E5: Troy Shu, Digital Nomad

Transcript

Machine-generated (Whisper). Download: VTT · SRT

0:00 Troy is one of my childhood friends. So back in school, they let you like skip math and science. And I thought I was smart. So they put me like one grade ahead. Troy was one of three kids in our class who was two grades ahead. So it's like I'm a fourth grader taking fifth grade math and science. Troy is taking sixth grade math and science. And he's a really smart dude, went to UPenn, double majored in finance and comp sci. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Recently became a digital nomad. I think he might have settled. Says you're currently trying to settle down. Has his own startup working on a meditation app. Yeah. Really cool dude. Obviously very handsome. Look at him like styling over there. Has kept in shape. Like I have not kept in shape. I'm really fat and trying to get in shape. But Troy has maintained, you know, the gym life. I assume.

0:53 I don't know. A little bit, a little bit. Wow, Frank, that what an intro. Thanks. Thanks so much for that. I can't believe you still remember the math thing in elementary school and middle school. Dude, like how could you not? You, Bryn and Alan. Yeah, you guys were like the three smartest kids in our class. Oh my gosh. Dang. I have no idea what happened to those guys, actually. Yeah, me neither. Like you still stay in touch with them? No, dude. I don't, I don't stay in touch with like anyone. Yeah. Yeah. Me neither, actually. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks for that, Frank. I'm glad to be here and glad that you, you reached out. We haven't caught up in, you know, four or five years now.

1:35 And we always have very, very thought provoking conversations ranging from, you know, life. And I'm sure we'll talk more about parenting as that's something that my wife and I are thinking about too. And, you know, crypto and jobs and finance, personal finance. So yeah, always, always enjoy our chats. Yeah, dude, you better have kids soon. So our kids can be friends or else the age gap is going to be too big and it'll be weird. I know. That'll be awesome. But you live all the way across the country. So I don't know how it's going to work.

2:06 Dude, metaverse. We're all going to be, you know, plugged in eventually. We'll be right next to each other. That's true. The first birthday present is going to be an Oculus Rift. Join the metaverse. Cool. Do you want to talk a little bit about your like career journey, first of all? So like, yeah, you know, the jobs you had after graduation, like job titling, like salaries and like just your journey to now, I guess. Cool. Definitely. Yeah, I would love to talk about my journey. I'll give a sort of high level overview because I've jumped around a lot, I think.

2:42 And so there's a lot of, I guess, stories and pieces that we can dig into. But yeah, essentially, like you mentioned, I graduated UPenn, majored in computer science and finance, actually also concentrated in statistics. So that was my background. And right after graduating, I got a job at AQR, which is a quantitative hedge fund outside of New York City. So that's where I worked. I actually got an internship my junior year in college. So they brought me back after my internship. And yeah, I was a research analyst there, basically developing, you know, stock picking strategies.

3:21 So, you know, doing a bunch of research into like what makes stock prices go up and down. You know, you have all these factors based on the actual company itself. And of course, what the market does, you have all these like quantitative factors, all this data, and you're basically crunching it to and then crunching it and applying statistical models to try and predict, you know, what will happen to those stocks in the future. So, yeah, you know, I thought that was pretty fun. I was actually only there for about a year.

3:49 And yeah, so I guess I don't know what's the best way to do this. Do you want me to list my salary like right now or? Yeah, I guess just do the salary and then like your next salary, however you want to do it, really. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I can I can just do that, that journey. So, so at AQR, my starting salary was 100K and I got a 40K bonus. So I was, you know, pretty happy to say the least as a new college grad. And then I was there for a year and then I actually left that hedge fund for a startup.

4:28 It was only like four people or so at the time. And I actually joined as a software engineer. So it was kind of a kind of a switch. You know, it wasn't too technical on my position at AQR, but I was able to get a software engineer position there. But yeah, so at Bond Street, my salary initially I think was 80K or something like that. And then I got promoted and they bumped it up to like 95K. So I was at Bond Street for less than two years and then I decided to do freelancing. So I was just sick and tired of being, being a software engineer, actually.

5:05 Like tried freelancing, did a bunch of random stuff from like, you know, full stack development to like data science type stuff. So over the year, I was basically break even in terms of my income and expenses. But I think on average, I charged $100 an hour. But like I actually spent a lot of the year just doing my own thing. So like I tried to start companies. Like I worked on different projects, ended up like TAing for a data science course at General Assembly. And then I got a job at Squarespace. So after that, I was like, okay, I have to get a job.

5:40 I actually have to, you know, be a little serious about my career. So came in to Squarespace as a data analyst. And I think salary was like $105,000 or something and, you know, got some options and then eventually got promoted to data scientist after about a year. And my salary was $125,000, then left that after a couple years for Lyft. So, yeah, there was a bunch of like politics. And I guess every company deals with this. But like a lot of the data science team was disgruntled. And so a lot of us left.

6:16 Yeah. So when I got to Lyft, my salary was $170,000. And I got, I think I got like around $40,000, $50,000 in RSUs per year, you know, over four years as a four-year grant. Obviously, that depended on the stock price of Lyft because Lyft was public at the time. But then I left Lyft, quit my job in March of 2020 and sort of decided to strike out on my own. So one of my side projects didn't really blow up, but it had a consistent base of users. And so I decided to monetize it. And that earned me enough revenue to feel confident quitting my job.

6:57 And my wife was, my wife had also want, always wanted to do her own thing. And she's like, yeah, she's super talented in what she does. And I've always been telling her like, you know, why don't you just freelance or, you know, do consulting? Like people would pay you so much more for your services. Like she's really good at what she does. She does brand marketing. And so she also decided to freelance at the same time. So we both quit our jobs in March 2020 and started traveling the world while working at the same time.

7:27 So went to a bunch of countries. And yeah, that's where the adventure, I guess, kind of leaves us. More recently, we stopped traveling and we decided to settle down in the Queens area, which is where my wife's family is from. So currently actually living at the in-law's house or her parents' house. But we're trying to buy a home, home in the area to start our family in, I guess. So, yeah. Very cool. So I have a ton of follow-up questions. Let's kind of start with data science. So like a lot of people want to know about data science.

8:01 Can you go more into like what is data science? Like what are kind of skills you need? And then also like your story about like corporate politics and like why a lot of data sciences left Squarespace. Like that sounds pretty interesting, too. Yeah. So data science, I mean, data science is essentially using data to make better decisions. And so you can either data science is sort of split into two, I guess, segments right now. So there's like using data to help humans make better decisions. And then there's using data to help machines make better decisions.

8:35 So, you know, I guess I'll start with the machine side. That's like, you know, more machine learning based. That's you're a lot more technical there. And you're oftentimes actually programming the algorithms or the machine learning algorithms. Like, you know, the recommendation engine at Netflix that that help, I guess, Netflix or the machine of Netflix make better movie recommendations. Whereas the other side of data science is helping humans make better decisions. And so that was the part that I was in mostly.

9:02 And I would me personally, I would work with product managers to help them make better decisions about the product. Like, you know, what features to build or sort of what like users to target and, you know, maybe like how much you should how much of a coupon you should give to people. Right. In order to maximize total, total profit. And so, yeah, that was the side of data science that that I was on. But data science is really an interesting career because it's sort of like a combination of like math skills with I guess math more oriented towards statistics with like technical skills.

9:43 So like computer science and like, you know, SQL programming as well as like communication and people skills because you're oftentimes presenting your data and like telling a story with your data to stakeholders. Could you go a little bit into like the difference between a data scientist, a data engineer, and like, I think there's like some other discipline that I remember is split into like three categories. Yeah, yeah. Different companies have different ways of of splitting it up, but I guess like so data engineer is someone who is more focused on the simply put the engineering side of data.

10:21 So you're helping build like the data pipelines and the databases that that power data science essentially. And sometimes you do like a little dashboarding, but it's mainly you're actually building the, you know, the software that makes analyzing the data that makes using the data possible. Whereas data science is perhaps more about using the data. So as I mentioned before, like you can use the data to help people make better decisions. So like you're querying the database and you're putting together, you know, dashboards and, you know, presentations and, you know, to tell a story with the data.

10:54 And then there's also the machine learning side of data science, which some companies have as like a separate role. Some companies don't, but like in that role, you're, you know, you're also using the, all the data in the database to build your models and make better predictions. Um, yeah. And then there's like software engineer, software engineering, like machine learning engineers, I guess they're called. Um, which I don't know, I guess is like, yeah, the same thing as like the, the part of data science where you help machines make better decisions.

11:28 So some companies call it like data science algorithms, like you're on the algorithm side or like data science machine learning, like you're on the machine learning side of data science. Um, other companies call it like software engineering, um, machine learning, machine learning engineer, or like software engineering machine learning. Gotcha. So I thought it was pretty interesting how you were talking about how, like, there was a bunch of politics around the data science group. Um, because basically at every company I've worked at, the data science group is like kind of a mess in terms of like, Oh yeah.

11:56 There's like some people who kind of seem like they know what's going on. Most people don't really seem like they know what's going on. Um, it's like all clearly very new. So they're like quote unquote best practices. There's no like arguably best way to do anything. There's new stuff coming out all the time. Exactly. There's like, everyone's arguing with each other. Um, everything's like broken half the time. Yeah. It's pissed off. Product is pissed off. Like they're like, why is it anything working? And everyone's just like blaming each other and just like stuff is messed up.

12:23 Yeah. That's, that's exactly it. I mean, data science is, is still relatively new. And so, yeah, like you mentioned, you, you have all these problems essentially in data science. Like you have all these stakeholders, you know, relying on data science. I guess it's now, um, popular or whatever to, to be data oriented. So you have like marketing relying on data, you have product relying on data. Right. And, um, and, and data because there's, there's no best practices yet. Um, and even like the software is always changing.

12:54 Like you mentioned, um, data is always broken. So like you're just stuck in this like broken pipeline as a data scientist. It actually reminded me of a comment someone made once where he's, he was a data engineer. And he was like, being a data engineer is the worst part about being in like this, this data science world. Because you're like the janitor, you're, you're just like, or the plumber, right? Like you're building all these pipelines, but like shit's breaking all the time. And you base at the end of the day, you're the, you're the one responsible for like fixing everything.

13:26 And like the data scientists, they're, they're just using the data and they're, you know, they don't really care about like how it all actually works. But as a data engineer, you, you have to take care of that. So, um, but I think you do get paid pretty well as a data engineer. Um, don't get me wrong. It's a very intellectually stimulating career, um, and field. But one thing I remember thinking is like, I think data science is a mess because a lot of times data science isn't really treated as, as well as software is at companies.

13:55 Um, which makes sense because, you know, you actually have to have the software to make the product work, um, or like the, you know, the product software, but, uh, you know, that software is producing a ton of data. And as your company gets bigger, that data becomes really useful and you start building out these teams like data science, machine learning to use that data for things. And, um, unfortunately I think like at that stage where data science becomes useful, like the company hasn't invested as much into the actual software behind that data.

14:26 So the actual data engineering that makes all the data clean, like, you know, actually pipes the data into the right places. And, um, there's all these systems, right. That you need, uh, to, to make data easy to use. And I think like Airbnb has done a really good job of this. They're all always releasing like these awesome open source tools that make data much more easy to use and much more easy to, you know, to, to get into the right places. But it's not ideal, but I think it's, um, it makes the career really interesting.

14:53 Cause you're, um, you're trying to always, you know, solve, solve problems and things are constantly changing. Um, you know, not only in terms of like the software, uh, or like what you're doing at the company, but also like, because your data is actually coming from the product and coming from the product. And coming from the users, like those are always changing as well. So, you know, your, your job description essentially is always changing and the projects you're working on is always changing. So you could be, you could go from like, you know, really heads down, like machine learning based project where you're trying to, um, you know, build a better model to, uh, to model LTV, like the lifetime value of a user.

15:30 Right. And that's like very statistical and very quantitative. Um, but then the next project you get pulled in by the marketing team to, uh, to like analyze the user segment data that they have, or like some survey data that they collected from, from the users. Um, so that's like a much more, I don't know, like much more soft, uh, less technical type of data analysis that you're doing. That's a pretty good description. Um, and like the part you said where it's like, you're not directly working on the product.

15:59 It's like people need to understand that, like the vast majority of the company is not explicitly working on a product unless it's like a very small startup company or a company that's like not further along. So like, yeah, most of the engineers, like there's a bunch of internal tooling. There's data science, like Troy talked about. Um, there's also like a lot of, typically there's products on the side of like, not just the consumer, but also the producer. So like from Grubhub standpoints, um, you have software, not only for like you, the end user to order food from, but then you also have a team just basically like a mini Uber.

16:33 Like they got to build Uber for all the drivers. And then there's another team. They have to build all the software for all the restaurant people. Um, and then, as I already mentioned, like you have internal tooling. So you got to build tools for marketing and build tools for products. Um, and then there's like the infrastructure team. You're building tools for literally just the other engineers. So their job is easier. Um, and so it's like when people think of engineering, they might group it into like, Oh, front end, back end, like a full stack.

17:02 But it's like the full picture is actually quite a bit more complicated. Um, the bigger in size that you get, like the bigger company is the more engineers you need just to like, even from the sense of like small efficiencies. So like when you're a small startup, one great engineering hire might be like a five X, 10 X efficiency. But when you're a behemoth, like Google, you're just trying to make sure that person has some value at all, like more than negative value. And that's a way just from the sheer scale of things.

17:28 Right. Right. Yeah. If you're like working at a company now and you're not satisfied, like if you have the opportunity to, uh, to transfer within, or like you're at a big company, like there's so many other, um, potential teams and roles that you could, you could do at a company. Very cool. Um, can you go a bit more in depth on how much your, uh, side hustles are making you, um, you mentioned how you were kind of like going into full time. Cause there was enough revenue to stay in, like traveling around the world.

17:55 I know like nowadays it's like people really kind of romanticize like, Oh, digital nomad life. Like let's go around and like, you know, quit our jobs and do whatever. Um, but it sounds like, you know, you actually had a plan going into it. Like you already had a business that you want to like ramp up the revenue and monetize. Um, so you're a bit further along than just like someone just quitting and yoloing. For sure. Yeah. It was a little bit ahead, although not that much ahead. It's a, it's a funny story.

18:23 I had actually started Swift read in college. So I think it was like my junior or senior year in college, which was a long time ago. Um, now it's like eight years ago. Um, and I started it because I just wanted to, to read fast. Like I had so much to read. Um, I was taking all these business classes and like teachers would assign, you know, articles to read and whatnot. And I just love reading too. And I'd always like, you know, find random stuff to read online, but I just wanted to read faster. So I made this extension, um, helps you read faster using like this method of speed reading called rapid serial visual presentation.

18:59 And it was really shitty back then. Uh, it was very basic, looked horrendous. Um, but for some reason people liked using it. And I guess it was because no other tool like this existed. So people liked using it. And then it got picked up by a bunch of media publications, like life hacker wrote about it. CNET wrote about it and then sort of exploded from there. I didn't really think much about it. I was like, okay, cool. I have this free product that helps people speed read and an okay number of users are using it regularly.

19:29 Like my DAU numbers weren't that high at that point, I think. Um, so I just let it sit basically for, uh, seven years. I didn't do anything with it. Um, of course I improved upon the design and made it a lot more, uh, user friendly from the initial version. But other than that, I didn't do anything with it. I didn't really like add very many new features or anything. Um, I guess when I got to Lyft, um, I just, I don't know what happened. Uh, I just decided to try and monetize it because I was like, okay, there's like some opportunity here, right?

20:00 It's not like this massive exponential growth opportunity, but it's also at least not dying. Like users aren't just forgetting about this. Um, actually it's funny when I left Lyft, someone said I was YOLOing essentially, like I was going to YOLO. Um, so at, at the point where I decided to quit was essentially where Swift read was, was ramen profitable for me. Um, so it was basically enough to cover my living expenses. And, you know, it wasn't, the revenue wasn't that much, but if I lived somewhere cheaper, like outside of Manhattan or even in other countries across the world, pretty much any other city in the world, um, then Swift read would be enough to cover my expenses.

20:41 Nice. Um, and then you also said like you were working on several other projects and your main focus now is on like your meditation app. Uh, did you want to talk about that at all or? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, oh man, adventures of Troy always doing lots of different things and 80, 90% of them don't work out. But at least I learned a lot about myself in the process. So my meditation app was, uh, yeah, an idea that came to me as I was leaving Lyft. I was just like, what do I do next? Like, should I, um, I've monetized Swift read and like, I was like, okay, do I spend time time trying to grow Swift read?

21:17 I didn't really have any ideas at that point. Cause I had like, I had thought I had, you know, monetized it most of the way. Like I did 20% of the work to, to get like 80% of the results. Um, I'd always been into meditation, had meditated since, since college as well, since like sophomore year in college. So that's like, I don't know, like, uh, 10 years or so. Um, and it's had a tremendous impact on my life, um, in many different ways. And I just wanted to give something back to the meditation community, I guess you could call it.

21:50 And over the years I've used many different meditation apps and some of them are pretty good. Um, especially for beginners, there's lots of like very good beginner friendly meditation apps, but I wanted to build an app that had features that I specifically wanted. Um, and that I didn't really see any other meditation apps. So that was my idea with the meditation app. And I worked full time on it for maybe four months or so as I was traveling the world with, with, with my wife. Um, and that was a fun experience.

22:18 Just building that out and sort of talking about a little bit on Twitter and like interviewing users for, for beta tests. Um, but I realized that my app had, uh, a lot of, a lot more development in if, if it was going to have any chance of like earning revenue. Um, and I needed to actually get it in front of people. So, um, yeah, I decided to like table it for swift read. Could you go a bit more in depth on the features that were missing that you were looking to build out? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

22:51 Yeah. I do a lot of silent meditation. So not really listening to someone speak, um, or non guided meditation, I guess you could, you could say. Um, and so like a, a good timer was very, um, critical to me and there's some pretty good timers out there. So like that wasn't a differentiating feature, but I just wanted to make sure I had a good timer. And well, another thing I really like to do along with my meditation is journal. So I usually journal after I meditate just real quick, just writing down any thoughts or ideas that came to me.

23:22 Many people think the goal of meditation is to completely clear your mind and not have any thoughts at all. And that is sometimes the end result. Forcing yourself not to have any thoughts creates more thoughts essentially. So I don't like force myself not to have thoughts. I don't force myself to have thoughts. I just let go and just let whatever happen happen. So sometimes I do get thoughts because of that. Sometimes I do get ideas because of that. So I like writing those down in a journal. And another one was like habit tracking.

23:50 So I wanted to like see how much time I had been meditating for, but also see like on what days I meditated to see how like consistent I am over time. Um, and yeah, apps have like these features like meditation statistics and all that. But a lot of them are like hard to use and you can't really see at a glance, like how your meditation habit has been, um, at least the way I wanted it. So, um, I decided to, to build that in to my app as well. Um, and especially your part about like statistics, like people love to see, um, habit tracking and stuff.

24:21 And then the last part about like a good timer. That's not something I really thought about. Um, like I'm pretty new meditation, meditator. Um, yeah. Like I, so I credit karma was really the first time I ever like did meditation in any meaningful way. And like, we, we also had like a yoga instructor. So she was yoga slash meditation. She would come in like four times a week, um, two times for yoga, two times for meditation. And like, I would always fall asleep. Cause like, it was just a very soothing. Yeah.

24:54 Well, first of all, the room had like pillows and we would all be like lying down and like sometimes people would be like snoring cause like everyone just fell asleep. Um, I don't know. I thought it was good, but I never really kept up with it afterwards. It just kind of like, I read about all the health benefits and it definitely like, I hear a lot of anecdotes from people who are like, oh yeah, this is amazing. Um, yeah, but yeah, I, I've never been the most healthy person either like mentally or physically.

25:21 So it's like, I should, I, it's one of those things where it's like, Hey, you know, you should not eat junk food and you know, you should exercise every day. You know, you should do like X, Y, Z, but then I just like, I don't do those things. You have other, other priorities, kids that'll definitely take time out of the day. Right. Yeah. Like, so everyone asked me, like ton of people ask me every single day, like, oh, you're, so you're like retired, right? Like, what do you do all day? You're just like completely free.

25:47 Like, how are you occupying your time? You're so free. And people don't realize that like, even one kid is like more than a full-time job. You think that like, you think that it's basically this little person who is entirely dependent on you in every way. And they will literally die. If you leave them alone for like, I don't know one day, maybe like realistically, they just, they have no couple of days. A couple of days, they'll die from like thirst. But like, even in one day, say they like manage to get out of the house somehow, like they're going to run into traffic.

26:17 Like they don't know anything. Yeah. So the thing I have heard from people though, is that like, every additional kid doesn't actually overload you that much because you already only have X hours of the day. So it's like, when you're already overloaded, you'll get slightly more overloaded. Um, but it's not like 2X the amount of work, but then other people I've also heard say like, oh, it's more than 2X the amount of work. Cause it's infinitely more stressful or something. But I feel like there's like a steady point where it's like, maybe when you have like six or seven kids, the oldest kid is now old enough to take care of the younger kids.

26:49 Yeah. And it's like, you know, they're kind of raising themselves at that point. Yeah, exactly. They're raising themselves, just the chain of kids raising kids. Yeah. No, no, no. When you were talking about the meditation stuff, um, and sleeping at when you're, when you're meditating, that actually happens to a lot of people happen to me as well in the beginning. Like it's just so calming. And especially when you're lying down, it's so easy to fall asleep when you're meditating, which is, you know, not necessarily a bad thing.

27:17 Like you're getting your rest, but, um, cause you know, meditation is different from napping and sleeping. Um, but it was funny because actually I used to meditate at AQR, like the hedge fund I worked at. Um, I would just meditate after lunch for 15 minutes sitting at my desk and people would walk by and they would like, you'd be like, what the heck is he doing? Like he has his eyes closed. He's sitting at his desk. Is he like taking a nap? And then at the end of the year, I found out that, so we, the company does like these funny awards for like people at the end of the year.

27:51 Like, I don't know, like person who, uh, laughs the loudest or like, you know, person who like never pays attention in meetings, like call it superlatives. Right. And they give, they give these people fake trophies. Um, someone gave me, uh, sleeping, the sleeping beauty award because I was always sleeping after eating lunch. But, um, little did they know I was not sleeping. I was meditating. No one ever asked you like, Hey, like, what are you doing? And they didn't like ask to join or do anything. No. Yeah.

28:23 No one else asked me to join or anything. They just like, I heard, I mean, um, people did ask me, they're like, what are you doing? Um, you know, sitting there at your desk with your eyes closed, but no one asked to join. I think that was, uh, yeah, before meditation really became popular. Actually, I started like a small meditation group at Lyft. Um, so we do like a daily meditation. Speaking of experiences, uh, what was your favorite part or like set of experiences you had while traveling around the world?

28:51 Like digital nomad life. We basically did that for about nine months. And so we went to Taiwan, Spain and Portugal. Um, and so I would say my favorite experience, oh man, all those countries were great. And we spent like a month or two in each place. Okay. I guess we didn't like seriously get to know each country, but I felt like it was such a different experience from just going on vacation in these countries. Um, we got to try a lot of local food. Um, you know, I got to really understand what, what living there felt like.

29:27 And even met some of the locals, sometimes language was always a barrier, but it just felt like, yeah, it just felt like, yeah, it just felt like you were a baby, right? Entering the world and like everything was brand new. Uh, just a brand new experience, no matter, no matter where you went. So, um, we loved all three places. I would say my favorite experience was Madeira, Portugal. So Madeira is this island off of the coast of Africa, um, which is part of Portugal. So Madeira, I think some people call the Hawaii of Europe.

30:00 Um, they call a bunch of these islands, like Hawaii of Europe, but Madeira is one of them. So you have like tropical climates there on the island. You also have like desert and arid climates there. It's really interesting because there's tons of mountains on, on the island. It's a volcanic island. So basically you get like all four seasons on the island at the same time is, was what they say. So, um, it was just a beautiful island with all this lush greenery and, you know, tons of hiking, lots of outdoor activities.

30:27 Um, but it was that coupled with like the modern life, modern European life. So we stayed in the capital, Funchal, um, which was like pretty much a modern European city. Like all the roads were like nicely paved and you had like, you know, the typical cobblestone, stone, like alleyways, um, like street, like sides of like, uh, behind the major roads with like the little restaurants and cafes and like everyone eating outside. And being able to live comfortably in a city while also being surrounded by such beautiful nature was, uh, was awesome.

31:02 And like Portuguese people are amazing. And actually a lot of expats, uh, moved to Madeira. Like we met a lot of American expats, uh, some Chinese expats as well. Um, like people with, uh, with money from China who don't know where else to put it. So they moved to Madeira, Portugal, least favorite experience. Where do I start? Essentially we didn't do much research about Tenerife before we went, um, because we were in Taiwan at the time and Taiwan had gone into a lockdown because of COVID. And so we were just essentially desperate to get out of Taiwan cause there was nothing to do.

31:37 Um, and so we saw that Spain was one of the only countries at the time in Europe that was open. And Tenerife was like this tropical looking island, um, off of the coast of Africa that was part of Spain. So we were like, okay, let's, let's go there maybe as our next destination. So we didn't really do too much research into Tenerife. Um, you know, we booked our Airbnb and got our tickets and whatnot. And we got to Tenerife, we weren't really prepared. Um, and then when we got there, we just had like these weird experiences with some of the locals.

32:08 Um, we also got there at like 3:00 AM in the morning. So it was just like a bad time. And so like the weird experiences with locals was that like, when we got there, we got picked up by, um, a taxi that we had booked beforehand. And a taxi driver, you know, uh, drove us to our, uh, our Airbnb, but he drove to the wrong address. And we were like, actually, this is, this is the address. Do you know where it is? And he's like, oh yeah, don't worry. I know the right address. Like, you don't need to tell me. And he just kept going in circles.

32:38 And I'm like, look, look, look at my phone. Like I'm literally showing you the address and it's not where you're going. And he's like, oh yeah, don't worry. I know about, I know, I know where you guys live. Like I've, I've been to that neighborhood before. And we, we just spent like 30 minutes on the road. I'm like, what is this guy doing? Like, does he not like believe me or something? Or yeah. So finally we got, we got through him and he drove us to the right address. Um, he's like, as we were getting out of the car, he was like, be careful about this neighborhood.

33:05 Because, um, I used to, you know, drive people to this neighborhood like 20 years ago. And it was basically, I forgot what word he used, but he was like, it's basically, um, dangerous. Like there's, you know, it's like, you gotta be careful. You gotta put your money in front of you. Like, don't put your money behind you in like a backpack or something. He said, like, make sure your money is in front of you all the time. And we were like, holy crap. Like, is this like a sketchy neighborhood? It seems fine.

33:29 And, you know, when we were doing our initial research, it seemed fine. We got there at like 4:00 AM in the morning. Um, once we got in the Airbnb, um, we thought it was fine. Like it was pretty well maintained and everything. And, um, the next day we decided to go out and do some grocery shopping. Um, and we tried to open the gate and we like the gate that we came in through and we literally could not open it. And it was like locked or something. And so we looked through all the keys and like looked through all the instructions and like tried all the keys and none of them worked.

33:58 So we were like, oh my gosh, are we literally locked inside like this Airbnb complex on our first, first day? Uh, we can't even go grocery shopping. Like we don't have any groceries in the fridge. Like, oh, like what are we going to do? Um, so we contact the host and the host is like basically like blaming us. She's like, like it was a, it was a weekend and she was like, no one's working on the weekend. So, you know, it might be a couple of hours until someone gets to you, but I'll try my best. And we're like, dude, like you're, you're the host.

34:27 Like you should, you should be apologizing. Like you didn't give us any instructions. You didn't give us the right keys. Like we have no way of getting out of this place basically. Um, and then the host actually told us about like a back door that we could get out of. And we were like, wow, like you did not tell us about this. Like you just caused us so much stress. Um, I just spiraled like all these bad experiences. I mean, they're not like that bad, but all these sort of, um, you know, slightly negative experiences, just wait on me a little bit.

34:57 And that night actually, um, so beforehand we had booked a, like an excursion, uh, through Airbnb to this like volcano, this like inactive volcano. I think it is just local was taking us there. And, um, I had noticed that no, no one else was going on the tour. Like usually Airbnb shows you who else is going on the tour. And I just, you know, spiraled at that point because of all these things that have happened to us. Like we just had such, such a bad experience kind of like on our first few days in Tenerife.

35:27 And then now we're going on a tour to the middle of the mountains with this local. And like, no one else is going on the tour. And it's like, oh my gosh, like, are we going to get robbed or something? Like, what if he just leaves us? Right. Like, like we also don't have, um, a SIM card that works locally and like, we can't call anyone. So I was just like, okay, let's cancel this. Let's cancel this tour. We just spent like the next couple of weeks on the beach. Luckily there's a beach next to us, uh, you know, working during the day and like going to the beach in the morning and the afternoons.

35:57 And we didn't really do much. Um, oh man, that's pretty funny. Cause it's like most people now don't even remember the days before Uber and Lyft were ubiquitous. And it's like those taxi issues. That was kind of like the norm before. Yeah, exactly. People just try to scam you. It's like, they're like, oh yeah, I know where I'm going. Let me drive around in circles or like, one time I had this taxi driver. He literally filled up in gas while we were in the taxi. We're like, dude, what? Like, what are you doing?

36:25 He's like, oh yeah, let me just, let me just grab some gas real quick. Um, I know. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We're so spoiled with, uh, all the technology here in the, in the U S. I don't know if this is true. Maybe you have more insight, but I saw that like, um, Uber and Lyft are not subsidizing a lot of their rides anymore. So like, they're trying to make money now. And so before, like when I was in SF in like 2016, 2017, it cost maybe like $5 to get across the town in like an Uber, um, a shared pool. Um, and like, if you wanted to be by yourself, it'd be like 10 to 15, but now it's like the price is more than doubled.

37:01 It's like, they're just jacking it up across the board. Yeah. Yeah. I think that started when I was at Lyft too. Cause they went public and they just stopped giving. Yeah. They stopped subsidizing the rides. They stopped giving as many coupons and just ride prices went up and I wouldn't be surprised. Actually. Yeah. This would make sense if Uber and Lyft colluded, right? Cause if only one of them jacks up their prices, everyone's going to go to the other one. So, you know, they, they collude so that they can maximize both of their, uh, their revenue.

37:28 Yeah, dude, I actually didn't even think about that. Like, I guess it's in both of their best interests. Cause like, even though Uber is crushing Lyft, it's like Lyft doesn't want to be subsidizing the rides either. And now that you've mentioned it, like I wouldn't be surprised if that is a thing. Uh, if anyone has connections with the justice department, look into them. You heard it here first, Uber and Lyft colluded. Oh my gosh. Not a good look for an ex Lyft employee. Ah, dude, who cares, dude? You're gone.

37:57 They have no power over you. Yeah. Dude. I'm in the metaverse now. I'm on the blockchain. Yeah. Dude. What do you think about the metaverse? What's your take? I think there's opportunity. I think it's, um, it's still very early, very early days. I don't know. Are you like TikToking about the metaverse at all? Cause I saw this. I made a couple, like, I mean, I've made a bunch of TikToks and I think I made one specifically on metaverse and like a bunch of people asking about like NFTs and stuff. Um, but I usually don't like to repeat topics.

38:26 And it's like TikTok is horrible for finding stuff. So like they have a playlist feature, but it's kind of shitty. Like their search function can't really work cause there's no titling. Yeah. So it's hard to find. Is Facebook's metaverse live right now? Or like, can you actually? So they have a couple of different like VR products. Yeah. So they have like their, all their Oculus offerings and then there's like various things in there that you can kind of quantify as a metaverse. And then I believe they also have like a teams like equivalent at this point.

38:55 I don't know if that's live or not, but they have like a bunch of different stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I saw, um, the sexual harassment one. No, no, I didn't see that one. That one sounds, sounds interesting. But this TikTok exploded where this guy was just taping himself, I guess, using an Oculus in one of, you know, Oculus's worlds. And, um, he met this community person who worked full time, uh, in the metaverse. So he just spent his day like, you know, in this world, uh, or I guess in this Oculus world on his Oculus Rift.

39:28 And he was getting paid a salary for being a community manager or something of this digital world. So, um, I guess that blew his mind. I can, that's kind of cool. Like, you know, your, your entire job is to be in the metaverse essentially. That would suck ass. Like it's not that comfortable. So like they have add ons for it. Um, like they have an elite strap and they have like some other thing basically to make it more comfortable. And they're super overpriced. It's like a hundred dollars for this like plastic strap.

39:55 Yeah. But like, it's still not that comfortable. Like when I'm wearing that thing for more than like two or three hours, I like, I don't want to wear it anymore. Cause it's like hot. It's not breathable. Yeah. And it's still like, it's still weighs something. Yeah. There's like a huge ass thing on your face. Um, it looks uncomfortable. It's bearable, right? Like if you were playing a really fun game or really interesting experience or something, it's bearable, but like, it's nowhere near, like you can't spend, I mean, I guess technically you can spend eight hours in it or whatever, but like it's, it's miserable.

40:25 Um, I think it's hilarious that a lot of tech executives who used to work at Facebook. They're like, Oh yeah, it's bad for you. Of course it's bad for you. But I'm like, dude, all right. You can say that now. Cause you're not working there anymore. You've made your money and you've like, you know, you, you, you already made it. You have, you've got your stock or whatever you were there when it was growing. And like, you obviously did not speak out while you were there. Cause you were like getting in the bag.

40:46 Right. And now that they're out there, they have like this moral high stance of like, Oh yeah. Like, of course it's terrible. Like I don't support it. Like you guys can better watch out. It's like, dude, fuck you. Like you saying this now, like, okay, sure. You can still be right now, but like, clearly you profited from this machine, um, in like a very substantial way. So it's like, yeah, I don't know, man. You, you, they made it possible. And now they're just, uh, trying to absolve themselves of any, any wrongdoing, but, um, Okay.

41:18 So, um, I don't, I haven't super looked deeply into this fact, but I kind of believe it's true, um, based on like the reasoning. So most people before and like previous generations, the older you get, the more rights leaning you become. So the more Republican you become. And this is there. The theory is that the reason this happens is because you've become more wealthy. So as you become more wealthy, you like get more selfish. You like start to look out for yourself. Like it all makes a lot of sense. It's like, Hey, I got mine.

41:47 Like, yeah, screw you next generation type of deal. But like, it's not happening for millennials because millennials are not becoming wealthy. So like people now are poor compared to previous generations. And so the general, like overall group of people leans more left, um, because they're not rich. They haven't made it yet. Yeah. So like, I think that's really interesting. Um, and it's kind of interesting to see like what the Republican party is going to do. And especially because they've been like, they're getting super splintered right now.

42:20 Cause like there's a really large group of hardcore Trump fans, but now DeSantis, like the party is trying to push him to be like the nominee. And like Trump hasn't decided to run yet against him. Um, but like if he did, he's going to like completely wreck the Republican party. I don't know how much, uh, politics stuff you follow. Not, not really none at all. Do you think that has influenced you at all? Like do you find yourself getting more conservative as your wealth increases, um, over the years? I don't like to label myself one side or the other.

42:53 Like there are specific policies I'll agree with on both sides. Like I don't want to hold any viewpoint so strongly that I can't change it. So like, exactly. There's other than like math and physics and some things that I believe, like, if those things are, you know, changed, then my entire mind, I'll just be like, you know, I don't even know what to do with myself. But like, in terms of like other things, um, I don't think I hold such a strong belief in anything that I am not willing to add a bare minimum here, the other side of the story.

43:22 So it's like, yeah, I think especially with media, um, it's like everyone's trying to paint a narrative. Everyone has some sort of ulterior motive, whether that's like, they're trying to get more clicks, more views, or they're trying to push their own political narrative for some sort of, you know what I'm trying to do with personal gain. Most likely. Um, it's like, it's hard to really find out like, what is the truth of something? Right. Cause it's like, you can hear two same, two people can read the exact same article and get completely different conclusions.

43:53 And both of them might be valid. Right. It's like, depending on your life experiences, um, depending on like what your existing ideology is, like how it fits into your narrative and like who you are as a person. Um, so it's like the, one of the, my most recent TikToks that got like an insane number of like comment to, um, like view ratio. Like it had thousands, literally thousands of comments. I mean, like even right now people are probably like just fighting each other. So like dramatically. And I won't like go into detail for it, but it's like, I, I think humans just in general, we like to categorize things because it helps us simplify the world.

44:35 So it's easy to put things into buckets. Yeah. Like most things are not black or white. They're like shades of gray and like, it's like a scale, right? So say like zero is here. One is here. It's not even just somewhere on the scale, but it's like a slider. Right. And it's like your sentiment can be anywhere on this scale or like, yeah, I don't know. I just think it's like, it's way more complex than being simply like, oh, you're a liberal or, oh, you're like a far right Republican. Cause it's like, humans are intelligent creatures.

45:05 Like everyone can form their own thoughts. And like, I'm sure I'd be surprised if you can find any single person who agrees a hundred percent with either side on every single policy decision, because it's like, unless they're just like, you know, completely against like hitting the other side, which is also like, you know, not in their best interest. You want to be more like thoughtful, like everything that happens, you can't just listen to some greater authority or just like do things because that's what your party tells you.

45:33 Because like, what's that saying? It's like, I think it's from men in black. It's like Will Smith was like, oh, you know, people are dumb. Like individuals are smart. People are dumb. They're like, or maybe it was like Tommy Lee who said that. I don't remember, but it's like, basically when you give up your critical thinking skills and just go along with the masses, like you're, you're doing yourself a disservice and you're doing others a disservice. Um, this is a really long winded way to say, like, I don't, uh, ascribe to like either political ideology.

46:02 Cause I feel like that pigeons hold you, that pigeon holds you too much in terms of like, just separating like black or white. Cause it's like, yeah, it's more, it's much more complex than that. Yeah, absolutely. I agree a hundred percent with, with everything you said there. It was, it's interesting that like, just like even black and white technically are like shades of gray, right? Um, like it's just a continuum. And when do you really get from like a shade of gray to black? Like what is the dividing point?

46:33 Right? Like it's like the, it's like the, the, the number line, right? Like you can go infinitely deep into, um, into a number. Like when do you actually, like, if you keep dividing the number line by half, right? Like when do you actually get to, um, get to something solid? And I think like critical thinking is, is such an important skill, um, in the, in the modern world. And with, with social media and with all this polarization, um, of like these, these two political parties. And, and even, even in the world, it's like us versus, it's always us versus them.

47:08 It's like us versus China or, um, you know, this, this party versus this other party. And I think, um, yeah, when you're, when you label yourself like that, or when you start seeing yourself as part of that, that category, that group, that like giant collective, then yeah, you're, you're giving up your, your freedom. You're giving up your own individual ideas and thoughts and your own creativity and your own potential. Like you said, like you're doing a disservice for society because you're just giving up all your, your individual potential, um, for this, for this collective.

47:41 And yeah. And like the point about, um, the us first, us versus them, I think like just as humans, because when you really break it down, we're just, we're a really smart animal, but we're still animal. Like we have hundreds of millions of years of evolution that have programmed us to think in a certain way. Um, and it's like, we still have a lot of biases and like internal assumptions that are, that just don't service that well anymore. And it's like, when you think of being a part of a tribe and I, I may be getting some of these, a lot of this information from like a book called like tribe and the loss of family or something like that.

48:22 Okay. But it's like before, when you think about like a tribe back in the olden days, um, when you, when you mess up, like when you're a bad actor in a tribe, you get kicked out and you die. Yeah. So like your, your penalty for being a asshole is death. So that kind of weeds out a lot of people who are bad actors. And like, sure. You might be like really skilled in some way in terms of like manipulation or like covering for yourself. But like the general rule of thumb is like, you had to contribute to your tribe.

48:53 You had to be like a somewhat respectable member of society, um, in order to like continue living to pass on your genetics. Yeah. But nowadays it's like, there's very, very little chance that you'll die just from assuming you're in like a rich country with modern healthcare and like sure there's all sorts of ways you can die. But like in general, like our life expectancy and just like the general rate of you being alive is, is much more likely than before when you had, when we did have modern medicine, uh, didn't have like reliable shelter, reliable food source, et cetera.

49:28 And so now it's like the modern kind of tribe. So like Google where you call yourself a new blur and a Googler. And a lot of these terms are actually how you like form a cult. And so like Google versus Facebook, like Facebook was always saying like, Oh yeah, Google's the enemy. Like we have to beat them, et cetera, et cetera. And it helps to like reinforce this like sense of identity. Like, Oh, I am a, I am a Googler. Like these are my values and they have like motivational posters and shit. And it's like, I think it's all like, I don't know if it's subtle or not so subtle forms of manipulation, but like, even if you're a bad actor and like say you get kicked out of company, like it doesn't really matter anymore because like we don't know how to hire.

50:09 Well, and so a lot of people look at resume, they look at experience, uh, if I look at connections. And so regardless if you like screw over your company or like, if you are really bad worker, like that, you can overcome that a lot of times just by being good at interviewing. Um, but the point I was kind of trying to make before I got into the cult stuff was like, you can be a really bad actor. Like you can be a shitty person these days. And like, you might not get punished. Like there's a good chance you won't get punished.

50:39 Um, even going to the extremes of like, um, going against societal norms. Right. So like society, we think of like, okay, they have these laws to uphold here. They have these rules for being a quote unquote good citizen. Um, but then a lot of laws are written by the like oligarchy, right? They're written by the upper class and it's like laws. If you think about them, if the penalty for a law is a fine, then it basically means it's only a penalty for poor people. Cause if you're a rich person, like no one cares about fines.

51:07 I think there was like a famous story about like Bezos or Zuckerberg, one of these tech executives. They just got like tens of thousands in parking tickets. Cause they like either didn't have a license or didn't have like a license plate or like never paid the parking fees. Cause they're like, yeah, fuck this. Right. Like I'm rich. I'll just, I'll just deal with the fines. And like, this is, this means nothing to me. Um, and there's only like one country that does it as a percentage of your income. So I'm like probably Nordic country or like Sweden or something where they're like, all right, if you get like a speeding ticket, we're going to, we're going to ticket you like 5% of your total salary.

51:38 It's not that high, but it's still like a percentage. So it's like rich people. It's like, okay, if you're rich, you can't just randomly break the law and get a slap on the wrist. Like you're going to feel the pain. Like you're making 10 million. We're going to find you a hundred thousand dollars or something. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, I think that's, that's a great point. I think like, like laws and fines, you know, they're, they're good. And I think necessary, um, for society, you know, humans are, uh, are dumb sometimes.

52:05 So you got to have those laws to, to incentivize the right actions. But I think like at the end of the day, we need morals as, as you were saying, like, you could still do bad things and a lot of times get away with it in society. And so I think we, we need morals. And, and when I say need, I don't mean, I'm not, you know, trying to sit, I'm not trying to preach or be like, you know, everyone needs to, needs to learn what's good or bad or anything. I think like, so, so like what really matters in life, right?

52:33 Like you can do bad stuff or you can do kind of shady stuff to, to get ahead in life and make as much money as possible or, you know, get what you want. But like at the end of the day or at the end of the life, like you're going to look back and are you going to be, are you going to be satisfied with that? Are you going to be fully, you know, happy or at peace with your life that you lived a good life? I don't know, maybe some people are, maybe psychopaths will be, but for most people, I feel like they won't be.

52:58 And so there has to be something else that, that allows us to, to feel fulfilled as we're living life. And with morals that comes with empathy and like listening to others and yeah, being a less, less judgmental person. And there's just all these, all these benefits. Right. And yeah, I think that's, that's a perspective that actually like came to me as I was meditating and also getting a little bit more into spirituality and like reading about Buddhism and, and that sort of thing. And yeah, I think like you've articulated all that stuff pretty well, even though you, you said you didn't really meditate, which is fine.

53:39 Like you don't have to meditate to, to understand all that, but. Correct me if I'm like completely butchering this, but like the origins of Buddhism. So like Buddha himself, he was like this rich, like very pampered Indian prince or something. And so one day he's like, Oh man, I want to like enlighten myself. I want to like find out what it's like to be part of the people. So he goes on like this very hedonistic. Am I saying that word right? Yeah. Journey where he tries to like deny himself of all pleasures, live among the people, like give away all this stuff, meditate for a long ass time.

54:13 And then he like somehow achieves this enlightenment. And then he starts to like spread the teachings. Like, did I get the basic points, right? Or like, what am I missing? Or like, what points would you want to add there? Yeah, that's basically it. I mean, that's my basic understanding is, yeah, he, you know, he's this rich guy who has everything he wants, but then he leaves his palace and sees sick people and sees, you know, poor people. And, you know, he just realizes that the world has so much suffering and he wants to better understand that.

54:45 And so, yeah, he like basically leaves all his riches behind and goes off to meditate and like contemplate these things. And, you know, miraculously, he gets he understands everything. And, yeah, he, you know, he wants to spread those teachings. And I think Buddhism generally, and also, you know, aspects of Hinduism, they just, yeah, they just get at a lot of the, I don't know how to put it. I just feel like they're, they feel like they resonate with me the most and probably maybe with you the most if we were to pick amongst the religions, like the teachings that resonate with you the most.

55:29 I would say include like the Eastern religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism as well. And I think there's something there. Like, I think they maybe not captured the complete truth. I don't think anyone can, but they've they've gotten at it, I think, better than other modern reincarnations of the other religions. Yeah, the so like I was raised, I don't know if you were raised this way, but like in Iowa back when we were like, you know, doing whatever, like all the families, they were, you know, baptized Christians.

56:01 And we had like went to that church and played basketball. Yeah, but like, you know, none of us really believe maybe some people did, but we just went there because our parents went there, you know, eat some potluck food. And it wasn't really until junior year of high school where I took AP world history that I really learned about a lot of different religions. So like I would go to church sometimes and I would go to like, I forget what you call it, but basically it was like a youth thing where they would have like a sermon and you like eat food and play games or whatever.

56:32 So I just did it because like other people did it, but then in junior high school AP world history learning about all these different sorts of religion because like I knew nothing about Judaism or like, yeah, what it meant to be a Muslim or just general like what was going on in the world up until this point. And I think I don't want to get too much into religion, but the one part that I thought was very interesting is like basically all these old texts, they all reference like a really great flood that happened.

57:02 And so it's like, it's not just Christianity or like this flood and like the ark and that stuff that's, you know, that's whatever, but like in various religious texts were just like general history, like they talk about this giant flood. So it's like, okay, that part's probably real, like some sort of flood happened and probably fucked a lot of shit up that like, you know, who knows if it is the whole world, but it was probably a lot of the world at that time. And I thought that was really interesting.

57:28 But like, yeah, man, history is so interesting because like, it's so many things are cyclical, like that you don't even realize, like all these, like even modern day trends or even not even that modern, like you can do it. You don't have to go back that far to see a lot of these trends. And like, I think it's becoming more popular nowadays. Like people have written more books that have gotten some amounts of public recognition in terms of like, here's like some modern economic cycle theory. Here are some of like the, I guess mostly economics is what's being focused on, but in terms of like fall and rise of societies, that kind of stuff is super interesting.

58:04 And yeah, like if I didn't have to worry about money, I would have majored in history and psychology because even those like, they don't make any money at all. But it's just so interesting to learn about because it's like, I think people focus a lot on like the here and now and like we have all this data now and like everyone's trying to make all these insights. But even it's like the best, the people with the best data and the best software and the best tools still very rarely can predict the future in like meaningful ways outside of like very specific things like the weather or like, which we figured out a long time ago.

58:37 But in terms of like more macroeconomic trends or more like, you know, fall and rise of societies. And as an aside, there was like this one document that was released that was supposedly made by the KGB. It was like, okay, here's our like plan to basically weaken the West in terms of like, here's our, here's our game plan. Here's how we're going to make Russia rise up and like screw up Britain and the US and whatever. And they've actually accomplished a lot of things on this list. I heard it was like, one of them was like separate Britain from the rest of Europe.

59:14 So like Brexit happened. Another one was like incite nationalism in the United States to like polarize the left and right, which is happening slash happened. I forget what else was on this list, but it's like, this is made a long time ago. Like, I don't know the fifties sixties or something. And if you look at like the actual checklist of these events, a lot of them have come to fruition. So who knows if like, that's still a thing. If like Putin is like this, you know, evil mastermind in the background, or like that just kind of happened naturally.

59:45 I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's super interesting. I wonder. Yeah. I wonder how much influence they had. They had on that. Exactly. Like, or if it just happens naturally and maybe they, they learned from the past, right? Like they learned what happened to, to other empires or societies that fell and they, they baked that into their plan. And, you know, even though the KGB went defunct, like it still just happened just because of history and because everything in history is cyclical. Um, so back during like the 2008 recession, uh, Facebook was like, okay, maybe we want to like raise some money and just have some sort of like war chest.

1:00:22 Um, and all the investors were being kind of skittish. So they didn't give Facebook like the terms that it wanted. Um, and Facebook was offering like pretty, you know, fair terms for a lot of these investors and investors were just trying to like penny pitch them in terms of like, okay, well, we don't want to like give you that much money at X valuation or whatever. And so Russia comes in, right? And this is where things get a little conspiracy theory ask. So Russia comes in and they're like, all right, we'll just give you, they offer them a much better deal than they wanted for no board seats.

1:00:51 And Facebook was for, they're like, what? Like, this is crazy. Like what's, what's the catch? Is this legit? Is this like some sort of like mob money? Like, is this check going to clear? Um, the check did clear and they got the money. But then ever since that happened, it's like, okay, well now one of the largest tech companies in the world, well, it wasn't back then, but like one of the most influential companies, um, like has all this money from Russia. Um, like, you know, they don't really know the source.

1:01:18 They know that the check was good and it cleared. Um, and like, I actually got this from the, this anecdotal story from the all in podcast. I'm probably like telling it wrong in some way, but the story was like the, um, one of the hosts, he actually met with that Russian dude. Uh, I don't know if he's like a monster or just like a normal businessman or whatever, but he's like, oh, like, how come you didn't ask for a board seat? Like the, you know, they would have given you one easily. Right. And it was like the Russian guy responds with like, you do not need board seats for influence saying, saying, basically saying like, yeah, like it doesn't matter if you have a board seat or not.

1:01:54 Like we're, we're fucking like going to influence these things regardless. Yeah. Um, if you remember when Obama was debating Romney and Mitt Romney was like the greatest threat to American democracy right now is Russia. And like Obama just like made fun of him. And like, he got so much shit for saying that everyone was like giving him grief. Me like written on me. You're a fricking, you're an idiot. Like you're a conspiracy theorist. Like Russia. Like, no dude, we're like, no, they're not a thing anymore.

1:02:23 They felt like they're not, we're America. Right. Like Russia has nothing on us. And now look at modern day. It's like, oh shit, Russia maybe does have something on us. There's, there's a lot of sketchy things happening. There's a lot of money flows, but it's almost like people are not as against Russia anymore either. Like they seem to be more against China now. Um, but I think that also has to do with like the rise of China and the fall of Russia economically. So like maybe if Russia was more powerful, they would get more hate.

1:02:50 Um, but like, I don't know. I think the whole like global relations stuff. I don't know if us like plebs will ever know the full picture or not, or maybe 20 to 30 years when they release all this stuff. But like, there's a lot of stuff going on in the background that we have no idea about. And it involves lots of money and lots of power, lots of dirt on powerful people. I hope that one day, you know, 10 years, 20 years from now, there's like a Netflix special or like a who documentary or something where it shows like a glimpse into these dealings of the super elites of the rich.

1:03:26 Cause it's like, you'll hear comedians talk about it. Some rich people will talk about it. They'll be like, oh yeah. You know, there is this cabal of this. Like, you know, they're not evil necessarily, but they're just like the secret society. Maybe like a hundred men, a hundred really old men that control the entire world in terms of like owning all the media or like having all this influence or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if it felt either way, if this was just like completely false, but also if it was true, I'd be like, yeah, I could, I could see that.

1:03:53 I could see that. Yeah. Just like the stuff coming up, coming out of like that, the Epstein case. Right. And yeah, you know, all this, all this stuff about the, the really rich and really powerful. Um, and yeah, we, we probably won't ever see that. And we'll just have to live with whatever influences they're, they're generating. Cause they're definitely generating a lot of influences, right? Like they're owning these social media companies, media companies in general. And, you know, they're owning everything we use probably.

1:04:21 And, um, there's just a ton of money with like tons of, uh, uh, incentives behind that. Right. Just like, and we're just, we're just plebeians just being pushed around by the wind. And I think that brings us back to your point about how important critical thinking is and about how important, I guess, individual freedom and thinking for yourself is because like, you can't control what happens outside of there. Like you can't control what happens outside of your mind. You know, what goes on in social media, what goes on in the world.

1:04:55 Um, you know, what, what event or what war China and the U S might get into or whatever, like, we're just, we're just little people. And so the best we can do is, um, is control how we react to it. Like, you know, we have this input of all these things happening outside like war or like media, things on media, things on social media, things that incite anger and, you know, hatred. Um, and I think once that gets in, gets into us, we have this ability to think critically about it. We have this ability to become aware of it and, um, you know, and, and judge it and, um, determine if that's something that we want to hold for ourselves or not.

1:05:35 Um, and just live our own happy lives, oblivious to all the things going on in the background. Um, knowledge is, uh, oh, I guess ignorance is bliss for sure. I really love how you tied that all the way back to our previous conversation, Troy. And I think at this point we're nearing, we're like over two hours or something. Um, so I think that's a good point to end the podcast. Um, for our viewers out for listeners or viewers out there, what is some advice you would give someone say, who's just starting out either their college career or a young person in their twenties.

1:06:12 Uh, and what's a good book recommendation you have for everyone. In terms of advice, I would just bring it back to a lot of what we talked about around thinking for yourself essentially in critical thinking. I think, um, it's very easy, especially when you're young to get stuck in what society wants, what your parents want. Um, you know, the paths that are laid out in front of you, like, okay, I get this degree. I get this job. I become promoted or like, you know, stay within this, this industry and, you know, make more money, right.

1:06:42 We've got to, got to make more money to buy that house or to, to have enough money for retirement, right. Put money in your 401k. All these things are things that people tell us. Um, but I think it's, you know, you can definitely use follow, follow these paths to your advantage, but it's also important to think for yourself and think about what, what you really want out of life. Um, and, and, uh, to always have that in mind as you are going through, through life and trying different things. Um, I think one thing that I've learned that I think has helped me, but has definitely not been easy is all the experimentation I've done.

1:07:19 So I've jumped around to so many different jobs. Maximum, I spent like two years at a single job. Most jobs, I only stayed at a year or so. Um, and I've always done little side projects in the past. And one of them has been enough for me to, uh, quit my job with, or has generated enough revenue for me to quit my job with. And all that is born out of, uh, you know, constant experimentation with like, what kinds of things do I like doing? What kind of impact do I want to have on the world? Um, and I'm nowhere near where I guess I think this can take me, but, um, I don't think I don't think I would have gotten there without constant experimentation and constant learning and just, um, thinking for myself and, and trying to, to find the truth, right.

1:08:05 Uh, with, with that experimentation, um, in terms of book recommendations, I would say, well, one book I'm really liking right now and pretty much finished it, but it's so good that I want to go back to it many times is called adult children of emotionally immature parents. Um, seems kind of like a serious, you know, scary topic, but I, yeah, I guess like growing up, I never had the best relationship with, with my parents. And I feel like a lot of immigrant families or children of immigrants may, may feel similarly, you know, they're coming from this country that often has a lot of turmoil and, um, you know, a lot of poverty and you're, you're coming to America, which has so much opportunity, but you're just so focused on surviving.

1:08:52 You're so focused on providing for your family and providing the best opportunity for your family. Because of that, perhaps the children don't develop as, uh, as emotionally or, um, don't develop emotional maturity as, as you might want in an ideal childhood environment. So I feel like this book has shed a ton of light on not only why I why I do certain things, um, and why I behave, but also on why my parents behave and how that has influenced me. And also on how I might be able to, um, in a sense, repair my relationship with them, which is my ultimate goal, um, to cultivate that relationship with them, but also relationship with, with everyone else.

1:09:37 Um, you know, like all my friends and, and future family and my future kids. So I think this book is like, just like opening my eyes to all of that. Because before I thought, okay, like, this is just how I'm wired or like, you know, my parents will, will do whatever they do. And like, there's no like real reason for it. Or maybe that was, you know, how they were raised, but I didn't really connect the dots. Basically. Um, and I didn't really see how one would influence the other. Um, and I think this book has, has helped me a lot, uh, in terms of like connecting the dots and like being able to communicate more effectively with my parents, but also everyone else that I come into contact with.

1:10:12 Um, and I think, yeah, being able to do that just allows you to, you know, express your true talents, um, more fully. And as we mentioned before, like attain your, your full potential as an individual. Um, and I think, yeah, just like seeing those hidden relationships, seeing those hidden patterns in like the relationships that you had with your, your parents is, is very difficult, but it's, uh, it's some rewarding work that you, that you can do. Very cool. I think I've actually heard of that book somewhere before.

1:10:43 I might've like seen it on Reddit. Um, but I'll give that a read now as well. That sounds pretty good. Um, very cool. All right. Well, thank you, Troy for joining us. And yeah. And thank you for having me on Frank. Yeah. Just happy to be here and happy to chat with you, Frank and catch up again.