Latest / Core Memory / He's Building A Space Station For $1 Billion - EP 38 Jed McCaleb

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He's Building A Space Station For $1 Billion - EP 38 Jed McCaleb · Core Memory

0:00
SPEAKER_01: If you were inducing infringement,
0:02
SPEAKER_01: like if you said like,
0:02
SPEAKER_01: hey,
0:03
SPEAKER_01: get Madonna's new song here,
0:04
SPEAKER_01: then that would be breaking the law.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: But if you were just like,
0:06
SPEAKER_01: hey,
0:06
SPEAKER_01: here's this open thing like BitTorn or whatever,
0:08
SPEAKER_01: here's this thing you can download,
0:09
SPEAKER_01: you can share your own stuff,
0:11
SPEAKER_01: you can share other people's stuff,
0:12
SPEAKER_01: then that's fine,
0:12
SPEAKER_01: right?
0:12
SPEAKER_01: And so we were much closer to that,
0:14
SPEAKER_01: where it's just,
0:15
SPEAKER_01: we weren't inducing infringement in any way.
0:18
Um,
0:18
but yeah,
0:19
but,
0:20
but,
0:20
but it was,
0:20
it was tough cause you can't grow the business.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: Like you can't,
0:23
like there was all these other ideas we had that were like
0:25
different than file
0:26
SPEAKER_01: sharing.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Like we had a kind of this Dropbox kind of idea.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: But,
0:29
SPEAKER_01: but we couldn't really do it because you know,
0:31
SPEAKER_01: what happens if the whole thing gets sued,
0:33
SPEAKER_01: then that thing just gets swallowed up.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Like you definitely can't raise money.
0:36
Like there,
0:36
there was just,
0:37
it's just really hamstrung the whole operation.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: So what was the closest, like.
0:42
The best conversation you ever had with the recording industry
0:45
where they might've
0:47
SPEAKER_02: actually started to see the light or inquiring about.
0:50
I mean,
0:51
towards the end,
0:51
we did have like a lot of conversations with them.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: We're like, okay, how do we make this work?
0:55
SPEAKER_01: You know,
0:55
SPEAKER_01: we want to,
0:56
SPEAKER_01: we want to,
0:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
0:56
SPEAKER_01: make this service where there's a subscription or,
0:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
0:58
SPEAKER_01: we,
0:59
SPEAKER_01: we iterated lots of ideas,
1:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01
SPEAKER_01: and then there's some set of folks there that are like on,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: that are on board and like want to do this,
1:05
SPEAKER_01: but yeah.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of business development,
1:07
SPEAKER_01: you're talking to one set of people that are into it,
1:10
SPEAKER_01: but the corporation as a whole is just never going to go for it.
1:12
So I don't think we're actually ever that close,
1:15
although it kind of seemed like that to us.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Jed McCaleb, thank you for joining us.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great to be here.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, there was this period of...
1:44
when I was doing reporting and you,
1:48
okay,
1:48
I'll set up a little bit of your background.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's, it's quite diverse.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: You were involved in the peer to peer file sharing days,
1:56
SPEAKER_02: heavily involved in the rise of crypto technology,
1:59
SPEAKER_02: um,
2:01
SPEAKER_02: made quite a bit of money from that.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: And then,
2:04
and then this is getting to the point of my story and then
2:06
investing in all kinds
2:07
SPEAKER_02: of interesting areas,
2:09
SPEAKER_02: um,
2:09
SPEAKER_02: including space and AI and,
2:12
SPEAKER_02: and a whole wide scope of things.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: But that's,
2:14
SPEAKER_02: I felt like there was this,
2:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it was,
2:17
SPEAKER_02: like a three,
2:17
four year period where every time I would hear about some
2:22
company that would really
2:22
SPEAKER_02: catch my attention.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: And then I had asked somebody who's backing it.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: It was always Chad McKay is backing this company.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: And then it's not like you were like a full mystery,
2:33
SPEAKER_02: but there wasn't a ton of information out there.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: You didn't seem like you kind of brag about these things.
2:39
investments you're you know i would just see your name pop up
2:41
all the time and so i
2:42
was i was fascinated by you and then um never really had a
2:45
chance to talk to you
2:46
until we ended up at was it was it frontier camp okay okay so
2:51
it's like one of
2:52
these gatherings of of um hopefully interesting people and and
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i think we had a
2:57
chance to chat so anyway thank you for coming on the show i
2:59
wanted to talk to you
3:00
SPEAKER_01: for a long time yeah no excited to be here yeah um
3:03
SPEAKER_02: I was going to start, I mean, there's a million places we could go.
3:06
I was going to start with your background just because I try to
3:11
do a fair amount of
3:12
SPEAKER_02: research for these things.
3:13
And there wasn't a ton on some of the things that I'm always
3:15
interested in,
3:16
SPEAKER_02: which is where somebody grew up and all that.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I saw you're from Arkansas, but I saw nothing on...
3:22
SPEAKER_02: what your parents did, what kind of childhood you had.
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Um,
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Arkansas is unusual for,
3:27
uh,
3:28
in tech land to find somebody from there.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah.
3:31
I mean,
3:31
tell me a little bit about where you grew up and what it was
3:34
like.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: So I was born in Arkansas.
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SPEAKER_01: Um, I think for the first few years of my life, uh,
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SPEAKER_01: My mom and I just lived in this little cabin in the woods.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: And then,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: as it came time for me to go to school,
3:47
SPEAKER_01: like,
3:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:47
SPEAKER_01: first grade or whatever,
3:48
SPEAKER_01: we moved into Fayetteville,
3:50
SPEAKER_01: which is a small town in Arkansas.
3:51
And I went there for a few years and then eventually moved to
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Little Rock where I grew up.
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SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, I mean, uh, it was just me and my mom.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So I,
4:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: I spent a lot of time alone,
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SPEAKER_01: a lot of time reading,
4:03
SPEAKER_01: playing with Legos,
4:04
SPEAKER_01: things like that.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: What did she do?
4:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh, she was a reporter.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: She was a reporter.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: What kind?
4:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
4:09
SPEAKER_01: well,
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SPEAKER_01: she worked at the,
4:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: just local paper and yeah,
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SPEAKER_01: just did cover all kinds of things.
4:14
And eventually she became an editor at AP,
4:16
but,
4:16
but that was after I left home.
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SPEAKER_02: Okay.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: And did you, did you have siblings?
4:20
SPEAKER_02: No, just me.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: Just you.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: And so, and when you say you were like in a cabin, I mean,
4:26
SPEAKER_01: like quite literally?
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was no electricity or running water.
4:31
It's,
4:31
you know,
4:31
I didn't really appreciate it until I had kids,
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like how insane that was.
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SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
4:34
SPEAKER_01: for like the first couple of years of my life,
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SPEAKER_01: she just lived out there in the woods by herself.
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SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: And was that like a means choice or she enjoyed living?
4:45
SPEAKER_01: No, it was like, you know, the back to the land kind of thing.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: She definitely chose to do it.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: And does your family stretch back a while in Arkansas or?
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SPEAKER_01: No, they're originally from Louisiana.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: Okay, but you're a Southern boy.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in some ways.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I grew up in Texas, so I know vaguely this part of the world.
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SPEAKER_02: And then you make the leap all the way to Berkeley.
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SPEAKER_02: What were you like as a kid?
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SPEAKER_02: Were you science-y and math-y?
5:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: I got into computers super early,
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SPEAKER_01: I think in third grade is when I realized that you could actually program
5:22
SPEAKER_01: computers,
5:22
SPEAKER_01: and it blew my mind.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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And then so I started programming in like fourth grade and just
5:27
was like doing
5:28
SPEAKER_01: stuff with them the whole time.
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SPEAKER_01: And I was really into physics.
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SPEAKER_01: I went to school like with the intent of doing physics.
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SPEAKER_01: But yes, I went to Berkeley briefly.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: And then there I kind of realized I kind of don't want to...
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SPEAKER_01: be a physicist.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: So I already know how to program.
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SPEAKER_01: So what's the point of going to school?
5:43
SPEAKER_01: Let's just like, don't do that.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Don't go program.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: And like Arkansas to Berkeley seems like a culture shock.
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SPEAKER_02: Maybe you want to.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: I guess so.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was definitely ready to leave Arkansas.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: I was, you know, it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's interesting.
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SPEAKER_01: It's a cool place to grow up.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: You know,
6:00
SPEAKER_01: there's lots of freedom and there's lots of advantages to it,
6:02
SPEAKER_01: but definitely living there is not for me.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Like there's, there's just not enough going on, I think.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:08
And were you,
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I mean,
6:09
were you like kind of an academic standout as a kid?
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SPEAKER_01: I mean,
6:13
SPEAKER_01: no,
6:14
SPEAKER_01: I was kind of like,
6:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
6:16
SPEAKER_01: 3.5 GPA kind of guy where,
6:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
6:18
SPEAKER_01: I just would do enough to get by.
6:22
You know,
6:22
I just,
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I've always kind of been really good at learning on my own.
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SPEAKER_01: So I just, I read a ton on my own and, and, and,
6:28
SPEAKER_01: was interested in that.
6:28
So school always kind of seemed like a distraction,
6:30
almost like a hindrance.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: Do you do fiction, nonfiction?
6:34
SPEAKER_02: Both.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: So it's just everything.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: All right.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: All right, what do we do at Core Memory?
6:40
SPEAKER_02: We cover innovative,
6:42
SPEAKER_02: fast-moving,
6:43
SPEAKER_02: forward-thinking companies,
6:45
SPEAKER_02: which is why Core Memory is sponsored by Brex,
6:48
because Brex is the intelligent finance platform for many of
6:53
these companies,
6:54
SPEAKER_02: 30,000 companies from startups to the world's largest corporations.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: rely on Brex's technology for their finances.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: They've got smart corporate cards,
7:05
SPEAKER_02: high-yield business banking,
7:07
SPEAKER_02: and expense automation tools that are fantastic.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: I hate doing my expenses.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: And Brex's AIs and software run right through those expenses,
7:17
SPEAKER_02: figure out where we're spending money,
7:19
and take care of so much stuff for you so you don't have to
7:22
waste your time on it
7:23
SPEAKER_02: yourself.
7:25
Go to brex.com slash core memory to learn more and just,
7:29
you know,
7:30
get with the program.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: Let's get going.
7:31
Let's get out of this archaic finance software and move toward
7:36
the future.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: Core memory and Brex.
7:39
So you get to Berkeley and,
7:41
and then you're already kind of charting your own course.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: And I remember,
7:45
SPEAKER_02: so when I first started as a reporter,
7:47
SPEAKER_02: um,
7:48
the first really big story that I ended up covering was the
7:52
rise of Napster.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: And I was, that was like exciting and.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: and I was really deep into it.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: And I know you, you, you, you started eDonkey, right?
8:02
SPEAKER_02: Which was, I mean, I remember it as like a Napster competitor.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: Is that fair?
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, it was basically, I learned about Napster.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
8:09
It was probably like the first few months it came out,
8:12
you know,
8:12
it was an awesome idea.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, this is a very cool idea.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: But like, clearly the guy was very new to programming.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: Like he didn't really know what he was doing.
8:20
Like there's a very,
8:21
a lot of very obvious things that you would do like to,
8:23
to make it better.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: And so,
8:25
I was just like,
8:26
well,
8:26
let's just make a better version of this essentially.
8:29
You could hash the file so you don't end up with the songs
8:32
getting cut off half the
8:33
SPEAKER_01: way before you...
8:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you remember the experience,
8:36
SPEAKER_01: but it was not very pleasant.
8:38
The songs would slowly get shorter because people would get
8:41
their downloads cut off
8:41
SPEAKER_01: and then they would upload it to the next person,
8:43
SPEAKER_01: something like that.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: But you can avoid all that if you just hash the file.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: There's just very simple things that could be done to make it better.
8:50
yeah so maybe donkey it was like much better for like much
8:53
bigger files because we
8:54
hashed and we downloaded different chunks from different people
8:56
and all this kind
8:57
of stuff so so uh yeah it was useful for like movies and things
9:01
like that so yeah i
9:02
remember i would i right before i went to bed i would set up
9:06
like all these songs
9:07
to download on napster and then you'd wake up in the morning
9:09
you're like what did i
9:11
actually get man and uh and it was like the internet speeds
9:16
were not so great back
9:17
SPEAKER_02: then it was it was quite the struggle to make that all work
9:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: But it was a cool idea.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: that whole experience is like fairly fresh because like,
9:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:25
SPEAKER_01: towards the end of,
9:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:26
SPEAKER_01: we were,
9:26
we spent a lot of time talking to like the recording industry
9:28
and like the movie
9:29
SPEAKER_01: industry,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: because we're like,
9:30
SPEAKER_01: look,
9:30
SPEAKER_01: people want this.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: They just want, they're happy to pay for it.
9:33
They just want the convenience of being able to like click on
9:35
something and get the
9:36
SPEAKER_01: thing on their computer.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: They don't have to go to like a record store or whatever,
9:38
SPEAKER_01: because it's very hard to,
9:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:39
SPEAKER_01: this is all pre Netflix and pre Spotify and all this kind of stuff.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: And so,
9:43
SPEAKER_01: We were trying to convince them,
9:44
SPEAKER_01: like,
9:44
SPEAKER_01: look,
9:44
SPEAKER_01: this is the way you should go and just charge people.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: They'll pay you.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: That's the only way Edonky made money,
9:50
SPEAKER_01: really,
9:50
SPEAKER_01: is we just asked people to pay us for the software.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: It was all voluntary.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: But they just couldn't wrap their mind around that.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: And then lo and behold, this is the way the whole industry is now.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: So it's just, I don't know.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: It's actually, it's one of my favorite parts of internet history.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: I was telling my kids what NAFSA was like and what this era was like.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: They could, their minds were blown.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: And I remember I,
10:13
SPEAKER_02: so I,
10:13
SPEAKER_02: I wrote a lot for a publication called The Register back then,
10:17
SPEAKER_02: which was a British tech site.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
10:19
SPEAKER_02: and we were quite,
10:21
SPEAKER_02: um,
10:21
SPEAKER_02: we were allowed to have quite a bit of freedom in our opinions.
10:24
And,
10:24
you know,
10:25
I was just so anti RIAA and what they were doing,
10:28
especially
10:30
um for a lot of the reasons that you highlighted i was i was
10:33
like you know look
10:35
this is the obvious way forward you guys are just so slow that
10:38
you haven't even
10:38
made anything to compete with this stuff instead of trying to
10:41
sue everyone into
10:42
oblivion why don't you actually like make something you know
10:46
and it drove me crazy
10:47
SPEAKER_02: i remember i would go to uh
10:50
SPEAKER_02: like the big trade shows and,
10:51
SPEAKER_02: and,
10:52
SPEAKER_02: and I,
10:53
I think it was like a Hewlett Packard event I went to when they
10:56
started selling an
10:56
SPEAKER_02: MP3 player and they brought in like Alicia Keys and,
10:59
SPEAKER_02: um,
11:00
all these famous musicians and the musicians were up on stage
11:04
talking how sad they
11:05
SPEAKER_02: were to have their,
11:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
11:07
SPEAKER_02: they were losing money and all.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, this is the most unsympathetic thing I've ever seen, right?
11:12
SPEAKER_02: If you guys would just open your mind a tiny bit.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's a, there's kind of a future there.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: And so you,
11:17
SPEAKER_02: I remember there was like you guys Napster,
11:20
SPEAKER_02: I think Kazaa,
11:21
SPEAKER_02: those are like the three big ones that I remember.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: And so you,
11:25
it must've been stressful that once things turned and they
11:27
started suing everybody
11:29
SPEAKER_02: and.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:30
I mean,
11:30
the whole thing was like,
11:31
in retrospect,
11:33
I don't know that I would do it again.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Basically the whole time,
11:35
SPEAKER_01: because the Napster was getting sued like right when I was starting,
11:38
SPEAKER_01: right?
11:38
SPEAKER_01: And so the whole time I was just like waiting,
11:41
SPEAKER_01: okay,
11:41
SPEAKER_01: eventually I'm going to get sued,
11:42
SPEAKER_01: just kind of waiting for this.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: There was kind of this Supreme Court case,
11:46
this Grokster case going on in the background for a few years
11:49
while we were making
11:50
SPEAKER_01: E-donkey.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: So we were waiting for the resolution of that,
11:52
SPEAKER_01: like they probably weren't going to sue anyone else in the meantime.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: and we were hoping Grok should win the case.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, they did win the case.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: So it became clear that what we were doing wasn't violating the law.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, there was nuance to it, depending on how you represented the stuff.
12:13
If you were inducing infringement,
12:15
if you said,
12:15
hey,
12:16
get Madonna's new song here,
12:17
then
12:18
SPEAKER_01: then that would be breaking the law.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: But if you were just like,
12:19
SPEAKER_01: hey,
12:20
SPEAKER_01: here's this open thing like BitTorn or whatever,
12:21
SPEAKER_01: here's this thing you can download,
12:23
SPEAKER_01: you can share your own stuff,
12:24
SPEAKER_01: you can share other people's stuff,
12:25
SPEAKER_01: then that's fine,
12:26
SPEAKER_01: right?
12:26
And so we were much closer to that where it's just,
12:28
we weren't inducing infringement in any way.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, but it was tough because you can't grow the business.
12:36
Like you can't,
12:36
like there was all these other ideas we had that were like,
12:38
SPEAKER_01: different than file sharing.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Like we had kind of this Dropbox kind of idea.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: I remember that, yeah.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: But we couldn't really do it because,
12:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:45
SPEAKER_01: what happens if the whole thing gets sued,
12:46
SPEAKER_01: then that thing just gets swallowed up,
12:48
SPEAKER_01: right?
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Like you definitely can't raise money.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: Like there was just, it's just really hamstrung the whole operation, so.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: What was the closest, like,
12:56
The best conversation you ever had with the recording industry
12:59
where they might've
13:00
SPEAKER_02: actually started to see the light or inquiring about.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
13:04
SPEAKER_01: towards the end,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: we did have like a lot of conversations with them or like,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: okay,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: how do we make this work?
13:08
SPEAKER_01: You know,
13:08
SPEAKER_01: we want to,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: we want to,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:10
SPEAKER_01: make this service where there's a subscription or,
13:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:12
SPEAKER_01: we,
13:12
SPEAKER_01: we iterated lots of ideas,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: and then there's some set of folks there that are like on,
13:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: that are on board and like want to do this,
13:18
SPEAKER_01: but yeah,
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of business development,
13:21
SPEAKER_01: you're talking to one set of people that are into it,
13:23
SPEAKER_01: but the corporation as a whole is just never going to go for it.
13:26
So I don't think we're actually ever that close,
13:29
although it kind of seemed like that to us.
13:30
What was it like for you when iTunes comes along and Steve Jobs
13:35
finally unites all these labels?
13:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, we just obviously didn't have the power of Apple.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Like I understand why Apple's able to do that and we weren't.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: And so, uh, you know, it made sense.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: But like I said,
13:47
SPEAKER_01: it just,
13:47
SPEAKER_01: it was kind of like,
13:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
13:48
SPEAKER_01: dang,
13:48
SPEAKER_01: they should have just done this years ago.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:51
So,
13:52
so while you're doing that,
13:53
you're,
13:53
you're like,
13:54
what,
13:54
you're like 20 years old.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, this was in, yeah, I was probably like 25.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
14:00
SPEAKER_02: it's gotta be like slightly scary to be,
14:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:03
SPEAKER_02: possibly facing some horrendous lawsuit.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, I also didn't have any money.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: I was nothing to lose really.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: So,
14:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:11
SPEAKER_01: so yeah,
14:11
SPEAKER_01: that's like,
14:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:12
SPEAKER_01: freedom's just another word for everything left to lose.
14:14
You know,
14:14
like there's,
14:14
there,
14:15
there's not,
14:15
yeah,
14:15
there wasn't really any,
14:16
that much downside.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: I would just be back to where it was.
14:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: Um,
14:20
SPEAKER_02: I,
14:21
SPEAKER_02: I'm probably fast forwarding over some key things,
14:23
SPEAKER_02: but then,
14:24
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:24
SPEAKER_02: when I do my research on you,
14:27
SPEAKER_02: the next big things that start to come up is like,
14:29
SPEAKER_02: is,
14:30
SPEAKER_02: is in the crypto era.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: It's like Mount Gox, which, which you started, um, and then ripple.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, is that, is, was that the next big chapter in your, your life?
14:40
I mean,
14:40
I definitely worked on some things in between,
14:42
uh,
14:42
you know,
14:43
E-Donkey and Mt.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Gox.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Um,
14:45
SPEAKER_01: none of it was that successful as,
14:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:46
SPEAKER_01: like I think a lot of my career,
14:47
SPEAKER_01: I just like cast around for ideas and like,
14:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:49
SPEAKER_01: some stuff works,
14:50
SPEAKER_01: some doesn't,
14:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:51
SPEAKER_01: you just kind of keep,
14:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:52
SPEAKER_01: rolling the dice and like iterating on things.
14:54
So,
14:54
um,
14:55
yeah,
14:55
so I was basically just winding down,
14:57
um,
14:57
this other company.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: I tried to make this online game, you know, people really loved it.
15:02
The set of small people,
15:03
set of people that played it,
15:03
but I kind of decided,
15:04
um,
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Basically,
15:06
SPEAKER_01: when you're making a game,
15:07
SPEAKER_01: you're basically trying to make people waste as much time as possible.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: And so I started feeling kind of gross about it.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: What was it?
15:12
SPEAKER_01: It was this online game.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of a cross between Magic the Card Game and StarCraft,
15:17
SPEAKER_01: where it's like magic on a map.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: It's still my favorite game, but... What's it called?
15:21
SPEAKER_01: It was called The Far Wilds.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: But,
15:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:24
so we had like a handful of players and the people that played
15:26
would play for an
15:27
SPEAKER_01: obscene amount of time,
15:27
SPEAKER_01: like,
15:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:28
SPEAKER_01: 12 hours a day or something like that.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: And so...
15:30
but but we never really grew it so so that was winding down and
15:33
then i kind of was
15:34
just like reading on the internet for like random things and
15:37
came across the you
15:38
know bitcoin white paper and blew my mind and you know yeah
15:42
that's super excited
15:43
when you like mount gox is is this so i'm not a crypto head so
15:47
i'm gonna mess some
15:48
things up but i you know i know enough of of the basics um but
15:52
when so mount gox
15:55
SPEAKER_02: lives in crypto lore and infamy,
15:58
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
15:58
SPEAKER_02: because I remember it being kind of one of these first big exchanges,
16:02
SPEAKER_02: maybe the first big one.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, there were some other ways to trade.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
16:07
the reason why I built it was because I wanted to buy Bitcoin
16:09
and also just kind of
16:10
SPEAKER_01: wanted to experiment with the technology and understand it.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it was very cumbersome.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: The other stuff was like very cumbersome.
16:17
It was definitely the first like 24 hours,
16:18
like order book kind of like typical exchange.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: That's how I remember it.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: But you actually built it first for Magic the Gathering.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: I just had the domain left over.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: So I had built the Magic thing like a long time ago,
16:30
SPEAKER_01: just kind of,
16:30
SPEAKER_01: again,
16:30
SPEAKER_01: just as like,
16:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:32
SPEAKER_01: something to do.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
16:34
SPEAKER_01: and I had the domain and,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:36
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
16:36
SPEAKER_01: when I was building the crypto exchange,
16:39
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
16:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to register a new domain name.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: I have this one.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: I'll just use this.
16:42
okay but it was magic the gathering online exchange that's what
16:45
it stood for yeah
16:45
yeah and that would it would have been a place to trade magic
16:49
cards yeah yeah it
16:49
was for there's a yeah so after you donkey i was like burned
16:53
out so i played played
16:54
some magic online and and when you the the online version of
16:57
magic there's a way
16:58
you can like trade cards with people but it's very cumbersome
17:00
so i was like well
17:01
instead let's just make it where you like because you would
17:03
have to like barter
17:04
essentially so let's just make a common currency and like have
17:07
people like you know
17:08
sell to the central thing and then that thing someone else can
17:10
buy from the central
17:11
SPEAKER_01: thing
17:11
SPEAKER_01: So it was a way to like make the whole thing like a much smoother.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: And then it evolves, evolves into, to, uh, to crypto.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: And then, um, Mt.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: Gox has this,
17:21
SPEAKER_02: I think you left before the,
17:23
SPEAKER_02: the shit hit the proverbial fan where,
17:25
SPEAKER_02: um,
17:26
SPEAKER_02: if I remember right,
17:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
17:27
SPEAKER_02: it,
17:27
SPEAKER_02: it gets,
17:28
SPEAKER_02: it gets kind of hacked and a bunch of
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I mean, it's pretty unfortunate story.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: So like,
17:33
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:33
I think it's hard for people to wrap their minds around what
17:36
crypto was like back
17:36
SPEAKER_01: then,
17:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:37
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
17:38
SPEAKER_01: there's just,
17:38
SPEAKER_01: there was just Bitcoin,
17:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:39
SPEAKER_01: there was probably,
17:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:41
maybe like 2000 people that even knew about it or something
17:43
like that on the order
17:44
SPEAKER_01: of that,
17:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:44
SPEAKER_01: there wasn't very many people.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of just random projects.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: Most of the people that are into it were like very fringe,
17:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:52
SPEAKER_01: it's a lot of like,
17:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:54
SPEAKER_01: There wasn't very many solid people.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: There definitely wasn't very many people that had built things before.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: So it was just a very small pool of folks.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: No one knew if it would work.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Everyone liked the idea,
18:07
SPEAKER_01: but it's one of these things where you see it and you're like,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: oh,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: it's a cool idea,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: but this is never going to work.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: No one's going to adopt this.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: So it's just a very different world.
18:14
And so I built it,
18:15
again,
18:15
just kind of as a hobby,
18:16
a way to learn what Bitcoin would do.
18:19
And I thought it would be cool for the community to be able to
18:22
buy and sell these things.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: you know, obviously it had a lot of traction right off the bat.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: It was like taking off.
18:27
And then I was like,
18:28
okay,
18:28
look,
18:29
this is not what I want to do with my life.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to run an exchange.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: It's not an interesting problem.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: I like to work on like more technically difficult things, right?
18:36
SPEAKER_01: So,
18:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: there are like,
18:38
SPEAKER_01: when you get into scale,
18:38
SPEAKER_01: there's technically difficult things,
18:40
SPEAKER_01: but it's not in the same way,
18:41
SPEAKER_01: right?
18:41
And so then I started looking around for someone to like take
18:45
it over because I
18:45
didn't want to just shut it down because a lot of people in the
18:47
community depended
18:49
SPEAKER_01: on it.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: And like, really, if you ask like,
18:51
SPEAKER_01: any Bitcoin OG, like that's almost how they all got their Bitcoin.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, a lot of people are really thankful that it existed.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: And so,
18:59
SPEAKER_01: so I started looking around the person I found was this guy,
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Mark Coppola,
19:02
SPEAKER_01: who ended up being,
19:03
SPEAKER_01: uh,
19:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
19:05
like he at least purported to be able to program and all this
19:09
kind of stuff.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: And like, but he,
19:11
SPEAKER_01: And again, there just wasn't a lot of options.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a lot of people I could hand it to.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: So I basically handed it to essentially for free.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: I retained 12% of the company or something like that.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: But otherwise, it was just like, here, take this.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: And then, yeah, from there, I just had continuous problems.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Almost from the time I handed it over to him, there was problems.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: And he obviously, in retrospect, just did not know what he was doing.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: He was super incompetent.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: In that first hack that you're talking about,
19:38
SPEAKER_01: I remember the site was down,
19:39
SPEAKER_01: all these people were upset.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: People that I'd met later,
19:43
SPEAKER_01: like Jesse Powell and Roger Bear,
19:45
flew out to Japan to help him and just to get it all set up
19:47
because it was such a
19:48
SPEAKER_01: core part of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
19:51
And like,
19:52
and he's just like,
19:53
he's like on Friday at like five or whatever.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: He's like, okay, I'm going home.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: I'll see you guys Monday.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, what are you talking about?
19:59
SPEAKER_01: The site is down.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: No one can get their money.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Everyone's like freaking out.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, why are you doing like, it doesn't make any sense.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: Like,
20:05
SPEAKER_01: and so it's just a series of things like that where like,
20:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:07
I'm kind of me and them are like kind of shouting at this guy
20:10
from the sidelines.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, look, you're just totally messing this whole thing up.
20:13
Like you just do these simple things and it'll,
20:15
you know,
20:15
it was,
20:15
it was a frustrating thing.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, at least the,
20:20
SPEAKER_02: And that also must have been a little scary though,
20:22
SPEAKER_02: that you catch some strays by being involved,
20:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:26
SPEAKER_02: as,
20:26
SPEAKER_02: as things start to get.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I, I feel like Mt.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: Gox has been very net negative for me,
20:30
SPEAKER_01: like,
20:31
SPEAKER_01: because I have caught a lot of,
20:32
SPEAKER_01: like people still blame me for all this stuff that's happened.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Like,
20:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:35
SPEAKER_01: the,
20:35
the major hack happened like three years after I had even like
20:38
seen any of this
20:39
SPEAKER_01: code and like I had anything to do with anything.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: And so, but yet still I'm like the Mt.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Gox guy or whatever.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: But.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: As you're describing some of this in the technical work you were doing,
20:51
SPEAKER_02: is that how you saw yourself back then?
20:53
SPEAKER_02: Were you a very good coder?
20:57
SPEAKER_02: You approached problems differently to other people?
21:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm picking what you're getting interested in.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: I love programming.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: Again, I've been programming since I was little.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I even...
21:11
SPEAKER_01: talked to another programmer until I went to Berkeley.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: And even then, not really, right?
21:16
Until I moved back to the Bay Area the second time during the
21:19
dot-com situation,
21:20
SPEAKER_01: that was my first real interactions with other programmers.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't really know where I sat in the hierarchy of this stuff.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
21:27
SPEAKER_01: eDonkey was a very, you know, it's like a distributed system.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Like we eventually,
21:32
SPEAKER_01: we implemented the first distributed hash table,
21:34
SPEAKER_01: which is the way like BitTorrent does search now and things like that.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: And so we did all these kind of like hard technical problems.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
21:42
SPEAKER_01: so I think I like to work that area where it's,
21:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:45
SPEAKER_01: there's this hard technical thing where it's,
21:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:46
SPEAKER_01: involves programming,
21:47
SPEAKER_01: but isn't like,
21:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:51
SPEAKER_01: like a CRUD web app or something,
21:52
SPEAKER_01: but it's like more of like a systems level thing.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there is...
21:57
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if you identified with this or not, the
22:00
There is like a libertarian sort of freedom loving streak to
22:05
both peer-to-peer file
22:06
SPEAKER_02: sharing and the early days of crypto.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: Was that stuff that was resonating?
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
22:10
SPEAKER_01: definitely when I,
22:11
SPEAKER_01: this is one of the things when I came across Bitcoin,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
22:13
SPEAKER_01: okay,
22:13
SPEAKER_01: this is like very much in line with,
22:15
SPEAKER_01: it's very similar to file sharing,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: right?
22:16
SPEAKER_01: So it's a distributed system,
22:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:18
SPEAKER_01: so these peer-to-peer interactions,
22:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:20
SPEAKER_01: a lot of the problems are similar.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
22:23
SPEAKER_01: so yeah,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: I definitely think,
22:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
22:25
SPEAKER_01: I think freedom is like generally good and like the,
22:28
SPEAKER_01: the,
22:28
SPEAKER_01: the,
22:29
SPEAKER_01: if you can kind of,
22:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:31
SPEAKER_01: lower these concentrations of power,
22:32
SPEAKER_01: it's just like better for society in general.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: So like, I definitely like things that push in that direction.
22:38
Were you part of like the whole open source movement proper and
22:43
things like that?
22:44
Not really,
22:44
not until,
22:45
I mean,
22:45
you know,
22:46
Idanki wasn't open source,
22:47
actually,
22:48
so not really.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: But, I mean, you know, Stellar and Ripple both were open source.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, so, you know, eventually got on that train, but, yeah.
22:57
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
22:59
And then I'm also just picturing,
23:00
I mean,
23:01
clearly you did not want,
23:02
like,
23:02
a corporate job.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: So you were quite happy to, like, rely on yourself throughout.
23:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't think I'm very employable.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Why?
23:10
SPEAKER_01: Why?
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
23:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:12
SPEAKER_01: I have,
23:13
SPEAKER_01: I have opinions on how to do things and like,
23:15
SPEAKER_01: it's just,
23:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't,
23:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:17
SPEAKER_01: it's hard for me to follow someone else's plan.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:19
You know,
23:19
I have my own idea of how things would go in the world and,
23:22
and,
23:23
uh,
23:24
yeah.
23:24
So I just,
23:24
I'm pretty independent and just kind of want to make a thing
23:27
happen.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And if somebody else is like, well, no, we should do this other thing.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: I just won't listen to them.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: So.
23:31
And are you like doing financially well through all this stuff
23:34
or is,
23:35
are these lean times?
23:37
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, no, you donkey did really well.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: Like I was,
23:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:39
SPEAKER_01: I,
23:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:40
SPEAKER_01: I was even before that,
23:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
23:41
I was working as a programmer and like random job stuff for
23:43
never very long,
23:44
SPEAKER_01: but it was a lot from where I came from.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I felt secure for sure.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And, and also I knew that,
23:52
SPEAKER_01: I could always just go work at a programming job somewhere.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: So like,
23:56
SPEAKER_01: even though probably I didn't have very much money,
23:57
SPEAKER_01: I just knew that there was this essential safety net where like,
24:00
SPEAKER_01: okay,
24:01
SPEAKER_01: hey,
24:01
SPEAKER_01: if this eDucky thing doesn't work,
24:02
SPEAKER_01: I can just go get another programming job somewhere.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: It's not a big deal.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:06
Well,
24:06
I'm selfishly,
24:07
I'm more in a space than crypto,
24:09
but I don't...
24:10
Me too.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to dwell too much, but I will...
24:15
SPEAKER_02: you end up,
24:15
SPEAKER_02: you end up like creating ripple,
24:17
SPEAKER_02: which is,
24:18
SPEAKER_02: which is another huge,
24:19
SPEAKER_02: huge thing,
24:20
SPEAKER_01: right?
24:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, basically as, as, uh, you know,
24:27
SPEAKER_01: During the Mt.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Gox time,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: okay,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Bitcoin's awesome,
24:31
SPEAKER_01: but this mining problem,
24:32
SPEAKER_01: it seems problematic.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: It's hugely resource intensive.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's a different way to solve this consensus problem,
24:40
SPEAKER_01: and came up with the idea that led to Ripple.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: At the time, I actually wanted to go work on AI stuff, but
24:49
SPEAKER_01: So I was kind of like,
24:50
SPEAKER_01: okay,
24:50
let me just spend a day thinking about this and see if I can
24:52
come up with some
24:53
SPEAKER_01: idea.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: And I came up with the idea and I was like,
24:55
SPEAKER_01: oh,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: dang,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: actually,
24:56
this means I'm going to have to go do this crypto thing rather
24:59
than dive into AI,
25:00
SPEAKER_01: which I really wanted to do.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: So I was a little bummed about it, but it ended up well, obviously.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: It did.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Not to be crass, but you make billions of dollars from Ripple.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, yes.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
25:12
SPEAKER_01: I think anyone that was in crypto early,
25:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:15
SPEAKER_01: honestly,
25:16
SPEAKER_01: like if I had just bought,
25:17
SPEAKER_01: if I had just like held my Bitcoin,
25:19
SPEAKER_01: I would have made more than any of this.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I'm like, I should have just held Bitcoin.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
25:24
I remember I did a story on like the early days of the Bitcoin
25:28
miners when they
25:29
SPEAKER_02: were creating this custom silicon to try to.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:32
um speed up and that was the first i'd heard about bitcoin
25:34
obviously and then
25:35
always been like oh this isn't going to be worth anything and
25:38
then i did this
25:38
bitcoin mining story and i was like oh whatever i'll buy some
25:42
this seems like we'll
25:44
just take a lark and i went home to my wife and i was like how
25:47
much on the
25:49
assumption that this is all complete will be worth nothing like
25:53
how much are you
25:53
SPEAKER_02: willing you know for us to spend and and so i think i bought like
25:59
SPEAKER_02: eight or nine when it was around $400 each.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I wish, I wish.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: But man, I mean, it was scary even then.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: I remember we did a story on this guy and it was, uh, um,
26:16
think yes it was a cover story on business week and we'd sent a
26:20
photographer to
26:21
this guy's house and um you know he had all his mining rigs set
26:26
up and and we're
26:26
sending like a business week photographer it's kind of it's a
26:29
production it's not
26:29
like somebody shows up with their cell phone it's like they
26:31
have lights and and
26:33
they have an assistant and and you know they're photographing
26:37
celebrities like it's
26:38
SPEAKER_02: a thing and and
26:40
SPEAKER_02: So we take the photo, we run the story.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: And then the guy, the next day, as the story hits, he's calling me.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: He's calling like everybody at Bloomberg.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: He's freaking out.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: He's like, you published my photo.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: People are going to come and like try to kill me and like take all my...
26:55
SPEAKER_02: I was like,
26:55
SPEAKER_02: bro,
26:56
SPEAKER_02: what did you think was happening?
26:57
SPEAKER_02: Why did you let the guys like into your house?
26:59
SPEAKER_02: You didn't say anything, man.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what did you think we were going to do with these photographs?
27:06
SPEAKER_02: But I remember it being this very like...
27:08
SPEAKER_02: stressful time in this whole Bitcoin mining community was, was nuts.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it was, it really was like wild westy feeling.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: There's definitely a lot of that.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: So, um, okay.
27:20
SPEAKER_02: So you, you end up doing very well off Ripple and then you
27:24
SPEAKER_02: you know, again, you're into so many different things.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to know what to pick,
27:27
SPEAKER_02: but my general impression is you kind of swing to,
27:31
SPEAKER_02: to investing in things and,
27:34
SPEAKER_02: and,
27:35
SPEAKER_02: and following your,
27:36
SPEAKER_02: what's calling to you.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: Like you,
27:37
SPEAKER_02: you seem like somebody who's,
27:39
SPEAKER_02: who,
27:40
SPEAKER_02: um,
27:41
SPEAKER_02: likes interesting,
27:42
SPEAKER_02: likes to help interesting ideas along is my impression.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
27:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't do that much investing actually,
27:48
SPEAKER_01: but I mean,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: I've done some,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: but yeah,
27:50
SPEAKER_01: I guess my general thesis or my general take now is like,
27:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:54
SPEAKER_01: I can only deal with so much money,
27:57
SPEAKER_01: right?
27:57
I mean,
27:58
I'm kind of that saturated,
27:59
like it's not like I need another billion dollars.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't change my life at all, right?
28:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:03
But so the thing that I want to do now basically is just make
28:08
sure the world moves
28:09
SPEAKER_01: forward and try to increase the ROI for humanity essentially.
28:14
What are the things that are maybe big things that wouldn't
28:17
happen otherwise or
28:20
SPEAKER_01: things that would have high leverage?
28:22
If you can make this one thing happen,
28:23
then it unlocks all this other stuff that would be
28:26
SPEAKER_01: very good for humans in general.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:27
And so those are the things that I kind of look for now where
28:30
it's,
28:30
um,
28:31
yeah,
28:31
yeah.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: Just where,
28:32
SPEAKER_01: like,
28:32
SPEAKER_01: what are areas that I can push on that,
28:34
SPEAKER_01: that maybe the rest of the world isn't thinking about or,
28:36
SPEAKER_01: or doesn't have like the risk appetite for,
28:38
SPEAKER_01: or,
28:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:39
SPEAKER_01: things that,
28:40
SPEAKER_01: that,
28:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:40
SPEAKER_01: if,
28:41
SPEAKER_01: if,
28:41
SPEAKER_01: if they did happen,
28:42
SPEAKER_01: like big,
28:42
SPEAKER_01: if true kind of things.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, tell me if these buckets are right.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
28:46
space is an obvious one because you have made large investments
28:49
and we'll get into
28:51
SPEAKER_02: your biggest thing where I imagine you're spending most of your time,
28:54
SPEAKER_02: which is vast in a second.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: It looked like AI was another bucket.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: And then it looked like a bit of longevity stuff.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: Are those the three biggest areas?
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Roughly, yeah.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
29:06
SPEAKER_01: I've done a little bit of longevity things,
29:07
SPEAKER_01: but it actually seems like there's a lot of money going into longevity.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: So I haven't done as much as I kind of first thought I would do.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I do.
29:17
So I think probably the biggest ones are that there's this
29:19
company called Science,
29:20
SPEAKER_01: which Max Hoda,
29:21
SPEAKER_01: you should actually have him on.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: He's super interesting.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: I have had Max Hoda.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, he's an awesome guy.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: So like what they're doing is amazing.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: It's unbelievable.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Great computer interface kind of stuff.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
29:32
basically my general thesis is that like AI is going to change
29:36
our world really
29:36
SPEAKER_01: dramatically.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: We need to do what we can now to keep up.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: The only way humans are relevant is if there's some way we can uplift,
29:43
SPEAKER_01: essentially,
29:44
SPEAKER_01: where we get augmented by computers,
29:45
SPEAKER_01: things like that.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Something like science is super critical to that, I think.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: I think it was largest investor in that.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: Then I've invested in some other AI things.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: I have my own AI effort that I'm working on.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then, and then, yeah.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: So then the other things,
30:04
SPEAKER_01: there's some like climate related things that,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: that I've invested in over the years.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, uh, and then space.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
30:11
Since day one,
30:12
the core memory podcast has been supported by the fine people
30:16
at E1 Ventures.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: They are a young and ambitious VC firm in Silicon Valley,
30:21
SPEAKER_02: investing in young and ambitious companies and people.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much to E1 Ventures for all your support.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: I think we've done more on science than just about anyone.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: Max is a super fascinating character.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: And then there was one time,
30:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
30:38
SPEAKER_02: as I was doing my research,
30:39
it looked like in this moment where Elon was pulling his
30:43
funding out of OpenAI,
30:44
it looked like you were one of the people that helped kind of
30:47
prop it up for a
30:48
SPEAKER_02: while when it was very much a non-profit.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, back when it was still a non-profit.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: I know Greg actually from the stellar days.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Greg Brogman?
30:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: So he helped with the Stellar launch and things like that.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: We've been friends since then.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Originally when he told me,
31:06
SPEAKER_01: hey,
31:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm considering doing this open eye thing,
31:08
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
31:08
SPEAKER_01: wow,
31:08
SPEAKER_01: this is amazing.
31:09
I was very jealous because I wanted to go work on it with him,
31:12
but I was still at Stellar.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: So when they were trying to figure out how to fund the thing,
31:19
because it became clear that they needed a lot more money than
31:22
they originally had.
31:23
um,
31:24
yeah,
31:24
I,
31:24
you know,
31:25
I had,
31:25
I had some that I was able to donate to them.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:27
Do you have thoughts then on Elon's version of,
31:30
of history and,
31:32
and during this period?
31:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, um, you know, like I, I understand both sides of it.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: I see where they're both coming from.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: Like it is, it is a little weird and like, uh, yeah.
31:42
Uh,
31:42
but you know,
31:44
I,
31:44
I think that they were transparent about what was happening.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know that they had much of a choice.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it, it is this very capital intensive thing.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: So,
31:52
SPEAKER_02: No,
31:52
SPEAKER_02: well,
31:53
SPEAKER_02: so you're talking about the weirdness,
31:54
SPEAKER_02: I think,
31:54
is shifting from this kind of open nonprofit to a more of like
31:58
a money-making
31:59
SPEAKER_02: enterprise.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: And then,
32:00
SPEAKER_02: but they,
32:01
SPEAKER_02: but then they're,
32:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
32:03
SPEAKER_02: sometimes I think Elon oversells how much money he had put in to open it.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: Clearly, it did not have enough money to make this.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, it turned out that it needed billions, right?
32:13
SPEAKER_01: So I don't think he's ever claimed to do that much.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
32:17
I think probably the original sin was setting it up as a
32:20
nonprofit in the first
32:21
SPEAKER_01: place,
32:21
SPEAKER_01: probably.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: But at that time, who knew the direction would be, right?
32:26
SPEAKER_01: So obviously,
32:27
SPEAKER_01: all the companies since,
32:28
SPEAKER_01: and even Anthropic,
32:29
SPEAKER_01: which purports to be the most safety-focused one,
32:33
SPEAKER_01: they're still a for-profit company,
32:34
SPEAKER_01: right?
32:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:36
I think nonprofits are not a great structure if you can avoid
32:40
it,
32:41
basically.
32:42
SPEAKER_02: Don't set up as a nonprofit.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: I've been working on this open AI book for a while.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: What do you have thoughts on...
32:51
SPEAKER_02: There is like a bit of,
32:52
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it's like a cult of personality,
32:55
SPEAKER_02: but,
32:55
SPEAKER_02: you know,
32:55
like each one of the major AI players has kind of like a point
33:00
of view and they
33:01
SPEAKER_02: have a pretty powerful person at their helm.
33:05
They all seem to kind of think it would be better if they're
33:09
the ones who get to
33:10
SPEAKER_02: super intelligence first.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm curious as to how you think this all works.
33:16
plays out or if this is a good model sort of like you talk
33:19
about with anthropic i
33:20
mean i do think they have at some level like quite good
33:23
intentions but then the
33:24
reality of the situation is like yeah well you've got to take
33:27
money from google and
33:27
amazon you're like everybody else right i mean the reality is
33:30
they all have good
33:31
intentions right i mean they all that nobody wants the world to
33:34
get destroyed by
33:35
SPEAKER_01: robots or whatever like so like everybody has the same goal uh
33:40
SPEAKER_01: But they don't trust each other.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
33:43
SPEAKER_01: I talk to anthropomorphic people,
33:44
SPEAKER_01: they're like,
33:44
SPEAKER_01: oh,
33:44
SPEAKER_01: the open eye people,
33:45
SPEAKER_01: they're just going to destroy the world.
33:46
And if you talk to the open eye people,
33:47
they'll say the same thing,
33:48
right?
33:48
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of funny.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: Basically,
33:52
SPEAKER_01: they're like,
33:53
SPEAKER_01: well,
33:53
SPEAKER_01: I can't trust anyone else to do this but myself kind of thing,
33:55
which in some sense makes sense because you kind of know your
33:58
own motivations and
33:58
SPEAKER_01: know what you're going to do.
33:59
And this is like this super powerful,
34:01
potentially super powerful technology.
34:04
So I definitely understand the urge of wanting to be the one
34:07
that's putting it out
34:09
SPEAKER_01: into the world,
34:10
SPEAKER_01: not leaving that to other folks.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I find this whole situation comical.
34:14
SPEAKER_02: I think from the outside,
34:15
SPEAKER_02: especially people not in the tech industry,
34:17
SPEAKER_02: there's this general hatred of the tech industry now in Silicon Valley,
34:20
SPEAKER_02: and it's like,
34:21
SPEAKER_02: oh.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: I can't know if that's true or just media-created.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it's true on some level.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how deep it runs.
34:28
SPEAKER_02: I think there is, I think it's like the biggest industry.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: So it's, it, it takes the place of finance or energy or something.
34:35
It's like,
34:35
that's where people are going to put their attention and we
34:38
don't.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: I, I, I think there's some people who love it.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: And then there's some people in the,
34:45
SPEAKER_02: definitely,
34:45
SPEAKER_02: I think in the mainstream,
34:46
SPEAKER_02: it's kind of like,
34:46
SPEAKER_02: uh,
34:47
SPEAKER_02: uh,
34:47
SPEAKER_02: are these people like,
34:49
SPEAKER_02: are they really out for our best interest or not?
34:52
SPEAKER_02: Um,
34:52
SPEAKER_02: I do,
34:53
SPEAKER_02: I think it's,
34:54
SPEAKER_02: I think it's wrong on a pretty fundamental level that people are like,
34:58
SPEAKER_02: oh,
34:59
SPEAKER_02: Elon's evil,
35:00
SPEAKER_02: Sam's evil,
35:01
SPEAKER_02: whatever.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: And then we're actually in a spot where
35:05
We could be in a world where the person making this technology
35:09
didn't care at all
35:10
SPEAKER_02: about what happens.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: We happen to be in a spot where the five biggest players actually
35:18
SPEAKER_02: in my opinion, do think deeply about this stuff.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think they do.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a mistake to think that they don't.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: I think they all definitely care.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: And then the question is like, then I guess how does it play out?
35:28
SPEAKER_02: And then, I mean, I think you summed it up really.
35:31
It is funny to me that they all kind of like hang out together
35:34
or at least did for
35:34
SPEAKER_02: a while,
35:35
SPEAKER_02: but still don't trust each other in the middle of all this.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: Do you regret now not...
35:43
SPEAKER_02: shifting over to work at OpenAI?
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I mean, I don't know.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't really possible at the time.
35:49
I mean,
35:49
I still was very committed to Stellar,
35:51
so I don't know how it could have happened.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: And Stellar, remind me.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: So Stellar is the thing that I started after Ripple.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of another cryptocurrency that I think worked much better.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you were deeply involved in that and had no choice.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: And then
36:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, okay.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: And when you,
36:11
SPEAKER_02: and we're getting to space,
36:13
SPEAKER_02: but when you,
36:14
SPEAKER_02: you,
36:14
SPEAKER_02: you talked about a couple of things that I'm so fascinated by,
36:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
36:17
SPEAKER_02: so you,
36:17
SPEAKER_02: you kind of want to help humanity end up in a good place.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: You, I think like, I think I'm pretty convinced on this.
36:26
You feel that humans are going to have trouble keeping up with
36:30
this next thing.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, for sure.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: So,
36:33
SPEAKER_02: so you want to see a world where we are kind of fused with,
36:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
36:39
SPEAKER_02: if you look at something like science,
36:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
36:41
SPEAKER_02: this is,
36:41
SPEAKER_02: you would be trying to like increase the horsepower of the human mind.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's, that's kind of where you want things to go.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
36:47
SPEAKER_01: I think that's kind of the only option,
36:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:49
SPEAKER_01: kind of regardless of whether I want that to happen or not.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that's, um,
36:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
36:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
36:55
these machines are going to get increasingly more capable and
36:59
smarter and things
36:59
SPEAKER_01: like that.
37:00
And I just don't see a world where we're not ceding more and
37:03
more control to them,
37:04
SPEAKER_01: where they just kind of become kind of integrated with our society.
37:10
Big companies are relying on them more and more to make
37:13
decisions and governments
37:14
SPEAKER_01: even and things like that.
37:14
And so at some point,
37:16
humans just don't even kind of understand what's going on,
37:19
right?
37:19
They're just like,
37:20
okay,
37:20
all this weird stuff is happening and we're not sure why.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: I've got this order to go do this.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm fine.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: I'll do this.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's just...
37:28
uh yeah i think the only way we can kind of keep up i think is
37:32
like is is kind of
37:34
augment our brains with machines so i mean i know it sounds
37:37
crazy but i i just that
37:39
just seems like where we're headed yeah and are you outside of
37:42
that are you because
37:43
SPEAKER_02: i saw that you had funded some stuff along the lines of
37:46
SPEAKER_02: AI research,
37:48
SPEAKER_02: a couple bodies that tend to be more on the,
37:51
SPEAKER_02: um,
37:52
SPEAKER_02: fighting existential risk side of things.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Are you,
37:55
SPEAKER_02: when people talk about,
37:56
SPEAKER_02: oh,
37:56
SPEAKER_02: Anthropic's in the Doomer camp or,
37:58
SPEAKER_02: um,
37:59
SPEAKER_02: the EAs were in the Doomer camp,
38:01
SPEAKER_02: um,
38:02
SPEAKER_02: do you,
38:03
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
38:03
SPEAKER_02: did you come from,
38:04
SPEAKER_02: from that sort of world or are you kind of like,
38:07
SPEAKER_02: let's also accelerate AI as quick as we can?
38:11
Yeah,
38:11
I mean,
38:11
I think I definitely am sympathetic to the Doomer point of
38:15
view.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
38:16
SPEAKER_01: I read a lot of Less Wrong,
38:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:17
SPEAKER_01: way back,
38:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:18
when I first moved to Berkeley and like kind of went to like
38:22
some of their meetups
38:23
SPEAKER_01: or whatever.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: And so...
38:27
SPEAKER_01: This is obviously way before OpenAI,
38:29
but I think one of the issues with it that I've always had is
38:33
that we don't really
38:35
SPEAKER_01: understand the nature of how this AI technology is going to be.
38:38
It's impossible to make a thing safe before you can actually
38:41
understand what the thing is.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: It'd be like in the time before cars, trying to design a seatbelt.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't even like, how could you do this?
38:49
SPEAKER_01: You don't know what the vehicle is.
38:52
So it just seems like you can't really separate these safety
38:56
concerns with capability.
38:57
You have to actually understand how the actual thing is going
39:01
to be built.
39:01
And I fully recognize that that puts us in a very tight
39:06
predicament where...
39:06
SPEAKER_01: It's a small window.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Right, exactly.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: But I also think that the world is...
39:18
SPEAKER_01: like there's kind of like too much,
39:20
SPEAKER_01: like kind of like the only way out is through,
39:22
SPEAKER_01: like you have to kind of keep going.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: Like you can't just like turn back and be like,
39:25
SPEAKER_01: okay,
39:25
SPEAKER_01: we're just not gonna do this whole set of things.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: Like humans themselves are dangerous, right?
39:32
SPEAKER_01: Like there's all these coordination problems in the world.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: like AI aside,
39:36
SPEAKER_01: like the leverage that humans have is just increasing,
39:39
SPEAKER_01: like individual humans have is just increasing.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: And that, that leads to very like chaotic dynamics.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: I think where like,
39:45
if you have some like kind of one rogue individual that can all
39:48
of a sudden like do
39:49
SPEAKER_01: all this bad stuff,
39:49
SPEAKER_01: then,
39:50
SPEAKER_01: then you just end up in a very unstable world.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: And so,
39:55
I just think like in general,
39:56
you want to improve kind of like the collective wisdom of
39:58
people.
39:59
And so that is also what I'm kind of hoping with this like BCI
40:01
stuff is where it
40:03
SPEAKER_01: just improves our ability to like coordinate and like collaborate.
40:06
Cause there's so many things that happen in the world that
40:08
literally no human wants
40:09
SPEAKER_01: to happen,
40:10
SPEAKER_01: but it still happens just because of like coordination problems.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: And so,
40:14
I just feel like there's gotta be a way around that if we're
40:17
just like wiser essentially.
40:19
So like,
40:19
I just feel like humans are,
40:21
you know,
40:22
we evolved out of the stone age.
40:23
Like we're just not,
40:24
we're not evolved to deal with this like increasing capability
40:27
we have.
40:27
We're like literally one person can press a button and like
40:29
destroy whole continents,
40:30
right?
40:31
SPEAKER_01: Like that's not a sustainable world, right?
40:35
SPEAKER_01: AI aside, right?
40:35
SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of think that
40:37
is kind of the only way out of this is the only way out of this
40:40
kind of dilemma
40:40
that we're we're hurtling towards um and we just kind of have
40:44
to like get more
40:45
capable as a as a civilization writ large like humans and
40:49
machines basically so and
40:50
i realize this is a basic question and it's one that
40:53
billionaires get all the time
40:55
but you so as you're like making your calculus on where you're
40:57
going to invest your
40:58
SPEAKER_02: money and you're you're
41:02
SPEAKER_02: doing space,
41:04
a couple of these things where you feel like it's giving
41:07
humanity hope and new
41:09
SPEAKER_02: opportunity.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: How do you run that calculus in your head?
41:12
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I know it's basic.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm just serious.
41:15
SPEAKER_02: You said you do a little climate change.
41:20
SPEAKER_02: Everyone always wants to know,
41:21
why are you investing in the future stuff as opposed to just
41:23
uplifting the worst
41:24
SPEAKER_02: off in society?
41:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not easy, right?
41:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not easy decisions to make, right?
41:34
There's a lot to think through and there's not a clear answer,
41:36
essentially,
41:37
right?
41:37
SPEAKER_01: So I think in general for me, I started off...
41:41
SPEAKER_01: where,
41:42
SPEAKER_01: well,
41:43
SPEAKER_01: as I started to make money,
41:44
I would just kind of invest in random things because I was
41:46
basically focused on my
41:48
SPEAKER_01: core businesses that I was working on.
41:50
And when I stepped back from Stellar,
41:54
at that point,
41:54
I was like,
41:54
okay,
41:55
I've made a ton of money.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: What do I actually want to do?
41:58
SPEAKER_01: Because before that,
42:00
it's kind of you're playing this game of who can get the most
42:02
dollars and you're
42:02
SPEAKER_01: just trying to collect dollars,
42:04
SPEAKER_01: right?
42:04
And you're just focused on that and you're like,
42:06
well,
42:06
I'm doing this for question mark,
42:07
right?
42:08
SPEAKER_01: You don't really think about it that much, I think.
42:10
um but but once you have it you're you you now are no longer in
42:14
this world but it
42:14
doesn't really again like it doesn't really benefit me to make
42:16
more money so then
42:18
what is the best use of this like pool of resources that i have
42:20
available to me um
42:22
and and uh yeah and so then so you know i could invest in like
42:27
lots of random
42:28
things but i think for me personally it's just it's better to
42:30
do kind of like
42:31
SPEAKER_01: larger uh bigger bets so i can kind of understand them more deeply and
42:36
be,
42:36
be more,
42:37
um,
42:37
you know,
42:38
opinionated about what they are,
42:39
things like that.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: And just rather than just,
42:41
SPEAKER_01: and,
42:42
SPEAKER_01: and particularly in things that I didn't think would happen otherwise.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Like I think,
42:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:45
SPEAKER_01: I think,
42:46
SPEAKER_01: um,
42:47
SPEAKER_01: like particularly vast,
42:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't like no one else is going to spend like,
42:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:50
SPEAKER_01: almost a billion dollars to like make a space station just right up that,
42:53
SPEAKER_01: like no one's just going to like trust some random company to do that.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: The only,
42:56
the only way that happens is if like some person just like puts
42:59
their money
43:00
SPEAKER_01: personally in and does it right.
43:01
But I think it's like super important that the United States
43:04
has a space station.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: We don't lose presence in orbit, right?
43:07
SPEAKER_01: And I think that would happen otherwise if VAS didn't exist, right?
43:10
And so you kind of pick things like this where they're just,
43:16
you know,
43:17
there's a deletion test.
43:18
Like if you didn't exist,
43:19
would the world go this way or would it continue on this path,
43:21
right?
43:21
And so it's not really interesting to me to invest in things
43:24
that are like,
43:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
43:25
SPEAKER_01: it'll make some money,
43:25
SPEAKER_01: but like kind of who cares?
43:27
SPEAKER_01: Like it's just a SAS product or something, right?
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: All right.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: Well, you set us up nicely because I want to go deep on Vast.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: So for people who don't know,
43:35
you think you're the chairman right now of Vast Space and the
43:42
company is trying to
43:43
SPEAKER_02: build space habitats.
43:44
We have this long running partnership between the United States
43:49
and Russia on the
43:50
SPEAKER_02: International Space Station.
43:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know that the average person realizes how...
43:56
decayed and and frankly like in my opinion dangerous that place
44:01
is to be putting
44:02
humans in these days and then china has a space station so it
44:06
you know it looks in
44:09
in the iss probably should not not be in space if nothing else
44:14
it's its days are
44:15
numbered um and and then we've had past attempts to make space
44:21
habitats to some
44:22
SPEAKER_02: degree i mean the most famous person in my mind is robert bigelow who
44:26
SPEAKER_02: Ran Bigelow Aerospace for a while.
44:27
This is not a great business,
44:29
uh,
44:29
to,
44:30
to be in space is always,
44:32
always tricky.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: But so when,
44:34
SPEAKER_02: when did you first like get interested in this idea and,
44:37
SPEAKER_02: and I mean,
44:39
SPEAKER_02: tell us the fundamentals of what you're trying to do.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, first, I've always been interested in space.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: I've always had this urge to kind of explore things.
44:48
And as a little kid,
44:49
when they ask,
44:50
what do you want to do when you grow up?
44:51
SPEAKER_01: I would always be like, I want to be an explorer, right?
44:53
SPEAKER_01: But at some point, you realize the Earth is well covered, right?
44:57
SPEAKER_01: We know every nook and cranny.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: And so you just kind of look up the stars and be like,
45:00
SPEAKER_01: oh,
45:00
it'd be awesome to be up there and go to other planets and
45:04
explore this world,
45:04
SPEAKER_01: right?
45:05
SPEAKER_01: And so...
45:07
SPEAKER_01: As I grew up,
45:08
SPEAKER_01: eventually I read this book called Mining the Skies,
45:10
SPEAKER_01: which is about asteroid mining.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: You've probably seen it.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: I own it.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I've actually read it, but I do own it.
45:16
SPEAKER_02: Who wrote that?
45:17
SPEAKER_02: That's not Zubrin, though.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: It's not Zubrin.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: I should know this.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I was like, oh, this is awesome.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: You can actually go and do this.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: I want to do this.
45:26
And then I got a bunch of other books about satellite design
45:30
and all that stuff.
45:31
you know,
45:31
propulsion and like just trying to understand like how you
45:33
would actually do this.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: How old are you when you're doing this?
45:35
SPEAKER_01: This is in my early 20s.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: I was probably like 22 or something like 20, 21, some of that.
45:40
And,
45:40
you know,
45:41
the people I was living with at the time were just kind of like
45:43
joking.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, they didn't take me seriously.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm going to do this.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: And,
45:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:48
SPEAKER_01: I was kind of half joking,
45:49
SPEAKER_01: but the back of my mind is like,
45:50
SPEAKER_01: hey,
45:50
SPEAKER_01: if I ever have the resources to do this,
45:52
SPEAKER_01: this is important.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: I think humans need to get out into space.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: So basically I just think it's like,
45:58
SPEAKER_01: super important for humanity to like get out into the solar system.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: Like if you,
46:02
SPEAKER_01: if everyone is stuck on earth,
46:03
the world just becomes very zero sum and it leads to all these
46:06
like bad effects.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: Like,
46:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
46:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
46:09
SPEAKER_01: people start fighting over things more just like,
46:11
SPEAKER_01: there's just the human psyche needs like a frontier,
46:13
SPEAKER_01: right?
46:13
SPEAKER_01: We've, we've, this is the way we evolved.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: Like it's always been new plans to explore.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: And I think, I think without the promise and like, you know,
46:21
SPEAKER_01: the reality of being able to move out into the solar system, it's bad.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: Besides that, it's economically very useful.
46:31
There's many Earths of resources outside,
46:34
beyond Earth,
46:35
and we should take advantage of that.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: For all those reasons,
46:38
I just think it's important that billions of people live in the
46:40
solar system.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: And so,
46:41
SPEAKER_01: again,
46:42
SPEAKER_01: when I took a step back from Stellar,
46:44
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
46:45
SPEAKER_01: okay,
46:45
SPEAKER_01: this seems like the time to do this.
46:47
Starship is on the horizon,
46:48
and that's going to change the whole economy up there
46:51
drastically.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: It's going to make a lot of stuff easier.
46:54
SPEAKER_01: It's going to unlock tons of economic activity.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: Now seems like a good time to get involved in this.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: And so I...
47:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm from software.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: I've never done hardware things.
47:06
SPEAKER_01: I started asking around, who's the smartest person you know?
47:08
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to hell.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: That knows about aerospace or building things in space.
47:15
I got introduced to someone and I asked them and they'd get
47:17
introduced to another set of people.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, I found this set of folks that were ex-SpaceX guys.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: They all seemed super sharp.
47:24
SPEAKER_01: They knew what they were talking about.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Very practical.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of people in the space world that are
47:30
SPEAKER_01: have these kind of like far-out ideas,
47:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:33
SPEAKER_01: that probably close physically,
47:35
SPEAKER_01: but they're like science experiments and like,
47:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:38
they're not ready for like prime time and there's a lot of
47:41
those guys and it's
47:41
SPEAKER_01: cool.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
47:42
it's kind of like the O'Neill Cylinder thing where like people
47:44
have these like
47:44
SPEAKER_01: grand designs for what could be,
47:47
SPEAKER_01: you know?
47:47
SPEAKER_01: No, well, but yeah, the worst...
47:50
SPEAKER_02: a wealthy person coming to visit those people.
47:53
SPEAKER_02: This is very dangerous.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: They get very excited.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they get very excited.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: But this set of guys was, again, very practical.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: They all were ex-SpaceX,
48:06
so they're kind of steeped in that way of doing engineering and
48:09
the way of building
48:10
SPEAKER_01: things,
48:10
SPEAKER_01: which I think has obviously been super successful in the way to go.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: And so kind of teamed up with them and started building the team and
48:19
landed on the idea of okay you know if you want a billion
48:21
people living in space
48:22
what are the steps to get there what are the path and the first
48:25
step is obviously
48:26
like getting mass cheaply to orbit which again i think starship
48:28
is going to achieve
48:29
and like even falcon 9 is like way cheaper than before um and
48:33
then the next step is
48:34
human habitation like how do you allow people to live for long
48:36
periods of time so
48:36
we kind of started to explore that and like figure out what we
48:39
would need to do
48:40
SPEAKER_02: And I never,
48:41
SPEAKER_02: I never dug in deep on Robert Bigelow,
48:44
SPEAKER_02: but I mean,
48:44
SPEAKER_02: he,
48:44
SPEAKER_02: he was like trying to build space habitats for a really long time.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: Right.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: Were there lessons?
48:49
SPEAKER_02: Did you look at that?
48:50
SPEAKER_02: What did you learn?
48:51
SPEAKER_02: And they, I think they're out of business now.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: They went bankrupt.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
48:55
SPEAKER_01: I think,
48:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:56
SPEAKER_01: I think again,
48:57
SPEAKER_01: like I applaud the,
48:58
SPEAKER_01: the effort and like,
48:59
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
48:59
SPEAKER_01: again,
49:00
one of these few people that is willing to like kind of put
49:02
their money where their
49:02
SPEAKER_01: mouth is and like actually like try to make this happen.
49:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think, uh, he, he,
49:07
I mean,
49:07
I don't know the details of it,
49:09
but I assume it's just probably the wrong team.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: Space is very hard.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Really, the challenge is getting the right team.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't do that, then it just goes off the rails.
49:17
There are so many failed rocket companies before Elon came and
49:20
made SpaceX.
49:21
And if you just don't have the right folks to do it,
49:24
it just won't happen.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: And there's details on the vast website for people who want to go look,
49:30
SPEAKER_02: but for people who haven't,
49:32
SPEAKER_02: describe what you're building first and then second.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: So the plan is, like you mentioned, ISS is getting old.
49:39
SPEAKER_01: It's scheduled to come down in 2030, right?
49:42
SPEAKER_01: And NASA is looking for,
49:44
they put out this called commercial LEO destinations where
49:47
they're looking for
49:48
private companies to build the next ISS essentially right and
49:51
so so our plan is
49:54
because we're relatively new we started like three and a half
49:56
years ago so we're
49:57
pretty much an unknown in aerospace world so the only way to
50:01
and kind of the goal
50:02
is to win this contract right and so the only way to do that is
50:05
to prove that you
50:06
SPEAKER_01: can actually like
50:07
SPEAKER_01: operate a space station and like that you know what you're doing.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: And so,
50:11
SPEAKER_01: so our plan is to,
50:12
SPEAKER_01: to essentially launch an MVP space station,
50:14
SPEAKER_01: which is called Haven one.
50:15
SPEAKER_01: It's launching next year on Falcon nine.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: So it basically just fits right inside the Falcon nine fairing.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: It fits four people, you know, can support four people for, you know,
50:24
SPEAKER_01: The nominal mission plan is two weeks, but it can go longer or shorter.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: What happens is Haven 1 launches up there with no people.
50:32
Eventually,
50:32
Dragon comes,
50:33
which is the crew capsule that brings people back and forth to
50:36
ISS.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: It docks to Haven 1.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: Now there's four people that cohabitate Dragon and Haven 1.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: It gives you a lot more space than just a free-flying Dragon.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so Dragon stays attached.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Dragon has to stay attached because we're kind of,
50:48
SPEAKER_01: again,
50:48
SPEAKER_01: we're trying to build like the simplest thing we can.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: And so we're actually depending on a lot of the life support from Dragon.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: So we work closely with SpaceX to get that to happen.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, so that's kind of the first step.
50:57
And the idea is to get that up before NASA makes a
50:59
determination of who they're
51:01
SPEAKER_01: picking to build the next diasets,
51:03
SPEAKER_01: right?
51:03
SPEAKER_01: And so...
51:04
The hope is that we'll be the only company that's ever operated
51:07
a space station
51:08
SPEAKER_01: before,
51:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
51:09
SPEAKER_01: first commercial company to ever do this.
51:11
SPEAKER_01: Like, it'll just make us a very credible candidate to win this contract.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: And you said, sorry, that was 2028?
51:18
SPEAKER_02: Is that for that launch?
51:19
SPEAKER_02: No, 26.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: 26?
51:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh, right next year.
51:22
SPEAKER_02: Right there.
51:22
SPEAKER_02: And then you're already,
51:24
it looks like you're already working on at least the designs
51:27
for a bigger one.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: That's right, yeah.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: So we're kind of like roughing out the design for what we call Haven 2,
51:34
SPEAKER_01: which is like the CLD winner,
51:37
SPEAKER_01: right?
51:38
SPEAKER_01: So it's more modules, it's probably bigger than modules.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: If Starship starts rolling,
51:43
SPEAKER_01: then maybe we'll have some Starship modules,
51:45
SPEAKER_01: but at first it's just Falcon 9 modules.
51:48
And so you connect several of these together and you can
51:51
satisfy the requirements of CLD.
51:53
SPEAKER_02: And it looked almost like Legos.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: You had this thing in the center,
51:55
and then you're talking about these modules that you can go out
51:58
almost like legs
51:59
SPEAKER_02: off this central thing.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: Am I interpreting this right?
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Flexible?
52:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very flexible.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: So each one of these modules is like,
52:05
SPEAKER_01: because Haven 1 is like this independent spacecraft,
52:07
SPEAKER_01: essentially.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: It's got its own propulsion, its own power.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: It can just move around and do its own thing.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: And so the idea is that each one of these is this independent thing.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: So you connect them in one configuration, and then if you need to
52:19
SPEAKER_01: So the first goal is to connect three of these kind of in a row.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: So you have like this line of things.
52:24
And eventually you want this core module in the middle so you
52:26
can do like a couple
52:27
SPEAKER_01: spokes off of it.
52:29
And then you can remove these modules around if need be,
52:32
things like that.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: And it would be a mix of NASA-style astronauts.
52:38
SPEAKER_02: With Haven 2,
52:40
and then you would have private people who want to go spend a
52:42
couple weeks up
52:43
SPEAKER_01: there.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: That's right, yeah.
52:44
So yeah,
52:45
even for Haven 1,
52:46
we're targeting mainly national astronaut programs.
52:48
SPEAKER_01: So NASA, sure, but also other countries.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: There's lots of astronauts in the world that are not from the US.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: And so we're targeting those and then some private individuals as well.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and you've said that
53:02
SPEAKER_02: I think I read this.
53:03
I mean,
53:04
you would put a billion,
53:05
billion dollars into this to try and make a go of it.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: It's around there.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: Like that's how much you have put in or that's how much you would...
53:14
SPEAKER_01: I put in a little bit short of that.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
53:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: So this is no joke.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: And I should know this,
53:18
SPEAKER_02: but that NASA contract you're talking about,
53:21
SPEAKER_02: is that meant to be,
53:22
SPEAKER_02: again,
53:23
SPEAKER_02: a joint US-Russian...
53:24
SPEAKER_01: No, it's, no, it's just, it's just NASA.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: So the NASA is there.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: So they've totally outsources.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: They're, they're not trying to build.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: They're not trying to build it.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: So they,
53:33
they basically want to do what they've kind of done with like
53:36
with Falcon nine and
53:37
SPEAKER_01: launch and stuff like that,
53:37
where they just essentially like find commercial alternatives
53:40
that can do this at,
53:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:42
SPEAKER_01: with, they, they want, they don't want to be the sole funder.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: So they, they want us to have business outside of NASA as well.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: So,
53:47
SPEAKER_01: so that,
53:48
SPEAKER_01: that,
53:48
SPEAKER_01: that kind of,
53:49
it keeps you honest to some degree because you have to have a
53:51
product that's like
53:52
SPEAKER_01: commercially viable.
53:53
And the hope is that we can slowly like wean off of like
53:55
governments having to
53:55
SPEAKER_01: support this whole thing.
53:56
And I'm a total space story,
53:58
but Space Habitats is a thing I fell behind on.
54:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, isn't there, there's like Axios is a... Axiom.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: Axiom is a competitor that they're also trying to make Space Habitats.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
54:09
SPEAKER_01: They started many years before us.
54:11
SPEAKER_01: It was sort of started by like ex-NASA folks.
54:15
okay yeah because they're based in houston i think and and how
54:19
many competitors do
54:19
you expect to have for this contract i don't know we'll see i
54:22
mean um they did they
54:24
did a phase one of this like right when vast launch so we
54:28
couldn't bid for it yet
54:28
because we weren't we didn't have the team yet um and i think
54:31
there was like three
54:32
winners of that of that um so maybe those folks will probably
54:36
there was three
54:36
winners of that and then also axiom was had a contract from
54:39
before so they couldn't
54:39
SPEAKER_01: bid but
54:40
SPEAKER_01: But so there might be like four other people, three people.
54:44
SPEAKER_01: But again,
54:44
SPEAKER_01: like none of them really,
54:45
SPEAKER_01: Axiom has some hardware,
54:47
SPEAKER_01: but no one else really has hardware.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: It's all just been paper design.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: So whereas we have like,
54:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:52
SPEAKER_01: a primary,
54:53
SPEAKER_01: like a qual unit built that we've like,
54:54
SPEAKER_01: we're testing in Mojave right now,
54:56
SPEAKER_01: that our primary structure is going to be done quite soon.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's actual stuff, right?
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Like again, we're launching in a year, right?
55:03
SPEAKER_01: With or without CLD, we're launching.
55:05
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so I think it was just like way further ahead technically.
55:09
Are there any of the traditional like Boeings and Lockheeds
55:12
trying to get into this?
55:14
SPEAKER_01: I think Northrop has some,
55:16
SPEAKER_01: but yeah,
55:18
SPEAKER_01: Voyager is one of the bidders and yeah,
55:22
SPEAKER_01: Blue Origin might,
55:23
SPEAKER_01: they won the original thing.
55:24
SPEAKER_01: It's unclear what they're going to bid in the next one.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: The RFP hasn't come out yet.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: And the company is based in Long Beach?
55:32
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
55:32
SPEAKER_02: And so you've been building hardware in Long Beach.
55:34
SPEAKER_02: And then when you do the test at Mojave, do you go out to FAR?
55:39
SPEAKER_02: Or what kind of tests happen in Mojave for a space station?
55:43
SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: So it's basically a pressure test.
55:46
SPEAKER_01: So we took over Virgin's facility out there.
55:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that was a nice place.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: Rest in peace.
55:53
SPEAKER_01: So it's by the airport out there.
55:55
SPEAKER_01: There's actually a lot of random space companies testing stuff out there.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of cool.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: I've been... I love that spot.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
56:03
So we built this big test data,
56:06
this structure to hold the module up,
56:08
right?
56:08
SPEAKER_01: So the module's stood up on end,
56:10
SPEAKER_01: and then we pressure test it to make sure it can hold pressure and...
56:13
we put all these loads on it to like simulate launch and make
56:16
sure it doesn't like
56:16
spring leak or whatever um and we've been doing that for the
56:19
last few months oh i
56:20
remember this now so virgin orbit was going to be a rocket
56:22
company that sent
56:23
satellites up to space and they went bankrupt and then their
56:26
assets got split
56:27
between you guys and rocket lab i think right okay right and so
56:30
so you got the i
56:31
went out to the test day with george whitesides the original
56:34
studio i mean it was a
56:35
glorious facility yeah so so you guys you run that now yep yep
56:40
yeah we took that
56:40
SPEAKER_01: over
56:40
Okay,
56:41
and then if you fly in 2026,
56:44
how long after it's up there does a human get sent there?
56:49
SPEAKER_01: Probably around three months, maybe.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then SpaceX, I'm sure, is excited about this.
56:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, do you talk to Elon or Gwen or somebody directly about all this?
56:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I've talked to Gwen about it.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we work with them a lot.
57:02
SPEAKER_01: Our teams are very collaborative because,
57:04
SPEAKER_01: again,
57:05
SPEAKER_01: we're using Dragon,
57:06
SPEAKER_01: so the engineering teams have to very much be in sync.
57:11
And I think,
57:11
you know,
57:12
for them,
57:12
like we're like the perfect customer for Starship.
57:15
SPEAKER_01: So,
57:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
57:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
57:16
SPEAKER_01: the hope is that we,
57:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
57:17
SPEAKER_01: build this,
57:18
SPEAKER_01: get this contract,
57:19
SPEAKER_01: build this station and like are launching modules,
57:21
SPEAKER_01: launching crew,
57:22
SPEAKER_01: launching like resupply,
57:23
SPEAKER_01: things like that.
57:23
So we'll be using Starship a lot if we,
57:27
you know,
57:27
if we get to that level.
57:28
So,
57:29
you know,
57:30
they,
57:31
you know,
57:31
I would assume that they're like very excited about it.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: That's what they seem to be.
57:34
And just some context for people outside of the space who don't
57:38
follow us.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so Starship is SpaceX's much, much, much larger rocket.
57:42
And the idea is that you could just carry way more stuff than
57:45
we have before and do
57:47
SPEAKER_02: so more economically.
57:48
SPEAKER_02: So you can start putting big industrial scale things up there.
57:51
SPEAKER_02: So it makes something like this, the math check out a lot better.
57:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it really does.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: So not only is it a launch cost,
57:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
57:59
SPEAKER_01: they haven't really announced the official launch cost,
58:01
SPEAKER_01: but kind of what the rumors are.
58:03
SPEAKER_01: Not only are the launch costs like way lower,
58:05
SPEAKER_01: they're like,
58:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
58:05
SPEAKER_01: maybe a couple of order magnitudes lower than the current ones.
58:09
But the fact that the launch cost is cheaper means that you can
58:13
build your stuff at it.
58:14
SPEAKER_01: You're not as mass constrained anymore.
58:16
And so most of the cost of like space infrastructure,
58:19
like satellites and things like that is...
58:21
SPEAKER_01: The fact that there's a mass constraint, right?
58:23
SPEAKER_01: There's a mass constraint and it's harder to replace things.
58:26
So you have to kind of over-engineer everything and kind of try
58:29
to shave off every little gram.
58:30
But if you don't have to do that anymore,
58:31
then all of a sudden everything is like way cheaper.
58:32
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of,
58:33
it's got this cool feedback effect where it's not just that the
58:35
launch cost has
58:36
SPEAKER_01: gone down,
58:36
SPEAKER_01: but it has,
58:38
but it like cascades into all these other things where it just
58:41
makes the whole
58:41
SPEAKER_01: project like way cheaper and like
58:43
SPEAKER_01: And because it's cheaper, you can iterate faster.
58:45
SPEAKER_01: You don't really care.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: It's less of a catastrophe if your thing blows up.
58:48
So maybe you can launch three of them rather than one of them
58:51
and have lower
58:52
SPEAKER_01: tolerances on everything.
58:53
SPEAKER_01: So it really will lead to,
58:54
SPEAKER_01: not just for us,
58:55
SPEAKER_01: but just for the whole ecosystem,
58:57
SPEAKER_01: being able to do a lot,
58:58
SPEAKER_01: lot more in space.
58:59
SPEAKER_01: So I really think it's going to unlock things tremendously.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
59:02
SPEAKER_02: Not convinced, I believe, the launch costs on Starship yet.
59:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, it was, I mean, you know, it will be lower than Falcon 9 for sure.
59:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
59:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it'd be like $20 a kilogram or anything,
59:14
SPEAKER_01: but,
59:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
59:15
SPEAKER_01: even getting down to like 600 a kilogram would be,
59:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
59:18
SPEAKER_01: that would be totally game-changing.
59:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
59:20
And there's this,
59:21
there's part of this where you just want this to happen.
59:22
SPEAKER_02: You think it's good for humanity.
59:24
SPEAKER_02: You're putting up an enormous sum of money.
59:28
SPEAKER_02: Like,
59:29
do you spend a lot of time trying to turn this into a
59:33
profitable business or,
59:34
SPEAKER_02: or really it's,
59:35
SPEAKER_02: it's just,
59:36
SPEAKER_02: you want this to happen?
59:36
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it has to be a profitable business.
59:38
SPEAKER_01: Like that, that's, that's the whole thing.
59:40
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I mean, I have, I have a lot of money, sure.
59:42
SPEAKER_01: But, but I don't have like infinite amount of money and like,
59:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't really have a lot of money to like for space station business,
59:47
SPEAKER_01: like ISS costs like $155 billion,
59:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
59:50
SPEAKER_01: like I don't have that much.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
59:52
So,
59:53
so,
59:53
so it does,
59:54
it definitely has to be like a,
59:55
like a commercial concern.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: I think it's just,
59:58
SPEAKER_01: it takes a lot of money to like cross this like activation barrier,
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: but once you're there,
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: like it,
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: that it should be like this viable business.
1:00:04
And that's,
1:00:04
that's really the,
1:00:05
the,
1:00:06
the future of space has to be market driven.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: Like it has to like,
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: There has to be a market reason why all this works.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: It can't just be people like me that just really are passionate about it.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: There has to be an economic engine that's driving this whole thing.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: And so you'd get this government contract.
1:00:21
You would have governments that want to send people up there
1:00:24
for research,
1:00:25
SPEAKER_02: all sorts of different programs.
1:00:27
And then do we have any idea what a person might pay for two
1:00:31
weeks on the station?
1:00:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it depends.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, right now it costs, it's like 62 million for us.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: But,
1:00:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:41
SPEAKER_01: that will hopefully go down as like if Starship starts carrying crew,
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: then that should go down a lot.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_01: So it's, yeah, it's obviously like quite expensive right now.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: And again, this is why I think, but it's not linear, right?
1:00:54
Like,
1:00:54
so if you drop the price in half,
1:00:55
it's not like now twice as many people want to go.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_01: It's probably like four times as many people want to go.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_01: And so like,
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: if they're able to really drop it by 10 times,
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: it's going to be like a lot of people.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Bill, you must have done math on some of this stuff.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you could tell me, what's your most optimistic?
1:01:09
SPEAKER_02: Everything goes right.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: Starship is cruising along.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_02: You've got the second station up and running.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, call it the year 2035 or pick 2040 if you want.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: How many people are going to space at what price to stay there?
1:01:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it kind of doesn't make sense.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, for me, I just want to pick directional things.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_01: Clearly, there'll be a lot more.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_01: There'll be a lot more economic activity.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: There'll be a lot more people.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_01: There'll be more reason to go to space.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: If all of those are directionally correct,
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: like putting the exact numbers on them,
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: you're just kind of doing random.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: You're just guessing the spreadsheet, essentially.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't really tell you much.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to humor me with my question.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: It would just be a random number.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I think...
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: So definitely,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:58
SPEAKER_01: if,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_01: if Starship is working and it's like,
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: let's say like a 10th the price of Falcon nine and it does crew,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: I will easily have like thousands of people that want to be in space.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
1:02:12
And you have not gone the route of...
1:02:16
I used to hang out with Mark Shuttleworth a lot.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: He was like one of the first space tourists.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: He went to the ISS.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_02: I think he paid around 60 million bucks or something, if I remember.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_02: Jared Isaacman has done all these crazy things, getting rides on...
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: Dragon and,
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: and,
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: and been part of this whole beginning of this like private astronomy,
1:02:35
SPEAKER_02: but you,
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: you haven't,
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: you haven't,
1:02:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't even think you've,
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: you haven't been on blue origin even.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, that's not my prime motivation.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think, I think it would be awesome to do.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: I,
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm,
1:02:47
I'm very thankful that people want to do that because I think
1:02:49
it unlocks a lot of
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: this stuff.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: Um,
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: but it,
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: it's,
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: it's not why I'm doing baths so I can like go to space and see stuff.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: I think,
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: I'll be interested if we can go to another planet,
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: but,
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: but,
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: and,
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: and I think probably one day I will,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: but it's,
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: again,
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: it's just not,
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: it's not what's like driving me to do that.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_02: So you're not, are you a pilot or anything?
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_02: So you don't do that, that, that path or anything?
1:03:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's cool.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_01: It just, it doesn't suit my personality.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: Do you, so do you find yourself in SoCal a lot?
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: Are you there on like a day-to-day?
1:03:18
Is this,
1:03:19
is this kind of like your primary,
1:03:21
um,
1:03:21
where you spend your time?
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: I spend maybe a little bit less than half my time on this.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: So, so yeah, I'm not there day-to-day.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm, I'm, uh, I was in the beginning.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_01: I was spending almost all my time on it,
1:03:30
SPEAKER_01: but,
1:03:30
SPEAKER_01: but now,
1:03:31
SPEAKER_01: now there's a full-time CEO who's doing an awesome job and,
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: and he,
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: he,
1:03:35
SPEAKER_01: he like,
1:03:35
SPEAKER_01: he runs a day-to-day and I,
1:03:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:37
SPEAKER_01: check with him.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_01: I've talked to him every day, but.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_01: It's Max, Max, right?
1:03:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_01: He's an interesting character.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: And then you're also an investor in Firefly.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah.
1:03:48
I mean,
1:03:48
Astera,
1:03:49
this foundation I set up,
1:03:50
invested in it technically,
1:03:51
but yeah.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_02: I think you came in,
1:03:54
SPEAKER_02: I wrote a lot about Max Polyakov,
1:03:56
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:03:56
SPEAKER_02: one of them who saved it from bankruptcy.
1:03:58
And then I think you saved it when Max had an unceremonious
1:04:03
exit from Firefly.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:04:07
So,
1:04:07
and then,
1:04:08
and then how else do you divide your,
1:04:11
your time these days then?
1:04:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_01: So, so most of it I spent, I have this small AI research lab.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_01: I spend most of it.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_01: And what was it called?
1:04:17
SPEAKER_01: It's called Astera.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_01: Astera Institute.
1:04:20
It's like a private foundation that,
1:04:22
that I,
1:04:22
you know,
1:04:23
I started in Berkeley.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_02: It's got an awesome group of people who work there.
1:04:28
What are you guys,
1:04:29
is it mostly focused around trying to make sure this goes okay?
1:04:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
1:04:34
SPEAKER_01: basically it's doing like some frontier science things that,
1:04:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:04:37
SPEAKER_01: again,
1:04:38
like things that I don't think we get funded otherwise that I
1:04:39
think are important.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
1:04:41
SPEAKER_01: but,
1:04:41
SPEAKER_01: but mainly we're focused on like,
1:04:42
SPEAKER_01: okay,
1:04:43
SPEAKER_01: if we think the world is going to change drastically like this,
1:04:45
SPEAKER_01: and we're going to this like crazy AI future,
1:04:48
SPEAKER_01: how do we navigate that?
1:04:48
SPEAKER_01: How do we make sure that humans still have a role?
1:04:51
Like,
1:04:51
you know,
1:04:51
we're,
1:04:52
we're kind of brought along for the ride and it doesn't go bad.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_02: And I run into like a group of people who seem convinced we have to,
1:05:02
SPEAKER_02: model the brain much more deeply,
1:05:04
SPEAKER_02: simulate the brain,
1:05:06
and then somehow infuse that into these AI systems so that they
1:05:10
have like,
1:05:11
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
1:05:12
SPEAKER_02: humanity at their essence.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: Like I philosophically and conceptually understand this.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_02: It seems also that there's a lot of vagaries that need to be worked out.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, is that at all anything that you're interested in?
1:05:25
SPEAKER_02: Or do you have, when you start thinking about how you want this to end up
1:05:30
SPEAKER_02: Positively,
1:05:32
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
1:05:32
SPEAKER_02: do you have a...
1:05:34
SPEAKER_02: When you're saying that,
1:05:34
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: there's some things other people won't invest in,
1:05:37
SPEAKER_02: do you have a path for safety that you feel is unique for you guys?
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: I think...
1:05:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:05:46
SPEAKER_01: for the safety stuff,
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: again,
1:05:48
I think safety is very hard to work on at this stage because we
1:05:50
don't really know
1:05:51
SPEAKER_01: how these things are going to work.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:05:53
SPEAKER_01: we do have some safety efforts,
1:05:55
SPEAKER_01: and I think they're different than what other people are working on,
1:05:58
SPEAKER_01: and I'm excited about them.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's very hard to make progress on that.
1:06:05
I think the main safety effort is really just trying to
1:06:10
understand how these models
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: work and what's actually going on.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_01: And then I think maybe if you understand how they work better,
1:06:16
SPEAKER_01: then you have some chance of making them safe.
1:06:23
Yeah,
1:06:25
in terms of do you want to infuse the human mind into these
1:06:28
things?
1:06:31
I mean,
1:06:32
you definitely want them to have kind of the same general
1:06:36
values as humans.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, again, there's no one human.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_01: That's the part I never get.
1:06:41
SPEAKER_01: There's definitely humans I strongly disagree with.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_01: But I think,
1:06:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:06:47
SPEAKER_01: honestly,
1:06:47
I think the way this is going to go well is if there's like a
1:06:52
multiplicity of these
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: things.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_01: Like I think, again, if you just have a one central thing,
1:06:57
SPEAKER_01: It's just very easy for it to go wrong.
1:06:59
So you kind of need like a whole like ecosystem of different
1:07:03
agents essentially
1:07:04
SPEAKER_01: that are,
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:07:05
maybe they have their own drives and maybe some of them are
1:07:07
kind of doing things
1:07:08
SPEAKER_01: you don't like,
1:07:08
SPEAKER_01: but there's enough people that are like agents that are that,
1:07:12
SPEAKER_01: that it makes up for that.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you just need this checks and balances.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_01: Essentially.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_01: You can't just have like one thing.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_02: I think we're in this interesting moment.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_02: This is the last couple of questions.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_02: These can be vaguely rapid fire, I guess, but go wherever you want.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:07:28
SPEAKER_02: I feel like when ChatGPT came out,
1:07:30
SPEAKER_02: suddenly we had this sense like,
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: oh,
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: by the time we get to ChatGPT5,
1:07:34
SPEAKER_02: like that's maybe super intelligence.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_02: And then,
1:07:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
1:07:37
SPEAKER_02: this field,
1:07:38
it's progressed in funny ways to me where it's both dramatic
1:07:42
and not at times.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_02: And then it feels like right now we're in this
1:07:46
SPEAKER_02: this almost like fine-tuning epic where we're seeing steady progress,
1:07:50
SPEAKER_02: but it's not some...
1:07:51
SPEAKER_02: you just wake up and there's some crazy great leap forward,
1:07:54
and then yet a lot of people I talk to who are very smart that
1:07:57
are in this field
1:07:58
SPEAKER_02: are like,
1:07:58
SPEAKER_02: nope,
1:07:58
SPEAKER_02: for sure,
1:07:59
SPEAKER_02: three years,
1:08:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:02
SPEAKER_02: superintelligence,
1:08:03
SPEAKER_02: however you want to define it,
1:08:04
SPEAKER_02: is here.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, everyone's always looking for dates on these things.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:08:10
SPEAKER_02: do you ever put a guess on...
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: I definitely put many guesses,
1:08:14
SPEAKER_01: but,
1:08:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:08:15
SPEAKER_01: I think...
1:08:16
SPEAKER_01: I sort of agree with basically what you're saying.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_01: I think both are true, basically.
1:08:21
SPEAKER_01: Things are improving.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_01: GPT-5, I'm sure, will be awesome.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it'll be groundbreaking or not, but it...
1:08:31
SPEAKER_01: I don't think just scaling that thing up is going to get us to like super
1:08:34
SPEAKER_01: intelligence or like general level of intelligence.
1:08:36
I think there's just like some fundamental things that are
1:08:38
missing with it.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_01: This is basically what we work on is like,
1:08:41
SPEAKER_01: what are these fundamental things and how do you make those things?
1:08:44
SPEAKER_01: And I don't really think,
1:08:45
SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen any good answers for what they are,
1:08:47
SPEAKER_01: but at the same time,
1:08:49
SPEAKER_01: I think that we are probably like,
1:08:51
Definitely five years away from this AGI thing because there's
1:08:56
just so many people
1:08:57
and so much money and so much attention on this space that
1:09:02
people are going to
1:09:03
SPEAKER_01: figure out what these algorithms are.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_01: They're going to discover this stuff.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_01: There's just too much...
1:09:10
SPEAKER_01: focus on it right now.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:09:12
Before,
1:09:12
you know,
1:09:13
before open AI,
1:09:13
essentially,
1:09:14
you know,
1:09:14
there was a few people working on it.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why timelines were just very vague.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_01: Like it could be,
1:09:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:09:18
you're just waiting for some random discoveries and now we're
1:09:20
still kind of waiting
1:09:21
SPEAKER_01: for some random discoveries,
1:09:22
but there's just so many people like focused on finding these
1:09:25
things out and
1:09:26
SPEAKER_01: there's so much economic motive to do that.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: It's just, it's going to happen.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: And it's going to happen pretty soon.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_02: Totally unrelated to having you on the show.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_02: I was, I was,
1:09:38
just being an idiot with all my um a is a couple nights ago and
1:09:42
i just randomly i
1:09:45
did deep research on on gemini claude and chat gpt and asked
1:09:49
them to tell me they
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: could only pick one person who was satoshi
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: I tried to try to prompt it, try to put some constraints.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: I was like, you can't weasel out of this.
1:09:59
SPEAKER_02: You have to pick one.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_02: Who would you pick?
1:10:02
SPEAKER_02: And I, I think this means nothing, but I found it funny.
1:10:05
All three of them pick somebody different,
1:10:06
which I was actually surprised,
1:10:08
surprised by.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_02: Um,
1:10:10
SPEAKER_02: I,
1:10:10
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I would,
1:10:11
SPEAKER_02: I'd be doing myself a disservice if I did not ask you,
1:10:14
SPEAKER_02: do you,
1:10:14
SPEAKER_02: who's,
1:10:15
SPEAKER_02: who's your best Satoshi,
1:10:16
SPEAKER_02: uh,
1:10:17
yeah I don't remember the guy's name but there was there was
1:10:19
some article where
1:10:20
someone actually finally did a convincing like deep dive on who
1:10:23
it was it was like
1:10:24
I think some like grad student that has now died so okay but I
1:10:28
don't remember the
1:10:29
guy's name so you're not even it's not like it kind of doesn't
1:10:32
matter it doesn't
1:10:33
SPEAKER_02: matter I also find it
1:10:37
the world doesn't have like that many histories where something
1:10:40
like this one.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_02: And this is like,
1:10:42
this is kind of like different to the other ones because I
1:10:46
assume this person must
1:10:47
SPEAKER_02: be dead because if they're not,
1:10:48
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
1:10:49
SPEAKER_02: if they're not dead,
1:10:50
then this is like the only person in history who could like
1:10:53
actually keep a secret
1:10:56
SPEAKER_02: of this magnitude.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_02: So this person would be like a,
1:11:00
I actually think it makes it more interesting because this
1:11:02
person would be such a
1:11:03
SPEAKER_02: unique figure.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_02: So, but to you, it's just not important.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, it doesn't seem that important to me.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:11:15
SPEAKER_01: it'd be cool if I knew them,
1:11:16
SPEAKER_01: but like,
1:11:16
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
1:11:17
SPEAKER_01: like I said,
1:11:18
SPEAKER_01: I think it's probably just like...
1:11:21
SPEAKER_01: yeah, some random researcher that has now died.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:11:25
Chad,
1:11:26
Chad McCaleb,
1:11:26
thank you so much for your,
1:11:28
your,
1:11:28
so much,
1:11:29
so many interesting things.
1:11:31
Um,
1:11:31
I'm envious of like all the worlds you get to explore and,
1:11:35
and,
1:11:36
um,
1:11:36
and,
1:11:37
and I think,
1:11:38
If I'm not wrong,
1:11:39
we have like an invitation to come film vast sometime,
1:11:42
right?
1:11:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you should definitely come now.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: It's way more interesting than me.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_01: It's like actual hardware.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_01: You can see.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_01: And should we Long Beach and Mojave or mostly Long Beach?
1:11:51
SPEAKER_01: If you have time, it would be cool to see the testing.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, definitely Long Beach and then maybe Mojave.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_02: We'll make that happen.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, thank you for your time.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Ashley.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_02: All right.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_02: The Core Memory Podcast is hosted by me, Ashley Vance.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_02: It is produced by David Nicholson and me.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_02: Our theme song is by James Mercer and John Sortland.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_02: And the show is edited by the John Sortland.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_02: Thanks as always to Brex.
1:12:27
anyone ventures for making this possible please visit our
1:12:31
Substack youtube and
1:12:34
SPEAKER_02: podcast channels to get more of what core memory makes thanks y'all