#780: Cyan Banister — From Homeless and Broke to Top Angel Investor (Uber, SpaceX, and 100+ More)

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and gents. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, and this conversation is a long overdue conversation. I have been wanting to make this happen for quite some time. My guest today, Cyan Bannister, is a general partner at Long Journey Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm. She was also an early investor. investor in a few names you might recognize, Uber, SpaceX, DeepMind, Flexport, a firm, and has invested in more than one hundred companies. He was most recently a founders fund I was actually an Alpinian Founders fund way back in the day, a top tier fund in San Francisco. You can subscribe to Cyan Substack at Ugly Duckling.substack.com. Her writing is great, I would recommend. subscribing and you can find her online at least on X, the artist formerly known as Twitter at Scientist, one of the best handles I've seen, C Y A N T I S T.

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5:52 Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So then I also do those questions. Now it is. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscellar. Yeah.

6:17 Syan, nice to see you. Good to see you. So we just Listed off using the royal W. Mm. Some very impressive names.

6:24 And certainly I would consider you one of the Top angel investors. Uh Many vtages, not just one across quite a few different time periods.

6:37 But It didn't start off that way. You weren't The Child of Tim Draper. Or anything.

6:45 Leading. to athertin at age seven, things along these lines. Could you take us back to homelessness? in your life and how that factors in. I was raised on the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona.

7:00 And I had an extraordinary education. And I think I was incredibly lucky. to have been educated there because I

7:09 have about the equivalent of an eighth or ninth grade education. And The reason for this is Due to circumstances outside of my control. I became homeless off and on when I was thirteen.

7:20 And then homeless officially when I was fifteen. And became a ward of the state of Arizona. And this was because My mother She had a very difficult time keeping children in her house.

7:32 Past the age of thirteen, my sister was removed from the house when she was a teenager. My brother was removed when he was a a young boy. S

7:43 to Dive into a couple of things you mentioned and if you don't want to cover any of this, we don't need to, but The first is, I suppose, a question a lot of listeners will have on their mind, which is what was it like for you? growing up on A reservation. What are some of the

8:02 memories that stand out or characteristics that stand out. Well, first of all. I I'm white. And so being on a reservation, I was a minority.

8:12 And it gave me a really unique perspective. around being a minority. When I was a kid, I thought I was an albino Indian. I just thought that I'd lost my melanin.

8:23 And the other kids treated me the same. 'Cause when you're a child and you're small, you don't know anything about racism, you don't know anything about being another. You start to notice these things. But You definitely don't treat each other differently.

8:36 But as we started to get older Uh, that's when the name calling started. That's when A little bit of the bullying started from other kids. And I can only suspect that they learn this at home.

8:50 You know, or they witnessed it someplace else because it certainly was not Something they were born with. And I'm happy that I experienced this because There is a lot of

9:01 Prejudice in this world. And I would say there's probably a lot more prejudice than there's actually racism. But experiencing that really taught me what it's like to walk in those shoes and made me

9:14 hyperaware of it when I became an adult. The other thing is the culture is just a really rich culture. And it's very different than any other place you could ever live. I really recommend that people visit the Navajo reservation or any of the reservations that allow visitors

9:31 Because It's hard to believe. That That's in America. You know, because there's this

9:37 Amazing swath of land. With a Old ancient culture. that they preserve. And

9:45 There's just a lot of things that happen there that you can't experience any other place and it's right here if you're in America in your back door. And so Being able to go and experience a ceremony or get a guided tour down a canyon. is something that

9:59 I really recommend that everybody do. But when I was little There were no guides. I would just walk down into canyons and Explore ruins and The kids and I would run free and wild. It was a very different time. But

10:13 I also have a little bit of an accent. I don't know if you notice it. But If you go to the Navajo reservation, you will see that people speak the way I speak. And there's just not a lot of variation in In my tone.

10:25 And then it just sort of goes up and down in a certain way that's very specific to that region. It's created some confusion for me because culturally I am Native American. And

10:36 that has always been Bizarre when I moved. to a place where people didn't understand our customs and The things that we respected and the You know, the holidays that

10:47 We observed or the Customs that we had. Or just not anything that anybody I went to school with. after I left the reservation even understood. So I've always felt like an outsider, no matter where I am.

11:00 And I think That's been wonderful and incredible for my career. You can certainly look at that and have kind of a victim mindset about it. But I took the opposite path, which was You know, this is

11:14 What makes me special is that I don't fit in wherever I am. Can have a lot of questions about that. Yeah. Before I get there. And this is again referring to something you mentioned, that your mom had a hard time keeping kids

11:28 in the home. What are some of the reasons why kids were removed from the home by the state or otherwise? My sister was removed first, but I was told A lie. about her removal. I was told that she

11:41 ran away from home. And was right after my brother was born. And We went out trick or treating.

11:49 And my child mind remembers it is happening the next day, but maybe it wasn't the next day, but my sister's room was vacant and empty. And suddenly my little brother was in it. And I was expected to just Roll with it. And when I asked where she was

12:04 I was told she doesn't want to live here anymore and she ran away. But reality was quite different. About a year later or so, I went to go visit my grandparents and discovered that that's where my sister had been the whole time. And My mother was afraid that she was gonna hurt the new baby.

12:21 That your sister would harm the new baby. Yeah, that my sister would harm the baby. And I don't know where this fear comes from. There was nothing rational about it from my point of view, there wasn't enough room for another kid.

12:34 And so we had to make room and suddenly One was just replaced with the other. And That was very weird because my sister was my best friend in the world. She looked after me. We were incredibly close.

12:46 And then she was just ripped away. Luckily I bonded with my brother. I could easily see how that could have gone South. Where I would have been filled with Disapproval or

12:57 I would be upset about having that situation, but he was just really lovely and I love my brother. But when my brother was three years old, he was removed from the house next. And that was in a really contentious Divorce.

13:11 where a custody battle happened and then my mother tried to uh implant false memories. with me, she had us Try to perjure ourselves in court. And

13:22 I really feel that this is when my mother and I completely fell out. I refuse to testify against my stepfather and accuse him of abuses that she tried to plant in my memory. And I think this is important to highlight because a lot of people don't talk about

13:40 Female abuse? They talk about usually men. But my mother was incredibly abusive. In very interesting ways. You know, it wasn't screaming, it wasn't hitting, it was

13:52 Neglect and it was These social manipulations. And Unknown to me, I'm in my mother's truck. And it was still moving when she made the ask for me to lie in court.

14:05 And I jumped out of the truck and I rolled on the ground and I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran until I could Find a phone and I called the number that I had on me for our child psychologist that I had no idea it was court appointed. I thought it was just someone my mom was having me see. And then I could confide in him.

14:23 And I called him and told him what my mother had asked me to do. Which was to lie about my stepfather Molesting me. Which he did not. And

14:34 It all happened very quickly after that. My brother was removed. Pretty much the in the next forty eight hours from the home. And she lost custody of him. Now why she didn't lose custody of me I s still remains a mystery because I was the last Children.

14:47 In the house. That made me like the sole focus of her eye after that. And I'm also the kid who You know, refuse to Fall in line and and tell a lie.

14:59 And so we were at odds with each other. It just was never the same after that. And we moved to Flagstaff, Arizona. She quit her job on the reservation as a teacher and decided to become a scientist. So before this she had an M FA in arts And I suspect that she wanted to get another degree in science because the the man that she had divorced was a scientist.

15:20 She wanted to prove that she is intelligent. My mother's incredibly intelligent. One of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. So I don't know why she had to prove this to anybody. But she went back to school and

15:33 started taking up many jobs. So she would have one or two jobs and go to school full time. And at that point I was pretty much left to my own devices. And she would come home. after work and That's usually when I would get kicked out.

15:47 Or she'd be angry with how I didn't clean or keep the house and It was just a constant cycle. of being kicked out, the police getting called, me getting picked up by the police, ending up in jail sometimes. It's a horrible system for kids, by the way, if we want to get into that topic. Into foster care and into group homes.

16:04 But Eventually. They had enough of this. So she left me for a summer. And

16:13 Basically she decided to go take a Position it Lawrence Livermore. a summer job or a summer research position. And she wanted me to come with her, but I had to go to summer school and I had to stay in school if I was gonna graduate.

16:27 'Cause home life was really, really bad. And so I told her about my desire to stay home. And She said no. But

16:36 The next thing that happened I did not expect, which is I came home From school. And discovered a twenty dollar bill on the countertop. With a note that said good luck. And her stuff gone.

16:46 And so the landlord showed up and basically said, You can't stay here. And so I went out on the street and The most miraculous thing happened. A lot of My life is a serious of miraculous things where people have stepped in at just the right moment to help me.

17:00 And there was a woman Who is my friend Becky from Band class. It was her mother. Who saw me sitting around the street corner crying and she pulled her car over and she said, What's going on? And I just started mumbling to her about what's going on and she just said, Get in.

17:15 And she took me home. I had no idea that Becky's dad was the general manager of Walmart. I had a nasty shoplifting habit. As a young teenager. And that Walmart I hit up a few times and I will never forget coming into that home and seeing that man who was opening his home to me.

17:34 and really questioning my life choices and moral decisions at that moment. really taught me a really valuable lesson I never stole again. And This family took me in and they tried to actually get custody of me. They tried to go to the court systems and become my forever home.

17:51 But my mother got back and You know, she has this racket that she runs where You know, you have these kids and they're really useful for pre education for free. Child care for free housing.

18:04 And so, you know, we lived in student housing and if you don't have a kid, you can't live in student housing. You can't have a nice house. You have to live in a dorm room. So when she came back, she got me back and That's when the cycle of kicking me out Start it all over again.

18:19 And eventually I got picked up by a police officer named Officer Pratt. That's actually something I would love to find through this podcast if I can find Officer Pratt. Officer Pratt. probably did one of the most single important things in my life in helping me.

18:33 He Picked me up and brought me to the courthouse'cause he arrested me several times. And this is in Flagstaff. Yeah, and Flagstaff. He did something he'd never done before and he took me to Dairy Clean. And he let me get whatever I wanted. And I was like, Well, this is weird.

18:49 And then he took me to the courthouse and then he paraded me into the courthouse and he let me sit where the judge sits. And I was like, This is very strange. And he said, Would you like some spaghetti? And he brought me spaghetti. And I'm like why everybody's being so nice to me. And then this woman came in and she introduced herself and she told me she was my public defender and I was confused about a lot of this terminology'cause I didn't understand what I needed to be defended from. Like what did I do to the public?

19:14 I remember thinking like I don't know what this means. None of this it's like cosplay as far as I'm concerned. And But they basically told me like when the judge comes in You are to stand, you are to say your honor, you are to say Yes, your honor, no, your honor, and you are to sit.

19:30 And That's it. you know, just behave yourself. We got the rest. And I'm like, Okay, but I don't understand what's going on. And then my mother came into the right of the courtroom. And I'm on the left.

19:41 And I look at her and she never looks at me. And The judge came in, it all happened again. This stuff happens so fast and time just I don't know, it's hard to explain, but it changes. It like dilates. But he looked at me and he said, Cyan, do you want to live in a cardboard box for the rest of your life?

19:57 And he held up some book, which I assume is The book of the law. I had no idea what he was holding up. Yeah. I said, no, I do not want to live in a cardboard box and he was like, is there anything in this

20:07 book that tells you that you are above the law. And I said, No, Your Honor, I I'm not above the law. And then he looked at my mother and he said Do you want this child anymore? And she said, No, I do not. And the gavel just came down and he said by you know

20:23 The power invested in him and all that stuff and Basically said that I was now awarded the state of Arizona. And What that means in Arizona, it is not emancipation. It's you get assigned a probation officer. And you're treated like a criminal.

20:38 If you want to live on your own, which is very, very difficult to do, if you can imagine at fifteen, there's not a lot of people that will hire you. Not people will rent to you, you can't sign a contract. Either. They basically said, You have twenty four hours to find a place to live, otherwise you end up in a group home. And

20:54 The rules of living on your own are you have to be in at nine o'clock. There's a curfew, you're not allowed to have boys over, you're not allowed to have marijuana, you have to work and you have to go to school. And then the strangest one of all was you had to have a gallon of milk in your fridge. At all times. Because they would show up and that was like sign of adulting.

21:10 is if you can buy a gallon of milk and keep it fresh in your fridge. before the expiration date. It was the strangest thing. But I walked out of that courtroom. I saw my mom again twice after that, but I didn't see my mom leave and I she never looked at me.

21:27 She just exited out some other door and that was the end of my mother. And suddenly I'm a quote unquote. independent person, not quite an adult. I go out and sit on the curb and I remember looking up at the sky and I said Oh sky

21:41 What do I do? What now? Because they gave me twenty four hours to find a place to live. They said, if you don't find a place to live, you know, you're going into an unfortunate circumstance. And so I went through my mental map of how many friends did I have that were adults. And this one woman Pam just came in crystal clear and I said, I'm gonna walk to Pam's

22:02 I'm gonna ask her if I can stay there. And that's gonna Give me some time. And so I walked over there, knocked on the door, Pam, can I stay here? She had no problem. She said, Come in, she gave me a corner on the floor. I didn't have a mattress.

22:16 She said, I recommend you get a pillow, but here's a blanket. And that became my home. I think you're gonna see over and over I didn't see it then, I see it now looking back. At all of these precious moments where a person does Something extraordinary.

22:30 At just the right time. And that's what Pam did and I had my first home. And that was in flags, yeah. It was next to the train tracks, so it was a very strange home. It rumbled a lot. And we got into a lot of shenanigans with the train'cause we were young and dumb, but it was a great home.

22:47 What? Helped. save you or put you on the trajectory to where you are today. Given those Starting conditions, let's call it.

22:58 See your Sleeping On the floor. At least to begin at Pam's house. Mm-hmm.

23:05 Looking back. What do you think were the Critical moments, decisions. Anything at all. If you had to point to

23:15 one or a few things that helped to bend the arc of your life to not go to A terrible place because I Could see how many people. With the experience you just described. Could end up.

23:29 Junkies could end up, dead could end up. Who knows? But certainly. Not operating at a free. High level. And with some very good reasons.

23:41 neglect, trauma, fill in the blank, right? So what are some of the things that saved you? Well I don't know if you've ever seen those crusty punk kids that hang out on Hayton Ashbury or you see them in every City. has any kind of population and they're usually sitting around a record store on the ground with a dog. Yeah. Sure.

23:58 Yeah. Well I was one of those kids. And I fell into that group. In Flagstaff. There was a

24:05 Group of wanderers who came in and took me under their wing. And Start teaching me the way of the streets because before this I was thrust onto the streets and I was on my own and I did my best.

24:18 You know, I would stay under people's beds, I would sleep in playgrounds. I would find any place I could stay. But Once I met Some people who are a little more professional and had a little more time.

24:29 Under their belt. And homelessness? I started to learn that there's a whole world out there. uh really interesting ways to get by. For example

24:39 Yeah, there's Coffee houses that have creamer and creamer is relatively free and it has fat and calories in it. And they have sugar and honey. And if you get those things and you put them in a cup, you can have a pretty nutritious meal. So there's things like that.

24:54 Once you're homeless, you can never be unhomeless. It's really strange. Every time I walk around at a conference or anything, I see all the waste. I see If I were a homeless person, I could come and I could have this, no matter where I'm at. It's really interesting. But Before I got this house.

25:10 There was a time where I was Homeless and hitchhiking. And My boyfriend at the time who was one of these crusty punk kids. He goes by the name Cuddles.

25:20 They all had these funny Names. And He and I decided we were gonna hitchhike to New York. We got it in our heads from At the time Phoenix, I was in Phoenix.

25:29 We set out. Leaving from a coffee shop in Tempe, Arizona. and ending up in Hemez Springs, New Mexico. We never made it to New York. Instead, we ended up in a hippie commune. Where they

25:43 Basically had us Barry Pipe. to you know, justify our stay there. And then at the time they had psilocybin spores. I don't know if they still do that or they're still around. Don't want to get them in trouble, but That's how they made their income. And

25:57 We lived in this little teeny tiny trailer in the dead end winter. At some point I got homesick. I couldn't take it anymore. I was just like I need to go back to Arizona. I need to be in familiar territory. This is a very strange place to be and there is constantly Different people showing up.

26:15 Sometimes the police would come and raid the place because there were people giving illegal tattoos. It was just nonstop stuff. I wanted to be away from it. So I Talked my boyfriend into hitchhiking back to Arizona. And I almost died on that return trip.

26:31 A lot of times you're very lucky if you hitch a ride where someone takes you the full way. Usually you get like these little partial waves and then you have to stand on the sh you know Somewhere and then someone takes you another segment and another segment. Well, we got dropped off on one side of Albuquerque, New Mexico. And we had to walk from one side to the other and cross a river.

26:49 But crossing a river as a homeless person is actually not that easy because a lot of the roadways don't have sidewalks. So we were contemplating some seriously dangerous things. We were thinking about looking around for flotation devices. Like how are we gonna get across

27:04 this river, you know, and eventually we didn't have a map. We just walked and walked and walked until there was a pedestrian way, which we finally found. And the reason why This is weird is that it was so cold. So we were desperate to find heat, to find some place where we could sleep for the evening and having no luck.

27:21 Eventually we Did make it to the other side of the river. A car heading towards Flagstaff. And we hold up an a Denny's and we did that for quite some time, but eventually

27:32 During a shift change, they were just like, You gotta get out of here. And we went and slept in a dumpster outside of a gas station. And eventually when the sun rose We went out to the highway and we stuck our thumb out and nobody would stop. But this R V apparently had gone I didn't notice it, but had gone by several times.

27:51 And He stopped. And he uh opened the door and he said I'm gonna save her. But I guess you're along with the package.

28:01 But God told me to save her. Now what required saving? What was your condition at the time? I was developing hypothermia. So I was on the side of the road and I started to fall asleep. And I was getting really warm.

28:15 It's not a good sign. I was getting really warm and very sleepy. And happy. And if you're in a very cold place where it's below freezing and you start to feel those things, that is like a very Dangerous warning sign. And he stopped at just the right time when I thought

28:30 I was gonna lose consciousness and it was just gone. It was over for me. And he pulled me with long with cuddles into the R V And they put blankets around me. They did whatever they knew how to do because they didn't understand what to do when someone has hypothermia. And gave me hot chocolate and just

28:47 The next thing I know, I wake up in Flagstaff. This guy took me all the way Hm. And He just told me that it was God that told him and at the time I didn't believe in God.

28:59 I had no reason to believe in God in my Attitude. God, if there was one. was how could a God Do this to me.

29:07 And do this to other people and allow these atrocities to exist. In the first place. So I just thanked him and I was like, you know, I'm so glad that God spoke to you. Thank you so much.

29:17 That Put me Again on an interesting trajectory because When I experienced homelessness again after that, I decided I didn't

29:27 want to rely on other people. I think the whole experience taught me How My life was just so dependent on spare changing and the kindness of others and I needed to come up with a way to provide for myself.

29:43 And I didn't know how. I was underage. I couldn't work, you know, minimum wage and age requirements. I have a controversial view on them. I'm not saying that people should have child labor.

29:55 But I am saying that it draws a line and sometimes it's the difference between life and death for a lot of people. And For me I almost died many times because I couldn't eat or couldn't have a place to sleep and I was cold and just you have to get very, very resourceful.

30:10 I had to figure out something. So what I started doing was There's these Donation centers. where people donate clothes or they donate books or things like that. And I found a place that allowed homeless people to take three things every day. So you

30:24 Basically check in and you're allowed to take three items. And I would go in and find items that I could sell to Buffalo Exchange. Or I could take to a bookstore. So Buffalo Exchange, is it fair to describe there's there's one probably a few miles from where I'm just sitting right now. A vintage clothing.

30:40 store where folks can come in and buy various Pieces of used clothing, is that a fair description? Just for people who don't know it. Yeah. But I developed a really good eye for what people like to buy at the time.

30:53 And this was in Timpe, Arizona, where there's college kids and so college kids throw out the coolest stuff. The books were great too because you could get a really nice premium on books if you could find a good textbook or something like that. But my job was to make two dollars a day. If I could make two dollars a day, I could afford a bagel. Cream cheese.

31:10 If I was lucky in ninety nine cent whopper. And if I was extra lucky, I got a bowl of rice and some vegetables from my favorite Vietnamese joint over on Mill Avenue. And that was all that mattered during the day. And once you were done with that task, you just got to lay around. Swim in fountains. You know, walk around, take creamers from coffee shops. I mean, life was grand.

31:31 But The seeds of self reliance were planted then, and I honestly think the beginnings of my love for capitalism. Because Then somebody taught me how to make jewelry, hemp jewelry in in particular.

31:44 And gave me some hemp jewelry and some beads. taught me how to braid them and I made some really beautiful jewelry and I would go from table to table. I was one of those people that would annoy you during dinner. Coffee when you're out on a date. And guilt you into buying a necklace. And

31:58 I would sell them and Eventually I made enough money to pay for rent. The other interesting thing that I wanna bring up During this as well. Is

32:07 I have two mothers. So when I speak about my mother, there's my mother who gave birth to me, but there's also This guy cuddles the homeless guy's mother. who had basically adopted me. And

32:18 Eventually I moved in with her. When I arrived. with her, I couldn't look you in the eye. I would always like look at my feet. I couldn't make eye contact. I would not be able to have this conversation that you and I are having, Tim. It just wouldn't happen. I would shiver constantly. I was a mess.

32:35 But she looked at me and she said, You're gonna look at me when I talk to you. They're gonna stand up straight. You're gonna wear respectable clothing. You're gonna bathe. You're gonna brush your teeth.

32:44 You're gonna do all the things that Your other motherfu Didn't do. And didn't tell you to do. And

32:52 She's my mother to this day. She always gets upset when I talk about mother because she's like, That's not me, that's not me. But she's the most amazing woman and I still I'm in touch with her.

33:03 And I've just was really lucky to have found a boyfriend who had an amazing mother And you might wonder why was he homeless? Some people are homeless because they romanticize it. You know, I was out there because I had to be there, but he was out there because he read Jack Karawak or something. I was just gonna say like Dharma Bums or something. Yeah, and he probably just read Dharma Bums and was like

33:22 I'm heading out. So his situation was totally different. And He brought me home. To meet his mother he was

33:29 I mean this is scandalous today, but he was nineteen, I was fifteen. And she was like, Oh my gosh, what are you doing? This kid is she's a kid. But She saw my situation. Yeah.

33:41 She saw what I was going through and He saved me in so many ways. He was my protector. He was my bodyguard. Like you said, I could have ended up on drugs. I could have ended up dead. I could have ended up I was in

33:53 You know, squat houses where people were shooting a parouin. But he kept me away from all of this stuff. And I'm not sure what possessed him to because at first I wasn't even his girlfriend. I was just his tag along Yeah, buddy that

34:07 Hitchhiked with him and Sleep in squats with him. But eventually we became something and then he just looked after me and it another special person who just did something really incredible for me. But when I was on the streets. Selling necklaces. I also took up a little hobby of spray painting clothing.

34:23 with stencils and I learned how to silk screen. And that's when I met my first customer. His name's Chris Collins and I had put my t shirts and my patches that I was making of some DIY punk rock bands. So I was really into these like British punk rock bands at the time. And I see this guy walk by with a jumpsuit and he's wearing

34:43 A patch. From this band called Crash. I don't know if you're familiar with any of the old punk bands from the seventies. Yeah, yeah. We said the nature of your oppression is the aesthetic of our anger. I remember exactly what it says.

34:56 And I stopped him and I said, Hey I made that. And he turned around and he sees this homeless chick and he's like, Yeah. Prove it. And I said, Well, you bought it at either East Side Records or you bought it

35:07 At one of these places that I would Can sign the mat. And he said, You're right, that was where I got it. So he sat down with me and he explained that his mother ran a sign shop. But the most important thing that he did was He asked me to come and spend time with him.

35:22 On his computer. And I was like Computers are portable now? This is weird. I didn't know you could do that. And I blew him off for a while, but a month later or so I saw him at a coffee shop and he was on a laptop and it was my first time ever seeing a portable computer and it was like

35:38 I don't know. I was in heaven. I came over to him and I said, Well, what can we do with this? And he says, Well, what can't you do with it? He's like, Let's go get online and I'll show you. So we found a place to do dial up connection and I remember hearing a modem for the first time and he started showing me this thing called IRC.

35:54 And how I could meet friends from all over the world. And back then there wasn't a search engine, so there was like linked sites that you had to go to and you had to like discover content. But I knew that no matter what it took

36:07 I had to be a part of that world. So he and all of his hacker friends basically started wooing me over to their side. They're like, You don't want to hang out with these crusty punk kids. You don't want this life, you want to learn about Unix and you wanna do this stuff with us. You wanna be a hacker chick.

36:25 And so They basically Encouraged me to be bigger, to think bigger. And to start reading and start studying. And they bought me books and they got me my first computer.

36:36 Again, I credit people. magical moments where people just sort of step into my life at just the right moment. And me paying attention, if you will, if I had a part to play in this. is paying attention when those moments arrive.

36:49 And Seizing them. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. There is a lot happening in the US and global economies right now. A lot.

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38:01 So let me hop around a little bit. So I want to bring us a little closer to the current day and we're probably gonna bounce back and forth, but The Curiosity. that you exhibit the

38:17 Ability to I don't want to say put yourself in the right place at the right time, but somehow increase the surface area to which that type of experience can stick seems to also translate to how you have I don't even know if this is the right term to use, but sourced some of your very successful. Angel investments. Some of them don't seem to travel what we might consider a typical Harvard business school case study type of path. No. So could you share just a few of those?

38:48 So that people get a taste. Yeah, I'll start with Uber. The Uber story is really fascinating because it starts with a thesis. So they all start with a thesis. And then eventually I'm just gonna say maybe the universe just puts the people in front of me and I have to recognize they're right in front of me. You know, obviously you can walk the other way, you can be asleep to what's being presented. But I developed a thesis around the taxi medallion system.

39:15 And I was fairly libertarian. I still am. And was thinking about how When I go out to get a taxi and it's a rainy day or it's busy outside

39:27 Why wasn't I getting one? Every time I would get into a taxi, I would ask them What is your day like? As soon as you get your car, what happens? And they were like, Well, I'm already two hundred dollars in debt. And I've got to make two hundred dollars and I've got a c there's a clock ticking. because I have to return the car at a certain time.

39:43 And this is why they were driving around like bats out of hell. everybody would complain about taxi drivers and how they drove, it's because they were racing a clock. They were already in debt. And then I asked him, I said, Well Do you own this taxi? And he said, No, you know, we rent them and we have to pick them up and pay for them. There's a guy that

39:58 has the medallion and this was the first time I learned about a medallion. Which is a license that somebody owns that allows you to operate that car. And It got to the point where these medalliz were worth millions of dollars in some cities. They were worth that much in New York.

40:12 And in San Francisco they were worth a lot. In LA they were worth a lot. And so what happens is your retirement plan is you Rent out your medallion to someone who doesn't have a medallion. And you just Make money while you sleep. And that's

40:26 Pretty much the whole plan of taxi drivers everywhere at the time. And I started thinking about how it was unfair. This system. Just kind of like how I thought. Minimum wage was unfair.

40:38 Because if you create a line that means that only certain people can cross it. And some people are privileged and some people are not. Just not to leave that hanging. So minimum wage unfair, just another line or two, meaning that you should be able to charge less and get paid less if you want that to be the case, or that it should be higher.

40:57 When I started working minimum wage was three dollars and fifteen cents an hour. And I would have gladly cleaned your toilet bowl for 25 cents. Because twenty five cents is half a bagel. Again I think we need to allow homeless people and people who are

41:12 In those Lower. financial or economic realms. to make decisions for themselves'cause they actually we know how. You know, we know where that twenty five cents goes and how we're gonna use it. We are very, very acutely aware of every cent in our lives.

41:28 And There were so many jobs I wasn't allowed to have. Now I did end up working at a record store where they did pay me under the table, but think about that. We shouldn't have to break laws. Like that person shouldn't have to

41:40 Do something illegal in order for me to make money. Great. I don't wanna take us too far afield of the The through line, but thank you for that. No problem. All right, so coming back.

41:50 to the Unfair aspects of the Medallion system. The medallion system is incredibly unfair and I started thinking about how could you disrupt taxis and I didn't have a clear answer actually.

42:04 What happened was I was staying at a hotel in San Francisco at the time. And I asked for them to arrange a car for me to SFO. And so they arranged a livery car and it was a guy named Roger. And when he picked me up.

42:19 He told me he said, you know, he got to know me and he ended up giving me several rides to the airport, but one day he picked me up and he handed me a card for a gentleman named Ryan Graves. And he said, I don't know. Anything about investing, but if I were an angel investor, I would put my money into this company. I'm driving for them.

42:36 And basically it's a black livery car on demand. You just text this phone number, you get a car. And I was like, Well, how many drivers are there? And he goes, Well, how many only one? Just me. And I was like, Well, how's it work? And he said, Well, they're paying me by the hour. And I was like, Huh, that's interesting. And he hands me the card and At the time I only invested in companies that were in the Bay Area because it's the ecosystem that I understand. It was how I could actually help founders when they went to raise more money.

43:03 You wanna be kind of locally centric now that After the pandemic, that's less. True. So I just kind of ignored the card, but

43:11 The next ride he brought it up again. The next ride he brought it up again. I started having a collection of Ryan Graves cards. But then I went to Hawaii to this. event held by August Capitol called the Lobby. And

43:25 At the lobby. This conference is centered around The most important discussions happen. by the pool or in a hot tub or in a lobby. And there's content, but it's an unconference. The content is every person there is capable of giving a speech.

43:41 So I was at this event and everybody kind of retired to this very large hot tub. There's about twenty people in the hot tub. That's a huge hot tub. It was big. It was big. And I got in there and Travis Kellanett was in the hot tub. And I observed him. And he had a very distinct demeanor.

43:59 that I had not seen in any founder. He had a lot of gravitas. Like If there was someone who was king of the hot tub that night, it was him. If he was managing the hot tub, it was him. You can just tell this is a person who's gonna lead.

44:12 And He declared in the hot tub that he was working at some company called Red Swoosh. But now he was on the bench or he started a company called Red Swoosh and Sold it. He was on the bench and looking for his next thing.

44:24 And You know, if you're an investor A lot of what we do is It's kind of like reporters. Or

44:30 hackers with zero day wears. You're looking for secrets. You know, we are on the hunt for secrets, for insights that nobody else knows about. Then I got invited to a dinner with him and I observed him some more. I observed how he Talk to people at the dinner table.

44:44 The opinions that he had. And I just thought this person's remarkable. I don't I don't know what he's gonna do, but I'm gonna watch him. About

44:53 Three weeks after or maybe a month after this Lobby thing. Jason Calcanis held this event called Open Angel Forum. And at the time he was sharing his deal flow because it was very much a

45:06 you know, there were party rounds, people would get together Pull in money and a lot of things were done at the earliest stages just by angels. Now institutions are getting into this game, but in the beginning it was just individuals. And I see Travis get up. And pitch this Uber cab thing that my driver's been telling me about.

45:24 And I took it as a sign from the universe or whatever, and I wrote to my husband and I said, We need to invest in UberCab. Today. Right now. And he was like how much? And I said, Seventy five K. And he said, Fine, get us in, get us a meeting.

45:38 So I got us a meeting and they ratcheted us back to fifty, but We were the second There were only two individuals that were able to put that much money in at the time. So it was pretty sizable for that round. And I really credit Roger because

45:54 Had he not flagged this for me. Had I not paid attention to Travis in the hot tub, keep in mind Ryan's still the CEO. I just Realized there was something about him, and there's no way He's going to just raise money for this company. He's becoming the CEO.

46:09 Ryan at the time. Ryan Graves that you mentioned was CEO of Uber and then that changed the U.S. wonderful man too, but he became the CEO. Yeah. Great guy. I have a couple of questions, but I wanna share just a few anecdotes for people to Add some color also because a lot of folks are familiar with Uber, but they don't know the red swoosh story. And I'm gonna get some of the details, but I'll just share two things related to Travis, often called TK by folks. So Travis.

46:38 With red swoosh. Created this company that became very quickly sort of an enemy of all these huge music and entertainment companies because it was think of it as like an not quite Napster, but it produced that amount of blowback. And he got served with some type of lawsuit which was like two hundred and fifty billion dollars or something. Not a good day. So then he has to uh this actually may have been the predecessor to Red Swoosh.

47:05 shuts it down because he doesn't have any choice, starts a new company, which I believe is Red Swoosh, then goes back to all the people who hated him and sued him and makes them customers. Ha. So Just let that settle in. Like what type?

47:21 of stage magic and charisma and sales abilities required to do that. Okay. So he did that. Very Unrelated, but still Glimpse into the personality.

47:32 story, and I'm getting some of the specifics wrong, but not by far. So he was at a friend's house. I want to say in Truckee and he was playing with all sorts of people in Wii Tennis. And he was just slaughtering everybody. Like number one in the world or something like that. Well, that's the thing. So he was playing with his non dominant hand, and then oh, by the way, I'm like top four in the world. In my spare time.

47:58 I think if you can imagine that level of competitive drive. And then you mesh this thing together and you get Arguably the only person who could have helped. build Uber into what it is. Right. I mean, really just One of a kind. Uh fascinating, fascinating guy. All right, so I want to ask you about

48:14 Another one. And um going to potentially get the pronunciation wrong. Nyantic? Am I getting this? Nyantic, the makers of Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go. Okay, so how does this show up? Oh, this one's a great one. So The same Chris Collins that

48:30 met me and showed me a computer, started playing a game called Ingress. And Ingress was this early game that came out of Google. That overlaid on top of the real world mat.

48:42 Where you would team up with people And go to really weird remote locations so that you could cast Invisible triangles. Over Large swaths of land. I'm simplifying this because there's a storyline behind this, but if you can imagine this, it's basically a gigantic game of green versus blue.

48:59 And we were on team blue. Which is called the resistance, and then team green is called enlightenment. And we played this game and we were hooked. And there were people that were so hooked they were chartering helicopters to go to remote places. And what we were creating and we didn't realize what we were creating was pokey stops. Uh what time was this? Like what year roughly, would you say? Gosh, I'm gonna get the years wrong on this. That's okay. I was at Angelist around this time that this was happening, so I wanna say twenty

49:27 Twelve? Okay. All right, cool. Twenty twenty eleven, twenty twelve. Just roughly. Yeah, around there. All right. So I picked up this game with my friends. We started going out every night playing Ingress, doing walks and we would run into what's really funny is People who knew you were playing Ingress on the other side would come up to you and

49:42 Here's some banter. You know, people would be like, Oh, resistance and'cause we're blowing up each other's virtual Thanks. And I started asking myself the question

49:53 Why is Google doing this? Why is Google making this game? Why Are we doing all this work for Google for free? They were collecting What's called points of interest. Which are not mappable by cars or by sometimes satellites.

50:07 That's cool. Tombstones. You know, where you can then take the text and So we were going around taking pictures of everything and submitting it. Two

50:16 This database that was then used to create Pokemon Go. Now How I got involved. I've caught I would invest in this company in a heartbeat if it was not part of Google. And one day I get a text message from a friend.

50:31 And he says. They're spinning Nyantic out of Google. There's this whole weird thing called alphabet that's happening. And Niantics becoming its own thing. And I was like, You've got to be kidding me And I was like if there's one moment, this is the only moment to strike Where we can go put money into this thing. This is it.

50:48 But I didn't know anybody at Google. I am not Google alumni. That's probably where my network is probably the the least effective. And I just didn't know how to reach this guy, but

50:58 I'd invested in a company called Hentwater. I don't know if you've ever had hint water, but there are these water. Sure, of course. So I invested in Hentwater and I was helping the founder set up her ticketing system. You know, she didn't have a support. Oh, for support, really. Yeah, for support.

51:14 So she didn't have anybody to help her set up her support system and I knew how to set up Zinn desk. So I went in and set it up for her and I started noticing all of these weird messages coming in. saying Ingress in the subject line. And so I walked over to her and I said Why is everybody sending you emails that say Ingress? And she says, Well, we give out game codes.

51:34 On the bottle caps. And I looked at her and I said, You're kidding me. Who over at Ingress did this deal with you? And she said, John Hanke, the guy who runs Ingress. Can you introduce me to him?

51:48 Well sure, why? I'm like, I just I wanna go talk to him. So I emailed him. And he said, Come by the office in San Francisco. I'd love to meet you. We're not looking for any investment, but thanks.

52:00 And so I showed up with my best friend Lucas. And we sat At his doorstep. And we waited and we waited until we could get a meeting with him.

52:11 And we went in and he told us flat out no at the beginning. But we sat there and showed him how Lucas was a level sixteen player. And how many hours we had put into this thing. And how amazing it was because we have this insight which is We'd heard that as an April Fools joke, they'd put Pokemon on the map.

52:29 And I had this realization that that was gonna be the biggest game ever. And If I could just get a check in here at just the right time. It would be timed perfectly. By the time we left the office, he gave Lucas a desk and he hired Lucas.

52:43 And he let us both invest in the company. Okay, so Let me slow this down a little bit. All right. So right off the bat, no and no. No means no. Alright, so by the end, one of you gets hired and then

52:55 You get to invest, but you're not hired. Now I'm actually more interested in your case. Not the least of which because I'm interviewing you right now. But the I'm gonna hire you. Okay, fine. Right, like there's some use for that person. How did you pitch becoming an investor or why did he let you invest?

53:15 I think that he saw that Lucas and I were going to give really valuable input on The gamer experience. And If I was bringing in someone of Lucas's caliber who was, you know, I think employee number thirteen or something at Facebook, he's a r brilliant engineer. I think he thought maybe I'd bring in some more brilliant engineers.

53:32 So he was looking at this like The long run? Right. You're not putting in ten million bucks or taking twenty percent of the company or something like that.

53:40 Point. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The the other thing is I couldn't get anyone else to it. Once I invested in this, I thought I got the deal of a lifetime. Angelist had just started and we they were allowing syndications, and I wanted to syndicate this deal. And at the time, they were approving whether you could as syndicate a deal or not. So it wasn't just a free for all. I wanted to syndicate Niantic and I was told no. Because

54:01 The only other investors were Nintendo. And Google. And they're like, Well, we don't do corporate investors. And the other thing is nobody could see everybody told me no one's gonna walk around searching for invisible creatures. And they're like, No one's gonna play this game.

54:14 And you're like, Yeah. I'm like oh wait and see. I would argue that it was probably the closest we've come to world peace. in our lifetime is the day that Pokemon Go came out. I think it was like July sixth.

54:25 I remember it was right after July fourth and I was in Alaska. When it was released. And even in Alaska, in June of Alaska, people were running around. Looking for

54:36 Invisible creatures. So that's one of my favorite stories because it really took figuring out how all the connections work to get that meeting. And then it took a lot of grit and hustle to get him To let us in.

54:50 And I do have a key card to Niantic, so I'm an honorary lifetime employee. And uh I can come and go as I please. I'm kind of like a weird spirit animal there. That's awesome. Alright, so we talked about Uber. Side note tying Uber to Angelist, after you invested

55:07 It was after you invest. They ended up at some point having Uber Put on Angel List. And They were turned down by

55:18 Everyone. Like three hundred plus people passed on Uber. Because fill in the blank. Right. Well, if we look at it as a percentage of the current X, Y, and Z market, it makes no sense. Nobody's gonna pay that much. Like these high conviction statements. That

55:35 obviously in retrospect weren't defensible at all. It's very easy to come up with the reason for no. Because a lot of things fail. But I heard all those excuses too. I'm glad that you are mentioning this because people have argued with me that Uber was the hottest thing and I said, No, was it?

55:49 Lar. Oh no. There were also media pieces probably on Gawker, maybe on TechCrunch, but it was like the one percent ride for tech bros, and it was I mean, I don't say universally, but pretty much everybody was like, this isn't solving a problem. This is just another thing for people with too much money who think this is a problem, but they're in their bubble in San Francisco. I mean, there are a million and one reasons that people said it was a bad idea. People couldn't see past the black car too. They thought that

56:16 One of the objections I saw is everyone doesn't want or can afford a limo. And I said, Well of course not. But that's where it starts. N not everyone could ride in an airplane, but now everybody can. That's the way it works. Yeah, we've seen this play out with

56:29 Tesla in terms of launching higher priced vehicles and then using that to subsidize the development of the lower cost vehicles. We've seen this in computing. We have the Uber story. We Talked about Nyantic. Are there any other Companies from unusual places. A lot of interesting deals come out of hotels. So I was at a hotel.

56:49 And I had time to kill. And my background is in security. So I'm an engineer, self taught. And my friends taught me and I Start getting an infosec. So I noticed some things that other people don't notice about their opsec or their security.

57:05 And I got on the Wi Fi and noticed that all of these people were tethering their phones to the Wi Fi using their real name. And I see uh Travis K's iPhone and I look over in the corner and there's Travis Kalinick and I'm like, oh, there's Travis. And then I see K Pixel and I'm like

57:22 Okay, uh and then I look over and I see Keith Rabboy. And I see he has a Pixel phone and I'm like, Oh, Keith Radboy's Pixel, interesting. Keep in mind their MAC addresses at the time are also in the clear. Like you could track where these guys were. And if you were very clever. But then I see this name Garrett Langley and I it's a name I've never seen. So I go and Google search it.

57:41 And Garrett Langley is the founder of Flock Security. And there's his mug. picture of him and he's in the current Y C batch at the time. And We at Founders Fun had

57:53 been thinking about some of the biggest opportunities and one of the opportunities we were considering was somebody needs to come up with some sort of neighborhood camera or neighborhood Association Where people are all pitching in and agreeing to some rules around safety and some equipment and technology to enable that safety. And so

58:11 I've started reading about Flock and I'm like We didn't think about OCRing license plates, we thought about cameras. This is a much better solution. So I messaged our associate at the time, John Ludig, who I think is now a partner. That

58:23 I'd found this guy and he's like, Oh, you know, that's a company we're interested in. I said, What should I do? And he's like, Just walk over there. See what happens. So I walked over and I decided to play the uh I don't know, the magician card, if you will. And I looked at him and I said, Garrett Langley? And he said, Yes.

58:39 I said, I'm Cyan Bannister of Founders Fund. We'd like to bring you in for a meeting. Sounded very official. And he starts looking around and he's like 'C his batch hadn't demoed yet and I hadn't seen me at Y C How I am. He was like looking around like How do you know?

58:57 And then He was killing them and he finally asked me, he said, I'm so sorry, I need to know how you know who I am. And I'm like, Are you sure you want to know? And he's like, Yeah, and I said, Well, you tethered your phone To the wifi and it says Garrett Langley's iPhone. And curiosity just got the best of me.

59:12 And We ended up getting the last allocation of that round and sharing the series A with Bedrock. It's now valued at over six billion dollars. And I tell this story because

59:24 One of the things that I think makes me good at what I do and other people is Identifying patterns and opportunities and striking when you see them. And For whatever reason I am gifted

59:37 With the ability to Make these connections. So a lot of the best deals I've ever done Have these interesting things in common, which is I see something

59:48 I put the pieces together, I'm like, Oh, for example Hint water bottle caps. is gonna get me in this deal, I had to think very quickly. About that. But same thing here, it's just

59:59 You know, I didn't wait. I didn't email the guy. I decided to go be a creeper. And it ended up being funny. It ended up being totally funny. Yeah. Totally.

1:00:07 All right, so I wanna do a postgame analysis on another deal. Of a slightly different variety, and this is Game Crush and Lessons Learned. Ah yes, Game Crush could have been Twitch. Yeah, explore this. Yeah, Game Crush was a brilliant business, actually. And At the time.

1:00:27 Let's put this in perspective. There was My space was a thing still, Facebook came out and was sort of on the rise. Twitch. Discord didn't exist. None of that stuff existed.

1:00:39 There were webcam sites and then there was a site I started called Zivity and What I saw was really interesting because they brought Women who were mostly women, men also played. off of MySpace who were a little more provocative and wanted to play more provocative gaming. And so it was

1:00:57 A way for you to pay to play games with Girl gamers. And It was growing like crazy and everything was fantastic and then they started getting activist investors. Who wanted them to

1:01:11 get rid of the more adult in nature content. This is very This happens with company after company after company. Can you explain just for folks the activist investor? Just for people who might be curious as to what that is. An activist investor is someone who invests in a company and decides that they want to play CEO or operator and they start telling the founders and the employees what they should be doing with their company. And if you've structured your company correctly, you can take that advice and then tell them to pound sand.

1:01:39 But if you haven't, the power dynamics are not in your favor, I'll just put it that way. And then there's people who Because people gave them money, they think they have to listen to them, but then they don't. And that was the situation. Got it. And for people who want.

1:01:52 A showcase of Granted, it's slightly different. Species of activist investor. I assume you're talking about venture capitalists, maybe private equity guys, but if somebody wants a great documentary, watch Icon the restless billionaire. You want to see what like super hardball activist investing looks like, you can check that out. Okay. So please continue. Yeah, and activism effort to fire you.

1:02:15 You know, that can happen too. They want to remove the sex appeal and the fringier. Magic. Is that what's happening? They wanted to remove the sex appeal and what made this entire product special and the whole reason I invested it in the first place. They cannibalized it. And so

1:02:30 After that. Twitch took off. But they didn't have the right tools or the right anything to be a Twitch. And

1:02:38 They had all these amazing girl streamers, which just jumped ship as soon as, you know, they could go someplace where they could actually show more than what Game Crush was allowing. What were the rules? Like what were the constraints that the activist investors either apply themselves or convinced the founders to apply. Like how did it change? The Streamers couldn't be in various states of undress. They couldn't even be sexy. They couldn't be in bikinis. They couldn't

1:03:03 They wanted it to be Where Technically, I guess. younger people could get on, but it was never meant to be for kids. It was supposed to be for adults. Adults with adults.

1:03:13 And It just got weird because they wanted to make a very mainstream product. They wanted to be Twitch. They were onto something. It's just that the product was never ever designed to be that. And I think that they'd stuck to that niche.

1:03:27 They would have done quite well, incredibly well, as a matter of fact, because they could have expanded later. into something had they completely monopolized. That audience because That's what drove people ultimately at the end of the day to watch Twitch.

1:03:42 is these girl streamers. Yeah. I mean that's like Internet one oh one, right? On some level for so many so many different things. So Let me come back to Game Crush and Ask and Maybe this is a dead end, but looking back with hindsight twenty twenty, were there other warning signs?

1:04:01 prior to the death knell? Were there other things that you saw that maybe you overlooked, or things that you observed where you're like Next time I'm gonna pay more attention to that. Yeah, this was early in my investment career, actually, and so I was learning a lot of lessons from that particular company. the check size that I wrote was rather large for the time. I think it was like two hundred and fifty K, which was pretty big. And The warning signs that I saw were how disorganized the company was after we did the first closing of that round.

1:04:30 They invited us to a Dinner. Which I brought Byron Singerman and a few other people. And it was really clear that There was just leadership issues.

1:04:41 But by that point, we'd already committed capital. You're not gonna change your mind, you can't withdraw anyway. What kind of leadership issues? It was uncle who was the CEO. I see. So there are multiple founders. Yes, multiple founders.

1:04:54 Always a recipe for disaster. And they were putting forth someone as the CEO, but it was really clear that he was only the CEO just for the fundraise. And after the fundraise it was a bit of a shell game. And I've seen this happen. I learned this Interestingly, with another company, HQ Trivia.

1:05:11 Which I would argue is a much bigger disaster and failure. And that was due to two founders who ultimately could not see eye to eye. and had a fifty fifty partnership. I broke my rule.

1:05:23 Where I normally never invest in a company where there's a fifty fifty partnership or the There's not a clear delineation of who's the CEO and who's not. And for a variety of reasons. Who's the tiebreaker? Yeah, who's the tiebreaker? Like who's actually ultimately end of the day is is their fault. Who are we gonna all point at and blame?

1:05:42 And You know, with HQ Trivia there was nobody to point at and blame. As a matter of fact, it became more of a game of thrones. For the position. And was tragic. It ended up with one of the founders dead.

1:05:55 Oh my god. Yeah. But Game Crush was A great learning lesson. I also learned that Just because you commit to something, if there was a period of time in there that I was able to get material information as to A decision that I made may not be a good one. I

1:06:10 Have the right. to say I'm not investing, which is something that It's been challenging for me because I don't know if you watch Game of Thrones where they say a Lannister pays their debts while a banister pays her debts. You know. Yeah.

1:06:23 Now you're saying after docs have been signed or after you've wired the money. If the material items that should have been disclosed before. Signs. You know, I realized then I could adjust and make that decision in the next investment that I did where I could Try to find out more information and even if I committed before those docs are signed, it's not done.

1:06:49 That was a learning lesson there because I always thought that my word is my bond and if I say something verbally, it's as good as signing something. But sometimes people misrepresent things and they lie. Sadly true. I have a question going back to the the hemp jewelry.

1:07:03 And I don't want to force a narrative. On your story that is not true. But when you're telling me about some of the deals you've sourced, and I'm sure this applies to many others, there's a certain level of proactivity. And like Chutzpah.

1:07:20 In Approaching people, call approaches. Right just not seemingly being overly concerned or over like cogitating on just

1:07:31 Being a creeper, I think as you put it, or Going for the direct contact pretty quickly, does that come in part from the kind of training on the street of making these approaches to tables, making approaches to different folks, asking for things. Or Were you out of the box?

1:07:49 Seemingly programmed to be that way. Yeah, I think Being homeless Taught me that A lot of things that people do

1:07:59 Are suggestions. When I was homeless And I was selling necklaces One I learned about rejection. But before I did the necklaces

1:08:09 I also had a weird job at Greenpeace for a period of time where I was a phone campberg. And I lied about my age and they they allowed me to work there. So that was another funny, weird job I had. But I also did telemarketing as well. So I did a lot of telemarketing. When I was seventeen, eighteen, and then of course tech support.

1:08:27 dial up tech support was a thing that I did for a while. So I spent a lot of time being rejected and being on the phone and being abused. In customer service. And I don't believe in no until it's the final no. And I also think that

1:08:40 You know When you're an investor And especially if you start to get good at it. People want to hear from you. They want the opportunity.

1:08:49 For you to invest in them. I just never seen that anything as a barrier. To me, it's like a sport. It's a game. Not that money's a game, but getting into the deal and winning the deal to me is a sport. And

1:09:01 You're saying that And I'm paraphrasing here, but things that people say. Are suggestions. Yeah. Something like that. What does that mean? We apply a lot of our own perception to everything that everyone says around us. We make up stories that are fiction.

1:09:16 And A lot of what people suffer with today. are these stories, these narratives that we tell ourselves and one another. And I've just always felt like that's something that someone said right now.

1:09:30 It's not a hard no. You know when you hear a hard no. I know the difference between an objection and I just have a rebuttal for it. Versus A hard no. And until it's a hard no, there's wiggle room to get something done. You know, and so I

1:09:45 Just always felt this and It's interesting that you honed in on it, but it's definitely been a guiding principle in my life, which is Don't give up. You know, just try different approaches.

1:09:56 You know, maybe you didn't ask the right way, or maybe you didn't give the right incentives, or maybe you didn't Maybe it was Monday and they're in a bad mood. On Mondays. Fuck Mondays. But you know, all of these things are just things that We make up truths.

1:10:13 But what if they're not true? So you've got to always question these narratives that you tell yourself and that other people are telling you. How do you do that? I mean, is is it just an instinct at this point, or is there some Systematic way that you do that.

1:10:27 For yourself. I meditate a lot and I practice mindfulness as often as possible and I try to remind myself to be conscious whenever I can. And Being conscious to me is being

1:10:40 aware and present and being here now. And a lot of times people you'll care that and it doesn't really mean a whole lot. until you've practiced mindfulness for a period of time. And you start to realize what now is. And so

1:10:55 Anything that I tell you happened, it's gone. You can't go back to it. I can't do it again. It's a fiction that becomes a something in my mind that people put too much weight on that fiction. I'm not saying that nothing matters. A lot of things matter.

1:11:10 But The human mind and the ego is so Capable. Uh Spinning up fictions.

1:11:18 And creating narratives that we hold as truths. To the point where it it leads people to paralysis. The amount of time so I'm at a convention right now that I've heard people apologize to each other for saying something rude in the past. And the other person not even remembering it. And I'm thinking about how this poor person carried around that trauma with them.

1:11:36 For how long? I've heard it twice now. 'Cause right now there's this something happening in the world that I'm really excited about, though, is that people are starting to apologize. And starting to own Being wrong.

1:11:49 for the first time in a long time. And I think one of the things that I am hyper accountable. So I take responsibility for my every action.

1:12:01 And ideally my every thought. You know, and that's really hard for a lot of people because You know, it's easy to be a victim. It's easy to say that things happen to you or the circum you know I easily could've rolled over and said, I was homeless, woe is me. I can't succeed in life.

1:12:20 And instead I was like You know, this life is just a big old game and And we've got to play it and a lot of it is cosplay and suggestions. When I was younger I saw these people dress up in their suits and you're just gonna realize they're grown

1:12:32 Children dressing up in suits adulting. You know, it's a costume. So I look at everybody walking around in their costumes with the narratives and the stories they're telling themselves and And I like to analyze it and I like to think about it a lot. No, I think it's worth if you're open to it, just mentioning where you are. So what is this conference? Yeah. What is it?

1:12:51 So I'm at Hereticon. It is put on by my alumni at Founders Fund. You say your alumni, you mean portfolio companies. No, my uh the people I invested with. So I was a partner at Founders Fence for four years. I got it, got it, got it. The the other GPs. Yeah, for the other GPs. And some of the founders I've invested in are here. And Dural Palmer Lucky is here. And I invested in Enderal. And there's a few others. There's True Med that's here.

1:13:16 Mind Bloom, which we invested in. That those psychedelic. medicine academy therapy for PTSD. Why is it called Hereticon, right? Heretic. Conference. It's because some of the best ideas look heretical at the time.

1:13:30 When People claim that they can do something that is indistinguishable from magic, for example, you know, they might be labeled a witch back in the day. When you make a technological advancement, it is indistinguishable from what looks like witchcraft sometimes. And then people in order to get to the best possible answers, we need to have

1:13:50 debate. And so this conference is about People debating and completely oppositional viewpoints. So there are people here who are hardcore atheists, there are people here who read tarot cards, there are people who are anti AI and there's people here who are

1:14:05 AI is gonna save the world and it might even bring the second coming of Christ. It runs the gambit. I mean, it's just so exciting, and it one of the things I love about it, Tim. is it really reminds me of early nineties. Keck futurism. back when we thought everything was possible and

1:14:22 What we were gonna build and It didn't turn into any of that. I would argue that, you know, social media and things like that did not do what we set out to make them do. But For the most part

1:14:33 I had thought that this optimism had died, you know, because of things like Uber, because of the backlash tech people. that we had become pariahs. But this has this feeling of it coming back together and people are discussing the things that matter again without the fear of being canceled. I think that's the other thing that happens here is it's uh Chatham House rules.

1:14:54 I think some things are leaking out on the internet, but for the most part they're not. And You're encouraged to be yourself and you're encouraged to be respectful and you're encouraged to make friends across the aisle. Dig it. How large is it? How many people attend? There's about five hundred people. Oh, it's big. And Founders Fund pays for the whole thing. So our hotel room, I'm in a hotel room right now that's paid for. Our meals are paid for. It's just incredibly generous for them to give this gift.

1:15:19 to the community. I know they source deals out of it. I know they get something out of it. But at the same time, I know how much effort it takes to roll up your sleeves and do what Mike Solana has done. And It's probably my favorite conference I attend by far. It's my number one favorite place to go. You mentioned a a company a while back that I I do want to touch on, and that is

1:15:40 Zivity. I mean I'm reading here, right? OnlyFans before OnlyFans. I do like the general magic of pornography for people require a lot of background on general magic, but people can look it up. I actually had Tony Fidel on the podcast so people can dig into that to get a whole bunch of background there. But Why is it And then What happened and what did you learn from it? Can I go back to the very beginning of when I discovered my very first porn?

1:16:07 Of course. How can I say no to that? Yeah, I mean I think it goes back to that. So it's a great story, but I got a summer job I wanna say I was Eleven twelve. I know this is gonna sound disturbing, but it's it's really not.

1:16:20 I got a job watching a wolf dog. Which is basically a wolf. And you don't own a wolf. Like they're very, very wild and untamable creatures. I don't know if you've been to a wolf sanctuary, but you you can't let Yeah, I've been around wolves. Yeah, so you know.

1:16:36 And this guy said, Okay, all you have to do is come over to my house, you open the door, you go to the freezer, you get out of steak. You micro the steak and you crack an egg on it and you leave it in the door frame. And Wolfie will just show up. And I was like, Okay, I could do this, you know, and it was a great summer gig. I love that somebody

1:16:52 Some guy, right? It's like You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna hire an eleven year old and then leave this eleven year old alone with this wolf dog. Yeah. Putting stake in the doorway. Exactly. Exactly. So it was continue. This dog shows up and this dog Is so big. And I'm so small.

1:17:13 And They have these fierce looking eyes. And this thing, I'm like, this thing could eat me. But she would come in and she would eat the steak and she would roam around his apartment. And

1:17:25 stare at me and then she would, you know, do her thing and then eventually leave. And then I could lock up and then go. But Wolfie didn't come, she doesn't work on a schedule. So I would go over there and sometimes have nothing to do. So I started going through this guy's drawers. His cabinets, his books, his everything. There was nothing to do. It was so boring. Eventually I found a Playboy magazine.

1:17:48 And I looked in there and I was like, that has to be the most beautiful At the time, these were vintage playboys. depiction of the human body I had ever seen because before this I thought that the Sears Robux magazine was like

1:18:02 the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. The underwear section. This was like holy cow, this is next level. Women are beautiful. And I dreamed about being beautiful like that someday. I was like, you know, I wanna be beautiful like that. I wanna be Like that someday.

1:18:19 And the beauty back then in those magazines was very natural. And very accessible. You could be that beauty. Whereas The beauty of Playboy. Later when Hefner.

1:18:29 was older became a very unaccessible beauty. But My mother also is an art teacher and she kept around all of these Books with these Chinese sculptures. Where they were doing very, very

1:18:42 Sexual acts. And so to shock my friends at school, I would sneak these books to school and show them in the locker. And sometimes charge people for it. You know, come come look at my porn in my locker. So

1:18:55 You know I really, really felt that it was a beautiful art form that deserved a little more respect and that started very, very early. When I set out to start a company. At the time there was MySpace and then there was a competitor which became a friendly competitor of mine called Suicide Girls.

1:19:14 that had launched and I tried to start Zivity. Before Suicide Girls even But then Suicide Girls started and I was like, Well, they're doing a fine job. I don't need to start a company because Suicide Girls is doing most of what I wanted.

1:19:28 But what they didn't do was I didn't like the financial model of how they acquired content and how they treated the artists. So what they would do is they would buy A photo shoot. That an artist did. For five hundred dollars.

1:19:40 And you would sign a release for your likeness and your name and they pretty much owned it in perpetuity. So if I'm Cyan on Suicide Girls, I can't be cyan anybody place else. And so a lot of these young women had no idea what they were signing. Yeah, and then they would get famous. And then they would use these images and You know, they had stage shows and all sorts of things.

1:20:00 This is pretty standard though. They weren't doing anything wrong. It was the industry standard. It was the Hollywood standard at the time. And I thought to myself, there has to be a better way. There has to be a way. Where photographers and models Can have a fan.

1:20:15 interaction that's meaningful and then the fan becomes a patron of the art that they're making. And at the time there was Webcam girls, they did exist. And you could buy packages and they've got some portion of the package, but their micro payment system was not really a thing. And so we

1:20:34 started coming up with We didn't know what to call it. It was technically tipping. But we didn't want to use the word tipping with the content that we were putting on Zivity. So Zivity was a nude Fully nude platform.

1:20:46 With no sex acts on it, actually. And We didn't want to call it tipping because we didn't want to equate ourselves with a strip club. We wanted to bring up The class of what was happening. More.

1:20:57 So Later on, Patreon figured out it's called patronage. And Kickstarter figured out it's called backing somebody. But we didn't have the marketing language, so we called it voting. Now voting was a very, very confusing word of a call to action for anybody because you're not supposed to stuff a ballot box. You're not supposed to vote multiple times.

1:21:16 But we are encouraging people to was basically worth a dollar. And then when you cast that boat or you voted Seventy percent went to the artist and was split between the photographer and model. Eventually we started bringing in makeup artists.

1:21:32 And costume designers. Lotta people don't realize that a lot of these really Really beautiful. Photo shoots. Involve a lot of people.

1:21:40 There's a lot of people there and then they you know, the compensation chain It is complicated. But the person who does the hardest work is the model. So the model is the one who talks to the fans. And what I figured out was Zivity actually, which only fans has figured out and a lot of these other platforms figured out. is it's about not about the content at all.

1:21:59 'Cause over and over again I would get told Why would anybody pay for this content's free? It's all over the internet. There's porn everywhere. What isn't free.

1:22:08 is the real human interaction with the person. And we figured that out with Zivity at the very end, but I shut down Zivity when I was at Founders Fun. I ran it for ten years. We were the first

1:22:20 company of our kind to raise venture capital. And We couldn't see eye to eye the board, myself, the executive team. on what Zivity should be, because people thought it was about beauty. It was about an aesthetic, and I argued that it has nothing to do with beauty. Like nobody really cares about that. Because they wanted to editorialize it like

1:22:38 Playboy. And I had this insight. Which ended up being right. Which is anybody can be a model and anybody can make money as long as they have more than one fan.

1:22:49 And We did register a domain called Top Fans. And We did experiment with what only fans Yeah.

1:22:59 But What happened is I just ran out of gas. I ran out of the ability to run that company. And I was far more successful as an investor. And I was tired of fighting. I was really, really tired of fighting everybody. Like I was Not allowed to be in the

1:23:14 Apple App Store, I wasn't allowed to advertise on Instagram. I wasn't allowed to use normal payment processors. I wasn't even allowed to have an office at We Work. I was protested. Uh

1:23:25 tech conferences, there were women who would come and protest me. Why would they protest you? Well, back then it was a lot more controversial to do what we were doing. And they thought that my mere presence at a conference meant that I was gonna portify them in some way. Like I was gonna start taking pictures of them or Taking my top off, or I don't know. I don't know what they thought, but they thought that

1:23:43 I was gonna do something. And Facebook actually asked me to come and speak. To a group of engineers. They had a wonderful event and I was the headline speaker and there was a

1:23:53 protest that happened and they held a protest across the street. And at our event, we did nothing but talk about code and engineering, and at their event, they did nothing but talk about porn. Five. Yeah. You know, I never envisioned Zivity becoming as big as OnlyFans, though. I think

1:24:11 OnlyFans has really proven and hit a nerve. And one could argue that maybe It remains to be seen whether A product like this is a net positive for society. Or net negative.

1:24:23 But We did succeed at enabling this freedom, which I still think is valuable because a lot of people need this kind of freedom so that they can put themselves through school. So that they can buy their first home, so they can start a family and not everybody

1:24:38 is blessed with being able to get certain types of jobs and this gives them that flexibility. I hesitate to ask this question, but I'm so curious because you're Very good at embracing your weird self and you're very forthright in your opinions and you have controversial Or I should say um maybe uncommon.

1:24:59 Takes on things like minimum wage, what you said earlier, for instance, as one of many examples. So feel free to take this question wherever you want to go, or if it's just a bad question, we can abandon it. But how do you relate to sex? Like how do you think about Sex and sexuality. It's such a broad question, but I feel like it would be neglectful of me not to ask. Yeah, I love this question because it's we don't talk about it enough, to be honest with you, and it's

1:25:24 You know, along with eating and Pooping and everything else that we do, sex is up there. I mean it's how we have babies and how we express our love and how we connect with people and we don't It's so stigmatized, and I don't think it should be. But

1:25:38 I became sexually active When I was fifteen. And despite finding the pornography and everything like that. It was later in my teenage years. And I was so disappointed.

1:25:49 I thought Why did everybody make movies and write poetry and build the Tajma hall for something so awful? And I had a very negative view of sex. So negative that I started experimenting on boys. And I this is

1:26:03 Maybe terrible, but This is what I did. is I was determined to find that one connection that was worthy of writing a poem for. You know, there has to be somebody. There has to be some thing.

1:26:16 And It just didn't work. Like I would try different things. I would try different scenarios. I was like, Well, maybe I need to be in the A racket ball court or I need to be Over here or there, it I thought it was situational and And then eventually I developed feelings for somebody and I didn't realize that that was the missing ingredient.

1:26:35 I was like, wow, feelings for someone else. That's a concept. And I broke up with this guy immediately. So it was my first love. And it was a communist. Interestingly, he still is a communist. He has

1:26:47 hammer and sickle on his arm and everything. And I still love him to this day. And we're still friends. But I saw myself worrying about him, like where he was, what he was wearing. Did he eat?

1:27:00 Has he slept? I started asking myself all these questions that were so weird. And I just didn't have time for them. I had to survive. And when you have to survive, you can't worry about someone else's well being'cause you're drowning yourself. Like you can't worry about someone else drowning. You have to put your

1:27:17 Oxygen mask on first. So I broke up with him and and left and I put him in a little snow globe. I like to call it a snow globe. of emotion because it taught me that that was possible. That some day I could love someone. And maybe that person would love me back.

1:27:34 But I didn't have time for it then. So When I got into tech. I Did.

1:27:40 date and I had some long term relationships and then obviously there was the homeless relationship with cuddles that lasted a long time. And my relationship to sex was just kinda like it's fun. And it's just something you do. But it it was never Earth shattering. It was another I never wanted to build a Taj Mahal.

1:27:57 And that was my bar. I was like that guy. That woman. Must have been something. You know, to erect a monument. to her that is just so grand, like she must have been very, very good in bed.

1:28:10 That's what I thought. Right? So I got my hands on books, magazines, cosmo, everything. And It wasn't until

1:28:22 probably in my mid twenties that my relationships to sex changed and I started having a much more positive outlook on it and enjoying it. But it took some time because in the beginning I just thought How did the human species survive? This is Just awful.

1:28:37 Because When you're young you don't really know what you're doing. Yeah, no. But when you get older, you if you're lucky and you find the right partner, then you do. So I'm gonna switch gears. And I want to talk about rolling the dice, but not

1:28:53 Metaphorically. Literally. I want to talk about rolling dice and I'll just let you take it from there because I might want to spend quite a bit of time on this.

1:29:02 Okay, dice rolling is a lot of fun. How did this even come up? How did this even start? Yeah, it came up during the pandemic. So during the pandemic The world was kinda divided into two camps. There was the people that were first responders critical responders critical infrastructure for the country who had to

1:29:21 continue to go to work. So they were in their own kind of suffering and their own kind of experience of the pandemic and then there is people who were forced to pause. And I was one of the force to pause people. And so I started reading All of this early nineteen twenties

1:29:35 Esoteric philosophy. And Hold on, hold on. How the fuck does that happen? Like why why that? Um Gosh, I don't even know where to jump off here to tell I go in rabbit holes. And

1:29:50 I go deep down these rabbit holes until I'm satisfied and then I go down another one, another one, another one. And this particular one gripped me because I was interested in mysticism. And I started reading Works by Alistair Crowley.

1:30:05 Which led me which I'm sure you're familiar with him. Which led me to this weird publication that he published, which also led me to a weird short story. Called The Magic Glasses by Frank. I forget his last name. It'll come to me later, but I'll find it. It's really, really great. I'm making a movie based off of the short story. So it's actually a really great story.

1:30:26 And Frank Harris. Frank Harris, yeah. So by Frank Harris. I highly recommend reading this story. It's fantastic. The rest of Frank Harris's stuff is a little more challenging. So he Was a cowboy H

1:30:39 At the age of fourteen basically ran away from home and the in vogue thing when you ran away from home in Europe was you ran off to America. Like That was your big F you. It's like I'm gonna go get on a ship and you'll never see me again.

1:30:51 So he ran off to America. He ended up falling into some amazing intellectual groups of writers. And he wrote uh one of the smuttiest books of the time called My Life and Loves, which was banned worldwide. And it was an account of every single sexual encounter that this guy had.

1:31:07 It's a fantastic book, but Yeah, tough to read because He was also a cattle rancher, he became a cattle rancher. And he ended up Killing people for cattle and

1:31:19 It's hard to tell what's real and what's fake, but back at the time this might have happened. You know, it might have been real. But What led me down this rabbit hole was because I was trying to ask A very important question which is

1:31:31 The question I Hope that everybody asked. Which is why are we here? Why do any of this, anything that we've talked about at all, like what is the purpose of any of it has been

1:31:42 a question a rabbit hole that has continued throughout my life continues probably will continue till the day I die. It'll be an unanswered question. I have some answers, but Mostly it's an unanswered question.

1:31:54 And I started playing with artificial constraints. It first started with my clothing. I Realized I can't be like Steve Jobs. I can't be Mark Zuckerberg. I can't just wear a uniform and flip flops and call it a day.

1:32:08 I would feel dead inside. I just couldn't do it. How does the applying constraints relate to Frank Harris and the Why Are We Here question. The story about Frank Harris But

1:32:22 Magic glasses when you read it is about trying on different perspectives and seeing the world in a new way. And if you were to put be able to put on a pair of magic glasses that allowed you to see the world in a magical way, would you do it? And for how long would it be magical before you just relegated those glasses to your Drawer of all the other Totkeys.

1:32:42 and novelties that the human brain grows bored of. And I started looking around at all the novelties in my life and all the things I had grown bored of and all of the perspectives I had tried on and tossed into the drawer. And I started looking at my wardrobe. As being

1:32:58 A interesting side effect of Novelty. And so I started Thinking about that story and thinking about My closet.

1:33:08 And I love clothes. I just love them. I love expressing myself with clothes. I love costumes. I love cosplay. I love textures. Fabric. I love fashion.

1:33:20 And so I've always had this guilt around loving these things. And so I tried to figure out how to be the best Minimalist, maximalist I could be. And so I started playing all sorts of forcing function games and it was

1:33:34 Came out of reading. You know, Gurj and Frank Harris and Alister Crowley and all these things. Dice rolling oddly came out of all of that.

1:33:44 So I went to my friends and family and I said, I am tired of picking up my outfit every day, but I can't Get a uniform. So can you guys pick a theme? And so the first theme was plaid. And I was plaid from head to toe.

1:33:58 So everything underwear, socks, shoes. Ha. Gloves. It didn't matter what it was. It had to be plaid. And when you go into a store and they're like, Can I help you? And you're like, uh, do you have anything clad?

1:34:12 The answer is usually I have two things. Like two items of clothing or three items of clothing. So it automatically forces you to not buy things. and to constrain yourself with this weird pattern you've picked for the season. Yeah. Okay. So when you say season, how long are you wearing flat for? Three months.

1:34:31 Yeah. It was brutal. It was brutal. So That wasn't enough. I had to learn all about Plaid. Like What is plaid? Is it Czech a plaid?

1:34:40 You know, is Gingham a plaid? What makes a plaid a plaid? It's really fascinating. So the second season I hated the most, which was Polka Dot. It was awful. And I'll tell you why dot's awful, because most prints and fabrics The polka dots are either printed

1:34:56 and layered on top of the fabric, but they're never woven into the fabric. And so polka dots are usually made out of really cheap fibers. So polyesters and Things are really hot and sticky and gross. So in each of these cases are you ending up with like

1:35:11 twelve storage units full of Plat and Polka dot that stuff respectively. No. Okay, so it constrains the volume. It constrains the volume. And it got to the point where I mean I can't wear a polka dot again probably for the rest of my life. If you ever be wearing polka dots like I've I've gotten over the trauma, but Plaid was one of my favorites, actually, because Learning how to wear mismatch plaids?

1:35:33 But the thing that was really interesting was when I would go into a store, how people would be delighted and just light up when they saw what I was wearing. They would just start laughing and giggling. And I realized that clothing could be a source of joy, not just for yourself, but for other people. So it's like minimalism plus joy or like reduce decision making and increase joy at the same time. Correct. That's a great way to distill what I'm I'm obsessed with right now.

1:35:57 How did the dice come into this? I don't wanna Cut off the story. And I learned a lot about what I like and don't like and what kind of fashion suits me and doesn't suit me and Which friends to allow to pick my wardrobe and which not to.

1:36:12 I started looking at my dining choices and I started looking at my holiday choices and my driving choices. I start asking myself the question, do I even make good choices? Now you would think that because I'm successful, the answer is yes. I make great choices. But I make choices just like any other person that are Ingrained choices formed out of habit.

1:36:32 So I wanted to see what would happen. If I became more random. What happens if you introduce random to your life? And you start to eliminate choice. Are you as successful? Are you as joyous? How much of what we do is really because we're brilliant.

1:36:48 Or is because that's just how the cards fall. Well I have not been led astray by the dice a single time. So how it works is

1:36:58 Let's say you and I want to go to dinner, Tim, and I'm like, what do you want to eat? And you're like, I don't know. And we go around and we do this thing that everybody does for five minutes trying to decide. So this is why I wanted to get into the dice because this Literally, I had one of my closest friends text me yesterday. We were talking about decision fatigue and he's like you more than most people.

1:37:17 are exhausted and get very frustrated. by tasks or assignments like choosing a restaurant where there is no right answer. Correct. Right, because it can chew up so much fucking time and energy and There's so much tail chasing and back and forth. Anyway. Rant complete for now. But

1:37:34 Please continue. Right. So we so we're trying to decide which we're going to do. We can help fix this for you, Tim. I'm so excited to introduce you to dice rolling. So I I wear dice around my neck. And I take them everywhere I go. And this gives me You know, one through twelve. Obviously you can get

1:37:48 multi sided dice and you can Come up with all sorts of different options. You can use dice to even just do coin flip type stuff,'cause you can do odds or evens. But You and I want to go to dinner.

1:38:00 We can't decide even on a genre. So but maybe we we hone in on Italian. Like we we're making some progress here. So we basically put Italian into open table. We roll the dice, whatever it lands on.

1:38:12 We are committed. We are gonna go. It doesn't matter what the reviews are. If you cared about the reviews, then you could have constrained it by reviews. You set the parameters, right? But

1:38:25 The thing is Every one of these choices. It shouldn't take you longer than a minute. So you can move on with your life. And

1:38:33 Every time I've gone to these places It's been better food than I could ever imagine. I meet random people that are so incredible. I've gone on strange road trips where I've just had the most magical experiences

1:38:46 And the list goes on and on and on and on. My life has only been improved. Bye. Taking myself out of the decision making process because I am the hindrance. What other examples could you give of situations in which you'd use the dice, right? Because there's also a question of at what point do you introduce the random, right? Because you could decide on like genre.

1:39:07 Reviews. Geography, and then before you know it, you've spent a bunch of time on this decision anyway, and then you introduce randomness at the end, it the savings isn't necessarily super great, nor is the breadth of the randomness, so to speak. So what are some other situations where you might use the dice? Road trips. Are they great for road trips. So I went on a road trip one time where I rolled And landed on something called Pioneer City, I think in

1:39:32 California. Pioneer Town. And what was the list? I'm sorry, just to know how this works. Thrift stores. So you're like best thrift stores in the United States. Yeah, I've been in in California. I had I had some time to kill and I was driving from Nevada

1:39:46 Through the palm desert. And then to Southern California. And so I had Time. And so I put that in and I rolled, I don't know, like a thirteen or whatever or twelve. And it landed on this thrift store in a place called Pioneer Town.

1:40:00 Which is a ghost town. Old Western Town then the only thing that's there Is this Thrift store. And some weird little store that sells water.

1:40:10 That's it. I mean goodbye. And a harmonica. I got a harmonica there. I still have my harmonica. But I went in and The experience was spiritual for me, like When I roll the dice, it puts me in places and it puts me in a frame of mind.

1:40:25 where anything's possible and anything at any moment can happen. And you just have to be ready for it. You have to not be thinking about what you're doing tomorrow or what you did yesterday, you're just there. And you're gonna trust that that whatever the dice is gonna throw at you Is gonna be amazing.

1:40:41 Could I see what's around your neck again? Because as a former D D player. I have tons of experience with dice. I'm just curious Are they two separate Yeah, can we get it open for you? They're little dice.

1:40:54 And they come out of this little cage. I don't know if you can see them. Oh yeah, I see it. Yeah. And so they're teeny tiny dice and they're in this little cage and then the cage locks. And it's just a little locket that I carry around everywhere. Okay, that's cool. And

1:41:10 I introduced so many people to it and They've started adopting. I use it for giving public talks. I've done it for public talks, which is I'll have the audience screen out twelve topics.

1:41:22 And then whatever the dice rolls on is what I start with. And then we just go through the dice. And so it's not in order. And it makes things much more fun. Picking what movies to watch. You get movie paralysis. And the one thing I haven't done yet is make business decisions with dice. But

1:41:40 At some point I might. I might would do it probably with my own personal money, wouldn't do it with my LP's money. Disclaimer. But interestingly, when I started Down this dice.

1:41:51 Experiment. My friend. Pinjulette, who's a magician, wrote a book called Random at the exact same time. And that book is a bit graphic, but it involves a guy who who basically

1:42:03 has to come up with a million dollars in a very short period of time and he uses dice that make all that money for him and then some. But it's exploring the same thought experiment, which is I guess the question is do you believe in free will or not? And Oh boy. We're Sam Harris when we need him. Right. And uh how much of what we're doing is consciousness versus not.

1:42:24 And how much of our patterns actually hinder us versus open us up to possibility. I think that's the big one. For people who might get lost, like me, honestly, I've listened to so many discussions of free will for and against, and I can't make heads or tails out of it. I wish I were smarter. But the last question I feel like I can Wrap my head around and and grok.

1:42:46 How much do our habits and patterns help us versus hinder us? That's a good question. And this is where dice rolling really comes into play. Now I have a very hard rule, which is I never ever say Oh, I don't want to do that and then I don't do it. I'm a little

1:43:03 If you will, religious about the dice. And whatever it lands on, I do no matter what. So I even do house cleaning chores that I don't want to do and I use the dice. So I'll put like six things on a list and maybe there's one really fun thing that I really want to do and then five things I really don't want to do.

1:43:19 And the dice almost always land on the thing that you don't want to do. And That's actually great because I don't betray it. I get through the thing and then I roll again and then eventually At some point I might land on that sweet treat thing I wanted to do.

1:43:34 Yeah, and And then I'm excited. I'm like Yeah I get to watch a movie finally after doing my captions and everything else. But Yeah, I mean

1:43:45 I really wish people would try more things like this because I think people think that the way that they are Is unchangeable. They they are static. that they have no ability to break their habits or form new ones. And introducing something simple like this.

1:44:02 That Allows you to make decisions quickly. Move through life. Bast and then Puts more joy.

1:44:09 And it just seems like a win win win. Yeah, I love this idea. I'm gonna try this. I would love If it's possible, I don't know. Who knows? Maybe uh this made by an artisan in Siberia for all I know, but the locket with the dice. That would be good.

1:44:25 Right. I can send you one of these. Oh yeah. Yeah. I would love to I would love to check it. They're in San Francisco. There's an artist that makes them. I'd be happy to send you one. Get your dice rolling, that would be great. I'm in. I'm probably gonna get a placeholder set. because I have a trip coming up this week and it's very last minute for me.

1:44:45 I was just kinda like, fuck it, throw caution to the wind, I'm going on this crazy Last minute. international trip. And it's the Perfect. Opportunity.

1:44:54 To use. Nice. A lot. So I'm gonna I'm gonna try that. So you said you're religious about it. So religiously random. You mentioned Pendulet, who I've had on the podcast, brilliant guy. Oh yeah.

1:45:09 The potato diet. And I think fair to describe as a militant atheist. Yes. I think that's a fair description. When you were talking about being saved on the side of the road So long ago in this conversation. I want to say the wording you used was

1:45:27 At the time I didn't believe in God. Yeah. This driver brought up God. Now to me that implies there might have been a change.

1:45:37 There has. And interestingly, I was so nervous to call Penn and tell him that I was no longer an atheist. And I thought I didn't know what to expect. And he striped out of the closet. And he was so sweet about it. He said, Who cares? He's like you're a good person and you're a kind person. And If you're a little woo woo, whatever. You like

1:46:03 I'd rather be around a good person who's woo woo than an unkind person who's atheist, so And he also has seen If you look at pictures of me before My spiritual change in after Night and gay. I am healthier.

1:46:18 I look younger. I have more energy. I'm happier. Everything has been better since I became a spiritual person. When I was an atheist, everything was worse and I had a stroke.

1:46:30 Oh. Okay. So We're gonna come back to the stroke. What Catalyzed the spiritual change.

1:46:38 Well part of it was this weird rabbit hole I went down during the pandemic of Alistair Crowley and all of these guys. For people just because you've invoked the name Crowley a few times. Could you just brief doesn't have to be super factual detail, but who is this person you've you've referred to a number of times.

1:46:55 And then how on earth I mean Does that lead to the spiritual change? He's an occultist leader. Who practiced What you might consider Witchcraft?

1:47:08 Or magic. And by I I said magic in quotes because you know, obviously there's gonna be atheists and people that don't believe that what Alex Jacroli did was real. He had a very big following and then a lot of fractures that came out of those followings of people who Massively. Massively popular guy. And massively controversial. And he was controversial because he also showed up in weird outfits and he Yeah. And he was kind of like

1:47:34 The Nixon Timothy Leary dynamic, and so much as like Nixon saying, This guy's the most dangerous person in America, I feel like Crowley also occupied a similar mindset. And he was not. As a matter of fact, a lot of what he studied was the teachings of Christ and he talked about Christ a lot. And I think a lot of people don't realize that New age stuff in occultism.

1:47:56 And all of this early stuff. actually is deeply rooted In monotheism. And has nothing to do with With Satan.

1:48:04 Anyway, that I could discover. Other than They theorize that there are dark energy forces or dark spirits out there and people who know how to harness dark energy. And Alistair actually worked in what we call the light.

1:48:18 And so he wanted to repel people because what he was teaching Wasn't for everybody. He actually didn't want you to read his stuff. He did not want you to follow him.

1:48:29 But There's a lot of wonky stuff in there. How does this lead to radiant scan? Yeah, how does it this is the question on everyone's mind. I

1:48:38 Got my hands on every book, every movie, every everything I could find from that time. And I realized that people in the early nineteen hundreds were onto something. They were on to something about what life is really all about. All of these great works that people wrote back then.

1:48:55 And when you say back then, just to time frame it, I looked it up. So Alistair Crowley was Born in Just wrote it down and then I lost track of it. Eighteen seventy five died nineteen forty seven. So that period of time Was a wackadoodle time.

1:49:12 where people were publishing all these crazy books and practicing these occult practices and running around in weird robes and looking like Harry Potter. And doing some psychedelics too. So some of them did psychedelics and some of them did use THC. or ha hashish is part of their ceremonies or things that they did. A lot of it was sober, and

1:49:31 What they were trying to figure out is is there a veil? Is there something beyond what we can see and what we know? And is it Supernatural or can it be explained by science later? And a lot of them believe that it could be explained by science later, that actually it's just undiscovered science. And I became really interested in

1:49:50 Those people in particular. And I really went Down a rabbit hole with this Author And philosopher named Gergiev.

1:49:59 And Gurdjieff, I believe, was Greek, and his understudy was named Alspinsky. And Alspinsky wrote a book called I think it's called the Curious Case of Ivan Osakin, which is what Groundhog Day is based off of. And I was studying

1:50:13 At the time. What made Bill Murray make the art that he makes. And

1:50:23 Without asking him, I like to form my own opinions, you know, just like What did I think it was? It was really clear that You know, I didn't watch any of his movies until the pandemic. I did a lot of stuff in the pandemic I've never done. But I hadn't seen Groundhog B. I hadn't seen Caddy Shack, I hadn't seen any of these movies. And I I just What about Bob, I hope so what about Bob? Um

1:50:41 The man who knew too little. Broken flowers. Like I watch them all. And I realized that this is an artist who's on a mission to teach us something. He wants us to learn something. What does that thing?

1:50:54 And I noticed he kept repeating a phrase over and over again in a lot of his movies, which is it just doesn't matter. Now If you look that up. That's a nihilistic sounding statement. It just doesn't matter.

1:51:06 And taken on the surface, you would just assume that that's it was a nihilist thing and that's what it means. But if you go Under that and you actually look at the root of the philosophy of which that statement is coming from. It goes back to what we were talking about.

1:51:21 In a previous conversation about the fictions that we make in our mind. And I realize that my mother is a fiction. The mother that left me that left the twenty dollars that

1:51:33 gave me up to the court system. I haven't given her a chance to know who she is today. I don't even know who she is today. But I carried around this Grief, this suffering, this loss, this Story.

1:51:49 And I was harming myself every day by carrying that story inside of me. And so I started watching this movie called The Razor's Edge, which is based off of a novel by Somerset Mom, I think is how you say his name. And there was a nineteen thirties version of the movie and then there's a version that Bill Murray did. And Bill Murray's was very interesting to me because I believe that he

1:52:11 Agreed to make Ghostbusters two. In exchange for them. Making this movie that he wrote. The razor's edge. The razor's edge, yeah. And

1:52:21 It's a very low budget film because they didn't give them a ton of money to do it and it involves many locations and period stuff and that's all very expensive. So And his acting is, you know, he's built. He he did a great job. But At the same time it's not gonna be the best produced film he's ever made. But it explores all of these ideas.

1:52:41 Around Gergiev's philosophy. Around suffering and what suffering is. And there's a line that he says in the movie when Someone he loves died. And he

1:52:52 He's trying to comprehend it and he looks at this woman who was Previously his fiance. And she explains this whole story, but the woman's dead. You can't bring her back. And he just looks at her and he just says, Well It just doesn't matter. And

1:53:08 In that moment. When I watched that movie I had this energy. At the bottom of my spine. Basically shoot out.

1:53:17 the top of my head. And there was a bunch of people in the room when we were watching the movie and they all paused, you know, they paused the movie and they looked at me and everybody said, What was that? And I was like, what was what? Cause I thought maybe they got chills too. You know Maybe that line hit them hard like it hit me hard, but no, it was a singular event only for me.

1:53:37 In that moment. that impacted the whole room energistically where Everyone's hair was standing on end. At what just happened to me. And

1:53:48 From that day forward, nothing has been the same. It's like a veil got lifted on the universe around me. And now I see things that I never was able to see before. I am able to see Art and poetry and

1:54:02 All sorts of things. It's almost as if some sort of PTSD veil That was in my body got lifted because I started believing Or Believing is a weird word. I don't like to use that word too much. But I started

1:54:14 Suspecting that there's something bigger out there than all of us, that we're in a simulation or we're in some kind of something. The randomness in the dice actually taught me a lot of that. Because things start to get really magical and you can't explain it. But it's beautiful and you're just like, I'm along for the ride. I'm on some weird Urk school.

1:54:31 is what I've determined. We're all in Earth School. And we inhabit human bodies. But we're nothing but an energy life force inside of them. And that life force does not dissipate. And it doesn't go nowhere.

1:54:46 It goes somewhere. Doesn't disappear. Life force does not disappear. And Do you want to hear about a really strange spiritual experience that I had? 'Cause I think you'd like it. Of course I do.

1:54:57 I mean I'm keeping track here. It's like Crowley to Gurchev to Spensky to the concept of Groundhog Day to Bill Murray to just as to what seems like I mean I didn't know anything about this, but you've probably read a million things about it. Anyway, we're gonna come back to the spinal thing because it's like huh. That seems to be what some people might Some people callini awakening. Yeah, when I explain people what happened to me, they go, Oh, you had Kundalini and I'm like, Huh? I had no idea what happened to me.

1:55:27 I don't really know what that is. I've just heard the phrase, but you said strange spiritual experience. I do want to come back to this. Placeholder. Kunalini Awakening, just to know how you now Make sense of that. Maybe we start there. And then we can go to the other spiritual.

1:55:42 experience. Like how do you Explain to yourself. What happened in that instance. I thought I was losing my mind. Of course you did. Yeah.

1:55:52 I had a lot of sympathy for people who have mental health issues and end up in hospitals on fifty one fifties because I realize we're just a hair away from being crazy, every one of us. And Because it wasn't just that energy that shot through me. I mean, that itself was just powerful.

1:56:09 And then the realization, the epiphany that I was carrying around this fiction. And that I was responsible for that fiction. I was spinning it up and my ego was spinning it up and I

1:56:21 Experienced ego dissolution for the first time. And was this at the same time that you're watching this movie? And it was very sudden. And it was Frankly scary.

1:56:33 And so I started getting visions of places to go, started having Dreams that were predicting People calling me, talking to me. I started

1:56:44 Knowing what people were gonna say before they said it. And All sorts of strange things that I can't explain. And like I said, maybe science someday will discover that we have a form of communication as human beings, as animals that we're unaware of.

1:56:59 You know, humans can only see a certain amount of perceptible light and sound. So it's not completely out of the question that we can't see or hear certain things that are happening around us. But the veil, for lack of a better term, was lifted. And

1:57:13 When I turned away from my practice of meditation and mindfulness. that veil would come back down. When I was introspective and thinking about The bigger question, which is what is the meaning of life and what is my purpose in it. Which it answered for me. I know what my purpose is now.

1:57:30 Before that, I was adrift. You know, as an atheist, I thought there was no point We just have to be good people. We have to get by, we have to love one another. I knew that love was a universal thing that we should all strive for. But I didn't have a purpose.

1:57:44 And After this experience, I suddenly had one and my purpose is very simple. Which is To spread joy. To lift other people up around me.

1:57:56 And to do my best in my own way to end poverty. Now I'm not responsible for ending poverty. I think we're all responsible. But It informs a lot of my investment decisions now. It informs

1:58:09 I realized I was already doing a lot of these things anyway. But I became a mer a more service oriented person. I started becoming More a part of a bigger whole. Whereas before I was m more of an individual.

1:58:23 And now I realize that I'm part of something much bigger. And Much more beautiful than I ever could have possibly imagined. So I'm imagining That you've done.

1:58:35 a ton of reading after having this experience. Furthermore, I imagine you reached out to Anyone you thought might be able to shed light on this in some capacity and talk to those people. Let's just say there are a bunch of people listening who are Atheist or maybe they describe themselves as agnostic.

1:58:54 Which I think is a bit of a slippery term, frankly, because theist says I believe in God or gods. And if you can't say that, then you are kind of by definition an atheist. But I'll let Agnostic slide. People are listening and they do feel somewhat Adrift or rudderless or choose your metaphor without North Star. And

1:59:15 Their current. relating to the world. They would love to have a purpose. They would love to feel like they have a purpose. What advice would you give to these people? Because it sounds like I would imagine even if they were to watch. This movie.

1:59:30 That few or none of them would experience the same thing that you did. It's not repeatable. You have to be in the same Please. Yeah.

1:59:39 So what do you do, right? If you're hearing this and you're like, you know what? I yearn for that type of purpose. You have to face something very ugly which is yourself. You have to look inside and see who and what you really are.

1:59:53 And then you have to love yourself. Even when you don't like what you see. When people used to say practice self love, I thought it meant go eat bon bonds. And go see a good movie. And

2:00:06 Smoke a joint. That was self-love. You know? But it wasn't getting me anywhere and I was like, this whole self love thing is jive, it's just not Not working out.

2:00:15 And But I didn't realize that self love is learning how to give yourself unconditional love. And The best way I've learned how to give yourself unconditional love is imagine yourself As a ball of light.

2:00:30 And then take that ball of light. and visualize it outside of your body and cradle it like it's a baby. Now when you look at that baby Would you hurt that baby? Would you do anything to hurt that baby or harm that baby? Like would you kill the baby? Would you

2:00:46 You're just a ball of light. I think when you start looking at yourself that way and you start talking yourself and I'm cradling right now and trying to show Tim like I'm My ball of white. And

2:00:59 You start to realize that all of the things that we experience are often well actually they all are a simulation in our mind that we start to talk about ourselves a certain way. And you would never hurt a ball of light until it's an awful piece of crap.

2:01:14 Like why do we tell ourselves we're an awful piece of crap? So the other thing is that we're the only Species or animal on this planet that punishes itself more than once. You know, we ruminate and think constantly about what we fucked up on or how we could be better.

2:01:31 When in reality We'd be better served if we just let it go. So If you want to experience something like this and I do warn you that A lot of the stuff leads to things that can be jarring and very scary if you're not ready for them yet.

2:01:46 They're psychological events. That can happen. are sometimes indistinguishable from mania and everything else. So you just have to be careful. But

2:01:55 I found my path to this by looking inward and trying to know myself and then taking accountability for all my ugliness. And Once you get through that and you forgive yourself and you love yourself, there's nothing but light on the other side. But really it's about love. You know, at the end of the day, it's about love.

2:02:15 Which sounds trite. Everybody says love is the answer. Like what does that even mean? But it absolutely is The answer. He could put something metaphorically speaking. On a billboard.

2:02:26 Message quote. Anything to it. In part. Or display. Could be an image.

2:02:32 Somebody else's quote. Two. Great, great masses of people. What might be.

2:02:39 A B. I mean It's the same concept that was explored in the Matrix and in in lots of different fiction It's just to wake up. Wake up.

2:02:49 If you see it enough times, maybe you'll understand what it means. If you wake up out of bed and you're awake, you think you're awake, but you're actually not. You're in a form of sleep. And that sleep is what's called your mechanical automaton sort of actions that you take.

2:03:04 That are in response to What's being thrown at you in the world. what nature gave to you and what nurture Handed to you. And you just accept it.

2:03:16 And so you're just sleepwalking through life. And the moment you take the reins and you become the narrator of your own story and sometimes the captain Then That's when it's a transformational change. Take it.

2:03:31 And it that ties back into dice rolling, right? Like dice rolling. Is a way to stay awake. Staying awake and staying conscious and staying present is a practice you must practice every day. And if you don't

2:03:44 Then you just have to accept the cookie falls, how it crumbles, or how what are what are some cliches? Except how the cookie crumbles. It's except how the cookie crumbles, but you could introduce a little more random you could

2:03:58 go to work dress as SpongeBob Square Pants, as I like to say, but people don't. There's a lot of things you could be doing that you're not doing. Another movie that actually really helped me in my life was the movie American Beauty. with Kevin Spacey. And

2:04:12 I was probably in my early twenties when that came out and I came out of the theater and I sat on the floor and I said My life is a broken record. I'm stuck in a groove. That I can't seem to get out of I'm gonna break up with my boyfriend and switch my job. And the movie inspired that.

2:04:28 You know, art has a way of being at the right place at the right time for you. And sometimes you really do need to switch things up and you need to get out of your Groove. Because You're your own worst nightmare.

2:04:41 How did you end up, and maybe you don't know, but how did you Experience a stroke. And What Effect did that have?

2:04:51 On you. So yeah, I was at Founders Fun when it happened and I experienced it as the worst headache of my life. It was a migraine. On a scale of one to ten, it was like a fifteen. There's like the worst headache.

2:05:03 You could possibly have. And Yeah. progressively got worse every day and they the doctors just treated it as a migraine because I was young. When you're young and you're experiencing a stroke.

2:05:14 It doesn't make a lot of sense to people. And so they start going down this decision tree and they're like it obviously has to be either A cluster headache or a migraine or something like that. So I was treated for a migraine. I went to the ER

2:05:26 Again they treated me for a migraine, didn't give me a C T scan. And eventually I started seeing double I started falling I always like to say you don't want to actually feel what gravity feels like. 'Cause there's falling and you have resistance and then there's falling with no resistance.

2:05:42 And falling with no resistance is really spooky. And so you're standing and then you're down. It's just like there's nothing. To keep you up. And so that started happening to me.

2:05:52 And I went to a second ER. I had to wait in the ER for six hours. But eventually again. Magical woman. came over and rubbed my leg and she said, I think you're having a stroke'cause no at this point nobody knew what was wrong with me. And she raised the alarm bell and then suddenly I was

2:06:07 Put in a C T scanner and they discovered that I had what's called a uh D V S T, which is a deep venous Sinus thrombosis. Which is clotting throughout the entire center of my brain and down my jugular My right jugular.

2:06:21 And I was moments away from death. By the time they found it. And That definitely helped kick me off on this quest because When you're in a hospital for a couple of weeks, which I was

2:06:35 And you come outside, the very first thing that hits you is air. Like that first breath of air. I mean, there's air in a hospital, but there's really no fresh air. And suddenly you realize that the most important thing in the world It's not what you thought it was. It puts everything in perspective. It's like okay, first it's air, then it was the sun on my face, which brought me to my knees. Like I started bawling.

2:06:56 'Cause what if I never ever got to experience the sun again? You've been really grateful. And filled with gratitude for Everything. But

2:07:06 We're human beings. We love novelty. You go back to sleep. So I had a deep appreciation for life, but as soon as I was walking again and I was somewhat normal again, I started living the same way again.

2:07:20 And I knew that if I kept living that way, I would die. What do you mean by that? It was really clear that I had put myself in this position. Oh die physically, you mean. Yeah. I put myself in this position through Avoiding all my suffering, avoiding my trauma.

2:07:36 Working through it. Working as hard as I could, avoidance, avoidance, avoidance, avoidance. And Then it came clear that I had to have some kind of therapy. I had to do something because I couldn't keep running away from this Ghost of a mother.

2:07:51 And I had to find something that worked and talking to therapists never worked. So I've been worked. Pilocybin helped a lot. I did a couple of hero doses of psilocybin that taught me quite a bit about myself. And they were super helpful. You know, IFS, I started looking into integrated family systems and that helped a lot.

2:08:09 But really it was meditation and philosophy that got me over the line. Whatever works, man. Just go out and really study yourself and know yourself. Like know thyself is an important mantra for a reason. Because I do honestly believe we're in school and when you start realizing, Oh, I'm in a school and all of these Hard knocks in life are just lessons.

2:08:29 You think about them very differently. Who would your go to philosophers be? Two. Helped you in that. Period in those early chapters of this.

2:08:40 Let's call it Awakening. And Then what type of meditation do you practice? What does it look like? You can tackle those in either order. Yeah, so I tried all sorts of different types of meditation apps and none of them really stuck with me.

2:08:53 I would get hung up on people's voices. And You know, there's a critic inside of us and I would criticize Everything. So somebody turned me on to Tibetan throat singing.

2:09:05 And that's what did it. Did not see that coming. So are you then the one singing or are you listening to Tibetan Throat singing? Both. I do both. So I chant along with the chants. I moan along with the moaning to the best of my ability. I

2:09:19 Listen. And I Don't do the bead counting. How did you find Tibetan throat singing with someone like, you know what? I know you've tried everything but Try one more thing.

2:09:30 Embracing random, you know, sometimes the universe you if you're paying attention exactly what you need. So a friend of mine went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and they had some Tibetan throat singers there and he brought me back a necklace. And he said. look at this necklace and it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen and I was like, Well, I'm gonna go check these guys out. And it was a huge unlock.

2:09:50 Huge. But again, your mileage may vary, like Try different things and see. I think the biggest mistake I made with meditation was trying to treat it like a sport or it was something that I had to judge myself. I mean, you're approaching it all wrong if you're entering meditation, I think, that way.

2:10:06 There are different kinds of meditation, some that even allow and permit Thoughts to flow freely. And you're supposed to look at them and pay attention to them. And then there's types of meditations where you're supposed to clear your mind. I think people get really scared of meditation because they think of a blank canvas, a blank mind, and that really scares them and frightens them. And

2:10:25 Once I got over that And I started realizing that's not the point of it. At least it wasn't for me. I can now meditate for six hours at a time. So

2:10:35 Yeah. I'm doing my ten minutes twice a day. I'm pretty happy with myself for now. Yeah, I mean my co workers laugh at me'cause they'll take me someplace and I can sit still for In a normal amount of time. And

2:10:47 I think that's when you process all of the inputs that are being thrown at us, how you can synthesize the information that's been handed to you or even countered. is by those moments of stillness. And so even if it's ten minutes a day, it's something Mm-hmm. You know, it's not about length of time or anything, it's about the effort. It's not the size that matters. It's uh so I I will say also that

2:11:10 Whether it's with exercise or Meditation, any new habit or something you're trying to build as Part of your new programming. The difference between doing nothing and something is the biggest zero to one, right? That's the unlock. So If you're going from not exercising to exercising, it's like okay.

2:11:29 Don't set yourself up for failure making the pass fail an hour a day. Do Ten push ups. Every other day. Start there. Or five blocks. Same with meditation. The difference between zero and ten minutes once a day or twice a day is in terms of quality of life for me huge. Enormous.

2:11:47 And if I want to add more time, great, but what I shouldn't do is set the pass fail at an hour a day and then when I don't have an hour to not meditate. Just reduce the scale, right? Reduce the scope. What about philosophers?

2:12:00 Any folks you might point people to? I'm a big fan of Gergia. He's not for everybody. And he's very confusing. A lot like Alistair Crowley or Crowley.

2:12:10 was a wackadoodle person who Like to drive people away when they came up to talk to him. If he didn't like you, he would say obscene things. Just so you would go away. This is George Gurdjieff. Gergie F G U R D J I E F F Gergie F Yeah Gurj. Yeah, George Gurj.

2:12:29 And One of the things he talked about is There's a lot of things he talks about. The thing that resonated with me the most is Who is the captain of your ship? Are you the captain of your ship or some rogue process?

2:12:43 I have a Unix background so I like to think of things as cron jobs or automated processes, but there's some road process running you. Or are you running yourself? And I think you'll discover if you do a lot of introspective work that you are not in charge. So one of the concepts that he talks about is

2:12:59 Sort of like a horse carriage. There's a person who's driving the horse. And then there's the horse, obviously, there's the carriage. But there's also the narration of what's happening. And it's even taking control of that inner narration.

2:13:13 Like Where does that even come from? Are you in charge of that? Are you letting it run amok? Is it determining Which is your ego.

2:13:22 Is it determining Where you go, what you do, what's next, or are you doing that? So Gergiev delves deeply into those concepts and more. Auspinsky Which is his underling.

2:13:33 which a Russian philosopher, and I really, really recommend reading him. Love to Think about And again, I'm self educated, so I say things wrong sometimes, but Nietzsche? Yeah.

2:13:43 Okay. Nietzsche, yeah. Nietzsche, Nietzsche. He had um A concept call the eternal recurrence. Which is yeah. Yeah, that we're stuck. In a

2:13:54 constant loop until we learn how to be good people and that's the premise of Ground Hung Day. And It might explain deja vu. it might explain why you've done something and you're like I feel like I've done this before. I've met that person before because maybe you have.

2:14:10 And that's what they talk about and their philosophy and it's it's pretty interesting. The eternal recurrence can get super confusing. It can get super confusing. It features quite heavily in the Unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera, who uh which I highly, highly recommend to folks. And I'll just read a quick

2:14:29 thing about Gurjief also for folks who may be interested. So This is George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, born eighteen sixty seven. And what was formerly Russian Empire and now Armenia. And he was a philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and dance teacher. He taught that people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic quote waking asleep. End quote, but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings. And it goes on. He also has a great look. He's got the bald head with the strong man, old man, like old timey strongman mustache.

2:15:05 Alright, so I'll include links. Two. The names you mentioned as well. Any particular

2:15:13 recommend people start with if they wanted to dip their toes in the water, but Maybe something that's like a gateway drug and maybe user friendlier. Option. What do you think? There's a book that he has called Beezle Bum's Tales to His Grandson.

2:15:27 Beaselbub. That's a word I haven't heard in a while. All right. Yeah. And then, you know, Al Spinsky's the curious case of Ivan Osakin is about a guy

2:15:38 Who falls in love with a girl But he has to pursue his career. Because he wants to be able to provide for her. So he decides to put off being with her so he can pursue his career, but he misses his moment and she marries another man. And he's so distraught that he goes to a magician

2:15:54 And the magician is Gurjev. In the book. And says, Can you please send me back to age eleven so I can do this all over again? And I will not make the same mistakes again. And Gurje F the magician says actually, you will.

2:16:07 you'll do the everything the exact same again'cause you can't help yourself. You may deviate slightly, but you're gonna end up in the same place without her. And so The guy is insistent and he sends him back to eleven years old and sure enough. He makes every mistake.

2:16:22 Exactly the same. Sure as shit. Groundh day. Gets back to finally to the the magician who says wow, you're lucky that you made it here because You could have lost me. You could have made a wrong decision along the way and then I would have disappeared too. What if I told you that The wedding was fake. And

2:16:39 She got married to upset you. Ha And he's like, what? She's not married? And he's like, No, she's really not married. And he's like, Well, I wanna run off and be with her now and he goes, Uh That'll end badly.

2:16:52 And he's like, Why? And he said, Because you haven't done the work, right? You've realized that you need to change, but you haven't done anything. to actually change. So he says come with me. And spend a few years with me and then maybe you might have a chance of being with her.

2:17:07 But otherwise All paths lead to you not being with this woman. So the movie is Groundhog Day. I believe it's what Groundhog Bait for my research is based off of is that book. But it's just a beautiful tale and I think that

2:17:19 You know, you can't take these things literally like philosophy. And to be clear, when you say based on you mean Groundhog Day, the movie, not the The movie. Not the holiday. The movie. Okay. And Girgyev's Wikipedia page is very, very extensive. So that's gonna be my stop number one in addition to figuring out how to get some dice. Saiyan, we've covered a hell of a lot of ground. I am I

2:17:43 I wanted to tell a virtual experience I had that you believe. Oh yes. Of course. After I had this awakening, I started getting this really weird vision of an Irish man. And it was like a cartoonish Irishman, and it was hijacking me every moment. I couldn't think about anything else. It was like a lucky charms kind of. With his fists in the air and he's like a fighting Irishman. He's a caricature of an Irishman.

2:18:09 And I was like, I do not know. What? This means, but I'm going to go do something about it. And so I went to my husband and I said

2:18:19 I noticed that the Celtics were playing the Warriors. And it was the finals in Boston. And so I made the excuse because it was the only Irish thing I could think of at the time. And I went to my husband and I said, I wanna go to the Celtics game and he was like, What is wrong with you? You hate basketball.

2:18:34 That makes no sense. And I said, I know. It makes no sense, but I'm getting this weird sign. that I need to go to the Celtics game. So He bought me the ticket. I didn't even choose the ticket.

2:18:46 And I had a knowing, I'm gonna call it a voice. Which makes people worried sometimes. They're like, Oh, you're hearing voices. I don't want to get locked up. But I have a knowing. I'm just gonna call it a knowing.

2:18:57 That basically told me That I didn't need to bring anything with me to Boston, that everything would be given to me. All I had to do was bring my wallet and my ID and just show up. So My husband brought me the ticket to the game.

2:19:11 And I show up. And I go into the arena early because I I have a little bit of agoraphobia. I'm a introvert. And so Now they don't call them hallways at sporting arenas, they call them portals. So I had to find my portal. Anyway, you're in a portal.

2:19:29 And I go and find my seat. And the whole arena's covered in chairs covered with green shirts. And I'm Disoriented. I call my husband. I'm freaking out. He's like, look, you chose this adventure. You're in it. Good luck. And he hung up on me. I was like, ah.

2:19:45 So I see down this aisle that there's one chair that doesn't have a shirt on it. So I said I'm gonna go down to that chair and I'm gonna use that number as a my reference point and then I'm gonna work out from there where my seat is. I get to the chair and it's mine. And I look around the whole arena and there's not a single other chair that doesn't have a shirt. And I was like

2:20:03 Okay, that's a weird start to this trip. By itself means nothing. And All of a sudden the song comes on. over the loudspeakers and usually at a basketball game they play a song for twenty seconds.

2:20:17 But this time they played this whole song and it was Phil Collins I Can Feel It in the Air Tonight. And I have this weird Superstition as a little girl. That when that song came on it was gonna be a good night.

2:20:30 It was a weird superstition. It's just everything's gonna be all right,'cause Phil Collins is here. And he sings that song and it comes on the airwaves and it's just everything's gonna be okay. And it was in that moment,'cause I'm keeping mind I'm having this Kundalini whatever going on with me. that I realized that I wasn't completely without superstition. I wasn't completely without belief, because I still believed in Phil Collins. Ha.

2:20:51 And so then I said, Okay, well What if I just start to be hyper present and I start paying attention to what happens around me? What if I am in a simulation and this is a video game. What will the video game reveal to me? Well

2:21:07 That's when stuff got weird. So This guy to the right of me came in and he's wearing a Celtic shirt. And he sits down next to me and a guy to the left of me comes in wearing a warrior shirt. The guy to the left of me stands up. taught and like a military person when they do the national anthem. You can tell a little bit about him because of this. You can like okay, well he he might be

2:21:27 A veteran or He's At very least patriotic. The guy to the left of me from the Bay Area didn't stand up for the national anthem. He sat it out. When Kathy Gifford got up and started talking about gun control

2:21:38 This is the woman who was shot in Arizona. The guy on the right sat down, the guy on the left stood up and started cheering. So just so I can keep them straight. Now the guy from the Bay Area, the liberal guy stands up. Yeah, he stands up for gun control. Yeah. The guy to the right sits down for gun control and I realized I'm in the middle of America.

2:21:55 I'm in the middle of the great divide of what divides our country, and it's like representing and playing out right in front of me with these two guys. So they started fighting over me. Because it started with the game with the Celtics winning and so The guy with from the Celtics was talking shit to the guy from the Warriors. And the guy from the Warriors team was just this insufferable entitled person. Like when he showed up he

2:22:16 Took all the green shirts and threw them. And I ended up with a green shirt finally. And he's like, I don't need these. I'm a champion. I got plenty of I mean, he was just So The guy on the right at some point about when the Celtics start losing, the Wayers start winning, he starts getting angry and I can tell you can just tell the tension that that a fist fight's about to happen.

2:22:34 So he looks at me and he says Are you with him? This is which guy, sorry. The Celtics guy. Oh yeah, the Celtics guy, okay. Yeah, he's like Are you with him? And I said, No, I'm not with him and he goes Well, who are you with then?

2:22:46 And I was like, Well Basketball. And he goes, What? And they said, Yeah, I'm I'm Here for basketball. And he looks at me like you are absolutely freaking out of your mind, woman. Like you bought a ticket to the finals game.

2:22:59 The last game. You flew across the country'cause he asked me where I was from. Yeah. You don't even have a team? I was like, nope, I don't have a team.

2:23:08 Just here for basketball. So the guy to the left hears this and he goes. Oh, the Malware's guy and he goes, You're about the metagame. I get it. And I was like, Well, what is the metagame? And he starts teaching me all about the metagame. And then I get another. What the fuck is the metagame?

2:23:22 Oh, it's paying attention to like the popcorn people. The business. I got it. Basketball. Meta within meta within meta within meta. Yeah, sure. Fine, lots of metagame. You're into the metagame. Okay. Uhhuh. Yeah. So I told him, I said, Well, maybe I am. And so I started playing the metagame with him.

2:23:38 And The guy to the right I got a knowing again a weird Intuition, a voice, if you will, that said To turn around to him and tell him that

2:23:49 their main player, the Celtics, and I don't know his name, but when he comes to the Warriors and he comes to the Baria, he brings his three year old son And to tell him that his favorite player is a good father. And so I told him this and all of a sudden you could see all the angst and the anger in his body just disappear. It just softened. And he wasn't fighting anymore. No, this is I can't do it. This is the Warriors guy. Celtics guy. Sorry. Okay. So told the Celtics guy about the Celtics player. Got it.

2:24:15 Mm and all of a sudden because he's losing I got the sense that he probably scraped together money to come To see his team win finally. On his home turf, and it was like a dream come true for him. And it wasn't happening.

2:24:29 And so I took a moment to give him love. And then that was it. And then I thought, this can't be. The reason why I came to Boston is to start a fight between two sports guys. This cannot be why I got a weird vision of an Irish guy. This cannot be it. So I went back to my hotel room. And I got a bottle of water and I go up to the front desk.

2:24:47 And I say Can you build this to my room? Room three forty. And the person behind the desk Looks at me.

2:24:54 And says You don't exist. And I said, Excuse me? And they said, Yeah, you don't exist. And they pull their monitor around and tap on it and they're like, See, there's nobody in that room. There's nobody in room three forty.

2:25:07 I said I guarantee you I'm in this room. I guarantee you I have a key to this room. I guarantee if I go up there my stuff is still there unless you got rid of it. And they were like, nobody's been in this room for a week. I'm like that's not

2:25:17 Possible. It's just not possible. So I call my assistant and I put on a speakerphone. I'm like tell me the Number For our you know, our reservation, she rattles it off, the guy puts it in.

2:25:29 Sorry, you don't exist. I like it. Okay. This is getting weird. Well I'm just gonna go to my room. Where I don't exist and what do you want me to do with this water? And he said, Keep it. I was like, Okay, that's really strange.

2:25:40 So I went to sleep. And the next day I woke up And like any good science experiment, I went back down to the front desk and there was a different person there and I grabbed a Kit Kat bar. And I went up to them and I said, Can you put this on room three forty? And they said sure and They said the same thing again.

2:25:55 You don't exist. Well that really put me on tilt because I was like This is getting weird. What do you mean I don't exist? I was like, what do you want to do with the candy bar? Keep it. Remember I said I went there and I had this premonition that everything would be given to me.

2:26:12 So I start walking around the neighborhood And I'm looking for a another shirt'cause I've got a Celtic shirt that the guy, the Warriors guy, threw at me. But I need another shirt for the next day because I'm there for three days. So I gotta find another shirt. And I wanted one that wasn't made in China.

2:26:26 So I went around from store to store store looking at labels. Finally gave up and I end up at this food court. And I hear Phil Collins play. And it stops me in my tracks. I'm like, again, you don't normally hear Phil Collins two days in a row. That's weird. Groundhog day redux.

2:26:42 Right. And so I start recording it, but all of a sudden I look over to the right of me and there's a guy dressed in all white. He's got a white hat on, white glasses. White shirt. White shoes, and I think he was wearing blue jeans. And I have this feeling that I know him.

2:26:55 I'm like, how is it possible that I know that guy? It's not possible. I'm like sign stand target, find your shirt. But there was this pulling, this magnetism, this knowing, this feeling, this voice. I don't know what you wanna call it, once you have one of these Awakenings.

2:27:09 But it is unmistakable. that if I didn't go over and talk to him. The whole point of coming to Boston was for nothing. And I was like Okay, so I wander over to this guy.

2:27:21 When he's talking to a young man. And I said, I'm sorry, do you Mind if I bother you? Do you know me? And he looks at me like no, I do not know you. And he looks at me like I'm crazy because I kinda am.

2:27:34 What I like is that you were like, Do I know you? It's do you know me? Yeah, do I know you? No, I said do I know you That's very cyan. Um

2:27:47 And he's like, I don't know you. I've never met you. I you don't know me. And I was like, Well, are you a VC? And he goes, No. And I'm like, Are you in the tech industry? No. Did you ever live in the Bay Area? No. And I start asking all these questions and finally I'm like I'm sorry, I'm being rude. What are you guys up to? And he says, Well I'm talking to my friend here because he has a startup. And he's got a company that he's building and I'm trying to help him with it and I was like

2:28:08 Oh. Well you are in the tech and he's like, No, no, I'm not in technology. And I was like, Well, what do you do? And the guy's like, I'm a t shirt entrepreneur. I go no way. You're

2:28:19 T shirt entrepreneur. Okay. What kind of shirts do you make? And he says, Well, you can have as many as you like if you can guess what they mean. And so he lays them all out on this table. And each one of them is a different color and in the middle of each shirt is a square with another color in it. And then there's this weird

2:28:35 Hex code and then some weird Latin root. Name. So I deduced by looking at it that the hex code was probably a color. and the Latin root name was some kind of condition.

2:28:45 So that's what I told him. I said Gleaning From what I appears to me as a condition and a color. And he goes, Yes. Each one of these shirts represents a type of color blindness.

2:28:56 And then he looks at me and he goes, You know. We all live in different realities. And I was like, what? And that's when the guy in white says Cyan Bannister. And I look at him and I'm like, Oh.

2:29:08 We do know each other. And he said, Yes, I met you In the basement at Ted. Several years ago, like ten years ago, or eight years ago. And

2:29:19 There was a big party going on and there was a bunch of People who Not even a bunch of people, a handful of people. I wanna say like a dozen people that went into the basement to hide. And I was one of those dozens people. I was down there with like Linus Torbald. Meaning like Escape the Crowds. Escape the crowd. Yeah. So I'm down there with Linus Torvald and all the the people who don't want to be around crowds. And

2:29:41 This guy walked in. And all of a sudden. The movie of meeting him played in my mind, and it must have played in his at the same time because we were answering each other's sentences. And I said. I was leaving.

2:29:54 because the party was still too big and there was too many people coming into the introvert space. And as I was leaving, you were coming in. And I said, Hi, my name's Cyan Bannister. I like your outfit. And he said, Hi, my name's Tango. I like your outfit too. Is this where the introverts hang out?

2:30:12 I said yes. Have fun. I'm leaving. That was the end of our interaction. So I said, have we ever met again after that? And he said, No, we'd never hung out.

2:30:21 A single time after that. And he's like, but it's okay. I died five years ago. And I was like, What do you mean you died five years ago? And he said, Well I have a very strange heart condition. It's a very rare heart condition that Einstein also had. And the only person who could

2:30:36 operate on me is here in Boston. And so He told me. The surgeon. That he couldn't leave Boston and he tells me

2:30:45 I'm stuck in Groundhog Day. I can't go anywhere because I can't be more than Ten minutes away from the surgeon, otherwise I might die. And I was like, Well

2:30:54 Tell me more about this death that you had and you said, Well they had to lower my Heart rate, they had to stop my heart. And kill me. In order to do this operation. So I wasn't even sure if this guy was alive. Okay, I'm having a really weird time mentally.

2:31:08 And so I'm touching him and I'm like Are you real now? Are you alive now? Do you exist? And he's like, I'm not really sure if I exist or not. He goes, I always ponder this question. So anyway, I take my two shirts, I go back to my hotel room. I get we exchange phone numbers, by the way.

2:31:26 And I run the experiment again and there's another person at the desk and I still don't exist. And so I call my Assistant And I'm like, get me out of here. I think I can't handle any more of this. I think I need to be around loved ones because I'm losing my mind.

2:31:41 If so if she tries to give me a flight out and every flight she books me on gets canceled. So I message a spiritual friend of mine. And I say I'm in Boston.

2:31:50 What do I do? And he says you might enjoy a duckboat ride. Good spiritual advice. Right. And so I get angry.

2:32:01 I'm like I'm not going on a duck boat in this condition. With my mind doing all this weird stuff, are you crazy? And My assistant says, Well, you never have not listened to him before. Why are you not listening to him now? So I was like, fuck it, get me a ticket to a duck boat. So she gets me a ticket.

2:32:16 And if you go to these duck boats in Boston It's first come, first serve. You don't get to choose your duck boat. You just get on a duck boat. You know, but it's The next duck boat is yours. So I get on this duckboat and there's nobody on it.

2:32:29 And so I take a seat that looks like it's made for a single person and it's facing sideways. So it's not facing front or back. And it's definitely not the captain, it's not the wheel. So I take that seat and this guy gets on the boat. And he says to me Are you the new narrator?

2:32:45 And I looked at him and I said, No. And he goes, Well Unless you want to narrate, you gotta get out of my seat'cause that's where I sit. And I was like, Okay, but where where should I sit? And he's like right in front of me, sit right in front of me. I said, Okay. So then the captain gets on and the captain drives the car until it becomes a boat.

2:33:01 And all these families file on And suddenly he's got a microphone. And this guy. Starts talking to only me. Only me. It's like everyone on the boat disappears.

2:33:13 And he looks at me and he says. When you think that you're so important Or so big. And your ego starts getting the best of you. Go to the planetarium.

2:33:25 You know. Realize that you're part of a galaxy among galaxies and you're just a little piece of dust clinging to a rock. And He starts telling me story after story, and but what was really interesting was that he started breaking down Gurjieev's philosophy.

2:33:39 On a butt. Yeah. And I was like, This is getting really strange. And I'd love to know what the rest of the people were thinking too. They're just like, What the fuck did I pay for? Yeah, well I don't think I think there is Going back to sleeping, I think they were asleep and they really weren't paying attention to anything he was saying.

2:33:55 Yeah. They were just like he was moaning on droning on to them. Yeah. But for me he was dropping like Truth bombs. So we're about to go in the water and he looks at me and he goes, Are you ready to be baptized? And I said, I think so.

2:34:08 Yeah, sure. Let's do this. And he's like, Okay, great, because There's a decision in life where sometimes you have to relinquish control. You have to surrender. to someone else or to something higher. And right now's that moment where you can get off this boat and be on dry land. But once we're in the water.

2:34:26 I'm in charge. You are no longer in charge. Can you surrender? And I was like, I surrender. And we go into the water In the sun. Remember I told you that the sun was the second thing?

2:34:40 After air. The sun hits my face and I just start sobbing. And it felt like being baptized. It felt like I was being touched again by something Profoundly beautiful.

2:34:54 profoundly reaffirming of life, fr profound about my purpose and my place on in this world. And Then he pulls up to a mental health institution. In Boston. I don't know if you've seen this building, but it's like this horrible, brutalist building made out of concrete. In the amphibious duckboat. Yes.

2:35:12 I mean a step up. Okay. So the boat pulled up to this mental health institution. And he says to us

2:35:22 You know? Sometimes you're just having a conversation with God. Or with the universe or whatever. And you're on a spiritual path, but people think you've lost your mind and you're crazy and they lock you up in that place. And he goes, I don't know how you're going to get better if that happens.

2:35:38 And he said but There's beauty everywhere and it's hidden in plain sight. And if you look at that building Long enough something really pretty will emerge from it. And then he started using kind of like a kid like voice, which triggered all the children on the boat to go, A frog.

2:35:55 And I was looking at this building and not seeing a frog. And I was like, Okay, I'm looking for the frog, I'm looking for the frog, and all of a sudden A frog emerges from the building. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. So if you go to Boston, look for the frog building. There's a frog that shoots out of the building.

2:36:11 And then you're like, wow, there was a frog there the whole time. And he explains to me, he said, you know. When we're children We see all this magic. We're plugged into it. We're part of the source. And as we get older

2:36:23 We start cosplaying obviously and start putting on these costumes and we start telling ourselves these lies. And we lose touch of this magic that's just right there in plain sight. because we become calcified to it. And

2:36:38 When we got back to the deck boat He asked me to stay. My first instinct as a woman is I'm being hit on. So I'm like, oh crap. So I'm the last person off'cause I was the first person on. So I'm like I have no way you I always do like threat assessments. I'm like shit, how do I get out of here? I'm stuck.

2:36:54 And so I'm like, what is the worst that could happen with this guy? Like I'll just stick around and talk to him. He could be interesting. So I get off the boat. He asked me to wait. He says, Wait on this bench. And I said, Okay.

2:37:06 And then I watched them for 45 minutes go to each individual person that worked at this duck boat company and hold their hand and thank them for showing up that day. Thank you for driving the boat and giving it a hundred percent. Thank you for taking the tickets and giving it a hundred percent. He goes on and on and on and on. And then he eventually gets back to me and I said, Are you a manager? And he's like no.

2:37:27 And he looks at me and he says, Why are you here? And I'm like, well. A spiritual guide of mine told me I needed to go on a duckboat ride and clearly I did. And then the voice, the knowing happened and it said

2:37:42 Ask him why he's a duckboat narrator. So I did. I said, Why are you a duckboat narrator? And he said, Well I have ADHD. And I'm a comedian. And I can't hold down a job.

2:37:52 And I started doing this job'cause a friend of mine was a duckboat narrator. And I got hooked because I started telling stories that I hoped Would improve A family's life one tour at a time.

2:38:05 If I could reach one person A day. I feel like I've done The work. I feel like I've done great work. And I have a purpose in this world.

2:38:15 And then the voice says. Tell him he's doing God's work. So I'm like, I don't know why I'm supposed to tell you this, but you're doing God's work. And then Kill him.

2:38:28 That someday his wife will understand. And when I did that This man welled up and cried. And the voice said, His tears are not for you. You need to leave now.

2:38:42 So I said, Your tears are not for me, sorry, I gotta go. I gotta leave this place. And That's when he said you're beautiful. He said, You are really beautiful and the voice says

2:38:53 I'm just a mirror. You're the beautiful one. And when I got back to my hotel. They suddenly knew who I was. And I was able to leave.

2:39:03 But until that point, I did not exist. And I was in this weird Time work. of weird events that kept happening, like the person dressed in all white You know.

2:39:15 And things were just being given to me. Things being given to me happened for a few weeks after that. Like people were giving me sandwiches and giving me necklaces and giving me really weird stuff. And The only thing that I can think of is that when you have a spiritual experience like this, you just show up in the world differently. You're more inviting, you're more open. You know, trying to think of the science. At the end of the day I like to think about science and how this all could work.

2:39:37 And I think it's probably a Explanation for it. But Ultimately I think we're connected. On some sort of level.

2:39:46 That we don't quite understand because We just don't understand it yet. But I just wanted to share that story'cause it's one of many stories that has happened to me since I watched that movie. That's just one of many. And the

2:39:59 Miraculous thing about Tango. Is Tango texted me? And he's now traveling the world. He had amnesia. And The encounter with me brought back all his memories.

2:40:11 What's it? That's wild. Yeah. An amazing life you lead. You and your husband. And what a broadly and intensely

2:40:22 curious life you have led. Curious not in the like raise an eyebrow strange sense, but curious in the very Literal. Sense of Engaging with things around you.

2:40:38 And Seeking out the things that stick out. Seeking out the things that blend in. I've just been Struck over and over again by how relentlessly curious you are. I think that is a virtue.

2:40:50 I think that is. Think that is a real virtue. Cyan, this has been an incredible conversation. We've covered a lot more than I expected to. And is there anything else? You'd like to

2:41:03 Leave my audience with Point them to request of them Anything at all that you'd like to add before we wind to a close? Yeah, I'm writing a book. You mentioned my sub stack in the beginning. And

2:41:17 My sub stack, if if you go and read it, it's free. You don't have to pay. The only reason why I charge anything is if anyone wants to leave a comment. They have to pay to leave a comment, so if you're gonna be unkind, you gotta pay me. I learned that from Zivity. But

2:41:30 What it is, is it's source material from my book and it's me remembering things like a child. The story about, you know, my mother And the twenty dollar bill is in there. There's all these stories in there. And it's me doing this. Search. internally for

2:41:47 you know, how I can be a better person and how I can show up in this world in a better way and So I recommend a lot of people get a lot out of it. There's a lot of stories that you might resonate with. I love hearing from people. And

2:41:59 When I get the feedback that a story resonates, I incorporate it into the actual physical book. So I am working on a book. And I'm about halfway done with it. And so My call. to the audience is to keep encouraging me to finish it.

2:42:14 And to keep encouraging me to write on Substack'cause I get Disartened, I I get sad sometimes writing these stories. I'm human. But

2:42:24 I think that I wanna write a story that Isn't about business, but it is about philosophy. And it is about some of the lessons that I've learned, but I found that in order for philosophy to really hit home, you can't be obvious. So you have to tell a tale. And so it's a tale of my life.

2:42:43 But hopefully at the end of it. It unlocks something inside of You, the reader. That helps you in some way in the way that the Razor's Edge helped me.

2:42:53 If I can have one razor's edge moment with a human being, I will feel like I have Really achieve something in life. Ugly duckling dot substack dot com. Why ugly duckling? My mother was very devastatingly beautiful. And at least I thought so.

2:43:08 And I think that that beauty Give her It opened a lot of doors for her and also allowed her to manipulate people with her beauty. And She tried a weird tough love approach with my sister and I and she basically told us we're ugly.

2:43:25 And she said, You're very ugly, so you better be smart. Because you're not gonna find a good man if you're not smart. And if you don't find a man, at least you can provide for yourself. And when you hear that as a little girl I took it to heart and it definitely gave me a sense of dysphoria. It detached me from my body.

2:43:43 And I just thought I was just the ugliest creature that ever lived. But she told me that some day I'd find my swans. Because I was just an ugly duck among Ducks.

2:43:54 Searching for my swans. And I didn't know what it meant, you know. She kept telling me this and so Really it's about overcoming the fear of that narrative and looking for my swand. I am turning into a swan.

2:44:10 I mean the person you're talking to right now is becoming a swan. Finally. In shedding that. narrative and shedding that story. And so that's why it's called Ugly Nuckley. Well

2:44:19 I think of you as a swan. And I can see it. And I'm so grateful for The time that you've offered in this conversation and the stories that you shared and the vulnerability that you showed. So thank you for that.

2:44:34 Very much. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for all that you do and for opening people up and for sharing stories and you're clearly on a mission. And you have a purpose, a really great purpose. And I wanna hear about

2:44:47 after you do dice rolling for a while,'cause I know you take things to the next level. I've you know, you don't half ass do anything. So I wanna see What comes with your nice experiments. Yeah, for sure. I I will gladly share.

2:45:01 And there's a lot to explore here. It's Mm-hmm. For people listening. There is a lot that we will be linking to. In the show notes.

2:45:10 As always. at Tim.blog slash podcast science C Y A N Cyan Bannister at scientist C Y A N T I S T on X and L s for ugly duckling dot substack.com. Check it out. I've been very impressed with your writing and encourage people. take a look and to continue encouraging you to write more and For everybody who is tuned in. I'll give you my usual sign off, which is

2:45:37 Until next time, be just a little bit kinder than is necessary. Not only to others, but also to yourself. And thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out. every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, Albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then

2:46:33 I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. Way back in the day. In 2010, I published a book call The Four Hour Body, which I probably started writing in 2008.

2:47:04 And in that book, I recommended many, many, many things. First generation continuous glucose monitor. and cold exposure and all sorts of things that have been tested by people from NASA and all over the place. And one thing in that book was athletic greens. I did not get paid to include it. I was using it. That's how long I've been using what is now known as AG1. AG1 is my all-in-one nutritional insurance, and I just packed up, for instance, to go. off the grid for a while and the last thing I left out on my countertop to remember to take, I'm not making this up, I'm looking right in front of me. is travel packets of H you want. So rather than taking multiple pills or products to cover your mental clarity, gut health, immune health, energy, and so on, you can sport

2:47:53 these areas through one daily scoop of AG1, which tastes great even with water. I always just have it with water. I usually take it first thing in the morning and it takes me less than two minutes in total. Honestly it takes me less than a minute. Just put it in a shader bottle, shake it up, and I'm done. AG1 bolsters my digestion and nutrient absorption by including ingredients optimized to support a healthy in every scoop. AG1 and a single serve travel packs, which I mentioned earlier, also makes for the perfect travel companion. I'll actually be going totally off the grid, but these things are incredibly incredibly space efficient. You could even put them in the book, frankly, I mean they're kinda like bookmarks.

2:48:31 After consuming this product for more than a decade, I chose to invest in AG1 in 2021 as I trust their no-compromise approach to ingredient sourcing and appreciate their focus on continuously improving one formula. They go above and beyond by testing for 950 or so contaminants and impurities compared to the industry standard of N. AG1 is also tested for heavy metals in 500. various pesticides and herbicides. I've started paying a lot of attention to pesticides. That's a story for another time. To make sure you're consuming only the good stuff. AG1 is also NSF certified for sport. That means if you're nothing, you can take it. The certification process is exhaustive. and it involves the testing and verification of each ingredient and every finis batch of HE1. So they take testing very seriously. There's no better time than today to start a new healthy habit.

2:49:21 And this is an easy one. Wake up, water in the shaker bottle. A G one. Boom. And right now, every week of November, AG1 will be running a special Black Friday offer for a free gift with your first subscription, which is in addition to the welcome kit with five AG1 travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com slash Tim. to see what gift you can get this week. That's drinkag1.com slash Tim. To start your holiday season off on a healthier note,

2:49:52 While supplies last. This episode is brought to you by 8 Sleep. I have been using 8Sleep Podcover for years now. Why? Well by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top like fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. 8Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the Pod, and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second. First, Pod4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees below room temperature. keeping you and your partner cool, even in a heat wave. Or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive. I am always more heat sensitive, pulling the sheets off, closing the windows, trying to crank the AC down.

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