#282 – Media vs Tech, Twitter Monsters, and Making Millions From Content with Steph Smith of a16z
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Yo, what's going on man? How you doing? Dude, I'm so excited about the thing that I'm coding right now. Do you subscribe to... You subscribe to Every, right? Like the publication from Nathan Bashez? Yeah, I subscribe to it. I love every piece I read, but like I never actually make time to read the shit that comes in the inbox. I forward you stuff that I think is good, but... Exactly. The last one that I forwarded to you, remember that one? It was about AI. I was reading it and I was like, this is exactly my jam. They were writing about how people are going to start using AI to classify like...

content from their users. Like if you run like a blogging platform, you're going to run it to like on your user's blog posts to figure out if they're any good. Or if you run a social media, like a social network, you're going to run it on like people's tweets or whatever to see if like their posts are any good. And so I have been like writing the same code for indie hackers and

And I was scrolling down the article reading about it. I was like, okay, I can't wait to read. I hope they have some tips. And they're like, oh, I got this idea from this tweet. And I looked at the tweet, and it was my tweet. It was my tweet where I was talking about using AI to classify spam on any hackers. So you thought you were going to learn something from them, and then it ends up being that they learn from you. Yeah, exactly. But I ended up building the classifier. So that's what I've been working on all day. Yeah.

Hey, what's up, Steph? Hi. Good to see you. And nice to meet you, Channing. I know we've exchanged emails, but Cortland, nice to see you again as well. You guys have never met. No, not in real life. I have this weird twin thing where I assume everybody that I've met, my brother has met. That's not how it works. I feel like I've been like the behind the scenes newsletter, website, content personality, and you've been the...

on the mic dude for a minute yeah but what's the what's the update now you guys have a podcast together or you just brought Channing on now I got bored of doing the podcast by myself I was like you know it's not fun being on the hook to do a podcast for myself every time I mean you've got another podcast I think it's like shit you don't learn in school yeah

And you have like a co-host and you have A16Z where I think you're constantly interviewing people, but like you're always on the hook, right? I know the feeling. Yeah. And it, yeah, I don't know how it feels to you, but like having a co-host feels way easier and way better sharing responsibility. It's like being a co-parent versus being a single parent. No, I totally feel you. I mean, even sometimes you're like, I don't know what to ask you next, but I have to, like, I have to say something. It's all on you.

now but when there's a second dynamic sometimes you're like oh actually like i don't even have enough time to ask my questions which is totally okay but it's just like more entertaining it's more lively totally it forces you to get out your best stuff like i started a show with julian and that was our whole thesis behind the show was the two of us two co-hosts and then we would always have two guests yeah so it's always four people which means like

there's never an awkward silence and then whenever there is a silence like you're not gonna go unless you have something really amazing to say because there's three other people who are waiting to talk exactly that's like better for listeners if there's there's more people yeah are you bringing that back what was it called brains or brains i don't know i just don't like i don't like having that many i want to do other things yeah when i think about you you've been on the show is this your second or third time on indie hackers i don't know i know i've been at least once i think it might just be the second

It might be your second. You've done, God, I don't even remember the last time you came on, but like you're like a self-taught coder when I first heard about you. You're like, hey, indie hackers, like I'm Steph Smith. I learned how to code. Here's my project. And the next month you're like, here's another project. And the next month you're like, here's another project. And then like a year later, you're like AMA because you'd built this amazing blog with hundreds of thousands of readers and

And then like the next thing I knew, you were like basically running the Trends publication for The Hustle. And you had grown that to like millions of dollars in revenue. And then I saw you at HustleCon. I went to talk there and you're like running that too. And now you're like running A16Z's podcast. So you're just like – you went from like I've never even heard of this person to like, well, she's like on top. She's like running one of the biggest podcasts in tech.

to just like an awesome sort of media personality, writer, content creator, and indie hacker, and coder. So I feel like you've done a huge variety of things. I call her the queen of content. She wrote a book called Queen of Content. I'll take it. I'll take it. But I was going to say, like, it's funny because...

sometimes I just look at my career and I'm like, oh, I'm such a generalist. Like there's part of me that's like, oh man, you should just like channel one thing. You know, I just really admire people who write, let's say for 10 years and they just have this immense body of work in one domain. And sometimes I look at myself and I'm like, oh man, I haven't written an article in years or like

you know, my other podcast has been not publishing for a couple months and I want to bring it back. And I'm just like, I don't know if you guys both feel this way, but I'm like always at odds with myself to figure out what I should be focusing on or like what really matters. Well, Naval Ravikant has this, like, I mean, it's his big viral thing

tweet thread on how to get rich without getting lucky. And he said something in there that never rang fully true to me all the way, which is we live in an age of infinite leverage. And there are two kinds of new capital on top of money that we can now leverage. That's code and content. And I always was like, okay, the code thing I get. I built a side project one time that teaches people how to build a CSS game. And

And I got tons of opportunities. So I'm like, okay, I get the code thing, but the content thing, you honestly were the first person where I was like, I get it. Really? Because you had viral hit after viral hit. I mean, you came onto our radar like six years ago because we have a content site. We're like, she's just producing bangers left and right. And we always wanted to partner with you and use our distribution channels

for that. And then with that credibility, you built this equity that I can only assume was a huge part of how you got onto Sam Parr at the Hustles radar and how you've gotten onto A16Z's radar, et cetera. Yeah. I mean, it's the perfect case study in a way because both of those opportunities and actually every opportunity I've gotten since I started openly publishing came to me. So it's that whole idea of, as some people say, increasing your surface area for luck.

where it's just you put enough stuff out there and actually the trends example is Sam literally had read maybe three articles of mine in a row that had gone viral. And so by the third, he was like, I need to hire this person. And he just DMed me on Twitter and he's like, can I hire you? It wasn't even like a proper hiring process. I mean, I had to do an assessment and all that eventually, but...

Yeah, I think I just in those early days of content, I think I did get a little bit lucky. But it was those few instances where I saw the power of it, where I was like, oh, my gosh, like I'm getting job offers from this, like from writing these articles. And I just then really deeply understood the power that it can have, just like you're saying with code. Patrick McKenzie wrote a lot about it.

Like the best jobs to have are the ones that you can't really apply for? Yes. Like if you were going to a website, filling out a job application and applying, there's like a bunch of other people. Like that's not the best job, right? Even if it's like you've spent years in school learning how to be a back-end software engineer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Still, there are people at your company probably who were hired the same way that Sam hired you.

because somebody saw proof that they were doing something interesting in the world that was valuable, and they just went straight to that person and probably pay them a boatload more money because that person has so much more leverage, right? They can negotiate their salary. They can basically leave and be irreplaceable. I mean, this is like with us at Stripe, right? Like, Stripe had a big layoff. I don't remember how many people got laid off, but then, like, we left Stripe, and, like, they're investing in us, and we had, like, an awesome situation that we could negotiate. And so I think that maybe the best thing that writing did for you is it

Like you said, it's kind of like a job interview without doing a job interview where like you have proven to the world what you can do. And now you have a ton of leverage and can negotiate your way as if you're like a business owner rather than as if you're an employee. No, totally. And I mean, my first job, well, actually, I would say my second job out of college was

I was in a role that, let's just say, I was in the same role as other folks on the team, and I was getting paid less than half of what they were making. And it's because I came at it from the exact opposite perspective, where I was like, I need a job. And at that point, I was looking for a remote job. And so I was kind of...

All I wanted was just like, can I work remotely or not? And there was not very much supply of that kind of role. And so I was like, I'll take anything. And that is like the worst mindset to come to a not just interview process, but like, as you said, when you're at the negotiation table versus to your point, it's like I've basically done a bunch of job interviews without them actually being interviews. I've created content. I've shown what

my ambition is to create a bunch of projects even when no one's asking. And so now when someone comes to me, I don't need to prove myself. And then now that I'm a little older, know how to negotiate and know a little bit more about what people should get paid and their worth and all that. But it's just a totally different headspace. It's kind of wild to compare the two.

So this is one of the things I thought was fascinating about you. Like, I think Sam at The Hustle, they spun off this newsletter called Trends. I don't know when it was. It was like 2019. Yeah. Maybe around-ish. And like you were like leading it. And I just remember like this was kind of the heyday of newsletters where like before this, like people had newsletters obviously for like decades. But like it wasn't like fodder for people in tech to talk about newsletters. It was like, what sort of newsletter? What's the point of that? But then at Trends, you were making like, I think you grew revenue to like millions. Yep.

of dollars. Like most people who start a blog and a newsletter do not make millions of dollars. And I think you're making that from like paid subscribers rather than advertisers too, which I think is pretty unusual. How did that work? Why did you guys make millions of dollars? Why don't most

bloggers and newsletter writers make millions of dollars. Well, yeah, so we definitely grew to millions. And it was all for trends specifically, unlike the Hustle newsletter, it was all paid subscription revenue. I would say a few things. One, I don't want to discount the fact that we built a paid newsletter off of a very large free newsletter. I think that's actually what a lot of people do incorrectly these days is they think,

oh well now that the technology exists with you know people are familiar with companies like substack or ghost or there's tons of them out there today that will let you monetize a paid newsletter however the second you put a paywall on something that thing can't grow like we just talked about the power of content basically doing work for you while you're sleeping

And so it's not to say paid newsletters are bad. Like we just talked about how trends blew up to millions. However, it was built on a very large audience to start, right? So, I mean, for any marketers out there, it was at the bottom of the funnel. You still need the top of the funnel, right? If you're starting completely from scratch or even with a small audience, you're just kind of, in my opinion, depending on what your goals are, you're doing yourself a disservice by gating things. But coming back to your question about what did work for trends, we had that big audience, right?

And then I think we understood the audience really well. These were a bunch of people who were interested in business and tech news. Well, what are people who are interested in the news of the day?

with business and tech what do they want to do well they want to build businesses they want to be ahead of the curve and so for us it was just like very obvious and kind of surprising that not many people were doing this i mean even the simple framing that many people were talking about what successful businesses had already been built and not what successful businesses can be built tomorrow like that's such a simple idea but like who was really doing that right like all the business tech news was about today like tech crunch right

And so that was the very simple idea. I think Glimpse was maybe one of the newsletters that was similar that existed before. But after that, now we've seen like exploding topics. There's tons of newsletters that have kind of like piggybacked on this concept. But even still, I think like what is the TAM for future entrepreneurs?

It's massive. And so we just found like maybe a unique way to cover it. Like we would do these signals, which were just like find a bunch, find data sources, whether it was Google Trends or similar web or Jungle Scout. And we would just show, hey, check out this thing that you've maybe never heard of, but is growing like crazy. And that was it.

It's not always like obvious how to monetize though because it's like, for example, like early stage entrepreneurs have all these problems that are very ephemeral problems. Like I need a co-founder, right? But the second they have a co-founder, like they no longer have that problem and they don't care, right? They don't come back again and again. Like if you need to eat food, you can go to the same restaurant like 100 times a year, right? Or if you need taxes done, like you run into the same accountant every single year. But you connect somebody with a co-founder, it's like, well, these early stage entrepreneurs are like,

By definition, usually broke because they don't have a successful business. Any problem you solve for them, whether it's giving them a business idea or helping them incorporate or helping them meet a co-founder, you only need it solved once. And so it doesn't shock me that not that many people have figured out how to monetize their

that group of people. Yeah. And that's something we struggled with because also I think that group of people sometimes doesn't know what they want. So like we would do these surveys and I feel like surveys are mostly useless anyway, but we would still do them. And we'd ask, you know, what kind of content do you want? Do you want more so these like trends you've never heard of for your future business or what we would call maybe more so operator focused content, like you're in the early stages or mid stages of your business and you want to know how to grow it.

And all the time, the answer to those surveys, again, which I feel like were inaccurate in terms of like what people say they want versus what they actually want, were that people were like, we want operator focused content. We are operators. We want to grow. And then we'd create it. And I think maybe part of that reason is to your point, Cortland, it's like one, you

There's so many problems out there and once you solve it, then it's solved. But at the same time, it's also really dynamic. There's no right answer to what co-founder should you choose versus there is something that's kind of just unique and fun about saying, hey, here's this

subreddit that's blowing up and maybe you won't use it in your business, but it's cool to talk about it at some cocktail party. And so we also had a big group of people who were just like maybe some product manager at Adobe or something like that who just liked, I guess, feeling in the know more so than it being practical.

Why do you think people paid? Like, I think they're paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. I don't remember the exact price point. Just to be a part of the trends community and be part of the newsletter. Like, I don't think you had in-person events or if I recall. We had some, but no, it's interesting because we always noticed that like, so yeah, the content was what people liked.

would pay for and then they'd stick around for the community. But the community mostly to your point was just an online Facebook group. So there was some events, but you know, a lot of people who subscribe were in like small town somewhere, right? So like they wouldn't get access to that anyway. So because we were covering things that they had truly never heard of that put a premium on the content, I think what's tough is like

Most content is a commodity, right? So like if you're covering like the latest tech story that hundreds if not thousands of other outlets are covering then it's like what is your like what premium are you offering or can you charge and for us it was like maybe just the even positioning like if we are able to show you something that will either grow your business or allow you to start a net new business, which by the way, lots of people did and made me feel bad about myself because I was like, why am I

Why am I finding all these trends? Like, I remember, like, very early on, this guy wrote me and he's like, oh, I just raised Series A based on, like, this article you wrote. And he sent it to me and I was like, oh, my God, what am I doing? Anyway, so people would do this. And that is valuable, right? That is, like, the same way if, you know, certain products...

are able to say, I save you X hours a week, people are all of a sudden much more willing to spend on it. I think there was a dynamic that we could leverage that maybe others, other types of content just simply wouldn't be able to make the same argument.

I think that's one of the best ways people have found to monetize sort of early stage aspirational founders is investing. And so it's like, okay, these people haven't done very much yet, but reliably some percentage of them will. And so you're like the YC model, we'll just get a bunch of them and we'll just invest a little bit in everybody. I've seen the same thing with our podcast. There's so many founders we talk to and then two or three years later, it's like,

If I just invested in every single person who came on IndieHackers, sure, there's a ton of duds, but I would have been investing in Zapier well before they were worth $4 billion. I would have invested in Retool after their seed round, and now they're worth billions of dollars. Even just one or two of these...

Would have blown out like all the losses out of the water. So hearing you at Trends having the same thing, we're like, wait a minute, like giving people all these ideas and they're like crushing it. Like if you just got like a little piece of a lot of those ideas. It's so hard to tell. I had the same thing with remote work. Like I decided to work remotely in 2016 and that was like basically right when I was out of college.

And I had such conviction that this was the future. And it was like, I had the conviction, but I didn't have the conviction that other people would have the same conviction. And it just, even when you're like early to a trend, like,

you still feel like you're late, which is crazy, right? Like I remember traveling around and being nomadic and being like, oh my God, I'm so late to this. There's thousands of nomads already. And now of course it's like, you know, Peter Lovells wrote an article or maybe he did a talk years ago where he's like, there's going to be 1 billion nomads. And everyone was like, that is crazy. Cause you really can't think about, you know, that exponential nature, but I'm sure you guys felt the same way where you're like, I,

I think indie hackers are going to be a thing. I see the technology changing. I see the financial infrastructure changing. I see the ability for a company like Instagram to sell for a billion dollars in 2012. Well, what's that going to be in 2022, 2032? Like I see the trends, but there's still an aspect of just like, but like, why is it no, why is no one else picking up on the same things?

Yeah, it takes a while. And that happens to me all the time. Because if you're an early adopter, you're probably just hanging out with a bunch of other...

of other early adopters. Like if you want to like see like what the world is like, go to the DMV, right? Then you're getting like around the average person, you know, and they're not talking about digital nomads and cryptocurrency and all the same shit that we talk about all the time that we think is played out. And so I think it's really hard as a technologist, ironically, to have confidence in like where things are going. The other part I think that you guys did that was smart with Trends

sort of back on that topic was like you had hustle con which by the way i think you prepping me for my talk at hustle con like 2019 was the last time i ever gave a gave a talk oh really probably the last time i ever like ruin it no no no is that a good thing or you gotta i just decided i don't like giving talks and i'm never gonna give a talking in but the one in hustle con was actually fun i remember giving it an like on stage like kind of in the lobby but then you guys shut down hustle con and i always thought hustle con was brilliant because it was just like

easy money you get a bunch of cool smart people they come talk on they do all the content creation for you obviously like your job is still hard you gotta wrangle a bunch of speakers and get like sell all these tickets but I think you guys are probably making you have to prepare Cortland yeah gotta talk to me sounds like a headache I don't know I'm a diva

No. But I thought you guys were making like high six figures, low seven figures for HustleCon every time you did it. And it seemed like a great way to get like a bunch of people associated with HustleCon. And then you shut it down. Like why shut down something that was lucrative? It felt lucrative anyway. Yeah. So I mean, I feel like I'm not super equipped to talk about this because I joined in that last year of HustleCon and I was mostly working on trends. But what

What I'll say is I think from my understanding of the events business is it's, they were super profitable. Like that, that was, you know, an easy, easy is kind of like a funny term here, but like an easy way to be like, we know if we run this event, we know this many people will come. We know we can sell tickets for X and have sponsors and make Y. But I think it's, it was like really exhausting for the team. And I think there's also a dynamic of like,

Well, do we run... I don't know how big HustleCon was when it first started, but it's like, do we run an event that's for like a thousand people and charge $200 or do we keep it small? Which I think it was smaller in early days and people felt like it was like really intimate. And I don't know. I think it just...

As the hustle, the company blew up, it became more complex. And it was like, should we focus on this? Or do we have this like massively scaling newsletter that is just way easier to like kind of crank up? I would ask Sam though. I'm sure he's tweeted about it, but I don't actually know why they decided to ultimately shut it down. Yeah, we have the same dilemma here. A friend of mine was telling me like, you guys got to get into events. Like you should host an Indie Hackers conference. It would do so well, et cetera, et cetera. I'm like, no.

But it's so much easier to grow a newsletter. It's a thousand times easier. Oh my God. Running events is tough. Like even we would do some small events for trends and it was just like, oh man. Like, yeah, I'd just rather be in a Google Doc. I'd rather like write something cool. It sounds obviously exhausting, though I also wonder if it's like the way that we're talking about it is almost like pure ROI versus other, you know, like newsletters or any other kind of content that you can monetize. But I mean, to take...

Sam and Sean with My First Million now, I'm seeing some of their gigantic events. And to me, it's like, okay, well, on the one hand, I'm sure they're making some money on tickets, but there's also this massive boost to their brand, just the image of all these people. It's almost like, I almost want to do two, get as many people as we could have there and then just get a photo op, make that our marketing material, make it our landing page for

or Instagram or something, I don't know. - Yeah, I mean, there's two really important points there. The first is, yes, I would not discount the idea that if you do certain things with your content business,

you can convince people that it's something worth paying attention to. Like there's simple things like I think I've seen, you know, some podcasters do this. I won't say who will just be like, this was the best episode. Like this, you know, this person came on, they absolutely crushed it. This is my favorite episode. And they'll do it like every fifth episode.

But if you look at the, you know, the tweets and the YouTube comments, it's, you know, all these people who are like, oh my God, it's so true. Like insert person here is the best, like more of them, bring them on, bring them on. And so I've just seen this over and over. There is this like collective, we are like communists.

communal people. It's something that shouldn't be discounted. I mean, there's a huge spectrum of how much you want to use that. I don't really use those kind of tactics, but I know tons of people who do. But the other thing is, like, I think a lot of people think content is a monolith, and I think

Podcasts in particular are really special in that way because it takes forever to convert people. But again, this idea of like whether you should gate or not, like I, unless you're part of iHeartRadio or something like that, I think it's like,

really, really rare where you should ever gate a podcast. And then I think, you know, when I was helping to build the HubSpot creator program, we were trying to figure out like the payment terms and I don't think I can share everything, but the consistent, I think, miscalculation that creators were making were that when in that program, we let, same with My First Million, we let all creators monetize everything outside of the podcast feed itself, meaning they could create merch, meaning they could run events, meaning they could, you know,

do probably much more creative things than that. And that is where you make money in podcasts, right? Unless you're selling to Spotify, like think about you guys recognize this with My First Million, how much they can make from the RSS feed versus how much they can make with like the whole spectrum of things that has been built with this brand. And the ladder is way bigger. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. And also like the former, like the content itself, like you don't want to gate because that's doubles as your marketing. Yeah, exactly. It's not only like one way to make money, but it's like, okay, well, if you like gate that, suddenly you're reaching many fewer people who don't hear about you and can't become your customers. So it's, I think I agree with you and Channing like to your sort of

Ravikant fanboying at the beginning. This is another thing that he said that I like, which is kind of like he would never charge for his content, right? Like it's one of the most scalable things. It's shareable. It gets out. Like the reason why anybody knows who he is is not because of like the investments he's made. It's because of the content that he's written, which he just puts out on Twitter, which has a big fat retweet button.

And there's no like charge money for this, like retweet for $5. It's like, no, I want as many people to share this as possible. And I'll figure out other ways to be clever and smart about making money. Exactly. And a lot of smart people like Naval have benefited from that thing I said, where it's just like, it almost feels like there's an inflection point where you just like you hear Naval enough times and all of a sudden, like he becomes this person where you like buy into everything he says.

Right. And same thing with My First Million. I watched that podcast get built. It wasn't big to start, just like nothing is big to start. And there was just this inflection where all of a sudden it was just like in the zeitgeist where you just saw enough people being like, these guys are funny. And all of a sudden you're like laughing at everything they say. And it's just it's fascinating to see these things from the inside sometimes because you're like, yeah, nothing changed yet. Everyone's minds changed at one point. It's just like like a tipping point.

So what's the deal with you at A16Z? I mean, I know when Channing and I joined Stripe, it was really interesting because I always had modest ambitions. I'm like, I want to be an indie hacker. I want to pay my rent. And then it's Tri Patrick calls and was like, no, no, no, no, no. You guys need to change the face of entrepreneurship. I'm like, oh.

That's different. Did you have a similar thing like that at A16Z? I mean, you're running like podcasts. Like what's the goal there? What's your mission? Yeah. So the podcast has run for a long time. Sonal Choksi ran it. She's amazing. She now runs Web3 with A16Z, another podcast that A16Z runs. So in a way it was interesting because everything else I've done, even trends, when you think about it, I came at right at the beginning of trends. So

it was different to come into something that had already existed. And then also maybe what you're alluding to is like, A16Z has such a big brand. And I'm like, how do I, how do I, not that I am a representative of the brand per se, but it's like, how do I do this in a way that like, you know, fills that role, but also like represents the brand the way it should. And like, I don't know, it took, I'm like a year in and I feel like I'm just like,

really getting into things. I feel like I'm like earning my keep. I feel like we're finally experimenting a year in and like doing new things. But I think the podcast itself is just like a way for us to like be in the zeitgeist, to be talking about technology, to be leaders in that space, to be covering the things that, you know, kind of in a similar way to trends. It's like we're not just talking about the things that

if we're doing our job right, that everyone else is covering. Hopefully the access we have, the intel we have that we can share allows us to be ahead of the curve and to be showing future entrepreneurs, future waves what they can build.

You have a lot of podcast experience between obviously now A16Z, you ran or run your own podcast. I mean, obviously, then you also saw Sam and Sean grow from not superstars into superstars. So what are some of the big mistakes that people make? Yeah, what do you know about podcasting now that you think that the average newbie podcaster doesn't know? Well, none of this is going to sound like rocket science, but the number one thing that people get wrong, and I still am figuring out the right way to do this with the A16Z podcast,

is many people, and this is a belief, like I don't know if there's studies or anything on this, but many people listen to podcasts, I think,

They tell themselves for information, but really they're looking for entertainment. Like even when people go and they describe my first million to a friend, they might be like, oh, they've got the best business ideas. Like they talk to these great entrepreneurs. But really, I mean, I love Sam and Sean, but if you listen to some episodes, like there's not much meat there anymore. They're much more leaning into the entertainment, which they're incredible entertainers. And I'd actually say if you listen to the earlier episodes, they've become...

exponentially better entertainers because they've realized this is what people are looking for and they've honed in that skill. And so this is not like, again, true for everyone. I think there are some people who really just want to listen to like a deeply researched podcast about technology. But I think a lot of the time, especially being in tech,

People will kind of come to the table and be like, okay, I'm going to like really deeply research this guest and I'm going to ask them all the like really technical questions and surface things people haven't heard of. But I think the medium of podcasting when you're spending like, let's say half an hour to an hour with someone, sometimes if you're Lex Friedman, like four hours, eight hours with

with folks. Yeah. Like crazy. People want some sort of humanity there. And so Sam and Sean do it in like a humorous way. Lex Friedman does it in a very like introspective way. There's other kind of tones that you can bring to a podcast, but that's something I'm trying to even figure out. It's like, how do I marry something on behalf of an organization? I mean, even think about this is why most corporate podcasts fail, right? Because they're like,

Let's just like talk about these subjects. Yeah, there's no personality. Yeah, there's zero personality. And that's also something I'm figuring out on like... I don't know if either of you find this. When I'm a guest, you can see... Like right now, I'm getting animated. But when I'm a host, I like shrink in for some reason in a way. Like I don't know what it is, but I just get more like obsessive of like, let me make sure I'm asking the right questions. Let me make sure the arc is good. But people actually don't care about that as much is what I'm learning. It's because like...

Being a real person means having your personality out. It's like being a character. But being a host kind of feels wrong to be a character because you feel like you're taking the spotlight off the guest. You're like, no, I should shine the spotlight on them. They're the guests. I need to step aside. But that's not what anyone wants. People listen to Howard Stern. He's like a character in everything he does because he's such a ridiculous human being. But I think in most podcasts – and Sean told me this too when he was starting My First Million, back when it was just him –

He's like, oh, all these tech podcasts are started by tech nerds with no personalities. That's not me. I'm going to come in here and do it different. And he's totally right. It's about entertainment. People want to be entertained. And if people really want to learn, I don't think the first thing they do is pick up their headphones and put on a podcast. They usually start Googling things, reading articles, buy a book, talk to people. But if they put their headphones on, if they listen to a podcast, they really just want to pass the next 30 minutes to an hour. Yep.

And the best podcasts, the most successful ones, like marry that...

true desire for entertainment with some sort of surface level justification that people can tell themselves. The illusion of usefulness. Yeah, that they were like, oh yeah, of course I'll spend two hours a week listening to this person or these people because I'm learning about business trends or I'm learning about, you know, how to be more productive or whatever. But at the end of the day, how many people, like myself included, there are certain podcasts, let me throw one out there. Andrew Huberman, he's like, you know, top the podcast charts. I

started listening to his podcast and loved it and now I can't stomach it because it's so dense and it's amazing and I can completely understand why people listen to it but I feel the need to convince myself to listen to it instead of you know other podcasts where I'm like oh let me let me download this right now it's like homework yeah

I have a funny Andrew Huberman story that is exactly that. Like I solved the problem. Oh, you did? Like you say, when you listen to Andrew Huberman, it's for education. It's not for entertainment. But it's so dense, right? It's like, you know, it's almost like picking. It's like, you know, do I want to read a new book? It's that same kind of like decision fatigue that you have.

So I literally hired, I figured out a personal assistant who could like take an episode, get the transcription and then turn it into a Google book. Wow. Because that's like, I love reading books in Google books. An assistant called ChatGPT? Yeah. Well...

Because if not, you should buy a resistant and hire ChatGPT. But yeah, I think that that says everything. That I would feel the need, like the pain that would have me like go through all those hoops just to like figure out a more digestible format to get it in.

And we actually just had Seth Godin on the podcast last week. And the first time I heard someone really give an analysis of how to give a good speech at a conference was from him. And he's like, people make mistakes all the time. What they do is they go, oh, I'm going to take whatever I would write on a blog post, or I'm going to take my greatest insights. I'm going to basically create a listicle, and then I'm going to go and inform the hell out of people. And he's like,

You fucking you don't understand what you're doing here. Right. You're getting on stage. You want to give people like an experience. You want to give them a memorable moment. You want to entertain them. And maybe you'll like give it enough, you know, sort of meet that later on when someone says, what did you go see and why did you see it? They're not going to be like, oh, well, he was really entertaining. Like they'll have like a couple of takeaways. But like that's not the core reason why you're doing it. And podcasting is very similar.

Exactly. And that's why podcasts are so hard to grow, right? Because it just takes so much work to get someone invested to that point where they want to come back and they're like, oh, I'm actually because most of the time you're tuning in for the person. So it's like, how do I get enough hits with this potential listener where they actually buy into whatever I'm offering? And it just it's unlike writing. It's unlike even video in ways just in people's consumption habits as well.

How much do you prepare for your podcast on A16Z? Are you doing like an hour of prep, like a whole week of prep? It went from probably a week to an hour because of some of the things we're talking about. We do have someone who helps me do some of the research sometimes, but it went from this obsessive,

Oh my gosh, I'm going to have like Balji, for example, came on the pod. I'm going to read his book. I'm going to listen to just about every interview he's done. I'm not kidding when I say like a 30 page document of questions, which obviously you don't get, you get through like a page, right? Right. At most. Exactly. Yeah, I know you get through three questions realistically, but I did that. And then I, I noticed things in myself. One, just like,

Having all that there actually just made me more nervous because I'm like, oh my gosh, like, let me make sure I get to the best stuff. I was like more the opposite of entertaining, right? Because I'm trying to facilitate something instead of actually just like listening to someone. And so it's now like it's definitely still prep, but just in a totally different way. This is where we are. We're like...

Got an episode, another hour and a half. Who are we talking to? Let's do it. Let's sit down and we prep like right beforehand. So then everything's fresh. Like I used to prep days in advance and then I would like forget most of what I had prepped and have the sheet of questions that I barely even recognize. And the same thing as you. I wouldn't get through like 90% of it. I'm like, what was the point of like putting all that work in? And then the episode would be like boring and dry because I'd just be asking like question after question. Here's another reason why it gets dry. I don't know if you found the same thing, but when I prepped, I basically became –

enough in whatever they're talking about that like I could have been the interviewee like I had someone ask me those questions I knew the answers which just takes all the surprise all of the like true human interest in what they're saying and so I think that was another reason why I've pulled back as well

One of the things that we do, I mean, and we've had to iterate on this a little bit is, you know, we're trying to lean into being a little bit more entertaining. And part of that is being a little bit more spontaneous. And so what you're describing when you have someone on, you know, the answer to the question that you're going to ask is,

is you basically step into acting. Yes. Right? Now you're not actually an actor, but you are acting. And it's like, yeah, there's also like a magic of spontaneity. Like, I mean, at the beginning of our episodes, we've stopped sharing what we're going to talk about. Like, Cortland will be like, I got something. Just say what's up. Well, even in this podcast, I was like, are we around five minutes in? I was like, I guess we're live. Yeah, we're live. Welcome. We're talking about our own shit. We'll get to you.

Yeah, it's interesting. I used to do like a whole like, hey, guests, come on. Let me prep them for five minutes. Give them the whole rundown. Here's how it's going to be. We've got an editor. Her name's Ari. She's going to make you sound good, et cetera. But now I don't say any of that. We just like go in. I think it's just better. I agree. I agree. Yeah, let's talk about some of the things you've said because you publish like a lot of really cool podcast episodes. You've written some cool stuff. You did one.

a podcast on A16Z called Why Technology Still Matters. And I think you interviewed Mark Andreessen, who's been sort of beating this drum for a long time. I think he wrote this essay in 2020 called like Build or something. It's time to build. It's just like, come on. Yeah, it's time to build. Let's get back to like our roots as America. And I think it's just an interesting phenomenon I've seen in media where like,

If I read about startups or big tech companies or Silicon Valley and something like the New York Times, for example, there's like a 90% chance it's going to be negative or at the very least like skeptical. And the only optimism I see about tech is coming from media outlets run by people who are in tech or owned by tech companies like Andy Hackers or A16Z's podcast. Do you think that's true? Like you see the same trend and like so why do you think that is?

Well, there are probably some folks who would paint the people who are propping tech up optimistically as like self-serving, where they would say, oh, you own equity in these companies or like you basically see upside from this industry succeeding. But from my perspective, and this is true of A16Z and elsewhere that I've worked, I truly think, and I believe this about myself individually, that people in this industry who have built enough

just truly see how these technologies have brought better things to the world. And like the simplest kind of comparison that I think, you know, some people would be like, oh, life's not this simple is just like,

Would anyone today in 2023 trade their lives for almost anyone living in like 1970? And the answer is they wouldn't. And of course, a lot has changed since then. But the key thing that has changed is technology. That is what has differentiated anything as simple as like refrigeration to like... I joke about the cold shower trend recently because it's like, you know, the consistent warm hot shower that we all love...

didn't actually exist that long ago. I think it's really easy to apply problems that inevitably do exist in the world and say that they come from technology or they are exacerbated by technology.

But I personally just don't hold that view, like even in the slightest. I think there's things that can be fixed in the world. And like, I don't think technology is perfect. But I don't think from my experience that it comes from this like self-serving, hey, we just want to make more money perspective. I'm sure people fit that bill. But I think there's a pretty deep understanding

Or misunderstanding. And I think, you know, that maybe is something that should be addressed that many people don't understand technology. Like how many, I think it's like less than 1% of the world knows how to code. A lot of people don't know how their computers work, how their phones work. And this maybe sounds really negative and I don't mean it to, but just uneducated on the topic and even how these business models work, for example. Yeah.

I think it's just easy to take good things for granted. Yeah. It's part of the human condition, right? It's like we take hot showers. Like every time we go camping, I'm like, oh, shit. Yeah. What's amazing? Like a warm shower. That's amazing. But like when I'm sitting in my apartment for weeks at a time, I'm not like counting my blessings that I have warm showers. I think it's the same thing with like all technology, right? It's like so good. But we're like the fish who lives in water and doesn't know what water is to some degree. We're just so used to it.

But then there's another part of me that's, like, even more cynical and conspiratorial where it's, like, I think the people who are writing with, like, such a strong anti-tech vibe consistently. I mean, obviously, there are problems from tech. Obviously, there are privacy issues and all sorts of, like, other Orwellian, you know, situations that we want to avoid and whatnot. And there's inequality that comes about as well. Like, there's real issues here.

But to see it be so negative, like I read a blog post the other day. I think Eric Torenberg wrote it. It was about like the mythical tech lash. And you look at like consumer sentiment about tech and it's like out of all the industries, whether it's oil or media or education or whatever, like tech consistently ranks either the middle of the pack or near the top.

And so it's like the average person kind of likes it. But then you look in the media and it's like negative, negative, negative, negative, negative, negative. And it's like, well, like in a way, these entities are very competitive. You know, social media versus media. They all monetize the same way, advertising and attention from audiences. And it doesn't strike me as coincidental that the industry that's like the most competitive with tech is...

you know, happens to have consistent negative opinions about tech. Yeah. I mean, have you heard that quote from Upton Sinclair? He goes, it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. I think there's also a dynamic of like tech has historically been feared, but there is a difference between fear and hatred or like trying to take something down. And I do think there's a dynamic that tech, especially in the last two decades, really since the internet became sizable,

is now one of the biggest industries in the world. And I've seen this throughout my career, even like working at companies, when something goes from being the underdog to the top dog, there is just a very human response to be like, I don't like this. Yeah, yeah, like screw this. This thing that I used to root for, I no longer care for. And so I think there is definitely a dynamic there. And I, again, like that married with the fact that like,

Like imagine that you don't like something, but you also don't know why it works. You don't know what is like getting this flywheel to spin so fast and make all these people so much money. And that's why you also get these complex dynamics. Like the same people who are saying like screw Jeff Bezos are tweeting on their iPhone with prime subscriptions, right? Like who all subscribe to Netflix and like,

I understand the concerns and it like you said, Cortland, there are things to consider as these technologies get bigger, they are more impactful. Therefore, things that maybe didn't matter as much now do matter more because they're touching billions of people. But that does not mean technology is bad. And I still quite frankly stand by this idea that technology is a tool. And so even though it's more complex, if you were to apply the thinking that many people have to other tools, like traditional tools,

it wouldn't stand. And I think, yeah, maybe this is also where education comes into play. Because even if you take the truly pessimistic view that technology is bad, that still can't quite be squared with the fact that, yeah, technology progresses forward regardless. And so the same questions happening around AI right now are very complex. And there's a lot of great questions being asked. But a lot of them are being asked in the frame of like,

drawing some sort of arbitrary stop line. And I just... How do we put the G back in the bottle? Yeah, it just... Right, exactly. Like, that has never historically happened. Maybe some people are comparing elements of it to nuclear, but our best way to solve our biggest problems has always been technology. And that always creates some new problems. But those are always...

also solved with technology. And I think it's actually really inspiring, especially at A16Z, because I'm covering, you know, trends we're talking about, again, like some tiny subreddit here or like some business that someone can start, you know, that makes a couple million dollars. But at A16Z, I get to see just massive change. And like there are certain industries that like it's funny. Do you guys still live in SF or...

I'm in Seattle now and Channing is in Brooklyn. I saw this tweet, which I've noticed on the ground because I'm now in SF as well, from Ryan Peterson, who were like, all these people were complaining that autonomous vehicles, they're coming, they're coming, they're never coming. And now that they're here because they're on the ground, people don't care at all. People aren't talking about it. They're not talking about it. But that's an example of second, third order effects. If you do have autonomous vehicles on the ground, the dynamics of ride sharing change, the dynamics of city design can change.

A lot of them, or actually I think all of them are electric or hybrid. And so technology is the solution, right? It's not, as you said, putting the genie back in the bottle. And I do understand how someone can get to the conclusion that technology is bad or some forms of technology are bad. But even on that note, I think it's really concerning when people view technology as a monolith because it's just so clearly not. Yeah.

Yeah, you did an episode on shit you don't learn in schools called the AI debate. Where do you sit? And it reminds me of like one of my favorite authors, Yuval Noah Harari, who I respect immensely. He wrote the book Sapiens, which is like a very popular book among Silicon Valley types. He said the first regulation we should do for AI is to make it mandatory for AI to disclose that it is AI. He's like very freaked out about this. And he's not the only one. There's a lot of like very intelligent people who I would say are also like pro-tech to some degree who are like,

Very much in this, like, let's put the genie back in the bottle camp. What do you think about this particular issue of technology? Like, I mean, there's obviously some dangers for AI, right? It's like, I'm writing AI right now to, like, help me moderate the Indie Hackers Forum and figure out which posts are good versus which ones are bad. But, like, I could very easily spin up, like, you know, an AI that spams people and doesn't get caught. It's, like, trivially easy to do this. Yeah.

I think it's unrealistic to put it back in the bottle. A lot of the things that we think are weird 10, 20 years from now will just be commonplace. But I think it's almost guaranteed. If something is so useful that it spreads, that it goes from being weird to mainstream. Yeah. Like online dating. Early 2000s, if you're on an online dating website, you were weird. That was strange.

Now pretty much everybody's got like a Tinder or Bumble account if they're single. And it's like the most common way to meet somebody and it's crazy. Even when I was in middle school, if you were like online chatting with people, that was weird. Now like the most like famous like models have like huge Instagram accounts and spend half their time

DMing people. Even before that, if you wore a Walkman headset, that was weird and antisocial. Why would you put something on your ears in public that's super antisocial? Now that's just commonplace. Even before that, there's an article in the 1800s about bicycles being such a menace and such a strange thing to do. Exactly. There's bicycle face. People jogging. Mark talks about this. They're like, oh, these people have bicycle face. And really, it was just women who were tired, but they wanted to go back home.

Yeah, it's like actually and there's like red flag laws were like because they didn't like the cars. They actually had a horse like walk alongside them with a red flag and like, you know, that's why I do think studying history and especially technology throughout history is fascinating. AI is interesting because there is this like

As some people say extinction level event, which I don't, which I guess there are a few parallels. Like again, that's why people compare it to nuclear. But I think humans are incredibly dynamic, but also unpredictable. And the example I gave is technology has been better than humans at chess for a very long time. What was it? 1997 was the famous deep blue match. And the point is what, so we're now like over 25 years past that.

And guess what? People play more chess than ever. People watch more chess than ever. People who play chess and make money also make more money than ever. And so I don't think this is the pushback was like, oh, chess is like for entertainment or it's a game. My point is that the job market changes. New jobs appear like no one would have ever said chess streamer was a job. And I think a lot of people are like, yeah, well, I don't I don't know, because AI touches every white collar thing.

role out there but I just think the things that people will find interesting and want to pay money for are just going to be totally different and I think I think we just have to have like enough humility to be like we don't know how this is going to bake out you did another episode on A16Z on this topic called 2023 big ideas and technology and I think like the pitch for it was it was like a two-part episode and you just like

asked most of the partners at A16Z, of which there are apparently dozens. There's a lot, yeah. Spotlight, one big idea that startups in their field could basically tackle. And one of the partners, Ann Lee Skates, whose husband, Spencer Skates, I interviewed on the podcast. And also would have loved to invest in his company back when I interviewed him. It's worth way more now, amplitude. She talked about this idea of the third place. Channing, are you familiar with this? Nope. I know you are. So there's this guy back in the past. His name is Ray Oldenburg.

So he literally has old in his name. I think he died last year. He was like 90. But he was like an urban sociologist and he wrote a lot about the importance of any society, like a well-functioning society, to have like a third place that you go to to gather. So the first place he recognized, and this is like in the 80s, so he was like spot on because it's even more extreme today. He's like, we're spending an increasing amount of time just isolated at home.

And just like locked away in their own like little cubes, whereas everybody else, you know, is in their own cube in their own apartment, their own home, we're all separate. Second place is work, right? You go wake up at eight, drive to the office, come back. That's our number two place.

Which like today is like less important because of remote work. So now like the first place is even more. And the third place is like these social gathering places like coffee shops and cafes and beer gardens and just places where people can just like sit and talk. And everybody has kind of the same status. Nobody's on a podium lecturing everybody else. It's just a collection of peers no matter who you are or where you come from.

And he talked about the importance of the third place. And so I think Ann Lee Skate's point on your podcast and what she wrote about was like, what role does technology have here? Like, are there digital gathering places where we can sort of reclaim and like get this third place back? Which makes me think of, I don't know if you were on Clubhouse when it was big in 2020, but it makes me think of Clubhouse.

house where it was like the pandemic hit everybody was stuck inside and i would just join a clubhouse room and it would be like walking to a coffee shop that was super social everybody's talking about something you can listen the audience you could pop on it was like really fun and then the second the pandemic was over clubhouse's numbers just like plummeted just like and it turned out like nobody wants to sit inside on their ipad talking to people they want to go out in the real world and talk to people instead so steph i wondered what you thought about that

That episode, if any ideas stuck out to you or your thoughts about that particular idea, because that's the one that resonated with me is me. It's almost like the way I'm the most anti-tech was like, no, I don't think we want technology to solve this problem. I think we want more brick and mortar places. Like the answer is to create more third places rather than to replace them with more alone time. Yeah, I have so many thoughts here because when you're nomadic, you see...

a totally different world because you're in other countries, but there's also this totally different social dynamic, right? Because you're not going to an office every day, but you're around a bunch of other people who have a similar interest of often working online. And so in that case, it was like my first exposure to the idea that actually like where you meet your closest friends doesn't have to be at work,

But there still has to be a common thread of interest. And so that's why if you just randomly, I don't know, bring a bunch of people together in a cafe, you probably won't really meet people of interest. But what we would do is the coworking spaces would run events, or we would do these-- we called it hack-a-goo, these little 10 to 20 of us who built online projects, indie hackers.

would go and we'd do this like hackathon. It was called Hack-a-Goo 'cause it was hackathon in Canggu. And those were some of my closest friends and still to this day, a lot of us, like we have this ongoing chat now that we're all distributed. But that was an example of where, to your point, like,

I do think there needs to be somewhat of it to be grounded in physical space. But technology is an enabler. And one of the areas that I still can't believe there's not better technology solutions is like when you go to a meetup or even a conference and they bring people together and then they awkwardly they're like, OK, go into groups of six or like go talk to people at your table. And I'm like, yeah.

Yeah. The easiest thing ever would be an app where you just ask people to like answer like three or four multiple choice questions. You know, like what are you looking to solve in your business? That's a really boring one, but they could be way more dynamic. Yeah.

But then they can also, based on your responses, like prompt you with questions and they don't have to be business related. It could just be like, oh, I know based on your profile that like a third of you live in the Midwest or I don't know, like or that you like eight people really like pickles. Like what's up with that? And so I think technology has a place in this idea of like bringing people together. But I do think.

vetted and it doesn't need to be like application based but just like vetted places where there's a common thread because think about the third places of the past like you met people at church and you bonded with them because you had the shared religion you met people and bonded with people at work because you had a shared interest in like a specific industry or skill and

And then now it's like the question mark, right? It's like, what do you bond with people over? Yeah. I don't want to shill this guy's product. I already gave a Naval quote earlier, but he just released some new app called AirChat. And it's some kind of like a new social media thing. I really haven't looked at it hardly at all. But I saw on Twitter, he like did his release tweets about it. And

And selling, like, you know, sort of making those tweets. He made a couple of points that I'm like, I don't know anything about your product, but you're making a lot of good points here about social media. And he goes, social media isn't social. It's performative. He's like, you know, where's the chitchat? Where's the banter, the easy laughter? And...

instantly a light bulb came out of my head that like if you think about all of the social media that we have now we've been talking about technology and how it enables and how it amplifies all these things that we care about like Instagram you're like so many people are sad because even the ones that are have big followings because it's all a big performance it's all like trying to get upvote trying to get seen trying to get people to approve of you Twitter is the same thing who's the smartest person in the room um I don't even know what's going on with Facebook I quit that thing like you know 10 years ago but um

Yeah. Like that, like if anything, I'm like, I'm really fat. I'm really interested in like, what would a product look like? I mean, say if you, even if you get rid of like the real life component,

What just what an online social media platform that really did feel social felt like you're hanging out with your buds, right? Where you feel like, you know, you're relaxing, but you're also you have shared interests. What would that look like? I thought Clubhouse felt like that. I felt like it was really easy. You didn't have to be like all dressed up and look good like you're on a Zoom call. You could just pick up on it. The audio was really crisp and clear and fast. It felt like.

Like I would almost never call any of my friends today without like giving them a heads up. Like Steph, if I wanted to call you, I'd be like, hey, do you want to have a call Thursday at 6? You know, but like on Clubhouse, it was like you just like click someone's name and it didn't feel intrusive to call somebody on Clubhouse. It just felt like you pinged them. If they want to join, they join. And so it kind of like brought back this magic of calling, which has like been lost, like calling without scheduling. And it was just like really nice.

Why do you think it's fallen off, though? I'm genuinely curious. I genuinely think that it filled a hole. It filled a gap that people needed. Like the same way like when you're like you'll eat more food when you're hungry, like you go to bed when you're sleepy, like people wanted to socialize on online when they didn't have these third gathering places in the world because of the pandemic.

And it was really cool. And then, like, the pandemic ended and it just, like, okay, well, like, I don't need this anymore, right? I can go outside and, like, meet up with my friends without wearing a mask and just talk. And, like, once you have that, like, the allure of Clubhouse just wasn't as great because it was kind of solving the same problem. But, like, and I think in a way that technology just isn't quite there yet. There isn't anything I would rather talk to somebody on compared to talking to somebody in person. Yeah. And I don't know if there ever will be, but we're definitely not there yet.

Like I have a weekly kind of standing like we call it pretzel night with my friends in Seattle. We just go to a place that serves like awesome, warm, soft pretzels and like mustard and cheese and just eat pretzels and talk about nothing. Literally talk about nothing. And my friends and I barely have anything in common either. So it's like maybe belies this point of like, oh, you need to have something like strong in common. Like the main point is just the conversation and the fact that we like each other as people.

Because I think sometimes you have things in common. Those things can change, right? Like, oh, I'm not into startups anymore. And what, you don't talk to your friends anymore, if that's all you talk about? Or I also found the same thing that you found, Steph, when you were digital nomading. A lot of my professional friends, we just don't live in the same area anymore. We go where our jobs take us to some degree.

And we're just very mobile as a class of people. And so it's hard to have those in-person connections. And so I think people always crave those in-person connections, even if you're talking a lot online. It's easy to feel lonely. And I don't think anything is going to replace that unless it's really, really good at getting all the benefits of in-person conversation. Well, one question, though, for you, Cortland, in Pretzel Night. How big are you trying to grow Pretzel Night? Have you been trying to expand Pretzel Night? 15 million users. We want an invite. Yeah. Well.

Well, but it's like three is three core people at pretzel night. And then like at any given pretzel night, there might be six or seven because random people stop by. They hear about friends on the coffee shop. Yeah. They hear about pretzel night, the coffee shop. We do it and like took photos of us and put it on the wall. Like we have friends in the local town in North Bend, Washington, who just like happened to pop in. Well, maybe that's our pretzel night. His name is Richard. He's like 75. I have nothing in common with Richard, but I eat a pretzel with him.

Well, it was Richard just like hanging out at the place and you're just like, yeah, you just stumbled over and no one pulled up a chair to be rude. Yeah. Well, I was gonna say, I mean, this is a kind of in a serious note. One of the things that clubhouse did is maybe it had that element, right? It had like the good audio, like the good vibes, like you feel like you, you know, there's not all that much formality getting in the way of saying stuff.

But the form factor of it was still kind of like, you know, hey, you're a creator, grow your room, grow your brand. And everyone wanted to like build like every room that I joined, it felt like they're trying to expand. Those are the rooms that you were joining. Yeah. And like, I think those are the ambitious ones. Some of them were like, and like, statistically, those are the ones you're going to hear about, right? The ones that have ambitious growth goals will therefore reach the most people. Therefore, you will be more likely to see them. Yeah.

But there are a lot of rooms on random topics that have nothing to do with tech. And a lot of rooms that were just friends talking and you just didn't join those because you're just like, meh, you know, I occasionally popped into them and I was like, this isn't for me. And I left, but they're a ton. I think it's possible for something like that to exist. But to answer your question, Steph, I just don't think it filled the need.

As well as real life meets dick. And there's a gap. It reminds me of, you know, in most industries, like clothing is the maybe most obvious version of this. Things just really bifurcate, right? It's like the messy middle where people lose, right? It's like the luxury brands do really well. And then the super cheap Walmart clothes also do really well. And...

I think there's probably an element of this on social too, where it's like, if you want something where it's truly, you feel vulnerable and it feels real and you feel like there's a shared humanity and you're laughing and it doesn't matter if he's 75 and you're, you know, half his age or like even less, you can bond because you're just like eating pretzels, right? Like that's awesome. That's it. But then there's a version that I think is also equally human, which is to chase like

something highly curated. I think one of the things that people argue about technology is this idea that like

Maybe that it surfaces like the worst parts of humans. Like again, this idea that, you know, like Instagram is so highly curated and it is like, honestly, these days, if you watch a video skit on Instagram, like a real chances are it's fake, even if it's, if it looks real. Right. And so it may not be AI generated, but like, this is where, you know, this whole idea of like,

what real or what authentic even means is very dynamic these days. But point is, actually, I think maybe I heard someone say like technology is more like a mirror versus a tool.

But it's like reflecting what we want. And the apps that get the most users are serving them in some way that they're coming back for. Like a fun house mirror. Yeah. The idea is that we might not like what the mirror shows us, but like people come back to this like highly curated content. So again, maybe it's like a bifurcation where it's the things that also succeed like are on one end or the other. I think there's a partner, I think at A16Z who wrote about how like you want...

starting a social company you want it to reflect one of the seven deadly sins yeah it's gotta be like appeal to like greed or gluttony or pride or lust or something for people to to hook on to and so it's like not only are we reflecting things that might be the worst in us but like we're consciously aware of this as a species and using it as part of our business strategy weaponizing to create some of the hit apps um anyway stuff we've kept you

more than long enough, you've been so gracious as a guest. I love going through your story, the different things you've learned, and then just chatting about tech with you. So thanks a ton for coming on. I've got one more question that I always sort of end with, which is you've had this huge career where you've gone from indie hacker to writer to leader to podcaster, and like who knows what the future holds. What do you think indie hackers can learn? What's something you think they should take away? It doesn't have to be like the most important lesson, but just something that's like, you know, particular to you and your perspectives. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that there's just so much advice these days about like, you know, write Twitter threads these ways or like this is how you even this like we're talking about how you might grow a podcast or like I just see so many people on Twitter, especially because that's where I hang out, just like chasing this idea of building an audience.

And sometimes it works. But even sometimes the people who I see who follow that advice where it like quote unquote works, I just, I don't know, maybe they're happy, but I'm just like, are you happy writing these like templated threads all day? And like, also do any of your followers like actually, you know, could, could you fill a stadium of people the way like the My First Million guys can, you know, could you even sell any sort of product?

Not that that's the goal, but the point is I feel like because it has now become such a popular and also clearly potentially lucrative idea to build an audience, there's just like so much of this like chasing. But the people who I know are who have been successful and even my story early on was just like,

I had something to say and I did that because I lived an interesting life. I was nomadic at the time. I had met people like Peter Lovells in Bali and saw that they were building these products. So I taught myself how to code. Especially in the age of, by the way, AI generated content, what's going to stand out is story. And I think there's an element that people really underestimate around story. And I think Taylor Swift's actually a great example of this. She's selling out the most

lucrative tour i think ever currently and people listen to her music yeah because her music's good but also because they've grown up with her but also because she writes about her life so every song there's all this like fan fiction or is it about this person it's about this person it's like what does she mean by this lyric and that's just an example of where again like because it's gonna be easier than ever to create content like you said it's not it's not like a

a revelation, but I would just encourage people to be like, what am I really excited about? Like, what do I actually have an interesting take on? Like what skill have I always wanted to learn? And like, could I bring people into that fold? Um, because I just think, you know, maybe one of the biggest themes that we've talked about today is just like this humanity. I just, I don't mean it in some sort of special way, but just this idea that like humans want to connect with other humans. Um, and I think a lot of potential creators really miss that.

I love that. Be yourself. Be authentic. That's something we talked about a lot today. Yeah. And don't become yet another Twitter thread boy just because some Twitter thread told you to. Thanks for being part of this show for round two. Hopefully, we'll get you on round three sometime later this year, next year. Anytime. Can you let listeners know where they can go to learn more about what you're up to? You got multiple podcasts. I think you're still doing your blog. Where can they find more stuff? Yeah. So, A16Z Podcast, we've got some cool stuff. Hopefully, entertaining stuff. We have an episode...

where I'm in a self-driving car. So that'll be fun. And then my other podcast is the shit you don't learn in school that when I record with my husband. So hopefully it's more banter than the A16Z pod. And then, yeah, my website, StephSmith.io and I'm on Twitter at StephSmithIO. All right. Thanks again, Steph.