6 under-the-radar trends (+ our ideas)
All right. Today we're talking about trends. So I have this list I've been keeping. I want to bring it to you today and riff on those with you because a lot of success in business just comes from surfing the right wave. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. I think founders like to believe that it's our own genius that's causing our success. And when it's failure, then it's market. Conditions. And actually, often it's the opposite. It's the market conditions that can create success or really amplify your success. And I've learned the hard way that the most important thing is finding the right wave to surf.
Have you ever been on the inside of a product that has taken off like that? I haven't. But like, I've had friends who they'd be texting me as it was happening. But have you ever seen that?
Yeah, a couple of them. There's one that we did recently that I invested in my friend, and they're doing a— I can't say, I don't want to say the thing because the trend is like still going. It's still hot right now, but it's a health, it's a health supplement. And so like, you know, in the health world, there's just like every few years there's a new diet trend. There's a new like, um, you know, a few years ago a big thing was like leaky gut. And it was like, oh my God, leaky gut health, leaky gut, I got to do something about that. And so there's these things that just come in these waves of awareness. And so we backed one of those and it just is crazy growth. I mean, $0 to $30 million in one year. It's like just wild and profitably, like it was just like crazy growth. We have another company that we started that I haven't announced yet. Maybe I'll do that soon. But we have another one in that space that's kind of like same thing as zero, you know, in one year just doing millions in recurring revenue profitably. It's just like, wow. And it's not because we did something so much better. It's not because we worked hard. Smarter. It's not because we were smarter. We didn't have some genius strategy. We just picked something that was like, had market pull inherently. The market wanted this and all you had to do was show up. You know, it's, you're selling cold waters on a hot day. That's, that's really what I, what I want to do. So in any case, here's a bunch of trends. I think I have 3 or 4 trends that I think are going to be really big. I think if you've watched this episode 2 years from now, uh, a lot of this will be proven right. And then I have some bonus ones for you. All right. You ready?
Yeah, let's do it.
All right. Trend number 1, short drama apps. So what, what are these? If you remember a few years ago, there's this company called Quibi that was started by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who created DreamWorks. I think Meg Whitman, the former CEO of HP. Well, who is she? I don't know who she is, but she was somebody big deal in Silicon Valley.
So Quibi raised $1.75 billion in funding. Pre-launch, pre-launch, pre-launch to build this out. And they were like, look, the future is short form. You see what's happening with TikTok? This was early days of TikTok. You see what's happening with TikTok? Well, guess what? That's what the next Netflix is going to look like. It's going to look like TikTok content. And they take their $1.5, $1.75 billion of funding, they hire a crack team in, in, in Silicon Valley, fancy offices. They got the executives, dude.
They came to our office to pitch you and I to like— they wanted Sean and Sam or like MFM to be like a content series. And I was like, guys, we're behind our laptops all day. Like, this isn't interesting.
They were like, uh, we need you guys for Business Unscripted. And we were like, what?
What does that mean?
They're like, it's a category. We're like, we're in that? They're like, okay, never mind. So they, they, you know, they wanted content. They needed content on the platform. Anyways, Quibi launches, fails in under a year. So $1.75 billion, all this talent, all the resources, all the brand name, the guy created DreamWorks. In under a year, it folds, didn't work.
And they were mocked, and I thought that was kind of nonsense. I thought it was a great— like, that's—
you take swings, just in the arena doing stuff.
Yeah, I mean, like, it was like, it was like, uh, you know, they tried something, you know. Who might have mocked them for that?
People don't like when people with pedigree and resources go after something. They like when you're the underdog. So the Consensus opinion since then has just been Quibi equals failure. That whole category, failure. Well, quietly in the meantime, a handful of apps have basically run where Quibi crawled, and they are doing pretty much exactly the same thing, but to tremendous success. I don't know if you've seen any of these apps. Can I tell you about some of these?
Tell me.
All right. So they all started in China, and they're Chinese companies, but they're big in the United States. Um, so for example, here's, I'm just going to tell you the revenue of the top 4 apps, revenue of the top 4 apps. $150 million, that's number 4. $160 million, that's number 3. $275 million annual. And the top one, $315 million.
Okay.
That's insane. Isn't that insane?
Okay.
So how do these work? So I downloaded a couple of these. I watched them. Now what they did that was very, very smart was they realized the American consumer is pretty much an idiot. And what Jeffrey Katzenberg did wrong was he tried to give people what they should want rather than what they do want. And what they should want was well-made, um, you know, these, these series that were really cool, premium. Hey, we're not gonna do that short-form, just rubbish. We're gonna do Netflix original level content, but just made for your phone, 10 to 15 minute episodes, and you'll pay for it because otherwise, how are we gonna fund these things that are like millions of dollars? Arty shit. So these guys came out. I'll give you an example of one of them. So one of them's called DramaBox, the other one's called ReelShort. And, um, I'm just going to show you the first one on this. Can you read the title of that?
Yeah, it's called Pregnant with My Brother's Baby.
And I didn't just show him, uh, you know, CornHub. I did— this is the— this is a real thing, right? So these are all— it's kind of trashy soap opera style stuff. Now what they did differently was the key changes Quibi was free instead of paid. So you, you— Quibi was a subscription you had to pay for. This is free, but you pay to unlock more episodes. So you get hooked on one of these little dramas, and then you sort of buy coins to unlock the next episodes as you get— once you get hooked. So they lowered the friction. The next thing was they did kind of trashy TV. They did, you know, Hallmark and Maury Povich have a baby. That's the type of content that this is. Like, I watched one, um, Honestly, wasn't bad, to be honest. I'm not going to lie. Like, it's bad, but it's not like, like I watched 4 episodes. I probably only needed to watch 1 for my research and the episodes are only 90 seconds long. So it's not that big of a commitment.
Whenever I think of these, uh, I think of in on Wedding Crashers where there's a Jamaican guy, he's like the butler and they're like trying to like bother him. He's like, hey, I'm watching my stories, man. Like it's his time to watch his soap operas and like you can't interrupt, you can't interrupt anyone when they're watching their stories because the soap operas are so good. And you know that we talked about this, uh, we talked about this in 2019 or 2020, right?
What do you mean we talked about it?
What did we say? So, uh, we talked about it in a few ways. The first was there is this massive trend of these. This was when YouTube was, uh, obviously it was not up and coming. It was already up. But in 2019 and 2018, there was these guys making these somewhat tacky dramas and they were doing something very different on YouTube. They were making like 30-minute fictional videos on YouTube and it was like tacky in the sense of it was like a soap opera, clearly appealing to middle America women. So it was like a little like cringey but very addicting. Do you remember these guys that they would get like 8 million followers or they were making Facebook videos where it was like huge dramas or it was like the kid who got bullied on the bus and how he grew up to become president. Do you remember these like 20-minute videos?
And I get, by the way, I get sucked down this like rabbit hole, like often where like I'm on Facebook and it's like a kid getting bullied and like, it's like very clear message.
Market research.
Yeah. Yeah. Like it's hard to turn away. And then also I told you the story about when I was helping Ramón he, his original idea for a business was to do erotic fiction Audible stories. And we, we ran a test and on like 50 bucks of ads.
I think romance. It was short-form romance. Romance is very different, right?
It was erotic. It was like, no, it was like sex. It was like, it was like, it was for women.
So tasteful though.
They were in love. It was not— it was, uh, romantic sex. Yeah. And basically what we did was we, uh, he had a friend who loved writing these stories. He wrote one of these stories and then he had a Fiverr voice actor read it. And then we ran an ad, uh, and we called it Captivating Claire, I think. Uh, I forget what we called it, but we called it short but romantic. And we spent like $50 running ads and we got like $100 in recurring revenue on a crappy WordPress site. And like, anyway, my point being is like, all signs have pointed to, yeah, this makes sense.
And so like, for example, this one that I watched is called Heiress Crash Lands on Her Husband. And, um, I think I lied, I'm on episode 6 actually. So what happens is the story starts and it's this girl, she's so excited, this guy's gonna propose to her. She thinks— he thinks she's a DoorDasher, but actually she's a billionaire heiress, but she hid that from him because she doesn't want him to want her for the money, and she's so happy that he's gonna propose to her and, uh, blah blah blah. But then, um, his mother-in-law's like, she's not good enough for you, how about this other girl? And then she's like, you don't even know who I am. And then she reveals it, and I'm like, oh, cliffhanger, like, gotta see more. So what they're doing is 60 to 100 seconds, you free to watch, you pay for more. And these things are growing like crazy. And so they, you know, I guess half of China's internet users are watching these, what they call mini dramas. And guess what? I think that a lot of Americans are going to do this too. I think a lot of Americans are going to watch mini dramas, and these will continue to grow. I'd be very interested to see if some— if an American company can come out and do this, um, and do it maybe better than—
than—
because today the top 4, I think they're all Chinese companies. I don't think that's gonna last, or maybe it will last, like TikTok, but I think there's an opportunity for somebody to do this. I also, not just in the States, so for example, my mom, for years when she comes over to my house, it's wonderful. Uh, we hang out, we have fun, we eat together, we talk together, she plays with the grandkids, like it's all great. But then there's this moment at 9:30 at night where I just hear the most annoying sounds on TV, and it's these special effects coming from what she likes to call her Pakistani dramas. And it's basically soap operas from Pakistan that she likes to watch. And she's Indian, but she's like, they make the juicier stuff, they make the better ones. And I'm like, where did you find these? And how many episodes are there? She's watched, like, the series will have 650 episodes, and she'll, like, finish multiple of these series. And it's not just her, all her sisters love this. And they're just watching these on YouTube today, and they're like, you know, 15, 20-minute episodes. And so, um, and I looked up some of these, and like, if you go look at their YouTube channels the top 10, uh, of these will have like 4 billion views. I remember when people were talking about, uh, YouTubers and I just remember being like, this is a long time ago, but I was like, I only watch a YouTube video when somebody sends me a link of like a funny clip from Saturday Night Live or a basketball highlight. Like I don't just go to YouTube and browse to see what's on. I thought that was like a wild, weird behavior that people were doing. And sure enough, now I do that every single day.
I do it every day.
Every single day.
Like, I think it's a man thing, by the way. I think it's a, it's a young person thing. And then people our age, it's only men.
But did you think you would do that when you first saw that people do that?
Because like, no, I, I had like the same thing of watching video games. I don't even play video games, but sometimes I'll watch people play.
I had a Twitter account for years before I ever tweeted a single word. I was like, oh, why would I ever just tweet? I'm not going to try to do that. Like, I'll just consume. And so like some of these behaviors actually take a lot of time to, to kind of propagate. And it's, it's sort of like in the tech world, they say like, you know, what the nerds are doing on the weekends, we'll all do in 10 years. I think there's like a version of that in culture, which is like what the, what the degenerates are doing today, right? Like what the daytime TV watchers are doing today, we're all gonna do. I remember hearing about Musical.ly and being like, oh, people are doing like lip-synced lip-sync videos on their phone? Like, that's stupid. And then sure enough, you know, TikTok buys Musical.ly, becomes huge.
And sure enough, you're now making videos for your lipstick. You haven't shared it here, but we all know you do it. What, uh, what's another one?
All right. Next trend that I want to do is one that you probably know a lot about. It's a fitness trend. Trend number 2 is rucking, which is first of all, just an amazing word, rucking. And secondly, I just keep seeing this and I've seen it 4 or 5 times from 4 or 5 of the right people. And it instantly resonates when you hear it, which tells me that this is just going to spread more and more. So what is rucking, Sam? You want to describe it?
You put a heavy bag on your body and you go for a walk. It turns the, the hot girl walk into a, uh, a workout. So, you know how you go for walks in the morning, except now you do it with a 20-pound pack on.
You either wear a backpack or like a, I like the ones that are like the weighted vest. It's like a bulletproof vest looking thing.
Like, yeah. So that's the downside of all this, by the way. I do like, particularly when my daughter, when she was born and it's like, you know how when you want to get steps in when the kid goes to sleep, cause they're sleeping all the time. I, that's when I really got into it. I would put, first of all, I screwed up. I would put a 40-pound vest on. Cause I thought that was like, well, more is better. And then your back is like killing. So I'm like, all right, no, 20 pounds is is more than plenty. Uh, and then you, uh, just walk. But if you put your heart rate— I would put my heart rate monitor on an hour walk, it would be 120 beats per minute, which is like a pretty like hardcore walk. And it didn't feel that bad. So it basically supercharges a walk so you get more fitness out of a leisure activity.
Yeah, exactly. There's these charts you could see, like I'll put this up on the, on YouTube, but it's basically calories burned So in the same amount of time just walking, but wearing the rucking vest, you will burn about like 200 more calories. So, which is enough to put you like in a— if you did nothing else different, you would now— you might go from, you know, surplus to a deficit or break even to a deficit.
And it's not significantly harder.
It's not significantly harder. Right. And so I think this is going to be a big trend. It's sort of like pickleball. Where pickleball was the much more accessible version of tennis. I think that rucking is one of the most accessible versions of fitness because my, like, my parents in their 60s will go for walks. And I think that over time, if you realize that, hey, if I wear this 15-pound vest, I'm getting much more of a benefit without having to then— without having to like go learn a new thing or do a new thing or add in an extra workout. I think that's going to be really popular. Like, I want to buy one of these. And then I looked at some of the brands that are taking advantage of this trend, right? Because you see You see people talking about this. You see Huberman and others talking about how rucking is really good, how it's— there's like this thing, low-intensity steady-state cardio, which is known to be like really good for fat loss. And it's basically just like walking at a moderate pace for a lot, like 40 minutes or 45 minutes for like a longer period of time, and how that's actually better for weight loss than, um, than like, you know, traditional high-intensity cardio. And so then you go look at these brands. Have you seen this brand GORUCK? Do you know about these guys?
No, let me look at GORUCK. The issue that I've had with a lot of these packs is like I would do my walk sometimes at night and it would— it looks like I'm wearing a bulletproof vest and like—
The issue or the benefit? Because that's like the main reason I'm trying to get one.
Dude, they like, like people would see me like, and I— there was one walk in particular. I was walking at night and people kind of stared at me funny. And then Neville saw me out on a walk. He goes, dude, you look like you're about to go like on a shooting. You look like you have like a bulletproof vest on. And I was like, man, everyone's been staring at me because because it just looks very intimidating.
You do have— I got the vibes.
Yeah, I had the look. And so I had to— I actually went and bought a different one that looked less like bulletproof vest. And so this company, GORUCK, it looks like they make backpacks. They're basically backpacks, right?
They do it as a back— I think the backpack is their hero SKU, but they have, they have the vest too. I was interested. I probably wouldn't have even realized they're looking at me for the wrong reason. I would have thought they all think I look so cool and that's why they're staring at me. Like, dude, if I could wear like a Superman cape and get away with it, I would. Like, why would I not want to feel like a superhero or like a Navy SEAL? So this, this brand was started by, I think, an ex— he's an ex-military guy. I don't know if he's a Marine or what he was. And he was like, yeah, like, this is like a big deal in the, in, in the Marines. And so he created this brand called GORUCK, and he started partnering with these kind of fitness and toughness influencers.
And a toughness influencer? That's a good one.
Toughness influencer. David Goggins. What is he?
Uh, yeah, you're right.
Influencer. He's a toughness influencer.
That's a good one.
That's a good one. Jocko. What's Jocko? Jocko's a toughness influencer.
Did you just make this up or is that the category?
On the spot, off the dome, off the cuff.
That's great. A toughness influencer. Okay, cool.
And so the, so, and as you can see, like that, that's a trend. And so they, uh, they take off, I guess they're doing like over $50 million a year in revenue now.
No way.
Really? So they're doing really well. Um, and they turned it into a whole lifestyle brand. I mean, they announced it. They were like $46 million last year. So, you know, they're, they're going to be higher than this year. So they, um, they also do shoes and shorts and like shirts. Like it's a whole like lifestyle brand now. And I think this is really smart. And I think a lot of people do this. Now, where's the opportunity? I think the opportunity is go look at the prices on their website. Like how, how expensive is their like ruck bag?
$450.
Correct.
$420 for, uh, just one that I'm seeing here.
My friends, it's time to undercut. I think if I was going to enter this space, I would be trying to go be the, the lowest cost, good enough solution, which is never a sexy pitch, right? The sexy pitch is where the highest quality, most premium, most unique, made in America. That's their pitch, right? Like $450 backpack. That's great. And there will be somebody in that category, but guess who makes more money? The good enough at the, at the more accessible price point almost always makes more money. Like when we were hanging out with MrBeast and he's like talking about chocolate and he's like, yeah, Hershey's or whatever. And all of the people there were basically like rich people who either don't even grocery shop for themselves anymore or like only Whole Foods. And we were like, we like Hu chocolate. It's like, I like their cashew butter, you know, like $7 chocolate bar. And he's like, yeah, yeah, their chocolate's great. But Americans can't buy $7 chocolate bars. Like, he's like, we sell at Walmart and look where Hu is at Walmart. And it was like, like so off to the side in this like one tiny little footprint area because again, it's not the like mainstream price point. So I would be trying to build the, uh, the sort of like Walmart Ruck brand. And I know that's not really sexy, but it would work very well.
Do you remember Echelon? So when Peloton was really popular, me and I, I don't think you went, but for some reason I was there with Moise at the CES, uh, CES, the electronic show. And there was this booth for this fitness, like bike called Echelon. And it was 100% identical to Peloton. There was only one difference is that it was half the price. And it was called Echelon. And I think they got sued by Peloton, but they still exist. And everything that Peloton has, Echelon has. It's just literally half the price. But it's the same. It's the same logo. It's the same everything. Dude, have you— did you— have you ever seen Echelon?
Yeah, because they're at Costco. They are the hero fitness product at Costco. And which is again, same thing, like the Costco price point. And what they did was they just like, oh, Peloton, great. Okay, we got the trend. We even got the brand, we got the shape of the bike, we got the whole arsenal. Awesome. And they literally like took a, like a knife and just scraped off the letters off the bike and were like, here's a new sticker. Echelon. I think even like a ChatGPT name.
Like it was, uh, I think they even got sued. It looks like they changed their logo. They were literally the exact same red. It was, everything was the same. Uh, and I remember like going to the CES booth and I'm like, wait, is this, are you guys like a sub-brand of Peloton? What's going on here?
Uh, and sure, we're not familiar with that brand. Uh, we, we, we have no comment and no familiarity with that brand. Uh, completely coincidental.
All right. I want to do the next one. The, the, the next one that you have is pretty cool. Um, the, did you see the tweet that I have there for your next one? That's a, that's a good, uh, a good way to kick it off.
Okay. Do it.
All right. So you have plastic-free everything. So you're on board with plastic-free. Is that what you guys are doing at your house?
I'm, I'm not hardcore about plastic free. Like we still have plastic stuff and whatever. I mean, I can't say, I can't with a straight face be like, okay, we're eliminating all plastic from our life. And then I'm like giving my kids Kraft mac and cheese sometimes. So like, you know, I'm like, common sense test fails.
Do you have, uh, do you go out of your way to buy cotton clothing or natural clothing?
Yeah, I try to, I try to, I try to use, I try to buy the highest quality stuff for myself. Because I know I can, you know, like with my kids, that's, that's the monkey wrench, right? Like I can't get my kids to eat certain things yet. Um, and so, you know, that's where we fall apart a little bit.
So the trend that you care about, you had plastic-free everything. And I had saved a tweet by this guy named Miles Snyder. It happened, uh, March 2nd. So only 10 days ago from when we're recording this. And he said, Lululemon and Vuori really psyoped the whole generation. Which by the way, psyoped, that's a new word. Have you noticed that word's trending?
Dude's trending like crazy.
Psyoped is it. PSYOP is it.
Uh, it's some agency. PSYOP. I don't know what else is trending, but those, those two are on my radar.
Someone tweeted out that they PSYOP'd me and I didn't understand what it meant. And so I still don't entirely understand, but I was like, is that like an insult towards me? Yeah. Uh, so he said, um, Lululemon of yore really PSYOP'd a whole generation. $70 shorts made from plastic and petroleum that smell disgusting every time you work out in them and they destroy your fertility. Meanwhile, cotton shorts are cheaper, comfier, and better on every metric. And so you had listed here plastic-free everything. I think that the obvious thing that's going on right now is plastic-free or Teflon-free pans, which is, uh, in the same ballpark. But, uh, like for example, at my house we only have glass Tupperware.
And so there's nothing more uppity than any sentence that starts with, at my house, at my house. The next, the end of that has to be uppity. And literally you just spit on it and on somebody every time you— anytime somebody uses that phrase. Not you particularly. I'm just saying.
At my estate. At my estate. At the Parr Estate. At Parr Manor. It's class only. How dare you? For the record, I have Diet Mountain Dew in the refrigerator right now. Uh, so I think I could get away with saying this.
You have like tobacco in your lip presently and you're worried about microplastics?
Yeah.
You have a hole in your gum.
Yeah, so I think I get away with it sometimes. But no, we don't do plastic stuff. Uh, plastic, like anything that goes in the microwave, it's not plastic. But now our new thing is like, uh, my daughter has this thing she calls her baby. I said, what do they call it? Lovey, lovies or whatever, you know, like the, I don't even know what they are, but, uh, we're doing all cotton, those, which by the way, they're like way less comfortable.
Uh, I understand why, like, uh, do you use a plastic pacifier in her mouth?
No, we don't give her, we, we, she quit taking the pacifier, uh, at 3 months. But, and we even have glass bottles, but it's like a bunch of like glass stuff and we're not crazy. Like we use the Teflon pan for like scrambled eggs. That's like the only thing that we can't get away with for nonstick. But it mostly is not plastic and we are taking it to clothes. So a company that I like, I have no affiliation with them. I just think they're cool as Riker Clothing. Have you seen them?
They're— Yeah, I just, I actually just ordered some of their stuff because I want to try it out. It just arrived.
So I'm going to— I love it. It's great.
Give an honest review.
I think they're cool, but like, it's really actually hard finding all cotton workout gear. And so I'm on board with the plastic-free trend.
By the way, I'm also so prepared for somebody to be like, oh my God, cotton, haven't you heard? And then be like, cotton is a lie. Like, cotton is a huge lie. It's like when Joe Gebbia told us that recycling was a lie. Have you heard this part? This bit?
I've been saying this for years. Recycling is 100% bullshit. It should be reduce, reuse, get rid of the recycle.
And you're saying it because what?
It all gets thrown away in the trash.
Like, recycling is nonsense. But there's even more to it that he told us about. I wanted to get him on to do his recycling rant because he's got like a great recycling rant. But I believe that one of the core things is recycling is a psyop. You ready? Recycling is a psyop, which was that they— the plastic companies that make all the plastic products were like under some heat. They're like, oh shit, this is like really bad. And they're like, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? We blame the consumer. And they were like, blame the consumer, that's brilliant. How do we do that? And they were like, what if we made it their job to deal with the plastic? And they're like, how would we do that? Like, we convince them that they— it's the obligation is on them to recycle these products. And so they, they funded the, like, recycle movement knowing that it's like most of it's not getting recycled anyways. It doesn't really work.
Dude, the blue bins are bullshit. They're bullshit. Yeah, they're totally bullshit.
It's like cotton.
Cotton's next. They can—
I can feel it coming.
They could— you know what I often would do with the blue bins? And it would like freak out people. I remember people at my office, the hippies that like the, uh, like typical like granola people at my company would like complain to me, but I'm like, just throw the trash in the recycle bin. It doesn't matter. It's all going to the same place. And they would like flip out to like, it would like, I could tell they were like, we're losing sleep over this. Because they base their personality on this blue bin has always been my, like, it's okay to consume this and throw it away, but it all goes to the trash. And instead we should just reduce the stuff we consume or we should reuse what we can. The blue bin, I can't stand the blue bin. So Joe and I are the same on this one. So I'm on board with plastic everything.
So plastic-free everything. I think this is going to extend into clothes. I think it's going to extend into, um, like homeware, pans, everything, like cups that you use. I think it's going to extend into baby products. All baby products, I think, are going to— there's going to be a— the way that Honest came out with Jessica Alba and was like, these juices are full of sugar. So they're like Honest Juice. And I think that, uh, and they have, you know, they have wipes and they have diapers and they're like, oh yeah, you know, you need to use these, these products. I think there's going to be a plastic-free, um, big brand that gets built in the baby space.
Well, you know what that used to be, right? I grew up using this because my parents were a little hippie. It was cloth diapers that you threw into a hamper and then you had to wash them. It was disgusting.
And for that reason, I'm out.
It was, it was honestly filthy. But my mother—
my wife tried to propose that, by the way. She was like, I think we should cloth diaper. It is like the look of disgust I gave her. I, I mean, I was, I was just like, listen, you could cheat on me, you can abuse me, you can do whatever you want. You will not bring cloth diapering into my lifestyle.
There's usually my my parents used to do, and we were poor, and so they would— they said it was cheaper, but they had a service that would come and pick it up once a week. But it's still just like the idea of using cloth that other kids have shit in, it's— that's— it's filthy.
Like, we're animals. So the cloth diapers are not even just your cloth, it's a mixed pool of cloth?
It was like a wash and fold— it was like a wash and fold service except the stuff, the clothing, that had poop in it. And so it was basically you throw it into this bin and they come and pick it up and then they bring you new cloth diapers that are clean and you're just like reusing them. Yeah, it's like, it is, it's disgusting. But, uh, that's what, that's how it used to be. Which now that I'm saying this, by the way, this is kind of an interesting, uh, you know, we had, um, Jake on or whatever, the, the young guy the other day who talked about how he thinks of ideas through—
The kid we had, uh, what was it? Zach was his name. Um, we had Zach on and he was talking about how, um, when you ask him how he comes up with ideas and he's like, I just think about what would be awesome in an ad. And a cloth diaper is like revolting, but it is clickable and it is interesting. Uh, so I actually am on board with cloth diapers now. I just talked myself into it.
Okay. Sounds good. I also think, by the way, for Plastic Free Everything, that there's gotta be a supplement that people are going to try to sell that's going to like remove the plastic from your balls and your bloodstream. I think people are going to get on the, you know, every category is going to, going to try to, to take this angle. And I think that it's, it's sort of like protein, how protein, you know, became a thing. It's like, great, eat more meat. And then they're like, or take this powder, or you want protein chips? How about protein cookies? How about protein brownies? How about protein everything? Protein waffles, protein pancakes. And so protein just made its way into everything on the protein wave.
I think he's going to do that with water yesterday. It was amazing.
What is protein water?
It was basically water with like, it was a scoop that looked like lemonade mix and it was high protein and it sounded filthy and disgusting and it was delicious.
That's how I drink my protein shakes. I just put a scoop in water.
Did it taste just like that?
Because that tastes nasty.
There's something cool where you think creamy and protein that for some reason that's okay. But fruity and protein, that's just unacceptable. Do you know what I mean?
Like, so this was fruity or this was—
it was fruity. It was lemonade.
But you said unacceptable, but you liked it.
Yeah, I loved it. But I had to, like, get over that barrier. Right.
Is that— was that really hard for you?
Yeah. Like, I had to, like, watch a motivational, like, talk to, like, figure out how to— yeah. Like, David Goggins, like, definitely had to hype me up.
How bad do you want it? We fight for these inches. All right, so next one. Ready? There's another health trend, um, that I think is going to be big. Have you ever heard of anybody who's doing nervous system work?
Our most popular retreat at Hampton is called Nervous System Reset, and people go to the woods, and we have a facilitator who guides these things. It's very, uh, this is totally a niche thing and it was really smart of you to call this out. Uh, so go ahead.
Okay, great. So you're, you're already on this. This was, I've just, my spidey sense is tingling. I'm hearing a little things.
It's the new leaky gut.
It's the new leaky gut. Cause who, you know, who doesn't want your nervous system to be reset or to be calmed down, right? It's like this thing that's so central to literally it's your central nervous system. It's so central to you. Uh, you have your vagus nerve and like all this stuff. So I first got hooked on this because my trainer was telling me about this. He was talking about like when you work out and what you eat, it's not just about what you do. It's about the state that you're in, that your nervous system is in when you do it. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, well, you have these two, um, modes or modalities for your nervous system, parasympathetic and sympathetic. You're familiar with this?
Yeah, I know what those— I've heard those words before. I can't teach a class on this, but I vaguely—
here's my bro science. Okay. My bro science for this, which is probably half wrong, but basically you have two core modes that you could be in. One is your fight or flight, your fight or flight response. So this is where adrenaline, cortisol, you have these hormones that get released and they're not just bad, right? People say cortisol is the stress hormone. Well, stress is good in certain scenarios. Adrenaline is good in certain scenarios. You don't want to be in that all the time. That's the problem. But you need it when you need it. If there's a lion chasing you, you, you want to be in fight or flight mode, right? The problem is there's no lion chasing us. It's just Slack and email and, you know, scrolling on, on Instagram and feeling like you're not good enough and like looking at your body in the mirror and feeling like you're too fat. And then when you eat, you're stress eating or you're, you're working too hard, then you're stress eating or you're not sleeping, things like that. So if you're operating in that sympathetic system, which is that fight or flight, um, your body's secreting certain hormones, but then also, uh, your body shuts down other functions. So like, let's say you stress eat. One of the problems with you stress eat is not only do you overeat or you make poor choices, but your body literally digests less poorly, uh, digests more poorly during that when you're in that system, right? Because if you're in fight or flight, the body's gonna take its resources and say, guys, we're not digesting food right now. That's not what's important. We gotta be doing these other things. The lion is chasing us. And so, uh, then you have the parasympathetic, uh, system, which when you're in, it's more rested, more relaxed. Your body can do things like digest, it can recover, it can do other things. And so literally being able to shift your mood or your state from one to the other is really important. How do you do that? Some people get that from exercise. Some people get it from the sauna, from the cold plunge. Some people get it from breathwork. Some people get it from meditation. There's a bunch of different ways, and all of these are a means to an end, which is to calm your nervous system down. And a lot a lot of good things happen, both health-wise but also decision-making, creativity. You're much— you operate differently when you're in different states. Okay, cool. Um, we've now— so that's that, that's the theory. That's where I first got on my radar, and I believed it, and I started paying attention to it.
Well, you've been about, uh, breathwork for like 4 years now, or 5 years now. Yeah.
And the breath to me is like— because I'm always like, I'm not trying to supplement, or like, I'm very skeptical of the flashy hard things. So I always look for advice that nobody could tell me.
No, you're not. You love that. You love—
no, no, like in the health and the health space, let's say. Yes, right. Like, I like— why did I talk about rucking? Because I'm like, oh, it's walking with a little extra weight. Cool, that kind of resonates with me. It's— that's— that makes sense. Cold plunging, I never really was able to get into because I was like, I just think this is like this extreme thing that's like like, seems like it's for show. I don't know. It didn't really resonate with me in the same way. Breathwork did, because it's like, oh yeah, I could tell that literally just controlling my breath for a couple of minutes, I will feel much differently at the end of it. And it also makes sense to me to, like, work on my breathing system because I'm going to do that, I don't know, 50,000 times a day.
And I went to a breathwork class in San Francisco, and I, like, it made me kind of high. It was awesome.
Yeah, yeah, well, that's like the Wim Hof stuff. You can, you could literally hyperventilate yourself and you'll, you'll get high, you'll pass out, you could do a lot of things.
Yeah, it was great.
That goes more into the category of the extreme, but okay, fair enough. So our buddy Jack Smith had come on. Remember that thing he told us about on the podcast where he's like, I went in this room with 50,000 screens of different colors, and he's like, basically they flash things, I sit in a lawn chair, and I paid these guys 10, like, thousands of dollars, and it healed me. And I was like, we were both just like, okay. So we were both like, what?
There's one down there. Like, he came to my, visited me in my house. I live in a tiny suburb in Connecticut. There's one, I'm not joking, 200 yards from my house. And we went, and we went to it.
How was it?
It was, I forgot to bring this up. It was insane. So basically to everyone listening, it's, this is like, uh, 90% of people are gonna be like, that's, you're crazy. And 10% of the people are gonna like be into this. It's very like friend shit. You go to a room and you're surrounded by literally 20 TV screens and it looks like it's playing white, like snow, you know, like, uh, like when you're—
White noise.
Yeah. Yeah. Like where your TV wasn't working. And so it, and then the room is about the size of, let's say it looks like a, like a mini bunk room. It was like, uh, 50 feet long, 20 feet wide, just a plain room with reclining chairs in it. I go and I sit in the chair. And I just like fall asleep. That's all I do. And so I go home, lay in bed.
Are you supposed to fall asleep?
You're just supposed to do whatever you want.
You're supposed to relax. Are you supposed to close your eyes?
Close your eyes and relax. You're supposed to close your eyes and just relax. And I fall asleep. And part of me was like, did I just do like a Ron Swanson thing where they're like, where I'm just standing there meditating and he's like, this is so stupid. I just stand here and I'm thoughtless. Like, and like, yeah, that's the point. I was like, is that, is that what I'm complaining about? It's like, I just fell asleep and I actually did achieve it. I wasn't sure what happened. But I go to Jack and I say, you know, I did kind of like how they had vibrating chairs there. Like the vibrating massage chairs they had were amazing. And he goes, dude, they, those chairs weren't plugged in. They were not vibrating. They were not, the chairs didn't vibrate. And I was like, no, like I vibrated the whole time and it made me relax. And I felt so calm. And he goes, brother, I talked to the owner. I saw the whole thing. Here's a photo. It was not a plugged-in chair. There was no electricity in this chair. It did not vibrate. And I swore that it was vibrating me the whole time. So something happened. So that's my story with this, with this, with this place.
And how is it to be a Scientologist?
It was, you know, it felt crazy. Like it did. And I was so turned off because the guy who, the guy who owned the place explained how, like, his wife had cancer., and he went into debt to start this place and this cured the cancer. And I sort of felt like these people took advantage of you, man. Like, you know, you didn't use modern medicine. You're so like delusional. I feel sad for you, which is silly for me to judge, but that was my judgment. And yet I left think like my thinking my body was vibrating. And so maybe there was something there. That's all I'm saying.
Yeah. So I, I'm kind of fascinated by this and, um, it does feel like something that like. Someone would, like, a YouTuber would make up to make like a cool YouTube video, or it's not like a prank video. It also feels like, like, like the Hatch in Lost, like the Dharma Initiative created this thing. So, you know, there's definitely a part of me that's like, oh my God, this is bullshit. However, I do believe that nervous system work makes sense, and who am I to say that that's not one of the methods that would, uh, you know, reset, rewire, calm change the frequency. I don't know. I don't know all that stuff, but people are really into grounding. You've seen grounding? Go stand in the grass?
Grounding is insane to me. My college friends used to be into this, so they, they, they would, after playing sports, all the basketball players would do it. They would take their socks off and they would go and they would stand in the grass because they said, they used the word ions. Something about negative ions or negative electrons were going from the earth to their body and that was going to heal them. It was the same thing to me as like, do you remember Brett Favre promoting like copper, the copper bands, the balance band? It's— and I don't know, man, I don't know about it.
So I absolutely don't know about these, and I'm not— I, I have no— I, I don't know the science. I don't know if this works. What I'm saying is I think there's market demand. I think this is a trend. I think there's pull. I think this is an area where when you talk about it, it has that leaky gut type of thing where people say, you know what, I think I have that problem. I think I want that improved. And whether it's through this room with screens, whether it's through grounding, whether it's through breathwork, I don't know what it is, but there, that's a trend. And I, I, I see it. It's a wave. And I think a lot of people are gonna go surf that wave.
You should go check out one of the, what's the screen thing called? It's called the electromagnetic therapy or something like that. Maybe. Uh, and let me know if you have a similar experience. I'm a hater on it, but I'm telling you, I left. My body felt different.
All right, let's do something that's not a health hack real quick. I have another one for you.
Religion, AI, social network, which one?
Dump phones. Okay, let's do biohacking and plants. Um, which I don't have a lot here. I'm just gonna say it out loud, but there's a moment in time right now. So this is, what is this, trend number 3, 4? Uh, we did 5. This is 5. Okay. 5. Trend number 5. So trend number 5 is biohacking plants. So there's a moment in time right here where I think biohacking has never been as popular as it is now. Thanks to Bryan Johnson, thanks to, uh, Ozempic, thanks to people, real peptides, people realizing like, oh, I can just kind of take this, stab this, do this, eat this, drink this, whatever, and I'm gonna improve my own health. So biohacking is a thing, um, and AI has changed the game of science because AI is now doing kind of remarkable things. I don't know if you've paid attention to AlphaFold or some of the stuff that's coming out of Google where it's basically like— AlphaFold is basically an AI, um, breakthrough where AI was able to predict how proteins fold, which is really important for a couple of reasons. But I think that the simple explanation is like, Uh, the shape of proteins really matters. It matters how other things can connect to it. It matters how it can connect to other things, how the building blocks can link. And it was something that we, we didn't as humans know how to do. We didn't know how to sh— we knew what was, what it was made up of, but we didn't know how it would fold. We didn't know the shape of the protein. And AlphaFold was like, beat all, beat all the, the, like, won the competition of, of modeling protein folding. And so let's assume this is only going to get better.
And, and the implication of this is what? We can make new drugs.
Yeah, exactly. Therapeutics, drugs, um, you know, so you have all these different, like, these different technologies, CRISPR, you have, um, you know, protein folding stuff that's going on. You have in general an interest around biohacking, but the problem is biohacking in humans is really hard. And when you biohack in humans, you have to worry about all kinds of health concerns. You have to worry about like getting approvals for things. It's going to be a long, hard road. And so in the same way that I think the longevity startups that are focused on dogs are going to do well. Because who doesn't want their dog, like, to live longer? I think that's like a problem everybody has.
The background of that is that we had Kevin Rose on and he was trying to create, or he invested in a longevity drug company and their model, their, their, their phase one was using it on dogs because that's an easy, easier way to get into it.
Easier way to go to market, um, and, and to test your, your products. I think the even easier version of this is plants. And, um, I know that like David Friedberg is doing this for Ohalo, which is basically like it's basically biohacking, but for different crops. So how do we make a strawberry that does— has certain properties? Maybe it's resistant to certain bugs, or maybe it can be riper, maybe it could be bigger, maybe it can be juicier, maybe it can grow in different, different weather conditions, and therefore can grant— therefore certain places can now grow their own crops that don't have to import, right? So it's like all these like implications if you could biohack plants, uh, because plants are food.. And so how do you do biohacking in plants? And plants for a long time, like a lot of the, like the breakthroughs and people's understanding of genetics was because of plant experiments. Like you breed true crops with each other and oh, this is how we figured out, like, you know, the little Punnett square about, about how genetics can, can, uh, uh, how genetic combinations work and combinatorial effects of, of crossbreeding. And so I think that there's gonna be. Some really successful startups that take AI and the concept of biohacking and then use plants as their focus, as their target market, rather than humans.
What's, uh, David Friedberg's thing? It's called Olo. And, and, uh, so it's accelerating evolution to unlock nature's potential. That sounds like a great mission. Um, and so he basically, they're basically creating new seeds or new style plants.
Yeah. Um, I don't know, you know, they haven't been super like, they're not, they're not in stealth, but they're not like, it's not like super obvious exactly what they're doing, but like they have this thing like boosted breeding. So it's basically like, how do you get more yield on, uh, on your crops, right? Or they'll have like value-added traits, which is like, how do you take a crop, but then add, you know, a trait that you want, right? Gain of function, but not for viruses, but for, for your, for your strawberries, for your almonds, for your potatoes, for corn for core crops. And so this is going to become technology that they're either going to be able to like vertically do themselves, or they're going to sell this to farms and be like— and that's kind of what he did with his other thing, you know, climate or whatever.
This is so much better than working on creator economy software. Like, when you're telling me about this, I, I'm a, I'm a dumb dumb. I, I, I will never be able to start anything in this space, but like Part of me is like, if I had a friend that started something like this, I would quit everything I'm doing to go work there because this is such an easy mission to get behind, you know? Like, this is so much more important than creating a new Linktree. It's so much more exciting. And so I love this. I think this is really a really interesting thing to call out. Yeah.
So that's a trend I'm watching. I'll give you another one. AI social network. So what does this mean? Uh, every decade or so a new social network comes out. So, you know, you had, uh, Facebook, which was 2004, and then roughly 2012 you had this next generation of social networks, and those were Snapchat, Instagram, and they were taking off. Um, and so what did— what did they do differently? They took advantage of the new tech. So the new tech was your phone, the phone that had a camera, the phone that had a GPS. The phone that, um, uh, was with you at all times. And so it unlocked a new social use case. And I think that the new social use case that's coming out is, um, is AI. So what is, what is AI going to be able to do here? I don't know exactly what this is going to look like, but I would bet with very high probability, this is a bit of a safe bet, I guess, but, um, I would bet very high probability that the next breakout social app is going to be based on AI. Arguably, it already happened. Arguably, that TikTok is the breakout, uh, it was the first breakout AI app, right? In the same way that—
you mean that I'm following AI people as opposed to real people?
There's a few ways that could take it. So the most obvious one was TikTok, which was basically— everybody thinks TikTok's big innovation was short-form video, but actually short-form video was around before that. Vine, Musical.ly, others. What TikTok did was TikTok was like, hey, how about, how about this? How about the AI just tells you what to follow instead of you? So every social network up until that point was based on, was based on the user creating a graph. So going and following people or friending people and that following or friending people. This was Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all of them that you would choose content that's interesting to you. And then you would keep coming to the back to the app because you have content that's interesting for you. And that worked to an extent. And then TikTok came out, was like, let's never let the user say what's interesting. Let's see if the AI can figure out what's interesting at a higher rate. Like almost like we were talking about this crops thing. Like what if you got higher yield of interestingness if you used AI for the feed instead of the human choosing what to follow? And so, um, and that's what it did. And TikTok is super addictive and TikTok has a higher usage rate than every other social platform. Because the AI is serving you the content instead of you picking yourself. So that was like the first breakthrough, but it's under the hood. You don't see it. It's the algorithm. Okay, cool. Um, and now, by the way, everybody copied it and Instagram and others, everybody's moved to this For You feed. The, the, that was the real innovation of TikTok is the For You page. Um, okay, so what's coming next? So now I'm thinking that the next breakthrough is probably going to be that up till now, all social networks are based on content that humans make. And now I think it's going to be based on content that AI makes in some way. That sounds a little far-fetched. Like, why would I want to follow an AI influencer? Well, let's, let's first start with one example. Lil Miquela. We've talked about her years ago when, when they started this. Lil Miquela is an Instagram influencer that is just AI generated. It's a girl that's like, she's an AI, uh, image basically. And they put her, she's an Instagrammer and she posts photos. Do you know how much money Lil Miquela makes?
Last we talked about it, it was like interesting, but not wild. It was like $800 grand a year, I think. I think we started talking about her in '20 or so.
I, I don't have this confirmed, but I heard it's over $10 million now.
That's insane.
Okay.
So that's Lil Miquela. I like Miquela.
Yeah. You and a few million other people.
She seems likable.
All right. So that's one, but here's a more interesting version of this. 'Cause I think people have heard the AI influencers, but I'll pitch you a different style of AI social product. It's actually in the music space. So I think there's an opportunity to create, create the AI version of Spotify. What I mean by this is I started listening to like a non-trivial, non-trivial amount of AI music. So like in my pie chart of my market share of music, uh, it used to be 100% just like artists, right? Like that I, I know. So like Spotify or wherever, right? Let's just say that's where I started., and now I started adding in a little bit of AI-generated music. You go to Suno. So Suno, Suno has a lot of music there, but also there's these YouTube channels, like there's this one called Golden Age Hip Hop, which I don't think is AI. I think he might use AI in the making of it, but Golden Age Hip Hop's great, great YouTube channel. What he does is he makes these mashups, right? Like if you go to, dude, I listen to it too.
And then like Mac Miller Lo-Fi or like Main Character Playlist. For example, I'm getting recommended all of these, and at first I was like, this is weird. And lately I'm attracted to them even more. And like going to— it's like what I listen to all day when I work.
Uh, this is my new workout track. So Golden Age Hip Hop is, uh, if you look at the channel, so it's got 800,000, 730,000 subscribers. Every thumbnail is AI generated.
Yes.
All of the concepts are like things that don't even make sense. It's like, wait, so this is, uh, It'll be like somebody from the, like, '80s and then, like, somebody from the 2000s collabing on a song. Or, like, all the top, top songs are, like, you know, like, if it's sort by popular. So this one has 11 million views. It's Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, DMX, or Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Dr. Dre, uh, 50 Cent, Xzibit, and Ice Cube all on one track. You're like, what? That, that never happened. Uh, and that, that song has 8 million plays. And what I think what the person is doing is I think they're just like a mashup artist, more like Girl Talk, where they they're just sampling from different songs and overlaying them well together. Yes. But I think this is a little bit of a sign to come. I wouldn't be surprised if they're using AI to do this or if they're just going to take a, a voice, uh, artist's voice and just use AI to make a song from it. Like, I think you tweeted something out. Didn't you tweet out that like the number one song right now was an AI song?
Uh, it was, um, The Beatles won a Grammy this year and it didn't get talked a lot, a lot about, but basically they had lyrics from when John Lennon was alive and they used machine learning and AI and they finished the song and it won a Grammy and it's a great song.
Like, that's crazy. It's crazy. Nobody's even talked about that. You're the only person I know who talked about that.
I saw it and I was reading about this and I was like, this is a huge deal. Why isn't anyone discussing this? I felt like it was a totally undercovered story. And the song's great.
It's not that nobody's talking about it, but you're right, under, like, less underreported, uh, story. So here's what I think is gonna happen. I think you're gonna have a service that's sort of like a Pandora or a Spotify where you're gonna prompt it or you're gonna tell it what songs you like, and it's just gonna start generating AI music on the fly. And what's gonna happen is it's gonna generate music that's in the genres you like. It's gonna figure out, it's gonna basically train on the songs that exist, and it's gonna create net new songs.. And I think the last piece of what's gonna happen there is in the same way that today you have what's called like vibe coders, you know, you know what vibe coding is?
I'm still trying to figure this out. I just, this is, this got on my, this got on my radar, uh, on Monday. This is how new I am to vibe coding.
All right. So there's, there's a couple of startups like Cursor.
It's because of Peter Levels is how I know about it.
Okay. So there's a couple of startups like Cursor, which is like absolutely blown up. I think it's become like a, $2 or $3 billion company or $10 billion company in a very short period of time. Cursor is basically like a coding terminal, but you can, but AI is built in, right? And so you can code, but you can basically like just tell the AI, it'll write the code for you. And they can tell it to debug it for you. You can tell it to build for you. Replit is doing the same thing. You go to replit.com now and it just says, what would you like me to build? And you just tell Replit like, hey, I'd like an app that does blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it's just, it starts spitting out code on the screen, just scrolling like huge amounts of code, and then you'll see it thinking. It's like, hmm, the initial screen's not loading properly. Let me see what's wrong. Ah, I found it. And then it just like continues on. It's like kind of amazing to watch. And I've built a bunch of little Replit apps that way. And so this is like, you know, basically what's happening now is that people are going to be able to make software without knowing how to write code. Well, I think what's going to happen next is I'm going to be able to make music without knowing how to make music, without knowing how to play instruments or sing. So what's going to happen is I'm going to be, I'm just going to be able to prompt the music or tell it what I want or tell it how to tweak the songs. And then I'm going to make it. And then, by the way, you ready for me to just go full-blown, full-blown, you know, idiot here? I'm going to say 3 letters that you're not going to like. Okay. NFTs. They're coming in here. So here's, here's the business model. Here's where this actually pairs up. And this is not so crazy. Listen, listen to this.
So do you remember when, uh, you used to say that you used to celebrate like, ding, ding, ding, we found a use case. Is this?
We found a use case.
Exactly. So ladies and gentlemen, we did it.
What is an NFT? NFT is basically, uh, any kind of digital collectible, digital art, digital property, uh, that's unique. It's a way to say that this is unique and I own this, I made this. And if you bought it, now you own this. Uh, and I, and it shows who made it and the royalties are attached to it. This is kind of a, actually like a kind of a cool thing. If I make art in Photoshop, which I think both of us would agree is art, right? I think being able to say that I made this and nobody can say that they made it, that's important. Being able to sell my art, also important. And if you sell it, me being able to capture a royalty of subsequent sales, also cool. So I think we all agree that's actually pretty cool, as obnoxious as NFTs became to be. Now what's going to happen in the music case is I'm going to be generating music with AI and I'm going to be able to mint that song. So I'm going to be able to say that song, I helped create that by prompting it. I'm going to create it. All of the artists whose music was used, I think they're going to get partial ownership of that. And now I'm going to be able to upload that track as a musician, but in the same way that like, you know, a lot of musicians today, they're using like, uh, Auto-Tune and like, you know, just like basically digital pro— they're not, they're not sitting there with a guitar strumming, right? They're, they're in a piece of software making the computer strum the guitar and they just type in the notes A, B, C, D, and then the, you know, they'll type in the chord and the guitar just plays it. It's kind of like to a pure musician, they're like, that's not music. That's— you're just cheating. I think that's what's going to happen next. I think with AI. And so I think the next version of Pandora or Spotify to the next big social product that's around music is going to be about creating music using AI, being able to mint it as a curator saying, oh, this is cool. I like this. I'll pay to create this and to own this. And then I'll share that with other people. And then I will get like the way this Golden Age hip hop guy is getting 10 million streams on his songs. I think somebody who's a non-musician would be able to get that. Did I just go crazy or what just happened?
No, I think that's very smart. I think you're, I think you're doing a very good job of looking ahead and I agree with the future that you're painting. I think that I'm shocked. I'm shocked so far that music has been as, uh, not with AI. It's been, and I guess this makes sense because the guys making AI are also into this other stuff. Uh, but Uh, like AI has been like coding and like just a variety of other tools. And I'm shocked that it hasn't impacted art and particularly music as much as, as little as it has. Um, and I think the future you're painting makes a lot of sense. I think that if you were to play me like an AI Post Malone song and a real Post Malone song, I don't think anyone would know the difference.
Which is unbelievable.
We're already there, right?
Yeah, we're already there.
We're already there. And also, if you were— if I were to go to a concert, like, I would be into going to a concert of a fake person. Like, do you remember The Gorillaz? Mm-hmm. I loved The Gorillaz. I listened to—
what's their story? I've only heard their songs but never been to a concert.
The guy who created The Gorillaz is a genius. So The Gorillaz, for those listening who are below the age of 30, The Gorillaz was a band. It was created by— do you remember Blur? Remember the band Blur? So it, uh, like kind of a punk-rocky guy, but he created the Gorillaz as like a weird, like, hobby, like a side project where he wrote— and this was in the '90s— he wrote songs and then he had a music— and he sang it. He was the musician. He played all the instruments. And then he had a music video where it was cartoons and it was animations. And so for years, and this was before the internet was popular, so we couldn't like Google who was behind it. It was like rumors and like, it was like, you know, you never, you didn't actually know, you know, in that, in that age how it was. You didn't totally know. You're like, I heard it was this guy. I heard it was this guy. I don't know who it is. And the Gorillaz was the band that he made. It was a fake band. It was all cartoons. They went so far as to being on talk shows. And so they would like, at the time, the tech wasn't great, but they would do holograms. So they appeared on David Letterman and shows like that. And then eventually they would do concerts where they would play. At first it was simple and janky. It was basically just a movie theater., and then eventually they figured out how to hologram it. And then now he'll go out and perform. Now we all know who the guy is and he'll actually go and perform and it's like amazing. But he did all of this before all this technology was a thing. And I loved the gorillas. I don't, I don't, I loved them before I knew who the person was. I just thought like I knew like the characters and I like actually liked them and I got to know their personalities. It was very strange. But because I was into that, that when I was a kid, and even as an adult, I like it. I can now see how it doesn't seem crazy that I'm gonna like the AI stuff.
Totally, totally. I mean, dude, I was so into like WWF growing up, right? It's like, it's like you get into these things that sound on the surface silly, stupid, illogical. Why would you care? It's all fake, right? It's fake wrestling. And then guys are like, you know, paying thousands of dollars to sit front row and scream their heart out to like watch it, right? It's like these things seem on the surface If you just described it to somebody, it would seem like it wouldn't work, but it does. And that's the, I think the point I'm trying to make with this episode is that these are all trends that today sound small, sound weird, but I think in the future are going to be bigger. And knowing that is good for two reasons. Either A, you're the type of person who just likes to be in the know. You like to know things before you maybe like to try products early on before they become cool. I like to do that. That's, that's one reason you want to know these. And the other reason is jumping on trends early is the way to make a lot of money, right? There is riches in these niches if you actually like go, go pursue them and or you're just going to be the guy that always waits for something to be proven out and then you're going to feel like you're too late every time, right? So like that's— those are your options as an entrepreneur. And so I think being early to trends is trends that are going to last or be big is a great way to get rich. All right. So the ones we mentioned, uh, number 1, short drama apps. So mini dramas, these, these apps that basically are like Netflix, but the episodes are 90 seconds long. They're taking off. 4 apps that are doing over $100 million a year in revenue. Today, they're all Chinese apps. I think there's an opportunity for somebody to make this, uh, both like made in America, but also for really any of your geography, like make the biggest one of these in Brazil, make the biggest one of these in India. These are going to be very, very big. The next one, fitness trends. So rucking we had, which is walking with weighted vest. GORUCK doing over $50 million a year in revenue.
Shirtless ripped guys are going to just tear you up in the comments saying, Sean, we've been here.
Of course we've been doing this. And I say congratulations on being early. Plastic-free everything. So I think just microplastics being something that people— the next thing people are going to be afraid of and then figuring out how to sell solutions to that fear. Nervous system work we talked about. So the parasympathetic nervous system, people who create solutions that, that are marketed towards calming or tuning or resetting your nervous system, a reboot for your nervous system. Uh, we talked about biohacking for plants. So, uh, AI plus biohacking, but using plants as a go-to-market because it's a lot safer. You can kill plants and nobody cares. Um, and ultimately there's a huge market of improving crops and the food that we all eat. Uh, and then the last one that we talked about is the AI social network. So every decade or so there's a new big hit social product, Facebook, then Instagram, Snapchat, now TikTok. It's time, we are due for a new one. And the twist will be that the content is somehow generated with AI. I pitched a music one, but there's probably many other variations of that.
That was very educational. Good job. You, uh, you came with the goods. You carried us on this one, and I think you did a wonderful job. So thank you.
Thank you. Let us know in the comments which trends you like in the YouTube comments, and I'll be replying to, uh, to all of them.
All right. That's it. That's the pod.
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.