0:00
Welcome to Technology Brothers, the most profitable podcast in the world.
Welcome to Technology Brothers, the most profitable podcast in the world.
Today, we're doing a deep dive on Sonos.
We're trying to get back into the technology side of the brotherhood.
Um we uh are still displaced.
We're still in Santa Barbara.
We've upgraded our chairs today.
Hopefully, it's a little bit better for you guys.
Um but you know it's bad at Sonos when they bring out Mark Gurman.
Are you familiar with Mark Gurman? Uh tell me about Mark.
He's like the Apple correspondent.
He gets all the best leaks.
Like when you hear like oh, new iPhones coming out, like he's the guy you go to at Bloomberg.
So, there's been two articles previously.
I'll give you one of these, too.
Um two articles previously on Sonos and the chaos of the company uh started in August 20 2, August 22nd, 2024.
Sonos app leaves company racing to save its reputation. And this is by Dave Lee.
I'm sure he's a great journalist at Bloomberg.
Everyone at Bloomberg is great.
Um but he's not Mark Gurman big.
And uh and then on September 23rd, Dave Lee follows up with how botched how Sonos botched an app and infuriated its customers.
Uh and so, you know, this is uh this is like you know, some some rough reporting.
But then they bring out the big guns, Mark Gurman, because the CEO was fired.
Uh And so, let's start with uh what happened.
Then we'll take you through a little bit of the history of Sonos and explain how they got here because there are some cool things about this company. We both use the product.
I both I've loved it at times and more recently I've hated it.
So, uh I It's uh it's it's really cool in the off chance that it's working.
But we'll get into that later.
Yeah, it's kind of like a lightning striking twice situation when Sonos works properly.
It's been uh so bad recently. Yeah. Just degraded degraded.
And and yeah, it's a fascinating story.
So, uh let's read through a little bit of this first report from Dave Lee in Bloomberg.
He says, "Sonos has a loyal user base for its high-end audio speakers.
Unfortunately, a disastrous software launch has angered customers and jeopardized the company's reputation and the window to fix the problem is closing rapidly.
The release in May of a new app that controls the speakers was meant to have been the company's the culmination of Chief Executive Officer Patrick Spence's grand plan to refresh the company's infrastructure and expand into a greater share of the $100 billion audio market of which it estimates it controls less than 2%.
Uh the existing Sonos app was struggling to handle all all the demands of the modern-day audiophile who wants to listen to sound from various sources, both local and in the cloud across multiple devices and rooms.
Spence said performance and reliability reliability reliability issues had crept in over time.
The new app was flawed, though. Drops in and out. Devices disappear.
My push for speed backfired, Spence said.
In a business like specialist audio, trust can be extremely hard to win back.
Case in point, Jordy will never buy another Sonos speaker in his life. Probably won't, either.
On Tuesday, the former BlackBerry executive threw himself in the This just turns into an MKBHD just scathing scathing review.
Yeah, I mean I I'll I'll go out uh I'll preface some of this by saying cuz I you know, the the only few words I've gotten in so far were were dunking.
Uh we don't like to dunk.
I In this situation, I felt like it was fair because I've Some of my worst experiences with consumer electronics have been with with uh my dear Sonos. Yep.
But at the same time, Santa Barbara company, I went to school in Santa Barbara. Yep.
I I know they're doing their best.
Uh There are some great moments with Sonos.
They do sound good when they're running.
It's really the setup yep that is so uh so devastatingly difficult. magical at first.
Like what my first Sonos setup was I had a TV and an Apple TV plugged into it.
And are you familiar with HDMI CEC? No.
It's a specific protocol over the HDMI cable that allows you to control the device like you can control a TV from the Apple TV.
So, I was able to wire it so that the Sonos went into the to the TV and the Apple TV controlled the actual TV. Yeah.
And so, with just one Apple TV remote, I could push a button and it would turn it on and the audio would work and it'd be surround sound. Yeah.
And it was just like flawless. It was amazing.
And then added onto that, I could also like choose to play Spotify over it and that was great.
I think I think they almost could have taken the route as being more like encouraging people to hire a Sonos expert to set up the product because when I think about it, every single time I'd be setting up a Sonos device, I'm thinking I just wish I could pay somebody to do it.
You know, there are people that will do it.
People that do smart home stuff, but it's not they make it seem like, "Hey, you can just set up this app. It's easy."
And it's crazy cuz I don't know the last time I did it was um Arley was uh opening up their new uh their new showroom in Beverly Hills. Yeah, I go over there.
I'm trying to be helpful.
I'm like, "Okay, like I'll I'll set up I'll get the audio working in the Sonos."
And it ended up being like, you know, the 90-minute you know, sort of setup where I'm They have this thing where you really wanted to slam the Sonos against the wall.
And I I I'm a pretty patient Yeah. person.
Yeah, during the setup, they have this thing where like you put in pairing mode and it's supposed to show up on the Wi-Fi and it talks.
And sometimes it gets it perfect and when it works perfectly, it's amazing.
And then other times it'll just be like, "Hey, like we're not finding it on the Wi-Fi.
Like would you mind like connecting it to the main Sonos via an Ethernet cable?"
And it's like, "No, I don't have a 20-ft Ethernet cable on me right now, bro."
Like this is so unacceptable.
Um And the main thing is just like the app got so slow.
But the crazy thing is that like I heard about this obviously like this all started this in 2024 last year and the saga was kind of like a very bad last year.
But even just a few years ago, they had such a bad app launch that they needed to deprecate their first app.
Like most of the time it's like, "Oh, Instagram launches Reels."
Like you don't you don't have like two Instagram apps on your phone. Yeah.
Instagram just updates, right?
And that wasn't what Sonos did.
They literally have the S1 app and then the Sonos app and the S1 app is for older systems.
And so, Here's the thing.
Sonos should have gone through YC as a public company.
They'd be like, "Look, like we we really haven't figured We don't have this figured out.
We don't know what people want.
We need We need We need help simplifying.
But you know what the what the narrative violation here with Sonos is is that everyone everyone says like hardware is hard.
You can't build hardware as an American company. Like DJI is crushing.
Um but what did Sonos get right?
Like I I'm not a super crazy audiophile.
I'm sure there's audiophiles that will say, "Oh, Sonos doesn't actually sound that good."
But to me, it sounds fine. It sounds nice.
And any industrial design, I think it looks fine. I think it looks good.
You put it on the wall or you put it in the house. I think it looks nice.
Uh I think it's high quality.
The actual hardware has never broken on me.
I've never had a speaker like actually just break or anything. No, it is reliable. Yeah, physical hardware. It's reliable. Totally.
It's funny cuz it's just the software. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And and that's the narrative is normally it's like America is great at software.
We have great B2B software.
We're on the frontier of AI software.
But we're lagging in hardware.
And with this, it's like Sonos delivered on the hardware side. They did the hard part.
And then they just couldn't get the app to work, which is crazy. Yeah, one one cool note.
They were actually when they were incorporated, they incorporated as Rincon Audio.
Rincon, I don't know if you know, is the um is the most iconic surf spot in Santa Barbara.
Assuming Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Assuming these guys were spending more time surfing than totally lacking the software.
Once especially in the later in the later in the later uh Yeah. period.
Um It is interesting to compare this.
So, tying this to something like Anduril, which is making hardware and software for our military, it's hard enough to make speakers Yeah.
that you just plug into a wall, connect to your Wi-Fi, and they just want to play music. That is difficult to do.
And that puts into the context how difficult it is for Anduril to put hardware devices tied to their software into war zones that have electronic warfare happening, new environments, bullets flying, bomb bombs going off, enemies like trying to kill you.
And so, and sure, you know, the the every military contractor, you know, puts stuff in the field and and has issues with it and they try to improve it.
But it just goes to show um you know, how hard a lot of these new defense tech founders that are coming in saying, "Sonos is a public company with 12 offices, bunch of retail stores, hundreds of employees, billions of dollars in revenue, and they can't even get their speakers to reliably work in their home uh without pissing off consumers, right?
And it's fine for us consumers where I'm like, well, I have dinner guests coming over and I just want to play music.
But if you're like trying to operate like an Anduril drone in the field, like that soldier like doesn't have another life if you it up, right?
I would imagine the culture has got to be way different, though.
You know, Anduril's like Yeah, there's a different level of seriousness.
Yeah, with this, it's like it's a 20-year-old company.
It's in Santa Barbara, a little bit more casual.
Not no longer in founder mode cuz the founder stepped down.
Uh and maybe that's part of the problem.
Do you want to get into the early deep dives and we can Yeah, so credit credit to them.
You know, the the areas where they they I think they've done well.
Uh they were early, 2002.
Like early to be doing a smart home audio system.
Uh and the design has always been great and the heart and and the we talked about it but the sort of physical reliability of of the actual devices.
Do you know uh the story of what the guy did before?
So the founder is John McFarland.
Um and now they do over a billion dollars a year in business.
Um and the company was founded back in 2002 when most people were listening to music on CDs.
At that time music streaming was barely a thing.
There was Rhapsody but very few people used it.
If you wanted surround sound in your house you had to wire it up and drill into your walls and connect the speakers. It was expensive.
Like getting a nice sound system in your house to just Yeah, yeah. 100K.
And with Sonos you could start building a collection with like a $300 speaker, a $1,000 sound bar, and for like 5K all in you'd have like a really solid setup. Yeah.
Um but before he I I I don't know where it is but before he started this he owned software. com. Let's go.
Isn't that a great domain name?
And that company had gone public in 1999 and they merged with phone. com. Let's go. Isn't that amazing?
Let's to become Openwave, the major early player in mobile email.
When the dot-com crash hit they left and decided to start something new.
Their insight was that wireless networking was the next major wave.
After just missing an idea to do in-flight wireless they founded they focused on multi-room audio seeing the rise of MP3s and Napster and Napster.
People were starting to put Wi-Fi in their homes so the founders wanted to leverage that to play digital music seamlessly in every room.
We got to do a deep dive on the merger between phone. com and software. com. Amazing. Amazing.
One of the most iconic Yeah.
Two of the most iconic domains of all time. It's it's incredible.
which Right up there with top. com and front. com.
If I was investing in in in that in the in the combined company I'd be looking at it and saying All right, well software.
com $10 million domain minimum. Phone.
com I give it almost 10 too. Yeah.
So between the two of them look there's a $20 million company minimum.
it was trading at like two billion.
Yeah, it's trading at two billion.
And they probably had nothing under the hood.
Um What did they extremely hard to do the TB award for domain acquisition of the year during in like 1999.
Yeah, cuz there was just We should do a flashback. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The the greatest domain acquisition of 1999 dress up as like uh you know near fathers with wigs.
I mean I think we've talked about mp3. com.
They went public with just the domain and a business plan. No software written. That's so great.
$100 million dollars just like crazy.
One one iconic jumping ahead a little bit one iconic moment in Sonos history is when they decided to partner with IKEA. Oh, really?
The other consumer product company that makes people want to kill themselves during setup.
Um Really an incredible Restoration Hardware.
It's it's uh IKEA and Sonos announced a collaboration to build Sonos's technology into furniture sold by IKEA.
So you you after 4 hours you've got you've got this you're like feeling set up.
And then the and the real task begins.
You're all warmed up and now you got to set up the smart speaker. Yeah.
Uh That thing is really funny.
Uh I didn't know this but they they used this like super famous branding firm to come up with the name, Lexicon Branding.
Uh with and Lexicon had come up with the name Pentium, Swiffer We talked to them briefly about naming the podcast. Right? Yeah, yeah.
We ended up with they wanted like a few hundred grand.
We ended up going with someone more expensive but um it ended up being worth it. Yeah.
Uh Pentium, Swiffer, BlackBerry, PowerBook, and Zune.
Sonos is a palindrome and part of the logo design can be flipped or turned sideways still reading Sonos.
Naming agencies have to be the like the best the best business models. Incredible.
Cuz after you get a couple bangers like BlackBerry and stuff like that it's just like Yeah, we'll name your company. Yeah.
It's you know it's 100 you know It's probably going to be like it's going to be like a million dollars.
It's going to take 12 months and then it's just and then it's just a group like us being like You know that there's a there's like a whole separate industry of like naming firms just for pharmaceuticals?
You know you always hear that.
Cuz like you you always hear these names like Ozempic and it's like it sounds like a it sounds like a English word but it doesn't trace its roots from anything.
Like where does it come from?
And uh I was I was trying to get LLMs to kind of like create more drug names and it was really hard.
Like it it is like somewhat of an intractable problem that like you need you need just to some sort of human to The names matter a lot.
But but the Sonos name is incredible and I remember first the first time I flipped the speaker over and the and the palindrome like it the logo reads correctly whether you mount the speaker like this or like this upside down.
Which is actually like an amazing feature for a speaker that you can easily mounted.
I wonder if it still reads correctly if you throw it off a floor 20-story building.
Yeah, if it shatters into a million pieces can you still read it?
I think people know that cuz they're just like oh it's a smashed speaker it must be a Sonos who frustrated its owner.
You got to you got to calm down with all the robot abuse cuz when when the robots rise up they're going to be like this guy's like a serial killer. No, I respect robots.
I'm trying to give them guns.
I'm trying to give them ARs. We're working on this. Yeah.
You know you have a you have a call In the robot apocalypse the Sonos speaker will be like the lowest cast.
Have you seen the guy on on Instagram that I sent you the he's got chat GPT with duct tape Go there stuff.
I'm talking to him in like two hours if you want to jump on.
Uh it's going to be great. That's great.
Um let's go through some other stuff.
I mean for a long time they were doing really well.
93% of Sonos speakers that sold in the last 13 years are active today.
So people just mount them and then they just stay forever. Active.
Not for long with given how bad the app is. It's so bad. Active.
And and and they're boasting like oh we still we still do over-the-air updates for products even from 2005 and it's like yeah but those work with a different app bro. Come on.
Um It's interesting normally when you when uh hardware companies the real concern is that you ship you ship hardware that ends up being malfunctioned and then you have all this hardware that needs to be replaced.
And so it's interesting that their problems seem to be just totally opposite of what the typical concern is for hardware founders.
Software's always like oh that's easy we'll just ship updates and fix it. Yeah.
But This is a fascinating little timeline.
So 2002 they incorporate.
They change their name they were Rincon.
They changed their name to Sonos in 2004.
So these guys clearly made money in the dot-com boom because they're just like they haven't really raised that much money money. years.
Uh but then they they launched their first prototype which is just it it actually links into existing speakers.
So they weren't even making speakers.
It was just an amp that then would connect to like whatever speakers you had.
And and and that still exists and that's cool if you have a if you have a speaker system you can just plug in the Sonos thing or at least it used to be before the app went to but Uh so it went pretty well.
Walt Mossberg called it easily the best music streaming product he had tested. It cost 1200 bucks. It was expensive. Sales were slow.
Uh but they kept iterating.
In 2006 they added support for Rhapsody. 2007 the iPhone arrived.
Before that you had to have like a dedicated Sonos controller which was like a a a a a a a a really low-budget iPad basically.
It was cool but it was like really junky.
It was like a universal remote.
Like it's going to be crappy.
Um The but so they launched the iPhone controller app in 2008 instead of their hardware controller much better.
Android app in 2011 three years later.
Wow, really disrespectful.
I guess Android was pretty new.
Uh and then by 2012 they phased out their own controller altogether.
In 2009 they released the Play:5 the S5 which is their standalone wireless speaker.
This was 400 bucks and that was in the more mainstream market.
And then by 2010 they raised 25 million from Index and they launched the Play:3 at $299.
So they're really going down market and this is when everyone started buying these things. They integrated Spotify.
Uh and uh You In 2012 KKR led a $135 million round. Redpoint. Um Shout out to Logan.
Um I another streaming service they integrated with that that does make sense is they integrated with Mog. M O G. What's that? Is this real? Yeah, no it's real.
It's They partner with over 100 streaming services but Mog is interesting to me because the Sonos Mog's the user so hard in the setup that it's just a match.
It doesn't matter it's a perfect match so I can see why they would partner with them.
Okay, you you imagine you've gone Mog and it's all just like sigma male theme songs. Doo doo doo. Yeah.
Like that like it's all uh It's all phonk and and drift core. And really slow.
It's it they they you know in 2012 uh they set up this was around around the same time they did the KKR round.
They set up a um like an entire Sonos studio which was like pretty cool and groundbreaking for a consumer electronics company. They had a art gallery.
They would host different artists Solange Lonely Island back things like that.
Uh but to me it's way cooler that they work with such an iconic private equity firm like KKR. I mean Yeah.
to to have KKR buy your equity is the kind of thing that every young man would want dream what you know dreams of.
That may have been where the idea came from to cut costs and stop developing software. Yeah, totally.
I can see them coming in being like okay where are your costs?
Um well why don't you cut the CTO the VP of engineering the senior engineer developer and every developer take it offshore no more H1B's we're just cutting everything.
This is hilarious anecdote so when they launched it all things D they this is what 2000 2005 2000 Yeah 2005 they launched the all thing D D conference this was before Apple had announced the iPhone before Apple had those like major keynotes.
Yeah they were so early you got to give them that.
Even though they're not in the They haven't been early to getting their net income positive.
They've been a little late on that.
But but so so so Steve Jobs is at the all things D conference and he introduced the Apple Airport Express which is the Wi-Fi router that Apple designed and They still had good they still had good names back then they got the Apple TV the Apple TV the Apple TV plus Apple TV plus app on Apple TV.
They need Apple TV plus shows with in Apple TV. Yes yes. It's so bad.
But at that conference so Steve Jobs is is is announcing the Wi-Fi router and then John John McFarland is announcing the Sonos amplifier and it's an amplifier and it's like a match made in heaven like you should go buy both of those cuz they're both going to work really well and but Steve Jobs is super pissed and he goes up to John at the conference he walked up pounded on my chest and said they'd sue us out of existence.
I put because uh Who wait.
So Steve Jobs goes up to John the founder of Sonos John McFarland the founder of Sonos and basically the Sonos the control app to control like what music was playing where once you hook up the amplifier it had a scroll wheel that was like derivative from the iPhone or from the iPod.
Yeah yeah yeah of course.
So so they'd use that same design element and Steve was like you stole that from us and so he walks up to him pounds him on the chest and says I'll sue you out of existence and John pushes back pointing out that we had no overlap with their patents he checked Steve Jobs checked realized we were in the clear and the relationship improved after that. That's cool.
But I like that Steve Jobs just walks up to him and he's just like I haven't checked the patents but you're wrong.
Yeah it's funny it's funny because it would have been great for consumers in so many ways if Apple had acquired Sonos only because Apple is the best in the world at making it seamless to set up a device it's gotten so so so good I need to go buy a new iPhone at some point this week and I'm not even worried about it I'm going to get in in and out of the Apple store in like you know.
I mean they eventually launched a competitor so they launched AirPlay 2 which which had Sonos like functionality and then they've launched the the HomePod and the HomePod 2.
It's a bear right it's such an interesting mess because they had so much legacy as a company in music.
So many iconic campaigns.
It would have been it would have made sense for Apple to like I wish I could have Apple speakers on my desk like next to mine monitors.
And it does seem again it wouldn't have been a huge business line for them but they probably it's a hundred billion dollar annual revenue opportunity and Apple could have probably gotten 20% of that or 10 10% of that at least so it wouldn't have been as big as AirPods when did all the like we should get into the let's get into the drama. Okay.
Um you know the stuff with Google and there there was quite a bit with Amazon as well was there not?
Uh I don't I'm not sure so Patrick Spence the CEO who was just fired he joined from Blackberry in 2012 I know I know it really writes itself but he was there for over a decade and I guess did pretty well until What's the what's the status?
What's the status of Blackberry right now?
And so yeah I mean I I think the drama that you're alluding to is that Amazon Google and Apple all realized that well kind of dumb speakers were not particularly critical to their core business strategy and like their value chain once you put the AI assistant in them and you connect them to the internet then they become an important touch point.
touch point. And I and I we it'd be interesting to understand I think that Amazon what what needed to be in the market cuz they assumed that people would just be walking around their home and be like hey Alexa order more paper
towels and I I I had an Alexa and I actually never I don't have any visceral angry moments with my Alexa so they did a good job and they did did well but the sound quality was never as good as Sonos but they did well in terms of setup and usability. Um but I think they were thinking okay
Um but I think they were thinking okay this is like a new ordering mechanism we're the place that consumers go to purchase like we need to be here maybe didn't really turn out to be the case and voice I feel like it's just continued to take L after L even even AirChat shut down I don't know if you and and people were saying like okay if if this didn't make it this was the best shot on goal for audio like maybe it just isn't the thing.
So they also had run-ins with Google.
Yeah yeah so so so so basically to set the stage like 2012 they raised that round from KKR they launched a $200 speaker so it's much easier to get into the Sonos ecosystem and from from late 2013 to late 2014 the revenue grew by 75% so like they're really taking off at this time but then simultaneously in 2014 Amazon announced the Echo and Alexa at $99 for Prime subscribers.
Sonos had never considered building its own voice assistant and the smart speaker era took them by surprise McFarland later admitted that they were late to recognize the impact of voice in mid-2016 Sonos finally realized Blackberry goes
nobody's ever going to want to type on on a on a glass it's just not going to happen boom but Sonos is going nobody wants their speaker speakers to be smart our users like that it takes 45 minutes to set up one of your six speakers. I
I mean I think just this is another case of like slop being massively underrated like I think that you know I'm not like crazy audio file but I can tell the difference between like a nice surround sound Sonos setup and like an Amazon Echo.
So here wasn't I wasn't I had never I've never I enjoy music I don't enjoy live music typically just because it's the crowds and stuff like that I rarely go to concerts.
to concerts. But the my neighbor is the biggest audio file that I've ever met this guy Stefan Simkowitz he's pretty high profile art collector and he had if you go in his house there's just speakers everywhere like every surface and it is truly incredible but
all the stuff he does is is he's like this amp is made from this guy in Denmark and he makes 10 of these a year and he's been doing it and it's like watch making in a way so I think we should eventually get You got to come around on live music I'll take you to the LA Phil we'll see Dudamel. The Phil
The Phil is the Phil is different I don't I don't like being in I don't like being in places where there's sweaty strangers.
Well I'm imagining a box. Yeah yeah. Some champagne.
Yeah the Phil the How how do people do live music in a different way?
Don't act like you've never been to Hard Summer. EDC EDC.
You didn't you you went to the first EDC you were No no not the first one it was a long time ago.
Long time ago I wasn't not born yet. Uh it was it was 2003. Yeah okay it was 2003.
Um and so oh yeah the the other thing is that car speakers are you familiar with this stuff?
stuff? So basically there's a there's this guy that designed the perfect arrangement of speakers he like ripped out the dash and custom like 3D printed a mold for perfectly placed speakers in a car that where the audio quality is
just 10 times better than anything you'd get even in like a Bentley or a Mercedes or Rolls-Royce but what they found was that when they actually tried to market that technology no one cared they all just wanted a headline number number of speakers number of Or so's. Yeah or both Yeah or both exactly.
I blew out one of the subwoofers in my in my Terrabelle.
Yeah it's so annoying I I I I I I kept having to turn down the bass Yeah.
because I was like that just doesn't sound that good it's your rattling and then I real and I actually made it worse because like I was Oh yeah sure sure sure.
So I have to take it in but hasn't been a priority.
Oh that's brutal I'm so sorry man that's like the roughest thing I've ever heard.
I mean all right there's people whose houses burned down but I mean you're right up there with them. God. Uh yeah.
Uh so yeah send Jordi a comment tell him thoughts and prayers for his broken speaker for his Terrabelle.
Uh but yeah I mean lots of competition obviously the I I I I think the success of the Alexa and and the Google Home is just like check the boxes on features and make it super super cheap and you'll just get crazy distribution and people will put up with some of the other other junk cuz it's Yeah I don't it's interesting if
you think about how there was a phase where it seemed like people cared about audio and with Beats by Dre was a part of this but I don't think that people actually that was still a status symbol right like people just wanted to wear the Beats by Dre and then um, AirPods are the same thing. People clear the
People clear the average consumer clearly does not care about audio quality, right?
They're not optimizing for that.
It's about signaling to people that you're not afraid of EMF. Exactly.
You're not afraid to afraid microwave your head. Exactly. I I don't live in fear. Do not live in fear.
Yeah, the EMFs have a positive effect on my brain. Exactly. Exactly.
Um, but yeah, so so this is interesting.
So in January 2020, Sonos, um, sued Google over copyright infringement relating to several patents, including the ability to sync audio over multiple devices.
In August 2021, a judge ruled in favor of Sonos.
The International Trade Commission also ruled in favor of Sonos.
As a result, Google was ordered to remove certain features from its devices, including group volume control.
That's got to be so annoying to get ordered by the ITC to make your product worse, basically.
Um, Google was ordered to pay Sonos 32 million in damages, which is literally nothing.
So I'm sure Google was like, okay, like Yeah. whatever.
However, a judge a judge tossed out the verdict in October and criticized Sonos for abusing the patent system. Wow.
Following the verdict, Google redeployed the features it had previously removed. Wow.
Um, and uh, anyways, so Sonos not the first or the last Sonos UI or UX innovations that you're just like, I get that you could patent this, but it'd be much nicer if this was just in every app.
Like pull to refresh was one of those.
That was actually developed by uh, I think a company that Twitter bought and then Twitter said, "Hey, we're not going to defend the patent like anyone So now you have Instagram and yeah, yeah, everybody has it, basically.
Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
I I it doesn't What is this patent that you have that you know is a dark pattern?
This is the kind of stuff like founders will join YC, they never built a company before and they'll go to their first partner meeting, whatever, and they're like, "Yeah, we're filing our patents for this."
And YC won't give you the good advice of being like, "You should absolutely not do that.
That is a total waste of time and money. Doesn't really matter.
You can't, um, and patent stuff is is weird.
Interestingly enough, the Ridge guys have just dealt with so much of this cuz they actually have design patents around a physical hardware device and even that Yeah.
they spend like a million a year or more like just like going after people that are just ripping it off directly. Directly. Patents on Aurora?
Or just it's your own patent?
I don't I don't actually think they have one.
my first patent approved. Uh, breakers. Breakers?
First capsule nicotine pouch. Very cool.
Yeah, it it was a big moment.
It was like See, that's like that's IP that that you can defend cuz if cuz if Philip Morris tries to come after it, you're going to be able to come after them for like hundreds of millions of damages if they are selling a lot of, you um, But it's funny.
I still got to get the tombstone made of like the the plaque when you get like a patent, you can go and say like, "Okay, I want to buy like a like a trophy Yeah, yeah.
That'd be good for the office.
I I I don't think of myself as like an inventor, but uh, it's cool to like have my name on it on a technically an invention. Yeah.
A lot of designers in big tech will have gotten on patents at some point. Even engineers.
I know a guy who developed a Google Cloud Platform, like their AWS competitor, and he has a ton of patents around like how cloud computing works. It's like really cool.
And like I think they get a interesting thing where you don't Yeah, you don't you don't own anything related to it, but you get a little brush from Google and then he went to another startup and then another one, made tons of money. He's all good. He's all good.
Um, but anyways, well, where are they where are they today? Struggling. Stock's down.
In 2020 In May 2023, their their revenue they had a 24% drop in revenue. Yeah.
They've had a bunch of layoffs, which is unfortunate cuz it is a big employer in Santa Barbara.
Um, and there's not a ton of uh, technology companies here.
Um, I wonder where they should go.
Like should they get acquired by Apple or someone?
Like would that even get through?
Like Lina Khan's out, maybe the antitrust stuff is a little bit looser.
I don't think it's Apple.
I don't think Apple would actually buy them now because think about it.
Hey, we could spend We already have AirPods.
We have audio devices that do crazy numbers.
We have the best You know Sonos launched a headphones?
They launched a headphones. yeah, yeah.
They were like It's like, why would I want a buggy headphones? Yeah.
I don't know Yeah, I don't know.
I think they're they're not going to get bought by Apple cuz Apple could be like, "Well, why don't we spend a billion dollars developing a better speaker and sell it through our thousands of stores?"
Yeah, but I mean, they've been doing that and it hasn't really been working, like, you know.
Yeah, but also clearly Yeah, this is Sonos isn't working.
One thing One thing is that the phone the phone kills speakers in so many ways.
One of them is that I will often just put uh, like the the as the phone speaker's gotten louder, my need for speakers You just listen to it.
Cuz like what what's the song we used for the Ashley Vance piece that dropped yet? The uh, right above it. Yeah, yeah.
All you need is it Often in the morning I would go into the kitchen and make my son breakfast and I used to go to Sonos and try and put on some music and it got too hard and so I'll just play it from my phone.
Seriously, like it's just like the phone speaker's fine.
He doesn't care, I don't care, whatever.
I'll just put on some Honestly, take your Sonos, hang out with your kids, take it apart.
I used to really I used to really My dad used to do that with with uh, old electronics with me and my brother.
He would just say like, "Let's take this apart."
He'd be like, "This is this."
I mean, honestly, like turning it into a dumb speaker is like pretty good cuz like Yeah, the speaker is fine. Wire them up. Wire them up.
You know, when you put two cans in a string, you know, needs to be that dumb.
Yeah, something like that.
Um, anyways, I I hope they turn it around.
I think I think if they just make smarter smart speakers, continue to focus on design, actually get their software right, there's definitely there's definitely a billion-dollar revenue business here.
They've done damage to their brand, but I hope they, um, I hope uh, I hope one of these founders comes back and says, "You know what?
I'm going to come I'm going to buy speaker.
com, form a new company, merge it with Sonos, do a reverse take private, and uh, you know, come out speaker. com. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, run it back because um, yeah, or the founder does a if SPACs are back, speaker.
com SPAC it, acquire Sonos, fresh start.
Yeah, I mean, the real lesson here is like if you're frustrated with being a Sonos customer, like you'd be better being like a seed seed investor in Sonos and have sold at the top. Yeah. Just make the money.
Just be on the be on the capital side. Yeah.
This is like you were your word of advice to those um, the ski patroller was just like, "Try out, you know, instead of being a ski patroller, be, you know, get into private equity, you know, launch your own billion-dollar fund and just buy a place in Park Yeah, like the capital our guys are all doing well enough that they can just have a full-time audio engineer on staff and then never have Yeah. Yeah.
Or just a livestream quartet. Exactly.
That's probably the better solution.
a string quartet in your house.
Yeah, and be a patron of the arts, you know, have a guitarist. Yeah.
You use him certain times. plays the harp. A drummer. A drummer.
You know, the the you know, that uh, like Peruvian style drum. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be great.
Having somebody play mu- you know, the Apple alarm clock app, I really complained about it. It's terrible.
I'm like dragging this thing around.
Yeah, yeah, it'd be much Throwing it.
It's very it's very confusing where you're like, "Well, is the alarm on?"
You don't really Is the volume right?
Like there's a lot of stuff about it that I don't think is great, but I really should just stop complaining, hire, you know, somebody to play the violin for like 120 grand a year, and all they have to do is just show up and play start playing the violin out my window for So you can get the gym. Yeah.
Um, anyways, Interesting company.
Go uh, if you're looking to uh, for a challenge, go buy a Sonos.
It's a it's a great American company and um, let's support them. a Sonos or buy Sonos? Both. Both. Take it private. Turn them around. Turn them around.
I think for our audience, the the latter will be more relevant. Yeah. That's right. Um, that was great. Cool.
Let's move on to the timeline. Let's go to Moses Kagan.
He says, "If you didn't get much from those before you, financially, morally, or whatever, you have the opportunity to be a very specific type of hero, the founder of your family."
I I I put this in because um, I feel like you've been you've been, you know, tooting this horn, beating that drum for a while around creating new traditions, traditions.
Um, and uh, yeah, I think it's important.
I don't want to I don't want to go out and say that this I this resonated with me, but I cuz I think it's a mentality that everyone can have.
I think it's the same thing.
If you're an employee, act like a founder, right?
Like how would you, Yeah.
you know, what would what would your founder do in that situation? Do it agentic. Just Yeah.
Um, that you can generate.
And so yeah, I don't want to I you know, my parents had had good traditions and there's a lot that that I, you know, carry on, but at the same time, you can creating that family is more than just creating the humans and getting married.
It's more about it's more than about having kids.
It's about creating the culture um, the culture of the family. Yeah.
And the financials, obviously. Yeah.
The generation of wealth.
Yeah, yeah, and and uh, the trust funds. The trust funds, yeah. For sure.
Um, Uh uh speaking of Deliver nepotism.
You need to be delivering. 100%. Uh Nick St.
Pierre says, "Someone should start a weekend man school that teaches men how to be men.
Proposed curriculum: grappling, carpentry, fire starting, cooking meat, fixing flat tires, public speaking, power tools 101, knife sharpening, conflict resolution, barbecue mastery, basic survival skills, basic electrical work, fitness fundamentals, sourcing healthy food, emergency preparedness, electronics troubleshooting, how to shake a hand like a man, fixes for common household problems."
So, I'll take this one step further.
I think this would be great as a uh parent-kid class, right?
Where cuz I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't do this solo.
Cuz it's like I'm not going to go on a Saturday and be like It's weird.
Tell your wife, "Hey, I'm going to go hang out for 8 hours and learn barbecue mastery."
They'd be like, "Why don't we just barbecue for, you know?"
But if I said, "Hey, I'm going to take the kids and we're going to go how to pick lock and learn how to pick locks.
We're going to learn how to start a car, you know, without a key."
Now I'm just going after the the the ones that are Yeah, I mean Mozart didn't have to ask people how to write concertos, you know? Yeah.
So, there's a little bit of like if you're the type of person that needs this like man school, like you're maybe not No, I again again this is the kind of stuff that, you know, my my dad taught me how to tie knots and whittle and start a fire and stuff like that, but Yeah.
there's also other stuff on that list that he Man school is just hanging out with your dad, maybe? Yeah.
Like there there's a little bit of like what you've just described is like maybe it's not maybe it's not a solo thing.
Maybe it's just like actively being a part of your family. Recreating life.
This is like with PMF or Die, we're recreating life, right?
We're recreating locking in.
We're productizing locking in. Yeah.
There is this relentless pursuit of of productization here.
Where it's like do you need a course for this or can you just go do it?
Like a lot of these things it's like go watch a YouTube video, buy a book on it, and you'll just know how to do it.
Or just practice and learn from first principles.
Like you can just barbecue and the first steak you make will be burnt and then the fourth one will be delicious.
Like it's not it's not that insane.
Um Yeah, anyway, let's go to Jordan Schneider. He says, "Real talk." And he's quoting Rune.
He says, "The thing about America is that it's clearly always functioning at like 10% of its power level due to the costs of freedom, and yet manages to win anyway due to the incredible benefits of freedom."
Counter example is like China, which can reorient the entire ocean liner of its economy in a new direction if they want to go to war against COVID or whatever, and yet manage to it up.
So, old this is a throwback post.
Good resurface from January 16th, 2023.
Yeah, I think so I think there's an entire uh an opportunity for a poster to get hundreds of thousands of followers and their entire job is just re- resurfacing old bangers.
Cuz right now the algorithm actually much prefers a screenshot like that than a quote tweet. Totally.
And so, your job is to be the archivist of X.
You just go back, find Stiny and bangers from from 2017 when he's or, you know, 2017 he's in the trenches in Washington saying the same stuff that he's saying now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um go find, you know, Rune's like first true banger, you know? yeah, reset it. So, resurface that.
That's that's the leader. Yeah, curator.
But yeah, you could easily get 100,000 followers during that.
But I I like the core point there because you see like it is very easy to like lean into authoritarianism because you're just like, "Wow, things are so dysfunctional over here right now.
Like wouldn't it be amazing if like the government could just come in and like build high-speed rail in like 2 seconds?"
And it's like that would be good, but what would it cost?
Like the cost would be freedom potentially, and uh it's often just like this hidden cost that just like sit there in the background.
You don't really take it for take take it for granted.
It's easy to take it for for granted. Um so, good post.
We should go to a promoted post.
Okay, so I'm jumping into a promoted post.
Uh I don't have it printed out today, but it is a cool one.
So, we recently acquired an iconic four-letter domain uh from uh our domain broker, Rob Schutz.
Rob Rob Rob uh Cool background.
He was He was one of the founders of Roman. And also Bark. Bark Bark, yeah. Bark Let me confirm. Yeah, it's Bark company. I Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, he So, anyways, started some really big companies and just got obsessed with domains.
And so, as he phased out from Ro, he decided to launch Snagd.
It's at Snagd on X or Snagd. com.
Uh and he was able to help us get this amazing four-letter. com.
I sent him the domain that we wanted at like 6:00 a. m.
He had secured it by and done an entire deal to secure it at a ridiculously low price by I think like 9:00 a. m.
It was like the fastest turnaround. So, he's he's amazing.
But I wanted to um I wanted to highlight.
So, uh back in '90 This is a post from from the Snagd account.
It says, "Back in '94 the internet was a total free-for-all.
You could grab almost any domain, and in many cases domain registrations were free.
At the time, Chris Clark was a 29-year-old consultant in Maryland Maryland.
On a whim, he registered pizza. com. Why?
He thought maybe just maybe some pizza business would bite on his domain, but nobody did.
So, he slapped some ads on it, made a little cash, and left it to collect digital dust for 14 years.
Fast forward to 2008, Chris heard that vodka. com sold for 3 million.
So, he listed his domain with a starting bid of 100 bucks.
The next morning it was at half a million, and by the end of the auction it hit 2. 6 million.
The buyer, a shady company which ended up getting busted for money laundering.
They couldn't handle their dough. Rob's a great writer.
Well, what a great story.
Even though even though pizza.
com is still out there, it's stuck in the early 2000s with its sites and aesthetics and info.
No major pizza chain has ever bought it.
Chris's one regret, not registering more domains back in the day.
Opportunity knocks, but patience, that's how you win.
So, what's the next pizza. com? Only time will tell. So, that's so insane.
Imagine being '94, you're just like registering.
And people were doing this a little bit with ETH addresses, right? And Solana addresses.
And I I knew I knew somebody who had like youtube.
sol or something like that.
And it's like, "Ah, I just don't see Google like actually buying that."
Um but uh Anyways, can't speak highly enough But I love that because you think about domain brokerage, and it's like a pretty boring behind-the-scenes job, but amazing content marketing.
That sounds like a great account to follow just to get interesting tidbits of internet history.
And I just love that so much. So, shout-out to him.
And if you're looking for a domain, hit him up and tell the tell them the Technology Brothers sent you.
Uh let's move on to a bucket pull.
Jordy, we got one from Ben.
He says, "Yes, Professor.
Due to my brain rot diagnosia diagnosis, I need to have Subway Surfers playing during every lecture."
Somehow this got no likes when we printed it out. I don't know.
Wait, so Ben So, Ben, this this is a guy who I just said he's been posting bangers all morning.
I was like, "We need to hire this guy." I love this guy. This is fantastic. Very funny.
The Subway Surfers is such a such a meme.
I wonder how much the Subway Surfer trend is real or if like the Gen Z kids are like in on it.
Do you think that they're Do you think that they're like aware of like the brain rot and it's like they're laughing with it or do you think there are some people that are actually like this is more engaging? Yeah. What do you think?
I whenever I pull them up, I just look at it and I'm like I'm so annoyed that this this Yeah.
this other video is playing, but but it's partially because I was born like I I'm 5 days too old to be Gen Z or something like that.
So, it's like I just think I'm not it's just a different generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The other if you're watching these like if you look at like ESPN or CNBC, like those have brain rot elements where there will be tickers at the bottom, picture in picture.
You go to Bloomberg and it's like someone's talking while they're giving you the news facts on the side. Like Yeah.
This idea of having a feed of content that's that's sending you multiple pieces of information all at once like is definitely a thing. Yeah.
Um Okay, we got a do that on our We do that on our videos.
You don't realize but there's a lot of alpha in the ticker on whenever we post videos on X. Yep. TB SPN.
Let's go to Trey Stevens.
He says, "The offer is still on the table, Jason.
We had over a quarter million raised for charity within just a couple hours.
Maybe don't chicken out this time."
@scientist @PalmerLuckey.
And so, this was a clip from the All-In podcast where Jason Calacanis and Dave Friedberg were discussing J Cal getting in the ring with Palmer Luckey.
And Trey uh who loves fighting sports was offering to get in the ring.
A lot of people were talking about this. This was during COVID.
And then this first bro that Jason Jason loves attention more than anyone.
That's that's very clear.
He's leveraged it in a you know, in mostly, you know, he's built an accelerator, he's got his fund, he's got all this stuff.
He's definitely played his game well.
And he understands that like attention is attention whether it's positive Yeah, but he you know, he he is a bully. Yep.
And it's interesting that as soon as soon as the bully is actually getting invited saying step into the ring, he's saying, "Oh, I you know, it's I don't want to do Disavowed.
His excuse was that he that Palmer was like much younger or something like that.
But it was that Trey was like the mountain, he said, or something like that.
Yeah, but but Jason could just get off of his Ozempic Yeah. and just get huge. Yeah.
He's got he can train, he can hire G Zaucks MMA coach.
I I think he said that Trey was younger than him. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, Trey and Palmer are both younger than Jason.
Yeah, but but I mean, Mike didn't stop Mike Tyson from stepping into the ring with a 60-year-old man. Yeah. Um it.
I mean, I I don't see it. It's it's a duck.
In in UFC, it's called ducking.
Where a fight and Jon Jones has been doing this with the the champ I forget his name, the the champion out of um the UK, where he just is making up all these excuses saying, "Well, I need $50 million if I want to fight him."
Or he's just doesn't make sense That fight doesn't make sense for me right now.
And Jason would clearly just rather keep antagonizing, you know, on the timeline.
I mean, I don't know if we're at this point I'm I've been like fooled too many I've gotten my my like excitement levels up too many times with the Zuck Elon fight.
Why hasn't there been a high-profile The highest profile one is literally Nick Carter.
And that was like pretty tiny.
But that was very crypto out.
Yeah, and it it would I don't even think Well, he was going to fight the Bankless guys, right?
But then the Bankless guy got an injury and posted a photo of like he slipped a disc or something.
And so he was like, "I'm sorry, I just can't fight you cuz I'm like injured."
And There was a big guy There was another big um Ansem in crypto.
Got the got the and the BitBoy crypto guy, they were fighting. Did they actually fight?
Yeah, there's shots of um BitBoy getting an as like a asthma thing. He's like mid-fight. Hyde fight someone, too? I know.
YouTubers are really good at this.
Like the the content is really good. What's the guy? Bryce Bryce Hall?
Bryce Hall has gone into bare-knuckle boxing and performed. Really? He has done well.
And bare-knuckles is gnarly because if you make a mistake or you get clipped, like your entire lip will get cut off. Oof.
Like Luke Rockhold, the the former UFC middleweight went in and was fighting God, what's his Mike Perry. Yeah.
And Luke just gave up midway because he was his face was getting And this is a former UFC champion.
His face was getting so damaged, he just was like, "I'm not going to do this."
And Bryce Hall goes in and does that. Does well.
The fight club stuff's tough because like it's really hard to balance out all the different factors.
Like even the Zuck Elon fight, it's like I think Elon has like 5 in of height on Zuck, something like that. And and so much bigger. matters.
Size really does matter, but then Zuck's been training for a lot longer.
So, it it depends on like if the fight was today, maybe Zuck's technique would work, but if you give him a year, Elon might get up to speed.
So, it really was like 50/50 for me.
you take two amateurs and size is going to almost always do it unless it's MMA where you can get a knockout. Yeah.
And and so or or a jujitsu Jujitsu is cool because smaller dudes can just destroy like size matters less.
Like I would have like all my I would have like a bunch of buddies around Mal over to jujitsu.
Rob from Hebra Man would come and some other dad friends and and it's just funny you have like a former like Old Miss linebacker Yeah, just getting fighting like a college like basketball player and they're like super even and they're like they in a true street fight, like it probably wouldn't Isn't there I saw someone on X talking about doing some sort of like founder fight club? They wanted us to fight. That was Chris Chris. Yeah.
I thought that was kind of funny.
Let's go to Atlas creatine cycle.
He says, "Many of you used to be technology accounts."
Is he just reflecting on like the shift to politics?
Yeah, I felt like this was a a sub sub-tweeted sub-tweeted me, but it was actually just everybody, but it was as you know, the fires I think catalyzed a bunch of people to say, "I'm going to stop posting about tech for a few days and just focus on Mayor Mayor Karen and and the Newsom fires.
And you stack all that on top of what happened to your speaker in your car, then you must have just been in rocked.
So, makes sense that you were, you know, you just broke broke character.
Couldn't talk about tech anymore.
Yeah, I could go back to talking tech.
I'm happy to be I'm happy to be back talking about tech. Yeah.
We got a city to We got a city to re- And and we could get back into tech because there's there's still really interesting stuff going on.
But but when big political things happen, like you got to address them because tech is increasingly political because the stakes are so high, the the businesses are so large, and you know, Elon is at Mar-a-Lago hanging out with Trump.
And so clearly technology and politics are are going to be continue continued to intertwine for a long time. Yeah.
But yeah, you can't ever slip fully into politics.
It's just it's just boring.
Should we do another promoted post? Uh let's see here.
You all want some Locky Groom or you want to move on?
I actually got a promoted post from uh our uh Shawn and Connor and Shawn uh sent this over.
Connor and Shawn over at the Ridge Wallet, they say 500 free-ish Ridge Wallets up for grabs.
We donated $50,000 to LA Fire Relief this week and are trying to find more ways to contribute.
Wallets, unfortunately, are non-essential items, so donating product doesn't make a lot of sense, but money goes a long way.
So, here's what we're trying.
If you submit proof of a 50-plus dollar donation to any LA Fire Relief organization, we'll send you a Ridge Wallet for free.
We'll do this for the first 500 people who submit.
It's the cheapest you'll ever get a Ridge Wal- Wallet and you'll be doing good.
Details below for how to submit, so That's great. very cool.
If you wanted to get a Ridge Wallet, now is the time to do it if it's not too late already. I don't think it is. That's great.
Um so, thank you to Shawn and Connor for helping raise money for fire relief here in Southern California. Cool.
Let's go to some DMs that we don't have printed out, but I have here on my phone.
Michael Tostadas says, "The Tech Bros Pod should have is this secret communist section?
Really bring back the McCarthyism."
And you said, "Haha, that's great.
Looking forward to the segment."
Uh we may too deep digging into secret communist So, I think we should have I think I think we have a new segment. Can be kind of sporadic. Yeah.
Where we sort of try to figure out Who are the targets?
Like the venture communist?
Well, so so Karen Bass was the target for sure sure sure.
It turns out I her political career I guess this was just the beginning of her political career.
She was a very active communist working directly with the Cuban government Yeah. in the '70s.
So, yeah, I just think I talked about this before.
People have been, you know, looking for new slurs. Communist.
There's been a There's been a bull market in fixation on slurs.
And so venture capitalist Hey, John.
That market map makes you look like a junior VC. Slurs like that.
Um you know, communist, mouth-breather low-T Yeah.
uh low magnesium levels There's plenty.
So, there's there's plenty.
Um Let's go to the next comment that someone said no is photo of us and they say no cases on their phone.
Yeah, these guys have exits. That's great.
And then Nate Nate chimes in with the Jordie Hayes stack.
No phone case, no socks, no shampoo.
Yeah, that's That's what you think.
This is in the reply to Ben's post.
He just Ben So so Ben's producer Ben His been His account's been exploding. Get in Get in now.
He's a couple hundred followers. He's blowing up. It's great. That's great. All right.
Here's a good question for us.
Britain Winter Rose says, "Tasked with hosting an an event VCs will want to attend.
The options are Porsche racing experience, skiing, a panel of three other VCs, or other comment below."
And Mario says, "Tech Bros Pod should have good insight."
Jordie, what do you think?
You want to attract as many VCs to the event you're throwing. What do you go for?
Honestly, that the last time I saw a true flock was the Gundo. Oh, you remember that? last year.
Last like a like a flock of VCs is a flock of VCs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because it was just and it was We need a name for that.
You know you know how like if you get a group of lions, it's called a pride of lions, or you get a bunch of crows, it's called a murder of crows.
I think a flock is good because you have Flock of VCs.
like see some of them are seagulls, like the rats, you know, the rats of the air. Some are pigeons.
Also kind of you know, they're they're foraging.
They're just trying to nip off like all I need is half a percent.
That's my ownership target.
You know, they're just trying to get a crumb.
Yeah, there's are the you know, more of like the the eagles, you know, like the the the ones that sit high above.
And and I'd put That's not what you call eagles, though.
No, I know, but I'm just saying we're going to broadly We're going to We're going to flock of birds, I think is is fair.
Uh so, we got to kind of bucket in a few different of eagles is called a convocation of Convocation. That's good.
The convocation of an army or a congress.
But do you remember that when when the Gundo I think you catalyzed it in some way with your documentary. It was already building.
And then every VC was was like, "Yeah, I'm going to Let me know know, you're around.
I'm going to be in the Gunda this week, you know. Um And it's cool.
I mean So, you would say if you want to host an event with VCs, just go to like the hottest new submarket that's blowing up like a high influencer and then just take them on a tour of the startups in the area. Yeah. That's pretty good. That works.
I would say big game hunting would also be good.
Yeah, the number of GPs that are secretly taking multiple trips a year to hunt elephants, wildcats, lions, really exotic.
Mostly predator ones, but yeah. Predator hunting.
Yeah, hunting's really big right now.
Also, Porsche racing experience, that's fine, but you'd be better off doing the Dakar. Yeah.
Putting a group together, driving from Yeah, the Gumball 3000.
Yeah, the Gumball was also good.
Uh great great um Great post. option. Um let's see. What else?
Oh my god, someone just did guess the podcast and it's just photos of us, I think. Like this. That's hilarious. When is that today?
Yeah, I guess somebody just posted this. I like this. This is great.
Oh, that's Ben and you posted that.
Took some Just took some photos. They're proud of slides. That's great. Uh Ben's out of control.
Ben in Following Ben right now is like buying Bitcoin. Oops.
Following Ben right now is like buying Bitcoin in in 1981.
Just gets older every single time we promote something.
Let's go to a bucket pull.
Uh we got Juicy saying, "Dudes be having the worst day of their life and still keep sending memes to their homies like nothing happened." 100K likes.
I completely agree with this.
Even during the fires, you lost cell service, but I was still sending you memes and I was like Uh he hasn't replied in like 4 hours.
Like this is This is like very unkempt.
But yeah, this is the way like men Yo, I think people I think Yeah, I think um I was I was kind of processing this.
I was thinking about this last week because I was sort of oscillating between being extremely angry at the response of our leaders in California and then also needing to kind of process it through humor. Yeah, of course.
And so, yeah, I mean I can I can remember the the SVB the period when when SVB was collapsing, it was very impactful on our on our business, but then I also had a family health emergency at like 2:00 a. m. that Thursday.
And Thursday and Friday was like the last money you could get money last day you could get money out.
So, but I still remember everybody was just like memeing it like internal.
Like it was like the biggest the most existential moment crazy existential moment for Silicon Valley where we were like, "Did we did did this startup economy just get nuked?" Yeah.
And then everybody was, you know, the group chats were having a moment, you know. Of course. Of course. As they do. Never stops.
Um Let's go to Marc Andreessen.
He says, "Well, this is really going to cramp my style."
And he shows a screenshot of message blocked.
The semantic email security.
cloud service has detected content in an email that matches the following policy, inappropriate content 5. x. x.
Please remove any language inappropriate for business and resend the message.
And the funny thing is like this is clearly like on a16z network, right? I imagine.
Or maybe it maybe it's very different like But is this funny that he's like triggering the the content flags?
He's mouthing off so much. I love it.
True technology brother behavior.
You'll Yeah, we're bringing we're we're we're trying to encourage people to bring back intensity to the workplace.
And part of that is saying not words like the R word, but saying like the F bomb. Yeah. You know. Yeah.
Uh All caps, what do you know? done.
the other thing about Ron Conway?
How every email he sends is all caps. Really? Yeah, incredible.
This is like everything he opens is just screaming, basically. I don't know. That's great.
But You got to turn You got to turn the volume down before you open an email from from Ron Conway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure for sure. Uh Let's go to Andrea.
She says, "Much respect to us who have one Twitter account where we should post, conduct business, and socialize from. Sigma moves."
I agree with There's the classic question of like, "Oh, I got some spicy takes.
Should I set up an anon account?" And I don't know.
I think that Yeah, you just got to find the correct line and only post things that you're comfortable living on forever, being baked into the the the god in a box. to the AI, right? The LLM. Yeah.
So, the AI Yeah, that's that's part of it.
We've got to if you post it.
Every one of us is training these models through the stuff that we're putting online. Yep.
And so, if you want the model to be more politically incorrect, be more politically incorrect. Hell yeah. Right? Yeah. And do it on main. Yeah.
It's never You know, I bet you I bet you they I bet you XAI really, you know, tries I bet they're really good at detecting bots for XAI. for sure.
Yeah, they don't want any of that slop that says like "In my you know, check out my bio now, you know." Like some of that stuff.
Or even just like uh they chat GPT just destroyed Grok and Anthropic like 10 amazing discoveries below.
Like this stupid threads.
Like all those need to get filtered out.
Um there is something to be said about like that mixed use account that's really cool.
Like Nikita broke it down where he was like, "Look, like you're not going to have like some deep insight or some, you know, revolutionary deep dive every single day.
So, you should just be kind of like hanging out at the water cooler, telling jokes, effectively posting. Yeah.
Do that uh like just whenever something comes to you a couple times a day.
And then But then you need to mix in a serious post like once a week or something so that Yeah.
you're seen as Yeah, Sriram is like joking around, but she does some of the best analysis Exactly.
on the consumer package goods industry and it's the most entertaining.
So, I think it's it's definitely And when you share stuff that is personal, like your personal interests, like for me, I'm always surprised if I share anything UFC related, I get a bunch of people that I that I'm friends with that I didn't even know like the sport and they'll I mean, talk about it, whatever.
I mean, that's the beauty of X is that it's not designed like siloed reddits.
So, you don't need to like go to go and take your account over to watch Twitter or tech Twitter or media Twitter or UFC Twitter to engage with those people.
You can just kind of like follow a few people, engage, post, and the algorithm will send Sometimes it just sends posts off to a different region of X and you're like, "Oh, okay, there's a whole different community here.
And they love me or they hate me, who knows?
Maybe I got to lock my account."
Yeah, the Alaskans The Alaskans got me got me good, but uh Let's go to Rune talking to Grimes.
Rune says, "If you guys aren't careful, I'm going to start writing essays in the on the immigrant experience.
And let me just say nobody will enjoy that."
And then Grimes says, "Honestly, if you would just write any essay at all, I would be happy, lazy fuck."
Incredible writer, proceeds to only proceeds to only tweet and not create a body of work. Upsetting.
And then Rune says, "LMFAO, okay, Grimes is kicking my ass. I got to do it."
And then Grimes says, "Are you serious?
You can't say it cuz then you won't do it.
Please write something long form and for the love of God, print it on a pamphlet and let's not have another Substack.
Let's show some grace to the written word and also get some branding moxie around the ideas percolating in Silicon Valley."
And then he says, "Yeah, Substack is lame. X articles is lame.
The vibes on both of those have become bad.
And yeah, I mean, I I think there's some great Substacks out there and some X articles are cool.
You don't want to get censored, so you got to put that up there, too.
But definitely print it out, definitely send it to people in print.
Did you see Max Myers' new project?" Yeah. That was cool.
Love Letters to America, is that what it's called?
Yeah, Love Letters to Capital.
New project under or Really cool under Arena.
So, you can go subscribe and and you'll just get a nicely, you know, delivered letter in the mail.
And we're building a mailing list, a physical mailing list.
So, send us your address if you want to get drops.
We're going to be dropping a bunch of fun stuff in the mail.
And I think you know, you should be keeping a a Rolodex.
These things often build up around weddings.
You get you you you get everyone's address there. Keep that up to date. You need a real Rolodex.
It's not enough just to have someone's phone or email these days.
You got to be able to send them physical stuff and stand out.
Uh should we do another promoted post? What you got? I got I got one.
We got to do the chair at some point.
Yeah, we'll do the chair. We'll do the chair next.
The guy, do you have some backstory on this chair?
Uh well, it was recommended by the Obscure Hobbyist of the Year. Oh, really? Will Manaydis, yes.
He said he said he's buying it. Okay, okay, okay.
Let's let's actually just run this.
So, I got a extremely important promoted post today from and it's actually a recommendation from none other than Will Manaydis.
Is he going to sell past the relaying this out? Yeah, yeah.
This is honestly, I doubt he's bought it actually pulled the trigger yet.
So, we're going to sell it out, Will.
He had a couple other options.
We're highlighting the one that we think most aligns with our brand.
We have a fantastic looking chair here.
This is the William Jefferson Clinton Oval Office Chair from the History Company. It's only $3,475.
And uh you know, this thing just looks fantastic.
Is this the actual Is this It's it's a replica. It's a replica? Okay, yeah.
It's designed to look like the Oval Office Chair. least 40.
And I think it's great because, you know, if you're an associate at a venture capital firm, you come in, they give you some slop chair. You got to get that out. Bring in your own chair.
No one's going to bother you if you just You can't I need a more ergonomic chair.
I I got back problems or something. Is it a health issue? about stop you.
So, VC associates, you'll see around SF a lot of them driving like Valkyries, like, you know, some of these hypercars. Or i8s.
I I I i8s wait till a wrapped i8s.
You got to get the doors to go like this.
The Valkyrie's as the doors as long as the door goes the doors go up. It's a good good buy me. Valkyrie's GP money. Yeah, yeah.
The i8, that's Yeah, there are numerous doses out there that um Maybe they're nepos. I know.
Yeah, I I I met a guy in the Alps a couple weeks ago that worked for a pretty prominent venture capital fund and uh is a billionaire through his through his father's uh you know, past success, but um So, some of the you know, but anyways, great looking chair.
Yeah, highly recommend Check this out.
Uh I'm pretty sure I don't actually like the these metal knobs here, but the what's really going to be in zoom is this top section and it looks very regal. Yeah.
And uh There's some other options, but yeah, it's highly recommended getting a nice chair.
Check out the history company. Yeah.
And um tell them the technology brothers and Will Man I just sent you. Yeah.
Let's go to a bucket pull from Ali.
She says dating a VC must be so funny because imagine being in the middle of a fight and he says, "Babe, let's think about this from first principles." Hey, let me see this.
So, so uh this wow, 2 and 1/2 K.
That's that's that's a banger. Nice nice work, Ali.
Ali's uh fiancé or husband or boyfriend, I don't I don't actually know.
No, he's the Ali's uh Ali's significant other Yeah.
posted in late December, "If I can get a Robinhood gold card, I will tat Yeah, I will I will tattoo the Robinhood logo on my arm."
Braxton So, this guy Braxton and um uh he got his gold card Yeah.
and he got a Robinhood tattoo on it's an absolute piece on his shoulder. too. big. It's pretty prominent.
I'm curious if it's his first ever tattoo.
He should keep doing this and just get logoed up everywhere. Yeah, like a NASCAR.
It would be interesting to to go to these companies and say, you know, "I'll get this logo, but I need $100 a month for the rest of my life."
And it's like a bulletproof contract and it's like you can pay it out early. Yeah.
You know, like you know, for like 80 years if you want to just get it all up front or you can just keep keep me on the payroll forever. For us. Great.
You get loaded up and you could probably get a UBI off that.
That might be one of the last jobs.
Just get a walking billboard walking billboard.
He was looking pretty jacked when I saw him. Yeah, yeah.
I think he just wanted an excuse He wanted an excuse to post advice to flex. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Nice work, Braxton.
Ali, you know, I'm curious we should we should get Ali's opinion on the Robinhood tat.
I'm sure she's got opinions.
Uh but anyways when my my my partner does uh stupid The gold card better be live up to the hype. Yeah. Um Does look beautiful.
Um let's go to Luke Metro.
He says it must be really it must really suck to be too smart to make money in crypto, but too dumb to make money in AI. Brutal. Brutally real. Yeah. That hey, podcasting.
I mean, there are so Podcasting's a nice a nice, you know, middle ground.
You keep seeing these you keep seeing these uh What what's the latest coin?
Fart coin that just mooned or something?
There's so many just super stupid ones and it's like, yeah, anyone rational or intelligent would just be like, this can't possibly happen.
But the really gigabrain, they can figure out that no, this one's going to meme. Yeah.
The Joe Boden coin or whatever.
Yeah, but even that one ended up flopping.
Yeah, I mean, they all do, but it's about the timing.
It's about ponzinomics and playing it correctly. Yeah. But oh well.
So, there's always some opportunity.
There's always a bull market somewhere. Yep.
Let's go to Jack Szostak.
He says one cold email at a time I built my life. Thought that was cool. Yeah. Um Who's at A16Z Games? Uh I wonder who he is. It's true.
I would like to see the cold email that he sent to get that job. Share it, Jack. I um Tell the story.
It's funny cuz everybody has you know, I would hope that everybody listening has positive stories around cold emails, but you always remember the negatives.
There's this one guy, it wasn't even a fully cold email that I met in college cuz there's one company here in Santa Barbara, Deckers Brands.
They own Hoka, Ugg and a bunch of other companies.
Great business, like $20 company that you you know, shoe companies when they have hit shoes, they do really well.
And I met him at the gym and he's like, "Here, just I was like, I'd love like let me like intern for you, work for you, whatever. I'll do anything.
Like here's what I'm good at."
He's like, "Yeah, just follow up the email."
And like longest, most thoughtful email, no response.
Kept seeing him at the gym. Oh.
Often I was just like just like my hair stubbing it? But 75 emails. 75 emails.
Send emails until they they they beg you to stop or give you a job, but then do it a hundred times.
Like you got to do like the volume is so Exactly the volume.
So, um this is like you know, the Balder method.
Like he didn't just send a couple good replies.
He sent hundreds and he kept going.
And I'm talking to him in a couple of He's actually a great poster. It's fantastic.
Feel like he's he's also just gotten become a better poster. Yeah.
No, but but cold emails are are like little lottery tickets like every time you post on X, it's like a little lottery ticket you're buying with your time. Yep.
And um But keep it concise. Send it. Keep it concise.
Let's do another promoted post.
Promoted post uh we got a promoted post from Max Broder Erbosa.
Max, I'm sorry for butchering your name, but he says um he has a company called Gumloop, which just got out of uh just got out of YC and What do they do?
They're doing some It looked like something within the realm of uh Zapier.
I'm trying to remember now.
I don't have any actual backstory on it, but more important thing is uh they raised a $17 million series A straight out of YC and Max says that Gumloop will be a 10-person $1 billion company.
They have six spots left, so this is a company that got four uh four people took them to a $17 million series A. Wow.
So, they must be doing something cool and 17 or seven?
$17 million series 17 million series A. Wow. Okay.
Uh Sean from My First Million is in there. Cool.
Um but anyways cool opportunity.
Uh go hit up Max and um just Tell them the technology brothers sent you. Tell them TB sent you. Oh, I like this one.
Casey says, we got a bucket pull here.
Casey says, "I cannot overstate how valuable it is to have a regular gathering you can invite wonderful people to as you meet them."
Uh it's often the difference between, "That guy was cool.
I wonder what he's up to."
and gaining a new friend and or collaborator.
So, this is like the the bro movie nights like Who's Is that? You can say Casey.
Uh this is just a bucket pull that I sent. No, this is cool.
I I mean, it's so This is um People do this poker nights or cigar nights.
and and kind of sort of working remote cuz people in LA I feel like just have to kind of if you're in tech, you have to be like pretty remote in terms of how you work with people and meet people cuz there's not that many people here.
And um that is a downside of like, well, there's only one Friday night every week.
If you want to get a bunch of people together and then it's once you have kids, you know, you're sacri- if you're meeting up with, you know, work oriented people, you're missing out on time with your family, so This is why getting four, five, six, 10, 20 people together at once has a pretty amazing This is why it's so important to get a box of every F1 race because then there's always something coming up.
You can just say, "Oh, I'm in I'm in Austin, Texas."
This is this is my we're going to we're going to start doing daily TV meetups at the New York Stock Exchange. Yep.
Sent one of the brothers recommend this um and I think it'd be very cool.
Let's meet at the bowl every morning. Every morning just pray.
You know, pray to the bowl. Pray to the bowl.
Um we got time for one more post and then we got to legit, but we'll see you tomorrow cuz the pod never sleeps.
Uh Will Man I just let's close with him.
He says, "I think it will shock everyone how short-lived the AGI fortunes will be.
Secular nuts and bolts rationalism will not produce modern Rockefellers.
They have failed at real institution building.
They have weak family structures, polyamory, etc.
and no transcendent morals.
It's a once-in-a-generation bag fumble.
We're about to watch hundreds of billions get made and wasted on small dogs, luxury merino apartments, and tasteless Napa homes." Roasted. Roasted.
Roasted, but I I mean, I I completely agree.
Like you look at the uh uh I mean, have you seen Citizen Kane? Uh no.
Oh, man, fantastic movie.
It it's a beast to to get through and what it's a very different experience than like a modern movie, but uh it you know, it's it's basically the story of William Randolph Hearst.
Hearst built Hearst Castle.
Have you ever been to Hearst Castle?
It's like in Central California and it's like this insane castle.
It's literally just a castle.
It has like these ornate pools, indoor pools, outdoor pools just built by this like magnet and it just like became this structure that like couldn't just be like absorbed by the market.
So, it became this museum essentially.
And and and that's that's always my hope when people say like, you know, the elites aren't bad, we just need better elites.
Like you need elites that care about aesthetics, care about taste. Exactly.
That treatment is going to build something that will live on past him. Yeah.
Both in the company sense and also in I'm I'm sure whatever he winds up building in the future. guild monuments. Exactly.
So, yeah, if you wind up making an AGI fortune, call Will, make some good decisions, and build a dynasty that will live on for centuries. And thanks tuning in. We'll see you tomorrow.
before we go go uh rate us five stars and leave a funny review. Yeah.
I want everyone to leave reviews.
Send us a screenshot and get creative.
If you leave a creative review, send us a screenshot. We'll read it out here. Here we go.
You can even leave a review that's just an ad for your business. There we go.
Read it out on the podcast. That's good.
So, go whatever podcast player you use.
This is a great This is a great podcast. I love it.
Also, this this review is sponsored by my company. Yeah, exactly.
We'll read it out here on the next podcast.
a company, sell the ad inventory. Call another company. Yeah, call a friend. Call a friend.
Call a friend and say, "Hey, the most profitable podcast in the world, I have a free ad slot. I have a free ad slot. Give me five grand. I'll send you the clip." And we'll clip it. Yeah. And uh it's good.
Yeah, so I want to I want to see a lot of reviews cuz I love ads and I want the opportunity to read more of them.
So, thank you everyone and we'll see you next time. Thanks a lot. Talk to you later.