Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: Viral dark money investigation, Shein questionable AI Models & Ripple's female co-founder interview

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MINI TECH SCROLL: Viral dark money investigation, Shein questionable AI Models & Ripple's female co-founder interview · Mini Scroll

0:00
This episode of Mini Tech Scroll is brought to you by Blackbird,
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a venture capital firm investing in Aussie and Kiwi startups from
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like Protostars, the Blackbird Foundation offers support to
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young people working on passion projects like Nicole Moses, who
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learn chats to at the end of today's episode.
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So if you're working on something you want to take to
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So if you're looking for funding, community and support,
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check out the link to apply in our show notes.
0:38
Hey everyone and welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
0:41
culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
0:43
media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
0:47
through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
0:49
My name is Annabelle and I'm your Wednesday Mini Tech Scroll
0:51
host and also the deputy editor of the youth digital media brand
0:55
Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Tech
0:58
Scroll. As you will probably gathered
1:00
today, we have another interview with Lauren at the end of this
1:03
episode. So definitely stick around for
1:05
that. Before we get into the stories
1:07
this week, Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
1:10
Anything you do is helpful. We also have a buy me a coffee
1:14
link in our description if you want to check that out.
1:16
OK, let's get to the stories. And for this week, I only have
1:19
two stories before the interview because one of them is a very
1:23
big one. But yes, let's just get into it.
1:25
So recent reporting has found that a dark money group is
1:28
funding influences to push out a specific political agenda in the
1:31
United States. This story was absolutely
1:34
everywhere last weekend. It does fear a little bit more
1:37
political rather than tech, but I'm sure you guys have picked up
1:40
on this by this point. But the crossover between
1:43
Internet culture, tech, and politics is literally what I
1:45
find most interesting. My International Relations and
1:48
American Studies degree is showing.
1:50
But since this story is quite comprehensive and has caused a
1:54
lot of chatter online, how I'm going to do this is I'm first
1:57
going to give a high level explanation of the piece that
2:00
started all of the conversation, then talk about the reaction to
2:03
it, and then end off with some thoughts about what this all
2:06
means. To start off, let's define the
2:08
term dark money. It's usually a time to refer to
2:11
money spent on elections or politics that comes from sources
2:15
that cannot be identified. There are quite a few issues
2:18
with dark money because it undermines transparency and
2:21
makes it more difficult to identify what has been swayed by
2:24
special interests or lobby groups, etcetera.
2:26
So the reporter that brought this story to light was Taylor
2:29
Laurette, and the piece was published in Wyatt in broad
2:33
strokes, Herpes finds that over 90 influencers were set to take
2:36
part in a program that was aiming to allegedly push out
2:40
Democratic messaging online. The contract was reportedly by
2:43
Chorus, which is, quote, a creator LED nonprofit
2:46
organization dedicated to helping content creators expand
2:49
their reach and educate their audiences about news and public
2:53
policy issues that impact their lives.
2:55
And that was according to the chorus website.
2:57
So the so-called Chorus Creator Incubator program was funded by
3:01
the 1630 Fund, which is a lobbying slash advocacy group
3:05
that is quite influential when it comes to funding in left wing
3:08
spaces in the United States. There were specific requirements
3:11
and rules to be a part of the program.
3:14
I'm going to be careful here and quote heavily from the article
3:17
just to avoid spreading misinformation or misconstrue
3:21
the article itself Anyway, so I'll relay a couple of the
3:24
restrictions pulling from Lorenz's reporting directly as
3:27
she writes. Quote, the contract mandate
3:30
extensive secrecy about disclosing their payments and
3:33
had restrictions on what sort of political content the creators
3:36
could produce. For context, these creators were
3:38
reportedly being paid around $8000 a month.
3:41
As Lorenz continues, quote, according to copies of the
3:44
contract viewed by Wyatt that creators signed, the influencers
3:47
are not allowed to disclose their relationship with Chorus
3:50
or the 1630 fund or functionally that they're being paid at all.
3:54
And another interesting point that I wanted to note was,
3:56
quote, creators also have to loop Chorus in on any
4:00
independently organized engagements with government
4:02
officials or political leaders. So you can see from that that
4:05
there were quite a few restrictions in place.
4:07
And even though there were reportedly concerns from the
4:10
creators, many of them did end up joining the program.
4:14
Lorenz speaks about how some of the creators had discussed their
4:17
concerns in a separate group chat.
4:19
As she explains, quote, the influences offered the funding
4:22
were given just days to sign the contract, which was essentially
4:25
presented on a take it or leave it basis.
4:27
In the group chat form to discuss the contract
4:29
negotiation, some creators discussed a clause prohibiting
4:32
the disparagement of other creators not being able to
4:35
criticize anyone else affiliated with Chorus felt restricted to
4:38
some according to text messages posted to the chat.
4:41
For all the details, I would strongly recommend that you go
4:44
and read the piece in full. It is LinkedIn the description.
4:47
I would also recommend that you read this piece as opposed to
4:51
watching TikTok summaries of it because there has been quite a
4:54
lot of misinformation circulating around the piece.
4:57
But at the end of the day, it's safe to say that money creeping
5:00
into the creator economy raises serious ethical concerns,
5:04
especially around transparency and disclosure, which is
5:07
something that we should be expecting from creators,
5:09
particularly around the fact that these creators were
5:12
reportedly not allowed to disclose that they were
5:14
receiving payments. For context, we also did reach
5:17
out to Taylor Lorenz for comment before reporting on this story.
5:20
And she attributed much of the misinformation floating around
5:24
the online world to a misunderstanding about
5:26
disclosure, as she wrote to us in response.
5:29
Quote, I think a lot one of these creators are intentionally
5:31
lying about my story in order to distract from the facts of our
5:34
reporting. One thing I've seen is people
5:36
misunderstanding disclosure. Disclosure about funding is so
5:39
important for transparency in our political system, whether on
5:42
the right or the left, when a political group is paying, you
5:45
need to disclose. So there are obviously so many
5:48
points to discuss here, but before we get into the broader
5:52
implications, I wanted to go a little bit deeper into how
5:55
people online have reacted to the article for a little bit
5:58
more context for you guys. So many creators that were named
6:01
in the article and that were reportedly part of the program
6:04
have kind of doubled down on the fact that they haven't hidden
6:08
their association with Chorus and that Chorus or the 1630 Fund
6:12
does not control what they say. But the key point here is that
6:15
while many are clearly associated with Chorus in one
6:18
way or another, some have appeared on the website.
6:21
The problem is that the funding structure wasn't as clearly
6:24
disclosed. On top of this, after the piece
6:26
was published, Lorenzo's had many accusations levelled
6:29
against social media. Users have alleged that she has
6:32
accepted dark money herself and claim that she is even working
6:35
for the Republican Party. Both claims that she has denied
6:38
herself both on social media and to Centennial World directly.
6:42
In a statement to Centennial World, she said, quote,
6:44
obviously this is completely and utterly false.
6:46
And I think you guys platforming these sorts of conspiracy
6:49
theories in any way aside from fully debunking them is harmful.
6:52
I would absolutely never accept dark money because I'm
6:55
completely opposed to it and I report on dark money in
6:57
politics. I will also include a clip here
7:00
from Taylor Lorenz's TikTok responding to the theories and
7:04
allegations against her directly.
7:06
Anyone claiming that I or the reporting fellowship that I'm in
7:09
is currently receiving dark money is lying through their
7:11
teeth. I'm currently in the Omidyar
7:13
Network's Reporters in Residence program.
7:15
It's a nonpartisan non political journalism program to support
7:18
independent journalists Until cloud chasing.
7:20
Influencers on here have gotten and completely lied and said
7:22
that the Reporters in Residence program at Omidyar is also
7:25
funded by the 1630 fund. This could not be further from
7:28
the truth. It is just a bold faced lie and
7:30
now the Omidyar Network has actually came out and put out a
7:33
statement making it clear that this is completely false.
7:36
There has also been a lot of claims that she was lying or
7:39
that her reporting was inaccurate.
7:41
Given the legal review a piece like this would have to undergo
7:44
at Wyatt, it does seem unlikely that her reporting would have
7:47
been fabricated in any way, especially when we consider the
7:50
heat that this piece has received.
7:52
I do find these allegations quite interesting because I
7:55
think it kind of shows how distrustful people are of the
7:59
media these days and people don't really realize how many
8:02
months of research and fact checking would go into an
8:05
article like this. Now that we've covered what the
8:08
article says and kind of what the response has been to the
8:11
piece, I wanted to take a bigger picture.
8:13
Look at this story as a whole first.
8:15
I think the connection between dark money and the creator
8:18
economy is telling from a new media angle.
8:21
There was obviously a lot of talk last year about how the
8:24
2024 presidential election was the quote UN quote podcast
8:27
election. Trump notably attempted to quote
8:30
UN quote caught the manosphere and lean into the alt right
8:33
online through these podcasts, and to many it did pay off since
8:37
he won the election. Having said that though, it's
8:39
safe to say that Republicans in the more conservative side of
8:42
politics have been leaning into new media and influences longer
8:46
and arguably more effective than the progressive side of politics
8:50
has. This is something that Lorenz
8:51
also points to in her piece. But I do think the question here
8:55
is that if one side of the political spectrum is doing it,
8:58
in this case, maybe working with influences and refusing to
9:01
disclose it, is this something the other side should also do,
9:05
even if it might be unethical? I'm definitely curious to hear
9:08
what you guys think about this. I feel like I via to the
9:11
negative on that, call me naive and optimistic because I do know
9:16
a lot of people I think would disagree with me on that.
9:18
There are clearly just so many transparency issues here.
9:22
And while I was preparing for this episode, I did read an
9:25
article from the Washington Post that kind of went into this a
9:28
little bit. So I thought I would just read a
9:30
quote from that to give you some more context.
9:32
Quote, it's hard to track exactly how much campaigns and
9:35
super PAC's are spending on creators because they often
9:37
distribute funds to large agencies that work with the
9:40
creators or they funnel payment through contractors that are not
9:43
visible in federal election filings.
9:45
Obviously, this is all very American.
9:48
It's all about the US context. And I think another valuable
9:52
question to us, because we are obviously based in Australia, is
9:55
whether dark money being funneled into the creator
9:57
economy is something unique to the United States.
10:00
I have a couple of points to make here.
10:02
The first question to consider, I think, is whether dark money
10:05
is unique to the United States. And the answer is no.
10:08
But it is especially pervasive there because of the way
10:11
elections are financed. The 2010 Citizens United case,
10:15
along with various related rulings, loosened restrictions
10:18
on political spending and ended up kind of creating loopholes in
10:21
campaign disclosure rules, which I think really ramped up and
10:24
kind of led to the normalization of dark money in US elections
10:28
and politics. On top of with this, there is
10:30
just so much money being poured into campaigns.
10:33
If we're looking at legislators as an example, in the US,
10:36
legislators are largely responsible for their own
10:38
campaign and fundraising, with only some discreet help provided
10:42
by the party. It's a huge difference to
10:45
campaigning here in Australia, which is more centrally run.
10:48
That's not to say, though, that dark money isn't a thing in
10:51
other places around the world. According to a 2025 report from
10:55
the Guardian, almost $70 million of dark money flowed to the
10:59
major parties in Australia earlier, along with the Greens
11:01
last year. The next point I think is worth
11:03
mentioning is how polarization may feed into this.
11:06
I do think there is something to be said about how polarization
11:09
may cause dark money and pay to play politics to kind of ramp up
11:13
in some senses. the US is obviously extremely polarized.
11:17
We have been talking about this for years.
11:19
But this would fuel the fire in some sense where dark money
11:22
ramps up as each side kind of tries to outspend each other.
11:26
It's basically political and financial tit for tat at this
11:29
point. In our correspondence with
11:31
Taylor, we also asked if she thinks dark money is becoming
11:33
more prominent in political strategy.
11:36
She said, quote, dark money is playing a bigger role in the US
11:39
political system, and while Democrats previously railed
11:42
against it, now they're embracing it and advocating for
11:44
less transparency in our political media landscape.
11:46
I think it's a dangerous game and one that won't end up with
11:49
the result they think. Having said all that, Australia
11:52
does tend to follow cues from the United States, whether that
11:55
is a good thing or a bad thing. And we can see for a fact that
11:59
places like like Australia are leading more and more into
12:02
influences for election cycles. The last election here was
12:05
actually a case in point. There was even a scandal where
12:08
one independent representative came under fire after
12:11
collaborating with a mental health advocate and content
12:13
creator, but those collaborations were allegedly
12:16
not marked as paid. This only seems like a couple
12:19
steps before something like what Lorenz reported on happening to
12:23
me. There's also been a commentary
12:24
from influential media figures like Hannah Ferguson here in
12:27
Australia, who runs Cheek Media, who noted in a speech at one
12:31
point that quote, there's a lot of people who were accepting
12:33
money and doing authorisations on social media posts and that
12:36
did concern me greatly. And she was referring to our
12:39
last election. So I would be curious to hear
12:42
from you guys, especially if you live outside the US or
12:45
Australia, whether this is something you see happening in
12:48
your political context. But at the end of the day
12:51
though, I think whether we're talking about the US, Australia
12:54
or anywhere else, the big question I think is if
12:58
influencers are already be a powerful or increasingly
13:02
influential part of politics, we should push for and expect
13:06
transparency so audiences know when money is behind a certain
13:10
message. I think it's a standard we kind
13:12
of expect from businesses and journalists.
13:15
And if creators are kind of stepping into the space or at
13:17
least trying to, they probably need to meet the same ethical
13:21
bar. But that was a lot.
13:23
I am eager to hear your thoughts on anything and everything I
13:26
just mentioned. So yes, leave us thoughts in the
13:29
comments, and thank you to Tay Lorenz for responding to our
13:32
request. After that story, I wanted to
13:35
discuss something perhaps a little less intense and
13:38
convoluted to maybe balance out this episode a little bit.
13:41
That is why we need to talk about how Sheehan has recently
13:45
been criticized for seemingly using Luigi Mangione's likeness
13:49
to promote a product. That is absolutely an insane
13:52
headline, and I'm sorry. The product in question is a
13:55
shirt, and it's seemingly available on the US Sheehan
13:58
store. The shirt, for your knowledge,
14:01
is called Quote Men's new Spring slash Summer short sleeve blue
14:05
ditzy floral white shirt, pastoral style gentlemen's shirt
14:09
for everyday wear. Family matching mummy and me
14:13
please. What are we doing with names
14:16
this long? That is literally insane.
14:19
Anyway, the picture on the website shows a man modeling the
14:22
shirt who looks an awful lot like Luigi Mangioni.
14:25
I will also insert a picture on the screen.
14:27
I first came across this story on X where people were debating
14:31
the ethics of doing something like this, but it seems that TMZ
14:34
was the first outlet to formally report it.
14:37
Pub Crave did post about it. That's how we all get our news
14:40
these days. And the replies were
14:42
overwhelmingly negative, with people calling the move quote
14:45
disrespectful, quote interesting, and even some
14:48
speculating how it could be some sort of marketing gimmick.
14:51
Now obviously we know this is not actually Luigi in the photo
14:55
because he is in custody, but this instance raises a bigger
14:59
question about how digital first retailers like Sheehan can use
15:04
AI generated models, manipulate stock photos, or even just use
15:08
faces that resemble real people, sometimes a little too closely
15:12
to sell products. And that I think opens up a
15:15
whole. And that I think opens up a
15:17
whole new conversation beyond the ethics of using Luigi
15:21
Mangioni as the model. Because if a brand accidentally
15:25
or intentionally uses the likeness of a public figure
15:28
without their consent, there can be some very real consequences
15:32
for their career. Imagine if a celebrity woke up
15:34
to find their face on a Sheehan ad.
15:36
Like even if they had nothing to do with it, another brand maybe
15:39
considering a partnership with them might see that image and
15:42
not want that associated. Or a fan might see a picture of
15:45
them on the Xian website and decide not to support them
15:48
anymore. There are so many different
15:49
possibilities, but it could genuinely harm someone's career
15:52
or reputation all because of a, you know, low effort, possibly
15:57
AI generated marketing tactic. So while the Luigi Mangione
16:01
story might seem like a weird one off, I actually think it
16:04
points to a much bigger problem with how digital retailers like
16:07
Xian are maybe sourcing images, how AI also might be blurring
16:11
the lines between likeness and reality.
16:14
And at the end of the day, how little control we might actually
16:17
have over how our image is used online, which I feel like is
16:20
something a lot of us may have already come to the conclusion
16:22
of, but it doesn't make it any less dystopian and unsettling.
16:26
I love delivering the positive news on mini tech scroll.
16:29
Now finally we have Lawrence interview thanks to Blackbird
16:32
with Nicole Moses who is the founder of friends on purpose
16:36
and also the Co founder of ripple social.
16:38
So yes, let's just cut to that now.
16:40
Hi everyone. It's me so.
16:43
As you know, for the next couple of months, I'm bringing you
16:46
interviews with other founders at the end of a few of the mini
16:49
tech. Episodes as part of our
16:51
Blackbird sponsorship, so today. I am bringing you guys a chat
16:55
with Nicole Moses, founder of the Community Network, Friends
16:59
on Purpose and Co founder of Ripple and app for finding IRL
17:03
social opportunities. In this interview we chat about
17:07
Nicole's experience building both businesses, what she thinks
17:10
Gen. Z really needs from social media
17:13
platforms and what drives her entrepreneurial spirit.
17:16
Reminder Click the link in the description if you have an idea
17:20
and you want to take it to the next.
17:21
Level with the help of Blackbird.
17:23
Welcome Nicole. Thank you so much for being
17:25
here. Thanks for having me, I'm so
17:26
excited. I'm so excited to chat with you
17:29
about everything that you're doing.
17:31
You're doing 2 kind of separate projects that fuse into one it
17:35
sounds like. So can you tell us a little bit
17:38
for our listeners about what you're building, the inspiration
17:41
behind, why you started, what you're what you started, and
17:45
kind of how it's evolved? Yeah, so it all started with
17:48
Friends on Purpose, which is a women's community that runs in
17:53
person events to help women meet new friends.
17:57
And we run that in five cities across Australia and we've had
18:02
about 25,000 people come through our events.
18:06
And then recently since the start of the year I started
18:12
building a social app called Ripple which is basically just
18:16
to help people find in person social occurrences, whether it
18:19
be large events or more casual things like I'm looking for
18:24
someone to have lunch with on Tuesday or like a small group
18:29
hike. Oh, that's cute.
18:31
I love that. OK, So what was your inspiration
18:33
behind Friends on Purpose? I think ever since I was very
18:38
young I have been very community and friends oriented.
18:44
I didn't have that many. Friends in high school.
18:46
So when I got out of high school and I started.
18:50
Putting myself out there, going to uni and other things.
18:53
I made a really close group of friends and I was having a good
18:56
time and then for some unknown reason.
18:59
I literally couldn't tell. You why I decided to move to
19:02
Brisbane and I didn't know anyone that I was moving because
19:05
I got a job there and I could do uni remotely so I was like OK
19:09
why not? And I thought it would be
19:12
completely fine, I'll just make friends through work, through my
19:16
various hobbies. But it just didn't happen that
19:20
way. It was just very difficult and I
19:26
tried all the existing solutions like apps and Facebook groups,
19:31
but I just wasn't really, it just wasn't really happening.
19:35
And so I made a TikTok video, which was a friend application
19:40
video. It was trending at the time and
19:42
I had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people respond to me
19:46
saying I'm in the same situation.
19:48
I live right next to you, let's hang out.
19:50
There was so many people that I didn't think.
19:52
I could meet. All of them one-on-one.
19:54
So I was like, screw it, let's have an event.
19:58
So it started from a TikTok video.
20:01
How did you connect people then? Was it like a website?
20:05
Was it a social group? I think I started off by just
20:11
getting people to fill out a type form about what they
20:16
wanted, like what kind of event they wanted and when it would
20:19
be. And then once I once people got
20:22
back to me, I think I just put it up on Eventbrite or
20:25
something. Like that.
20:26
Yeah. OK.
20:27
Oh my God. So that's like so grassroots.
20:29
That's so cool. Yeah, it was really fun.
20:31
I'm still. Good friends with the.
20:34
People that I met. At that very first.
20:37
Event. Oh, that's really sweet.
20:39
Yeah, I love that. OK, so then obviously you saw a
20:43
bit of demand, a bit of a niche there that you'd carved out for
20:46
yourself as kind of like a community builder, a connector.
20:49
Is that what inspired then Ripple?
20:51
Yeah, I think what inspired Ripple is that I think that I
20:58
and so many others found magic in Friends on purpose, the magic
21:04
of in person connection. But I also think that there's
21:08
limitations to friends on purpose.
21:11
The fact that it's centralized around, like me and the other
21:15
girls that host it, and the fact that it's limited to women,
21:20
although I do genuinely love women's groups.
21:22
And also the fact that there was a huge emphasis on the the
21:28
initial introduction of you to another person, but not that
21:32
much for the follow on. But I I basically wanted to take
21:37
like what we found at friends on purpose and just have a bigger
21:41
impact with it and fix a. Handful of the problems that I
21:46
just. Mentioned and that is what
21:49
birthed Ripple. You know, the general thesis of
21:53
it for me is that I think they're like the social
21:57
platforms that we use in this day and age were not built for
22:01
this era. They were built for 10 years
22:05
ago, 20 years ago, whatever. And none of them really capture
22:09
the essence of how this generation wants to connect,
22:12
which in my experience is low friction, low pressure,
22:17
repeatable and in person. So that is what Ripple is, that
22:22
is. That's the mission of it.
22:24
Yeah, that's really cool. OK, so tell me about how you
22:27
brought the platform or the app to life.
22:31
Like, is it just you? Do you have a team?
22:34
How do you bring something like this to fruition?
22:38
So I had a friend who I met my first week in Sydney and.
22:45
We had always spoken about wanting to do.
22:48
Something like this. And then six months into US
22:53
knowing each other, he quit his job just to like, explore
22:57
options. And then he came to me and said,
23:00
I actually want to do something seriously.
23:02
And I was like, OK, let's do it. And we didn't actually know
23:06
exactly what that would look like.
23:08
But we just. Spent like a month or two like
23:11
figuring out what it would be and then we just started
23:15
building it. He's a software engineer, so he
23:17
took care of all the the tech, the tech side.
23:20
And then three months before we launched, I just started running
23:25
events, building up the social media, the community and then
23:31
and then we launched. What has been the most
23:33
challenging part of the process so far?
23:35
You know, when you first started your entrepreneurial journey,
23:38
which was, you know, with friends on purpose, Like what?
23:40
What do you think has been the hardest or the most challenging
23:43
part? To only pick one.
23:46
You can pick multiple. I mean one thing.
23:49
That I've gotten used to. I don't know if people should
23:52
get used to this, but deadlines will always come and go.
23:57
Like it doesn't matter how much you plan for a deadline, things
24:03
can and they will come up beforehand.
24:06
I don't think that. Friends on purpose is a little
24:09
bit different because it was very like linear.
24:14
It's very simple, but in terms of like developing an app and
24:19
have having like multiple people to deal with.
24:22
There's just so many factors to. Consider and I think of all the
24:27
deadlines we've had, we've probably hit 20%.
24:30
Of them on time. Yeah.
24:32
Because they're just just like things are always delayed.
24:36
And also that you don't know what you don't know.
24:38
Even if you feel like you know everything, until you actually
24:42
start doing it, you will never know the amount of absolutely
24:47
random things that will pop up that you think might be easy to
24:51
work through. But then it's like, Oh no, this
24:54
is going to take me two weeks. I'm interested to hear your
24:58
opinion. This is a bit of a pivot on the
25:02
discourse around third spaces because obviously that's a huge
25:06
conversation, especially on TikTok, about young people and
25:08
how there's kind of AI guess a missing third space for young
25:13
people. And a lot of I think young
25:16
founders are trying to enter into this, like IRL experience
25:20
space and build that for their own generation and community.
25:24
What's your take on that? By definition, we have more
25:28
third spaces now than we ever had.
25:30
What is 1/3 space? It's a cafe, it's a library,
25:33
it's a Co working space, it's it's a gym.
25:36
It's anything that isn't work or home, and I think we'll probably
25:41
have more of them now than we ever have.
25:43
I would say that the main problem.
25:45
These days is people's deteriorating social skills.
25:49
And how it is not enough to just bring people in the same
25:54
physical space together. You need to give them social
25:58
context. Either that they are all there
26:02
because they like the same thing or because they're doing the
26:05
same thing. Maybe they know the same people.
26:09
I think that the main problem these days with why in person
26:14
meeting is very difficult is just the amount of friction that
26:18
is involved in setting it up. And the fact that there are so
26:22
many easy but surface level alternatives, like if you want
26:28
to get a dopamine hit for your social needs, you can just pull
26:33
out your phone, scroll through a couple of stories on Instagram,
26:36
and that's like your dopamine hit for your social needs.
26:40
And you wouldn't. Is this too much friction?
26:42
It's too much effort. It's too much time to want to
26:45
leave the house and plan something with other people.
26:47
Yeah, absolutely. So you're almost helping in both
26:51
of your ventures, providing almost like infrastructure for
26:55
people to socialize. So I'm interested if you've
26:58
always felt entrepreneurial. Yeah, I think I've always been
27:04
able to see opportunities and I want to make the most of them.
27:08
If I don't see anyone else solving it, I will want to go
27:13
and do it myself. But let's say I saw someone and
27:17
they were doing exactly what I wanted to do with Ripple, but
27:21
they were a little bit. Further ahead and they had more
27:24
stability. I'm gladly join them.
27:27
Because I I've especially because I've been working for
27:30
myself for the past. Two years now.
27:33
I really value stability. Yeah, yeah.
27:37
And structure. And having a manager and your
27:40
manager having a manager and you have subordinates in this people
27:43
to the side of you. So yeah, I it's not that I would
27:48
have I ever wanted to specifically do something on my
27:51
own, but it's just whenever I see something that interests me,
27:56
if I can't find anyone else doing it, I'll want to do it
27:58
myself. I feel like that's very
28:00
entrepreneurial. OK, well, maybe.
28:03
And it's, it's purpose driven, right?
28:04
You're not doing it for the sake of doing it because you want to
28:07
be an entrepreneur. A lot of people, I think, do,
28:11
like, build a business because they want that title and like
28:13
what they feel like the glamorization behind it or
28:17
around it, which is like, so far from the truth, as I'm sure you
28:20
know. So yeah, I feel like that's very
28:22
entrepreneurial of you. Maybe I am.
28:25
OK So to anybody listening who might want to start a business
28:30
or go out on their own, what advice would you give them?
28:33
What? Advice would I give people who
28:35
are wanting to start their own thing?
28:38
I guess kind of like what we were saying beforehand.
28:42
I do think it's really important to figure out if you genuinely
28:48
have a passion for the thing that you are doing or if you're
28:53
doing it just for the sake of wanting to have a business
28:58
because you've glamorized it in your head.
29:00
And I think there's another third small subsection where you
29:04
might not be directly interested, but you see a clear
29:08
like business opportunity. The first one and the last one I
29:13
think are all good, but if you're doing it because you've.
29:18
Seen Mark Zuckerberg or like some other founder who's.
29:24
Like took them years and so much luck and so much work.
29:29
To get to where they are and think, oh, that's going to be
29:31
easy, that's going to be me. You probably don't want to do
29:34
that. So just try to figure out what
29:36
your intentions are. Yeah, I'm interested what you
29:40
said about luck because I am such a big advocate or like, I
29:44
guess I'm so vocal about the fact that, like success, there
29:47
is so much luck involved in like who becomes successful and who
29:51
we never hear about. And I think a lot of founders,
29:55
especially ones that have truly like made it.
29:58
I think sometimes making it can sometimes like rot your brain a
30:02
little bit where you almost believe, well, I made it because
30:07
I deserved it, because I was actually better than everyone
30:09
else. You don't want to feel like your
30:11
success is diminished by, I guess, accepting that luck was a
30:16
big role in that. How do you feel about luck?
30:19
Luck is the thing that tips over the scale.
30:24
There's been so many clear examples of companies that were
30:28
started and they're pretty much exactly the same as a company
30:32
that was started right after them, but they would fail.
30:36
And if you get into the nitty gritty, it's because one thing
30:39
that went right for the company that did succeed just happened
30:44
to work out as opposed to the first one.
30:46
I think the people that I look up to, they're all very big on.
30:52
We've obviously put in the hard work and we've like the skills
30:56
and the time and all that kind of stuff.
30:58
But luck was we are not special. It was.
31:02
It was luck to some degree, yeah.
31:04
Absolutely. I think that's it.
31:05
It's like, of course, you're not going to build something wildly
31:08
successful without like so much hard work, so much sacrifice,
31:11
all those things that are true. But there's always an element of
31:15
luck. Like everybody has their own
31:16
like version, right of privilege.
31:18
And how that kind of translate in translates into luck if they
31:21
start their own business. So what's next for Ripple?
31:24
Can you tell us anything about like your future plans, what you
31:28
guys are hoping for? Right now we are just focusing
31:32
on making our product really good, continuing to grow in
31:36
Sydney. Our next city that we go to will
31:39
probably be Melbourne and then after that probably somewhere in
31:43
the States. We just.
31:45
Want to make cities social? Yeah, I love that.
31:47
Congrats on everything. Thank you and thanks for having
31:50
me. It was great talking.
31:51
Well, that is everything from Mini Tech Scroll today.
31:54
I hope you guys enjoyed the interview and the two stories we
31:57
discussed. I will be back with a normal
32:00
episode of Mini Tech next week and Lauren will speak to you
32:04
guys as normal tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
32:07
Bye.