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Why moving from New Zealand to Bangalore?
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>> If you want to keep growing and learning, you need to be surprised.
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Extreme way to be surprised is to move somewhere far away from home to a culture that's as different as can be.
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Just doing the same thing. It turns your brain off.
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What it means to live a good life.
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A full life is to do lots of different things.
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I just have this idea of like being on my deathbed looking back and going, "Wow, look at all those places I lived.
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Look at all those different things I did.
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Look at all those different lives I lived in my one life.
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That's what I'm aiming for. Well, hello everyone.
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It's Jim Oanosy with Infinite Loops.
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I am legitimately and truly excited to have my friend Derek Civers back on the podcast. It's been three years. I can't believe it.
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Derek, you are absolutely one of my favorite polymasks, one of my favorite people in general. And I read >> You too. >> Sorry.
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Sorry, I have to interrupt you to say Yeah, you too.
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So audience listening, I took a year-long podcast break.
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Actually, it's been a little more than a year.
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I've said no to every podcast request for over a year.
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And then I got then Jim emailed and asked. I said, "You know what? for you. Yes.
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I really loved our conversation a few years ago.
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I just adore you and what you're doing and so yes, no to everybody else and yes to you. >> Thank you so much.
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I it it truly does mean a lot to me.
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Um I want to hit you with something you said because it resonated so deeply with me and again I think it's one of the reasons why we vibe so well together.
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You said, "I want to make articles, books, websites, music, companies, systems, apps, and especially new ideas."
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And I read that and I laughed and I said, "Me [ __ ] too."
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But then I thought, you you've talked a lot about your son and I've been really incredibly impressed with your commitment to him, 30 hours per week, giving him your completely undivided attention.
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I mean, I don't even touch that league and I have three kids.
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Um, by giving him that that 30 hours a week, did you get lots of things out of it as well? Perspective.
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Uh, I think that's a huge one.
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when everybody's freaking out over an election, over AI, over something in the news, over whatever, I've got the perspective that my kid and I are out in nature or he's fascinated with a book and uh whatever it may be, it it keeps the world events in perspective for me.
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Uh I never forget what's most important here. Absolutely.
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And what if you could put yourself in in his shoes, does he realize how unusual that type of commitment from a father is and was? [laughter] >> Yeah.
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In his words, he said, "I seem to be the only kid that has a dad."
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He [laughter] he said, "Uh, you know, all my friends at school, they either literally don't have a dad or their dad is like kind of barely in the picture."
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He said, "I'm like the only friend I know that has a dad."
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Uh, so to me, the thing I wanted to communicate in action, not just words, is that he is more important than anything that might come through any screen.
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I I I have the greatest of admiration for that.
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Um I remember before I was young when I had my first child. I was 24. >> Wow.
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>> And my parents were saying, "You you don't know what unconditional love is, Jim. You really don't." I was like, "Yes, I do." Yeah.
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I mean, I have unconditional love for you, Dad.
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Maybe not as much, but but mom, certainly for you.
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And then I held my son Patrick and I started to cry and I realized in that instant that they were right.
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I really didn't know what that feeling was and it's an emotion.
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We're going to get into that a little later because I think we both agree that for the most part, well, I think it was my friend Rory Sutherland says we think that our brains are the Oval Office when actually they're the press office.
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We make many of our decisions emotionally and then pepper them over with rationality.
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I used to put a GIF up on Twitter that says because of reasons.
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But I your your son is making a big move right now.
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He's decided to move to Singapore and you you mentioned you quipped that you've you're trying to figure out how to move from being his manager to being his consultant. How's that going? >> That's a new change.
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Um so sorry to be clear, he's not planning on moving to Singapore.
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That was uh that was just our moment.
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So um every culture or even micro culture has its own moment where the boy is considered a man.
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You know where a somebody goes from childhood to adulthood.
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So some have a bar mitzvah.
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In my case I noticed that I felt it when just a few months ago he flew by himself from Wellington to Auckland, Auckland to Singapore.
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Did the immigration and everything by himself.
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Flew on the plane as an adult.
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Uh, and I just met him in the airport in Singapore and I went, "Wow, you did it."
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Uh, and I just noticed internally something in me shifted.
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I'm like, you know, he's really not a kid anymore. He's a young man now. He's uh 14 and a half. >> Wait, no.
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Anyway, he he's turning 15 in a few months.
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And uh so in my head I had to adjust that for kids I think parents might need to be more of a manager and help make decisions for them.
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>> But at a certain point you have to change the mindset from being a manager to being like a consultant.
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Uh to put it more bluntly they fire you as a manager and you just have to hope that they will hire you back as a consultant.
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And and I I love that point because it is so true.
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The idea that it's horrible for a child not to fire you as the manager that that I kind of see that as a failure to launch. >> Yeah.
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and and like my wife was more emotional about it than I was, but I was incredibly proud when each of my children, I have a son and two daughters, came in at roughly similar ages and said, you know, Dad, I I really appreciate your advice and and what you're what you're uh telling me I ought to do, but I I'm going to make this choice.
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I'm going to decide what I want to major in.
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I'm going to decide where I want to live. And I was like, yeah. Because >> nice.
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>> When I mentioned we were young, right?
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We were 24 years old, but we talked a lot about how we wanted to raise our children.
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And the the line that we could both agree on was we want them to be great adults. >> Yeah.
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And and when you make that your watch phrase, right, it precludes all sorts of things that people would naturally go to, my house, my rules.
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Because you're living under my roof, you're going to follow my my direction.
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And that doesn't make a great adult.
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That makes a compliant, sheepish, non-curious individual.
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And in a similar fashion, like I I have a pretty good memory for anything I read.
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And so my kids, this is pre-in for the most part, um or early internet, they would use me as Google.
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Hey dad, you know who is the French representative at the Congress of Vienna, [clears throat] Taland, in case you're curious.
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But I would we had a massive bookcase and I would just look at them and say, "Look it up in there."
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And we were we had the whole family together, which doesn't happen too often because my daughter, one of my three lives in California and the other two live out here on the East Coast.
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And we were reminiscing about it.
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And all three kids basically said the same thing when we were when they were saying like, well, what did you like about the way, you know, how did we damage you first off?
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Uh, but what did you like about the way that mom and I raised you?
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And all three said that >> they said they said what it what it instilled in us was that voracious curiosity because inevitably if you're trying to find out that it was Talan at the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars, you're going to run into some other material if you're actually looking it up in books.
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And one of my kids was like, "Yeah, I read for like a couple hours.
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I was fascinated by the French Revolution like and and that led to my curiosity about other things.
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And so I I think that I think you it's a measure of your success in my opinion as a dad that he wants you to be a consultant now and he's asked for that and you're you're you're absolutely willing to go that way.
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What do you think are going to be the main differences acting as a consultant as opposed to a manager?
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>> H I've been slowly prepping him this for this for years.
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So let's take a little example of whenever he has a school holiday.
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So here in New Zealand they have um two week holidays three times a year and then a one month summer holiday.
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So whenever it's a two-eek holiday, I let him decide what he wants to do with it.
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So his mom has a full-time job and I don't.
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So all the school holidays are on me to uh take him around or do something or whatever he wants.
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So there have been school holidays where he says, "I don't want to do anything.
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I just want to stay home and do nothing." So okay.
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And then he'll pay the consequences of that if halfway through he regrets it and wishes that he would have gone somewhere else.
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I I have to stop you because that goes against every fiber in your being.
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>> You've often said that you like you you you you want to take action.
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You don't want people who just want to Netflix and chill, right?
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So, did you did you flinch a little when he said that? >> Oh, of course. Yeah.
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So, I could give more examples.
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There were like if he said, uh, I want to go to Europe. I'm like, really?
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or there was three years ago he said, "I want to go to China."
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And I had only been to China once before in my life and it was rough. It was not pleasant.
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It was 2010 and I went to Guin and it was pretty nasty.
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And so when he said he wanted to go to China, I said, "Why?"
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And he said, "You know, Kung Fu Panda, it just seems interesting."
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And I went, "All right, you know, in the name of your education, what you lead the way, you go plan the trip.
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You decide where we're going to go."
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And so he did and it ended up blowing my mind, you know.
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So now I I love going to China and I've made a bunch of friends there and I've been a bunch of times since.
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But it was because he was leading the way.
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But it can work either way.
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So uh there have been times, for example, even on a day-to-day level where he will choose to say, uh, let's go have an adventure.
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Let's, uh, let's go sleep in the woods, but without a tent.
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let's just bring the sleeping bags and a tarp and I want to sleep in the woods tonight without a tent.
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I'm like, "Okay, if that's what you want."
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And uh halfway through he really regrets it in the middle of the night.
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He's like, "Dad, I hate this. Let's go in."
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I'm like, I thought that would happen, but the important thing is for each of these examples is that I want him to feel the consequences of his choices. >> So, he leads the way.
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I'm his faithful assistant, but I want him to get lots of experience like leading the way feeling the consequences of his choices firsthand so that yeah, he feels the pain of a bad choice or the joy of a great choice of his own instead of me making those choices for him. >> Yeah.
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Um I have some grandchildren who are approaching the tweener category.
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Um, and I was talking to my son who's their dad, and one of the things he he said, which was very adjacent to what you said, is we were talking about like how much you going to allow them to make up their own minds and do their own thing.
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And he said, "As much contact with reality as possible is what I'm going to advocate."
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>> And I just was like, "God bless you."
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Because in this era where everything is just, you know, helicopter hovering, don't do that, do this.
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I mean, that's a horrible way to turn out a good adult.
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You you you you are constricting them and putting them in a straight jacket and like it's just don't do that. Don't do that. Let them make mistakes.
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let them come into contact with reality because that's understanding the consequence of your own actions.
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I think >> one of my favorite parenting sentences was um broken bones heal faster than fears. >> They really do. >> Isn't that great?
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>> Isn't that great? like you see your kid climbing on the edge of a cliff and I'm like part of everything in me is just saying like watch out but instead of like wait no >> no watch out I'm just going to sit and
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observe and if he falls he breaks an arm so be it but >> didn't say we are we are stronger at the point of the healed bone fracture something along those lines we are much stronger at the after it heals at the point of fracture and so I think that as
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as difficult as that impulse not to uh don't do that is I mean you obviously I have very young grandchildren too and you know the first couple of years you're essentially trying to stop them from killing themselves >> uh but when when they get to a point
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where they are able and capable to make their own decisions I am entirely in your camp let them let them do that because that's the only way that they're going to be able to like really learn, you know, exactly the way the world works. Moving on, I've heard that you yourself
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Moving on, I've heard that you yourself are thinking about moving. >> Yes.
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>> Which I when I first saw it, I was surprised given what we in our previous conversations, you were like, New Zealand is it? This is >> Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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You were like, "This is the place.
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this is the like the perfect environment for me.
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It didn't surprise me when I read it.
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I'm like, of course Derek is going to move. But elaborate on that. What? >> Yeah. >> Why?
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Why moving from New Zealand to Bangalore? >> Okay. So, context.
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I should write about this soon.
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This was a real key moment in my life.
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A major turning point in my life is when I read this little idea deep in a book by Steve Pavina called Personal Development for Smart People.
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It was an okay book, a little too verbose.
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And this brilliant idea was like 300 pages in where it said uh if you want to keep growing and learning, you need to be surprised.
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And one of the best ways to be surprised, no, sorry, he said a good way to be surprised is to read a bunch of books about subjects you know nothing about and try to do things in your community that you ordinarily wouldn't do.
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Join groups that you ordinarily wouldn't join.
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Do hobbies you ordinarily wouldn't do.
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And he said, "Now, the extreme way to be surprised is to move somewhere uh far away from home to a culture that's as different as can be where everyday life will surprise you on a minute-to-minute basis.
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I'm obviously not quoting that word for word, but that was the idea.
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And I read that idea and it just it was like a inception, right?
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I couldn't get that idea out of my head.
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And so about nine months later, as I was getting into the process of selling my company and I realized I don't need to be here in Portland, Oregon anymore and I had just broken up with my girlfriend and I was just completely free and unattached to anywhere and anything. And that idea came back.
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I said, "That's how I want to spend the rest of my life."
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If I was almost 40 years old and I thought I've spent the first 40 years of my life in the US, I want to spend the next 40 out.
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And ideally, I want to keep going to more and more difficult places and each one stay long enough until it really feels like home.
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Until it's like this is my place, these are my people.
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This is absolutely my home.
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And then move on and do it again.
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And the ideal, the big like lightning bolt of a vision in that moment was that someday I'll be able to spin the globe and every little part of the world will feel like home.
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From like Kazakhstan to Peru to Saudi Arabia to whatever uh Finland will feel like home. I'll have friends there.
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I will have spent significant time there.
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I'll feel really deeply connected there before I die. What a cool mission.
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So that's what I set out to do. It was 2008, 2009.
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I had just sold my company.
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I went off into the world.
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I uh went to London for 6 months, five months, and it really felt like home.
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So much home that I almost bought a house there.
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I was like, "Oh, that's it. I'm done.
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This is my favorite city in the whole world.
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I'm going to buy a house."
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I put an offer on a house.
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Luckily, that offer was refused because I had to slap myself. I go, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. what am I doing?
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This is just the beginning of my journey.
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And sure enough, over and over and over again over the last whatever number of years it's been since then, I get to a place I live there for a while. I feel really attached.
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So attached that I say, "Never mind. This is it.
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I want to buy a home here.
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I'm going to live here for the rest of my life."
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And again, I have to slap myself and go, "Hold on. Wait.
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This is what I'm supposed to feel.
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And when I feel this, it's time to move on again."
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So, uh, I have not been doing that mission as planned because I was in a one-year relationship with a woman and after we broke up, she got pregnant and oops, that's where my son comes from.
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And unfortunately, she hates travel [laughter] and she's his mom.
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So, here we are uh in Wellington, New Zealand, where mama works for the government in Wellington.
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And uh I've been here for 14 years pausing my mission.
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But now my boy is also kind of one foot out the door.
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He really wants to go away to boarding school somewhere.
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He's also got this travel lust.
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He feels like a world citizen that uh yeah, he was born in Singapore.
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He's a citizen of four countries. uh his mom's from India.
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Um we're both citizens of India as well because of her.
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Um so he's yearning to get out into the world.
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So that's the background context.
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Do you want to ask anything about that before we go to Bangalore in particular? >> Yes, I do. Um okay.
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And and and uh big surprise, right?
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Um your your son, what where would he like to go to boarding school?
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Does he have a particular place that he wants to go already or is he [laughter] just just like >> I don't know.
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Jim, can you pull some strings somewhere?
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[laughter] >> What do you got?
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>> The honest answer is yes, I probably could.
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>> Uh he just wants to get out of here honestly.
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There's a a school in uh Coobe Osaka, Canadian school in Coobe Osaka he likes.
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Here's there's a school in Tamil Nadu, India he likes.
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There's a school in uh United World College in Phuket, Thailand that he likes.
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Uh he just wants to get out of here.
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He just wants >> good taste.
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Those are I've been to uh all of those places. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
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Those are all sweet sweet spots.
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>> And you you're going to let him Are you going to act like the consultant or you going to act like the manager when he comes in and >> Oh, come on. Take a guess. [laughter] >> Yeah.
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No, this is totally his doing his choice.
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The applications and everything, he's doing them himself. Yeah.
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What does he think about you wanting to move to Bangalore? >> Oh, he loves it.
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He He would do it in an instant, too, if Mama said, "Okay." >> Yeah. Yeah. >> He loves it there.
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>> That It's interesting to me that she hates travel.
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She She seems to be maybe the other My wife once joked that she made me a regular normal human being.
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[laughter] So, so maybe that's what's going on.
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It sounds like he inherited your love of travel and novelty and everything else. >> Yeah.
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>> How does mama feel about that? >> Totally against it. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> So, here we are. >> Yeah.
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It's, you know, it's interesting.
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We all probably at some point in our past, especially when dating, have felt this feeling of trying to be who you think the other person wants you to be.
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Uh, and so I think when she met me and she saw that I was quickly passing through America on my big international journey, she said like she basically brought out that side of herself and said, "Yeah, I can't wait to leave America.
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Let's get out of here forever."
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Even though in hindsight that was probably, you know, 1% of her felt that way, she brought out that 1% and presented it to me as who she is.
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So, we were dating under that mindset.
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And then as soon as we actually did leave America, like literally as the plane is taking off, she freaked out and said like, I want to go home. I want to go home.
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And so, it turns out that uh she didn't actually want that. she thought she did.
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But I was um critical of that at first, of course, because it because it affected my plans very deeply.
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Um but in hindsight, I realized, yeah, we've all done versions of that.
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You meet somebody and you bring out the side of yourself that matches who they are, maybe even just in this in the name of making friends.
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Uh yeah, you meet somebody that's uh you know that can relate to a side of you that's uh rock and rolling into heavy metal or whatever.
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So you kind of bring out that one thing.
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Even if there's just like one heavy metal band you like, you're like, "Oh, heavy metal.
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Yeah, I love Iron Maiden."
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You bring out that side of yourself in order to uh have a a bond or connection with this person.
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And then you meet somebody else that's really into quiet and poetry.
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And so you bring out that side of yourself.
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Oh yeah, EE Cummings is one of my favorite poets.
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You know, we we we know how that feels.
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And so you can't fault somebody for doing it, especially when dating.
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But yeah, that's what happened.
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That's why I had a kid with somebody that hates travel.
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>> You know, as you were talking about how we change ourselves for people that we love, uh I I recently reread a a thing by Tony Dlo.
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I don't know whether you've read any of his work.
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Uh he he was a he's an Indian guy.
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Uh was uh he unfortunately died way too young.
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He was a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest who got enlightened in an afternoon he spent with a rickshaw driver um who was dying.
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And he said, "Can can I just pay you for the rest of the day and talk to you?"
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And the guy was like, "Yeah, [snorts] absolutely."
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And anyway, that's a much longer story, but it got me into all of his books.
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Um, and the thing that I reread was about love, especially for a a spouse or a partner.
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Um, and and Tony's view was pretty hardcore, and it was this.
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It was if you cannot say to your beloved and that's the term he used to your beloved I leave you free to be yourself to seek out what interests you to follow your own passions to follow your own interests and if if we still are together that's lovely but if we aren't that's going to be lovely too he goes you don't actually truly love that person if you can't say if you can't say that to them.
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He said because then what you're doing is a transaction. It's conditional.
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If you do this then I will give you or do this.
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And it made me really really think quite a bit about just the nature of intimate relationships etc.
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and and kind of do an inventory on how many in my own life were, you know, if you were being just really blunt about it, are they transactional or not?
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>> And unfortunately, I found that too many of them actually were transactional.
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Now, luckily for me, I found a lot that weren't.
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Uh, but it's it's natural for us.
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I mean, you know, we're mimemetdic creatures and and mirroring and especially if we really want to get with somebody or want to date them or marry them, we're going to make a lot of concessions and then and then what happens, I've been married 44 years to the same woman.
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But what what happens is generally speaking that goes on for the first oh seven years if you're lucky and then you start reverting back into you know the real you and that's when the challenge comes right if you can make it through that if you can make it through but you always said you loved actually no I I [ __ ] hate it [laughter] and and I just really don't want to do X Y or Z anymore if if if your wife or husband can say, "Okay, that's fine. That that's great.
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Things are going to look pretty pretty good for you." But I I I I hear you.
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And it's it's actually quite true.
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I was reviewing our last conversations and and you put us both in the Miles Davis David Bowie camp, right?
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Where where we just want to try new things, right?
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Yeah, a lot of people are happy to just kind of get good at something and then just do it, right?
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Just like same [ __ ] different day. >> I hate that. I know you hate that.
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>> What do you think it is about people like us who who just No, I don't want to keep doing that same thing.
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I want to try new things. >> Okay, wait.
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I'm feeling uh that discomfort of a loose thread that we didn't tie up because I started to answer your question about why Bangalore and then I got on my long tangent about >> yeah how I wanted let's go to let's let's do Bangalore and then we'll come back.
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back. I feel I should close that loop that >> that yes uh Bangalore anybody if you've not been there um the city itself is awful it's terrible city planning terrible infrastructure but the people there are so wonderful like kind of in the same way that when I met you three years ago as soon as we started talking I was like oh I like this guy you're one of my favorite people to talk with Um Um
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and that's really really rare right so it can happen with places so to me Bangalore is the number one spot in the world where almost everybody I meet >> is such a great conversationalist I don't know what it is about that place but the people I met there are just so fun to talk with and I and I just feel such kindred affection and and intellectual stimulation. I just love
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I just love the people there.
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So that to me is why Bangalore is top of my list of where I plan to live next as soon as I can leave New Zealand.
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>> It I don't mean to make it sound like a move there is somehow a move against New Zealand.
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That's why I had to give the bigger context when you said why are why do you want to move to Bangalore?
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You said you love New Zealand.
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That's why I had to say yeah I want to love everywhere.
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>> Um >> I also loved Santa Monica living on the beach.
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I also loved Oxford, England, and I'd probably be living there still if it if CO didn't send me back.
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Um, I also loved Woodstock, New York.
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Uh, God, I also loved living in Union Square, New York City.
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I lived there for a few years.
31:16
I just there have been a bunch of places that I loved and now Bangalore adds to that list.
31:21
Uh, and I you don't be surprised in the future if you also hear me say, "Okay, I am moving to uh Shanghai."
31:31
Okay, everybody, announcement. I am moving to Istanbul.
31:35
You know there I hope to continue to move to places and stay there for a while and fall in love and move on.
31:40
So there's the context for Bangalore >> and and and just to to have my end of uh sewing that thread up that that's what makes life fascinating, interesting, enjoyable.
31:54
the I I I can't imagine not wanting to experience something new, not wanting to learn something new.
32:09
It it it I I would be b I would be beside myself.
32:11
It would like it would really just bum me out.
32:14
Like before I sold my company, uh, an asset management company, >> I'd really grown tired of just the same speech, the same questions, the same the same.
32:30
And so I would try anything to to mix it up, right?
32:33
So I'd make sure I read the local newspaper so that I could bring I could change what I was saying to people.
32:40
I would look for something interesting that was way outside of asset management that you could nevertheless weave it in and get people to go, "Oh, I hadn't looked at it that way."
32:52
But it just got to the point where it's like just doing the same thing.
32:54
It just it turns your brain off, I think.
33:00
And well, yeah, you're nodding and I know that you you are a very similar uh mentality to my own. >> Yeah.
33:08
Well, I assume that you you brilliantly just transitioned back into the next topic that we left uh that you were just about to open, which is that >> completely accidentally. >> Oh, really?
33:18
[laughter] So, some people can just dive deeper and deeper and deeper into one thing.
33:26
Yeah, >> this is the maybe the comparison we made last time of uh AC/DC versus uh David Bowie >> that um some people just want to really perfect that one thing, you know, uh uh you know, I don't know George O'Keefe's whole career, but it feels to me like what I know of Georgia O'Keeffe as a painter was trying to get deeper and deeper into this one style of painting. >> Yeah.
33:54
Whereas Picasso went through many different phases um and tried different approaches.
34:02
Got famous for his cubist thing, but that wasn't his only thing.
34:07
So um so it is possible I think to not stagnate um while still doing one thing.
34:15
Some people just have that personality type.
34:19
they can just dive deeper and deeper and deeper into one thing or one place.
34:21
Uh they can stay in one place.
34:25
I feel it's almost a fault of mine that I can't imagine staying in one place for more than a couple years.
34:31
Uh but some people get really into one place, really commit and they're able to completely thrive and flourish in that one place or in one career, one expertise going deeper and deeper into classical piano or whatever it may be.
34:47
Um, to me, I think my value system of what it means to live a good life, a full life, is to do lots of different things.
35:03
I just >> have this idea of like being on my deathbed, looking back and going, "Wow, look at all those places I lived.
35:10
Look at all those different things I did.
35:14
Look at all those different lives I lived in my one life.
35:17
That's what I'm aiming for.
35:20
I want to live lots of different lives in my life.
35:22
And hence my last book um called How to Live.
35:26
It has like 27 different opinionated versions of here's how to live, here's what to do, live for the future. No, no, no. Live for the past. No, no, no. Live for the present. No, no, no. Just get rich. No, no, no, no, no. uh do nothing.
35:43
Um and that book was really a reflection of my soul because that's how I really think I want to live many radically different lives in my one lifetime.
35:58
So that also leaves me very non-judgmental about any given philosophy or approach to life.
36:06
I could imagine living a very greedy life for a while and living a very altruistic live life for a while and living a very hedonistic life for a while and living a very uh diligent prudent life for a while.
36:19
Like why not embody all of these different approaches to life non-judgmentally to see how they feel and just try them out to know that you did it? >> Amen, brother.
36:32
because uh I I love the addition of the non-judgmental.
36:39
I think that so many people get it in their noggin that you know this is the one true path.
36:44
If you deviate from this one true path, you're either a heretic or you know an other all I mean one of the things that's really bothered me about oh maybe the last 10 years is just all of this tribalism and all of this othering and all of this labeling and all of this you know hod if you're not with us you're against us and no try to understand the other point of view.
37:16
One of the I'm I'm hugely into AI, right?
37:20
And and I have been I I've kept journals since I was 20, actually younger.
37:25
Those are I I don't have many good quotes in the earliest ones, but from from 20 like I have been waiting for AI.
37:32
I called it um synthetic intelligence in a 1984 uh journal, but I've been waiting for it all my adult life. >> Before it was cool.
37:42
[laughter] >> Just say it. Come on, just say it. >> Before it was cool. >> Yes.
37:52
[laughter] >> I really was into it.
37:52
And so now that I have it, like I'm like a kid in a candy store.
37:58
store. Like one of the things that I do is I just routinely take something that I think that I'm really vehemently opposed to and then I go to the large language model and say I want you to steal man this point of view and then I read it and I think there hasn't been a single time when I haven't thought
38:25
you know they actually have a point with with this particular thing here and and it's to me so liberating because it's just like putting it in a bin and and and labeling it and saying bad and I'm opposed and clo because when you do that you shut down your recticular activating system and you don't see any of it. You
38:49
You literally your brain just makes you blind to it.
38:54
You could put I could send you the text.
38:56
I could send you the link to the article and if you had put it in that bin and labeled it as bad, I'm not saying you specifically. Yeah. It just goes away.
39:06
And so I think that the non-judgmental part of it is is the key.
39:14
And and you know it also feeds in like Claude Shannon's information theory, right?
39:18
Information theory basically he posits that information is novel.
39:21
And he says, so if you're looking for the information coefficient or how much information is in a given thing, and then he gives the example, a poem is filled with information.
39:35
A political speech has none.
39:39
[laughter] Because one is simply trying to get you through repetition to go, yes, that is the right path.
39:48
Yes, that particular policy is the one that people like me are going to support.
39:55
The people like me, right?
39:58
And and I I like people who aren't like me.
40:03
I like to talk with people who are completely different than me because I always learn something.
40:11
I mean, I had a profound conversation.
40:13
I was in Miami and my wife and I were walking along and there was a very roughl lookinging character clearly a member of a motorcycle gang sitting in the place a bouncer would sit in front of a club.
40:28
And so I figured he's the bouncer and he's tatted up and he's smoking but he's not smoking. He's he's vaping.
40:35
And this is back when vaping was brand new.
40:38
And I went I looked at my wife and I go look at this. He's vaping.
40:43
He's not smoking a cigarette. I got to go ask him. She's like, "Don't go. Leave him alone. Don't go over there."
40:47
Anyway, I go and I'm like, "Hey, I got I just got to ask what's what's the deal?"
40:54
Like, "Why are you vaping and not smoking?"
40:56
And he's like, "My old lady said she'd throw me out if I didn't quit cigarettes.
41:01
So, this is the next best thing."
41:03
Anyway, that was our introduction, but we got into like a 45minute conversation. >> Oh, I love that.
41:09
about like how do you know who you're going to let in and who you're not?
41:14
And he started g giving me all the tells for people that he knew were going to like bring the energy down and verse the people who would bring the energy up.
41:23
And actually I started I put that into my toolkit because he was right about a lot of the things he said.
41:31
And so it's just like if you're willing and you're able to, those kinds of conversations can be just gem filled with gems that you yourself are just never going to think about. I love that.
41:47
It's that's what I've been trying to do with reading books like uh Understanding China's Worldview by David Lee, which is a wonderful book that tries to explain from the Chinese government's point of view.
42:03
Here's how they see things.
42:03
Here's why they feel that what they're doing is the right thing.
42:07
And um you could do the same with any culture on earth that you think is wrong or the people are bad or it's evil.
42:18
If you try to see it from their point of view, it's fascinating because countries themselves in my mind are embodied philosophies.
42:28
Every country >> or even some cultures inside a country are embodying a certain approach to life. Yeah.
42:35
uh through governance or whatnot.
42:38
And so for the most part, unless it's a complete disaster, it is a valid working philosophy. It might be a messy one.
42:47
It might not be your favorite in the world, but it's valid.
42:49
And it's great to understand somebody else's working philosophy >> and and what did you take away from actually since the last time we talked was three years ago and 23.
43:06
Uh what would 2023 Derek think that?
43:14
Uh I just give if you could think of an example 2023 Derek would be shocked that you did in 2026 like oh he I can't believe he did that.
43:35
>> That's a good question. I Huh.
43:44
I have one, but it's one that I promised not to tell.
43:49
Uh, so I can't tell that one yet.
43:49
Ask me again in a couple years and I can tell.
43:55
Um, but let me think of what I could let me think of what I can say.
43:58
Um the actually let's go back just one year to the so 2025 Derek. Okay. >> Um all right.
44:12
I don't know this doesn't need to be secret.
44:14
Uh I really want to live in China >> and partially for a few reasons.
44:19
Wait, have you been there or where have you been in China?
44:26
>> I've only been to Hong Kong.
44:26
I've not been to the mainland. Wow. Okay. Oh, Jim. Okay.
44:31
Um, such a huge difference between Hong Kong and even just you could walk across the pedestrian bridge and you're in Shenzhen and it's just a night and day difference. Amazing.
44:43
Um, so, uh, I really, really, really like the quality of life in Chinese cities.
44:49
I haven't been to the countryside much, but the cities are so nice.
44:55
It's almost like the way that we used to think of Switzerland as this kind of like top of the human development index kind of quality of life where everything's amazing, everything's perfect, everything's beautiful, everything's clean, everything's great.
45:08
So that's what the Chinese cities are like now.
45:12
But so number one, comfort, but number two, um the kind of thing we're talking about, you talking to the bouncer, trying to really deeply understand somebody else's, uh contradictory worldview, contradictory to the one that you grew up with, the one that comes naturally to you, trying to deeply understand that different worldview.
45:33
Uh, as I said earlier, I want to do that by living in places, not just visiting, not just reading the books, but I want to really want to try living there until it feels like this is home.
45:46
>> So, China, OMFG, hell yeah, I want to live in China.
45:49
So, one of the best ways to do that besides going and hoping that some company hires me to get a work visa is to incorporate a company.
46:02
So while I was there, I met a Serbian woman who was in the same position.
46:07
She moved to Shanghai to work for a uh Shanghai company, but then when COVID hit, the company fired her, but Shanghai was home at that point.
46:15
She has a husband and a son in school.
46:17
She didn't want to leave.
46:19
And so, um, she found out that you can, this is what I was getting to, incorporate a company in Shanghai for just a few hundred, >> pay a local agent to take care of everything, all of the annual filings and renewals and taxes.
46:34
Total price will cost you about $1,000 a year.
46:39
>> And now you, as the owner of a Chinese company, can sponsor your own work visa that turns into a resident visa.
46:45
So >> I now yeah I now have a Chinese name.
46:49
My Chinese name is Shenuen and my Chinese company is named like Shen Suen Consulting Company uh where I'm the owner and director and again as soon as I am able to leave New Zealand I will also be moving to Shanghai uh to live there as the owner of my Chinese company. >> Very cool.
47:15
Are you going to split time between there and Bangalore or >> That's my plan.
47:19
Yeah, >> that's the plan.
47:20
I I I think that a lot of people listening to it.
47:25
You know, one of the things that I think holds people back is this in in my view sort of irrational desire for certainty, right?
47:36
I the way I look at the world only a madman is entirely certain. Right?
47:43
I [laughter] was talking to a colleague before we uh jumped on here and and I'm like and he's like, "Well, there is the sun rising tomorrow."
47:53
And I said, "It's a probability.
47:54
It's a very high probability."
47:58
>> I've said the exact same one. I love that.
48:00
I've told people before, you know, we're it's not certain that the sun's rising tomorrow and they're like, "Shut up."
48:05
I'm like, "No, I'm serious." >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
48:07
I love that you just said that.
48:08
[laughter] And he's like, he goes, "You take things just too far."
48:13
And I went, "No, I mean, it's true. It's true.
48:16
It's a very high probability.
48:19
I don't get worried about it because again, if it doesn't come up tomorrow, I won't be around to feel that anxiety, right?
48:29
But I I think this this illusion of control um and and and I use that term specifically.
48:38
It is an illusion of control and and I think that people cling to it and become almost desperate when they can't feel a sense of certainty about things.
48:50
And I think that that has caused more problems in my opinion in a variety of human societies than almost anything else.
49:00
the the this idea that well you express it very well in your books like is it true what what's true right and and like like I I have conversations with people who are super bright super switched on everything and then I hit that wall what I call the wall of their certainty. >> Yes.
49:28
And and I, you know, I make an effort [laughter] to try to chip away, but I think it almost is it's it's an emotion rather than a rational belief.
49:44
>> Am I just babbling here? >> No. Okay.
49:46
I want to try to join you in this topic.
49:50
I've never talked out loud about this, so I hope I am able to communicate this.
49:56
Okay, I'm picturing one of those little sliders where you see that's like uh say you have a a bar graph that's like a set width >> and say 2/3 of it is blue and one third of it is orange, but you can move the little slider over so it becomes say 3/4 orange and one quarter blue, right? Okay.
50:17
So to me, let's say that that orange and blue are a desire or a need for certainty and the other one is the need for uncertainty.
50:28
Um that I think some people in their nature have a desire for more certainty than other people.
50:39
>> And I think that's just a DNA nature kind of thing.
50:42
Who knows where it comes from?
50:44
But just like you have three kids, uh if you've ever had uh two pets, you know that even little pets have different personalities, even if they've never been more than a few inches apart their whole life. There is this nature.
50:57
And so some people do just have a nature that wants more certainty and some of us have a nature that wants more uncertainty.
51:04
But then the reason I'm thinking of it as a slider is it can move in times where say if you're feeling sick like you get really sick and you don't want any uncertainty right now.
51:18
I don't want any adventure. Cancel those plans.
51:20
I just want to be home with my in my comfortable bed. Whatever.
51:22
You know, never mind this whole adventure. I'm sick. I've felt that too.
51:26
I was often venturing far far away and then I got COVID while traveling and suddenly I was just like curled up into a ball.
51:34
I was like I want to go home and it was interesting to feel that like I didn't I didn't want to meet anybody new.
51:40
I didn't want to try anything new.
51:41
I just want to go back to my familiar because I'm feeling so helpless or weak right now. >> Yeah.
51:50
>> But then that gives me compassion for people who feel that way a lot of the time.
51:58
And some of them I've been very close to that just their whole outlook on life is like, I'm barely hanging on here.
52:04
I'm barely making it through the day.
52:07
I don't want to hear any of your crazy big ideas, Derek.
52:10
I don't No, I do not want to go to China.
52:13
I do not want to go to India.
52:15
I want to go to my favorite restaurant and I want to watch my favorite show and I want to go sleep in my bed. That's all I want.
52:21
you know, it's like because maybe they're feeling weak.
52:27
They're feeling like a desperate need for more certainty.
52:31
And okay, I can understand that now. I have felt that myself.
52:34
Um, but some people go through life like that.
52:37
That that maybe their sliders over at 90% that they they want 90% uncertainty and just a tiny little bit of, you know, two weeks a year I'll go to Europe for a holiday kind of uncertainty. That's enough for me.
52:49
Um yeah, but we can't fault somebody for having that slider in another place because it might be their circumstances.
53:00
>> Uh you could imagine like the movie Trading Places that if suddenly they were flipped into a different position, they were suddenly win the lottery of life >> that they'd feel full of confidence.
53:12
They wouldn't feel helpless anymore.
53:13
They'd feel full of daring risk and adventure and they'd say, "You know what? My slider has moved.
53:17
I know I used to be that way, but yeah, let's go to Afghanistan.
53:22
[laughter] Give me a rifle. Let's see what happens.
53:25
You know, um they might be full of adventure.
53:28
Uh it the same person, same DNA, but their circumstances can change them, too.
53:34
So, >> I actually love that because you're absolutely right.
53:39
Um having been there ga getting COVID, I I was lucky enough to get COVID.
53:46
I was one of the patient zeros.
53:49
I got COVID before anyone knew that it was called COVID.
53:55
>> Once again, before it was cool.
53:57
[laughter] >> Well, this is an area where I was desperate to not be cool because like literally I was alone in my apartment in Manhattan and I called my wife and I said, "I've got the worst flu I've ever had.
54:16
my temperature is 105 and I I'm not I haven't eaten anything and will you please come take care of me and she was like let's see how you're doing in a couple of days. [laughter] Wow.
54:33
And it's funny that it's the same illness because I felt exactly like you did.
54:38
I was like, "Oh man, I I I normally like if I'm sick, I'll read a bunch of books. I'll watch TV.
54:46
I'll do something, watch a movie or documentary that I never got to, etc.
54:53
to keep my mind occupied and to, you know, learn something new."
54:58
Man, for the first four days of that, nothing.
55:02
All I had to drink was water. Didn't eat anything.
55:08
the fever ultimately went down and obviously I got better.
55:11
Um, and then of course uh when when uh I'm I'm reemerged then the lockdown starts. I'm like, "Oh, great.
55:22
[laughter] I just spent 14 days on my own and now we got to do it.
55:26
At least I'll have other people."
55:27
But I do like, in fact, I think you could take that even further, right?
55:35
people who are in very chaotic circumstances.
55:38
I mean, I have some people who work for me who are from the Ukraine and they still have family in the Ukraine and it's hard for me to conceive when they tell me the average day of their parent who's living in Kiev.
55:55
And like I I just tried to model that in my own head and I'd be like I would be so out of there.
56:04
[laughter and clears throat] And so that that's an area where I would move my dial over to I want much much more certainty. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
56:14
So I I I like that distinction.
56:14
I think that that that makes a a ton of sense.
56:20
You know, the last time we talked, we were also talking about um the idea that ideas were wonderful multipliers, but execution is where you create the value. Now, now we have AI. Okay.
56:38
>> And I hadn't thought about this. >> Yeah.
56:40
And and one of the things that I've thought about is we can now get a competent first version of a company, of an app, of an anything.
56:54
And then where do we find the scarce part of execution?
57:01
If we can press a button and have it oneshot a beautiful website that meets all of our specifications, right? That so it's our taste.
57:12
It's everything that we want it.
57:16
Where is the scarce part that execution brings? Is it in judgment?
57:19
Is it knowing the audience that you're making it for? Is it taste? What do you think?
57:29
>> Uh, my only real answer is I don't know.
57:32
Yeah, that's a great answer though.
57:34
[laughter] >> I had not thought about this at all, so I could spout some crap off the top of my head, but it would not be worthy of your audience's intellect.
57:43
[laughter] I the uh one of the things I'm actually proudest of um from my prior asset management career, I had a guy come up to me um as I was leaving the firm that I sold um and starting my new adventure um and we were at a party and and he said, "You know what I really like about you?" And I said, "No."
58:07
and and he said, "You're one of the few guys that I ever saw on CNBC who said, "I don't know."
58:16
So many times, he goes, "One time I was watching you and you said, "I don't know."
58:22
Maybe three or four times.
58:23
And he goes, "I turned to my wife and I said, I trust this guy." [laughter] >> Nice.
58:31
>> Because we all feel so compelled, right, to have an answer to >> Right. >> Right.
58:37
And and for the most part, Derek, we don't know.
58:40
The honest answer, if you're going to be completely candid, I don't know. We'll see.
58:51
Do you think it's related to this?
58:55
I the uh the stereotype of the quiet person that's sitting at the table full of opinionated people that hasn't said anything the whole time.
59:05
And then when they do speak up, we pay attention [laughter] because, oh, really, now they've got something to say.
59:13
I think pretty universally across the world, people admire the person that only speaks when they've got something important to say.
59:27
But isn't it interesting that um that the algorithms reward content creators that spew constantly whether there's something to say or not.
59:37
And uh I of course rebel against that idea.
59:40
And so that's why people on my mailing list uh I have an email list.
59:46
Um one of the problems is if I don't have anything to say, I don't say anything.
59:51
So sometimes they don't hear from me for 10 months and then I send out first email in 10 months and sometimes people go who are you [laughter] like oh you signed up to my mailing list a year ago.
1:00:04
Sorry I [laughter] uh had nothing to say for the last 10 months you know.
1:00:08
So >> I I find that that is inconceivable to me.
1:00:13
It would be inconceivable that you would have nothing to say for 10 months.
1:00:17
>> Well nothing public to say.
1:00:17
I don't know like I'm still working on my stance on this but you know there's a bunch of stuff like I I brought up earlier about I don't know should I move to China?
1:00:28
Should I move to Bangalore?
1:00:28
Should I start a company in China? Should I do this?
1:00:31
Like decisions around building my house.
1:00:34
Like I mean there's obviously lots going on in my head the last few years but it just didn't feel like it had any public value, you know?
1:00:39
It felt like it was all just really internal stuff and I hadn't yet distilled or extracted some universal life lesson from it. >> Yeah.
1:00:54
Well, and you know, I was thinking about it too.
1:00:56
We we are a lot alike in so many regards.
1:00:58
But if if you have a company like I do and uh you did um where you had employees uh it it can make it a challenge for the people who work for you.
1:01:12
I think by that I mean they're seeking direction.
1:01:18
They're seeking stability, right?
1:01:23
And like I'm willing to pivot on a dime.
1:01:28
And a lot of people really really resist that.
1:01:33
And so I wondered like maybe I'm just not maybe I'm just a horrible leader [laughter] because in in many respects who gets elected, right?
1:01:46
In in this isn't just the phenomenon in the United States. It's kind of everywhere.
1:01:51
The person who gets elected is the one who seems the most certain.
1:01:55
He he or she is the one who Yes, of course we're going to do this, this, and this.
1:02:01
This is my program, and I will never back.
1:02:04
I will die on that hill again.
1:02:06
I was talking with my colleague earlier, and I personally take the George Patent view of I want the other poor dumb bastard to die on his hill. >> Nice. I hadn't heard that. I like that. I don't want to die.
1:02:22
Every time I see that I'll die on this hill, I'm just like, "Oh, what a waste."
1:02:26
Like, why why if you're just completely wrong? I like that.
1:02:35
You know, if I could do it all over again at my last company, I was also a bad leader.
1:02:45
And I've thought a lot about this.
1:02:45
Um, I was experimenting and exploring but still quote unquote leading.
1:02:57
And so it was I imagine Okay, sorry.
1:02:59
I I picture the classic 1800's British explorer with the pith hat on going in with the machete into the jungles of Africa to go to some land that uh the British had never been to before.
1:03:14
And that's all about the exploring, right? Let's go up here. Let's try this. Oh, let's go in that. Oh, that's a cave. Let's No.
1:03:20
Okay, we'll come back out of that. What if we go up here? No, that's nothing. What if we go over here?
1:03:25
So, you and I have an exploratory approach to life, >> which is fine and wonderful and valuable and fun, but what a pain in the ass to follow an explorer.
1:03:39
Like imagine the troop of people carrying the chests following that British explorer into every little creasse and then oh back out again.
1:03:49
Oh no no that's a that's quicksand reverse.
1:03:52
Um but so then but the way I think it would happen is that that explorer would find a great harbor >> through you know it's exploration number 97.
1:04:06
He finally finds something valuable and so he notifies the queen.
1:04:09
Hey, we found a great harbor.
1:04:11
I think this would make a great port.
1:04:13
So then the queen appoints a bullheaded leader with blinders on.
1:04:18
He goes, "Right, we're going to that port."
1:04:21
You know, here's why that here's the benefit.
1:04:23
Here's the uh here's the outcome.
1:04:26
Here's where we're going. Let's go.
1:04:28
And it's a straight line that's easy to follow. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:04:32
So whereas it was a drag to try to follow the explorer, it's actually kind of fun to follow a straight line leader.
1:04:41
You know exactly what you're in for.
1:04:43
You know exactly where you're going. >> No surprises.
1:04:46
Hey, it's like that certainty uncertainty thing we talked about, right?
1:04:49
So most people want more certainty.
1:04:52
>> So you get a lot of certainty by following the straight line guy.
1:04:57
>> And then he just goes straight to that harbor and sets up the port there. Um, that's it.
1:05:02
If you tried to say, "Hey, you know what?
1:05:04
If we tried going this way instead," he'd say, "Shut up." Yeah. [laughter] Okay.
1:05:08
Now, in hindsight, if I could do it all over again, knowing that I have an explorer uh experimenting personality, I would keep my explorations and experiments private.
1:05:24
I would not tell my staff about them because your staff are not your friends.
1:05:33
Um I mean even if you're friendly they're not like you know there's a conflict of interest. >> Yeah. >> Right.
1:05:39
So I would keep >> flexible problem >> right?
1:05:42
So I would keep my explorations private and only when >> through you I had metaphorically found a harbor that could be a great port. Yeah.
1:05:52
>> Then I would publicly play the straight line leader to my staff and say, "Everybody >> made a decision.
1:05:59
This is where we're going.
1:06:01
This is how to get there. This is why.
1:06:04
This is what you can expect at the other end. It's a straight line. Let's go."
1:06:09
I would have to delineate that side of myself and only let my uh findings uh yeah I' I'd make straight lines for my staff to follow.
1:06:21
>> Yeah, I I did that uh ultimately with most of the companies that I founded.
1:06:25
Um just because it worked right.
1:06:28
It it works much much better.
1:06:30
It didn't stop me from being me and and doing all of the above.
1:06:36
And I I didn't keep it entirely private, let's be honest.
1:06:38
I I uh shared it with uh several of the people I knew who could handle it.
1:06:43
Uh but um yeah, that was one of the things that I learned it you and and then when you put it on yourself, well, of course you you you don't want somebody up there.
1:06:57
You know what we're going to do? No, wait.
1:06:59
No, we're not going to do that. Wait, hang on.
1:07:00
No, actually we're going to You're going to go get the [ __ ] out of here, man.
1:07:08
>> I read this interesting book last night. What if we tried this?
1:07:13
[laughter] >> I I get the feeling you're laughing out of recognition cuz Yeah.
1:07:18
>> Oh, totally recognition. >> I did that, too.
1:07:20
[laughter] >> It was literally like I read the book Maverick uh and I was like, "Hey, what if we had profit sharing?
1:07:27
What if we just split up the company equally between the number of employees?"
1:07:30
I just read this book last night. What if we tried that?
1:07:34
And like two months later, I'm like, never mind. Changed my mind.
1:07:38
They're like, you [ __ ] [laughter] [ __ ] You [ __ ] You told us that the company was part ours.
1:07:43
I'm like, it was a good book. >> I changed my mind. >> Changed my mind.
1:07:48
There [laughter] was there was nothing that was a quicksand to that way. Yeah.
1:07:55
>> The um the other thing that we talked about last time was the barcode biz.
1:07:58
Um and essentially just to refresh your your memory and our listeners memories uh that that that is something that can be very difficult for an in individual to do in in the instance of our conversation it was musicians and and barcodes if I'm correct um but that when somebody comes together and collectivizes it it becomes very easy for that individual uh to to uh get what they need.
1:08:32
Is what do you see today as a barcode opportunity?
1:08:39
>> I'm biased because it's the thing I'm literally working on yesterday, this morning, today after we hang up the phone.
1:08:44
Uh, is my page called Tech Independence?
1:08:48
I don't know if you've seen this.
1:08:50
So, the URL is sivt as in techindependence.
1:08:58
And um for 30 years I've had a very um anti-corporate approach to technology.
1:09:03
I kind of like a I have a punk approach to this like the very uh anti- businessiness.
1:09:12
I hate it when uh big businesses try to turn tech into something very corporate and overengineered and awful of formalities. >> Do I?
1:09:23
to me like the spirit of the mid 90s like brand new worldwide web invention was this um rebellious um >> punk anarchy. >> Yes, it was. It was like punk tech. >> It was amazing.
1:09:38
[clears throat] >> And so I want to keep that punk tech approach. I like it.
1:09:44
And I think a lot of people don't even know about it.
1:09:48
they've never they don't even know that this is a possibility to take a punk approach to tech and to um use it as the antidote to the corporate formalities that you're usually surrounded with.
1:10:00
So tech independence at a shallow level is just teaching people how to get off the cloud, how to uh delete your Gmail account and run your own mail server, how to delete your Dropbox account because you just don't need that.
1:10:14
If you have your own server, just get your own domain.
1:10:18
It's five bucks or 15 bucks to get a domain.
1:10:20
Point it at a server that costs you a few dollars a month.
1:10:23
Here's how to run your own server so that all of these uh quote unquote will do it for you services can be kicked to the curb and ignored because you can do it all yourself with a little server for $4 a month.
1:10:39
month. So I ended up writing all of these instructions uh onto a page on my website called tech independence there and um the version one was a long long detailed do this here's exactly what to do type this go here click that copy paste this
1:10:59
put this into the command line now make your SSH keys and do this and it was like you know hundred steps but if you follow these hundred steps you'll have your own server version two was me putting 50 of those steps into a script that you could run on your server. So now it's 50 steps and
1:11:15
So now it's 50 steps and copy this script and just run the script and it will set up uh on your server.
1:11:20
It will set up your mail server, your web server, your con, your calendars and contacts. Um what else?
1:11:26
Your Dropbox style file thing.
1:11:30
Um anyway, uh just the last two days I've been working on version three, which is taking care of even more of it for you, but giving more education at the same time.
1:11:48
So the script will do it for you to save the typing, but it will also give you a plain text description to copy and paste of what we've just done so that you can paste it into an AI now and say >> I am running open BSD 7.
1:12:01
9 using the relay and the HTTP server.
1:12:04
I've got an SSH account that's locked in for my user only.
1:12:08
The server is hosted here.
1:12:08
I have root on this server.
1:12:10
And now my problem is that the simpy mail server is not relaying mail, you know.
1:12:17
So it it lets you copy paste some context for your situation and then you could ask the AI to like you know either solve the problem or even can you teach me some more about what I have just created because I all I wanted my tech independence script to do is to quickly give you the experience of having your own server.
1:12:41
I didn't want to lay out a hundred different options.
1:12:44
It's just very paint by numbers. Go exactly here. Go to vulture. com. Get a domain.
1:12:49
We're going to set up the OpenBSD 7. 9 server.
1:12:53
We're going to use this web server, this mail server, this uh concert uh calendar.
1:12:59
Um I keep saying concert by accident.
1:13:01
I mean contacts and calendar server and uh just bup exactly this and within minutes you will have your own server so that you can be tech independent and shut down your Gmail and whatnot.
1:13:15
Um, so I also want people to understand what they've done.
1:13:19
So, I think it's interesting that AI can make us more dependent on it if we're not careful, but it can also make us more independent >> because with the um the exoskeleton of AI to strengthen our abilities, we can replace things like Gmail or replace things like Dropbox that we were previously dependent on.
1:13:48
you can learn how to set them up yourself.
1:13:54
>> Yeah, I like that idea and I I completely agree with you about I I I have this idea that almost everything is a dual use, right?
1:14:02
Like you know uh the we discovered fire.
1:14:09
Amazing amazing things fire did for us.
1:14:13
it when we started to cook our meat and we got the prefrontal cortex that we hadn't had before and that was yeah, yay prefrontal cortex.
1:14:25
Uh but fire is also incredibly dangerous and used the wrong way can be incredibly destructive. We didn't ban fire.
1:14:35
We invented fire alarms, fire departments, fire warnings, fire extinguishers, fire everything.
1:14:46
And and so whenever I hear either of the extremes, right, like no, AI is going to bring us into a utopia. No, it's not.
1:14:57
Nor is it going to turn us all into paper clips, right?
1:15:01
It it it we will learn when bad things happen and bad things will happen.
1:15:09
They happen with any new and powerful invention or technology.
1:15:16
But we will learn, oh, huh, we better put up, you know, a much more of a strong firewall so this can't just escape through from its sandbox.
1:15:30
And and so I I I definitely agree that with your notion that depending on the way you use it, it's either going to dumb you down because you'll just say, "Oh, all I got to do is press this button and I get everything I want."
1:15:44
uh or teach you and all of a sudden you you you you take all of these Ken Stanley wrote a great book called Greatness Can't Be Planned and and he he basically talks about the fact that once you get to a certain place you see things differently obviously right because you're look you're changing your location because you're going to see things differently and experience things differently and when you get to that new space you.
1:16:16
It's good that you see things differently because you're like, well, I had intended to go up there, but now I see, oh, yes, that's very inhospitable up there.
1:16:26
There's a lovely meadow over this way. Let's go this way.
1:16:29
And so, I think something where people like you've just described where they can use it in a fairly easy to use manner, but also learn. Oh, because guess what?
1:16:42
The minute you learn that new thing, you're like, "Hey, wait a tick.
1:16:47
I could also do this, this, and this." >> Yeah.
1:16:53
>> And and and that's how you grow.
1:16:53
That's how you get new things.
1:16:55
You Thank God for the tinkerers in my opinion, right? >> Because >> Yeah. >> No. Go.
1:17:05
>> And it's it's also just so fun.
1:17:05
I'm so glad that you could relate to the punk tech thing I said earlier because what I've had so much fun using uh AI for lately is to teach me how to replace the bits where I was still dependent.
1:17:23
So, okay, since you said the tinkerers, that's why I had to interrupt here. Imagine this. You have a domain name. Uh is it osv. lc? Right. >> Yeah, that's right. >> Okay. So osv.
1:17:37
lc you you registered it somewhere at a domain registar and DNS is the name of the thing at the registar that makes it so that when somebody types osv.
1:17:48
lc in their browser or their email client that it knows to send the web traffic to IP address number 123. 45. 67.
1:17:56
8 um and to send the email traffic to mail. google.
1:18:03
com or whatever you're using for mail.
1:18:05
So that's called DNS and I've been online for 30ome years and I've always just used the DNS that was built into my domain registar.
1:18:14
So recently I started separate moving my domain to a separate uh sorry moving my uh DNS to a separate DNS server called Bunny.
1:18:22
net which I was very happy with.
1:18:25
It's a company out of Slovenia.
1:18:26
I'm very happy with them. They're great.
1:18:28
But along the way, I said, "Hm, but I'm still using some external company to do this thing.
1:18:36
Like, it's just low-level tech. How hard could it be?"
1:18:38
So, I was like, "Dear Chat GPT, teach me how DNS works and how I can set up my own DNS server."
1:18:44
And so, it guided me towards creating something that is actually more secure than using some other company, which is called the hidden DNS master.
1:18:54
So that on a private server that has nothing pointing to it that's secret uh but at a data center um I built my own DNS server.
1:19:05
Sorry I'm using a a standard secure OpenBSD DNS server but basically it's super lowlevel doing it myself running the same software that these other providers run um but learned how to administer it myself.
1:19:18
So now for all of my domains, I am the DNS master and then I use a company called Cloud DNS that just pulls from my master and they're like the uh the public CDN firewall type thing.
1:19:29
So the public gets it from them but I'm the sole source of DNS.
1:19:34
So doing it this way, it's actually way more hackproof.
1:19:40
So worst case scenario, if somebody hacks into my account at cloud DNS, I go, it's just a shrug because I've got the secret hidden master that nobody can get into.
1:19:47
So that was like an interesting low-level thing to learn because along the way I learned how DNS is working at a very low level and it was so educational.
1:19:56
So same thing with like running your own mail server uh running your own web server instead of just going I don't know it's it WordPress somewhere you can have the AI it's like hey show me at a very low level how I can create like a hello world type basic service here and do it myself.
1:20:12
And what I love the most about this and I I just found that I was elated for days while I was working on this is because it is so non-commercial.
1:20:23
>> I'm just there in a black terminal >> with the code and nobody's pushing, you know, upselling at me or whatever.
1:20:30
It's just it's so beautifully non-commercial that it just reminds me of that punk tech joy that I got out of this in the first place. >> I love it. I love it.
1:20:40
You know, as far as the whole punk thing goes, I I look at the scientific method as kind of pure punk rock anarchy.
1:20:53
And by that, I mean, take no one's word for it.
1:20:56
No, we're we're No, that's that's not the correct answer.
1:21:00
I think there might be a better answer, and we're going to keep looking until we find a better one.
1:21:06
I I I think that it's it's a a a function of the just the insatiable curiosity which like you know back back when the whole age of reason began the enlightenment there was this thing called the republic of letters.
1:21:27
Are you familiar with republic of letters? >> No. >> So it's really cool.
1:21:30
Um, back in, you know, the 1700s, uh, educated people all around Europe were discovering all these interesting things and they would write very long letters to one another that got passed on.
1:21:50
What would happen is I would write you a letter and you would think, "Oh, this is a pretty good idea.
1:21:55
Oh no, Jim really screwed the pooch on this one.
1:21:59
This is not a good idea." And you would annotate.
1:22:01
You would say, "Derek, here, no, I don't think this one works, and here's why."
1:22:07
And the one you like, you'd say, "Yes."
1:22:10
And what you forgot to mention was this.
1:22:12
And then you'd forward that to another friend who also had the interest. This was a real thing.
1:22:17
And that's how a lot of the news of when calculus, for example, got invented.
1:22:23
calculus, for example, got invented. uh you know Libnitz was was saying I invented calculus and Newton was saying no I invented calculus and part of that controversy was because all these people were sending letters back and forth to each other see what Newton did well
1:22:43
yeah but did you see what Libnitz did and and so that was this explosive almost Cambrianlike explosion of knowledge from this interaction ction in the Republic of Letters and then the Royal Society institutionalized it, institutional capture and they formed the Royal Society. And guess what? Societies that And guess what?
1:23:06
Societies that want to go on and have authority and all that, well, they're going to have a lot more rules.
1:23:14
They're going to have a lot more protocols.
1:23:17
They're going to have a lot more this is acceptable.
1:23:19
This style is not acceptable.
1:23:23
And it's not that at that time it fell off like a cliff, but much of say peer-reviewed science today.
1:23:34
It's just like in it's so incremental.
1:23:38
It's so [sighs] are you kidding me?
1:23:40
And and so I I think that the true scientific method is very much of the ethos that we're talking about here. >> I love this.
1:23:51
I'd never thought about that.
1:23:55
But I think you're so right.
1:23:55
And Richard Fineman is so punk.
1:23:59
>> My favorite physicist.
1:24:02
[laughter] But think about it.
1:24:04
Like he was really outspoken in saying like, I don't care who you are.
1:24:08
I don't care what your degree is.
1:24:10
You know, you you verify your work against the experiment. Show me your work.
1:24:15
I don't even care how beautiful your theory is. >> Exactly. >> Do the experiment. That's all the matter.
1:24:20
theory is the most beautiful theory in the world.
1:24:22
It's more elegant than any theory that I've ever seen in my life.
1:24:28
And the facts say it's wrong. It's wrong. Get over it. [clears throat] >> Yeah.
1:24:35
>> You know, I've tr I've tried I want to dive into this punk subject.
1:24:38
Anybody listening to this, if you please email me if you have any insights into punk philosophy because whenever I've tried to look into it, I just keep getting steered into punk music and I'm like, "Okay, well, I don't like the music.
1:24:53
I like the ethos, the ethics, the the mindset, the rebellion, the something, the lack of formalities."
1:24:59
And I love that you just brought science into this is science as punk.
1:25:04
That's a beautiful example. >> Yeah, because it is.
1:25:07
And that's what true discovery is.
1:25:10
And you you know the whenever you get an institution that wants to capture attention, wants to capture value, wants to capture all of that sort of stuff, a lot of that fun stuff, that stuff that got them there in the first place stops happening. And that's a mistake.
1:25:28
If you want to forever learn more, expand more.
1:25:31
You know, we're I'm a huge fan of David Deutsch.
1:25:36
I don't know if you've read his book. Uh [laughter] >> yeah. Okay. Wait, you know what?
1:25:40
We're deep into the podcast.
1:25:42
Who knows if you live I um I dated his goddaughter every night after our dates.
1:25:50
I would drop her off at David's house.
1:25:52
And so, >> oh my god, >> I didn't meet him because we >> I'm not an envious person by any stretch of the definition of the word, but that makes me envious.
1:26:02
[laughter] >> I I just assumed that I thought we were going to keep dating. I liked her a lot.
1:26:08
Uh I I thought we were gonna keep dating and I just assumed that I would meet him, but then we broke up and I didn't meet him >> and then COVID hit and that was that.
1:26:15
But another reason I loved living in Oxford. Sorry.
1:26:16
Uh I just I have to uh smile with uh sweet memories when I hear the name David Deutsch.
1:26:28
>> His book, The Beginning of Infinity, is a sort of a definitive look at how I look at the world. >> Nice.
1:26:34
Um, it it I I read it when it came out in 12 and then I reread it in 23 or 22. I can't remember when.
1:26:42
I got so much more out of it the second time. >> Oh, good.
1:26:46
I should read it a second time.
1:26:48
I really also loved it the first time.
1:26:49
>> Yeah, it's it's worth the second.
1:26:49
It's worth the second read.
1:26:51
Um, let's do something fun.
1:26:55
I'm going to put you on the spot >> for once. >> Okay.
1:26:58
[laughter] I love the fact that you take I am right now just to give you context.
1:27:04
I I am writing I've written four books but they've all been non-fiction books.
1:27:08
So I thought you know what I've always wanted to write this and this is true.
1:27:12
I've always wanted I've always had this idea for a fictional thriller type novel for the last 35 years and now I'm writing it.
1:27:23
And first thing I learned was uh fiction's got hands.
1:27:31
[laughter] By that I mean it's a hell of a lot harder than non-fiction.
1:27:34
Um and and I always admired you for the care you gave each sentence, right?
1:27:42
You would write a sentence and then you'd write it 10 different ways.
1:27:49
>> Can I put you on the spot?
1:27:49
And for our listeners and viewers, >> give me a sentence and then show me all the ways that you got to that sentence from other ones if you could do it from memory. Oo. Um. Oo.
1:28:09
Because you're so good at this.
1:28:12
I wish I could I don't remember the final sentence. Damn it. in my book, How to Live.
1:28:18
I just don't have it right here, man.
1:28:21
I I I if I was one of those guys that like I could uh if I was sitting at the computer while we were talking and I would just pull it up. >> Okay.
1:28:29
But but I remember there was this one idea that was a combination of something I read in a book that then was combined with a conversation with a friend and then enhanced by a conversation from a different friend.
1:28:44
And all these sources together had this big idea kind of like you and I have talked around a few ideas like uh straight line leadership or punk tech or the scientific method as punk.
1:28:55
We've talked around an idea.
1:28:57
But for my book called How to Live, I was writing so succinctly like poetry that I just kept like like I took a paragraph and made it four sentences.
1:29:09
And I took those four sentences and made it three.
1:29:11
And I took those three and I made it two.
1:29:13
And then I took that two and I made it one, but it was still too long.
1:29:17
And I cut out all the unnecessary words.
1:29:19
And finally, what I was left with was this one sentence. It was like 10 words.
1:29:25
And I I looked at that going, "God damn, that really does sum it up. What a nice feeling."
1:29:32
And even the choice of words, I'm constantly reading things out loud and choosing the words that sound nice in the mouth, that roll well off the tongue.
1:29:42
Uh because ideally I'm I'm still have this songwriter in me that uh wants things to be catchy.
1:29:51
So with my newest book, Useful Not True, the goal was to make it so catchy that in theory, if I were to practice for just say a few weeks, I would be able to stand up on stage and word for word tell you the whole book from memory >> because it's only 88 pages.
1:30:10
The average chapter length is 22 sentences.
1:30:16
And I should be able to memorize that book word for word and stand on stage like one of those people that puts on a one-man show on Broadway.
1:30:24
>> I should be able to do that book word for word.
1:30:26
And uh audience, we paused for me to go find the sentence that I was so proud of.
1:30:31
Um pain's power relies on surprise.
1:30:36
If you expect it, it's weaker.
1:30:39
If you choose it, it's gone. >> Wow.
1:30:44
>> It just made me so happy.
1:30:44
I was like, that was like hours of conversations and rambling ideas. Yeah.
1:30:51
Pain's power relies on surprise.
1:30:54
If you expect it, it's weaker.
1:30:54
If you choose it, it's gone.
1:30:57
And that's in the context of the chapter called pursue pain.
1:31:02
So the whole idea is like if you decide to deliberately follow the painful path because you know it's better for self-improvement or learning or greater rewards then the the pain is gone because you're choosing it.
1:31:16
>> It's like Jung saying that as long as you try to fight your demons you will only strengthen them.
1:31:23
>> Oo and Oscar Wild said the the way to uh to resist temptation is to yield to it. >> Yield to it. I love Oscar Wild.
1:31:32
[laughter] >> Yeah, he's always good for the classic quip like that, reversing the expectation of the line.
1:31:36
But I mean, so writing fiction, are you following any like structural best practices like an outline that they say makes a great story or are you just fully immersing in the >> I'm I I I read Joseph Campbell at length.
1:31:57
I read a lot about how to write good fiction.
1:32:00
I have kept journals forever.
1:32:04
I've been a writer all my adult life.
1:32:06
So, uh, but I'm not following the hero's journey.
1:32:12
I'm immersing >> I'm immersing after having read or in many cases reread uh those books.
1:32:20
Um, and and I figured since we have the publishing company, I've got an amazing group of writers working for me.
1:32:28
So, we're also using a writer's room and we're putting AI editors and writers in the writer room.
1:32:37
So, we want to give the whole thing a whole different take.
1:32:40
We're going to try a very different way to get a really, really cool story.
1:32:45
And it's it's been ridiculously fun because when you start you're just an idiot [laughter] and like I I would have uh my colleagues say well what do you think of this and you know they try to be nice and it's like well okay so so what I finally did we also have our own AI >> stack we have our own hardware our own software everything um and so it's not ner surfed.
1:33:17
It's uh much more helpful than some of the commercially available because they're you're not um labbotomizing it.
1:33:25
Uh anyway, what I found the AI was best at was actually criticism.
1:33:35
So I I would put a chapter in and it would give me all the pluses and minuses and and then I'm like AI is even our own AI is a bit syncopantish.
1:33:45
So I wrote a very long prompt that created one of the best educated most ariodite critics who is going to hate every chapter that I write.
1:34:00
And Derek, I got to tell you, that was the best one of any of the feedback I got >> because it was vicious. It was beyond vicious.
1:34:12
And at first, first off, you don't get mad because it's a machine. >> Yeah.
1:34:18
If if a human being that you were fond of sat opposite you and said those incredibly vicious things, you would be so hurt that you just couldn't function. Right?
1:34:32
When it's a machine, you're just like you read it, you're like, "Well, that's well that's kind of picky.
1:34:38
That's kind of" Then you read it again and then you're like, "It's absolutely right.
1:34:45
[laughter] I've written this character completely in the wrong tone.
1:34:49
I've got to completely rethink the way I think about this.
1:34:54
And then it just got started getting better and better and better.
1:35:00
So, my vicious critic prompt uh in in AI proved to be like the absolute best feedback I got anywhere. >> I love this.
1:35:10
It's a >> I wonder if how the AIS I could totally imagine them um having the structure frameworks in mind.
1:35:22
Um so I I've never written fiction, but I find it fascinating. I'm a film buff.
1:35:29
I I didn't even realize this about myself until a film composer told me what a film buff I am.
1:35:33
uh that um I've read maybe three or four of these books now that talk about story structure and film structure and how to make the a plot that keeps you hanging and keeps you involved and makes you feel like you've arrived in a different place than where you started.
1:35:48
And and who is the protagonist?
1:35:50
The protagonist is the one that changes the most, you know, things like that.
1:35:54
Um and I find them fascinating even though I've never used them.
1:36:00
But I have written over 120 songs with the same approach of the uh you could call it formulaic but it's taking the lessons from what have made the best songs so good and using those techniques to write your own song to use them as inspiration.
1:36:26
And >> so, uh, my favorite, uh, phrase about this is, uh, restrictions will set you free.
1:36:38
>> That that if you're just given a blank page and say, make something go, you're stuck.
1:36:44
But if somebody says, "Okay, start here, then after this, change to that, but then double time it in the middle and then go to this, and then end higher.
1:36:54
Use these three instruments and these six notes. Go."
1:36:56
Well, now those restrictions set you free. >> Absolutely.
1:37:03
>> Uh because now you've got so many ideas sticking within the structure.
1:37:05
So if I was to write uh fiction someday, I think I would probably get so inspired to write like 10 different stories using some uh given framework that ideally nobody would see the framework underneath. >> Yeah, definitely.
1:37:22
And I'm lucky because we're using this writer room approach.
1:37:25
I have some great people for structure just as you've been outlining.
1:37:32
They're like and they're reading it now and they're like, "Okay, what you you this you you you had a the cortisol spiked.
1:37:43
It's a thriller and it and then but it spiked again in a different thing and it's the same chapter." No, no, no, no, no, no.
1:37:50
You got to let each of those spike independently.
1:37:54
You got to make this two chapters, not one. And like it changed.
1:38:00
Basically, I was saying the same thing except in one chapter it was two cortisol spikes and and that was somehow less jolting than the big one in the first chapter and the big one in the second chapter.
1:38:17
So uh I'm very very lucky to have very talented uh team uh that can give me that kind of feedback.
1:38:24
But it's fun because it's, you know, it's uh it's something that I had wanted to do since I was in my mid30s >> and now I finally got a chance to do it. So that's exciting. >> I love this.
1:38:36
Another thing you did for your book, Useful, Not True, um, was you studied philosophy for two years, and I love that. I love philosophy.
1:38:46
I never I took a few classes in it, but I've read most of the major philosophers.
1:38:55
And what I wanted to ask you is what after you studied the philosophy, what could you be confident in saying that you were fairly confident of an idea before you started studying the philosophy and then after you did you're like, "Yep, I that one doesn't work at all.
1:39:25
H I was actually I have an anti-ans answer for you because it made me less confident um about my definition of true.
1:39:43
I'm still a little surprised that the that I only agree with the nihilists and nihilism has such a bad name.
1:39:51
nihilism has such a bad name. It's used as almost like synonymous with Satanism or something when people say like well you don't want to you don't you don't want to be a nihilist you know they just use that as like the worst thing that
1:40:05
anybody could be but there is a beautiful little book called nothing and everything actually sorry the first half of the book is beautiful um the author uses a pseudonym Valine and the book is split into two halves and I don't know what happened in the
1:40:24
second half, but the first half is so beautiful and so well written and just had me like yelling out loud as I was reading it like yes yes and then the second half and then it's like part two and I'm looking at this like ew what [laughter]
1:40:37
what spilled on the page here anyway but um but the this definition of true that I find most useful because of what you said earlier when people uh your biggest problem is other people's certainty that when they get so damn certain their mind is closed. That's it. This this is a That's it.
1:40:55
This this is a finished matter, not up for discussion. That's it.
1:41:00
You know, to me, you should reserve that for only things that there really is no other answer.
1:41:06
A square has four sides and that's that.
1:41:09
There is no other answer. That's certain.
1:41:12
Uh that the sun is going to come up tomorrow.
1:41:17
You know, like you said, highly probable, not certain.
1:41:18
and let's let's reserve those things we call true to be only the things for where there is no other answer.
1:41:29
Um and uh unfortunately even pragmatism which a philosophy professor steered me towards like I described it to her and she said it sounds like you're talking about pragmatism.
1:41:42
So I went and read five different books about pragmatism and unfortunately no.
1:41:47
I wish that my thoughts would have fit into the philosophy called pragmatism and I would have said ah this is the school of thought I subscribed to but no uh it was also wasn't quite right.
1:41:59
Um so sorry the only answer to your question is um that it made me more uh uncertain which I guess was ultimately in my point I think that useful not true is ultimately a book about skepticism.
1:42:16
It's about doubting everything. Well, sure.
1:42:18
And I I wrote a thing on a a thread on Twitter about my own journey there.
1:42:24
[clears throat] And and I said when you when you go through all of the thinkers, the philosophers, the etc.
1:42:28
, most people end up at nihilism.
1:42:35
And one of the things that I learned, at least in my life, was you've got to walk across the bridge of nihilism.
1:42:42
And by that I mean you get to the other side and you realize if life has no external inherent meaning, if there is no truth with a capital T, how lucky are you?
1:42:59
You've got a blank canvas.
1:43:02
You can you can paint your life on that blank canvas.
1:43:05
You can make an incredible life with meaning, with purpose, with all of those things that you decide.
1:43:14
It's entirely bespoke to you.
1:43:18
But you got to walk across the bridge. >> I love that.
1:43:23
You might, you know, even if just to smile in the joy, I don't know if it'll teach you anything, but this little book called Nothing and Everything by >> I wrote it down. I'm going to get it. >> Okay, good.
1:43:34
It's and just stop at the second half and when it gets to the second half just you call it done.
1:43:39
>> Um but uh yeah, it's the only book I've ever found that fully dives into what you just said.
1:43:46
>> I just love talking to you.
1:43:46
I hope I can coach you on yet again.
1:43:51
>> Uh because I didn't get to have the things I wanted to talk to you about.
1:43:55
You are a wonderful conversationalist.
1:43:55
I always >> really enjoy talking with you.
1:43:59
It's just so much fun when people A lot of people look at I don't know if this happens to you, but a lot of people sometimes look at me and they're like, "Uh, um, what?"
1:44:10
[laughter] >> Yeah, we're weirdos. >> Yeah, weirdos.
1:44:16
>> Uh, I think last time, didn't we do a part one and part two right away?
1:44:18
So, I'd be up for that if you'd like to. >> Oh, I would love to.
1:44:22
I will have send the invitation for the second one and we'll get this one out as quick as we can. >> All right, audience.
1:44:28
We've just turned this into a part one. Part two. >> Yes. Part one.
1:44:31
Part two to be continued.