Podcasts about Kazaa

Anthony Rose is the co-founder and CEO of SeedLegals, the #1 platform for startup funding and legals in the UK. But long before he was helping tens of thousands of founders raise capital and avoid legal potholes, Anthony was in the digital trenches – first turning the music industry on its head with Kazaa, then helping reinvent online streaming at the BBC with iPlayer, before building and selling a few startups of his own.In this episode, we go deep into what it really means to have founder-problem fit, the magic of applying a product mindset to gnarly challenges like startup legal docs, and how Anthony is now taking SeedLegals across the pond to crack the US market.We also talk about reinventing yourself as a founder, knowing when to build vs. when to sell, and why your legal docs should be like the owner's manual in your car – built on all the ways things can go wrong.If you've ever tried to sell an unfinished product, pitched into skepticism, or had a strange love affair with a weirdly specific problem – this one's for you.KEY POINTS FROM THIS EPISODEFounder-Problem Fit: Anthony thrives on solving the problems nobody else wants—like turning legal complexity into a smooth, scalable product experience for startups.The Productization of Law: From auto-generated funding docs to clauses like “No Pay, No Play,” SeedLegals is redefining how legals should work at early stage.From iPlayer to Legal Tech: The shift from media to law wasn't planned—it was sparked by a party in Rome and a technical founder's obsession with inefficiency.Scaling the Right Way: Anthony explains why raising too much money too soon can kill your startup's focus—and how lean execution wins.Going Global, One Event at a Time: With SeedLegals now expanding into the US, Anthony is pounding the pavement in NYC to build community-led growth from the ground up.Selling as a Founder: Why the first sales hire outperformed Anthony—and how he learned to switch from “builder brain” to “buyer focus.Connect with Anthony Rose and SeedLegals:SeedLegals WebsiteFollow SeedLegals on LinkedIn Connect with Anthony Rose on LinkedInKEYWORDS:SeedLegals, Anthony Rose, Pete Townsend, MoneyNeverSleeps, startup legal docs, founder problem fit, UK startups, US expansion, startup funding, cap tables, term sheets, startup founder tips, legal tech, product development, startup fundraising, iPlayer, Kazaa, venture capital, VC advice, New York startups, scaling globally, early stage startups, startup mistakes, how to pitch, founder legal protection, Techstars Web3, startup acceleratorLeave a review and subscribe onApple PodcastsSpotifyMoneyNeverSleeps (website)Email us: info@norioventures.comFollow on X(Twitter):Pete Townsend: https://twitter.com/petetownsendnvMoneyNeverSleeps: https://twitter.com/MNSshowFollow on LinkedIn:Pete Townsend: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pete-townsend-1b18301a/MoneyNeverSleeps: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28661903/MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter: https://moneyneversleeps.substack.com/

In the early 2000s, one of the most popular pieces of software in the world was a free peer-to-peer file-sharing network called Kazaa. It was launched by two Scandinavian entrepreneurs, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, with the simple idea that internet users should be able to share anything with anyone in the world. After being knee-capped by lawsuits from the music industry, Niklas and Janus applied peer-to-peer technology to a new business: Skype, a service that allowed anyone with an internet connection and a microphone to talk to anyone else in the world… for free. At its peak, Skype connected hundreds of millions of global users, and in 2011, it was purchased by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. This episode was produced by Chris Maccini with music by Ramtin Arablouei. Edited by Neva Grant, with research from Kathryn Sypher. Our engineers were Jimmy Keeley and Patrick Murray.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com. Sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

CEOs of publicly traded companies are often in the news talking about their new AI initiatives, but few of them have built anything with it. Drew Houston from Dropbox is different; he has spent over 400 hours coding with LLMs in the last year and is now refocusing his 2,500+ employees around this new way of working, 17 years after founding the company.Timestamps00:00 Introductions00:43 Drew's AI journey04:14 Revalidating expectations of AI08:23 Simulation in self-driving vs. knowledge work12:14 Drew's AI Engineering setup15:24 RAG vs. long context in AI models18:06 From "FileGPT" to Dropbox AI23:20 Is storage solved?26:30 Products vs Features30:48 Building trust for data access33:42 Dropbox Dash and universal search38:05 The evolution of Dropbox42:39 Building a "silicon brain" for knowledge work48:45 Open source AI and its impact51:30 "Rent, Don't Buy" for AI54:50 Staying relevant58:57 Founder Mode01:03:10 Advice for founders navigating AI01:07:36 Building and managing teams in a growing companyTranscriptAlessio [00:00:00]: Hey everyone, welcome to the Latent Space podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO at Decibel Partners, and there's no Swyx today, but I'm joined by Drew Houston of Dropbox. Welcome, Drew.Drew [00:00:14]: Thanks for having me.Alessio [00:00:15]: So we're not going to talk about the Dropbox story. We're not going to talk about the Chinatown bus and the flash drive and all that. I think you've talked enough about it. Where I want to start is you as an AI engineer. So as you know, most of our audience is engineering folks, kind of like technology leaders. You obviously run Dropbox, which is a huge company, but you also do a lot of coding. I think that's how you spend almost 400 hours, just like coding. So let's start there. What was the first interaction you had with an LLM API and when did the journey start for you?Drew [00:00:43]: Yeah. Well, I think probably all AI engineers or whatever you call an AI engineer, those people started out as engineers before that. So engineering is my first love. I mean, I grew up as a little kid. I was that kid. My first line of code was at five years old. I just really loved, I wanted to make computer games, like this whole path. That also led me into startups and eventually starting Dropbox. And then with AI specifically, I studied computer science, I got my, I did my undergrad, but I didn't do like grad level computer science. I didn't, I sort of got distracted by all the startup things, so I didn't do grad level work. But about several years ago, I made a couple of things. So one is I sort of, I knew I wanted to go from being an engineer to a founder. And then, but sort of the becoming a CEO part was sort of backed into the job. And so a couple of realizations. One is that, I mean, there's a lot of like repetitive and like manual work you have to do as an executive that is actually lends itself pretty well to automation, both for like my own convenience. And then out of interest in learning, I guess what we call like classical machine learning these days, I started really trying to wrap my head around understanding machine learning and informational retrieval more, more formally. So I'd say maybe 2016, 2017 started me writing these more successively, more elaborate scripts to like understand basic like classifiers and regression and, and again, like basic information retrieval and NLP back in those days. And there's sort of like two things that came out of that. One is techniques are super powerful. And even just like studying like old school machine learning was a pretty big inversion of the way I had learned engineering, right? You know, I started programming when everyone starts programming and you're, you're sort of the human, you're giving an algorithm to the, and spelling out to the computer how it should run it. And then machine learning, here's machine learning where it's like actually flip that, like give it sort of the answer you want and it'll figure out the algorithm, which was pretty mind bending. And it was both like pretty powerful when I would write tools, like figure out like time audits or like, where's my time going? Is this meeting a one-on-one or is it a recruiting thing or is it a product strategy thing? I started out doing that manually with my assistant, but then found that this was like a very like automatable task. And so, which also had the side effect of teaching me a lot about machine learning. But then there was this big problem, like anytime you, it was very good at like tabular structured data, but like anytime it hit, you know, the usual malformed English that humans speak, it would just like fall over. I had to kind of abandon a lot of the things that I wanted to build because like there's no way to like parse text. Like maybe it would sort of identify the part of speech in a sentence or something. But then fast forward to the LLM, I mean actually I started trying some of like this, what we would call like very small LLMs before kind of the GPT class models. And it was like super hard to get those things working. So like these 500 parameter models would just be like hallucinating and repeating and you know. So actually I'd kind of like written it off a little bit. But then the chat GPT launch and GPT-3 for sure. And then once people figured out like prompting and instruction tuning, this was sort of like November-ish 2022 like everybody else sort of that the chat GPT launch being the starting gun for the whole AI era of computing and then having API access to three and then early access to GPT-4. I was like, oh man, it's happening. And so I was literally on my honeymoon and we're like on a beach in Thailand and I'm like coding these like AI tools to automate like writing or to assist with writing and all these different use cases.Alessio [00:04:14]: You're like, I'm never going back to work. I'm going to automate all of it before I get back.Drew [00:04:17]: And I was just, you know, ever since then, I mean, I've always been like coding like prototypes and just stuff to make my life more convenient, but like escalated a lot after 22. And yeah, I spent, I checked, I think it was probably like over 400 hours this year so far coding because I had my paternity leave where I was able to work on some special projects. But yeah, it's a super important part of like my whole learning journey is like being really hands-on with these things. And I mean, it's probably not a typical recipe, but I really love to get down to the metal as far as how this stuff works.Alessio [00:04:47]: Yeah. So Swyx and I were with Sam Altman in October 22. We were like at a hack day at OpenAI and that's why we started this podcast eventually. But you did an interview with Sam like seven years ago and he asked you what's the biggest opportunity in startups and you were like machine learning and AI and you were almost like too early, right? It's like maybe seven years ago, the models weren't quite there. How should people think about revalidating like expectations of this technology? You know, I think even today people will tell you, oh, models are not really good at X because they were not good 12 months ago, but they're good today.Drew [00:05:19]: What's your project? Heuristics for thinking about that or how is, yeah, I think the way I look at it now is pretty, has evolved a lot since when I started. I mean, I think everybody intuitively starts with like, all right, let's try to predict the future or imagine like what's this great end state we're going to get to. And the tricky thing is like often those prognostications are right, but they're right in terms of direction, but not when. For example, you know, even in the early days of the internet, 90s when things were even like tech space and you know, even before like the browser or things like that, people were like, oh man, you're going to have, you know, you're going to be able to order food, get like a Snickers delivered to your house, you're going to be able to watch any movie ever created. And they were right. But they were like, you know, it took 20 years for that to actually happen. And before you got to DoorDash, you had to get, you started with like Webvan and Cosmo and before you get to Spotify, you had to do like Napster and Kazaa and LimeWire and like a bunch of like broken Britney Spears MP3s and malware. So I think the big lesson is being early is the same as being wrong. Being late is the same as being wrong. So really how do you calibrate timing? And then I think with AI, it's the same thing that people are like, oh, it's going to completely upend society and all these positive and negative ways. I think that's like most of those things are going to come true. The question is like, when is that going to happen? And then with AI specifically, I think there's also, in addition to sort of the general tech category or like jumping too fast to the future, I think that AI is particularly susceptible to that. And you look at self-driving, right? This idea of like, oh my God, you can have a self-driving car captured everybody's imaginations 10, 12 years ago. And you know, people are like, oh man, in two years, there's not going to be another year. There's not going to be a human driver on the road to be seen. It didn't work out that way, right? We're still 10, 12 years later where we're in a world where you can sort of sometimes get a Waymo in like one city on earth. Exciting, but just took a lot longer than people think. And the reason is there's a lot of engineering challenges, but then there's a lot of other like societal time constants that are hard to compress. So one thing I think you can learn from things like self-driving is they have these levels of autonomy that's a useful kind of framework in driving or these like maturity levels. People sort of skip to like level five, full autonomy, or we're going to have like an autonomous knowledge worker that's just going to take, that's going to, and then we won't need humans anymore kind of projection that that's going to take a long time. But then when you think about level one or level two, like these little assistive experiences, you know, we're seeing a lot of traction with those. So what you see really working is the level one autonomy in the AI world would be like the tab auto-complete and co-pilot, right? And then, you know, maybe a little higher is like the chatbot type interface. Obviously you want to get to the highest level you can to build a good product, but the reliability just isn't, and the capability just isn't there in the early innings. And so, and then you think of other level one, level two type things, like Google Maps probably did more for self-driving than in literal self-driving, like a billion people have like the ability to have like maps and navigation just like taken care of for you autonomously. So I think the timing and maturity are really important factors to include.Alessio [00:08:23]: The thing with self-driving, maybe one of the big breakthroughs was like simulation. So it's like, okay, instead of driving, we can simulate these environments. It's really hard to do when knowledge work, you know, how do you simulate like a product review? How do you simulate these things? I'm curious if you've done any experiments. I know some companies have started to build kind of like a virtual personas that you can like bounce ideas off of.Drew [00:08:42]: I mean, fortunately in a company you generate lots of, you know, actual human training data all the time. And then I also just like start with myself, like, all right, I can, you know, it's pretty tricky even within your company to be like, all right, let's open all this up as quote training data. But, you know, I can start with my own emails or my own calendar or own stuff without running into the same kind of like privacy or other concerns. So I often like start with my own stuff. And so that is like a one level of bootstrapping, but actually four or five years ago during COVID, we decided, you know, a lot of companies were thinking about how do we go back to work? And so we decided to really lean into remote and distributed work because I thought, you know, this is going to be the biggest change to the way we work in our lifetimes. And COVID kind of ripped up a bunch of things, but I think everybody was sort of pleasantly surprised how with a lot of knowledge work, you could just keep going. And actually you were sort of fine. Work was decoupled from your physical environment, from being in a physical place, which meant that things people had dreamed about since the fifties or sixties, like telework, like you actually could work from anywhere. And that was now possible. So we decided to really lean into that because we debated, should we sort of hit the fast forward button or should we hit the rewind button and go back to 2019? And obviously that's been playing out over the last few years. And we decided to basically turn, we went like 90% remote. We still, the in-person part's really important. We can kind of come back to our working model, but we're like, yeah, this is, everybody is going to be in some kind of like distributed or hybrid state. So like instead of like running away from this, like let's do a full send, let's really go into it. Let's live in the future. A few years before our customers, let's like turn Dropbox into a lab for distributed work. And we do that like quite literally, both of the working model and then increasingly with our products. And then absolutely, like we have products like Dropbox Dash, which is our universal search product. That was like very elevated in priority for me after COVID because like now you have, we're putting a lot more stress on the system and on our screens, it's a lot more chaotic and overwhelming. And so even just like getting the right information, the right person at the right time is a big fundamental challenge in knowledge work and these, in the distributed world, like big problem today is still getting, you know, has been getting bigger. And then for a lot of these other workflows, yeah, there's, we can both get a lot of natural like training data from just our own like strategy docs and processes. There's obviously a lot you can do with synthetic data and you know, actually like LMs are pretty good at being like imitating generic knowledge workers. So it's, it's kind of funny that way, but yeah, the way I look at it is like really turn Dropbox into a lab for distributed work. You think about things like what are the big problems we're going to have? It's just the complexity on our screens just keeps growing and the whole environment gets kind of more out of sync with what makes us like cognitively productive and engaged. And then even something like Dash was initially seeded, I made a little personal search engine because I was just like personally frustrated with not being able to find my stuff. And along that whole learning journey with AI, like the vector search or semantic search, things like that had just been the tooling for that. The open source stuff had finally gotten to a place where it was a pretty good developer experience. And so, you know, in a few days I had sort of a hello world type search engine and I'm like, oh my God, like this completely works. You don't even have to get the keywords right. The relevance and ranking is super good. We even like untuned. So I guess that's to say like I've been surprised by if you choose like the right algorithm and the right approach, you can actually get like super good results without having like a ton of data. And even with LLMs, you can apply all these other techniques to give them, kind of bootstrap kind of like task maturity pretty quickly.Alessio [00:12:14]: Before we jump into Dash, let's talk about the Drew Haas and AI engineering stuff. So IDE, let's break that down. What IDE do you use? Do you use Cursor, VS Code, do you use any coding assistant, like WeChat, is it just autocomplete?Drew [00:12:28]: Yeah, yeah. Both. So I use VS Code as like my daily driver, although I'm like super excited about things like Cursor or the AI agents. I have my own like stack underneath that. I mean, some off the shelf parts, some pretty custom. So I use the continue.dev just like AI chat UI basically as just the UI layer, but I also proxy the request. I proxy the request to my own backend, which is sort of like a router. You can use any backend. I mean, Sonnet 3.5 is probably the best all around. But then these things are like pretty limited if you don't give them the right context. And so part of what the proxy does is like there's a separate thing where I can say like include all these files by default with the request. And then it becomes a lot easier and like without like cutting and pasting. And I'm building mostly like prototype toy apps, so it's like a front end React thing and a Python backend thing. And so it can do these like end to end diffs basically. And then I also like love being able to host everything locally or do it offline. So I have my own, when I'm on a plane or something or where like you don't have access or the internet's not reliable, I actually bring a gaming laptop on the plane with me. It's like a little like blue briefcase looking thing. And then I like literally hook up a GPU like into one of the outlets. And then I have, I can do like transcription, I can do like autocomplete, like I have an 8 billion, like Llama will run fine.Alessio [00:13:44]: And you're using like a Llama to run the model?Drew [00:13:47]: No, I use, I have my own like LLM inference stack. I mean, it uses the backend somewhat interchangeable. So everything from like XLlama to VLLM or SGLang, there's a bunch of these different backends you can use. And then I started like working on stuff before all this tooling was like really available. So you know, over the last several years, I've built like my own like whole crazy environment and like in stack here. So I'm a little nuts about it.Alessio [00:14:12]: Yeah. What's the state of the art for, I guess not state of the art, but like when it comes to like frameworks and things like that, do you like using them? I think maybe a lot of people say, hey, things change so quickly, they're like trying to abstract things. Yeah.Drew [00:14:24]: It's maybe too early today. As much as I do a lot of coding, I have to be pretty surgical with my time. I don't have that much time, which means I have to sort of like scope my innovation to like very specific places or like my time. So for the front end, it'll be like a pretty vanilla stack, like a Next.js, React based thing. And then these are toy apps. So it's like Python, Flask, SQLite, and then all the different, there's a whole other thing on like the backend. Like how do you get, sort of run all these models locally or with a local GPU? The scaffolding on the front end is pretty straightforward, the scaffolding on the backend is pretty straightforward. Then a lot of it is just like the LLM inference and control over like fine grained aspects of how you do generation, caching, things like that. And then there's a lot, like a lot of the work is how do you take, sort of go to an IMAP, like take an email, get a new, or a document or a spreadsheet or any of these kinds of primitives that you work with and then translate them, render them in a format that an LLM can understand. So there's like a lot of work that goes into that too. Yeah.Alessio [00:15:24]: So I built a kind of like email triage system and like I would say 80% of the code is like Google and like pulling emails and then the actual AI part is pretty easy.Drew [00:15:34]: Yeah. And even, same experience. And then I tried to do all these like NLP things and then to my dismay, like a bunch of reg Xs were like, got you like 95% of the way there. So I still leave it running, I just haven't really built like the LLM powered version of it yet. Yeah.Alessio [00:15:51]: So do you have any thoughts on rag versus long context, especially, I mean with Dropbox, you know? Sure. Do you just want to shove things in? Like have you seen that be a lot better?Drew [00:15:59]: Well, they kind of have different strengths and weaknesses, so you need both for different use cases. I mean, it's been awesome in the last 12 months, like now you have these like long context models that can actually do a lot. You can put a book in, you know, Sonnet's context and then now with the later versions of LLAMA, you can have 128k context. So that's sort of the new normal, which is awesome and that, that wasn't even the case a year ago. That said, models don't always use, and certainly like local models don't use the full context well fully yet, and actually if you provide too much irrelevant context, the quality degrades a lot. And so I say in the open source world, like we're still just getting to the cusp of like the full context is usable. And then of course, like when you're something like Dropbox Dash, like it's basically building this whole like brain that's like read everything your company's ever written. And so that's not going to fit into your context window, so you need rag just as a practical reality. And even for a lot of similar reasons, you need like RAM and hard disk in conventional computer architecture. And I think these things will keep like horse trading, like maybe if, you know, a million or 10 million is the new, tokens is the new context length, maybe that shifts. Maybe the bigger picture is like, it's super exciting to talk about the LLM and like that piece of the puzzle, but there's this whole other scaffolding of more conventional like retrieval or conventional machine learning, especially because you have to scale up products to like millions of people you do in your toy app is not going to scale to that from a cost or latency or performance standpoint. So I think you really need these like hybrid architectures that where you have very like purpose fit tools, or you're probably not using Sonnet 3.5 for all of your normal product use cases. You're going to use like a fine tuned 8 billion model or sort of the minimum model that gets you the right output. And then a smaller model also is like a lot more cost and latency versus like much better characteristics on that front.Alessio [00:17:48]: Yeah. Let's jump into the Dropbox AI story. So sure. Your initial prototype was Files GPT. How did it start? And then how did you communicate that internally? You know, I know you have a pretty strong like mammal culture. One where you're like, okay, Hey, we got to really take this seriously.Drew [00:18:06]: Yeah. Well, on the latter, it was, so how do we say like how we took Dropbox, how AI seriously as a company started kind of around that time, that honeymoon time, unfortunately. In January, I wrote this like memo to the company, like around basically like how we need to play offense in 23. And that most of the time the kind of concrete is set and like the winners are the winners and things are kind of frozen. But then with these new eras of computing, like the PC or the internet or the phone or the concrete on freezes and you can sort of build, do things differently and have a new set of winners. It's sort of like a new season starts as a result of a lot of that sort of personal hacking and just like thinking about this. I'm like, yeah, this is an inflection point in the industry. Like we really need to change how we think about our strategy. And then becoming an AI first company was probably the headline thing that we did. And then, and then that got, and then calling on everybody in the company to really think about in your world, how is AI going to reshape your workflows or what sort of the AI native way of thinking about your job. File GPT, which is sort of this Dropbox AI kind of initial concept that actually came from our engineering team as, you know, as we like called on everybody, like really think about what we should be doing that's new or different. So it was kind of organic and bottoms up like a bunch of engineers just kind of hacked that together. And then that materialized as basically when you preview a file on Dropbox, you can have kind of the most straightforward possible integration of AI, which is a good thing. Like basically you have a long PDF, you want to be able to ask questions of it. So like a pretty basic implementation of RAG and being able to do that when you preview a file on Dropbox. So that was the origin of that, that was like back in 2023 when we released just like the starting engines had just, you know, gotten going.Alessio [00:19:53]: It's funny where you're basically like these files that people have, they really don't want them in a way, you know, like you're storing all these files and like you actually don't want to interact with them. You want a layer on top of it. And that's kind of what also takes you to Dash eventually, which is like, Hey, you actually don't really care where the file is. You just want to be the place that aggregates it. How do you think about what people will know about files? You know, are files the actual file? Are files like the metadata and they're just kind of like a pointer that goes somewhere and you don't really care where it is?Drew [00:20:21]: Yeah.Alessio [00:20:22]: Any thoughts about?Drew [00:20:23]: Totally. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of potential complexity in that question, right? Is it a, you know, what's the difference between a file and a URL? And you can go into the technicals, it's like pass by value, pass by reference. Okay. What's the format like? All right. So it starts with a primitive. It's not really a flat file. It's like a structured data. You're sort of collaborative. Yeah. That's keeping in sync. Blah, blah, blah. I actually don't start there at all. I just start with like, what do people, like, what do humans, let's work back from like how humans think about this stuff or how they should think about this stuff. Meaning like, I don't think about, Oh, here are my files and here are my links or cloud docs. I'm just sort of like, Oh, here's my stuff. This, this, here's sort of my documents. Here's my media. Here's my projects. Here are the people I'm working with. So it starts from primitives more like those, like how do people, how do humans think about these things? And then, then start from like a more ideal experience. Because if you think about it, we kind of have this situation that will look like particularly medieval in hindsight where, all right, how do you manage your work stuff? Well, on all, you know, on one side of your screen, you have this file browser that literally hasn't changed since the early eighties, right? You could take someone from the original Mac and sit them in front of like a computer and they'd be like, this is it. And that's, it's been 40 years, right? Then on the other side of your screen, you have like Chrome or a browser that has so many tabs open, you can no longer see text or titles. This is the state of the art for how we manage stuff at work. Interestingly, neither of those experiences was purpose-built to be like the home for your work stuff or even anything related to it. And so it's important to remember, we get like stuck in these local maxima pretty often in tech where we're obviously aware that files are not going away, especially in certain domains. So that format really matters and where files are still going to be the tool you use for like if there's something big, right? If you're a big video file, that kind of format in a file makes sense. There's a bunch of industries where it's like construction or architecture or sort of these domain specific areas, you know, media generally, if you're making music or photos or video, that all kind of fits in the big file zone where Dropbox is really strong and that's like what customers love us for. It's also pretty obvious that a lot of stuff that used to be in, you know, Word docs or Excel files, like all that has tilted towards the browser and that tilt is going to continue. So with Dash, we wanted to make something that was really like cloud-native, AI-native and deliberately like not be tied down to the abstractions of the file system. Now on the other hand, it would be like ironic and bad if we then like fractured the experience that you're like, well, if it touches a file, it's a syncing metaphor to this app. And if it's a URL, it's like this completely different interface. So there's a convergence that I think makes sense over time. But you know, but I think you have to start from like, not so much the technology, start from like, what do the humans want? And then like, what's the idealized product experience? And then like, what are the technical underpinnings of that, that can make that good experience?Alessio [00:23:20]: I think it's kind of intuitive that in Dash, you can connect Google Drive, right? Because you think about Dropbox, it's like, well, it's file storage, you really don't want people to store files somewhere, but the reality is that they do. How do you think about the importance of storage and like, do you kind of feel storage is like almost solved, where it's like, hey, you can kind of store these files anywhere, what matters is like access.Drew [00:23:38]: It's a little bit nuanced in that if you're dealing with like large quantities of data, it actually does matter. The implementation matters a lot or like you're dealing with like, you know, 10 gig video files like that, then you sort of inherit all the problems of sync and have to go into a lot of the challenges that we've solved. Switching on a pretty important question, like what is the value we provide? What does Dropbox do? And probably like most people, I would have said like, well, Dropbox syncs your files. And we didn't even really have a mission of the company in the beginning. I'm just like, yeah, I just don't want to carry a thumb driving around and life would be a lot better if our stuff just like lived in the cloud and I just didn't have to think about like, what device is the thing on or what operating, why are these operating systems fighting with each other and incompatible? You know, I just want to abstract all of that away. But then so we thought, even we were like, all right, Dropbox provides storage. But when we talked to our customers, they're like, that's not how we see this at all. Like actually, Dropbox is not just like a hard drive in the cloud. It's like the place where I go to work or it's a place like I started a small business is a place where my dreams come true. Or it's like, yeah, it's not keeping files in sync. It's keeping people in sync. It's keeping my team in sync. And so they're using this kind of language where we're like, wait, okay, yeah, because I don't know, storage probably is a commodity or what we do is a commodity. But then we talked to our customers like, no, we're not buying the storage, we're buying like the ability to access all of our stuff in one place. We're buying the ability to share everything and sort of, in a lot of ways, people are buying the ability to work from anywhere. And Dropbox was kind of, the fact that it was like file syncing was an implementation detail of this higher order need that they had. So I think that's where we start too, which is like, what is the sort of higher order thing, the job the customer is hiring Dropbox to do? Storage in the new world is kind of incidental to that. I mean, it still matters for things like video or those kinds of workflows. The value of Dropbox had never been, we provide you like the cheapest bits in the cloud. But it is a big pivot from Dropbox is the company that syncs your files to now where we're going is Dropbox is the company that kind of helps you organize all your cloud content. I started the company because I kept forgetting my thumb drive. But the question I was really asking was like, why is it so hard to like find my stuff, organize my stuff, share my stuff, keep my stuff safe? You know, I'm always like one washing machine and I would leave like my little thumb drive with all my prior company stuff on in the pocket of my shorts and then almost wash it and destroy it. And so I was like, why do we have to, this is like medieval that we have to think about this. So that same mindset is how I approach where we're going. But I think, and then unfortunately the, we're sort of back to the same problems. Like it's really hard to find my stuff. It's really hard to organize myself. It's hard to share my stuff. It's hard to secure my content at work. Now the problem is the same, the shape of the problem and the shape of the solution is pretty different. You know, instead of a hundred files on your desktop, it's now a hundred tabs in your browser, et cetera. But I think that's the starting point.Alessio [00:26:30]: How has the idea of a product evolved for you? So, you know, famously Steve Jobs started by Dropbox and he's like, you know, this is just a feature. It's not a product. And then you build like a $10 billion feature. How in the age of AI, how do you think about, you know, maybe things that used to be a product are now features because the AI on top of it, it's like the product, like what's your mental model? Do you think about it?Drew [00:26:50]: Yeah. So I don't think there's really like a bright line. I don't know if like I use the word features and products and my mental model that much of how I break it down because it's kind of a, it's a good question. I mean, I don't not think about features, I don't think about products, but it does start from that place of like, all right, we have all these new colors we can paint with and all right, what are these higher order needs that are sort of evergreen, right? So people will always have stuff at work. They're always need to be able to find it or, you know, all the verbs I just mentioned. It's like, okay, how can we make like a better painting and how can we, and then how can we use some of these new colors? And then, yeah, it's like pretty clear that after the large models, the way you find stuff share stuff, it's going to be completely different after COVID, it's going to be completely different. So that's the starting point. But I think it is also important to, you know, you have to do more than just work back from the customer and like what they're trying to do. Like you have to think about, and you know, we've, we've learned a lot of this the hard way sometimes. Okay. You might start with a customer. You might start with a job to be on there. You're like, all right, what's the solution to their problem? Or like, can we build the best product that solves that problem? Right. Like what's the best way to find your stuff in the modern world? Like, well, yeah, right now the status quo for the vast majority of the billion, billion knowledge workers is they have like 10 search boxes at work that each search 10% of your stuff. Like that's clearly broken. Obviously you should just have like one search box. All right. So we can do that. And that also has to be like, I'll come back to defensibility in a second, but like, can we build the right solution that is like meaningfully better from the status quo? Like, yes, clearly. Okay. Then can we like get distribution and growth? Like that's sort of the next thing you learned is as a founder, you start with like, what's the product? What's the product? What's the product? Then you're like, wait, wait, we need distribution and we need a business model. So those are the next kind of two dominoes you have to knock down or sort of needles you have to thread at the same time. So all right, how do we grow? I mean, if Dropbox 1.0 is really this like self-serve viral model that there's a lot of, we sort of took a borrowed from a lot of the consumer internet playbook and like what Facebook and social media were doing and then translated that to sort of the business world. How do you get distribution, especially as a startup? And then a business model, like, all right, storage happened to be something in the beginning happened to be something people were willing to pay for. They recognize that, you know, okay, if I don't buy something like Dropbox, I'm going to have to buy an external hard drive. I'm going to have to buy a thumb drive and I have to pay for something one way or another. People are already paying for things like backup. So we felt good about that. But then the last domino is like defensibility. Okay. So you build this product or you get the business model, but then, you know, what do you do when the incumbents, the next chess move for them is I just like copy, bundle, kill. So they're going to copy your product. They'll bundle it with their platforms and they'll like give it away for free or no added cost. And, you know, we had a lot of, you know, scar tissue from being on the wrong side of that. Now you don't need to solve all four for all four or five variables or whatever at once or you can sort of have, you know, some flexibility. But the more of those gates that you get through, you sort of add a 10 X to your valuation. And so with AI, I think, you know, there's been a lot of focus on the large language model, but it's like large language models are a pretty bad business from a, you know, you sort of take off your tech lens and just sort of business lens. Like there's sort of this weirdly self-commoditizing thing where, you know, models only have value if they're kind of on this like Pareto frontier of size and quality and cost. Being number two, you know, if you're not on that frontier, the second the frontier moves out, which it moves out every week, like your model literally has zero economic value because it's dominated by the new thing. LLMs generate output that can be used to train or improve. So there's weird, peculiar things that are specific to the large language model. And then you have to like be like, all right, where's the value going to accrue in the stack or the value chain? And, you know, certainly at the bottom with Nvidia and the semiconductor companies, and then it's going to be at the top, like the people who have the customer relationship who have the application layer. Those are a few of the like lenses that I look at a question like that through.Alessio [00:30:48]: Do you think AI is making people more careful about sharing the data at all? People are like, oh, data is important, but it's like, whatever, I'm just throwing it out there. Now everybody's like, but are you going to train on my data? And like your data is actually not that good to train on anyway. But like how have you seen, especially customers, like think about what to put in, what to not?Drew [00:31:06]: I mean, everybody should be. Well, everybody is concerned about this and nobody should be concerned about this, right? Because nobody wants their personal companies information to be kind of ground up into little pellets to like sell you ads or train the next foundation model. I think it's like massively top of mind for every one of our customers, like, and me personally, and with my Dropbox hat on, it's like so fundamental. And, you know, we had experience with this too at Dropbox 1.0, the same kind of resistance, like, wait, I'm going to take my stuff on my hard drive and put it on your server somewhere. Are you serious? What could possibly go wrong? And you know, before that, I was like, wait, are you going to sell me, I'm going to put my credit card number into this website? And before that, I was like, hey, I'm going to take all my cash and put it in a bank instead of under my mattress. You know, so there's a long history of like tech and comfort. So in some sense, AI is kind of another round of the same thing, but the issues are real. And then when I think about like defensibility for Dropbox, like that's actually a big advantage that we have is one, our incentives are very aligned with our customers, right? We only get, we only make money if you pay us and you only pay us if we do a good job. So we don't have any like side hustle, you know, we're not training the next foundation model. You know, we're not trying to sell you ads. Actually we're not even trying to lock you into an ecosystem, like the whole point of Dropbox is it works, you know, everywhere. Because I think one of the big questions we've circling around is sort of like, in the world of AI, where should our lane be? Like every startup has to ask, or in every big company has to ask, like, where can we really win? But to me, it was like a lot of the like trust advantages, platform agnostic, having like a very clean business model, not having these other incentives. And then we also are like super transparent. We were transparent early on. We're like, all right, we're going to establish these AI principles, very table stakes stuff of like, here's transparency. We want to give people control. We want to cover privacy, safety, bias, like fairness, all these things. And we put that out up front to put some sort of explicit guardrails out where like, hey, we're, you know, because everybody wants like a trusted partner as they sort of go into the wild world of AI. And then, you know, you also see people cutting corners and, you know, or just there's a lot of uncertainty or, you know, moving the pieces around after the fact, which no one feels good about.Alessio [00:33:14]: I mean, I would say the last 10, 15 years, the race was kind of being the system of record, being the storage provider. I think today it's almost like, hey, if I can use Dash to like access my Google Drive file, why would I pay Google for like their AI feature? So like vice versa, you know, if I can connect my Dropbook storage to this other AI assistant, how do you kind of think about that, about, you know, not being able to capture all the value and how open people will stay? I think today things are still pretty open, but I'm curious if you think things will get more closed or like more open later.Drew [00:33:42]: Yeah. Well, I think you have to get the value exchange right. And I think you have to be like a trustworthy partner or like no one's going to partner with you if they think you're going to eat their lunch, right? Or if you're going to disintermediate them and like all the companies are quite sophisticated with how they think about that. So we try to, like, we know that's going to be the reality. So we're actually not trying to eat anyone's like Google Drive's lunch or anything. Actually we'll like integrate with Google Drive, we'll integrate with OneDrive, really any of the content platforms, even if they compete with file syncing. So that's actually a big strategic shift. We're not really reliant on being like the store of record and there are pros and cons to this decision. But if you think about it, we're basically like providing all these apps more engagement. We're like helping users do what they're really trying to do, which is to get, you know, that Google Doc or whatever. And we're not trying to be like, oh, by the way, use this other thing. This is all part of our like brand reputation. It's like, no, we give people freedom to use whatever tools or operating system they want. We're not taking anything away from our partners. We're actually like making it, making their thing more useful or routing people to those things. I mean, on the margin, then we have something like, well, okay, to the extent you do rag and summarize things, maybe that doesn't generate a click. Okay. You know, we also know there's like infinity investment going into like the work agents. So we're not really building like a co-pilot or Gemini competitor. Not because we don't like those. We don't find that thing like captivating. Yeah, of course. But just like, you know, you learn after some time in this business that like, yeah, there's some places that are just going to be such kind of red oceans or just like super big battlefields. Everybody's kind of trying to solve the same problem and they just start duplicating all each other effort. And then meanwhile, you know, I think the concern would be is like, well, there's all these other problems that aren't being properly addressed by AI. And I was concerned that like, yeah, and everybody's like fixated on the agent or the chatbot interface, but forgetting that like, hey guys, like we have the opportunity to like really fix search or build a self-organizing Dropbox or environment or there's all these other things that can be a compliment. Because we don't really want our customers to be thinking like, well, do I use Dash or do I use co-pilot? And frankly, none of them do. In a lot of ways, actually, some of the things that we do on the security front with Dash for Business are a good compliment to co-pilot. Because as part of Dash for Business, we actually give admins, IT, like universal visibility and control over all the different, what's being shared in your company across all these different platforms. And as a precondition to installing something like co-pilot or Dash or Glean or any of these other things, right? You know, IT wants to know like, hey, before we like turn all the lights in here, like let's do a little cleaning first before we let everybody in. And there just haven't been good tools to do that. And post AI, you would do it completely differently. And so that's like a big, that's a cornerstone of what we do and what sets us apart from these tools. And actually, in a lot of cases, we will help those tools be adopted because we actually help them do it safely. Yeah.Alessio [00:36:27]: How do you think about building for AI versus people? It's like when you mentioned cleaning up is because maybe before you were like, well, humans can have some common sense when they look at data on what to pick versus models are just kind of like ingesting. Do you think about building products differently, knowing that a lot of the data will actually be consumed by LLMs and like agents and whatnot versus like just people?Drew [00:36:46]: I think it'll always be, I aim a little bit more for like, you know, level three, level four kind of automation, because even if the LLM is like capable of completely autonomously organizing your environment, it probably would do a reasonable job. But like, I think you build bad UI when the sort of user has to fit itself to the computer versus something that you're, you know, it's like an instrument you're playing or something where you have some kind of good partnership. And you know, and on the other side, you don't have to do all this like manual effort. And so like the command line was sort of subsumed by like, you know, graphical UI. We'll keep toggling back and forth. Maybe chat will be, chat will be an increasing, especially when you bring in voice, like will be an increasing part of the puzzle. But I don't think we're going to go back to like a million command lines either. And then as far as like the sort of plumbing of like, well, is this going to be consumed by an LLM or a human? Like fortunately, like you don't really have to design it that differently. I mean, you have to make sure everything's legible to the LLM, but it's like quite tolerant of, you know, malformed everything. And actually the more, the easier it makes something to read for a human, the easier it is for an LLM to read to some extent as well. But we really think about what's that kind of right, how do we build that right, like human machine interface where you're still in control and driving, but then it's super easy to translate your intent into like the, you know, however you want your folder, setting your environment set up or like your preferences.Alessio [00:38:05]: What's the most underrated thing about Dropbox that maybe people don't appreciate?Drew [00:38:09]: Well, I think this is just such a natural evolution for us. It's pretty true. Like when people think about the world of AI, file syncing is not like the next thing you would auto complete mentally. And I think we also did like our first thing so well that there were a lot of benefits to that. But I think there also are like, we hit it so hard with our first product that it was like pretty tough to come up with a sequel. And we had a bit of a sophomore slump and you know, I think actually a lot of kids do use Dropbox through in high school or things like that, but you know, they're not, they're using, they're a lot more in the browser and then their file system, right. And we know all this, but still like we're super well positioned to like help a new generation of people with these fundamental problems and these like that affect, you know, a billion knowledge workers around just finding, organizing, sharing your stuff and keeping it safe. And there's, there's a ton of unsolved problems in those four verbs. We've talked about search a little bit, but just even think about like a whole new generation of people like growing up without the ability to like organize their things and yeah, search is great. And if you just have like a giant infinite pile of stuff, then search does make that more manageable. But you know, you do lose some things that were pretty helpful in prior decades, right? So even just the idea of persistence, stuff still being there when you come back, like when I go to sleep and wake up, my physical papers are still on my desk. When I reboot my computer, the files are still on my hard drive. But then when in my browser, like if my operating system updates the wrong way and closes the browser or if I just more commonly just declared tab bankruptcy, it's like your whole workspace just clears itself out and starts from zero. And you're like, on what planet is this a good idea? There's no like concept of like, oh, here's the stuff I was working on. Yeah, let me get back to it. And so that's like a big motivation for things like Dash. Huge problems with sharing, right? If I'm remodeling my house or if I'm getting ready for a board meeting, you know, what do I do if I have a Google doc and an air table and a 10 gig 4k video? There's no collection that holds mixed format things. And so it's another kind of hidden problem, hidden in plain sight, like he's missing primitives. Files have folders, songs have playlists, links have, you know, there's no, somehow we miss that. And so we're building that with stacks in Dash where it's like a mixed format, smart collection that you can then, you know, just share whatever you need internally, externally and have it be like a really well designed experience and platform agnostic and not tying you to any one ecosystem. We're super excited about that. You know, we talked a little bit about security in the modern world, like IT signs all these compliance documents, but in reality has no way of knowing where anything is or what's being shared. It's actually better for them to not know about it than to know about it and not be able to do anything about it. And when we talked to customers, we found that there were like literally people in IT whose jobs it is to like manually go through, log into each, like log into office, log into workspace, log into each tool and like go comb through one by one the links that people have shared and like unshares. There's like an unshare guy in all these companies and that that job is probably about as fun as it sounds like, my God. So there's, you know, fortunately, I guess what makes technology a good business is for every problem it solves, it like creates a new one, so there's always like a sequel that you need. And so, you know, I think the happy version of our Act 2 is kind of similar to Netflix. I look at a lot of these companies that really had multiple acts and Netflix had the vision to be streaming from the beginning, but broadband and everything wasn't ready for it. So they started by mailing you DVDs, but then went to streaming and then, but the value probably the whole time was just like, let me press play on something I want to see. And they did a really good job about bringing people along from the DVD mailing off. You would think like, oh, the DVD mailing piece is like this burning platform or it's like legacy, you know, ankle weight. And they did have some false starts in that transition. But when you really think about it, they were able to take that DVD mailing audience, move, like migrate them to streaming and actually bootstrap a, you know, take their season one people and bootstrap a victory in season two, because they already had, you know, they weren't starting from scratch. And like both of those worlds were like super easy to sort of forget and be like, oh, it's all kind of destiny. But like, no, that was like an incredibly competitive environment. And Netflix did a great job of like activating their Act 1 advantages and winning in Act 2 because of it. So I don't think people see Dropbox that way. I think people are sort of thinking about us just in terms of our Act 1 and they're like, yeah, Dropbox is fine. I used to use it 10 years ago. But like, what have they done for me lately? And I don't blame them. So fortunately, we have like better and better answers to that question every year.Alessio [00:42:39]: And you call it like the silicon brain. So you see like Dash and Stacks being like the silicon brain interface, basically forDrew [00:42:46]: people. I mean, that's part of it. Yeah. And writ large, I mean, I think what's so exciting about AI and everybody's got their own kind of take on it, but if you like really zoom out civilizationally and like what allows humans to make progress and, you know, what sort of is above the fold in terms of what's really mattered. I certainly want to, I mean, there are a lot of points, but some that come to mind like you think about things like the industrial revolution, like before that, like mechanical energy, like the only way you could get it was like by your own hands, maybe an animal, maybe some like clever sort of machines or machines made of like wood or something. But you were quite like energy limited. And then suddenly, you know, the industrial revolution, things like electricity, it suddenly is like, all right, mechanical energy is now available on demand as a very fungible kind of, and then suddenly we consume a lot more of it. And then the standard of living goes way, way, way, way up. That's been pretty limited to the physical realm. And then I believe that the large models, that's really the first time we can kind of bottle up cognitive energy and offloaded, you know, if we started by offloading a lot of our mechanical or physical busy work to machines that freed us up to make a lot of progress in other areas. But then with AI and computing, we're like, now we can offload a lot more of our cognitive busy work to machines. And then we can create a lot more of it. Price of it goes way down. Importantly, like, it's not like humans never did anything physical again. It's sort of like, no, but we're more leveraged. We can move a lot more earth with a bulldozer than a shovel. And so that's like what is at the most fundamental level, what's so exciting to me about AI. And so what's the silicon brain? It's like, well, we have our human brains and then we're going to have this other like half of our brain that's sort of coming online, like our silicon brain. And it's not like one or the other. They complement each other. They have very complimentary strengths and weaknesses. And that's, that's a good thing. There's also this weird tangent we've gone on as a species to like where knowledge work, knowledge workers have this like epidemic of, of burnout, great resignation, quiet quitting. And there's a lot going on there. But I think that's one of the biggest problems we have is that be like, people deserve like meaningful work and, you know, can't solve all of it. But like, and at least in knowledge work, there's a lot of own goals, you know, enforced errors that we're doing where it's like, you know, on one side with brain science, like we know what makes us like productive and fortunately it's also what makes us engaged. It's like when we can focus or when we're some kind of flow state, but then we go to work and then increasingly going to work is like going to a screen and you're like, if you wanted to design an environment that made it impossible to ever get into a flow state or ever be able to focus, like what we have is that. And that was the thing that just like seven, eight years ago just blew my mind. I'm just like, I cannot understand why like knowledge work is so jacked up on this adventure. It's like, we, we put ourselves in like the most cognitively polluted environment possible and we put so much more stress on the system when we're working remotely and things like that. And you know, all of these problems are just like going in the wrong direction. And I just, I just couldn't understand why this was like a problem that wasn't fixing itself. And I'm like, maybe there's something Dropbox can do with this and you know, things like Dash are the first step. But then, well, so like what, well, I mean, now like, well, why are humans in this like polluted state? It's like, well, we're just, all of the tools we have today, like this generation of tools just passes on all of the weight, the burden to the human, right? So it's like, here's a bajillion, you know, 80,000 unread emails, cool. Here's 25 unread Slack channels. Here's, we all get started like, it's like jittery like thinking about it. And then you look at that, you're like, wait, I'm looking at my phone, it says like 80,000 unread things. There's like no question, product question for which this is the right answer. Fortunately, that's why things like our silicon brain are pretty helpful because like they can serve as like an attention filter where it's like, actually, computers have no problem reading a million things. Humans can't do that, but computers can. And to some extent, this was already happening with computer, you know, Excel is an aversion of your silicon brain or, you know, you could draw the line arbitrarily. But with larger models, like now so many of these little subtasks and tasks we do at work can be like fully automated. And I think, you know, I think it's like an important metaphor to me because it mirrors a lot of what we saw with computing, computer architecture generally. It's like we started out with the CPU, very general purpose, then GPU came along much better at these like parallel computations. We talk a lot about like human versus machine being like substituting, it's like CPU, GPU, it's not like one is categorically better than the other, they're complements. Like if you have something really parallel, use a GPU, if not, use a CPU. The whole relationship, that symbiosis between CPU and GPU has obviously evolved a lot since, you know, playing Quake 2 or something. But right now we have like the human CPU doing a lot of, you know, silicon CPU tasks. And so you really have to like redesign the work thoughtfully such that, you know, probably not that different from how it's evolved in computer architecture, where the CPU is sort of an orchestrator of these really like heavy lifting GPU tasks. That dividing line does shift a little bit, you know, with every generation. And so I think we need to think about knowledge work in that context, like what are human brains good at? What's our silicon brain good at? Let's resegment the work. Let's offload all the stuff that can be automated. Let's go on a hunt for like anything that could save a human CPU cycle. Let's give it to the silicon one. And so I think we're at the early earnings of actually being able to do something about it.Alessio [00:48:00]: It's funny, I gave a talk to a few government people earlier this year with a similar point where we used to make machines to release human labor. And then the kilowatt hour was kind of like the unit for a lot of countries. And now you're doing the same thing with the brain and the data centers are kind of computational power plants, you know, they're kind of on demand tokens. You're on the board of Meta, which is the number one donor of Flops for the open source world. The thing about open source AI is like the model can be open source, but you need to carry a briefcase to actually maybe run a model that is not even that good compared to some of the big ones. How do you think about some of the differences in the open source ethos with like traditional software where it's like really easy to run and act on it versus like models where it's like it might be open source, but like I'm kind of limited, sort of can do with it?Drew [00:48:45]: Yeah, well, I think with every new era of computing, there's sort of a tug of war between is this going to be like an open one or a closed one? And, you know, there's pros and cons to both. It's not like open is always better or open always wins. But, you know, I think you look at how the mobile, like the PC era and the Internet era started out being more on the open side, like it's very modular. Everybody sort of party that everybody could, you know, come to some downsides of that security. But I think, you know, the advent of AI, I think there's a real question, like given the capital intensity of what it takes to train these foundation models, like are we going to live in a world where oligopoly or cartel or all, you know, there's a few companies that have the keys and we're all just like paying them rent. You know, that's one future. Or is it going to be more open and accessible? And I'm like super happy with how that's just I find it exciting on many levels with all the different hats I wear about it. You know, fortunately, you've seen in real life, yeah, even if people aren't bringing GPUs on a plane or something, you've seen like the price performance of these models improve 10 or 100x year over year, which is sort of like many Moore's laws compounded together for a bunch of reasons like that wouldn't have happened without open source. Right. You know, for a lot of same reasons, it's probably better that we can anyone can sort of spin up a website without having to buy an internet information server license like there was some alternative future. So like things are Linux and really good. And there was a good balance of trade to where like people contribute their code and then also benefit from the community returning the favor. I mean, you're seeing that with open source. So you wouldn't see all this like, you know, this flourishing of research and of just sort of the democratization of access to compute without open source. And so I think it's been like phenomenally successful in terms of just moving the ball forward and pretty much anything you care about, I believe, even like safety. You can have a lot more eyes on it and transparency instead of just something is happening. And there was three places with nuclear power plants attached to them. Right. So I think it's it's been awesome to see. And then and again, for like wearing my Dropbox hat, like anybody who's like scaling a service to millions of people, again, I'm probably not using like frontier models for every request. It's, you know, there are a lot of different configurations, mostly with smaller models. And even before you even talk about getting on the device, like, you know, you need this whole kind of constellation of different options. So open source has been great for that.Alessio [00:51:06]: And you were one of the first companies in the cloud repatriation. You kind of brought back all the storage into your own data centers. Where are we in the AI wave for that? I don't think people really care today to bring the models in-house. Like, do you think people will care in the future? Like, especially as you have more small models that you want to control more of the economics? Or are the tokens so subsidized that like it just doesn't matter? It's more like a principle. Yeah. Yeah.Drew [00:51:30]: I mean, I think there's another one where like thinking about the future is a lot easier if you start with the past. So, I mean, there's definitely this like big surge in demand as like there's sort of this FOMO driven bubble of like all of big tech taking their headings and shipping them to Jensen for a couple of years. And then you're like, all right, well, first of all, we've seen this kind of thing before. And in the late 90s with like Fiber, you know, this huge race to like own the internet, own the information superhighway, literally, and then way overbuilt. And then there was this like crash. I don't know to what extent, like maybe it is really different this time. Or, you know, maybe if we create AGI that will sort of solve the rest of the, or we'll just have a different set of things to worry about. But, you know, the simplest way I think about it is like this is sort of a rent not buy phase because, you know, I wouldn't want to be, we're still so early in the maturity, you know, I wouldn't want to be buying like pallets of over like of 286s at a 5x markup when like the 386 and 486 and Pentium and everything are like clearly coming there around the corner. And again, because of open source, there's just been a lot more com

In this episode Matt and Matt discuss their trip through Hell's VCR at VHS Fest, The sickle swings again, Weird News including Teacher gets an F, Target over shot their mark,  A wild rescue, Leggos get busted up, and Kazaa is back (?)...Keep your chin up kid, that's how we keep an even tan.xoxo

Been Sick, Juneteenth Happened, Liberals Hate Black People, Larry Elder & Clarence Thomas Are Examples Why Race Doesn't Really Matter In American Politics, Tucker Carlson Keep Telling People How Much He Like Israel Whenever People Say They Oppose Israel, Glen Greenwald, Thomas Massie, Israel Foreign Aid, Google Hates White People For Sure, Establishment's THESLYSHOW.COM: https://tinyurl.com/2p843vt3 TELEGRAM: https://tinyurl.com/dsyurdwr GAB: https://tinyurl.com/y9f58t6z X: https://tinyurl.com/yc87pwrr INSTAGRAM: https://tinyurl.com/yc8zvded FACEBOOK: https://tinyurl.com/596p4pt8 BITCHUTE: https://tinyurl.com/3adyysbk SPOTIFY: https://tinyurl.com/2s44wvat APPLE PODCASTS: https://tinyurl.com/yh87mnve AMAZON MUSIC: https://shorturl.at/bzEP1 AUDIBLE: https://tinyurl.com/5fpakxd7 PANDORA: https://tinyurl.com/484ucdv9 IHEART MEDIA: https://tinyurl.com/bdzjzdvk TUNE IN RADIO: https://tinyurl .com/3z97fk9wAgenda Is Left-Wing, Javier Milei Is A Jewish Shilling Simp, Republicans Are Bold As Fuck Until You Bring Up Israel, AIPAC Funding, Independent Rap Scene In The Bay Area Should Be An Example For All Business Leaders, Nobody Needs A Major Record Label Anymore, Definitely On Napster In The 90s, Fuck Lars Ulrich, Browsing Porn Sites In The 90s, Kazaa, WinMx, Independent Businesses, Fuck Rumble - BitChute Is The Freespeech App, Free Speech Is Speech You Hate, Juneteenth Became A Way For Joe Biden To Pander To Black People,Democrats Love Using Race, Real Journalism, California Passes A Law That Schools Do Not Need To Notify Parents If Students Think They're The Opposite Gender, Hunter Biden + Much More Fuckery!     

I first read about the N.E.R.D. project in something like Maxim Magazine back in college around 2001. Very quickly, the UK version was on file-sharing sites (Napster, LimeWire, Kazaa), and I snapped it up. Ironically, there was no way to know the actual tracklisting, so I made a mix CD with the order that I liked. This was the OG beats version that was never released in America and remains my preferred version. In 2002, with what must be one of my first-ever purchases on Amazon, I actually managed to buy the OG UK version on CD so that I could have WAV files of this amazing debut album, though I quickly burned a CD with the order I was used to from my sketchy mp3's. N.E.R.D.'s second album, Fly or Die, was actually really good, but at the time, I was sorta turned off by the band instrumentation on a N.E.R.D. album and didn't keep up with them much after that. This needed to be sorted out, so I've gone through their discography for a mixtape. I've used some of my beats versions of In Search of... songs as well as the officially available versions with full instrumentation because, with fresh ears, some of them actually kinda slap. You be the judge. One thing I realized while pulling this tape together is that Fly or Die was actually freaking amazing. I love the Steely Dan-esque moments, and really, the only thing I can knock it for is being a little short. Definitely an admirable follow-up to their goat debut masterpiece, In Search of... She Wants To Move Things Are Getting Better Inside Of Clouds Don't Don't Do It Anti Matter Rock Star I've Seen The Light Hot n Fun Party People You Know What The Way She Dances Waiting For You Baby Doll Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in the Line for the Bathroom) Ride That Thang Am I High Thrasher Chariot Of Fire Fly Or Die Wonderful Place Maybe Stay Together Jump Spaz Brain Tape You Voilà Lapdance If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please shoot me a quick 5-star, and a positive review if you're feeling generous. While you're there, remember to sub.

This mix is a bit of a sidequest as I put the finishing touches on a pretty fire N.E.R.D. mixtape that I've been working on. Occasionally, I give flowers to some of the great pop tapes and CDs I grew up with. At times, I'll also include a mixtape from other artists who were highly influential to me, especially when they seem to be otherwise missing from the internet for some reason. I stopped DJing in 1994, dropped out of college, and ran off to the Navy, realizing that rocking parties with two tape decks wasn't going to translate to club gigs anyway. For the next 20 years, I was just a DJ fanboy. During that time, I really dug the late '90s big beat scene, with artists like The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method, and Groove Armada. The Chemical Brothers' commercial mix CD, 'Brothers Gonna Work It Out,' was a massive influence, so much so that when I returned to DJing in 2013, now with the benefit of a laptop and controller, I specifically studied it until I could recreate it. Needless to say, their old DJ sets are a huge influence on me and all are worth a spin when you find them. This particular Chemical Brothers DJ set has been on my hard drive for 21 years, titled “ChemBros_Soundsystem_XL_2003.mp3,” and was originally recorded from the radio in 2003. I most likely downloaded it from Kazaa or Limewire. It stayed in heavy rotation on my Creative MuVo MP3 player at the time. Now, it's nowhere to be found online, which is a shame, so I'm uploading it here as I finish up my N.E.R.D. mixtape. Enjoy — it knocks. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts and feeling generous, kick me a quick 5-star rating and a positive review.

We want you to reminisce with us about a time when the Internet was actually cool & fun, when it was more about bringing people together than pitting them against each other. This week, we're getting into some of the history of file sharing, specifically through the use of the p2p client KaZaa. We get into how it all got started, how the entertainment industry reacted, & what it all meant to us. You can find Fat Guy, Jacked Guy on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can find Stef on the web ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & Brendan ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Support us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!!! There's ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠extra content for Patreon supporters⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, as well as opportunities to interact with us in other ways besides listening to the podcast. We appreciate any & all help you can provide, & we hope to keep this going for a long, long time. Thank you in advance for your support and love! You are our brothers!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! The pod is kicking off 2024 in a big way with its first ever furry-identified guest! Comedian Adario Mercadante has been doing standup since the age of eighteen, and is truly one of the *sweetest* men alive. Like many '90s kids, Adario first discovered furry content on sites like LimeWire and Kazaa, and his fascination/titillation led him to further resources like Furcadia and Yiffstar. Adario not only details his full journey from pre-puberty to adulthood, but also answers several FAQs, such as "Is being a furry just a sexual kink, or is there more to it?" Plus, Adario discusses his decision to come out to the *entire world* via his appearance on ABC's The Prank Panel, and shares the incredibly moving story of how doing so literally changed his life. Forget everything you think you know about furries, and learn about the community from one of its proudest (and, since his appearance on TV, most prominent) members!First and foremost, watch Adario's episode of The Prank Panel for free at https://abc.com/shows/the-prank-panel/episode-guide/season-01/09-bride-swap-furry-double-cross (his segment starts just before the twenty-five minute mark)! Then give him a follow on TikTok at @adariomercadante, on Instagram at @adario1, and on Twitter at @YammoYeen. Lastly, if you want to check out the furry YouTuber who Adario shouted out, go to https://www.youtube.com/@BetaEtaDelota. Awoo!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5207650/advertisement

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   We're talking with Jaan Tallinn, who has changed the way the world responds to the impact of #AI. He was one of the founding developers of Skype and the file sharing application Kazaa, and that alone makes him noteworthy to most of the world. But he leveraged his billionaire status conferred by that success to pursue a goal uncommon among technology entrepreneurs: reducing existential risk. In other words, saving the human race from possible extinction through our own foolhardiness or fate. He has co-founded and funded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, in Cambridge, England, and the Future of Life Institute, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the conclusion of the interview, we talk about value alignment and how that does or doesn't intersect with large language models, FLI and their world building project, and the instability of the world's future.  All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   The attention of the world to the potential impact of AI owes a huge debt to my guest Jaan Tallinn. He was one of the founding developers of Skype and the file sharing application Kazaa, and that alone makes him noteworthy to most of the world. But he leveraged his billionaire status conferred by that success to pursue a goal uncommon among technology entrepreneurs: reducing existential risk. In other words, saving the human race from possible extinction through our own foolhardiness or fate. He has co-founded and funded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, in Cambridge, England, and the Future of Life Institute, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He's also a member of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and a key funder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. In this first part, we talk about the problems with current #AI frontier models, Jaan's reaction to GPT-4, the letter causing for a pause in AI training, Jaan's motivations in starting CSER and FLI, how individuals and governments should react to AI risk, and Jaan's idea for how to enforce constraints on AI development. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

Is he a dude? Is she a dude? Are we all dudes? Ask your children these questions and more as we compete on Season 3, Episode 24 of Family Matters. Alex Diamond, David Kenny, and John McDaniel heard that the long-running network sitcom Family Matters ends with side character Steve Urkel going to space. And the best way to figure out how that happened - obviously - is to watch the last episode first and make our way backwards through nearly ten years of television.Join our countdown to number one (and our slow descent into madness) in all the places you expect internet people to be:Website: jumpingtheshuttle.spaceEmail: jumpingtheshuttle@gmail.comInstagram: @JumpingTheShuttle / @ThatAlexD / @dak577Twitter: @JumpingShuttle / @ThatAlexD / @dak577TikTok: @JumpingTheShuttle / @ThatAlexD / @dak577Brought to you by Smooth My Balls

Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm (https://www.nporadio4.nl/klassiek/panorama-zondag/d256fe09-28c2-4e7a-b1cd-c7ea60bb5740/dit-is-het-culturele-landschap-van-christiaan-alberdingk-thijm) is advocaat, romancier en docent. Hij is specialist op het gebied van informatierecht en intellectueel eigendom. Bij het grote publiek werd hij bekend als de advocaat die met succes de oprichters van Kazaa, het muziekuitwisselingsprogramma, verdedigde. Naast zijn werk als jurist, schrijft Alberdingk Thijm ook romans. Zijn culturele landschap voert ons langs een aria uit een opera van Purcell, een bijzonder gedicht uit Schotland en prijswinnende historische romans.   

How is Skype related to Kazaa? What does a peer-to-peer network do? And was the eBay acquisition of Skype really one of the worst deals in tech history (spoiler: no it was not)?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Napster. The name alone brings back memories of the wild, wild west of the dot-com bubble.We'll take you back to the late 90s and early 2000s. Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning's creation was a game-changer. But was its influence bigger than its actual impact? Who won and lost the most from Napster? Could the situation have been handled differently? We break down all that and moreI'm joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. Here's everything we covered this episode:[00:002:13] Napster's rise[00:8:25] CD boom, internet growth, Sean and Shawn[00:13:43] Internet culture in the late 90s[00:18:21] Napster's early growth in users.[00:25:07] Artists picked sides on the Napster debate[00:36:55] Legal and business model challenges.[00:42:13] When Napster shut its doors[00:48:32] Asking for permission vs forgiveness[01:00:10] Limewire, BearShare, and KaZaa[01:08:16] Life after Napster for Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker[01:14:41] Where Napster is todayThis episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fmEnjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapitalTrapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by readingTrapital's free memo.

Jaan Tallinn is no stranger to disruptive tech: 25 years ago he co-engineered Kazaa, which allowed for the free download of films and music. He also co-engineered Skype, which disrupted traditional voice and video communication.But when he looks at the way Big Tech and governments are pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, he worries about our future. Could we be fast approaching the point when machines don't need human input anymore?Host Steve Clemons asks Tallinn, who founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University, about risks and opportunities posed by AI.

Ever wondered why The Tragically Hip never quite cracked the American market? Can being "too Canadian" be a legitimate reason? Join jD, Pete, and Tim, as they delve into these questions and more, in an episode that's all about the legendary Canadian band and renowned producer, Bob Rock. We examine Rock's impactful legacy, his ground-breaking record with The Hip, and why their unique Canadian-ness may have been a double-edged sword in the American music scene.This week, we immerse ourselves in The Hip's 10th studio album, dissecting the distinctive sonic footprint that Bob Rock has imprinted on each track. Hear our candid first reactions, our deep dives into the lyrics' amalgamation of quantum physics, Plato, and God, and how a short hiatus from the album breathed new life into jD's perspectives. From the booming drums akin to Stuart Copeland and Neil Peart's style to the raw, gritty sounds of hip drums, we leave no stone unturned in our exploration of this musical masterpiece.And just when you think we've hit peak musical analysis, think again! We round up our episode with a thoughtful examination of the album's themes of touring and corporate radio. We also give you our take on The Hip's Austin City Limits performance and an exciting, upcoming event in Toronto that promises to echo the essence of a live Tragically Hip experience. To top it all off, we take a side trip to Salt Lake City, diving into its cultural diversity and have a little fun contemplating a world where weed is legal in Utah. So, buckle up for a fun-filled, music-centric journey into the heart of Canadian musicTrack ListingYer not the Ocean - Studio versionIn View - Live from Abbotsford 2009The Kids Don't Get It - Live from Oshawa 2013Last Night I Dreamed that you didn't love Me - Live from Montreal 2006TranscriptTrack 1:[0:00] Well welcome to getting hip to the hip I'm here as always with Pete and Tim and we are checking out for the first time a new hip record every week we do this and we have a lot offun doing it so this week I gave you the 10th studio record produced by famous Canadian producer Bob Rock Bob Rock Bob Ross right he's born for a job part of me make wishes I wasthat guy right hair and everything all the bands he's worked with just oh my god didn't Lambert four Four-wheel drive Lamborghini, like jacked wheels and everything. Track 2:[0:48] Four-wheel drive Lamborghini. Track 3:[0:49] Sorry. Track 1:[0:54] No, don't be sorry. Track 3:[0:57] Let's talk about him a little bit though, because he's done some major bands, right? Track 1:[1:02] Yeah, really. Track 3:[1:03] I mean, wow. That guy's portfolio is quite large. Track 1:[1:09] Like from the mid 80s to the mid 90s he was like, literally. Worked with everybody in rock. Track 3:[1:18] Everybody who's making money. Track 1:[1:20] Yeah. Track 3:[1:21] He went as well. Track 2:[1:22] His last name is Rock. Track 3:[1:23] I know. That's why I kind of wish I was him for that era. Track 2:[1:27] Jeez, dude. Track 3:[1:29] Bon Jovi, Offspring. Track 1:[1:31] He's not as good as the producer Michael Indy. Oh. Track 3:[1:35] Oh, look at that. Track 2:[1:36] Yeah. Track 3:[1:39] No, but seriously, Bob Rock, he was all over the place. He even helped out Cher. But 311, Skid Row, Motley Crue. I mean, this guy. Track 2:[1:48] Which 311 record? Because Grassroots is just, that was a breakthrough, man. I don't know. Track 3:[1:58] I'm not a fan. I didn't know that one. I'd be curious. Track 2:[2:01] Their later stuff, it wasn't. But I bet he's a big Bob Seger fan. Track 3:[2:06] I'm sure. He's sounded pretty significant with Metallica. I was wondering if you, If that rang a bell for you, Mr. Pete. Yeah. Track 2:[2:18] I mean, is this his first record that he's produced with The Hip? Track 1:[2:22] This is the first one. He does two. He does the next two back to back, which they seem to, that seems to be what they do. You know, they work with the producer and then, and thenwork with him again. And it's worked, you know, on a couple of occasions. Track 2:[2:39] Oh, man, yeah, he's got a fucking dude this guy's got a He's got the hair and everything. Track 3:[2:45] She's yeah got a rap sheet. I almost Almost crushing on him Ryan Adams, right? Track 1:[2:51] Yeah, So there was there was great anticipation I think amongst Maybe not the diehard hip fans because the diehard hip fans were gonna we're gonna buy the record regardless andenjoy it regardless. but that that outer fringe that that had been listening the people like me uh that had been had been diehards but had in in between evolution despite you guys really liking it was a recordthat was divisive for me at the time uh i was just listening to other things and you know that's that's all there was to it so um i think that um i've lost my point because i was watchingJessica in the back and she's distracted. Track 2:[3:46] Thanks, Jessica. Geez. Track 1:[3:49] Geez Louise. Oh yeah, the outer fringes like me were thinking, well, Bob Rock knows how to produce a hit record. Maybe this will be the one. You know what I mean? That's like, that's going to bring me back and bring back. I don't know why I was so concerned with their success in the States. I reallydon't. It's, it's, it's pointless. Track 2:[4:14] I feel like it is something that is just fucking ingrained in you Canadians. I mean, I, it's like this, I don't know what it is. I think it's so stupid, but I get it, but I don't get it. I'm just like, why didn't we break through? Why haven't they broken through? Why do you want Americans to like you so much? Guess what? Americans aren't all that fucking great. Take it from one who is one. Track 3:[4:38] In half of us are fucking idiots if not more not more these days, I mean, there's a lot of reproduction happening We're probably towards 60% now. Just I would say Yeah Yeah, you know when I walk down the street I'm like Just ready Let's go No, but but you know I asked the bot, the AI bot, why the hip never broke through acrossthe border other than Detroit and where? or upstate New York, wherever they were playing. And the bot was like... This is my bot voice, it doesn't really exist this way, but the bot was like, They were just too Canadian. Track 1:[5:16] Oh, really? Track 3:[5:19] Yeah, that was a serious point from the bot that people thought that maybe they were just too Canadian. And I thought, wow. Track 1:[5:26] Okay. I don't even know what that means. Track 3:[5:30] Well, because a lot of the content is Canada-themed stuff, you know? Track 1:[5:37] Yeah, but it's not in your face unless somebody points it out. Track 3:[5:43] I mean, that was one explanation. Track 1:[5:46] Yeah, I hear it. Track 3:[5:48] Just content of lyrics. Track 2:[5:50] I mean, if that was the case, for crying out loud, dude, Rick Moranis and John Candy would have never been accepted into popular culture in the United States. That can't be it. Yeah, wrong. Track 3:[6:04] Maybe so because I was thinking, what about the boss? You know, or, I mean, all these artists that sell out concerts around the world. Yeah, was Bruce Springsteen to American? God forbid. Track 2:[6:19] Yeah, a little too American for me. Definitely. Track 3:[6:22] By the way, those blue jeans, pretty handsome. Wow. Track 2:[6:27] And you mentioned Metallica, Tim and JD. He didn't just produce Metallica, but the Black Album. Track 1:[6:35] The Black Album. Track 2:[6:36] Yeah. The one that like, I mean, say what you want about Metallica. I mean, I like a chunk of their stuff. I have a connection because James Hetfield went to my high school. You know? Track 1:[6:49] We know that from episode two. Track 2:[6:52] Do we know that from episode two? Track 3:[6:54] We do. I found this other podcast where it was really hidden inside iTunes, and it's about Pete getting beat up by James Heffield, like he returns to speak at the school and singles outPete. I don't know. I heard that. He said they met at the end, but... Track 2:[7:12] I've never seen the guy, never met the guy, but no, that record was pivotal. I mean, that's where they went from heavy metal band to worldwide, like if you go to another planet, people heard of Metallica. Track 1:[7:27] So here's, here's, this is exactly my point. My point is they had, they had four or five really great records before that, that Metallica fans cleave to and absolutely adore. And Metallica would have had a great career with, with, with just, you know, if they hadn't released the Black Album, they would have had a good career, you know, on the backs of thosefive records. But they did release the Black Album and Bob Rock did produce that record. So there was a thought in my head that maybe the same thing could happen with my band. And that's ridiculous and arbitrary and it ultimately I know doesn't matter, But I think that that's where it came from. Track 3:[8:10] So JD, you mentioned this album wasn't all that for you. Is that what happened? Or what was your reaction when it came out? You said you were late to it? Track 1:[8:20] Yeah, I didn't really get into this record as a fan until I really gave it a bunch of time. And that was when we did the Fully and Completely podcast. I gave it quite a bit of time. And I ended up appreciating it. it. To me, it's an interpretation of a Tragically Hip album, and it's not one that I think is the best interpretation of a Tragically Hip album, but there's some real highlights on it. There's somereal highlights on it. Track 3:[8:59] Do you mean to say it personifies a Tragically Hip album? Is that what you mean by that? Track 1:[9:06] No, because that would mean I would be be making it a person, and calling it by name and things like that. And in this case, what I'm doing... Track 2:[9:15] Okay, you're not buying it a beard, dude. Okay, you're not taking it home, dude. Track 3:[9:20] We're gonna cut that out. No, I'm joking, I'm joking. But with that, did this album kind of represent to you, like, this is a great hip album, it checks boxes? Track 1:[9:32] Or what do you mean by that statement? No, I mean, it's an interpretation of a hip record. A hip hop record to me has backing vocals that I can hear that are Paul Langlois and GordSinclair doing the backup vocals. It's got... Track 2:[9:47] Are they not singing backup on this one? Track 1:[9:49] They are, but it's just mixed differently. It's like you don't hear them the same way. There's like gang vocals on this record. It's true. Track 3:[9:57] It is a little different. Track 1:[9:59] It's just, it's a little bit odd. It's like walking into a room that you're really familiar in, but you have like a feeling like something is off. Like, am I in the same dimension? You know? Track 2:[10:14] It's like when Howard, the duck landed on earth and, and, and thought he was like just home until he saw the first human. Right. Track 3:[10:22] Exactly like that. I mean, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, like yeah. Track 1:[10:27] Yeah, so we gotta we gotta blame Bob Brock for that then That's where I'm going with this Yeah, and he get like I say he gets two stabs at it and this is this is his first stab Yeah, andthere's a lot to like, you know, I don't know. Track 2:[10:39] Should we get into the song by song or We should yeah, we should and when we do I want to I want to kind of comment on what you said JD Because I feel like there's a reason. Track 3:[10:50] Let's keep going with it. Let's keep going. Track 1:[10:51] Yeah, let's go. Track 2:[10:53] Well, I was just gonna say, I hear you when you say I know what you mean by you say it's a hip album personified. Because it's different. It's like, it's a hit, but you're like, something's, it's a little bit like Black Mirror-ish. It's like, is there something I'm missing right now? Yeah, something feels weird. I feel that, you know, it's funny, I got to think to myself, like, what do the members of the hip think? Because like, when they hear, if they were to be flies on the wall in this conversation, because, you know, they all listen week over week. This is a fact, we know this. No, but like, for them, it's probably, I mean, maybe there were some things different, but they're just like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? Track 3:[11:35] They were out front of my house this morning. They were just like, they're hoping to get a glimpse. Track 2:[11:41] Pitchforks? For the first two episodes? With their machetes. Yeah, Jesus. But I feel you, dude. I feel you completely. I do. There's something, not off, but like, as the listener, it just, like, you'll see it when we start talking about the song. I'll point out a few things where I'm just like, yeah, it's saying exactlywhat you just said, JDS. Track 1:[12:06] So where did you guys listen to this record the first time? Track 3:[12:09] Man, I after we last recorded I had a garage project to do and I brought a speaker out there and Got in my zone and just cranked it up and out the gates. I was like, oh this is gonna be Maybe a really fun album and then even during the first song I had I paused it several times and I was distracted and I had Things going on so I did likerestart the album and restart the album restart the album and that has not happen to me with my listenings. So, this one just out the gate for me it was like... all these things were happening but ultimately with the first song i was kind of like whoa what do i think of this it's it was i was a little bit perplexed so yeah after that of course just all thetypical stuff of how i listened to albums just all over the place i really gave this one a lot of time and at one point was like i need to hear this on vinyl i want to hear what's going on withthis album because it was a little bit different and I wasn't necessarily wanting to buy it on vinyl because it's like my favorite one yet. I don't know, I just, I was a little perplexed by this album. Track 1:[13:22] Yeah, yeah. It can be perplexing, yeah. Track 3:[13:27] I was overwhelmed. How about you, Pete? Track 2:[13:33] I did something a little different with this record which was actually good and not to my own even knowing that I was doing it. But I listened to it, I think I first listened to it was inthe car. But second of all, I did some heavy listening right off the bat and then I took a fat break because I was doing other stuff and was busy and I couldn't listen to anything. So I came back to it, revisited it and it gave me a whole new perspective on what the record, what it was, like really, really cool. I mean, it was totally unplanned, but I think when you like, when you start listening to a record and then just listen a bunch over a week straight, nonstop, or like, like regularly, you don't,you look at it one way, but when you listen to it for a bit, and then you put it down and then you come back to it, you have a different perspective than I certainly did. Track 1:[14:32] Interesting. Can't wait to hear more about that. Okay, well let's jump into track by track then. We start out with, you're not the ocean. Track 3:[14:48] Man, you're not coming in. You're not coming in. This song is, it's, well, at one point I was like, Pete's belting this out in the car for this chorus, for sure. So I was trying it too, you know. I love Gord's, whatever he does at the kind of end there. It's a big song. I thought, you know, there's a few songs on this album where I'm like, this is amazing for karaoke. And this song is just big. It's a big singer that way. Is it a breakup song? Is it about death? Or is it like drowning? I read a little bit on it. And there was a lot of Ontario Lake references. You know, it's this, this was kind of, this for me was kind of a word song talking about lots of stuff. Track 1:[15:43] They're called the Great Lakes, Tim. Track 3:[15:43] The Great Lakes, sorry. It was specific to Ontario Lake because, for this song, supposedly, because all those lakes send all their, you know, garbage down into Ontario, which is themost polluted out of the greats. So is it the least great? I don't know. It's somewhat of repetitive song. I like the piano add in. there's piano, like first song I'm hearing. Track 2:[16:08] A lot of piano on this record. Track 3:[16:09] Yeah, a lot of piano, I mean that was, I don't know if that was some Bon Jovi influence in there or something. Anyways, the guitar riff feels a little added, like, you know, like weput extra icing on the cake. Yeah, it was, this is a big song for me. Big chorus. Holy cow. Let's scream it together on three. You guys ready? Just kidding. It's a big one. It's a big opener. Track 2:[16:41] Yeah, I mean, I think this song is, the best way I can put it, summing up in a sentence, this is fastball down the middle, tragically hip. Like when I heard this song, it was just, just, I knew what I was listening to. It sounded like the hip. To me, it was like, and I didn't really dig into Bob Rock prior to the record, but it's like somebody went into the safe in Gord Downie's house, pulled out theformula that is for writing hip songs and fucking followed it and then folded it back up, put it in an envelope, put it in the safe and locked it. Because this song is fucking formulaic, tragically hip. Not in a bad way, in a really cool way. I loved it. I loved Gord's vocals. I love when he gets really high and goes like an octave up. You're not the ocean. And then he goes, you're not. It gets really, it's just, dude, yeah. Track 3:[17:42] And the wolf. Track 2:[17:42] A lot of wolves on this record, man. And it's just, it feels really like, going back to what you said about this record being a hip record personified, it feels like this record wasmanufactured to feel safe and familiar for hip fans. For people to like press play on the first one and just be like, okay, all right, my boys are back. Okay, cool. Okay, cool. Track 1:[18:11] Yeah, I can't hardly disagree with you. Like, I can't. Track 2:[18:15] Just the vibe that I got, you know. Track 3:[18:18] My vibe was kind of like, are we trying to get an older crowd? It didn't feel young to me. I don't know. Track 2:[18:27] Well, this is what, almost 20 years on, right, JD? Track 3:[18:30] Right, exactly. So, you know, fans are getting on in their years. Just hold another conversation. Yeah. The Lonely End of the Rink. So this one I thought was just remarkable in that it could be about Gord and his brother, or Gord or his brother individually, and hockey. And I mean, this is the hockey song, right? Track 1:[18:57] Yeah. Track 3:[18:57] They play the song at games? Track 1:[19:00] I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. Track 3:[19:03] Yeah. Yeah. This to me was like, you know, the bot said maybe they were too Canadian. I don't I don't know. They play hockey in different countries. Track 1:[19:10] That's right. Track 3:[19:12] But not being a hockey guy, but being a father of two dudes and thinking about brothers, I kind of dug it. The beginning kind of guitar riff start feels like we're getting into an anthem song for me right away, like that guitar at the beginning. Track 1:[19:33] Yeah, this song is written to be played live for sure. Track 3:[19:36] Yeah, the drum and the bass is just super charging. There's this echoey, Pete, if you remember, this is echoey guitar. 100%. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. So I've heard that from a few bands, but the first time, actually, Amy and I were in the car and I played the song for her and I said, what does thisechoed out guitar remind you of? Well, I don't know, because there's a few, there's a few, But she said, Duran Duran, this is from Duran Duran. Oh my God, what were these guys listening to on tour? I think they werelistening to anything and everything. I think. Track 1:[20:14] I think they were probably pretty. Track 3:[20:16] I would love to know. Track 1:[20:17] Pretty loose about what they listened to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Track 2:[20:20] My money. Track 3:[20:22] That was, what was yours? Track 2:[20:23] No, my money would be that they were, I mean, this says Unforgettable Fire by U2 written all over. Oh, completely. Unforgettable Fire, that whole, like the records just, I was, I was just like, this is, this is... Track 3:[20:39] With like a sprinkle of Robert Plant. I don't know. Track 2:[20:44] There's something else. Track 3:[20:45] There's something else here. Track 2:[20:46] But the thing that was so surprising for me on this song was the drums. Like, Johnny Faye's drums, like, I don't know if it's Bob Rock. I don't know what, but like, I mean, I knew the guy's a good drummer, but this fucking song, all of a sudden he's fucking Stuart Copeland or Neil Peart. Like, what the fuck? Like, I mean, dude, like the drum work is just ridiculous. Track 1:[21:12] He's great. Track 3:[21:13] I agree. I thought at one point the drums on this album were maybe the most raw hip. I don't know, it just that to me was kind of, thank God the drums are that way on this album. If they were polished into like a fucking Bentley or something, Bobby Rock-ish, can we call him Bobby? Track 1:[21:36] You can, you're tight. Track 3:[21:37] That might piss him off if he hears this. Yeah. But yeah, the drums on, I think, throughout were killing it on this album. Track 2:[21:46] But if JD told me, if JD told me, oh, you know, one note about this record, beside it being produced by Bob Rock, Johnny Faye does not play Jones on this. It's just, they have another genre for whatever reason. I would just be like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. Like, and it's not a knock on Johnny Faye. I've just never heard any fucking thing like this from him. Like nothing, nothing. Track 3:[22:05] Yeah. Track 2:[22:07] Nothing. Track 3:[22:08] Almost like he was angry. Do you kind of feel that? Track 2:[22:10] Oh, yeah. Track 3:[22:11] Like, yeah, like not, not hyped about the, maybe the recording process. I don't know. There There was something different on his drums. Track 2:[22:17] Yeah, dude, there's some anger in there. There's some, yeah, all the cool licks. There's an acoustic lick in there and some harpsichord-style effect. But I thought of you, Tim, because there's no, like for a song this grand, they didn't fade it. They ended it, which is cool. Track 1:[22:34] It's true. Track 2:[22:35] Don't fade this shit, man. Fuck it all up. Track 3:[22:37] The momentum of it is really fun, kind of that charging, drumming momentum of the song. It's like, a few songs on this album are kind of locomotive feeling, like they just getgoing, you know? And I think that matches up with part of, at least some, you know, a chunk of the lyrics of this song of joining, oh to join the rush, you know? With Gord's voice just kind of climbing, oh to join the rush! It's fucking great. This was, as comparatively to the prior one, this one I was like, ah, people must, the Canucks must love the song live. Track 1:[23:16] Look at you representing the Pacific Northwest. What's your team called? There's a trivia question. What's your team called? You don't even know. Track 3:[23:27] Dude, I don't follow sports. It's not in my head. Track 1:[23:30] The answer is the Kraken. The Kraken. Track 3:[23:34] I don't even know that. And it makes me laugh because it's ridiculous. You could have, you could have made up like the green zebra tomatoes. You know, I wouldn't have known any better. Track 2:[23:46] Geez. Track 1:[23:48] All right, we go way out of the hips, normal lane, with this next track in view. What did you guys think of this left turn? Track 2:[24:04] You want to take it, Tim? Track 3:[24:06] I mean, I'm just scrolling through the lyrics here. It's really simple. The drums at the beginning of this one, okay, here's more drum notes, are really kind of big and strong and then it softens up. It kind of softens up. Like the song to me, the rest of the music didn't really match the way the drums start which is I'm sure purpose I'm done on purpose but it's like whoa where is thissong shifting to it's it's like felt kind of cute there's keys in the background you know I was like phone rings once phone rings twice phone links three times you know it just felt like Is thiskind of a cash grab radio hit? What is going on here? But you know, of course, I read a little bit about it. And there's like, references to quantum physics and Plato and Gorf's, Gorf's, Gord's believe in God. So, like, is he calling on the Lord? This song confused me. I'm just, if that's not obvious by now. I just wasn't really sure. Track 2:[25:26] Everybody's confused with you now and then. Track 3:[25:30] It's super fun to get into and sing through. Track 1:[25:34] It's fun, but then those lyrics are sort of dark, aren't they? Like, I mean, I've been meaning to call you, I've been meaning to call you, then I do. So this person, for whatever reason, has been meaning to call this other person, and it hasn't called them, then finally does, and the phone ring once, phone rings twice, the phone ringsthree times, and then what? They don't answer? It goes to voicemail? Like what? Like, oh my God. Track 3:[26:04] I mean, if they were calling the Lord, they might still be waiting. Who knows? Track 2:[26:10] Yeah, I don't know that they have voicemail in heaven. I've not been there myself. Track 3:[26:16] Look at that, Jesus doesn't have an iPhone. Wouldn't that be awesome? He'd be so big. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure who they were calling or what this one's about. It's kind of fun, but I was like, eh, what's next? But what about you, Mr. P? Track 2:[26:30] I mean, was this a single, by the way, Genie? Track 1:[26:33] I believe this was. Let me just quickly take a look. Track 3:[26:37] It felt damn written. Track 1:[26:39] The first single. Yeah, I mean. Track 3:[26:41] Yeah, there you go. There you go. Track 2:[26:43] I hear you guys with the lyrics and I've been, I think at a certain point, when it comes to The Hip, I've come to appreciate their lyrics so much because Gord's great at what he does. There were a couple times early on when I was digging into lyrics, I started to give them too much weight and it started to sway my opinion of the song, which is fucking stupid becausemusic is not supposed to do that. I mean, yeah, it is in a certain way, but if you really like something and then you dig into the lyrics, like when you dig into the lyrics of the song, fucking, I'll be watching you by the policeand you really know what it's about. No one's gonna fucking like that song and play it at their wedding. It's a creepy ass song, right? But if you kind of step away from it, and you look at it in a different light, you just listen to the melody of it. It's fucking it's a beautiful song. This song is a fucking banger. It's an absolute toe tapper. I loved it. I was fucking that the fucking keyboards. [27:50] I mean, I just was Happy as a pig in shit listening to this. Yeah, I couldn't remove this perfect pop song I am a sucker for a pop song and I make no fucking bones about it man. You know, you give me a pop song That is just pure bubblegum and rock candy and I will just be like where do I sign? This is this is this is one and I just I mean, I loved, loved, loved it. Loved it. Loved it. I think Go ahead. Track 3:[28:25] No, you go. Track 2:[28:28] I was jumping into No, I just I think it's a song like this. It's easy for any hardcore hit fan to be like, fuck that they sold out or whatever. Like, he's such a fucking asshole about it. Excuse my language. But dude, you know what, if I'm any one of those fucking dudes in the band, they probably had a blast recording this. They probably had a shit ton of fun fucking playing it live, becausepeople just fucking dance to it. And it's fun. And anybody who says anything coarse about it, go fuck themselves. That's my piece. Sorry. I guess I'm fucking myself. Track 3:[29:02] So what about this? What about this? I love these lines, right? What about these lines right here? Day erasers dark of night excited states gone in plain sight under the wave or by cave light i lose things change but never in your eyes i mean that's the loaded bit of this song at the endbut you're just going through and you're it's it's nuts to me like i'm i'm hearing the song i'm singing the chorus like you can sing along to this one right even on first listen if you're a megafan you're probably like yes, phone rings once, phone rings twice. And then this Dark Eraser's Dark of Night happens, and it's like, whoa, Gord's throwing the dagger at the wheel at the end here. Track 2:[29:51] Maybe he's just getting shit to rhyme and to fit the song too. I mean, you also don't, that's why I don't, I give, unless somebody's, unless it's like really obvious or whatever, I just try not to give lyrics that much weight because it could ruin a song. I could see if I dig into the lyrics of the song, which I did not, Tim, it would've fucking ruined it for me. I just choose to be like, oh, that's, you know. It is what it is, you know, because it's that's that's another thing because Gord's lyrics are so They're like, you know 30% THC in the CBD like dude you one drop and you're fucking done. So you got to be careful with it it's really potent and And and I I I take his lyrics with a grain of salt because otherwise like all the dude the And the Chani Wenjack shit, dude, if I reallystart digging in and thinking about that, it gets me like depressed and like super pissed off and like, yeah, you know, it does bring attention to it, which is great. But like, if I can't, I can't hold that as close to my heart as I do with some songs, because it just will fucking wreck me. Track 3:[31:15] I guess I'm kind of in the middle like I look into them to a certain degree and I either go all the way, which rarely happens or I kind of stop halfway up the hill, you know, but myone of my favorite things lyrics wise on this one is just his use of the USA calling the USA, the excited states. I think that's what that is and it just made me forever want to call where I'm from the The excited states, the excited states, because it's so true. It's like pew, pew, we're ready. Track 1:[31:49] Oh my God. Track 3:[31:50] We're so excited all the time. Excited in schools, churches, everywhere we go, we're excited country. So that, I mean, it's a packed song. It's simple, but it's, yeah, let's just keep moving. Track 1:[32:05] So the next song that we have to discuss then is Fly, which is our first song that we've heard that isn't a single. Track 2:[32:17] I think this song is, the placement of it is perfect because you've got these three fucking just monsters before and then it kind of brings it down. To me, I felt like it was, I'm in a bar in Alaska. And it's cold out. But when you get inside, it's nice and warm and toasty. And there are mugs of beer and there's a jukebox. And like, it's a romantic comedy. Track 3:[32:48] A pair of glowing thighs. Track 2:[32:50] Totally, man. I'm telling you, man. Track 3:[32:53] That lyric in here is amazing. Track 2:[32:55] I know. Track 3:[32:56] Coastline rise is like a pair of glowing thighs. Track 2:[33:00] See you soon. The chorus is a fucking banger. I just felt like this song was just a feel-good song that didn't slow... like sometimes the songs that slow it down in track three or four, whenever that song comes on a record, it will maybe sometimes put you in a depressing mood or whatever, but this songbuilds up to some fun. But it just, it does take it down a notch in a very nice, beautiful way. I loved it. Yeah, not much more I could say about it. I liked it. I liked it. Tim? Timmy? Track 3:[33:37] Yeah, I just thought there was some fun one-liners in here. It's kind of, I echo what Pete just said. I felt like it was a good number four. It's the guy batting clean up and you know he's solid for a single, you know, to keep things alive. And I think that's kind of what this song is. It felt a little, this is where I went back to Bob Rock and I'm like, this is a little bit Bon Jovi-esque feeling. It just, you know, that's that was kind of about it for me. Track 2:[34:11] By the way, I think what you mean, and I'm not trying to split hairs here, I think what you mean is Jon Bon Jovi. Because if anybody knows anything, there's two things. There's Bon Jovi, which is the band, and then there's Jon Bon Jovi, which is the solo shit. I felt Jon Bon Jovi on that. Track 3:[34:30] Yeah, well, I'm just more referencing like shoulder length feathered cut hair. Track 1:[34:35] That's a lot of years you're covering there. Track 2:[34:39] Well, I mean, Blaze of Glory was by and far his finest work, his finest hour, as was the film Young Guns 2, which... I'm with you there. Track 1:[34:48] I'm with you there. A lot of the movies. It was great. Track 2:[34:54] Oh, oh, God, I gotta rewatch that. Track 1:[34:56] Let's go into the next track, which is one that I always remember from when this record came out, because I had something named the same thing that I had written. I just think, this is me tooting my own horn, but I just think that title, that misspelling with the word sick, Which is journalism speak for there's a spelling error there. It's just so clever. I love it. But what did you think of the song? Track 3:[35:26] Yeah, I mean, I did speaking of spelling errors, I did read that Gord is quoted as saying it actually wasn't supposed to be world container. It was supposed to be world contain her. Oh, really? guys yeah yeah so supposedly the the, you know the the title of this album is incorrect so maybe it's somewhat of a reference to thatyeah so was that I that keep going on the song. Track 2:[35:55] Was she put into a parcel? Because I mean, I don't know. Track 3:[36:02] I don't know. Yeah Maybe maybe maybe it's hmm. That's that's another that's another hit mystery that we'll never know wonder if she's was priority or first-class Well, she had probably would have been DHL if she was coming out ofCanada So who knows? Yeah What do I have on this one, you know, it's I I just immediately went to, where Pete doesn't go sometimes apparently with songs, is like, who is this about? Is this a proposal gone bad? Is it rejection? Is it about being infatuated with someone and not having that feeling reciprocated? And there was some bit I read about it that this... where do I have the quote? This gal from... I guess gal... Lexi Liu. Who knows? Where am I gonna go here? Okay, so this person online wrote that it was about... she had experienced that it was about a teacher of hers who was dating Gord and she rejected Gord's proposal. And supposedly there's like a whole story there about Gord's, you know, one of his relationships. So who knows? Track 1:[37:28] I've... I've not... Track 3:[37:31] I've not heard that story. You have? Track 1:[37:35] No, I haven't. Oh, you haven't? Track 3:[37:37] Okay. So that, that to me, I mean, it got to this level with this, with this song and the lyrics and the content of it. But for me, it kind of got to this level of like, all right, whether or not this one's about, you know, a breakup or what have you, it's, it's, um... it's not my favorite on the album. It's catchy and it's good. It's a good song and it ends kind of at this height of energy, right? Track 1:[38:07] Yeah, it's not around long enough to be a fan. Track 3:[38:11] Yeah, it's... Track 1:[38:11] But it's not a great song, I don't think. Now there will be somebody out there who it's their favorite song and that's cool. That's what's cool about music. Track 3:[38:23] I thought about this one. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know when I'll hear, listen to this one next is kind of what I thought it was like, what's what's next on the album, but I'm curiouswhat Pete thought of it, of course. Track 2:[38:34] You know, I liked it a lot. I mean, I thought that there was some really cool ideas, like they were kind of experimenting with with the song. And I thought that there was like, chaos within that builds up to the chorus. chorus, and then it just returns to the verse. And you're like, okay, you're like, what the fuck is this going on? What is going on? And then it comes back to the verse. And you're like, okay, all right. Yeah, we're back. Because it's a bit disorientating. And, you know, Gord's vocals on this just singing for that guy must have been so cathartic. Track 1:[39:14] Like, he really puts a lot into it. Track 2:[39:17] Yeah, but it feels like he's doing it like he's a guy who like, you know, needs to exercise three hours a day at the gym. And like, that's just him exercising three hours, and you're just like listening to him do it. Because he's like, I got to do this, it's like part of my routine. And he's so good at it. You know what I mean? Like, and, you know, I want to just, you know, we can move on after the song. I like the song. It's definitely not one of my favorites on the record, but I like it. In terms of lyrics, and I just want to say this too, because I don't look at lyrics as much, or I don't look at things, there's a couple reasons for that, and I just want to say why. [40:08] Because, well, for me, writing songs, when I write songs, it's really hard to write a song that's so thematic. You know, that's like one idea that starts off and it's sewn up at the end like a fucking with a bow on it. And like, even then it's like, like, let's say it's not completely thematic, but it's, it's about something. Maybe not like super specific. Even that's hard. Like a lot of shit I've done is just little ideas of things sprinkled in a song and it's like kind of of just jumbled in and thrown in there so sometimes people ask you about things you're likewhat and the reason why I bring that up is because when I make a Steely Dan reference here I don't know if you guys have ever listened to any other shit a lot of people give them a lot ofshit I'll take that as a no I haven't listened to an album no I'll say the same thing but I have no nothing against Steely Dan? No, well, I mean, they're amongst people, amongst music heads, they, the biggest thing they get asked is what the fuck are your lyrics about? And the guy, the singer of the band who's written most of them or the other guy had written them, they always ask the same question. What's this song about? Because the lyrics are just all over the fucking place. [41:30] And ninety nine percent of the time is just like, I don't know, man, we You are just coming up with cool shit to say. I mean really like that's and their lyrics are regarded much as you would regard something like some pixies or pavement lyrics is just like super avant-garde, super strange like what youlike, whoa, that what the fuck is that about? And then you come to find out it's like, it's just, it's just no, yeah, it's nothing. Track 3:[41:59] Well, just random journal entry. Track 2:[42:01] Yeah, totally. And that's another reason why I think I've been head faked a lot and I don't dig into to them because I will prescribe a certain. a feeling or emotion to a song and come to find out I'm fucking wrong, or it's not at all about that. Like, hence, I'll be watching you, or every breath you take, excuse me. And then you're like, fuck, man, why did I play that at my wedding? Track 3:[42:28] You know, I have to think conceptually with Gord's songwriting, like he is such a prolific songwriter. And like, back to one of your first comments be like, I thought it must be, have been, it must have been exhausting to sing these songs or like be on tour and singing classic, you know, 52times in what, two months? Something crazy? Like, god damn. But with his songwriting skills, I mean, I can stop and hear one-liners that are fun and that I enjoy, but he pushes me, the way I receive it, it pushes me into going down rabbit holes of like,what was this song about? And there's been a few where I've listened to him and thought the chorus was, you know, A, B, C, D, E, and I actually look up the lyrics and I have some of the words wrong. It's hilarious. And I love when stuff like that happens. Like, that's entertaining. That's entertaining for me. Track 1:[43:30] That's great. Track 2:[43:31] Excuse me, excuse me while I kiss this guy. Track 3:[43:34] I'm still, I'm still, you know, JD, you've, you've commented on this with me before, but I'm still like, here's an album. It's like a book to me. I want to hear it start to finish and see if there's anything about it that's creating this novel. Or is it like this current album, which I feel like you can put in and put onrandom and it kind of doesn't matter. Order wise, it's one of those types of albums for me. So this song, Lovesick, in general, it's big, and it has this kind of a quick stop ending. It's got a lot of energy to it. After this, I was like, OK, what are we getting to next? I'm kind of like chugging along in this album, trying to get to what maybe is less produce of a feelingand more authentic hip. Track 1:[44:28] But the kids don't get it. Kids don't get it. Track 2:[44:30] Kids don't. Track 3:[44:30] That was it. That was it. It's a fun start. It's got a good build. There's like, quickly into it, there's this, I think, Pete, I don't know if you caught this. I think it might be a drumstick on top of a cymbal. Track 2:[44:47] Yeah, yeah. Like doing a swirl. Track 3:[44:48] Yeah. Right? It's like a swirl sound and then it fades off. I love that shit. I don't want that all the time. I feel like that's the surprise ingredient on a pizza, but there's that sound in this song a few times and it's fucking cool. You know, it's like, yeah, the kids don't get it, I was thinking. We're Gen X, you know, we get it. We were born without technology and we've integrated and we know both sides and that's what this song's about. Generations growing up just being in the middle of it and not getting it and all the hard work this band does and yeah the kids don't get it. But then as I listened to this song probably 20 times I thought, nah, Gord's smarter than me. what is he thinking about with this song, you know? And it felt more like anti-government, like you're not gonna fool us sentiment, which kind of made it even more, for lack of a better word, more punk rock feeling. Like this song was checking and way more boxes for me. Lots of whoos in it, you know, it just, this one is like Bobby Rock left the room and the guys busted out this song. That's the way it felt for me. Track 1:[46:16] Oh, I love it. I love that. And I love it especially because there's almost like a dichotomy of a lyric In this song kids don't get it and the next song, pretend. I think it's. Track 2:[46:36] Oh, there is. There certainly is. Track 1:[46:39] It's that, if I ask you a question, are you gonna lie to me? I said, honey, is that your question? Cause that one's easy. And then we get the, you know, that, that, that. Version of it is the banger version you know and the other version is a little more tone down but top heat what did you think of the kids don't get it. Track 2:[47:01] Well that was the first thing i wrote about pretend obviously but in terms of the kids don't get it i loved it i mean i echo much of what tim said i love the chorus the no. Kids don't get it. The woos in this song, Gord's singing like, he's like a, he's like a fucking pissed off buffalo. You ever seen a buffalo before? Track 1:[47:22] Yeah, driven. Track 3:[47:24] Driven by him. Track 2:[47:26] I was one of those assholes. Track 3:[47:27] They're as big as Volkswagens. Track 2:[47:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, they're huge. Track 3:[47:32] You're one of the assholes? Track 2:[47:33] No, I was one of the assholes that gets out of the car at Custer National Park and, you know, walks over to one. and thinks like, oh, this is cool. Take a picture. And no, that's a fucking dumb move. For anybody listening, thinking that that's cool, or that's ever something to do, don't do it. It's fucking stupid. Track 1:[47:56] To be fair, the buffalo was having dinner. He said to you very politely, if you had waited till I was done dinner, I would have totally let you have the photo. But now I'm gonna tohave to run after you like a pissed off buffalo. Track 2:[48:11] Just said fucking that is the first memory that jogged my mind when I heard Gord's fucking grunts in this song. I feel like he, I want to watch more interviews with him. I really want to dig deep. I just haven't had time. But I want to figure out like, one, whether or not anything Tim has said throughout this his pod in terms of lyrics and meanings, like I know a lot of it has credence to him. But maybe some of it doesn't and like what he thought about it, because I feel like a lot of his words, he just writes down his poetry. And then he shows up to the studio is like, Hey, guys, let's do the song or let's make this song or whatever. Track 3:[48:52] I think he does that, too. I totally agree. Track 2:[48:54] But like, I wonder how much part of it he's sitting down with an acoustic guitar, and like working, working songs out with the lyrics he's written, because that's a whole anotherprocess, you know, to like write a bunch of shit and then to write chords. Like you got you got fucking Paul A. Wan and Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker to do that. You know, so I'm I'm just wondering, you know, what that is. And then if he was Scott, I wish he was fucking alive, man. I would love to fucking interview that guy or just talk to him and just be like, dude, what the fuck? And either I feel like therewould be two scenarios. Either he would be super fucking cool and chill, like, yeah, man, we're just fucking doing this and like this and like this happened, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or he would just like, look at me and be like, you're a feeble minded fuck. I can't wait for this interview to be over, get the fuck out of here. Track 3:[49:51] I think that's what he'd say about me. Track 1:[49:53] No, I don't know. Track 2:[49:55] Probably, probably. You're more nuanced than I am. But I just. Track 3:[49:59] He'd be like, Tim, you're about 16% right on the themes of my lyrics. And that's what I would love. I mean, that's what I love about this guy. I mean, he's obviously so fucking prolific. I wish I had like a book of his poetry sitting right here. Because, you know, he's one of those artists where you get served up something. And everybody, I think, could take their music a little bit differently but have this thread throughout it that joins all the fans together. You know, it's kind of... It's kind of what's amazing about them. And in that regard, who the fuck cares if he was writing about Canadian themes and the discussion of why they didn't make it in Orange County? Track 1:[50:47] Whatever. Track 3:[50:49] It's kind of like, who cares? How many bands not from Japan sell out shows in Japan all the time? They just want to be entertained. and maybe people just need to be entertained and not look into it that much. Track 2:[51:06] That's Stan McKe- That's Stan McKe- I- Stan- Stan McKeta? Or no, his name's not Stan McKeta, but Stan McKeta's Donuts. The people need to entertain, need to be entertained, Wayne. They need the distraction. Like the voices in my head. I thought you said- Why do they come to me to die? Why do they come to me to die? Oh my god. Oh my god. That's- You know, anybody- Wayne's World, like when he goes, why did they come to me to die? Why did they come to me to die? I think it's Wayne's World, too. Track 3:[51:42] Honestly, I thought you said spanakopita. I was just thinking about delicious, delicious Greek baked goods. I was totally in a different land. No, but I, I, let's, let's keep moving this, this song when I heard it, it was exhausting and it was the first song I hit forward on who was like, give me what's next. Yeah. Pretend. If you don't pretend and I don't pretend, pretending might end, but pretend can pretend to end. It's like, oh, this is arduous. This was tough for me. Track 1:[52:22] Wow. Track 2:[52:24] Yeah. J.D., what do you think? I'd love to like, as a hardcore hip. Track 1:[52:29] Well, it meanders. It certainly does meander. If I'm ranking the 11 songs on the record, it's in the bottom 10, right? It's either 10 or 11 on this record for me. But I'm just so curious. I'm so curious about that stanza, like why he chose to use it again, and then why did they sequence those songs back to that? Track 2:[53:00] Totally, right? Track 3:[53:02] I don't know. I don't know. love to know if they, you know, what level they took part in the production of this album. Track 1:[53:12] Did they just hand the keys over? At this point they were very fluent in studio, so I don't know that they get a production credit. Let me quickly look. Usually they do. Track 3:[53:22] I mean, this one I thought at one point after, you know, I did of course listen to it in complete, but... Track 1:[53:29] No, this is producer Bob Rock, period. And most of their other records, even when it was like Steve Berlin. It was like Steve Berlin, the tragically hip Mark Freak, or something like that. So this is, this is interesting. This is straight up Bob Rock. Huh. Okay. Track 3:[53:50] I had thought like the three of us need to do karaoke of this one so we can be like arm and arm I'm just shit-faced. Track 1:[53:58] Pretend? Track 3:[54:00] Yeah. Track 1:[54:01] Oh my gosh. Track 3:[54:02] I think we should pretend to do it and not actually do it. This is a total sing with friends, ironically singing with friends song. It's like a really nice glass of red wine or made me think of like plush velvet. I don't know what the fuck is happening. It's the song's candlelit and I don't know why it makes me feel that way. And it was like, skip, oh, it was tough. Track 2:[54:28] Yeah, I thought it was, I said, it feels like a love song in a fine dining restaurant during Sunday brunch. Yes, Sunday brunch. Track 3:[54:39] See, we were fine dining together. Track 2:[54:41] No, I mean, it doesn't feel, it feels like another band or like, now Gord's singing, And I know Gord had some soul stuff that he did. before he passed, but it definitely feels like, oh, this is not a hip song. This is some of the solo stuff. There's jazz guitar in there, which I gotta say, man, I mean, it speaks to Rob Baker's skills, man, because that guy fucking, I mean, he makes it sound good. The chorus feels really 70s, almost like there's a- AM radio. Track 1:[55:19] Yeah. Track 2:[55:19] Yeah. And there's something that they do with Gord's vocals in there. It's a 70s style thing that came about in the 70s, I feel. But Scott Weiland from Stone Doole Bynes was popular for it. It's where they double the vocals. They take literally I don't he doesn't re-record the vocals. They take the same vocal track, they double it And then they put it like they put the one track offset by like a millisecond to the other. So it sounds more full and rich. And they put put them in in one left, one right. And it sounds like gives this really weird, unique effect. And Wyland, Scott Wyland was prolific for that. But but, yeah, it's got that vibe to it. Fucking random. That's all I have to say about this song. Track 3:[56:12] It's like having two turbos on your car when you record like that, when you produce like that. Track 2:[56:16] It's like having 11 on your amp. Track 1:[56:17] Yeah. Track 3:[56:19] But why not make 10? 10 the loudest. With the lyrics of this one, when I finally, you know, let it, when I finally absorbed it really, because again, I skipped it on first listen, Um, I,you know, maybe this is like a fucking, maybe they were pretending, I don't know. Maybe the band, you know, maybe the band in their, in their career, maybe they're in their career at this point. I mean, I'd be exhausted and to a degree with trying to make it bigger than they are now. It's like, you're in the industry, you are a fucking... When you don't like it, you might be feeling like a marionette, you know? This is big, giant business happening with this band's career, and this is one of those songs maybe they have todo. Track 1:[57:16] Wow. I mean... Track 3:[57:18] Yeah. Track 1:[57:20] Let's move on because I don't dislike the song so much that I'm willing to beat it into a pulp. No, no. Track 2:[57:30] I don't know. Track 3:[57:31] I'm sorry to offend all the Canadians. Track 2:[57:33] I want to make one more quick point real quick. And this is not really about the song, but about the band. And I'll be really brief. My apologies. But to what Tim said about the band. No, no, no, really. This is the band, you know, being exhausted in this night. You have to think this is 2007 right? These guys have been at it 20 years right? They could fucking quit at any time in terms of like probably set money wise. I mean maybe they're not fucking living in, they got three different mansions but I would posit to think that every member of this band is not worrying about where they're going to gettheir next fucking meal. [58:13] Okay, yeah, they were when they did the 100% so That being said though This is a time where things were like through the 2000s, you know up through 2000 early 2002 thingswere like Record sales and all that stuff. They were making a shit ton of money and then think about this time though, man music and Streaming was coming up sales for records tanked, all that money, all that revenue thatpeople were used to just disappeared. And so I would imagine to think that this band went through a bit of a come to Jesus so to speak, and was like... I guess we do. I mean, maybe they're not thinking we got to break into the American market like every fucking Canadian thinks, or we think thinks. But like they're thinking we got to fucking 

I was invited to record You're Welcome at a Art Gallery opening for a realistic sex exhibit, but I had taken shelter in the summer air, because the inside of the pop up gallery literally smelled like the inside of an ovary. This was due to the lack of air conditioning in a alphabet city basement that was stuffed to the gills with 100 super quaffed/perfumed fashion week model/actor types all wearing Amish hats. My girlfriend described the smell as "mangey minge" I thought it smelled like the inside of an otter's pocket. I must say it lent a realistic atmosphere to huge paintings of double penetrated v's. ANYWAY as I was cooling off, and I see this wonderful man, who could have been a character in Zoolander, with what I thought was a hilarious fashion Snork Snorkel so obviously I forced him to come share what the deviled egg was going on. Basically he's a super lovely Cyborg who no longer identifies as human, and he's launching a campaign to open the first Cyborg Institute to help others use the same technology to enhance their lives. I don't know whether I'm happy about this or not. I actually can't imagine anything worse than having a device installed in my head that would make me love Times Square. There will be no limit to where this goes once it gets started. I for one am an analog girl living in a digital world. I want less and less technology. But as cars become driverless, computers get put in front of our eyes, porn becomes 3D through oculus rift, sex dolls get heartbeats, google launches balloons to blanket the world with free Wifi...I guess I wave the white flag. Pretty soon i'm going to have to move into a log cabin get a shot gun and start muttering to myself about the good old days when I had to wait hours for Kazaa to download Space Hog. The most exciting porn I when I was young was a gold leafed Kama Sutra book in my parents room. I am scared to have children. I just can't imagine what this stuff is doing to kids brains. Instant access to the entire cess pool of human collective wants and imagination? Get ready everyone, it's all happening, and it's happening FAST. Check out all his work: https://www.cyborgarts.com/neil-harbisson Read my burner guide voted #1 kid tested mother NOT approved by all burning man here! www.zoenightingale.com  Music credit: Mr. Roboto - STYX One More Robot - Flaming Lips

Remember when music players really whipped the Llama's ass? Remember when peer to peer software made Lars Ulrich cry in agony in his mansion? Well Checkered Past remembers! Rob, Celine and Joey get down and dirty listening back to the songs from the early 00's that no one properly gave credit to the correct artist and try to figure out what went wrong in the days before streaming, google and non-dialup internet. It's another MiSKAllaneous: MiSKAttributed! Take that SEO!Hosts: Celine, Rob and JoeyEngineer: JoeyEditor: JoeySkassociate Producer: Chris Reeves of Ska Punk InternationalMerch: www.checkeredpast.ca/merchPatreon: www.patreon.com/checkeredpastThis episode is sponsored by BlendJet!Use our special link CHECKERED12 to save 12% at blendjet.com [https://blendjet.com/products/blendjet-2?variant=32478639390786&ref=zencastr.ghost.io]. The discount will be applied at checkout!

The race to create advanced AI is becoming a suicide race. That's part of the thinking behind the open letter from the Future of Life Institute which "calls on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4".In this episode, our guest, Jaan Tallinn, explains why he sees this pause as a particularly important initiative.In the 1990s and 20-noughts, Jaan led much of the software engineering for the file-sharing application Kazaa and the online communications tool Skype. He is also known as one of the earliest investors in DeepMind, before they were acquired by Google.More recently, Jaan has been a prominent advocate for study of existential risks, including the risks from artificial superintelligence. He helped set up the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) in 2012 and the Future of Life Institute (FLI) in 2014.Follow-up reading:https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/https://www.cser.ac.uk/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_TallinnTopics addressed in this episode include:*) The differences between CSER and FLI*) Do the probabilities for the occurrence of different existential risks vary by orders of magnitude?*) The principle that "arguments screen authority"*) The possibility that GPT-6 will be built, not by humans, but by GPT-5*) Growing public concern, all over the world, that the fate of all humanity is, in effect, being decided by the actions of just a small number of people in AI labs*) Two reasons why FLI recently changed its approach to AI risk*) The AI safety conference in 2015 in Puerto Rico was initially viewed as a massive success, but it has had little lasting impact*) Uncertainty about a potential cataclysmic event doesn't entitle people to conclude it won't happen any time soon*) The argument that LLMs (Large Language Models) are an "off ramp" rather than being on the road to AGI*) Why the duration of 6 months was selected for the proposed pause*) The "What about China?" objection to the pause*) Potential concrete steps that could take place during the pause*) The FLI document "Policymaking in the pause"*) The article by Luke Muehlhauser of Open Philanthropy, "12 tentative ideas for US AI policy"*) The "summon and tame" way of thinking about the creation of LLMs - and the risk that minds summoned in this way won't be able to be tamed*) Scenarios in which the pause might be ignored by various entities, such as authoritarian regimes, organised crime, rogue corporations, and extraordinary individuals such as Elon Musk and John Carmack*) A meta-principle for deciding which types of AI research should be paused*) 100 million dollar projects become even harder when they are illegal*) The case for requiring the pre-registration of largescale mind-summoning experiments*) A possible 10^25 limit on the number of FLOPs (Floating Point Operations) an AI model can spend*) The reactions by AI lab leaders to the widescale public response to GPT-4 and to the pause letter*) Even Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google/Alphabet, has called for government intervention regarding AI*) The hardware overhang complication with the pause*) Not letting "the perfect" be "the enemy of the good"*) Elon Musk's involvement with FLI and with the pause letter*) "Humanity now has cancer"Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

Nathan Labenz dives in with Jaan Tallinn, a technologist, entrepreneur (Kazaa, Skype), and investor (DeepMind and more) whose unique life journey has intersected with some of the most important social and technological events of our collective lifetime. Jaan has since invested in nearly 180 startups, including dozens of AI application layer companies and some half dozen startup labs that focus on fundamental AI research, all in an effort to support the teams that he believes most likely to lead us to AI safety, and to have a seat at the table at organizations that he worries might take on too much risk. He's also founded several philanthropic nonprofits, including the Future of Life Institute, which recently published the open letter calling for a six-month pause on training new AI systems. In this discussion, we focused on: - the current state of AI development and safety -Jan's expectations for possible economic transformation - what catastrophic failure modes worry him most in the near term - How big of a bullet we dodged with the training of GPT-4 - Which organizations really matter for immediate-term pause purposes - How AI race dynamics are likely to evolve over the next couple of years RECOMMENDED PODCAST: The HR industry is at a crossroads. What will it take to construct the next generation of incredible businesses – and where can people leaders have the most business impact? Hosts Nolan Church and Kelli Dragovich have been through it all, the highs and the lows – IPOs, layoffs, executive turnover, board meetings, culture changes, and more. With a lineup of industry vets and experts, Nolan and Kelli break down the nitty-gritty details, trade offs, and dynamics of constructing high performing companies. Through unfiltered conversations that can only happen between seasoned practitioners, Kelli and Nolan dive deep into the kind of leadership-level strategy that often happens behind closed doors. Check out the first episode with the architect of Netflix's culture deck Patty McCord. https://link.chtbl.com/hrheretics LINKS REFERENCED IN THE EPISODE: Future of Life's open letter: https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/ Eliezer Yudkowsky's TIME article: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/ Podcast: Daniela and Dario Amodei on Anthropic- https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/daniela-and-dario-amodei-on-anthropic/id1170991978?i=1000552976406 Zvi on the pause: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/on-the-fli-ai-risk-open-letter TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) Episode Preview (1:30) Jaan's impressive entrepreneurial career and his role in the recent AI Open Letter (3:26) AI safety and Future of Life Institute (6:55) Jaan's first meeting with Eliezer Yudkowsky and the founding of the Future of Life Institute (13:00) Future of AI evolution (15:55) Sponsor: Omneky (17:20) Jaan's investments in AI companies (24:22) The emerging danger paradigm (28:10) Economic transformation with AI (33:48) AI supervising itself (35:23) Language models and validation (40:06) Evolution, useful heuristics, and lack of insight into selection process (43:13) Current estimate for life-ending catastrophe (46:09) Inverse scaling law (54:20) Our luck given the softness of language models (56:24) Future of Language Models (1:01:00) The Moore's law of mad science (1:03:02) GPT-5 type project (1:09:00) The AI race dynamics (1:11:00) AI alignment with the latest models (1:14:31) AI research investment and safety (1:21:00) What a six month pause buys us (1:27:01) AI's Turing Test Passing (1:29:33) AI safety and risk (1:33:18) Responsible AI development. (1:41:20) Neuralink implant technology

April Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week, we're venturing west from Ghana along the coast to Sierra Leone by way of the US to settle here in Accra. My guest, Joannes “Joe” Hotagua is a Sierra Leonian-American, Strategic Advisor with 16 years of professional experience helping startups monetize their digital assets and Fortune 500 brands reach their target customers through digital media advertising. He's a modern-day iteration of the Ad Man. Early in his career, Joe was responsible for using email marketing and affiliate advertising to drive product purchases and lead generation for direct-to-consumer companies. In 2012, he began his investment career by personally investing in PeepsOut, a minority-run Livestream mobile app, allowing users to see the crowd size at bars and restaurants in real time. At its peak, there were 90 restaurants and bars (in two cities) on the service, and $350K was raised in funding. His current business, based in Freetown, focuses on improving the lives of underrepresented and underserved populations and operates in four sectors: African Startup Advisory, African Film Production, E-commerce, and Real Estate. Joe's e-commerce platform, Authentic African, is both an e-commerce store and social media broadcast. The e-commerce mission is to connect the diaspora with their African roots through African handmade products while helping local African entrepreneurs build their businesses internationally. The @Authentic_African social media broadcast delivers history, news, and culture to the African diaspora. This conversation was another great opportunity to reflect on the shared mission many of us African content creators have around manifesting a new Africa, a new world. Where to find Joannes? On LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhotagua/) On Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jhotagua/) On Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/JoeHotagua/) On Twitter (https://twitter.com/jhotagua) On YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@AuthenticAfrican) On TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@authentic__african) What's Joannes reading? Clash of Civilizations (https://a.co/d/dm2qagW) by Samuel P. Huntington Sapiens (https://a.co/d/3khXTum) by Yuval Noah Harari The Silk Roads: New History of the World (https://a.co/d/dKNFoci) by Peter Frankopan Silk Road (https://a.co/d/1t5BUXH) by Eileen Ormsby American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road (https://a.co/d/hENQJ16) by Nick Bilton Other topics of interest: Lungi, Sierra Leone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungi,_Sierra_Leone) About Sierra Leone's Mende and Mandingo people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Sierra_Leone) Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krio_language) On Ebonics (https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/what-ebonics-african-american-english) On Pidgin languages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin) About Roc-A-Fella Records (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc-A-Fella_Records) Kazaa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazaa), LimeWire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimeWire) and the evolution of MP3 streaming platforms (https://www.muvi.com/blogs/evolution-online-audio-streaming.html) On Programmatic Advertising (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-programmatic-advertising/462655/#close) Boomerang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_(1992_film)), the film On Frederick W. Smith of Fed Ex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._Smith) Special Guest: Joannes Hotagua.

Escape with your part-time friends Gemini, Brian, Burrito, and Arthur as they discuss “pumping”, a parking lot staredown, calling dibs at a long pig feast, downloading music, a mystery lottery winner, harem anime, odd news, Nippon news, and what The Burrito Bandito had for lunch. Double X Quantimino Pump Us Versus Youts, a Target parking lot staredown A Long Pig Feast - Which piece(s) are you calling dibs? Napster, Morpheus, Kazaa, Soulseek, et al: the pirated music downloaded services that left us with different impressions of albums that shaped us Wishful thinking - lottery winnings windfall and how it would affect you - commentary on news story: Mystery lottery winner in cartoon costume: Chinese man who won US$30.6 million jackpot keeps windfall secret so family won't become conceited “A man in southern China who won just under 220 million yuan (US$30.6 million) in the lottery said he had not told his wife and child because he was worried the money could make them arrogant and lazy.” Harem This Is The Newz NASCAR racer stuns crowd, uses video game-inspired technique to qualify for championship 1959 Chevy Corvette Seized by Police Returned to Owner After 5 Years With $28K in Damage We're naming our baby after a restaurant chain - people say he'll be bullied Ex-Heavyweight Boxer Charged After $1B Cocaine Haul Seized Scientists Finally Learned More About the Clitoris Food that looks like family: Michigan mom makes hilarious meatloaf resembling her son 484 pounds of bologna and 285 pounds of cheese seized at the Texas border, feds say Convicted USF medical services accountant claims nearly half of stolen $12.8M went to ‘webcam' girlfriend Coal spills along Kansas highway after semi rollover Burrrito's Nippon Newz Personal information of everyone in Amagasaki City lost by person who passed out drunk on street Ruling reached in lawsuit between 7-Eleven Japan, rogue owner who didn't stay open 24 hours a day Burger King Japan offering all-you-can-eat quadruple cheeseburgers What The Burrito Bandito Had For Lunch Deepfake Sponsors: Julio Tejas, Booba Gettz The Crazy One, Thicccum Farmz Slam City Radio 24/7 x https://slamcity.co/scr247/

Episode 169 Notes and Links to Justin Tinsley's Work       On Episode 169 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes  Justin Tinsley, and the two discuss, among other things, Justin's formative and transformative experiences with reading powerful works like The Autobiography of Malcolm X and by masters who combined sports and culture/politics, his wonderful experiences at Hampton University, his learned love of storytelling from his beloved grandmother, the Blog and Kazaa (!) eras, working on a wide variety of stories for Andscape and ESPN, his life-changing experiences with standout mentors and colleagues like Danyel Smith and Tony Reali, the surreal experiences associated with being a panelist on Around the Horn, and Christopher Wallace and The Notorious B.I.G. and the macro and micro that affected his life and legacy and were affected by his life and legacy.      Justin Tinsley is the author of It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him, and Host of ESPN's 30 For 30 Nipsey Hussle original podcast, The King of Crenshaw. He is Sports and Culture Senior Reporter at Disney's Andscape and weekly guest on ESPN's Around the Horn. Buy It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World that Made Him   Justin Tinsley's Website   Listen to The King of Crenshaw Podcast Series on Nipsey Hussle At about 1:50, Justin responds to Pete's questions about his familial and writerly inspirations, and Justin    At about 5:20, Justin shares an interesting story about his unforgettable and generative conversations with the “phenomenal” Craig Hodges, and Pete and Justin discuss the power of The Jordan Rules    At about 9:40, Justin discusses some of the most formative writers and writing in his life, including the “important” The Autobiography of Malcolm X and work by Ralph Wiley, Danyel Smith and Elliott Wilson   At about 13:25, Justin shouts out his friend and contemporary David Dennis, Jr., and his powerful book and writing   At about 14:15, Justin speaks to the powerful ways in which Hampton University and Historically Black Colleges (HBCUs) have influenced him and enhanced his life, including the “most important class [he] ever took at Hampton”   At about 17:00, Justin talks about his days in the “Kazaa Era” and his work in curating music for friends and followers    At about 19:25, Justin discusses his time at ESPN, starting in 2015, being hired by Jason Whitlock, and his work with The Undefeated (which later became Andscape)   At about 21:50, Justin talks about an incredible story regarding Marvin Gaye's Detroit Lions' tryout   At about 24:55, Justin gives a moving backstory regarding drives with his grandmother and what he means by the tagline on his website: “Drawing sophisticated parallels between culture and sport”   At about 28:40, Justin gives background on his beginnings on Around the Horn and how he balances being in awe of the show that has been a lifelong favorite and his own performance on the show   At about 30:50, Justin describes the greatness of Tony Reali and gives background on how Tony helped Justin start with the show, and the talent from Here for It, including Monica McNutt   At about 35:40, Justin and Pete discuss more of what makes the show great, including the lack of points that come with the serious topics   At about 38:45, Pete notes how Justin has gotten some life-changing emails and phone calls, which Justin uses to give backstory on seeds for his book on The Notorious B.I.G.   At about 42:25, Justin relates how the pandemic affected the research for his book on Biggie   At about 43:50, Justin recounts some writing advice that helped him broaden his subject matter for the book   At about 46:45, Pete shares the profound line that Christopher Wallace said in his last recorded interview that informed Justin's writing and is described in the book's Introduction    At about 48:45, Justin and Pete reflect on the extreme youth of Biggie and Tupac and ideas of “what might have been”   At about 51:20, Justin talks about the memories of Christopher Wallace and talking with people who still have a lifelong heartbreak, including Chico del Vec's    At about 54:00, Justin discusses the moving last chapter of the book that deals with CJ Wallace, Christopher Wallace, Jr.   At about 56:50, Pete notes the true appreciation and respect for Voletta Wallace, and how Justin so aptly wrote a nuanced book that reflected both macro and micro and the book's subtitle   At about 58:30, Justin reflects on the profundity of the mural anecdote mentioned in the book, especially profound as it involves DJ 50 Grand and his recent sad death   At about 1:01:40, Pete brings some “lightning-round” questions, including questions    At about 1:02:50, Pete shouts a friend out and is wowed by a real-life reference    At about 1:05:30, Pete sums up the greatness of the book and connects it back to the guiding quote from Christopher Wallace   At about 1:06:20, Justin reads a passage from the book that serves as a sort of summation of the book, in that it neither glorifies nor assails him-on Page 321    At about 1:10:00, Justin shouts out places to buy his book, Books-a-Million   At about 1:11:00, Justin talks about future projects and ideas   At about 1:13:05, Justin gives out social media-jtinsley86 is his TikTok    You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.    Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl     Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    NEW MERCH! You can browse and buy here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChillsatWillPodcast    This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.   Please tune in for Episode 170 with Richard T. Rodríguez, a Renaissance Man and Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of A KISS ACROSS THE OCEAN  from Duke Press, and Dr. Ricky on the Radio at KUCR, 88.3FM    The episode will air on March 14.

Jaan Tallinn is one of the founding engineers of Skype and the file-sharing service Kazaa. He's also a co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the Future of Life Institute. Auren and Jaan discuss the trajectory of artificial intelligence and the existential risks it could present to humanity. Jann talks about the prevailing attitudes towards risk in AI research and what needs to change in order get aligned, safe AI. Jaan and Auren also talk about how Jaan's native Estonia has become one of the most tech-forward societies in Europe. World of DaaS is brought to you by SafeGraph. For more episodes, visit safegraph.com/podcasts.You can find Auren Hoffman on Twitter at @auren and‍ Jaan Tallinn's work on YouTube and at the Centre for Existential Risk and the Future of Life Institute. 

On Episode 122 we're going back to NYC circa 2000-2005, where mix show radio dominated the airwaves. Where clan's, posse's, crew's and clik's peaked with G-Unit, Dipset, D-Block, Terror Squad, Ruff Ryders, Murder Inc and The Roc. This was fresh-off the Nas and Jay-Z battle, when NYC was thriving again and when a kid named Justin Smith completely changed the game. Justin Smith aka Just Blaze went on to produce more hit records than any other hip-hop producer during this time. I can't stress this enough, but before there was Kanye West, there was Just Blaze. There also was no bigger artist than 50 Cent. He wasn't just big in music, he was internally known with every major corporation for his undeniable charisma, street anthems and fashion. And speaking of fashion, remember the oversized white tees? How about Mitchell & Ness jerseys? You also had to have a fresh pair of Tims and white Air Force 1's. Who could forget those gaudy Canal Street watches we wanted to pass-off as Jacobs? We may have lacked self-awareness in fashion but we definitely can acknowledge the incredible music to come out of this era. Whether you bumped Hot 97, Kiss or Power or downloaded joints off Napster, Limewire or Kazaa, you knew special this time was. We gotta thank to Nas, Jadakiss, Killa Cam, 50, Mobb Deep, Jay-Z, Ghostface, Fabulous, Black Rob, M.O.P., Ja, Styles P and Fat Joe for giving NYC back their sound. This show is a homage NYC mix show and because we're always trying to find a balance like Atmosphere, our next episode we're giving you our college radio edition. Think of Non Phixion, D.I.T.C., Freddie Foxxx, Screwball, Wee Bee Foolish, El-P and J-Live. Think Fat Beats, A-1 and Turntable Lab. Think of the joints you copped off Sandboxautomatic and HipHopSite. Think of the message board era of Okayplayer, HipHopInfinity, UGHH and the best of all, the Philaflava forums. We are going to give you the ultimate yin and yang that NYC hip-hop had to offer during these great times. Enjoy episode 122. www.takeitpersonalradio.com Follow us on Instagram @takeitpersonal Online store: https://take-it-personal.creator-spring.com/ (enter Win25 for 25% off) Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TakeItPersonal

Renée Yoxon is a trans non-binary singer, songwriter, jazz musician, and trans voice teacher. In this episode, Renee shares some beautiful and inspiring performances from their albums, as well as stories from life as a disabled person and how their disability and chronic pain has guided the direction of their career. We talk about their musical development, and their experiences both bad and good as they navigated their musical education (after finishing a degree in physics!). Renée explains the kind of work they do with trans vocal exploration and we dive into all kinds of topics in the usual tangential style of this series. The transcript and video are linked here: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/rene-yoxon Please consider supporting this series and get access to some cool and unique perks: https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman Renée Yoxon website: https://www.reneeyoxon.com/ photo: Laurence Philomène podcast theme music: Nick Kold Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:01:21) Renée's physics degree, start in school band, Jazz Works camp (00:04:19) free improv group, intergenerational friendships (00:06:38) intro to “Willow Weep for Me” by Ann Ronell (00:08:53) “Willow Weep for Me” with René Gely (00:13:57) piano, ukulele (00:15:26) “Beautiful Alchemy”, film with Teagan Lance and album (00:17:14) “Terrible Alchemy” (00:23:19) Blossom Dearie (00:23:52) worldless improv (00:24:37) studies in New York, living as a disabled person, vocal technique (00:29:33) singing in rock band “Gorgeous George”, care of the voice and endurance training (00:32:20) trans voice aleration, TikTok success, pitch lowering, taking risks and learning to be silly (00:40:14) gender presentation and gender identity (00:42:35) ways we can alter the voice (00:45:09) different languages in terms of vocal alteration, vocal fry and gendered cutural coding for vocal characteristics (00:47:52) TikTok (00:49:22) teaching Trans Voice Alteration to other teachers (00:51:45) the importance of teaching business skills to musicians, University of Limerick, Edel Meade (00:55:58) Banff, McGill, growing up in Ottawa, the importance of mentors, Mark Ferguson, René Gely (01:00:29) social anxiety, speaking in public with a different voice or new language (01:02:38) different people who take Renée's courses on voice alteration (01:03:18) songwriting, Aoife McAtamney Pink Breath (01:04:27) “Drinking Coffee” (01:08:58) songs “The Bad Years” about their chronic illness (01:10:27) Kazaa music sharing, learning jazz repertoire (01:12:53) Renée's perspective on the music industry as a disabled person, and experiences at McGill university with lack of accessibility (01:17:46) Mx non-binary honorific, the importance of pronouns (01:20:32) disability rights, more about their McGill experience (01:22:45) Montreal --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/leah-roseman/message

Phil is partner at major deep tech venture capital firm Main Sequence Ventures, where he focuses on health, food, and environmental companies and leads the Feed 10 Billion People challenge. Prior to Main Sequence, Phil co-founded the first tech incubator in Asia Pacific, Pollenizer, and was the CTO of file-sharing company Kazaa.

On this episode! Drew and Jerrod discuss the era of file sharing; Napster, Kazaa, Limewire and Frostwire. The boys take a trip through the progression of the digital era and how we ended up with streaming services. The Fellas also discuss Metro Boomin's new Heroes vs. Villains and Babyface Ray's album Mob. The Lions are finally unleashing Wide Receiver Rookie sensation Jameson Williams, so of course we share our thoughts on him. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @2HipHopSenseis.a.casual and be sure to subscribe to our new YouTube page! We Love any and all feedback! If you REALLY loyal, be sure to tell a friend to tell a friend to listen to the Podcast!

Jared, Oriana and Ned continue our own epic trilogy with a look at our collective choice of topic: Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers. Turning 20 years old this month, The Two Towers built on the success of the previous year's The Fellowship of the Ring, becoming another holiday blockbuster and continuing the overall story, as well as introducing the wider world to a variety of striking performances, among them Bernard Hill as Theoden, Miranda Otto as Eowyn and most famously and indelibly, Andy Serkis's compelling performance as Gollum, further interpreted by the Weta digital effects team to bring the character to life as an animation. All three of us have our own distinct memories and experiences of watching it for the first time and we've seen it any number of times since, but returning to it as a standalone film – as with our previous Fellowship episode, we went back to the original theatrical cut – made something clear to us: it's not all that great. Many different moments are absolutely indelible as already noted and there's no way something like The Rings of Power can even come close to it, but compared to the absolute triumph of Jackson's Fellowship, his Two Towers is the odd one out of the series as a whole. What about the structure of the story as adapted, filmed and edited meant that this might have always been the weak center of the sequence? What moments in particular are absolutely perfect – and what decisions are baffling then and now? Exactly how much Helm's Deep did there have to be in the first place – and do all the decisions that go into the making of that sequence as being central rest on the best foundation? And how great does Serkis's performance and the realization of Gollum as a character remain overall? (Answer: utterly.)SHOW NOTES.Jared's doodle. If that seems familiar, look back a year…Follow the HarperCollins Union Twitter feed for strike news.Andy Serkis reading the Silmarillion? We are intrigued, we are. Hail and farewell to Jules Bass.We do recommend relistening to our Fellowship episode; plenty of relevant show notes too.The Frodo Franchise is a very good read for sure.The original teaser trailer attached to the end of The Fellowship of the Ring at the conclusion of that film's theatrical run.The first official trailer is good, no question, but the second one with the Requiem for a Dream music? Man oh man. Kazaa! Ah Internet nostalgia. Phew, that opening scene. What a way to start up again.We do miss the Huorns, even if they showed up a little bit in the extended version – but not by name.It's a mix of perfect moments and ‘hmmm' bits but the whole start to the Helm's Deep battle definitely is key to the film.Arwen was indeed filmed at being at Helm's Deep and there are background images of her here and there. (Lindsay Ellis's essay the other month has a bit more about that.)Zulu, the British film from 1964 that inspired Jackson's take on Helm's Deep, is…a caution. (As stated, Zulu Dawn is more interesting in comparison.)The look on Theoden's face after he takes in the explosion – that's good acting.Edoras, an absolute triumph of set design, construction, visual effects and cinematography – so it was, so it remains. (Here's a visit to the set area on Mt. Sunday from a couple of years ago.)Feel free to pick up a copy of The Deadwood Bible by Matt Zoller Seitz if you like, and appreciate Oriana's work helping make it happen!Brad Dourif's tear (and the scene overall). Wormtongue's confrontation scene with Eowyn is in the Edoras clip linked above.The Eowyn/Aragorn blade clash/confrontation scene? Good, good stuff. (The warg attack scene, less so.)Where to begin with Gollum? Frustratingly the extended Two Towers documentary segment on Gollum doesn't appear to be on YouTube but Serkis's book on working on the character is easily available and a very good read.Do you really want to know about the monkey from the 1997 Lost in Space? Do you? Fine. Enjoy a video tribute. Now Gollum does act like a cat here, true. And the ‘yeees?!?' moment remains awesome.The self-confrontation scene. You know it.“PO-TA-TOES.”The buildup to Gollum snarling “My PRECIOUS!” at Faramir is truly striking.David Wenham dealing with Van Helsing. The film that is. (And yeah yeah 300.)Gandalf returns and Ian McKellen's hair levels up.The whole “give up the weapons/wink/'I TOLD you to take the WIZARD'S STAFF'” sequence – just a treat.The meat was always on the menu, really.“The Riders of Rohan” is one of Howard Shore's most gripping pieces, still.“Gollum's Song” is really good if you haven't heard it in a bit. (Emiliana Torrini's website will be back soon, it seems.)Sheila Chandra = next level. As is “Breath of Life.”Isabel Bayrakdarian = also next level, and so is “Evenstar.”“The Last March of the Ents” is another remarkable moment of music. “Release the RIVER!”Support By-The-Bywater and our network, Megaphonic, on Patreon and you can hang out with us on a friendly Discord!

Comedian, actor, best-selling author, and podcaster Alex Falcone joins me for an upbeat conversation about comedy, pop-culture, and what it means to be a modern man in 2022.  We get to hear about Alex's upbringing, the discovery of stand-up, some of his biggest successes to date (Portlandia, The Late Show with Steven Colbert, stand-up tours), and we get his valuable incites on finding your funny bone and learning what is funny by trial-and-error.  But first…  Top stories of the week:  -Russian batteries made from hog weeds. -Nobel Prize awarded to Physicists for research which suggests that reality is not “real” (quantum non-locality). -Flashback Report: 2006. MySpace mishap. Jeff Gets Expelled from High School.   More to enjoy:  —How a simple misunderstanding almost changed Jeff's life forever. —#MeToo. Where are they now? —Why did everyone want to bang sexy monsters in the 2011? —How Alex became a best-selling author of a teen romance novel. - And finally, the gloves come off when Alex expresses his feelings regarding the life and works of Justin Bieber. One thing is for certain, I Belieb.  This episode is special. I love comedy and comics. Just being around the comedy scene gets my motors running. It was an honor to hang with such a pro. Big thank you to Alex Falcone for being a wonderful guest and a huge thank you to Melissa Nesbitt for booking him.  Enjoy the show! Want more Alex Falcone? Website https://alexfalcone.ninja/ (AlexFalcone.ninja) https://www.instagram.com/alexfalcone/ (Instagram) https://www.tiktok.com/@alex_falcone?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc (TikTok) https://twitter.com/alex_falcone (Twitter) https://www.youtube.com/alexfalcone (YouTube) News Links: Hogweed Batteries. Source: PV magazine. Accessed 10/14/2022. via: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/10/13/sodium-ion-battery-anode-made-from-toxic-hogweed/ (https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/10/13/sodium-ion-battery-anode-made-from-toxic-hogweed/) Nobel Prize in Physics 2022. Source: Press Release from The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Accessed: 10/14/2022 via: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2022/press-release/ (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2022/press-release/) Myspace, Your Face; My Mistake. News footage from KATU 2 News. Aired in February 2006. Music: Wander, Shiruki. Respawn, Vieveri. At The End of Nothing, Silver Maple. A Winter to Remember, Trevor Kowalski. Still Fly, Revel Day. Ramble by the River Links: https://my.captivate.fm/Ramblebytheriver.com (Website) https://my.captivate.fm/Patreon.com/ramblebytheriver (Patreon) https://www.facebook.com/jeff.nesbitt.9619/ (Facebook) https://instagram.com/ramblebytheriver (Instagram)  https://twitter.com/rambleriverpod (Twitter) https://my.captivate.fm/Ramblebytheriver.captivate.fm (Episode catalogue) Business: ramblebytheriver@gmail.com Keywords: Noxious weed control; noxious weeds; natural resources; Joe Rogan; Bowfinger; Hollywood; Heather Graham; Premium Blend; Comedy Central Presents; Last Comic Standing; #MeToo; ADHD; morning radio; Dane Cook; Greg Geraldo; Maria Bamford; Craig Robinson; The Office; Dmitri Martin; Mitch Hedberg; Steven Wright; TikTok; Twitter; Facebook; MySpace; Spotify; Pandora; Napster; Limewire; Kazaa; George Carlin; Always Sunny Podcast; Portland Oregon; Helium Comedy Club; Late Night Television; The Colbert Report; The Daily Show; The Office; What We Do in the Shadows; Hacks; To Tell The Truth; fruit; Middleditch and Schwartz; improv comedy; Twilight; Fifty Shades of Grey; To Tell the Truth; Second City Chicago; Whose Line is it anyway? Copyright 2022 Ramble by the River LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Remember the thrill of creating your first mixtape? For us, it was a treasured ritual of selecting the perfect songs that would serve as the soundtrack of our lives. In this nostalgic trip down memory lane, we revisit the music that has sculpted our identities - from iconic tracks like Moments in Love by the Art of Noise, to the profound influence of Tupac's All Eyes On Me.Ever wondered how music has evolved over generations? We take a leap back in time, from the primal sounds of our caveman ancestors to the digital age of Napster and Kazaa. We ponder the power of music, discussing our personal transformations when we discovered The Strokes, the impact of Eminem and ICP, and the fashion shows our middle school hallways became, underscored with the latest hip-hop and rap.Finally, we invite you to share your musical journey. As we delve into our own experiences - from the frustration of finding new music pre-streaming era to the adventures of record store scouring and bootleg movie shop explorations - we want to hear your stories too. So, put on your headphones, press play, and get ready to embark on a musical odyssey with us.

In this episode, Alicia and Diz discuss music they like beyond punk rock. New episodes drop on most streaming platforms on Saturdays at 3:00 pm HST. Listen to our playlist on Spotify News Correlation-One Data Science for All Matthew McConahey's full speech Occam's Razor Criminal podcast Episode 189, The Doctors Sandy Hook denier forced to pay for hoax Pistol on Hulu, Malcolm McLaren Bootstrapping NoFX's Fat Mike tasteless statement after Las Vegas mass shooting Fat Wreck Bands List Favorite Albums of 2021 and the Best of 2021 Collection Music we mention Songs by Name: Kottonmouth Kings “Suburban Life,” Madonna-“Bitch, I'm Madonna,” The Killers- “Mr. Brightside,” Run River North's cover of “Mr. Brightside,” Miley Cyrus- "Wrecking Ball," Bright Eyes- “First Day of My Life” Genres: Bluegrass, Traditional Irish, Klinka -traditional russian music, Gypsy Jazz, Symphonic Progressive Instrumental Metal, Movie Soundtracks, Musicals, Bad Pop, East Bay Mathcore Rap, Country, Sappy White Guy Songs, New Grass, Folk Punk, Trance, Reggae, Black Grass Artists: The Pogues, Django Reinhardt, Dr. Dre, Hieroglyphics, Deltron 3030, Jarv, Hobo Johnson and the LoveMakers, Little Nas-X, Connor Obers, Modest Mouse, girl in red, Taylor Swift, David Bowie Albums: Romeo and Juliet Soundtrack (1996), Hamilton: The Musical, Dr. Dre- Compton, De La Soul- And the Anonymous Nobody, Mary J Blige- Good Morning Gorgeous, Adele- 30 Shows: The Head and the Heart Radio, Thistle and Shamrock, Hearts of Space Al should have mentioned Rebecca Black's “Friday,” but she didn't… Soul Seek, Lime Wire, Kazaa were downloading sites that are no longer around because of Metallica vs Napster Bands White Lung- Paradise “Kiss Me When I Bleed” Blackbird Raum- Swidden “Valkyrie, Horse Whip Wheel” Shout Outs Hacking Diversity by Christina Dunbar-Hester Well Beings Let's fucking have the conversations! Email us at outonanislandpodcast@gmail.com or follow us on Instagram. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/outonanislandpodcast/message

This week the friends talk about Kazaa, Anna downloading obscure animes, Carolina confirms she's a human, and everyone wants to play Sextris. Clickity clack. I'm in!

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How Could AI Governance Go Wrong?, published by HaydnBelfield on May 26, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. (I gave a talk to EA Cambridge in February 2022. People have told me they found it useful as an introduction/overview so I edited the transcript, which can be found below. If you're familiar with AI governance in general, you may still be interested in the sections on 'Racing vs Dominance' and 'What is to be done?'.) Talk Transcript I've been to lots of talks which catch you with a catchy title and they don't actually tell you the answer until right at the end so I'm going to skip right to the end and answer it. How could AI governance go wrong? These are the three answers that I'm gonna give: over here you've got some paper clips, in the middle you've got some very bad men, and then on the right you've got nuclear war. This is basically saying the three cases are accident, misuse and structural or systemic risks. That's the ultimate answer to the talk, but I'm gonna take a bit longer to actually get there. I'm going to talk very quickly about my background and what CSER (the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk) is. Then I'm going to answer what is this topic called AI governance, then how could AI governance go wrong? Before finally addressing what can be done, so we're not just ending on a sad glum note but we're going out there realising there is useful stuff to be done. My Background & CSER This is an effective altruism talk, and I first heard about effective altruism back in 2009 in a lecture room a lot like this, where someone was talking about this new thing called Giving What We Can, where they decided to give away 10% of their income to effective charities. I thought this was really cool: you can see that's me on the right (from a little while ago and without a beard). I was really taken by these ideas of effective altruism and trying to do the most good with my time and resources. So what did I do? I ended up working for the Labour Party for several years in Parliament. It was very interesting, I learned a lot, and as you can see from the fact that the UK has a Labour government and is still in the European Union, it went really well. Two of the people I worked for are no longer even MPs. After this sterling record of success down in Westminster – having campaigned in one general election, two leadership elections and two referendums – I moved up to Cambridge five years ago to work at CSER. The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk: we're a research group within the University of Cambridge dedicated to the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction or civilizational collapse. We do high quality academic research, we develop strategies for how to reduce risk, and then we field-build, supporting a global community of people working on existential risk. We were founded by these three very nice gentlemen: on the left that's Prof Huw Price, Jaan Tallinn (founding engineer of Skype and Kazaa) and Lord Martin Rees. We've now grown to about 28 people (tripled in size since I started) - there we are hanging out on the bridge having a nice chat. A lot of our work falls into four big risk buckets: pandemics (a few years ago I had to justify why that was in the slides, now unfortunately it's very clear to all of us) AI, which is what we're going to be talking mainly about today climate change and ecological damage, and then systemic risk from all of our intersecting vulnerable systems. Why care about existential risks? Why should you care about this potentially small chance of the whole of humanity going extinct or civilization collapsing in some big catastrophe? One very common answer is looking at the size of all the future generations that could come if we don't mess things up. The little circle in the middle is the number of ...

On this episode, we switched things up! Instead of a standard interview, I talked about a few recent topics with the best-selling author, Zack O'Malley Greenburg. He has long had his pulse on the music industry. Between his past time covering the business at Forbes, writing acclaimed books on the likes of Jay-Z and Michael Jackson, or his current Substack blog, Zack has formed both a macro- and micro-view of the entire industry. He's the perfect person to bring onto Trapital to discuss the stories reverberating across the music business today.One of those stories is Spotify's floundering performance as of late. The streaming leader's stock has cratered to all-time lows, partly due to so-so performance, but also as a byproduct of Netflix's own struggles. But if you ask Zack, the commonalities between Netflix and Spotify aren't as close as critics will have you believe. Specifically, Spotify's “unlimited buffet” business model is a massive differentiator. And then there's Apple officially discounting the iPod after 21 years. Whether it gets the credit or not, the innovative product re-shaped the music business into what we see today. As a “legal Napster”, it laid the groundwork for today's streaming-dominated industry — not just for music, but podcasts too. Check out all the topics Zack and I covered in this episode of Trapital:[0:00] Zack's First Experiences with The iPod[6:11] Steve Jobs First iPod Keynote[8:33] iPod As A Gateway Into Apple Ecosystem [12:16] Will iPod Have A Resurgence Like Vinyl? [14:48] U2's Free Album On Apple Backfires [18:55] Spotify's Current Business Struggles[20:09] Why Spotify Shouldn't Be Compared To Netflix[27:23] Do Spotify And Netflix Have Content Problems?[33:00] Examining Bad Bunny's Meteoric Rise In Six Years[38:21] Latin Music Succeeding In US Despite Language Barrier [40:12] Did Jay Z Ruin Robinson Cano's Career?Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Zack O'Malley Greenburg, @zogblog This episode was brought to you by Highlight. Build the community of your dreams on the blockchain. The new company is backed by leading investors like Haun Ventures, Thirty Five Ventures (“35V”), and more. Learn more at highlight.xyz  Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop's biggest players by reading Trapital's free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: If you're a startup and you're looking for celebrity investors and, I know that the market is cooled down a bit, but still, you know, you're in a fairly mature startup. And you're trying to get your name out there a little more by getting, you know, music investors, celebrities, et cetera. The kind of reach that he has, especially if you're trying to get into the Spanish language market. It's untoppable and, you know, I just think there's a tremendous opportunity there and in a lot of other places for him too.[00:00:29] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.[00:00:49] Dan Runcie: On today's episode, we switched things up a little bit. This is normally an interview-style podcast, but I did a recent survey. And many of you say you wanted to hear more from me. You wanted to hear my insights, my perspective on this space and where things are heading. So it was a great time to invite back Zack O'Malley Greenburg.[00:01:08] Dan Runcie: You may know him from his work at Forbes, where he started a lot of the reporting on how much money hip hop artists were making and the potential for what they could do in the business world. So we covered a bunch of topics in this episode. First, we talked about the iPod. Apple recently announced that they are discontinuing the influential device after almost 21 years in its production. So Zach and I talk about the device's importance and influence. Then we talked about Spotify. The stock is trading at an all-time low. So we talk about what does that mean for streaming? What does that mean for music and, more broadly, how does that compare to video and other types of streaming?[00:01:45] Dan Runcie: Then we talked about the current king of streaming, of the current king of Spotify. Bad Bunny is the biggest artist in the world. So we talk about the impact and importance of what that means for a Latin artist, a Latin artist, who is yet to do a song in English and how cool that is. And then we close things out where we talked about Robinson Canó, who is a baseball player and how his career took a bit of a different turn after he sides with Jay-Z's Roc Nation sports agency.[00:02:12] Dan Runcie: Hope you enjoy this episode. If you do, send a note and let us know, because that's the type of stuff that encourages great content. I hope you enjoy it. Here's our conversation. All right. We got Zack O'Malley Greenburg with us today and we are going to cover a bunch of topics. And the first one that's near and dear to both of us is we got to pour some out for the iPod. After almost 21 years, the device that changed the game, Apple announced it's discontinuing it.[00:02:38] Dan Runcie: And it's a great time to talk about its legacy, its impact. So first let's start here cause I know that you likely owned a bunch of these. I did too. How many iPods did you own and which version was the first one you got? [00:02:50] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh man. You know, I think I had originally one of the clunky ones that didn't have sort of like the touch wheel, you know, like the kind of mano, you know, the, what is it like the black and white kind of a janky one.[00:03:02] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But the one that really sticks in my mind was right around the time that Bono was doing all those commercials. And I remember my godfather was like, I want to get you a nice present for your birthday. He's like, I want to get you like, like a personal DVD player. And I was like, that's very sweet of you. And I really appreciate that. Can I have an iPod instead?[00:03:23] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: He was like, what's this iPod? But yeah. I mean, it was, I think that one that must have been. I don't know, maybe around 2005, that was when they started getting really sexy-looking. And, and you had the touch wheel and you had kind of like the sleek black look on it instead of like, you know, sort of like the white witch, which would get kind of, you know, get kind of grimy, at least mine did.[00:03:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But this was sleek. I think the back was silver. I mean, it was really a work of art and that was when I started thinking it's only a matter of time before they just make one of these as a phone, you know? And I'm sure, you know, having talked to people at Apple over the years, by the time they put out that iPod in the mid-aughts, they already had a design on the iPhone, but there would have been no, you know, no iPhone if there weren't an iPod.[00:04:10] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, in many ways, I think the iPod saved the music industry, right? I mean, when they created that ecosystem, it just became easier to get your music, you know, through the legal means than by downloading them, you know, downloading those MP3s illegally and say what you will about the depth of the album and the issues of like breaking up albums and selling them single by single.[00:04:31] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But, you know, I think that really provided the bridge that the music industry needed to get to the streaming era. So yeah. Pour one out, indeed. How about you, Dan, what was your first?[00:04:41] Dan Runcie: Ah, yeah. So the first one for me, let's see, I want to say it was 2004, I bought the iPod mini because I didn't have a Mac at home. So I waited until they were compatible on PC.[00:04:54] Dan Runcie: And I added, I think I was working either at Dairy Queen or I was working at our local parks and rec at the time. And one of the first paychecks I had, I was like, no, let me go take this, buy iPod mini. So I had that, but listen, after two months of having that, and I was one of the first people in the school to have one at the time. I left it in my pocket and put it in the washing machine, like a typical teenager would, and that thing gets ruined. Right. So then I was like, okay, fine. Let me get another one. This time I was making CDs at the time, I was burning them and selling them in school. So I said, okay, I need a bigger operation here. Let me get the full-on classic one.[00:05:34] Dan Runcie: Got that, within two months of getting that, so this is around the time of high school graduation. I put the bag into this bleacher area by the school where we had the graduation. I go back after graduation. Someone takes that bag, someone in the class must've seen me put it there, and then that was gone. So then by the time I'm entering in college, I said, you know what?[00:05:55] Dan Runcie: I just need to get another one. So I bought three iPods within an 18-month period. It's one of the most ridiculous things. And obviously for the kid that was making $7 an hour at various jobs, would be at a camp counselor, working at Dairy Queen and other places. That's what I spent my money on. I bought it on iPods.[00:06:11] Dan Runcie: So I had to go into freshman year of college, fresh with of those things, but as I had that, that one I did have for a while though, I kept that one for a number of years. And I think I eventually got a Shuffle later on for running and stuff like that. So I think, so I guess I had four devices total, but I agree with you. Take a step back, thinking about the device overall. I'd actually went back and watched Steve Job's keynote that he initially did.[00:06:35] Dan Runcie: And he had done keynote presentations before for all the other products that he had throughout the years. But I feel like this one is the one that really turned to the pop culture aspect of the Steve Job's keynote with, he was no longer wearing the suits. He's wearing the black turtleneck tucked into the jeans.[00:06:51] Dan Runcie: Takes the iPod out of the pocket, has the “hundred songs in your pocket” quote. And I think, from there, what you mentioned too about the bridge that this was for streaming. It makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, look at the way iTunes is set up. iTunes was essentially a legalized version of Napster, right? Instead of just downloading the songs for free, let's take a similar layout and make it look a lot cleaner than Napster did.[00:07:14] Dan Runcie: And you can download the songs yourself. The thing that's interesting though, if we just think about Apple's influence in this space over the years. This was the company that essentially paved the way for digital music technology, listening, both from companies in the industry. And it did the same for podcasting as well.[00:07:33] Dan Runcie: And for years, Jobs didn't want to get into music streaming. He thought that having an annual or having a monthly subscription for it wasn't the best idea. And obviously, we know that podcasting as well. Although it was something that Apple started, we're looking now, with the way things are, yes, they have presence in both podcasting and of music, but Apple isn't the industry leader in any of these spaces. So we can have a whole podcast episode about what's changed, but even though there's a lot that necessarily maybe hasn't taken off in the same way. You can't knock the influence of what this product did in just its evolution over the years and what it led to. I was looking at some stats earlier. Its sales peaked in 2008, 2009, right? You could still, after the iPhone came out, so you had this whole runway of time where they just kept selling more and more and they just eventually figured it out. And they had a whole system of these things that you're selling 20, 30 billion of them a quarter. It's crazy. [00:08:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh yeah. And you know, the deeper you get into the Apple ecosystem, right. I mean, and I'm fully embedded. I'm stuck. There's no way out. You know, I remember with that, you know, the U2 era iPod, you could still, you know, when you plugged it into your computer, you would still see that little iPod icon on your desktop and you could open it up as though it were, you know, an external hard drive and you could, you know, move files in and out.[00:08:59] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And it didn't really, there were no questions asked as to where the files were obtained, you know, and they would show up in your music library and you can put all kinds of different files on there. And it was great. And then, you know, with each successive version, so they eventually eliminated that. And you know, now of course, if you have iTunes, you know, songs that you may have had in there from the, from the Limewire and Kazaa era just suddenly disappeared.[00:09:21] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And, you know, you can't really get them back unless you have them backed up somewhere on a physical hard drive. So, you know, I think that there was also a level of control that Apple got, but, you know, but to have you be part of that ecosystem, I think that's the most valuable thing for them, right? I mean, if you look at Apple or Spotify, you know, like you were talking sure, Apple is not the leader in the music streaming business. Apple Music is I guess, a distant second, but they, you know, they don't need to win that because the hardware turns out or at least in the case of the iPod. And now that, you know, more recently that the iPhone, that the hardware turns out to be more valuable than the software, you know, looking at Spotify.[00:09:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, intellectual property, right? If the, if you have to pay for the intellectual property or your, you know, or a whole huge chunk of that is coming out of. You know, out of your profits or your revenue before you get to profit, you know, it's a, it's a lot harder to make a ton of money than it is for a company like Apple, where the iPod or the iPhone, you know, that was their intellectual property and they could sell it for whatever they want to. [00:10:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, that's a good point. It makes it even think about AirPods. Now. Now I always see those infographics of AirPod revenue, and comparing that to all of these other tech companies. And how have you just looked at this one product that Apple has and how it does better than so many of the household companies that we have.[00:10:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But for you though, was the iPod the first product that pushed you onto Apple? Or were you in a household that had iMacs and things like that? [00:10:48] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, no, I was, my first computer was an Apple, I think I only ever owned one or two computers that were not Apples. And that was when my gaming buddies in high school convinced me to get something else. But yeah, no, it's been, you know, from back in the day for me. So, I'm stuck. [00:11:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I do think for a lot of people, this product ended up being the game-changer. Yeah. I know it took a few generations for them to eventually put it and make it Windows-compatible. And it's funny. I was looking back, there was a few conversations where Tony Fadell, the guy who had actually invented it, essentially that worked with Apple on it.[00:11:26] Dan Runcie: They had had a whole bunch of conversations about what ends up leading to what. And I think for a while, Jobs was under the impression that if you keep the iPod as Apple iOS exclusive device that it'll encourage more people to buy future iMac or Apple products, but what actually ended up happening, they pushed for the opposite and they saw the opposite where make the device compatible people then see, and they get introduced to the Apple world.[00:11:55] Dan Runcie: And then that makes them want to then buy more iMacs and buy more MacBooks and buy things like that. So it was the opposite push-pull of what they thought happens. And it's one of those things where instead of restricting access to make people think that they want, that they, you're restricting. How do you give people a taste and then have them naturally want to get it on there on their own?[00:12:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Absolutely. I mean, I think it almost mirrors being an artist, right? I mean, you don't want to withhold your art, your music from streaming services so that people will go out and buy the vinyl or, or, you know, back in those days, download the MP3. You want people to be out there and getting familiar with your work.[00:12:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And you're not going to cannibalize yourself if people really like you. I mean, just look at Taylor Swift, you know, her fans go out and buy her vinyl, you know, by the hundred thousand and they can certainly have access to it whenever they want on the streaming services. [00:12:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Speaking of vinyls, it stuck out to me that there were a bunch of iPod Touch that sold out immediately.[00:12:51] Dan Runcie: So essentially the line is completely gone now and even a few on eBay that were going for crazy prices after this announcement came out and it made me think, is the iPod going to be the way that vinyls are looked at now? Is there going to be this resurgence for this retro thing where people look back and let's say that as millennials or gen Z have, kids, they want to see, okay, what was this generation listening to when they were teenagers and they'd go back and be like, oh, let's check out Zack's iPod, let's check out Dan's iPod or whatever else. Do you think that there is a resurgence in that type of way the same way we're seeing with vinyl? [00:13:26] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I could see maybe I think the main issue would be a compatibility, right? In the way that you, you know, not even Apple to PC, but you know, old Apple stuff isn't even necessarily compatible with, compatible with new Apple stuff.[00:13:37] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So if I wanted to plug in my old iPod, if I could dig it up wherever it was. I don't think I even have a freaking USB port on my computer. No, I don't. [00:13:49] Dan Runcie: You need like five dongles. You need like a firewire, USB to USB to C. [00:13:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Exactly. And so, and even then it's like what songs will it remove, will my computer remove from my iPod or vice versa?[00:14:04] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So, I mean, I almost wonder if there's the really old ones where you go and you can see, like you can open it up like that U2 era iPod, and actually just manually move the MP3 tracks around, if those still work somehow, you know, that might be almost the way of safeguarding one's music files from being kinda like yanked up into the ether.[00:14:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I think whereas, vinyl, despite being somewhat cumbersome, it is ultimately plug and play. You plug it into a standard outlet, put the thing on pretty mechanical. So yeah, I do think that might be the only drawback, but yeah, I could totally see it. The next hipster thing, being dongles at all, finding the way to use iPod. So, yeah, just, I guess cassette tapes are making it come back to, so, you know, just like vinyl, even CDs were up, you know, over the past year or so.[00:14:46] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: What's old is new again. [00:14:48] Dan Runcie: I know, right? You never know if someone had told me when the iPod first came out, that vinyls would've made a comeback, I'd never would have thought that, but you mentioned plug and play and you mentioned U2 earlier. We have to talk about the greatest hack of all time with whatever you plug this damn device into any USB thing, U2's album automatically starts playing.[00:15:07] Dan Runcie: How they were able to get that to happen and I know it wasn't a hundred percent intended, but it also kind of was so however they were able to do that, eventually I do think it got on the nerves of many people and we saw from whether it was Apple or even Spotify later on people feeling like these services are pushing certain artists on them.[00:15:27] Dan Runcie: I do think that that is one of the understated hacks that we've seen in both of U2's major deals with Apple. [00:15:36] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just remember, you know, right. They gave away that album and you woke up one morning and it was on your iTunes and all these people were freaking out, like, get this off my computer.[00:15:45] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I can't get it off my computer. I don't want this taking up hard drive space. Like first of all, how much hard drive space is taken up? You have a Mac anyway, probably. And it's, you know, it's fine. Is Bono really that offensive to you? Like U2? I mean, I don't know. I think it's sort of, you know, I mean, I don't want to say like easy listening, but it's not like offensive, like who is offended by U2?[00:16:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I was kind of always surprised by that. And Bono had this kind of poignant quote. He said he was like, you know, “I'm just an Irishman trying to give you some beautiful music.” Yeah. If you don't want it, I'm sorry, you know. That kind of thing and can't really feel bad for Bono and he was a good sport about it, but it's kind of funny that the way people's minds work, you know, it's like during the Napster era, it's like, oh, I got to go get all my music for free.[00:16:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I will seek it out to illegally download music. Right. And it'll take me an hour to download a song. And if somebody calls my mom on the landline, you know, it'll get interrupted halfway through, right? And then. Here comes U2 giving everybody a free album and they don't even have to do anything.[00:16:51] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And all these people are kind of grousing about it. So I thought that was sort of, you know, above all a really interesting commentary on like the human psyche and, you know, wanting what you can't have. Not wanting what you do. So pour one out for that as well. [00:17:05] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I mean, from my perspective, I was never upset about the album actually being there, if anything, it was more so than minor inconvenience of can I plug this device into the USB port for one second, without anything automatically playing, right? Like I also had this era where it was back from doing anything that I'd purchased on iTunes and Lady Gaga's Bad Romance would always play. So like once the U2 thing stopped, like that song always played in.[00:17:35] Dan Runcie: You want to hear about friends making fun of me and dragging me for that all day long. That was always a, a hilarious one, but no, this was good. Let's pour one out for the iPod, one of the most influential products we've seen. And as we both know, I think we talk about how so much innovation starts in music and this device is one of the best examples of that.[00:17:55] Dan Runcie: So salute to it. It had a, had a great run. And on that note, I actually think it's probably better for us to stay on the music topic and the streaming topic. And talk a bit about Spotify because this company, less than a year ago, well, maybe a little bit more than a year ago, they were signing so many of the big exclusive deals.[00:18:18] Dan Runcie: The Rogan deal was still fairly fresh and the stock was at an all-time high. And now this stock is at an all-time low, as of recording this, it's trading under a hundred dollars. Its market cap is under $20 billion. Daniel Ek just purchased 50 million himself to show confidence that he has in the company stock moving forward.[00:18:39] Dan Runcie: But where do you see all of this happening? I think there's a lot that's happening in the market right now that could be aligned with this, but there's a lot that could be separate from this. That could be a bit more specific to where Spotify currently is. What's your take on the current state of Spotify?[00:18:55] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. I mean, I think, like you say, there are these kinds of macro trends in the market, in the world that are kind of dragging down a lot of stuff. I think with Spotify though, what's going on is that people are freaking out about streaming in particular after that sort of big surprise, bad news from Netflix a little while ago, where they essentially admitted that the cap on, you know, paid streaming for them was 220 million people and that they were going to open up their free, you know, free or lower ad-supported tier. I forget if it was free tier with ads. I think it was just a lower price tier with ads. So yeah know the idea that, well, you know, it's all streaming and Spotify had been trying to emulate Netflix by paying all this money for content and you know, the Joe Rogan's of the world and podcasting and stuff.[00:19:40] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I get it on one hand, but, you know, there's a lot of fear right now in the public markets. And there's a lot of, sort of, you know, constellating of things, right. And yes, they're both streaming companies, but to me, you know, I take a step back and I look at it and I see two totally different companies. I mean, obviously one is primarily, you know, video, one's audio, but you know, the reason that Spotify works and the reason that Spotify became the market leader in audio streaming, it is essentially an unlimited buffet.[00:20:09] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Netflix was never an unlimited buffet. And you know, this, if you are somebody who has ever gone on Netflix to find a particular movie or something like I remember many years ago when I first got Netflix, I was like, oh, you know, I want to watch whatever it was. The latest James Bond movie. I'll go on here. It's like $9.99 a month, unlimited everything, right? No, they only have, you know, whatever move they have, all these Adam Sandler movies and they have, you know, just like a random smattering of movies. And of course they have all these shows, but you get Netflix because you want to watch certain shows, you know, or because you are somebody who's just like, I want to just put something on and I trust that they will have, yeah, I don't want to think about it. Like I trust that they will have good stuff and I'll put on one of their shows and you know, it's not cheaper than cable. So, you know, that to me was always a very different model. It is not an unlimited buffet of movies and television, you know, unlike terrestrial cable, where in theory, you know, you get your cable package.[00:21:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You can watch the news or you can watch sports. So you can, there's some crappy movies on, you know, there's like more of a promise of unlimited opportunity. So I think that, like, there was never a video streaming service that had the unlimited buffet kind of nature of Spotify. So, you know, I think that's what ultimately caps Netflix, like around that 220 million number. If there was some way that Netflix could totally replace your cable. And I know Hulu has live TV options, or if Netflix really did have, you know, a complete movie library that you could complete TV library, you can, anything you want. I think that there would be a lot more room to grow, but it's such an ordeal to get all the rights necessary to do that.[00:21:46] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I don't know how that would ever happen. And you certainly couldn't bankroll like every single thing in the future. That would be needed to have that kind of thing going on in perpetuity. So, yeah, I guess I just, I think that Netflix is dealing with this issue of like, sort of the unbundling and re-bundling and what people are treating Netflix as a sort of like a bundle, right? You want to maybe some other bundles, you probably don't just have Netflix, you have Netflix and Hulu, or maybe you even have terrestrial cable and Netflix or something like that. Whereas the Spotify, you have all of your music. I mean, what do you not get on Spotify? Or if it's Apple Music, what do you not get an Apple Music?[00:22:18] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think it's a little bit of the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater. And I just think that the fundamental thesis is a little bit different when it comes to Spotify than it is with Netflix. So that's my 2 cents. [00:22:29] Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. [00:22:30] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think that echoes what Daniel Ek had said himself. Right. He said, even though Spotify and Netflix are both subscription-based revenue companies that serve media on a regular basis to its content, that is where a lot of the similarities do stop. And even though there are points where I feel like Spotify and other streaming services, music streaming services, tried to replicate what Netflix did.[00:22:55] Dan Runcie: It was never going to be that way. And I think what makes the music streaming area a bit more unique is that because 80%, I'll probably even say 90% of the content that each of these services offer is largely the same. You end up inevitably having a price war at some point, once you've reached a certain level of distribution, and once you've reached a certain percentage of audience that you're reshaped, we're starting to see that happen.[00:23:20] Dan Runcie: Now you're starting to see that saturation. And I was recently talking to Will Page, the economist that studies this space. And his analogy was that for a long time, this was a herbivore market. People were capturing the opportunity that's there, we're shifting to a carnivore market, and in a lot of ways that does end up benefiting the companies that are the most willing to cut costs and the most willing to pivot. And if we're bringing things back full circle a bit to what we said about Apple Music earlier, this is not a product that they are necessarily trying to run at a profit. It's very similar to the Amazon Prime mentality of when Jeff Bezos has said, the more Golden Globes that we win, the more sneakers that we're able to sell through Amazon.[00:24:03] Dan Runcie: And I think the same could be said for Apple to some extent. They won best picture, CODA won best picture. That's their product that helps them get more subscribers who then end up purchasing the wide number of different products they have under their Apple TV+ bundle that they're able to offer there.[00:24:19] Dan Runcie: I do think with Spotify though, and this is why I do think they likely have more relative upside right now, I would say than Netflix, it's for two reasons. One, Spotify has had relatively better growth in the most recent quarters, I'd say, and that's even accounting for both services are ceasing their service in Russia.[00:24:37] Dan Runcie: It's also looking at them just being able to already have the free tier penetration, already having a pipeline to acquire more as well. And secondly, I think the podcasting model is ultimately what will help them. This was a model that I was initially skeptical about for years, just in terms of whether or not Spotify would be able to actually make it work and become the dominant player in audio.[00:25:01] Dan Runcie: But the reason that I think they're probably going to be better off is because of the actual data that they could offer both advertisers and listening and podcasters as well. And this is going back to opportunities that Apple didn't necessarily capture at the time, if you think about the fact that most podcasting is essentially just an RSS feed and a lot of people are sharing monthly podcast downloads and things like that.[00:25:25] Dan Runcie: And if you look at some of the podcasts, especially some of the ones that were most popular, 2016 when podcasts would really start to take off. A lot of those listeners may not necessarily be actively listening, like it could be background downloads. That's where Spotify wins, because they can actually have that clear data to show who's listening to what. They acquired two companies, Chartable and Podsights, that are both analyzing and having the better data in this space. So the, we're leading to a future where Spotify eventually is going to be able to, I think, dominate the space because they're able to make the better pitch to advertisers. Come here, get a more direct way to reach your audience.[00:26:03] Dan Runcie: And I think if the numbers do continue to grow, I think they will be better off. So of course this is not investment advice, to be clear for anyone. But I do think that between the two of these, that Spotify is probably the company that's in the better position. And it's funny cause this isn't always a, a thought that I would have had of course, two completely different business models.[00:26:22] Dan Runcie: Netflix is fixed. Spotify is variable, but I do think that over time, relatively speaking, it still has plenty of hurdles to get through, but it feels like that's where the opportunity is. [00:26:34] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. I think I totally agree with you there. [00:26:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I mean, with that, another piece that people have brought up as well as content as well. What are your thoughts on Netflix's content? Because I know that's a piece where people have often said, well, if you're just going to make shows, like, Is It Cake? and stuff like that, then why am I going to pay money for the service and the fact that they haven't necessarily had as many true franchises or any repeatable types of things.[00:27:00] Dan Runcie: In my opinion, a lot of the things that have taken off from Spotify have, or not from Spotify, from Netflix. Sometimes it almost feels like it's like flashes and bottles that catch off a bit unexpectedly, whether it's like a Bird Box or a Squid Game, or Making A Murderer, things like that. Like it doesn't have the same feeling of, okay, you don't, this big HBO show is going to come and dominate like it does.[00:27:23] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, you know, I mean, I think Netflix has just done such a good job of going out and just acquiring tons and tons of content. Right. And, you know, given their model, they pay out a lot, you know, then people have been talking over the past, however many years, like, oh, Netflix spent X billion dollars on content.[00:27:41] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: How are they going to sustain it? But when you're acquiring that much stuff, it's like, you have all these lotto tickets and when something takes off, you know, I think in most cases you're not having to pay a lot of it back, you know, on the backend like you would with, you know, obviously Spotify ends up paying back, you know, a huge percentage of what comes in back to the labels and to the artists.[00:28:01] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that the model. Netflix, has there are sort of like a lot higher upside when something works? I mean, I guess with Spotify, they're trying to emulate that on the podcasting side, but you know, it would seem to me that when Netflix has, you know, a TV show that takes off just out of nowhere, I mean, something like Squid Game, the amount of new subscribers they sign up are just, you know, so much more than, than you'd get with a hit podcast. So, I mean, you know, in a way I think what I'm most curious to see is how much will Spotify continue to try to emulate Netflix. Now that Netflix is sort of in a, you know, questionable phase and do they just kind of, you know, try to double down on the music aspect because the other piece of it that we haven't talked about, you know, when you're going out and acquiring content and you were paying for it specifically like to have it named and everything you become, you know, an arbiter of culture and taste also, you know, right and wrong of what is hate speech of what is, you know, all kinds of things. And that's like a huge pain in the ass to figure out, right, as we learned with the whole Spotify, Joe Rogan, Neil young situation.[00:29:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And. Yeah. I never thought that Neil Young being off of Spotify was gonna ruin Spotify. And I don't really think very many people did, but you know, it did go to show that there's a, an amount of energy that has to go into defending some decisions once, once you are acquiring content versus sure, I mean, if you have artists on your platform and you know, they do something terrible, you may have to make a decision to try to pull them off. But, you know, I think generally as a society, we've moved away from pressuring people to sort of deplatform musicians for making, you know, offensive music or something like that, music that some people find offensive.[00:29:42] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And even for, you know, some of the most controversial musicians, you know, it's super rare that their music is pulled down. So I just think that there's a lot more editorial energy that goes into obviously Netflix, but, you know, Spotify emulating Netflix in the podcasting space, that becomes a whole new headache with like a lot of unknown unknowns.[00:29:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I do wonder now that it's, you know, perhaps less of a growth area. Will Spotify continue to follow that path? [00:30:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's a great point. We had not touched on this piece of it. And I think that in a lot of ways it does mean it's more workforce, something like a company like Spotify. Netflix can pretty easily, at least I would hope so, identify the movies that have these issues, and we've already seen some of them have disclaimers, but there's a bit of a removedness from it because of just how they go about their deals versus Spotify. You just see the blind spots where someone that literally goes and finds all of the clips of Joe Rogan saying the N-word, putting that together.[00:30:38] Dan Runcie: And then that's what sparks the controversy. You would have hoped that the company themselves would have been looking at the content. And then it makes you think, are people really responding to the issue itself? By people, I mean, the company like Spotify, are they really responding to the issue itself or are they responding to the public outcry over the issue?[00:30:54] Dan Runcie: And that could, you know, be an ongoing conversation, but that's where I do think that there needs to be much more editorial oversight and understanding that if you are going to be, it's one thing to say that you're an open platform that anyone can put music on. Anyone can put, upload their music too, but when you're exclusively paying someone or licensing their content, it changes the dynamic of the relationship.[00:31:18] Dan Runcie: And I know that they try to make the distinction. Yes. we are licensing Joe Rogan's content as opposed to acquiring it. But the example I always bring back to people it's like, okay, well, let's explore that scenario then, let's say that this was Bill Simmons, who now works for Spotify because you acquired his company and we found those clips of him saying those things. Would you then have treated this situation differently? I don't know the answer to that situation, but Spotify is implying that they would, but I don't know. [00:31:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. It's a gray area. And the more you get into, the deeper you get into editorial, the less profitable it is, I say, as a journalist.[00:31:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that, you know, some of these companies are learning that the hard way. [00:31:58] Dan Runcie: Couldn't agree more. And while we're on the note of Spotify, let's switch gears again and let's talk about the current king of Spotify, right? Bad Bunny. It is been really cool, and refreshing to see an artist outside of the US dominate on a platform like this.[00:32:13] Dan Runcie: I think that his success has really shown what's possible now in a way, I think that he's the greatest success story of the streaming era. I really do. I mean, when you think about what he was able to do, where he was six years ago, I've written about it in a recent newsletter about how six years ago, he's bagging groceries at a local grocery store in Puerto Rico.[00:32:36] Dan Runcie: And then now he's a superstar. He was on stage at the Super Bowl. He's going to have this old Marvel movie, tops every chart possible. It's like that Kurt Warner underdog story from him starting off as a grocery bagger and then did his Arena Football. But imagine if Kurt Warner had the career of Peyton Manning and actually went on to, you know, dominate years and years, it's impressive. What do you think about Bad Bunny and what he's been able to do? [00:33:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Ah, I think it's incredible. I mean, and I think it also, it shows the democratization that has been brought about by streaming and what's that Jay-Z line? Men lie, women lie, numbers don't. And you know, you can have your charts for whatever publication and you can have all this and that and their formulas and stuff like that.[00:33:18] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But, you know, it's all very convoluted and, you know, it's, it's usually one way or the other. It's engineered to sort of favor the, those who are already sort of big names, but when you have the numbers, it shows up on Spotify and regardless of where you are on whatever other chart, I mean, the fact is that more people are listening to your music than they're listening to anybody else's music and it's objectively true. You can see it in Spotify and the numbers don't lie. And so Bad Bunny, I think, you know, was able to come up from, you know, in this incredible underdog story, you know, to get there and there's proof, right? I mean, there's proof in a way that there might not have been, you know, before the streaming era.[00:33:56] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think another thing about Bad Bunny that, you know, certainly in my time at Forbes, we would look, we've scoured the world to find and do our list of the top-earning musicians. And I did that list this past year for Rolling Stone, but, you know, it was just all old rockers selling their catalogs basically.[00:34:14] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think, you know, a function of that is that the pandemic has just greatly disrupted touring, which would kind of like traditionally be the thing that would get you up on one of these lists. And, you know, I think now that the pandemic is kind of easing up and tours are really starting to happen again, you know, we're seeing Bad Bunny be able to sell out stadiums, you know, I mean, he is really on that level in terms of, you know, people putting their money where their mouth is. So I think that next step is going to be, as we start to see these totals from his tour in combination, you know, with the streaming dollars and Marvel and all these other things that are going to come along with it, you know, he's going to start to climb up these earnings lists, you know, from a financial perspective as well.[00:34:56] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that adds a whole other level. You know, sort of like credibility in some cases, when looking at somebody as like a generational superstar, when they sort of have the, you know, the financial success to prove it and to sustain and to, you know, to expand into other fascinating ways. So I'm really curious to see what he does next.[00:35:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Like, you know, what's his Jay-Z move? What's his Puffy move? Is there going to be something in the spirits business or the cannabis or who knows what, but, you know, personally, as sort of a music business nerd, I'm especially interested to see, you know, what does he do with all this energy and momentum and you know, what direction does he take it in having created this incredible musical empire.[00:35:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's only a matter of time until he's going to top most of those lists, right? You look at the numbers that this tour will likely do. It's likely going to be over 2 or 3 million, if not more, just given the amount of shows that he has and the size of the arenas that he's performing in. And one of the things that I've always thought about with artists from other countries is that there's always been this stigma or thought that in order for them to monetize, it always had to rely much more on brand deals or things like that because the assumption was that the fan bases in these areas may not be willing to necessarily pay as much, but his tours are disproving that just based on the sales numbers, I would need to dig it a little bit further to see, okay, are the dollar amounts in all of the regions similar, but I think he's proving that that isn't necessarily the case. Yeah. If he does want to continue to take this further, what would it look like if he eventually let's say that he continues to do things with the WWE even further? Is he able to have some type of connection there to make that further extend, right? This Marvel character he's going to have in this upcoming movie is a wrestler. What could that potentially look like? If he ends up selling some type of, as you mentioned, some type of spirits or getting involved with something on the business side, the sky really is the limit.[00:36:52] Dan Runcie: And I think it's one of those unique optionality things where it's up to him and what stuck out to me as well as if we think, just think about his trajectory and what's possible now for a lot of Latin artists, is that he has not done one song in English. Everything that he's done is either been in Spanish or if he did it, then his verses is still in Spanish.[00:37:15] Dan Runcie: But everyone else is still doing their stuff in English. Like this song. Cardi B from a couple of years ago. But I do think that that's different from even the wave of Latin artists that got mainstream popularity. Let's say 20 years ago, you have Enrique Iglesias, your Mark Anthony or even JLo to some extent, they all had to do albums in English before they were ever given a consideration for that mainstream push or appeal.[00:37:41] Dan Runcie: Ricky Martin was the same exact way. And I think the fact that he's been able to do on his terms, he's been able to be an advocate as well for both gender norms and for just LGBTQ as well and how he has been just a lot of the causes and things that he cares about. It's really cool to see artists like this.[00:38:02] Dan Runcie: And I think in some ways the trajectory that Latin artists have been on, especially in the streaming era, kind of reminds me of where hip hop was at a certain point, right? It's like in the early days they wanted those artists to like assimilate to whatever the pop phase was, right? Like the rappers had to do these pop collaborations.[00:38:21] Dan Runcie: The Latin stars had to do the, you know, US pop star collaborations. Then once they prove they no longer have to assimilate in the same way, then those artists set the trends and now everyone else wants to come to them. And now we're seeing Billie Eilish and Drake and all these other artists doing songs in Spanish, even though that's not their main language, we're just going to see more and more of that.[00:38:42] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, and I think that one of the things that Bad Bunny has proven, you know, in some other form, is that if given the opportunity, you know, if you're not sort of, you know, forced to go meet the quote unquote US mainstream market, where it's at, the US mainstream market will actually come to you. You know, and people who don't understand Spanish will still love your music.[00:39:02] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And, you know, I mean, I don't know. I know a lot of songs in English that I don't understand. Whatever genre, if it's, you know, rock and there's a lot of yelling or if it's, you know, rap and it's like so fast or with like a really deep accent. I don't always catch on but, you know, people respond to music. I mean, it doesn't really matter what's being said, I mean, look at Nirvana, right? Like a lot of the lyrics didn't particularly mean anything, but people just responded to the music and the vibe, the whole thing. So even if you can understand the words, people are going to be attracted to the music. And, you know, I think that he's showing that that holds true even on the tip-top superstar level for sure.[00:39:38] Dan Runcie: A hundred percent. Excited to see where his career goes, excited to see where he continues to dominate. [00:39:43] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Amen to that. And, you know, if have his management too, I'm trying to get him in some consumer-facing startups, because if you're a startup and you're looking for celebrity investors and they know that the market is cooled down at it, but still, you know, you're in a really mature startup. And you're trying to get your name out there a little more by getting, you know, music, investors, celebrities, et cetera. The kind of reach that has, especially if you're trying to get into Spanish language market. It's untoppable. And I just think there's a tremendous opportunity there and in a lot of other places for him too, so. [00:40:12] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah, I'm sure. It should be. All right. Before we wrap this up, we got to talk about this article that you had written very recently about, we're both fellow Yankees fans, and one of the stars we've been most familiar with over the years, Robinson Canó, and you have this idea that you were brought up. I thought it was really interesting and I want for you to talk more. Did Jay-Z ruin Robinson Canó bag? [00:40:40] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I kind of posed that question on my Substack and, you know, I think going into it and that the background,I'm going to set the background for anybody who maybe isn't a Yankee fan, but I guess it was eight years ago, Robinson Canó, who at the time was the best player in the Yankees.[00:40:57] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Everybody thought he was going to resign. He was a free agent. Everybody thought he would come back, think they he's never lose out on a free agent. Jay-Z comes in, takes over as his agent from Scott Boras, who was like, you know, he is to baseball agency as Jay-Z is to hip hop. Jay-Z comes in, gets Canó to come over to Roc Nation, Roc Nation brings on CAA to help them, you know, kind of become, you know, Scott Boras-level players in the game, let's say, and you know, Robinson Canó gets offered seven years, $161 million by the Yankees and the months drag on, nobody else is offering him more. Everybody thinks Jay-Z is getting greedy.[00:41:34] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And then just out of nowhere, Canó goes to the Mariners for 240 million over 10 years and great deal financially for him. Obviously, it's, you know, like $80 million more than Yankees we're offering and no state income tax in Washington. However, a much worse team, a much worse ballpark for hitters and, you know, five years into the 10-year deal could no, I mean, I think that was when he got suspended for steroids, then he got traded to the Mets.[00:42:03] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And then he got suspended again last year, 80 games. And he started out this year with the Mets and just earlier this week got cut. And so here's this guy who, you know, so I guess that's my question. If he'd stayed with the Yankees, would all of, all of these miseries have befallen him and should we blame Jay-Z for the misery?[00:42:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think my answer ultimately is, is no, you know, It's going to retire almost a hundred million dollars richer, eventually. From a baseball perspective though, you can argue that things would have been better for him if he'd stayed with the Yankees. And as it turns out, the guy who really kind of led the charge and I reported this in the latest edition of my Jay-Z book, Empire State of Mind, the guy who led the charge for Canó to leave was Brodie Van Wagenen at CAA who then became the GM of the Mets. Traded for Canó, got fired by the new owner of the Mets and is now back working with Jay-Z. And I think working on, on representing Canó again, as he tries to, to latch on with another major league team.[00:43:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So you could kind of blame him, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it really does come down to the player, you know, who makes the decision to take bag, you know, instead of glory, which is, you know, defensible, I think you've got to live and you only have so long to be a professional ballplayer. And, you know, he was the one that took the performance-enhancing drugs, got suspended so, but it is this just sort of like a fascinating winding road, you know, from this decision that happened eight years ago, that's still playing out, that still had all these ramifications. And you look back to that deal. I mean, you know, the fact that Jay-Z, whether it was Jay-Z or CAA, or this guy, Brodie Van Wagenen doing most of the work.[00:43:37] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Jay-Z, Roc Nation did get credit. And after that you saw Roc Nation really become much more of a force as a professional sports agency. So, you know, certainly, Jay-Z did well for himself in those past eight years. He's a billionaire now. Brodie Van Wagenen has this great new job, and Robinson Canó has that much nicer retirement eventually.[00:43:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So maybe he lost a chance at eternal glory, but you know, a hundred million dollars is a lot of money. I don't know. Dan, what do you think? [00:44:04] Dan Runcie: It's interesting because I've always thought that his career was definitely into replay. I felt like it was typical timing of, okay, this guy's turning 30 and that could be hit or miss for a lot of baseball players, depending on how well they're able to take care of themselves and stay out of injury thing.[00:44:18] Dan Runcie: The one thing though, and this is a part that I do think gets overlooked sometimes is the ballpark difference. Yankee Stadium, especially in the new Yankee stadium, literally engineered in some ways to get more home runs and just have more, especially more than the old Yankee stadium compared to T-Mobile Park in Seattle, before it was Safeco park, historically picture friendly ballpark.[00:44:41] Dan Runcie: So if you know what you're getting yourself into, I mean, outside of Griffey and A-Rod in the nineties. I can't necessarily think of people that really like, oh yeah. You know, they cleaned up there. Maybe, you know, you had some early, I'm trying to think of some of the other stars who may have like, done well they're from like a home run hitting perspective, but it's one of those things where you think about the trade-off, right? It's. to some degree, it kind of makes me think about Carmelo Anthony with the Knicks, right? It's like you went to that team, you did get paid and you ended up getting, you know, later on a Supermax. But I think a lot of the decisions that he made show that he was prioritizing more of the money that came through, as opposed to the decisions, why not wait until free agency to then join that team instead of making them all those picks for you. [00:45:30] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Exactly.[00:45:31] Dan Runcie: And in some ways, yeah, I think about the Canó thing, that kinda kind of similarly, right. If you want it to continue to win and you didn't care as much about the money that you would have stayed in New York, but to our point, yeah. You get it a hundred million dollars is a lot, of course, but it's hard to have both, especially with the franchise, in my opinion, that they'll have spurts of having great players here and there, but they haven't necessarily been able to prove that winning this, that Canó was raised in.[00:45:57] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, and Canó is going to finish up and, you know, even now it looks like he may, he's probably going to catch on with another team, at least for the rest of the year, but he's, I think at 2,600, a little over 2,600 hits for his career, if he had been able to get to 3000, which I think in New York with a better lineup that turned over more, he gets more best, more opportunities to hit.[00:46:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: There 's a better ballpark for hitters. So more fly balls turn into home runs. It's pretty likely, he would've gotten to 3000 hits or that he'd be within shouting distance of it. Now with, you know, a little more time to go. There has never been a major league baseball player who got 3000 hits who did not end up in the hall of fame once eligible, except for the steroid guys and Pete Rose, who was thrown out of the game for betting on baseball. So it is like an automatic ticket to the hall of fame. So if he had just stayed at Yankee stadium, not done, you know, not on steroids, I think he would have gotten there. No question. And you know, who knows, I mean, seven years into that deal that he would have been what, 37, maybe. You never know if he was still hitting well, they might've brought him back for another year or two. God knows they kept bringing Brett Gardner back. So I do think he would've gotten a few thousand hits and had a really good shot at the hall of fame. And is that worth a hundred million dollars though?[00:47:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I don't know. Probably not. Probably not. He did have such a sweet swing though, man. Watching him play in the Yankees stadium. That was always fun. [00:47:25] Dan Runcie: He did it. He was exciting to watch. He had a great career and yeah, I think that's a great note for us to close out with this. Zack, we've covered a bunch in this pod, but basically, we'll have to have another roundup again at some point soon, but thanks for doing this. This is fun.[00:47:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: For sure. Thanks as always.[00:47:41] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post in your group chat, post in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people.[00:47:56] Dan Runcie: And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

22 years later on Tuesday 10 May 2022 Apple announced the end of production for the  Apple iPod. The device had proven to be a real breakthrough digital device not just for  Apple but for the music and the technology world. The iPod turned Apple from a nearly bankrupt company to an eventual $3 trillion behemoth. After 22 years since this product was designed and manufactured its chief architect,  Tony Fadell, speaking at the Computer History Museum said “Apple iPod is the only  reason why Apple is the company it is today”.  The device inspired the creation of the iPhone. It also saved the music industry from  piracy. Before the iPod, the music industry was plagued by a bestiary of piracy services - Napster, Grokster, Gnutella, Kazaa - that enabled people to get songs for free. Partly as a  result, legal sales of CDs were down 9% in 2002. As the iPod bows out, the technology industry has to take lessons from the creation of  this revolutionary product. One of those lessons is that it is not enough to just create a  product the product has to make a difference. It's safe to say that the iPod made a difference in the music industry, the tech world, and our society. Since then no tech product has come closer to resembling what Apple created. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Check us out: https://www.MarketExplainer.com Big Man Gear: http://www.bigmangear.com Avenue Lucky: https://www.avenuelucky.com --- Wow! Facebook is getting into podcasting! JUST KIDDING! Its quitting after a year: https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/3/23054848/facebook-shutting-down-podcast-hub-simplifying-audio-services AirBNBs popularity begins to grow because of dumb hipsters: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/03/tech/airbnb-first-quarter-earnings/index.html Think new cars are expensive now? Wait until all the features are subscriptions: https://www.carscoops.com/2022/05/gm-thinks-the-average-car-buyer-will-pay-135-per-month-in-subscriptions/ Becoming a Real Estate Agent is officially a meme: https://fortune.com/2022/05/02/real-estate-agent-career-popularity-coldwell-banker-ceo/ --- Want to see cherubic faces? Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs064wPGEUetnd06egSPN8w --- https://www.twitter.com/MarketExplainer https://www.facebook.com/MarketExplainer https://www.linkedin.com/company/MarketExplainer

Today, using streaming services is how most folks access music. But how did that get started? We look at the early history that set the stage for today's music industry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's 2022, and we are all wired in. Everyone nowadays understands the threats that cybersecurity can impose. Whether you downloaded songs illegally off of Napster and KaZaA or had an elderly relative fall victim to an email scam, the threats are real. If you're a business owner, you aren't just dialed in to the 'net. Your entire company is too. You might only have three or four employees; you might only have one assistant; or you might have an entire army of folks in various departments with a dedicated server. Being that dialed in, however, means that you might be particularly vulnerable...unless you have the know-how. Today I have the pleasure and the privilege of having Ryan from ORAM join me to talk all about how we can defend ourselves from the nefarious actors out there who might be spying on our email accounts and businesses. While that might sound like a storyline out of the show 24, businesses get attacked every day, and if you are caught off-guard, your employees and clients could be the ones paying for it. Don't miss this important and practical episode. Ryan and I break down:- How small is too small in terms of businesses that might be targeted.- The liability that a leak of medical information can bring.- Various types of nefarious actors that cause the Spidey Sense to tingle. Don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. About Today's Guest Ryan O'Ramsay Barrett is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oram Corporate Advisors (ORAM). Barrett has spent the majority of his career consulting to organizations whose data is critical to their business. While working as a consulting with various companies over the past 15 years, he has seen technologies evolve into one of the most critical components to ensure a reliable and scalable operation. Barrett has worked in many different facets of IT, from ISP and financial institutions to biotechnology, education, and more. With his years of expertise in project development, network design, domain migration and upgrades, email, security, and storage area networks, Barrett understands corporate needs and customizes his solutions to meet his customers' needs.

Episode 068 - This week Len & Gary are joined by longtime friend and pro wrestler Steve Huey. These three amigos ramble in many different directions (as you would expect from The Upgrade)…. pro wrestling, tv & movies, hardcore shows, the Warped Tour, Soulseek & Kazaa, Hellfest 2004, pandemic hardcore politics, pro wrestling during the pandemic, the current state of pro wrestling and the competition for your entertainment dollar, day job people & family coming to see your “side gig” (wrestler or musician), Xmas movies, horror movies, Steve's roots in wrestling, his career path & his disrespect for his body, donuts, pizza & other arguments about food, and more.Steve on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevexhuey/Steve on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevehuey631http://www.theupgradepodcast.net#theupgrade #theupgradepodcast #podcast #landminestudios #billyclubsandwich #hardcoremusic #nyhc #newyorkhardcore #nyhardcore #prowrestling #independentwrestling #indiewrestling #vxswrestling #napoleondynamite #warpedtour #hellfest2004 #pizza #donuts------------------------     http://www.facebook.com/theupgradepodcast      ------------------------     http://www.instagram.com/theupgradepodcast      ------------------------     

Hey coworkers!We're going back in time this week and exploring our musical pasts. Do you remember the days of Napster and Kazaa? We sure do! Listen to hear Greg and Bianca chat about burning CDs, parental advisory warnings, and albums we bought for just the one song. We're going on summer break, so it'll be a few weeks until you get a new episode in your feed. Stay tuned!Follow us on Instagram to see behind the scenes and get a visual of the stuff we talk about each week! @coworking_podcast Don't forget to rate and review our show - and tell your friends! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk NBA playoffs, a dead person found in a museum, Kazaa, Fast Furious 10, Hitlers speeches being opinion polls, and a Wingstop story. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqQ4PPN8q1VN8z0P8l7BGXA Clips on our Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/yellinggrandma/ https://www.instagram.com/coryxxx/ https://www.instagram.com/chrisrobertsonx/ https://twitter.com/chrisrobertsonx https://twitter.com/coryxxx email: yellinggrandma69@gmail.com Royalty Free Music Intro from Bensound

My guest for Ep149 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Phil Morle, Partner of Main Sequence Ventures Phil started his career as a Theatre Director, before taking those skills into tech initially as CTO of file-sharing company, Kazaa before going on to Co-found the first tech incubator in Asia-Pacific, Pollenizer. He is now a Partner at CSIRO's venture capital fund, Main Sequence Ventures, which has $490M in funds under management to invest in emerging Australian deep-tech and science based startups to solve the world's biggest problems. In this interview we discussed: Why 50-50 equity splits between co-founders are a bad signal to investorsTaking leaps and having a high velocity of learningThe art of FlearningThe important balance between “soft skills” and Venture science& much more! Timestamps  2.26 - How Phil got started in theatre and transitioned into building startups10.19 - Common mistakes and traits Phil has seen in business since working with startups 19.54 - The importance of taking leaps and the success of Spreets28.25 - Decision to close Pollenizer after two final chances and the importance of closing when it's the right time38.00 - The importance of reputation and being willing to put your reputation on the line44.51 - The power of giving employees equity for motivation and commitment 49.14 - Bringing together the CSIRO and Hungry Jacks to create v2food56.48 - The important lessons for startups working with large companies 1.03.34 - Collaborative work with businesses and coming together to share experiences1.09.11 - Identifying opportunities and the balance between soft and hard skills in founders 1.13.55 - Main Sequence Ventures new fund and what projects they are working on1.18.24 - Where to find Phil and Main Sequence Ventures  Links Mentioned  Phil's Links:  Phil's LinkedInPhil's TwitterMain Sequence Ventures Companies Mentioned Main Sequence VenturesPollenizerSpreetsHungry JacksCSIROY Combinator People Mentioned  Mick LiubinskasDean McEvoyDavid BurtJack CowinNick HazellPaul Graham Special Thanks: Special thanks to Nick Hazell and Mick Liubinskas for their help with research for this interview! ? Feedback/connect/say hello: Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams Other channels: Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player. Find all links to the podcast here. https://youtu.be/ExmReWFj-6E The post Ep149 – Phil Morle (Partner – Main Sequence Ventures) on leaps, equity and the art of flearning appeared first on Startup Playbook.

we originally roped in our buddy Mike Perry to discuss the American pie movies and Tomcats but it turned into a Proustian time warp through our collective memories of being horny middle schoolers from the years 1999-2001.... we hope some of you can take this hallowed journey back with us to the carefree days when the antics of Stifler and the fellas were poised to shape the minds of young people forever (yes Kazaa and limewire are discussed)

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR. YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG. YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A TELEVISION. YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A MOVIE... but we did download and burn HUNDREDS of movies and albums in the late 90s and 00s. We take an action-packed run through our burnt CD and DVD spindles, revisiting our memories and collections of P2P downloading—Napster, KaZaA, Lime Wire, audiogalaxy, Scour, and more. Music, movies, software, and of course... PORN. So much porn. We also discuss early Slipknot (Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. and their self-titled debut), the origins of the 00s piracy crackdown and hate for Metallica/Lars (but he wasn't wrong), nu metal (again), discovering new musical tastes (death metal, Meshuggah, etc), burning mixes with Nero and wisely filling time on the discs, the high-cost of buying new albums (which may have justified the downloading, only to preview the album before you actually bought them), and why do we still remember the lyrics to Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba"? Spotify. Apple Music. STEAL THIS EPISODE!Are you enjoying the podcast? Listen to the episode here, share with a friend, and leave us a review:- iTunes: https://apple.co/30Cj3pf- Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/39prLKn- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2RmnVdU- Stitcher: http://bit.ly/30A8Glq- iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/2R3LlFLContinue the conversation:- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nostaljunkpod- Instagram: https://instagram.com/nostaljunkpod- Facebook: https://facebook.com/nostaljunkpodSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/nostaljunkpod/donations

Anthony Rose is a serial disrupter. He first disrupted file sharing with his application Kazaa. He then disrupted streaming with the launch of the BBC iPlayer. And he is now looking to disrupt the legal industry with his legal tech platform SeedLegals. We spoke to the entrepreneur about the road he took to achieve product-market fit, how cash-strapped early-stage entrepreneurs can persuade talent to join them, the biggest learnings of his career, how founders can integrate customer feedback to their company, and his marketing strategies. Listen in.  Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.About the GuestAnthony Rose is the Founder & CEO of SeedLegals, a new legal tech platform that lets startups and investors complete the legal work needed to build, grow and fund their business, at a fraction of the cost of using a law firm. Previously, Anthony co-founded Beamly, a social and content network for television, which was acquired by Coty in 2015. Known as “The man behind BBC iPlayer”, Anthony ran the iPlayer and other BBC services from 2007 to 2010, taking the iPlayer from pre-launch to major success story. Anthony's patent portfolio includes patents for distributed online rewards, content discovery, and interactive television.Sign up for regular updates from The Orbit Shift PodcastThe Orbit Shift Podcast is Powered by Freshworks Inc. a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. Host and Producer - Jayadevan PKAssistant Producer - Shashwath JAudio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

Spinning Out (another music podcast) We talk to artists about their favorite albums and go on wild tangents. This week's guest is Ruben Polo of Soul Glo. Today we are talking about "Everynight Fire Works" by Hey Mercedes (2005). We talk about being fans of everything Bob Nanna, finding music on Kazaa, going to shows before cellphones, and so many other tangents. Soul Glo released a new EP, "Songs to Yeet at the Sun," in 2020 on Secret Voice Records. You can pick it up directly from the band, or from the distributor, Deathwish Records. https://soulglophl.bandcamp.com/album/songs-to-yeet-at-the-sun Also, we just started a new Patreon, check that out here: https://www.patreon.com/spinningoutpod Episode edited/produced by Sarah Blumenthal Theme song performed by Pretty Matty

Ray Smith is the Founder & CEO of BeApp. Ray grew up in West Philadelphia and always dreamed about traveling the world. After graduating high school and then USC for college, he found himself in Palo Alto, working in management consulting for the booming startup scene. One of the tech phenomenons at the time was peer-to-peer file sharing, birthing a new world of music discovery across sites like Limewire, Kazaa, and Napster, and opening Pandora's box for those who had previously been constrained to local radio. Ray discovered a love for dance music and found that listening to European festival sets was a game changer for his runs. He knew that if he couldn't be at those festivals in person, he wanted a way to see what was happening firsthand. And that's what led him to start his first company, Be-at.tv. Over the past 13 years, Be-at.tv has been the leading distribution and content channel for music festivals, sporting the highest quality audio and video experience on the internet. When Covid hit in early 2020, and music festivals essentially went to zero, he knew that although the in-person experience was on hold, there was still a need to democratize the artist experience for fans all over the world. This was the kernel of inspiration for BeApp.Today at BeApp, Ray and his team are delivering artist access through a virtual portal on your phone. On the BeApp, a user is able to virtually attend concerts with mainstream artists like Katy Perry, Miguel, Kaskade, DJ Khaled, Gryffin, Steve Aoki and Flosstradamus, as well as local artists performing new music every day. And these concerts aren't your typical grainy Zoom call – the app supports an extremely high quality audio and video experience that lets fans engage directly with the artist and jump to the virtual front row for everyone to see. And there's a lot of exciting things on the roadmap. At the end of the conversation, I chat with Ray about where BeApp is going and some incredible features in the works. Tune in to hear Ray's story!EPISODE TOPICS: (2:59) BeApp snapshot today(4:39) Background and founding story(21:23) Future of live events in entertainment/music(32:53) Building community(36:32) How BeApp works(45:01) Business model(49:16) How the music industry works(58:00) Investor pitching lessons learned(1:05:53) Advice to younger self(1:08:49) BeApp new features(1:16:08) Ray's wellness stack(1:29:12) Ray's startup manifesto(1:32:21) Ray's founder nominationBeApp - download hereFollow Ray on LinkedInFollow BeApp (@beapplive) on Instagram // TwitterRay's learning and resource recommendations The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com Follow The Founder (@founderpodcast) on Instagram // LinkedIn // TwitterDon't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here