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Rod, welcome to the podcast.

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Great to be here, Jake.

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Thank you so much for joining today.

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I've got a long list of questions for you, Rod.

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First of all, just want to highlight how cool it is that you get different touch points with different people,

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whether it's online to start with or maybe a physical interaction,

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and then, okay, we've got to do a podcast, and that's the case with you and I today.

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So very excited for this conversation.

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um first question for you rod is the the nostre network like why why does it exist why are you

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even using it and let's spend lots of time talking about that because i'm super excited about it as

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well but you're building on nostre and i'd love to dig into like you know your your process to

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get into today yeah great jake i mean i'm a big nostre fan um let's i mean if it's okay i'll just

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give a bit of background in terms of who I am and how I ended up here. Absolutely, please.

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Because that'll explain it all. So my background, I started a technology company about

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January 2012. I grew that up for six years to list it on the ASX. In January 2018, I then ran

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that for six years as a public list co. And, you know, then I stepped aside and new management have

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taken it forward and they're doing their own things. But the, you know, that journey of raising

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and building technology over a number of years taught just so much, right?

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I mean, we were, you know, I guess 2012.

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So, you know, a good period in the middle of that free money era

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that I think Bitcoiners who know about monetary policy

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will know what zero interest rates does to venture, for example.

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You know, we started at a good period there where capital was available,

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where we were able to grow something really quickly and we did so.

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and then you know we were able to to i guess be successful at that right early investors invested

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you know at a say a million dollar pre-money and ipo was at 40 million we were australia's first

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ever equity crowdfunding exit uh you know even then kind of listing and running through covid

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we were able to you know take a essentially a travel technology company through the end of

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travel as far as public investors were concerned of at the time they said you know this is it

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And so we're there on the receiving end again of more, say, policy decisions that, no, we're not allowed to leave Australia.

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Right. And so we can say again that maybe there is there are policy impacts here to running a business in a vertical.

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It has to be a favoured vertical. But we got through. Right.

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We reduced costs.

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We got through on a kind of a method that didn't involve raising stats of dilutive equity at the bottom of a kind of a valuation trough.

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Instead, we cut costs, but we took care of people and we got through.

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We made sure every supplier was paid.

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We came out the other side.

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It's a really interesting story.

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And so then again, on the flip side, we benefited.

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you know there was a moment there in markets where if you were uh you know seeking a say a

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barbell to your the world is ending pandemic thesis but what if i'm wrong well you really

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want to invest in a flyer and so you know here's a travel technology startup that i can invest in

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and we became you know able to i guess on the outside benefit from that uh raise a large sum

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of money attract some very exciting investors uh we were the 10th fastest growth company in

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Australia that year, just flying out of the traps. And I took the thing to bigger than it was pre-pandemic

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and said, I've done my six years public and we've recovered the company and it's time for me to go

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and explore other things. And I guess through all of that, a few things. One, learned the importance

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of monetary policy and fiscal policy on markets. There's stories to tell about how capital works

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that both in terms of private market investing

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and also public market and accessing capital there

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that is just so dependent on the environment you're in.

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And then also through the pandemic learned, well,

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what happens when suddenly narratives are completely controlled?

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What happens when suddenly your industry is completely shut down

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and started to listen to what Jack Dorsey had been through,

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sympathizing with them as the head of a smaller list co and saying, well,

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I can understand exactly the kind of purchase he was on. But then, you know, hearing, hey,

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there's this solution, you know, and a solution that seems reasonably resilient. If you're talking

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about, you know, communication, resilient to different policy decisions. If you're talking

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about monetary policy, well, it's riding on Bitcoin, which is resilient to certain policy

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decisions and we're sitting here as you know I've built this company from zero twice I'm looking for

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my next run to be built on something resilient quite besides what AI has done which is a whole

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other thing as well but these these are the things that lead me to kind of Bitcoin and to Nostra

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I mean I'm super excited to unpack them all for you but that's roughly why I'm here. Awesome Rod

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okay and it's always interesting where conversations go because today I was like I've got

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so many questions for Rod about the last decade, but I was going to try and maybe weave them in

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later to like the NOSTA story today, but let's flip it around and do exactly what you've done

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because actually the chronological order is also really nice. So the business that you set up and

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IPO was called J-Ride and you kindly shared a link yesterday, which gave some great context on like

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the problem, the solution that you came up with. Most of the people listening to this won't have

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listened to the equity investors that you were talking to. So as a founder of a business,

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The philosophy of build it and they will come in Satoshi, in my mind, has never been better represented.

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Like he just built this thing, he, she, they, and we've ended up using it.

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It's built on the back of a lot of other work, which is often overlooked.

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But then on the flip side of that, you've got, okay, do as much customer research as you can.

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Maybe you came across a problem of your own and do other people need the solution that you can create and go and fill that need?

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and listening to the interview that you did yesterday you came down more in that side of

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like okay I think there's a need for this business and clearly there was so take us right back to like

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the genesis point of like okay I know I want to start a company what skills did you have who did

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you know how did you even begin to get it off the ground yeah so it's a good question so uh look for

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those who don't know Jay right uh and at the time that I was running it and it's doing something

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different under new management now but at the time that I was running it broadly speaking it

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went like this. Jake have you ever traveled? Yes a lot yeah. And so you kind of be familiar that

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there's a couple of important parts to travel one is you know what is great to do in a location

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and the other is how on earth do I get to that place and the travel industry is very good at

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selling dreams about you know amazing things to do and it's very good at selling certain parts of

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those experiences but it was very bad at the time that i started about actually helping you get there

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you know flight aggregation had become a thing right webjet and sky scanner these sorts of

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businesses have become a thing but what about that last mile and you looked at travel travel

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at the time again that i had started this and was running this had built a stack of really nice

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aggregator models right so you had booking.com hotels webjet for flights sky scanner for flights

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so forth but no aggregator for the last mile this was pre-uber even right you know taxis all around

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the world we're all completely different companies uh how do you as a person actually work out how to

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get around and and not just work it out how you access it and so we stepped into that vertical

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we said well like as a macro kind of idea that makes sense as a traveler with a lived experience

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i've been stuck in places and i wish i knew how to get around you know let's step into that with

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with um aggregate them all uh it made sense from macro point of view it made sense from markets

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point of view, you know, taking a look at how Australian public equities had, you know,

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played out over the previous years, Australian equity investors were starting to get familiar

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with marketplaces, right?

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Because you had, you know, seek for jobs to marketplace, you know, domain for properties,

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it's a marketplace, car sales for cars, it's a marketplace.

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So they kind of understood marketplace dynamics, marketplace defensibility, all of these things

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We said in a macro sense, it makes sense.

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In an equities sense, it makes sense.

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Okay, let's go raise some money and let's go build a company.

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And so, you know, we did.

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But I guess the thing that is, I guess, the lesson that I didn't know at the time and that I've subsequently learned, I think this is an important lesson for all founders.

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Because when you're a founder, and I think I'm probably speaking for most founders, you're starting a company because you don't actually want a job.

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right you you want to be in charge of a thing right you don't want to be an employee

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the very moment that you raise equity funding you are going to become an employee yes well

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maybe not the very first moment you might have a very amazing seasoned investor who says you know

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you're the visionary run with it but you always have to go to the next stage right because that

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investor is looking for fast flow if that investor is looking for a future liquidity point therefore

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you must be courting other investors.

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Those investors are going to want still further amounts of control.

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You will get still further diluted and so on.

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You're on track.

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And eventually you end up on a publicly listed board

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with multiple other board members

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holding a single digit percentage of your company

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and they'll disagree with you.

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And they'll tell you what to do.

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Interesting.

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And that sounds like a job to me.

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And so I think a lot of people at that early stage,

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they don't kind of realize that they're buying themselves a job

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with the moment you raised, Mike.

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And there's lots of opportunity these days.

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And again, if we're going to talk about AI,

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to avoid that track completely if you wanted to.

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Yes, and for sure we should talk about it.

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Truly interesting time.

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Yeah.

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And again, just to reference the kind of starting point is

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even just recently, I am in Byron Bay at the moment with my family

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and we had some tickets to go and watch Oasis in Melbourne,

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which is freaking awesome.

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and so we were flying down to Melbourne and it's a it's a trip I've done a lot over the last two

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years and almost every single time we land in Melbourne I'm like how are we going to get from

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the airport to wherever we're going whether it's my mother-in-law's place or to a hotel

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and I've used different chauffeur companies essentially transfer businesses whatever you

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want to call them so when I heard you describe the problem of j-ride like oh my god I've experienced

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that problem so many times when you you basically reach the end of one travel company's service

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or product but it's like well now i don't know where the fuck i'm going next and yes like uber

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might improve that you could get a car directly somewhere but even then it's like well actually

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now i've got 12 bags and three kids and two strollers and do you know what i mean it's like

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they're obviously more niche in terms of what you're looking for you might have a surfboard

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you might be disabled who knows right and so that that problem point really echoed to me is like ah

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what a great idea of course there's a good marketplace for aggregating that step um and

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clearly it worked right you'll hear how many years later um yeah well i'm no longer running that

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company but the business really went you know yeah that's right and so the business now continues

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it's a it's a listed enterprise it's under new leadership and they're they're doing exciting

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things in sass uh you know i look forward to that business kind of continuing to make big runs but

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But the journey of being a founder there was kind of a really interesting layup into why Bitcoin, what it sold in capital markets, why NOSTA, what it sold in go-to markets.

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And there was a moment in, wow, it was three years ago now.

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Three years ago, I was still in Jayride and GPT-3 came out.

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Do you remember how much of a splash that made?

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Yeah, people were excited, yeah.

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Yeah, suddenly everybody's talking about AI.

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And it was a really fascinating moment.

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So there you are, right?

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You put yourself in these shoes.

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You're CEO, managing director, founder of a listed tech company that spent, oh, $25 million over a decade building software with the expectation that that's going to be a technological defensibility that no other company has been bothered to invest the same amount of money in solving the same problem because you're already there.

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and GPT-3 comes out and, you know, it's,

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I think we all remember now in retrospect how average it was

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compared to current models, but GPT-3 comes out

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and, you know, you can see that within a few years

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you're going to be able to say, you know,

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hey, model, give me a replica of JRide's code base.

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Give me a replica of ABC company's code base

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and that it will go, okay, there you go.

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It's done, yeah.

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for broadly free and broadly instantaneously.

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And, you know, that wasn't what GPT-3 was able to do,

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but you were able to look at it and say,

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how many years until that's possible?

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And all of that technology note that you'd so painfully built

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over so many years is just, you know,

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holding a residual value of zero.

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And how many competitors can now suddenly come

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and be a fast follower of your, you know, successful model?

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And it was three years ago when I said,

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it's probably a decade away, but still, you know,

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changes your investment horizon.

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You're no longer building for the eons.

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You're building for, well, I've got to make sure

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that this thing delivers within a five-year span

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because within 10 years I'm going to have fast followers, right?

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Which brings us to now, right?

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So I've stepped out of J-Ride and I'm doing essentially

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AI-led development.

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Six months ago I said, I wonder if I was wrong by seven

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and a half years.

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And I can confirm I was wrong by seven and a half years.

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The moment where you can sit down with a robot and say, I'd like to duplicate X and have it not instantaneously, but pretty fast and not free, but pretty cheap, completely duplicate somebody else's business model and code.

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It's right now.

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It's possible to do today.

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Wow.

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And the ramifications of that are just so extraordinary, aren't they?

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um rod to to just dwell on this for a moment the the job that you found yourself in as the founder

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of a business that was quote-unquote your idea and your business but suddenly you're stock listed

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and you've got single digits of the business you're no longer in control yes there's value

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that you've generated which is great but um in some ways you're an employee which is a fascinating

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insight that a lot of people won't have considered 2023 you mentioned that the the management of the

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business changed um how did that feel you know 10 years of your life going into something and say

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okay well maybe this isn't what I want to do with my time it was an interesting moment um but I

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wouldn't I wouldn't say it was a negative moment you know you you can become too much single track

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on a single idea for too long and I think I was also kind of really clear with myself that my

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special skills are turning nothing into something and that's a very different game to running 150

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person headcount listed entity um and i mean a very different game and you know i learned that

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game and that's fine but you know given the opportunity to continue to run you know 200

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person listed entity uh or you know get my hands dirty again and get on the tools and build

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something that's not been seen before.

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I mean, that's the thing that excites me.

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So, Rod, keep going.

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So where is that excitement taking you today?

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I think that's awesome, by the way.

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What a great vibe.

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Yeah, look, so the...

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It just comes back to AI.

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So think about just how profound this is for a second.

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You know, 10 years ago, you are a non-technical co-founder

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who wants to start a technology company.

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Okay.

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First step, get a technical co-founder.

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You need that, 50% of your equity.

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And then second step, go and raise a venture round

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for another 25% of your equity so that you can plow that money

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and some stock options into getting some more engineers.

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Okay, great.

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Now you've got a technical team and you're off.

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You get to start now.

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You own 30% of your company, right?

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Yeah, wow.

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And you go.

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And you go for 10 years and you end up with a single digit.

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Now, compare and contrast.

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You're a non-technical co-founder today and you go to Claude and you say, give me a prototype of X.

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And it just can.

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And you can get out the gate, you know, without the venture, without the technical co-founder even.

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You can get out the gate holding 100% of your company.

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And very fast as well.

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Yeah.

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But even without speed, even if you had to, you know, beat it to death over many months, you can still do it.

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Yes.

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And you can learn the skills as you go and it'll teach you the skills as you go.

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Wow.

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And so, yeah.

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Please don't carry on.

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Oh, no, I was going to say.

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And so how fundamentally does that change what it means to start a technology company?

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Well, it radically changes things.

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And to share an experience of mine.

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So I have tried many times to found a company and failed many times.

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And there's all sorts of different reasons why.

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But one experience I had was going through what is called talent investing.

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So there's some programs, one's called Entrepreneur First, another called Antler.

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I don't know if you've ever heard of these, but they're basically big funds that raise money on the idea that you can put two people in a room together, give them three months to come up with a prototype, and they're going to build the next Google.

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And it's like a real dragon's den, in a sense.

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and everyone's in there scouting each other out like 100 people in the room it's like who do you

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want to work with who do you not want to work with and again as a non-technical founder it's like okay

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i've got commercial skills i've got industry expertise in this one specific niche but don't

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really want to work in that um i need someone who can build this thing so immediately given 50 away

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and then as you said you've also got to raise the money and so between the two of you then selling

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more equity to the program that you've come through.

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And so the headache involved in A, getting the talent

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and B, getting the funding is massive for someone

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who's basically an ideas man that can make something happen.

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You given away more than half just to get to the point of starting So it a massive change and affects someone like myself hugely as well Yeah one of the smartest investors and wealthiest kind of investors we ever had

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was very straightforward that if you really think

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this is going to be a big and exciting company,

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then you should try to hold on to as much equity as you can.

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Because why wouldn't you want to have all of the shares

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in this thing if it's going to be as huge as you say?

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and that's obviously them being a uh you know them slightly negging the investment thesis and

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asking for me to respond but it is also true and it it flies in the face of what you used to read

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about in tech crunch which was fundraising round fundraising round fundraising round now these two

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things can't both be true you know either it's important validation that you're successfully

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getting investors all the time or you actually want to hold on to your company as one of those

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I mean, they can't both be true statements all the time.

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And I'm sure there's a middle ground,

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but I think a lot of people are attracted by the glitz and the glam of the funding.

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And also in an era of free money, you know, there's money.

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So you can get it.

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Go and get it.

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Today, you don't need it.

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Not only is it scarcely available, but also you don't need it.

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That's kind of a radically different play.

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You raise your venture.

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You're now on a track.

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You know, the VC-fueled hamster wheel.

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you're going to keep raising, you're going to keep growing, you're going to keep hiring,

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you're going to keep diluting. And you end up having to build a very, you know, a tiny little

295
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narrow window of valid businesses fit that mold, right? It has to be, you know, in 100 million plus,

296
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and it has to be a trade sale to a industry dominant player, or it has to be an IPO,

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because we as investors who are putting in the money need our liquidity.

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Where's our exit event? The little window that you get to play in becomes increasingly small,

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But the moment that you instead own the company, I mean, the opportunity to build different templates of business become wide open, wide open.

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I mean, how much money do I truly need to happily live by the beach with my daughter and play volleyball on the beach?

301
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It's probably not, you know, a multi-hundred million dollar company, to be frank.

302
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You know, and with venture, you can't play that game.

303
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You can't decide to take, you know, three months off and come back to it soon.

304
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You know, these sorts of things are forbidden.

305
00:21:04,019 --> 00:21:08,679
they can't be done and so again ai is fundamentally i think changing this game for founders

306
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and what a great time to be on the outside and go after it oh my god i couldn't agree more one

307
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small example but something that's happened for me in just literally the last few weeks

308
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is i had i had a strategy for the podcast that um was incorrect and i went 10 10 months absolutely

309
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hammered it hired an editor hired a producer we threw a lot of content out there hit almost 250

310
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000 views across all the kind of traditional platforms which i'm really pleased with but

311
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what i realized is that i was chasing something i didn't need to chase and i was getting stressed

312
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about something i didn't be stressed about and selling views is a commodity business and therefore

313
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how am i any different to someone down the road with another podcast with another opportunity to

314
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sell a banner or a bio mention or ad real or whatever you're in advertising and given the

315
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the fortune i've had to invest in bitcoin when i did it completely shifts the playing field because

316
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you have a deflationary savings tool that's increasing in purchasing power whilst you do

317
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nothing and i say nothing quote unquote you know homeschooling kids or whatever but you can choose

318
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to do different things with your time and chase the funding and so i have let pat and michael go

319
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cheers to those guys for getting me there this far but it's like what does ai mean for a podcaster

320
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what does a one-man media business actually look like and of course this is where nostor comes into

321
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it because the platform risk of traditional things is huge like you can just get kicked off you can

322
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have hundreds of thousands of subscribers on youtube and they're like oh do you know what

323
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these guys pay us more ad revenue over here and you're talking about stuff they don't like so

324
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you're newt and it's going to be some small term in the community guidelines the point of explaining

325
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all this being I have produced and released only one episode since this decision and I've got one

326
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waiting in the wings to release on Friday but I've been able to use Riverside to produce you know to

327
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edit to get clips to create captions and I've been able to do it to the standard I want rather than

328
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necessarily pay someone else to do it for me that does it to what they want and I'm comfortable with

329
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how it's been and you think wow i've just probably 20x like i've cut the cost by 20x essentially if i

330
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think about what the monthly running costs were and what they will be now i'm not paying for my

331
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time but that's a big big big shift in just that one tiny example as to how you can be more efficient

332
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as a solo operated business and i call it business quote unquote really what it is is a

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00:23:41,179 --> 00:23:47,239
creative venture that I wrapped up as a business and got carried away. But I'd love to know, Rod,

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so what I love about someone like your story is you had an idea, you took it through the

335
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entrepreneurial route, you had an exit, and you're now refocusing all of that expertise to go, I'm

336
00:24:00,739 --> 00:24:05,319
going again. So what are some of the problems that you've stumbled across that you're like,

337
00:24:05,399 --> 00:24:09,299
oh, that's something that's caught my attention, or this has caught my attention? And how do you

338
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decide where to point your energy and your skills?

339
00:24:14,619 --> 00:24:18,259
So I'm running a new NOSTA venture called Show Show at the moment.

340
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I guess we'll get to talking about Show Show in a roundabout way.

341
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But the challenge that I set, I guess challenge,

342
00:24:26,319 --> 00:24:29,079
the thing to validate that I set myself six months ago was,

343
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can you right now start a tech company with no technology people?

344
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Because again, three years ago, I had the view that's going to take 10 years.

345
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I thought maybe I'm wrong by seven and a half years.

346
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And so let's say you want to do that.

347
00:24:43,079 --> 00:24:47,259
That's your chief risk that you're going to try and fail and that it's not possible.

348
00:24:47,259 --> 00:24:51,919
And in startup, the number one thing to do always is validate your riskiest assumption first.

349
00:24:52,319 --> 00:24:53,699
So that's the riskiest assumption.

350
00:24:54,219 --> 00:24:58,359
How do you then subordinate all other concerns to validating only that assumption?

351
00:24:59,339 --> 00:25:01,519
Well, what are the other risks when you're going into business?

352
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:02,799
Funding risk?

353
00:25:02,899 --> 00:25:03,799
Okay, I'll bootstrap it.

354
00:25:04,639 --> 00:25:05,639
Business model risk?

355
00:25:05,759 --> 00:25:06,979
Okay, I'll copy someone else.

356
00:25:07,539 --> 00:25:12,839
So how do you just get focused on just the development side of the problem?

357
00:25:13,639 --> 00:25:15,039
Can I train an AI?

358
00:25:15,239 --> 00:25:17,779
Well, I'm not going to do a model-based.

359
00:25:17,879 --> 00:25:19,779
I'm not going to teach a model.

360
00:25:19,899 --> 00:25:21,599
I need something that's in the training data already.

361
00:25:22,839 --> 00:25:23,579
Okay, great.

362
00:25:23,639 --> 00:25:27,759
How do I build something that's going to ride on existing open source rails

363
00:25:27,759 --> 00:25:31,679
so that I can just feed this thing, read this GitHub,

364
00:25:31,819 --> 00:25:32,759
and tell me how it's done?

365
00:25:32,759 --> 00:25:52,839
All right, so I'm looking for something I can bootstrap, something with no business model risk because somebody else has already run the model successfully and it's a growth vertical, something that's going to sit on existing training data that's already in the models and also many open source GitHub repos that I can feed it if it's missing.

366
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to narrow the playing field down, right?

367
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And then that's where you want to play.

368
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And within that little playing field,

369
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then you can say, okay, well, now let's validate.

370
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Can the AI do its work?

371
00:26:02,399 --> 00:26:04,199
I'm giving it the easiest layup in the world.

372
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Can it do it?

373
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And so that's how we ended up in the playing field

374
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that is where Shoshosh lands.

375
00:26:11,759 --> 00:26:13,559
Just to pitch you Shoshosh for a minute, okay.

376
00:26:14,879 --> 00:26:18,599
Have you ever tried to sell product online, right?

377
00:26:18,599 --> 00:26:22,039
You go to eBay, you create a boring listing.

378
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:23,499
Maybe it's got a nice photo.

379
00:26:23,659 --> 00:26:24,579
Maybe you were too busy.

380
00:26:25,579 --> 00:26:28,259
And you spend a lot of time writing a whole bunch of copy.

381
00:26:29,319 --> 00:26:33,279
And now it gets lost amongst 20,000 other people that are selling the exact same product.

382
00:26:33,399 --> 00:26:35,279
But you, Jake, have a podcasting platform.

383
00:26:35,839 --> 00:26:37,239
You're an influencer.

384
00:26:37,419 --> 00:26:38,599
You have a social media presence.

385
00:26:38,599 --> 00:26:43,819
You have all of these other assets that you apparently, in traditional e-commerce, aren't allowed to bring to bear.

386
00:26:44,559 --> 00:26:48,539
You have to play within their little boxy shape of creating a listing.

387
00:26:48,719 --> 00:26:50,999
Well, no longer because there's a new vertical.

388
00:26:50,999 --> 00:26:53,699
and it's called live streaming sales.

389
00:26:55,159 --> 00:26:57,099
And there's lovely businesses in this vertical

390
00:26:57,099 --> 00:27:04,859
like Whatnot or Show Show or TikTok Shop.

391
00:27:05,419 --> 00:27:06,959
And these businesses have become

392
00:27:06,959 --> 00:27:08,479
an incredibly fast-growing vertical.

393
00:27:09,099 --> 00:27:10,739
Live streaming e-commerce.

394
00:27:11,339 --> 00:27:13,339
You hop on a live stream, you're here,

395
00:27:13,439 --> 00:27:15,039
you're on video and you have your product.

396
00:27:16,059 --> 00:27:17,459
Okay, now this is for sale, guys.

397
00:27:18,019 --> 00:27:18,259
Sold.

398
00:27:18,619 --> 00:27:19,339
Okay, next product.

399
00:27:19,339 --> 00:27:25,239
think about how engaging that is to be there in a live chat with everyone talking and bidding and

400
00:27:25,239 --> 00:27:30,259
buying together you know for you as a social media personality or an influencer or somebody

401
00:27:30,259 --> 00:27:35,479
who's just a content creator to be able to create that content and turn your sale into a real show

402
00:27:35,479 --> 00:27:40,619
is something that the traditional e-commerce platforms don't do and it's a way for you to

403
00:27:40,619 --> 00:27:46,519
clear vast amounts of product really quickly in fact that that vertical in china is the fastest

404
00:27:46,519 --> 00:27:52,119
growing vertical in e-commerce. In 2020, it went from roughly zero to roughly 10% of e-com.

405
00:27:52,839 --> 00:27:57,799
They reckon when the numbers finally settle for 2024, it'll be 25% of e-com in China is going

406
00:27:57,799 --> 00:28:03,799
through live streaming videos. 25% of e-com in China goes through this new vertical.

407
00:28:03,799 --> 00:28:07,559
That's massive. That us in the West are completely sleeping on besides,

408
00:28:07,559 --> 00:28:13,879
you know, a tiny feature in the back of TikTok that most TikTok users probably don't know.

409
00:28:13,879 --> 00:28:18,379
and I'd never even heard a TikTok shop till just then yeah yeah and and what not I mean they're

410
00:28:18,379 --> 00:28:24,139
they're lovely they're growing fast they're doing 6 billion US GMB a year but they sell Pokemon cards

411
00:28:24,139 --> 00:28:29,959
unless you're into Pokemon cards you probably haven't heard of what right so there's this

412
00:28:29,959 --> 00:28:35,479
there's this vertical it's fast growing business models very well worked out it's it's e-com it's

413
00:28:35,479 --> 00:28:41,719
the oldest business model on the internet and what's it actually boiled down to it boils down

414
00:28:41,719 --> 00:28:45,739
to e-commerce shopping technology, which is, I mean, I've been doing it for 12 years, but

415
00:28:45,739 --> 00:28:51,319
also there's vast amounts of open source code on that. And live streaming, which is also,

416
00:28:52,119 --> 00:28:58,279
I mean, it's also, it's literally in the training data, right? You know, OBS was an open source

417
00:28:58,279 --> 00:29:03,659
foundation from the get-go. So open source training data, fast growing vertical, well

418
00:29:03,659 --> 00:29:09,559
worked out business model, can the AI do it? And so just from the get-go, here's whatnot,

419
00:29:09,559 --> 00:29:12,839
here's TikTok, here's a whole bunch of NOSTA software,

420
00:29:12,959 --> 00:29:14,079
here's a whole bunch of e-com software,

421
00:29:14,599 --> 00:29:16,219
work out how to use that to build this.

422
00:29:16,519 --> 00:29:18,259
And that's how we got started.

423
00:29:18,719 --> 00:29:22,299
And again, the takeaway is it can absolutely do that.

424
00:29:22,699 --> 00:29:25,239
It can over the course of time, you know, again,

425
00:29:25,259 --> 00:29:26,679
if you're willing to spend the money on the tokens

426
00:29:26,679 --> 00:29:27,739
and really grind it out,

427
00:29:27,999 --> 00:29:30,959
it can build a feature for feature competitor

428
00:29:30,959 --> 00:29:32,639
to any business you want to point at.

429
00:29:33,639 --> 00:29:34,039
Fantastic.

430
00:29:34,739 --> 00:29:37,379
And so one thing that springs to mind for me

431
00:29:37,379 --> 00:29:41,459
is the, and if there's anything that Bitcoin teaches you about,

432
00:29:41,639 --> 00:29:42,799
it's counterparty risk.

433
00:29:44,039 --> 00:29:45,479
There's many things it teaches you,

434
00:29:45,539 --> 00:29:47,899
but one major one is counterparty risk.

435
00:29:47,999 --> 00:29:51,059
And so having your value stored in self-custody,

436
00:29:51,539 --> 00:29:53,079
no one can take it from you,

437
00:29:53,159 --> 00:29:54,559
can't be debased on the back end.

438
00:29:55,039 --> 00:29:59,099
When you really understand how safe your value now is

439
00:29:59,099 --> 00:30:02,679
versus how it was before in a diversified portfolio

440
00:30:02,679 --> 00:30:05,119
of stocks and bonds with a finance manager somewhere,

441
00:30:05,719 --> 00:30:07,339
it completely changes your life.

442
00:30:07,379 --> 00:30:09,539
and I wonder with AI

443
00:30:09,539 --> 00:30:12,019
and you touched on using open source for example

444
00:30:12,019 --> 00:30:13,819
is there kind of counterparty risks

445
00:30:13,819 --> 00:30:16,279
to building what you're creating

446
00:30:16,279 --> 00:30:19,659
i.e. like how do you actually do that

447
00:30:19,659 --> 00:30:23,339
so could Grok switch you off

448
00:30:23,339 --> 00:30:24,499
if you were using Grok

449
00:30:24,499 --> 00:30:25,799
or something along those lines

450
00:30:25,799 --> 00:30:29,819
I think it's quite early still

451
00:30:29,819 --> 00:30:31,339
I think there's lots of ground to cover

452
00:30:31,339 --> 00:30:32,459
in that landscape

453
00:30:32,459 --> 00:30:34,939
you can if you want to run your own models

454
00:30:34,939 --> 00:30:35,819
I don't

455
00:30:35,819 --> 00:30:36,659
I mean I could

456
00:30:36,659 --> 00:30:40,879
you could if you wanted to have your own hardware sitting in a rack

457
00:30:40,879 --> 00:30:42,479
and have your own models running on it.

458
00:30:43,719 --> 00:30:48,159
I guess I see enough competition to believe that the model companies

459
00:30:48,159 --> 00:30:49,899
aren't yet going to pull the rug on people.

460
00:30:52,399 --> 00:30:55,899
And we're not just talking about the famous US-China competition

461
00:30:55,899 --> 00:30:59,299
where China wants to defeat the US's AI advantage

462
00:30:59,299 --> 00:31:01,659
or whatever the tabloids would say.

463
00:31:02,939 --> 00:31:06,219
Just the pure and simple of is it Grok or Anthropic

464
00:31:06,219 --> 00:31:11,419
core chat GPT that's going to win as the best coding model and attract all of the dead income

465
00:31:11,419 --> 00:31:17,919
because we're spending a lot of money in aggregate not much each relative to the cost of hiring an

466
00:31:17,919 --> 00:31:22,739
engineer but in aggregate I mean there's there's money being spent there and so who's going to win

467
00:31:22,739 --> 00:31:29,439
it and I look at the companies and I say they're all broadly I mean they'll they'll haggle at this

468
00:31:29,439 --> 00:31:34,399
point if you ask them but they're all broadly interchangeable right and if chat GPT turned me

469
00:31:34,399 --> 00:31:40,099
off tomorrow then i'm using someone else and i don't care and literally the software will allow

470
00:31:40,099 --> 00:31:45,699
you to switch an api key and away you go it would take me five minutes uh and so i don't i don't know

471
00:31:45,699 --> 00:31:49,799
that we're going to get rugged by ai companies just yet but even if that kind of in the future

472
00:31:49,799 --> 00:31:54,939
becomes a risk i i guess i imagine it's only going to become more accessible than it is now

473
00:31:54,939 --> 00:31:59,299
and it's only going to become easier and easier to run your own capable credible model on your

474
00:31:59,299 --> 00:32:05,539
own hardware. One which as a builder, like the trend is your friend. And I would agree with you

475
00:32:05,539 --> 00:32:09,099
there completely as you lay that out. It's like, hang on, there's probably gonna be more of these

476
00:32:09,099 --> 00:32:14,719
things. It's probably gonna be more of a commodity style business as a product. You know, you're

477
00:32:14,719 --> 00:32:17,979
gonna be competing on price against people. Yes, some of them will be more sophisticated than

478
00:32:17,979 --> 00:32:23,079
others. There'll be different reasons you might use one from a different one. But should you get

479
00:32:23,079 --> 00:32:27,379
into hot water with one particular company, well, there's going to be armies of others that you can

480
00:32:27,379 --> 00:32:31,859
go to. So that risk actually is very low as I think about it.

481
00:32:32,579 --> 00:32:36,919
Although it comes to margin, well, if we just dwell on this for one more point,

482
00:32:37,159 --> 00:32:42,499
at least some of the AI apocalypse sort of stuff you hear about is, well, you know,

483
00:32:42,539 --> 00:32:49,219
if we're going to subordinate all thought to these computers, well, then which company

484
00:32:49,219 --> 00:32:50,199
are we trusting to do this?

485
00:32:50,199 --> 00:32:51,079
Well, then we're in a lot of trouble.

486
00:32:51,479 --> 00:32:56,339
Right. And are we actually going to end up where all surplus margin of all technology

487
00:32:56,339 --> 00:33:01,639
businesses in the world simply accrue to open AI? And again, if you ask open AI, their answer is

488
00:33:01,639 --> 00:33:06,339
absolutely, we're going to command all margin in the world. But I don't think it's true. Because

489
00:33:06,339 --> 00:33:11,759
again, the models are broadly interchangeable with each other and clearly very imitable because

490
00:33:11,759 --> 00:33:17,119
look at the field of players that has cropped up in just three years. I would say actually that

491
00:33:17,119 --> 00:33:21,779
none of the AI companies will ever be able to hold on to surplus margin because they are so,

492
00:33:21,779 --> 00:33:23,779
I guess so boilerplate and imitable.

493
00:33:24,919 --> 00:33:26,419
So where does the margin go?

494
00:33:27,199 --> 00:33:29,879
If it's not no longer living with, you know,

495
00:33:30,019 --> 00:33:31,739
fat, juicy Silicon Valley companies

496
00:33:31,739 --> 00:33:33,679
because their technology mode has been eroded

497
00:33:33,679 --> 00:33:37,639
and it also doesn't accrue to chat GPT and clones

498
00:33:37,639 --> 00:33:40,799
because they're so able to copy each other,

499
00:33:41,419 --> 00:33:42,939
I think it goes to us.

500
00:33:43,699 --> 00:33:47,259
As founders of small businesses and consumers

501
00:33:47,259 --> 00:33:48,579
who use those businesses,

502
00:33:48,579 --> 00:33:50,299
I think it ends up with,

503
00:33:50,299 --> 00:33:56,179
let's call it instead of fat company i think you end up with fat user which is the same premise as

504
00:33:56,179 --> 00:34:02,659
nostr actually and the same premise bitcoin is the power accrues to the individual uh and so what a

505
00:34:02,659 --> 00:34:09,919
what a wild time to live yes oh rod and what an awesome explanation so let's unpack that a little

506
00:34:09,919 --> 00:34:19,199
more the the technology moat for the large well-funded cantillon effect in many way

507
00:34:19,199 --> 00:34:26,199
businesses is actually filtering through to the user so as the founder of a business you can

508
00:34:26,199 --> 00:34:31,479
essentially be more efficient in the marketplace so you still provide a service or a product to

509
00:34:31,479 --> 00:34:36,439
someone and they're willing to pay for it but within your business the operations can be more

510
00:34:36,439 --> 00:34:42,299
efficient as a result of applying ai and so the customer gets a better deal and the founder gets

511
00:34:42,299 --> 00:34:47,599
a better deal but the technology provider is actually getting slowly eroded over time because

512
00:34:47,599 --> 00:34:54,059
of the nature of how that technology is created. Imagine being the CEO of a listed Silicon Valley

513
00:34:54,059 --> 00:35:02,279
tech co and you maybe your DocuSign right you make you make software that signs PDFs which

514
00:35:02,279 --> 00:35:09,359
Acrobat also does you've got a 13 billion dollar market cap somehow and you have to turn up every

515
00:35:09,359 --> 00:35:13,839
quarter and say how you've defended every dollar of that and how you're going to come up with some

516
00:35:13,839 --> 00:35:19,399
amazing growth play to double your investors returns over the next decade. And meanwhile,

517
00:35:20,119 --> 00:35:24,539
literally anyone with an LLM and five minutes can make a clone of your software.

518
00:35:26,359 --> 00:35:32,619
What do you do? I don't think you can do anything. I think that there's a landscape within 10 years

519
00:35:32,619 --> 00:35:37,019
where there's 100 competitors nipping at your heels, stealing customers one by one,

520
00:35:37,359 --> 00:35:41,959
which you can't afford to lose because you need to continue to provide a growth outlook to your

521
00:35:41,959 --> 00:35:47,239
investors. How do you? I mean, you possibly can defeat one fast follower by saying, oh,

522
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:52,979
I've got a bigger marketing budget. But how do you defeat an army of thousands of fast followers who

523
00:35:52,979 --> 00:35:59,059
are all building exact clones of your software with a few tokens in their weekend? I don't know

524
00:35:59,059 --> 00:36:05,939
that you can. DocuSign, $13 billion market cap. How do they defend that? Slack, broadly speaking,

525
00:36:06,159 --> 00:36:11,759
Nostra does what Slack does. People will argue that there's more to it than that. That's fine.

526
00:36:11,759 --> 00:36:14,239
$26 billion market cap it was acquired by, right?

527
00:36:14,399 --> 00:36:14,999
It was acquired for.

528
00:36:15,459 --> 00:36:17,439
These companies, how on earth are they going to,

529
00:36:17,659 --> 00:36:19,939
without any technology mode, defend themselves?

530
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:23,199
You might say some sort of network effects.

531
00:36:24,079 --> 00:36:25,559
NOSTA can defeat network effects.

532
00:36:26,219 --> 00:36:27,599
NOSTA has its own network effects.

533
00:36:28,519 --> 00:36:32,219
You know, I see that that value is going to get distributed

534
00:36:32,219 --> 00:36:36,439
from these selection of just a few sanctioned,

535
00:36:36,439 --> 00:36:38,899
beautiful US-listed companies,

536
00:36:38,899 --> 00:36:43,079
distributed through thousands and millions of small businesses

537
00:36:43,079 --> 00:36:44,359
and entrepreneurs to the people.

538
00:36:45,139 --> 00:36:49,059
Because, again, starting a company like Jay

539
00:36:49,059 --> 00:36:51,319
and raising the money that we raised with a view we had

540
00:36:51,319 --> 00:36:53,199
to present that big outcome.

541
00:36:53,439 --> 00:36:56,499
But to start again and not raise any money and to bootstrap it,

542
00:36:58,319 --> 00:37:02,179
I mean, I don't need to have a company that's that big.

543
00:37:02,179 --> 00:37:05,059
I can be small and nimble and fast forever.

544
00:37:06,099 --> 00:37:06,899
Do you know what I mean?

545
00:37:07,259 --> 00:37:07,419
Yeah.

546
00:37:07,419 --> 00:37:11,299
Yeah, it's an absolutely brilliant conversation, Rod.

547
00:37:11,339 --> 00:37:12,419
Thank you for sharing all of this.

548
00:37:13,039 --> 00:37:15,559
I have so many questions in different ways I want to take it,

549
00:37:15,619 --> 00:37:17,159
but let's do this.

550
00:37:17,459 --> 00:37:18,519
So you're building Shoshow,

551
00:37:19,059 --> 00:37:22,019
and I want to make a shout out to Anders L,

552
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:24,819
who came up with a question just on NOSTA.

553
00:37:24,939 --> 00:37:27,439
So when can we get multi-user stream?

554
00:37:27,699 --> 00:37:29,639
Me and some friends want to do some live streams,

555
00:37:30,099 --> 00:37:42,918
podcasts on NOSTA hashtag NOSTA only Yeah I love the enthusiasm eh There so many businesses to build here Oh my Yeah You know and Shosho is going to be quite focused

556
00:37:42,918 --> 00:37:44,877
from here on out on the e-commerce part of that play

557
00:37:44,877 --> 00:37:47,438
because that was, again, I'm trying to make that business.

558
00:37:48,098 --> 00:37:54,418
But how easy is it to fork something like Zapstream

559
00:37:54,418 --> 00:37:58,558
and add whatever features you want to it using a model

560
00:37:58,558 --> 00:38:00,558
and publish it under your own brand name

561
00:38:00,558 --> 00:38:02,298
to achieve whatever thing that you want.

562
00:38:03,677 --> 00:38:05,177
And if you're not going to do it,

563
00:38:05,218 --> 00:38:07,398
then to put the idea out and somebody else to do it.

564
00:38:08,098 --> 00:38:10,598
You know, that sort of creation becomes just so,

565
00:38:11,078 --> 00:38:14,058
shall we say, just accessible, right?

566
00:38:15,157 --> 00:38:17,857
And so whether or not ShowShow ever gets to doing

567
00:38:17,857 --> 00:38:19,278
kind of multi-party live streaming,

568
00:38:19,477 --> 00:38:21,137
I don't know, I can't say,

569
00:38:21,137 --> 00:38:25,218
but I look at just how easy it is for anybody else to do that

570
00:38:25,218 --> 00:38:26,098
and I say, it's going to happen.

571
00:38:26,298 --> 00:38:26,798
It's a certainty.

572
00:38:26,798 --> 00:38:29,818
there's a little thing in Nostra

573
00:38:29,818 --> 00:38:31,918
I don't know if you've noticed it where people these days

574
00:38:31,918 --> 00:38:32,977
are forking Jumble

575
00:38:32,977 --> 00:38:34,558
I haven't seen that

576
00:38:34,558 --> 00:38:36,457
so do you know Jumble?

577
00:38:36,798 --> 00:38:37,038
no

578
00:38:37,038 --> 00:38:39,177
so Jumble is a Nostra client

579
00:38:39,177 --> 00:38:42,477
it's a web client written by a guy named Cody

580
00:38:42,477 --> 00:38:43,778
it's a beautiful web client

581
00:38:43,778 --> 00:38:44,918
you should totally try it

582
00:38:44,918 --> 00:38:47,877
it specializes in the Twitter feed type thing

583
00:38:47,877 --> 00:38:50,018
it is very focused on

584
00:38:50,018 --> 00:38:51,617
and it's a Jack Dorsey quote

585
00:38:51,617 --> 00:38:52,218
it says

586
00:38:52,218 --> 00:38:55,398
make every detail perfect

587
00:38:55,398 --> 00:38:58,198
limit the number of details and then make every one of those details perfect.

588
00:38:58,857 --> 00:39:00,898
That's what Jumble has done for kind one notes.

589
00:39:03,438 --> 00:39:06,377
But it's open source and Cody says, here's my code base.

590
00:39:07,398 --> 00:39:09,098
Go for it. And people have.

591
00:39:09,918 --> 00:39:13,078
You fork Jumble, you tell your LLM to add a feature to Jumble,

592
00:39:13,198 --> 00:39:14,637
and then you publish it under your own domain.

593
00:39:15,498 --> 00:39:17,058
And so now you don't just have one Jumble,

594
00:39:17,438 --> 00:39:20,018
which has like, I guess, the reference implementation

595
00:39:20,018 --> 00:39:23,298
of how this author thinks a kind one note client should be written.

596
00:39:23,298 --> 00:39:31,157
you're starting to have a swarm of jumble clones where even if it just has an audience of one me

597
00:39:31,157 --> 00:39:35,857
i'm building this just for myself because i want a fancy zap button that works like x when i press

598
00:39:35,857 --> 00:39:40,938
it people are now forking that adding that feature just for themselves and publishing it

599
00:39:40,938 --> 00:39:47,918
wow so again there'll be there'll be a landscape where you can grab your you know favorite live

600
00:39:47,918 --> 00:39:53,238
streaming client and fork it and add the thing that you want and publish it under your own name

601
00:39:53,238 --> 00:39:58,677
or grab something that already does three-party live streaming

602
00:39:58,677 --> 00:40:00,758
and just stick it on Oster and publish those notes.

603
00:40:01,637 --> 00:40:02,078
Wow.

604
00:40:02,477 --> 00:40:03,938
It's such a big shift, isn't it?

605
00:40:04,058 --> 00:40:04,198
Okay.

606
00:40:04,617 --> 00:40:07,778
And where I wanted to then go with this is a fascinating conversation

607
00:40:07,778 --> 00:40:09,058
I had earlier this year.

608
00:40:09,637 --> 00:40:12,857
I don't want to mention who it was with because I'll box them if I do,

609
00:40:12,857 --> 00:40:16,558
but I was looking very closely at investing in Satlantis

610
00:40:16,558 --> 00:40:22,738
and I was super impressed by some of the progress Alex made

611
00:40:22,738 --> 00:40:25,918
and I previously interviewed him a couple of years back.

612
00:40:26,058 --> 00:40:29,838
I really love how in just two to three years,

613
00:40:30,018 --> 00:40:33,438
how much people who've been building with Bitcoin behind them

614
00:40:33,438 --> 00:40:38,058
have improved basically in their grasp of what's going on around them

615
00:40:38,058 --> 00:40:38,918
and what they want to build.

616
00:40:39,558 --> 00:40:41,078
And I decided not to invest.

617
00:40:41,538 --> 00:40:45,018
And the reason was largely based on a conversation I had with a friend

618
00:40:45,018 --> 00:40:49,338
around return of capital rather than return on capital.

619
00:40:49,977 --> 00:40:52,438
And it was just like, Jake, what are the chances of you getting your money back?

620
00:40:52,738 --> 00:40:59,877
I said, you know, I actually don't know. And it was a he described it as a lottery ticket for wealthy people.

621
00:41:00,977 --> 00:41:08,977
And it's a great description in some ways. And the the conclusion I came to, though, was like, OK, this is a hit and hope.

622
00:41:09,157 --> 00:41:17,338
And you just don't quite know what's going to happen. But what's interesting is, like, first of all, the venture side of things is shifting so much.

623
00:41:17,338 --> 00:41:24,058
It's like, how do you as a venture investor start to justify putting money into software companies that can be replicated at the click of a button?

624
00:41:24,258 --> 00:41:28,357
Like the defensibility of the position you built for J-Ride.

625
00:41:28,457 --> 00:41:34,298
And equally, this is what Jeff Booth talked about in his Price of Tomorrow experience as a technology founder.

626
00:41:34,418 --> 00:41:36,457
It's like we spent millions of dollars building this thing.

627
00:41:36,718 --> 00:41:40,578
And the trend was quite clearly that the cost of that production was going to zero.

628
00:41:41,058 --> 00:41:42,578
So how do you defend that?

629
00:41:42,637 --> 00:41:43,438
It's very hard.

630
00:41:43,438 --> 00:41:52,957
where the conversation went was really around the the moat becoming physical attributes and so i'd

631
00:41:52,957 --> 00:41:58,058
love to know what your view is on this rod as someone who's building a business as a non-technical

632
00:41:58,058 --> 00:42:04,758
founder using these off-the-shelf tools absolutely the efficiency that you described is filtering

633
00:42:04,758 --> 00:42:10,578
through to the user and the customer which is great but how do you defend that position and

634
00:42:10,578 --> 00:42:15,177
And it got quite niche, to be honest.

635
00:42:17,518 --> 00:42:18,538
I'll dig it up in a second.

636
00:42:18,637 --> 00:42:19,758
But let me leave that with the questions.

637
00:42:19,877 --> 00:42:22,918
How do you start to defend yourself as a software business

638
00:42:22,918 --> 00:42:25,578
when you can create it as quickly as you described?

639
00:42:26,718 --> 00:42:30,558
Well, the first part that I'd cover is I think the answer to that question

640
00:42:30,558 --> 00:42:32,677
that you've got about lottery ticket for rich people

641
00:42:32,677 --> 00:42:36,558
is the portfolio approach that you issued earlier.

642
00:42:37,738 --> 00:42:40,538
And certainly, angel investors, they don't just back one company.

643
00:42:40,578 --> 00:42:43,198
if you're going to do this well,

644
00:42:43,238 --> 00:42:44,118
you're trying to get a beta

645
00:42:44,118 --> 00:42:46,698
on the average return of all your companies.

646
00:42:47,578 --> 00:42:50,798
You're trying to hope that you back enough companies

647
00:42:50,798 --> 00:42:52,657
that you get the one that's going to go 100x

648
00:42:52,657 --> 00:42:53,598
and return the whole fund.

649
00:42:53,758 --> 00:42:54,637
But in order to do that,

650
00:42:54,677 --> 00:42:56,318
you have to back a whole bunch.

651
00:42:56,457 --> 00:42:57,558
You have to pay a bunch of bets.

652
00:42:57,877 --> 00:42:59,578
You've got a quarter million to invest,

653
00:42:59,998 --> 00:43:04,018
make 10,000, 25,000 clips and spray and pray, right?

654
00:43:04,058 --> 00:43:06,318
This is not an uncommon approach to doing venture.

655
00:43:06,438 --> 00:43:09,418
And I think that's where a lot of venture funds

656
00:43:09,418 --> 00:43:13,578
have added value, shall we say, in the past, right?

657
00:43:13,598 --> 00:43:15,558
Because they are the ones who actively go out

658
00:43:15,558 --> 00:43:16,618
and solicit the deal flow.

659
00:43:16,718 --> 00:43:18,977
And then you as an LP or whomever,

660
00:43:19,957 --> 00:43:21,098
you don't have time for that.

661
00:43:21,098 --> 00:43:27,157
And you're banking on their ability to go and find the gems

662
00:43:27,157 --> 00:43:31,098
and back enough of them that one of them will hit

663
00:43:31,098 --> 00:43:32,078
and return the whole thing.

664
00:43:33,098 --> 00:43:34,538
And I look at that and I say,

665
00:43:34,618 --> 00:43:36,677
well, that's fantastic for investors,

666
00:43:36,798 --> 00:43:37,857
but what does it mean for founders?

667
00:43:37,857 --> 00:43:41,738
because now we've got a Jeff Bezos quote, right?

668
00:43:42,778 --> 00:43:44,018
Here's a Jeff Bezos quote.

669
00:43:44,918 --> 00:43:46,177
Nine out of 10 businesses fail.

670
00:43:48,137 --> 00:43:49,157
I think we know that.

671
00:43:49,677 --> 00:43:52,258
But one out of 10 businesses will return 100x.

672
00:43:53,258 --> 00:43:55,418
And so if you can play that bet,

673
00:43:56,598 --> 00:43:59,078
you'd play it every day of the week, right?

674
00:43:59,118 --> 00:44:01,758
Because 9-10 in the trash,

675
00:44:01,837 --> 00:44:03,438
but one becomes 100, go again.

676
00:44:04,337 --> 00:44:06,418
Or you can see how if you're playing the odds that way,

677
00:44:06,418 --> 00:44:12,898
it compounds and your typical early stage venture investor has been doing that forever,

678
00:44:12,898 --> 00:44:18,578
but it's never been possible for a founder to do so because nobody has time in their life to go 10

679
00:44:18,578 --> 00:44:25,698
times. I mean, I've just come out of a business that took me 10 years. And again, what's changed

680
00:44:25,698 --> 00:44:32,418
in the realm of AI, start a business, launch it, took six months. I could do that 10 times.

681
00:44:32,418 --> 00:44:37,637
right if that was if i didn't get sufficient traction to be excited to continue with show

682
00:44:37,637 --> 00:44:41,078
show which i mean i'm getting some interesting traction it looks exciting let's continue

683
00:44:41,078 --> 00:44:47,618
i mean park it do another park it do another and every time you do one your ai practice gets faster

684
00:44:47,618 --> 00:44:53,398
every time you do one you know you probably build a useful reusable code base especially if you're

685
00:44:53,398 --> 00:44:59,418
building on something that's open source like a like an austin right so suddenly you as you know

686
00:44:59,418 --> 00:45:05,118
following that, you know, nine out of 10 fail, you get to go 10 times. And so this opportunity to

687
00:45:05,118 --> 00:45:10,657
make sure that you eventually get a hit, which was always reserved in the past for the investor class

688
00:45:10,657 --> 00:45:16,258
is now starting to accrue to the founder class. Really cool. And so how do you then to loop back

689
00:45:16,258 --> 00:45:21,318
to your question, how do you defend that? Well, you just get ready to go 10 times. I think at a,

690
00:45:21,318 --> 00:45:27,318
at a, I guess at a high, at the highest level, let's assume that we, we're right. And, you know,

691
00:45:27,318 --> 00:45:35,258
all value is about to accrue to users who can spin up exact copies of your you know company and run

692
00:45:35,258 --> 00:45:41,398
it for themselves for you know pennies with their own llm and even the llm doesn't make margin on

693
00:45:41,398 --> 00:45:46,857
that and all margin accrues to the user and let's imagine that beautiful future and that we're

694
00:45:46,857 --> 00:45:51,677
heading there that's great but i still think that we've maybe got a window right now of let's call

695
00:45:51,677 --> 00:45:56,238
it five to ten years where we're actually just going to go and steal silicon valley's cheese

696
00:45:56,238 --> 00:46:02,598
well and also it's like you know how many people have even got an ai app on their phone

697
00:46:02,598 --> 00:46:08,038
look at global internet adoptions some people don't even some people aren't even online in some

698
00:46:08,038 --> 00:46:14,098
countries you know just it's it's extraordinary in terms of the the macro setup to to think about

699
00:46:14,098 --> 00:46:18,538
okay if you're if you're basically faster to market with ai than other people there's an

700
00:46:18,538 --> 00:46:24,877
opportunity there's no doubt about that um and what a cool insight so yes so as a founder the

701
00:46:24,877 --> 00:46:26,977
you just get ready to hit it 10 times.

702
00:46:27,118 --> 00:46:31,538
So I was thinking it's like the execution risk is lower

703
00:46:31,538 --> 00:46:34,157
because if it fails, it doesn't matter.

704
00:46:34,238 --> 00:46:35,177
It hasn't taken as long.

705
00:46:35,438 --> 00:46:36,657
You just try another one.

706
00:46:38,558 --> 00:46:39,677
Would that make sense?

707
00:46:42,977 --> 00:46:43,857
Yeah, interesting.

708
00:46:44,038 --> 00:46:44,218
Okay.

709
00:46:44,798 --> 00:46:47,738
And so where we went with the, again,

710
00:46:47,818 --> 00:46:49,578
to reference this conversation I had was like,

711
00:46:49,578 --> 00:46:54,278
okay, but what if defensibility is not just an iteration speed

712
00:46:54,278 --> 00:47:00,177
like you describe, or the opportunity to be like a first mover with AI. But what if the opportunity

713
00:47:00,177 --> 00:47:07,157
to defend was actually around real world physical assets and competencies and looking at, okay,

714
00:47:07,157 --> 00:47:12,977
well, it's actually quite difficult to fulfill the creation of a house, for example. What about

715
00:47:12,977 --> 00:47:18,698
applying AI to house building or a boring business like laundry? Like people still need to get their

716
00:47:18,698 --> 00:47:23,798
laundry done. Okay. What if you're faster into that business? And I found that quite compelling

717
00:47:23,798 --> 00:47:28,518
as a investor, at least, because it's like these are services that people are going to need ongoing.

718
00:47:29,377 --> 00:47:33,698
And you've also got this class of boomers that are retiring and selling businesses. And maybe

719
00:47:33,698 --> 00:47:37,758
you could take one of those on. Now, I didn't do any of those things very much just like

720
00:47:37,758 --> 00:47:45,218
spitballing ideas around. But to put a cherry on this idea of defensibility then, Rod, so in your

721
00:47:45,218 --> 00:47:50,357
opinion, it's about speed as a founder. As a founder, your defensibility will be, I think,

722
00:47:50,357 --> 00:47:53,477
and the practice that you build around getting up and going

723
00:47:53,477 --> 00:47:54,758
and getting up and going.

724
00:47:54,758 --> 00:47:58,758
I think your speed to market is part of it,

725
00:47:58,898 --> 00:48:02,218
but also just your reusable methods and processes.

726
00:48:03,798 --> 00:48:10,078
The thing right now, the thing that separates AI-based users

727
00:48:10,078 --> 00:48:12,498
who are using, I don't know, Base44

728
00:48:12,498 --> 00:48:16,438
or some sort of rapid prototyping tool

729
00:48:16,438 --> 00:48:19,518
that have no experience and skills,

730
00:48:19,518 --> 00:48:21,518
but they're getting something out the door right now.

731
00:48:21,578 --> 00:48:24,238
The thing that separates them from those who are going to actually win

732
00:48:24,238 --> 00:48:27,418
is not the model because everyone's got the same model.

733
00:48:27,738 --> 00:48:28,798
It's the process.

734
00:48:30,518 --> 00:48:34,578
It's how do you build your dev practice

735
00:48:34,578 --> 00:48:39,018
so that you have the process that runs faster and more repeatably

736
00:48:39,018 --> 00:48:43,078
and more confidently than anyone else.

737
00:48:43,418 --> 00:48:44,278
This is not a new idea.

738
00:48:44,618 --> 00:48:45,998
Rocket Internet, this was their idea.

739
00:48:46,418 --> 00:48:48,078
Take no business model risk.

740
00:48:48,078 --> 00:48:50,177
copy an existing business model

741
00:48:50,177 --> 00:48:52,137
choose a market where it doesn't exist

742
00:48:52,137 --> 00:48:53,677
hire

743
00:48:53,677 --> 00:48:55,957
have a process for all of these things

744
00:48:55,957 --> 00:48:57,637
hire an

745
00:48:57,637 --> 00:49:00,278
absolute go-getter in that market and say

746
00:49:00,278 --> 00:49:02,258
here's your funding and here's your business model and I want you

747
00:49:02,258 --> 00:49:03,657
to do exactly this

748
00:49:03,657 --> 00:49:06,258
and then repeat that

749
00:49:06,258 --> 00:49:08,318
as often as you can with as many

750
00:49:08,318 --> 00:49:10,357
verticals as you can and as many countries as you can

751
00:49:10,357 --> 00:49:12,078
using

752
00:49:12,078 --> 00:49:14,578
their little

753
00:49:14,578 --> 00:49:15,798
repertoire of

754
00:49:15,798 --> 00:49:18,177
which businesses are worth copying,

755
00:49:18,337 --> 00:49:19,518
which markets are worth entering,

756
00:49:19,518 --> 00:49:21,558
and how do you hire the right founder

757
00:49:21,558 --> 00:49:22,498
for each of those businesses?

758
00:49:22,657 --> 00:49:23,938
And that's their little repeatable process.

759
00:49:23,938 --> 00:49:24,818
And they just ran it.

760
00:49:25,258 --> 00:49:27,457
And this is how Rocket Internet created,

761
00:49:27,957 --> 00:49:29,977
I can't even name how many beautiful companies.

762
00:49:30,877 --> 00:49:33,598
And I see that happening again here, right?

763
00:49:33,598 --> 00:49:37,278
Because if you build your AI dev process, right,

764
00:49:37,337 --> 00:49:39,198
and you work out the little things

765
00:49:39,198 --> 00:49:42,657
that make you and your team go at impeccable speed

766
00:49:42,657 --> 00:49:45,058
with repeatable confidence,

767
00:49:45,058 --> 00:49:48,957
and it doesn't matter how many businesses models you want to attack before you find a hit

768
00:49:48,957 --> 00:49:54,218
because you know for sure you will find one it's kind of how i'm starting to think about it and

769
00:49:54,218 --> 00:49:57,898
again i'm quite impressed by the traction of show show but the very moment that i find something

770
00:49:57,898 --> 00:50:02,898
more exciting i know that i'll be able to go get it is a is a wild landscape for a founder to be in

771
00:50:02,898 --> 00:50:08,298
it's not the landscape i was in with j ride where i was you know beholden to investors and i'd raise

772
00:50:08,298 --> 00:50:12,157
money that i had to keep going it's a very different landscape and i just think that's

773
00:50:12,157 --> 00:50:13,818
the time scape that exists for founders now.

774
00:50:19,357 --> 00:50:21,637
It strikes me then that essentially

775
00:50:21,637 --> 00:50:25,198
the quest for product market fit

776
00:50:25,198 --> 00:50:28,857
can now be funded by your time

777
00:50:28,857 --> 00:50:32,818
and elongates the process

778
00:50:32,818 --> 00:50:35,498
such that the chance of success is better.

779
00:50:36,198 --> 00:50:39,018
And you can also hustle different ideas

780
00:50:39,018 --> 00:50:40,418
at the same time

781
00:50:40,418 --> 00:50:43,698
because the engine room of developing those ideas

782
00:50:43,698 --> 00:50:48,477
is a piece of software that you've got and a process.

783
00:50:49,298 --> 00:50:53,238
I mean, it's absolutely insane for any entrepreneur, basically.

784
00:50:53,377 --> 00:50:55,418
Like, what a time to be building stuff.

785
00:50:55,598 --> 00:50:56,558
Like, holy shit.

786
00:50:57,357 --> 00:50:57,938
Yeah, what a time.

787
00:50:57,977 --> 00:51:00,357
What a time to be on the outside and only on the outside.

788
00:51:01,038 --> 00:51:03,798
I mean, BigCo can't do what I'm describing, right?

789
00:51:03,798 --> 00:51:07,578
Have you ever seen a BigCo trying to spin up an innovation lab and succeed?

790
00:51:07,957 --> 00:51:08,637
No, never.

791
00:51:08,637 --> 00:51:10,298
It's the rarest thing in the world.

792
00:51:10,418 --> 00:51:15,018
So put your hat on for a minute and go back to BigCo and think about how they're responding to this.

793
00:51:15,357 --> 00:51:23,078
Your board of directors just asked you whether or not you're leveraging AI to reduce cost base and improve efficiency.

794
00:51:23,337 --> 00:51:29,198
And so you go to your head of customer service and you say, hey, you repeat the question, are you doing X, Y, Z?

795
00:51:29,298 --> 00:51:36,238
Give me a plan on my desk tomorrow that tells me the opportunity that you haven't captured yet and how you're going to go and get it.

796
00:51:36,238 --> 00:51:40,118
what's your head of customer service going to do is they look around and they see their budget and

797
00:51:40,118 --> 00:51:43,198
they think oh that's going to get cut and then they see their headcount and they say oh I love

798
00:51:43,198 --> 00:51:47,258
these people and I spent so long recruiting them and then they say oh you know but I've got an

799
00:51:47,258 --> 00:51:51,877
existing customer base and what if I upset them with bad AI replies and we've got this existing

800
00:51:51,877 --> 00:51:56,098
brand reputation and what happens if we damage it and we can't stand those risks that would be

801
00:51:56,098 --> 00:52:00,637
horrible we're not going to we're not going to be able to say with a straight face that AI is any

802
00:52:00,637 --> 00:52:04,498
good and besides that if I did say with a straight face that AI was good I'm going to lose budget

803
00:52:04,498 --> 00:52:10,778
next quarter. I'll just say that, you know, we explored it and it's not good. So then you go

804
00:52:10,778 --> 00:52:14,058
back to your board of directors and you say, oh, you know, it's the opinion of our senior leadership

805
00:52:14,058 --> 00:52:18,018
team that there's nothing to do here and we should just keep on with our business. Compare and

806
00:52:18,018 --> 00:52:22,238
contrast to you, Jake, the outsider who looks at an incumbent company and says, I wonder if I can

807
00:52:22,238 --> 00:52:28,098
copy that with no one at all. I wonder if I can go after that and instead of having 600 headcount,

808
00:52:28,098 --> 00:52:34,078
have two. You might be wrong. It might not be possible, but if you fail, you've lost nothing.

809
00:52:34,498 --> 00:52:38,258
And if you succeed, you win the whole game because they can't come after you.

810
00:52:39,038 --> 00:52:42,018
And you can only do that if you're on the outside.

811
00:52:43,318 --> 00:52:45,258
So I just want a time to be a founder.

812
00:52:45,837 --> 00:52:46,977
I really think so.

813
00:52:47,398 --> 00:52:51,118
Rod, do you think then, I've heard some others talk about this,

814
00:52:51,337 --> 00:52:57,318
but conceptually, do you think a single man billion dollar business is possible?

815
00:52:58,598 --> 00:52:59,258
I mean, sure.

816
00:52:59,798 --> 00:53:00,078
Yeah.

817
00:53:00,078 --> 00:53:07,857
I mean, I wonder if eventually you'll get companies that are running so much on autopilot that maybe the founder passes away and no one notices.

818
00:53:09,938 --> 00:53:13,058
And the AIs just keep collecting Bitcoin every day.

819
00:53:13,218 --> 00:53:17,298
And eventually it's, you know, one of the largest holders and there's no one running it at all.

820
00:53:17,377 --> 00:53:20,758
But also no one knows how to turn it off or even where the software runs.

821
00:53:21,498 --> 00:53:22,898
All sorts of things are going to happen.

822
00:53:23,558 --> 00:53:23,758
Wow.

823
00:53:24,278 --> 00:53:25,657
It's extraordinary, isn't it?

824
00:53:25,718 --> 00:53:26,357
Oh, my gosh.

825
00:53:26,357 --> 00:53:30,977
um rod what i want to do is i want to circle back to something you touched on very near the start of

826
00:53:30,977 --> 00:53:38,977
the conversation um and that was around policy and this experience you had building a business

827
00:53:38,977 --> 00:53:45,518
in travel and first of all like what it was like to be close to the money printer in a sense and

828
00:53:45,518 --> 00:53:49,938
also then the idea that like oh look here's this pandemic that's come along and your market's now

829
00:53:49,938 --> 00:53:55,538
just closed um at least those are the two things that i think that you were referencing when you

830
00:53:55,538 --> 00:54:00,137
talked about policy so what does that mean to you and and what were some of your lessons from that

831
00:54:00,137 --> 00:54:06,998
yeah so just to unpack a little bit about what happened there so

832
00:54:06,998 --> 00:54:10,718
running a travel technology business into the onset of the pandemic

833
00:54:10,718 --> 00:54:20,758
and most investors start calling around january of 2020 saying what's going on something is

834
00:54:20,758 --> 00:54:25,038
something happening do you see anything in your numbers and at that time we didn't right we had

835
00:54:25,038 --> 00:54:27,118
one investor call and say, prepare.

836
00:54:28,418 --> 00:54:32,837
Okay, well, we'll take that in mind and we're watching it carefully.

837
00:54:34,377 --> 00:54:42,118
Then March 20, 2020, US closes its borders

838
00:54:42,118 --> 00:54:43,938
and the whole world rapidly follows suits.

839
00:54:43,938 --> 00:54:49,158
And immediately, you know, your travel technology company

840
00:54:49,158 --> 00:54:53,918
that hasn't had a single down quarter in, what was it at that point?

841
00:54:53,918 --> 00:55:01,337
10 years or nine years suddenly loses 95% of its revenue immediately and has to refund

842
00:55:01,337 --> 00:55:04,938
in million dollars worth of travel repairs that aren't going to go ahead and also still

843
00:55:04,938 --> 00:55:08,538
work out how to pay transport companies for all the jobs that they did do.

844
00:55:10,357 --> 00:55:11,337
What a crazy trip.

845
00:55:11,477 --> 00:55:15,918
Oh, and also explain that to the team and explain that to the capital markets while,

846
00:55:15,918 --> 00:55:20,957
you know, planning the, I guess, you know, unwinding of 75% of your headcount.

847
00:55:20,957 --> 00:55:28,337
you know what a thing and you know you can look at that and you can say it was a virus but I'm not

848
00:55:28,337 --> 00:55:31,797
responding when I'm responding to that I'm not responding to a virus I'm responding to a policy

849
00:55:31,797 --> 00:55:36,238
decision I'm responding to the US and then subsequently Australia's decision to close

850
00:55:36,238 --> 00:55:43,297
borders and say that travel is no longer a vertical we want to support yeah and so you know what do

851
00:55:43,297 --> 00:55:48,498
you do well I mean you get through it right so you you manage the team through it you tell them all

852
00:55:48,498 --> 00:55:53,938
to work from home, you have emergency board meetings, you reduce costs, you get through

853
00:55:53,938 --> 00:55:54,957
on the smell of an oily rag.

854
00:55:55,018 --> 00:55:57,018
And if you do it well, you take care of your people.

855
00:55:57,618 --> 00:56:03,778
And then at that future point in late 2021, when we were able to be an exciting barbell

856
00:56:03,778 --> 00:56:07,638
story and raise a bunch of money, you're able to bring those people who are still on the

857
00:56:07,638 --> 00:56:13,078
outside back from whatever job they managed to land that they didn't prefer because you

858
00:56:13,078 --> 00:56:13,718
took care of them.

859
00:56:13,977 --> 00:56:15,018
Now you're hiring again.

860
00:56:15,198 --> 00:56:15,998
They'll come back to you.

861
00:56:16,337 --> 00:56:17,398
And we did all of that.

862
00:56:17,477 --> 00:56:18,158
We did it very well.

863
00:56:18,498 --> 00:56:29,636
And still it makes you look at the situation and say you say and again as a founder you into only one business right

864
00:56:29,856 --> 00:56:31,596
Bold a lightning out of a blue sky.

865
00:56:31,956 --> 00:56:35,036
Suddenly everything shuts down for that one business.

866
00:56:36,156 --> 00:56:40,836
What if I had two businesses and one of them was Zoom, right?

867
00:56:41,276 --> 00:56:44,356
And, oh, look, travel's done, but, wow, look at teleconferencing.

868
00:56:44,356 --> 00:56:47,656
and you just not just pull your own focus,

869
00:56:47,976 --> 00:56:49,996
but pull your capital and pull your team

870
00:56:49,996 --> 00:56:52,476
and go and scale your other business up.

871
00:56:52,776 --> 00:56:55,736
So, you know, this is a thing that investors were doing

872
00:56:55,736 --> 00:56:58,116
when they were diversifying against multiple verticals

873
00:56:58,116 --> 00:57:01,836
that founders couldn't and now maybe can.

874
00:57:01,836 --> 00:57:06,036
And so, you know, again, sitting through that experience

875
00:57:06,036 --> 00:57:09,956
with Jayride and, you know, seeing the impact

876
00:57:09,956 --> 00:57:15,356
of these massive external macro forces

877
00:57:15,356 --> 00:57:18,456
and how they will absolutely crush you without any thought.

878
00:57:20,036 --> 00:57:22,916
And kind of maybe, you know, I guess if you're a Bitcoiner

879
00:57:22,916 --> 00:57:25,996
and you have a view to monetary policy being insane

880
00:57:25,996 --> 00:57:30,356
and you maybe perceive that, you know,

881
00:57:30,356 --> 00:57:36,116
the state response to that fallacy of monetary policy

882
00:57:36,116 --> 00:57:39,636
will be continued insanity, possibly with greater severity,

883
00:57:39,636 --> 00:57:44,336
possibly with greater frequency in future years from whatever form it might take you say well

884
00:57:44,336 --> 00:57:51,596
diversification let's let's run multiple parallel entrepreneurial tracks if we can or at least

885
00:57:51,596 --> 00:57:58,596
build a core competency of skills and discipline around starting things so that if let's call it

886
00:57:58,596 --> 00:58:04,536
maybe not inevitable but if catastrophic macro forces affect you again you can say i'm going

887
00:58:04,536 --> 00:58:08,736
from here to here or you can say okay take this competency of starting something and start something

888
00:58:08,736 --> 00:58:10,216
that's appropriate for the time and space.

889
00:58:10,656 --> 00:58:12,156
Put the other thing just on ice for a minute

890
00:58:12,156 --> 00:58:13,296
and come back to it when it's ready.

891
00:58:13,796 --> 00:58:15,436
You know, that's the sort of thing you didn't have

892
00:58:15,436 --> 00:58:17,556
the flexibility to do as a list co.

893
00:58:17,716 --> 00:58:21,136
You know, it was my job to help investors through it,

894
00:58:21,216 --> 00:58:22,936
to make sure the company remained funded,

895
00:58:22,936 --> 00:58:24,696
to take care of all suppliers and team members

896
00:58:24,696 --> 00:58:25,416
and so on and so forth.

897
00:58:25,976 --> 00:58:28,316
And so, you know, you step into the role and you do your job.

898
00:58:30,556 --> 00:58:34,336
But given the choice, better to be on the outside.

899
00:58:36,636 --> 00:58:38,156
Yeah, it's very interesting, isn't it?

900
00:58:38,156 --> 00:58:43,636
And so the bolt from the blue, what do you think,

901
00:58:44,196 --> 00:58:45,336
and you touched on this just now,

902
00:58:45,376 --> 00:58:48,356
it's essentially you want diversification as a founder,

903
00:58:48,576 --> 00:58:51,156
which is now in theory possible to do,

904
00:58:51,676 --> 00:58:55,956
given the engine room of the business can be automated, essentially.

905
00:58:58,456 --> 00:59:03,916
What were some of the decisions you've made over the last six to 12 months

906
00:59:03,916 --> 00:59:10,976
of building that have been heavily influenced by that experience? I lost your question, Jack. Sorry,

907
00:59:11,036 --> 00:59:17,796
can you feed it to me again? Over the last six to 12 months of building, which decisions have you

908
00:59:17,796 --> 00:59:23,936
made that have been a result of the insight around the fact that you can have diversification as a

909
00:59:23,936 --> 00:59:31,656
founder? I mean, getting into NOSTA. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I think you asked about, you know,

910
00:59:31,656 --> 00:59:34,516
at the very start and you wanted to focus, I think,

911
00:59:34,536 --> 00:59:35,856
a little bit on why the choice.

912
00:59:36,216 --> 00:59:37,316
Yeah, let's get there.

913
00:59:37,536 --> 00:59:38,616
60 minutes, that's it.

914
00:59:38,716 --> 00:59:38,956
Great.

915
00:59:39,456 --> 00:59:40,136
It's okay.

916
00:59:40,236 --> 00:59:42,716
It's okay because I already gave you the layup that at least part

917
00:59:42,716 --> 00:59:46,896
of this is about feeding the AI and just the sheer mass of beautiful

918
00:59:46,896 --> 00:59:50,396
open source code that's been funded and made available for people

919
00:59:50,396 --> 00:59:53,936
to build on the network and just how fast that makes you speed

920
00:59:53,936 --> 00:59:58,796
to market with AI because you can feed it existing great architecture

921
00:59:58,796 --> 01:00:00,636
and, say, emulate, and it will.

922
01:00:01,656 --> 01:00:03,776
But also diversification, right?

923
01:00:03,996 --> 01:00:08,756
So I have a particular lens to this, which I like to roll out.

924
01:00:08,816 --> 01:00:10,716
Do you remember a thing called Google Wave?

925
01:00:11,956 --> 01:00:12,196
No.

926
01:00:13,196 --> 01:00:14,576
A little while ago.

927
01:00:15,896 --> 01:00:17,196
And you know Google Maps.

928
01:00:18,456 --> 01:00:18,896
Yeah.

929
01:00:19,176 --> 01:00:23,516
So Lars, who founded Google Maps, it wasn't called Google Maps.

930
01:00:23,596 --> 01:00:25,136
It got acquired by Google, Lars with it.

931
01:00:26,156 --> 01:00:30,056
Lars was given a remit at Google to make something revolutionary, right?

932
01:00:30,056 --> 01:00:35,116
It was going to be a brand new communication platform that replaced email forums.

933
01:00:35,496 --> 01:00:41,556
It had, you know, multi-party editing in real time, which, you know, later then moved into Google Docs.

934
01:00:41,596 --> 01:00:43,096
It had all of these fundamental innovations.

935
01:00:43,376 --> 01:00:44,716
He ran that for three years.

936
01:00:45,376 --> 01:00:54,476
He made a big deal out of this in the developer and founder community because the vision was, let's create a platform where everybody can get onto it.

937
01:00:54,516 --> 01:00:55,896
Everyone can build their own applications.

938
01:00:55,896 --> 01:01:00,276
This is going to provide like a fundamental layer that is otherwise missing.

939
01:01:01,336 --> 01:01:03,476
And it's going to be, it's going to be Google,

940
01:01:03,556 --> 01:01:06,056
but it's going to be open so that other people can build on it.

941
01:01:06,096 --> 01:01:06,636
Let's get out there.

942
01:01:06,696 --> 01:01:08,576
Let's get the developers in there and building on this thing.

943
01:01:08,596 --> 01:01:11,176
And he had three years and then, you know,

944
01:01:11,256 --> 01:01:15,076
the CEO of Google just said, no, too complicated.

945
01:01:15,276 --> 01:01:15,756
Pull the plug.

946
01:01:16,996 --> 01:01:19,156
I happened to meet him in a bar at the,

947
01:01:19,696 --> 01:01:20,736
because he was Sydney based,

948
01:01:20,796 --> 01:01:22,456
happened to meet him in a bar shortly after that happened.

949
01:01:22,496 --> 01:01:23,356
And I was such a dickhead.

950
01:01:23,356 --> 01:01:24,716
I asked the question, what happened?

951
01:01:24,716 --> 01:01:34,276
And he had certain commitments that he was going to be able to take a long path to make a proper infrastructure play for the development community that he believes weren't fulfilled.

952
01:01:34,356 --> 01:01:36,696
And he went off to Facebook and I presume he was very happy there.

953
01:01:38,796 --> 01:01:50,416
But the lesson is, you know, he is one of the biggest and most exciting technology firms in the world, making a promise to the development community.

954
01:01:50,416 --> 01:01:56,616
here's a platform that you can use to build your business on and then three years later they pull

955
01:01:56,616 --> 01:02:00,896
the plug and pull the rug out from every one of those developers and everyone who built on google

956
01:02:00,896 --> 01:02:07,736
wave then is left going well look at all the time in the capital we wasted right what a what a complete

957
01:02:07,736 --> 01:02:12,556
waste of time i wish i had done anything else right i just had the rug pulled entirely it's

958
01:02:12,556 --> 01:02:19,476
the de-platforming thing that you talked about but writ large across you know what was supposed to be

959
01:02:19,476 --> 01:02:20,796
this innovative new thing.

960
01:02:23,036 --> 01:02:24,356
Lesson learned, you know,

961
01:02:24,356 --> 01:02:28,036
don't invest on building on somebody else's land.

962
01:02:29,416 --> 01:02:32,956
You know, do build only on something that you can own.

963
01:02:33,536 --> 01:02:36,196
And so along comes Noster with a statement that, you know,

964
01:02:36,196 --> 01:02:36,896
you can own this.

965
01:02:38,096 --> 01:02:39,816
There's no central anything.

966
01:02:41,676 --> 01:02:44,636
There's no one who controls it enough to pull the rug.

967
01:02:45,136 --> 01:02:48,016
You can continue to write JSON in this format forever

968
01:02:48,016 --> 01:02:51,176
and absolutely nobody could stop you even if they wanted to.

969
01:02:52,556 --> 01:02:54,536
That's a better foundation to be building on, right?

970
01:02:54,976 --> 01:02:59,796
It's platform, de-platform-less risk, none of that risk.

971
01:03:01,116 --> 01:03:02,496
Bad English, but you take my point.

972
01:03:03,796 --> 01:03:05,876
Think about like how the internet started, right?

973
01:03:05,976 --> 01:03:08,896
So, you know, here's an open protocol.

974
01:03:09,036 --> 01:03:11,196
It's protocols that make the internet great.

975
01:03:11,196 --> 01:03:15,696
Here's an open protocol for communication of information, HTTP.

976
01:03:16,336 --> 01:03:17,296
It's brand new.

977
01:03:17,296 --> 01:03:22,436
we're going to have publishers who own websites who publish data and then we're going to have users

978
01:03:22,436 --> 01:03:27,896
who visit websites to consume data but that's not actually you go forward these days that's not

979
01:03:27,896 --> 01:03:31,776
actually how we use the internet right every single user of the internet is both a creator

980
01:03:31,776 --> 01:03:40,056
and a consumer how many of us own websites and servers few if any right but that's not even the

981
01:03:40,056 --> 01:03:45,396
main way that we want to do it we want to be as an individual networking with our social network

982
01:03:45,396 --> 01:03:49,256
consuming their content, creating content and reply to them, right?

983
01:03:49,276 --> 01:03:54,416
Like it's an entirely different use from the original kind of web one.

984
01:03:54,556 --> 01:03:57,936
Now the market, as it does, sorted that out by saying, well, you know,

985
01:03:58,016 --> 01:04:03,036
I'm Mark Zuckerberg and I say that wouldn't it be great if users could exist

986
01:04:03,036 --> 01:04:05,896
within a social graph and create and consume content from each other.

987
01:04:06,656 --> 01:04:09,816
And venture investors said, you're right, that is missing from the protocol.

988
01:04:09,816 --> 01:04:12,596
Let's create a company out of that and we'll put a lovely moat around it

989
01:04:12,596 --> 01:04:14,736
and we'll try to protect it and we'll build shareholder value.

990
01:04:15,396 --> 01:04:23,196
hang on that's not why the internet was created right the the building of moats around data

991
01:04:23,196 --> 01:04:28,036
interoperability to build shareholder value was not why the internet was created right the internet

992
01:04:28,036 --> 01:04:35,336
was created for interoperability right for permissionlessness but it was missing that

993
01:04:35,336 --> 01:04:41,816
social layer you know facebook created it and put a wall around it google tried and they cried many

994
01:04:41,816 --> 01:04:46,516
times and one of them was called wave and they rugged everyone you know what i see with nostr

995
01:04:46,516 --> 01:04:53,136
is i see well here's the missing piece of the protocol right here's a here's a thin very simple

996
01:04:53,136 --> 01:05:02,276
identity layer interoperability protocol very basic content distribution that anyone can copy

997
01:05:02,276 --> 01:05:07,596
anyone can emulate anyone can build on that can't be taken away you don't need to ask anyone's

998
01:05:07,596 --> 01:05:13,636
permission to use it that's the internet and so again thinking about like as a as a founder am i

999
01:05:13,636 --> 01:05:18,116
going to go and apply for permission from large silicon valley juggernaut or am i just going to

1000
01:05:18,116 --> 01:05:25,336
build on something that's open rails 100 open rails and this this then again come come to being

1001
01:05:25,336 --> 01:05:32,816
a founder you know can i still remove more risk what risks am i removing by by going here one i'm

1002
01:05:32,816 --> 01:05:39,016
removing deplatforming risk. You mentioned that. And not just because I've said something mean and

1003
01:05:39,016 --> 01:05:44,056
now the company doesn't want my custom anymore, but also as in the Google Wave example,

1004
01:05:44,616 --> 01:05:51,376
companies shut platforms down all the time. So I'm removing those risks. I'm also increasing

1005
01:05:51,376 --> 01:05:57,296
all sorts of opportunity because anyone can be building on the same rails and I can interoperate

1006
01:05:57,296 --> 01:06:01,616
with those contents. Think about the speed to market. Think about all the things you just don't

1007
01:06:01,616 --> 01:06:09,436
have to build right so we've launched show show it provides live streaming i didn't have to build

1008
01:06:09,436 --> 01:06:14,136
a sign up page i just said plug in your nostril id i didn't have to build an edit profile page

1009
01:06:14,136 --> 01:06:18,756
i didn't have to decide on any architecture because i just copied a standard i didn't even

1010
01:06:18,756 --> 01:06:24,416
have a server i just yeah do you want to invite your friends no yeah exactly and then the big one

1011
01:06:24,416 --> 01:06:30,016
here's a here's a you know peer-to-peer sort of experience where i don't have to solve a chicken

1012
01:06:30,016 --> 01:06:34,316
in their problem. I don't have to worry where my first users and content are going to come from

1013
01:06:34,316 --> 01:06:39,716
because I just bring it in from the network. It's already there. And so you get this massive

1014
01:06:39,716 --> 01:06:45,176
advantage with less risk and faster time to market. I mean, everyone should build a monster.

1015
01:06:45,436 --> 01:06:51,836
I don't see there's any better way. Yeah, I like to think of it as a superior form of capital

1016
01:06:51,836 --> 01:06:59,836
allocation. And it's largely because it's the property rights. It's built different. And protocol

1017
01:06:59,836 --> 01:07:07,416
is superior to platform and saying you know like a rumble we won't switch you off okay until you do

1018
01:07:07,416 --> 01:07:12,256
or elon like i've just bought the whole of twitter because i can and now i'm going to run it as a

1019
01:07:12,256 --> 01:07:16,996
business and it has to make money and if it doesn't then i'm fucked oh well guess what i'm

1020
01:07:16,996 --> 01:07:20,356
going to call it the free speech platform but actually there's a whole lot of stuff we're doing

1021
01:07:20,356 --> 01:07:25,516
on the back end that means that it's it's not and it that's a choice and that's absolutely their

1022
01:07:25,516 --> 01:07:30,756
choice because they're private businesses you can do whatever you like but until you understand that

1023
01:07:30,756 --> 01:07:35,556
and i think it's that whole thing like basically the internet's become i'm going to hop on instagram

1024
01:07:35,556 --> 01:07:40,176
for a bit and now i'm going to go to youtube or maybe i'm going to hang out on tiktok for a little

1025
01:07:40,176 --> 01:07:46,376
bit or tiktok shop and now i'm at amazon and now i'm done it's like that's like a bunch of private

1026
01:07:46,376 --> 01:07:51,616
companies with digital monopolies that either monetize your attention or are a classic kind

1027
01:07:51,616 --> 01:07:58,136
of e-commerce play and a winning because of the the tendencies of a monopoly and

1028
01:07:58,136 --> 01:08:03,896
it's funny really like the the deeper you get into this concept of the free market it's like

1029
01:08:03,896 --> 01:08:10,796
that's that's okay it's the do whatever you like but as individual entrepreneurs or creators

1030
01:08:10,796 --> 01:08:15,936
this is the playing field and if you just so happen to see that the playing field is over

1031
01:08:15,936 --> 01:08:22,136
here as well aka Noster and you can have a key pair that you know I even got excited recently

1032
01:08:22,136 --> 01:08:28,796
thinking about inheritance and and I'd read a great book that was called Call Me Ted which is

1033
01:08:28,796 --> 01:08:36,496
about a guy called Ted Turner who started CNN and he inherited a business from him for his father in

1034
01:08:36,496 --> 01:08:42,096
the US that was a an advertising company with billboards and it was like the 50s and people

1035
01:08:42,096 --> 01:08:47,676
were driving cars and suddenly the billboard business was growing and that turned into what

1036
01:08:47,676 --> 01:08:52,216
became CNN and it's an amazing story just because you're like the playing field was different

1037
01:08:52,216 --> 01:08:59,877
billboards and cars were a big deal but now it's like we're in cyberspace and currently your

1038
01:08:59,877 --> 01:09:06,756
your billboard is on Facebook's digital real estate or on Google's digital real estate and so if they

1039
01:09:06,756 --> 01:09:11,716
want to just burn your your billboard down they could but NOSTA changes that you're like wow what

1040
01:09:11,716 --> 01:09:19,616
would it be like to inherit a Nostra key pair in 30 years time that's been building or accruing

1041
01:09:19,616 --> 01:09:24,836
capital all that period? I don't know what that looks like, but it's like, wow, the playing field

1042
01:09:24,836 --> 01:09:32,417
has just changed. Yeah, look, I agree. It's a different playing field. It's a great time to be

1043
01:09:32,417 --> 01:09:39,956
a founder. Your ability to get out the door and build a thing with AI, your ability to build on

1044
01:09:39,956 --> 01:09:41,956
an open platform where no one can ever

1045
01:09:41,956 --> 01:09:42,436
rug you.

1046
01:09:43,356 --> 01:09:45,196
Your ability to diversify,

1047
01:09:45,776 --> 01:09:47,576
avoid risks, and

1048
01:09:47,576 --> 01:09:49,556
I guess even more than anything else,

1049
01:09:50,116 --> 01:09:51,816
go and target overblown

1050
01:09:51,816 --> 01:09:53,796
fat, two

1051
01:09:53,796 --> 01:09:55,917
high market cap Silicon Valley companies that

1052
01:09:55,917 --> 01:09:57,917
no longer have technology moats and possibly

1053
01:09:57,917 --> 01:09:59,736
no longer even have network effect moats

1054
01:09:59,736 --> 01:10:01,076
should NOSTA succeed,

1055
01:10:01,836 --> 01:10:04,116
and just go and take their business.

1056
01:10:05,316 --> 01:10:05,796
And

1057
01:10:05,796 --> 01:10:07,936
ultimately then over the course of five to ten

1058
01:10:07,936 --> 01:10:09,816
years, there are enough entrepreneurs doing that

1059
01:10:09,816 --> 01:10:12,716
create a world of empowered users,

1060
01:10:13,716 --> 01:10:15,556
Bitcoiners would say sovereign individuals.

1061
01:10:17,436 --> 01:10:18,396
What a time.

1062
01:10:18,877 --> 01:10:19,516
It's a great place.

1063
01:10:20,616 --> 01:10:21,996
Yeah, and I think it's this idea, isn't it,

1064
01:10:21,996 --> 01:10:25,596
that you control your own data

1065
01:10:25,596 --> 01:10:29,256
and without necessarily realizing it,

1066
01:10:29,296 --> 01:10:31,236
when you log into Twitter with your email

1067
01:10:31,236 --> 01:10:33,156
and your password or whatever might be the case,

1068
01:10:33,496 --> 01:10:36,596
you're stepping onto someone else's piece of private property

1069
01:10:36,596 --> 01:10:44,296
and that's okay because they built it and someone owns it um but what that means is

1070
01:10:44,296 --> 01:10:51,417
if you're you know quote unquote free like you're the product and somehow that's just people don't

1071
01:10:51,417 --> 01:10:55,756
even realize right oh they've got an instagram account like do you understand what you've given

1072
01:10:55,756 --> 01:11:02,196
away in order to actually have that like what's the cost and in some ways it takes an innovation

1073
01:11:02,196 --> 01:11:06,417
like Nostra to turn up for you to really be able to answer that question more effectively because

1074
01:11:06,417 --> 01:11:07,756
it's shifted.

1075
01:11:09,336 --> 01:11:11,576
And so, okay, Rod, we've been going for an hour or so.

1076
01:11:12,056 --> 01:11:14,256
I'll look to wrap this up in the next five minutes.

1077
01:11:15,977 --> 01:11:19,496
I'm intrigued just to get a bit of a futuristic play.

1078
01:11:19,956 --> 01:11:22,216
We've talked a lot about what you're doing right now.

1079
01:11:22,736 --> 01:11:24,836
But over the next 12 to 18 months,

1080
01:11:24,836 --> 01:11:26,116
what's got you most excited

1081
01:11:26,116 --> 01:11:27,656
and where are you going to spend your time?

1082
01:11:29,417 --> 01:11:31,236
I'm excited about NOSTA generally.

1083
01:11:32,676 --> 01:11:35,336
And then specifically, I think live streaming

1084
01:11:35,336 --> 01:11:38,756
is a very exciting vertical plan.

1085
01:11:40,076 --> 01:11:43,796
I'm going to build that live streaming e-commerce play

1086
01:11:43,796 --> 01:11:44,917
in Shoshow that I've mentioned,

1087
01:11:45,036 --> 01:11:46,436
but just live streaming in general.

1088
01:11:47,016 --> 01:11:48,917
I think we've seen over the last little bit

1089
01:11:48,917 --> 01:11:50,776
social media protocols,

1090
01:11:51,016 --> 01:11:51,636
and it doesn't matter,

1091
01:11:52,336 --> 01:11:53,536
sorry, protocols or businesses,

1092
01:11:53,896 --> 01:11:54,996
it doesn't matter which they are.

1093
01:11:55,056 --> 01:11:56,116
The moment they add live streaming,

1094
01:11:56,176 --> 01:11:57,676
it's a very important and interesting thing

1095
01:11:57,676 --> 01:11:59,096
for them to add that's additive.

1096
01:12:00,136 --> 01:12:01,036
We've seen, for example,

1097
01:12:01,036 --> 01:12:02,956
Rumble added and suddenly get a lot of traction.

1098
01:12:03,456 --> 01:12:04,956
We've also seen some of the incumbents

1099
01:12:04,956 --> 01:12:10,656
like Twitch, lose a bunch of market share to kick, streaming is becoming decentralized.

1100
01:12:11,256 --> 01:12:14,377
Streaming always had this really interesting opportunity, right?

1101
01:12:14,396 --> 01:12:15,417
It's all open source code.

1102
01:12:15,536 --> 01:12:19,776
It's all open source Legos, just like Nostra, where anybody can plug and play little bits

1103
01:12:19,776 --> 01:12:20,816
together and go live.

1104
01:12:20,816 --> 01:12:24,076
But it had a key problem, which was discoverability, right?

1105
01:12:24,136 --> 01:12:28,116
It's not, it doesn't age well, this content, unless you're there live at the moment, unless

1106
01:12:28,116 --> 01:12:31,656
you can be found at the moment, then your live stream expires and it's gone.

1107
01:12:31,656 --> 01:12:35,616
And, you know, so you need to find a way to get discovered.

1108
01:12:35,936 --> 01:12:44,796
Traditionally, a few large platforms, be it Twitch or YouTube or, you know, TikTok became these centralized discoverability portals.

1109
01:12:45,036 --> 01:12:48,756
But, you know, NOSDA solves discoverability, right?

1110
01:12:49,176 --> 01:12:54,436
If not in full now, as it's new in time, it has its own network effect.

1111
01:12:54,436 --> 01:13:01,236
And then you as a streamer can publish to any server, have that syndicated through any relay to any consumer on any website.

1112
01:13:01,656 --> 01:13:07,977
Must be ultimately better discoverability than I can only stream to one server and it can only be on my website surely

1113
01:13:07,977 --> 01:13:11,396
And so I see in general streaming is a very interesting

1114
01:13:11,977 --> 01:13:18,296
Market that's already breaking apart and decentralizing and I see Nostra as really interesting rails for that to ride on

1115
01:13:18,296 --> 01:13:23,096
I must give props to Kieran right for showing the way with zapstream

1116
01:13:23,096 --> 01:13:28,276
But then as kind of more people enter this you're going to see different servers. You're going to see different, you know

1117
01:13:28,276 --> 01:13:32,477
broadcasters you're going to see all sorts of different things come through different business

1118
01:13:32,477 --> 01:13:38,436
models like i'm talking about with show show and and others like maybe tk building with his uh you

1119
01:13:38,436 --> 01:13:44,296
know apple tv for nostra streaming app is any number of things that can happen here so i'm

1120
01:13:44,296 --> 01:13:49,296
really watching that closely i'm pretty excited to see where it goes awesome and i'm very excited

1121
01:13:49,296 --> 01:13:54,756
to see what you create rod it's um it's a conversation like this is such a great kind

1122
01:13:54,756 --> 01:13:59,877
snapshot for a moment in time and in a year or two years you can go back and you listen oh that's

1123
01:13:59,877 --> 01:14:03,856
what we're talking about then and this this has then happened or whatever and what's so cool is

1124
01:14:03,856 --> 01:14:10,517
is someone with your your skill set essentially refocusing their attention in this direction

1125
01:14:10,517 --> 01:14:15,136
going okay well look i built a company before i know what i'm doing in this sense you've just

1126
01:14:15,136 --> 01:14:19,636
talked through the the rocket internet playbook but we can do that as individuals you don't need

1127
01:14:19,636 --> 01:14:25,736
to be rocket internet to do that any longer um oh very very exciting well rod thank you so much

1128
01:14:25,736 --> 01:14:30,196
and the final comment would be it would be interesting to live stream some of these

1129
01:14:30,196 --> 01:14:35,836
conversations and so i haven't done this before with nostr uh because i just i haven't figured it

1130
01:14:35,836 --> 01:14:40,977
out yet but you could live stream conversations that then obviously become recorded podcasts and

1131
01:14:40,977 --> 01:14:45,556
it's very popular thing to do um maybe that's i'll have a play around looking at some of the

1132
01:14:45,556 --> 01:14:49,396
different tools to do that and see where that takes for the next couple weeks but rod thank

1133
01:14:49,396 --> 01:14:53,916
you so much for your time today um last question if people want to reach out what's the best way to

1134
01:14:53,916 --> 01:15:01,196
do that uh find me on nostra um jake can you share my handle absolutely i'll put it in the show notes

1135
01:15:01,196 --> 01:15:06,496
well rod thanks so much for your time today thanks jake it's been a pleasure thank you