1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,280 Ben, thank you for speaking at the Never State Conference. 2 00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:04,560 Good to see you Balaji. Ready to go? 3 00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:07,680 Awesome. So you know, Ben, you've been, 4 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:12,560 you know, a mentor and I think I'd say a friend hopefully for 5 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,320 for for many years now. And you know, one thing is in 6 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:19,600 the hard thing about hard things in that book you wrote about 7 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,080 your time at Netscape and Netscape in many ways was like 8 00:00:23,080 --> 00:00:26,920 the first Internet company and because it had downloads and so 9 00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:29,640 on and so forth, and it went viral and you guys went public 10 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:31,840 and you had an acquisition and all, all the monitor, right. 11 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:36,160 And then we work together on the rise of Bitcoin, which is first 12 00:00:36,160 --> 00:00:38,600 Internet currency and obviously been very heavily involved that 13 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:41,320 with async crypto and everything and going base and all that 14 00:00:41,320 --> 00:00:43,640 stuff. And now we're building Internet 15 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:45,040 communities. So I'd love to hear your 16 00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:47,120 thoughts on that. As you know, I, I think of them 17 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:49,360 as the third kind of thing. Start societies, Internet 18 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:51,080 communities, network states. I'd love to hear your thoughts. 19 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:53,200 Do you think they're the next big thing or could be? 20 00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:55,560 Yeah. So, so I think they're very kind 21 00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:57,920 of parallel in the development and that, you know, kind of 22 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:02,520 before Netscape, which was the first thing that kind of brought 23 00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:04,720 all of the Internet pieces together. 24 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:06,800 You know, there were there were many pieces. 25 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:10,880 You know, there's FTP and TCPIP and Gopher and this and that, 26 00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:16,360 but you needed something to unify all the technologies. 27 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:19,400 So it, it, it was a little deceptive and that a lot of 28 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:23,520 people deep in the tech kind of saw it as well. 29 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,680 What's new here? You know, like, it's just like 30 00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:29,200 you're just putting an interface on it. 31 00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:33,840 And I think that what the network state is, is in network 32 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:35,800 school is, is very much like that. 33 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:38,120 And that we have all the primitive building blocks of 34 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:40,760 community. We've got, you know, Discord and 35 00:01:41,080 --> 00:01:45,040 WhatsApp groups and, you know, we've got, we have Bitcoin now 36 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:48,080 and we have many kind of different currency stable coins 37 00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:50,440 and so forth. But and you know, nobody's 38 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:55,040 brought them all to a VR, but nobody's put the whole package 39 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:57,480 together. And that's really when it gets 40 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:00,520 unleashed. I mean, my in my experience, 41 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:05,080 that's kind of where you hit the knee in the curve when is at the 42 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:07,680 integration. And it doesn't seem in a way it 43 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,960 doesn't seem like a lot because all the pieces were already 44 00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:15,120 there, but the pieces as pieces just aren't that, you know, it's 45 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:16,920 not, it's not actually the thing. 46 00:02:16,920 --> 00:02:19,560 It's not the product. It's funny because you're right, 47 00:02:19,560 --> 00:02:22,360 the system integration. And The thing is, that actually 48 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:25,200 has to happen after all the other pieces are mature, because 49 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:28,160 if any one piece of those is wiggly, then the whole thing 50 00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:29,760 doesn't work. You have to wait for that to to 51 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:31,640 be there. So only when all those pieces 52 00:02:31,640 --> 00:02:33,040 are mature can you snap them together. 53 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:36,120 Right, Exactly, exactly. And and that's kind of the 54 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:39,200 deceptive thing because in until that point, you know, people 55 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:43,000 might have tried it and failed or, you know, it's kind of like 56 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,640 this. I know that doesn't work, right? 57 00:02:45,640 --> 00:02:48,680 You know that kind of thing. Yeah, same with, same with 58 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:51,760 Bitcoin, right? Like it put together like a lot 59 00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:55,000 of techniques, you know, peer-to-peer cryptography, 60 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,480 etcetera, that had been around, but they weren't put together in 61 00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:01,920 a way where you could actually have money. 62 00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:06,080 Right, because ECDSA existed. Yeah, hash functions existed, 63 00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:09,960 hash cast existed. And in a sense, I think somebody 64 00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:11,560 exactly as you said. Yeah. 65 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:14,640 Remarked as just an it was quote, it was a clever 66 00:03:14,640 --> 00:03:16,800 integration of existing things, but they all existed before and 67 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:19,200 they didn't innovate on cryptography, They integrated on 68 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:25,440 the on the system, Right, right. And you know, it's funny you say 69 00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:28,960 that because I myself actually had not thought of that before 70 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:31,600 in quite that way as the analogy to the web browser. 71 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,680 But once you do sample this piece together, then that itself 72 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:36,320 becomes a platform for other things. 73 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:38,200 Yes, exactly. Exactly. 74 00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:40,280 And then you have web apps and you had everything else because 75 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:42,920 then you could write. And So what we're starting to 76 00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:49,000 see is these sharp societies, I call them like the parallel 77 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:52,920 physical, are each usually inspired by the parallel 78 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:55,640 digital. For example, there's sharp 79 00:03:55,640 --> 00:03:59,840 society that is like a cul-de-sac, which is based on 80 00:03:59,840 --> 00:04:02,200 all the micro humility stuff and it wants to be a walkable 81 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:05,520 community, right? And then there's, you know, 82 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:08,520 Prospera, which has mini circle and it's inspired by the biotech 83 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:10,800 innovations. And then there's another one 84 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:12,880 that's booting up which is inspired by all the educational 85 00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:15,400 innovations. And so, so the digital's 86 00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:18,040 inspiring the physical. Yes, Yeah, No, exactly. 87 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:22,680 And I, and I think that's going to, I, I think the number of 88 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:25,880 ideas around that is really going to multiply because you 89 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:28,680 know, one of the things that if you look at the primitive 90 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:32,560 version, it's all kind of, you know, a community around an 91 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:35,920 idea. But what about a community 92 00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:38,640 around the intersection of many ideas? 93 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:43,720 You know, just for, for for my own sake, it would be great if 94 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:45,720 there was a tech hip hop community. 95 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,360 But you you, you know, you, you could imagine many, many 96 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:54,200 dimensions, You know, just sort of if you think of every policy 97 00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:57,960 that you might be interested, anything you might be interested 98 00:04:57,960 --> 00:04:59,600 in or any policy you might vote on. 99 00:04:59,960 --> 00:05:03,000 If you took the intersection and found all the like minded people 100 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,200 in the world and put them in a community, that would be a a 101 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:09,400 kind of very powerful thing. Yes, and you know, one thing is 102 00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:11,640 some of the other folks were having speak the conference, for 103 00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:14,520 example, the CEO of Angel List read the network state book and 104 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:17,480 they've just opened this Angel List Founders Cafe in San 105 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:20,200 Francisco and he said he was kicking himself for not doing it 106 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:24,960 three years ago because it it on the one hand it seems an obvious 107 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,080 thing, but it's also like a non obvious thing because people 108 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:30,040 drop in, they give customer feedback so you can materialize 109 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:33,960 the cloud into land. So many, many digital things 110 00:05:33,960 --> 00:05:35,840 that we have that we think that's purely digital have some 111 00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:39,720 physical manifestation that might actually be non obvious. 112 00:05:39,840 --> 00:05:42,880 Yeah, I know that for sure. And then when you add the 113 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,920 physical it, it does add the whole another dimension of 114 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:53,080 possibility for sure. Yes, that's very interesting. 115 00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:57,760 So you know what, one way that we've we we start to establish a 116 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:01,520 few templates in the space. For example, the pop up, which 117 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:04,720 is somewhere in between, let's say a conference, which is like 118 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:07,360 a one day thing and what we're doing in network school is a 119 00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:09,800 permanent where it's like a permanent setup. 120 00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:11,720 Yeah, exactly. That's right. 121 00:06:11,720 --> 00:06:14,520 So a pop up like a like a one month thing ish, right. 122 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:18,440 And so it's longer than a conference because people, you 123 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:21,160 know, they have to bring, you know, change clothes, laundry to 124 00:06:21,280 --> 00:06:26,160 you know, it's more than that. So do you have any kinds of 125 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:29,480 things that you've been, So you mentioned a tech hip hop thing 126 00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:33,840 and obviously we're used to thinking about, OK, we could 127 00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:36,000 solve this with a new tech company, we could solve this 128 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:38,400 with a new currency. Have you thought about 129 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:39,800 communities that you'd like to see? 130 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:42,040 Well, there's so many, you know, like that. 131 00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:46,040 There's the kind of I, I'm part of like a mini primitive 132 00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:49,800 communities in, you know, the form of WhatsApp groups and so 133 00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:51,680 forth. And it would be really like 134 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,680 this. Nice to see those be much more 135 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:56,800 highly dimensional, maybe have a physical incarnation. 136 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:00,800 You know, it's everything from like, you know, the LLM 137 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:03,920 community to, you know, the various different kinds of 138 00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:06,120 things. But they're all so primitive 139 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:09,280 because there's no money in them there. 140 00:07:09,320 --> 00:07:11,840 You know, there's no, there's no crypto in these communities. 141 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:15,000 There's no physical dimension, there's no virtual reality 142 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:17,560 dimension. There's, you know, all you can 143 00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:21,840 really do is chat, which is, you know, one of the things she'll 144 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:24,320 do in a community. But then there's many, many, 145 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:28,240 many more ideas that you could have. 146 00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:32,240 Yeah, you know, it's funny you said because the the WhatsApp 147 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:36,440 and Signal groups, what I like about them is you have a lot of 148 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:39,800 busy CE OS and investors and so on and we can remain in kind of 149 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:42,280 lightweight contact with a lot of people. 150 00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:47,040 And then you have the physical like, you know, maybe there's a 151 00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:51,440 coffee and you put in an invite there, a Luma invite and 20 of 152 00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:53,560 the people or 10 of the people from the group show up there and 153 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:56,080 you can just pick up right where you left off with this long 154 00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:58,400 running group chat conversation. So there's definitely this 155 00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:04,440 amazing thing there. But you know what, what, what's 156 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:06,400 interesting is when you, when you, when you say what you just 157 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:10,800 said, you kind of want to be able to boom, hold a meet up 158 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:13,600 within the chat or like hit a button and, and create a meet up 159 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:17,440 or boom, hold a meet up and do maybe like a quick VR talk or 160 00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:20,440 something like that. I don't know, maybe the chat 161 00:08:20,640 --> 00:08:22,440 chat interface will get there, or maybe we'll need something 162 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:23,840 completely new. Yeah, yeah. 163 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:26,680 Because right now, you know, you can do that, but it's a little 164 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:32,760 bit of a heavy cognitive and, like, social lift, right? 165 00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:38,799 Like it's a little more risky to say, hey, let's all get 166 00:08:38,799 --> 00:08:40,320 together. You don't want people to go. 167 00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:42,600 Nah. Yeah, yeah, right. 168 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:46,000 Well, you know, there's something, you know, one thing 169 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:51,360 that's interesting about that is, you know, with WhatsApp, you 170 00:08:51,360 --> 00:08:54,920 know, a very modern question is where are you? 171 00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:59,680 Because it, you know, if it probably if you analyze text in 172 00:08:59,680 --> 00:09:03,160 the 1800s, for example, it's very rare for someone to ask, 173 00:09:03,160 --> 00:09:04,040 where are you? Where are you? 174 00:09:04,040 --> 00:09:07,120 I'm on I'm on the other side of the table from you or happy, you 175 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:09,400 know, because there's not that many times, you know, maybe you 176 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:12,480 sent a telegram, but the telegram, you know, or or or or 177 00:09:12,560 --> 00:09:16,880 you know, you send send a postal message, but it's rare that you 178 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:18,720 wouldn't know that a person's physical education. 179 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:21,000 Yeah, you, you would certainly know where they are if you're 180 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,760 sending a postal message. Yes, that's right. 181 00:09:23,920 --> 00:09:27,280 So, but one thing that's interesting, you know, WhatsApp 182 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:30,440 itself is location aware, but an interesting thing that happens 183 00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:34,720 is people cycle around the globe and they're kind of, you know, 184 00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:37,160 they're in the Spain airport or they're here and they're just 185 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:40,520 kind of sending messages. And, and we sort of take for 186 00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,360 granted the level of mobility there, even though they're in 187 00:09:43,360 --> 00:09:45,240 one place in the chat world, they're moving around the 188 00:09:45,240 --> 00:09:47,040 physical world. So maybe there's something that 189 00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:49,720 would suggest, you know, to reduce the social overhead, as 190 00:09:49,720 --> 00:09:52,280 you mentioned that, oh, these people are nearby, you guys 191 00:09:52,280 --> 00:09:55,480 should meet up, but you need to allow it to do that location 192 00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:57,040 tracking. That's like 1 concept for 193 00:09:57,040 --> 00:09:58,760 example. Yeah, that would be that. 194 00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:01,640 That would be super convenient because then you, you'd also not 195 00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:03,200 have to worry. Oh, hey, let's meet up. 196 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:05,840 Oh, I'm in France. Right, Right. 197 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:09,200 That that's going to be hard. OK, well that was a waste of a 198 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:10,920 message for me. Yes. 199 00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,840 The thing is that the people would have to also want to be 200 00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:15,800 location tracked. It has to be done in exactly the 201 00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:17,960 right way that they feel they feel good about it. 202 00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:24,480 So, OK, so Internet communities, I mean, there's another angle on 203 00:10:24,480 --> 00:10:28,720 this, which is for example, things like self driving things 204 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:33,120 like many of the biotech things that we are interested in, we 205 00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:37,480 can potentially have those within special economic zones. 206 00:10:38,800 --> 00:10:41,520 And you know, do you see my post from a few months ago on the 207 00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:44,680 Special Elon Zone? Oh, I didn't see that. 208 00:10:44,680 --> 00:10:46,920 I got to look at that. That sounds good post. 209 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:50,360 Yeah, that's all Elon tech gets to work for free. 210 00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:52,360 Or exactly? Yeah. 211 00:10:53,480 --> 00:10:56,640 Exactly, that's right. So my, my thought was what is 212 00:10:56,640 --> 00:11:00,560 the sort of westernized version of the Asian cause of the 213 00:11:00,560 --> 00:11:02,880 special economic zone? The special Elon zone, or more 214 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:06,720 generally, the special founder zone would be find some swaths 215 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:10,120 of territory. Maybe it's in the US, maybe it's 216 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:13,680 Elon Salvador. OK, so Elon gets, you know, 217 00:11:13,680 --> 00:11:15,240 because Tesla's a global business and so on. 218 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:20,640 So some country gives or some state carves out a piece of 219 00:11:20,640 --> 00:11:23,960 territory and says, OK, Elon, you can move the speed of 220 00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:26,760 physics rather than permits. You can crank out all the 221 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:29,240 humanoids you want. You can mine stuff out of the 222 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:31,400 ground. And what they would do is they'd 223 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:35,120 import existing regulations on, I don't know, graffiti and 224 00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:36,120 stuff. You don't have to rewrite every 225 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:38,720 single law. You just allow however quick 226 00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:42,320 changes to existing laws. And the crucial thing being that 227 00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:44,680 it's like an essentially an uninhabited territory, as close 228 00:11:44,680 --> 00:11:47,640 to Burning Man as possible. Yeah. 229 00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:48,920 What are your thoughts on something like that? 230 00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:51,360 Yeah, No, I think that's AI, by the way. 231 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:54,120 I think it's very doable. There's so many states in the US 232 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:56,280 that would want to do that. I know Nevada would want to do 233 00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:58,880 that and I'm going to have Burning Man. 234 00:11:59,640 --> 00:12:04,160 They they would certainly rather have something that was 235 00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:08,600 productive. So so I think that's super 236 00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:11,120 viable. You know, there are certain 237 00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:16,040 sites, of course you could never do it, but but but for sure. 238 00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:21,720 And then I think it could be, it could only be really productive, 239 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:26,640 but it would also kind of create a very special community almost 240 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:30,880 of of kind of both like minded people and then people who knew 241 00:12:30,880 --> 00:12:32,280 how to build things. That's right. 242 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:35,680 And actually, the thing about this is if it worked for Elon, 243 00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,880 then it could work for Palmer Luckey to have the drone zone 244 00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,480 and right. And you could have, you know, 245 00:12:43,560 --> 00:12:44,920 different. Kind of, you know, like a more 246 00:12:44,920 --> 00:12:48,920 mundane thing, manufacturing. Exactly. 247 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,760 So on that point, rare, my view mining. 248 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:53,720 Exactly. That's right. 249 00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:58,680 So like, if you know about how Deng Xiaoping reformed China 250 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:02,200 when he took over the country was like all brainwashed total 251 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:04,760 communists and he couldn't like reform at all at once. 252 00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:07,480 So he just set up a few special economic zones, especially 253 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:10,560 Shenzhen near Hong Kong. And actually he didn't allow 254 00:13:10,560 --> 00:13:12,840 everybody in. They actually there was like a 255 00:13:12,840 --> 00:13:15,200 membership process or an admissions process where only 256 00:13:15,200 --> 00:13:17,920 the most capitalist sympathetic people were allowed in and they 257 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:19,840 weren't going to make trouble. They weren't still diehard 258 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:22,760 Maoists, right? And and of course that became 259 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:25,520 this gigantic, you know, Chinese city there. 260 00:13:25,720 --> 00:13:27,960 And this way they could gradually reform communism 261 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:29,760 rather than try to change it for the whole country at once. 262 00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:31,920 They could experiment with new laws and and so on and so forth. 263 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:37,880 So for manufacturing all of the OSHA, you know, EPA type stuff, 264 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:41,200 right? You could suspend that in this 265 00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:44,000 one zone. And everybody who came in signed 266 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:49,120 a new social smart contract that would basically say, guess what? 267 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:53,640 I'm coming into this totally desolate peace territory and I'm 268 00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:55,960 coming because of new rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 269 00:13:55,960 --> 00:14:00,360 No, I, I think that, but I think that's a great idea that would 270 00:14:00,360 --> 00:14:03,240 be very good for the, IT would be amazing for the US if we 271 00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:05,480 could do it here. Yes, so. 272 00:14:06,720 --> 00:14:10,720 Here, not there where you are. Well, well, we were there too. 273 00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:14,720 We could do it in Singapore. Yes, so, so I'm, I, I want to, 274 00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:17,800 of course, it'd be amazing for you to do it in the US And in a 275 00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:19,960 sense, if you can do it in the rest of the world, then that 276 00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:22,440 gives you a template to bring into the US potentially, right. 277 00:14:22,920 --> 00:14:26,120 So, so we can we can parallel path potentially. 278 00:14:27,720 --> 00:14:32,560 So, OK, on the on that topic, actually relatedly, there are a 279 00:14:32,560 --> 00:14:37,200 bunch of countries that are pursuing interesting kinds of 280 00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:41,920 protect legislation like digital nomad laws, crypto laws, Dow 281 00:14:41,920 --> 00:14:44,200 laws. I'd love to know your thoughts 282 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:47,160 on the progressive. For example, in in Wyoming, they 283 00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:50,040 had they did the first outlaw Tennessee had followed up with 284 00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:51,760 the Dow law. I'd love to know your thoughts 285 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:54,520 on the jurisdictions, politicians, etcetera that are 286 00:14:54,520 --> 00:14:57,640 kind of pursuing the most progress technologically 287 00:14:57,640 --> 00:15:01,840 progressive interactions with not just tech companies, tech 288 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:04,080 currencies, protocols, sharp communities. 289 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:05,400 You you must have some thoughts on this. 290 00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:08,640 Yeah. So, so I mean, you know, in the 291 00:15:08,800 --> 00:15:12,320 US it does tend to be the like the the states that want to do 292 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:15,400 that do tend to be the red states or the purple states at 293 00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:17,240 least. So, you know, Wyoming, Nevada, 294 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:23,000 Florida, Texas to some degree, a lot of the southern states are 295 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:25,880 very kind of open to manufacturing and in these kinds 296 00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:29,160 of things, you know, around the world. 297 00:15:29,160 --> 00:15:33,200 It's been interesting. So like World Coin, I think 298 00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:37,040 they're most kind of active country per capita is Argentina. 299 00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:43,840 And I think half the citizens of Buenos Aires are are active 300 00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:47,560 users on World Coin. And then they also made a lot of 301 00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:53,520 progress, surprisingly with Malaysia, which is pretty good. 302 00:15:55,040 --> 00:16:00,200 You know, of course, in the UAE, Dubai has been very, very 303 00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:03,960 aggressive. And so they've been good. 304 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:09,560 So I think countries are now seeing kind of tech policy as a 305 00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:14,040 way to really compete. But it tends to be the, you 306 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:18,640 know, it tends to be countries that want to grow as opposed to, 307 00:16:18,680 --> 00:16:24,080 you know, what's going on in Europe or, you know, some, some 308 00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:28,760 other places are in, you know, California even where they kind 309 00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:33,800 of are like, well, we're rich enough and now we need to divide 310 00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:37,920 up the pie and, and protect our, our children, the people. 311 00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:39,200 That's right. They they're basically 312 00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:42,440 unfortunately, they're taking prosperity for granted and then 313 00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:46,520 they're the you you mentioned this thing about a place that 314 00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:48,080 want to grow. One of the things I've been most 315 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:53,760 pleasantly surprised by over the last five years or so is small 316 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:58,880 states putting themselves on the map like El Salvador, but also 317 00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:02,240 like, like small cities like Palau, Marshall Islands, You 318 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:05,240 know, they've taken very pro crypto kinds of, you know, 319 00:17:05,480 --> 00:17:09,040 approaches. And my, my general pattern on 320 00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:14,280 this is actually that, you know, there's 190 to 193 UN members 321 00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:18,400 and it's there, it's a little bit like a reverse merger or 322 00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:20,960 digital asset treasury company where you've got kind of a 323 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:26,200 listed company and it's got a symbol and you've got a coin 324 00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:28,840 that wants to be listed. And there's a deal they can do 325 00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:32,760 to kind of list the coin. And then this guy has a symbol 326 00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:35,080 and a sense of political legitimacy, but not capital. 327 00:17:35,080 --> 00:17:36,760 And it says capital but not legitimacy. 328 00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:39,160 And then they merge together. That's a digitalized treasury 329 00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:42,400 company or reverse merger. And that that cannot be done at 330 00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:45,080 the level of the state or whether sovereign state or like 331 00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:46,360 AUS state. Yeah. 332 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:50,480 Now that is a it's a very, very smart move. 333 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:55,200 I think by by those states, I mean, I think it's it it it's 334 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,120 really interesting that you can differentiate just by thinking 335 00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:02,480 about how to grow and how to maintain prosperity that there 336 00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:05,880 are whole societies that have given up on that idea. 337 00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:13,720 Yeah, we, Mark and I just had dinner with the one of the kind 338 00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:17,440 of potential candidates for Prime Minister of the UK and she 339 00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:21,000 was going through like, you know, like what's your 340 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:23,240 differentiation? She's like growth, like, like we 341 00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:26,640 can grow the economy. And I was like, wow, that's a 342 00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:31,080 very interesting differentiator. It's interesting also because 343 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,200 you know, historically people have said natural resources the 344 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:40,000 differentiator, but I actually think it is, you know, human 345 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:42,680 resources, so to speak, or or capital like basically. 346 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:45,920 Letting the human resources do their thing, yeah. 347 00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:48,320 Yes. And and we, we should come up 348 00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:50,800 with a term for that, but I'd like to at some point organize a 349 00:18:50,800 --> 00:18:55,480 conference of small countries and pro growth jurisdictions. 350 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,280 And that's kind of like one side of A2 sided market. 351 00:18:58,480 --> 00:19:01,520 And we have all the tech founders and venture capitalists 352 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:04,400 is the other side of the two sided market and put, put them 353 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:05,960 together. I mean, network state conference 354 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:09,280 is like the V1 of that, right? And we've got a bunch of, you 355 00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:11,840 know, folks here who are who are, who are doing that. 356 00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:13,400 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Know for sure. 357 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:16,160 I like think that goes together. You know, people who want the 358 00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:19,360 network state in their territory are probably the exact countries 359 00:19:19,360 --> 00:19:23,560 that are interested in in kind of pushing forward into the 360 00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:25,760 future. Yeah, because we can bring 361 00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:28,680 talent and capital there just like crypto, just like, you 362 00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:37,160 know, just like tech itself. So now are there, what has, you 363 00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:43,960 know, what has surprised you about the last five, 10-15 years 364 00:19:43,960 --> 00:19:47,440 in terms of tech and policy or or did nothing or or maybe maybe 365 00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:54,960 there's so many things, but but what have you found to be to be 366 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:57,240 interesting or something that we should look at, pursue, pay 367 00:19:57,240 --> 00:19:59,600 attention to? Well, so I think the big wake up 368 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:07,680 call for me was first kind of how interested, you know, nation 369 00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:13,480 states got in technology policy, which is very like all of the 370 00:20:13,480 --> 00:20:18,320 sudden because we ran my whole career, nobody cared. 371 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,400 I mean you know, like what were the issues? 372 00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:27,600 Stock option accounting. H1B visas like real like 373 00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:33,560 relative fringe stuff compared to, you know, the like, we're 374 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:39,680 going to ban crypto or we are going to call Google and Meta 375 00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:41,440 and tell them what they can publish. 376 00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:43,920 You know, that that was a real change. 377 00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:49,520 And I think that, you know, my big conclusion is what the state 378 00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:55,240 cares about his power. And Aztec kind of rose in power 379 00:20:55,680 --> 00:21:00,240 to the level of the state. Then they got very, very 380 00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:05,600 interested. So like, you know, it's always 381 00:21:05,600 --> 00:21:10,040 under the guise of of safety, but it's really power. 382 00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:15,200 And, you know, it's been it's been quite interesting. 383 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:19,560 I mean, like, it took us a long time to unravel, like, why the 384 00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:24,960 Biden administration was so keen on banning crypto and like, 385 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:29,320 taking the US out of a whole technological space, probably, 386 00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:33,160 you know, one of the two most important kind of technology 387 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:37,160 platforms for the next 25 years. They are also anti AI. 388 00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:39,560 Yeah, yeah. Why are we calling it? 389 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:41,440 Yeah, anti AI? Well, both of them, right? 390 00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:43,320 Yeah. Why would you withdraw from 391 00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:45,120 that? And it really has to do with, 392 00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:49,280 well, you know, control if we can, if we can't control the 393 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:51,320 money, then we can't control the speech. 394 00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:54,320 And if we can't control the speech, then we can't control 395 00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:57,400 the people. And, you know, both AI and 396 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:01,200 crypto are like, well, we better shut them. 397 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,000 We better have control of those things. 398 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:05,800 Like they better not be in control of somebody else. 399 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:09,800 And that's, yeah, it's just a really interesting learning that 400 00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:12,960 that's I, I guess I had to grow up and learn how the world 401 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:15,440 works. But but that is how it works, 402 00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:17,600 yeah. It, it is interesting because 403 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:21,240 you know, for, you know, you're, you're a little bit older than I 404 00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:23,120 am actually. I mean $15. 405 00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:28,600 And you know, during the period where for for many years we had 406 00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:34,640 to convince people that tech was important and then suddenly 407 00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:35,960 they're like, it's too important. 408 00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:38,200 And that happened right in the mid twenty 10s or thereabouts, 409 00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:40,600 after about 30-40 years of building the Internet. 410 00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:48,600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Crazy it is it is it's just so 411 00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,160 so we're probably, you know, it's the same with all the I 412 00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:57,560 mean the first thing the first sign I got of it was, you know, 413 00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:04,000 the big push for like women in tech and like, which was always 414 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,880 surprising to me because it was like, well, you guys are 415 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:08,840 discriminating against women. There's not enough women in 416 00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,640 tech, but like nobody wanted to go into tech. 417 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:16,000 Like going into tech was like a weird ass thing When I went into 418 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:19,560 like I, I got like ridiculed and my friends like, what are you 419 00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:22,240 doing that for? Like, you know, like really 420 00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:27,480 computers this and that, you know, it's so hard and like, you 421 00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:29,520 know, there's not that much money in it and this and that 422 00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,920 and the other. And like all you do is work and, 423 00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,000 and so like going in in that world and then all of the 424 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,600 sudden, you know, Google and meta hit and people are getting 425 00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,360 so rich. And and then people all of a 426 00:23:43,360 --> 00:23:45,120 sudden it's like, well, you guys are discriminating. 427 00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:48,960 You're not letting people in. And it's like, oh, OK, you walk 428 00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:49,920 in. OK, no. 429 00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:53,480 One cares about the demographics of of plumbing, for example, 430 00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:55,600 right? Like they haven't yes. 431 00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:58,040 So now. But the other part about that is 432 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,400 tech is actually in a real sense and very globally meritocratic 433 00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,360 because we've got people from just about every country that 434 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:07,200 are participating in tech in some sense. 435 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,080 Well, that's how we always thought of it, right? 436 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,520 Like it's like, oh, there's all these Jews, Chinese, Indians, 437 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,760 like all these people are coming from all over the world. 438 00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:18,040 They're doing tech, you know, like it's, it's not the, you 439 00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:22,640 know, kind of canonical white man or whatever who's doing it. 440 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,800 But, but it was all self selected. 441 00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:30,000 You know, it wasn't like there was no, no, nobody ever cared. 442 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:33,200 Like there was never a conversation in any of the 443 00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:37,280 companies that I worked at. Like that would get you to think 444 00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:39,400 anybody cared what race or gender you were like. 445 00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,640 Like it just was never a thing. But nobody wanted But but 446 00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:43,400 nobody. Applied. 447 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,000 You know this. Is one of those things. 448 00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:52,760 And look, if you were kind of not Jews, Chinese or Indians, 449 00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:55,920 you would definitely feel low on the outside because that's what 450 00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,800 most people were. I mean, it's just like that, 451 00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:00,560 yeah. Well, yeah, the thing about. 452 00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:02,920 The Midwest too, I guess. Yes, that's right. 453 00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,600 So we, I mean, basically we have many different demographics. 454 00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:10,560 But you know, the thing about this is one thing I've been 455 00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,800 formulating is the thesis of the Internet is to America as 456 00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,920 America was to Britain, like the version 3 point O, it's like 10X 457 00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,160 bigger. And in particular, lots of 458 00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,760 traditional American values like freedom of speech or protection 459 00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:27,520 against search and seizure, You can protect them on the Internet 460 00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:32,720 with encryption in a way that is is stronger than the protections 461 00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,480 of of a law, for example, right. And so like a smart contract is 462 00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:38,800 rule of law. You know, for example, Delaware 463 00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:41,280 is melting down, but small contracts are booting up, Yeah. 464 00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,160 Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just actually moved the we 465 00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,760 reincorporated the firm into Nevada. 466 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,240 And that's an opportunity, right, for many countries. 467 00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:53,800 I mean, I know you guys are like are in Nevada now, but the fact 468 00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:58,000 that, you know, Delaware was was a stable jurisdiction for for 469 00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,400 decades, maybe centuries, depending on, you know, how long 470 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:02,800 you think the chance to record was, was the main event. 471 00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,960 And so now I think there's sort of a jump ball where if you 472 00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,160 know, there's some jurisdiction that could say, hey, guess what, 473 00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:12,360 we've got a better Dow law and we're better than Delaware 474 00:26:12,360 --> 00:26:15,080 because we allow you to port your company from place to 475 00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:16,200 place. We've got the crypto stuff. 476 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:18,920 It feels there's a real opportunity in Rule of law 477 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,080 integrated with rule of code. If it may, maybe you'd agree 478 00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,040 with that. Well, I definitely think so, 479 00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,800 because the thing that we've seen, you know, in the US over 480 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:32,680 the last, probably mainly over the last five years is, you 481 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,560 know, we've always kind of a huge strength of the US has been 482 00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,280 rule of law and the amount of case law and like the 483 00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:44,440 predictability of the law. But that kind of presumed that 484 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:49,520 you didn't have people who were above the law who are judges 485 00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,480 and, you know, prosecutors and these kinds of things. 486 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,200 And so then what's happened in the last five years is, you 487 00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:58,360 know, particularly in the Delaware Chancery Court is the 488 00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,680 chair of the Delaware Chancery Court just chose to completely 489 00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:09,640 ignore the law and make up her own law, which, you know, it was 490 00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:11,880 quite stunning. You know, like the board of 491 00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:15,840 directors didn't have a say and then even the shareholders 492 00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:17,200 didn't have a say in how the company. 493 00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:22,040 Is the Tesla case. Whatever she imagined would be 494 00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,960 the right thing. And, you know, like, it took a 495 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,040 lot of us by surprise. It's like, OK, wow. 496 00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:33,240 So Delaware doesn't have rule of law anymore, which it doesn't. 497 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:34,640 Like. It absolutely doesn't. 498 00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,320 And it's hard to even get to a point where you think it does. 499 00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:44,520 But yeah, there was also, if you look at yeah, there was the 500 00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,760 prosecution of Trump over the real estate deal, which was 501 00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,160 also, you know, like, forget about the law. 502 00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,320 Like I, the prosecutor and I, the judge will just go like the 503 00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:02,200 law about, you know, what it means to have an agreement with 504 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:04,920 the bank to get a loan is no longer the law. 505 00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:09,080 It's what I believe. And because I believe that they 506 00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,560 shouldn't have given you a loan because I don't like you then 507 00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,720 therefore you were cheating other people. 508 00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:21,120 But it, it's like, well, if I go to borrow money, I disclose the 509 00:28:21,120 --> 00:28:25,080 thing, you kind of evaluate my collateral and I lend you the 510 00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,800 money. That's not legal in New York or 511 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,160 it wasn't legal for that case. So, you know, you get into this, 512 00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,720 we're we're in a different world where the law has been very 513 00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,040 politicized, I would just say. And you know, as a result of 514 00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:42,800 that, you're kind of we're in like uncharted territory a bit. 515 00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:44,480 So I do think that creates an opening. 516 00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,920 I mean, yes, my, my view on that is if you imagine like a house 517 00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,400 and there's two factions and they're fighting over the 518 00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,880 territory, that house is now a battleground and it can have a 519 00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:59,440 window blown up here or some guys can take it and shoot down 520 00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,320 from here. And so all of these formerly 521 00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,960 neutral institutions are now political battlegrounds, you 522 00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,120 know, one side and then maybe another will will weaponize. 523 00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,200 You know what I mean? I think it's on now, right? 524 00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:16,160 Like I think we've got we've we've gone through a bit of a 525 00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,240 one way door on this because I think that once one side does 526 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:23,920 it, like I don't think the other side is like morally higher on 527 00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:27,440 higher ground. I think they'll it's going to be 528 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:29,600 the same kind of thing but in reverse for sure. 529 00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:33,920 Exactly so. So that is why my view is with 530 00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,080 crypto, with the blockchain, with the Internet, with the 531 00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:44,400 special economic zones, we can potentially rebuild a new 532 00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:49,280 Internet first version of those things, which now puts more of 533 00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:54,000 the OR as much as possible of the rule of law into rule of 534 00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,000 code. So that, for example, the 535 00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,560 property can't be seized since the private keys, you have to 536 00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:00,280 break encryption in order to seize the property. 537 00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,200 For example, to break the contract, you have to break the 538 00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,320 smart contract. Yeah, So what's? 539 00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:08,360 Your contract then a little bit. By definition, there's no room 540 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,560 for a judge to say the contract was invalid, which is which is 541 00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:16,360 kind of the case in both the Delaware courts and in the kind 542 00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:19,960 of Trump New York real estate case where there was a contract. 543 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,560 And that's all of a sudden, for whatever reason, that contract, 544 00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,360 the state decided the contract was invalid. 545 00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:35,040 And OK, that, that that's, that's interesting. 546 00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,120 But if it was a smart contract, then there's no, you know, 547 00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:39,800 there's not third party. That's right. 548 00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,520 And you know, one of the things I think about a lot is when I'm 549 00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:49,000 at a tech conference in, for example, Dubai or in Singapore, 550 00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:53,400 the vast majority of people there are not American, often 551 00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,400 not white. They're from Africa, they're 552 00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:57,760 from the Middle East, they're from, you know, Asia. 553 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,640 But they all trust Bitcoin, they all trust smart contracts. 554 00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,720 And so that is something which actually addresses the concerns 555 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:11,640 of both the left and the right because clearly people of every 556 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,520 race, religion, ethnicity and so on trust Bitcoin and smart 557 00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:18,520 contracts and so on. But it's also fair certainly to 558 00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:22,280 the right, because it's now like it is, it is sort of provably 559 00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,920 fair, which is new. And that's like a new standard 560 00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:28,240 that can you know, outweigh what you know what, what is what is 561 00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,480 no longer thought to be fair by by both sides. 562 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:34,200 Yeah, I the, this is actually one of my kind of favorite ideas 563 00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:39,680 of yours is, you know, they are called consensus protocols and 564 00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:43,640 they are a way of getting kind of mathematically strong 565 00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:49,160 consensus to the point where everybody in the world agrees to 566 00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:55,720 the penny who owns every bit of the whatever it is $3 trillion 567 00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,480 Bitcoin market cap. Like that's a hell of a magic 568 00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,920 trick if you think about it. I mean, everybody in the world 569 00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,520 to agree to a thing like that is, is quite spectacular. 570 00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:13,160 And I think that the, I think it's probably the only future 571 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,640 that works given, you know, what's what we're seeing now 572 00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:19,800 with the US in terms of the law. I think that's so. 573 00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,800 And the reason, part of the reason also is everybody from 574 00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:27,440 every culture can read code, can diligence code, can do the math, 575 00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:30,080 can determine for themselves it's correct whether they're, 576 00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,200 you know, Pakistani or Indian, Japanese or Chinese, right, 577 00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:38,480 Democrat or Republican. And so that is, I think part of 578 00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,200 the goal of Network State is to come up with a series of 579 00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:45,360 templates that can serve restore order from the cloud. 580 00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:48,440 You actually, you know, you guys pioneered this in some ways like 581 00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:51,240 reboot from the cloud. Yeah, yes. 582 00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:52,680 Right. Like in a in a data center, you 583 00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:55,960 know, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know for 584 00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,440 sure. So restore from cloud backup is 585 00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:02,040 kind of how I think about a big chunk of what we're doing, but 586 00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:04,600 not simply the state of a server, but the state of a 587 00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:07,520 society. You know, we can, we can do 588 00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:10,560 that. And you know, an interesting 589 00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:13,120 question is how far we can take that. 590 00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,520 Because you can, you can have like -1 and plus one Bitcoin and 591 00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,120 you can have a smart contract that governs identity, But 592 00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:21,480 actually many other kinds of contracts. 593 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,880 For example, you could have a marriage and a birth registry on 594 00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:26,360 chain people. People have started to do things 595 00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:27,960 like that. You can even have a jury of 596 00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,760 peers where people all turn their keys like Claros and you 597 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:32,040 know, things have done things like that. 598 00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,720 So I think a really interesting question to see how creative we 599 00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:39,400 can get, how much of the old world we can replace or or at 600 00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,320 least partially replace with Internet first variance. 601 00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:43,680 I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. 602 00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:48,560 Yeah. I, I mean, I think that I think 603 00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,800 we have to get the infrastructure deployed more 604 00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:56,600 broadly first. Like, so I do think Step 1, you 605 00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:01,360 know, that the, the biggest challenge right now, you know, a 606 00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:03,960 big challenge for the world is like we did crypto is not 607 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,080 pervasive. Like not everybody has a wallet, 608 00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:10,800 not everybody has keys, but it's really important that they do, 609 00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:14,719 you know, first of all, just from a security standpoint, like 610 00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:21,320 having all of your PII in the cloud and 400 different websites 611 00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,880 is the most dangerous thing. People are going to look back on 612 00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,320 that and go like, that was crazy. 613 00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,199 That was much worse than driving without seatbelts and smoking 3 614 00:34:30,199 --> 00:34:31,639 packs of cigarettes a day like that. 615 00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:33,600 Fucking insane. Like what are you guys doing? 616 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:40,880 But we we have to get that underpinning in order, you know, 617 00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,679 and I think that needs to be the way that money gets distributed 618 00:34:43,679 --> 00:34:46,040 to citizens and the way people vote and the way. 619 00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,920 And then, you know, when you have that basis, then there's a 620 00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:55,480 basis to move the law on chain. But I think it's the the 621 00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,640 trickiness of it now is it's just not pervasive. 622 00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:03,640 And and then we really need it to be, we need it to be like the 623 00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,560 Internet and it's not quite there yet. 624 00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:10,560 And then, you know, a lot of that has to do with, you know, 625 00:35:10,720 --> 00:35:13,400 the the kind of assault on it over the last four years from 626 00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,200 the Biden administration. And so it's fragmented around 627 00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,000 the world and and and and so forth and so on. 628 00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:23,480 But I I think like it's definitely the future. 629 00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:27,560 The question is just how fast. So yeah, I think we have 630 00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:28,880 actually. Years of years. 631 00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:32,280 But by some measures we have hundreds of millions of crypto 632 00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:36,440 of holders at least, right. And it's funny because it is 633 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,560 whatever trillion dollars and it's a big enough deal that it 634 00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:44,560 was like a camp major campaign issue and you know blah, blah. 635 00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:49,680 But it's a weird thing where like on a like I use it actually 636 00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:51,840 quite a lot for wire transfers and other stuff. 637 00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:58,120 But my view on that is we're just in the first year where we 638 00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,800 have Solana and bass, which basically means you could just 639 00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:04,760 blast transactions on chain as well as as well as other L ones. 640 00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,280 And we have USDC and cable coins legal. 641 00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,920 We have Apple removing its issues where it's blocking a lot 642 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,920 of apps in the App Store. Hey Apple is a huge problem. 643 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:18,240 A huge problem, right? And we also have the regulatory 644 00:36:18,240 --> 00:36:21,600 assault has been pulled back. So there should be like, you 645 00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,800 know, a spring of a of a bunch of stuff that was pent up that 646 00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:27,320 should come out there and then two other things. 647 00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:32,440 I do think we need more developers back in the field. 648 00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:36,760 So one of the IT did is it, you know, the, the combination of 649 00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:41,000 the assault from, you know, the administration and the powers 650 00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:43,240 that be. And then the rise of AI kind of 651 00:36:43,240 --> 00:36:47,720 shifted a lot of the, the software development energy over 652 00:36:47,720 --> 00:36:52,800 to AI from crypto. And we we need to get a lot of 653 00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,600 that back to rebuild. Well, so I actually think AI is 654 00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,560 going to subsidized crypto in the sense that AI makes 655 00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,200 everything fake and crypto makes it real again. 656 00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:02,800 Yeah. Right, right, right. 657 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,960 So because how do you know? AI is probabilistic. 658 00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:09,480 As probabilistic crypto is deterministic and that that 659 00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:12,360 wallet allows you to digitally sign something to show it came 660 00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,760 from you and then you can have and you know, essentially a 661 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,640 content ID on everything. And I actually think exactly 662 00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:21,560 we're going to have proof of human social networks. 663 00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:23,760 I think world coin could help boot something like that up, for 664 00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:27,160 example. So so I think that that is 665 00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,000 another subsidy here and then you're on your point on privacy. 666 00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,440 You know, I've talked with some of the folks in, you know, the 667 00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:37,920 Etherium community, C cash community on HTPZ, like, you 668 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,160 know, HTPHPSHPZ, which is conceptual, whether it's 669 00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,440 literally HPZ, but it's basically zero knowledge. 670 00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,080 Zero knowledge. Very good, yeah. 671 00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:54,240 Yeah, I know it's clever, right? And so we could a lot of the 672 00:37:54,240 --> 00:37:58,040 privacy sets, another major potential subsidy for crypto is 673 00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:00,680 the all the zero knowledge techniques that are being built 674 00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:04,280 up for not just privacy, but also scaling could be applied. 675 00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,320 For example, homomorphic encryption and secure 676 00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:09,720 multiparty. All that kind of stuff is now 677 00:38:09,720 --> 00:38:12,280 starting to be something that you might be able to use in 678 00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:15,480 traditional web apps with the with the right packaging of it. 679 00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:17,280 And that packaging has to be done. 680 00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:19,120 Maybe we can put out some prizes or something. 681 00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,840 To yeah, yeah, there's definitely work that's going on 682 00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:23,880 on the on the packaging that's getting better. 683 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:30,600 I mean, I write it the usability of, of being on chain. 684 00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,440 You know, that was one of the big two things that you know 685 00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,160 when the assault started that we needed to get better at where 686 00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,080 performance and and usability and they kind of are related. 687 00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,280 We made a lot of progress on performance, not as much on 688 00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:45,360 usability. Yeah. 689 00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:48,520 And I think with hopefully we can get a lot of that over the 690 00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:50,400 next year or so. I think starting to see of the 691 00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:55,040 forecast with bass and and and and s.com earned. 692 00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:56,640 Yeah, he's back. Let's. 693 00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,440 Go It's a good idea then, It's a good idea now. 694 00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,320 Yes, you know what's funny is we're my, my view on this is you 695 00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,160 know how Evan Williams, he did Blogger and they did Twitter, he 696 00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:10,800 did Medium, right? And his iterations on a theme. 697 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:16,560 And so I think Earn 20252026 is kind of like that. 698 00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,960 It'll be iterations on a theme from everything we learned from 699 00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,880 6-7 years because lots of stuff works now that was only just 700 00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,400 barely starting to work back in 20/17/2018. 701 00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:29,400 So we'll see. OK, cool. 702 00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,360 All right. So anything, so anything else 703 00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:35,600 that people who are building sharp societies. 704 00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,200 So actually, if you're building sharp society intro community 705 00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,520 network state should come to interest in Horowitz and and 706 00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:42,960 pitch interest in Horowitz. Yeah. 707 00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:46,960 I mean, I, I, I think that for sure we're very interested in it 708 00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:53,280 where you know, where, where investors in networkstate.com. 709 00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:58,120 Ns.com, exactly. Yes, that's right. 710 00:39:58,160 --> 00:39:59,560 So yes, exactly. That's right. 711 00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:00,840 So. No, we believe in it. 712 00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,240 We believe in it. We're, we believe in the, you 713 00:40:04,240 --> 00:40:07,480 know, the, the whole thing from the sovereign individual on up. 714 00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,920 So we want to be part of it for sure. 715 00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:12,600 Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Ben. 716 00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:13,600 All right. Thank you.