Transcript
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And if you just, like, bleep, then you're not being authentic. But it's a real important issue. Like, everybody always talks about, oh, you know, I've gotta have a personal brand or make a personal brand. Let's not forget the word brand. I I respect marketing companies and ad agencies that work on branding and so on, but the word brand itself is a nice way of saying somebody is lying to you. Like, either Coca Cola is, you know, the drink that brings all friends together and, you know, I'd like to buy the world a Coke. It brings nations together, or it's just, you know, this dirty liquid that is bad for you. So brand is the difference. Brand is the difference between perception and reality. And when you do work on branding, even a personal brand, you're trying to control people's perception of you instead of just being the real you. Now is it possible to be, hey. Just be yourself. Everyone always says, you know, I I I might ask for advice. Like, oh, I'm going on TV, say, what should I do? Oh, just be yourself. That's the best thing. Okay. Myself is a complicated question because with some friends, I'm a different person than I am when I'm giving a talk or when I'm going on a show or a podcast or whatever. So there's no such thing as one authentic self. But at the same point and we talk about this extensively in this conversation, which I think was such a great conversation. I put it on my show. Authenticity is something to strive for, but you it really involves a lot of different aspects, like knowing who you are in different contexts and and what you value and what you feel strongly about. And sometimes what you feel strongly about changes even day by day or or free more frequently. But in any case, I do value authenticity. Anyone who's who's listened to this show or or read my books or articles knows how for decades this has been such an important topic to me. Sunny and I discuss it on his show, and I am happy to present it on my show. Here we go. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Hey, James. Did you set out to build a personal brand, or is that something that happened naturally? I think it's something that happens naturally. And but you plan to do it naturally. Like, I wanted to have success as a writer, and I've been obviously, I'm a little older than a lot of younger social media influencers. There wasn't the term social media influencer, so I was very interested in always being a writer and writing about stories and topics that were important to me and that happened to me in my life. And I spent literally decades writing every single day for a long time. So it was important to me to be very consistent and be on social media and get an audience because I wanted people to read my writing, write about things that were important to others, important to me, things that people would share. So it wasn't quite I didn't quite refer to it as a personal brand. I always think of and this might go contrary to how you define this, but I always think of a brand as separate from the reality. So, like, Coca Cola has a strong brand, but the reality is Steve Jobs was referred to Pepsi Cola. It's sugared water, and and they create their value by building a brand. So there's almost a disconnect between with the truth of reality and the truth of a brand. And so I always wanted to be and this is appropriate for the name of your podcast. I always wanted to be authentic, like, that I would write very deeply personal stories about myself where people would say, I can't believe he wrote that. And of course that style became more and more common over the years. And I think vulnerability and authenticity, people realize how important it was for not just personal branding, but just success as a communicator, as a writer or a podcast or whatever format it is, your format vulnerability and authenticity is the currency of communicating. And the more authentic you are, the more of that currency you sort of acquire. I view it slightly different than the words personal branding, although I see what you mean by that, of course, as well. Mhmm. So because if for from my perspective, it doesn't seem like you're you have an agenda. Like, I'm trying to come off as this person. Like, a lot of the I've been following your content for a long time now, and, like, everything that you do, I automate your trust just because I've I've seen the evolution of your content. Yeah. It's almost like it's almost like I've had, like, the unknowingly, I've had the opposite of an agenda. Like, I remember one time, I'm talking a long time ago, I wrote something which described how I had gone broke. But meanwhile, I was a hedge fund manager. So a friend of mine who was about to introduce me to some investors said, man, I can't introduce you to investors. You just wrote about how broke you went from investing. And so so and I think I but I would say, overall, it hasn't hurt me by being authentic because people know that I mean, in fact, it's creating more opportunities than not because people know that they're getting there that that there's no fakeness. Like, they're they're getting the real Mhmm. I'm gonna I'm gonna describe what happened to me. Look. Everybody's had problems. Everybody doesn't matter if you're, like, the richest man in the world or Elon Musk. He's had his ups and downs, which he's described through it, or Warren Buffett had his ups and downs. George Soros had his ups and downs. And and, of course, in entrepreneurship as well. So I think, again, authenticity creates opportunities, but at first, it seems like it doesn't. And I think it's very important to not have an agenda. Like, you see these people who let's say they wanna be, like, a CEO coach, and so they write things like five things CEOs must do every morning. Okay. What makes them an expert on this? What makes them how do they know these are the things CEOs should do every morning? You only know that if you yourself haven't done those things, had bad results, and then you started doing those things, so you see the results turn around. Those are the that's what I wanna hear about. I don't wanna I don't wanna look at somebody on a pedestal because I know nobody's on a pedestal. I know a lot of the people in the self help industry over the decades, and I've had a lot of these people on my podcast. And often, I'm struck by how the real person off camera is very different from the icon that we know and love on social media. One time, I even pitched a TV show. I called it gurus gone wild, and it's about all these friends who are also self help gurus, but then what really happens in their personal lives and so on. Yeah. I find I work with some famous people and, like, I'm always underwhelmed, like, somebody that I think is, like, a genius or something like that. And I talk to them and I'm like like, one of the things that it it taught me is that, like, you don't necessarily have to be smart in order to have success in person as a personal brand or something like that. Yes. That's very true. You have to have charisma. Yeah. Exactly. So for you, I actually feel like you're super underrated because I love your content. Like, there's most people that I follow usually, I I I get really all into their content. And after, like, a few months or a year, I get like, I've feel like I've heard everything from this person, I move on. But you, like, I've been following for over a decade. And, like, there's few people like that where I continuously just learn new things from. I appreciate that. Yeah. So I'm one of the reasons for for me for your content is because, like, how everyone talks about niching now. Yeah. But I've been it's been a struggle for me to figure out what your niche is. So when people ask you, like, what Yeah. Let me ask you. Like Yeah. I feel like again, you're right. Everybody niches down. So for instance, you see these podcasters, they're, like, all in on Trump or all in on Kamala, and they get billions of views. And that's because they've niched very specifically. They have a team when and this these are very specifically the members of the team, and one team has each team has 80,000,000 people in it, so they're able to capture that team. And I'm just giving a specific example in the political domain. There are other domains as well, but I feel like I don't do that. And so to some extent, that's limited me, but I just I can't do otherwise. I really don't like to niche down, and I and I don't think people should. I think we're allowed to be experts on more at least talk about more than one topic at a time. Again, there are many things I'm interested in. I've written about politics, but I've also written about my, again, my own personal troubles. I've written about historical things and my interpretation of them. I've written about, hey. I just saw a great ad. Here's why I thought this was great. I've written it all across the board. And people tell me, oh, you should pick a, you should have a bias. You should pick a niche. I've had and I've written opinion pieces about all sorts of things, but there's no real consistency among it. So there's no one team that I belong to. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you about that. So before you said something about, like, your friend didn't wanna introduce to a hedge fund manager or something like that. So I'm sure by being authentic and saying, oh, I don't wanna niche down and just % just not having an agenda. There are little missed opportunities here and there, but you said, overall, it actually does help you. Yeah. Like, overall, what happens is people know who you are, and usually they have a strong opinion. Like, they either hate you or like you. And or depending on because I ever get opinion pieces that people radically disagree with. And it's not like I'm trying to avoid controversy, but it's just that, again, I haven't picked a side on any one generic topic like politics. Like, for instance, in 02/2005 for the Financial Times, I wrote an article about college, and I've been writing about this ever since up to twenty years later. And it's just I don't feel kids today should go to college, or at the very least, they should really strongly consider all of their options. But mostly, parents should not send their kids to college. And that had a lot of back then, now it's more of a conversation. Back then, nobody agreed with me. So it was a huge a lot of people just hated me. Like, I lost friends over this. And I every year or so, some article I write causes me to lose lots of friends. And sometimes it's very painful actually because I don't wanna lose friends. But, again, I'll state my opinion, but there's not one consistent thing I have aside on. And I don't even think the ones that are con like, your articles that you write that are controversial aren't even that controversial because I heard about the story of your I don't know which podcast it was, but you were talking about how you don't think parents should send their kids to college. But they asked you, like, didn't your kid go to college? And what was that was that from you? Yeah. So I've written, don't send your kids to college and don't own a home. And meanwhile, right now, I own a home, and I send my kids to college. So it's almost like don't I don't follow my own advice, but I still strongly believe these things. I bought a home because my wife wanted to buy a home and I argued strenuously against it, but we're a couple and a team and I wanted her to be happy. And with my kids, I just I guess I just didn't want them to be disappointed in me if I stood so firmly by my opinions that I wouldn't let them experience what they viewed as an opportunity. I tried to convince them that it wasn't a good opportunity for them, and I think they more or less have agreed with me by now. Like, one of my kids did drop out after her second year, and the other graduated a year early, but she realized she really didn't get anything out of it, which is Mhmm. A game. And so look. But I just wanted them to go through their own experiences with it. But just because I have an opinion doesn't mean I have to force it on everybody who's close to me. Yeah. I I actually I can feel that from your content. Like, you have strong opinions, but you don't expect people you don't you don't force it down people's throats. Like, you you know what to make. Yeah. It's like my kids are at an experiment, and their lives are at a laboratory. Like like and I was able to provide these things for them. And, again, they were able to learn for themselves and have an opinion, and I was glad I was able to give them that opportunity. I wish they hadn't gone at all. I made them very generous offers to not go, and they turned me down. And, again, on owning the house thing, I really strenuously, again, I argued not, I don't wanna say argued. It wasn't like we were shouting at each other, but I did make a convincing argument why owning a home would not be a good thing for us. And, but she wanted to do it. And again, I was fortunate to be able to do it, and we did it. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatra@gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher. But there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And look. Do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time, it'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at LeafFilter.com/James. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at LeafFilter.com/James. See representative for warranty details. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher. But there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And, look, do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time. It'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at LeafFilter.com/James. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at LeafFilter.com/James. See representative for warranty details. So when you put out these content that are controversial or that creates controversy, and I've heard you talk about how it happens, like, once a while once in a while. Yeah. And do you think it has something to do with, like, you're a little bit early on the trend? Because, like, after you put it out years later, like, it's not as controversial anymore, for example, like the college thing. Right. Like like the college thing, I think I started that discussion. Again, I wrote about it in the Financial Times, which is a major newspaper, and lot of blog posts argued about it, and I've spoke at conferences about it. And so I think I started the conversation, but then the Internet continued the conversation in the sense that, okay, saw Salman Khan started the Khan Academy. There's Coursera. There's many good online learning sites where people see, So there's really good online education. So why do we go to college? Well, we need to get degrees for certain jobs, and there's still kind of cultural credibility to having a college degree or a master's degree or whatever. But at least now it's a conversation. And it wasn't a conversation back then. Same with owning a home. Like, I see I forget. But, like, there are some personal finance experts out there now who say, oh, yeah. Owning a home is not a good idea. Well, that was not a conversation before. Now it's a conversation. And because owning a home was always quote, unquote, the American dream and having the white picket fence. And I I called that into question that, hey. It's also a a trillion mortgages or trillion dollar industry for the banking industry. So nobody that's a lot of money, on so it's a whole it's a whole kind of marketing scheme that The US banking industry has propagated that, oh, yeah. You need to own a home. By the way, here's somebody that we're gonna we're gonna charge you eight or 9% on, and you better not ever default or we're gonna take your home from you. And, everybody got into, like, massive amounts of debt as the these homes these home loans became a common thing, so that drove up home prices. It's all these things like student loans. A lot of it is financial. Like, student loans are backed by the US government, so college presidents know they're getting paid. So to it's just common sense tuition has gone up faster than inflation every single year since the sixties, since student loans started. And it it's obvious why tuition's gone up. It's not because the quality of education has gone up. It's because college presidents get paid no matter what. So they might as well just raise the tuitions as high as possible. And so then you have to question for yourself, is this worth it? So so, obviously, like, you you went through that thought process and you put something out and then went let's say years later, now everyone agrees. Does that give you some sort of a credibility? Like, you were one of the first to see it? If people hated me before, they don't decide all of a sudden, oh, yeah. Now he was right, so I like him now. Like, they just think, oh, yeah. That guy just rubs me the wrong way. I don't know what it is. They don't even remember what they don't people don't even remember, oh, I hated that woman hard at all. And or nobody calls me up. Like, I had one friend, she went to Brown, and she was like, no. I got my job because of college, and it's my dream job. And I'm like, okay. It's fine for you. A million kids go to college, so is it fine for all of them? And she unfriended me, everything. It's not like she suddenly calls me and says, I was thinking about it. Every this seems to be a normal conversation. Now I guess we're friends again. That never happens. That's not true. I feel like that's the reason why there's such a big divide right now even when things like, one of the things that couple years ago or a few years ago, you wrote an article about leaving New York. Yeah. And I think that was one of those big controversial thing. But now Oh, yeah. That was the most controversial I've ever seen, and I don't know why because I didn't it's not like that topic is the bit so I wrote an article for listeners who don't know. I wrote an article called New York City is dead forever. Here's why. And it wasn't anti New York. I lived in New York City. I love New York City. I was born in New York City. I lived there my entire adult life, like, after school. And I I love New York City, and I saw many problems that were this is August 2020. This is the middle of the pandemic. I saw many problems were happening because the mayor de Blasio was the mayor at the time was ignoring some of the economic difficulties New York City was getting into because of the policies of the pandemic. Not saying I disagreed with the policies. It's just he had to be aware, and people had to be aware of what was going on. So so I said in the article, I love New York City, and then but then I said, here's what the problems are and why New York City's gonna have a hard time. Maybe it's gonna it's I said with more definitively, it's gonna be impossible to recover. I think this must have been, like, the last viral article ever because people don't really read articles anymore. They read, like, Twitter threads and listen to podcasts, but this was, like, a full article that had, like, 30,000,000 views ultimately. It was reprinted by a bunch of newspapers. Various podcasters and radio broadcasters read the article word for word on their podcast, including Joe Rogan and others. And and then Jerry Seinfeld wrote a full page his first op ed he's ever written in his life. He wrote a full op ed in the New York Times just trashing me about this article. And then some guy printed his article to to be the size of a building, and it was like the construction placard over a building. And Andrew Cuomo emailed his article to, like, 10,000,000 people. Andrew Cuomo was governor of New York at the time. And everybody hated me, and I tried to say, no. I love New York City. I don't want these things to happen. But everyone hated me. I even had friends who lost friends because they wouldn't unfriend me. So the people who stopped by me lost friends, and I couldn't understand why it went so viral like it did, but there it did. It was really actually a painful time. Is that how it usually happens when you write something? Like, do you not realize if this is controversial or not until afterwards? Or do you write do you put something out and do can you sense, okay, like, people are gonna hate this or something like that? No. I never you never know. You never know what is gonna do it. Like, you but I remember thinking the one thing about this article so so I never hit publish unless I'm afraid to hit publish. So, like, you know, like, for instance, if I say I went broke, I'm a little afraid people are gonna think I'm an idiot. And so that's a basic example. But here, I remember thinking right before I hit this article, hit publish on this article. This is the one time I don't have a positive take at the end. Because I really couldn't figure out how to solve the like, New York still New York City, everything is happening as I predicted, which the main thing was commercial real estate is gonna collapse. Well, we're starting to see that in New York City. I mean, people aren't quite aware of it, but vacancies are still really bad at in commercial. I won't get into all the economics of it. But I remember thinking, I don't really know the solution. And this is the first time I've ever published an article where I didn't really at least have some suggestions as to how to solve some of these problems because I didn't really know. I was just throwing it out there, but that was my fear when I hit publish. And then suddenly, I started seeing a few of my friends share this and asking their friends, well, what do you think? And everybody was, like, arguing on all these different people's sites where they had reposted it. And I was trying to explain calmly why I said certain things, but then everybody was getting irrational very quickly. Like, it was triggering something with people, and I don't know what I still don't know why people got so triggered about it. And but it became very painful because friends of mine started writing articles trashing me, and even family members were writing articles like, hey. I James wasn't born in New York City. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You were in the room when I was born. Like, how could you say that? And just things like that that were just, like, crazy things started happening. And then when Seinfeld, who was like I was a stand up comedian for many years. I owned a stand up comedy club in New York City. And I and Seinfeld was like a hero to me. He wrote this article trash I just started getting actually depressed over the reaction, and it did affect me quite some time. Does that hap was that the first time that happened, or does it whenever something goes, like, gets some negative reviews, like, does it bother you? It does. Like, you you would like I used to think, oh, I'm really good at ignoring the haters, but not really. Like, it's it's always affects you a little bit. I mean, you get better at it. So so if someone's, like, really just random and annoying, I can it'll bother me for half a second, but then I'll figure, okay. This is a random person who's anonymous posting on Twitter. I have no idea what's going on here. But if this one, though, it was a lot of personal attacks, a lot of personal friends that or family that that just robbed me. And this was the worst because, again, this was the most viral of all of them, and I didn't understand what people even disagreed with in okay. You could disagree with the article, but I said I love the New York City in the art many times in the article, and I just didn't have a solution. I think that's what Yeah. Bothered people. And without them realizing it, like, subconsciously, maybe they were expecting me to have a solution at the end somehow. And I think I stopped writing for a while after that. Like, I I can I noticed in my pattern, I continued writing for I'm I've written an article a day probably since 02/2002, and I stopped shortly after this article, writing an article a day? And it's became a little more difficult for me to write after that. And I think I was depressed. Looking back, do you regret writing it? Like, has that like, now that some years have passed, would you still write that and publish it again? Or has it actually helped you in the long run in in any way? I don't know the answer. I don't know if it's out to me. Oh, for instance, so I was in the process of publishing a book, and my publisher at the time, Harper Collins, I think they got very concerned that so many people were hating me that there's this whole thing bad news is still good for you Or Bad press is still Yeah. Bad press is is good. Press. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All press is good. But I don't think it was so at this game. My publisher was really worried it wouldn't be so in this case. And I don't think it really maybe it made a few more people aware of me. And certainly outside of New York City, everybody loved the art. But, I don't think it necessarily helped me in any way. And just personally, I was surprised that the vitriol would it it gave a lot of people who had something against me a chance to participate in this ground swelling of hate. But I don't think I regret writing it because look. It's an experience, and it also I can hear the funny thing is I'm friends with Eric Adams, who's the mayor of New York, and we've talked about the problem problems facing New York many times after that article. And some people even wanted me to run for mayor, then some prominent people wanted me to run for mayor, but I was friends with Eric who was running for mayor. So I didn't wanna, of course, I didn't wanna do it, and I didn't think I'd be qualified anyway. But, I don't think I regret it, but I it's definitely been mostly negative, the experience of writing that article. Yeah. So for for me, I'll tell you my from my experience, I actually love that article. I moved out of New York in two years ago. I lived in New York for almost twenty years, and I moved out of New York for the same reason that you mentioned in the article. So for me, it actually builds some sort of a more of a trust with you and especially because that was an election year. Like and I think I think there was, like, the pandemic did cause, like, a kind of a divide in the country of, like, like, how you're looking at things. And do you think that has something to do with I think so too. Like, everyone suddenly thought I was right wing. And regardless of whatever my political stuff is, like, some stuff on very left, some stuff, I would they say on economic stuff, I'm more on the right, like like most people. And but, suddenly, I was, like, labeled as right wing, even though I didn't mention politics once in the entire article. And New York is a pretty Democrat city. So okay. All my friends were Democrat and we had no I had no problem. Like, that was just how I grew up is in New York City. And so but suddenly people, like, labeled me a certain way and or they said I was kicking New York City on the way out. I was still living in New York City then, but afterwards, I did move out. And in the article, I said I was in Florida, but I wasn't living there. I was just staying there for a while during the pandemic. But then I ended up moving out because in my my comedy club got vandalized. My one of my employees got harassed because he was wearing a jacket that said the James Aldo show. And I'm like, oh, this is what happened to all these nice liberal people. So it was I only recently, I would say about two months ago, I visited New York. And for the first time, I had a fun experience there as opposed to other times that I've visited. My whole family is there, so I visit there quite a bit. But I guess for me too, it helped me see that, hey. I could enjoy living in other parts of the country as well. Like, I always thought I would live in New York my whole life, but I was essentially kicked out. So I've Yeah. Learned to enjoy other places. I would actually think, if I had to take a guess, I think there's probably a lot more people like me who actually didn't hate their article. But I just feel like the negative negativity is louder. So it almost feels like everyone hates you, but the reality is probably more like 10% of the people hate you, and 90% actually probably agree with you. Yeah. Actually, my experience in general is that somewhere between 13% of anything opinion you have, people are gonna really hate enough to be loud about it. And and but this is an article that 30,000,000 people were aware of. So 2% is, like, 600,000 people. So suddenly, like, it was a much larger number of people than usual were being very vocal. And the vocal minority, they're the only ones you hear from. Everyone else is sane and normal. And so if they if they really like your article, you definitely don't hear from them because they're just sane normal people. Like, you're a sane normal person. But the people who are, like, insane or their hate is, like, driven by something else that's personal to them, those are the ones you hear from. And you have to let that not get to you, but it's hard if it's, like, a really large number. Yeah. And, like you mentioned, like, if it's from people that you know or, like, for example, like, I'm sure you have you respect Seinfeld and your Yeah. As a comedian and things like that. So I mean, like, I basically stopped doing comedy after that. So I was a stand up comedian Oh my. For many years. And it's not that, oh, part of it was the pandemic. It was hard to do comedy anyway, but it's just that a lot of people I knew didn't wanna piss off Seinfeld. So all the comedians now, again, a lot of the comedy club owners reached out to me and said, hey. I hope all is okay. We haven't heard from you in a while. And I was one of them too. I was a comedy club owner, and I was a comedian. And so people were very nice, but I just dropped out of that subculture. I just kinda, like, disappeared for a while. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher. But there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And look. Do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time, it'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at LeafFilter.com/James. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at LeafFilter.com/James. See representative for warranty details. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher. But there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And look. Do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time. It'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at LeafFilter.com/James. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at LeafFilter.com/James. See representative for warranty details. So before you said something really interesting, you said, unless you feel you're a little bit scared, you don't hit that publish button. Yeah. Because otherwise deliver. If you're not scared, then you're probably not saying something very interesting. Like, let's say I wrote an article, three things I gotta do every morning. Take a do a cold plunge, drink kale juice, walk 10,000 steps. Okay. That content might be true, but it's not interesting. Like, other people have said it. But if I said and then and the flip side is I'm not gonna say the opposite of that just to be controversial because then it's not real, and it may not be interesting. People don't realize, like, when you're when you try to be controversial just for controversy's sake, it actually doesn't work for several reasons. One is, like I said earlier, it's not predictable what's gonna go viral or not. Second, if you don't if you're just saying something to be controversial, probably people sense that. Human beings are like X-ray machines. They know what's authentic and what's not. And, and also, you're not gonna be passionate about something you don't really believe in. So I'm not gonna be able to say, oh, no. You shouldn't do cold plunges. You should take hot showers or whatever the opposite is. And you should eat McDonald's every morning. Like, people are gonna be like, okay. That's stupid. Like, why? What is he saying? So you have to have a sense of where your real values are because that's what you'll be able to speak most authentically about and most persuasively about. But, again, in terms of being afraid before you publish, if you're not saying anything new, then everyone's already gonna agree with you. Like, if I'm not a little bit afraid, then I'm probably saying something that someone else has said a million times before. Yeah. I also like what you said about, like, when you're trying to be controversial for the sake of because, like, I see a lot of tweets there where people, like, unpopular opinion or, like, hot take. Like, a lot of times, those, like, are not even that controversial or it's not that Right. Hot take. Donald Trump might have lost that debate last night. Why is that a hot take? Like or or the flip side's hot take. Those moderators were really mainstream media is biased. Okay. That's what 80,000,000 people say today. So Yeah. It's not a hot take. People can tell. Yeah. If you say, like, I wrote an article once, do we really need a president of The United States? And because when you actually look at it, the US constitution the pre the most important thing in the US constitution is congress. They're the ones who make the laws. And the president is just basically in charge of the army to enforce the laws, but he doesn't really there's not that many things in the constitution that the president does. He can make treaties, but that that's very rare. He can veto laws, but, a, that's rare, and, b, congress can override the veto. He can appoint supreme court justices, but the supreme court wasn't as powerful back in the '25 in the seventeen nineties as it is now. They took a lot more power. So so really studying the history and source of these, it's unclear we really need a president other than as this mild check against the legislative system. And so that is more of an interesting take. And when I wrote that article, again, a lot of people agreed, a lot of people disagreed. I was on the John Stassel, which was like a ABC show where John Stassel is like this known skeptic. And it was an interesting topic. I still think it's an interesting topic, but that's not what's interesting to people now because everybody's on a team. Like, oh, I'm team this or team that. Yeah. I think you you nailed it. Like, when some people agree and some people disagree, I think that's, like, a good sign that you're saying something new rather than if, like, the majority of people agree or majority of people disagree or something like that. By the way, it feels really good when everyone does agree. Like, you get this enormous dopamine. Like, I remember one time I tweeted something positive, and this is 2020. I tweeted something positive about Andrew Yang. And the Yang gang is very much on social media. So suddenly, I had this flood of people loving me. Like, even the rap group, Cypress Hill, was, like, reposting all my posts about, like, Andrew Yang. But but then later, I had a after one of the debates, I was disappointed in how Andrew Yang did. So I said, this is how Andrew Yang disappointed me in that debate. Here's why, and here's what I think he should have done. And then suddenly, like, oh, like, everyone hated me. So I I one of those is it was that one of the post that you were afraid to hit politics? Yeah. Because I had experienced, like, such such great love from this one community. Yeah. I was a little nervous. They'd be disappointed in me, but and look. And Andrew Yang has been on my podcast, and I even told him what disappointed me in the debate. Yeah. I heard that. About college education, actually. And or no. Bernie Sanders was asked about what he would do about college education. And I knew Andrew Yang had the answer because he wrote about this in one of his books, which I had read both his books. And I knew he it was this was a layup for Andrew Yang. And I said that to him, why didn't you answer? And he's like, come on, man. It was Bernie Sanders. He was like my idol. And I'm like, look. If you can't stand up to Bernie Sanders in a debate, how are you gonna stand up against Putin? Like, what's going on? So That's actually such a perfect example of how like, he he actually censored himself or didn't say something because he was afraid of repercussion or something like that. Yeah. Whereas in you're saying that even when you are afraid of it, you like, you actually wanted to say it or publish, and you are afraid of it. Yeah. Like, I'm trying to say things that I think just because like, I I was talking to someone a few months ago, and look, I'm pro choice. My friend was pro choice, but his wife is a doctor. And she was writing a research paper that in some cases where a child has a genetic illness, I forgot what the name of it was, and they're more than likely going to be born dead, it actually turns out that statistically now, it's more possible they're gonna be born alive. And my friend was like, maybe you said to us, like, maybe you shouldn't write that because it sounds like you're pro life then. Like, no. Let her write it because it's the truth, and then people can make decisions. And, like, you can't have an agenda about the truth. Something is either true or not. And so, I mean, yes, there's a gray area, but have you always been like that where you didn't, like or speaking your truth outweighs like that fear? Or is that something you had to develop over time? And why I think it's something I developed over time, to be honest. I think what happened was so first so I always wanted back in college, I wanted to write the great American novel. I actually got kicked out of graduate school because I was writing every day instead of doing graduate school stuff. And I wrote a bunch of novels actually and then couldn't get any of them published, but at least it gave me my ten thousand hours of writing every day in the nineties. But then when I started really writing professionally, initially, I was writing about financial topics like stocks and the economy, and I was writing for the Financial Times. I wrote a bunch of books about finance. And at some point, I my view I was very optimistic person. So in 02/2008, '2 thousand '9, when the we were having this great recession, the worst recession since the depression, I was like, no. Everybody this is the time to be optimistic. Like, this these companies are good. I I would outline the reasons why to be optimistic. And suddenly, nobody wanted to all the traditional finance places that I was always writing for ten years, they didn't want to publish me anymore because I was just too optimistic. I turned out to be correct, but it's to the point earlier. It's not like they then asked me back. I had to carve my own platform if I wanted to write about those things because I realized if I was waiting for CNBC to call me to show up at their studios, maybe some days or months, they wouldn't call me. And so I had to create my own, as you would call it, a personal brand in order for people to listen to me. And it was then I decided, not decided, but I just started saying, okay. Well, then I don't have to write about finance. Thank God. Because I was getting sick of that topic. I wanted to write about, hey. I've struggled. I've gotten broke. I've been depressed. I've been suicidal. I've had all these problems. I've had all these issues and opinions. And so I started writing about it. I 10 x the audience I had built up over ten years writing about finance. My audience became 10 times bigger and much more varied, and I developed my own platform anyway, so I didn't need I was getting more readers every day than CNBC was getting listeners. So I didn't need that anymore. And and I felt good writing authentic stuff. Like, like, the true writer is writing authentically. Like and I was very interested in the craft of writing above all, not just writing my opinions, but as you would as you say, you're into teaching people how to do storytelling. It was very important for me. Every post had to be a story, and it had to be well written. That was my most important qualification for something I put out. So in some sense, like, I I think in actually, it did help you in the long run, like, in that you made that switch and Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No. It helped me incredibly. Like like, the business opportunities I've had as a result, not that I've sought them out, but as a result of writing in this way has helped me considerably and, I mean, beyond belief. And and, again, what was really a pleasure was that I was writing, like, with what I will call a capital w. Like, I had studied writing for a long time. And that's why, like, on my podcast, I've had on some of the greatest writers ever because they appreciate that I could talk about real writing with them and not just like, everybody everybody became a writer once you could, like, have your blog on LinkedIn, but not that many people write where they've really studied the craft. I can tell because, like, I so I'm a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk, and I've, like, listened to every podcast that has been on. And yours was, like, by far the most interesting one because I feel like you asked, every question that I wanted to ask him. No nobody else was asking. Chuck's great because he's even written books about the craft of writing as well. So he's the author of fight club for people who don't know him and many other great books, But, he's really into the craft of writing. So we're able to, like, like, go really deep, like, about the same authors, sometimes obscure authors, but authors that we both read and studied. And he's been on three times where and he even wrote me after the New York City is dead thing. He even wrote me a nice letter, like, hey. Keep your chin up and f the haters and so on. Yeah. He probably knows a thing or two about controversy because of Yeah. Like Yeah. I really like his nonfiction. He wrote a a collection of essays stranger than fiction, which is really a really beautiful book. I would say, like, he's one of my favorite authors. So that that's why, like, I I I list to all the interviews and, like like, I I could I I think I listened to that episode with you and him twice. Oh, okay. Good. Yeah. No. I I It was a long one too. Yeah. Yeah. No. I love my episodes with Chuck. He's really good. You're also an entrepreneur. So how do you balance, like for example, when I look at your podcast, right, for example, I'm sure people have told you this. If you just niche down into one topic, you'll probably grow a lot faster. But you kinda, like, have you have guests from all different areas of expertise and, like, you'd sometimes you talk about politics, but sometimes business or Bitcoin or whatever it is. Right? Yeah. So I'm sure that has to get in the way of growth. Yeah. So how do you balance those two things as an entrepreneur who because, like, as an entrepreneur, a lot of it is, like, you you're not fully, like, showing all your hand or not fully being authentic and just, like, really crafting that message or something like that versus when you're just being authentic, it can actually hurt your business. So how do you balance that? Like, let's say for like, an example you just provided was Chuck. Let's say you're a writer and you see, oh, this guy, James Oliver, did a podcast. Oh, this is a great podcast. I'm gonna listen to his next podcast. And the next podcast is with Mark Randolph, the cofounder of Netflix. They're like, oh, wait a second. I thought he was talking to writers. Like, I don't give I don't care about this guy who was a cofounder of Netflix. Like, I wanna listen to more writer stuff. So I don't really get any one audience. And there's an audience of people who trust me now over the years, so they're like, okay. Let's see how James takes this interview Yeah. That's me. What he does with it. And but other people who are in different subcultures don't always like, okay. You look you're into race car driving. Oh, here's Danica Patrick. Oh, and then the next episode's with Gary Kasparov, the world former world chess champion. That has nothing to do with race car driving. So I would say, yeah, because I haven't niched down. When I was really into stand up comedy, I had a lot of comedians on. I think I lost a large audience then because all the business people were like, oh, we don't wanna hear about from another comedian, and all the people are interested in whatever. We don't wanna hear about that. So I really don't have an answer. Like, I don't really know what it's not that I don't necessarily advise other podcasters to do what I did. I'm fortunate in that I've been doing podcasting for ten years, so I have a built in audience over time. But it wasn't necessarily the best path if you wanna grow a huge podcast. I I have a fairly big podcast. What you mean. Not like the guys who are I think Joe Rogan has successfully had a podcast with many varied guests on, but it's very hard to pull that off. Actually, that's not really entrepreneurship either. It's more marketing. It's like like so you're not really focused on the marketing aspect of growing your past podcast or something like that. I might brand my if someone says, what's your podcast about? I might say, well, I bring on peak performers, which is true. That's like the umbrella of everybody I bring on, but it's not always true. But, also, I don't necessarily talk about people performance with them either. So we just Yeah. f**k. So, it's just the way I describe it. So, yeah, it's something that I've been thinking about. And, also, when you have a podcast and you interview people, and sometimes I get tired of reading people's books and then interviewing them. And, like like, I think my I might tell more stories on the podcast. I don't know. I always keep thinking I should do a format change, but I haven't really done it yet. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher. But there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And, look, do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time. It'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at LeafFilter.com/James. See representative for warranty details. So I'll in on that sense, I wanna talk a little bit about success and failure. Because, like, when I found you, actually, was through through the time of when you were talking about business and, like, how you failed over and over. I think it was an interview you did for the book, Choose Yourself. Yeah. So what do you think most people so so I'm gonna ask in, like, a myth truth type of way. What do you think most people don't understand about success? I think most peep first off, I think there's no real definition of success. And so people might say, oh, money is a definition, but that's not quite right. Like, when I first made a lot I when I first sold the company in 1998, I then went broke. So did I succeed and then I failed after that? Like, well, there's no one definition of success. I think I think people in general understand that the basic thing, which is that if you work really hard and you'll end up being successful. Like, if you compound, like, for instance, I'll tell you something I'm really bad at. Like, it's horrific how bad I am at returning phone calls. So I might be in the middle of an important business deal, and the critical other person just called me at, like, 04:00. So there's still time in the day to call that person back, and I just won't do it because I just won't feel like having a conversation on the phone. And so it's really hard for me to network sometimes because there's something wrong with me. Like, I can't call people back. And yet, over years, I have this enormous network because you just compound a little bit at a time. Like, oh, if I call back just a few people a week, then over hundreds and hundreds of weeks, you have a huge network. And then and if you always try to I always try to do things for people that are in my network. And so word-of-mouth spreads, like, oh, you gotta call James to get access to this other person or learn about this. What like like, people call me today and ask about, oh, what's the best way to self publish my book? Because you mentioned choose yourself, a book that came out eleven years ago. I self published that one. It was my it sold more than a million copies, my most successful book. So I wrote about a lot about self publishing after that and the benefits of it. So people still call me, and then those people become in my network. And Amazon would call me and say, hey. Are you in Seattle? We'd love to show you what we're working on with self publishing. So I would say, oh, I'm I'm planning on being Seattle next next week. Now I had no plans to be in Seattle, but I bought I had never been in Seattle before in my life. But I bought a ticket. I went to Seattle that next week, and they all showed me around their self publishing division and their new products, and they became in my network. Everything has to build up a little bit out of a at a time, like your network, your ideas, your resilience to failure. So it's just but it's just very hard. Success doesn't happen easily. And you could have years where it seems like everything you're doing is losing, but you just keep showing up. You just keep it's a cliche to say, but you keep showing up. Like, for instance, I have a business which is a financial research service. And I would say the past, like, in 2021, '20 '20 '2, even 2023, didn't make any money with it because there was a bear market and people weren't, you know, as interested in hearing financial research. And so we lost money, but you just keep showing up. And this year, we'll do, like, a hundred million in revenues. And if I had gotten disappointed last year, third year in a row or fourth year in a row of no making no almost no revenues from it, I would have given up. And but I knew that this was a service that people needed and that bad times don't last forever, you know, so so I kept that. Other things you have to quit because it's not a good idea Yeah. And you have to recognize what ideas are good and what ideas are bad. Also, I talk about this a lot, but it's very hard to come up with good ideas. People say ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything, but that's not true. Like, good execution execution ideas are a subset of good ideas. Like, I've seen two people implement the same business idea. One did horrible execution. Horrible. Like and she failed. And the other person did very clean, good execution. They had very smart ideas about how to test the ideas of the business and had very good execution and was successful. And so you have to build your idea muscle. So I always recommend people write down 10 bad ideas a day. They could be good ideas, but probably I heard to say that. Yeah. I guess something I've talked about quite a bit that that you have to really exercise for your whole life. It never finishes. You have to exercise your idea muscle every day. So I wanna see if I get this right. So are you saying, like so there's, like, the big idea. I wanna start a service at Uber or something like that. And then the execution are, like, subset like, like, there's also underlying ideas below that. There's, like, different ideas on how you can execute that. Yeah. And those are also ideas. Oh, like, let's say you wanna make a product that goes to all your social media for the past ten years and makes a video about your life. Okay? And, oh, this would be this fun video. That's a pretty good idea, actually. And and there there's two ways you can do this just thinking out loud. Like, I'm I don't know if maybe it's good, maybe it's not. And but there's two ways to think about this. One is, oh, I'm gonna raise $2,000,000, and I'm gonna hire a bunch of software engineers to that automatic so so give it a name. It automatically goes through all the social media and then builds a video. Or another way to execute is you contact a friend and say, hey. Can I make this video for you? And then I would go through let's say I'm doing the business. I would go through all your social media, and I would make a video, and then I would show it to you. And I would ask you and they would say, that's great. And I'd say, okay. Do you wanna pay me a hundred dollars for this? If they say, no. I don't really need it that badly. Then now I know it's not really such a good idea. Maybe I'll test this out with a bunch of friends, and it's not a good idea. So I would know then, or maybe they would pay, and then I would say, okay. It is a good idea. But now maybe I don't have to raise $2,000,000. First, I'll hire a bunch of people in Malaysia or whatever to do these videos for people, and gradually over time, I'll build the software for it. Like, if I had done this idea, let's say, I'm just making this up ten years ago, the software is very hard. But now if I do it today, the software I could use AI probably. So execution in in one case, somebody would have raised $2,000,000, built a bunch of software, and then found out maybe the product's not a good idea. In the other case, person could be could know whether this is a a success or failure and be profitable within two or three months. So that's just an example of a random idea and how two different ways to execute on the same idea. So how do you know when something is a bad idea? Like, you you mentioned, like, you had that financial research company, like and, like, first of all, two, three years, the business that not doing well. That's I would probably say imagine 99% would probably give up at that point, let's say. But you need to stick around. Right? Yeah. And then sometimes you don't. So how do you know? How do you make that decision on okay. So I keep going. Okay. For instance, a laundromat is almost always a good idea. I mean, location is important. Like, if you put a laundromat in the middle of nowhere, it's not gonna do well. But if you a laundromat on a city corner where there's no other laundromats is gonna some businesses you already know they're good businesses. Car washes is a good business. A financial research service, this is something that's been around for a hun an industry that's been around for a hundred years. So I knew that's not necessarily a bad idea or a good idea. I knew I have a unique perspective. So, okay, I know this is a good idea, but people know me as an optimist, so some years are not gonna be so good for me. And but let's take an idea I tried. So so I talked about how you should write 10 ideas a day. Well, I created a little social network called Notepad, n 0 t e p d, Com. I don't even know if it's still around. I think it is. And people could write their 10 ideas a day, and you can make it so that it's a social network. So all the other people who signed up can see your ideas, they can comment on them. They could message each other. They can vote up your ideas. There's all the attributes of Twitter plus writing 10 ideas a day. And so I made this great website with a lot of help from other people. And I made this great website, which still exists, and it had thousands of sign ups. Let's I just wanna see real quickly if it still exists. Oh, wait. I don't wanna do it on this screen. That would've logged this out. I I I can take a look. Oh, yeah. It still exists. And oh, here's a list. Someone wrote, topics I would be interested to learn. Here's another list. What would you do if you did not get paid? Here's another list written all in Russian. Here's another list. Twenty twenty five calendar challenge for better goal setting. And there's it lists the most popular post of the day. There's challenge of the day. It's a great little website. It's a pretty website as well. And but we only got, like, a few thousand sign ups, and I noticed people weren't really coming back to the site. Like, some people are there every day, and some people check it out and never come back. And it just wasn't really a success, so I I gave up on it. Like, I had the programmers fix it up so that they wouldn't need any maintenance. And now here it is. Nobody is involved in maintaining this site, and it's still running. So I lost some money, but not that much. And but I could tell there wasn't really excitement around the site. And so I I figured this is no matter how much I put into this, it's not gonna be a successful business. It's not gonna be a like, for you, is it, like, is there, like, a process where you logically think to that, or is it more like your instinct instinctually, you know, okay. This is not working, and it's not gonna I can't there's nothing I can do to make it work or something. Do you know what I mean? Instinct. Because I try I knew I did lots of things to try to make work. For instance, I made it so that you can make your idealists private unless someone pays. So you can imagine someone could create their own financial research service just on this platform, put every day, I'm gonna every week on every Monday morning, I'm gonna list 10 stocks and why I like them for this week. And to see this, you gotta pay me $10 a month. We set up the whole thing, a subscription service to make your ideal list private if you want. And I figured, okay, that will drive a whole industry to this, but zero. Zero people that used it. And, you create courses on this, zero people used it. So I kept adding more and more features until there was, like, feature creep. And every one feature I thought was really good. Like, again, we reimplemented all of Twitter. Every functionality of Twitter is on here plus this concept of 10 ideas a day and voting things up and down, almost like the ideas are a beauty contest. And then we added this and then we added AI. So if you have six ideas, you could say, let AI fill out the rest of the ideas, and we did that. It's all these amazing things. Amazing site. But it wasn't real nothing was giving and I've created social media sites before that had exponential growth. This did not even feel it. Yeah. Yeah. I could feel this was, like, barely linear growth. Like, it was maybe it was 20 sign ups a day. It was never, like, 20, then 60, then 200, then thousand. It was never that. It was, like, a consistent, like, 20 sign ups a day, and then most of those people would never come back. Now over time, people a lot of people use the site every day because but that's just it's just linear growth. It's not exciting. Yeah. I saw that, like, actually having failed in a lot of things. So I I actually, let's talk about failures for a little bit. So when I first found you and I read choose yourself and, like, listening to your whole life story, like, I I was asking I was thinking to myself, I'm like, wow. There's, like, I thought I had failed many times. And your story was actually inspiring because I was like, this guy probably really knows about failure. So Yeah. What do you think most people don't understand about failure? Well and I think this is really hard to understand when you're in the middle of it, but it's not the end of the world. Like and I mean that very literally. Like, when you really like, when you fail to the point of, like, alright. You're gonna lose your home, and maybe you're gonna lose your family, and you've worked really hard, and you made all this money, and then you lost it somehow, or whatever the version of your failure is. It's not the end of the world that if you just take a step back or five steps back and be very humble about it and what you learned from this and still be like a good person, you're going to, you're going to come back and succeed in other ways. And that is universally true unless you die during that process, which is why it's important to stay healthy. Like you have to be ready for success to hit. So you have to stay healthy because if you're sick in bed, you're not gonna have time or energy to be successful. Or if you're having fights with your spouse, so you have to be emotionally healthy. If you're having fights all the time, you're not gonna have time or energy to be successful. If you don't have ideas, like, if your idea muscles weak, you're not gonna have the ideas you need when opportune when that wave hits again. The wave always comes back, but you have to be ready for it. And or you have to have a sense of humility that it's not always under your control whether you succeed or like Notepad. Mhmm. Everybody told me, oh, that's a great idea. You should do it. And it didn't work. And I've had many businesses, many businesses fail all every year. Ideas fail, businesses fail. And I had a I had, again, a really hard time that when that article was coming out and there were people threatening me, there were, like, there was, like, darker stuff that was happening during that time too, because people were very upset at me. And you just have to say, you know what? I've survived stuff before, so I know what happens. I know I'm it doesn't seem like it now, but I know I'm going to survive this and be better for it. My life might be different at the end, but I'm going to be better off than I am now. And you just have to reevaluate your muscle, like, you to fail your muscle. Like, once you fail so many times, it's it gets easier. And it's not like, oh, I'm failing. Okay. And this is what I do now. X, y, and z. You feel really bad. It is really hard to remind yourself that things are going to get better, but you just have to remember that things are going to get better if you stay physically healthy, emotionally healthy, you stay creatively healthy, and you have humility about your successes and failures. Like, the first time I made money, I didn't have any money in my life. And then suddenly, I sold a business and I have a lot of money. And everybody around me thought I was a genius because I'd made all this money out of nothing. Like I had zero and then suddenly millions and then I lost it all. And I was so ashamed of myself. I was like, oh my God, everyone's gonna think I'm stupid now. And they couldn't afford anything. Like I was losing my home and everything and people were just, you get, have lots of friends when you're successful and you're. Lulu lots of friends when you're not successful anymore. And so it was just like embarrassing and shameful and I was depressed and I thought I had won the lottery and now I had lost everything. And, but you I had to just I I didn't really couldn't really remind myself of prior times because I had never had this happen before. So I had to just I just had this over time, I realized which days were good, which days were better than others, and what did I do on those days? Oh, I wrote down a list of ideas on that day, and I felt good at the end of that day. Or I made some phone calls, and I had lunch with people and I networked a little bit. Oh, I felt good on that day. Oh, I walked or I circled the city in a walk. I got I was healthy. I felt a little better that day than the days when I just lie in a dark room and do nothing. And so over over time, you start to realize what behaviors work. Do you think you've learned humility? Or like, so when I see you, like, interviewing people and, like, talk to people, So from your story and, like, knowing everything about you, like, you are a smart person, and you must have known that, like, growing up. Like, you went to good school. You were, you know, you were in in you were doing, like, computer science and tech stuff. And so just, like, throughout your life, you must have some idea that you are smart. Or is that am I assuming? Okay. No. I always thought I was smart, but maybe I was arrogant about it. And being smart in some areas doesn't always translate to as many areas as you think it will. Yeah. So I'm always surprised when you're interviewing people and be like I'm like, because sometimes I see you interview people. I'm like, like, James is smarter than this guy. Like but you have so much humility when you ask questions and you listen to the answers and, like, even, like, I guess, even, like, executing on those answers. Right? Like so that that can't be an easy thing to do. It's definitely I would definitely say humility is learned, and it's by being, like, hit down so many times that you eventually say, oh, okay. I'm not so great. And, like, I was having this conversation with my stepson. I was trying to explain something to him about some historical fact or whatever. And then I realized halfway through my explanation is, like, you know what? I actually have no clue. Like and I realized there's a lot of times I'm trying to explain something, and I realized I don't really know what I'm talking about. But I think that happens to people all the time. So, I think you have to really be careful to not necessarily stay in your lane because it's good to explore lots of different things, but to make sure you're to to realize all the time you're not nobody is as smart as they think they are about any particular topic. I was talking to okay. You wanna know someone who's smart? I was talking to Magnus Carlsen, who's the best chess player in the world by far. Like, he is the best chess player in history. And he was telling me this was, like, a year ago. We were having dinner, and he was saying to me, I've I he about things he's learned in the past ten years. And I was thinking it's past ten years. He's been the world he was the world champion in 2013. So he was talking about things he's learned about the game of chess since he's been the world champion, since he was the best player in the world. And and I said, like, what? Give me an example. And he listed some things that seem and he even said, it almost sounds like a cliche, but and then he listed some things they've been learning. And so you see that, okay, here's a guy who's the best in history, but he's still humble enough to realize he doesn't know everything and there are things he needs to learn. And this is why he consistently stays on top is because he's learning these things when other people might have said, oh, I'm the best, so I don't need to learn anymore. Mhmm. I actually feel like that's such because, like, even the things that, like, I'm an expert in, like, sometimes, like, the most important lessons that I learned more recent years are the cliche lessons that I ignored when I was younger. I was like, oh, that's I think maybe there's something to that that maybe we think, oh, that's so easy. I don't need to learn that part. And it turns out they're cliches for a reason in many cases. And knowing the nuances, like when do you apply this cliche and what are the exceptions? Knowing the nuances are important. So for instance, say you're writing an article and there's a saying bleed in the first line, like have some impact in the very first line. Okay. That's very useful advice, and most articles and writing should do that. By the way, most writers don't do that, but they should. But there are sometimes exceptions. And you have to seeing something at a really learning something at a deep level is pleasurable because then you see suddenly this activity that you love doing. There's all these nuances that are very creative and artistic, and you can appreciate it. So I love what you said about when you were talking to your stepson and you're like, you realize I actually don't know him. But that's actually, like, one of the main reasons I love teaching because, like, I feel like the one that's learning the most is me when I teach because it forces me to figure out, okay, I actually don't know anything about this, and I have to go look it up or you do you know what I mean? Yeah. And look. Sometimes, what like, teaching is a very special thing because you have some knowledge that you're trying to convey to somebody else. And so that's pleasurable, but, also, what if they don't really learn? That means is something wrong with you as a teacher, or maybe you didn't really know something, or maybe you don't or missing some skills as a teacher. So you can always learn about yourself. You could learn more about how to explain something. Like, ever since I was a kid, I give chess lessons. So I because I'm a chess master for a long time and played in tournaments when I was a kid playing more recently now after a thirty year break. But this one guy I teach, he's actually was the dean of computer science in my grad school. He officially threw me out of graduate school. Like, he officially wrote me the letter throwing me out of graduate school, but then later, he became my chess student. This is, like, in the early nineties, and he's still my chess student. And guess what? He hasn't gotten any better. And so at some point, I have to question, like, what am I teaching this guy if he hasn't gotten any better? Can I ask you what, like because I'm going through that right now where I'm like, do I like, some days, I'm like, I'm awesome at teaching? And then some days, I'm like, I'm terrible at teaching. Like, I'm like, I because it I feel like teaching is so hard to get somebody to understand the concept that you understand and to get them to do it or something like that. So is there any, like, tips or take lessons that you've learned in teaching that Yeah. I think the teaching has to be harder. Like, the lessons and the exercises they do, like, where whatever you're teaching may need to do things. Like like, doing is better than listening. Like, if you're gonna teach someone how to surf, you could show them every video about surfing, but they still can't surf until they get on a surfboard and actually do it. And then they start to learn. But and those exercises that you give them before they're really doing those lessons need those exercises need to be as hard as possible, harder than reality. So for instance, when I was learning stand up comedy, one of the things I did to improve my skills, it's very stand up comedy is very hard. Like, a lot of people think, oh, I'm gonna go up one day and I'm a funny guy. I'm gonna do stand up comedy. It takes years and years of every night doing it to get even, like, a little bit good. Yeah. So so one time, I I said, okay. Well, what can I do? Because it's hard to get on stage as much as you would like in the beginning because you're not funny yet and or you're not stand up kinda funny. And so I went on the New York City subway system, and I did stand up on the subway at rush hour for a crowd that was not interested in hearing me at all. They were it was rush hour. Everybody was tired. And every stop, I got off the car I was on and went on another car and would do stand up again. And that is brutal. Like, the audience hates you, and and you have to re and you have to do your material very quickly because the next stop is coming up. Everyone gets off. And that's was harder than going on stage in a comedy club. And so it's things like that. Like, try to think of things that are harder than the reality. And so I don't know, like, in the context of what you're teaching, how to do that because, you know, like, for instance, how would I do that with surfing if I was teaching surfing? I don't really know. I'd have to think about it. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher. But there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And, look, do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time. It'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30 off your entire purchase at LeafFilter.com/James. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at LeafFilter.com/James. See representative for warranty details. That leads me to another question. So you somehow realized that you had to do that. And I think so that I think it first of all, it requires some humility to even know that I because like like you said, I think a lot of people think comedy is easier than it really is. Right? And then I think writing, I feel the same way. I feel like any everybody thinks they can be a author or but it's like, I feel like there are certain things like in life like writing, maybe comedy, or something like that's actually a lot harder than you think when you actually start doing it. Yeah. And it's weird because there's you need, like, a certain kind of stupid arrogance to do anything. Because the only reason anyone ever gets up on stage to do stand up comedy for the first time is because they already think that they're good at it, which is impossible. Even if you're the funniest person in the world, stand up comedy is a specific skill, and you're not good at it if you've never done it. But everybody thinks at some point or other, oh, I'm funny. I'm gonna do stand up comedy. So you need some kind of stupid arrogance to to write an article. Stuff. Yeah. Like like like, if you've never read an article before, you're gonna be bad at it. Like, you might even have interesting things to say, but you just won't know the craft of writing until you've written, like, a thousand articles and read a thousand books and studied them. But you you need a certain arrogance to think of. People are gonna wanna hear what I have to say. And Yeah. So so you but then you need enough self awareness to then also realize, oh, nobody laughed. I'm really bad at this. It wasn't just a bad night for me. I'm bad at this thing, but I love it enough that I still wanna do it. And so you need, like, a a stupid arrogance, but also self awareness. Yeah. I I feel like those things are actually such, like, the magic formula for success in anything to like, I love what how you put a stupid arrogance to start and then to get humiliated. And then to have the humility to from then, like, actually start from the bottom and build up again. And I just because I think a lot of people have the stupid arrogance, but they don't have the second part. Or some people have the second part, but they don't have the arrogance, so they never start. Do you know what I'm like? Right. Like like like, a lot of people would say, oh, I can't do that. Like and they don't do it. But everybody can do anything pretty much, I mean, with within reason. And, it but, like, oh, I would write these novel. I wrote, like, four unpublishable novels in the nineties because I was stupid and arrogant. Like, I wasted so much time, quote, unquote, wasted so much time. I I would probably write four or five hours a day for years and years. That's why I was thrown out of graduate school. And I took jobs that were just, like, a few hours. What was that because you really wanted to write or be a writer? Like, what what kept you going? Yeah. I really wanted to be a successful writer, and I loved writing, and I loved seeing examples of good writing. Like, I really loved every aspect of it. And to the point of ruining my life. Like, I got thrown out of graduate school. I didn't really I wasn't really making any money at all the first few years of my career. I had skills. I had a computer scientist. I had a lot of skills that could make money, but I just I took jobs that were only took me a few hours a week, so I could spend most of my time doing this activity that made me got me zero gratification in terms of external support. Like, nobody I wouldn't even get I would send my novel to, like, 40 publishers and agents. Nobody would even respond to me. Like, I didn't it's not like I was even halfway good. I was horrible. Is that something that you've always wanted to be in your whole life? Like, wanna be a writer? Or is that some something that like, it's it's something motivate you or aspire to become a writer. This in college, this girl I really had a crush on, she fell for this guy who was, like, a pseudo writer. Like he looked like a writer. He had that college writerly look. And he said he was a writer, even though he never wrote anything. And he quoted James Joyce and gravity's rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. And so he had all these writerly things. So she fell for him and I had a really big crush on her. And I always have wanted to be a writer. Like, I made attempts even when I was in elementary school, but I never did it. But this is like, okay. I could do this. And then women like that would like me too. And so that got me that kind of lit the spark. It's not the reason I continued, but sometimes you just you need something to light the spark that really sets the fire. Yeah. I I actually think that it it isn't because people always talk about, like, you have to find your passion, like, from within. But I do think there is some something superficial about passion too that you need too. Like, I because a lot of the things that I became good at, I got into it because of a superficial reason. But once I got into it, like, I found a love for it over time or something like that. Yeah. Like, well well, what's an example? Like, I I think I got into, web design. I my first job was at an agency. So, like, I'm a web designer, and I love branding, design, and all of that. But the reason why I got into it is because at that time, like, in '9 ninety nine, February, there was, like, the hip thing. Like, all the.com people, like, all the cool people are like What agency did you work for in 1999? I worked for this agency called Underline that went out of business, like, in 02/2001. But it was, like, a small 80. Went out of business. But I never heard of that. What's the name again? It was called Underline. Oh, I don't know them. It was bought by a company called Context Context Integration. Okay. And I got, like, fired right after. That that was, like, in 02/2001, so after the.com burst. So, like Yeah. Because most of the clients of website agencies were VC funded companies that went out of business. And then surely what happened in that industry was everybody brought it in house. Like, my first business was a web design company, and we would charge, like, $70,000 for a three page website. But then suddenly, our clients realized, you know what? We could just hire people to do a three page website. We don't need to hire an whole agency. So Yeah. Yeah. I feel like those like, there was something in the air back then that that got everyone so excited and, like, everybody's, like, started. I remember there was a website called cosmo.com. So Yeah. The shopping. Yeah. So Oh, for for it was like food delivery. Yeah. Yeah. And they deliver, like, blockbuster videos. And then and Broadway, at that time, was called they called it Silicon Alley. Yeah. And, like, all the hip agencies were there. Like, I just feel like there was this kind of energy in the air where everybody wanted to get it, and and it was cut in 02/2001, it was Yeah. Like, my agency was around from 95 to February roughly. And, Oh, you got out at the perfect time. I I did. And then I poured it all back into Internet stocks and lost everything. So but, yeah, you're right. There was a certain energy around web design then, and there was a certain excitement. Like, no one knew how the I thought the web was gonna evolve into this great way to create hyper, quote, unquote, hypertext art. Like and Mhmm. There was a way to to read the actual writing. And there was a lot of creative projects then that sort of nobody does that anymore. Like, no one really uses the web in the same artistic way that they did back then, but there was an excitement. Yeah. I heard you talk about how Thomas Edison thought the phonograph would be used for to record people's last messages before they die or something like that. Yeah. So can we go really know? Yeah. So can we go into that a little bit? Like, I want I would do wanna talk to you about AI. Maybe we can end on this. I I didn't realize we were talking for, like, an hour and a half. So do you think we're in that stage right now of AI back in 02/2001? Yeah. Yes. And I can see it because, for instance, I see a lot of people starting AI companies that to me seem like just features. Like, they don't really seem like real companies. And that's, like, how the Internet was back then is that a lot of companies were being built. Oh, I'm gonna make an online calendar. Well, that's just a feature, really. It's not really a business. Oh, okay. And the same thing's happening with AI. A lot of company, oh, I'm gonna make a company that helps people write their resume. Well, that's an easy thing to to create. There's no there's no remote. There's no real business there. And that that sort of so I feel like I also see a lot of people are afraid to use AI just like people are afraid to use the Internet. So for instance, I think teachers are afraid the Internet will that AI will replace them as educators. I think doctors are afraid not all doctors, but some are afraid that AI will replace them as diagnosticians, hearing symptoms and giving a diagnosis. And I I think people are still learning what their relationship to AI is. And I tell people, view AI as, like, the best virtual assistant you could possibly ever have, and then be creative about how you're using this brand new assistant. Like, an AI is not gonna always be accurate and not always a solution. It's just one solution among many in your toolkit. But I think the usage of AI is just beginning. We're gonna figure out use cases every year that are gonna surprise everyone, just like with the Internet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, no one would have thought the Internet would have connected me to well, no matter where I am, I can call a car that's no further than three minutes away to take me to wherever I wanna go. No one would have thought back in 1996, that's what the Internet was gonna do, but it did it. Yeah. They thought it was just like a online brochure or something like that. Do you think so right now because, like, when I when people think of AI, they they're like, oh, it's something that can write my blog for me or, like, create this design for me or something like that. So you don't think that's what AI really is? Like No. Look. And every everything is should be treated differently, but, like, AI doesn't know how to write. It doesn't have they could write good summaries. Like, for instance, they could take this podcast transcript and write a summary. Here are the 10 points that these guys spoke about. So AI is great at that. It's not great at writing, like, a novel. It doesn't really know how to, like, appeal to the emotions that well. Will it get better? Of course. The human brain is particularly good at telling stories and but AI is getting pretty good at, like, producing music. AI is getting very good at making good designs. You still need to have the eye of a designer, but you don't really need to now know Photoshop to make good designs. You can use AI image generators to create good designs, and you still need to have some artistic sensibility and brand sensibility if you're doing professional design. But AI can make the images for you, and they'll be beautiful than what you would have made in more beautiful than what you would have made in Photoshop. And I've seen this. A friend of mine was interested in an industry and started making clothes specific for that industry using AI. And she had never used any Photoshop or any design software before, but people loved what she was doing, and she's started making money at it. So a AI is a great assistant for whatever it is you wanna do. Yeah. I agree. I actually think from a designer per point of view, I actually think that AI for using design is actually very similar to using AI for writing because, like, AI is not gonna give you the idea. It's still in the idea. Maybe it can proofread it for you, make it sound better or whatever it is. Or but with design, I think it's the same thing. Like, you you have to know what you're gonna design and why you need to design it that way to communicate a certain idea or message. Yeah. And then the a AI can make it, like, look clean and modern or whatever it is. But I don't think AI can come up with the idea itself. I I think that's right. I didn't look at maybe you could come up with ideas, but the ideas can always be sharpened. So whatever AI gives you, you can always improve it a little bit when it comes to design, writing, music. And, again, AI is gonna get better and better, but you also have to figure, AI is hitting some limits into how good it can be. ChatGPT, which is what we think of as AI Yeah. It took a year and a half running on a bunch of supercomputers twenty four hours a day crunching all the data before it came up with ChatGPT. And then another year and a half of what's called supervised learning, where it humans interacting with it, like, thousands of people interacting with it, taught it this answer is good, this answer is bad. So then it learned from that. So it took three years to make ChatGPT with people working on it and computers were running on it twenty four hours a day. That's pretty intense. Like, it's not like, oh, next year, we're gonna have an even better version. Yeah. It'll be better, but it's not gonna be, like, a thousand times better. It's gonna be like anything else. It's gonna improve gradually, and then use cases will get more specific. Like, oh, here's 18,000,000 patient records. Let's learn given these initial complaints and symptoms what diagnosis a person has. So it'll get there'll be niche use cases of AI that we haven't even begun to explore yet. Oh, yeah. I see what you mean. Like, so it's not just gonna be, like, write me an article about this. Like, it's it has to get more specific, like, give me specific instruction to an AI or something like that, like, the patient record thing you were talking about. Yeah. Or look. I did an experiment where okay. Let's write a book about neuroscience in a day, k, using ChatibBT. And I was able to write, like, a hundred pages, and, oh, here's this neurochemical BDNF. What foods will increase my BDNF levels? And then give me 10 recipes for these foods. So and it does everything you ask it, and it produces a hundred pages, but there's still no personal stories. There's no emotion. And maybe AI will get better at that, but it's always gonna need a human. Yeah. Humans are really good at that. So so now something like music or design is a little bit more mathematical than writing an article. Like, music has a certain mathematical precision to it, which AI is particularly good at. So it's why AI can create Mozart sonatas that professionals cannot tell the difference between an AI Mozart sonata and a Mozart written sonata. People still, when they hear this, they still prefer the Mozart sonatas because they appreciate that a human did it. But just like you appreciate They didn't know what what if they didn't know them. Yeah. Right. Like but it's the same thing with, like, a robot. Like, if you didn't know a robot if you didn't know a human looking robot was a robot and it runs really fast, you'll say, oh, that's the fastest human. But then you will learn, oh, no. But Usain Bolt, I appreciate more because he actually is a human, and he's running that fast. But It's so interesting what you said about, like like a writing, you can tell the difference between, like, a human and robot, but with with music or design. So, like, what do you think it is about writing that's at the core different than, let's say, some another creative endeavor like design or music? I think music has a people might disagree with this, but it has fewer per parameters. Like, you're okay. What key is this in? Oh, what's the beat? What what's gonna be the like, let's take classical music. What's gonna be the initial theme, like, Beethoven's Symphony? And then the rest of the symphony is variations on that theme, but it's structured in a way that, okay, this is the how a symphony is structured. It's there's very particular structures in music, and great musicians play with those structures to create something new and creative. But AI is very good at structured tasks. And to create something like Mozart is that there's a certain structure to all of his sonatas. And so you can create something that's structured like a Mozart Mhmm. Sonata, and people won't be able to tell the difference, even experts. So it's a little bit more mathematical how music works. Whereas writing, okay, there's think about who you are as a human. There's a million per there's a trillion parameters that make who you are as a human. And when you're writing, you're trying to bring human beings to life, not just music to life. I hate to well, people might not like this, but human beings are more complicated than Yeah. Symphonies. Yeah. Like, I that as you were saying that, like, I never thought of this, but because it design, I feel like it's like this too. When I design, like, the ten thousand hour rule, like, when you've been designing for ten thousand hours, I'm sure, like, my sister is a pianist too. And when you do ten thousand hours of music, I do feel that you start and I'm sure it's same in chess. You start to see patterns, and it's like, your brain is doing that mathematics for you to understand that, okay, like this note for this, this length, followed by this note gives us get this type of feelings or like, when I do design, I know that when there's a balance of this font size versus this font size or color combination of this color and this color gives it this feel so, subconsciously, I think we are doing the mathematics in our head. And we just created I think intuition is like shortcuts you build up through experience. So when you intuitively know, oh, these two colors don't go together for this type of thing, you learn that through thousands of hours of experience, and you're able to do that. But the AI knows that by looking at millions of successful designs. Yeah. And so but, again, a human being, which you try to bring to life in writing, there's too many parameters, and there's no definition of what is a good just a good human being versus a badly described human being. There's no definition of that. Take your sister who's a pianist. If there's an automatic if there's a player piano that plays just as good as her, no one wants to listen to that. They wanna see her perform. So this we still like it when humans do things. It's not like like, for instance, computers play chess now better than humans. For the past But we don't want that. Twenty five years. For twenty five years now, computers have been better than humans at chess, but I don't care about watching two computers play chess. That's not fun. No. That's not interesting to me. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher, but there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And, look, do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time. It'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at leaffilter.com/james. See representative for warranty details. So do you think there's gonna be some sort of, like, a nostalgia effect? You know how, like, people love listening to, like, old records or something like that. Yeah. Do you think in the future, there's gonna be, like, like, watching two humans play sports is gonna be far more rare because less people do it or something like that? No. Because, like, look. If I wanna see something fast, I can watch a car, but I still wanna watch the Olympics running, the runners. Right. So sports because they because it's not just that they're running. It's that you know how much work they put in, how what what psychology is needed and mindset is needed and competitive spirit is needed. So that's what I really sports a sporting event is a story. It's like two people or two teams that have stories behind them going up against each other. It's these stories competing. Mhmm. And and then seeing human creativity at work is much more exciting than seeing, oh, this computer can knows pie to a million places. I'd rather see it. If a human knows pie to a human places, that's a pretty in like, why how do they do that? Like, then you're intrigued. But a computer, it's just it's trivial, so it's not that interesting. I think that'll be the case with AI. Look. Something like chess, there is an existential risk because what if we have Neuralink in our brains? And then our brains can use a lot of the functionality of computers for, like, math events or chess or poker. What will existentially happen into these games? I don't know. Hopefully, they'll the games will still exist. From what you're telling me, it does like, I'm starting to feel like maybe writing is, like, the ultimate form of creativity for humans and because I so maybe, like, a computer just it'll be a while before computer can write comedy the way humans can or something like that. Yeah. Comedy too is not just the joke. It's like the inflection. It's the voice you use. It's how your body moves. Like, let's just take Chris Rock as an example. Is he just standing there telling jokes? No. He's got that voice, and he's prowling the stage. Why he walks back and forth like that around the stage, is because he wants people to he's training the audience that even if you blink, you might miss him doing something. And so it's all of these things together that makes Chris Rock the comedian, like, hundreds of thousands of things. So the jokes might not even be funny, but he's funny. So in many cases, that's true. Or or Louis CK, if you notice when he gets the most laughs, it's usually when he's doing, like, a funny voice. And that's hard to know when to use that funny voice. That's true. Though, like, the like, somebody else cannot tell those jokes and get the same laugh. Right. Absolutely. That's like, he knows how to tell those jokes and he knows it through a lot of experience over thirty, forty years of doing it. And in in a way that humans that computers can't you because you can't really understand the parameters. So there's no way to train the computer to learn that. Like, how do I describe how gluey c k tells us a good joke? There's no Yeah. Like, what can I put into chat to to be like, I actually noticed that about Chatchip? When it first came out for the first six months, I felt like it it, like, improved so drastically to a point where everybody's like, oh, Chatchip is gonna be writing better than humans. Blah blah blah. And then I feel like it leveled off now to almost to a point where, like, not as many people are talking about it anymore and, like, not as many people are using it to actually write articles anymore. And and by the way, it's almost two years. I you could tell I could tell when an article's been written by chat g p t. So it's easy to tell it. Yeah. Sort of emotionless. It has it uses, like, perfect grammar. Or even if you tell it to do imperfect grammar, it does it perfectly imperfectly. Yeah. That's so true. Like, because sometimes I will say, hey. Can you make it sound, like, more casual or more like a human? Yeah. And even the part the thing they come back, I'm like, what? Like, it still looks like it sounds like a robot. You could tell. And, again, because right because in in order for something to be trainable in AI, you have to be able to define a set of parameters about what makes something good. So so for instance well, like an image that you're designing. Okay. Maybe or like a photograph. There's the two thirds rule where, okay, the main subject is in one third of the photograph. The other two thirds is, like, background. I know there's a whole bunch of rules about what makes an interesting photograph. And, okay, creative photographers break those rules well, but you could teach a there's enough rules that you could say this is a good photograph, this is a bad photograph, and here's the things to look for. Here's the 12 things you look for in every single photograph that makes it good. And so you can create parameters that you can define a good in general, not not only, but in general, a good photograph versus a bad photograph. And but comedy what are the parameters? Like, how do you how does someone know? How do you rate if a joke is funny? Is it because of the number of words in it, or is it because of, oh, these words have k sounds? Or the topics are the first part of the sentence is parameters. Yeah. There's too many. It's hard to define them. Yeah. Yeah. And then that's even forgetting the delivery. Like, how do you define good delivery? Oh, he used a funny voice halfway through this joke. Well, that's appropriate for that joke because it was about, let's say, some ethnic group, so he's using the voice of that ethnic group, but other jokes don't. It's not funny. Other jokes, it would be racist maybe to do that. Yeah. So so it's hard to find. Genres. Like, you because something can be like comedy, but a horror film as well. Yeah. And it could be good. But yeah. When we don't even talk to Mike you use Jordan Peele is excellent using the structure of comedy to make horror movies. Yeah. And even the so you can't even use that as, like, a parameter really, like, different like, this is a good comedy versus this is a good drama or whatever it is. Yeah. So interesting. So I just wanna okay. The last question I'll ask you. Sorry. Sorry to take up so much of your time. And I never asked this question to any of my guests, but I am curious to hear what you say. So what do you think, like, in the near future, like, in the next, like, few years or five years or whatever? What are some of your predictions, like, in terms of, let's say, AI technology, economics, like, in in politics? Like, is your outlook generally positive, negative, or there's a lot of dooms stayers out there. I'm a little more nervous than I ever was before, and I but I don't know. Maybe that's just a function of being older. Like, the older you get, the more of the status quo you want just because you don't want a lot of change. But I think look. Starting with AI, I think there's gonna be amazing, and it's gonna be very fast. It's not gonna be ten years. It's gonna be, like, two years. AI is moving so fast at discovering new drugs that will cure cancer and new tech techniques to cure to diagnose incredibly hard to diagnose diseases. So you can so, you know, half of the cure is being able to be diagnosed quickly. So how soon are the limit? I don't mean to cut you off, but I wanted to ask this. Because I've heard you talk about that before. Do you think before you were saying how, like, teachers don't are really afraid of AI and things like that. And I I sense the same thing with design. Designers are the ones that actually top the most negatively about what how I can design. And same thing with, I'm sure, other areas. Do you think there's gonna be some human interference there where, like, the medical the people that are in power in the medicine don't want AI to do those. Like, even though AI can't cure cancer maybe, like, they're gonna stop that from happening because whether, like, restricting AI do you understand what I mean? Yeah. Maybe because look at radiology. It's been the case for many years that AI is better reading X rays than humans. Like, because a because AI could pick up on the smallest of tumors and the smallest of irregularities that a human with their eye cannot really see. But it's the law that you cannot get an interpretation of your X-ray from a computer. It has to come from a human licensed radiologist. That is the law. Yeah. And so that's a case where AI has been restricted, but maybe there's good reasons too that or maybe you need a human with a good bedside manner who knows, look. There's this treatment facility. There's this you have this one particular disease that I've seen other people have that that they do get through it even though the prognosis seems bad. Like, so you need a human touch on some of these things. And AI even if AI can do it, it would be false because it's just a computer. And so What about in areas of, like, let's say, cancer research and if AI can I, again, I hope that cancer researchers, just like designers, should use AI as an assistant, not as a replacement for designers? Like, designers can like, writing designers can always improve a design with their with a design. Like, I've seen, quote, unquote, fake designers use AI to make bad designs. And Mhmm. You still need a designer to get that design sensibility about what the client wants or what you want as an artist. And AI will will is a good assistant for that. Yeah. You don't need to know Photoshop anymore. You don't need to know Canva. You could make great designs without this stuff using AI, but you still need a sensibility about what's good and what's bad and how to communicate to the client and how to listen to the client and and so on. But you could be more productive. So you could do 10 record cover designs a week instead of one because you're using AI. So you can be more productive if you're a good designer. And even if you're a good writer or even if you're a podcaster, like, you could have asked a ChatGPT before this podcast, what's 10 good questions I can ask James Alvester. It will answer you since Chad's BP has read all of my books and all 6,000 of my articles and watched every video I've been on. So it knows what to say. That's actually something every podcasters should do, actually. I I do it now. I don't necessarily use those questions, but it might trigger some ideas and thoughts for me. Like, again, I use it as an assistant. Like, I used to have an intern help me come up with questions. Now I don't necessarily need an intern because I would always just read the books anyway and come up with my own questions. But okay. I maybe the chat TV comes up with one question I didn't really think about, and I and it leads to different ideas for me. So so I'll ask those questions. Like, it's a useful thing. It's a useful assistant. Do you think very good. When do you think fully automated cars will be, like, a regular thing and look like You know that that you see everywhere? It's interesting because the same thing is, like, vertical takeoff and land like, flying cars. Like, technology is there already. Like, there are self driving cars have been around for a while. The technology is done. Not, let's say, a % done because you can always improve, but but it's there's regulations. People are less tolerant of accidents if they're self in self driving cars than if it's in human cars. Like, humans make more driving accidents than self driving cars right now, but we're not allowing self driving cars to have any accidents at all. So so there's gonna be laws and regulations, and it's the same thing with, like there are the technology for flying cars is already there, and it's pretty much automated. Just like these mini helicopters. And but I don't know. Do I want that to be legal in my city? Do I wanna drive in a self driving flying car? I don't think so. Even though technology is done, it's there. So I think a lot of it is human fears and Yeah. The laws and regulations and attitudes towards these things will evolve for better or for worse. And, like, in the health care field in particular, I hope that AI is improving so fast that in that area still, that's one where you I really hope doctors say, hey. This is more use and education too. This is more useful and dangerous. Mhmm. So because sorry. I cut you off before. But to if you wanna finish your thought on, like, how all of this AI will manifest, like, in the real world over the next few years. How do you think it will change the world? Drastic changes in health care. That's first and foremost. Like, you're gonna suddenly better. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're gonna everybody's gonna suddenly live a lot longer. Now will they live healthier lifestyles? That's which is the really the key way to live longer? I don't know. But if you have, like, a terminal disease, it's much more likely to be cured because of AI in the next few years. And you know something Do you believe I don't know if you are familiar with, like, Ray Kurzweil's, like, the singularity where Yeah. He was talking about, like, it's gonna get to a point where for every day, the life expectancy will go up by two days. So that, like, according to that statistic, like, people will live forever. Yeah. I mean, I do think something like that will happen. And not just because of AI, but because of other research they're doing on genomics too, but AI will contribute to that. But David Sinclair at a laboratory at Harvard is working on some amazing things to cure people from blindness, for instance, by reversing the chronological clock on your eyes. And there's so many amazing things happening that we don't really hear about because we can't go out and buy them right now. But within one or two years, we might be able to buy them. And the world is just gonna drastically change very quickly. Is there any do you see any negative downside to that? Like, how if because, like, everything that you're saying. Right? Like, I can't imagine that change that drastic of a changing happening. And, like, most people I don't even know how people will adapt to it. Right? Like Yeah. Do you see I don't know why. But we will. We adopt it to the Internet, and the Internet's changed all of our lives. It's how we're talking right now. It's thirty years ago. We ten years ago, we couldn't do this because the bandwidth wasn't there. So we've got But do you feel like there was some cause to that? Like, for example, like, do you think, like, how polarized the world is now? Like, Internet has definitely contributed to that or, like, mental health issue. Like Yeah. I think but, again, every phase of life has some like like, right before the civil war, I think there were 60 physical fights in the Congress than the year prior to the civil war. So the things were even more polarized then. And then and if you go back I've been told that. Yeah. And if you go back three thousand years ago, something like 20 of all deaths were from violent injuries, like people fighting. And so so on the Steven Pinker, in in one of his books, I forget the name of the book, he says that if you look at it, per capita, every century has been more peaceful than the century before for the whole period of human history. And so no matter how polarized we are, we're actually not as bad as we were two hundred years ago or three hundred years ago. Mm-mm. You think we'll pass this phase? Like, at some point, it'll tie you down? It'll cycle. Like, I look back fondly at, like, the Mitt Romney, Barack Obama debates. They were like as my good friend, Mitt Romney says, oh, no, Barack. You said it first. It's I all credit to you. Like, they were, like, almost debating for the other side. Like, they were so friendly to each other. Or I challenge anyone, Google the Kennedy Nixon debates in 1960. These were two individuals who hated each other, but you wouldn't know that from the debates. Like, they were so congenial and so on. But, like, things cycle, and the debates weren't so congenial maybe a hundred years before that, but now we're back to being polarized. To do they used to have duels. Yeah. Like, in Right. Political opposition. Like, think yeah. Eight was it eighteen o three? The vice president of The United States shot the former secretary of the treasury and killed him. Like and then the vice president had to go on the run and try to stage a coup, and it was crazy. Yeah. Like, I just wanted to hear your outlook in the future just because, like, everybody's, like, talking about, oh, how this is how it's gonna be. This is how it's gonna be. And I'm just curious. Only because the presidency is just not that important. Now it is very important for some things. But for the AI is gonna last forever and change human civilization. Whether Kamala or Trump is gonna be good or bad, it doesn't really matter. Ten years from now, the world will sort itself out again and figure it out. Things were pretty bad in the Great Depression, then they got better. Then things were bad during World War two, then they got better. In 02/2008, everyone thought it was the end of capitalism with the mortgage crisis. People would say on TV, it's the end of capitalism. Okay. Year later, the stock market was booming. So very few people would have predicted that. And it's the same thing now. Like, we'll see. Yeah. I I People always say this time is different. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Like, I I've written about this where people always say this is the most important election ever. But, like like, people are saying it right now. But if you go back, newspapers.com, which stores all the newspapers for the past several years, it turns out every single election, everyone everywhere, people say this is the most important election ever. Now maybe it's true that every election is more important than the prior elections, but it's probably not true. Yeah. Yeah. I I could see that because, like, I remember, like, even when I first moved here, like, when I first moved to America, I think the first election was, like, Bush was might have been Clinton and Bush yeah. It was, like, during the it was in ninety nineteen ninety. So '92 was, like, the first election. Oh, yeah. That Bush Clinton. The first Bush and Clinton. Yeah. Even in that, like, people used to say, if Clinton gets elected, I'm gonna I'm gonna move out of the country. And people are still saying that now. By the way, their policies were almost exactly the same. Like, Clinton was a conservative democrat at the time. Now people think that he's, like, a left wing democrat. But at the time, he was head of this southern governors' Democrat Association. He's a conservative Democrat. And Bush was a liberal Republican, which is why Reagan personally disliked Bush. So they were the same. And Bush raised taxes like a Democrat, and Clinton cut them like a Republican. So it's and and feel like sometimes when I look at politics and and I I really, like think it's cool that you're recently, in the last few years, you are talking about politics and stuff like that, which is, like, new for you as well. Right? Because I didn't see those type of content years ago. Do you feel like in politics, I I remember watching this one movie called Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon. And he he's like a Red Sox fan, and they're all, like, depressed at a restaurant because they're they just lost. I remember that. We mean, Drew Barrymore is the Yeah. Yeah. And so they're all depressed. And then in the restaurant, like, some Red Sox players come in, and they're, like, hip they're not depressed. Right? They're having having a good time. But and I almost feel like politics is like that where the Democrats and the Republicans, like, the citizens are like, hate each other and it's like life and death for them. And then when you actually look at the politician, like, they actually hate each other a lot less. It's like when the Yankees and Red Sox play, the fans hate each other more than the actual players. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I think that's mostly true in politics. I think lately, I do think Trump genuinely hates Biden, and I do think they hate Trump. But that's never been the case before. Like, the first Bush and Bill Clinton became best friends. The second Bush and Barack Obama became best friends. Like, I don't think well, I think right now, they do legitimately hate each other, and their followers hate each other. But, well, I'm hoping that's not always the case. I'm hopeful that won't always be the case. I noticed at the 911 Memorial that Trump was there. It's the first time he showed up at, like, an event with former president. So Trump, Barack, Kamala, Biden, they were all there. So it was the day after the debate, which is a pretty ugly debate, and yet Trump showed up. So I'm hoping that signifies some kind of healing could happen. We'll see. And, also, maybe it's because I don't know if you sense this, but I feel like people are over the whole hitting each other thing. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, it's it's not as, So we'll see after this election. I hope that's right. But, I think this election until the day of the election, it's gonna be pretty passionate. And I hope whoever wins, it's a landslide, so there isn't, like, contention. Oh, really? Okay. If it's close, I think there's gonna be a problem. Okay. Do you think it's gonna be a landslide? No. I think it's gonna be very close. Yeah. I think so too. And then I think both sides are gonna contest it. I think the stock market will fall. Again, it'll be temporary, but people will panic. And I think people should be ready for that. Do you believe that there's gonna be some sort of a turning point where because right now, I feel like everybody's are doubting the future, right, in terms of economy, in terms of, like, like, violence, like, people kind of like, the tension and all of that. Right? Do you think there will be a turning point in the near future, like, in the next few years, or do you think it's, like, far out? I think what's gonna happen is technology is gonna force us to say, hey. Things are good no matter who is president. Like, AI is gonna continue improving. Health care is gonna continue improving. Even crypto will change our lives in ways we don't quite realize yet. Silicon, which makes all set is the basis of all semiconductors, that's gonna evolve. Like, they're now experimenting with other materials to make semiconductors faster, like like gallium nitride. I think all these things, this innovation is gonna keep happening as long as there aren't anti innovation policies. Yeah. So, like, I disagree I don't think you this gets into the weeds. I don't think people should tax unrealized gains because that stops innovation, but that's a whole other issue. But and that would never get passed in congress anyway. But as long as there's not anti innovation policies, which I don't think there will be, innovation's gonna always progress faster than politics. Well Yeah. I agree with you. I think technology is definitely gonna be like, I actually think that, like, a lot of the financials issue will be will resolve itself with, like, with blockchains and things like that. Yeah. So which we didn't really get into, but I want I want the respect for your time. Oh, next time. Yeah. Where do you want peep where do you want like, definitely, people check out James Altitude Show. Amazing podcast. Where else do you wanna send people to? I wanna send people to your podcast. Like, this was great. I'm sure you you all your other interviews is as good as this one, and then you've got the best podcast in the world. So Thank you so much. To more episodes. So, I really appreciate it. It was very good, and I really appreciate you having me on the show. Thank you so much for your time. I'll put all the links to your podcast and everything you do on the show. That'd be great. Thank you, everyone, and I'll see you all next week. Cheers. Wherever you start, however big you grow, Onpust Commerce is here for your business. With the AdvantageCard, you save on every stamp you stick and every parcel you send. So wherever you are right now, get your AdvantageCard at onpussed.com or at your local post office. Onpussed Commerce, a world closer. Terms and conditions apply. Looking for reliable IT solutions for your business? At Innovate, we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all. Installing, managing, supporting, and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate, the IT solutions people. I am a very reluctant homeowner. You know, main reason I own a home is as an investment, plus I don't wanna just keep throwing out the money on rent that goes higher and higher. But there's so much maintenance. You really have to deal with all the maintenance issues. And, of course, clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean, and they grow into a huge problem. It's very important to upgrade to a permanent solution you can count on with LeafFilter, and you never have to clean out your gutters again. And right now, you can get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. Don't forget the /james. And, look, do it yourself and store bought solutions may be cheaper upfront, but in the long run, they will cost you more because it'll cost you more from your time. It'll cost you more on the value of your house, and, ultimately, it costs more on your sanity. Protect your home. Never clean out gutters again with LeafFilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com/james. That's a free estimate, free inspection, and 30% off at leaffilter.com/james. See representative for warranty details.
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