Podcasts about Friendster

(0:00) Intro(1:26) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel(2:13) Start of interview(2:45) Joe's origin story(4:07) His early career starting in London, with law firm Linklaters. (6:43) His move to Friendster in Silicon Valley.(8:00) His time at Videoegg.(9:24) His time at the International Trade Administration in the Obama Administration.(11:30) His return to private practice with Gannett and Facebook's emerging products.(13:10) His operating role at SOSV, a global venture capital firm (2019-present)(15:10) How he got started with his board service. First board experience: a UK public company called GoCompare.(16:50) Difference between a "good" and a "great" director. (18:34) Distinguishing the concept of overboarding between public and private VC-backed companies. Reference to VCBA (5/14/25)(21:06) Some differences between U.S. and U.K. governance practices.(24:57) On the increasing politicization of corporate governance, including ESG and DEI (plus boardroom diversity). "Let's bend it, not end it."(27:47) The origin story of the bio books that he compiles.(31:07) On the impact of AI in the boardroom. Boards need to 1) move faster on AI, and 2) focus on the transformation, not only the tech.(35:50) On navigating in VUCA times (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity). "Act proactively, not reactively"(38:18) Challenges for boards in next 5-10 years: 1) time management and 2) increasing focus on director skill sets.(35:50) On navigating the regulatory landscape in VUCA times (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity).(41:27) On board evaluations.(46:00) Will governance regulations harmonize internationally? Example: climate change disclosures.(49:15) The UK's approach for boards to engage with employees: workers' council, board representation, or DNEDs.(46:00) Will governance regulations harmonize internationally? Example: climate change disclosures.(51:50) Books that have greatly influenced his life:How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936)Range, by David Epstein (2019)(52:38) His mentors: Barry Williams (E153)(54:13) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by. "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" and "I never lose, I either win or learn."(56:27) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves. (57:10) The living person he most admires.Joe Hurd is a purpose-driven public company board director and strategic advisor who focuses on digital transformation, international expansion and stakeholder engagement. You can follow Evan on social media at:X: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Este domingo Facebook cumplió 20 años de vida. Fue un 29 de julio de 2004 cuando cuatro estudiantes de Harvard decidieron crear una red social en la que los alumnos de su universidad pudieran relacionarse entre ellos, intentando mejorar las redes sociales existentes. Las luchas de poder entre Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz y Chris Hughes fueron reflejadas de manera magistral por David Fincher en la película La Red Social. Fue la salida al mercado lo que dinamitó la relación entre Mark Zuckerberg y Eduardo Saverin. Fue a través de los tribunales cuando Saverin se salió con la suya, obteniendo un 7% de Facebook y el derecho a ser mencionado como co-fundador de la red social. Una vez aclarados estos problemas de propiedad, Facebook empezó pronto a ser la opción favorita de la gente para chatear y estar conectado. Desbancó rápidamente a otras redes sociales como MySpace o Friendster. Aquí en España su reinado estuvo ligeramente amenazado por Tuenti, pero cuando Telefónica la adquirió, la convirtió rápidamente en red de telefonía móvil. En 2008 se convierte en la red social más usada, superando a Myspace, contando en España con más de un millón de usuarios. Aunque la historia de Meta también es la historia de grandes adquisiciones. La última gran adquisición fue la de la base de datos en línea Giphy, pero sin duda las que cambian el panorama de la compañía y la hacen ser la reina indiscutible de las redes sociales, fueron las compras de Instagram en 2012 por 1000 millones de dólares y Whatsapp en 2014 por 19.000. De hecho, en 2021 cambian su nombre a META para reflejar el carácter plural de la compañía. Aunque estas también les ha traído varios problemas legales a su creador, Mark Zuckerberg. En 2018 salió el escándalo de Cambridge Analytica: la consultora durante la década de 2010 recopiló datos de millones de personas a través de Facebook. Zuckerberg pidió perdón pero siempre ha negado la influencia de estos datos en las elecciones de 2016. ¿En qué momento se encuentra Facebook ahora mismo? Entre las novedades anunciadas por Meta, Facebook contará en 2025 con notas de la comunidad, al estilo X, diciendo adiós así a su programa de verificación de contenido. Además, Facebook priorizará la calidad de la interacción por sobre los simples clics o impresiones.

Klaus Hommels is one of Europe's leading start investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Spotify, Airbnb, Facebook, Coinbase, Revolut and more. Among his many responsibilities, Klaus is the Founder of Lakestar, his own venture fund and chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund. In Today's Episode with Klaus Hommels We Discuss:  1. The Investing Rules that are BS: Why does Klaus totally reject the idea of price sensitivity? Why does Klaus hate the idea of “building portfolios”? Why does Klaus believe the best investments are made when there is not a fundraising round in motion? Why does Klaus believe that capital concentration limits on a per company basis are BS? How concentrated is Klaus happy to be? 2. Europe: What The F*** is Going On: Why is Europe underfinancing innovation by a factor of eight? Why is Europe unable to send satellites into space for six years? What should Europe do to become a global superpower once again? What needs to change? Why should European pension funds be forced to invest in venture capital? 3. The Stories Behind the $BN Returns: How did a dinner with Klaus' son lead to his investing in Revolut? How did Klaus analysis of Friendster and MySpace lead to his buying Matt Cohler @ Benchmark's Facebook shares? How did a small investment in a Swedish company, Stardoll, lead to Klaus investing in the seed round of Spotify? How did a conversation with Madonna's manager lead to Klaus investing in Airbnb?    

DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF THE BITCOIN-FOR-BUSINESS QUICK START GUIDE This free, 27-page resource includes:Six ways ANY business can benefit from BitcoinSome of the best Bitcoin-only businesses to partner withKey Bitcoin concepts for people getting startedMike Carson, founder of Spaces Protocol, is revolutionizing digital identity with a decentralized system on Bitcoin that empowers user control. As the owner of Friendster.com, he's planning a reboot to give users ownership of their data. Previously, Carson founded and exited Park.io, co-founded WizeHive, which hit $10 million in revenue and managed three ICANN-accredited registrars. An early Bitcoin advocate, he's been active in the community since 2013, running one of the first Lightning nodes and pioneering real-world Bitcoin transactions.

I social media sono più antichi di quanto si possa pensare! Dobbiamo tornare indietro fino agli anni '70 per trovare i primi prototipi: Usenet, IRC. La comunicazione online si è trasformata nel tempo. Ma le basi della socializzazione digitale di oggi erano già presenti molto prima dell'avvento di Facebook e di Twitter.Tutti i miei link: https://linktr.ee/br1brownTELEGRAM - INSTAGRAMSe ti va supportami https://it.tipeee.com/br1brown

In this episode, we dive into the world of road trips, the messy intricacies of relationships, and the joys of baseball, with our host Kid A.G., accompanied by Hat Trick and Eraser in the studio, and a special call to Jay Mac and Spider Monkey on their way to South Dakota for a marching band competition. On the Road: Jay Mac and Spider Monkey are driving straight into the sun, heading to a competition. The conversation veers from the nostalgia of social media days (remember Friendster vs. MySpace?) to the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction that feels like ancient history now. The Single Life vs. Settling Down: The Kid reflects on how life has flipped for him; he was once the married guy when the show started, now he's the single one amidst settled friends. There's a humorous nod to Hank Williams Jr.'s song about his friends settling down, mirroring the Kid's own life journey. Parenting and Privacy: The topic shifts to the complexities of parenting and personal life, discussing how modern technology like Life 360 blurs the lines between parental concern and privacy. The hosts share experiences about their children's reactions to their dating life, highlighting the delicate balance of introducing new partners to kids. Sexual Dynamics Post-COVID: The conversation takes a turn to discuss the effects of COVID on sexual performance, with Hat Trick sharing an amusing yet insightful anecdote about expectations after a long hiatus. The hosts humorously ponder if there's a correlation between health crises and bedroom activities. Tigers Talk: Baseball fans at heart, they discuss the Detroit Tigers' surprising season, predicting outcomes with the same passion they put into their personal tales. Philosophy on Happiness: Towards the end, there's a deeper dive into the philosophy of happiness. The Kid emphasizes the importance of wanting friends to be happy, not jealous, showcasing a mature perspective on relationships and friendships. Wrapping Up: Final words are shared with light-heartedness and a nod to the future, imagining listeners a hundred years from now, possibly puzzled or amused by the raw, real antics of *The Goin' Deep Show*. This episode encapsulates the essence of the podcast: a mix of crude humor, heartfelt discussions, and the camaraderie that's been the show's backbone for 20 years. From dissecting threesomes to dissecting life, the hosts keep it real, keep it funny, and keep it going deep.

The best thing about Only Murders In The Building AND YOU CAN QUOTE US ON THAT joins us to talk about an epic Emmys night, the timeless appeal of Madeline Kahn, enduring a cat allergy for love, a big gay road trip revenge tour, the dachshund who made his family complete, the genius of Tanya Donelly, the box office archetype, coming out of the closet and coming out of the closet as the creator of a web show, his breakthrough in Stage Kiss, a chance encounter with Catherine O'Hara, and meeting a future husband on Friendster. 

A domain investor is bringing Friendster back. Do you remember Friendster? It was one of the earliest social networks, launched before the likes of MySpace and Facebook. Well, Friendster is back thanks to someone you might know from the domain business. Mike Carson, who founded and later sold Park.io, was able to acquire this domain […] Post link: Friendster is back! – DNW Podcast #502 © DomainNameWire.com 2024. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Mike Carson is the CEO of Impervious (and Friendster): a Bitcoin-native ZK proof-native protocol which allows for scalable domain registrations on the Bitcoin blockchain. In this episode, he explains how & why he decided to disrupt ICANN.

Send us a message!Ever had your sleep hijacked by a hyperactive corgi? Tom kicks off this episode by sharing his sleepless ordeal caused by Finley's reaction to surprise fireworks. As we navigate through the humor and exhaustion, Heather and I engage with our lively audience, discussing not only tech gadgets like our new mic stands but also fun plans for upcoming streams, including games like Scattergories and Blank Slate. Our goal? To bring a little laughter and enjoyment, even on the most restless nights.We then shift gears to explore the fascinating journey of social media and technology. Highlighting the Zoom H1 Essential audio recorder, we reminisce about our early YouTube days and celebrate our seven-year anniversary with a nod to the book "Extremely Online." This segment is a nostalgic dive into the platforms that shaped our digital landscape, from Friendster to MySpace, and a candid discussion on the balance between innovation and authenticity in content creation, particularly when it comes to AI-generated voiceovers.Finally, we delve into a spirited debate on the ethics of AI-generated voices in advertising and storytelling. From the subtle differences between human experiences and AI narratives to the practical applications of AI in language dubbing, we ponder the impact of these technologies on viewer engagement and authenticity. We wrap up with a quirky discussion about the authenticity of an eyebrow hair on a camera lens, reflecting on how digital content creators navigate the fine line between genuine connection and strategic manipulation. Join us for this thought-provoking episode filled with laughter, insights, and a few unexpected revelations.Use promo code "TABLE" for 10% off Tom's podcasting courses! Visit https://himynameistom.com/courses to sign up!

This is one of Mark's favorite episodes, where he got to speak one on one with Terra and, even better, got to hear her sing live. Singer-Songwriter and YouTube pioneer Terra Naomi joined Mark in studio for some terrific conversation and musical magic Terra talked about singing as an infant before she could walk, growing up with hippie parents who grew some interesting crops, how her song “Say It's Possible” went viral and how she was the #1 musical artist on YouTube for a time, how she connects with her fans, how signing with Island Records turned out to be a mistake and a learning experience, how Al Gore inspired her to write the song that would change her life and how she accidentally sent Vice-President Gore a Friendster request, how it felt to sing to 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium for the Live Earth concert which earned her props from Spinal Tap and Jamie Lee Curtis. Terra also sings “Machine Age” and “For My Last Number” live in studio

This week, Mrs. Pearlmania takes Alex's hand and walks him down memory lane to explain the meteoric rise and extinction level fall of proto-social media influencer, Tila Tequila. From getting banned from Friendster, to her reality dating show, to getting banned from youtube, the tragic tale of Tila Tequila is a metaphor for the first two decades of the 21st century. SEE ALEX LIVE!!! TICKETS FOR THE SOUP FOR MY FAMILY TOUR HERETo become a Team leader: Join our patreon (not a cult): https://pearlmania500.netPlease take our membership survey! We want to hear your ideas and input! https://bit.ly/3xZtyYkThe Pearlmans have a NEW Post Office Box: P.O. Box 72151, Thorndale, PA 19372.Follow us on Instagram: @Pearlmania500 & @mrs.pearlmania500You can watch this episode on our Youtube Channel!!!Our theme song and all of the music for our show comes from our friend's project called "His Name Was Dusk." Check out his website for more info at: hisnamewasdusk.com Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The venue told us to tag them on social media so they could share our posts. I said, “We've tagged you multiple times on Twitter, TikTok and Facebook. Are you not seeing them?” “Oh,” they said, “We're not active there. I guess it's really just Instagram.” For some people (mostly Millennials, I guess), “Social media” just means Instagram. I happen to loathe Instagram the most. So for me, I lean toward Twitter and Facebook – but it's all social media to me. I still post things to Instagram, even though I don't like it. I figure I can't afford to leave anyone out. Sometimes something hits on LinkedIn. Sometimes a thing is a hit on TikTok. It's possible that these are sort of generational silos, where different generations gather in one place or another. I guess since Friendster and MySpace are gone. Gen X tends to go wherever – and I think that is actually a useful instinct because our numbers are small. So when sharing our work, for example, we can't just talk to ourselves. To keep reading Social Media Silos visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 399 Song: Internet Drama: I Need Butter Image by Waldemar via Unsplash My puppet video of this butter song. My puppet video of another Lubalin hit. To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join my mailing list: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like the blog/show on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support me on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Or on Kofi: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or PayPal me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartist⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join my Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://emilyrainbowdavis.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow me on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@erainbowd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Me on Mastodon - @erainbowd@podvibes.co Me on Bsky - @erainbowd.bsky.social Me on Hive - @erainbowd ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pinterest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tell a friend! Listen to The Dragoning ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and The Defense ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can support them via Ko-fi here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ As ever, I am yours, Emily Rainbow Davis

With all this hubbub about TikTok possibly getting banned, we're revisiting three of our episodes about social media platforms that burned bright and burned out fast. And up first - MySpace!~~~Friendster, SixDegrees, Makeoutclub - if you're a 90s kid, then you probably remember at least some of those websites (and may they all rest in peace). But there could only be one top dog, and MySpace was it. Hillary Duff, Harry Styles, Kim Kardashian - everyone had a MySpace page, and you better pray your friends put you in their Top 8. So with all the hype, how did the site go from being a 12-billion-dollar gorilla to an Internet has-been?Rob teaches Ray about how this small, music-centric social site evolved into a global behemoth; why "the honor system" isn't exactly an enforceable privacy policy; the tragic betrayal of Tila Tequila; and why we could all use a little more Tom in our lives.If you like what we are doing, please support us on Patreon. TEAMRay HebelRobert W SchneiderMark SchroederBilly RecceDaniel SchwartzbergGabe CrawfordNatalie DeSaviaARTICLESTom Anderson's InstagramAUDIO/VISUALEpisode ClipsTom Anderson InterviewSNL MySpace Sketch"Leave Britney Alone" VideoMusic & Sound EffectsAdditional Sound Effects from Final Cut Pro, iLife, and Logic Pro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us as we delve into the fascinating world of MySpace Music with Michael Tedder, author of "Top Eight: How MySpace Changed Music." In this enlightening interview, targeted at indie record label owners, music industry professionals, and indie artists, we explore the rise and impact of MySpace Music, a platform that revolutionized the way musicians connect with fans and industry alike.   PRESENTED BY AtoZ Media (http://atozmedia.com)   We kick off our conversation with a curious inquiry about Tom, the iconic face of MySpace, and where he is today. From there, we embark on a journey through the history of social media, from the forgotten pioneer Friendster to the emergence of Facebook and the unique space occupied by MySpace.   Tedder sheds light on the decision to allow uploads of original music on MySpace, revealing the platform's role as a precursor to modern-day social media platforms like Facebook and Bandcamp. We discuss how MySpace provided indie artists with unprecedented direct-to-fan opportunities and served as a pioneering platform for A&R reps to discover new talent.   But was it really as easy as it seemed to land a major deal through MySpace? Tedder addresses this question, along with inquiries about the platform's algorithm, the preservation of MySpace in people's memories, and its eventual sale to News Corp in 2011.   From the parallels between social media evolution and the rise of mp3 sharing sites to the connections between MySpace and piracy, Tedder paints a comprehensive picture of MySpace's impact on the music industry. And let's not forget the intriguing Justin Timberlake connection and the enduring value of the MySpace brand today.   As we wrap up our conversation, we ponder the possibility of a MySpace reboot, tapping into the nostalgia of the '80s and '90s and exploring the potential for MySpace to make a comeback in today's ever-evolving digital landscape.   Tune in to gain insights into one of the most iconic platforms in music history and discover how MySpace changed the game for indie artists and industry professionals alike.   Grab a copy of "Top Eight: How MySpace Changed Music" - http://geni.us/topeight

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comKara is a journalist who has covered the business of the Internet since 1994. She was the cofounder and editor-at-large of Recode, and she's worked for the NYT, the WaPo, and the WSJ. She's now the host of the podcast “On with Kara Swisher” and the co-host of the “Pivot” podcast with Scott Galloway, both distributed by New York Magazine. Her new memoir is Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. It's a fun read, and it was good to hang out with her again after many years. We were both web pioneers and it's good to remember those days of the blogosphere. And we get fiery at times.For two clips of our convo — debating how woke the MSM really is, and how readers are smarter than journalists — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Kara's rough childhood on Long Island; losing her dad at an early age and contending with a bad stepdad; her military family and her interest in serving; how DADT made things worse for gays; being an AIDS quilt folder; lesbian tropes; our mutual dislike of Pride parades; her fearlessness as a young reporter; The McLaughlin Group; the condescension of legacy media; tycoons who buy media outlets; Jeff Bezos; Marty Peretz; Friendster, Zip2 and Suck.com; how Facebook was seen as a savior for media; how trolls are chagrined when you talk to them; how Zuckerberg is “lovely but awkward” in person; Bill Gates; Peter Thiel; how gay hookups drove the early internet; how the apps kill serendipity; the power of podcasts for community; how the right innovated direct mail and talk radio; Obama's pioneering with web outreach; how Twitter made January 6 (and Trump himself) possible; Kara watching every single episode of The Apprentice; how Trump's act is getting stale; how social media is not a good business model; Elon Musk; buying Twitter to “make him more interesting at parties”; the Walter Isaacson bio; Elon's vile tweets on Paul Pelosi; his trans daughter; ketamine; Mark Cuban on DEI; abortion in the 2024 election; how social media is fracturing and losing appeal with Gen Z; the decline of cable news; the disinfo on unarmed black men killed by cops; how BLM led to more black lives lost; the grievance-industrial-complex of the right; how its reactionaries just want to “burn s**t down”; why Kara is a China hawk; why she disagrees with Jon Haidt; the TikTok ban; the Twitter Files; Hunter's penis; Tipper Gore and dirty lyrics; and how Kara counsels her four kids about social media and porn.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Adam Moss on the artistic process, Johann Hari on Ozempic, Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Noah Smith on the economy, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Bill Maher on everything, and the great Van Jones! Send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Season 3 begins with the feel-good tale of how Rutgers emergency physician Dr. Aislinn Black and Cornell information law scholar Prof. James Grimmelmann met in the early days of social media. Learn how 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard played a key role in their connecting and how Aislinn initially tried to matchmake James with a friend of hers. Irina and Michelle accompany the couple from their early days of zipping up and down the East Coast (so they could hang out) to their decision to commit after bumping into a Belgian medieval pageant. Aislinn and James discuss why the era of long emails and AOL Instant Messenger worked especially well for their romance and how their marriage and parenting defy gender stereotypes. Last but not least, James shares his thoughts on the steps that would lead to greater Internet safety. Come start the year right with a podcast episode that will bring a smile to your face!Dr. Aislinn Black's professional profileDr. James Grimmelmann's professional profile Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Six months ago, Goldman Sachs published some research valuing the creator economy at $250 billion — a number they say could roughly double over the next five years. But it also found that just 4 percent of creators are considered “professionals,” meaning they pull in more than $100k per year. (Sound familiar?) As Google, Meta, and Amazon square off with regulators over their ownership of more or less everything we do online, it's easy to forget about the little guy propping this whole thing up: the everyday users who are populating these platforms with all the content.But not Taylor Lorenz. She's one of the world's biggest experts on the history of social media (maybe you've heard of her) and a tech and culture columnist for The Washington Post. Taylor has been covering internet culture since before it was considered a beat. Now, that beat is her book: Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet charts the rise of the online creator as a new class of creative worker, from early ‘00s mommy bloggers and MySpace “scene queens” to the Instagram influencers and TikTok stars of the present.You can think of it as a people's history of the creator economy, with a special focus on how platforms are shaped by the everyday people who use them — even as the aforementioned tech companies make it excruciatingly difficult for anyone else to reap the rewards. It's a perspective that often gets lost in the mainstream technology press, which tends to give founders all of the credit for innovation.To figure out how we got here, we invited Taylor on to join us for a little trip down memory lane, back to a time when selfies (and bangs) were more angled, the web was less aggressively commercial, and surfing the web was more about seeking out the information you needed — not just consuming whatever your timeline happened to spoon up. Pals, we're talking about the early days of social media — and how platforms like Friendster, MySpace, and even early Facebook and Tumblr laid the foundation for the creator economy as we know it today, while shaping the youth culture of the 2000s and early 2010s.We chat about the aesthetics of the MySpace era, the genesis of the modern creator, and the turning points in early social media that got us to where we are now. Along the way, we discuss whether it's still possible to see social media as a democratizing force, or if it creates new winners and losers — and why, nearly 20 years after the Facebook newsfeed made everybody's personal business public, users are retreating into closed communities again.Buy Extremely OnlineFollow Taylor on Substack, Instagram (+ good meme account!), and X (or Twitter or whatever)Read more:Taylor's column at The Washington Post“Content creators surge past legacy media as news hits a tipping point” by Taylor Lorenz“From mommy bloggers to TikTok stars: How creators built a $250B industry” by Drew Harwell and Taylor Lorenz“Millions work as content creators. In official records, they barely exist.” by Drew Harwell and Taylor Lorenz This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

Joining Sharon on the podcast today is well-known reporter Taylor Lorenz, who has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, covering technology from the user perspective as an authority on Internet culture. In her new book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet, Taylor takes a nostalgic trip down memory lane beginning with the rise of blogger culture, and weaving through the roads of social media and how the usage of technology has evolved. From home decor and mommy blogs, to the wild west of Friendster and MySpace, to the rise of YouTube and the uncurated aesthetic of TikTok, we see how the internet has evolved over the past decades, and how it is shaping culture today. Special thanks to our guest, Taylor Lorenz, for joining us today.Host/Executive Producer: Sharon McMahonGuest: Taylor LorenzAudio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Text us and say hello!In this episode, Beth and I are embarking on a nostalgic journey through the evolution of communication, from the humble landlines of the past to the omnipresent smartphones of today.Join us as we reminisce about the days when our only means of reaching out was through a trusty landline. Remember those awkward corded phones and the thrill of receiving a call? We'll share stories of late-night conversations, tangled cords, and the anticipation of hearing that special ringtone.Next, we'll delve into the era of cell phones, when we became untethered from our homes and discovered the convenience of staying connected on the go. From the iconic Nokia bricks to the sleek flip phones, these gadgets were a game-changer, and we'll explore how they revolutionized the way we communicate.Of course, we can't forget the early days of online chatting, where platforms like AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger allowed us to connect with friends and strangers alike. Those quirky screen names and the sound of the familiar "You've Got Mail" notification were a big part of our digital coming-of-age.Moving forward, we'll revisit the era of LiveJournal, MySpace, and Friendster, where we began sharing our lives and connecting with people in entirely new ways. These platforms paved the way for the social media explosion that was yet to come.So kick back (most likely on your smart phone), and enjoy another piece of 90s/00s nostalgia!Support the Show.We've got merch!Check out the site for some awesome Gen 'S' swag :)

Comedian and writer Aparna Nancherla joins Greta this week as a fellow DMV native. They bond over sleeping in class and their adolescent passion of becoming spies!They talk Friendster, idolizing West Coast high school culture, and Aparna being a square and a fear-based good student. Buy Aparna's new book UNRELIABLE NARRATOR, out on September 19th.Follow Greta:Twitter: @gertie_birdInstagram: @gertiebirdTikTok: @gertie_birdFollow The Show:Instagram: @seniorsuperlativespodTikTok: @seniorsuperlativesLike the show? Rate Senior Superlatives on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review for Greta.Advertise on Senior Superlatives via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For this week, we have the wonderful Paulie Durig from Switzerland who will guide us into the world of holistic mental health coaching, share intimate personal stories, and talk of her thriving career in creating a production line called “Sacré”.  This is PART one of a three-part piece.~~~Paulie Durig in a nutshell: Professionally, Paulie is the founder of The Sacred Space Suisse (Est: 2019) where she provides holistic mental health coaching and guidance to individuals and organizations.  Personally, she is married and a stepmother to 3 kids. Two are 16-year-old twins and a boy at age 10. Prior to moving to Switzerland, Paulie worked in various BPO companies in leadership capacities in Training and Operations for Travel, Banking, Retail, and Shared Services. During their leisure time, Paulie enjoys cooking, hosting Lectures (book review) sessions, spending time in nature, and playing with their 1-year-old French bulldog named Max.At the moment, Paulie is hatching her personal anti-anxiety line of products (soap, body scrub, and body oil), called Sacré. These products are personally hand-made by her and will be made available in Asia by end-of-year.You can view Paulie's Professional full-length bio here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulie-durig-chyp-169278269/ You can follow Paulie on the website and platforms below:The Sacred Space website: https://tinyurl.com/TheSacredSpaceCHFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulie.durig.1Instagram: @sacredspacesuisse Support the showBreakfast With Tiffany Show Official Facebook Page ~ https://www.facebook.com/breakfastwithtiffanyshow Tiffany's Instagram Account ~ https://www.instagram.com/tiffanyrossdaleofficial/ For coaching sessions & programs with Tiffany, check out her official page ~ https://www.tiffanyrossdale.com Breakfast With Tiffany Show Youtube Channel ~ https://bit.ly/3vIVzhE Breakfast With Tiffany Show Official Page ~ https://www.tiffanyrossdale.com/podcast For questions, requests, collaborations and comments, feel free to reach us via our e-mail ~ breakfastwithtiffanyshow@outlook.com

Dive into the fast-paced and exciting world of artificial intelligence with our podcast series! Join our expert guests, Dr. Mfon Akpan and Dr. Scott Dell, as they unravel the mysteries of AI, explore the cutting-edge developments in language models like ChatGPT, and discuss the massive impact of these technologies on industries like accounting. From the thrilling acceleration of AI adaptation to ethical concerns and security implications, this podcast explores it all. Tune in to stay at the forefront of one of the hottest topics in technology today!Connect with our speakers:Dr. Mfon Akpan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmfonakpan/Dr. Scott Dell -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/drscottcpa/SF Magazine Article by our speakersFull Episode Transcript:Adam:            Welcome to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and today we're diving deep into the world of AI. A subject that has been making waves across industries. Transforming the way we work, communicate, and think. With me are our esteemed guests; Dr. Mfon Akpan, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Methodist University. And Dr. Scott Dell, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Francis Marion University. They bring a wealth of knowledge and insights into AI's history, its current impact, and what's on the horizon.  We'll discuss everything from AI's phenomenal growth; to its applications, ethics, security concerns, and much more. So buckle up and let's embark on this fascinating journey into the digital revolution. Adam:            Mfon and Scott, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We're really excited we're going to be talking about AI and ChatGPT, and all that comes underneath that. And we're really excited to have this because this is a very hot topic, and people are talking about it. You see articles about it every day. You see updates, you see leaders writing letters saying, "Let's stop all AI for six months." Et cetera. Maybe we could just start at a high level. What is AI? What are these chat bots? What are these things doing for us? Scott:              Amazing tool, and thank you for having us. It's a pleasure to be here and to share. I'll kick things off, Mfon, if it's all right. This artificial intelligence has been around for over 60 years. So you say, "Wait a minute, why is it so new?" Well, what's new is the capabilities because of the computing power we now have. And the tool is amazing; it is changing life as we know it. We haven't seen the likes of this since the printing press. It's an environment that can really do things, change work, augment work, replace work, but makes things better. Your thoughts, Mfon? Mfon:             Yes, and I think some of the excitement around it is that we haven't seen this type of growth, in a platform as well. So you think about it was released, November 30th 2022. Five days, the platform got a million users. So you think about in 2010, it took Instagram two and a half months to get to a million users. So there's a lot of excitement, and then there's a lot of acceleration and speed around the platform, as well. Scott:              As a follow up to that, 100 million users mark was reached in two months. Compared to TikTok, I think, it was nine months to get that far, that fast. So it has been an amazing adaptation of the technology. Adam:            So maybe we can talk a little bit about how does it work. And, then, from there, maybe, talk about what benefits it may have for the accounting profession as a whole. Mfon:             Well, it's a language model, so it has an interface. So you're able to go to the platform, you go to the website, and you're able to ask it questions, or you can copy and paste information and ask it to do things. So from the profession side, if you're asking it to solve problems. You can ask it to solve a problem, or you can have it write an email, write a letter, it can produce content for you. Scott:              And as Mfon mentioned, it is an LLM, one of those three-letter acronyms, a large language model. But what it does is it projects words. So it looks at the previous word and it says, "Mm, what would the next logical word be?"                          Which, sometimes, if you've ever played the game of telephone, as a kid, sometimes, you get to the end of that line and nothing resembles how it started out. And that sometimes happens, as well, with the ChatGPT and GPT-4 environment. Because it is projecting with probabilities, "Yep, I think this is the next word." And sometimes it's dead wrong. It's called hallucinating, it's the actual technical term. Mfon:             It does hallucinate. But what's so fascinating when you use it, it is projecting. But I guess it feels like you get the impression that it's thinking, even though it's not thinking. So you can ask it questions and it will give you answers, so there's that interaction. But it is projecting and it does, sometimes, hallucinate, or make up answers, give you false information.  Scott:              And the fear I really have, in the hands of professionals, we can, probably, take a look and say, "Oh, this isn't quite right. This is illogical." But for a novice, and for newbies like our students, they will look at this and say, "The English is so good. It just flows so, logically, it must be right." And it's not, although, often enough it is right. So there's a balance. Adam:            Yes, so talking about people using it. Obviously corporations, people within corporations, within organizations, are using it. Within the accounting profession are using it, and people are having to create policies. There are new workarounds coming out there. People are saying, "Okay, you can use this, but you can use it for that." I saw one example, where somebody put in a fake balance sheet and said, "Analyze this for me." And it gave a really interesting analysis. Then, you have to worry, "Oh, am I putting somebody's data into this thing?" And you have to worry about those things. And, so, how can this tool be used for management accounting? In the accounting space, obviously, without giving away too much personal data? Scott:              Security consciousness is we need to be there. I mean, you're hearing about the deepfakes. I just heard about a scandal in Hong Kong, a banker that sent millions of dollars, based on what sounded like the voice of the person, the CEO, that was asking for the money, and millions were lost.  So there are a lot of nefarious uses out there. But there are a lot of positive uses, and using it in the business environment. I mean, there are a number of businesses that have banned it as well. School systems that have banned it. But there's a lot of fear in the air. I think there's more hope than fear, though, and more opportunity. Mfon:             Yes, there is more opportunity. And from an interview that I read with Ilya Sutskever, I hope I'm saying his name correctly, he's the chief scientist at OpenAI. From what he was explaining, they consider their value with the platform is the reliability.So there's a focus on updating and moving the platform to become more and more reliable, as far as the output. And he was explaining, if you look at the jump from the 3.5 to the 4.0 version, you see that there's a movement towards this reliability.  On the other side, if you watch the interview with Sundar Pichai, from Google, when he talked about Bard, similar, well, I shouldn't say similar, he called it guardrails. So they're releasing Bard and they have it out there, so that they're testing it. So it's twofold, they're getting the public used to the technology and, at the same time, they're testing it so they can slowly release it and put in, as he called it, guardrails, with the technology. As they further release it and develop it. So I think all of this is in mind, as it moves forward. Scott:              And we started off with the pace of adaptation of this tool. The pace that we are needing to adjust to it is also very quickly. And, Adam, you brought up a great point about security concerns. Putting in somebody's private data, PII stuff. You're looking at it and saying, "Wait a minute, is this recording me? Is it going to take it? Is it going to repackage it and spit it back out to somebody else?" And the short answer is it very well could be. We do have the rightful fear, but we're all getting used to this. It just has been such a rapid ramp up and the guardrails do need to be in place, and everybody's concerned about that.  But take for example, if you wanted to get scammed and you're saying, "Okay, we're going phishing. Give me a phishing email that's going to be effective with this kind of tone or whatever else." And now there are guardrails in the place to hold you back and saying, "We're not going to do that." Then you say, "But I'm an educator, and I want an example of a phishing email so I can demonstrate for my students that this is not the right thing to do, but look how powerful it can be." And that also used to trip up the AI and say, "Oh, okay, yes, let me give you an example." And there's ways around it, and all kinds of folks are trying to get into this, we'll call it the black box, and take advantage. It doesn't take very many bad players. But most of the folks are good players that are using it to their advantage, in the workplace.  But we mentioned earlier a number of companies, folks like JP Morgan, and Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, that have banned it for internal use, and there must be a reason as well. The banks, I can see where they'd be real concerned about their security. Adam:            Mh-hmm, yes, I've been reading, too, that there's a lot of concern about privacy of data. And even when I've talked to folks, internally, at our organization, are like "Oh, can we use it?" "Well, just be careful what you put in there." "Okay, well, can we have some more guardrails around what I'm supposed to put in there?" Because when you're using these tools, it's all about asking the right questions. And if you don't know how to ask the right questions. Soon enough, we'll see courses out there saying, "How to ask the right questions to ChatGPT." Scott:              I actually talk about that; it's called prompt engineering. Six months ago, we didn't even realize it existed, even though it did exist at that time. But right now there are so many new job opportunities in this prompt engineering. How you ask the questions. I used to call this a Google on steroids. I've had to change my tune because Google, you just do a quick ask. And yes, you can get away with that in ChatGPT and GPT-4. But really, you really want to set the stage, tell it what you want. The format you want it out, the tone you want it to project. You really have to have a pretty well developed question, and there are some methodologies to do that, to properly ask a prompt. Mfon:             Yes, it's a good point. And if you think about it, with this chat bot technology, it's still in the infrastructure phase. So you think about companies, they're still working on the whole infrastructure and, to some extent, they're building it while it's flying, if you think about that. And eventually it'll reach a point where we'll get to the application phase.  But a lot of this, in my opinion, is moving way faster than we've seen before. So it's not new, but it's faster than before. So I try to think about if you think about social networks, social media because they compare, like Scott was saying, reach a 100 million monthly active users, or MAU, that's one of the metrics for social media. You think about 2002, there was Friendster. I don't know if anybody remembers Friendster.  Scott:              We actually do. Adam:            2003, Myspace, and that had 25 million users, and that was one of the top websites out there, at that time. And, then, Facebook comes along, Twitter, and then now you've got TikTok, a billion monthly active users. And, I think, Facebook is at 1.9, or something like that, billion monthly. So if you look at it in that way, it's still moving. But this isn't happening from 2002 to the 2020s. This is happening, really, if you look at it, in months. We've seen a lot of exponential growth. Scott:              Yes, the modern AI, as we know it, as we see it, is still in its infancy. And there's been discussion something about AGI, and you're talking about Artificial General Intelligence. Which is the level of where it's going to be in, who knows, six months, two years, five years, 10 years. I mean, GPT-2 was released back in 2019, then we had GPT-3 in 2021. So it has been ramping up. But, well, just wait till this stuff hits adolescents. We think our kids are off the guardrails, let's watch out for ChatGPT, and GPT-4, and GPT-5 eventually to come. Even though they put the brakes a little bit, they're slowing that down. Mfon:             Or another platform or that'll rise up. Adam:            Yes, I was just going to say that. You mentioned Myspace and then it was taken over by Facebook. Chat GPT is the big one now. I mean, I remember Myspace, I had a Myspace page, and then Facebook, I was like, "What's Facebook? What's this new thing?" And everybody gets the Facebook page. And, then, you forget about Myspace because it's no longer the relevant platform. And, then, you talk to kids, nowadays, you say Facebook. They're like, "What's Facebook? I'm using…" whatever the platform they're using. So there's always a newer platform that's going to come along.  And I think the other thing to remember, too, is ChatGPT, like you said, it's in a beta. It's not even fully out, but yet people are using it like it's fully there. And you have to remember those guardrails and, maybe, we can talk a little bit. How can companies use this within their organization, in a safe way? Because, obviously, you don't want to do too major stuff, but you can also utilize it for helping in some ways, too. Scott:              Well, as previously mentioned, we started saying you got to be careful and we need to educate. The same way we need to educate, "Don't click on that attachment on that email." Because it might open something up that's going to do something and cause a ransomware to be loaded, or whatever it might be. We need to educate and train our folks to say, "Well, how do we properly and effectively use this stuff?" Because you can go off the deep end and can go any direction.  And I mentioned, earlier, that as a professional, you can use this stuff and you can acknowledge, "Okay, wait a minute, this is nonsense, or this is really good." It can augment what you're doing. If you know what you're doing, that's the best use to let it help you do what you do best, and you can ask it those questions. You can complement where you're going. If you're new and you're trying to figure out how to use this stuff, you, again, need to have that back- Mfon:             Yes, to piggyback on that, I think, at this moment, and you have to be careful to say, at this moment, with this March 23rd version of GPT-4. If you're a practitioner, you're using it, it can make you better if you have that skill set. So it has the possibility to make you more efficient. Now, if you're not in the profession. So if you're not an accountant and you're looking to use it to do accounting, it can have the opposite effect. But what is happening, if they continue, with their focus on reliability, that gap is going to get narrower. It's going to get smaller, but it's not going to disappear.  Scott:              And you were asking about effective use of this, as a professional. The idea that you need to understand the field, to be able to ask the right questions. To be an effective learner, you have to be an effective questioner. To be an effective questioner will help you go far in any direction you want. If you're just going to trust blindly, it's not going to be effective for you. Mfon:             And from a business side, we're going to see more companies partnering with OpenAI. So Chegg has partnered with ChatGPT to create CheggMate. Bloomberg has created their Bloomberg GPT. So we'll see more and more of these applications or partnerships, with GPT and other platforms. Again, moving from that infrastructure phase to more of an application phase. Adam:            Yes, there seems to be an infinite waitlist for those who are trying to partner with them. If you try to say, "I want some sort of partnership, I'll work with it."  They say, "Well, we've got you on a list and we'll get back to you when we can." They're not even giving a time period now, which is really interesting. Scott:              Although you hear about the majors-Adam:            The majors, of course. Scott:              You hear about the Metas of the world. You hear about the Alphabets of the world, the Microsofts of the world, the OpenAIs of the world. But there are hundreds of other artificial intelligent applications out there. From music generators, to video generators, to rewriting, and tools, that there's a lot of NVC, there's a lot of venture capital money that's going towards these. It feels like the .com boom. If you were in 1998 and you had the .com in your name, toys.com or china.com, people threw money at you. Now you've got .ai, people are throwing money at you. Some of them are going to stick and some of them are pretty powerful. I've used a variety of these tools, and they're impressive and they can do some amazing things. Adam:            I mean, just thinking of the example of that picture of the Pope, in that white puffy jacket, that went around, and everybody thought was real. And then they're like, "Wait, that was created by AI." And it fooled so many people. News outlets were reporting on it, that it was this great picture. Scott:              That's right. Adam:            So I want to circle back to what you were saying, Scott, about novices and people just learning. And to be a great learner, you have to be a great questioner. And, so, this makes me think about accounting education and people in schools. And I know that ChatGPT had created another tool for professors to use, to check in against plagiarism and stuff like that.                         But how can this be used in an accounting education? Because the people, the kids, that are coming up, they're more tech savvy than folks who are older, and they're going to continue to be more and more savvy. But how can we best use this as we train up the next generation? Scott:              Well, I'll tell you, this is not only changing the world of work, it's also changing the world of education. We need to change as educators. We need to level up. We keep talking about critical thinking. That critical thinking is a powerful environment that we need to help our students take advantage of. But it's even more important now with the use of these AI tools. Because when they ask a question, well, students, and I hate to stereotype any student, but they don't have the bandwidth nor the base of knowledge that the experts and the professionals have. So they're going to take a look at some of this technology and trust it a little more blindly than you or I would, probably, like.  So they are exposed to it, they are using it. I've surveyed three classes recently. One over three quarters were using it. Another about half, a little over a half we're using it. And a third under a quarter we're using it. Which means they're using it. The key is, are faculty using it? Are the educators using it? And when we do, we realize they're going to take home exam and they're going to play with it, look at it, and say, "Oh, great, I get the answer." But I will share, I've done two exams, I call them "You're the auditor exams." And I actually ask a question, multiple choice. I give it the AI answer that ChatGPT generated, and then I give it three alternatives. So this is the new multiple choice format. So what was the result? Randomly, these two exams, it was about 52% that ChatGPT was right. So 20 out of 39 right, 19 out of 39 wrong.  I told my students, "You want to get a 50 on this exam, just circle A for every one of these answers and you're halfway there. But if you want to get a better grade. You're probably going to want to really do the problem, do the question, and evaluate for yourself." But they have access to the post of ChatGPT. We need to embrace that, and use that, and apply that to teach them how the rights and the wrongs, the ethical use of this tool. Mfon:             Definitely it is a challenge because you think about we're training students to go into the workforce. Definitely the workforce wants more efficient and productive workers, and this tool can definitely provide that or facilitate that. So you want to expose students to it because, eventually, the workforce is going to demand it, for greater output. So that's the big challenge. And I think the other challenge educators have been facing, is it's been changing so much. And we're getting a little breather right now, between the 4.0 and the GPT-5. Because you think about it, we had the rollout of the 3.5, then the 3.5 Plus, then the 4.0. And really, there was a big jump between the very first rollout in November 30th, the 3.5, to the 4.0, today, and we have to maneuver and adjust. So we can, at least, set some sort of baseline, right now, to catch up. Adam:            I'm in the field of education, adult education, as well, and it's interesting when I talk to colleagues. I was talking to a colleague of mine and he said, "Well, yes, I was doing a three-day seminar for the internal organization and I used ChatGPT to create my beginning starting point, and then I adjusted it from there."                         So, like you said, Scott, educators need to really jump on this. Because it could be people who are professionals can utilize it to say, "Hey, I'm going to create an outline using ChatGPT if I can put all this material in there." But then if all of us, professionals, start to do that, are we losing the ability to create these things on our own. Scott:              Well, two factors, one is in the career space. Mfon brought a great point on employers are expecting you to have this skill.  Adam:            Yes. Scott:              I saw a survey that over 90% of employers want to see that as a tool you've used, experienced, and have some knowledge of, even more so than blockchain these days. But the other side is being able to apply, and as you were just talking about, the tools, you can use it for so many things. You can use it to summarize; "Here is my LinkedIn URL, give me a summary of who I'm going to be talking to." "Here's an article; I don't have time to read this six pages. Give me a summary of what this is all about." And you can use those things, and it's, usually, pretty good and pretty accurate in reflecting that. And then you say, "Give me the ten-top points, in bullet points." Then go ahead, "I need to write my own blog, and my own post. I need to set up, give me a two-week schedule to implement this program, which is going to include these steps." Or, "First of all, tell me the steps. Then make me a two-week schedule or a 30-day schedule." "I'm on a diet, I'm traveling, give me a tour. How about some restaurants?" Back to the hallucination, though, it gets names wrong. I actually made a list of the 50 CPA associations, across the country. The societies' CPAs, I said, "Give me the executive director, their email, their address, their phone, and their abbreviation." It got every executive director, or CEO, wrong. It got every email address for those CEOs, obviously, wrong. It made them up. It made up names, but it sounds so good. I looked at it and said, "Oh, this is cool."  And then I realized, "But South Carolina, and Massachusetts, Wisconsin, I know these guys. I've never heard of these people, who the heck are they?" And the same thing for education journal articles. Book titles, it makes up book names, like, "Give me a list of the top 25 books in the career space." If I'm looking for this kind of role. And it gave me 15 or 20 that were actually pretty good and pretty well recognized, and three or four, I said, "I've never heard of these." And the reason was they didn't exist. So you look at that and start saying, "Okay, it's got good stuff, but it's got a balance." Mfon:             Yes, but I think as that reliability and the focus on that on ending that hallucination, as far as the education portion. There's going to be way more value and emphasis on critical thinking and the problem solving skills, and not using that as... So I think it'll shift even more. Scott:              The only constant is change, and you're right about that. Those exams that I told had a roughly 46%, 52%, depending on the exam, was a 3.5. Jumping to 4.0, we're over 80%. So it's improving, too.  I discovered this in December I said, "Okay, I've got an exam, let me play with it and see what it does. The first five out of six questions, it got right. And I said, "Oh, my students are going to cheat like mag dogs, and I can't give a take home exam ever again." But the next six out of seven questions, it got wrong. And then I was more worried because, again, I know how trusting students can be when they look at the logical, the good English, the nice flow, and then get a wrong answer. But they would trust it because of the proper English and the flow. Adam:            So that's a great example of how you can incorporate it into your classroom. Are there other ways you can integrate that or similar tools into the classroom, as you were building this? Scott:              I'm using it daily, in terms of asking a question for the day kind of thing, and that response, I actually, grade it. I discuss it with my students, and then they grade it. And in three different classes, in the same day, once I got a B+ for one, I got a D for another, and I got a CC+ on a third. So I'm an academic, I'll grade them.  Then we show what was wrong, what the shortcomings are. But every time you get a different answer, and it's not always improving. It's not stepping up to say, okay, this first time, I asked it this, next time that, it depends on the word choices. We're going back to the beginning. "Ah, this word sounds good after the next word." And that's the flow.  I once asked it the question, "So when did the dragons defeat the Roman Empire?" And it said, "In 650 BCE, king so and so and the dragons defeated the Roman Empire. But 200 years later, the Romans fought back and were restored to order." Whatever it was. I couldn't get that answer again, by the way. I've been in there since, trying to ask the same or similar question. And it says, "But dragons are mythical creatures, they don't exist." So it does learn, but it also can give you some pretty far-out answers.  Mfon:             Yes, it does, and as educators, we need to expose our students to it, talk about it. We can't really bury our heads in the sand and pretend like, "You know what, this isn't here, it's not coming." They are using it, and it's important to at least understand how they're using it. Understand what type of access they have to it.  Because I survey my students; I have some students who have the free version, and they've tried it a few times. I have other students that have the paid version and they are using it every day, diligently, and they let me know. So it's important to understand that and get a gauge on it, and then dive into it and use it because it's not going away. It is not going to go away. Scott:              And it really starts back at secondary education. I mean, the State of New York has banned it. Can't have it on the Chromebooks, can't access it. The City of Baltimore looking at it saying "No, can't do it." The City of Seattle.  But what's that telling our students? And what's that telling our environment? And what's that going to do for graduates? When the employers are saying, "We want folks with experience, even if they're not college graduates, even high school graduates. We want them to have some experience." So the haves and the have not barrier is going to get wider because students that can't get it on their school computer can go home, "Mom or dad can I use your computer for school?" Who's going to deny them? But the students, I'll call the have nots, that don't have a parent with Internet access or a computer, and are stuck with their school computer, now they can't access it. So what happens at graduation? We have the haves that played with it, used it, even though they banned it. And the have nots that don't have that skill set or level, or they both go to college and, again, there's that still gap coming into college. So our work's cut out for us. But Mfon is so right about not being able to bury our head in the sand. We need to embrace it, use it, apply it, and help our students do the same. Mfon:             And that's a good point, because with more penetration of ChatGPT and other platforms like it, there will be that, I guess, you can call it the AI gap. So you'll start to see there'll be a gap between those who are using it or have exposure to it, and those who do not. Scott:              I'll quote you on that AI gap, for certain. Adam:            I was reading an article, I saw an article yesterday, I think, it was on CNBC or one of those things they got. Somebody was quoting it and linked to it, and it was listing this very large number of organizations, that are starting to look for ChatGPT as experience on resumes even now. And it's not just saying, "I know about ChatGPT." But what can you do with it? And being able to express what you can do with it on your resume, that's a game changer right there. Scott:              There are a lot of HR folks fearing and saying, "Well, if they use it to write a cover letter, how can I tell if they used it?" Well, actually, if they use it, more power to them. They're, actually, applying the technology to something. And then they say, "Well, we can't differentiate." Well, maybe you don't want to because everyone's going to be able to have great cover letters. Now we got to look deep at something different. Maybe content, maybe certifications, maybe the ability to understand and integrate. But that prompt engineering is alive and well, and we really need to embrace that, too. Adam:            So, as we're wrapping up the conversation, as we look to the future. What can we do as practitioners in the space? We've talked a lot about educators. What can we do, as we move forward? And what are some steps we could take as takeaways? Mfon:             I would say the, big one, as a practitioner, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And you have to have that life-long learning mindset, at this point. And dive in and use the technology as much as you can, and learn as much as you can about it because it's changing, it's growing. You've got ChatGPT, you've got Google's Bard, which is developing. You've got Caktus AI. So you have so many of these various platforms, and they're going to be more and more widely adopted. So understanding how they work, and where they're going, and how they apply to your practice, I think is very important. Scott:              And most of us have been using AI whether we realize it or not. You look at Alexa, you look at Siri, and you look at Netflix, they've been using AI for a while, that means we've been using it for a while. But I, wholeheartedly, agree that we need to embrace it. Because, frankly, our clients and customers are going to be using it. Our staffs are going to be using it. Our kids are going to be using it. Owners need to be using it. We need to get comfortable with it, appreciate it, and take advantage of what it can do, it can magnify. It's just like RPA, Robotic Process Automation, it can take a three-week process and complete it in two hours, cool stuff. But so can AI.  Mfon:             Yes, and if you think about it, if you have a business and your competitor is doing more with less, they can outpace you, potentially. Scott:              And I want to clarify the job challenge. There was a study, out there, that said 85 million jobs will be eliminated, The World Economic Forum, put that out, by 2025. And they said 97 million will be created. To me, that's a net gain of 12 million. And think of the profession 100 years ago, we had 30 accountants for a 100-person company. Then we had ten accountants for a 100-person company. Now we have one and a half or two accountants for a 100-person company. Does that mean we have a bunch of out of work, unemployed accountants? Well, last I heard, there was a shortage. So there really is a need. But it gives an opportunity for accountants to do higher level stuff. To enter the C-suite, to be able to help make decisions and in process.So learn the tools, take advantage of the tools. And, as we said before, it's a springboard for a lot of opportunities. Adam:            It definitely is. And I know we could keep talking about this for a long time. But I'm going to promise our listeners that I'll have these two guys back on, in the future. Because I know, probably, a year from now, six months from now, this conversation will be completely different. And, so, if they're willing, we'll do that. Thank you both for coming on today. It's been a great conversation. Mfon:             Absolutely, thank you for having us. Scott:              It's been an honor. Much appreciated.  Announcer:    This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast. Providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard, and you'd like to be counted in, for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.

The meetup feels a little light on attendance this week. Business Corner gets down to brass tacks on bitcoin portfolio diversification... a special guest from South Australia... a stubby, a pint, a tinny, what do you choose in this beer choose your own adventure? How about a review of every show episode in one convenient, easy-to-find place? Check! The Golden Guys 00:00:00 Say what now? ❓ The Golden Girls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Girls)

Can we get rid of the bad bits of social media and keep the good? Is it possible to create a more positive social media experience than the one we get from the platforms that dominate the landscape today? In this episode, Elaine Moore asks what the social media platforms of the future should look like, and whether platforms designed for smaller groups of users with shared interests are the way forward.We hear from writer and tech historian Benj Edwards about the BBS era of the early 1990s; University of Massachusetts professor Ethan Zuckerman; Sarah Gilbert, researcher at Cornell University and Reddit moderator; and Jonathan Abrams, partner at 8-Bit Capital and the creator of Friendster.Presented by Elaine Moore. Produced by Edwin Lane and Josh Gabert-Doyon, Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT's head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Hannah Murphy.Mentioned in this podcast:The Lex Newsletter: Reddit and the API apocalypseDiscord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody elseReddit stands firm in clash with users as blackout on forums escalates Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can we get rid of the bad bits of social media and keep the good? Is it possible to create a more positive social media experience than the one we get from the platforms that dominate the landscape today? In this episode, Elaine Moore asks what the social media platforms of the future should look like, and whether platforms designed for smaller groups of users with shared interests are the way forward.We hear from writer and tech historian Benj Edwards about the BBS era of the early 1990s; University of Massachusetts professor Ethan Zuckerman; Sarah Gilbert, researcher at Cornell University and Reddit moderator; and Jonathan Abrams, partner at 8-Bit Capital and the creator of Friendster.Presented by Elaine Moore. Produced by Edwin Lane and Josh Gabert-Doyon, Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT's head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Hannah Murphy.Mentioned in this podcast:The Lex Newsletter: Reddit and the API apocalypseDiscord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody elseReddit stands firm in clash with users as blackout on forums escalatesRead a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this inaugural podcast, Speedwell Research goes into details on their ~170 page, January 2023 report on Meta Platforms ($META). We cover a list of questions including 1) how resilient are social networks and why did Friendster and MySpace disapear? 2) how does ad tech work and did Apple's policies permanently impair Meta? 3) what "job" does Facebook and Instagram do? 4) is the metaverse a dealbreaker for investors? 5) and much more.  -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Show Notes (0:00) Intro (3:09) History: Six Degrees, Friendster, MySpace, and early Facebook (28:32) Jobs to Be Done: What consumer needs does Facebook serve and the degradation of the network  (44:57) Meta's ability to spin up new apps, failed apps, Threads, how sticky are network effects, Tencent's QQ  (59:04) Monetization formula, advertising history, and primer on the digital ad ecosystem  (1:19:25) Apple Privacy Changes, ATT, IDFA, Return on Ad Spend, auction dynamics (1:38:48) Can Meta recover from their data loss? Inverting the question with the reverse DCF to see implied growth.  (1:43:47) WhatsApp, IRR Math  (1:47:23) Metaverse Spend, Financial Returns, Strategy (1:53:36) Year of Efficiency -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Purchase Speedwell's full ~47,000 word Meta report here: https://speedwellresearch.com/2023/01/17/meta-platforms-deep-dive/  Speedwell's free newsletter: https://speedwellsnippets.substack.com/  More on Speedwell: https://speedwellsnippets.substack.com/p/speedwell-research-process-and-philosophy  Twitter: @Speedwell_LLC  Threads: @speedwell_research Email us at info@speedwellresearch.com for any questions, comments, or feedback -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Disclaimer Nothing in this podcast is investment advice nor should be construed as such. At the time of publishing, one or more contributors to the podcast had a postion in Meta. Furthermore, accounts one or more contributors advise on may also have a position in Meta. This may change without notice. Please see our full disclaimers here:  https://speedwellresearch.com/disclaimer/       

Follow Rich!Rich opened the show by taking a stroll down social media history lane with a look at some brands that have fizzled including Friendster, MySpace, Foursquare, Path, Google+, Vine and Meerkat. Now, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are the gold standards, with Threads quickly gaining 70 million users in just a few days.Rich is on Threads at richontech.Jennifer in Laguna Beach wants to know if there's a way to keep tabs on her friend while they travel through Europe. She has iOS and her friend has Android. Rich recommends Life360. Another way to find a lost iPhone or Android is through finding tools for Google and Apple.Don't fall for a new scam that claims to give you a free piano.Samsung is holding its next foldable phone event on July 26 in Seoul, Korea.Volkswagen will test self-driving cars in Austin.Casey Newton of Platformer will chat about all things Threads. Listen to an interview with Threads Adam Mosseri on his podcast Hard Fork.The Las Vegas Sphere was lit up for the first time. It's 580,000 square feet of LED's, the largest in the world. Here's my behind the scenes look.Rich recommends the campy sci fi horror movie M3GAN, which is streaming free on Amazon Prime.Reggie in South Carolina clicked a Facebook notification that asked for her to submit her driver's license. Is that a scam? Just to be safe, check Facebook security settings here and be sure you're not logged into any unknown devices and have Two Factor Authentication turned on.Mark wants to know who the first performer in the Sphere in Las Vegas will be. It will be U2 Live in September.If you lose an AirTag, be sure to open the Find My app and put it into Lost Mode, and include your contact information. Someone who finds it can hold the AirTag to the back of their phone to bring up the information.Jacob Palmer of Best Reviews joins to talk Amazon Prime Day deals.Paul in Columbus asks if he gets a new Amazon Fire TV Cube, will he have to re-log into all of his streaming apps?The Super Mario Bros. Movie will stream on Peacock starting August 3. Check the Big list of streaming deals page to see which services are offering free streaming trials.Chris in Miami wants to know if he should go with a Ring peephole cam.YouTube Premium is testing a new lock screen feature.James wants to rescue the data on a USB drive he purchased. Rich recommends trying free data recovery software from Stellar, Recuva and Disk Drill. If that doesn't work, search Yelp for Data Recovery and find someone that can help you out in your area.Dr. Renee Dua explains how her new app called Together can take your vitals with just a selfie.A caller in Murrieta says her VoiceOver function has disappeared from her iPhone. It's still a part of iOS, so perhaps it got deactivated. Use Settings or Siri to turn it back on.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We discuss the most popular social media platforms and their differences - Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Tiktok, YouTube. We delve into a bit of nostalgia talking about the first popular Social media platforms in the Philippines back in the day - Friendster and Multiply. We share the social media etiquette rules you need to stop breaking.   Show Notes: Understanding the Difference in Social Media Platforms 13 Social Media Etiquette Rules You Really Need to Stop Breaking Timeline: James Gunn's long and winding road from Troma to the top of DC Studios  

In this awesome episode of the Wolf's Den we have social media expert Brendan Kane who was one of the first "influencers" on social media before the term "influencer" was even a thing. He started in the early 2,000s on MySpace and Friendster and since then has adopted every new platform and is now a major player on all the top platforms today like Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook ect. We dive deep in what it takes to make it on social media nowadays, the do's the dont's and how to compete with the 4.9 BILLION users on social media. Tune in and learn how to grow your following!

PepsiCo, one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, has launched its first metaverse immersive digital experience space, marking a significant step in the company's foray into the world of Web3.The metaverse experience, developed in collaboration with the virtual world platform, Decentraland, allows users to enter a virtual Pepsi branded world, where they can engage with a range of interactive experiences, including games, challenges, and social activities. The immersive environment is designed to provide an engaging and dynamic experience that blends the physical and digital worlds.The initiative is part of PepsiCo's broader strategy to leverage the potential of the Web3 ecosystem and explore innovative ways to connect with its customers. By creating a virtual experience, the company is able to reach a wider audience and provide a unique and memorable experience that goes beyond traditional marketing approaches.According to Richard Lee, PepsiCo's Global Head of Digital, eCommerce and Innovation, the metaverse experience is an opportunity to engage with consumers in a way that is authentic, relevant, and exciting. He added that the company is excited to explore the potential of the metaverse and see how it can help shape the future of marketing and customer engagement.Listen to the Full Podcast on The Restaurant ReportPepsiCo is one of several major corporations that have moved on early adoption and entered the metaverse space, reflecting the growing interest and potential of the emerging technology. The metaverse is a virtual world that is created by the convergence of physical and digital spaces, offering a range of possibilities for gaming, entertainment, education, and commerce.With the launch of its first metaverse immersive digital experience space, PepsiCo is positioning itself as a leader in the Web3 ecosystem, and is set to drive innovation and growth in the space in the years to come.Early Adoption Why It Matters - Social Was The Last Tech Cycle Mass Adoption - Web3 Will Be The NextSocial media has become an integral part of modern life, with billions of people worldwide using it to connect with friends, family, and businesses. However, social media has not always been as ubiquitous as it is today. Its birth can be traced back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when several websites and platforms were developed that allowed users to create profiles, connect with friends, and share content.The first social networking site was Six Degrees, launched in 1997, which allowed users to create profiles and connect with friends. Friendster, founded in 2002, became popular in Asia and allowed users to join groups based on their interests. MySpace, launched the same year, was one of the first social networking sites to gain widespread popularity in the United States.However, Facebook, founded in 2004, revolutionized social media and became the leading platform driving adoption. Initially targeted at college students, Facebook quickly grew in popularity and expanded to a global audience. Twitter, founded in 2006, followed suit and allowed users to send short messages or "tweets" to their followers.These early social media platforms paved the way for developing other popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Today, social media is an integral part of daily life for billions of people worldwide, and it continues to evolve and shape how we communicate and connect.Some companies failed in early adoption and paid the price. There have been several restaurant and retail chains that needed to be faster to adopt social media, and some of them have faced challenges in terms of growth and customer engagement as a result. Domino's Pizza: Domino's was slow to adopt social media, initially struggling with negative publicity and a decline in sales. Added this to massive moves by Pizza Hut and Papa Johns's, pushed them to play catchup for over a decade. The company eventually embraced social media and launched a successful marketing campaign that helped turn things around.McDonald's: McDonald's was slow to adopt social media and initially struggled to engage with its customers online. Sentiment on Mcdonald's was at an all-time low during the first ten years of social media, and the invasion of the Instagram exposure of quality - drove Mcdonald's to create a digital lead and reconstruct a brand ID that is now digital first. Sears: They were not as lucky due to the slow adoption of e-commerce and online shopping, which impacted its growth and competitiveness. The brand was labeled as a gutter garment on social media. It could not recover from the consumer-generated content that was overcoming social media and eventually led to the Etsy communities that have overtaken retail in direct-to-consumer tactics that have outpaced retail brands of all types.Gap: Also slow to adopt social media, it initially struggled with declining sales and a lack of engagement with younger customers. It took Gap 12 years to somewhat recover, but due to the massive brand appeal by micro brands, the retail landscape has shifted forever. The impact of mobile and social technologies on culture has been profound. They have changed the way we communicate and interact with each other, breaking down geographical barriers and allowing us to connect with people from around the world. They have also transformed how we consume and share information, making news and entertainment more personalized and accessible.The next stop is Web3, where consumers and brands create a new contract of data, trust, and engagement that will likely set new boundaries around the future of every brand and every for-profit company for the next fifty years.

Episode Summary Brooke and Margaret talk about every thing that went wrong this last month, and some good things. Sort of. They talk about more chemical spills, storing water and water filtration, tornadoes, more news on anti trans bills, inflation, super fun fungi, not fun at all guy Trump and his indictment, and how a drone (or satellite phone) could save your life and also make you a vampire. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript This Month in the Apocalypse: March, 2023 Brooke 00:16 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying ,your podcast for it feels like the end times. This is the March]April installment of our segment This Month in the Apocalypse. I'm Brooke Jackson and with me today is the infamous Margaret Killjoy. Margaret 00:30 I'm infamous now, what did I do? Brooke 00:33 Well known for being famous? Oh wait, that's not what that word means. Margaret 00:37 No. It means famous for bad. Brooke 00:41 Well, bad means good. [Laughing] Brooke 00:46 You're bad. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. Before we dive into today's episode, we'd like to share a little jingle from another pod on our network. Brooke 01:08 And we're back. Margaret. How are you feeling today? Margaret 01:11 I have a toothache and I'm grouchy. How are you? Brooke 01:15 I'm doing okay. I have intermittent sunshine. Margaret 01:19 Oh, does that mean it's almost not Pacific Northwest winter? Brooke 01:25 Well, it's intermittent with like super heavy rains and or hail. Margaret 01:29 Oh. The weather is much nicer where I'm at. Brooke 01:32 Yeah, it's Oregon doing its 'hold my beer' weather. Margaret 01:37 Well, do you wanna hear about some shit that happened this this month? Brooke 01:43 I definitely do. Margaret 01:44 A ton of shit happened this month. It's always funny to do these, because there's like all of these huge events. There's like one huge event a week and then it's like they're already out of our collective attention spans. So, on March, 26th, a pipe broke at the Trensio PLC chemical plant near the Delaware River. This is the the Philadelphia spill, right? It spilled ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, and butyl acrylate into a creek called Otter Creek. Between eight and twelve thousand gallons of this stuff that is used...It's basically synthetic latex or it's like the precursors, I believe, to synthetic latex. Brooke 02:21 That's a lot of 'lates' spilled. Margaret 02:24 Yeah. And one of them is double meth. But, it actually has nothing to do with meth. I'm sorry. So, it ended up not being....well, it was a big deal. But, it was almost a big deal as in like the entire city of Philadelphia or rather the eastern half of Philadelphia and like millions of people were going to be like completely fucked and out of drinking water. And so we had this fun scare. Not me. I'm not in Philadelphia. People had this fun scare where the city of Philadelphia sent out like, "Oh shit, don't drink the water alert." And then later, they sent out a, "Wait, it's okay to drink it until midnight on Monday. You better fill up some jugs." And it was just like...but during the OH SHIT scare, right? Like there was just like, no fucking bottled water on any shelves immediately. Right? And in the end, the city's water was not impacted. And this isn't like a coincidence. It wasn't like, "Oh, oops, our bad, nothing was actually wrong." It was actually like credit where it's due, it was the coordination of the Department of Public Works and some other folks. And they like got their shit together. And they closed off the water treatment plant that was bringing in water from the river and all that shit. And do you want to know how to get butyl acrylate out of your water in case you have to? Brooke 02:38 Do I want to know? Margaret 03:44 You can't. Brooke 03:48 Okay, so I already know how. Margaret 03:49 I mean....Okay, I'm gonna say you can't and then I'm gonna go into more detail. Because water filtration is something I did a bunch of research about this week. And it's something that's like always been sort of on my radar as a weird prepper. Chemical contamination in water is one of the hardest things to filter out. The way it's handled on an industrial level, is some shit with some fucking little tiny goober plants that eat the chemicals or whatever. I don't have the name of it in front of me because I'm not good at my job. And it's not something that people are doing on a home scale. There are other ways that people can minimize the chemicals in their water. Overall, when you're trying to filter water, chemical contamination is the hardest thing to get rid of. It is much easier to get rid of heavy metals. It is much, much easier to get rid of protozoa, bacteria, viruses, all kinds of things, right? You're not boiling away your butyl acylate. And, you're not filtering it out directly. However, through the process of adsorption, which is absorption but backwards. 'Ad' instead of 'Ab.' Basically, the charcoal filter that are like in your like fucking Brita water filters and stuff like that, that is closest to the DIY version. They are not rated to do this. Do not drink this shit thinking it's safe because some girl on the internet said....Well actually I said it's not safe. But overall, removing chemicals from water of the various DIY filtration methods, passing things through an activated carbon filter is more effective, because more of the various particles stick to that than like most of the...it's kind of funny, because overall, like the kinds of filters that you usually want for like hardcore stuff are not home filters, they're like, like camping filters and stuff, but it's just like not actually the case with chemical stuff. But overall... Brooke 05:46 Okay, but what if I doubled Brita it? If I just if I just pour through the Brita filter twice? Is that? Is that enough? Margaret 05:52 Like, if I was going to die of thirst, and I had some water from the Delaware River, what I would do is I would filter it over and over again, maybe through different charcoal filters. And then I would hope that...and I would only do this because dying of thirst is more immediate of a problem than dying of like whatever poison that you're getting through this shit. But, there is like some advice that I want to throw out there about how to prepare for this kind of disaster. This is obviously not the first time some of these similar acylates. I can't remember which of these ones. I can't remember if it was butyl acrylate or ethyl acylate was one of the main things that spilled in Ohio. So, it's something that is like increasingly on people's threat analysis, right? The main way is to have water stored ahead of time. The main ways to find different sources of water. And so, one thing that's like worth knowing is that water does not really in and of itself go bad. Water, like, has stuff in it, that goes bad, right? But if water is like, correctly treated and sealed properly, it does not itself go bad. What I would recommend to people is if you're lazy and easy go get several gallons of bottled water and just keep it around. So, like worst case scenario of some drinking water during time of crisis. Because you can't boil advisory this shit, right? And then the other thing is, if you want to store your own water....oh, and then that water you get, you should replace every two years or so. Just because even though it doesn't go bad, the plastic that it's in tends to degrade. They tend to be clear bottles, and you keep it out of heat and sun and it'll last longer. Go ahead... Brooke 07:31 Is it not just refilling the containers? Because I have like a bunch of one gallon water jugs that I'll you know, put on the garden and then refill. But should I replace the jug itself too in those cases? It's not a long term jug. It's like the whatever store brand in a gallon jug. Margaret 07:52 Well, so it's funny, because a store brand gallon if you never open it and don't fill it yourself and it's sealed, is a reasonable thing to store for several years. Especially if you keep it out of the sun, and you keep it in a cool place, because then the plastic degrades less into the water. But if you're filling up your own jugs, especially if they're clear jugs, and especially if you've ever drank out of them, like directly, you just replace the water fairly often. And you like look for smells and growth and all that shit and keep it in a cool dark place. I don't keep store bought water, I keep five gallon jerry cans, and then I refill them. People say to do it every six months or a year. I do it closer to every year. But just having enough to have like emergency drinking water on hand during the time of a crisis where it takes time for water to come back online, or for you to set up a way to get it from elsewhere is something I recommend to people. That's what I got about the Philly spill. Unless you have other questions about water storage? Brooke 08:54 I feel like we could do a whole thing on water right now, but I'm not going to dump into it. I do have several kinds of different water storage. I have some of the little one gallons from the store and I have some, you know, five gallon heavy duties. And I have some big barrels of water and a whole set up. But, I'm curious if....You mentioned something at the very beginning about a like boil water advisory or something like that. And is that a common thing for other people? Because I feel like that's a common thing for me where I live, that we have those often enough that I've had to deal with it and learn how to do that on a regular basis. But, in other places, is that normal? I guess probably not. Margaret 09:32 No, it happens a lot in the US now. It either didn't used to, or it used to be more insulated from it. But, I've been in a bunch of different cities where they've had boil advisories for various lengths of times. If the boil advisories around like bacterial stuff, which I think is what most of them are, I am now speaking off the cuff. You can also filter it, but not with your Brita. You can filter it with a camping style filter if it's a protozoa are bacterial worry, as long as the micron size is like .2 or so, you're fine. If it's a viral worry, which is almost never the case in the continental United States, your micron size needs to be .02. Instead of .2. Maybe it's .01. It needs to be rated for viruses, which is rarer, and mostly camping filters don't do that. Brooke 10:25 Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Well, speaking of water stuff: air. Margaret 10:35 We need that. Brooke 10:36 Yeah, we do. Just all the elements. Weird weather. Have you heard about the tornadoes that that were happening over this last weekend? Margaret 10:45 Yeah, there's too many of them. Brooke 10:47 Yeah, It's kind of wild. So, as we're recording this, it's early April. We just got through the first weekend of April and there were at least 50 separate tornadoes that hit the American Midwest, South, and parts of the East Coast. They hit like a bunch of states, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. There were four separate tornadoes in New Jersey alone, which I don't think of New Jersey as being a tornado prone state. But, maybe that's just me not knowing things. But, they're also expected to have more tornadoes coming up by the time you hear this they hopefully have come and gone. But, they're supposed to affect as many as 16 states and all in the next couple of days. With the most serious risks two parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Northwest Illinois. [Said like "Ili-noise"] I watched a video.... Margaret 11:42 What was the last state? Brooke 11:44 Illi-noise. Margaret 11:47 Never heard of that state. Brooke 11:48 Ilii-noooise. I refuse. Also, I'm sorry, I said Arkansas wrong. It's Ar-Kansas, Ar-Kansas. Tornadoes. So sorry for my mispronunciations there. [Laughing]. Margaret 12:05 Our-Kansas as compared to the Their-Kansas. Brooke 12:10 Yeah, I watched a fun video of there's someone who was trying to film a tornado with her phone. And the tornado came up and slammed into the building that she was in. And the phone kept filming, but it was just like, debris and shit flying around and just total chaos. Margaret 12:29 We might have different definitions of the word fun. Did she survive? Brooke 12:33 Yeah, she did. Margaret 12:34 Okay. Brooke 12:35 Okay, I think she got pretty well banged up and bloodied and stuff, broken glass and all that. And she posted to whatever social media, the video, and the comment of "If there's a tornado coming, don't try and film it. Get cover. I had to learn it the hard way." Margaret 12:53 Yeah. Brooke 12:53 Which makes you feel like it's not someone who's maybe in a tornado prone area, because I get the instinct like, "Oh, I'm gonna film that tornado." But not a great idea. Margaret 13:01 I mean, it's funny because like, after selfies became such a thing, like more national parks, we're seeing more...or like more hiking places were seeing more falling deaths as people climbed to try and get selfies on precarious rocks and all that stuff. And I'm not above all of that. Like, I can't tell you that I wouldn't try and film a tornado. I don't know. I can tell you it's not a good idea. But, that doesn't relate one-to-one to what I would do. Brooke 13:25 There was documentary that came out in like the 90s. And there was some really famous people who did it. It was all about tornadoes, and they chased them around and we're trying to catch data or something like that. Margaret 13:35 Twister? Brooke 13:36 Oh, yeah, that one. That one. It's a documentary, right? Margaret 13:39 Yeah, sure. Tornadoes aren't real. It's funny that people keep spreading this theory of tornadoes, but I've never seen a tornado. Have you seen a tornado. Brooke 13:52 I've seen some little dust spinneys. Margaret 13:55 Yeah, no. Tornadoes are fake. You heard it here first. Brooke 14:00 But wait, then Margaret. How did all the houses get destroyed and all of the things that are left in the wake of so called tornadoes? What did it. Margaret 14:09 Did your parents not raise you right? Like, do you not know what the Big Bad Wolf is? Brooke 14:14 So, all the damage is fake too? Margaret 14:15 No, it was done by the Big Bad Wolf. Brooke 14:19 Oh! Margaret 14:20 Who huffed and puffed and blew all the houses. Yeah, this is.... Brooke 14:24 I didn't think he was that big. I didn't think he was big enough to blow over apartment buildings and stuff. Margaret 14:29 Yeah, I mean there's no reason why her couldn't. There's like a bunch of them. They stand on each others' backs. Brooke 14:34 But, he couldn't blow down the brick house that the smart pig built so.... Margaret 14:38 No, correct. Brooke 14:39 So, I feel like he shouldn't be able to knock down all the concrete buildings and stuff that we see. Margaret 14:45 Well, actually okay like, to go back to actually believing in tornadoes, brick houses and concrete houses are like remarkably more resilient against.... Brooke 14:54 Did you just waffle on tornadoes? Was that just a giant tornado waffle? Margaret 14:58 Yeah. I did. I couldn't keep the bit up, because I got really excited about the fact that brick houses and concrete houses are remarkably more weatherproof than other houses, which it's one of the things that matters about understanding tornadoes, right, is that, like a lot of things, they impact poor people substantially more and most of the...it takes a much more powerful tornado. I've spent a while this week reading about tornado classifications. It takes a much more powerful tornado to tear down stick built house...What's the word I'm looking here for? Drywall, and two by fours and shit, then taking down like a trailer, right, that a lot of people don't have as much money live in. Those are easily destroyed by tornadoes. Drywall and studs, are a little bit harder. And then when you get into like brick houses and shit, you start getting houses that are like substantially more weather resistant. And, there's going to be remarkable class things about that. And like the most damage you hear, and the most deaths you hear about during tornadoes tend to be like trailer parks and shit. And it fucking sucks. It sucks that it impacts poor people more. Brooke 16:02 Yeah, for sure. One small happy story that came out of the tornadoes from last weekend anyway, is that there's more than half a dozen Ukrainian refugees who were living in Minneapolis, who when they heard about the tornado damage, volunteered to drive down to Mississippi and help out with the tornado relief efforts. Margaret 16:22 That's nice. That's better than... at the start of the story I was expecting it to be like, they left the war zone and then died in America from climate change weather. Brooke 16:35 Nope, they're here and they're refugees of the war, and they're going to help Americans. So that's pretty dope of them. Margaret 16:43 Well, speaking of good things...nope. I was just gonna talk about trans bills. There's really nothing good here. Brooke 16:50 Trans people. Trans people good. Margaret 16:52 Yeah, I can give you the trans report. I'm still here, still gay. The war on trans people continues. It will probably be about as successful as the war on drugs in that we had a war on drugs and now you can't buy drugs anymore. Or, it'll be like successful war on drugs and lots and lots of people have their lives ruined by it and nothing will be impacted. Well, in this case, to me, there's like literally nothing wrong, like trans people aren't doing anything wrong. Obviously, individual trans people are doing things wrong in the same way that individual everyone is doing something wrong. As of...this is a couple days old. So, already people are going to be like, like I wrote this two days ago and now by the time y'all hear it, who fucking knows. Kentucky's Congress just overrode their governor's veto of one of the worst anti trans bills in the country. Trans kids can't use the right bathrooms in school. Trans kids are forcibly detransitioned. Shit like that. North Dakota's governor...this is actually really interesting to me, these governor people vetoing things are interesting because they are across party lines. Off the top of my head, and again, I wrote this a couple days ago, I think Kentucky's governor's a Democrat and North Dakota is a Republican. And North Dakota's Republican, again, could be a different state, i could be messing all this up, just like knows trans people. So, he was just like, "I can't...What? I can't in good conscience sign this bill that like fucks over my friend." or whatever, you know. So, North Dakota governor vetoed a similar bill and as of...and it's gonna be overridden. And, in North Dakota, teachers can't use the kids correct pronouns unless the kid has a note from their parents that is cosigned by an administrator of the school. And government agencies can't require people, like who work for them, to correctly pronoun their co workers. And so it's just this like government oversight of everything bill that's just like "No, no one's allowed to be like." Like no workplace is able to be like "We're a trans accepting workplace," you know. And then, West Virginia passed a law prohibiting gender affirming care for trans youth. It does have more work arounds than many similar bills. Two doctors and parents all have to sign off before puberty blockers and all those things can be prescribed. So, it's less of a ban and more of like, lots of roadblocks. And it's interesting to me, because in many ways, this is like way better than an outright ban. However, it will be harder to...if we get this like wave of people defeating these trans bills, these ones are going to stick around longer. These ones that are not outright bans. They're much harder to challenge in court, is the theory that I learned from asking someone about it. Brooke 19:43 Yeah, so they put up roadblocks or speed bumps more than roadblocks. Margaret 19:48 Yeah. And a 2017 study says that West Virginia has the highest per capita rate of trans youth in the country. And another study says--and this is the dark thing behind all of this about like denying health care to children---another study says that West Virginia trans youth are three times more likely to attempt to kill themselves than their cisgender peers. So, God forbid we do the thing that all the Medical Association's agree ends that risk. Stopped Clock, the Libertarian Party, is standing up for trans people in some situations. Like some of the state libertarian parties, which tracks, but then again, you also see individual libertarians going on about like, "Well, I'm not paying with my taxpayer money for this degeneracy." And I'm like, "You're not a libertarian. Fuck you." And I'm like, I'm not even...like, whatever. It's just fucking conservatives calling themselves that. Brooke 20:41 I mean, I get why libertarians would come out against all the trans bills because small government. Margaret 20:48 Yeah, yeah, totally. Brooke 20:50 It's consistent with what they believe. But, allegedly, Republicans also believe in small government, but that never pans out that way. Margaret 21:00 That's the state of trans bills. It's bad. That's the state of it. And it's gonna get worse. Brooke 21:04 How much effort and money is being wasted into worrying about trans youth and trying to block that as opposed to real issues that we have going on? Margaret 21:05 I mean, okay, so like, from my point of view, and I think it's a wedge issue. It is specifically designed to...like, the sports thing is designed...it's not because people care about that teenage cis girls get to compete with only teenage cis girls. It is designed to make people angry at trans people. And then that is used as a wedge to then have trans people themselves be the wedge to pull off from LGBTQ, right, and get left with LGB. And you can already see that they like want...in the same way that like Roe v Wade. It's like they're going to come for...and they are already trying to come for birth control and all kinds of other shit too. You know? And they want...probably eventually, they'll get the sodomy laws back and premarital sex and whatever. You know? Handmaid's Tale shit. Brooke 22:08 Let's hope not. Margaret 22:09 And so, but there is this theory that they're gonna die on this hill, because the trans thing doesn't really win elections, because like, most people kind of don't give a shit what other people do with themselves. Like a lot of people give a shit, right, enough that there's all these bills being passed. But like, there's still a majority of United States-ian's who support access to trans health care, including for teenagers. And I won't say across party lines, because the majority of Republicans are opposed to it. But like, overall, you still have this, like people are kind of like "What the fuck is going on? Like this makes no sense?" Like, even the like it kind of icky people. So yeah, that's trans bills. Hooray. Brooke 23:03 Yeah. I just like, I don't want to jump off that topic, because it's so important and affecting so many people that I love, and, you know. This queer person, that is some of the other letters in that acronym is not gonna let go with a T. Trans people are staying here in this alliance. Margaret 23:24 And like, and I think it is worth understanding that like, it is already directly affecting large numbers of people. Entire families are leaving states with anti trans laws that are forcing the detransition of youth, and have to move to other states in order to access health care that keeps their kids alive. And so we're going to see an increasing amount of that. Whereas I would guess, a slightly higher percentage of adults, one aren't as...Trans adults aren't as directly affected yet. And also they might have more agency about staying and fighting. And I want to like just continue to say that I think it is absolutely worth offering full support to both people who choose to stay in dangerous situations to fight and people who choose to leave those situations, and full support to all people who are making either these decisions Brooke 24:13 And to help the people who want to leave the situation, but don't have whatever means or opportunities to do so. Well, I don't know if this is any less evil, as we talk a little bit about our old friend inflation. Margaret 24:34 That's where suddenly money's worth more, right? Brooke 24:38 Close. Really close, Margaret, but the other direction Margaret 24:42 We're worth more as more money. Brooke 24:43 We'll go back to our friend the banana example. Bananas.... Margaret 24:53 I know what inflation is. I'm just being a dick. Brooke 24:57 That's alright. We forgive you. Yeah. All right, inflation is where you can buy fewer bananas with your buck than you could before. Margaret 25:07 But, I want more bananas. Brooke 25:09 Yeah, they're gonna cost you more money. The same bananas are gonna cost you more money. Margaret 25:15 I guess bananas are still dirt cheap. I mean, how much could have banana cost? What? $5? [Margaret laughs] I made a meme. I said a meme. Brooke 25:24 Do you know that you're quoting a thing? Margaret 25:25 Yes. I'm smart. Brooke 25:28 I think she actually says $10 or $20. Margaret 25:30 I dunno, my pop cultural literacy is as literate as she is about finance. Soon enough, it's just gonna be accurate. People are gonna look back at that and be like, "Yeah, no, that's about how much of banana costs. What do you want?" Brooke 25:44 It's funny, because I think it is $10. And that was like 2003, so 20 years ago. So, it's a little less obscene now than it was when she said it. Margaret 25:55 Bananas are the cheapest fruit. This is why I like them so much. Brooke 25:59 I don't think I knew that. Well, your bananas are gonna cost more money or have been costing more money. I had to look it up for one of my other jobs the other day, so I just felt like doing an update on it. So, prices right now, compared to one year ago, are up about 5.5%. And I realize we haven't necessarily talked about what normal inflation looks like. Inflation is is a normal thing that happens in our society. There was a time in history when inflation was not normal, when things did not rapidly increase in price, or really have much of an increase. But that's a normal part of society. And normal inflation is closer to like 3% in a given year. So we're at close to double that with 5.5%. Margaret 26:44 Isn't that still down from what inflation was a year ago? Brooke 26:49 Yeah. So if we compare it from the last two years, so where prices are right now, compared to two years ago, they're up 13% when when we would have only seen maybe a 6% increase under normal inflation or less. So, still more than doubled. But it also depends on which things you look at. Like food is up more like 18% over the last couple of years. Margaret 27:12 Okay. But not important stuff? Brooke 27:16 No, not things that we need to survive, Margaret 27:18 Like TVs? Brooke 27:20 Yeah, of course. And, it's really interesting when I look at the charts of where the inflation is, because it's summer 2020, you know, like, right, as the impacts of all the pandemic shutdowns and supply shortages are starting to hit is when those prices start to do a clear difference in the way inflation hits, you know, goes for being that normal 3% rise to boom, much sharper. Margaret 27:45 What can people do about inflation? Get all their money out of the banks, put it in a cash envelope and put it under their mattress? Brooke 27:51 You know, that's actually going to be the opposite of what you want to do. Margaret 27:54 Yeah, I went that was on purpose again. Brooke 27:56 I know. Yeah, anything you can you can do with your money to have it earn at least some amount of interest, you know, if your bank offers a savings account that has a slightly higher rate of interest, and you could put some more of your money in there, or filter it through maybe a different type of checking account at your bank that perhaps offers a little bit of interest. Generally, interest rates never keep up with inflation. Like I just bought a CD that I think, is at four and a half percent or something like that over the next year? Which Margaret 28:33 What band is it? [Brooke laughs] What's a CD? Brooke 28:42 Yes, people don't know what either kinds of those are anymore. Certificate of Deposit. It's like a really short term investment that's with a guaranteed return on it. It tends to be a very small return. Generally doesn't keep up with inflation, but it's better than not getting any kind of interest. So, unlike a savings account you can't touch, or you can but then you get penalized, you don't get your interest on it. Margaret 29:11 Can I tell you my 'it sounds like a joke,'but is actually my financial strategy? Brooke 29:16 Oh, boy. Sure, you can. I can't promise I won't tease you about it Margaret 29:20 During times of high inflation, feast or famine. The thing that you want is not going to be cheaper tomorrow than today. Brooke 29:28 This is true. Margaret 29:28 So ,holding on to cash right now, I hold is less useful as an overall strategy than investment in the material goods that you expect to be using, whether it's the material goods that you use for your art to turn into things, whether it's like you know, shit you're trying to turn around and sell, or whether it's just tools or even fucking experience....like, kind of in that same way that like nothing's better later. And we're all gonna die one day and we can't control when, I feel like it's like extra true during a...like smoke if you got them, right? But ideally it's like....like I do consciously think about this where I'm like, "Well you know what, a table saw is going to stay useful to me many years from now if I take care of it, and the amount of money that that table saw will cost me is going to be 25% higher in three years," or whatever, you know. But that's only I mean....I don't know. Don't listen to me. I mean, I guess that's the point of the podcast is to listen to us. But don't. Brooke 30:42 You know what's interesting, though, is the economic theory, the economic textbook and stupid fucking Keynesian economics, would would agree with you there that your money is going to become less useful, so you should you should go ahead and spend it now. Margaret 30:53 Hell yeah. But I'm gonna write an economics book called "YOLO." Brooke 30:58 No, Keyne's already did. And should be ceremonially shot in the head. But yeah, I guess. Go ahead and go out and spend all your...No, no, no, I'm not even going to finish this. That's terrible financial advice. Margaret 31:14 I mean, like, hold on to like not die. But like, I don't know. Like, I don't have retirement fund. And I'm not saying like, no one should have a retirement fund. I'm saying I made some decisions in my life about how I was going to live that did not prioritize having a regular job. And I'm like, but I will have a table saw Right? Like, I don't know. Brooke 31:34 There is something to that though, to consider about, you know, purchases you might be making, you know, medium sized purchases, not super large purchases, like cars and whatnot. But yeah, if you need a table saw it might be a better idea to get it sooner rather than later. And it is a durable good. So it's not it's not as consumable. Margaret 31:56 Yeah, four Lamborghinis. Brooke 31:59 Probably not? I don't know what the resale value is on a Lamborghini, but that's probably not going to be worth it. Margaret 32:05 I know a Lamborghini is a car. That's all I got. Brooke 32:11 Okay, all right. Anyway, yeah, inflation continues to suck. Buy some shit, if you have some money to spare because prices are going up. Margaret 32:20 Okay, well in other fun...We really need to get better at having some intentionally positive things in this show, because for This Month in the Apocalypse, but in other fun news--actually, this one is like almost fine, right? Like there's a super fungus going around called Candida Auris. Brooke 32:40 Super fun. Can't spell super fungus without super fun. Margaret 32:44 I know. That's right. Or Gus. Don't trust anyone named Gus. Is Gus short for something? Gustav? I'm going to ask the next Gus I talk to. I know a Gus. So there's a new fungus. It's been around since 2009. Basically, it's just like there's this like kind of like constant war on...like the same way that like antibiotics are like an arms race where we like we get the new upgraded penicillin and then the biotics, the bacteria, is like, "Whatever, fuck you. I'm like penicillin resistant." So we're like, "Well, now we've got [mutters nonsense word]," and then you know, we're like, "Well, we're [nonsense word] resistant." And that happens in the fungal world as well. Candida Auiris. It was first noticed in 2009. It came to the US in 2016. I'm mostly saying this to say this is not worth freaking out about. This is a thing that like some news articles are telling us about--and I don't think it's bad for news articles to tell us about, right? But, it is not worth freaking out about unless you're in very specific situations, in which case it is worth paying attention to, and I don't mean to disparage, it is mostly currently in hospital settings. It is mostly affecting immunocompromised people who are in hospital settings. If you get it, it's sketchy, right? It has a very high mortality rate. But, it's not airborne. It is surfaces and direct contact. Most people...when I say 'get it,' I mean like get it and it creates its effect, its disease thing, and basically people start worrying about because it was antimicrobial resistant. And that's why people started freaking out about it because it was resistant to like, off the top of my head, I want to say, two of the three main things that were treating other forms of Candida...fungal problems, yeast problems. But, already since this has become a problem, two new anti fungal drugs that are effective on it have been passed by the FDA. So, I guess I'm saying this one to be like, this is a thing that people are like, most than use articles about it are like on your like local news station, you know, like the ones that want to tell you about smiling dogs and about how we're all going to die. Again, it's still worth understanding and keeping an eye on. But it's not worth freaking out about right now. What do you got? What's next? Brooke 35:21 It is kind of positive news, because it is a super fungus, but then they found some things that actually do work on it. Okay, well, I want to I want to insert another short happy thing, since we're talking about happy things. That I read. And this is universal. Scientists discovered, I think just the last couple of weeks, that the rings around the planet Saturn actually help to warm the atmosphere of the planet. Yeah. Just a happy scientific discovery. Margaret 35:57 So, in order to solve climate change... Brooke 36:01 Oh, boy. Margaret 36:02 We need to blow up the moon. It's gotta be worth just a couple of degrees. Brooke 36:10 You know, I think that's gonna fuck up some other things that we don't want to do. Margaret 36:15 I didn't read a whole novel called "Seven Eve's," by Neil Stevenson about what would happen if the moon blew up. Brooke 36:20 Yeah, also as an indigenous person, and the moon is considered our grandmother, I have some feelings about blowing up my grandmother. Margaret 36:28 Everyone dies. Brooke 36:30 I'm gonna. I'm gonna pass. Margaret 36:31 All the people die. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. I have a tooth ache. I'm sorry. Brooke 36:39 How about some other great news that will make you really happy? Okay, about our former president, Ruffled Dumpagins? Margaret 36:45 We put him on the moon and then we blow it up. Brooke 36:48 Hey, okay, that...I might consent to blowing up my grandmother in that regards. Margaret 36:54 All right, all right. Maybe just put him on the moon, and just let them see what happens. And then your grandmother could take care of them. We don't have to get rid of the grandmother at all. Brooke 37:02 There we go. That's an even better plan. My grandma will definitely take care of Donald Trump. Margaret 37:07 Okay. All right. Brooke 37:09 So, as we're recording this, the former president was indicted just last week by a New York grand jury on more than 30 counts of stuff. And we don't know exactly what the various counts are. That's being kept secret. But, we know that it surrounds the hush money payment that was made to the former porn star--or maybe she's still a current porn star, I don't know which, but good on her way either way--Stormy Daniels, which, in case people don't realize this, paying the hush money isn't actually illegal. It's the way it was paid that was bad. Because it was filtered through the campaign. And yeah, the Dumpikin's former attorney, Cohen, I think was the one, has already been found guilty on this and is serving jail time over it. So, definitely illegal shit happen. What they're trying to argue now is whether Trump himself knew about it, and how involved he was in the illegal activity. So by the time you're listening to this, Grumpikins has already been arraigned, and he's probably gone back to Florida, and he's probably back to campaigning. So you'll have more news on this than we do. But it's that happy thing that I want to mention. An unhappy part of it is that in the three days following the announcement from the grand jury that he was going to be indicted is the disgraced former President raise $7 million in campaign funds for his current presidential bid. Brooke 38:09 You say million or billion? Brooke 38:43 Million. In three days. So, yeah, not a bad return on $130,000. But the payments... Margaret 38:54 Okay, so I have a new way that we can make money. Nope, sorry. Go. Ahead. Brooke 38:57 Yeah, there we go. I mean, and I'm okay if I get to hang up some porn stars too. That'll make me happy. Margaret 39:03 We can become right wing grifters. Brooke 39:05 No, Can we be left wing grifters? Margaret 39:10 Okay, let's find out. Everyone who's listening, send us $10. And then you become an official Live Like the World is Dying host, who can then get other people to send you $10, of which you will turn around and send us $5. But, don't worry, because the people under you will be earning... Brooke 39:28 No, no, no, no. You're describing something that's shaped roughly like a pyramid, which I'm pretty sure is... Margaret 39:34 It's devil worship. Triangle is devil worship. Margaret 39:34 No, it's a triangle. It's the strongest shape in nature. Margaret 39:41 It's the A-frame. It's the a-frame financial model. Brooke 39:48 The former president is also facing other legal challenges, which haven't brought forth charges yet but some of them certainly will. He's under investigation for things including the January, 6th attack on the US capital. Federal election tampering in Georgia, mishandling of classified documents, a civil lawsuit for fraud in New York against the Trump Organization, and a defamation lawsuit, amongst other things. Margaret 40:10 What a good guy. Brooke 40:11 Yeah, super awesome. Margaret 40:14 I do love all the like...You know, it's like the like, the prison abolitionists, anarchists who are too good for electoral politics like, myself and many other people, but it's like, I feel like there's just like a little bit of like, "Alright, well, we can still take some fuck that guy." Like, fuck that guy. I don't care. Yeah. You want to hear some some list of stuff? Brooke 40:38 What else is going on out there, Margaret? Margaret 40:40 Well, there's a diesel spill in West Virginia from a derailed train. I spent a while trying to look up how you filter diesel out of water. But, unfortunately, most of the information is about how to filter diesel out of water...how to how to filter water out of diesel cause people want the diesel. Brooke 40:58 As long as you capture the water, that might not be the worst. Margaret 41:01 Well, it's like, because the water that they're pulling out might some diesel and they don't care. They're getting rid of that water. They're probably throwing it in the fucking creek or on the ground. But like, because you don't want to put watery gas or diesel into your engines order, but the way that people do it is that water is denser than diesel so it sinks to the bottom of the container. So I guess if you're a life or death....I'm not even going to make that advisory. Like don't drink diesel water. Artificial sweetener erythritol, one of those--I think it's one of the alcohol sugars--seems to be linked to heart problems. Doubles your chance of bad shit. It's in some vegan ice cream. So beware. Brooke 41:35 Oh, good to know. Hey, before we go too far from the train derailment. Margaret 41:38 Oh, you wanna do the train thing. Brooke 41:40 Well, just there was another train derailment that made me think of in Montana just over this last weekend. And they were carrying a lot of... Margaret 41:48 Ice cream? Brooke 41:49 Coors Light, and another brand of beer that's similar to that. Margaret 41:57 That's just funny. There's no. Okay. Hell yeah. Brooke 41:59 So, you don't need to filter the beer out of the water. You can just go ahead just drink it. Margaret 42:04 Yeah, it's really good for you. It hydrates you more effectively than water. Brooke 42:08 Its water beer in the first place. So. Margaret 42:11 Okay, that's fair. Speaking of Oregon, we weren't, but a guy who was trapped in the snow, managed to get an SOS out on this phone. This is like a survival tip. This is not a survival tip that applies to almost anyone. He attached his phone to his drone, and flew his drone up until it got enough service and the message sent and he was saved. And that rules. Brooke 42:35 That's fuckin rad. Margaret 42:37 That said, in terms of getting out emergency signals, one way--satellite communicators are a more effective method and cheaper than drones. Not a lot cheaper than drones. I'll be real. There in the like, $300-$400 range, however, and I bet more and more phones will do this. The newer iPhones. I don't have one. But, the newer iPhones have built in satellite communication SOS systems. Where the satellite communicator is like more like what like people hiking in the backwoods and stuff have and it like lets you like text. It's a little bit slow. But like, no matter if you can see the sky, you can get a message out with satellite communicators. Brooke 43:15 You have one of those, don't you, Margaret? Margaret 43:16 I do. I spend some time in the backwoods. And so it's nice to have, Brooke 43:24 Well I have a drone. So, I'm just gonna take my drone and just follow that guy's success. It's like a $300. Drone. It's not a special drone. Margaret 43:33 Yeah, you gotta keep that in your car at all times. You will literally die if you don't have that in your car at all times. Brooke 43:42 Will I not die If I haven't my car? Will it protect me in other situations? Margaret 43:45 I think we're getting off topic. Margaret 43:45 In this specific situation that this man was in, he's immortal now. Because the the signal was interrupted by some vampires. And they came over. He's not allowed to see the sun anymore, which is like a heavy price to pay. Right? And he consumes blood and there's like a lot of like, ennui attached to that. He's a vampire now. Margaret 44:06 So, here's a list of worst air quality in the United States listed from 1 to 10: Bakersfield, California. Congratulations. You've the worst air quality in the United States. Los Angeles, Chicago, Northwest Indiana and the industrial areas like Gary, Indianapolis, Houston, St. Louis, a bunch of rural Pennsylvania managed to like really come in hard for the rural areas. I'm glad to see that rural representation. These are mostly localized to a few hotspots, because you're like in the mountains and there's a factory there and they don't care about you because you're poor. You'll notice that a lot of these places are poor. Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama. I'm sorry. Finland is joining NATO, so Putin's weird war is having the opposite of the desired effect, and I don't really have an opinion about that, but it's like worth noting. Most of the current like prepper news you can go out and read is gonna be like, "Today, World War III is about to happen tomorrow." And it's like the same person will say this like over and over and over again. And they always have like some reason, as we like inch closer, and they're not even usually like wrong about their reasons. Like the China, US. and Russia are like playing a fucking crazy game right now, you know? And there's like nuclear capable planes from the US like flying near that little weird part of Russia that isn't attached to Russia that's like, south of the...the like Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, you know, there's a tiny piece of Russia under there. And then like, US planes are like, playing a like 'not touching, can't get mad,' game about nucular war. And that's like, not great. But, I'm not like those...I know, I'm now saying the thing that I just said don't worry about, but like, it's...I don't know. I don't feel like we're any more likely to have nuclear war tomorrow than we were yesterday. Personally. Brooke 45:58 We're all going to die anyway. Margaret 46:00 Yeah, except for that guy who sent his drone up to talk to the vampires. Brooke 46:06 Vampire man. Margaret 46:07 Metformin taken during COVID is looking like it's reducing long COVID cases. At least according to some studies. I'm not giving you medical advice, but it's like promising, right? What's promising is that there's more and more information about how people are handling long COVID, which is also really promising because there's a lot of long viral problems like Lyme and things like that, that have been ignored and the people who suffer from them have been mistreated by the medical establishment for decades. And I am optimistic that the research into long COVID--Because long COVID can't be ignored because of the scale at which it's happening--will help people who suffer from these other viral infections. That is my hope. The far Right government in Italy has stopped registering children born to same sex couples. I think it's basically like same sex couples were going to other countries in order to have kids via surrogates. And then now they're like not able to come back to Italy. I don't have the absolute details about...Italy's being fucked up and homophobic. Brooke 47:13 They can't like get a birth certificate? Margaret 47:15 It's something like that, Brooke 47:17 Wow. Margaret 47:17 The the news article was clearly translated and not incredibly well. That was the best I could figure. China is on track to destroy American exceptionalism and become the number one cause of climate change. So, we're gonna have to step up our game everyone. Brooke 47:32 No. Margaret 47:35 On--well, we are stepping up our game because--on March 13th, Biden approved...this could have been a whole separate topic. But, Biden approved a project called Willow and I am offended because "Willow" is an amazing movie and an amazing tree and not a oil development on federal land in Alaska that's the size of fucking Indiana. Brooke 47:54 Yeah, I heard about that. Margaret 47:55 It is key habitat for polar bears and caribou. It fucking sucks. It is like, absolutely a spit in the face to any pretense that one of the most powerful nations on the planet would possibly stick to what it claims about the--not deindustrialization--but de fossil fueling and or whatever... Brooke 48:15 Yeah. Gross. Margaret 48:17 Positive environmental news that is no longer in positive environmental news is electric cars were getting a $7,500 subsidy from the federal government. Except it's a big confusing mess. And no one can tell...like not even the car companies know whether you have to lease, if you can buy, which ones you can buy. And it all has to do with this like pissing match thing where they want all of the...the subsidy cars have to have a certain percentage or maybe it's all of it, I'm not sure, of the components made within the United States. But, at the moment, all of that is a nightmare mess. So people don't know which electric car they can get $7,500 subsidy on. Brooke 48:53 But, there is a $4,000 federal subsidy that is more straightforward and not all fucked up and confusing. Margaret 49:03 That's good to know. Like Virginia recently passed a gun law that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not opposed to all gun laws, I guess, except in the abstract way or I don't like law as a system, but they passed a thing that's just like subsidies for people to get gun safes. It's not a requirement. It's not a like safe gun lock up requirement, although I think that that should exist, but maybe not in a law way but in a cultural norm way. But yeah, like if you want people to change an economic system, and we do. We need a different economic system, or a different...Well, we did a lot of different things to be changed, but whatever. I don't know. Okay, so Finally, my small thing is that the Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC released a new report. We're fucked. I mean, we're almost certainly going to overshoot the Paris Agreement, of capping climate change at 1.5. C [degrees Celsius change] And 1.5. C is where you start getting runaway feedback loops, at least according to...I mean, everyone's given different numbers. Some people, I've heard 2 C [degrees Celsius] or whatever, but like, yeah. It's bad and things need to change more dramatically than I believe the current system is capable of changing things. So as much as I'm like, "Oh, money for electric guitar," Guitars? Electric guitars for everyone. Because then if you're all vampires, you can like [makes guitar note noises] like, the Crow. But I think that fundamentally and dramatically shifting the way that our governmental and economic systems work is a more likely way to stop climate change than convincing our current governmental system to effectively address it. Brooke 50:49 Right there with you. I bet our friends over It Could Happen Here will probably read that report and talk about it in depth. I know they did last year when that report came out. And that was pretty good info they distilled down there and so hopefully they'll do that again for us. Margaret 51:04 They're not our friends. We hate them. We're starting beef with....No. They're all so nice. They're also, they want to...I also work for them. But yeah, okay. Margaret 51:16 They play games with us. We like them. Margaret 51:22 Yeah. What else? We're coming up on an hour. We got anything else? Brooke 51:27 Oh, that was my list. Margaret 51:30 Okay. Well, I think we can change things fundamentally. And I also think we can build the systems by which to mitigate the worst effects of the changes that are going to happen. And I think we can do that by building together in community minded preparedness ways. Brooke, do you want to start a podcast with me about how to do individual and community preparedness? We can make it be weekly. Give it some name, like Don't Die Weekly or.... Brooke 52:07 I feel like Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness already produces something like that. And we might be on it right now. Margaret 52:17 Whoa. Brooke 52:18 I know. You can listen to it starting weekly, starting right now. Margaret 52:24 Whoa. Yeah, Brooke 52:26 It's actually called Live Like the World is Dying and Margaret, you do most of it. Though, I think the toothache is making you forget. Margaret 52:34 The Vampire Cast. Brooke 52:37 Come to Oregon. Become a vampire. Or not. Margaret 52:39 Yeah, it's true. Oregon's could still hang. I mean, my toothache is fucking me up. I'm not even on drugs for it yet. I'm just excited to finish so I can take ibuprofen. Brooke 52:50 Well, how can we finish? Brooke 52:57 Thanks so much for listening to the latest installment of This Month in the Apocalypse. We come to you as members of the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness publishing collective. We produce three, soon to be four other podcasts, create zines and publish books. You can check out that great stuff on our website, Tangledwilderness.org. We're also on some social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Margaret 53:20 And Vampire Freaks. Brooke 53:23 We are able to do these rad things because of our Patreon supporters. Margaret 53:27 Myspace. Brooke 53:34 You make this Friendster. Do we have Friendster? Margaret 53:38 We only add you on Friendster if you support us on Patreon, I'm sorry, them's the rules. Brooke 53:44 Our patrons make this work possible. And if you're interested in supporting our work, please check us out on patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Those who support us that $20 a month level get a special shout out at the end of every podcast. Margaret 53:56 They're in our top eight. Brooke 53:58 Top eight? Margaret 54:01 Were you not a MySpace kid? Brooke 54:03 I was but I don't...Oh! Yeah! The little the board thing with the squares. Yes. Okay, I forgot we called it that. Margaret 54:09 Your top eight friends. Brooke 54:11 Yep. All right. We want to say thanks to Hoss the dog, Miciahah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Cat J, Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, Theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, paprouna, Aly, Paige, Janice, Oxalis. And yes, thank you so much. Margaret 54:32 United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean, Alabama, Alaska. El Salvador too, Brooke 54:39 Colorado, Connecticut. Margaret 54:44 We actually like you all individually. I'm sorry that we made it...it's a toothache. Bye, everyone. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co

Let's look back at the internet communities that were thriving before MySpace — even before Friendster. Why did MySpace get ahead when there was strong competition from other social networks at the time?  To explore the earliest days of social media, Joanne is joined by investor and entrepreneur Benjamin Sun, who co-founded Asian Avenue in 1997, and Katie Notopoulos, senior technology reporter for BuzzFeedNews. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's look back at the internet communities that were thriving before MySpace — even before Friendster. Why did MySpace get ahead when there was strong competition from other social networks at the time?  To explore the earliest days of social media, Joanne is joined by investor and entrepreneur Benjamin Sun, who co-founded Asian Avenue in 1997, and Katie Notopoulos, senior technology reporter for BuzzFeedNews. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remember AOL Instant Messenger? ICQ? Friendster? Do you recall the excitement and curiosity of exploring these platforms and connecting with new people? The internet was new, and our parents were either learning it alongside us... or maybe not interested in it at all. Either way, for many of us, our parents were not closely monitoring our exploration of the internet, or even aware of the inherent risks. Our kids are growing up in a very (very) different world, and as parents, it's our job to ensure they develop a healthy and safe relationship with the technology which will only become a more prominent fixture in their lives as they grow. Father of three, Tom Adjemian, joins the conversation to discuss how his family is navigating this complicated journey. Don't skip out before our dad Confessions!Episode 82 of Modern Dadhood opens with the guys chatting about Marc's twin boys' birthday party which had been rescheduled due to a last minute illness. Marc shares some of the nice, funny, and sometimes downright eerie handwritten birthday cards his boys received.The guys introduce guest Tom Adjemian into the chat. Tom's three kids range from ages 4 to 13, and from very little exposure to technology, to a lot of exposure. Tom shares how he and his wife are traversing things like screen time, internet safety, privacy, boundaries, and more, with their 13 year old. Spoiler alert: They're figuring it out as they go. Conversation topics include:•  When (and why) Tom and his wife got their eldest daughter her first smartphone•  The conversations they've had as a couple and with their kids about technology use•  How to not scare your kids away from the internet•  How to not entice your kids to hide their internet usage from you•  Tools for limiting and monitoring internet/app usage•  The ethics of monitoring your kid's internet usage•  The importance  of open communication•  When your kid betrays your trust•  And moreThe guys invite Tom to stick around and participate in a gut-busting round of Confessions before closing out the 'sode.Links:ConnectSafelyBark appHow and When to Limit Kids' Tech Use (NY Times)Red Vault AudioCaspar BabypantsSpencer AlbeeStuffed Animal

G'day, mates! Alana is back from Australia and the girls are reunited for another episode of Free Period! Sasha and Alana talk about watching Australian Love Island, obsessing over Tuck Everlasting, and getting into their internet archives. They also get into some iconic Y2K throwbacks. This episode has everything from pretty boy discourse and Friendster meetups, to retroactive self-love moments and first kiss anecdotes.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to Steven Levy, Wired editor-at-large and author of FACEBOOK: THE INSIDE STORY, about the history of social media from Friendster and MySpace to Facebook and TikTok. Steven Levy is Wired's editor at large. The Washington Post has called him “America's premier technology journalist.” For almost four decades Levy has chronicled the digital revolution, its impact on humanity, and the people behind it. He has written the foundational work on computer culture (Hackers, 1984) and with Crypto (2001) the indispensable book on story behind that groundbreaking technology—years before people began gushing about Bitcoin and the blockchain. He has written the definitive books on Facebook, Google, the Macintosh, and the iPod. World-class engineers tell him that they pursued AI after reading his 1992 book Artificial Life. And he currently covers the breadth of tech stories—the good and the disturbing—for WIRED, where he has been a contributor since its inception. Levy's previous positions include founder of Backchannel and chief technology writer and senior editor for Newsweek. His work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, Harper's Magazine, Macworld, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, and Premiere. Among his honors: PC Magazine named Hackers the best sci-tech book written in the last twenty years. Crypto won the grand e-book prize at the 2001 Frankfurt Book Fair. In the Plex was Amazon's best business book of 2011. In 2008 he was inducted as a SVForum Visionary, alongside Reed Hastings and Diane Greene. (Previous winners include Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, and Vin Cerf.) He has won several Computer Press Association Awards, been finalist for the National Magazine Award and the Loeb Award, winner of a Clarion Award and many others. His 1988 book, The Unicorn's Secret, was the source material for a two-night NBC miniseries, “The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer.” Levy hails from Philadelphia, where he began his career writing for weekly papers and writing stories for Philadelphia Magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine. He wrote extensively on rock music and sports. In 1982, he published a Rolling Stone story on computer hackers that drew him into the world of technology. He lives in New York City with his wife, Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Teresa Carpenter. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.We are joined by Jonathan Abrams, Co-Founder and General Partner at 8-Bit Capital. Jonathan previously was an angel investor and entrepreneur founding both Nuzzel and Friendster, the latter of which he helped grow to over 100MM users and where he met his current partner at 8-Bit, Kent Lindstrom. Jonathan also co-founded Founders Den with Zack Bogue of DCVC in 2011, which quickly became one of San Francisco's earliest and most popular startup work and event spaces.We think you'll really enjoy Jonathan's story, and how he thinks about all aspects of seed-stage investing.A word from our sponsor:Tactyc is the first software solution for venture capital portfolio forecasting and planning. The platform is rapidly increasing efficiency and data-driven decision-making for GP's and works with over 150 funds globally.Tactyc makes it easy for managers to build (and maintain) their portfolio models without dealing with complicated spreadsheets. It enables portfolio construction in minutes and for managers to share their intended fund strategy with potential investors. Post-launch, Tactyc also offers advanced analytics for GPs to optimize reserves, analyze probabilistic outcomes for their investments and extract insights for future capital deployment.Check them out at tactyc.io.About Jonathan Abrams:Jonathan is a co-founder and General Partner of 8-Bit Capital, an early-stage investing firm. He is also a co-founder and Managing Partner of Founders Den, San Francisco's favorite workspace and community for startups and investors.Previously Jonathan was the founder of the professional news discovery service Nuzzel and the pioneering social networking service Friendster, and a software engineer at Netscape and Nortel. Jonathan is an investor in over 50 startups, including AngelList, ClearTax, CoinList, Docker, Front, HelloSign, Instacart, Mixmax, Pachyderm, Republic, SafeGraph, Sense, Shortcut, Slideshare, Stream, and Zeplin. Jonathan received an Honors B.Sc. in Computer Science from McMaster University in Canada.In this episode we discuss:01:57 Jonathan's journey to creating 8-Bit Capital with Kent04:08 The opportunity they saw when founding 8-Bit06:07 How his experiences at Nuzzel and Friendster shaped his view as an investor08:20 What being founder friendly truly means11:37 Shifting from an active angel investor to a fund manager14:41 The hardest lessons leveling up from an angel investor18:14 Dealing with the deal flow noise as a team of two21:20 How to deal with conscious and unconscious bias when advising founders23:28 Jonathan and Kent's decision-making process25:02 Thoughts on scaling 8-Bit28:11 Competing against larger, later-stage funds getting into seed-stage investing31:23 Deciding on follow-on investing33:35 How they came to decide on 50-50 fund construction for follow-on35:41 Keeping and increasing their pro-rata in competitive later rounds38:19 Biggest lessons from Friendster39:49 The advice he would give himself at the start of 8-BitI'd love to know what you took away from this conversation with Jonathan. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you'd like to be considered as a guest or have someone you'd like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

Our profile on the history of social networks continues with two of the big competitors in the mid 2000s -- Myspace and Facebook. From the infamous News Corp buyout of Myspace for 580 million bucks to the even more infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal at Facebook, we take a look at how these networks shaped the web.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twitter and Facebook are struggling right now, but both have outlasted many other social networks. In this retrospective, we look at early attempts to bring people together online. Some are gone, some remain, and some transformed into something else entirely.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remember the days of Friendster and MySpace? With Facebook laying off almost 12,000 employees and Twitter canning half its workforce, it looks like death bells are tolling for two of the biggest social media players.Will folks be willing to trust new social media networks like they've done before?Today comedian Dan Cass, who studied experimental theater and dance in Russia joins us to look at the impending collapse of two major social media platforms and what is going to fill the void they leave behind?FOLLOW DAN CASS:instagram.com/dankkassPlus–➤ The Supreme Court hands over Trump's tax records to the House which gives them just weeks to examine them before Republicans regain control in January.➤ Performance artist, sex worker and activist Carol Leigh, best known as the Scarlot Harlot, who popularized the phrase “sex work is work” died, she was 71.➤ Where did the rumors of Dan's massive dong come from?Episode #3056

Leonard S. Johnson is the Founder and CEO of AIEDC, a 5G Cloud Mobile App Maker and Service Provider with Machine Learning to help small and midsize businesses create their own iOS and Android mobile apps with no-code or low-code so they can engage and service their customer base, as well as provide front and back office digitization services for small businesses. Victoria talks to Leonard about using artificial intelligence for good, bringing the power of AI to local economics, and truly democratizing AI. The Artificial Intelligence Economic Development Corporation (AIEDC) (https://netcapital.com/companies/aiedc) Follow AIEDC on Twitter (https://twitter.com/netcapital), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/netcapital/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Netcapital/), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/aiedc/). Follow Leonard on Twitter (https://twitter.com/LeonardSJ) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsjohnson84047/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with us today is Leonard S. Johnson or LS, Founder and CEO AIEDC, a 5G Cloud Mobile App Maker and Service Provider with Machine Learning to help small and midsize businesses create their own iOS and Android mobile apps with no-code or low-code so they can engage and service their customer base, as well as provide front and back office digitization services for small businesses. Leonard, thanks for being with us today. LEONARD: Thank you for having me, Victoria. VICTORIA: I should say LS, thank you for being with us today. LEONARD: It's okay. It's fine. VICTORIA: Great. So tell us a little more about AIEDC. LEONARD: Well, AIEDC stands for Artificial Intelligence Economic Development Corporation. And the original premise that I founded it for...I founded it after completing my postgraduate work at Stanford, and that was 2016. And it was to use AI for economic development, and therefore use AI for good versus just hearing about artificial intelligence and some of the different movies that either take over the world, and Skynet, and watch data privacy, and these other things which are true, and it's very evident, they exist, and they're out there. But at the end of the day, I've always looked at life as a growth strategy and the improvement of what we could do and focusing on what we could do practically. You do it tactically, then you do it strategically over time, and you're able to implement things. That's why I think we keep building collectively as humanity, no matter what part of the world you're in. VICTORIA: Right. So you went to Stanford, and you're from South Central LA. And what about that background led you to pursue AI for good in particular? LEONARD: So growing up in the inner city of Los Angeles, you know, that South Central area, Compton area, it taught me a lot. And then after that, after I completed high school...and not in South Central because I moved around a lot. I grew up with a single mother, never knew my real father, and then my home life with my single mother wasn't good because of just circumstances all the time. And so I just started understanding that even as a young kid, you put your brain...you utilize something because you had two choices. It's very simple or binary, you know, A or B. A, you do something with yourself, or B, you go out and be social in a certain neighborhood. And I'm African American, so high probability that you'll end up dead, or in a gang, or in crime because that's what it was at that time. It's just that's just a situation. Or you're able to challenge those energies and put them toward a use that's productive and positive for yourself, and that's what I did, which is utilizing a way to learn. I could always pick up things when I was very young. And a lot of teachers, my younger teachers, were like, "You're very, very bright," or "You're very smart." And there weren't many programs because I'm older than 42. So there weren't as many programs as there are today. So I really like all of the programs. So I want to clarify the context. Today there's a lot more engagement and identification of kids that might be sharper, smarter, whatever their personal issues are, good or bad. And it's a way to sort of separate them. So you're not just teaching the whole group as a whole and putting them all in one basket, but back then, there was not. And so I just used to go home a lot, do a lot of reading, do a lot of studying, and just knick-knack with things in tech. And then I just started understanding that even as a young kid in the inner city, you see economics very early, but they don't understand that's really what they're studying. They see economics. They can see inflation because making two ends meet is very difficult. They may see gang violence and drugs or whatever it might end up being. And a lot of that, in my opinion, is always an underlining economic foundation. And so people would say, "Oh, why is this industry like this?" And so forth. "Why does this keep happening?" It's because they can't function. And sometimes, it's just them and their family, but they can't function because it's an economic system. So I started focusing on that and then went into the Marine Corps. And then, after the Marine Corps, I went to Europe. I lived in Europe for a while to do my undergrad studies in the Netherlands in Holland. VICTORIA: So having that experience of taking a challenge or taking these forces around you and turning into a force for good, that's led you to bring the power of AI to local economics. And is that the direction that you went eventually? LEONARD: So economics was always something that I understood and had a fascination prior to even starting my company. I started in 2017. And we're crowdfunding now, and I can get into that later. But I self-funded it since 2017 to...I think I only started crowdfunding when COVID hit, which was 2020, and just to get awareness and people out there because I couldn't go to a lot of events. So I'm like, okay, how can I get exposure? But yeah, it was a matter of looking at it from that standpoint of economics always factored into me, even when I was in the military when I was in the Marine Corps. I would see that...we would go to different countries, and you could just see the difference of how they lived and survived. And another side note, my son's mother is from Ethiopia, Africa. And I have a good relationship with my son and his mother, even though we've been apart for over 15 years, divorced for over 15 years or so or longer. But trying to keep that, you can just see this dichotomy. You go out to these different countries, and even in the military, it's just so extreme from the U.S. and any part of the U.S, but that then always focused on economics. And then technology, I just always kept up with, like, back in the '80s when the mobile brick phone came out, I had to figure out how to get one. [laughs] And then I took it apart and then put it back together just to see how it works, so yeah. But it was a huge one, by the way. I mean, it was like someone got another and broke it, and they thought it was broken. And they're like, "This doesn't work. You could take this piece of junk." I'm like, "Okay." [laughs] VICTORIA: Like, oh, great. I sure will, yeah. Now, I love technology. And I think a lot of people perceive artificial intelligence as being this super futuristic, potentially harmful, maybe economic negative impact. So what, from your perspective, can AI do for local economics or for people who may not have access to that advanced technology? LEONARD: Well, that's the key, and that's what we're looking to do with AIEDC. When you look at the small and midsize businesses, it's not what people think, or their perception is. A lot of those in the U.S. it's the backbone of the United States, our economy, literally. And in other parts of the world, it's the same where it could be a one or two mom-and-pop shops. That's where that name comes from; it's literally two people. And they're trying to start something to build their own life over time because they're using their labor to maybe build wealth or somehow a little bit not. And when I mean wealth, it's always relative. It's enough to sustain themselves or just put food on the table and be able to control their own destiny to the best of their ability. And so what we're looking to do is make a mobile app maker that's 5G that lives in the cloud, that's 5G compliant, that will allow small and midsize businesses to create their own iOS or Android mobile app with no-code or low-code, basically like creating an email. That's how simple we want it to be. When you create your own email, whether you use Microsoft, Google, or whatever you do, and you make it that simple. And there's a simple version, and there could be complexity added to it if they want. That would be the back office digitization or customization, but that then gets them on board with digitization. It's intriguing that McKinsey just came out with a report stating that in 2023, in order to be economically viable, and this was very recent, that all companies would need to have a digitization strategy. And so when you look at small businesses, and you look at things like COVID-19, or the COVID current ongoing issue and that disruption, this is global. And you look at even the Ukrainian War or the Russian-Ukrainian War, however you term it, invasion, war, special operation, these are disruptions. And then, on top of that, we look at climate change which has been accelerating in the last two years more so than it was prior to this that we've experienced. So this is something that everyone can see is self-evident. I'm not even focused on the cause of the problem. My brain and the way I think, and my team, we like to focus on solutions. My chairman is a former program director of NASA who managed 1,200 engineers that built the International Space Station; what was it? 20-30 years ago, however, that is. And he helped lead and build that from Johnson Center. And so you're focused on solutions because if you're building the International Space Station, you can only focus on solutions and anticipate the problems but not dwell on them. And so that kind of mindset is what I am, and it's looking to help small businesses do that to get them on board with digitization and then in customization. And then beyond that, use our system, which is called M.I.N.D. So we own these...we own patents, three patents, trademarks, and service marks related to artificial intelligence that are in the field of economics. And we will utilize DEVS...we plan to do that which is a suite of system specifications to predict regional economic issues like the weather in a proactive way, not reactive. A lot of economic situations are reactive. It's reactive to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates or lowering rates, Wall Street, you know, moving money or not moving money. It is what it is. I mean, I don't judge it. I think it's like financial engineering, and that's fine. It's profitability. But then, at the end of the day, if you're building something, it's like when we're going to go to space. When rockets launch, they have to do what they're intended to do. Like, I know that Blue Origin just blew up recently. Or if they don't, they have a default, and at least I heard that the Blue Origin satellite, if it were carrying passengers, the passengers would have been safe because it disembarked when it detected its own problem. So when you anticipate these kinds of problems and you apply them to the local small business person, you can help them forecast and predict better like what weather prediction has done. And we're always improving that collectively for weather prediction, especially with climate change, so that it can get to near real-time as soon as possible or close a window versus two weeks out versus two days out as an example. VICTORIA: Right. Those examples of what you call a narrow economic prediction. LEONARD: Correct. It is intriguing when you say narrow economic because it wouldn't be narrow AI. But it would actually get into AGI if you added more variables, which we would. The more variables you added in tenancies...so if you're looking at events, the system events discretion so discrete event system specification you would specify what they really, really need to do to have those variables. But at some point, you're working on a system, what I would call AGI. But AGI, in my mind, the circles I run in at least or at least most of the scientists I talk to it's not artificial superintelligence. And so the general public thinks AGI...and I've said this to Stephen Ibaraki, who's the founder of AI for Good at Global Summit at the United Nations, and one of his interviews as well. It's just Artificial General Intelligence, I think, has been put out a lot by Hollywood and entertainment and so forth, and some scientists say certain things. We won't be at artificial superintelligence. We might get to Artificial General Intelligence by 2030 easily, in my opinion. But that will be narrow AI, but it will cover what we look at it in the field as cross-domain, teaching a system to look at different variables because right now, it's really narrow. Like natural language processing, it's just going to look at language and infer from there, and then you've got backward propagation that's credit assignment and fraud and detection. Those are narrow data points. But when you start looking at something cross-domain...who am I thinking of? Pedro Domingos who wrote the Master Algorithm, which actually, Xi Jinping has a copy of, the President of China, on his bookshelf in his office because they've talked about that, and these great minds because Stephen Ibaraki has interviewed these...and the founder of Google Brain and all of these guys. And so there's always this debate in the scientific community of what is narrow AI what it's not. But at the end of the day, I just like Pedro's definition of it because he says the master algorithm will be combining all five, so you're really crossing domains, which AI hasn't done that. And to me, that will be AGI, but that's not artificial superintelligence. And artificial superintelligence is when it becomes very, you know, like some of the movies could say, if we as humanity just let it run wild, it could be crazy. VICTORIA: One of my questions is the future of AI more like iRobot or Bicentennial Man? LEONARD: Well, you know, interesting. That's a great question, Victoria. I see most of AI literally as iRobot, as a tool more than anything, except at the end when it implied...so it kind of did two things in that movie, but a wonderful movie to bring up. And I like Will Smith perfectly. Well, I liked him a lot more before -- VICTORIA: I think iRobot is really the better movie. LEONARD: Yeah, so if people haven't seen iRobot, I liked Will Smith, the actor. But iRobot showed you two things, and it showed you, one, it showed hope. Literally, the robot...because a lot of people put AI and robots. And AI by itself is the brain or the mind; I should say hardware are the robots or the brain. Software...AI in and of itself is software. It's the mind itself. That's why we have M.I.N.D Machine Intelligence NeuralNetwork Database. We literally have that. That's our acronym and our slogan and everything. And it's part of our patents. But its machine intelligence is M.I.N.D, and we own that, you know; the company owns it. And so M.I.N.D...we always say AI powered by M.I.N.D. We're talking about that software side of, like, what your mind does; it iterates and thinks, the ability to think itself. Now it's enclosed within a structure called, you know, for the human, it's called a brain, the physical part of it, and that brain is enclosed within the body. So when you look at robots...and my chairman was the key person for robotics for the International Space Station. So when you look at robotics, you are putting that software into hardware, just like your cell phone. You have the physical, and then you have the actual iOS, which is the operating system. So when you think about that, yeah, iRobot was good because it showed how these can be tools, and they were very, in the beginning of the movie, very helpful, very beneficial to humanity. But then it went to a darker side and showed where V.I.K.I, which was an acronym as well, I think was Virtual Interactive Kinetic technology of something. Yeah, I believe it was Virtual Interactive Kinetic inference or technology or something like that, V.I.K.I; I forgot the last I. But that's what it stood for. It was an acronym to say...and then V.I.K.I just became all aware and started killing everyone with robots and just wanted to say, you know, this is futile. But then, at the very, very end, V.I.K.I learned from itself and says, "Okay, I guess this isn't right." Or the other robot who could think differently argued with V.I.K.I, and they destroyed her. And it made V.I.K.I a woman in the movie, and then the robot was the guy. But that shows that it can get out of hand. But it was intriguing to me that they had her contained within one building. This wouldn't be artificial superintelligence. And I think sometimes Hollywood says, "Just take over everything from one building," no. It wouldn't be on earth if it could. But that is something we always have to think about. We have to think about the worst-case scenarios. I think every prudent scientist or business person or anyone should do that, even investors, I mean, if you're investing something for the future. But you also don't focus on it. You don't think about the best-case scenario, either. But there's a lot of dwelling on the worst-case scenario versus the good that we can do given we're looking at where humanity is today. I mean, we're in 2022, and we're still fighting wars that we fought in 1914. VICTORIA: Right. Which brings me to my next question, which is both, what are the most exciting opportunities to innovate in the AI space currently? And conversely, what are the biggest challenges that are facing innovation in that field? LEONARD: Ooh, that's a good question. I think, in my opinion, it's almost the same answer; one is...but I'm in a special field. And I'm surprised there's not a lot of competition for our company. I mean, it's very good for me and the company's sense. It's like when Mark Zuckerberg did Facebook, there was Friendster, and there was Myspace, but they were different. They were different verticals. And I think Mark figured out how to do it horizontally, good or bad. I'm talking about the beginning of when he started Facebook, now called Meta. But I'm saying utilizing AI in economics because a lot of times AI is used in FinTech and consumerism, but not economic growth where we're really talking about growing something organically, or it's called endogenous growth. Because I studied Paul Romer's work, who won the Nobel Prize in 2018 for economic science. And he talked about the nature of ideas. And we were working on something like that in Stanford. And I put out a book in 2017 of January talking about cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence but about the utilization of it, but not the speculation. I never talked about speculation. I don't own any crypto; I would not. It's only once it's utilized in its PureTech form will it create something that it was envisioned to do by the protocol that Satoshi Nakamoto sort of created. And it still fascinates me that people follow Bitcoin protocol, even for the tech and the non-tech, but they don't know who Satoshi is. But yeah, it's a white paper. You're just following a white paper because I think logically, the world is going towards that iteration of evolution. And that's how AI could be utilized for good in an area to focus on it with economics and solving current problems. And then going forward to build a new economy where it's not debt-based driven or consumer purchase only because that leaves a natural imbalance in the current world structure. The western countries are great. We do okay, and we go up and down. But the emerging and developing countries just get stuck, and they seem to go into a circular loop. And then there are wars as a result of these things and territory fights and so forth. So that's an area I think where it could be more advanced is AI in the economic realm, not so much the consumer FinTech room, which is fine. But consumer FinTech, in my mind, is you're using AI to process PayPal. That's where I think Elon just iterated later because PayPal is using it for finance. You're just moving things back and forth, and you're just authenticating everything. But then he starts going on to SpaceX next because he's like, well, let me use technology in a different way. And I do think he's using AI on all of his projects now. VICTORIA: Right. So how can that tech solve real problems today? Do you see anything even particular about Southern California, where we're both at right now, where you think AI could help predict some outcomes for small businesses or that community? LEONARD: I'm looking to do it regionally then globally. So I'm part of this Southern Cal Innovation Hub, which is just AI. It's an artificial intelligence coordination between literally San Diego County, Orange County, and Los Angeles County. And so there's a SoCal Innovation Hub that's kind of bringing it together. But there are all three groups, like; I think the CEO in Orange County is the CEO of Leadership Alliance. And then in San Diego, there's another group I can't remember their name off the top of my head, and I'm talking about the county itself. So each one's representing a county because, you know. And then there's one in Northern California that I'm also associated with where if you look at California as its own economy in the U.S., it's still pretty significant as an economic cycle in the United States, period. That's why so many politicians like California because they can sway the votes. So yeah, we're looking to do that once, you know, we are raising capital. We're crowdfunding currently. Our total raise is about 6 million. And so we're talking to venture capitalists, private, high net worth investors as well. Our federal funding is smaller. It's just like several hundred thousand because most people can only invest a few thousand. But I always like to try to give back. If you tell people...if you're Steve Jobs, like, okay, I've got this Apple company. In several years, you'll see the potential. And people are like, ah, whatever, but then they kick themselves 15 years later. [laughs] Like, oh, I wish I thought about that Apple stock for $15 when I could. But you give people a chance, and you get the word out, and you see what happens. Once you build a system, you share it. There are some open-source projects. But I think the open source, like OpenAI, as an example, Elon Musk funds that as well as Microsoft. They both put a billion dollars into it. It is an open-source project. OpenAI claims...but some of the research does go back to Microsoft to be able to see it. And DeepMind is another research for AI, but they're owned by Google. And so, I'm also very focused on democratizing artificial intelligence for the benefit of everyone. I really believe that needs to be democratized in a sense of tying it to economics and making it utilized for everyone that may need it for the benefit of humanity where it's profitable and makes money, but it's not just usurping. MID-ROLL AD: As life moves online, brick-and-mortar businesses are having to adapt to survive. With over 18 years of experience building reliable web products and services, thoughtbot is the technology partner you can trust. We provide the technical expertise to enable your business to adapt and thrive in a changing environment. We start by understanding what's important to your customers to help you transition to intuitive digital services your customers will trust. We take the time to understand what makes your business great and work fast yet thoroughly to build, test, and validate ideas, helping you discover new customers. Take your business online with design‑driven digital acceleration. Find out more at tbot.io/acceleration or click the link in the show notes for this episode. VICTORIA: With that democratizing it, is there also a need to increase the understanding of the ethics around it and when there are certain known use cases for AI where it actually is discriminatory and plays to systemic problems in our society? Are you familiar with that as well? LEONARD: Yes, absolutely. Well, that's my whole point. And, Victoria, you just hit the nail on the head. Truly democratizing AI in my mind and in my brain the way it works is it has opened up for everyone. Because if you really roll it back, okay, companies now we're learning...we used to call it several years ago UGC, User Generated Content. And now a lot of people are like, okay, if you're on Facebook, you're the product, right? Or if you're on Instagram, you're the product. And they're using you, and you're using your data to sell, et cetera, et cetera. But user-generated content it's always been that. It's just a matter of the sharing of the economic. That's why I keep going back to economics. So if people were, you know, you wouldn't have to necessarily do advertising if you had stakeholders with advertising, the users and the company, as an example. If it's a social media company, just throwing it out there, so let's say you have a social media...and this has been talked about, but I'm not the first to introduce this. This has been talked about for over ten years, at least over 15 years. And it's you share as a triangle in three ways. So you have the user and everything else. So take your current social media, and I won't pick on Facebook, but I'll just use them, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Twitter's having issues recently because Elon is trying to buy them or get out of buying them. But you just looked at that data, and then you share with the user base. What's the revenue model? And there needs to be one; let me be very clear. There has to be incentive, and there has to be profitability for people that joined you earlier, you know, joined the corporation, or become shareholders, or investors, or become users, or become customers. They have to be able to have some benefit, not extreme greater than everyone else but a great benefit from coming in earlier by what they contributed at the time. And that is what makes this system holistic in my opinion, like Reddit or any of these bloggers. But you make it where they use their time and the users, and you share it with the company and then the data and so forth, and whatever revenue economic model you have, and it's a sort of a three-way split. It's just not always equal. And that's something that I think in economics, we're still on a zero-sum game, I win, you lose sort of economic model globally. That's why there's a winner of a war and a loser of a war. But in reality, as you know, Victoria, there are no winners of any war. So it's funny, [laughs] I was just saying, well, you know, because of the economic mode, but Von Neumann, who talked about that, also talked about something called a non-zero-sum game when he talked about it in mathematics that you can win, and I can win; we just don't win equally because they never will match that. So if I win, I may win 60; you win 40. Or you may win 60, I win 40, and we agree to settle on that. It's an agreement versus I'm just going to be 99, and you'll be 1%, or I'm just going to be 100, and you're at 0. And I think that our economic model tends to be a lot of that, like, when you push forth and there needs to be more of that. When you talk about the core of economics...and I go way back, you know, prior to the Federal Reserve even being started. I just look at the world, and it's always sort of been this land territorial issue of what goods are under the country. But we've got technology where we can mitigate a lot of things and do the collective of help the earth, and then let's go off to space, all of space. That's where my brain is focused on. VICTORIA: Hmm. Oh yeah, that makes sense to me. I think that we're all going to have to evolve our economic models here in the future. I wonder, too, as you're building your startup and you're building your company, what are some of the technology trade-offs you're having to make in the stack of the AI software that you're building? LEONARD: Hmm. Good question. But clarify, this may be a lot deeper dive because that's a general question. And I don't want to...yeah, go ahead. VICTORIA: Because when you're building AI, and you're going to be processing a lot of data, I know many data scientists that are familiar with tools like Jupyter Notebooks, and R, and Python. And one issue that I'm aware of is keeping the environments the same, so everything that goes into building your app and having those infrastructure as code for your data science applications, being able to afford to process all that data. [laughs] And there are just so many factors that go into building an AI app versus building something that's more easy, like a web-based user form. So just curious if you've encountered those types of trade-offs or questions about, okay, how are we going to actually build an app that we can put out on everybody's phone and that works responsibly? LEONARD: Oh, okay. So let me be very clear, but I won't give too much of the secret sauce away. But I can define this technically because this is a technical audience. This is not...so what you're really talking about is two things, and I'm clear about this, though. So the app maker won't really read and write a lot of data. It'll just be the app where people could just get on board digitalization simple, you know, process payments, maybe connect with someone like American Express square, MasterCard, whatever. And so that's just letting them function. That's sort of small FinTech in my mind, you know, just transaction A to B, B to A, et cetera. And it doesn't need to be peer-to-peer and all of the crypto. It doesn't even need to go that level yet. That's just level one. Then they will sign up for a service, which is because we're really focused on artificial intelligence as a service. And that, to me, is the next iteration for AI. I've been talking about this for about three or four years now, literally, in different conferences and so forth for people who haven't hit it. But that we will get to that point where AI will become AI as a service, just like SaaS is. We're still at the, you know, most of the world on the legacy systems are still software as a service. We're about to hit AI as a service because the world is evolving. And this is true; they did shut it down. But you did have okay, so there are two case points which I can bring up. So JP Morgan did create something called a Coin, and it was using AI. And it was a coin like crypto, coin like a token, but they called it a coin. But it could process, I think, something like...I may be off on this, so to the sticklers that will be listening, please, I'm telling you I may be off on the exact quote, but I think it was about...it was something crazy to me, like 200,000 of legal hours and seconds that it could process because it was basically taking the corporate legal structure of JP Morgan, one of the biggest banks. I think they are the biggest bank in the U.S. JPMorgan Chase. And they were explaining in 2017 how we created this, and it's going to alleviate this many hours of legal work for the bank. And I think politically; something happened because they just pulled away. I still have the original press release when they put it out, and it was in the media. And then it went away. I mean, no implementation [laughs] because I think there was going to be a big loss of jobs for it. And they basically would have been white-collar legal jobs, most specifically lawyers literally that were working for the bank. And when they were talking towards investment, it was a committee. I was at a conference. And I was like, I was fascinated by that. And they were basically using Bitcoin protocol as the tokenization protocol, but they were using AI to process it. And it was basically looking at...because legal contracts are basically...you can teach it with natural language processing and be able to encode and almost output it itself and then be able to speak with each other. Another case point was Facebook. They had...what was it? Two AI systems. They began to create their own language. I don't know if you remember that story or heard about it, and Facebook shut it down. And this was more like two years ago, I think, when they were saying Facebook was talking, you know, when they were Facebook, not Meta, so maybe it was three years ago. And they were talking, and they were like, "Oh, Facebook has a language. It's talking to each other." And it created its own little site language because it was two AI bots going back and forth. And then the engineers at Facebook said, "We got to shut this down because this is kind of getting out of the box." So when you talk about AI as a service, yes, the good and the bad, and what you take away is AWS, Oracle, Google Cloud they do have services where it doesn't need to cost you as much anymore as it used to in the beginning if you know what you're doing ahead of time. And you're not just running iterations or data processing because you're doing guesswork versus, in my opinion, versus actually knowing exactly specifically what you're looking for and the data set you're looking to get out of it. And then you're talking about just basically putting in containers and clustering it because it gets different operations. And so what you're really looking at is something called an N-scale graph data that can process data in maybe sub seconds at that level, excuse me. And one of my advisors is the head of that anyway at AGI laboratory. So he's got an N graph database that can process...when we implement it, we'll be able to process data at the petabyte level at sub-seconds, and it can run on platforms like Azure or AWS, and so forth. VICTORIA: Oh, that's interesting. So it sounds like cloud providers are making compute services more affordable. You've got data, the N-scale graph data, that can run more transactions more quickly. And I'm curious if you see any future trends since I know you're a futurist around quantum computing and how that could affect capacity for -- LEONARD: Oh [laughs] We haven't even gotten there yet. Yes. Well, if you look at N-scale, if you know what you're doing and you know what to look for, then the quantum just starts going across different domains as well but at a higher hit rate. So there's been some quantum computers online. There's been several...well, Google has their quantum computer coming online, and they've been working on it, and Google has enough data, of course, to process. So yeah, they've got that data, lots of data. And quantum needs, you know, if it's going to do something, it needs lots of data. But then the inference will still be, I think, quantum is very good at processing large, large, large amounts of data. We can just keep going if you really have a good quantum computer. But it's really narrow. You have to tell it exactly what it wants, and it will do it in what we call...which is great like in P or NP square or P over NP which is you want to do it in polynomial time, not non-polynomial, polynomial time which is...now speaking too fast. Okay, my brain is going faster than my lips. Let me slow it down. So when you start thinking about processing, if we as humans, let's say if I was going to process A to Z, and I'm like, okay, here is this equation, if I tell you it takes 1000 years, it's of no use to us, to me and you Victoria because we're living now. Now, the earth may benefit in 1000 years, but it's still of no use. But if I could take this large amount of data and have it process within minutes, you know, worst case hours...but then I'll even go down to seconds or sub-seconds, then that's really a benefit to humanity now, today in present term. And so, as a futurist, yes, as the world, we will continue to add data. We're doing it every day, and we already knew this was coming ten years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, even actually in the '50s when we were in the AI winter. We're now in AI summer. In my words, I call it the AI summer. So as you're doing this, that data is going to continue to increase, and quantum will be needed for that. But then the specific need...quantum is very good at looking at a specific issue, specifically for that very narrow. Like if you were going to do the trajectory to Jupiter or if we wanted to send a probe to Jupiter or something, I think we're sending something out there now from NASA, and so forth, then you need to process all the variables, but it's got one trajectory. It's going one place only. VICTORIA: Gotcha. Well, that's so interesting. I'm glad I asked you that question. And speaking of rockets going off to space, have you ever seen a SpaceX launch from LA? LEONARD: Actually, I saw one land but not a launch. I need to go over there. It's not too far from me. But you got to give credit where credit's due and Elon has a reusable rocket. See, that's where technology is solving real-world problems. Because NASA and I have, you know, my chairman, his name is Alexander Nawrocki, you know, he's Ph.D., but I call him Rocki. He goes by Rocki like I go by LS. But it's just we talk about this like NASA's budget. [laughs] How can you reduce this? And Elon says they will come up with a reusable rocket that won't cost this much and be able to...and that's the key. That was the kind of Holy Grail where you can reuse the same rocket itself and then add some little variables on top of it. But the core, you wouldn't constantly be paying for it. And so I think where the world is going...and let me be clear, Elon pushes a lot out there. He's just very good at it. But I'm also that kind of guy that I know that Tesla itself was started by two Stanford engineers. Elon came on later, like six months, and then he invested, and he became CEO, which was a great investment for Elon Musk. And then CEO I just think it just fit his personality because it was something he loved. But I also have studied for years Nikola Tesla, and I understand what his contributions created where we are today with all the patents that he had. And so he's basically the father of WiFi and why we're able to communicate in a lot of this. We've perfected it or improved it, but it was created by him in the 1800s. VICTORIA: Right. And I don't think he came from as fortunate a background as Elon Musk, either. Sometimes I wonder what I could have done born in similar circumstances. [laughter] And you certainly have made quite a name for yourself. LEONARD: Well, I'm just saying, yeah, he came from very...he did come from a poor area of Russia which is called the Russian territory, to be very honest, Eastern Europe, definitely Eastern Europe. But yeah, I don't know once you start thinking about that [laughs]. You're making me laugh, Victoria. You're making me laugh. VICTORIA: No, I actually went camping, a backpacking trip to the Catalina Island, and there happened to be a SpaceX launch that night, and we thought it was aliens because it looked wild. I didn't realize what it was. But then we figured it was a launch, so it was really great. I love being here and being close to some of this technology and the advancements that are going on. I'm curious if you have some thoughts about...I hear a lot about or you used to hear about Silicon Valley Tech like very Northern California, San Francisco focus. But what is the difference in SoCal? What do you find in those two communities that makes SoCal special? [laughs] LEONARD: Well, I think it's actually...so democratizing AI. I've been in a moment like that because, in 2015, I was in Dubai, and they were talking about creating silicon oasis. And so there's always been this model of, you know, because they were always, you know, the whole Palo Alto thing is people would say it and it is true. I mean, I experienced it. Because I was in a two-year program, post-graduate program executive, but we would go up there...I wasn't living up there. I had to go there maybe once every month for like three weeks, every other month or something. But when you're up there, it is the air in the water. It's just like, people just breathe certain things. Because around the world, and I would travel to Japan, and China, and other different parts of Asia, Vietnam, et cetera and in Africa of course, and let's say you see this and people are like, so what is it about Silicon Valley? And of course, the show, there is the Hollywood show about it, which is pretty a lot accurate, which is interesting, the HBO show. But you would see that, and you would think, how are they able to just replicate this? And a lot of it is a convergence. By default, they hear about these companies' access because the key is access, and that's what we're...like this podcast. I love the concept around it because giving awareness, knowledge, and access allows other people to spread it and democratize it. So it's just not one physical location, or you have to be in that particular area only to benefit. I mean, you could benefit in that area, or you could benefit from any part of the world. But since they started, people would go there; engineers would go there. They built company PCs, et cetera. Now that's starting to spread in other areas like Southern Cal are creating their own innovation hubs to be able to bring all three together. And those three are the engineers and founders, and idea makers and startups. And you then need the expertise. I'm older than 42; I'm not 22. [laughs] So I'm just keeping it 100, keeping it real. So I'm not coming out at 19. I mean, my son's 18. And I'm not coming out, okay, this my new startup, bam, give me a billion dollars, I'm good. And let me just write off the next half. But when you look at that, there's that experience because even if you look at Mark Zuckerberg, I always tell people that give credit where credit is due. He brought a senior team with him when he was younger, and he didn't have the experience. And his only job has been Facebook out of college. He's had no other job. And now he's been CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation; that's a fact. Sometimes it hurts people's feelings. Like, you know what? He's had no other job. Now that can be good and bad, [laughs] but he's had no other jobs. And so that's just a credit, like, if you can surround yourself with the right people and be focused on something, it can work to the good or the bad for your own personal success but then having that open architecture. And I think he's been trying to learn and others versus like an Elon Musk, who embraces everything. He's just very open in that sense. But then you have to come from these different backgrounds. But let's say Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, let's take a guy like myself or whatever who didn't grow up with all of that who had to make these two ends meet, figure out how to do the next day, not just get to the next year, but get to the next day, get to the next week, get to the next month, then get to the next year. It just gives a different perspective as well. Humanity's always dealing with that. Because we had a lot of great engineers back in the early 1900s. They're good or bad, you know, you did have Nikola Tesla. You had Edison. I'm talking about circa around 1907 or 1909, prior to World War I. America had a lot of industries. They were the innovators then, even though there were innovations happening in Europe, and Africa, and China, as well and Asia. But the innovation hub kind of created as the America, quote, unquote, "industrial revolution." And I think we're about to begin a new revolution sort of tech and an industrial revolution that's going to take us to maybe from 20...we're 2022 now, but I'll say it takes us from 2020 to 2040 in my head. VICTORIA: So now that communities can really communicate across time zones and locations, maybe the hubs are more about solving specific problems. There are regional issues. That makes a lot more sense. LEONARD: Yes. And collaborating together, working together, because scientists, you know, COVID taught us that. People thought you had to be in a certain place, but then a lot of collaboration came out of COVID; even though it was bad globally, even though we're still bad, if people were at home, they start collaborating, and scientists will talk to scientists, you know, businesses, entrepreneurs, and so forth. But if Orange County is bringing together the mentors, the venture capital, or at least Southern California innovation and any other place, I want to say that's not just Silicon Valley because Silicon Valley already has it; we know that. And that's that region. It's San Jose all the way up to...I forgot how far north it's past San Francisco, actually. But it's that region of area where they encompass the real valley of Silicon Valley if you're really there. And you talk about these regions. Yes, I think we're going to get to a more regional growth area, and then it'll go more micro to actually cities later in the future. But regional growth, I think it's going to be extremely important globally in the very near term. I'm literally saying from tomorrow to the next, maybe ten years, regional will really matter. And then whatever you have can scale globally anyway, like this podcast we're doing. This can be distributed to anyone in the world, and they can listen at ease when they have time. VICTORIA: Yeah, I love it. It's both exciting and also intimidating. [laughs] And you mentioned your son a little bit earlier. And I'm curious, as a founder and someone who spent a good amount of time in graduate and Ph.D. programs, if you feel like it's easy to connect with your son and maintain that balance and focusing on your family while you're building a company and investing in yourself very heavily. LEONARD: Well, I'm older, [laughs] so it's okay. I mean, I've mentored him, you know. And me and his mom have a relationship that works. I would say we have a better relationship now than when we were together. It is what it is. But we have a communication level. And I think she was just a great person because I never knew my real father, ever. I supposedly met him when I was two or one; I don't know. But I have no memories, no photos, nothing. And that was just the environment I grew up in. But with my son, he knows the truth of everything about that. He's actually in college. I don't like to name the school because it's on the East Coast, and it's some Ivy League school; that's what I will say. And he didn't want to stay on the West Coast because I'm in Orange County and his mom's in Orange County. He's like, "I want to get away from both of you people." [laughter] And that's a joke, but he's very independent. He's doing well. When he graduated high school, he graduated with 4.8 honors. He made the valedictorian. He was at a STEM school. VICTORIA: Wow. LEONARD: And he has a high GPA. He's studying computer science and economics as well at an Ivy League, and he's already made two or three apps at college. And I said, "You're not Mark, so calm down." [laughter] But anyway, that was a recent conversation. I won't go there. But then some people say, "LS, you should be so happy." What is it? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But this was something he chose around 10 or 11. I'm like, whatever you want to do, you do; I'll support you no matter what. And his mom says, "Oh no, I think you programmed him to be like you." [laughs] I'm like, no, I can't do that. I just told him the truth about life. And he's pretty tall. VICTORIA: You must have -- LEONARD: He played basketball in high school a lot. I'm sorry? VICTORIA: I was going to say you must have inspired him. LEONARD: Yeah. Well, he's tall. He did emulate me in a lot of ways. I don't know why. I told him just be yourself. But yes, he does tell me I'm an inspiration to that; I think because of all the struggles I've gone through when I was younger. And you're always going through struggles. I mean, it's just who you are. I tell people, you know, you're building a company. You have success. You can see the future, but sometimes people can't see it, [laughs] which I shouldn't really say, but I'm saying anyway because I do that. I said this the other night to some friends. I said, "Oh, Jeff Bezo's rocket blew up," going, you know, Blue Origin rocket or something. And then I said Elon will tell Jeff, "Well, you only have one rocket blow up. I had three, [laughter] SpaceX had three." So these are billionaires talking to billionaires about, you know, most people don't even care. You're worth X hundred billion dollars. I mean, they're worth 100 billion-plus, right? VICTORIA: Right. LEONARD: I think Elon is around 260 billion, and Jeff is 160 or something. Who cares about your rocket blowing up? But it's funny because the issues are still always going to be there. I've learned that. I'm still learning. It doesn't matter how much wealth you have. You just want to create wealth for other people and better their lives. The more you search on bettering lives, you're just going to have to wake up every day, be humble with it, and treat it as a new day and go forward and solve the next crisis or problem because there will be one. There is not where there are no problems, is what I'm trying to say, this panacea or a utopia where you personally, like, oh yeah, I have all this wealth and health, and I'm just great. Because Elon has had divorce issues, so did Jeff Bezos. So I told my son a lot about this, like, you never get to this world where it's perfect in your head. You're always going to be doing things. VICTORIA: That sounds like an accurate future prediction if I ever heard one. [laughs] Like, there will be problems. No matter where you end up or what you choose to do, you'll still have problems. They'll just be different. [laughs] LEONARD: Yeah, and then this is for women and men. It means you don't give up. You just keep hope alive, and you keep going. And I believe personally in God, and I'm a scientist who actually does. But I look at it more in a Godly aspect. But yeah, I just think you just keep going, and you keep building because that's what we do as humanity. It's what we've done. It's why we're here. And we're standing on the shoulders of giants, and I just always considered that from physicists and everyone. VICTORIA: Great. And if people are interested in building something with you, you have that opportunity right now to invest via the crowdfunding app, correct? LEONARD: Yes, yes, yes. They can do that because the company is still the same company because eventually, we're going to branch out. My complete vision for AIEDC is using artificial intelligence for economic development, and that will spread horizontally, not just vertically. Vertically right now, just focus on just a mobile app maker digitization and get...because there are so many businesses even globally, and I'm not talking only e-commerce. So when I say small to midsize business, it can be a service business, car insurance, health insurance, anything. It doesn't have to be selling a particular widget or project, you know, product. And I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with that, you know, interest rates and consumerism. But I'm not thinking about Shopify, and that's fine, but I'm talking about small businesses. And there's the back office which is there are a lot of tools for back offices for small businesses. But I'm talking about they create their own mobile app more as a way to communicate with their customers, update them with their customers, and that's key, especially if there are disruptions. So let's say that there have been fires in California. In Mississippi or something, they're out of water. In Texas, last year, they had a winter storm, electricity went out. So all of these things are disruptions. This is just in the U.S., And of course, I won't even talk about Pakistan, what's going on there and the flooding and just all these devastating things, or even in China where there's drought where there are these disruptions, and that's not counting COVID disrupts, the cycle of business. It literally does. And it doesn't bubble up until later when maybe the central banks and governments pay attention to it, just like in Japan when that nuclear, unfortunately, that nuclear meltdown happened because of the earthquake; I think it was 2011. And that affected that economy for five years, which is why the government has lower interest rates, negative interest rates, because they have to try to get it back up. But if there are tools and everyone's using more mobile apps and wearables...and we're going to go to the metaverse and all of that. So the internet of things can help communicate that. So when these types of disruptions happen, the flow of business can continue, at least at a smaller level, for an affordable cost for the business. I'm not talking about absorbing costs because that's meaningless to me. VICTORIA: Yeah, well, that sounds like a really exciting project. And I'm so grateful to have this time to chat with you today. Is there anything else you want to leave for our listeners? LEONARD: If they want to get involved, maybe they can go to our crowdfunding page, or if they've got questions, ask about it and spread the word. Because I think sometimes, you know, they talk about the success of all these companies, but a lot of it starts with the founder...but not a founder. If you're talking about a startup, it starts with the founder. But it also stops with the innovators that are around that founder, male or female, whoever they are. And it also starts with their community, building a collective community together. And that's why Silicon Valley is always looked at around the world as this sort of test case of this is how you create something from nothing and make it worth great value in the future. And I think that's starting to really spread around the world, and more people are opening up to this. It's like the crowdfunding concept. I think it's a great idea, like more podcasts. I think this is a wonderful idea, podcasts in and of themselves, so people can learn from people versus where in the past you would only see an interview on the business news network, or NBC, or Fortune, or something like that, and that's all you would understand. But this is a way where organically things can grow. I think the growth will continue, and I think the future's bright. We just have to know that it takes work to get there. VICTORIA: That's great. Thank you so much for saying that and for sharing your time with us today. I learned a lot myself, and I think our listeners will enjoy it as well. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobot.fm. You can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Leonard S. Johnson.

We're living through the end of something. Facebook is the site where your older family shares racist memes, Twitter seems only capable of talking about itself, and Instagram can't compete with TikTok. What started with Friendster and MySpace, social media, once felt like a totalizing on the internet. Now it's dying.According to Motherboard writer Edward Ongweso Jr, social media isn't dying. It's already dead. So what monsters struggle now to be born?Stories discussed in this episode:Social Media Is DeadAt SXSW, A Pathetic Tech Future Struggles to Be BornWe're recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Interview with Rabble. How Odeo turned into Twitter. What did Rabble do before Odeo? What did Rabble learn at TXTmob that came over to Twitter? Why Jaiku was so cool. What did Rabble work on at Yahoo from Uruguay? What was the core mistake of Friendster? What is the Scuttlebutt protocol and how does it work with Planetary? How does Rabble feel about Bluesky? What should I be able to export from Twitter right now? What's coming soon on Planetary and Scuttlebutt? Elon Musk dubs himself 'Chief Twit,' visits Twitter HQ with deal set to close. Do you worry about taking money for Planetary? Some use cases for how to use Planetary. Goodbye to Rabble. Musk Tells Bankers He Plans to Close Twitter Deal on Friday. Spotify Wants to Get Into Audiobooks but Says Apple Is in the Way. Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI. Study: Playing lots of video games may benefit kids' brains. The Wire Retracts Its Meta Stories. Why audio will never capture the hearts of social media users. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Hardcover by Jonathan - Freedland. Is MrBeast actually worth $1.5 billion? Uber will show ads now. But don't count on a lower fare. Marco Arment: "Now my app's product page shows gambling ads, which I'm really not OK with. Republicans sue Google claiming spam filter blocks email. Leo's Meta Quest Pro. The Real Chief TWiT: Comfort Tee. Texas Sues Google Over Use of Facial Images. Google Home web app starts rolling out to view live Nest feeds, older cameras supported. Google Maps has removed its COVID-19 layer. Google is giving Workspace Individual subscribers a big storage bump. YouTube's new design makes it easier to fast-forward or rewind to the right part. YouTube Premium is getting a price hike for family plans to $22.99/month. Google Messages tests new design for delivered and read indicators. New Google Messages and Contacts app icons rolling out, Phone left. Rabble returns! Picks: Rabble - Planetary Jeff - 76% trust the technology sector Rabble - Web3 is Self-Certifying Leo - The Crypto Story Hosts: Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis Guest: Evan Henshaw-Plath (Rabble) Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: Melissa.com/twit

Interview with Rabble. How Odeo turned into Twitter. What did Rabble do before Odeo? What did Rabble learn at TXTmob that came over to Twitter? Why Jaiku was so cool. What did Rabble work on at Yahoo from Uruguay? What was the core mistake of Friendster? What is the Scuttlebutt protocol and how does it work with Planetary? How does Rabble feel about Bluesky? What should I be able to export from Twitter right now? What's coming soon on Planetary and Scuttlebutt? Elon Musk dubs himself 'Chief Twit,' visits Twitter HQ with deal set to close. Do you worry about taking money for Planetary? Some use cases for how to use Planetary. Goodbye to Rabble. Musk Tells Bankers He Plans to Close Twitter Deal on Friday. Spotify Wants to Get Into Audiobooks but Says Apple Is in the Way. Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI. Study: Playing lots of video games may benefit kids' brains. The Wire Retracts Its Meta Stories. Why audio will never capture the hearts of social media users. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Hardcover by Jonathan - Freedland. Is MrBeast actually worth $1.5 billion? Uber will show ads now. But don't count on a lower fare. Marco Arment: "Now my app's product page shows gambling ads, which I'm really not OK with. Republicans sue Google claiming spam filter blocks email. Leo's Meta Quest Pro. The Real Chief TWiT: Comfort Tee. Texas Sues Google Over Use of Facial Images. Google Home web app starts rolling out to view live Nest feeds, older cameras supported. Google Maps has removed its COVID-19 layer. Google is giving Workspace Individual subscribers a big storage bump. YouTube's new design makes it easier to fast-forward or rewind to the right part. YouTube Premium is getting a price hike for family plans to $22.99/month. Google Messages tests new design for delivered and read indicators. New Google Messages and Contacts app icons rolling out, Phone left. Rabble returns! Picks: Rabble - Planetary Jeff - 76% trust the technology sector Rabble - Web3 is Self-Certifying Leo - The Crypto Story Hosts: Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis Guest: Evan Henshaw-Plath (Rabble) Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: Melissa.com/twit

Interview with Rabble. How Odeo turned into Twitter. What did Rabble do before Odeo? What did Rabble learn at TXTmob that came over to Twitter? Why Jaiku was so cool. What did Rabble work on at Yahoo from Uruguay? What was the core mistake of Friendster? What is the Scuttlebutt protocol and how does it work with Planetary? How does Rabble feel about Bluesky? What should I be able to export from Twitter right now? What's coming soon on Planetary and Scuttlebutt? Elon Musk dubs himself 'Chief Twit,' visits Twitter HQ with deal set to close. Do you worry about taking money for Planetary? Some use cases for how to use Planetary. Goodbye to Rabble. Musk Tells Bankers He Plans to Close Twitter Deal on Friday. Spotify Wants to Get Into Audiobooks but Says Apple Is in the Way. Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI. Study: Playing lots of video games may benefit kids' brains. The Wire Retracts Its Meta Stories. Why audio will never capture the hearts of social media users. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Hardcover by Jonathan - Freedland. Is MrBeast actually worth $1.5 billion? Uber will show ads now. But don't count on a lower fare. Marco Arment: "Now my app's product page shows gambling ads, which I'm really not OK with. Republicans sue Google claiming spam filter blocks email. Leo's Meta Quest Pro. The Real Chief TWiT: Comfort Tee. Texas Sues Google Over Use of Facial Images. Google Home web app starts rolling out to view live Nest feeds, older cameras supported. Google Maps has removed its COVID-19 layer. Google is giving Workspace Individual subscribers a big storage bump. YouTube's new design makes it easier to fast-forward or rewind to the right part. YouTube Premium is getting a price hike for family plans to $22.99/month. Google Messages tests new design for delivered and read indicators. New Google Messages and Contacts app icons rolling out, Phone left. Rabble returns! Picks: Rabble - Planetary Jeff - 76% trust the technology sector Rabble - Web3 is Self-Certifying Leo - The Crypto Story Hosts: Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis Guest: Evan Henshaw-Plath (Rabble) Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: Melissa.com/twit

Interview with Rabble. How Odeo turned into Twitter. What did Rabble do before Odeo? What did Rabble learn at TXTmob that came over to Twitter? Why Jaiku was so cool. What did Rabble work on at Yahoo from Uruguay? What was the core mistake of Friendster? What is the Scuttlebutt protocol and how does it work with Planetary? How does Rabble feel about Bluesky? What should I be able to export from Twitter right now? What's coming soon on Planetary and Scuttlebutt? Elon Musk dubs himself 'Chief Twit,' visits Twitter HQ with deal set to close. Do you worry about taking money for Planetary? Some use cases for how to use Planetary. Goodbye to Rabble. Musk Tells Bankers He Plans to Close Twitter Deal on Friday. Spotify Wants to Get Into Audiobooks but Says Apple Is in the Way. Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI. Study: Playing lots of video games may benefit kids' brains. The Wire Retracts Its Meta Stories. Why audio will never capture the hearts of social media users. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Hardcover by Jonathan - Freedland. Is MrBeast actually worth $1.5 billion? Uber will show ads now. But don't count on a lower fare. Marco Arment: "Now my app's product page shows gambling ads, which I'm really not OK with. Republicans sue Google claiming spam filter blocks email. Leo's Meta Quest Pro. The Real Chief TWiT: Comfort Tee. Texas Sues Google Over Use of Facial Images. Google Home web app starts rolling out to view live Nest feeds, older cameras supported. Google Maps has removed its COVID-19 layer. Google is giving Workspace Individual subscribers a big storage bump. YouTube's new design makes it easier to fast-forward or rewind to the right part. YouTube Premium is getting a price hike for family plans to $22.99/month. Google Messages tests new design for delivered and read indicators. New Google Messages and Contacts app icons rolling out, Phone left. Rabble returns! Picks: Rabble - Planetary Jeff - 76% trust the technology sector Rabble - Web3 is Self-Certifying Leo - The Crypto Story Hosts: Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis Guest: Evan Henshaw-Plath (Rabble) Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: Melissa.com/twit

The guys reminisce about forgotten social media platforms of the past, Dave Chappelle gets attacked on stage and the guys go back over some potential 5 dicker movies and movies that make you cry.

This is day 3 of the 5 Day Lead Challenge. If you want to watch the video of this episode or download the OnePager, go to 5dayleadchallenge.com. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody. This is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today, we're going day into number three of the Five Day Lead Challenge. Hopefully, you've enjoyed the last two episodes. If you haven't listened to those yet, make sure you get them all in order, because they all build upon each other. But this is day number three. And today we're talked about creating your lead funnel, right? Day number one we talked about the strategy of generating leads online day. Number two, we built out your lead magnet and now on number three, we're going to start building your lead funnel. This is the most basic, most simple and one of the most powerful types of funnels you can create. So we'll be talking about that during today's episode. Once again, this is from a video event that we did, and so if you want to see the videos and see the screenshots and get the one pager homework and all that stuff, you can get those for free at fivedayleadchallenge.com. So that said, I hope you enjoy this episode on creating your lead funnel. Welcome to day number three of the five day lead challenge. Have you guys been enjoying this process so far? I'm actually really curious. This is the first time we've ever done training like this where we go live every single day. A whiteboard out with strategy. We give you the tactics. We give you the one pager, and you go do the homework assignment. I'm curious and I'd love to know the comments. I'll read these afterwards, but let me know in the comments if you guys are enjoying this process. I think it's a fun, cool, new way to train. So if you do like it let me know. If you're getting a lot of value out also I'd love to be able to see it. Let me know in the comments down below. One really cool thing that I'm excited about that I'm kind of let guys know and then we'll jump into the training. As we were planing this I was having so much fun with it. A lot of you guys know we do a training called One Funnel Away. How many guys I've ever heard of the One Funnel Away challenge or been part of the One Funnel Away challenge? Okay, so we launched the One Funnel Away challenge, man, about two years ago now. And in the last two years over 70,000 people have gone through which is crazy. So thank you. I hope you had a chance to go through and you enjoyed it. But it's been two years and I love teaching. I get excited and like, I don't know about you. Every time I talk about something, I get off stage. I'm like, "Oh, I want to do it again. I can change this. I can tweak this. I can make it better." And I really decided after OFS like I want to do it again. And I'm really enjoying this process and so I talked to my team. I was like, "What if we did OFA again, but this time do it live?" And do it live over 30 days where we do the same process. So I come up here, I talked to you guys for 30 minutes or so, give you a one-pager, and give you a homework assignment and go every single day over 30 days and the end of it we do the next year, right? This whole five day lead challenge is all about getting your first lead funnel, getting leads coming in. The One Funnel Away challenge is about creating it for sales funnel. We're actually selling products and making money. So my question to you is if we were to do that, if we were to go and do One Funnel Away live starting Monday, how many has to be interested in being part of that? If so write in the comments down below 'cause I'm pretty sure that's what we're planning on doing 'cause I am really enjoying the process. I don't want it to stop. I want to do this every day for the next 30 days. So, anyway, we'll talk more about that towards the end of this week. But if you guys are interested to extending this experience and going from here, here is me generating leads like know how to start selling products and building out for our sales funnels? That's what the new One Funnel Away challenge is gonna be. It's gonna be simplified from the old one. Every single day, we'll have a one pager or a homework assignment and it will be really fun and it'll be exciting. So that's happening later on this week. So I want to let you guys know about. Starting next week, Monday, we're gonna start the new One Funnel Away challenge. So, anyway, that's kind of what's happening. All right, with that said, I'm gonna jump into today. We've got so many fun things. How many, by the way... How many guys went and did the assignment yesterday and actually got your one pager account set up and created your very first one pager, your very first lead magnet, okay? We were watching the comments and the things that's been a little bit of chaos on our side. Obviously, one pager is a brand new product. Yes, you're the first people ever to use it. And I've already seen so many people creating one pagers, people finding a couple bugs which has been nice. Let us know. We're trying to get all the things fixed up. There's a lot of cool new features and this is coming out a bit. As of right now, it's pretty cool, right? And like all the one-pagers that I'm giving you guys, I built those myself. That was me and I'm not technical. I was able to build those, it took me a little while and I had so much fun with it. And so, like I said, literally today I'm gonna start working on the One Funnel Away one pagers 'cause I got all the one pagers for this we had done yesterday, actually. So, anyway, I hopefully enjoyed one pager. If not, if you haven't do this homework yet, make sure you go back to day number two, which is yesterday, watch the training, get the one pager and then go and create your one pager. That's how you're taking your framework we talked about and turn it into something tangible that you can trade somebody in exchange for their email address. Okay, and one pager is the coolest way I've ever found to do that. So that's exciting. Okay, so before I dive into today. This is me like... One my favorite things about my role in this whole game is I get to do cool marketing stuff and then I get to tell you guys what I'm doing because I feel like I'm the wizard of all of these. Like I do something amazing and I'm like, "Hey, come down we got it. Let me show you what we just did. Okay, so yesterday we talked a lot about frameworks. Now I want to... Again, I'm gonna open the curtain and show you guys kinda what's happening, right? When we plan out the five day lead challenge what did I do? I said, "Okay, what's the end result." The end result, we're trying to get somebody, right? Just to create a funnel with leads coming in. It's okay to do that. If I was to break down over five days of all the frameworks I have, that I've taught, that I know, that I understand. What are the frameworks that people need that they'll have success and be able to do that, right? And so day number one, I shared with you guys the overarching framework, right? Here's the big framework of how to generate leads online. Okay, that's how day number one was. Kind of a big broad overview of like this is how it works, right? And works through all the pieces. Like you have to have a lead magnet, then you got to have a squeeze page, then you got to have an email sequence and you have to drive traffic. And so day one was me sharing the framework of the entire week, right? And then, yesterday, if you guys noticed when I taught all ideas, I had three frameworks I taught you guys, did you catch this? Okay, I had three frameworks, okay? How many of you guys remember? The very first framework that I showed you guys was my framework. I'll go back here and show you this. Let me flip my whiteboard back over. Okay, the first framework I talked about with you guys was this one right here, right? I'm talking about who is your dream customer, what's the result you're trying to get for them and then what are the steps to that journey, right? Okay, so that was the framework I taught you guys. Now when I taught you guys, did you notice how I taught this? I didn't just say, okay, here's how the framework works, right? The way I taught it, is first off what I did as I told you the story about how I learned to earned it, right? And then I walked you through the overarching strategy. Here's the concept of how it works, okay? And then your homework assignment, the one pager gave you the tactics, right? And I shared a ton of case studies throughout thinking of like how has worked for me and for other people, right? That was the first framework I shared. Okay, second framework I shared, boom was called the ultra result. Right, what is the ultimate result, right? And what are the core results? And from there what are the splint results? And from there we're gonna it and create you one pager, okay? That was the second. The second framework I taught was the ultimate result, right? And then third framework I taught was what? Boom, my framework for how to teach frameworks. Okay, like that literally it. So there's behind the curtains. Yes, there's like, "Hey, what are the frameworks I need to teach them today from my bag of frameworks and my bag of tricks and things that I have that can help give them the tools they need to be successful with day number two." Okay, so day number three, same as I was planning out. Okay, day number three. We're talking about actually creating your lead funnel, right? You've got a lead magnet. Now you need a funnel, this is the mechanism. This is the tool. It's gonna give somebody to give you their email address in exchange for your lead magnet, right? So it's like what are the frameworks that they need today to for just to understand for them to make sense and then I'm going to go and give them the tool, right? And so there's two frameworks I'm gonna be teaching today. Okay, so, hopefully, have seeing this like I'm practicing what I'm preaching. I'm not just pointing on my head like this is... I'm showing you guys exactly what I'm doing and hopefully this has given you a model. Okay, I always tell people I feel like my main role here at ClickFunnels is to be like someone who's doing things so you guys can look at it and you can model it in your business, right? Like I don't need to keep doing live trainings. I don't need to keep like... I'm fine. Like financially, I'm good, I can take a break. I can take a year or two or six years off and be completely fine. Okay, I keep doing this because I love it. Number one, I love this game. It's so much fun. Number two, I'm trying to show you guys models so you can like, "Oh, I can see I can model that in my business. Oh, I can do what Russell did over here." I can do a five day challenge. What would be my frameworks, what would I teach people, right? I can create my own lead magnet. What would I create? Russell, show me three of his what could I do for a lead magnet, right? I'm trying to show you guys stuff so you can look at it, you can think through it and figure how to model that for your specific business as well. Okay, and that's like you play in the game. So I keep sharing and hope you guys don't mind. I'm gonna keep on talking until I can't talk anymore because I love this stuff. I love seeing the ahas that you guys have. Okay, I remember when I first got into this game at 18, 18, 19 years ago now, and I was a young kid. I was wrestling at Boise State University and I was learning about this stuff. This is before webinars. I remember back then people did tele-seminars. And so I would get the tele-seminar recording. I had this little tape recorder that I got at radio shack and I would go hook it from my phone system. I click record and tape these teleseminars onto cassette tapes, right? And then 'cause most of them that I was in school or different places I couldn't like listen to them live and I wanted to hear them over and over again. So I taped all these cassette tapes and then I'd go on wrestling trips and we'd be in these vans, and we have like 8, 10, 12 hour drives in these vans and I get these cassette tapes out of these teleseminars I've recorded of people teaching some of these concepts when I first learned them. I remember listening to the tape, listening in the car with my headphones on and everyone else in the car sleeping or listening to music. I'm listening to these guys talk about these marketing principles. I remember just feeling like so alive and so excited. I'm just like this is the most exciting thing in the world, okay? And for me like I've had a chance to discover these things. I remember how excited I was when I first learned, when I first applied them, they actually worked, I was freaking out. And so for me the closest thing I can get to that same excitement is coming to you and sharing with Mike. And I see your guys' eyes light up when you get that aha moment or what are those things are like, "Aha, for me, it's like me. I have a chance to relive it again through you guys." And so that's why I love doing this and I love sharing these things and, hopefully, you guys feel that coming through for me. Okay, do you notice by the way when I told you guys the story of my... The framework of how to use frameworks, how I started it. By the way yesterday, right? I told you my story about how I learned to earn it. I was on stage and I was casting my pearls before swine. I told that story before I gave you this framework, okay? The pattern is repeated over and over and over again. All right, so that said now we're going to jump into today, which, again, the goal today is for us to build out our very first funnel, okay? So I'm gonna talk about two core frameworks you have to understand and then I'm gonna let you guys go. Probably ti's gonna be a little earlier today. And I'm gonna give you one pager which is gonna give you assignment. It's gonna walk you through tactics and you actually gonna have a chance to build your funnel today. And I prebuilt six funnels for you guys this weekend and you can pick any of the six or download all of them. You're gonna have them and it's giving you the framework. I'm gonna be giving you a new software tool that Jim Edwards built for you guys. We're literally filling in some blanks, you click a button, and it creates all the copy for every single page here inside your lead funnel, which is insanely cool and a bunch of other really cool things. So that's what's happening. And then tomorrow we've got a special guest coming in. It's gonna to be... I'm excited to introduce her she's gonna be coming and will be talking about the emails you send out, okay? And so that'll be happening tomorrow and then on Friday we've no special guests. She's actually flying here from Texas. She sent me a picture of her at the airport and she's gonna teach you guys how to launch these funnels and start getting traffic coming in for free. So it's gonna be a... The rest of the week will really be fun and exciting, okay? But for right now we're gonna dive into building out your lead funnel. Now I'm curious how many guys here who are watching, you've had a chance to read any of my books? Specifically, The Dotcom Secrets book. So Dotcom Secrets book is the first book I wrote. The hardbound version, new updated hardbound version. If you have the soft bound it's good. This one is way better. I rewrote this from the ground up I added, I don't know, I added 40,000 or 50,000 new words to this. New frameworks, new things. It's awesome, but in this book this is the book that teaches the core fundamentals of funnel building. You don't have a copy yet, you can get a free copy at dotcomsecrets.com But this is... A lot of the things I'm comes from his books. If you want to go deeper into that, make sure you get a copy of the Dotcom Secrets book, okay? Okay, so one of the principles I talked about Dotcom Secrets book is this concept that I call the value ladder, okay? And some of you has heard me talk about this before but this... For you to be successful with funnels and lead funnels and all the stuff we're talking about you have to understand this core principle. It's something that's so simple where when you get it, it changes everything, okay? So if you look at this, I'm gonna draw two axis on this thing, okay? Over here, this is gonna be price and this is going to be value, okay? Now if you think about it as a business owner you want to provide the most amount of value possible for people to come into your world, right? And so I think about that and I'm like if somebody comes to me like, Russell, I read your books. This is really, really cool. I want you to... What's the best thing you can offer me. Like whatever it is I will give you. Whatever it takes, I want you to just to do this whole thing. What's the most value you can possibly offer me, the highest amount of value, right? So for me if I was to like provide you guys a home, the most amount of value it would be basically I would pay for you to fly out here to my house, we sit in a room for a week. I would figure out what your business is, your product and I would go and write the scripts for yourselves and I'd create your funnels, I'd drive traffic, I would do everything for you, right? I guess the most value I could offer, right? If I just did the whole thing for you. And if you think about it, right? The value would be insane. It'd be clear up here but the problem is because it takes so much time and effort for me and for my staff, my team, and my everything because the price would also be high as well, right? So this will be... This would be like the most value I could possibly be... This is your smiley face. This the most value I could possibly give to you, okay? Now, honestly, if I was to do something like that the reality because it's just how much time and effort it would take me to provide that much value this is something that I would probably have to sell for at least $1 million cash up front plus I would say 40% to 60% of the company depending on how much I'm actually running long-term, okay? But that's the most value I can possibly provide somebody, okay? Now it's funny to think about this if I was to walk up to you on the side of the street, the very first day I'm like, "Hey, my name is Russell Brunson and I would love to build a funnel for you." If you want to write me a check for $1 million plus give me 60% of your company, I will do this for you. How many guys would be like, "That's awesome, Russell, I'm going to do it." Right, how many guys will look at me and be like, "Russell, you look like you're 11 years old. You want $1 million to build a funnel? And then you want more than half of my business. It makes no sense," right? Okay, the reason is because I've provided no value at this point, you have no context. Like is that a good deal or a bad I don't even know, right? So traditionally in businesses we don't just go lead with our best thing because we haven't shown value to the people first, right? So instead what we do is we come down here at the bottom of the value ladder. We say, "Okay, what's something I can do that provides value that's not gonna cost a ton of money," right? I'm gonna do something right here. Okay, so for me and for you this is like a lead funnel, right? Give me your email address, I guess the price of the members. Give me your email address I'm gonna give you this lead magnet, okay? And you're gonna get it you'll get some value from that lead magnet, right? And they get that and they're like, "Oh my gosh this is really good." And what do we do as humans? We get value from something. What do we naturally want, okay? If we get value from something or from somebody we naturally want more. So people come here to get value. This is lovely, this is amazing. That's awesome, that's cool. The next thing it say, "Okay, how can we get more value?" Okay, and now you step them up your value ladder to the next thing. That's gonna be a little bit more expensive. Okay, the price goes up but the value goes up as well. Okay, the good case is like you buy one of my books. My books are free plus shipping, right? So it's $10 basically you get my book. The value is here but the price is low. You get that and you read the book like this is amazing, one more. Right, these are ClickFunnel and then you come to our events and like naturally start sending up, okay? And so that happens here. If somebody gets value here they go to the next year. Boom to the next year until eventually this is not that expensive. Okay, I guarantee if I send an email to my list and say, "Hey, I'm going to be building out five people's funnels. It's $1 million down and I want 50% of your business. I guarantee I get five people within 24 hours." Okay, because there's people who've gone through this process with me who understand the value of what I bring to the table and that'd be a no brainer, okay? 'Cause they've been through this before. Okay, you think about this. This is true in like all aspects of life. Think about your significant other, the first time you met them, right? Okay, if you came to... Let's say you're gonna go on a date with a girl and you're like, "Hey, you are cute. The most value I can have you. I want to get married, we're gonna have a bunch of kids and then grandkids and it's gonna be amazing, right? If you said that to a girl or to a dude or whatever, they'd be like you're crazy. Like this person is nuts, right? And they're gonna freak out. So that's not how you go approach somebody if you want to date them or whatever, right? You start down here and you say, "Hey, do you want to go on a date?" Like, "Okay, how's that work?" We can go to dinner and a movie, right? The price isn't that high, the value is not that big a deal until you go on a date and then what happens. If the day goes good and the person sees value, like this was a great date. Now, I want more and you say, "Hey, do you want to go on a second date." And they're like, "Yeah." Okay, do you want to go another date and eventually there's a time when you come and say, "Hey, do you want to get married? I want to have kids with you and have a family and have grandkids someday." Well, all of a sudden that question is not this thing that freaks me out. It's like, "Yes, of course, you've given me value every single step in this relationship. I want to continue that forever, okay? So it works in relationships, it works in business, it works everywhere. And so this is what we have to understand. This is what I call the value ladder, okay? And so this is what we're doing here inside the five-day lead challenge. We're introducing people into our world here at the bottom of the value ladder. Okay, we're giving them something where the cost is their email address. It's not expensive. Give me an email, I'm gonna give you this thing. And if they get that first framework they get that first one page, they get that first lead magnet and they go through it and they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I want more, I want to on a second date." Okay, I want to go to the next step. I want to take the next level. I want to do the next thing with you. Now, also you build this relationship and people come over and over and over. Okay, when I first launched my books and I started giving things away for free it changed my entire business, right? I was doing a lot of stuff before but I gave people this thing that read it they got value and they wanted to go the next thing, the next to the next thing and now we have clients that pay us $50,000, $100,000 a year and beyond because the value we provided at every single step. Okay, so that's what our goal is. Now a couple of things. If you read the Dotcom Secrets book I share like each tier in the value ladder there's different types of funnels associated with them, right? So this bottom tier right here, we call this lead funnels. I think there's three or four that I share in the book. But the one that we're gonna be going through today is the most basic, the most simple, and it's a two-step lead funnel. Okay, lead squeeze funnel, okay? So that's the first one. I list here in the value ladder. Typically we use what I call unboxing funnels. My handwriting's horrible but there's an unboxing funnels, okay? And earlier I told you guys about the One Funnel Away challenge, the One Funnel Away challenge, actually, we spend all the time at this tier in the value ladder. Okay, the sales funnel we build out is a type of unboxing funnel and that's what we do during the One Funnel Away challenge, okay? The next tier up from here is what we call presentation funnels. Presentation funnels. This is where we're selling a little more expensive things. This is doing it like a webinar or doing a product launch funnel, things like that. So there's different types of funnels to sell a higher ticket stuff. In the top tier, this we're selling really expensive stuff. There are different high ticket funnels that we use as well, okay? And so, again, each tier of the value ladder there's different types of funnels we use, okay? But for this training for the five day lead challenge we're spending all of our time focused at this tier of the value ladder, generating leads. Okay, and again, there's a couple types of funnels that we build but the most basic, the most simple one is just the two-step lead funnel, okay? So that's what I'll going to be creating today, okay? This is something that is not complicated, it's not hard, it's not frustrating. You literally can create this today and be done. If you create your lead magnet and your one pager yesterday you've got everything you need to have your funnel completely done, completely finished, and ready to rock and roll, okay? So that's what we're gonna be doing today for your homework assignment is actually building it out inside of ClickFunnels, which is going to be so much fun. I made a whole video showing you the process and walking you through, okay? So, again, that's the first framework I want to teach you guys was the value ladder. Okay, so I'll write value here so you can remember. Here's the value ladder, okay? And, again, if you want to go deep and just get more examples and case studies, Dotcom Secrets book, I share a bunch of different ones, okay? So that's the value ladder. Okay, so now I want to go here. We're gonna talk about this right here. We're gonna talking about the lead funnel. So on day one I kind of told you guys a little bit about the double your dating funnel that I found when I was first getting started. When I was first trying to build a list, right? Where Eben Pagan had the kiss test. It had never been shown yet he was like, "Step one, give your email address I'm going to teach you the kiss test." And then on page two he gave you the kiss test. That was the lead magnet, right? And so prior to that, before like that was one of the first we call it a squeeze page and I will explain why here in a bit. It was the very first squeeze pages I'd ever seen. Now, prior to that, I had learned about list-building and the way that people built lists back then was different, okay? Again, I've been online doing this now for over 18 years which is crazy. So back when I got started in this the game was different, right? It was way harder. This is before Facebook ads, before YouTube, before MySpace, right? When I got started MySpace wasn't a thing yet. In fact, you guys remember what the social network was pre MySpace. Okay, the OGs remember this. It was called Friendster. And we were trying to figure out how to use Friendster to build a lists. But back then it was a little differently. So this is what the internet looked like back then. People would have a website, okay? There's a website here and this is what my doodle of a website looks like, okay? All right, so here's the website. And if you remember this you would go to somebody's website, right? You go to Google or you go to Yahoo or Ask Jeeves or whatever it was back in the day and you go somewhere and shop this website and then what would happen? Do you guys remember this? I'll give you a hit. It was like the most annoying thing on the planet. Okay, you shop this website and like this is awesome. I'm reading a scene and all of a sudden a certain a thing would pop up and they call it what? A pop-up. This pop-up would come up and be like, "Aha." Most of times is like, "Congratulations you won. You're the 1 million visitor to our website, put your email address down below to get a 30% discount." Guys, did ever see these? And so it was like the thing, like put your email address in and click submit and you win. So that was kind of what these popups were, okay? And the people that I knew that I was learning from initially this is how they're making their money. This is how they're building the list. They would go and they would do pop-ups. So you drive traffic your site and they'd get a pop-up, okay. And then people put the email address and they started building a list, okay? It was interesting and then what started happening, I love the history of this. Then, remember, for me, I was like why don't have a website with a bunch of traffic to it? Like how do I... I don't want popups. And so these pop-up advertising networks we could go in and say, "Okay, here's my pop-up." I want it to show up on 1,000 sites or one million sites or whatever you put in how many impressions you wanted. So then somebody would go to random site and because I paid for my pop-up would pop up and it would a pop up like, "Hey, congratulations, thanks for coming to the website put your email address down below for this free report, for this free lead magnet," right? And so while that's what I was doing it was awesome. I was going... I was paying these networks. I was paying money to have my pop-up show up on all these websites around the internet and I started building lists and I was like, "This is so cool." But then what happened, okay? It started getting more annoying 'cause what would happen is that these advertisers would be like, "Well, if I can sell one pop-up for like 30 cents what if I sold three or 10 or 12?" How many of you members you go to website and seen by pop up, pop up, pop up like four or five popups pop up you're like, "What's happening to my computer, I'm just freaking out," right? Internet Explorer is crashing this a whole nightmare, right? And so it got more and more annoying to the point where like Internet Explorer and the browsers we're like, "This is done. Let's just block all popups." And instantly overnight they create these things, called pop-up blockers. They would block all these pop-ups and boom they're gone. Now for those who... Most of you guys were probably in the spot at a time in your life. Like thank heavens the pop-ups are gone but on the other side the marketers like me who were building huge lists of millions of people off these popups start freaking out like our lead source is gone. It just dried up, it disappeared overnight, right? And they're freaking out and we're freaking out like, "What do we do?" Okay, well, all you thought it was the end of the internet as we know it, right? And then there were some really smart people and I don't know who it was initially but someone said, what if we take this model, someone comes to the website and this thing pops up and we get their email address. What if we flip it around? And be like what are you talking about? It's like what if we did this? What if the first thing people see, instead is this page that says, hey, here's the free report, you put in your name and your email address, right? And then they click submit and then it takes them to the actual website, right? That was the premise. And so instead of driving people to the website and having a pop-up we would drive them directly to the pop-up. And I remember people, like this was the debate in all the marketing forums back and they're like, "No, you can't do that." You're an idiot because nobody is actually gonna see your website. And you'd be like, "Yeah, but then I can't get emails. I can't follow up with people and no one is buying. I have to follow up a bunch of times before they're willing to buy and dah, dah, dah, all sorts of stuff like that. And so this was the controversy, okay? And about those time is when a couple people started testing it. One of them was Eben Pagan, okay, the guy who own Double Your Dating. This is where he said, "Okay, let me try this." Boom, give me your email address I'm gonna give you the free kiss test. People put email in, come over here, learn the kiss test, got value and then the bottom of page sold them his ebook. Boom blew up in $20 million business, okay? Then other people started doing, other people start doing and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this actually works." Okay, don't think about the metrics on this, but what happened? Let's say you had 100, actually, let's go this way. Okay, let's say over here let's say you had 100 visitors come to your website, right? 100 visitors come, so a hundred times this pop came up, maybe you got like 20% of the people to put their email address in here, right? See 100% of people saw your website and only 20% joined your list, okay? And then you flip it over here, what would happen is you send those same 100 people to come over here and from here you get anywhere from who knows, let's 20% I guess. So 20% of people give you the email address, right? Then only 20% of people actually ever see your site and see, like, this is not going to work because you got one fifth as much traffic actually sees your site. But what they didn't realize is and this is what made the whole thing work is that these 20% people then gave you their email address, right? Now you have the email address and you can go out here and you can send an email. Okay, so like again 20% will see that. And you send the email to 20% and you remind them about the thing and you send another email and you remind them. And you send another email and you can send three or four emails push people back to this thing and you can follow up with them. And they found at the time, I don't know if the numbers are the same or not but at the time it took someone on average seven times seeing your website before they were willing to buy. So what was happening in the past is you drive, pay for that as soon as come here, pay for them and after seven times of seeing then they buy. We're now happy to pay for them once. They joined your list and you send an email one, two, three, four, and by email seven a huge percentage had bought the thing. But now you have them on your list, right? Now you have them on your list, now what you do with that list, okay? Well, yeah, you have them on your list now you come back to your value. Okay, they're on my list now, you send five, six emails someone bought my very first product. What's the next thing I sell. Oh, I can sell this, oh, I can sell this and all of a sudden they had the ability to now generate their own traffic. They have their own leads. They own traffic now. They didn't always have to go to Facebook or Google or YouTube to buy new leads, right? They own the list. They can say I want to send the list over there and send and they send and boom the list shows up there. I'm going to send over here, boom, and they can just send it to different places, okay? Where is this idea for five day lead challenge of two or three weeks ago. I was like, "I'm going to do this thing, we're gonna put up a squeeze page, right? It's okay opt in to this page. I sent emails to my list and 35,000 of you came and opted in. I didn't pay Zuckerberg for that list, I didn't have to pay. That came because I own that traffic, right? I control, I can send it to different places, okay? And so it changed the dynamics of people's businesses, all right? So you come back here. Yeah, maybe only 20% people give you email address but now it's what I'm saying you follow up, you close a higher percentage and when all is said and done at the end of the day you actually end up making more money, okay? And that was the power. Now the cool thing of the internet. Internet is actually getting cooler since back in the day 'cause now you can have these things called retargeting ads where I can go deep into this but you see this before you can put a retargeting pixel on this page. So someone comes and 20% give you their email address but then 80% leave. So 80% of people leave, right? Like, oh, they're gone. But Facebook and YouTube and Google will allow you follow those people around and keep pushing them back and keep pushing them back till you get a higher percentage of people that can actually come and put their email address in, okay? That's outside of the context we're talking about now but it's pretty cool because retargeting has given the ability to the people who bounce and leave to keep getting them and keep coming back and you push them into your funnels, okay? So that is what a lead squeeze is. We called this a squeeze page because traffic is coming in. You're squeezing their email address out and then you're giving them value. And if they receive value at this step in the tier, right from your lead magnet this is amazing, I want more then they naturally want to ascend up the value ladder, okay? People that came into Double Your Dating, they came for the kiss test, they read this kiss test and like this is amazing, they read down and like what else does this person have? I want more value. I want to go on second date with them, right? And at the end of the end of the kiss test, right? What would I have on offer? And he said, "Okay, well you got the kiss test. I've got this ebook called Double Your Dating for $97. Do you want to buy the ebook?" And they're like, "Heck, yeah." They bought the ebook, boom, right? And people read the ebook like this is amazing, a bunch of cool stuff that happens like cool stuff in the ebook, guess what? I've got a live event where we teach men how to do this in life. Okay, the live is x amount of dollars and can people come to the event. Not everyone, okay, but a big percentage of people who got value of this step want the next step. And the live event is like, "Oh, by the way he's mentioning coaching programs." Boom, push you to the next step. Okay, and that's how this game is played, okay? Now for you all you guys are going to think about it a little differently. What does your business look like? Like what's my value ladder. Like y'all have to kind of figure out what's gonna be 'cause everyone's different, right? I remember when my wife and I first got married I had not had dental insurance for probably five or six years. I got married. My parents cut me off like, "You're an adult now, good luck." So I had no dental insurance, I couldn't afford it. Fast forward like six years later my business is running, I have a couple of employees. My employees come to me and they're like, "Hey, Russell, since I worked for you, can I get benefits?" And I put it in context. I'd never actually had a job before. I was wrestling so I never had a job. So I had a couple of employees and they're like, "Russell, we're gonna have benefits?" I'm like, "What does that mean?" "Like benefits where you pay for stuff for us." So I'm like, "I pay your salary." Like, "No, no like dental insurance and health insurance." And I was like, "Is this is really thing." I'd never heard that before, right? And, yeah, it really is. I'm like, "Okay." So I went and we figured out how to get benefits for our employees and we got dental insurance, right? And so I'm like, "Sweetheart, I haven't seen a dentist in six years, I should go to dentists." And about that time I get in the mail a lead magnet. I got the thing in the mail is a yellow postcard and said, "Hey, there's a new... We're a new dentist in town. If you want you can come into to our office and get a free teeth cleaning." And my wife and I are like, "Sweet we haven't cleaned our teeth in six years outside of her own brushing let's go." Boom, there's a lead magnet, right? Okay, so we call the dentist like, "Hey, we got this big old yellow postcard in the mail and you got a teeth clean?" He's like, "Sure, it's free come on in." So we come on in, right? Boom, I get the lead magnet. The dentist or the hygienist and they're all working on my teeth, cleaning my teeth are providing what? Providing value and like getting my teeth cleaned and do all sorts of stuff. And the dentist comes afterwards looking to like, "Cool your teeth are clean." I just had a question for you like, "Are you a smoker? Do you drink coffee or something?" And I was like, "What?" No, I'm not a smoker. No, I don't drink coffee either." I'm like, "Why would you ask?" And he says, "Oh, well, your teeth are kind of... Just like kind of yellow. I don't know if you noticed because I turned my yellow I assume, maybe you drink coffee or smoke or something." I'm like, "No, I don't do any of that stuff." He's like, "Oh, well, if you want," he is like I can provide you more value. He didn't say that but I can give you a teeth whitening kit where you start whitening your teeth at home that way it goes from yellow back to white. I was like, "Are you kidding me? Yes, please do that." He's like, "Cool let me you a fitting for some teeth whitening kit." He fits my teeth whitening kit I was like, "Thank you so much." And so I get that, right? So he provided more value and I had to pay for that, right? And then while he's doing more stuff he's like, "By the way did you used to have braces when you were young?" I was like, "Yeah, why?" He's like, "Oh, I can tell because your teeth are recrowding and a lot has happened with your braces off over years so your teeth are kind of recrowding. I'm like, "Are you serious?" He's like, "Yeah, they don't look bad but they are definitely like shifting around." And I was like, "Are you kidding me? Well, I don't want crooked teeth, what do I do?" And he's like, "Well, if you want we can build a retainer for you which help keep your teeth in place or we can do invisalign which will help realign." And I was like, "Yes, please," right? And so he did what? He provided more value to me, right? And so he's going through this so by the time he was done I got done with this experience of the dentist, I leave and I write them a check for $2,000 or $3,000. Now am I angry about the experience? No. Why? He brought me in to this thing for free. I got value, I'm like, "This is amazing. I got a free teeth clean, it's amazing." He's like, "Hey, I can provide more value. I can make your teeth whiter." I'm like, "Sweet make them white." He's like, "I can add more value, I keep your teeth straight." I'm like, "Sweet," right? And he could have offered cosmetic dentistry, whatever the thing was, right? But he had his own value ladder. That's how he made money off of me. And then the next day my wife came in she got her teeth cleaned and she left there $2,000 or $3,000 check in the process worked, right? Every business has a value out of it. If you don't have a value ladder yet, you're probably not in a very good business, okay? Your job is if you're like, "What's the process?" Why are you taking people through, okay? Now, again, that's kind of outside the context of the five day challenge 'cause our goal in five day challenge is this, how do we dominate this? How do we get so much value and people are like, "This is amazing, this one page of this framework." It's changed my life. This is awesome. I got this thing, I want more. Okay, like I said in the One Funnel Away challenge, we're starting on Monday we're going to go deep into this. Right, how do you create this sales funnel? So after they receive value, they're already getting... They like have a hole burning of pocket. I want to give you money. Like, "What's the next step?" You can be like, "Oh, here's the next step?" And pushing the next funnel. I wish I could spend like eight hours a day going deep into that but that's what the One Funnel Away challenge is. We're starting on Monday live just like this. So, anyway, does that make sense? So those are the two frameworks I share with yesterday. Okay, the value ladder and the understanding of very basic, very simple two-step lead funnel, okay? One of the most basic types of funnels to generate leads, okay? All right, so I'm gonna show you guys what the game plan is. Now that you have your lead magnet, today's assignment is we're gonna be building out the most basic, most simple funnels. The two-step funnel, okay? On this page in the funnel you are gonna give people your actual lead magnet, okay? The thing you created yesterday you're gonna give it to them. Then come here there is gonna be a big button that says download and they're gonna download your one pager, right? You're gonna tell them thank you. We call this a thank you page. Okay, 'cause it says thank you. Thank you so much for giving me your email address here's where you can download the lead magnet I just promised you. Okay, this is a thank you page. Okay, this page right here is what we call a squeeze page. Okay, squeeze pages are very simple. They're very basic. The most easiest page in the world came. Okay, most of my squeeze pages take me less than five minutes to build. Okay, I built six of them for you that I'm giving you on the one pager. You have a chance to see them in a minute. Okay, basically what a squeeze page is, there's typically a headline, maybe a sub headline, a picture of your one pager and the spot for them to put in their email and click submit. That's it. One of the most simple things in the world. And sometimes like Facebook they want you to have longer pages, okay? If you do just add some more bullet points down below with more context of what they're gonna learn about in your one pager. That's your squeeze page, squeeze page, thank you page. Two pages, most simple funnel on the planet. You can literally create it in five to 10 minutes, okay? And so that's what we're gonna be creating today. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Now, a couple of things, okay? The tool that creates these funnels. If you know me at all, if you've listened to me, anything I've said in the last six years you've probably heard of ClickFunnels. Okay, ClickFunnels is my company. It's the tool that builds funnels. We have over 120,000 active members who use it, okay? A lot of you guys who are here already have ClickFunnels accounts. If you don't yet I'm gonna give you guys a 14 day trial to use it today so you can build out this funnel so you can have your very first lead squeeze funnel, okay? That's number one. Number two, one of my business partners, Jim Edwards, creates some really cool software that we can give you for free today as well. And then when go in here you're gonna take information about who is your dream customer, right? We talked about your dream customer yesterday. Who's your dream customer. He's asked you a whole bunch of questions about that. And then who is my dream customer, what do they care about and you fill out this form. When you fill out the form then there's two or three forms you're gonna fill out, you're filling about your dream customer about things like that. And then you click a button and what it's going to do is it's actually gonna write all these things. It's gonna to write the headlines, it gonna can write the sub headlines, correct? All these different bullet points. It's gonna write the copy that goes right here. It's gonna write all that stuff for you. You fill out the form and you click submit and writes it all for you then you literally just copy it and paste it. Copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste and now you've got a funnel that's set up and ready to convert people and they show up. Okay, this is called copy. The words on the page is called copy. Copy is something that gets people to do something you're gonna to do. And you can guess and try to write good copy but the software has been built for you is gonna make this copy super easy deal, it's high converting. It took the best headlines from all time. Like over the last like 100 years from the best highest converting headlines and reverse engineer in the software. So you tell them your product it'll pop out like here's a hundred headlines based on the highest converting headlines in the history of the world. And you take those and say, "Oh, this will actually go to my landing page and you can tweak it around, you can change them but it's powerful, okay? You don't have to guess and think like what's gonna work. Like the software is gonna write a copy that's gonna work for you out the gate. And we're giving that to you for free for being here. So that's a gift we wanted to give you guys 'cause it's gonna make this process simpler, okay? And so today's assignment, like I said, if yesterday if you did your assignment it means you already have, oops, you already have the lead magnet done. So today we're gonna build the two pages, we're gonna put the plug the copy in, we're gonna plug the lead magnet on the download button and then you're gonna be finished, okay? It shouldn't take that long. If it's your first time on ClickFunnels it might take you a little bit of time but there's a video of me walking through every single step of the process and it's not gonna be hard. Okay, tomorrow what we're gonna be doing is, after somebody gives you their email address, right? Now we have these emails that go out, right? The question is what do we say on these emails, okay? There's actually six emails we sent out initially, okay? Six emails to build relationship people and get them to buy to your next thing in your value ladder. Okay, so tomorrow I have a special guest, Jada Golden, who's gonna be coming and talking about what to send in those six emails. We also built software for you where you fill in the form, you click the button and it'll pre-write these six emails for you and then you plug those into ClickFunnels. That's happening tomorrow. It's gonna be really, really cool but for today this what we're doing on these two pages, okay? All right, I'm gonna have my team pull the one pager. So on my screen here this is the one pager I'm gonna give you guys today. We love one pages, they're the most exciting thing in the world. Number one you notice the very top it here it says... Scroll back up to the very top. It says your next challenge is you choose except to start sitting one phone, wait 30 day challenge. If you want to join the live challenge that starts Monday, okay, this is the 30 day challenge. We're gonna go through and build out your actual sales funnel. The second tier in the value ladder, click on that button and sign up. It is not... The 5 Day Challenge has been free, the One Funnel Away challenge is $100, okay? So if you want to go the next step with me, if you receive value here so far and like I want to go next to your Russell's value ladder to figure out how to build out my next and my value ladder click on that link and join the challenge. Okay, you don't have to but that's there if you're looking for it, okay? This video right here now, this is a 32 minute video of me teaching and showing the actual tactics. Okay, this is me literally going to ClickFunnels and doing it and then going to Jim's software and doing it. So you'll see me at my house hanging out with you doing your assignments. You have like, "How does work, I'm confused" Watch the video, I do the assignment with you. Just pause it copy me, play, pause, play, pause, and just do it with me, okay? As scroll down here and see what the landing page looks like we're gonna be building here. Here you get your ClickFunnels 14 day trial. Here's where you get the funnel scripts light tool that's going to write all the copy for you. And then these are six different templates I built out for you, okay? So there's six landing page templates that are amazing. This first right here, this is the landing page template. It has been the highest converting one for me. I will show you in the video but literally that template there over the last year has got me over 250,000 leads and I gave you that one as well. A bunch of other really cool ones are there so you can pick one of those six templates you want to use. You click on the button it copies into your ClickFunnels account and you can edit it. Okay, so there were three quick little video of me and Jim, you click on that video, it'll take you to a page. It gives you the software, it shows you how to use it. You're gonna fill in that software, click in the blanks, click submit and write all the copy for you, okay? Let's go back to the one pager. Oh, we just lost it. So, again, the software you filled out it'll write it all the copy and we can get back to the one pager here hopefully. He calls the back buttons. We can it get back. There we go. Oh, open a new window there you go. Okay, then you take the copy from Jim's software, you can plug it into the ClickFunnels page and then just go through. Basically, you go through the to-do list. After you finished the do list everything would be done. Oh, September 3rd, other cool thing is, remember I told you here typically I have a picture of my ecover for the thing that the lead magnet they're getting. Okay, if you want inside a one page is actually a really cool tool that will build you out. and actually ecover. You fill in some blanks, click the buttons and boom it creates an ecover that you can then put on your squeeze page here or else I give you two other resources of places you can get your covers design. Okay, I'm not a designer. I don't know how to design things so you can either create it for free inside of one pager or you can use some of the other resources like one is called Funnel Rolodex. Funnel Rolodex is a marketplace of funnel builders and designers who can design these things for you. Okay, if you're like I don't want to do a funnel, Russell, I'm scared to death you go to funnel Rolodex and there's, again, programmers designers you can hire to build your funnels for you. There's always people can do the ecover for you there as well. Okay, there's other resources as well but all of the stuff's on the one pager. This is our gifts use of scroll, go back to the top and getting rid of... Get the one pager. The first thing is, watch this video. It's gonna show the assignment and then go through the assignment. By the time you're done you'll have your lead funnel done and ready to rock and roll, okay? These two pieces will be done and you'll be prepared for tomorrow 'cause tomorrow we're going to be building out the email sequence plugging it in. And when that's done, then Friday we're gonna be dumping tons of traffic into this thing and your first set of leads will be coming through and it's gonna be fun. So with that said my team is gonna put the link down below. This link it say one pager, okay? Get in fivedayleadchallenge.com/clickfunnels. That is going to take you directly. It'll automatically take you this page save the page and now you have it inside your one pager your account and you can go to the homework assignment and all the other things involved. That's like fun you guys. I'm having so much fun of these. I hope you guys are enjoying today's training and all of these trainings so far. I'm super grateful. First off to have the platform be able to share this with you guys. Like I said, it means the world to me watching you guys have the aha moments like for the very first time. I still remember experiencing a lot of these ahas myself and I love giving them to you. It's hopefully, as my aha moments and now it's just doing the actual work and works that hard luckily. Okay, we started the most simple funnel a two-step funnel. It's very simple, it's very easy. I give you templates, we give you software and we will will write copy. We give you software to build out the ecovers, all the things you need. Again, it's all on one pager down below. So go to fivedayleadchallenge.com/clickfunnels. It'll take you to this one pager, save in your account, watch the video, do the assignment, and then we'll be meeting back here tomorrow. Same time, same place. And then your email sequences is written out and plugged in and we're one step closer to the finish line. So that's it, guys. Thanks, again, so much. Get the one pager down below and I will see you guys tomorrow. Bye, everybody.