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Well, hello boys and girls, lemurs and squirrels. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers from all different disciplines to tease out the lessons, habits, new tools, Etc, that you can use. My guest today is one of my favorite guests and a good friend. Matt mullenweg, Matt is a co-founder of the open source publishing platform WordPress, which now Powers more than one-third of all sites on the web. He is the founder and CEO.
Of automatic and attc. What he did there. Automatic. The company behind wordpress.com woocommerce, Tumblr. WPVI, be day. One and Pocket. Casts. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital. Can you guess who? That's named after, I'll give you three, guesses, and investment and research company. He has been recognized for his leadership by Forbes. Bloomberg businessweek, Inc.
TechCrunch Fortune Fast
Company wired. It keeps going Vanity Fair and the university philosophical Society, Matt.
Is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the high school for the Performing and visual arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time. Matt is an avid photographer. I encourage you to check out ma dot t-- t--. He currently splits his time between Houston and Jackson Hole for my first interview with Matt way back in 2015 where he had very long hair, go to Tim dot blog / Matt. There was some tequila involved as mentioned. You can find him online at em, a DOT TT.
You can find them on Twitter at photomat. That tells you just how many photos he's taken and on Instagram at photo mat. Without further Ado. Please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Matt mullenweg.
This is a new acoustic environment for me. You see, Matt mullenweg will get to you in just a minute, but we're sitting here in a shell tent, which has surprisingly good Acoustics. Kind of, like, sitting inside a spherical curtain, I guess to deaden the noise or dead in The Echoes. And we are on top of ice
miles of it. Miles of
ice. We have two layers in this shell tent.
And inside, we have a little fold out table on which we have Bluetooth speaker. We have some caffeine, you have some water, we have. How do you say
this? Glenn meringue?
When meringue Glenmorangie, somebody's going to correct us here. Help us. Otters. Hele n Mo are Ang IE Highland single malt. Scotch whiskey Legends, the cat Bowl, let somebody sort.
That out. And then we have a Nalgene bottle full of water. And then we have a Nalgene bottle. That is colored. It is orange in the reason that is Orange is, is currently full of 28 ounces of my
urine. Strong
opens him. Yeah, and that need to be on the table, you know, this is a reminder that I need to dispose of it. So now come to Antarctica, which is where we are right now. Everything that is brought.
In needs to be carried out, so that includes all human waste because if you pee in the snow, here will be here for hundreds of years or thousands of years. And in such case you need to, if you have to pee when you're outside or your in your tent and you're freezing your ass off and don't want to walk to one of the bathrooms. You need to pee into a bottle. So that's why I have a differently colored bottle. So I don't mistakenly assume as you might because there are no bubbles here. This is my water, which I guess it is in some sense.
Used slightly used. So last time we did a podcast because we're doing some back of the napkin. Just want five or so years ago, five years ago, and a lot has happened in the last five years before we get to that
cheer sir. Cheers,
so fun to spend time with you as always, and thanks for coming to enter, well. Thank you for the invite. I'm so excited to finally come here for a million reasons, principle of which is just getting to spend more time together.
Honestly, this is our fifth continent. So we got two more. That's crazy and Australia and then we'll have
laughs. Rick will have will have the hat trick of all seven. And yeah, weird 89. Now in
Antarctica, they've done. We've been off the internet for a while which I'm a little shaky kissing. Yeah. It's like 98% of my brain.
So so withdrawal symptoms way, you have to you have to know, we're going to get to the bottle, worry, folks. But one of your coping mechanisms, like the methadone for
Or the internet addict was downloading. What, what did you download? A lot of before you came
here? Downloaded a good chunk of the Wikipedia.
So Wikipedia like the Facebook. I love Wikipedia. Yes, that flare and
well, I remember our last I download a Scrabble dictionary to I remember last time I was in Antarctica in 2014. It was really just looking stuff up that I miss the most and and I've used it a number of times here and also like, might have the fullest copy of the
Pedia of our group. So that's like it came in handy. I want to look up a few factoids about Suriname and boom there. It was narrow well, but then I found out that Ernesto hoost who's one of my favorite kick? Boxers of all time was born in Suriname later, 1 K 1 a million times, people who know what that is. Well, Noah is long story to explain but
There were no accompanying photographs, of course, and I should say just given the bandwidth limitations. So, here we are day 9, you, I guess we're ruminating on what day it might be. And I had no idea because it is daylight all the time, 24 hours a day, and it is so bright. I had experienced 24-hour Twilight. Once above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, but this is totally different. I mean, this is like laying on your back in Santa Barbara, with the
Beating down on you at 10:00 a.m. On a perfectly, Bluebird day. It's so bright all the time. So everything kind of Blends together and you're not really sure when you should be tired or shouldn't be tired. You think it's 1 p.m. And we came back from an Excursion today. There's already 645 something like that. It's really
Strange, it's super strange and to not have a circadian rhythm. Modulated by light change to synchronize to super weird.
It's been. Yeah, feels very Timeless. I've been here and day of the week. Everything has been kind of lost. We also had a very special morning we
did. So, before we get to the morning, Matt mullenweg for people, who don't know, who are you,
ah, friended him, but probably better known for co-founding.
Our software called WordPress which is blogging. CMS content management. System has over, 50,000 plugins and themes and I'm the CEO of a company. It's a lot smaller last time. We talked called automatic as a mat in there. That's kind of a little pun and we make wordpress.com you place to get WordPress woocommerce, which is Ecommerce, built on top of Wordpress. Tumblr, jetpack. All sorts of day, one. Awesome, journaling, app, simple notes pocket cast for podcasting. So check out the blog.
It cast great up. So we basically try to make the open web make the web more open and what
percentage of the web uses one of those products or WordPress itself. At
this point, the Debbie three tax WordPress is now to 42%. It's probably like, 10 last time we talked, that's incredible. Yeah, it's coming up and what would you
guess? Five years ago, roughly the size of the company then and now
Then we were a couple hundred an hour, a couple thousand we're coming up on two thousand people which has been really amazing
distributed before it was cool. Yeah,
that's what that's worth noting. That was kind of a funny thing, as well, as I even start a podcast called distributed and I was like, okay my goal for the 2020s based the next 10 years was to get more remote work happening. Little up happened. Sorry about the virus guys. Yeah, so just
Up one day and, you know, of people who could numbers were incredible. How many people switch to distribute it work? But yeah, we've been distributed. Since the beginning were about 2,000 people 92, countries majority. The company first language is not English and we communicate primarily asynchronously through blogging,
then you say blogging you referring to internal tools that resemble
blogging. Yeah. We have this tool called P to the letter p, as in penguin and the number two and it's basically an internal blog. We have no email in the company.
The only email I get is HR stuff and
everything. Usually I'm guessing that a good day.
So that'll happen privately, but everything else instead of sending email will just kind of block to each other. And so everything has a permalink. Everything is archived. Everything is searchable. And you can have rich in beds like figma embeds, YouTube embeds. It's really slow at first and bed, big momma. I don't know what that is figma is actually
Awesome toy should check out imagine a way to coordinate design online and in real time. So you and I could be working on the same wireframes or interaction design. And actually, it's the latest episode of the distributed podcast, and I didn't actually interview the founder. Dylan Connie ended mutual friend. All right, is, is it designer?
We, oh, Connie credit for another prop. We have on the table. We may or may not use, which are the holstee H. 0l Ste reflection car.
Cards. And there are a lot of decks of questions that I've seen out and about and I've tried quite a few, my girlfriend loves these various tax and there's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and I see mostly fairly mediocre. And this is a deck that is is quite good. So we might get to some questions here. So Connie, you're saying, interviewed the founder of figma on the
distributed. Yeah, latest episode. It's a cool tool. I think you might enjoy checking it out. Actually. I will
figma. I'm on it and
Let's see. What else is this? Such a lazy question, but it kind of boggled my mind to think that it's been five years since we last did one of these. Yeah, because you said what? The first episode we did was number 60,
something
6161 in the Bay Area at like kitchen table or dining room table. All the same in Glen Park
back when you had
had your golden locks. I think that was when you still had your go.
Pretty
long hair. Yeah, I
tried to change it up every every year to every once in a while. And at the time, the nectar of choice was tequila. And so that, that featured area heavily more ways than one that you're going is Hope. And yeah, that was supposed to go to. That was good evening. I was a good evening. So this morning, if we switch from evening to morning, so we had a very interesting morning and it started. Well, I didn't really ever end. I guess. I mean, it was continuous. Most people didn't sleep. But what happened this morning?
And so part of the reason we're in Antarctica, besides the penguins, which I know you talked a lot about, what Sue check out that episode was sooo flood. Is the total solar eclipse that I happened here in Antarctica, and it's the only one in the continent until 2013. I think it's total solar eclipse. See you. And I at the wee hours of the morning there to be very, we got to see what was my first visible total solar eclipse and ideas in.
Edible the landscape in Antarctica is so dramatic. Yeah, it's a it's a place that really makes you feel.
It's a very patient landscape and it makes you feel like your size and the cosmos
interesting that you'd use a ra patient. Why do you use that adjectives? I was anticipating you. I'd say vast or Majestic vast even more. So the Majestic but why why
patient is something to me about an artery? That feels really Timeless and also just unconcerned with human welfare, utterly welfare and time scales. Yeah. Yeah, things here happen over. Huge.
Scales. And it's so cool to see like mountains, buried by glaciers, essentially like that. They look like, they're like, have a blanket over them. And that was over how many tens or hundreds of thousands of years. It's pretty incredible.
It is, we were, we were chatting with a gentleman yesterday. I don't know if he would want to be named, so I won't name him, but he had mentioned how deep an impact.
I guess his first full
totality as it's known first total solar eclipse had affected him and how he had always on some intellectual level understood. Our relative in significance from a cosmic perspective. But the first time that he viscerally felt that which actually was deeply therapeutic for him was seeing a totality with his daughter in his arms and somebody behind him caught this amazing. Photograph of his daughter, tiny little daughter pointing up at the totality as
Laughing. I mean you couldn't have scripted a better photograph and then this morning, it still feels like it was two days ago and every Everything blurs and blends together, which is we've lived lifetimes. We have loved lifetimes. It was around what 444 I want to say and leading up to it in the days, leading up to it. I was looking forward to it, but I wasn't jumping up and down with excitement. I just assumed okay.
It gets progressively darker than it's dark and then it gets progressively lighter. I'm
not that
blown away because it's bro, not yeah, cool story, bro, and had to be there had to be there and it turns out you really do have to be there and when it actually started creeping up and you're watching this happen and you're observing the progression through these eclipse glasses because otherwise you'll blow your eyes out. Of course, especially if something is magnified through equipment,
And when it actually fully overlapped and you're able to take off your glasses and look at it directly.
It was stunning stunning, and the effects on the horizon and on the visibility of stars, the things happening around it. The shadow bands is people refer to them as traveling across the ground. Did you see the wavy ones? I look good. I was so surreal. Yeah, and just everything about it.
Almost harken back for me to prehistoric. Humanoid times. I get touched, something very old. If that makes any sense. It felt like it touched something in species or racial memory. Going back, thousands of years where you can imagine the impact that this would have on any sentient being who's observing it and really paying attention and watching it difficult to put into words. That was the most common.
Sentence. Probably some variation of that that I heard afterwards. People were giddy people were euphoric, and
The expression was you just can't put into words or I can't put it into words and encourage people
to look up the history of eclipses. There's been
some cool
historical moments are predicting. Eclipses an opportunity, an eclipse or thing to Kings died after seeing them and then that was part of the creation of Europe. Yeah.
Killing the my sister Shaun King, John. The pious are saying and then Europe was split up into
What If instead became France, but became Italy and what became Germany to his three
sons, so yeah. Eclipses
Seem to figure pretty strongly into the shaping of history and the shaping of national borders. What's more reliable than the
sun? Yeah, and for that to be blotted out for a moment is I? Yeah, I'll inspiring. Let's do it again.
Yeah, I don't say this lightly M. What's it once it happened, though? I immediately turn to a few friends that were with and I was and I said, I get it. I see why people chase this because we have people here in this Camp because
You have these shell tents arranged in rows of sorts, and then they have snow piled around them to brace Against the Wind. And it does get really, really fucking cold here. Surprise surprise. It's Antarctica. It's also very, very dry and people get a lot of sun damage even more so than the same as the driest desert in the world. It is dry. It is dry. It's part of the reason you can dry the surface of say your steak by putting it in a freezer on an elevated rack for a short period of time. It's the driest place in your house.
A good freezer. So I am. You just expand that a gazillion times. We're in a really good freezer, over eons. And here you are in Antarctica. It's
also interesting that where we are on Union Glacier. There's no birds. No animals. No insects, literally, nothing living except us. Yeah.
It's, I was going to say disturbingly, but it's not disturbingly. It is oddly quiet. When you go to certain parts of the camp, if
You're not within sort of shouting distance for within hearing distance to the mess hall or something like
that. And especially after we spend seven days with the Penguins. Yeah, which have kind of a constant DIN and it was really cute. They would walk into camp and just walk past your 10 to the 10th have no noise
isolation. Right up to the top right up
to 10 job, right? I see you're better than.
Always remember where my remember,
that's what he
was pretty good. Thank you. You, although, that is actually the pairing call.
That you hear more at the colony but there was gone since been back since I have been practicing much to the Chagrin. I travel travelling companions. I've been doing that like a hundred times a day. If
you can cut in some of that field out of you, tuck would be pretty cool. Oh, we will.
Oh, there will be magic in the editing room.
I've no idea if you'll be able to hear me or not. But those are the sounds of thousands of Empire penguins adults in their business formal black and white the tire, the largest of the penguin species, so, I would guess I'm no biologist, but probably, let's just call it two and a half.
two, maybe three and a half feet tall, probably 25 to 45, 25 to 50 pounds and then their chicks who have great Downy feathers or certainly appear to the adults, have I think roughly 15 feathers per square centimeter and you're hearing many different calls, and I don't know the meaning assume there certainly are meanings of the different calls, but
There's a then at Denton Denton, which they make when they Point their beaks, basically, straight down flat against their chests. So I imagine that straightening a trick is somehow, but it's the opposite of what you would see with say, a coyote or a wolf howling. Then here I am always shit, Antarctica.
Now, where should we go? Where should we go? Next? What do you think you want to view? I should we pull out the deck. See what happens. Should we go? Somewhere else. Are there other things in the last five years? Maybe we will roll into that. I mean, five years. You just seems like so recently that we recorded our other episodes and it's not that recent. I mean, it's not. It's like if you live 80, let's just say we live 80 85 years. It's like five years is a meaningful percentage of that. It's
true. Yeah, makes me think of that. Sa the great one from Tim Urban the tail end.
Yeah, which you introduced me to and I
have shared with so many people put an edited or I don't think it was highly edited. But it like a slightly shortened version in. I think it was tools of Titans because I had such an impact on me. Now. It's all. Thanks to mr.
Mullenweg. Yeah, that was one of the big things since our last episode was my father passing. Yeah, you are a great friend through all that. So thank you, but that's what I met alot of. I love grief and the femur ality of life, and
Everything. So that was a big one. Am I pretty much everything in my life has changed a lot in the past five years. We hadn't even acquired woocommerce when we last spoke this year. It's going to do what's the number. I was safe. I think 21 billion transactions, you know, we're hoping to do for e-commerce what we did for websites and I think there's a chance in the web wants an open source thing out there for Commerce. So think what's been exciting for me is everything is always changing. I'm not good at staying still.
Everything is always changing not in a macro World sense that I guess that's true. You're saying for you
personally. Yeah, you asked me the other day. Do I have like a weekly routine where Like Mondays our staff meetings Tuesday's of you have an
infrastructure for your week because people like Jack Dorsey of talked about this. I don't know if he does it any longer, but I did ask you and your answer
was every day is different and that's part of what keeps it super exciting for me? Because I feel like I'm always learning nothing about podcasting software or journaling.
Software or e-commerce software anything. But I love making tools that people use as very, very satisfying,
if you don't mind. Let's just come back for a second to your Dad's passing. And I know that was it understandably? Extremely tough period And I don't even know if it's something you've ever fully metabolize if that's something you even view in. The past tense is like something you went through or if it's something that you continue to live with. But my question is, if there are any resources, tools books, we're
Simply advice that you would give to someone who is experiencing grief or as lost someone or maybe is on the cusp of losing
someone. Yeah. The book that I found most helpful during that was co-authored by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. We came up with the Kubler-Ross scale. I think that's the five stages denial, anger, acceptance of the five stages of grief. The book was called, I think grief and grieving yelling grief and grieving on Grief and grieving that way.
It was really powerful. Might
be just grief and grieving. I shouldn't be so definitive. But yeah, one of the
two. Yeah, so that one was very, very helpful for me. But one of the things I learned was how personal the processes, and how different it is. For example, for me and my sister grieved completely differently, and I've seen other friends go through this since then, and so, I were to say one thing. I really learned. It's just that everyone has their own way of processing and it'll happen at different times and it's very easy to get annoyed or mad.
Angry or disappointed at how someone else is grieving if it's different from yours. How did the book help you with? Did it
explain or help you to accept were clarify or
otherwise? I'd heard of those five stages, but I thought they happen. See really like you in an order. That's what I would assume and it turns out you can have them out of order and multiple ones at the same time and in the same day and the same hour and so that was really helpful pre craving was something I learned a lot from
The book says idea that, if you have a sense that someone's going to pass is actually whole grieving process that happens before then. And my father was in the hospital for about five weeks. So that was one of the most intense periods of my life. And that pre grieving. I hadn't really understood that what? Those are some big ones. Yeah, and it's been helpful as well. I think, especially in American culture. We don't talk about death. Yeah, we don't think about it. We like to pretend it.
Happen. But it's the one thing that for certain is going to happen to every single one of us and we're all gonna lose some only love and will pass someday and very much like the stoics. I think that the more you think about it. The better you are able to handle it yourself and help others when they're going through it. I have an app for my phone. I think it's what is it bhutanese? It's called My croak or we croak? We croak. Yeah, I've used week Rogue and five times a day. It just sends you a note.
Application that's like just a reminder all gonna die gives you a quote and then it gives you a quote that you can open an app. That one's been. Yeah, I've got that going. I also I think we might have talked about this before but on my Chrome new tab, I sort of calculated the average number of days. I'll probably gonna live. So every time I open a new tab has a
countdown. Those are some. That's something you did manually or is that something other people can do reasonably
easily. Yeah, use a tap thing called momentum now, which allows you to
The new Tab screen and it can do countdowns. And so I think the dates with something like 20 62,000, January 11th. I put my birthday and then it just counts down. And so that's also really interesting and I find also a good interrupt to remind me when I'm starting a new tab, which is usually beginning of distraction or something. So it totally that that it just has Memento Mori and the countdown. Do
you find that you
Begin to tune that out. So I've used momentum. I like it a lot. But do you end up at some point? Becoming immune to the reminder you experienced that or not so much. Is there anything you do to prevent
that? Yeah, I've definitely developed like a selective blindness to it. It's actually just thinking that I like if I just used every app on my home screen regularly. My life would probably be much better. Now. I've got call them and Fit Body and all these sorts of things that I put on that. Like smart mats thoughtful,
Matt smart.
Put that on the whole history of the future. Yeah, but I'll still scroll the four screens over to get to Twitter Instagram or something. Yeah, it's hard to win. That one outgunned as we are. I actually deleted all apps from my phone. Excuse me, that would not make any sense of like my phone very hard to use. Delete it all social apps for my phone about a year and a half ago and haven't installed haven't reinstalled. Hmm, any of them.
And it's been liberating in some ways and also frustrating and others to see how addictive these tools are and how I will find workarounds by you mean if there are other the browser, right and it provides a hurdle, right? So it's like the candy isn't Within Reach like I have to like open a door and walk through to another room metaphorically. Speaking to get the candy but still end up. As you've seen on this trip with the chocolate covered almonds.
Amazing. How much chocolate covered almonds? Tim has consumed. So horrifying. So horrified, Let's Make a reminder were all human. Even like for our body to a definitely using for our specially, for our bodies in Paris. Once he goes off the rails. It's very, very officer else, man. So anything else you'd like to add within the context of the last last
five years.
And one more thing on the on the parents is one thing. I wish is that had more recordings, my dad. Hmm. Just remembering his voice or even some video though people more self-conscious about video. So I think it's great. If there's people you love, do something like this, have a conversation with them. Yeah. Quarter. I think it's something, we'll both probably appreciate
what you've been part of the a big part of the impetus for me to set time, aside and schedule time to do some. My parents. We had it scheduled and then there
Some calendar and travel issues course, with covid and everything else going on. But that is something that I'm planning on doing in the next few months. And I'm looking forward to it. I think they're at different points. I've had various reservations, but as I think more and more about kids. Hmm, I think it becomes it Dawns on me, more and more. Clearly how valuable, or how treasured that could be at some point
to have that. Yeah.
And just what our parents. Our loved ones. Might remember about our life is so different from sometimes. What we remember. Yeah, it could be really enlightening sometimes. Yeah, because memory cell fallible, right? Yeah. Super fillable.
So it's interesting to see the different
perspectives on it and triangulate maybe how we turn out the way we did or things are might have been very influential on us. So
question for you them any recommendations for my conversations with my parents there any particular types of questions that you would
ask?
More angles of inquiry or anything at all. No fly zones anything that comes to
mind.
You know, this is where being offline is going to get as what's the project. It's like on NPR where they interview people. There's an app for its storycorps storycorps story and then cor PS. All right, and I think they even have an app with questions and part of what they do is try to get an oral history of Americans. People around the country and even
right. Well, I don't know anything
about this but people can record their own and they have a really great set of questions that kind of walk people
through.
Amazing. I like history. So I would
say very core. Those would be the experts and check it out. Maybe some things that could be a good framework. I
will. And for what it's worth since we're talking about recording, we can just mention briefly what I have right here in front of us, which is the sophisticated Grand podcasting Studio of Tim Ferriss Enterprises, which is very, very, very simple. It turns out. There's only been a few minor changes since our recording five years ago.
And the First Recording being number 61 of the podcast. Now, we have whatever it is close to 600 episodes. So you've got the zoom H6 recorder in front of me. And then we have two XLR, cables, one going to handheld like format. Another going to handheld mic in my hand. One of the upgrades that I made is when I do in person recording, I have two different colored. The default is going to be black cabling. I get colored cables.
Balls, so for video, this would be horrible on the eyes, but practically for recording. It's great because it makes it very easy for me to see which levels. I need to adjust. Oh cool. That's why the cables are different colors. So we have yellow and orange and then I have rechargeable batteries, which are Panasonic rechargeable, BQ c, c 55 is going to probably take you to the proper, make and model and then we
We have an iPhone with a sure mv8 microphone that attaches to the iPhones through a lightning port and captures really good audio. So we have that running as backup and then the handheld mics are also sure. And I usually use sm58 mics. These are slightly better for voice. And if I could just see yours for a second. This is the ksr.
8 and the very nice work really, really well and that's it and make this all fits into this is back until you a well. There's a small bag but it all fits into a Banya hat. I've a Russian sauna hat. That is perfect padding and installation for the recorder itself than everything else. Fits easily, easily easily into a backpack. You could probably fit most of it into a big jacket
and you can record anywhere you've now recorded to and Antarctica, which
Just lazy. It has this kind of amazing. And so, we've had two hundred plus degrees Fahrenheit with Rick Rubin, the incredible music producer, although he does a lot more in his Sonic because I was a condition for doing the interview. I, it was so hot and hilariously. So, because we had having to take breaks and do ice baths and the Mike's got so hot. That was one thing we didn't budget for of. So worried about the recorder being damaged or going non-functional.
That I didn't pay attention to the simple fact that when you have the mic at body height in the sonnets going to get ripping hot. So the acquittal was fine on the floor, but the Mike's got so hard to wrap them in
towels
and do it that way. So we've done like plus 200 degrees and with wind chill probably at
think they're saying it was -
35 - yeah - yeah. - 35, maybe even a little bit colder. They have 35 maybe a little bit colder at
At Gold Bay with Zoo because we're outside. I have a bit of shelter here. But there we had an open-sided tent with went ripping through and a table made of ice. Instead of this nice fold out
to him. Why didn't you close the door of the tent?
It was a lounge that had been created by the staff and one was like up over the top and I suppose we could have closed it, but we were all wrapped up and reasonably cozy. I took a picture of you. I have to shift, right? That's right. Yes. You have a good photo.
Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by wealthfront. Did, you know if you missed 10 of the best performing days after the 2008 crisis? You would have missed out on 50 percent, 50 percent of your returns. Don't miss out on the best days in the market. Stay invested in a long-term automated Investment Portfolio wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement. Sometimes referred to as Robo advising and they currently oversee 20 billion dollars of assets for their clients.
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Would you mind opening the non pee bottle? So I can have some of water. I dumped pleased that they have the color coding and I'm going to open this deck and I'm
a long way from Casa Jonas.
Cheers, by the way. Yeah. Cheers. Let me let me do that with the booze. How much would you give me to drink Swig of that? You're in right now? What would what would you trade? I like you too much
to
undo that. You know, I have actually I have I don't know how
Came about by ended up. This is only for you. My fine listeners. No, such thing as TMI. I remember some point. I don't know what it was felt same without TMI. Kept. That was good. That was
good. So, let me take
a break from the Peabody. I'm going to come back to drinking my own urine story. Matt is the master of what is known in Japanese is oh, yeah. Tiago. Well, yeah good. Oh, yeah. Thiago. Okay, so oyaji. Oyaji is like
Pop's. It's like saying dad but in a really informal way and then yoga is gag and as it turns out cross-culturally dad's love puns and wordplay. So I get for shitty pun, comes up and, and often did in my host family, when I was 15 in Japan. Then the host brother be like, oh boy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm right there. And that is the master.
So yeah, you can't spell you cast photo without TMI. That is actually very very good. That's very, very good. I did take in that same apartment in San Francisco. I remember at one point just deciding.
You know what? I
think I should sample my own urine for what reason, I can't recall and I did. And you've seen how much water I consume, so it's actually totally fun. It was, it was, it was totally fine. It wasn't oversaturated with B vitamins or anything that will affect the taste. I suspect not that I've had many samplings, but I will
say, I don't make a regular practice drinking my urine or do I recommend it? This is not medical advice. It's actually pretty stupid as a story to begin with but you did it. So others don't have to. I did it. So others, don't have to. Yeah, it wasn't the most delicious thing I've ever had. All right. So let me, let me offer. You want me to choose a card, or you want to choose car?
All right, go for it. All
right. So, let's see. And you can always refuse.
Would you say your recordings in Antarctica have been
intense? Intense? Is that another pun? Oh, intense. Oh my God. That was so bad. Sorry. I was good. That was good. That was good. You can't about 1,000 intense, you know, true fact as my friend Kelly Starrett likes to say to that true fact, Tim Ferriss. Here's one. What is one fear you would like to
conquer
Hmm, you're going to answer the same
one. I can or you could choose
another. Yeah, it'd be. It'd be fun if we both answer else do as maybe will inspire a different way of thinking about it in each other. Great. You know, I have a hang-up around body issues and exercise and stuff and it kind of got bigger and like the past six months and as I'm 37 now, not the
old man, young.
We pretend
mullenweg and I think that's a fair. I like to conquer because it's totally
irrational. What is the fear?
Exactly?
well, how to articulate it, but there's something where
I don't know how to articulate it because it's a fear. It's not. It's not rational. It's not something I can put into words.
Well, there are a lot of fears that are rational, right? So just because it's a fear doesn't automatically make it irrational. I think
this is probably irrational. Yeah. All right. Yeah, something
around. It's like an insecurity. I'm not going to let you go. Yeah, so is it an insecurity around
appearance?
I think it's something, hmm. Yeah, something about I'm sorry. I don't know how to go deeper.
We can, this is this is where I should do, do some heavy lifting or help do some heavy lifting. What would be an example of a time when it shows
up for you the resistance. I feel around sort of exercise that's been growing. I would say where it's
It shows up like a fear in that, I can think of so many excuses. Why? Including like I'm going to enjoy myself again, or I'm going to hurt my knee or my wrist or bad right now, so I shouldn't be doing this or like things like that. But which really just add up to be a bunch of
excuses. What do you think that is protecting you from? Like if you did not have to seems like
You're smart guy. Mmm. This is probably some part of you not to like go too far into like ifs Dick. Schwartz type stuff. But like your subconscious trying to protect you from something. Potentially. I what is it protecting you from? What do you think it is? I don't know. I mean, it could be injury. It could be performing below your expectations. Perhaps like if you exercise that, you're not going to meet some standard, you've set for yourself in your mind. I have no idea. Hmm. So it sounds like it's a
Can see that you can't fully explain. Therefore. It's kind of falling into the category of fear for
you. Yeah. Okay. How about for you? What's a fear? You would like to overcome,
man? How much time do we have? I do, I think that's a bit of an overstatement. But I, I mean shit. If we're drinking drinking our single malt and really going for it. I would say the fear that I am just hardwired.
And also just software coded through DNA to be depressed and unhappy. And that, that is a baseline. I cannot Escape. Like there's the gravitational pull to out of the box. Settings is so strong that no matter what I do, no matter how many morning routines. I tweaked, no matter how much I exercise, no matter how much I program, maticulous, Lee different areas of my life. The regression to the mean, is always going to be two.
place of depression or this is a strong word but like self-loathing something that is not quite self-loathing at a 10/10 intensity but like a discontent and disappointment with
Myself.
That that actually, that locked in something about mine, which is like a fear of being bigger.
Bigger. Yeah, my family's bigger bigger. Meaning. I feel like this. Yeah. Yeah. I have some pre-built settings. The proclivity towards that. Yeah. He do you believe that that's her. Do I believe you overcome that
or depends on the day? Depends on whether I've had a good stretch or bad stretch or an average stretch. I mean, even if it is deluding myself, I want to believe that it is.
Something I can overcome. I
don't see how the alternative plays out is terrifying to me. If I truly, truly believe that 100% of the time, the consequences of that are like staggeringly scary. So I don't want to believe that, but if I were a scientist, just looking at the data set, I be like, yeah, like if we're if we're raiding days, like negative, 2, negative, 1 0 +1, +2
Somewhat like Jim Collins does. If people want more on that, you can just listen to the first conversation I had with him but
I would say I probably average out negative 1 hmm
just on an emotional tone, the Gestalt of the day being sort of
Positive energy, how to trash it, none that way, not interesting to do not know data around it. I should do it also because I do think my girlfriend is certainly pointed this out and I recognized it is true that I have a negative selection bias. I think a lot of humans have negative selection bias because you get rewarded by over reacting to
threats. And what's that? What's that? You feel a dollar? You lose seven times more than a Dotty you gain or keep? Yeah. I mean they don't
Studies around this. Yeah,
like how hard would you work to make a hundred dollars versus, how hard would you work to avoid? Having like a hundred dollars stolen or taken from you rights? Yeah. So that is one of my macro fears tied to. That would be a fear. I don't know if people can hear that because there's no there. No birds. There's just no insects the footsteps on the snow. Early deafeningly loud. The foot. Traffic is so loud. We should makes it even harder to sleep.
Brown here or was I going? Or was I macro fear. It's related. Yeah, that is related. Is that I will never have enough energy. So I'd I think some of that ties back to undiagnosed lime when I was a kid, which has been verified because I then later had confirmed lime and I grew up on Long Island. That's very very, very common. And when I was properly diagnosed after very severe symptoms the second time which was I don't know, 2012 or 13 or 14.
When they did the Eliza, thanks, Eliza blot tests, and other testing, they gave me my results. And the first thing I said was, well, you realize that you've had Lyme disease before, right? Wow, because I was showing, I guess the long term and bodies like the serologic testing. I might not be getting the details, right? But suffice to say, I had already had Lyme but it had gone undiagnosed, which meant it was untreated for a long, long time. So, I don't know how much to Tribute to that versus a
Family history of depression versus other things. But I always struggled with energy levels. I was like the currency in which I am poorest.
Hmm, and it doesn't matter how much time you have
tension, or otherwise, I give, you don't have just the
battery to execute.
You are SOL. Should I think people who listen to your
podcast, would guess that about you? I don't think so because
they're getting one percent of my time. Hmm, not one percent, but it's like
I don't spend all of my time recording conversations. Yeah, right. So they get to hear me when I'm having fun. Usually, right. Like I do I enjoy the podcast, like it is very deeply nourishing to me and when it starts to feel anything, other than that, I change something right. Like I decrease the frequency and like I could do it three times four times, five times a week, but it would start to feel like a burden or a chore and I don't want that to be the case. So I don't
Most people would guess that, you know, you did share with me. I'll know if you're willing to share here or want to share here that you got a lot of comfort from a revelation, a hose. This the existential piece. Yeah, haha.
Yeah willing to share. This is a weird one. So this is kind of ties into another fear, which is I don't know if it's a fear. Me it's a belief.
The consequences of which are really unpleasant. Although I have started to look at it in a slightly different way and I'll back into it by saying like I think meaninglessness can be terrifying but in a way it can also be liberating because it frees you to kind of do hmm, whatever. You choose to pursue and over the last year, we've been talking about this on this trip. I we agree on a lot of things, one, not trivial.
Non-trivial thing that I think we have differing opinions on is just like, inherent human nature and I have a doughnut called dystopian, but I tend to think we are closer to chimps than not, right? Like, like, 1%, I'm gonna be honest again, you know, exactly. Yeah, nasty brutish or no, nasty. Brutish short, right? Hobbesian is the right way to put
it and I want a little more pink or ask, you know, better angels of our
nature. Yeah, exactly. So in as such, I have been involved in a bunch
Of things over the last handful of years including psychedelic Therapeutics, especially on the nonprofit research side. I haven't done any for-profit Investments myself and you've been a huge supporter of that world as well. So thanks for that. Thank you. It's a big deal and then also different conservation work in the Amazon and North America and so on.
I have just run into what I view as this kind of. I know, I know one can argue against but like almost for me like an irrefutable truth. Just based on overwhelming evidence that I have faced over and over again that like, humans cannot resist pissing in the pool. Like they can't help themselves. Like they're so competitive and driven by incentives, which of course all animals are and it is been for me, I have
Have I'll make it active, right? Like I have depressed, myself and upset myself. So I'll make it transitive here, right? So that I have some agency.
To repeatedly run into what I view as like unavoidable self-destructive Tendencies, which on smaller scales aren't necessarily self-destructive, but at larger scales with billions and billions of people become just untenable. I was just like, what's the point? I found it very difficult to get up and muster any kind of enthusiasm motivation to like knock out these email about various just like bullshit items. It might be very
Interesting, but I'm like, okay, I'm gonna like invest in some like, whatever the fuck app that does something that really isn't.
Making a dance and like what's the point of all this? Because like ultimately we're all, like just careening towards this incineration that. I don't see is particularly avoidable. And then I was reading this book which does punch the for our kick in the balls, a little bit, which I found kind of funny. Honestly said it does make a reference to the 4-Hour workweek and not in terribly kind way, which is fine because what do you expect if you title a book, The 4-Hour Work week, but the book also has a 4 in the title, but it's called 4000 weeks that refers to the
Average lifespan of humans and there's actually a lot of great exploration in this book looking at the Frailty and the fallacies of time management and productivity and the kind of to-do list Obsession and optimization of different types. And one of the chapters I think is called something like Cosmic insignificance therapy, which I think this morning was a great example of
Where you actually find it, liberating to realize how much it doesn't matter. It's so you end up finding it kind of inspiring and freeing instead of debilitating and crushing,
which is I find hard to do because I tilt
towards the darkness. And so the realization was like, well, okay look even if people are just hell bent on self-destruction and we had that way
at the end of the
day, our son is going to
Giant white dwarf kablooey and then the Earth is gone. Anyway, all life on Earth is gone at that point or as certainly as far as I know all life on Earth. So even if like we kill our own species and all sorts of other species off on this planet, the life per se of Earth is finite regardless, and I
was like, oh actually that
brings some peace to me,
Sunshine Tim. Yeah. I see ya. Having God. This is
so depressing.
Nothing, but like this is kind of a lot of the shit that I think about in part because analyze this is supposed to be me asking you questions. We're going to get to another question, but it's like, I don't know if you've experienced. It's like, you didn't grow up rich. I didn't grow up rich and at least for me in my group of friends and their families growing up, like lower middle classes. Like if only we had money.
Our problems would be solved like here these problems if we just had money. It doesn't grow on trees and like, oh that rich person. Wouldn't that be nice? Everything is smooth gravy over there. I'm sure. And then you pursue your pursue your pursue and you can kind of push your issues to the side in pursuit of
Becoming quote-unquote successful because the Assumption underlying it is. When I have X or Y, or Z, whatever, that amount is,
then I'll be happy, then I'll be happy. And then you like to see, then you
like run through one of those Finish Lines and you're like, well, wait a fucking second Lincoln's. This a false bill of lading that didn't work at
all. And
which, you know, by the way, when some people ask like, what would you change or emphasize? If you wrote the 4-Hour workweek again?
The filling the void chapter.
Which is a chapter that people kind of skip over because it's not this like hyper practical tactical nuts and bolts chapter, but it's really important. So yeah, that's my very, very, very long rambling. Answer to the existential realization, which is like, oh, yeah. This planet's got a finite lifespan. Anyway, as far as
like organic life goes, so that's something I always find interesting. Is sometimes relief from what seems like existential problems.
The most unusual places. Yeah, and I was surprised that this came for you that that was comforting God. But I do. I do believe in the cosmic insignificance. You know, it's very humbling to think like our time span. Even all of human recorded history is just a speck of dust of the universe's time span. Yeah, and one thing I really appreciate about you Tim is that you engage with work and thinkers.
Is that some people might assume are the opposite of you are advocate for different things, but it's all part of your growth and your journey and I firming up things. So I like that you wouldn't read this book and how cool that it provided this relief for you, you
know, thanks Ben. It's a solid book. And though, the way that I parsed it online was I put it on, I guess Twitter and I said for people who have read this such-and-such book, you know, 4000 weeks. How much would you?
Recommend it to a friend from 1 to 10. No 7 allowed which something I learned from a person in Kyle Maynard because if forces people's like pick a barely passing or pretty strong recommendation at 8 and the vast majority of recommendations are the vast majority of answers, there could be a selection bias. Obviously, right? People read the book in the first place. Yeah, exactly came back at like nine eight nine ten the vast majority which was certainly enough.
To convince me to get it on Kindle and read a few chapters and end up liking it. A lot of me in because I can't I can't resist just a little jab. The author does use a lot of like $10 words were a 10 cent word would work. So I think I'm pretty well educated, but I still had to look some words up.
It's okay. He apparently punched a 4-Hour
workweek and even punch back at least. I did punch for our week in the nuts, but that's okay. Because, you know, get in line.
So how many years has it been since 4-Hour workweek
is published in April of 2007. So
1420. It's it's a teenager. It's a teenage went to college at starting high school. It's going to college in a few years.
Yeah, it's incredible.
Let's try another card.
Let's try the other card. All right, so I want to read this one
first.
God it's more. The so that's a fear is one here. I'll let you choose and let me just grab a few cards off the top. And again for people interested. I don't even know if these are made anymore because I recall the main sold out or discontinued at some point. Hulse thol, Ste reflection cards. I got these on Amazon dealer's Choice as
choice. And what's the light and dark side mean is when a tougher
question? Yes, the darker half of the card is intended to be a more difficult question.
It's not always the case, but that's what it's intended to
be have a crystal ball, could tell you the truth about your life, the world or anything else. What would you want to know? I think
you should answer that first because I just finished a TED Talk.
What I want to know. I want to know what is before life and afterlife.
I haven't I had the same answer
really? Yeah, I'd say that's her. Yeah, it's one of those things I think is very difficult to truly know and this is very typical. Yeah.
It's something Humanities grapple with in a million different ways for probably as long as we've been conscious and yeah, curious about that.
I need more Matt. You got to do more than just whispered me about generalities
weight. More about well, interesting about the afterlife or the free life.
Yeah, either either both end. I would say, what is? This is obviously a big one but like, what do you
If you had to speculate, what do you think happens? I mean, if you want to go with pre-birth, we could do that. That's definitely a unusual way to approach it. But
what's one? I think why I thought of that is because I've done meditations before, where they say, like feel what it was like before you were born. That's what it will be like after you're done. So like meditations on death and so in theory, there's something before if there's something after right. Yeah. I'm going to plug two books here while your am Annika Harris.
Yes. Yep. This is after hours of conscious after our
conversations on this trip like that. It's absolutely on my to read list
great book and I think it kind of gets this question of free life and afterlife as well because where does the Consciousness come from? When does it start? Where does it go? How is it suspended? One where underspend it was a
know like under
anesthesia. Yeah. It's such an interesting. What turns it on and off. Yeah, what does it even really mean? And this book is a
Tastic kind of and brief. So very dense densely packed or very valuable and say not longer than needs to be a book and then David Eagleman. Who this is some. Yeah,
so good
and we talked about that. I said, I may be, you recommend it to me. Might have been, I think I did one of your books. I recommend thing.
Yes, folks. I've Loved.
Yeah. And at 40, Tales of after lives and that's when starts racing at the moment of death.
And then it's it's kind of something that happens afterwards and they're hilarious and it's a great bedtime read. So I
like to read short chapters like 3 to 2. 25
Pages. Yeah, and it's nice to break it up nightly and some of them. I've even read aloud to friends when you're a burning man. I did as a gift. I would read one of these short stories to people. Some of my favorites are the scent of species is really great. And the opening one, some is actually pretty fun. Can you give a teaser?
So,
I think it'd be helpful to give people an example. Since each of these short chapters is a hypothetical.
Manifestation of the afterlife. So what, what might one be?
So the opener some and I'll tell a little without giving away that amazing ending. You relive life. But seriously, so all the things that you did at different points, broken up in your life. You do all the same time. So you shower for like 80 hours, you sleep, for 30 years, you cut your nails for a life, you know, you're trying to remember a word for like, two days.
Standing in line for, you know, 14 days. And so it kind of goes through this almost laundry list of it. Yeah. And beautiful ending. It isn't. There's a
great book. This is exceptional book. After The plugging, these two books.
What do you think? What happens or doesn't happen?
Unplug computer lights out.
Sit. I'm looking forward to finance some day. Not too soon. But you said you had the same answer. So wait, which answer?
Oh, there's the crystal ball. Yeah. Well, I think it would help I do think and maybe I'll yeah, I be able to a counter argument, but I do think it would just help you decide how to
Spend your time better in this particular iteration if it's the one and only thank you getting a little boost from a flask Class, A for classic. And I mean it would answer so
many questions, right? I think the interesting thing was would humans. Truly be different.
What do you mean by that? Where they, how are they act differently? If we had a definitive answer, one a lot of people think they do have a definitive answer, that's kind of the basis of many religions and things. So it's not unusual and you know, a lot of people you could say that Howard Anthony De Mello, put it. They're not truly living. Yeah, right. They need to wake up. They need to pay attention. Yep, and that's even though they might think there's this happening in the afterlife
or
Well, if you knew for sure though, I mean, let's just say, it's all right, hell, fire and brimstone. That's one thing. Right? Sins in the whole nine yards. Look at that worried. Yeah, like the judeo Christian model, but then if you had say karma and you're like, reincarnated as a hamster, or a porpoise, or a demigod depending on your behavior, then that, that would, that would certainly well, you would think, would affect some choices, right? If
I knew what happened afterwards definitively. It would also affect how you viewed things. This is going to get dark folks. Sorry, but like things like suicide, right? So the stoics didn't have a particularly negative view of suicide. But then once you get into the judeo Christian lens, it is, most certainly - right? And that is one of many different things. That would be clarified if you knew. I mean, if you were just simply zeroing out of character, like Ready Player One?
Yeah, that's one thing right? Insert coin with that, make people less responsible with the lives. They have right now.
Define responsible
Reckless careless because they thought they could just insert another coin in play
again. Well, if they knew they could that it wouldn't be Reckless.
Yeah, I think that's an interesting area of thought. It also reminds me of something I think, which I hope expands a lot in the coming years is ethical. Assisted euthanasia. Yep. People end up.
We're waiting periods and all these sorts of things. I know Hawaii is a place where you can do it and a few different countries are going back to some seen people pass away. Yeah, past five years. I understand why some people might choose to do that if they have a terminal illness illness or something. Yeah,
interesting. We had same answer and not altogether. Completely unsurprising. Oh boy. That's a good one.
Okay, I tell you what, I'd like it to be. What you would like. Your answer to be. Yeah.
Yeah, afterlife. Oh, well, you'd like the absolute to be. Okay. I don't think it'd be kind of cool if our brains are like antennas to some deeper Consciousness and we reconnected with it sort of went back to. That non dual nature of Enlightenment. We like a drop,
the ocean return to the ocean type situation.
Yeah. I I find that comforting. Yeah, I do too.
All right, here's one. We got one for you. If you knew that in one year, you would die suddenly, would you change?
Anything about the way you are living now, why I'm going to modify that question? If you knew that in one year, you died. Suddenly. What would you change about the way you're living now? Why?
Hmm. Which is nicely related to our previous kind of this? What I would change. Well, what I did change after that tail end essay was spending more time with loved ones.
If I knew I had one year gosh, I've got so much left to do. You know what's funny is? Let's
assume. It's perfect health for a year and then just like
yeah.
I think I would this is kind of a funny answer. I would have thought of this before, but I'd write more. You'd write were, I did not see that coming. Tell me more. It brings up for me. Like, what's to like a. See? How do I pass on the things I care about like democratizing publishing in the web to the generations that are going to carry the torch are? And how much of what motivates me towards that lifelong Mission and open source. I don't know if I've written about
Typically. Well, articulated well that in a way that might Inspire others and WordPress is open source has tens of thousands of contributors. So there are a good number of people involved but I had like, yeah, I feel like for open source of truly when we need millions of contributors. We do most of the world working on it because the alternative is proprietary bad for Humanity things. So, yeah, I think I'd write and really try to write something that a right as much as possible things to bring more people contributing to open source.
Tell me more. What else if anything else.
I think that's really the cuz that's my life mission really is. And so, if my life was ending, I think, how do I keep that mission going?
I'm so envious of you. That is so clear. I don't think most people could sit here. I can't and say, x is my life
mission. That's pretty fucking amazing. I mean, thank
you. Well, I mean it is just, it just seems.
So I feel
Lucky in that iterating to have
that to find that. Can I want to say, constraint, but not in a bad way, right? Like you've kind of defined the Target in the bullseye in such a way that makes I would think it makes decision-making like your decision. Fatigue, must be less if that's
clear.
Does really help really helps clarify things? You know, that in the Memento Mori? Yeah, I do feel like I
haven't Amore being meditating on death and the finite nature of five. Fourteen
Thousand Days give or take a couple hundred left to try to move this, you know Mission forward as much as that's
all to death, right? That's not necessarily firing on all
cylinders. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to keep working until I croak. Yeah. Yeah.
It also you know, sometimes it's really hard and there's days and weeks and months where the job WordPress automatic everything could be very very challenging and also helps keep it going. But I would say that it probably, I think you do have that actually me. Yeah,
please pray. Tell please fill me
in. Well, how do you spend your time
doing things like this? Yeah, and why do they
do it?
Why do you share it? Why don't you keep all this amazing information for
yourself?
Because it's too. I mean, it sounds so self-aggrandizing. I mean, I just I think that it's it's to humanizing and valuable to keep private if it's so easy to make public, eye gets nourishing to me. Number one, and
I know how much conversations like this. I mean, if you and I were sitting here with no Mike's, bullshitting and drinking, living ranging single malt, scotch
whiskey, we'd be having a similar conversation. Anyway, you know what? I mean? I've had lots of these, we've had lots of ideas. Yeah.
And
The reason I started the podcast because I'd be having these conversations with friends, they would end, and I be like God, what a waste like it would be. So that conversation was so helpful to me. I have to imagine it would be helpful to other people.
I think that drive to share to learn and share. Which I've seen the entire ten plus years. I've known you. It is a life mission. I can't. Imagine you ever stopping that. Yeah. I can't either. Like you're going to be an old person's home.
Like, I figured out this new way to, like, move the
wheelchair. Like what could I could be
like, this is like something that. So I think you do have that and I think you should play with that to maybe are you know, find what's words resonate for you and describing that around that learning and sharing because I do think, do you think you'll do this? The rest of your life? Some form of this. So not a lot of guests but like, oh, yeah. Yeah,
some form of this. I mean, I just when people ask me like that, how long do you think you'll do the podcast? I'm
like, I can't. It's the
first thing.
I've done.
This consistently over an extended period of time and I can't think of a compelling reason for why I would stop, right? Which is another reason. Why even though I've had a bunch of conversations. I haven't
Seriously considered, I mean, you obviously support this. I think doing anything that would put me in a Walled Garden. You guys. It just, it's so kind of antithetical if I were to sacrifice a large part of my reach or distribution. It just doesn't make sense, right? Like to have Shackles on any form or fashion.
Who would like suck the soul out of what I'm doing, which is not to say there. Couldn't be interesting collaborations with large platforms or companies but to make any sacrifice on the creative side or the editorial Freedom side or anything like that. I just wouldn't make any sense. So
and you would do it, even if you made no money. Yeah, you would pay to do it. You do pay to do it. I do pad. This is something something around that. I think the interesting for
To find out because I can't imagine ever growing stopping learning and then not sharing it to whoever will listen is. So you do that. I'll democratize publishing in the
web and commerce
and I think that'll be fun. Yeah,
one year, one year is real short. It's a short period of time, you know, you think about the last year, interminably, long, and also
Unbelievably short at the same time. Yeah, and
I think for me, I don't know if she'd be game for this but probably having kids but my girlfriend.
Mmm-hmm,
like just to at least I mean God it's depressing to think about but also incredible to think about like, does he eat being there for the birth like for a few months and then
Adios, Amigo off, I go, but to have that experience. I think that would be core to the next to the remaining year. Remember, I don't know if he'd want his name, mentioned by a very famous scientist and I were chatting. It won't play any mentioned, having a kid pretty late in life and his brother. The first thing is brother said to him was congratulations and welcome to the human race. He was like you didn't and you know, we chat about that quite a bit.
But it just
seems so on some level, not saying it's required, but like fundamental to a lot of obviously human existence right there. Programming pointed towards
procreation. Yeah, that it's like kind of a how strong that drive is. Yeah. It's like you talk to
people who like they, they have the most incredibly sophisticated rationalizations and at the end of the day, it's like you're just doing your program to do and maybe there's a beauty in that. Maybe there's a real.
Ooty in kind of just fulfilling that like, yeah your cutter ant you carry fucking leaves around and you build shit in your
gigantic, you know and calling him. Like
that's just what you do. And I have to imagine like it feels good to them to do that, or at least. It would feel bad for them, not to do that.
And interesting, you bring that up because that's something that changed for me, in the past, five years. Yeah.
Okay. Wow, for willing to go there. Let's let's go
there after my father passed. I really decided I went down to
Out of like, okay, have a kid. Yeah, and I think part of that was just thinking, I wish you had known her grandchildren, a grandchild or something. And part of that process was later deciding that that's not going to be how I leave an impact on the world. Hmm. And so I decided to not have kids. Yeah. And made that a very explicit communication and everything like that because WordPress in this other work, I'm doing, I want to be the thing.
That I leave and I don't feel like there's anything particularly good about my genetics, that needs to be passed on or that I would be a world unique parent, but I do think, I'm one of the people in the world that does have a chance to shape the future of the web. And I just want to focus all of my energy into that
we are. Would you put if you were a betting man, which of course you are. We're all betting people. We're all placing bets, like everything's probably
Ability except for death and taxes, I guess a few other things. Where would you put the likelihood that that
changes?
I think you had an answer in mind when you asked me that I
know this is, this is not a leading question. I'm just
curious. Yeah, and as a guy we do have some more optionality. Yep, around these things, you know, never say never
But that is not as my working sort of software and firmware right now. Okay.
So let's all say, let's say 80% chance, 20%, 20%
shots, maybe less maybe. Listen. I say 8% chance.
Oh, wow. That's very precise. I like that. Eight percent. So next five years.
Child being born a
percent. I fucking love
that. He percent is gonna be. This is gonna be the headline of this podcast episode. Wow. You want to try another one. Do you want to?
Yeah, see give it a go.
Wow, this is actually a question. You asked all the time, which is kind of funny. We won't do that one.
Doc. That's what it. What message. Would you put on a billboard for thousands people to see everyday? I did not get it from this deck. Yes. That is a question that I do ask, don't drink, you're pissed because I said it on a podcast. That's what I would put on my board. Okay, here we go. What are two
things? Oh still on your bucket list?
God, you know, part of me, we've had enough whiskey guess when I mentioned all these like,
Ridiculous sexual fantasies, but we're not going to get there. We need, we need a just, just you, and me, and our few million of my best friends listening. Let's see to on the bucket list. I'm not going to count the kid because that's you already discussed it. So I'm going to, I'm going to put that out of bounds. I might need some time to think about that, which is actually disturbing to me that I need time to think about it. So anything immediately come to
mind for you.
Yeah, you know, once it comes to mind, what's that? Could be a fun trip for us to do actually is the Aurora
Borealis. So actually this comes full circle, you will like this and I think I've told you this, but when I'm sorry that it was of course, catalyzed by the passing of your father, but you recommend the talent to me and I'm with you during this. I mean, not with you, but we're in contact during his entire process. I read the tail end. I go, holy fucking shit. And by the way, everybody just look up the tail end, too.
Urban and read it. Do yourself a favor. And so I made a commitment to take my family on a trip, once a year, and we haven't done in the last two years, but the, I think it was the first trip, my mom and always wanted to see the aurora borealis. I took my whole family to Iceland and went to the middle of nowhere in the middle of winter is dark all the time. So it's the opposite of what we're experiencing right now and we had the best luck.
Ever and we just saw the most incredible displays, the Aurora Borealis. And I have to say much like what we experienced this morning, you cannot
Currently capture it at all on video or camera. It just, it doesn't bear any resemblance to the feeling and the experience of doing it in person. So I would definitely do that again. I
was actually looking for it this morning because while the totality is happening, you can actually see stars. Yeah. When the sun is totally covered by the moon and there's a different word for the southern Borealis. I think, or Southern or but yeah, there's a chance we could have seen
them.
What that's called, the Aurora Borealis, the austral Borealis. I'm making up words though. This is we don't have the internet if you have autonomy interests, we're all
bolts that be one thing on the bucket list of that, remind you of anything on your bucket
list.
There's so many things I would like to do. I would really like to, for instance. This isn't a discrete item on a bucket list, but get back into scuba diving like so yeah, scuba diving is one of my great loves. I haven't done it in so long and it is really truly. If you get to the point where you're reasonably comfortable, and you can do while Dives and really kind of hover using your buoyancy. What's a wall
dive? Or like a
cliff?
Dive. So you where you let's say, you're swimming over Coral. That's I'm just making this up 30 feet below. The surface colors are still really vibrant at that depth and then there's just a cliff and you drop off of this cliff. And you just go down this wall. So you're looking at
Let's just call it a coral reef, but it's vertical instead of horizontal and you look down, and it's just into the abyss and see swim along a wall. And you can drop down, go up and down. Looking at everything, there is to see and I often use a scuba diving and it doesn't work for everyone of course, but as a metaphor for
Psychedelic experiences because in the beginning, like the first time you dive the first one, two or three times you dive. You're just getting used to the equipment. You don't know, necessarily reflexively had a grab your like octopus or if you lose your respirator how to deal with that. You're constantly checking your gauge or screwing with your BCD because we see the buoyancy control device. Yeah, PCD. Where you're in over inflating, your vest and letting the air out. So you really don't have much control and your
Discombobulated. But you, you might only notice a really large fish, or a turtle, or a
shark, or
seen your peripheral vision, a school of fish. But you're, you're really not seeing very much. And then, as you get more comfortable, you see more and more, you notice more and more. And then you get to a point where let's just say on a wall dive doesn't have to be a waldorf but where you can control your buoyancy, you're just less at risk of Smashing stuff that your feet.
Obviously, because you're looking down and it might be hundreds or thousands of feet.
And you can just hover and look it like a square meter, right? Like three, B, hang out there and it is an entire universe of life activity and you could spend an hour. Just looking at that tiny patch. That Wonder
this is something I thought about this morning. I was like, I think it's really hard to go
wrong. If you chase
chase might be too strong a word but like pursue.
Wonder and awe, you can probably overdo it and do all your senses and your appreciation of that. But I think there's a Wonder deficiency in most lives. Not that you should have it three times a
week. What's the line about a universe in a grain of sand or something? Yeah. And so I think part of that is, what is there to wonder? That's all around us all the time. Yeah. And your backyard on a tree. Unlike. Yeah, it's one of those things that we sometimes get reminded.
Of. Yeah, and I always, it always feels like the most obvious straight thing, but also the most profound and meaningful and the, the scuba diving for me,
reinvigorates my powers of fixed attention, like my attention to detail. So when I, and I haven't gone scuba diving, quite a long time, but when you're underwater and you're really noticing all the details, if you try to maintain that,
That as you come out of the water, you still notice more. There's a
transfer. I just love that floating. So, for me, the buoyancy, I actually got certified with another one of your guests. Adam is Ali. Oh, really. And Adam that point, when if you breathe in you learn about science.
Expect PhD,
you just got me a
new car. I know, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful fellow. I'm just jealous. I went P bar workouts and incredible, you know, really engaged add to. It's been so fun to see.
How much he's gotten out of that and given obviously. But it's anyway, not interrupt. So you got certified with
Adam. Yeah, when you breathe in and you float up a little bit and you breathe out and go down a little bit when you can kind of control your buoyancy, would like, the air in your Leon's. That's so meditative. Yeah. I've actually like gone to that space sometimes, while meditating or sometimes in dreams. I really, really appreciate it. But it also reminds me like, I wish we had like, Elon Musk of the ocean like some like crazy. Awesome, billionaire. Who was like, exploring.
Ocean as much as
Bezos and musk. We're going to space. Yeah, you know, who's they've been the first name that comes to mind controversial guy, but he's really good at getting shit done. It's James
Cameron. I was gonna say but that's that's all we got. That's that's what we need to billionaires fighting. Yeah, activating and that will finally map the oceans and understand that. Yeah.
I wonder who else is out there. It's got to be somebody else out there. Well, we'll do well, do some Recon put in the show notes. Hopefully one of your listeners can to of your listeners can start competing for a conquering those.
And I know there are a few of you billionaires out there listening to this right now. So please take a look at our oceans. I would like to spend more time with especially after doing work with the Amazon conservation team, which you've also contributed to co-founded by Mark Plotkin famous ethnobotanist. One of the Protege is of Richard Evans, schulte's out of Harvard. I would like to spend some more time.
Because I have spent some, but I would like to spend much more
time with some of the indigenous groups, in this case, in South America wouldn't have to be in South America. But because I have
access
before those
ways die out,
and I think it's, it's somewhat. And again, this is maybe where you and I differ, but I think it's kind of inevitable. Like I do think the march of so-called progress in the introduction of Western goods and consumerism and so on, you know, once you have
Sat phones and Wi-Fi and big-screen TVs and so on. There's a tremendous amount of erosion that takes place. And I'm not implying or saying that I idolized.
The old ways, there's a lot of writing around the universe like the so-called noble savage and like, oh, if we could all just revert to like, living in communities of 50, with the Bare Essentials, like everything would be wonderful. And I don't agree with that. I don't think that's true. But there is a lot of medical knowledge and also knowledge of how to treat the whole person instead of just suppress symptoms.
Especially not not despite but especially including what we would consider placebo effect. So like harnessing the power of ritual and myth.
The Mind, an arrogant believe
exactly to basically co-opt the power of the patient to help them heal themselves is dramatically under explored by Western scientists in those communities. Not to say that would be my job because I'm not a western scientist. I'm not a scientist, but certainly on my bucket list would be spending time with with some of those groups because I do think and this gets into some pretty strange territory, but there are other ways of knowing
Tell me more.
Well,
if they're gonna give me a hard time, I'm gonna turn around. Yeah, I'm gonna let you get away with it. Yeah, there are. I do think there are other ways of knowing outside of things that are easy to put into a
cube of a laboratory and test with, you know, placebo-controlled randomized, trials. And it's, I think
it's easy to become dogmatic
with scientism with like a capital s in the same way that it is easy to become dogmatic with religion
without
truly having even a basic literacy or understanding of what we're talking about when one discusses science, which is a science.
In terrific method. A structured way of testing a hypothesis. That's all it
is a journey. Not a in point. Yeah,
exactly. So for instance, I mean, the scientific method itself is not good at generating hypotheses. It's going to testing hypotheses and it's a framework for doing our best. Not to fool ourselves in a sense, but there are then observable phenomena. I'm just your fingering, this pile of Ginger choose here, might have a ginger juice. I've got a that's gonna be
Durable for audio, so don't take this as an indication of podcasting professionalism, but I am going to have a ginger chew because I love Ginger. I'll have this after I ask my next question instead of while talking but there is a book. I think it is actually called another way of knowing.
That just discusses. It's a discussion. It's basically an anthropological exploration of a handful of tribes. I believe in Malaysia. So certainly not in South America. In this instance and phenomena that were repeatedly observed. That seemed to
Be very odd. For instance when this particular as apologist would head towards this Village to visit and he would be going by boat and then Trail and so on and so forth that there would always be someone waiting at a Trailhead to meet him.
As if they were expecting him, but they had no prior notification that he was on his way.
So,
What's Happening Here, Right? Is it repeated coincidence, sure could be right? And like the self about hyper rationalists would be like, well, I'll come on now, right? And then, and that would be the default, but I think it's perhaps helpful to ask like what might other possibilities be right? Like, let's generate a bunch of different hypotheses before we edit. Like what are bunch of other? I don't even say plausible. They could be outrageous. But like what are some other
Hypotheses theories for how this might happen. And in these tight-knit groups, let's just call them tribes for Simplicity. You see a lot of these behaviors that mimic some phenomena, we see in the natural world with other species. So if you read say of wolves and Men by Barry Lopez, he talks about wolves being tracked like by scientists that head off in a specific Direction.
Traveling in a straight line. And they intersect with a herd of caribou that started like 300 miles away and they perfectly intersect at a given point where they're known to hunt and it's like,
okay.
That's cool. What's happening? Like is it coincidence?
Maybe sure you can't roll that out. It could be. And, you know, I think about, as I say this, I have some trepidation and saying it because there are people listening who be like, oh my God, that's so ridiculous. Or they might even say that. So, unscientific and what they mean by that is I can't provide.
Definitive proof or some like framework. That provides perfect explanatory power. But as I was thinking about this morning, if you have say an eclipse, as this thing about thousands of years before this morning Clips is were still happening. Humanoids have been around for a long time. Right? If the crossing of the Bering Strait supposedly was whatever it was 20. 30, 40 thousand years ago. I don't really know in a humanoids even just in North and South America.
It's a bit around for a long time and prior to that even longer. So they've been looking up and seeing these things. How would they have explained them? Thousands of thousands of years ago? Certainly not the way that we explain them today. Nonetheless, the eclipses were happening
and it was kind of cool. We saw a little presentation from when the people here on different cultures. And you know, I think in China was a dragon eating the son in Vietnam is a frog. There was like a different sort of Miss and and like every culture had a version.
Asian of it. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And I'll give another example during but has
that connected? Yeah, I'm gonna
connect it. So. So, what I mean is, I think you can observe and record phenomena and even in the absence of perfect explanatory power, some theory that holds up to Modern scrutiny. Just the fact that someone can't explain how something works. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That's what I'm trying to say. So for instance, while we're in lockdown, during covid there.
Video that went viral of a coyote and a badger.
Going out on a hunt together and like the coyote would like trail out in front is wasn't trailing, was leading in front and I stopped like wag its tail and looked like a dog playing with another dog and then pull the badger along. And that from a naturalist or filled by a biological perspective, least, According to some people shouldn't happen, right? Like that. That was always a myth. And in some of the, the native Northern native American traditions, they talked about that.
Coyote and Badger hunting. The other is talked about, right? But it's considered a myth and then boom. Now, you have some video footage and it's like like that. Okay, so I do think that just because cultures have superstitions and beliefs that are not founded on hard evidence and let's not fool ourselves. We still have a lot of that. Even the most technologically advanced Among Us have plenty of those. It's somehow a phenomenon can't exist. Hmm, right? If you don't have perfect explanatory parents just kind of
Ridiculous, like if you study the history of scientific discovery, You observe a lot of things far before you can radio, waves, German radio waves, jurors. Let me like
so many invisible things happening all around us all the time. Yeah. We look back like
20 years from whatever point in time or let's say 50 years just to make it a little easier 50 years before. Whatever point in time. The discussion is taking place is like the Dark Ages, right? Like, oh my God, I can't believe we didn't know this. Oh my god. Look how ridiculous that is, in hindsight.
This is a neglecting all the, while the fact that, of course, if we were to be looking back at today, 50 years from now.
As some dr. Salik, half of what we know is wrong. We just don't know which half.
Yeah, that's why I think it's so important to make space for people to update their views. They get so silly when we like get mad at someone. Something said, 30 years ago.
It's like yeah, you're waffling know like when I get new information, I changed my mind. What do you
do? Yeah, and that'll be. I'm sure this thing's on your early podcast, maybe our last podcast. I have no longer agree with one of us said and that's beautiful. Like in programming, we talked about like if you're not embarrassed by your old code, you're not learning.
You should feel bad. When you look at your
logo. You think it's better than he could do now
or great. That means you haven't grown as a developer. So I think it's really important to always be evolving and that way. But what you brought up does? Make me think about how much communication is happening all around us all the time. Yeah, and we don't understand. Yeah, whether that's bird calls or what we heard with the Penguins. Yeah, they're able to connect with each other and identify each other. I just saw the documentary. Fantastic fun guy. Yeah. Yeah, grateful. Damn it.
It's yes.
Have fun. Yeah, Louise
schwartzberg. Yeah, and that the mycelium networks. Like there's so much communication that's happening all around us. And that's another thing that I think is so interesting to explore. Yeah. Are we ever going to have to understand aliens? If we can't understand dogs, but I heard there's a start-up around this. That's trying to do like machine learning around dog, barks.
Oh God. Machine learning. Let me see his it. Machine learning or deep learning. Yeah. They're all these terms. Slap it on when I was AI, you can raise more money. Yeah. Yeah. II, although I did.
Hey, if someone can help
me, I'll set my second better girl is dead. And I will do it. Why do another question that
are communicate with Molly? I'm into it. So what else should be on my bucket list? I want? You know, it's such a simple thing. I want to get another dog. Oh, yeah, to to accompany Molly and also to have some overlap so that I think if Molly passes away, we very hard for me to get another
dog. Would you clone Molly? No,
You want to share anything about cloning?
I might know something about flowing, you can clone cats dogs and horses. Now in
America. Oh, well, let's let's get more
specific like the company's called Village in love. And and yeah, you can pay and they will they take a skin sample from the living animal, and they make an embryo from it and embed it in a surrogate.
And do you know anything about this?
No comma.
No, comment. Alright, well, all of the audience draw from that, what they met, I would not clone Molly. I think the uncanny valley.
II don't think I would do that for myself. No, I wouldn't try to do like Molly 2.0 that. I think I'd feel very ethically conflicted about that. It's like emotionally conflicted to so I don't think I would do that but I would get a like Mini-Me to play with Molly who then carries on the torch. I would definitely do
that. Yeah. It was at the I was party to this, but the person who wanted to do this
Morning, I was very, very surprised, you're surprised. I was incredibly surprised that this person wants to do it.
Why are you suppress religious
backgrounds? She's Catholic are Catholics against cloning, you know, I don't know for sure. But it seems like it should be on that list. I don't know, I guess if it's good, it's okay. Yeah, and I was surprised but it's been I now have met this clone.
The first of the
cones like a congressional hearing, I love your wording and I've
met said clothes. So, mr. Sender, a beautiful thing about it. Is that the previous dog whose past had had some was a rescue and had like a difficult early life. And so even though I know this dog for 15 years, she would always be pretty skittish with me or any man in the room, which is just so heartbreaking to think like what happened to her when she was younger and this new Dog with the same genetic material.
Genetic twin is so excited to see me. It's like a Six Sigma excitement event
when I when I returned, when I walk through the door and
it's kind of amazing. So yeah.
But by completely different. So I would say that it's not. It's just like a twin genetic. Twin coloring will be different personalities. Totally different. I think really shows you nature versus nurture as well. Oh, that's for sure. But I think for dogs and be huge although, you know, way more about dogs and I love Swiss watch time, trading,
Molly and the leather is loud. Like to have another dog, is that she'll help Trend the other
dog, ye-yeah, they'll pass on good and bad behavior, right? Yeah. It shouldn't have
too many bad behaviors. She has few but not too many and
People want to look at the communication side, you can Google. I think there's a Radiolab episode on the the wood Wide Web as
they call it.
Which talks about inter Lincoln Center. I was mixed up in Turin interrupt but inter tree
communication. Yeah. And trees will privileged ones that are closely related
to androgyny. Yeah. Yep, and as they're going to die, they'll basically drop the resources into the root system and distribute to direct descendants and pretty cool. It's so wild.
Old, and the reciprocal relationship with the fungal networks is just just incredible. So you can look at that. Let's not forget. Also, it wasn't that long ago. I don't know the exact dates, but I think it's within the last hundred years. That doctors are surgeons would operate on infants without anesthesia. Wow, it's not that long ago. I might be getting it slightly off,
but our
assumptions about consciousness.
And communication and perception have been so consistently.
Off that, I think it's fair to assume that. We're still pretty
off a lot to learn. I think my second Buck. I mean, honestly, this trip has been a bucket list item, the emperor penguins. Hope we were going to hopefully see the totality over them, but it's too cloudy. So that's why we came to this unit. Glacier Camp seeing the totality and so I'll put a travel thing as a second one, which is I love to go to Egypt with my sister. Why Egypt? She wants to go and I think it'd be pretty incredible. So here's a
buck.
For me is taking a bunch of my closest friends to Japan after a huge snow cap in the background. Is it showing up on the levels? It showed up a level so that it would be the the Tucker 5, which the staff used to refer to because there's a largest Tucker snowcap that had ever been custom-built and they would refer to it as the on radio they refer to as the mother Tucker. But then that got that was not PC. Apparently so got vetoed at some point, now is the
Uh Tucker five. How boring? I prefer the mother trucker. That might be part of this podcast episode title as well
or just funny because you always make fun of me for not cursing. I do I
do. Yeah, that does not curse. Why don't you curse? Don't give me that. I have so many vices I needed to get rid of one nonsense. You always use
that, you know, we don't have the internet. So I can't remember. I think the English language has more words than any other
language. I do a lot of
words and I just love finding that.
Really great word to match things
except for curse words. It's a curse
words. Why not? And it's funny that a religious thing. I actually I had a one of the first WordPress blogs actually, was that a private blog myself, in for friends had out of high school and I was looking back at entry from like 99 or something and it had a curse word in it from you, from me. Who? What?
Chris Berg? I don't remember which one it says, nor could I say it or should horse it?
But I
was so shocked because I don't open it would get you there. I think I've forgotten when I stopped but I think it was influenced by reading someone or something around. Just it's press notices of the English language, finding the right word for things and other ways. So I don't exclaim
much. You don't have a very ejaculatory style to your speaking. What do you do on exclaim much. What does that even
mean? Gosh, darn it. Or you
know.
Them's Fightin words.
Yeah, I don't I don't exclaim. We have someone else on the
trip. Explains a lot. Not
me. They like an exclamation And to be like if I stub my toe or something like I'm not gonna. So, what
do you say when you stub your toe? You just bite your just grin. Like bite your tongue.
And I probably just make a noise like a Yelp.
So, so if someone like cut you off in traffic, I guess, I mean, you may be so Zen. They just don't get annoyed. But if you get annoyed, do you say
anything? I like to tell myself that they are doing something urgent or have something in their life that like, you know, they really need to get that spot
or what does Windows Mac and upset. What are some Matt
triggers? Ah, magic
resides people, spelling WordPress with lurk as P. You
know, I'm not sin at all as I get upset on behalf of others.
Oh, yeah, I've seen
this. You seen it. Yeah, and so I'm more likely to be probably to like a fault, like overly protective sometimes or the person themselves might not be mad, but I'll like get mad on their behalf Injustice. Yeah, really bugs me.
So, what's your response that so most people like God fucking dammit. They most people would curse to let some steam out. What do you
do? Huh? Get even
A soft-spoken weapon of incredible melas, you gotta be careful with the mall and wag or the Muhlenberg is one of the staff here. For dramas. We did our protest earlier. What do you expect of them? Mullet
wig, which I used to get in school.
You're welcome. Mullet wig or Adam ghazali calls. You monkey legs my legs. Yeah. It's another
good one. So I was like at Mullen web which actually kind of like, oh my God good. It's a web in there,
solid web. I like that. Okay, I will come.
To get even by another time.
Let's see.
This is just the one that I pulled out till we do. Maybe one more kiss. My bladder is about to explode but my fucking tea bottle is full. That's like I know where to put it. Well, I guess I could try to p.m. To the Scotch whisky bottle that we have now. Sorry. Glenmorangie. I know my God. That's like the worst gank pronunciation of that ever. But if I have to pee in your bottle, I apologize in advance. Do intentions matter, more or less than a
actions. He
yeah, what's the legal word for this means Ray or something? Oh, I don't know. Yes. I think they do.
Intentions matter more. All right. Tell me more Met Ball and web
to intentions matter more. What I like about intentions is the intentionality. It's a choosing. It's the deliberateness of a decision. Go to do something, and I think that's super important for us to do. Maybe that sound a little abstract. What you choose to do. Yeah, I think, is more important than
What necessarily happens along the way. What you have less control over. You have complete control over your choice. So I'm going to say intention to matter more than actions. Hmm. I'm defining actions in a certain way. How are you defining actions things that happen?
Okay, actions are things that
happen. Yeah. So for example you intend to give me a present but your action on the way is you stumble and on my step on my foot, okay? And your intention to me matters more than the fat you stepped on my foot and broke a
toe. Let's let's say there's a someone who decides I want to give back and do the right thing, but they have no money. No.
Resources, no network, no leverage, and then there's so they have this pure intention but they don't end up being effective in Impact. Let's just say, and I know that's kind of a broad broad statement. Then there's some person who just cold-blooded capitalist killer like takes no prisoners. Racks up, incredible wealth, and then says I'm going to give to a bunch of Charities because that's the right social move again. All these boards, create really good Optics.
Have a conversation at these dinner parties, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, it's not coming from virtuous intention per se, but
Has an outsized impact just
because of the sheer resources
behind it. I'll take it.
You just take this, you'll take it. You'll take the second one.
I think doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still the right thing. Check ice takes his more to actions and intentions. Yeah.
What's your answer to that one?
I think actions comb or yeah, so it's the right thing for the wrong reason would still be the right thing. And that matches more. Yeah. Yeah for me which
isn't to say I would like people to do the right thing for the wrong reason, but it was chatting with. I came who was I was chatting with but there were saying might have been when I got I got a tour of Bethlehem from an Arab Christian, which is definitely a minority. And I don't know if it was him. It might have been someone else who say,
You know, Jews and, and Muslims should really get along on some level because they care more about
actions than they do.
What's in your heart. What you believe, we're as Christians care about like
what you believe, and you can do all of
these atrocious things, but then truly believe and repent and be saved. And I thought about how much
All of that has likely shaped
cultures and Empires and civilizations. Right? Just that
different lens on things if it's like, we don't care what you believe. It's all about what you do, like follow these rituals. Do these things. Don't eat this thing on this date. ABCDE versus like the belief /. Maybe intention is what matters
Even if you fuck up and make this terrible mistakes, that's okay. Of course, I'm going to offend like pretty much everybody on the planet by what I just said I missed a few. I am dramatically over simplifying and sorry if I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I do think this question though, that I threw out from this deck of cards is an interesting one, right? Intention
versus action. I'm glad that we disagreed on it too. And two points where we disagree to
be interesting things to mind.
All right, last question because my bladder is about to explode and the the neck of this Scotch. Whisky bottles way too narrow for many attempted reasonable accuracy. It's not a sharing again. Yeah, it's not. It's not a claim to any like, you know, Coke can like girls, who are. We kidding here in Antarctica, but I guess you don't want somebody with us was like, let's say, let's all take a naked shot together. We're like no.
No, no, and now not the most flattering shot we could do right now. What are you grateful for right now?
Hmm.
If you're an easy answer and a harder answer, I mean, I'm so grateful for the time we spent together. Yeah, that's you. We to the bigger and hard answer. I would say is, I'm so,
Astounded at the creation and roll out of the vaccines. Hmm. And like it gives me hope for maybe Humanity solving other big problems if we can all kind of focus on the same thing at the same time. And yeah, so everyone who worked on covid grateful for hmm. I'm
also really grateful for the time that we've been able to spend on this trip. It's been a while since we've done one of these.
And I've
been disconnected, which has been. Yeah, Twitchy for me. I tried to download and scroll half the internet before it awful. Liar. Wikipedia.
Let me just read it US. Postal Service here in the Centre. What I am grateful for this trip. It's been a great trip. I've had a lot of people ask me why I came to Antarctica, like why am I interested in Antarctica? And I am interested in Antarctica, but the main reasons just spend time with you had so many great trips before and
It and now this one adding it to the list. So super great for that, super grateful for my girlfriend. Honestly, she's incredible puts up with a lot of nonsense. I don't think I'm the hardest person to be with but I certainly don't think I'm the easiest
person
and she's just, she's just been such a wonderful compliment and I think we are. So
Different yet. Our values are so similar that it allows us to really stretch
in ways that it's a good thing to look for in a partner. I would say, is like, where you are different in many ways, but then exactly the same on a few key values goals, fighting style. Communication.
Yes. She is. The cleanest fighter. I would say the cleanest fighter I've ever been with probably influence on you too. I would say that. Yeah, I would say. So, you know, hopefully she would say the same about
I think so. And so I'm very, very grateful for that. And I'm grateful for having the bladder capacity of camel. So I don't even know what time it is. God. What time is it for like 10 or 11 or God knows it is? It
is now. Yeah, I was 11. So probably the time for the camp. It is a leather
heel around and it is bright as High Noon as we
speak. I also thank you, you know, we both shared a lot of personal stuff on this one. Yeah week. So thanks for
Or that
vulnerability. Yeah, thank you too, man. Yeah, really great to do this and let's not wait another five years. All right. All right, man, love you bud. And to everybody who is listening, you can find links to anything. We've talked about books and so on. I don't know what else will find a bunch of random lengths and put them in the show notes for you to peruse at Tim dot blog. Thanks for that also recommendation from mr. Mullen web, Tim dot blog, / podcast, and
Till next time be just ever so slightly Kinder than you think necessary and that includes to yourself and thanks for tuning in.
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