"invest in people that are going to do this idea no matter what. How do you innovate? It's a pretty like torturous pursuit. What were you trying to do with it? Why did you do it in the first place? It ..."

"I mean, I would argue this the same now. It will be worse in the future, but just lots of slop like it's just a larger volume of stuff that gets made every day. And I think like to Drew's point the 15..."

"Say a little bit more about the the nature of those feelings that you're trying to get yourself to feel by making something. I think that's quite a cool Well, if I could say it, I wouldn't need to mak..."

"and it's like I feel like you make a song like that, you're so excited about it to play it and to like be like, is this it? Is this gonna resonate, you know, with everybody? But like at the end of the..."

"And so when you think about AI, like you can't be scared of it because it's just going to be it's just going to hit different for better or for worse at some point. And you know, we just got to focus ..."

"Yeah, you can tell. What does world building mean? Just like define what that means. Uh just defining an aesthetic and a mood and an attitude that you can participate in when you listen to the music. ..."

"And then when we finally, you know, started obviously really building the chain smokers and things started to work, it was like, oh my god, you know what I mean? This is the feeling that I've been lik..."

"Uh I grew up in Maine and I later in life, you know, now I'm very thankful to have grown up in Maine. You know, I grew up in a small pretty liberal society that everyone kind of did everything, you kn..."

"and I think it's a pretty like torturous pursuit. Um that drives me crazy a lot of time. We have, you know, I won't name names, but there are some artists in our genre and other genres that have just ..."

"And part of me wants to just get out of my own way and just be like, "Fuck it." Like, I just have to make stuff that like there have been a couple records like we made this record called Don't Lie tha..."

"Is it just the quality of the work? I don't know. You know, I'm really confused about this part, especially in this day and age where I see artists that aren't us that have a different vibe or are fro..."

"First of all, you have to want to do do that. We love to throw parties and we love to choose the music. Um and we love to curate the vibe and like that was why we became DJs pretty, you know, down the..."

"I feel like I I mean I was like like I said earlier, not like not the you know most popular kid in high school, but not the worst either. And not the worst in the middle. But I think that's like my wh..."

"And if I think about Chain Smokers, Inc. like the the enterprise around the art, how has that what does it look like and how has it evolved? And this is maybe like a good bridge question into talking ..."

"And I think just trying to build processes through both of them, both of those businesses that like we can do them in like I don't want to say effortless ways, but like the ones that are most um synce..."

"And I think this is like relates to like probably a lot of like successful founders journeys is that they be like I was talking to you know founder of guy company who's crushing it right now. And he w..."

"and it's been really it's been a great mirror investing in these other businesses and then kind of looking at our own and being like, how are we hitting these roadblocks or bottlenecks in our own Yeah..."

"Um, you know, we like growth hacked our first promotional platform, crowdsourced our first tour. We've always been doing like the most to kind of like try and get our music out there. Um, and when we ..."

"And you know initially for us that was like cool like I remember my business manager Josh was like basically you invest and you just like hopefully make a bunch of passive income. Oh that's s how sick..."

"And so like that was a really nice blend of technology and forward thinking uh and messaging as and then as it relates to marketing and and distribution whereas I think a lot of like CPG is just distr..."

"It turned out to be a lot I don't know I have no [ __ ] clue you know like like I just want to start and I think like a big part of anything is just start doing it that to me is like probably one of t..."

"It was like the opposite people were not stoked about it at all to me we saw that as like as much as it was like a hill we were going to have to climb a the bar was clearly low so it was like maybe we..."

"you know like each of those opportunities kind of like built or like paved the way for what hope hopefully more future success comes. I've been thinking a lot recently about how the relationship betwe..."

"You see some kind of like vision that your sounds could work together. Um or you have some like great idea around what this song could be together. Whatever. There's some basis for you guys doing a se..."

"So it's like an opportunity for us to go and make something that like you know doesn't fit in the the typical Chain Smokers bucket. So yeah, I think it was I feel like we got that top line. It was lik..."

"and I think that's like uh, you know a really interesting way to kind of like build a career and also give you fresh perspective about how you're approaching, you know, your process and your music. Cu..."

"He like left his like, you know, he had a way of a comfortable job. Yeah. Um and my boss was like you're what it was like don't do this you can come back if when this doesn't work out you you know whi..."

"They weren't didn't have a presence in dance music. A lot of like the DJs we just mentioned were remixing Rihanna, Lady Gaga, whatever was on the pop radio at that time. And we were like, well, we lov..."

"We got that took us out of, you know, DJing at Pink Elephant and all Great Times 2012 club scene in New York. But, um, you know, then we started we're doing colleges here and there and that kind of wa..."

"But usually like, you know, I'm sure if you talk to any like long-lasting successful CEO like or founder, they've like there's been moments where like they're like, 'Fuck, like my strategy is not work..."

"I mean, I was downloading off blogs before we even were I was, you know, learned to produce with Drew hundreds of songs a day, you know, that I would just like put in a folder cuz I just loved discove..."

"What is most different between how you're investing today versus when you started Mantis? Like what's evolved the most in your style, your preferences, the process, the team like on the like practice ..."

"And specific individuals within those funds more more so than the brand of the fund itself. Um, and and for us, like you kind of just know when there's like a really interesting, exciting founder."

"and I think that's what you have to learn through experience is like how do you see through all the noise and [ __ ] of like hype versus reality versus you know periods and you know it's like we've re..."

"And now that we're looking for bigger allocation, it's we're still having success, but it's a different conversation now where you you can't just be like, 'Yeah, we're going to put you know, nice to h..."

"funny enough I think it's like the it was an unkind thing that she delivered the I had this uh whatever home room adviser in sixth grade named Mrs. park who was like I think she liked me but I think s..."

"Did you feel like when your dad passed away at a young age like like it snapped you awake in in some way? It was really tough. I mean my parents you know I love my mom she's still around. She's amazin..."

"What's What's your answer for the kindest thing? The one that's coming up for me is uh my mom buying me a drum kit when I was 5 years old. Do you know what it's like to buy a drum kit for a 5-year-old..."