
• 20:20
  as there's, there's a difference in, between the skill of getting AI to do
• 20:24
  something and the skill of explaining to someone else how you got AI to do that,
• 20:28
  um, which can, which can be interesting.
• 20:30
  And, um, so, so ha- have you, have you put any thought on, on that
• 20:34
  topic or that, that, that framework?
• 20:37
  Zack Fava: Essentially kind of like a community?
• 20:39
  Is that what you're referring
• 20:39
  to?
• 20:40
  yeah
• 20:40
  I, I have.
• 20:41
  Um, that, that is definitely in the pipeline
• 20:44
  because to me it's, it's a huge aspect, um, for a child's ability to
• 20:51
  learn and interact and really grow.
• 20:54
  You know?
• 20:55
  If… It's a way for them to prove w- what it is that they're learning
• 20:58
  and it builds confidence or it knocks them down a peg when they need it.
• 21:01
  So yeah, it's, it's in the pipeline, that's for sure.
• 21:05
  Gregory Treat: Yeah.
• 21:06
  Uh, I mean, I think one of the, basically the, the idea was, um,
• 21:10
  you know, you have some business and entrepreneurship curriculum.
• 21:14
  You have, uh, some trade school type stuff where, where, you know, people
• 21:18
  could really learn how to, how to use this to, to, um, kind of build, potentially
• 21:25
  build a business or show their me- Te- tell me, tell me about those things,
• 21:28
  especially the trade school stuff.
• 21:30
  That's interesting to me
• 21:31
  Zack Fava: Yeah, so the, the trade school specifically will take a little more time
• 21:35
  because I want it to be, um, not just a piece of curriculum where you can go and
• 21:43
  then go and take a program at a college.
• 21:46
  I want it to be all there.
• 21:48
  Um, so that Yeah, so that's, that's gonna take a little bit of time
• 21:52
  to get actual certifications and
• 21:55
  everything that you need in, in place for, um, for kids to be able to, to do that.
• 22:01
  Because, I mean, technically you could have your 13-year-old start
• 22:05
  and learn how to be an electrician,
• 22:07
  um, and, and go through all of that schooling.
• 22:10
  And especially for the guys that are in the trades, you know, your
• 22:13
  kids, ideally you want them to essentially apprentice under you.
• 22:19
  So
• 22:19
  this gives them the opportunity to apprentice under you while
• 22:22
  also being homeschooled 100%.
• 22:25
  And, you know, having it all in-house,
• 22:28
  uh, and pulling it away from these institutions that have done everything
• 22:33
  they can to, to really put us in a bad situation is, is my end goal here, so.
• 22:41
  Gregory Treat: Well, I think, um, yeah, I wanna, I wanna talk to you about some,
• 22:44
  some, some other things in the space.
• 22:46
  Uh, but just kinda the final piece, you, you have a, you have a, a very
• 22:50
  attractive funding model to, to, to me.
• 22:52
  I have seven children, and so you have a, a one-time, like a, a, you're- you
• 22:56
  have a family fee, and you do say, "We don't care how many kids you have."
• 22:59
  So, so tell me about that and how that, how that works and, and, uh, and why
• 23:03
  you did that 'cause I, I, I f- I thought that was very, uh, very interesting
• 23:08
  Zack Fava: Yeah, so I, I chose to go down that road because
• 23:11
  that's what I would want.
• 23:13
  Um, I think that a lot of curriculums rip people off.
• 23:17
  Um, I don't think that something like this you should be charging for kids.
• 23:22
  Um, for me, i-if I don't get rich off of this, I don't care.
• 23:26
  Um, I think that building a legacy for our kids in this country and anywhere
• 23:32
  else is the absolute most important thing that we can do as fathers, um, as mothers.
• 23:39
  There, there's nothing that, that is more important.
• 23:42
  So that's why I didn't wanna put a strain on anybody.
• 23:46
  I wanted to build it, you know, to a price point to where it's, it's attractive so
• 23:53
  that it does scale based on that, but then, you know, it, it doesn't leave
• 23:57
  people in the poor house, you know?
• 23:59
  I, I think that
• 24:00
  anybody at any level should be able to utilize, um, this type
• 24:05
  of educational operating system.
• 24:08
  Um, but then also certain states that have ESA scholarships,
• 24:13
  it falls within that as well, so then they
• 24:14
  can use that.
• 24:16
  Um, and, and you're not having to pay, you know, $75,000 a year to
• 24:20
  send your kid to Alpha schools.
• 24:22
  Gregory Treat: For sure.
• 24:24
  Yeah, I mean, you know, basically I think you, you, it, it's, it's under
• 24:28
  like $1,500 a year for, um, for the, for the base, the base package for a family.
• 24:34
  Um, that's, that's definitely better than, than Apple School.
• 24:38
  Um Okay, cool.
• 24:41
  So, you know, I, we, we, we were talking in advance of, uh, of this, of this
• 24:45
  meeting about, uh, you know, some, some other projects, uh, that are in the space.
• 24:50
  So, uh, a, a gentleman named Ron Dodson, uh, did a wonderful article called The
• 24:54
  Return of the Aristoi, and he has this, this marvelous, uh, this marvelous diagram
• 25:00
  with a series of concentric circles, and you're in the middle, and then you've
• 25:03
  got kind of your, your data, and your training, and the various e-enterprises.
• 25:08
  Um, and, and I thought, you know, I, I, I love that article.
• 25:10
  I shared it with, you know, probably hundreds of people, maybe
• 25:12
  thousands at this point, um, uh, as, as the, as my network grows.
• 25:16
  I, I thought it was a really good depiction of what, what the household
• 25:20
  or the great house, uh, could look like in the, in the AI future.
• 25:23
  Um, you know, I use, I use the term great house.
• 25:26
  Uh, I think that's a, that's a really powerful term to use because household,
• 25:31
  uh, family for sure, but even, even terms like household, unless you're
• 25:34
  in kind of a narrow … Like, there's some, some Presbyterian niches, God
• 25:38
  bless the Presbyterians, that, uh, that, you know, they, they still have a
• 25:41
  fairly robust definition of household, though I would say even, even for
• 25:45
  them, uh, the, the definitions…
• 25:47
  They don't have Calvin's definition of, of household.
• 25:50
  They don't have, um, they don't have, you know, the, the, the older,
• 25:55
  the older, stronger, uh, forms.
• 25:57
  They don't, they don't really believe in, because we haven't had for the past
• 26:00
  probably 150 years, households that, that y-you actually are treating… You know,
• 26:05
  in the Reform world, they have the, the three, the three Reformed institutions:
• 26:08
  the family, the church, and the state.
• 26:09
  And i-in that kind of classical theological view, those are
• 26:13
  three equal institutions.
• 26:15
  The family is capable of contending with the state and capable of
• 26:18
  contending with the church, you know, as, as a, as an institution.
• 26:23
  And that's not really how we've done family in the past 100, 150 years.
• 26:27
  Uh, we have, you know, small, little, weak nuclear families at, you know, as,
• 26:31
  as Freud intended, I would, I would argue.
• 26:33
  Um, you know, z- and, and whenever people sometimes get, get, get crosswise with
• 26:38
  me about that, and I… Well, I mean, the guy who came up with that, um, the
• 26:42
  guy who came up with that, you know, he, he, he really wasn't a, a big fan of, uh,
• 26:47
  of the West and Christian civilization.
• 26:49
  You know, Freud, Freud did not like the, the, the foundational principles
• 26:52
  of what makes, uh, certainly what makes America great and what
• 26:55
  makes the West great as a whole.
• 26:57
  you know, I, I really like that article that Ron put out.
• 26:59
  It'll be, it'll be, uh, linked in the show notes.
• 27:01
  Uh, just some great, some great visuals and some great discussions.
• 27:05
  Um, so how would you see, uh, Methian fitting into that type of
• 27:10
  comprehensive household system?
• 27:11
  And I, and I wanna be clear, you know, we're not there yet, right?
• 27:13
  No one's built this.
• 27:15
  No one… I, I don't think any one company is, is in a position
• 27:18
  to build it, uh, anytime soon.
• 27:20
  There's a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of thinking that needs
• 27:23
  to be done, a lot of relationships that need to be built between
• 27:26
  providers and experts in the space.
• 27:28
  But Tell me, tell me…
• 27:29
  Well, I first kinda, tell me what you think of the idea.
• 27:31
  Are you, are, are, does this, does, is that, is that kind of what you're,
• 27:35
  what you're trying to build towards?
• 27:37
  Um, and if it is, how does, how does Meethian fit into that larger project?
• 27:41
  Zack Fava: Yeah.
• 27:41
  Um, I, I had never, I, I've heard of Ron before and seen him on podcasts and
• 27:47
  stuff, but I had never seen that article.
• 27:48
  So
• 27:49
  reading through it, um, after you'd sent it the other day, it was really
• 27:53
  interesting, you know, how close it, um, it hit home with Methian.
• 27:57
  Um, and kind of just my thought process behind it.
• 28:01
  You know, the, again, the sovereignty of the family, but then
• 28:05
  also not choking a family off,
• 28:09
  um, is, is huge because I think that that's where a lot of people get
• 28:12
  mixed up when it comes with, oh, well, homeschool, you just wanna,
• 28:16
  you know, shut your kids off and, or, or your family, whatever it may be.
• 28:21
  But now that we're at a stage where you, you have full sovereignty, full control,
• 28:27
  and if you have the community aspect built in, which is why I said that's definitely
• 28:31
  in the pipeline because it's, it's huge.
• 28:34
  You- if, if you can build in that community as a kid and
• 28:37
  carry it on throughout your life,
• 28:39
  you know, it's, it's great.
• 28:40
  And then as you said, build on that, that great house.
• 28:44
  um, um, that the nation is, is built off of people.
• 28:50
  So I think the ability to pull it back to that
• 28:54
  is huge.
• 28:54
  And, you know, stuff like Methian where it'll be the educational, the child's
• 28:59
  piece of this, um, it's, it's a very important piece of the puzzle and it
• 29:05
  needs to be, it needs to be implemented.
• 29:07
  Um, you know, whether people stick with it or not, they, you know, they, they
• 29:12
  wanna keep going to school, whatever.
• 29:14
  I, I think it's all failing and I think that all that stuff is eventually
• 29:17
  gonna come burning down because more people are, are seeing it for what it
• 29:22
  is and they're looking for solutions.
• 29:24
  So
• 29:25
  I wanted to create that solution with Methian, um,
• 29:28
  the, as the educational piece.
• 29:30
  So
• 29:31
  that, that's my goal.
• 29:32
  That, that's how I see that it ties in, um, to, to what he was writing about.
• 29:37
  Gregory Treat: For sure.
• 29:38
  Yeah, well, and I mean, I think one of the things we have to recognize is, um,
• 29:42
  that if we continue to have the kind of categorical distinctions that we've had,
• 29:48
  uh, the future does get very dystopian.
• 29:50
  Now, what, what I always, I always wanna f- tell people, you know, things
• 29:54
  are only dystopian in, in the terms of a certain social frame or in the terms
• 29:59
  of a certain political system, right?
• 30:01
  So, you know, if, if AI, you know, destroys our democracy, right, as
• 30:06
  we've enjoyed it or not for the past 60, 70 years, that does not
• 30:10
  necessarily mean it's gonna destroy, you know, the constitutional republic
• 30:14
  that is actually still … You know, people forget this, um, you know,
• 30:17
  or h- h- how would I say it online?
• 30:19
  The elites don't want you to know this, but the Constitution is
• 30:20
  still actually the law of the land.
• 30:22
  Um, now we need to, we probably need to assert that and, and, uh,
• 30:26
  you know, m- maybe, maybe we should stop fortifying elections and start
• 30:28
  fortifying constitutions, but, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a
• 30:31
  discussion for a different podcast.
• 30:33
  But I think, I think there, there's a real world … Like, y- you think about, um,
• 30:37
  have you seen the, the, the posts online where somebody gives a Claude prompt?
• 30:42
  Uh, you know, put, fill this in with your own words, dot, dot, dot.
• 30:45
  Uh, Claude, or, uh, Dario and Amanda, and it, it gives, like, these just really, uh
• 30:51
  … They sound like internal communications, um, which, which presumably they're not.
• 30:56
  Presumably, you know, it would be crazy for Anthropic to be loading, training
• 31:01
  their own AI on their own personal communications and, like, letting
• 31:04
  that rest in the model at that degree.
• 31:06
  That would be, um, ex- incredibly, incredibly foolish and, you know,
• 31:10
  only people with a radical Si- Silicon Valley philosophy would
• 31:14
  even dream of doing such a thing.
• 31:15
  Um, for anyone that's not familiar, if you Google … Uh, you probably
• 31:18
  shouldn't Google effective altruism.
• 31:20
  I don't know what pops up these days.
• 31:22
  But, um, but it's, uh, the, there's, there's, there's some,
• 31:25
  there's some, there's some weird things down that rabbit hole.
• 31:28
  Um- But y- you think about the, the context of, so let's say you
• 31:32
  have, uh, you're, you're part of these AI companies, and this will
• 31:34
  soon be every company, right?
• 31:36
  And your boss or someone in the hierarchy of this hosted AI
• 31:41
  has access to the full stack.
• 31:44
  What does that mean?
• 31:45
  That means they have access to every query, to every prompt, to everything you
• 31:50
  upload, to everything that you record, to everything that the AI thinks about
• 31:56
  you as it's building a model, as it's…
• 31:58
  We, we need, we need a word that is better than profiling, right?
• 32:02
  Because profiling does not communicate the degree to which that AI is trying
• 32:09
  to figure out who you are and what you want and what will serve you best.
• 32:14
  And, and I mean, to get… That gets very dystopian.
• 32:16
  How can you, how can you live with somebody who's got that
• 32:20
  much power over you, that much insight into your character?
• 32:25
  Because that, that, like, the idea that we can keep that level of power
• 32:30
  inside the traditional role of a boss at, at an employee, uh, uh, that you're
• 32:34
  employed by, and you go into work from 9:00 to 5:00, and then you leave work,
• 32:37
  and you have your kind of private life outside of… This is nonsense.
• 32:41
  Which is, of course, why all these people are, are sleeping with each other, right?
• 32:45
  This is why there's so many polycules at the top of these, uh, these AI companies,
• 32:49
  which is cr- which is just another, like, what is going on here that, that,
• 32:54
  that, that the, the, the people at the top of, of, of this tech revolution
• 32:58
  all seem to have this, this bed.
• 33:00
  But I think, I think that's part of what's going on.
• 33:02
  I think they're building systems that gain- give you profound insight into the
• 33:07
  humans that use them, and that's just not gonna fit within the care- the, the, the,
• 33:11
  the, the structured relationship that we've said, "Well, I can go in. I can
• 33:15
  trade my time for money, and while I'm at work, I adopt a certain persona, and my
• 33:19
  boss respects that, and I respect that."
• 33:21
  AI shatters that.
• 33:23
  I mean, it was always probably an illusion, right?
• 33:25
  People have talked about, you know, the boomers and their work harems in the past.
• 33:29
  Um But I mean, with AI, like, there, there's just no more… The,
• 33:34
  the, the man behind the curtain is exposed, and we're, we're… There,
• 33:37
  there's no way for that to happen.
• 33:38
  So the question is, would you, would you rather have this dystopian
• 33:42
  totalitarian relationship with a boss who you have no moral insight into and
• 33:49
  who has no, no duty to have any kind of moral… 'Cause again, we, we have
• 33:52
  this, this idea, well, well it's just a, it's just an economic relationship.
• 33:56
  It's just an economic transaction.
• 33:57
  There's no, there's not supposed to be any spiritual connection.
• 34:00
  Do you want that?
• 34:01
  Do you want somebody having AI access to, to your profile, your, uh…
• 34:06
  The, the chat is giving me ideas.
• 34:08
  That your digital twin, um… Or would you rather have, if, if someone
• 34:12
  must have that, and, and probably in order to use AI someone must have
• 34:17
  that, would you rather have that held in the hands of your family?
• 34:21
  Another way to put this, would you rather have that i- in the hands of
• 34:24
  people who are economically responsible for your whole life, who have skin in
• 34:29
  the game for you if you fail, right?
• 34:31
  I mean, one of the, one of the things I've, I've said, and
• 34:33
  I know I'm, I'm, I'm talking.
• 34:34
  You know, well, I'm supposed to be interviewing you, but, uh, but you know,
• 34:37
  Zack Fava: No, no problem
• 34:39
  Gregory Treat: One of the things that I've, I've, I've, I've talked about in
• 34:42
  the past is this idea that if you have, um, you know, if, if, if you have too
• 34:50
  much power in a relationship, then, then you need a, um, y- you need a
• 34:56
  moral… You need some level of moral, uh, expectation of this person, right?
• 35:01
  You think about that story about, uh, Flock cameras.
• 35:03
  There was a VP of Flock cameras that apparently has been, uh, looking
• 35:07
  at, at a certain age range of, of children doing gymnastics, right?
• 35:12
  Uh, not, apparently not in his home state, uh, which, which suggests
• 35:16
  a level of, of planning and intent that is, is just horrific.
• 35:20
  Um- S- the point is somebody's gonna have that power.
• 35:25
  Somebody is gonna be sitting in that chair with access to those cameras, and right
• 35:30
  now we, we only think about that from the perspective of does he have the technical
• 35:36
  qualifications to have that role, right?
• 35:38
  We don't say, well, should there be a, a moral process.
• 35:42
  I mean, you think about, you know, with, with a doctor or an attorney, we have
• 35:44
  ethics boards for these people, right?
• 35:46
  And, and, and, and you know, I'm not, I'm not advocating for, for, you know,
• 35:50
  a bar uh, for, for the tech industry.
• 35:53
  I think there's, there's, you know, the, the, the bars are in some ways
• 35:56
  the last guilds and they, they are, they're, uh, certainly would not
• 36:00
  want to inflict that on your, your currently unregulated industry.
• 36:03
  But there is a need to kind of have a conversation about who's, who's filling
• 36:07
  these seats of, you know, overweening power, where, where somebody's gonna
• 36:12
  have, somebody's gonna have access to those cameras, and we should probably care
• 36:15
  about the moral character of that person.
• 36:19
  Um, so I think, uh, the all, all, all of that comes together with, um,
• 36:24
  how, how would you see that question?
• 36:26
  Then we're kind of moved away from y- if, if Methean has something you, you wanna
• 36:29
  talk about with that, but just as, as somebody who's in the space, as somebody
• 36:33
  who's thinking about AI, give me, give me what, what, what is, what does that
• 36:36
  series of reflections inspire in you?
• 36:39
  Zack Fava: Yeah.
• 36:39
  Like it's, right now it is the reality.
• 36:43
  There is going to be someone sitting there, um, in charge seeing everything.
• 36:48
  But until, as you said, we get to a stage, like with, with any, with any higher tech,
• 36:54
  um, there, there always, there's, there's steps to where you're going to get to
• 36:59
  a stage where the individual has power.
• 37:03
  So look at the, you know, look at transportation.
• 37:06
  They, they went with trains and then, you know, boats and all that, and then
• 37:10
  all of a sudden they had vehicles, and each person could drive themselves.
• 37:14
  So it's, I believe it's, we're gonna get to a place where they're gonna try
• 37:19
  really hard to prevent it, the powers that be, but there's too much out there, um,
• 37:25
  for, for really smart people and, and, uh, entrepreneurial people to just take
• 37:32
  it and make their own and, and hand it over, uh, to, to the individual to, you
• 37:39
  know, to utilize as a sovereign piece.
• 37:42
  Um, but yeah, it's, it's interesting.
• 37:45
  You know, I, I don't get, I, I, I don't get black pilled about stuff anymore.
• 37:50
  COVID kind of taught me to, to just look at e-everything like
• 37:55
  it's gonna get better tomorrow.
• 37:57
  It'll get be- even if it gets worse, it's still gonna get better.
• 38:00
  You know, somewhere it's gonna get better.
• 38:02
  Um, and that, that's just where my mindset is with all this.
• 38:05
  I know that they're gonna try, but it takes good people on the other
• 38:10
  side to do everything in their power to prevent them from doing it.
• 38:14
  Gregory Treat: Right.
• 38:14
  Well, and I mean, I, I think that, that working within the, the, you
• 38:19
  know, the, the context of the thing, I think there is value in organizing.
• 38:22
  I think there is value in having a certain scale.
• 38:25
  But, you know, I'm, it… One of the… Again, I think we're, as I
• 38:27
  mentioned earlier, I think we're hampered by Freudian mindsets, right?
• 38:32
  Uh, you know, uh, as, as, as I've said repeatedly, you know, my goal
• 38:36
  is just to be a, an intellectually consistent Burkean conservative.
• 38:40
  And, you know, Burke's, you know, his famous, his famous quote
• 38:42
  about the, the platoons, right?
• 38:44
  That families are these little platoons.
• 38:46
  You know how, you know how many people are in a platoon?
• 38:48
  20 people, right?
• 38:50
  Um, that's, that… I mean, maybe, maybe, I mean, there, there are some, some,
• 38:54
  uh, some folks that, uh, that, that come on the call that, that, uh, have
• 38:57
  or aspire to have many, many children.
• 38:59
  You know, I, I have seven.
• 39:00
  I, I, I, I, uh, I'm not quite to their level.
• 39:03
  Um, but even then, I don't know anybody that's got 20 people
• 39:06
  in their immediate family.
• 39:07
  So when you're talking about a platoon, you're talking about a larger organization
• 39:11
  of people who work together, who come together, um, who are able to, to have
• 39:16
  an economic impact on each other's lives, who are able to sponsor each
• 39:20
  other and, and, and kind of, um, make, make their family as a unit equivalent
• 39:25
  to a corporation or a firm so that, so that, so that you don't need to
• 39:28
  go work for someone outside of that.
• 39:31
  Um, and, and again, I think we've, we've… There's, there's
• 39:35
  certainly challenges to doing that.
• 39:37
  There's skill levels to doing that.
• 39:38
  There's gonna be people that are better at it than, than others.
• 39:40
  And I think what we've had in, in our country for the last, you know, several
• 39:43
  years has been, or the last several decades is, well, we should just, everyone
• 39:47
  should go work for the big systems, and the big systems will treat you fairly.
• 39:52
  Well, how's that working out for us?
• 39:54
  I don't, I don't know.
• 39:55
  I don't know that, uh, that, that we… Number one, I don't know
• 39:57
  that we are getting treated fairly.
• 39:59
  Um, and, and, and even if we're getting treated fairly, like the,
• 40:03
  the fair level seems to be dropping like a rock in, in recent years.
• 40:07
  Um, you just don't have the, the, the competence in our leadership,
• 40:12
  um, that you did 60, 70 years ago.
• 40:14
  Um, so it, it, this, this is a really interesting time.
• 40:18
  Um, the other thing that I wanted to talk about, and we'll, we'll, we'll,
• 40:21
  we'll talk a little bit about this.
• 40:22
  I wanna give you a chance to kinda, you know, say your, your thoughts about
• 40:26
  it and then we'll, we'll move into the Q&A and then, um, then some, some of
• 40:30
  the people that are, that are present from this project can talk about.
• 40:32
  But, you know, you… I, I showed you the Runcible stuff.
• 40:34
  T- tell me about, I wanna do at least a little bit about Runcible
• 40:37
  here in the, the, the public part before we go into the Q&A.
• 40:39
  So tell me about Runcible and, and, and, like how would you think
• 40:44
  that that could interface with what you're doing and, and how…
• 40:47
  What, what, what pieces would you think are still missing from
• 40:50
  that, that broader vision of the, the, the household AI between you?
• 40:54
  Because, 'cause I think frankly between you and Runcible, I think you, me,
• 40:57
  thee, and Runcible have a, a fair chunk of that, that vision actually
• 41:02
  already, you know, pretty well outlined.
• 41:05
  Um, but you know, the, obviously there's probably gonna be, there's gonna be,
• 41:08
  be more things that we could add.
• 41:10
  Zack Fava: Oh, definitely.
• 41:11
  Yeah.
• 41:12
  You know, um, they're, they're at a much grander scale, you know, high liability
• 41:18
  enterprise government type scale.
• 41:20
  So again, you, you have to, you have to capture every piece.
• 41:25
  Um, it, it's important for, for us to, to get in everywhere
• 41:30
  that we can while we still can.
• 41:31
  So I think that it's great what, what they're doing.
• 41:35
  Um, whether they have, you know, every piece of the puzzle together or not, I,
• 41:40
  I don't think anybody does right now.
• 41:41
  I don't think that we're at a place where we can, but like you stated earlier, was
• 41:46
  if you get all of these guys together and you kind of create this, this overarching,
• 41:51
  um, I don't really know what the term, like what would be the best term for it,
• 41:57
  but just, just, you know, it, it would create a much
• 42:00
  brighter future for everybody.
• 42:02
  Um, we, we would feel a little more secure in that we would have governance
• 42:07
  by and of people that, that have the same moral character that we do, or
• 42:13
  at least, you know, very similar.
• 42:16
  Gregory Treat: for sure
• 42:17
  Zack Fava: but yeah, I, I made a list here, and like I
• 42:20
  said, I can send this to you
• 42:21
  after the fact and everyone can get to it
• 42:24
  Gregory Treat: we'll put it in the show notes
• 42:25
  Zack Fava: Yeah.
• 42:25
  But, uh, so let's see here.
• 42:27
  I, I made a couple notes for Runswell.
• 42:29
  So something like the, uh, so Runswell does not replace foundation models.
• 42:35
  It uses them correctly.
• 42:37
  Uh, models are hypothesis engines.
• 42:39
  So we, we essentially have that exact same thing built in to where you can utilize
• 42:45
  existing pieces while having your own, um, wants, needs, desires, whatever,
• 42:51
  you know, your own thesis built into it
• 42:54
  so that it is not something that, oh, well, this is what I want, and then it
• 42:59
  gives you what it wants to give you.
• 43:02
  There's, there's actual governance,
• 43:04
  and I think that that's the biggest piece, and it, it is kind of exploding
• 43:08
  right now in almost any aspect of AI, is the governance of it.
• 43:12
  But you're starting to kind of see it in more of an enterprise level
• 43:16
  where, um, oh, well, this business needs, you know, its, its profits
• 43:21
  to be a certain percentage, so I need to govern to this point.
• 43:25
  But a moralistic governance is far more important, and it's a little trickier.
• 43:31
  So really hammering at that is, is huge.
• 43:35
  So it, it's good that they, they have that built in, you know, for,
• 43:39
  for a more enterprise level product.
• 43:42
  Gregory Treat: Well, I mean, I don't know.
• 43:42
  I think, I think, you know, if we, if we think about, like,
• 43:45
  the household AI idea, right?
• 43:47
  So what do you need for that?
• 43:48
  You need, you need an, obviously an education piece for the children.
• 43:52
  You need probably some level of, of household management.
• 43:55
  You know, what, what are the … You're, you're, you're buying, you know,
• 43:59
  uh, you're buying different things.
• 44:00
  You're, you're, you're doing food.
• 44:02
  You're doing various types of prep work.
• 44:05
  Um, you know, there's, there's a surprising number of people that
• 44:08
  are starting to get involved.
• 44:09
  I mean, and, and, and, and AI and robotics will make this even more possible as
• 44:13
  they kind of push manufacturing down to more and more decentralized levels.
• 44:16
  People are talking about being able to make their own clothes.
• 44:19
  People are talking about being able to, to make their own tools
• 44:21
  for a whole variety of things.
• 44:23
  I mean, again, the one … If you've got one robot arm that, that can do what
• 44:27
  these new robot arms can do, it, it is, it is incredible how many applications
• 44:32
  you could potentially apply that to.
• 44:35
  Um, you know, s- talking to a guy, if you've got, you've got one of
• 44:37
  these humanoid robots and, you know, you're using them for some, some
• 44:40
  project, and then you need to do a construction project I mean, why not
• 44:44
  have the robots try to do it, right?
• 44:46
  Why not have them work at night or when nobody's there or, you know, in, in,
• 44:50
  you know, conditions where humans can't
• 44:52
  can barely even see, 'cause they can see, right?
• 44:54
  Like that, that, that's gonna be a fascinating thing.
• 44:56
  And then for a lot of, a lot of our guys that have small businesses,
• 44:59
  like the difference between the money you're spending on your house and your
• 45:04
  bus- I mean, you gotta have … you gotta track those things differently
• 45:06
  for tax purposes and all that, but the idea that this is a different
• 45:09
  operation is highly artificial, right?
• 45:12
  Like, this is one group of people.
• 45:14
  When, when your people go over… Like, if, if, if, if one part
• 45:19
  of your business fails, right?
• 45:21
  So, so in, in my business I employ, um, two sisters and, and, and, and,
• 45:25
  and… well, probably two brothers and a sister, and then another sister
• 45:28
  works in a, in a related thing.
• 45:30
  Uh, if one of them goes down or one of them has a fight with each other
• 45:33
  or they, their, their, you know, their family drama, their family drama
• 45:36
  is not separate from my business.
• 45:37
  Does this make sense?
• 45:38
  Right?
• 45:39
  A- and in some sense, like the idea that it ever was… And, and by the same token,
• 45:43
  you know, if I- if my wife and I are not on the same page, that, that is, is not
• 45:48
  separate from my ability to make money.
• 45:50
  If, if, if a mistake gets made, if we, if we have a big blow-up with a client,
• 45:54
  it, it, it, it flows through everything, 'cause it's all kinda one thing.
• 45:59
  It's one group of people.
• 46:00
  Um, and I think there's a lot of friction in switching between these,
• 46:05
  these different social ideas, right?
• 46:07
  Which are kinda, you know, they're all, they're all kinda k- kinda artificial.
• 46:10
  And so having this ability to have the education piece, to have the household
• 46:15
  management piece, to have the money-making piece, maybe even to have like a social
• 46:18
  media marketing, 'cause again, for a small business owner, you don't really have
• 46:22
  like a, a separate social media presence.
• 46:24
  Like, the idea that you can have opinions or thoughts that are, that
• 46:28
  are not going to immediately be connected to, uh, everything that,
• 46:32
  that, that's your business, right?
• 46:34
  Uh, you know, I was, I was reading a story about the, the
• 46:36
  founder of, uh, CrossFit, right?
• 46:39
  Um, and, and, and he, you know, was, was basically canceled in,
• 46:44
  in 2020 for one tweet, right?
• 46:47
  Uh, one tweet.
• 46:48
  They, they, they just basically liquidated his business over the course
• 46:51
  of like 72 hours, um, and then he, he sold out to, to, to Berkshire Hathaway,
• 46:55
  who then ran CrossFit just absolutely into the ground, uh, a- a- apparently
• 47:01
  purely for ideological reasons.
• 47:02
  I can't find any, any alternatives.
• 47:03
  There's no reason for them to, to behave the way they did.
• 47:06
  They starved the thing of capital and, uh… Anyway, great
• 47:08
  brand, totally, totally wrecked for no, no apparent reason.
• 47:11
  Um, but I mean, it w- and now he wasn't even a small business anymore.
• 47:15
  He was a quite large business, but it was him, right?
• 47:18
  And you know, you think about, you know, people like Elon.
• 47:20
  Elon is the brand.
• 47:22
  Right?
• 47:23
  I mean, in many ways, like especially after all of that nonsense with
• 47:26
  that Delaware judge and, and Elon's compensation package, like I'm
• 47:29
  looking for… If I wanna give Elon money, I wanna give Elon money.
• 47:32
  I w- I'm looking for some legal vehicle that means I'm gonna give Elon money.
• 47:37
  He can, he can do with it whatever he wants to do, and then no…
• 47:42
  I don't- I, I actually, uh, am, am less enthusiastic about being, you know,
• 47:47
  in the same bucket of people as the institutional investors in Tesla, right?
• 47:52
  Like that, that, that does not make me happy, right?
• 47:54
  Um, which, which is a fascinating… And, and I think many people online and,
• 47:58
  and just kind of that I've, that I've met and talked to feel the same way.
• 48:01
  That they, they sort of are like, "Man, I, I wish we didn't have to be in
• 48:06
  these same vehicles having these same relationships." Um, so you know, it's
• 48:10
  a, it's a, it's a fascinating, um, it's a fascinating time to be alive, so.
• 48:16
  Zack Fava: You know, and, and on that point, you, you have the, a, a couple
• 48:20
  of these guys that are w- you know, way up there, the multi-billionaires,
• 48:24
  they, they leak out a truth here and there every once in a while, whether
• 48:27
  it's by accident or intentional, where they say, you know, "Within the next
• 48:31
  few years you're gonna see solopreneurs being billionaires, trillionaires."
• 48:37
  And what they're not adding to that is that, you know, with the advancements of
• 48:43
  AI, you can essentially have a Fortune 500 company right there for one person.
• 48:49
  You have your whole operating system, you have your whole team, you know,
• 48:53
  legal, e- everything, you know?
• 48:56
  It's just, it's opening so many doors, and I think that a lot of people are
• 49:01
  scared, a lot of people are excited.
• 49:03
  So, um, it, it'll definitely be interesting to see how quickly we
• 49:08
  get there or how long they kinda drag their feet to, you know, to
• 49:13
  allow the masses to get there,
• 49:15
  Gregory Treat: Yeah.
• 49:16
  Well, it's a, it's, it's a very, like, like I said, it's
• 49:18
  a very interesting moment.
• 49:20
  It's a very interesting moment.
• 49:21
  And I think many ways the, the kind of the thing that we're dancing around
• 49:24
  is, is who, data sovereignty, right?
• 49:26
  'Cause in, in a couple of years, and, and we'll, we'll have
• 49:29
  to see kind of how this goes.
• 49:31
  I, I mean, I've heard some people say there, there's real world
• 49:34
  scenarios where human sourced data becomes incredibly valuable, right?
• 49:40
  'Cause there's, there's negative consequences from training
• 49:42
  AIs on AI-generated data.
• 49:44
  You can only do that so many times.
• 49:46
  There's some, there's some limit, uh, to how, how frequently you can, you can
• 49:50
  do that before you get weird outcomes.
• 49:52
  So having humans that are actually generating human data, which a- at
• 49:56
  some point will probably be- mostly consist of prompts to AIs, right?
• 50:01
  That's gonna become a very, very valuable, very, very, um Like
• 50:08
  specific thing that people want.
• 50:10
  And again, if you get access to that, you have access to… I mean, what
• 50:15
  could, what couldn't you do to a person that you have access to their,
• 50:20
  their complete AI profile, right?
• 50:22
  If you know all of the prompts and you can see the reasoning as it's going, you
• 50:26
  know w- you know what they've been fed, you know what they're, they're putting
• 50:29
  out, you know everything about them.
• 50:31
  And so if you don't have a, a, a love for them, an affection for them, a covenantal
• 50:35
  duty for them, I mean, the, the…
• 50:38
  That, that again is where there is a real dystopian future here, uh, if, if people
• 50:43
  don't react intelligently to that reality.
• 50:46
  What we have to do is say, okay, w- w- we, we… And this is another, another
• 50:50
  point, similar point to this, is, is what we're, what's gonna have to
• 50:53
  happen with limited liability, right?
• 50:55
  So if you've got a guy that's doing, like, financial advising in, i- and, and feeding
• 51:00
  it into an AI, and that AI is instructing a whole bunch of people outside of the…
• 51:06
  And, and, and there's a bunch of, you know, limited liabilities companies
• 51:09
  that, that he, that he, he is not technically giving them advice.
• 51:12
  There's no legal relationship there, but he is the one pressing the button,
• 51:16
  and that's what's causing a bunch of people down here to either make a bunch
• 51:19
  of money or lose a bunch of money.
• 51:20
  The idea that we're just gonna say, "Oh, well, you know, by the technical
• 51:24
  rules, he's, he's outside of the, uh, the liability chain, so sorry,"
• 51:29
  that's… I mean, maybe that'll happen once or twice, but there will be a
• 51:33
  unbelievable public outcry a- and things will start to shift, right?
• 51:38
  So it… You know, that's always, you know, when, when I paint these things.
• 51:40
  It'll only be dystopia for people that, that remain, that keep wanting
• 51:45
  to pretend that the old system is still what's, what's governing us, right?
• 51:50
  For people that are willing to say, "Oh, this is, this is what we're doing
• 51:52
  now. This is the way we're going. Here are the new realities of power and
• 51:57
  privilege and, and capacity, and the new hierarchies that are emerging," some
• 52:01
  of which, not all, but some of which will actually, many of which I think,
• 52:05
  will be competence hierarchies, right?
• 52:07
  And I'm, you know, for, for all intents and purposes,
• 52:09
  basically still a right-winger.
• 52:11
  And so I, you know, I like hierarchies of competence.
• 52:14
  That's core to my, uh, my worldview.
• 52:16
  So I'm, I'm… I think we, we, we have to take seriously the possibility that
• 52:21
  if you do nothing, you could very easily wind up in a very dystopian situation.
• 52:26
  But if you respond intelligently to the, the, the, the marvelous
• 52:30
  opportunities that are coming, um, I think, I think there's never been
• 52:34
  a more interesting time to be alive.
• 52:35
  So any, any final comments you want before we go, uh, kind of
• 52:38
  behind the paywall to the Q&A?
• 52:40
  Zack Fava: Uh, nope
• 52:42
  Gregory Treat: All right.
• 52:42
  All right.
• 52:43
  Well, really appreciate you, and, uh, to everybody that's, that,
• 52:46
  that's listening, if you, uh, you know, reach out to me on Substack if
• 52:48
  you wanna, uh, get behind the Q&A.
• 52:50
  Um, and, uh, and, uh, let's, let's, let's go into that now.
• 52:54
  All right.