Quarter-Life Capital

E2
Speaker 3
[00.02.07]
And so I think he just
Speaker 1
[00.02.08]
started getting more and more into politics.
Speaker 3
[00.02.10]
And I think everyone kind of just has become happenstance with the idea that government will waste money, that government workers will are lazy. They're not doing too much. You go there to kind of like a retirement type job. Um, and that just became kind of part of our reality. And I think that's the one thing Elon's always been like a big person in. And the idea that just because something is the way it is, it doesn't mean it can't change.
Speaker 1
[00.02.32]
And yeah, but I heard, uh, Matt, like, there's, uh, like a few days ago, there was this podcast on Bloomberg and I was listening in and they were saying that Elon didn't know that he's actually the fall guy. Um, for the Trump administration, if something does go wrong in Doge and he's not, maybe he's not aware of that. Um, so because now I think, like, there's a lot of public backlash towards Elon Musk, uh, not that much towards the president. So do you think this assessment is like, practically right? Is he just sitting himself up to be the fall guy that he's not aware, uh, that he's potentially endangered politically?
Speaker 2
[00.03.05]
I mean, I don't think it's good. Like, even even if he is the fall guy, what's going to happen to him? Okay, he got removed from Doge,
Speaker 1
[00.03.13]
and then he's going and running his companies, right? So
Speaker 3
[00.03.15]
I mean, it feels like a pretty easy out if they want that. Um. I don't know. I also feel like the the relationship between like Trump and and Elon has been, I guess a little bit,
Speaker 2
[00.03.27]
a little bit strange lately, uh,
Speaker 1
[00.03.30]
with him, you know, always on TV and bringing his kid in and
Speaker 2
[00.03.34]
kind of kind of just a strange relationship going on. But maybe, maybe he's the fall guy. I don't know. What do you think? So. Uh,
Speaker 3
[00.03.41]
I have, I have, I'm not sure about that. I think the idea is I remember in the beginning, like Trump and Elon, uh, they weren't like this, uh, in the presidents room in the Oval Office. And then a lot of people were upset about the idea that Elon Musk and his child were talking over Donald Trump. And I remember, uh, this entire, like, narrative was starting to, like, really catch flames. I think this is just like the dividends of, like, kind of this idea that Elon kind of took over for Trump. And I think Trump's always been a little bit more. This is my show
Speaker 1
[00.04.12]
kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.04.13]
It feels like it feels like it's almost
Speaker 1
[00.04.15]
like, um,
Speaker 3
[00.04.16]
like there's times where Elon Musk like kind of, uh, takes too much of the show and
Speaker 1
[00.04.21]
it's like, you never want to overshadow
Speaker 2
[00.04.23]
the the big
Speaker 1
[00.04.25]
dog, you know, at the end of the day. So yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think another, uh, aspect of this is that there since the Trump administration, the second one, there are more business people that are being involved in politics. Um, I think, uh, Davis acts, which is, uh, who who was or I don't know, is the the founding partner of a VC firm, um, who's also close to the Republican Party. Uh, he's been the crypto and Azar. Um, so and he has announced certain good things, I suppose, for the Web3 community, or maybe not. Wasn't he saying
Speaker 2
[00.04.58]
that? Um. Ah. Oh, I don't believe in bitcoin anymore. Or if you guys don't. If you guys don't smarten up, you know bitcoin is going to be replaced by something else. And it's like like I don't know. Well as soon as he said that I was just like he has no concept of what he's talking about. And I don't know if it was in relation to innovation or something of that nature. But he literally tweeted that like, oh, Bitcoin is going to be replaced by something else. And anyone who's been in the space for longer than five minutes knows that. Okay. Well, every other cryptocurrency in the top ten has changed other than bitcoin right? That's the that is the innovation. You know not all the other stuff. And so I don't know. Um it's a it's
Speaker 1
[00.05.35]
a it's a weird thing. Yeah. So um, what do you think about like more business people going into politics? Is it is it a good thing for, uh, for, you know, the American people as a whole? What do you think is some room for concern due to, like, conflict of interests?
Speaker 3
[00.05.48]
I think it's exciting. I know, like, the idea is that or the or like, the fear is the idea of they're going to put into policies that only help their own businesses. But I think we've had such a long time with just career politicians, people that have just lived their whole lives just being elected and then only worrying about their next term of election. At least now we have this idea of people that have kind of like built something for themselves for the most part, like Howard. For example, he was he was the owner of like, um, asset management firm Cantor when nine over 11 happened. Right. And his entire office was like one of the biggest hits of it.
Speaker 1
[00.06.20]
That's the commerce secretary. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3
[00.06.22]
And now he's running the sovereign wealth fund. So, like, it's exciting that you have these hedge fund guys. Um, I'm a big fan of David Savage. I used to listen to All in podcast all the time. Uh, it's just exciting. You know, these people that have innovative ideas, they don't have to have, like, a broken telephone to get the bureaucrats to kind of put something into place. They are the bureaucrats now. And I think it's just exciting to see. What will this happen? Where will this go? It's an experiment.
Speaker 1
[00.06.47]
Okay. Amazing. And I think now we'll talk to a related topic about businessmen taking leadership positions. And, uh, that is the Canadian election. And I think Canada has never been in the global news before. Um, but obviously now with the tariffs, with Canada hitting back at the US for counter tariff measures and uh, last week the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, basically said the traditional Canada and US relationship is over. Um, and now obviously there's an election. And, uh, Matt, I think, yeah, just talk to us more about like, who's this guy? Uh, Mark Carney, why did he become the prime minister and what's going to happen next? Well, my
Speaker 2
[00.07.28]
understanding was he was, um, he's been involved in a bunch of different businesses involved with Bank of England. Um, also interesting is citizenship, like over in
Speaker 1
[00.07.38]
the UK and here and now, he's Canadian prime minister. Um, but he doesn't have a seat, which is interesting as well, which is kind of unheard of. So, um, and then Trump apparently likes it, so I don't know, it's just a it feels like it's kind of a weird situation where. And then. It's also a weird situation because back in Canada we have we have the two parties, we have the liberals, we have the conservatives. Yeah, there's a couple other ones like the Greens and the, um, NDP. Um, but but it's mainly just the Liberals and Conservative. And while Trudeau was still in power, it seemed like even the liberals themselves really hated
Speaker 3
[00.08.18]
Trudeau. But now, you know, apparently just replacing Trudeau. Now there's a bunch of people that have a bunch of support
Speaker 2
[00.08.25]
towards Carney. And so was was the issue really just Trudeau? Um, so I don't know. I feel like we're in a we're in a weird spot where we're on the cusp of an election. The polls say that Carney is way ahead. Is this just a similar situation to Kamala Harris being way ahead in the polls? And it's actually going to swing the other way?
Speaker 1
[00.08.46]
Yeah, yeah. So, um, talk more about, uh, Mark Carney for people who don't know him. And what do you think about the state of the Canadian politics is right
Speaker 2
[00.08.54]
now? Yeah, I think Mark Carney overall is a very seasoned like, just politician. Like in terms of his resume. The one thing I will give, like the Liberal Party credit for is in January, it felt like they were freefalling. I think the polls were saying the biggest conservative win in the history of Canada, and now they're much more likely to actually come into office. So I think in terms of the recovery on that, and liberals did well. Mark Carney as an individual that whenever I listen to him speak, nothing feels genuine. If I'm like, if I'm I remember he was talking, um, to in a bar and he was explaining this idea that, you know, like, um, we sell the most semiconductors to USA. Maybe one day they'll just stop showing up. First of all, kind of doesn't sell semiconductors to us. And secondly, just the way, like he kind of says some of this stuff, it just it feels eerie. Um.
Speaker 3
[00.09.43]
Some of his policies are always kind of hypocritical of like his stances beforehand. Um, overall, I'm always on the side of like, lower taxes. And he's been so cagey, this idea of the carbon tax. And for listeners that don't know, Canada is one of the only countries in the world that won. We are carbon positive. So we have more trees that absorb the carbon than the amount we produce. And we are also the only countries in the world that have a carbon tax. Uh, and that's really for the past couple of years has really detrimentally hurt our economy. Our dollar has weakened to, I think, the US dollar by a pretty large margin. And so I think overall, like me personally, I do think there's a time for change. But if there is somebody on the Liberal Party that maybe could be good, I would assume probably Mark Carney is the best candidate.
Speaker 1
[00.10.30]
Yeah. Matt, what do you think about taxation? Um, under Liberal policies? Because we do know, aside from the carbon tax had a pause for about a month. There was also a capital gains hike that was proposed. And then the CRA started collecting them. And then now it's an election and they killed it. So tell our listeners, we don't know about this, uh, why that's important.
Speaker 2
[00.10.54]
Well, I think it's pretty strange when so. So. Canada Revenue Agency CRA is the equivalent of the IRS in Canada. When they start collecting on a policy that is not even passed in government. It kind of feels like they're kind of going rogue a little bit. Um, um, so I mean, that's that's concerning, uh, honestly, like what they really should be doing is just lowering taxes, right? If imagine imagine you actually just lower taxes across the board. In Canada, you have people from the United States that are fed up with tariffs that start instead of talent from Canada just exiting like we have a huge brain drain problem we have. I know I have a ton of friends from Waterloo that went to Waterloo. Now they're working in the States, right? Why don't we bring those people back? Why don't we bring talent back into Canada? Lower taxes here. People are fed up with tariffs down south. Come up north. Lower taxes. That seems like a no brainer. I know that, um, Pierre Poilievre is planning to lower taxes, but my whole thing with Carney, too, is he? He removed the carbon tax. I don't understand why Canada ever needed a carbon tax. Right. Okay. Yeah. We're making a big dent in carbon compared to China. Um, but so we act as the tax. And then he puts it back on to for the industrial
Speaker 1
[00.12.09]
sector. So what was the point? But the tax was never eliminated. It was just paused. Right. It was. It was passed in Parliament. However, he just doing a temporary measure to pause the carbon tax for a month, perhaps. I'm not sure. Just for the election. No clue. Right. But I think the challenges of this country, Canada, and also just like all the Western countries, is that taxation is going higher. Same in the US. I was just reading at Bloomberg today and they were saying the Republicans are potentially putting up a new task tax bracket for people making over $1 million, and the tax would be between 40 to 50%.
Speaker 2
[00.12.47]
You know, income tax didn't even exist before World War One. Yeah. Like they introduced it and they introduced it for the 1%. Well, then then they inflated the currency so far that everyone's everyone's in that tax bracket now. So they go and put it in for the 1%. And then how long is it before everyone's in that tax bracket. Because they inflated the
Speaker 1
[00.13.07]
currency. Yeah. And I heard the corporate tax was 50% before they brought it down to about 20% today maybe lower. So corporate tax is going down. Personal income tax is going up. So is this just like robbing the poor and funding the rich.
Speaker 2
[00.13.22]
I mean, well, it seems like it's something like that, but at the end of the day, everyone becomes poor, right? Like, you know. And the other thing too, is that, okay, if you're in that tax bracket now, you have more incentive to have capital flight to leave the United States or to, you know, and if taxes go up in Canada, you have incentive to leave Canada. So it's and you also have this curve that exists. And I think I don't remember if it was the Netherlands or another country in Europe that did this, but um, they, you know, I think it was Norway, it was Norway, Norway, basically. They were they were saying we need to tax the rich substantially more. And they, they hike the taxes up for the ultra rich substantially. And there was a and they were expecting to make, I don't know, 300 billion more in taxes that that year. But there was so much capital flight that they actually ended up with less, you know, uh, less, less in taxes. So there's this curve where if you tax too much, there will be capital flight that will leave that country.
Speaker 1
[00.14.23]
So but some don't you know, politicians know this. Why do they keep doing hiking taxes. I think it's almost an addiction to a certain point, right? Um, like taxes aren't going down. Like, once government starts getting money, they're able to spend it how they want. We don't have, like, direct democracy. We have representation in democracy, right? So if I elect my constituent, he'll just do what he sees fit for the greater people. But sometimes you're not going to do that. You're going to do what you think is just better for like you
Speaker 3
[00.14.52]
yourself in those kind of situations. And the idea is like tax revenue. It kind of keeps like citizens out of Bay as well. Um, I think what Matt was saying is the idea that the 1% are able to do capital flight with ease, and they're able to pay for the lawyers, accountants, everyone else that you kind of need to get that structure to actually go
Speaker 1
[00.15.10]
with the middle class, like the
Speaker 3
[00.15.11]
lower class, they don't have access to those kind of reasons versus so for them, they can't really do much besides just stay in the country where they're raised. And so that's why I think the overall goal always becomes that's where you want to capture the
Speaker 1
[00.15.24]
tax from. Right.
Speaker 2
[00.15.25]
Yeah. Well I was just going to say I think there are options like I think people might not know like yes, absolutely. For the 1%, you know, capital flight is easy. But for for anyone who works remotely like there are options for being able to get out of the country. Right? Paraguay. Right. 0% for foreign income tax. 0% capital gains. Um, you know, you can get a you can get temporary residency there. And the cost of living is super low. So they're like, if you're willing to go out of out of Canada, there are options for you. Uh, but but you know, it it takes a certain amount of work for someone to go through that entire process to figure out, you know, where do they want to live? Outside of Canada or
Speaker 1
[00.16.04]
outside of the United States? Right. And that is not what Digital Nomad is about, that you're living outside of, of your home country for potentially, like forever, for many years, and you're not paying those high taxes. And people go to Bali, Indonesia, and they will go somewhere else. Thailand. Uh, is that part of the escape mat, or do you think that's just a temporary thing for most
Speaker 2
[00.16.24]
people? Well, I think there's a group of people who are just tired of it, and they want to be digital nomads, and they want to be free, and they want to be able to live wherever they want. And I think that's growing more and more people are able to work online. Um. But that's not you know, it's not possible for everybody, right? And you can't like, you can't have everyone in Canada being a digital nomad like that or in the United States, being digital nomad doesn't make any sense. So, um, I don't know. You know, it's interesting. Like, back in the day, people used to fight, like, what was it? The American Revolution happened after the 3% tax. Mhm. Yeah. And now we're sitting here being taxed 50%. Right. And the other thing too is you know, you have more and more capital flight that occurs. Well who's left. Well everyone who just accepted the tax. So if you increase it more.
Speaker 1
[00.17.10]
Yeah. So um what are your what are your thoughts about like taxation in general and for, you know, young people who are just enter the workforce for a couple of years who feel pretty burdened by the tax that they're being taxed and they feel like they're not getting equally in return. And I think this is like a Western democracy are facing this issue in just about every country in the Western world. So what are your thoughts about this phenomenon? I
Speaker 3
[00.17.31]
think I think that right there hits the point that we're starting to notice a lot is and this, I think for Canada, USA specifically, it's one of the worst, uh, deltas. There's a happiness report I was reading where, uh, people above the age of 50 in Canada and USA, they're amongst the happiest, like in the
Speaker 1
[00.17.48]
world. People under
Speaker 3
[00.17.49]
30 can. And USA there, I think USA was 58. Canada was 62nd in the entire world. And then that delta between the people that were like much older versus like much younger is the biggest on the planet, like Canada is the worst in
Speaker 1
[00.18.03]
the world for this. And you start thinking why? It's because people that like got older, they're asset rich, so they don't pay those taxes because you can kind of hold on to your assets, borrow
Speaker 3
[00.18.13]
off of those, versus people just coming into the market. They don't really have those assets, so they have a job. Those like those taxes get withheld before you even get the money. So you don't really have any control over that at all. And I think we're in this situation. I think what Matt was saying a little bit earlier about that brain drain problem. Like, I think we all went to Waterloo or like around there, and we're noticing some of our closest friends are all in the US now. And if it's not going to be the US, it's going to be another country, but it's going to be a country that incentivizes people to come, incentivizes people to build, and just gives them like an open road and say, do
Speaker 1
[00.18.47]
what they what you can. Yeah. For us listeners just explaining about why they're moving, is it for the dollar USD? Is it for higher pay?
Speaker 3
[00.18.55]
I think it's it's a combination. It's the idea that when the US dollar is so much stronger than the Canadian dollar. People trust it more in the long term as well. And then on top of that, it is the pay as well. Uh, USA economy is just so much like larger and it's growing at a higher rate than Canadian economy as well. And so then it becomes a hard, uh, analysis for you to do on a cost benefit basis outside of being patriotic. If you have the option to go to the US, for the most part, it becomes hard to justify staying in Canada.
Speaker 2
[00.19.24]
Um, I just wanted to add on to that. Like, what seems wild to me is, like, you were talking about 50 to 70 year olds being, like, super happy and candid. The 30 year old's not be. Well, why did that happen? Well, because they have so many, you know, a large percentage of their net worth is in real estate because real estate went up so much. People were parking their wealth into that well. Why did that occur? Well, there was easy access to capital because mortgage rates went down dramatically. So then, you know, the cost of borrowing in order to buy, buy real estate was was easy. So we've now ended up with a generation where, you know, the storage of value is in is in real estate. So I mean, this makes the perfect case for, you know, fix the money, fix the world because, you know, think of it, right? Because if if people stop, if real estate start, stops being so incredibly valuable. And and yes, of course, there's always going to be scarcity for, you know, a plot of land. Right. But instead of a, you know, housing costs being, uh, you know, 20 years or 30 years of your annual income. You know, they're literally giving out 30, 30 year mortgages now. Yeah. Um, instead of it being, you know, 30, you know, years of your annual income and instead it's like ten years or five years like it used to be. Way back in the 1940s and 50s. Um, then then maybe maybe that, you know, the happiness Index can go back up and, and people are actually, you know, comfortable actually getting a house. And then maybe that also solves the, uh, the issue with the population crisis. Right? Like the actual birth rates in Canada are incredibly low because, you know, people don't want to have kids if they can't even buy a house, for God's sake.
Speaker 1
[00.21.00]
Yeah. And I think a huge issue is this is also representation in the political system, right. And I think same for the US, same for many countries is that older people go out and vote. Young people don't go out and vote. And older people have more political sway over, uh, different policies of their local representative. Do you write to your local representative? Probably not. Right. But all people do that all the time. So older people do it all the time. Boomers do all the time. So there has been this argument is that they're the ones that the political class cares about, because they're the ones that go out and vote. Um, so so what do you think about this phenomenon? Um, and is it time for change in the system? Yeah. No, I do agree. I think the one thing we did notice, though, and this was in like the US election, that younger people did start coming in. They started coming in halves. Um, I think most young people were kind of on the side of the Trump administration. They didn't want to see Kamala Harris in office. And people came out. And I think we talked about in the last episode two, was the idea that, uh, even I was saying Kamala Harris was going to win, but then it just turned out not to be true. Um, so hopefully
Speaker 3
[00.22.05]
that does happen. This idea, too, that young people do start banding together, kind of like standing up for what they believe in. But I do think for a long time, young people have just kind of been pushed down saying, oh, wait till you're older, you'll understand, you know, like you don't really know what's going on. I think this is the first time we're seeing like, uh, maybe people will start taking that stand. It's exciting. Yeah, I think the world has changed for the worse for young people with AI. So if you are a retired AI is not going to really do anything for you other than the central bank declared bankruptcy, which I don't think that's going to happen. So that's there's pretty much nothing that concerns older people who retirees. Right. Who's collecting their checks? Of course, there's still issues with them, but comparatively much less than people who just enter the workforce, people who are in their careers and feeling that they've been robbed by this like taxation system. What are your thoughts about, like, all this? Well, I
Speaker 2
[00.22.56]
think there's some concerns for retirees. Like if you have too much inflation of the currency, then you know, or, or say like here in Canada, right? You have retirees that are earning their pension in CAD, right? And then, you know, their purchasing power is way down in comparison to USD, right? So they, you know, they invested for years. But I think I think in general for like there's a lot of young people that are literally at the point of, yeah, I'm never going to own a home. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. Are you kidding me? You know, just buy some bitcoin. But yeah like it's it's sad because I think like, you know if you have a generation like that it doesn't take long for, you know, our population to become like Japan where the birth rates are way down and the entirety of the population comes entirely from immigrants. Right. And. Yeah. You know, Canada was built on the immigrants, right? So was the United States. Um, but but you can't have a country that doesn't have, have have a, you know, that has a declining birth rate like crazy. That's that's
Speaker 1
[00.24.01]
terrible. Right? Yeah. And speaking of, uh, birth rate, I mean, obviously the US, uh, Trump administration has been very hard, I guess heart harder on the border, on the southern border. And I think there's obviously much less crossings, uh, towards the US and also legal migration. I'm not sure if that's impacted, but obviously everyone who's in the US, they have this feeling of that, okay, immigration has changed forever, right. And there's like less. And the population growth is probably going to slow down. So obviously that was the issue on the ballot for most Americans. Um, so um, what do you think of, um, of, you know, I mean, the new trend globally, actually, not just in the US, right? Germany just have their far right party gaining about 20% of the total votes. Right. Which is, um, many the media says it's concerning, right? Obviously. I guess it's concerning for the point that they're super anti-immigration. Um, and just now, like across the world, there's this anti-immigration rhetoric. Um, so is that, like part of the globalization that the US president is looking for? Like, what are your thoughts about this trend as well? Yeah, I think that should be split into two situations. I think one thing in terms like the verbiage that gets used a lot with immigration, that doesn't that doesn't appeal to me is, you know, if you're coming into a country illegally, I don't think it should even be called illegal immigration, because either you make it allow that anyone can just come into the country or you enforce the law. Right? Um, it makes no sense to me, this idea of, like, illegal immigration, uh, like allowing that, like
Speaker 3
[00.25.37]
protesting in that sense. Um, if you do want to disallow open
Speaker 1
[00.25.40]
borders, that's that's your
Speaker 3
[00.25.42]
right as citizens of the country. Right. But it should either be taken away from the law or enforced. It's like the first part, I would say, um, and then the second part on like immigration on like a higher level. I think what we've noticed a lot is a lot of the Western countries because like, again, like the minimum wage is starting to increase a lot and the labor pressure has become very heavy for like, you know, like, um, low skilled labor and such as, like working as a cashier. There's things that almost anyone can really do that, like we used to back in our day, like do in high school. Right. Like when you're like 16 years old, kind of those kind of jobs. And so then the Replacements been, where else can you get the human labor from? And the the solution was immigration. So you see mass immigration everywhere. I think Canada was like a big constituent in this, too. They brought in a lot of immigrants and probably noticed that, like, for example, at Tim Hortons, you'll see a lot of immigrants working there because that's where you get the labor.
Speaker 1
[00.26.35]
Mhm. Um, Matt, what do you think?
Speaker 2
[00.26.37]
Well, well I think like it's wild to me that in Canada there's like 5 million people whose visas are expiring next year. Right. Like how did we import. We're a country of what, 40 million people? How do we import 5 million people during the span of Covid? What are you talking about? And I like the other thing too, I think is like, frustrating, is that, like, the whole point of immigration was to bring skilled people into the country. And that's no longer the case. Right. Like you used to need to have like, certain, um, certain skill set. And that used to be valued. And now it actually feels like it's the opposite. Right. Where we're actually the people that are more skilled are having a harder time actually getting in. And the people who are unskilled and are like, have dependents or are dependent on someone else are actually having an easier time getting in. So it's it's it's almost feels like it's, um, it's by design, I don't know.
Speaker 1
[00.27.34]
Um, yeah. And I think, I think in the US, I think the big argument was, um, Biden administration's, uh, CBP one app, which I think allowed anyone crossing the border illegally to obtain a valid work authorization. I think that was the big, tipping point for most voters? They don't want that. They hated that. And they feel like that drives down wages. So does that similar to what you
Speaker 2
[00.27.55]
just said? Well, I was just going to add on to that and say that, well, it's wild to me that you had so much illegal immigration in the United States. And then there were several states that were pushing for no ID required to vote. Explain, explain those two things to me. Um, and and explain to me how how that doesn't, uh, result in incredible voter fraud and explain to me how it's racist. I want to know that I would like to know how it's racist to require a voter ID. Yeah. Um, I don't even remember your question.
Speaker 1
[00.28.27]
I yeah, I just think it's a very sensitive topic for voter ID. I think a little bit is like, um, I think I think the argument is that certain segment of the population may not carry their ID every day with them, which I find it strange. And on the other side, I think in states like California, anyone can get a state ID, no matter what's your, uh, visa status, no matter where you came from, you can get a state ID, you can get a driver's license without being a citizen or permanent resident, like a green card, or even like a study visa or work visa, which is. Absurd, I guess, in a way, you know, not on a humanitarian side. But I think that was driving the cultural divide between two different generations and, you know, driving down wages. I think for most that's the
Speaker 2
[00.29.13]
argument. Well, I think it seems wild to me that, you know, in theory, you know, ourselves as Canadians, we could, you know, fly down to California. We could have voted in the last election. Right? Yeah. There was there's basically nothing stopping us. Um, yeah, I understand that. You know, people might have arguments for that, but it's also like, okay, just remember to bring your ID with you on voting day or vote ahead of time. I don't know that that seems like a pretty reasonable thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1
[00.29.42]
Yeah, that makes sense. Um, and also, yeah, I think we should also talk about some business news of the week. Um, I think something is happening in Romania. Um, and I think, Matt, you bring up something that's happening about Romania.
Speaker 3
[00.29.56]
Oh, well, I guess with the Canadian election coming up, there was some weird stuff happening with Romania recently where basically their election was cancelled because the guy who was getting the most. So in Romania, um, basically, there's many Romanians living around the world that you know, that have immigrated Canada, United States or wherever. And so they're able to vote basically ahead of time. So the, um, so the,
Speaker 2
[00.30.19]
you know, the elections started and people started, you know, voting in Australia, Romanians that were in Australia. And they noticed that one of the candidates, I guess, the candidate that the European Union didn't want to win, uh, was, you know, had a huge lead basically very, very early on, um, in the, in the polls and also, you know, in the voting process. And so, uh, elections were cancelled. Right. And it's like, okay, well, that seems a little bit strange. And then and they said, oh, it's a Russian interference. It's like, what are you talking about? So now so now they've made it such that that candidate that was way ahead is now no longer able to run. Um, and now they're doing new elections. So how is and I mean, okay, let's compare that to Canada. We had several potential candidates for the Liberal leadership that were trying to run, and they were deemed ineligible for whatever reasons.
Speaker 1
[00.31.12]
And whoever wins this leadership is going to be the prime minister, essentially.
Speaker 2
[00.31.16]
Yes. Yeah. Thanks for adding that. Um, who were deemed ineligible. So. I mean, in essence, you're basically, you know, you're basically just choosing. It's oh, it's a democracy, but you're choosing which candidates are allowed to run. And then the population goes and decides between the two evils. So how is how is that democracy?
Speaker 1
[00.31.36]
Yeah. Is that is that democracy? So
Speaker 3
[00.31.39]
I think some would say that's exactly what the two party system was made to show was, uh,
Speaker 1
[00.31.45]
that sort of. Yeah. It sounds like some authoritarian regimes where like, it was pre-selected to whoever. There's one candidate to run. I think that's, uh, definitely concerning. I think on a global stage, I think we are entering, like a very, uh, fluid, um, time in our lives where just things just happening every day and people are just, oh, screw it. We don't really care anymore.
Speaker 2
[00.32.06]
We'll call it the fluid democracy.
Speaker 1
[00.32.08]
Yeah, we're in a fluid democracy phase. Um, so, yeah, a little bit more on the business news. I think there's like, you know, I think Apple, um, um, as of April 3rd, has tanked by 10%,
Speaker 3
[00.32.20]
roughly. Uh,
Speaker 1
[00.32.22]
so I think part of that is the tariffs. Um, but also like many investors, are very disappointed in Apple about their slow rollout in artificial intelligence. Um, especially given that Siri was the Siri update was delayed indefinitely, like, people don't know when it's going to be plugged on. And Apple intelligence was a flop. And yeah, I guess so. I'm like, why? Why was there a flop? And why do you think there was those delays? And why couldn't Apple get their, you know, things together? I think culturally Apple's always been a little bit slower. Like the joke would be whatever happened in Android five years ago is what Apple will release now. But I think the reason why users were okay with accepting that was because you knew it would come out polished, you knew it would come out great. I think the problem with investors now and me as an Apple user, like I got the newest iPhone and it crashes on me, and it makes no sense to me when I'm like paying more than I pay for my own MacBook for this phone, and it crashes. And so I think that's where like the problem starting to become is Apple is losing their polish. Apple is losing their pure ecosystem. Um, you know, like a lot of, uh, apps and everything
Speaker 3
[00.33.29]
have become like very critical of Apple's, like App Store. Um, the what they're charging the Apple's been having to defend a lot of lawsuits there. And so all this coming in, I don't think Apple just had the brain power to be able to go into I completely the way like a ChatGPT can where that's the pure focus. And I'll like Google for example. I think right now Gemini 2.5 is the best model out there. That's because Google's been like on AI since the early 20 tens, if not earlier. Right? And so I think Apple just never started with AI. They're starting from scratch now,
Speaker 1
[00.34.03]
and
Speaker 3
[00.34.04]
I don't know if they'll be able to like catch up with some of the other. Lens or anything else that's going in. Yeah.
Speaker 1
[00.34.10]
And I think the photo app is
Speaker 3
[00.34.12]
terrible. Yeah. For a start.
Speaker 2
[00.34.15]
Well, I think the other thing too is like Apple's been. Well they used to be first. Yeah, right. The iPhone completely changed the industry. I mean they were they were first back in the day on the personal computer. Uh,
Speaker 1
[00.34.27]
iPod was amazing. iPod?
Speaker 2
[00.34.29]
Yeah. Like, they used to be first on things, and now they're not really first anymore. They're kind of last. I tried to set a reminder the other day using Siri. Right. Just. Okay. Remind me at 7:00 7 p.m. to do x, y, z. Sorry, I didn't get that. You know, it's just it's just not not helpful at all. Um, but they have such an ecosystem, you know? Yeah. Text messages. You don't want to be green, you know? Don't be green. Um. And I feel like that's so ingrained into, like, teenagers
Speaker 1
[00.34.59]
and stuff. Like, they don't want to be the one,
Speaker 3
[00.35.01]
you know? I I've heard I heard statistics that, like, the teenagers that buy Apple products, is, like, ridiculously high because they don't want to be the one friend that has. Oh, you're the weird, weird Android One. Um, but why are they flopping on? I think.
Speaker 1
[00.35.15]
Is it a company culture? You think it's just. They're too big. They don't. They don't care anymore. They're just like. We're just making money by doing nothing. Why do you think there is? I don't know. Like, maybe they're more of a they've been more of a hardware company, like, for a long time. Like, whereas Google has always been in, you know, and they've always been deep in machine learning. Um, right. I don't know. Why do you think? I think the culture has just been very bureaucratic, perhaps. Um, and I think the, the iPhone ten, I guess, looks exactly the same as iPhone 17. Yeah, we just came out, and I think that it doesn't make any sense. I think the latest iPhone, the tagline was literally Apple Intelligence and it was complete flop. And up until today, Siri does not work for Apple intelligence. It does not work. Nobody I know uses Siri at all. Right. Like even Alexa, which I don't think is that smart, gets some most of the queries, right? Right. I mean, obviously Open Your Eyes is much nicer, but obviously it costs more. It just doesn't make any sense. And I feel like there's no reason for me to upgrade to anything. And maybe that was a strategy. And I totally get it. And I feel like they're just very comfortable because there's there's no disruptors. Right. Come on. Like the China has like this Xiaomi and they have Huawei. But that's going for like the developing countries. Um so they feel like oh we're safe. We're locked in. So
Speaker 2
[00.36.39]
so um.
Speaker 3
[00.36.41]
Why are you switched to
Speaker 1
[00.36.42]
Android, George? Yeah, I have not switched to Android. Um, I started, I guess, uh, I started my phone journeys many, many years ago in Android, and I really loved it. Um, and I think it was just because this, like, prestige at a time about like, oh, Apple. Right. I played, um, I played like, um, a zombie game plan versus zombies on iPhone four when I was like, I don't know, ten or something. And I was like, blown away by, okay, like a piece of machine can do that, right? I don't have that excitement anymore about like, just like any Apple product. Right? Quite frankly, um, I used to carry, like, my iPod everywhere where I go because I just think it's such a cool mini device. Like, I can press a button and it's going to go to the next song. Um, so very rarely do I get like that amaze anymore. And oftentimes by some software product updates, it's rarely on hardware. And maybe it's like it's even rare on Apple. So, um, I feel like the reason why I'm not switching is I use a mac for my work. I use Mac to code, and I feel like it's very. And I build mobile apps, obviously, like we build mobile apps on Apple. So sometimes I just need to use it to, you know, get locked in. I guess that's really the point. Uh, it's less about the iMessage stuff. For me personally, it's more just about like you call it, you form the habit. It's hard to get out of.
Speaker 3
[00.37.59]
I think Apple Silicon is definitely the one thing that's still chugging the train away.
Speaker 1
[00.38.03]
That's. I think before that outside of AirPods, there's been almost zero innovation. Like they dropped the Apple car, they dropped
Speaker 3
[00.38.10]
so much and they're just dropping the
Speaker 1
[00.38.13]
ball on. Yeah. And the Vision Pro which have you tried matte.
Speaker 3
[00.38.16]
I've not tried it. Yeah.
Speaker 1
[00.38.18]
Okay okay. Nobody has tried it. I expensive. Yeah I get so blurry. You know, I have this like migraine thing. So every time I plug something on to my face, I feel, oh, God. So, like, you know, uncomfortable. So I tried it. I really liked it. But what? I pay $4,000 for it. I don't think so. Probably not. And meta is doing much better on this, even though I guess meta was being blamed for like spending billions of dollars on on this like, AR VR thing. Um, so what are your thoughts about like, meta? Because nobody talks about it that much anymore than a recent talk, which I think I think people really underestimate what matters gonna do. I remember I was listening to Joe Rogan, another Joe Rogan podcast. Mark Zuckerberg was on it, and he was explaining his, like, long term vision for like, what meta will do is the idea of like, contact lenses so you can connect the internet while you see. And it sounds so I guess like Black Mirror esque, like, you know, like just so dystopian. But I really took a minute to think, and it does seem kind of trivial, the idea of you have to like, use like your hands and everything to be able to access the internet. Like, you have Elon coming up with Neuralink in so many different ways, that the internet has become a basic necessity for humans at this point. And I think the idea becomes meta already has their like Ray-Ban glasses to like, have smart glasses partnership with their Ray-Ban smart. And so now I think the next like real growth will be in this idea of like not even VR, but like
Speaker 3
[00.39.42]
actual just contact lenses that can connect to the internet. And you can see it while I'm talking to you and things like that. I think that's
Speaker 1
[00.39.48]
actually smart. Yeah. It's like, what do you think about, like just in general, this VR thing? I guess younger people maybe are using it more younger than us, but. You know, if you're going to high school. But what do you think about
Speaker 2
[00.39.58]
this? Well, did you see the, um, the advertisement on the table here? Right. I feel like that's going to be the future. Like, I don't know. As soon as you said the contact lens, I was like, oh my God. Now, the entire world. Because the advertising space, you walk down the street, every street corner, every building, you know, the entirety becomes an advertising center. So I think that's the that's the Black Mirror version. Um, I don't know. Honestly, I feel like VR is still like ten years away because we still have problems where, you know, people have blurriness or people who have, like, I have terrible eyes, right? So I need very like strong prescription. So if I got like the Apple vision, I'd have to get, you know, these thick lenses to go into it. And I don't really want to put that on top of my glasses like so. So many people wear glasses like 50% of the population. And so I feel like that's a really tough thing to get out. But, um, maybe if media can make it cheap enough that people are going to going to use it. But I think like the like the reason like phones took off is because it was immediately useful, right? It's like, okay, this replaces my existing mobile phone and I'm going to use it right now. I don't think it's clear to people like, what am I going to use VR and AR for? What am I going to use for? What am I going to use it for right now? That's going to be incredibly life changing for
Speaker 3
[00.41.16]
me. Yeah, yeah. I think like talking about versions of games. I do think there's some sort of like market value for it. If something like, like the content is available, I think people will do it because think about like the most successful game in the last decade was Grand Theft Auto five, right? And it was basically like a game building. It's like a world building. You have this world of, you know, Los Santos and you have like, you can you can be whoever you want. You can buy properties, buy cars, play missions. I think that really attracts to not only just young people, but also like, you know, middle aged folks as well. I think that's something surprises me even on to this day. Like, um, I personally don't play any games, but sometimes I do, uh, watch YouTube gamers play it, and I feel like this sort of satisfaction. Um, so, so, um, where do you think about this, like gaming industry in
Speaker 1
[00.42.04]
general? Because some people, some of our listeners might be, oh, maybe, you know, it's good to buy stocks in like, say, two or the other big players out
Speaker 3
[00.42.11]
there. Yeah, I will say one thing. I think the way I kind of view what gaming will become is a little bit different and more nuanced is this idea that for the longest time we've had to have like a world building that another developer did, right? I think we'll get to a point where we have strong enough, like AI, that the world building can be done with, just like what you want. Like, you know, like your thoughts, like your own prompting.
Speaker 1
[00.42.33]
And then, for example, I think, like, people stop watching television and now they kind of go on their phone on TikTok, the For You page. Right? That's kind of what your television it's like very private. It's like it's only like your own thing. Like my for You page will be completely different from yours. From yours. And so then I think the idea is like, I don't know if gaming will be this like cultural thing. The way when we grew up watching TV, we all were waiting for the next episode of SpongeBob and we talked about in class. Now
Speaker 3
[00.42.59]
it's like, that doesn't really happen anymore. It's like, you know, you'll watch like your own show on Netflix. You'll watch whatever. I think gaming is kind of heading into that direction, too, of like very like a monocultural, um,
Speaker 1
[00.43.09]
point. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of Netflix, I guess, um, many people were bullish about Netflix in 2017, and I was like, oh, I don't think it's. I don't think this is going to work, but I think Netflix took off by like a significant, uh, margin in terms of stock prices. And I think Netflix model was that we have $100 million. We're going to throw away different parts of the world and see what what sticks. And I think their model was essentially moving production away from LA to other parts of the world, like Korea, Mexico, um, somewhere else and then somewhere else that does like cheap movie productions. They don't hire the first rated stars. They hire stars that, um, happen, you know, maybe above middle tier in terms of like the start value. Um, so I think that's interesting trend. Like, what do you think, do you think that applies to the industry as well as we go through this AI trend, is it more just like going offshore, hiring folks who are outside of the major democracies and saving costs? Is that the trend that's already happening? Well, I think everyone thought everything becomes more global. And then I have tariffs in the United States. So, so much for that. Um, I just did want to say one thing on Netflix because I think, like, you know, back in the day, they were more of a tech company, right? It was more it was like, oh, five bucks a month for Netflix. And they had to do a ton of work to make sure that their technology was better than anyone else's, that being able to stream. And they did a great job doing that. And now it's a weird situation where they have so many competitors that now it's more about the content. Right. Yeah. Um, they need to have better content than everyone else. So, yeah, I mean, I think they did a great job. You know, doing Squid Games in Korea and trying to get international content because, like, that's what they need to do to survive. They must continue to create the best content out there that people are going to, you know, exclusively subscribe to Netflix. And, um, you know, as a developer, I feel very weird about this because, you know, humans would ultimately have like a, you know, a protocol for content that they'd be able to utilize and, and,
Speaker 3
[00.45.09]
uh, and stream over the internet. And this seems very far from that. But, uh, you know, it is what it is. Capitalism exists. So
Speaker 1
[00.45.18]
what do you think about the Netflix
Speaker 3
[00.45.19]
model in general, and
Speaker 1
[00.45.21]
is there something you like about it you don't like about it? What do you think is going to happen the next couple of
Speaker 3
[00.45.25]
years? One thing I want to connect back, just like what we were talking about beforehand. I will say Apple, I think is also doing a great job with Apple TV. I think like they've been churning out like content that a lot of people are watching. Um, and. Oh,
Speaker 2
[00.45.38]
but I watched like. Yeah. It's always this thing where it's like the one show that people keep talking
Speaker 3
[00.45.44]
about. Severance. Right. I think that's
Speaker 2
[00.45.46]
severance. Yeah, people kept talking about it. It's like, oh, it's only on Apple TV. And it's like, okay, well, I've got Netflix, I've got Prime. You know, my roommate has crave like, you know,
Speaker 1
[00.45.55]
like that's me as well. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like it will get to a point where people will subscribe to Apple TV. For me, it just hasn't hit that point yet. Yeah. So maybe that's just one show. Maybe there's like 3 or 4 shows, I think, I think binge that's going to be worthless, especially not a lot. Yeah, I think I think in terms of that it just takes time to build your content library. Right. But I think that's like the one thing Apple is like doing strongly, because I think they copied exactly what Netflix did back in the day when they started investing in House of cards and other games. Um, and then to your original point of Netflix's business model going expanding worldwide, I think that right now can finally start being proven to be like useful outside of just like, good quality shows like with Squid Games, which you can then dub. I think with like AI you can actually dub it much more clean and you can have like the actors real voice. I think like as an anime watcher, like almost anyone will get mad at you if you're watching the English dub, right? And so like like the true Japanese version, I think we're at a point now where like that English dub can still have that same like feel of the character and things like that. And that's really when I think Netflix is like bet on international like media will really take off.
Speaker 2
[00.47.04]
I just had a thought like, what do you guys think happens when I get like, like Netflix's entire model is based on content, but what happens when I becomes sufficiently advanced such that anyone is able to generate content, like on the fly?
Speaker 3
[00.47.20]
I think the problem still becomes it doesn't matter if you can generate something. The point is, like you, I think people underestimate like the value of the wrapper, the value of the UI. Um, sometimes I have like shows on Prime I like, but I just like Netflix's UI a little bit more. Um, I think that's that's sticky. I think that's stickier than, like, people kind of give it credit for. And so in that situation, what happen if people can create their own content? You could see Netflix kind of like maybe inching closer towards how YouTube does it, where maybe you can produce your own content onto the site. And I would like a ranking system and things along those ways. Or
Speaker 2
[00.47.55]
maybe it's personalized, right? Like they they put out content, but they know what you like. And so, you know, you might watch House of
Speaker 1
[00.48.03]
cards, but it might be a different, you know, your house of cards might be different from my house of cards. The ending might be different, you know, like depending on the individual, I don't know. That's an idea. I think it's already happening.
Speaker 3
[00.48.13]
I think they tried that with like, Black Mirror. Right. The game version of it.
Speaker 2
[00.48.16]
Oh yeah. But but that was also weird because you had to keep clicking through it. Yeah, this could happen automatically but I don't know. But but but that's so weird too because then it gets you away from the shared
Speaker 3
[00.48.27]
experience. I think we are getting away from that. Just overall, I don't think that's. Like for the shorter form content, because I don't have an hour like every day just to spend on Netflix. I do podcasts because I can listen to it when I'm at the gym working out, or when I'm like walking or something, or washing dishes. Um, so I feel like it's more the content. Maybe it's geared towards more convenience. For me at least personally, I feel like maybe that's how the trend is going to
Speaker 1
[00.48.56]
be in the future. I don't know what you think. Well, I've just like seen I mean, we had the whole thing with, you know, tragedy and they improved their image model and everyone suddenly was doing everything in Ghibli style, which is awesome. That's so fun. Um, and now and then, you know, you also have the ability to generate videos is to using Sora. Yeah. So the ability to create marketing material, create content, you know, put it out there. Anyone can be a content creator now. Anyone can be an animator. Um, the ability to do that. So the most creative people are going to be able to build an audience and create things. Um, and that's going to, you know, maybe that even becomes stronger. But, uh, but so then, so then, you know, do you have like a certain part of the media, a certain part of the attention that just goes to this type of content where the best people are able to create it. But then, on the other hand, you have, um, you know, a urge for that. People have for like, reality, you know, like where they want to see those old TV
Speaker 2
[00.49.53]
shows. So I think maybe you have both. You know, both extremes that that come to fruition, where you have the entirely generated content that people want the best of. But people also yearn for a normal human interaction, I don't know.
Speaker 3
[00.50.06]
And just for the numbers. So for OpenAI's new image generation. So I think they signed up 1 million new users in a single hour after the trend after the new release. According to their COO, over 130 million users have generated more than 700 images since March 25th was just a week ago.
Speaker 1
[00.50.26]
So what are your thoughts about this? Also, I think Sam, he tweeted this himself. You're saying that when GPT three first came out, it took them five days to get to that 1 million users. Now they're doing it an hour. Things change fast. And I think this is really proven that this business model is something here to stay. I think everyone, at the very least, has the curiosity to go through with ChatGPT to see like how powerful this is.
Speaker 3
[00.50.50]
And I think we're going to see now, like human creation, like to see like where does it take you when like the hurdles of like being able to be a good drawer, aren't there. You know, like how many other, um, I forget the, um, designer of studio Gilby name, but how many versions of him are out there that have an idea in their head? And then I think it's going to be beautiful.
Speaker 1
[00.51.11]
Yeah, I think Canva.
Speaker 2
[00.51.14]
Yeah, well, what do you guys think is more defensible? Do you think the, um, the models like, you know, 3.5 or 3.5, 3.7, do you think the models are more defensible or the wrappers?
Speaker 3
[00.51.27]
The wrappers. Mm. Good question. Depends on depends on I, I think the models, although I do know where it's going to end up. I think it's a race to the bottom just like everything else you know kind of does. But I mean isn't Uber and Lyft kind of race to the bottom. But they're still around today. Well how
Speaker 2
[00.51.44]
many. Well there's Uber there's left. Who else is there. There's there's bolt.
Speaker 1
[00.51.48]
There were more. And I think and I think I was talking more globally. Right. There was like there was uh, those different types of Ubers. Different countries in China, they had Didi and then they had Uber, and then they had like 50 other types of ride sharing. Um, and now it's kind of like Didi just kind of like does everything a little bit. So, um, it's not like they would just all go bankrupt as
Speaker 2
[00.52.11]
well, I guess. But but like but like, okay, you go to New York. What are your options? Okay. Uber, Lyft. You go to Las Vegas. What are your options? Uber Lyft. Yeah, that's the same thing. You go to Paraguay. What are your options? Uber and Bolt okay. Well that's a different one Lyft lifts not there. You go to China. Okay. Yeah you're using Didi. But like they you know they've managed to lock down New York and like most of the United States. Um, and it's not not like Bolt's coming in. It's not like Didi is coming into the United States, right? So. So they do have a monopoly on certain regions, but not worldwide.
Speaker 3
[00.52.43]
Yeah. What do you say? OpenAI's platform is basically a wrapper by itself. Mhm.
Speaker 1
[00.52.49]
Wrap around
Speaker 3
[00.52.50]
AGI, right? I mean, wouldn't wouldn't the the platform. Like that's a platform that's a rapper by itself. It's a rapping multiple different underlying lmms. Right. And then it raps them together into its own platform. But that's still a rapper. So I will say rapper wins. Rapper will get whoever gets the most users. If the 700 million images thing is like real. So I mean, it it is. It's a it's a huge leap compared to quad and the other players, right? Google might be the only one that can be against that because Google has more users. Google. Google pushes me the Gemini updates to my workplace accounts before they're saying, oh, $22 per user per month. And I was like, phew, I'm not doing that right. I'm already paid you so much. And then and then around December, they made it free for my workplace. And now they say, okay, um, no book is free as well, and it's all might be added to your Google Workplace account. I
Speaker 1
[00.53.44]
feel like everything's a rapper, right? Like. And everything will be rappers, right? It'll be rappers upon rappers. Yeah. Um, you know, ChatGPT is a rapper upon the AI models, and then Curser is a rapper on top of ChatGPT. You know, Bitcoin is just a rapper on energy, right? Like, you know, everything. And then and I think that, like, everyone's like, oh, well. Problem with AI is hallucinations, right. And which is a big problem. Well then then you have another, another AI that so you have the AI that writes the code as an agent, and
Speaker 2
[00.54.10]
you have another AI that
Speaker 1
[00.54.12]
reviews the PR like, that's trained on different things. And then like it's you basically creating these, these agents that are just, you know,
Speaker 2
[00.54.19]
reviewing each other's code or reviewing whatever each other is doing just
Speaker 3
[00.54.22]
like humans do, which is bizarre. I think the big thing was like, uh, cursor AI, which, um, I'm sure many of our listeners have heard about, it's basically this, this, uh, AI agent that can code for you on your behalf. Yeah. Um, so somehow I think they charge us about 20 to $40 per user per month. And their RR, which is annual recurring revenue, has reportedly had $200 million. And this
Speaker 1
[00.54.45]
company is only two years old, perhaps even less. Yeah. So what does that tell you about, like AI, AI wrappers and, you know, the underlying encoders? Yeah. And I think this goes back to what we were talking before, like with the coders, like, for example, I can't code at all using cursor. I was able to make a like a functional app to a certain extent. The one that you can see something, it's working, you can click stuff through. I think that really starts becoming powerful. And the idea of the rapper, I think that becomes good is I think like any ID that you're going to be downloading anyways, you get used to like what it looks like. You get used to like, oh, where something is, where a button is and that becomes sticky. And so when it comes to like whichever album, you can kind of plug into curser, you don't
Speaker 3
[00.55.27]
really care about that too much as long as the intelligence is there. Right. And so you care more about like the visual feel of it and things along those lines.
Speaker 1
[00.55.34]
Yeah. So I actually disagree.
Speaker 3
[00.55.36]
I just and in fact I agreed with you until yesterday. Okay. So um, I've been using cursor forever. And I was like and people were saying like things about, uh oh, Windsor is really good too. And I was like, okay, well, I'm already in cursor. Cursor is really good. It works for me. Um, and then I saw a tweet of a software engineer that, like, recently got canned. Yeah. And he was like, I don't know what to do. And then Gary can like, retweeted him and was like, uh, hey, man, you need to use, uh, you need to use the proper, uh, the proper machinery, like use windsurf. Right?
Speaker 2
[00.56.11]
Yeah. Um, I was like, oh, damn. Well, he's really he's really harping on windsurf. Maybe I should try it. So I download it and like. Yeah, it's a, it's a super similar interface. Yeah. Um, some aspects just felt like more intuitive. So now now I'm, I'm actually kind of using I'm trying to decide between them. Yeah. So you know, if, if it's just a wrapper that's doing the same thing, then I feel like it's really easy. Like the switching cost is like not that high. If someone has subscribed to something, then going and subscribing to another thing that does the same thing, it's a really low cost. Switching
Speaker 1
[00.56.40]
to the brand doesn't matter.
Speaker 2
[00.56.42]
Yeah, I think so. And unless they're doing something that's a ten x ten x improvement, if they're both doing the same thing, then I feel like it's it's a really easy switching cost. But I think the key there is if you can build your business and you can build something unique into it that no one else can do, or you just keep improving on the UI substantially. You know, people are still are going to continue doing that and not that many people switch. So. Yeah. Um, I don't know. It's a hard game too, because it also means that more incumbents can come in. Who's to stop someone else from creating an alternative cursor that's cheaper? Um, using like x, y, z models instead. So.
Speaker 1
[00.57.16]
And I guess what? Why has changed since like the Web2 era. Like let's say like Salesforce, right? I mean, Salesforce was like a successful CRM because it connects everything for your enterprise systems. But there are also other CRM that I personally find useful. But Salesforce is the biggest one. So, um, so you think that's no longer the case for
Speaker 3
[00.57.35]
the future? Well, I think there's just an opportunity for customization of everything, right? You know, people don't have whatever software you could dream up that would help your life, you know, is easier to build now than it ever has been. So, you know, if a particular business needs this widget or that widget for their particular use case, well, maybe you know that that code can be written substantially faster for them, or this other business needs something added for them. Um, I think the like age of customization of software is like upon us. And, um, I think it's exciting because it means that new businesses can be created. Businesses that were never possible before are now economical to be created in short periods of time. Um, are they all going to be created by five coders? Okay. Probably not. But, uh, you know, a combination of, you know, skilled coders and I, I think can churn out a lot of code really quickly because, you know, you're just as a senior coder, you can go in there and you can you basically reviewing the code of a junior to make sure it's good to be able to push that out faster. Mhm. Yeah. So, um, what do you think about like the like the dynamics of like software. Um, developers basically like software companies in this paradigm because even for me I like my company obviously built software. Um, and even I'm feeling a little bit under, you know, we're focused on a very niche sector construction. Um, is that okay? What's stopping someone from building something? Or in like two years, right? So it's just this, like, risk of being, like, obsolete. Perhaps even though there's like, no five year old and it's not happening right for us. But, I mean, who else to say it's not gonna happen in two years? Yeah, right. I mean, same
Speaker 1
[00.59.08]
for math company. Same reference company. Um, so what are your thoughts about this new paradigm? I'll say one thing. I think I'll draw a parallel to when Myspace and Facebook were fighting for who will be the social media. The way Myspace kind of approached it was be pure customization. Right. Like your entire page, you could have a background how you want. You have buttons the way you want, like just so much. And you could have music playing like a lot of things like that, right? Like pure customization. Wind up happening though is most people aren't really designers, right? Like most people, when you go on their profile, it becomes clunky. It doesn't look the best or things feel out of place, you know? So if it's something personal, like, you know, on your phone when you like are customizing on Android, for example, you're okay with it being a little bit messy because it's just for you. But if like you have, you have a company that's for more than just one person,
Speaker 3
[00.59.56]
I still think there has to be like a publisher, just somebody that's coming in there the way Facebook came in. You know, it's like a clean UI, like a timeline that you can kind of use and kind of grow into and things along those lines. And so I still think overall software like certain companies may be going like lower, but overall they're still will be winners. Like that come out from this in my
Speaker 1
[01.00.17]
opinion. Yeah. Now what do you think is your software developer CTO yourself? You you write a lot of code
Speaker 3
[01.00.23]
space. I think. Yeah. I hadn't thought of it that way. Like what you just said. So I'm like, basically the fact that you need a polisher, like, I guess, like, for me, like, I always want to create things, so like, I'm, you know, like like I want I, I will literally write code for things to be the way that I want them to be. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2
[01.00.43]
But but okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Most
Speaker 3
[01.00.45]
people aren't like that. But but maybe, maybe they're more inclined to be because they can describe, like, what they want. And and maybe it's maybe it's the polisher that puts the, you know, I think like maybe we just have a, we have we have more of an economy or software that's created, which is a combination of polishers and like creators and, and, and it becomes easier and easier for, you know, more software to be created and more polishers to come in and make it easy for people. But like, okay, do I think something like Spotify is going to change dramatically? Okay. Probably not. Uh, do I think something like dashboards like for traders is going to change dramatically? Yeah, probably because, you know, the cost of doing that and the cost of creating those type of dashboards becomes much lower. And every trader is different. Um, so yeah, I think, I think for, for certain things it stays the same. And other things like you have an explosion of customization, but it depends on the industry. That makes sense.
Speaker 1
[01.01.41]
Yeah, I think and I think we have covered a lot of things in this episode. Um, I actually have more topics I want to talk about, but why don't we stay tuned for the next one? Um, so yeah, thank you everyone for listening in to our podcast. Um, Max and I were thinking of launching community very soon on discord and on Twitter and on other streaming platforms. Um, so if you like the episode, please subscribe and stay tuned for the updates. Um, you can find our Twitter handles and communities in the description. Thank
Speaker 3
[01.02.07]
you. Sounds good.
Speaker 2
[01.02.09]
Great. Um.