Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Matt Hill | Bitcoin & Sovereign Computing | Simply Bitcoin IRL

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Matt Hill | Bitcoin & Sovereign Computing | Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

0:12
Hello everybody, Welcome to another episode of Simply
0:15
Bitcoin IRL. Today we have a very special
0:18
guest returning guest. We have Matt Hill, CEO and
0:21
Founder of Start Nine. They make incredible Bitcoin
0:26
nodes servers. Really big fan since first time
0:32
I brought Matt on the show talk about sovereign computing and
0:36
just blew my mind every single episode.
0:39
So we really enjoy bringing Matt on the show to talk about all
0:42
that the future of computing the the way that I see it.
0:45
Anyways, before we jump into it, I want to give a shout out to
0:48
the Bitcoin company that makes the show possible.
0:50
Swan Bitcoin, Best place to build your Bitcoin stack?
0:53
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0:56
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1:00
All right, no more delay. I want to bring up our guest.
1:03
Hey, Matt, How you doing? What's up, Nico?
1:06
Doing Good, man. Thanks for having me.
1:08
Happy to have you back on the show.
1:10
It's been a while and I've heard from the grapevines and rip off
1:14
the Band-Aid and just jump straight into it.
1:18
I heard you guys are getting into AI.
1:20
That's interesting. Yeah, yeah.
1:25
But not in the way that a lot of people like to say right now.
1:27
AI is like the new blockchain, you know.
1:29
It's the new the new cloud, the new the new hype in the VC and,
1:35
you know, investing world. We're getting into AI strictly
1:39
as a necessity because AI is part of computers.
1:42
So, you know, our whole idea is that humans and computers should
1:47
be able to interact directly without intermediaries or
1:50
custodians. And the idea that humans are
1:54
going to use computers without artificial intelligence is a
1:57
ridiculous proposition at this point.
2:00
So something that we have to consider right, we have to think
2:02
about. How humans can interact with
2:05
computers using AI models and the hardware that is necessary
2:13
for that to happen in a way that you know can be done cheaply,
2:17
affordably by by any person. So it's something that we've
2:21
been thinking about and we've actually launched a couple
2:24
products. We launched stable Diffusion.
2:26
Which is a image generator, and we weren't launched free GPT,
2:30
which is an AI chat bot similar to ChatGPT.
2:34
Both of these are run on your personal server, and the models
2:38
are hosted locally. Nothing leaves the device.
2:42
You can access it from anywhere in the world at your own private
2:45
website, and it is a truly private artificial intelligence
2:50
experience for both image generation and.
2:54
And chat. However, it's not nearly as
2:57
robust and fast and powerful as something like mid Journey or
3:02
ChatGPT, obviously, those are using GPUs, they're running on
3:07
server clusters. They are running the latest.
3:10
You know how many hundred of billion parameter models they're
3:15
probably running at this point? And that just can't be done on,
3:18
you know, cheap consumer hardware.
3:20
But luckily for us, the future of AI.
3:23
Is probably smaller models that are more highly specialized and
3:28
users accessing those models for specific needs, in which case it
3:34
can all be done locally on affordable hardware.
3:39
And so we're very excited that that is now the trend in the AI
3:42
world is that it's away from the one model to rule them all that
3:47
knows everything. And towards instead hundreds of
3:51
specialized models that you spin up on demand in order to get
3:54
very specific questions answered, because that can be
3:57
done at the edges. Got you.
3:59
So what is the like for for the layman?
4:02
For someone who has no idea what sovereign computing is or what
4:06
the benefits of running your own server, your own, your own
4:09
computer, essentially, rather than relying on someone else's,
4:12
what would be the benefits of using your AI right that you're
4:16
running at home versus, you know, using something like
4:20
ChatGPT? Sure.
4:22
So there's the broad question there, which is using your own
4:25
server as opposed to somebody else's.
4:27
And then there's more specifically using AI on your
4:30
own server as opposed to an AI on somebody else's.
4:32
So I'll answer the more specific one first and then extrapolate
4:35
from there. So basically you know when you
4:38
are using something like ChatGPT.
4:40
You're entering a query, and that query is being sent to a
4:43
server that is owned and operated by Open AI.
4:48
Open AI now has a record of you asking this question.
4:54
They are using the question and the answers and your
4:57
interactions to train their own models for their own proprietary
4:59
purposes. And lastly, what you are getting
5:02
in response is a. Completely black box.
5:07
You don't know where that response is coming from.
5:08
You don't know what degree of, you know, bias or censorship is
5:14
being applied. So a open AI as a company could
5:18
basically just lie to you and you would think that you're
5:20
talking to this brilliant AI when in fact you're just getting
5:23
a censored response from Open AI the company.
5:27
So if you want to interact with AI honestly and with integrity,
5:32
you need to. Run your own instance of the
5:37
model and that way you know it's not being tampered with.
5:42
So that is that is the main reason why you'd want to use
5:44
your own AI is not only because it's private and because you may
5:48
want to ask this thing questions that you're not comfortable open
5:53
AI, the company knowing. And two, you want to make sure
5:56
that the answers that you're getting are genuine in so far as
6:01
they, you know, can be from that from that model.
6:06
Extrapolating from there, why run a your own server at all?
6:09
Well, you can imagine the same basic pattern for all of your
6:12
computing needs, whether it's sending a message or sharing a
6:16
photo, or storing your files or your passwords.
6:21
When you do this on somebody else's computer, you know one
6:25
they have complete insight into everything that you're doing.
6:28
There's no privacy. Dragnet surveillance and
6:32
specific invasion of privacy is is pretty much commonplace at
6:36
this point. You can be censored, you don't
6:39
know if what you're getting from these servers is tampered with
6:46
and it costs money. So in many cases you are paying
6:50
either with your data because they are mining it and selling
6:53
it to advertisers, or you're paying with your money.
6:58
On a monthly subscription basis. And then lastly, whenever you
7:01
use somebody else's server, whether it's for AI purposes or
7:06
anything else, those servers are often storing the data of
7:10
millions of people and are there for prime targets for attack.
7:14
And it is only a matter of time before they get hacked and all
7:17
the data is leaked and then your private information is leaked to
7:23
hackers. Even though they weren't
7:25
targeting you specifically, they were targeting the server that
7:29
was acting as a honeypot of data.
7:32
And so you were just collateral damage in a cyber warfare that
7:36
you never opted into, or you did opt into but didn't realize you
7:39
were opting into it. So running your own server
7:42
eliminates all of that. It's private, it's censorship
7:45
resistant, it's free, and there's no counterparty risk of
7:48
being hacked. Gotcha.
7:50
So another exciting announcement that you guys made recently, and
7:55
the community has received it extremely well is you guys have
7:59
announced that you're moving to the MIT, the open source stuff,
8:05
which I think is really, really exciting.
8:07
Why did you guys decide to do that and what were you guys
8:10
doing before? So start OS is what you're
8:15
referring to, which is our main product is what we make.
8:19
Has recently been switched over to the MIT license, which is the
8:25
most permissive license possible.
8:29
In fact, it's more permissive than no license at all, because
8:33
in the IP world, no license at all defaults to proprietary
8:38
rights of the author. So MIT is basically your way of
8:41
announcing that there is no license, right?
8:44
It's your way of just being like this is in no way shape or form.
8:50
A property of the individual or company that produced it.
8:54
And so that's what we published start OS as now that's what
8:58
Bitcoin was published at. And in our opinion it is really
9:01
the only truly free license. Other licenses that are very
9:07
common in the Foss world are things like a GPLGPL.
9:12
Licenses are free in every way. Accept that they require the
9:20
consumer or the person accessing that code to likewise publish
9:25
their own derivations of that code in an open source manner,
9:29
meaning it restricts your freedom to close source the
9:33
software. And so we figured if we were
9:35
going to go, you know, the Foss route and really make this a
9:39
free piece of software, that we'd better not, you know?
9:45
Cut corners or be hypocrites about it and we might as well
9:47
just set it free. So we set it completely free.
9:49
Start OS no longer belongs to Start 9.
9:51
As a company we are its stewards, we are its engineering
9:55
team. We're going to pour our
9:57
lifeblood into it. But from our proprietary sense,
10:00
we have absolutely no rights to it whatsoever.
10:02
Or let me put stated more clearly, we have the same rights
10:05
to it as anybody else in the world.
10:08
What we were before was an open source license with a non
10:12
commercial clause. So not FOS, FOS standing for
10:17
free and open source software. This was more like OS open
10:22
source software minus the free part.
10:24
It was free in a lot of ways. As in, you could access it,
10:27
change it, fork it, download it, distribute it.
10:31
Use it. You could do whatever.
10:32
You wanted the only thing that you weren't allowed to do with
10:35
Start OS in the past was monetize it.
10:38
You could not. Sell it as your own.
10:41
You could not install it onto hardware and then sell that
10:43
hardware. That right was reserved for
10:46
Start 9. And so that is all we've changed
10:49
is that we have relinquished our exclusive right to sell the
10:55
software gotcha. And so and then from a from a
11:00
company perspective like does that worry you at all that
11:05
potentially you can be giving the your code away to a
11:09
potential competitor in the future?
11:12
No. Like could you elaborate what do
11:17
you mean? So we are sure that competitors,
11:24
more competitors will arise as a result of this then would
11:28
otherwise have arisen. So for instance, we've already
11:32
been contacted by multiple individuals who are like, hey,
11:36
does this mean that I can? Install Start OS onto many PCs
11:41
in my country and sell them. And I said absolutely, please do
11:45
right? Like we're also selling in that
11:48
country. So technically this is
11:49
competition for us. But ultimately Start OS is not
11:54
our business model. Start OS is the backbone of a
11:58
new computing paradigm. There's going to be a whole
12:01
bunch of business models that arise on top of Start OS and you
12:06
know. Because start OS had to be
12:08
source available, meaning it had to have the source code visible
12:15
even if it was on a in a proprietary license, right?
12:17
Even if it was with the non commercial clause, if start O s
12:21
s source code was not visible, it wouldn't be safe at all.
12:25
It would be extremely like nobody would use it.
12:28
You'd be stupid to use it right if you if you ran a.
12:31
Personal server with close source software.
12:33
I would consider that to be dumb.
12:36
And to be fair, it is like what we do with like our Macbooks,
12:39
right? Like it's all closed source
12:41
software. But there's no there's not a lot
12:43
of ways around that right now. Yes, you can run a Linux device.
12:47
But anyway, I I digress. Because it had to be open source
12:55
available, because the source code had to be visible.
12:58
It was inevitable, right? It was unavoidable that we were
13:02
going to face competition. In the form of people who, even
13:08
if they don't copy paste the code line for line, can
13:11
literally just see what we did and if they're well resourced,
13:15
right? Like if it's a well resourced,
13:17
talented team, they could write it in C Plus.
13:20
Plus, instead of Ross, right and and and we would have no
13:24
recourse. It's not like our license
13:25
wouldn't apply because they didn't copy paste our code.
13:28
So the very fact that we were sharing the code made it
13:32
practically the same as. Giving the code away because
13:38
somebody could always reverse engineer it and and do it
13:40
anyway. So it's kind of a an illusory
13:43
protection to have a non commercial clause in most cases.
13:49
But we didn't have it for no reason.
13:51
We had the non commercial clause there for about 2 1/2 years and
13:58
we had it there to protect against any very well funded.
14:07
Company that could basically out market us, right.
14:10
So the only thing that we were protecting against was our own
14:14
lack of brand awareness because nobody knew who Start Nine was
14:20
and knew that we made Start OS and that there was no no brand
14:25
recognition at all. During the early days anyone
14:29
would have been able to basically take that code and
14:31
just be like this is ours and we would never would have even come
14:34
to the surface. So the only reason that we had
14:37
the non commercial clause there was to stave off any
14:40
opportunistic VC funded kind of like you know thieves so to
14:46
speak who just come in and like see oh wow, they're really doing
14:49
something good except they're not very good at marketing.
14:51
So we're going to get really good at marketing and.
14:56
Drown them out with noise. We feel strong enough now as a
15:01
brand to not be squashed out like that.
15:06
It would be very difficult at this point for somebody to
15:09
disassociate start OS from start 9 for somebody to claim to be
15:15
the inventors of start OS, right?
15:17
And so the brand equity is really what we needed.
15:19
And we finally felt like we had reached a point where.
15:22
We had the critical mass of support.
15:25
Such that nobody would do it Now were they going to do that
15:29
anyway? Probably not, right?
15:31
It was probably an unnecessary protection.
15:35
However, it didn't hurt us either, right?
15:38
Having that protection was was a free protection.
15:40
Like, does a 4 foot picket fence help you against a home invader?
15:46
Not really. Maybe they'll trip over it.
15:49
So there's this like small maybe added protection.
15:53
But because it's totally easy to do and totally free, it didn't
15:56
really make a difference. So gotcha, That's the long
15:58
winded explanation. But no, we are where we are now
16:01
and I'm glad that you you clarified it.
16:02
Someone in the chat actually had a pretty good question.
16:05
I'm gonna pull it up so you can answer it.
16:08
So Andrew Saman said Matt, can you explain how start OS is
16:14
different from running Linux? Cool start.
16:18
OS is Linux. Start OS is start OS is Linux
16:23
just like Ubuntu or Fedora or pop OS.
16:29
Those are all Linux as well, right Linux?
16:32
Is a, is a. Kernel it's a.
16:33
It's an underlying operating system.
16:35
But there are many layers on top of Linux that define the
16:39
ultimate operating system experience.
16:42
So start. OS is a Linux distro.
16:46
But it is the first and only I believe I can make those claims.
16:51
Linux distro whose user experience because I'll go
16:58
beyond just the UI, but the whole experience is oriented
17:03
around the ability to run a server OK as opposed to a
17:08
computer. So most Linux distros like
17:12
Debian or Ubuntu, Fedora. They're all optimized to run
17:18
your laptop or your desktop, right?
17:21
They are client device operating systems.
17:25
That's what the graphical interface is for.
17:27
Like when you look at the graphical interface, you see a
17:30
desktop because it's designed for a laptop or desktop
17:34
computer. It's designed to be used by a
17:37
person using a laptop if you want your Linux distro, such as
17:42
Debian. To be used for a server, you
17:47
have to go beneath the graphical interface, pop the hood, open
17:52
the command line and get on the get on the terminal on the
17:55
terminal command line. So Linux is the server operating
17:59
system. It's like Linux is how people
18:01
use servers, but it's not through the graphical interface.
18:05
People use Linux from the command line.
18:09
So what we have done? What start OS is?
18:13
Is a Linux distro where the command line, everything that
18:17
you would ordinarily do on the command line has been codified
18:22
into and represented in a graphical interface.
18:25
So it is the first Linux distro whose graphical interface is
18:29
designed to administer a server. And that is unique.
18:36
Why? Nobody has done that before.
18:38
We think we know why. Probably because.
18:42
Very few people had needs to run a server, so there just wasn't a
18:46
large perceived user base of like, you know, everyone just
18:52
assumed that individuals can't run servers.
18:53
That's just always been the assumption, and more and more
18:57
it's assumed that businesses can't run servers either.
19:00
Unless you're some huge enterprise and you have two sys
19:03
admins, 2 IT people, and two DevOps engineers on staff, it's
19:06
basically assumed that you're just going to subscribe to some
19:09
cloud software because running a server is too hard.
19:13
So there's been this perception for a couple decades probably
19:17
that running a server is beyond the skill set and needs of an
19:22
average person. And So what has happened is 2
19:26
things have changed over the last couple of decades 1.
19:29
Is the need to run a server is rapidly rising as the world
19:34
clamps down on digital infrastructure, right?
19:37
As surveillance and invasion of privacy and censorship and costs
19:41
and hacks all rise, the need to run a server is greater and
19:46
greater. That's number one.
19:49
Number two is start OS has lowered the barrier to entry.
19:53
It's made it easier and easier. So what's happening is the need
19:56
to run a server is rising. And the ability to run a server
20:00
is getting lower and we think we're reaching an inflection
20:04
point where this may be a multi, multi million person market.
20:10
Yeah, And you know, I I love the way that you broke it down,
20:13
basically making it so that the, you know, everyday person could
20:18
run this. And in my particular case, you
20:22
know, I'm, I'm pretty computer savvy in the sense of like I
20:25
know how to, you know, manage my way around.
20:28
But do I have the technical know how to set up a server using
20:32
Linux? Absolutely not.
20:34
But I remember for a long time I, you know I first started with
20:39
the Bitcoin node. I think I started with my node
20:42
then I migrated to noddle and then we were at the conference
20:45
for at Bitcoin 2022 or Bitcoin 2023 and you were telling me
20:52
about the and it was the pre sale, right?
20:56
And then I was like, OK, but can I run Electrum on it?
20:59
And you're like, yeah, you can absolutely run Electrum on it.
21:01
And it has an I7 and it's the fastest thing you'll ever run.
21:04
I was like take my money, Matt and I got the special edition, I
21:08
got the the made Xbox and and everything.
21:11
Those are cool and I've been running it ever since and it's
21:14
amazing. And then when I figured out how
21:17
to which is the primary use and we just started using BTC pay
21:21
server for simply and we just started kind of exploring all
21:25
the other functionalities that it has.
21:27
But my my main like motivation behind running it was I wanted
21:33
to be able to connect to my Bitcoin wallet remotely anywhere
21:36
around the world without having to use someone else's node,
21:42
right? I wanted to connect directly to
21:43
my node and it was with the start 9 pure that I finally was
21:49
able to do that and I and I do it through Tor.
21:52
I remember I was told I was like Nikko through Tor, it's not that
21:56
fast. That's not true.
21:59
Like actually the start 9 pure is faster in what what's it
22:04
called indexing. I think that's the that's the
22:07
the terminology for it. Yeah, the IBD, the initial block
22:10
syncing, yeah the initial the, the the index then then running
22:14
and nothing against those. Guys elect Rs.
22:17
Yeah yeah nothing against those guys but it's faster than using
22:21
a my node to do that and the obvious reason is because of the
22:26
hardware right. The start 9 pure that's a it's
22:30
an actual computer right. Like you're you're running a an
22:33
actual computer with a legit CPU legit RAM and I had such a good
22:39
experience. I even Uncle Jim's opti too to
22:42
like you know I gave him my my my onion address and whatever
22:45
and now he's using it but it's such a like it it it made it
22:50
easy for me to benefit from that anywhere and then I travel a lot
22:55
anywhere around the world. I can connect to my start nine
22:57
node have my stuff synced and not docks my like not docks my
23:02
address not docks my balances not docks my IP address and that
23:07
was really really refreshing and and I and that's something that
23:10
I wanted to do for years but the start nine really made it easy
23:14
for me to do that So yeah it kinda goes to what you're saying
23:18
about making it easy for the layman.
23:20
So other than the fanatical bitcoiners that are worried
23:23
about not doxing their Bitcoin addresses, who do you see is the
23:29
next potential customer for start?
23:31
Nine. Cuz I'm sure that you guys are
23:34
you're you're you're. The way that you're looking at
23:37
it is beyond just bitcoiners. I think bitcoiners open the door
23:40
for sure, but who is your next enthusiast enthusiast that you
23:46
guys are thinking that could become potential customers?
23:50
Well, let me let me. Rewind a couple of years real
23:54
quick just to explain kind of our progression through
23:56
different markets and demographics.
23:59
So when we set out to build, start OS.
24:04
Which again is not a Bitcoin product, right?
24:07
It's it's a Linux distribution operating system that just makes
24:10
self hosting easier than any other Linux distro.
24:13
That's what we do here at the time though.
24:16
We're all bitcoiners. So the main thing that we wanted
24:20
to self host was our own Bitcoin node and lightning node and you
24:25
had just talked a lot about. Bitcoin, but to be honest.
24:29
Running a lightning node is even more important than running a
24:31
Bitcoin node, right? Like running a Bitcoin node is
24:35
is really nice for availability if you like want to perform a
24:38
transaction and your remote and you want to verify the the
24:41
inbound funds. But you know, no, not many block
24:46
explorers are faking transactions.
24:48
And you can always run a Bitcoin node on a device that's not on
24:51
24/7 and just sync it up every once in a while whenever you
24:55
need to use it There's like. It's good to run a Bitcoin node.
24:58
We promote it. I run one, you should run one.
25:01
But there's not like some critical security or or, you
25:08
know, loss of funds risk if if you're not running a Bitcoin
25:12
node because your keys are just cold, they're just offline and
25:15
the worst case scenario is that you're temporarily.
25:18
Having to use somebody else's node to verify a transaction.
25:20
That's like the worst case scenario.
25:24
If everyone did that, then the worst case scenario would be
25:26
that the network is not enforcing consensus rules in a
25:29
way that where everyone has a vote, but but running a
25:31
lightning note is actually like really, really important.
25:35
There's been some things in recent history that have made
25:41
people think that running a lightning note is not as
25:43
important. So you know LSP integrated
25:47
wallets like Phoenix. And Zeus and Zeus is different
25:52
because Zeus has optionality to like connect to your own node.
25:55
So Zeus is like the the everything wallet and it's our
25:57
favorite of all the lightning wallets.
25:59
But there's this trend in like Breeze and Zeus and.
26:03
Phoenix to be like, Oh no, no no no, you don't have to run a
26:06
node. You know, your phone runs a
26:08
light node, and the light node connects to our node, and then
26:12
our node opens a channel with your light node just in time.
26:16
And in case you need to receive funds when you're not online,
26:18
the funds will actually be held by our node until you do come
26:22
online. And it's like, oh boy, like all
26:25
the sudden we are rapidly in the Lightning world introducing
26:30
intermediaries, right, Not custodians.
26:33
They're not storing the money. But they are your access points
26:38
and not in the same way that a Bitcoin node is your access
26:40
point. Because I can generate A
26:41
transaction and broadcast it through one of any thousand
26:45
nodes laying around in the world, I can just broadcast my
26:48
transaction through any node and it'll get to the network.
26:52
So censorship is really difficult.
26:54
But with Lightning, it's not like that.
26:56
These are payment channels. So when you have a Phoenix
26:59
wallet and somebody sends you money.
27:02
And you're like, Oh my God, that was magic.
27:04
I didn't even need to have a node.
27:05
And the money just arrived and it showed up there.
27:07
It's like you're completely beholden to Phoenix at that
27:10
point, right? Maybe not forever, but there is
27:13
an enormous amount of trust and censorship capabilities there.
27:18
And not to mention KYC, even though they're not collecting
27:22
information, there is some pretty.
27:25
Very simple metadata analysis like IP tracking that can be
27:29
done to just see who you are, how much money you have, and
27:32
then say yes or no to your ability to send and receive it.
27:36
And I don't know if Bitcoiners fully realize how potentially
27:41
dangerous this path that we're going down for Lightning is.
27:44
We are rapidly making trade off decisions in favor of
27:50
convenience over decentralization.
27:53
And Start 9 intends to be the counterbalance to that, right?
27:57
Like, we want to reiterate like, yeah, for small amounts and
28:02
depending on who you are and where you are, this might be
28:04
fine for you to use something like Phoenix or the Zeus LSP or
28:07
something like that. But long term, we really need
28:11
people running Lightning notes, because otherwise the network is
28:13
going to be very it's going to have a lot of choke points and a
28:17
lot of people are going to end up on the wrong side of of
28:19
censorship there, so. Our goal is to make it as easy
28:22
as possible to self host and that includes a Bitcoin node,
28:25
but it even more so includes a lightning node.
28:28
You've got to run your own lightning nodes and connect to
28:31
them from your client wallets on your phones and your laptops.
28:36
That was a bit of a digression, but I wanted to set the stage
28:39
because it says sort of why we started where we started, which
28:42
is that Bitcoiners had a need to self host more so than many
28:47
demographics in this world, so like.
28:51
Yeah, people might say I would prefer to host my files on my
28:57
own server, but I'm currently using Google Drive.
29:02
But they're just talking, right? They're just saying that like
29:05
they don't. They're not actually going to
29:07
carve out time on their weekend and like de Google their file
29:11
systems, like very few people would.
29:13
Maybe some hobbyists, maybe some extremists, but your average
29:16
person is just not going to do that.
29:18
So while we had a product for them.
29:21
There wasn't the immediate fire and desire to to take action,
29:28
whereas with bitcoiners we we saw this twofold overlap in
29:32
ideology #1 is that the idea of self hosting and taking control
29:39
of your data is very much identical to the idea of, you
29:44
know, sound money and you know, digital cash.
29:49
And you know, this censorship resistant network of of trust
29:54
that Bitcoin is, there's this huge overlap and so it's like
29:58
it's hard to be a self hosted Linux distro company and not be
30:02
a bitcoiner. I believe that there are people
30:04
in this world who could pull that off through a degree of
30:06
cognitive dissonance, but they really go hand in hand, and so
30:10
we. Explicitly went after
30:13
bitcoiners, right? Because one, we were and our
30:16
bitcoiners. But we also saw that as like a
30:19
these people have a need for this and they're going to get it
30:23
quickly because they've already gone down a rabbit hole.
30:26
They already have the the brain training and mechanism to like,
30:31
understand what we're doing. Because I could go and say this
30:33
to a lot of people and their eyes would just cross and they'd
30:36
be like. I I don't.
30:37
Get it? Like I don't understand what
30:39
you're saying. Self hosting, decentralization,
30:42
but these words have deep meaning to Bitcoiner.
30:45
So that's where we started. That is our base.
30:47
That is our consumer customer base.
30:49
It is our political. Base It is our base of support
30:53
and enthusiasm, and we will always cater to our base, right?
30:58
Bitcoiners are our core ethos. However, Bitcoiners aren't the
31:02
whole world. We hope eventually they will be
31:05
and everyone will become one. But in the absence of that
31:07
happening overnight, we are trying to make efforts to reach
31:12
out to everyone else. You know, like the people who
31:15
are sharing photos through Dropbox and the people who are
31:20
hosting their passwords on LastPass.
31:22
We're just like, how do we convince these people that what
31:25
they're doing is super dangerous, unsustainable, and
31:30
that there's a better way, a cheaper, faster?
31:34
I don't know if it's faster, but it's definitely cheaper and it's
31:37
definitely safer and it's getting equally good.
31:40
So where we're going is really trying to push into markets like
31:48
anarchists, your more hardcore libertarians, your home
31:55
homesteaders, and like, you know, home labbers and
31:58
hobbyists. This is who we're going after,
32:02
People who have a tendency to be a little bit more independent, a
32:05
little bit more insulted by the thought of companies and
32:10
governments all up in their business.
32:13
So we're really trying to go after these people.
32:14
But to be honest, we haven't had a lot of success.
32:16
Bitcoiners remain the ones who get it.
32:21
Bitcoiners remain the front of the movement in the revolution,
32:24
and it's just going to take a. While for everyone else to catch
32:27
up, I think a hundred 100% and I, I, I and that's something you
32:32
know that Opti and I call it this the concept of the of the
32:35
Bitcoin echo chamber right. And it's like you know how do
32:40
you how do you like yes, the money's broken right?
32:43
Or in in the case of start nine like yes you know people are
32:48
using someone else's computer to put it simply.
32:53
But the the bigger question is how do you break that echo
32:57
chamber? How do you get people to care?
32:59
Right. And we've had this discussion in
33:02
the past when you've come on you believe it's a multi
33:04
generational thing. And I and I've Opti and I really
33:09
have put a tremendous amount of thought into this and I truly
33:12
believe it's about winning over the culture.
33:15
Like you have to win over the culture.
33:17
If the mainstream culture is not asking questions like should I,
33:22
should I be trusting someone else's computer, Should I be,
33:25
you know what is money like? Very basic questions.
33:29
If that is not in the mainstream consciousness this, this remains
33:34
niche in a way. And I think that's a very heavy
33:36
lift. I don't think, I don't think
33:38
it's something that it's unsurmountable, but it's you
33:41
know, it's the challenge at hand in front of us now.
33:44
I kind of wanted to double back to something in the beginning of
33:47
the conversation that I was curious about.
33:49
Right. So you open source your
33:51
software. How?
33:52
What's your business model as a company?
33:54
How do you plan to? How do you guys make money?
33:58
It's a good question because it actually plays into the previous
34:03
dovetails from the previous conversation which is about
34:05
target markets, right. So, so the way we've always made
34:09
money from the day we announced ourselves was the day we sold
34:12
our first product is that we sell hardware devices.
34:19
That are pre installed with start OS plug and play
34:22
experiences. You can download start OS from
34:27
the Internet from our GitHub. You could even compile it from
34:30
source if you want and then flash it to a mini PC, an old
34:35
laptop, an old desktop. You could even run it on AVM on
34:39
AVPS. Start OS is very flexible, but
34:44
most people in this world even bitcoiners.
34:48
Want to plug it in? They just want to open a box and
34:51
plug it in and know that it worked with assurances, right?
34:56
They don't want to just blindly trust everything, but they want
35:00
everyone wants convenience. We're all busy, right?
35:02
We're all stressed. It's a stressful time in history
35:05
and those of us who are fighting are busy and stressed and so we
35:12
need a degree of of. Care and convenience.
35:15
And So what start Nine has monetized really is convenience.
35:19
We say, look, of course you can get this for free, you can do
35:23
whatever you want. You don't even have to involve
35:25
us. But if you do choose to involve
35:27
us, it's not a big fee. It's not like we're gouging on
35:31
prices. We're selling plug and play
35:33
devices at very reasonable cost that you could get anywhere else
35:36
at the same cost. And then you get us as well,
35:40
right? Like we're here for you start
35:42
Nine has the best support. Whatever.
35:45
I don't know of a better company at support than Start 9.
35:49
And I'm not just talking about in the Bitcoin space.
35:51
I mean, period. We, our average response time to
35:54
any and all customer inquiries across all channels over the
35:57
last 3 1/2 years is under 10 minutes.
36:00
We respond to any and all inquiries on all channels in
36:03
under 10 minutes and we solve them.
36:05
We drive them to ground and we make people happy.
36:07
And that's why our reputation has gotten to where it is today.
36:10
We are known for this and we're proud of it and we're going to
36:13
scale it. And we can monetize that, right?
36:16
That's how most businesses in this world, prior to digital IP,
36:21
prior to the whole Facebook SAS boom bullshit, just had to earn
36:26
their keep, right? They had to provide a great
36:28
product and great service and charge for it.
36:32
Of course, people could always, you know, whittle their own
36:35
tables and chairs. But they didn't.
36:37
They went to a furniture. Store and bought.
36:39
One, because they didn't have to.
36:42
Do it themselves and spend all the time.
36:43
They didn't have to, you know, worry about what happens if a
36:47
leg breaks. They can call in the warranty,
36:49
right? We sell our devices with a
36:51
warranty that's worth something. And so we're really an old
36:54
school business. We build a product, we sell it
36:57
and then we provide support for it.
36:59
We're not rent seeking. We don't gouge you with
37:02
subscriptions. We don't lock you in.
37:04
It's just good old fashioned business and we will continue to
37:09
do that. And we believe that that can be
37:12
a very big business that that doesn't need to be something
37:16
niche. So more specifically, where
37:20
we're going from here is that now that we have Start OS as the
37:24
backbone of a new computing paradigm, forget don't even
37:26
think about it as just an OS, right Start OS enables a new way
37:31
of using computers, namely the elimination.
37:37
Of trusted third parties from the entire computing paradigm
37:41
where I can do anything. I can talk to anyone, share
37:45
files, conduct financial transactions, anything I want,
37:49
and there's no terms and conditions.
37:52
There's no subscriptions. Nothing is ever stored on
37:55
somebody else's server. Nothing is ever viewed by any
37:58
person on earth. It's purely a private digital
38:02
experience. That's what Start OS enables,
38:05
right? It's not Start OS makes that
38:07
fully, it's that Start OS was the necessary prerequisite, the
38:11
necessary backbone of that kind of a computing paradigm.
38:16
So what are people going to want to do with this private digital
38:20
existence? You know what, we think the
38:22
number one thing that they're going to be excited about and
38:24
want to do is hook other devices up to it.
38:28
Right. Do you have security cameras in
38:30
your home, Nico? Oh, maybe that's the wrong
38:32
question. Do you know people who who have
38:36
security cameras in their home like nest cameras and drop cams
38:40
and stuff? Like that, right?
38:41
Yeah, of course. The, the, the temperature thing,
38:44
the, you know, the camera the. And the doorbells and stuff,
38:47
right, 100%. These are awesome products, OK?
38:51
And these are the future of humanity, right?
38:54
Everything is gonna be smart. Everything should be smart.
38:58
Like, that's a good thing. I want a connected world.
39:02
It's a smarter, more convenient connected world.
39:05
It's a leverage on productivity. I can do more in that world than
39:09
I can do in the ancient analogue world.
39:11
Doesn't mean you have to. It just means that you can,
39:13
right? It's leverage on your own
39:14
productivity. However, I don't use a lot of
39:18
IoT devices, right? I had an Alexa for like a month
39:23
and then I put it in a box, right?
39:25
Never to be seen again. Because there was this ominous
39:28
presence about it. There's this really insidious
39:33
dark aura around these devices, and it's no different than using
39:43
software through somebody else's server.
39:46
In essence, it's no different, but it feels different.
39:50
Because it's brought into the physical world, OK?
39:54
It's like out of sight is out of mind.
39:57
When you text message your friends or you have a video chat
40:01
with your friends, you don't really feel the presence of
40:06
Zoom, of Telegram. You don't actually kind of,
40:11
like, feel like an employee is sitting between you and your
40:14
friend, right? The analog that I like to bring
40:16
up for this is like, let's pretend that you're sitting in
40:19
your home. And instead of talking to me, so
40:22
like you and I are sitting in your home, we're having a beer
40:24
and we're talking. But instead of talking to each
40:27
other, we're passing messages to a Telegram employee who's
40:31
sitting between us, like, literally on the couch between
40:33
US. And I say, hey, tell Nico I said
40:36
what's up, and then he tells you right?
40:39
And then you tell him to tell me hi back.
40:42
The the absurdity of that would be immediately apparent.
40:46
And not only is it absurd, it's incredibly undignified, right?
40:50
It is like, I want to, like, punch this person in the face,
40:54
like get out of my living room. I'm trying to talk to Nico, OK?
41:00
And that is what these smart devices do, is it makes us
41:04
realize for the first time most people, for the first time, that
41:08
this is how all of our computing interactions are, is that
41:12
there's this device between me and the thing I'm trying to do,
41:16
and this device comes at a monthly subscription.
41:18
It cost me money. If I don't pay it, I suddenly
41:21
can't view. I can't store video footage of
41:23
my home anymore. They can turn off my camera.
41:27
They can watch me anytime they want to.
41:30
Fucking live video feed. And if some employee at Google
41:33
can just watch me in my home, OK, it's like, it's incredibly
41:37
undignified and it's never going to happen.
41:41
Like, my view of this is that they're just barking up the
41:44
wrong tree. That this is the largest mistake
41:48
in the history of technological innovation in the last 50 years
41:51
at least, is that we had a big oopsie moment as a species over
41:57
the last 20 years by migrating all of computing infrastructure
42:02
to centralized cloud data farms. It is one of, in retrospect,
42:07
history is going to view this as a like facepalm.
42:11
What the fuck were those ancient humans thinking when they
42:15
thought that that was actually going to work?
42:18
It was invasion of privacy, mass surveillance, censorship, high
42:22
cost, third counterparty hacks, and on top of that, it's just
42:26
completely undignified. It's embarrassing to communicate
42:30
and operate like children in a room where parents have to give
42:34
you permission to say and do everything that you want.
42:36
It's ridiculous. And so with that in mind, that
42:40
is our essential thesis as a company is that this is dumb,
42:44
that SAS is dumb, that third party cloud IoT is dumb, and
42:49
that there's a completely better model.
42:51
And So what we are going to do is ultimately we're going to be
42:54
selling devices that are not servers, right?
42:58
Next year you'll be able to buy a Start 9 router, You'll be able
43:01
to buy a Start Nine security camera, and these devices will
43:05
be yours, completely and utterly yours.
43:09
You will plug them in, tap a couple of buttons, and then
43:14
you'll be able to go anywhere in the world and watch live video
43:18
footage of your home from your cell phone in such a way that
43:22
not only can nobody see the video footage or censor it, but
43:29
nobody even knows that it exists, right?
43:32
We're talking about a completely private, smart fleet of devices
43:39
that are connected over a private, anonymous network
43:43
globally. And even if somebody doesn't
43:48
understand how that you know pie is baked or why it's super
43:53
important, our basic normie consumer hypothesis is as
43:59
follows. In hand a You can get a camera
44:03
from Google that will cost you, I don't know, $100, and it'll
44:10
cost you 20 or $30.00 a month forever.
44:15
All the video footage will be stored on Google servers.
44:18
They can look at your home anytime they want.
44:20
They can cut you off anytime they want.
44:24
It's not protected by any sort of 4th Amendment rights.
44:27
The illegal searches and seizures means any government
44:29
official can walk into Google and just request access to that
44:31
video footage. And if Google servers ever get
44:34
hacked, that video footage is going to be all over the world.
44:37
So that's option A. Option B is instead of $100 for
44:41
the camera, you're going to pay more.
44:43
You're going to pay maybe $300.00 for the camera, but
44:46
it'll never cost you another cent again.
44:49
It's free for life. There's no subscriptions.
44:52
All the video footage is stored automatically on a server in
44:55
your home that you control. You access the video footage
44:58
privately, from anywhere in the world without asking permission
45:01
from anyone. And we just think that this is a
45:05
better option, especially especially if there are
45:08
financing options. Because again, the reason Amazon
45:12
is able to sell Alexa's for like $20 and the reason Google is
45:17
able to sell Nest cameras for $50, it's because they're losing
45:22
money on that sale and locking you in to a rent seeking
45:26
subscription model. So if you don't want that and
45:30
you don't want the invasion of privacy and the censorship and
45:33
all the rest that comes with it, people are going to have to get
45:36
used to this idea of owning things again, right?
45:38
The the Google thing is the you'll own nothing and be happy.
45:41
And the the start nine thing is, well, you'll own everything and
45:44
you'll. I don't actually.
45:47
I need to finish that analogy you'll.
45:49
Actually, be happy, yeah, you'll you'll be free and independent.
45:54
You'll actually be happy though. Happiness.
45:56
You'll be free and independent. Free and independent.
45:58
I love that. OK, so wow, so much to unpack
46:01
there. Love the analogy.
46:03
And then I think what you're referring to is IoT, right?
46:06
The Internet of Things, correct? Anything that's connectable.
46:09
That includes like a smart watch, for example, as well.
46:12
Wearables are going to be huge, man.
46:14
Can you imagine? So my dream device here, my like
46:17
dream thing, and I've said this for many years even before start
46:21
nine, was an idea is I want my body like wired up, like like
46:28
discreetly. Obviously I don't want to be
46:29
walking around with like things connected to my head because it
46:32
might look odd. But like I want to know
46:34
everything about myself. Like I want I want sensors, like
46:37
collecting like brain wave activity and heart rate and
46:40
blood sugar and and I want all that data to then be interpreted
46:46
by some super smart algorithm and AI and categorized.
46:50
And I want it to look for correlations.
46:52
I want to be told things that were unimaginable like hey Matt
46:56
Ding Ding Ding Correlation found Did you know that every single
47:01
time you eat a banana and miss two hour and and get less than 8
47:07
hours of sleep for three days in a row, your blood sugar rises
47:11
causing you to feel a certain way?
47:13
You are bearing the lead, my friend.
47:15
OK, and this is what you're bearing.
47:17
This is what you're bearing. So right now, the reason that
47:20
that sounds freaky to everyone, yes, is because you are sending
47:25
that data to someone else. Yes.
47:28
But what if you don't? What if you remove that element
47:31
all together and you are the sole owner of that data, then
47:35
All of? All of a sudden that seems
47:38
personally, that sounds alluring to me because it's like, oh,
47:41
it's telling me my vitals. It's telling me my health.
47:44
I'm the owner of that, let's say, for whatever reason, you
47:48
know, I'm paranoid and I'm on a trip and I wanna look to see,
47:52
oh, is someone in my living room, for example, Right.
47:55
Instead of, you know, asking Jeff Bezos is someone in my
47:58
living room. And I'm making a joke, of
48:00
course. You know you'd be going through
48:03
your own computer. Now when you mentioned that,
48:05
Matt, is that possible through Tor live streaming video or is
48:10
this something that would have to be done over clear Net?
48:13
Clear net, OK, yeah, it's Clear net or alternative networking
48:16
protocols, right. So Tor is Tor.
48:19
It's not just Tor and clear Net. There's ways to connect
48:22
computers in this world besides those two, and there will be a
48:28
third right in the future. With the, you know,
48:31
proliferation of home servers and home you know, routers that
48:35
are specifically designed for it, you can in time build out
48:41
grassroots and mesh networks that will connect to each other
48:46
over over distance via satellites and towers and
48:50
literally build the new Internet from the ground up without the
48:54
IS PS right. The IS PS are the final
48:56
gatekeepers. They're the final boss today.
49:00
They control all access to the Internet.
49:04
And it's OK right now because we have ways of leveraging the IS
49:11
PS and their infrastructure to conduct private and anonymous
49:16
communications. But if you assume that the
49:22
attacks will escalate, right, that this war will escalate in
49:27
nature, you could imagine a future where ISP S start to get
49:30
a little bit more aggressive about what kind of Internet
49:34
traffic they permit, what kind of home routers.
49:39
You're already seeing a trend with ISP S right now where they
49:43
don't require you to use their modem and router, but they
49:48
almost require you to, right? Like when when you set up a new
49:51
Internet connection at your home, they present their modem
49:55
Router Tandem product as like Oh yeah, here you go, Plug this in
49:59
like it's the default, you know, like just plug this in, Which is
50:04
incredibly dangerous, right? When you are using your IS PS
50:08
Modem Router Tandem product. They literally just have access
50:12
to your local area network. Like your your entire home is
50:16
exposed to them. So you really do need to use
50:20
aftermarket modems. And for fiber connections you
50:24
need to use an aftermarket router.
50:27
And we have very strong opinions on what kind of routers you
50:31
should be using, especially not only for security purposes, but
50:35
also for compatibility purposes with start OS.
50:38
Start OS is very much moving in the router direction.
50:42
Not that start OS will be a router operating system, but
50:46
that start OS will be aware of routers and be able to configure
50:51
them and change their settings in order to facilitate network
50:56
communications without the user having to be an advanced user,
51:00
right as we have always done like that's.
51:02
Our goal is to do advanced things in the non advanced way
51:07
and the router is a centerpiece of that when it comes to
51:09
networking. So anyway, I don't even know
51:14
what question you asked. I don't know, man, but I'm
51:16
enjoying the fuck out of this conversation.
51:20
Look, so, OK, so this is really, really exciting stuff.
51:24
The way that you broke down, we talked about IOTSI think that's
51:29
fascinating. It makes them actually alluring
51:32
to use, right? Because the way that you
51:35
described it, right, which is, you know, once we use Telegram.
51:38
You know, you don't really think about the fact that it's not
51:41
you, it's it's not really me to Matt, it's me, Telegram server
51:47
Matt, right. And anything that happens in
51:49
between, you have to take their word for it that it's end to end
51:52
encrypted. Really.
51:54
Even Even if it is though, let's say it is end to end encrypted,
51:59
OK, like let's give them all the benefits of the doubt.
52:02
It's still intermediated. The amount of metadata analysis
52:06
that can be done is would shock people.
52:08
OK, like, they might not be able to see the exact contents of the
52:11
message, but they know who you're talking to when you're
52:15
talking to them, how often you talk.
52:17
They can compose social graphs based on that information.
52:20
They can see the length of the message that you sent, even if
52:23
they can't see its contents. And a lot of inference can be
52:25
done there. Combined with other data
52:29
collection of the phone, like location data, they can detect
52:34
if, you know, I sent a message and then I left my home and then
52:36
we both went to the same place. So now that message can be
52:38
inferred to be like, hey, meet me here, like there's just it's
52:42
awful, just you gotta exclude intermediaries you have we have
52:46
to eliminate third parties from the computing paradigm.
52:48
That is the goal. Sorry I interrupted you.
52:50
Go ahead. No, no, no.
52:51
This is this is fascinating. My mind is is being blown right
52:58
now. OK, so this world sounds very
53:02
exciting. It actually makes me wanna have
53:05
a sovereign Alexa. Are we are we are we gonna call
53:08
it a a a mat? What are we gonna call it?
53:11
What's gonna be the the equivalent of of an Alexa?
53:15
He's gonna he's gonna kill me. So my partner at start nine you
53:20
know one of the Co founders his name is Aiden and that just so
53:27
happens to on a on a on a walk. I went on a walk, and by the
53:31
time that walk was over, without any intention, I had realized
53:34
that Aiden could be an acronym for Artificial Intelligence for
53:39
Distributed Electronic Networks, and he hates it.
53:45
He does not want it to be named Aiden, but I have the trump card
53:48
at this company and we'll probably name it Aiden.
53:52
AIDAIDEN Artificial Intelligence for Distributed Electronic
53:57
Networks will probably be the virtual assistant of the Start
54:01
OS. OK, so you know how they have
54:03
different, different accent models for, you know, the AI.
54:09
If you need a Miami accent version, consider the name Nico.
54:15
It's a great name. OK, yeah, I mean, you should be
54:18
able to rename it anything that you want, right?
54:20
Like this is just the default name and you should be able to
54:23
give it any voice that you want, right?
54:25
Again with the AI voice stuff, it's crazy like your your AI
54:28
could be Morgan Freeman if you want it to be.
54:30
Oh man, that's hilarious. That's hilarious.
54:32
OK, so we are getting at the top of the hour and I do want to get
54:38
to this question by one of our viewers, Andrew Saman, said.
54:43
Matt, can you explain your vision for what Start 9?
54:47
OS will look like in five years, how do you see people
54:51
interfacing with their personal server across devices?
54:54
I mean, we covered a lot of this just now, but what is the next
54:59
five years in your eyes in regards to start nine and the
55:03
sovereign computing movement in general?
55:05
OK, yeah, so we started with the server.
55:08
OK, We started with the the the elephant in the room was that in
55:13
order to have a sovereign computing paradigm, everyone
55:16
needs to be running a server. And maybe not everyone, but at
55:19
least every family, every organization, right?
55:22
Like every tiny group of trusted people need to have at least one
55:27
server. Ideally, every human on the
55:29
planet has a server, but that'll probably never happen.
55:31
There's going to be some degree of of shared resources and Uncle
55:36
Jim models, but we started with the idea that everyone needs a
55:39
server. And what was stopping everyone
55:42
from running a server was that there was no operating system to
55:45
administer a server. Nobody knew how to run a server.
55:47
There was no way to run a server unless you had sys admin skills
55:51
and command line skills. So that was the first problem
55:53
that we saw was, OK, we've got to get, we've got to make it
55:56
possible for people to run servers.
56:00
Step 2 is how do you access those servers, right.
56:04
So you're on the other side of the world.
56:06
How do you talk to your server? Well, we started with the
56:09
easiest and obvious one, which was Tor.
56:11
Tor is a way to communicate across any distance, privately,
56:17
anonymously, and happily without having to do any sort of router
56:22
configurations. Tor has Nat punching right, Nat
56:25
traversal, the ability to get through a local network firewall
56:29
built in, and it has that built in because the connections are
56:32
actually going out, not in. OK.
56:34
So Tor has two outbound TCP connections that are
56:37
rendezvousing. That's probably a little more
56:39
technical than we need right now, but this idea of
56:42
communicating with your server. So first we make it possible to
56:45
run a server. Then we make it possible and
56:48
easy to access that server from anywhere in the world.
56:51
Again, we did that with Tor in O4-O which is the huge update
56:57
that's coming soon is you will be able to have very very simple
57:04
VPN access from anywhere in the world.
57:06
You will also be able to access your server over clear net.
57:08
Now this is the the sort of home run for families and businesses
57:12
in many cases because it's the exact experience that they
57:16
currently have with computers. They just go to a browser and
57:20
they open a domain like their domain.
57:23
It would be like chat dot Matt hill dot dev and that would be
57:27
my self hosted chat server that my friends could join and we
57:31
could have conversations and there's no more Telegram,
57:34
there's no more signal, there's no more, you know, there's no
57:37
more WhatsApp, nothing And it's just like a normal website
57:41
chat.matthill.com. And you could even get native
57:44
apps for your iOS and Android device that connect to
57:47
chat.matthill.com and and we could all have private
57:50
conversations and that's what's coming very soon.
57:52
So we've largely solved the can you run a server?
57:56
The answer is yes. Can you use that server
58:00
effectively, seamlessly from anywhere in the world?
58:02
The answer is almost. It's pretty good right now, but
58:06
it's about to get a lot better. And along with that is the idea
58:10
of data redundancy, right. So one of the other lacking
58:14
aspects of Start OS right now is that in order to make a backup
58:19
of all your data, because when you self host, it's really
58:21
really really important to make backups because if you don't
58:24
then your shit is just gone forever.
58:26
Uh, in order to make a backup on start OS today, you actually
58:29
have to click a button. You have to go in there and you
58:31
have to click backup. And because of that people don't
58:35
do it. Like as crazy as that sounds,
58:37
it's just an extremely rare thing for people to backup their
58:40
server because they have to log in and click A and click a
58:42
button. So also coming with O4-O is the
58:44
ability to do automatic backups that will happen in the
58:47
background without you having to worry about it and they'll back
58:50
up to any remote location that you choose on any and any
58:53
frequency that you choose including.
58:56
And this is where it gets really interesting, is other start OS
58:59
servers. So you will be able to in the
59:01
near future have a start OS server in your home and a start
59:05
OS server at your friend's house.
59:07
And you could put servers in a couple strategic locations and
59:11
they can actually work together to make sure that all the data
59:16
is is copied, backed up. And they could even step in to
59:22
pick up the to pick up the slack.
59:25
If another server is like offline because the Internet in
59:28
that house went offline or something like that, the other
59:31
servers could pick up the slack so that you don't experience
59:34
downtime. Somebody in the chat right now,
59:36
just because it's very relevant, is asking about RAID.
59:39
So RAID is a way of of sort of automatically creating redundant
59:44
redundancy for data across multiple drives, but it's all in
59:47
the same server, so you still have this locality risk of like
59:53
if that house burns down, right? RAID is is designed for drive
59:56
failure, so if my SSD fails, then that data is also mirrored
1:00:02
onto this other SSD or even two or three more SSDs.
1:00:05
But it's all still there. What I'm talking about is actual
1:00:10
encrypted backups being sent over geographic distances, which
1:00:16
is different. Both are great, so you can
1:00:19
already do hardware RAID on start OS.
1:00:24
So if you have a hardware RAID set up, you can actually make
1:00:28
that your data drive for start OS that's already supported.
1:00:32
Software RAID is a little bit of a different concept and that
1:00:36
will be supported as well probably next year.
1:00:40
So RAID is coming, but also so is automatic encrypted backups
1:00:46
to different servers. That's badass.
1:00:48
So you like, just in case, you know, Opti's ex girlfriends.
1:00:54
Christine Lagarde sends a hit team to my house to get rid of
1:00:59
all of her and Opti's pictures. With this, you know she's not
1:01:05
gonna be able to get rid of them.
1:01:07
So, wow, this was like always, Matt.
1:01:11
This is why I keep fighting you on the show.
1:01:13
This absolutely blew my mind. Should we go through and use the
1:01:18
last couple of minutes to talk about the three products that
1:01:22
you guys offer? Which is the server Lite, the
1:01:26
server one, and the one that I personally use.
1:01:29
And I highly recommend the server peer, yeah.
1:01:34
So there's there's some very, very new things on on that front
1:01:40
that I'll share right now and make an announcement on your
1:01:43
show why not. So we are going to be dropping
1:01:46
the Server Lite as a as a product.
1:01:50
The Server Light is the Raspberry Pi.
1:01:53
The Raspberry Pi is just gradually being obsoleted.
1:01:56
At this point. It's being rapidly obsoleted.
1:01:59
Yes, you can still use a Raspberry Pi for certain things
1:02:03
like file storage or messaging, but we highly, highly recommend
1:02:06
against it for anything Bitcoin related at this point.
1:02:08
It just cannot keep up. You're going to have a bad time.
1:02:12
And because you know, people want to use it for Bitcoin, it's
1:02:17
like they're trying. Even though we're saying not to,
1:02:19
they're still buying it and trying.
1:02:20
And so we're like, all right, we're just going to stop selling
1:02:22
it because people are getting themselves in trouble and then
1:02:24
they're getting angry at us being like, why doesn't this
1:02:26
work for Bitcoin? We're like, we told you it
1:02:28
wouldn't work for Bitcoin, but you bought it anyway thinking it
1:02:31
would. You didn't read the description.
1:02:32
So we're just going to stop selling it.
1:02:34
So we're done with the light. We will liquidate our our
1:02:38
Raspberry Pi's on Amazon or eBay or whatever.
1:02:41
So we're we're done, We're not going to sell any more of those
1:02:43
probably starting immediately maybe tonight or tomorrow.
1:02:47
Secondly the the one is our sort of like mid tier device,
1:02:51
perfectly adequate for any individual or small family.
1:02:53
It's going to run Bitcoin, it's going to run Lightning, It's got
1:02:55
1-2 or four terabytes of storage, 16 gigs of RAM, it's a
1:02:59
perfectly fine computer, solid device for a lot of people.
1:03:03
The Pure is what you mentioned earlier, which is our top end
1:03:06
device has a very strong CPU. It's not as strong as it was two
1:03:11
years ago when we first specced the device out.
1:03:13
There's chips are, you know, changing constantly and
1:03:15
advancing constantly, but it's got a pretty good CPU.
1:03:17
It's got 32 gigs of RAM, which is pretty good.
1:03:22
It's, you know, AI stuff is going to need even more at some
1:03:25
point. But for Bitcoin and Lightning,
1:03:28
32 gigs of RAM is just going to crush for you.
1:03:30
I think current syncing times are anywhere like 16 hours to
1:03:33
sync the full archival node from Genesis, which is pretty badass
1:03:36
on a pier. And the biggest selling point of
1:03:39
the pier is that it has an open firmware stack, and this is
1:03:43
super rare and very difficult to achieve.
1:03:45
The Server pier runs Core Boot, which means that all proprietary
1:03:50
firmware, closed source firmware has been removed from the device
1:03:53
and that the hardware on the device is capable of running
1:03:57
open source firmware that has been vetted by communities and
1:04:01
is open and therefore provably safe.
1:04:04
And then secondly in the pure Intel's Management Engine, which
1:04:08
is Intel's like known backdoor into their chips is disabled in
1:04:13
firmware. So there is at least no known
1:04:17
back door in the server pier. Where is pretty much every other
1:04:21
computer on the planet, including our server one, has a
1:04:23
known back door in it. It doesn't mean that that back
1:04:28
door is being used to spy on you all the time.
1:04:30
It just means that, like, we don't know what's going on under
1:04:33
there. There's closed source code that
1:04:35
could be doing all sorts of shit that we don't like.
1:04:37
So the server pier is not only big and powerful, it's also
1:04:41
very, very safe for privacy and security.
1:04:44
Which is what a lot of our customers care about.
1:04:46
The last thing I'll say is we're about to launch a new product
1:04:49
line to replace the light. We're very excited about this.
1:04:54
We have cut deals with local E recycler companies, OK,
1:05:00
companies that take electronic scrap in.
1:05:03
And a lot of the times these companies get called into like a
1:05:06
bank. And the bank is like, all right,
1:05:08
we're upgrading all of our servers.
1:05:10
And they do this like every two years, right?
1:05:13
And like, we're upgrading all of our servers and we don't care
1:05:15
about the old ones because we throw money away like crazy and
1:05:18
we don't give a shit. So they just hand it to a
1:05:19
recycler. And then these recyclers are
1:05:22
like, well, OK, well, what do we do with these?
1:05:23
Sometimes they take them apart and they take the chips out and
1:05:25
they do whatever. Well, we've got some deals with
1:05:27
them where we're like if you come across across a batch of
1:05:30
servers that have basically been given to you, you tell us we'll
1:05:35
buy them from you at a very cheap price and then pass that
1:05:39
price and savings along to our own customers.
1:05:42
So these are not new devices. They are repurposed reused
1:05:46
devices. So we're probably going to call
1:05:49
it the server restart or something like that and sell
1:05:54
those and they're going to be extremely affordable, like
1:05:57
cheaper than significantly cheaper than the one, but
1:06:02
probably more powerful. Than the one the trade off is
1:06:06
that they are used, but we we're going to run a, you know a
1:06:09
battery of tests against them to make sure that they're working
1:06:12
and we'll warranty him just like we do everything else.
1:06:14
But it's a used device, but you get a ton of power for a very
1:06:18
cheap ticket. That's awesome.
1:06:20
That's very, very cool. Matt.
1:06:22
Can I tell him about the deal? Yeah, please.
1:06:25
OK guys, there's a deal on the on the server pure.
1:06:30
It went from just the pure. It went from 1429 and now it's
1:06:36
down to 1279. And now through Thanksgiving you
1:06:41
could use promo code Simply Bitcoin Plus and it'll give you
1:06:44
an additional 18% off. And now that puts the server
1:06:49
pier at 1049 dollars. I highly, highly recommend it.
1:06:55
It is. I've been using it.
1:06:58
I mean. Matt sold me at the conference
1:07:00
floor Bitcoin 2022 and I was like the the meme, the Futurama
1:07:05
meme. Or was it a South Park?
1:07:07
I was like, just take my money and I put a down payment on it
1:07:11
and I haven't looked back. I've had a great, great
1:07:13
experience using it. That's what I personally would
1:07:16
recommend. Matt, we appreciate you, Nico.
1:07:19
Always a pleasure having you on the show.
1:07:22
I literally have a box of Start Nine shirts at my house.
1:07:27
I think from the Thank God for Bitcoin conference, maybe with
1:07:32
your permission maybe we start sending those out to some.
1:07:35
I got a bunch back there. Oh, there we go.
1:07:38
I think I have more than you. Well, it's it's a very big box.
1:07:42
How do you manage that? It was just left there.
1:07:45
It was just left there. And they're like, Nico, do you
1:07:48
like, you know, Matt, why don't you take it?
1:07:50
I'm like, OK, I'll take it. And it's just been sitting in
1:07:52
the corner. Give now, man do giveaways.
1:07:56
OK. OK, so we're gonna we're gonna
1:07:58
be doing some Start 9 giveaway with with Matt's permission,
1:08:02
Matt. Always an honor.
1:08:03
And you always blow my mind when you come on the show.
1:08:06
Opti's been losing his mind as well in the chat.
1:08:11
Opti. Cyborg.
1:08:12
I think I I read there. Oh, man.
1:08:14
Sovereign Cyborg. Opti.
1:08:15
All right. It's different.
1:08:17
It's coming. It's coming anyways.
1:08:19
Matt, thank you so much for joining us.
1:08:21
I really really appreciate it. See you.
1:08:24
All right guys, I'm going to wrap up the show TuneIn
1:08:27
tomorrow, 12:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, for another
1:08:30
episode of Simply Bitcoin Live. I'm going to be travelling to
1:08:33
Los Angeles, so Opti is going to be holding it down until then.
1:08:36
I'll see you later guys.