Steph Smith: Jobs of the Future, Fractional Real Estate, Mouth Tape and More

DTC hearing aids. I think that's actually going to be a big deal.

And they were profitable.

I mean, I'm just turning you on. Yeah, they were.

Probably Mormon. Say it again. Are they Mormon?

Oh my God.

How far away from the coast did they live?

Are they inland?

All right, we're here. Steph Smith's here. Before we talk about Steph Smith and all our ideas, we have two things. Sean, you want to go first?

Yeah, I got to come clean. I have a, um, like a very late disclaimer I have to give. So a few episodes ago, maybe like 4 or 5 episodes ago, we had talked about a business idea that was like a children's play space. Basically you go there and you like, yeah, it's just a place to play. You pay, pay membership fee and you go play with all these cool toys inside. Anyways, I was like, oh, it turns out like interesting business. It's a franchise thing, blah, blah, blah.

Anyways, but did you, you, you just went there. You didn't know anything about it.

I didn't even go there. Ben went there. My business partner went there and he was telling me about it. And he's like, yeah, like, you know, I was talking to the guy and here's their occupancy. Here's their, if that's true, then here's what they would be making. Well, I went and looked at the website and, uh, before and after and basically meetings, like bookings to like inquire about a franchise got booked out for like 4 and a half months. After the pod. And I just want to say, I have no idea if this is a good business or not. That was an estimate. That was a single experience. It was a, hey, this— that's kind of cool, huh? That could make money. I do not endorse this. I don't know if it's good or bad. I can't say either way. And I really hope that a bunch of people didn't go buy franchises of this thing thinking that, uh, that I was vouching for this. So I just had to say that because I saw all those meetings get booked and I got a little nervous. I was like, oh wait, This is not a, uh, I can't co-sign this. I can't vouch for this either direction. And I just needed to say that up front. So please don't, uh, mortgage the house and go buy a franchise of this thing.

Did they reach out to you?

No, they didn't. No, I don't think they knew what, I don't think they knew what happened.

That MFM effect. Well, the second thing is, so we have like these sources wherever, like I'm about to talk about something health related or like, I don't know, in your case, in that example, the franchise related or. Real estate related. We have like 3 or 4 buddies who will like text and be like, hey, we're thinking about talking about this. What's your opinion on X, Y, and Z? And they'll kind of give us some insight. Uh, one of those guys, his name's Adam Bornstein. I met Adam because he was like, he basically ran a lot of Tim Ferriss's stuff. And one time he had this conference called 212. He invited me to go and they would rent out like the Four Seasons. And one time I checked into my room and it was so big. I called down to the front desk and I was like, Hey, who do I share this room with? Is the, and it was a 4,000 square foot Four Seasons penthouse, the presidential suite that had like a 16-person dining table, a movie theater. And that's how I met Adam is he invited me to come to his event. And so I've always asked him for health stuff. Well, he just had a book come out. It's called You Can't Screw This Up. I'm trying to think of the best way to summarize it, but it's basically, so I have this thing written down. It's basically Ryan Holiday, James Clear, Tim Ferriss, like that style of writing and like that, like I don't know, simple hacks, but that's kind of a bad word, but I don't mean it that way. But like these simple hacks on how you can create healthier diet habits. So the book is called You Can't Screw This Up. He also worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger and that's who got, uh, he got to write the foreword. So I just want to give a shout out to Adam. He's a friend of the pod. So I want to give him a shout out, but Steph Smith, what's good. Nice to see you.

Good to be here.

One of the all-time All-time favorite guests. This is, I think, appearance number 6. So if you love this one, go listen to the other 5 that Steph's done. Steph is great because she brings a dossier. I can't even call it a document. It should be on googledossier.com because it is a 15-page document of trends, ideas, small, like, you know, observations that might, you know, half ideas that might become something. Which makes you essentially the perfect MFM guest. Um, and you're, you're also cool and fun to hang out with. So thank you for coming back.

Yeah, good to be here. Every time I come on, I get way more nervous than any other appearance because you guys hype me up like that.

Sean, do you know how I met Steph?

Uh, no. Tell me the story.

I will forever take credit for Steph Smith's career. It has nothing to do with how hard she works. No matter what I do, no matter how hard she works, no matter how smart she is, it's all me. I've, I, I'm completely— so basically she had this blog. It's still, is it StephSmith.io?

Mm-hmm.

Yep. It's, it was a really good blog and she had this headline and the headline was, to be great, just be good consistently. Is that it, Steph? Basically. Uh, what was it? What is it exactly?

Yeah, it's like how to be great, question mark, just be great repeatedly.

Be good repeatedly.

Oh yes.

Be good. And I was like, I DM'd her. I was like, Steph, this is the best headline I've ever read. This is a really good headline. Like we're launching this thing called Trends. Do you wanna join us?. And she was like, ah, maybe. And I was like, look, come work for us for a couple years and I have a feeling you're gonna like go and leave us and that's totally cool. Come do like a tour of duty. Now it's been about a year and a half, maybe a year since she's left. She's, uh, at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the, uh, biggest VC firms in the world. How is that going?

It's going great. Yeah, we just hired a producer, which is nice because for a while I was kind of hacking it together myself. But yeah, I feel like the podcast finally is taking off and we're trying a bunch of different formats. It's actually like, I feel like I'm easing into it. I'm finally having fun. Like when I listen to My First Million, you can tell you guys talk about it's like the best job in the world. I'm finally easing into that, which is nice.

What's it like working there? I mean, when I think about working there, I think of like, uh, like the TV show Billions, you know, like it's just like fun shit all the time, but is it just normal company bullshit? I mean, it's just like, is it more normal of a job than I think, or is it? As spectacular as I would imagine?

I mean, it's kind of both because day to day it's totally normal because you're just doing your job. You're just doing work.

Do you go into an office or are you remote?

Um, I'm remote. They do have offices. I go in every so often just because I started working remotely a year into my career. And so for the last like 8 years or so, I've never had an office. And so it's like a novelty for me. Everyone else is sick of the office and I'm like, ooh, candy bars.

You're like, oh, you just sit here all day? Wow. Yeah. You can't leave this box.

I know. It's crazy. I'm like, ooh, a call booth. Like, how special.

I think the way Sam talks about like when his wife Sarah worked at Facebook and he's like, and you know, when you work at a place, you just sort of get used to everything and you kind of optimize for convenience. And so like, oh, the all-hands meeting's on. I can either go down to the cafeteria and listen to it or they have like a streaming option because there's employees all around the world and like, all right, whatever. I'll just stream it. From my desk. Yeah, that's easier. I'll eat my salad here. And Sam was like, no, you need to go sit front row with a pen and pad. And when he says any questions, you need to like jump outta your chair and just ask him a question every single week until he invites us over for dinner. Like that was basically Sam's like master plan until you're his best friend. I kind of think you should be doing the same thing. Like what's the point of working at Andreessen Horowitz unless you're just like at the office every day just waiting for some like awesome Marc Andreessen moment to happen. Or just like, you're there when he just yells at somebody and, uh, it just goes off. Or like, you know, they're doing a blood, you know, like the, the 12-year-olds come in to give them blood. And like, you're like, yes, this is the weirdness I came here for.

Is like, it's like every, it's like every movie ever where there's like the big boss at the conference table and it's like, who, which analyst put this together? And then the manager's like, oh, one of my guys. Bring your guy here. Let me talk to that person. Or like, And Marc Andreessen's going to say, like, you know, who thought to do this? The number on this is blankety-blank. And you say, actually, sir, it's 6473. What did you say? It's 6473 because, uh, this— come with me. Yeah.

It's like, who— for 6 weeks I've been leaving crumbs in the kitchen to see if anybody would clean it up. And finally somebody did. Let's pull up the security footage. It was Steph Smith.

You're promoted.

You're at the top now.

Right?

These are the fanfic. This is what I think is going to happen if you— but you just got to be there. I can't believe you're not there every day. You should be.

Every day in the office.

That's the real upside of your job. It's not your salary, it's that you can go hang out with some of the smartest people in the world. But you got to do the hangout part, not the like just when we're on calls.

Then we— I gotta hover.

Yeah, you're right, I gotta hover around the office just like you do on the internet.

You gotta lurk, you gotta be—

just think about this. If you told like 21-year-old you that you would be in this position and you'd be like, would you just stay home and just kind of do your own thing, or would you like go be there and hang out and lurk and like, you know, just be serendipitous about like what's going to happen. You know, the 21-year-old you would be like, oh, I'm definitely going in. I'm going to meet these people. I'm going to see what's up. Uh, but I think it's easy later to be like casual about it.

Yeah. I got to embrace. I feel like Sam, if you were in the office, you'd like go up to someone grabbing a snack and be like, hey, what's up? How's it going? And I'm like so awkward.

I'm like, oh, you need to be romantic comedy bumping into everybody and dropping all the papers that you're holding and then being like, let's clean this up together. Like not even for the romance, just to like, you create a little like intersection between you and me and these people. Yeah. When I was at Twitch, when we got acquired, I literally, I even told people there openly, I was like, I'm not here to do my job. I was like, I'm going to find whatever the most interesting things are happening here. And I'm just going to go be in those meetings and do that. Like, you're not going to be able to stop me.

But that worked, right?

And it worked amazingly.

You're friends with Emmett. Yeah, me and Emmett.

I was like, this is the most interesting guy in this building. So anytime it's like, you need to go talk to, you know, Jerry on the 4th floor. Nah, I think I'm just going to hang out in Emmett's. I'm just going to stay in the meeting. Like we do the meeting with Emmett, everybody gets up and leaves and I'm just going to stay there on my laptop. Next group walks in. I'm still there. I'm just going to hang out and see what happens. Like no one's going to say anything. Or, uh, I remember when Ninja got poached. So like the top streamer on Twitch got poached and then there was like, I know there's secret meetings happening about like, what should we do? Should we like, counteroffer or what is it? It's like a code red moment. And there's all these, but I wasn't in those. So I just wrote up a plan and I sent it to like the 3 top executives. I was like, here's the plan for Ninja. I know I'm not even on the team, but then they were like, attend this meeting tonight at 8 PM. And I was like, I'm in. I got into the cool shit by just like not doing my job. And, uh, that's, that's my recommendation to you. If you're going to be around these like 9,000 IQ people, that's the real upside of your job. Don't do your actual job. Do the job of hanging out.

Speaking of Speaking of which, Steph, are they actually, do you think that the talent there, are they actually significantly smarter than any other, uh, like pretty decent tech company?

Um, I would say yes. I would say I've worked at, I mean, not that many companies, but—

This is a direct shot at you, Sam. She's only really ever worked for you and Marketplace.

No, I've worked for—

I'd say like at least 5 companies where I've been a full-time employee. And I would say yes.

He's like, my, my previous job was a lot of checkers and now I'm playing chess.

What the fuck do those geniuses know about newsletters?

Well, you, you had said something at the beginning of this, uh, you were like, oh, I get nervous for this more than anything else. I'm curious, do you feel nervous when you are in one of these like A16Z, like whatever meetings? Like, are you like, oh, these are, these are like the people I used to follow on Twitter and shit like that. And now I'm in this room.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think there's an element too where I don't represent the company running this podcast, but in a way the podcast is like an asset to the firm. And I'm like, they hired, I mean, I'm glad they did, but they hired a 29-year-old who like candidly feels a little out of place amongst these people who have been, you know, like Marc Andreessen basically like invented the internet. Like he created the first browser or the, the widescale browser. And so I'm like, I do feel sometimes a little out of place, but I feel like I'm a year in, I'm getting used to it.

I think you should give yourself more credit. Uh, you're cooler than everybody I've met at A6&C. So, you know, I think, uh, I think they're lucky to have you as far as I'm concerned.

I'm going to bring in one of those Nick Gray name tags that says cooler than you. Sean thinks I'm cooler than everyone here.

Exactly.

This is why I knew she was a good hire because I was like, in my head, I was like, oh, she doesn't understand how good she is. Yeah. I'm like, this is a deal. I got him. She doesn't know yet. Um, Seth, where do you want to go from here?

Um, let's just start with the first idea. So this one I think is really interesting, um, because right now I think a lot of people listening know that there's this issue with commercial real estate. All these office buildings, you know, are up for sale, or at least people are leaving, and like the highest level of, uh, of like vacancy ever, basically, uh, especially in cities like San Francisco.

Where I think there's like 35% vacancy and going up as soon as people's leases roll off. As soon as they can get out of their lease, they will. So it's like, uh, you know, it's just a, it's a disaster.

Exactly. So what is this thing?

So, uh, a lot of people think, okay, well then let's go change, let's swap those, that commercial real estate for homes, apartments, et cetera. That makes sense. But I think there's this huge opportunity for fractional real estate. So Click one of where it says see here, click one of those and tell me what you see.

All right. Sean, you want to go?

I'm describing, uh, I'll describe it. So it looks, it's something called Temple Immersive and it basically looks like a yoga class of some kind. It's like dimly lit candles. It looks like a hot yoga class, but then on the roof is this like crazy visual where it looks like you're in the forest and the whole thing just looks super cool.

Where do you think this is? Like, what is this building?

I mean, I have no idea. This looks, I mean, this looks like the lobby of an office building in a way.

It's like huge, but they make it look like a temple.

No, but I like to think of that. It's a room where you go smash shit, right?

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's one in SF as well. Um, but basically people are angry. SF itself is a rage room. They're losing their jobs.

Yeah. Is it, is it like the rage room at the Walgreens Market Street? Yeah.

The city is the rage room.

Yeah. CVS is doing a rebrand. Okay, what is this rage room shit?

So people will literally go and yeah, like Sean said, you just smash it. So like they'll give you a bunch of plates, they'll give you like old electronics, they'll give you stuff. And I think depending on what you choose, you pay a different amount and you just get a session in this like empty room and you just get to smash stuff, which you just don't get to do in normal life.. And so I was thinking, I was like, you know, not just a yoga studio, but a lot of this real estate, like, go convert, like, a club during the week to, like, a rage room.

People—

we have— I always thought, like, these little things wouldn't be that interesting. But we have this member of Hampton, and he's tweeting about it. His name's Raleigh Williams.

I was just gonna bring him up.

Yep, dude. So he, he— I think he's in Utah. And he created a it, it's like, I don't know, I thought escape room was like a brand, but I think it's also like the style. Mm-hmm. Uh, and so he created like a version of an escape room. And what did he do, Sean? He sold, he sold it for about $30 million.

Yeah. These, yeah, I, I didn't think that these would be good and then I like met him and I started learning about him.

Like, he's a nice dude too. People should, uh, go follow him on Twitter.

How do, how do you know him?

Uh, I just know him through Twitter. I saw some of, uh, I, I like, I've been going back and forth with him a little bit and then, uh, he listens to the pod, so, you know, He had reached out at some point.

Uh, Steph, talk about this pay transparency thing. This interests me a lot.

Also, shout out to Stan. Me and Sam invested in Stan. So good, good use of Stan here for the, uh, putting a link in the bio that lets you, lets you make a bunch of money. Um, yeah, this is cool. We've, uh, we've talked about levels.fyi on the pod before, which is a similar concept, which is like crowdsourcing salary info. So you can, if you're an engineer at Facebook, you can go find out, am I getting paid what other L4 engineers get paid? Or should I be working at Google? And what would I get paid if I was over there? Um, I think they're, they're doing an awesome job of this. When we had mentioned this on the pod, somebody Did this for doctors. They were like, uh, we, I think we had said you should, somebody should do this for nurses and doctors. And then they, they were like, hey, we're med students. And so they went and did this for doctors and created a database. I think they got acquired by Levels, uh, actually after, after hearing it on the pod, uh, and then taking action on it. So definitely think that there's opportunity here. And I like, uh, Sam, what do you call it? Regulatory inflections. Uh, regulatory inflections, maybe. What's your big word you like to use? Inflections.

there's another one you have here that I was gonna say the, so you guys have talked about hearing aids. On the pod before. So as of October, the FDA relaxed their rule, which basically meant hearing aids could be sold over the counter.

Which is bullshit that they're not sold over the counter. It's fucking bullshit. Like, it's been bothering me so much. That and glucose monitors. I'm amazed that they're not sold over the counter. I've been trying to get a hearing aid and they make me go to all these appointments and I miss them.

It pisses me off.

Oh really?

Yes. Another fun fact around hearing aids, which I feel like is interrelated to the fact that they can— is it now already that they can be sold over the counter? Is it this coming October?

No, no, they can.

Okay. So they already can. But apparently 99% of hearing aids or custom hearing aids are 3D printed already. And so there's a few companies that basically own this market currently. But the reason I love this is because 3D printing is the epitome of like tech hype cycle. Started in the '80s, then got way overhyped, wasn't ready. Everyone thought it was dead, but it's like come back in these really niche places like hearing aids. Uh, we talked to people on Trends a while ago that were using 3D printing for like dental implants, things like that. And so I feel like it's, it's something that actually is like overlooked because people were like, uh, 3D printing's dead.

Wait, what do you, Sean, you said yep, as if you know, you know, people doing this for teeth.

Yeah. One of my best friends, uh, one of my best friends from college, he's a, he's a surgeon and he's an ENT. Surgeon, so ear, nose, throat. And what he, um, I was like, while he was in med school, so this is like over the past, like, you know, 8 years or whatever. He's been, the guy's just been at school forever. And, uh, I was like, how's it going? He's like, oh, you know, it's fine. But like, I'm having the most fun because now I run Duke's 3D printing, uh, facility. I'm like, 3D printing? Like, just like for engineering? Like you're making toys or what are you doing? He's like, no, like the medical 3D printing. And I was like, wait, I thought med— I thought 3D printing is like not even a thing. Like, for normal shit, you guys are already using it in medicine. He's like, dude, I surgically implanted part of a skull that I 3D printed the other day. Like, you know, we take your jaw shape and then we're able to like create like the perfect shape that we needed for this implant, this surgical process. And I was like, wow, I had no idea. And they're doing this with a, like, basically it's interesting. Some technologies take forever to get into medicine because it's like the high stakes spot. And for some, medicine is the only justification for putting in the time and the money that it takes to get the technology to work. And I think that's kind of where, where, um, uh, 3D printing has gone, where it's like it started as like this hobbyist thing, but then the real commercialization so far has happened on the medical side. I think the same thing's happening kind of in VR. People are trying to do the hobby thing for a long time., but one of the better, more commercial use cases of VR is, you know, doctor training, flight, uh, you know, uh, pilot training, um, things like, you know, uh, you know, imagining construction. Yeah, exactly. Anything where you need to sort of visualize and, and, uh, plan something, you, it's worth the money to develop a, a, a really high quality VR simulation because it's cheaper than doing a real, a real, uh, prototype of it.

Damn, I didn't know you, I didn't know you, I, I didn't know you had this side of you.

I got friends in, I got friends in hospitals, as they say.

Well, you're Indian, of course. Of course you do. You're the odd man out. But you know, you're, you're shilling Web3 for years. Turns out you're a practical guy as well.

We put the blockchain in your brain, baby.

Um, yeah, do the, uh, do this.

Was it bootstrapped?

I don't know if they were fully bootstrapped, but yeah, they're not venture-backed. It's like bootstrapped and then their uncle gave them some money to keep scaling it. It seemed like that sort of vibe.

And they were profitable?

I mean, I'm just turning you on. Yeah, they were.

Probably Mormon.

Say it again.

Are they Mormon? Oh my God. How far, how far away from the coast did they live? Are they inland?

All right. Let's, uh, let's keep going. Let's do the, let's do this jobs of the future. I think this is a good one. And I also love that you're branding this Steph's list. Well done. Way to, way to take a page out of our book.

I had to, I had to. I love Sarah's list. Um, but yeah, this all comes from, I guess, two things. One, people think AI is taking all of our jobs. I personally don't fully agree with that. We don't need to dive into that.

Well, what's the, what's the official stance at a16z right now? Is there like a, is that how you guys do it?

I don't have a stance for a16z, but we're tech optimists.

AI equals money. Yeah. Do they just like, is there like a poster where it said like Web3 is future and they just like put an X over it? They just wrote AI.

No comment. No comment. But what I'll say is we even on this pod have talked about about different jobs, um, that don't quite exist or maybe are starting to exist. I've talked about chief automation officers. Sean, you've talked about this idea of like a mental fitness coach. Um, and I guess this idea of Steph's list is partially, I wanna share a few ideas today, but I also wanna hear from the listeners, like what are the jobs that you think are, as you know, some people might say a little more antifragile. But also that again, like, don't quite exist yet or early, the types of things we would have talked about in trends.

Start with the stat you have here, because I think the stat actually makes it clear that these aren't just like, like, oh, cute things on the fringe. It's like, no, this is the future.

Did they not exist because like AI didn't exist or did they not exist because it's by new comp— new businesses, like new businesses that are being created.

The job title didn't exist is what you're saying.

Yep. So even, you know, simple examples of this that I think anyone can recognize from even the last few decades, before 2008, 2009, the idea of a social media manager did not exist. The idea of a UX designer did not exist. And those are jobs that truly, like, what, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people now do these jobs. And so there's going to be versions of this. I think it's a little more brain-wracking to figure out in the age of AI because you can always ask like, oh, well, is this going to disappear in 3 years instead of 30? Um, but I think actually there, there's maybe like frameworks to think about this. So for example, I think drones are kind of hitting that— we talked about 3D printing— hitting that stage where a lot of consumers own drones, but a lot of companies are also starting to use drones. And so, like, what within that, that industry could exist? It could be like drone technicians. If there's a lot of drones, people are going to need to fix those drones. Is there like drone traffic control? There's aircraft traffic control, so why wouldn't there be?

Right. Safety inspector, charging installation, blah, blah, blah.

Exactly. Exactly. And so my question for you guys is like, anything on your radar?

Like, well, let's start with the ones you talked about before. So you, you said it quickly, but I think it's worth repeating cuz you were on, I don't know, a year ago when you said it. So Chief Automation Officer, when you said that at that time, this was kind of like definitely pre-AI being like the thing that everybody's talking about. Um, what does a Chief Automation Officer do and why did you think that was a cool job?, like a job of the future?

Yeah, so I mean, a lot of companies will have a CTO. The CTO typically though is so wrapped up on like, what's our infrastructure? Is, you know, cybersecurity, what's our, our, um, how are we tackling that and how are we keeping our, you know, our company safe, our data safe? What they often aren't focused on, and maybe some people would argue this is the role of the COO, but is How do I actually take the technology that exists today, like AI, um, and enable every single person within my company to understand how to uplevel their jobs, right? So like to become 3x more productive, because most of those people unfortunately either aren't plugged into the technology, don't have the like excitement to actually implement it within their job, or honestly, it's just one of those like, you don't know what you don't know.

Really?

The very first hire. His name's Grant. All he does is automate stuff. So he's basically, uh, a Zapier plus Airtable expert.

Yeah.

And because one of our values early on was we wanna grow to be big, but we don't wanna have to hire loads of people, so let's let's right away start automating stuff. And it was because of that conversation. So the very first hire we made was an automation expert. That's awesome. And you know what? It is fucking awesome. It is awesome.

The bottleneck is not typically like you have to create new things. It's that they're basically— you're bridging a gap.

You're just gonna duct tape a ton of stuff.

There's a process we're doing that's kind of tedious, manual, repetitive, or, uh, low value add, but needs to be done. And then there's tools that could do that if you knew they existed and you knew how to pipe them together and stitch them together so that they actually work. And what this person does, and like, I do this at our company almost by accident, which is, uh, like for our e-commerce companies, like I just discovered yesterday, there's somebody who just has to like spend hours a week just like square cropping photos so that they look better in Shopify from what the photographer gives them. And I was like, wait, you do this for how many pictures? And they're like, yeah, it sucks.. And I was like, you know, there's this tool that will just bulk, you bulk upload and it'll do that. And then it'll put them, it'll pipe it to you here in Slack. And you could see it, you know, we'll use a different tool to pipe it into Slack and you'll see if there's one that's off. 'Cause you could just kind of skim this with your eyes and, and then you'll just be able to fix the one-off that's not good. But 98% of them will just be done well the first time automatically by this one tool. And they're like, oh shit. That's like, no, thank you. That saves me a bunch of time. And now I could go do things that are actually going to drive a little more growth versus just like some bullshit that had to be done. And, uh, how many of those are there? In every company, there's a ton of those.

And the problem, the problem is, Sean, is even let's say that hypothetically you only have 10 people, even though you've been 10 people for 3 years, just 10 people has created enough habit that even getting an automation person in now, it's going to be like, oh man, where do I start? So doing it with 10,000 people is like an impossible task. That's why we were like, let's get this right away. Let's do this right away.

Yeah, there should be like a ratio, like for every 10 employees you have, you have one chief automate— or not chief automation officer, but someone who knows how to automate. And you just pair them with teams and you— they literally do user interviews. They sit down, they say, hey, let me shadow you for a day. Let me just see what you do. And then from there, I bet anyone, myself included, who tries to automate what I can, They would just pick up so many things of like, why are you doing that at all?

So I think you should also have this for, um, team collaboration. Have you guys ever read this book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team?

Yeah. By Patrick something.

I don't even know who he is. It's a great book. Honest. I love that book.

I think other people, it's like a narrative driven, right?

Yeah.

Other people I think don't really like it. It's kind of like fiction. It's a, it's a business advice book, but it's written as a fictional story. Which is cool. Yeah. Because that's not usually how those are written. And it basically describes like there's a company, you know, whatever, Acme Inc. And they go to this like team offsite and they're trying to figure something out. And then you have these like 4 personalities or 5 personalities or whatever. And, um, and it shows the like different ways that a team could be dysfunctional. And once I worked in a bigger, like, you know, I've worked in kind of like 2-person teams. That's what I'm in now.

Uh, well, I, I think the takeaway of the, or the, what the, you forgot this part where he says, The point, the reason the book's called that is, uh, successful teams all look different, but every dysfunctional company looks the same. And here's the 5 things that they all have in common. Exactly.

And you kind of identify them, but he identifies it. And the way the book's written is kind of cool. I think it's sort of like, it's, it's, here's a situation that you have 2 people who both have kind of like valid perspectives, or one person doesn't realize that the thing that they're saying is causing the other people to feel a certain way and causing all these like Second Order Effects. Anyways, it's a good book for management, I guess. But I guess my real takeaway is I've been in a bunch of companies where they do these, like, shit builds up and then they're like, we need an executive coach, we need a team offsite, we need to break down all this scar tissue that's being built and dysfunction that's in the team and resentment that's in the team and all these things that are not allowing us to perform at our best. I actually think that companies should embed this in the company. So I think there should be somebody that floats around. That's basically like the chick in Billions who's like the team psychologist or whatever. It's sort of like that, but instead of one-on-one therapy—

What's her name? I love that lady.

Yeah, I stopped watching the show after season 1, so I forgot, but she's awesome.

She's Wendy Rhodes.

Hey, you like that word doula? You gotta use that word doula here.

Yeah, I guess I'll just keep using doula as a guy and pissing everybody off.

Sam, what do you think? Any jobs that stand out to you? What are you guys hiring for?

Um, I don't fucking know. Uh, but nothing that, like, uh, some of the ones that are like bullshit that you see out there, and then I see their titles and I'm like, oh, you don't, you're not actually good at that, is community manager. So like community manager is like a title that I actually don't think most people know how to make community. So that's kind of like a nonsense one.

Oh yeah, for sure. What are the, what are the, what's the, what are the lists that you have here? Head of remote and then cyber actuary. What are those?

So head of remote is kind of similar to the thing that you mentioned, Sean, but it's like, there's so much dysfunction at companies, especially the ones that transition from being non-remote to remote, just copy and pasted a bunch of things from the office. And they don't actually know how to build a remote organization from the ground up. How to do things asynchronously. And so it's kind of crazy when you think about how macro a shift that is for like, you know, thousands of people to be doing things all one way, switching to a totally new way and to have no like expertise from someone to actually guide that. Um, so that's the idea of head of remote and some companies already have this, right?

A remote work officer or RWO. What would they do? It's like, well, people like I know in our company, it's like, Well, first they have to, it's kind of like IT. There's like, well, they need to have like a good home setup. Sam, you've talked about this. Like, we need to not look like dog shit on camera, whether internally or with our clients and our customers. So like, how do we make sure everybody's got like a good Zoom setup?

Okay.

Secondly, like, how do we create some best practices around remote working and how to like, you know, do stuff that's different now that we're not all in the office and can just like look each other and talk to each other real quick. And, uh, how do we set boundaries for different time zones? How do we plan meetings? You know, like. All of that I think is definitely in the—

Location-based pay. I mean, isn't this crazy? Like to your idea with Hampton, Sam, of the nice background, the same companies that had these really strict clothing rules, like you have to show up in a suit and you have to look this way, are letting people sit with their MacBook under their chin with like a dirty ass background behind them, showing up to their business meetings, trying to win a client. And it's like, where's your digital suit? You know, like, right, they don't care. They don't even think about that because it's so outside of their field of view. Um, but that's just one example.

And I think you guys do that at A16Z because like when I imagine A16Z, I'm like, that's a khaki pants, that's a khaki pants type of place.

Well, I don't, I don't think we have a clothing code, but we do have like Lululemon's ABC pants is like the official pants of Manhattan. Here's something that A16Z does do that I never like put together as related to this, but like their design team will create every quarter these beautiful Zoom backgrounds that the company uses. And they actually look good. You know, I feel like a lot of Zoom backgrounds are like the company's logo kind of awkwardly like Photoshopped in the background and just like a square. And they, again, they refresh them every quarter. Everyone has access to them. So there's at least that visual consistency.

Um, but I don't know if we have a clothing code, but I hope some of your bosses and employees listen to this, and I just want them to hear me say this. It is me and Sean making fun of you guys, not Steph.

Just FYI. I thought you had like a threat there. That was awesome. You're like, it's like on TV where they're like, put the camera on me, put the camera on me, listen up, put A on me. And then you look down the barrel and you deliver some like wrestling promo. That's what I thought you were about to do, but you were trying to cover for me.

Sam's version is like, look at me, and he's like, you're great.

Yeah, exactly.

No one believes in you more than me.

Well, I had a friend that lived in China, and, uh, I used to like text him all the time, and I'd be like, dude, your government sucks. What's going on with that? And then I would reply with, by the way, whoever's reading this, it is me saying this, not him.

Yeah, don't disappear, my friend. Uh, I'm glad they invest in the cool Zoom backgrounds and stuff. You know, they got the, uh, I think what, like $700 million in management fees? Those management fees got to go somewhere, so I'm glad they're putting them to good use.

Yeah. Um, but I mean, just to summarize on the head of remote thing, think about— I think maybe the easiest way to think about it is there's all these macro tech trends, right? Like remote work, AI. Automation, cybersecurity, right? Like the idea of like a chief security officer didn't exist like 10 years ago, right? Because that just became such an important, um, I guess concept within especially tech firms.

And so, and what's this food engineer one? Well, I wanted to ask you guys about this because, yeah, we never talked about this.

Cana, do you guys remember that?

Yeah, I was so hyped about it.

They canceled. I know, but I still think the concept of like a food engineer will exist. I think this one's a little further out.

So give this story, Sean.

Yeah. So, uh, a lot of people know David Friedberg now because he's on the All In pod. So he kind of got a lot more, more popular or famous. But, uh, this awesome guy used to work at Google, created this thing called the Production Board, which is his like kind of incubator startup studio, whatever. And they build things that are kind of like hard tech. So it's like, uh, things that interface with the real world. They have like hardware, they're making food or making biological substances or whatever. Like they're creating real world things. And he had this company called Kanna that he created that was basically like the Coke Freestyle machine in your kitchen. So you would have this device, this Nespresso machine that sits on your countertop that can make like 1,000 different drinks exactly to your specification using basically like the equivalent of a printer cartridge. So it's like you put in this cartridge that's got all these like microflavors And then you hook it up to your water supply and it's like, it just takes water. It makes it cold, hot, or bubbly. And then it pipes in the exact dose of flavor to create whatever drink you wanted. You want tea here, it can make hot tea. You want sparkling water that's like flavored like, you know, blackberry. Boom, done. And so it was this awesome idea because it will also be good for the sort of like the world in a way, because a lot of the supply chain is basically spent Bottling water or soda, putting it in cans, putting it on shelves, putting cardboard around it, transporting it to the store, transporting it to your house, then transporting the trash to the dump. I was like, dude, what if we just took the water supply everybody already has to their home and we let you make whatever drink you want? Very cool idea. And then out of nowhere, it just suddenly got canceled and they were like, unfortunately to scale up, we needed a lot of money and in this funding environment, we couldn't do it.

That's a bullshit excuse.

Who can't raise, I mean, I mean, they've got like the top tech podcast in the world. Um, yeah, they also, maybe an interesting way of framing that idea was also, it was, it came from the idea that they had done research and they had realized that basically every drink out there, whether it was tea, whether it was wine, whether it was beer, 95% water, like not just 95% water, but even the chemicals that go into it. I don't remember the number, but it was something like there's only through like 30 or so flavors that you need to. Basically generate every taste. Um, but yeah, I don't know, maybe something for sure.

Yeah, we should get him on or I'm gonna tweet at him. I wanna know what, what really, like, not what really happened, like there's a scandal, but like, tell me more because clearly he could sneeze and raise $30 million for an idea. So like, I'm surprised if it wasn't like, it must have been that and his sneeze, his sneeze will be lovely flavors too. I mean, I, I, I feel like he must not have believed, meaning like the team must have realized it's not feasible or something like that, or they must have proven that the thing is not feasible or not economic in some way for them to not be able to raise money. Because just on the concept, I feel like they could have raised more money. So I think that's an interesting one.

What went wrong?

But he said that he was going to send us one, and then his assistant or someone at the company was talking to us and they just quit replying.

No, not send us one. They were like, we want you guys— basically, their idea was like, if you could make any drink flavor on the spot, okay, then what happens to drink brands? And his idea was like, drink brands become software. So they just become brands. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We would create a drink flavor, Sam's Almighty Root Beer or whatever, and it would just be like a specific dosage of flavors and that somebody could just buy it for a dollar on their own canna machine and it would just dispense the drink and we would make money for every one of those flavors sold. Basically every one of those drinks sold. Um, that was the, the kind of the concept. So they wanted us to make one and they were like, come down to our facilities. We never got around to doing it and now it's gone.

Did you guys see the freestyle machine for condiments?

Yes, I did see this.

Dude, sign me up. Sign me up, dude.

This stuff is— it's— have you been to like hot pot in Asia where they have the sauce bars?

No, tell us that.

It's— well, if you go to hot pot in Taiwan, like, they're literally—

there will be hot pots, like a, like a style of food or like a Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, so basically you get a big pot of hot water. They give you broth of a certain sort, and then you basically go shopping on this wall and you pick, oh, I want some noodles. I want some beef, whatever. And you pick it out and then you basically cook your own soup. But as part of that, they have rice and other things. And they typically have this huge sauce bar of maybe 20 to 30 different things, like garlic or ginger. Soy sauce, like ponzu sauce, whatever, and you make your own sauce. And so when I saw this coming, I was like, this is genius because like this exists in Asia, but only in these like hot pot locations, right?

Yeah. I, I kind of love this. I really do want the future of food to be a lot more interesting. I think, I think it's going to be. You have, so in your jobs thing, you got food engineer. I got that one. Um, cyber actuary. What does that one mean? Have you explained that one?

Yeah, so basically, I mean, a lot of people, even if we relate this back to AI, are worried that like, you know, there's just going to be a lot more cyber, quote unquote, crime, right? People like replicating your voice, like getting your bank details. And I think this idea of being a cyber actuary is basically— actuaries assess risk for anything, right? Um, how risky is it for us to deploy, you know, this celebrity's voice in this way? How risky is it for us to, I don't know, like open source our new LLM. Like there's going to be all these implications of things, I guess, becoming a lot more online if they aren't already. And so this idea of a cyber actuary is like, there's already a ton of actuaries that figure out how much insurance should cost in, you know, the typical world. Like if you buy a flight and I think there's just like this huge white space around, risk. That people have not calculated yet.

Did I tell you guys about Eden Data?

No.

Damn. I have it pulled up. Your digital security sidekick.

Yeah. When I see companies like this, I think like, I'm in the wrong industry.

You were talking to somebody that was doing this, or wanted to do this for rich people. It was like, Just an overall security audit for rich people. And, uh, like everything, like your house security, your bank accounts security, your crypto security, like just somebody who's going to come in and try to, uh, like just poke holes in your stuff. And at a certain dollar amount of net worth, like it definitely makes sense. And you're not the expert and you have more to lose than you have, you know, than, than the cost of the service. Like you have a lot more to lose. It's like asymmetric downside, basically. And, uh, I think that I've reached out to tons of people.

I've reached out to tons of people doing it. And the problem that I saw is that a lot of them, for some, like, they're all like ex-military guys too. Uh, and so like, I remember I was talking to Pomp. I was like, Pomp, uh, after the show, I was like, what do you do for security? Like, can you walk me through it? He goes, oh, I got this guy named Chad. We do this, this, and this. And then I talked to Chad and it's a little bit mom and pop. Yeah. There, it's not like just like I could just log in and you could just tell me what to do. Or it can just get done. You know, there's no like Plaid or whatever that other software where you like, you just log in with your bank accounts and it just does what you need to do. It was very much a manual process and it was like $15 grand and like, this person's going to do this. And so I do actually agree with you. I think there's a start. I do think this is like a fragmented— that's a— it's a fragmented service. And I think that one great company can, can, can do all this, all the stuff you need to do.

Let's hit some of these other random trends you have. Uh, don't mention the one I wrote. Don't mention because I got something in that space, so don't mention that one. But, uh, do, uh, do some of these other ones. Let's start with a mouth tape.

Yeah, so mouth tape. I first heard about this like 6 months ago because some guy on Twitter was like, I tape my mouth shut every night for the last 6 months and it's the best thing I've ever done.

The hot dude, the hostage tape guy will not stop DMing me.

Uh, we have this guy who's got a company he called Hostage Tape and it's just tape for your mouth. And he told me he's gonna launch it and I'm like, this is dumb. And then 6 months later he's like, $500,000 in sales. Yeah. I'm like, great. And then he is like a year later, $2 million in sales. And he is like just rubbing it into my face.

I don't think he's an official sponsor, but Andrew Huberman has been talking about it and we, uh, in my household we like to call him Father Drew as a joke. But if Father Drew promotes something in this day and age, yeah, he's like the bro Oprah in a way where Like if he says, uh, bro science Oprah, if he says it's good, he's gonna—

you're just gonna get a huge spike.

Yeah, so that's the— I mean, these are just like, I don't know where this goes. I don't know what opportunity there is, uh, other than going and selling some mouth tape, maybe rebranding it. But that's one trend.

This guy's company's called Hostage Tape, and like I saw, I was like, oh, this is the worst, this is the worst thing ever. Like, this is awful. What do you do? But he's proving us wrong.

That was your weight loss idea, remember? Wasn't it called Hostage?

Yeah. A hostage SF, right? Kidnap you and just don't feed you for 4 weeks.

You should partner.

Yeah, this guy's crazy. So whatever, kudos to him.

Yeah, but, um, I guess we didn't even mention— do you guys understand what's good about mouth tape?

Like, it makes you breathe through your nose, and breathing through your nose is better for you than, uh, breathing through your mouth.

Okay, speaking of health benefits, another, um, trend that I would love to see take off because then I would have called it, is lupini beans. So people like health.

Haven't you been talking about this bean forever?

For the last year. I just went into a, I don't know all the American grocery stores like Ralph's or something.

Is this like the high protein bean?

Yeah. So it's got.

Dude, you've been talking about this to me forever. You keep telling me about this bean. I've been out with you a bunch of times.

It's 18% more protein than chickpeas, 2% or 2 times more fiber than edamame. 80% fewer calories than almonds, 60% fewer carbs than pistachios, 35 grams per serving. Obviously they cherry-picked this data and compared to like the, the best option for them. But these beans, I think they're like originally from Italy or they're popular there. But I just have seen this over and over and over as someone who traveled a lot where like edamame, edamame was not popular in North America 20, 30 years ago. Like no one knew what it was. Right? It came from Asia. And so now when you go to restaurants, it's like a very common thing.

How would you like to invest in the next edamame?

Sam, do you remember when Bobby at HustleCon, um, would go around pitching people as a joke and he's like, his pitch is tuna water?

No, I thought it was hot dog water.

It was tuna water.

Dude, the, uh, have you guys had chickpea pasta?

Of course.

I don't like it.

Makes you fart like crazy, man. It makes you, it just, it'll give you the number 3.

40% as many calories as almonds, but 70% more gas. It's like, that's the lupini beans, uh, you know, pitch. Um, okay. So you've been calling this for a little while. I see. I mean, this seems like a good, like, D2C product idea, to be honest.

Um, there's like one company doing it.

Um, this one, whatever.

Yeah. Brahmi. They also do, I think, the chickpea pasta. Um, but I just think maybe there's something in the supply chain or like how hard it is to, you know, procure this stuff. But to me, they're, they're pretty cheap. They taste really good.

You eat them plain?

Well, they, at least this company will do flavored versions. So they'll do like rosemary garlic or.

Does it give you gas?

I don't think so. I didn't do an A/B test.

So you can admit.

I don't think you should.

It's a safe space.

Sam's like, you can say it. Sam, first every episode.

This is great.

It's a great, great idea. Okay. All right, I'm gonna buy some of this stuff.

I like this idea. Yeah, I'm gonna try these out and see, uh, see how I feel about it. Um, by the way, this is the type of product that when we say on MFM, there's going to be 13 people that start this for 6 weeks, and then nobody 6 months later will be doing it for whatever reason. It's like—

and the same people that tell us they're gonna come back in 8 weeks and they're gonna say Actually, what do you think about this idea? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, if my DM history has 4 different ideas from you that you were pitching me for investment, like, it's probably not going to work out.

Sorry, it's a no forever.

It's exactly—

you got the forever no. Yeah, I'm stealing that line. This is a no forever.

Um, let's do— can we do one more around these advent calendars? Cause I feel like that's another case where like, I, I don't know, someone in the community is going to jump on this.

Sean, do you even know what Advent is?

No, is this some like Catholic shit? What is this?

Oh yeah, this is, this is as Catholic as, as Catholic can get. So every— is Advent— Advent's in December, so, uh, so we Catholics— I'm Catholic. Are you Catholic, Steph? No. Oh, heathen. Sorry. The Catholics Oh yeah. You're not one of us, but it's okay. Uh, the, we have Lent, which is like 40 days. And that was when like Jesus like walked around in the desert and you're not supposed to eat meat and shit like that. And then we have Advent, which is the 30 days leading up to Christmas. And oftentimes there's an advent calendar where it tells a story about like what Mary and Joseph, Jesus's parents, like what they did, like with the donkey and the mule and how they got like all these gifts from people, whatever. It tells that story and each day you open up the calendar, it's like the kid's favorite thing. There's a piece of chocolate in the calendar.

Yeah, I'm sure you've seen the advent calendars. Like at some point it was a religious thing, then capitalism got involved and then, you know, every day kids are opening a little chocolate.

I swear my whole life I thought the advent calendar was those little calendars that are like, you peel it and there's like, you peel the calendar for each day.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've been walking around thinking that's what an advent calendar is for a long time. My whole life, I would say.

This one you like peel back.

It's always chocolate inside. That's the idea.

Usually that's the one you get at like Target or whatever. And yeah, it's like a couple dollars, but it's like the most simple, you know, you, you buy it for your kids.

So what's your idea here, Steph?

The better advent calendar is my idea.

Beautifully done.

Just a beautifully done advent calendar.

5-minute abs. Yeah.

No, so this comes from, I gotta give this guy, Namazaki Paul.

Um, correct. He, he, he didn't sound like a Catholic.

No, no, no, no. So this is it. I don't think this has to do with religion, but I actually got this for Cal, um, this past year because here's the thing, Advent calendars. Yeah, I, I guess it was tied to religion, but they happen around the holidays. And so people are scrambling to figure out last minute, like, what should I get my family as a gift that's kind of thoughtful but fun? And a lot of people get Advent calendars. But they get these shitty versions that are like expired milk chocolate from the year before. What Paul did is he created this sake calendar. And so if you click—

That's the best way to celebrate Jesus's birth too.

That's crazy.

And he doesn't get that much traffic. Like if you look at his existing site, it's like 2,000 visits per month. So not something that he would typically be able to make much money from. But that's one example that just got me thinking, especially since we're like, what, 6 months ahead of Christmas? What advent calendars is the My First Million community, what are you going to make that is way cooler than the expired milk chocolate? I mean, I've seen some stuff like hot sauce calendars, Lego calendars, but it's got to be something that like someone can open. Either for 12 days, because some people do the 12 Days of Christmas, or all of December.

I— this is actually cool. Yeah, I actually think this is a— this is really— this is really cute and cool and awesome. Um, you have a picture of this person who has a binder full of condiments, like individual packets, and I see your vision here. This is actually cool. I see— I, I smell what you're stepping in, and I think it's awesome.

Well, this, so the tweet you're talking about, Sam, what is that phrase? Is this girl Nicole who says, her tweet just says, organize my sauces. And it's like, do you guys remember, you know, if you collected, uh, like playing cards back in the day or, or, um, coins, they had those binders with the little, yeah, with the little, I don't even know what they're called, but this tweet got 468,000 likes. Um, I think it's probably one of the most popular tweets of all time and it's just her organizing her sauces from around the world.

So these are not for use. This is just like collections.

That one is for a collection. I feel like the advent calendar, it would be for use.

Yeah. Wow. This is crazy.

What I like about you, Steph, is like you find things that I would just scroll by, but you're pretty good at finding interesting things and applying them and like connecting to like 5 other things.

Yeah. When I scroll past something and I think I'm like, this is stupid. You write that thing down and make it sound smart. It's amazing.

I waste my time curating an Evernote that is just full of random internet shit.

But, and, but what you do, something that's different is you actually remember it. So I like bookmark so much stuff and then I just like forget all about it. You actually remember it and then you like, it's just the difference between like good and great in terms of like whatever the skillset is that we have. You like actually are organized that the, you know, what makes someone good versus great is like being organized. You are very, very, very organized with this stuff and that actually helps your like thought process. I would think. When are you, um, dude, when are you just gonna bail and start creating some of this stuff?

I feel like you started this train, Sam. So before I joined The Hustle, I was working at a company and in my last year at that company I said, and I must have been what, 24 or something? 20, yeah, around that. I was like, next, this is the last job I'll have, right? Like after this, I'll go and do my own thing. But then ever since then, I just kept, keep getting offered really cool stuff that I'm like, oh, I get to, I get to, more money. Well, I get to be paid to like go research trends and go down these internet rabbit holes that I'd be doing anyway. Okay, great. Oh, we got acquired. Now I'm at HubSpot and I get to build this like cool creator program. Okay, great.

And more money.

Now I'm at A16Z. I get to talk to interesting people and more money.

I got to meet this interesting person with more money in my pocket. It was amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. You're letting this— Sepsis sitting there, she's like, how can I get the things that are in their bank account to my bank account?

My daughter does this thing where she's 3 years old and she says this thing where she goes, This is my best day ever. Like, and I'm like, she might actually be telling the truth. This might have been like the best day ever for her. Like, this is the one. And that's how I feel Steph is whenever she gets a raise at ACCC. This is my best day ever, guys.

Well, I, I like Steph, you and I were talking about like how much money like you've had, like you're like, we were going through an exercise of like at 20, we had this at 23. You've had a nice run. You've had a very nice run.

A very, very nice run compared to where I came from. So yeah, like you were saying earlier, Sean, if like 21-year-old me would have said, yeah, like, this is where you'll be, this is how much you'll make, these are like the opportunities you'll have. Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Are you even 30?

No. Oh my God. What would, uh, what would 21-year-old you say? Like, what would the reaction be?

Well, it's funny because I would— I feel like I still have, like, throughout my whole life, because I didn't grow up very wealthy, a very, like, money orientation. Not that I need that much, but just like, oh my gosh, like, you have that much money? Like, go buy a car. Like, go buy nice clothes. Go, you know, go, like, use the money that you've always wanted but never had. But it's funny because now that I have more money, I'm still, like, just as cheap as I ever was. So I don't know if that stuff ever leaves you.

Sean, do you know that Steph's, uh, half Taiwanese?

My mom's from Taiwan.

Yeah. Do you know that?

No, I didn't know that. Is that supposed to be super special or what? Why are you telling me this?

At our old company when someone found that out and I was like, yeah, I mean, I could see that. And then there was like people like, Steph, why are you lying to us? You're Canadian.

I've had some— well, Canadians not—

I know that was the joke. They're like, quit lying. Yeah. Why are you lying about being Taiwanese?

Jordan was like, So there's a huge spectrum. I don't know why, like what it is about the way I look, but some people when they hear that I'm half Asian are like, "Oh yeah, of course. I knew that." And then other people are truly shocked. Jordan was one of those and he went to Sam, or no, he asked me and he was like, "Does Sam know this?" And I was like—

Your secret's safe. That tells you more about them than about the way you look. It's just like, what is their level of exposure to different races versus anything to do with you?

Yeah. Yeah.

By the way, this thing about being cheap, I read, I was reading this story yesterday about this guy who made a bunch of money and they're like, what was your first purchase? He goes, I hired a consultant to help me spend money. And he goes, you know, I had learned over 25 years how to make money. It took me a long time to learn how to make money. And I was just very honest with myself that I have no idea how to spend money. And I could shorten that learning curve if I get a coach to help me spend money.

What was this coach called? A wife? Ah, I'll be here all night.

I was gonna say, isn't that like Ramit's thing too? I feel like he talks about that all the time, right? Like, you gotta learn to spend.

It's like, it takes reps. What was the coach actually called?

I, I mean, I don't know. It's just like, I don't know what the actual job title, but you know, a spending consultant, let's call it.

I, I have no idea. But what do they like teach you how to do?

I, I should— where was this article? Yeah, I want to look this up. I, I need one of these things.

Uh, yeah, you should look it up. I don't know. I don't know if this exists. Maybe it's a job of the future.

I don't know if, uh, his recent episodes are the same, but Ramit's early podcast episodes would do this, right? They talked to like millionaires who are fretting about $8 blueberries at Whole Foods. Or like, I remember one episode where this guy was like, I think had at least $10 million and was picking up like a stroller on the side of the road. Um, things like that where it's like clearly like, yeah, you haven't upgraded your thinking or your mindset to where you are.

Dude, I just made $400 selling used gym equipment from, uh, from like, from some stuff I'm not using. And I'm like, this is my best day ever. $400. Yeah. This is like the best day ever. Like, it's like, I feel more happy about that $400 than I do making much larger sums. Yeah. Uh, and the best part is that I paid $300 for it 5 years ago. Now I got $400 and it's like the best high ever.

I read this thing that was like, um, this guy Timer who created, he's got this company called Causal and, uh, it's like this Excel competitor, but he has this blog post I really liked where he was like, He was trying to figure out in a nerdy way how to decide if he should buy something or not. And so he's like, um, he's like, well, I break everything down into kind of like, I don't remember the, the, the exact message, but it was something like this. It was like the frequency of like, how frequently am I gonna get the benefit of this? And then like, what's the like magnitude of the benefit? And so he's like, something that's, it doesn't have to be a big shift, but if it's gonna happen all the time or like 10 times a day or something like that, like, you know, like I bought a phone case that just feels better in my hand. And it was like a great purchase because like the hand feel of my phone is something I'm touching my phone all the time and just making that feel a little smoother, a little better.

It was like, dude, what's that case called, by the way?

I'm looking for a good, uh, let me look at my hand feel. So it's, um, oh wait, do we know how much it costs?

Is it going to be free plug for you guys? Moaz, I think is the name of it, but it's got this, like, this is not like plastic feel. So this feel right here is like a, it's almost like the feel of a basketball. It's like a, almost like a, like a, like a traction kind of like feel. Cause I was like, I hate the plastic feel of cases. Um, like I think that feels cheap and, uh, and I don't enjoy it. I didn't want the leather ones either. So I was like, what else is there? And found that. And so he, he identifies like, if you're going to do it, if it's going to be frequent, then the magnitude needs to be less. If it's going to be infrequent, then the magnitude of the joy it brings is going to need to be high. And you can kind of multiply those two together. To figure out like the value of that item. And then you sort of say, okay, that's the value to me. And then what's the price to me? And you sort of use that to figure out, you know, where should you, where should you spend versus not? And what people mostly get wrong in that is they undercount frequency. So like a better pillow or something like that is great because you're going to sleep on it every single night versus a nice bag, a Louis Vuitton bag that's going to sit in your closet. Like my wife bought a Louis Vuitton bag and she literally never takes it out because she doesn't want it to get messed up. It's Wow, that's the most expensive $6,000 thing that just sits in a closet for no reason versus things that you get joy out of all the time. And so I bet if you guys looked at what's the best purchase you made or you're most satisfied with this year, it's probably something that you interact with somewhat frequently, or it was like a one-off life-changing experience that was just like crazy magnitude.

Yeah. What was that article called? I want to read that. I need some good money therapy in my life.

Money therapist. That's the title.

Yeah. Yeah. I need some good money therapy. Yeah. Send me an article. But Steph, um, appreciate you doing this. You're always coming with fire. You're, you're a Twitter, you're a Twitter person still, right?

I'm a Twitter person. StephSmithIO is the handle. And if you wanna support my day job, go listen to the A16Z podcast. We're doing some cool stuff there.

That's just what it's called. A16Z podcast, right?

Yes.

Mm-hmm. All right. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Steph.