Can We Still Be Optimistic About The Internet? — With Meetup Founder Scott Heiferman

Scott Heiferman is the founder of Meetup, a website that connects people online and gets them to meet each other offline. Heiferman joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the internet can still bring people together vs. tear them apart, the latter of which it's done plenty of recently. This wide-ranging conversation gets into people's declining faith in institutions, our friendships and loneliness, Facebook's role in all this, virtual reality's potential, and the new company Heiferman is building today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Joining us today is one of my favorite voices and entrepreneurs in the tech world. He's the founder of Meetup, a site that helps people meet online and then get together offline. Now he's working on something new. Scott Heiferman, welcome to the show. Thank you, Alex. Good to be here. It's great to have you. I always love our conversations. I think the listeners are really in for a treat and I'm thrilled that you agreed to come on. So thanks for being here. Of course. So I already sent you this question in advance, so you have like maybe a little bit of a... Heads up on what's coming, but I think it's important to get in nonetheless.

• 1:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you founded Meetup. I think Meetup in its essence is an extremely optimistic site. The idea that you try to get people, you know, who meet online around like interests and bring them together offline. The idea is that's probably a good thing.

• 2:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I think that like when, when I first learned about Meetup in the early 2000s, you know, it was very exciting and had all the energy of like what the web could do to bring people together. And that was like one set of beliefs of where the internet would go. There was this hope of vision that it would be good and optimistic and actually cause people to understand each other more. Now, now, you know, recently it seems like the internet's gone in a different direction, at least according to many, where it seems to be ripping people apart instead of bringing them together. And so I just thought it would be good to, you know, start with that and ask you what, what happened.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Well, damn, you didn't, you didn't, you didn't prep me that that was gonna be the question, what happened? I, I, I think there's, you can read books on that.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm not a, I'm not some, some grand pundit on like the historical context of how, of, you know, like sort of deconstructing big tech and in, in broadways. You know, I, I think, you know, real, real people do real things. And there are so many voices better than mine that can sort of deconstruct, you know, what happened. But generally speaking, I think, you know, there's Pierre Omidyar, who was on Meetup's board early on, he was the, you know, founder of eBay. I mean, he, he put it early on that, you know, anything that has the ability to do good

• 3:45Speaker 01

  also has the ability to do, to bad when, when you're bringing people together. And, you know, there might have been a naivete around that, but, and I'm not gonna be this sort of blind optimist, but, you know, you know, humans have gone through a lot of stuff through a lot of millennia and we'll, we'll see what happens.

• 4:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I, I don't think, by the way, I don't think it is naive to know to think that people can come together for. For good. I just wonder like it's a lot of it is about the structures that we set into place to sort of have them engage online. I would love to go through. It's one of my favorite stories to hear a little bit about like the founding of Meetup and the early years. Maybe we just start with that as we sort of dig a little bit deeper here. So I think if I recall correctly that you had the inspiration to start it after seeing people get together in New York after nine eleven.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and, you know, that which was which was twenty years ago and in a couple of months we're hitting that anniversary. And having, you know, having stuck through the pandemic here, you know, with little kids, you know, and school and being in the city straight through. Here we are. It's, you know, it's July twenty twenty one here.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Whatever, how many, you know, sixteen months into COVID.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, the start of Meetup. You know, there's some, you know, there are there are parallels here. But yeah, you know, nine eleven happened. I I was I grew up in Illinois, went to school in Iowa, came to New York, was in New York for a bunch of years and didn't really know my neighbors in an apartment building. And

• 5:30Speaker 01

  yeah, the the story of Meetup is being, you know, in that apartment building, being on the roof ju- just as,

• 5:38Speaker 01

  you know, nine eleven was unfolding and connecting with my neighbors in a way that I had never before and people saying hello to each other and looking after each other in the days and, you know, weeks after that that moment and led me to reading the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, which I hadn't been aware of and, you know.

• 5:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Which is all about the decline in civil society in the US. People, instead of going to bowling leagues, are now watching television, essentially was his argument.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And a kind of rising distrust of distrust of their their neighbor and and real disconnection and disengagement from other people,

• 6:20Speaker 01

  you know, locally and increasingly offline in general. And so, yeah, I mean, I just sort of took it as a challenge to how how can you use the internet to get people off the internet? And, you know, just kind of had had the had the the crazy idea, which, I mean, I don't. Think we want to make this conversation a like retrospective on that, but it's it's fascinating. Um, you know, how, you know, how unlikely Meetup was to succeed, you know, now that I'm doing something new. Um, it's, you know, I was, I was twenty nine then, I'm forty nine now.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  And, you know, the naivete, there's that word again, but also kind of like the willingness to um jump into something that's highly unlikely and maybe not know how unlikely it is to succeed is a, you know, a reflection maybe of a of a twenty nine year old. Um, and the questions of, you know, what is possible? When you throw into the mix today's, you know, boy, to to think that twenty years ago, to think that people were were were not getting along, um, you know, within the country or that there was, uh, you know,

• 7:38Speaker 01

  uh, division and, you know, sort of strife between Americans and how would you bring together people who might have different beliefs? And put other things aside and have this sense of shared, you know, community, boy, you know, I mean, it's a whole different level now.

• 7:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And so, I mean, and we won't spend the whole time going over what happened with Meetup, but it is pretty amazing. You put this side up and basically just allows people to enter what they're interested in, connects them with people who are around them and encourages them to get together. Uh, meet up around it. And it was a a pretty wild that there were all manner of different types of meetups that that have emerged and continue to emerge. You know, mom groups and pet groups and, I mean, you you know the list better than me, but um.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing. You know, a hundred million, a hundred million people signed up and, you know, uh, tens of thousands of gatherings happen every week, uh, even, uh, you know, um, and now, you know, I'm not involved in the company at all in any way, but, uh, you're seeing that, you're seeing that that post, um, post COVID rise, uh, of a hunger for that in real life community. I actually went to, um, uh, with my seven year old son, I went to a meetup yesterday.

• 8:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Really?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Uh, in New Jersey for, uh, you know, we got, we got a cheap little, you know, two hundred, two hundred dollar drone. And so we went to the New Jersey Drone Flyers meetup and it was, it was like. Um, I'm not gonna wax too much here, but like, man, it's like you have, you have, you have a whole slew of people from all walks of life, young and old and black and white. And they're, and they're just like, you know, they just come together at a farm in, in, in New Jersey and, and, you know, kind of, it's a skill share. It's a, it's, it's a, they're, they're, they're teaching each other and they're, they're, it's so warm. And I was like, man, this like this, you know, like this happens in the United States.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  People of different, you know, it doesn't matter who they voted for, they were just kinda, um, having this, this really, you know, and just kinda this warm experience. Um, I'm thinking, man, the people who created this platform should get an award or something.

• 9:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, it's just pretty cool. It's pretty cool when that stuff happens. Yeah. You know, maybe I started with the big question a little too early, but maybe this is a good setup. So I'm curious, like what you think, what do you think is happening? That there is this desire among people of all different races and ages and political orientations to come together around life, like interests in real life. And, you know, coinciding with that, there is this other trend where people are starting to see each other as just an other. And, you know, villainize people who don't have the same beliefs as them. How do those two things exist in tandem?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  I mean, there are the, you know, there's a glimmer of hope that, you know, the, the premise of meetup of, you know, that, that people might have things, um, that, you know, separate them, but they have a bunch of things in common. And if you can focus on the thing they have in common, whether, you know, in this case, it was fly, a drone flying. Um, it really, it really transcends, you know, the, the other stuff. Now, you know, I've, you know, we've all been through too much to just be kind of Pollyanna and, and simplistic about it. I, um, I, I don't have the answers for, um, you know, I, I don't think that like, I don't think meetup's gonna save the country.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  But there really is something, the fact that even it's happening today at, with, at the height of this division is, um, is really something to, to, to learn from. I, I don't, and I, and I'm not, I, you know, I don't have the, you know, I used to have a lot more clear vision of the path from, um, from where we are to something, to a. A more clearly bright future and and it's a little it's bumpy right now. I don't know.

• 11:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  What happened to that clear vision?

• 11:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Or to change it?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I I remember, I mean, I would make it my business just as as part of my job as CEO for sixteen years. Like really go to meetups and be tuned into things and I I mean, I I would tell people that it was the the greatest travel hack in the world is to basically wherever whatever city you're in, you go, you know, you go to meetup. You find one of the hiking meetups happening that day because they're happening that day around every city. And, you know, or all the other meetups, but hiking was just something that, you know, you could you could spend a few hours. And you're basically stuck with a dozen or twenty strangers, locals. And you're you're trapped with them and you're and and you talk with them and.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  And, you know, I remember, you know, I were doing, I I went, you know, to Pennsylvania to a meetup, uh, the days before the twenty sixteen election and, you know, you could tell that, you know, despite my story about yesterday, I mean, there's just this like,

• 12:38Speaker 01

  there's this, you know, beneath the surface fear that like if this if this roams into political land.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Or if you see that one person's driving this car and this person's driving a pickup truck or, you know, it's just it's very, uh, what happened was is that, uh, I mean, I I can't, I can't tell you what happened, the the the whole. Country got more sensitive and and, um, you know, and for, you know, for for reasons we all we all see.

• 13:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Have your, so when we started talking, one of the things that was exciting to point out was that how meetup really took off uh, on the Howard Dean campaign. It was in two thousand and four, something like that, where the organizers of that campaign were very digital oriented and they use meetup to uh, spark a lot of organizing. And, you know, it's interesting, like, when I also like re, I mean, I I obviously like think Facebook went in a totally different direction. But there was a lot of early political organizing on Facebook, like David Kirkpatrick's book talks about how people in Columbia were organizing against the government. I'm kind of curious if you ever anticipated that technology would be used in sort of this,

• 13:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  you know, tear apart political context and whether your views, and this is a bigger question, but I'm just gonna throw it out there and see what you think. Like, have your views on on human nature changed at all over the years?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Uh, we all, we all grow up.

• 14:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Uh huh.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Uh, we all, you know, you, you, you go through things in your life, your eyes are open. I think you'd be, um, you know, sometimes I'm, I'm curious when I listen to Mark Zuckerberg, you know, whether the, you know, what is a, some kind of a head in the sand? What is a, you know, needing up, needing to keep up politic, you know, a corporate, you know, messaging. Um, but I also, I also love the actual, you know, the actual vision and optimism there, uh, which I, which I believe is,

• 14:41Speaker 01

  um, I, I had must be mostly heartfelt.

• 14:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Your question was, did my, uh, view of human nature change? No, you know, like I, the, the same, I feel more, um, I believe more than ever in the power of people together to find meaning, find power, find connection, find, uh, you know, uh, purpose and just a, a, you know, a basic, I, I, I think that, um, yeah, people need each other more than ever now.

• 15:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So what do you, what do you think is happening? I mean, you, you initially, you read the Putnam book, um, about the decline in institutions. Now it's like institutions are continue to decline across the board. Uh, I just went through your Twitter feed. You had tweets about the decline in religious participation among Gen Z and then one about how, um, well, this isn't going to be news to folks, but, um, people are lonelier than ever. And you were, you know, tweeted a little bit about this study about decline in friendships, uh, particularly among men where friendships are uh, much less common and people are feeling lonelier than ever. So do you have any thoughts about, you know, what might be behind that and how that could be reversed or addressed? Or is it sort of, um, kind of hopeless at this point?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know where to start. There's so much to get into there. I mean, I, you know, I'm fascinated by the role that religion played, plays and played in people's lives to not, you know, having nothing to do with, um, you know, God or spirituality, but the, but the, um, the way in which it was almost, you know, for some, you could say an excuse for, for, for togetherness and, uh, and, and community building and people. And by the way, I, I'm trying not to use words like, I don't even try not to use even the word community anymore because it's so meaningless. Um, the, the, you know, we're, we're talking about-

• 16:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Why, why do you think it's meaningless?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Well, I tend to be hyperbolic, so I should, so don't quote me on this shit, but, um, no, because it is-

• 16:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  We are recording, so, anyway.

• 16:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, we're rolling with it.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  You, you listeners, don't quote me. No, it's, uh, it's just, it's a word that means, uh, that's just, you know, I'm, I'm one of the people responsible for the, you know, kind of broadening use of, of that word. I thought I was using it in a, in a very, uh, simple and pure form, which is, community is what happens when people, you know, come to, come to lean on each other. Um, and, um, you know, and, uh, now you could say, well, I mean, Mark Zuckerberg will refer to, you know, the Facebook community as if like-

• 17:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  -three billion people is a, is a community. Um, I want to stay on point. What was your question again?

• 17:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  We're talking about the decline in friendships in religion and sort of why that might be happening, whether it's reversible.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. And so I'm, I'm actually really optimistic because, uh, yeah, at least on that, that level, that on the sort of, um, you know, I don't know how you heal, uh, the, the, the widening division between, uh, you know, uh, a MAGA hat wearer and-

• 17:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  -perhaps someone else. And that's, and, or the, you know, uh, you know, some of the anti-vax world and these things. I don't know about that. What I do know though, is that the opportunity to, um, have people be in situations where-

• 18:15Speaker 01

  And but this needs, this needs serious turning around because the the uh the idea that people don't have uh people they can confide in or turn to, they might have a faux sense of that on Instagram. They might have a faux sense of togetherness, a faux sense of a a feeling that like, well, uh, you know, I have my people on, you know, in a Facebook group or or or Instagram or what have you. Uh, but when, you know, but can they uh who can they really turn to people? Um, that are gonna be supportive and caring. You know, the base, this is just like basic human stuff and and all the numbers look bad on that.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Right now, uh, the reason why I'm optimistic is because I believe that there's, you know, as soon as I I over the past few years said like, you know what, I I'm just gonna like turn off social media more. And even lose the idea, and I realize, you know, a lot, most people don't, a lot of people don't have this, but like, you, you know, you can also live a life if like, you'd say, well, yeah, I got friends in this city and friends in this city and friends in this city. And that's, that's, I realize there's a certain class of people who say stuff like that. But um, I basically like, you know, like, uh, more than less like broke up with my non-local friends.

• 19:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Really?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  And um, and I'm sorry, Alex, I I I

• 19:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  That explains it.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  You're coming back to New York. But um, but uh, you know, realizing, you know, again, as you get older, you know, you realize like, wow, there's 24 hours in a day and and you, yeah, you you might have, you you got a few decades left and and that's it. And so I um, you know, I've I've set up the rituals of like, okay, these are these friends I'm I'm like having uh breakfast with once a month and these guys I'm having lunch with every Thursday most of the time and

• 20:16Speaker 01

  This person, um, you know, I'm gonna see most days because we're in the neighborhood and let's, let's actually make the effort to get, to take a walk or get coffee. I mean, these are, you know, I, I remember, uh, Alain de Boutin, the writer, he, uh, talked about this story where he saw Eric Schmidt gave us, give a speech and he's talking about the, you know, the moon shots of, you know, of Google and, and then he asked him like, what about, you know, what about pointing those, all that energy, like Google, uh, you know, energy to invent and point it towards, um, figuring out how people can forgive each other more. And Eric Schmidt just like laughed it off and said like, laughed it off and said,

• 20:59Speaker 01

  no, no, no, no, we can, we can colonize the moon easier than we can do that. And, um, and I, that's a real, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's kind of funny story, but it's actually a really, it's, um, I think that's everything right there. Like the, um, you know, the opportunity to, uh, you know, really think about some of the just basic human needs and how to, to re-ritualize or, you know, there's just, there's a lot of people doing a lot, a lot of interesting work around that.

• 21:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. I, I think what you talk about, um, breaking up with friends from out of town and, and focusing in on deeper connection is, is super important. I think that's also something that I've realized as I've gotten older. It's, it's all about, uh, quality of, of friendships and not quantity of them. And that deeper connection makes all the difference. And I think it's interesting because like, um, us Facebook generation, right? Like taught to collect friends, like, oh, how many, what's your number of friends is it going to be on your profile? But it really, that number, you know, doesn't make any difference in terms of your quality of life. You could have five and if those connections are deep, that's what matters. Like there's, um, speaking of, I'll just say one more thing, speaking of like the loneliness stuff, right? Like, uh, while I was doing research about

• 22:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  this for always day one, we were thinking about the downside of technology and where Facebook was going in particular. And one of the measures of loneliness is when people say that like they're surrounded by people, but they're not with them. And I think that's like such a thing that happens right now, especially, you know, people are on their phones when they're with friends and they don't really, they're never really present.

• 22:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  There's just this crisis of connection that's taking place.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and I mean, I'm, you know, and I don't want to fall into the trap of the old guy who's saying, you know, phones bad.

• 22:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, they can't, by the way, I think that's the purpose of this conversation, like, well, one of them, right? We, it's not that phones are necessarily bad or good, it's that they, there's a certain level of, you can put stuff on the phones that can, that can either solve these problems or make them worse. And the question is what to build.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah, and that's always the, you know, the, I think anyone who's watching or listening here, you know, I think we all have this, this opportunity to ask ourselves, you know, all right, you get, you know, you get a few decades of work, what do you want to work on? And, you know, the good news is that there's, there's opportunity to do, you know, to put food on the table doing work that, that can be net positive. And, and, and there's really just so many challenges out there, you know, whether, whether that's climate change or, or, you know, poverty or anything, I mean, yeah, there's just like, there's important work to do.

• 23:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, so we've danced around it, but do you think this decline in, in institutions like religion and friendship is a product of the rise of, I mean, I know it was already happening when television came out, but do you think it's a product of the rise of the internet? But it seems like as internet usage has gone up, these institutions have gone down.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  You know, I want to be clear that I, you know, the net positive of,

• 24:12Speaker 01

  of Facebook groups is huge, is way more positive than negative and there's, and you know, I mean, gosh, the power of the way our messaging, group messaging works and it's all, you know, there's so much to beat up on and I'm happy to beat up on, you know.

• 24:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, I'm not even saying Facebook necessarily, yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  You're, you're saying, you're saying.

• 24:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Internet usage, because I do.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Internet usage, technology in general, sure, I think.

• 24:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't have the answer to this either, so, but I'm kind of curious what you think, yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  No, I, I absolutely don't have the answer, I'm not, I'm not like going to pretend like I'm some sage on a mountain who's figured it all out. What I know, what I know is that the. I'm scared as hell of my kids.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna give like the standard screen addiction speech, every, any, anyone can give that. What I'm, what I realized recently was that um.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  My um.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  You know, a job as a parent of young kids is to um sell them on the wonders of the, of the physical world. Because the competition is rising.

• 25:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Like, the, the, you know, if, if you think that all the content and, and if you think, if you think YouTube and, and everything is not like, you know, addictive right now, I mean, it's just, you know, and the amount of incredibly wonderful content. You know, the streaming services, the podcasts, the, the um, uh, you know, TikTok, everything, it's just, it becomes so, so good, so awesome. And then you, you know, take that to like the metaverse level that, you know, and, and VR and all that. And um, you have to like, real life is in for some serious competition. And so, Dan, my, which is, which is my, I'm saying that as an answer to your question because

• 26:07Speaker 01

  the um, the draw is. Uh, you know, it's like this question of presence. Um. There's no, there, you know, nothing will trump the, nothing is better than the, than that, than that sort of in real life.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Driven bond of friend, of friendship and connection, I, I believe. And um. And you can get close to it. And in some ways you can like, surpass it on some levels that aren't, on some measures that aren't as important. But um, the answer to the question is, I, I think that, uh, I think that we're at risk of the net, the net um, being negative on technology and the internet. But, you know.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  But but it but not yet.

• 26:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I agree. And I think that again, to just go back to like, why we want to have these conversations is because it's so easy to go through life and not think about, you know, what the effect is going to be and what the impact is going to be and how to actually optimize these tools for good instead of, you know, just scrolling through a TikTok feed and being stuck on your bed for two hours, not able to move, which has happened to me, which is why I had to delete it.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  It happens to me regularly.

• 27:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  And and, you know, who's gonna, who's gonna do something about it?

• 27:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  And I don't think the answer, you know, is a multi-pronged answer, but one of the answers is, I think there's an enormous opportunity to work on things on, you know, social software, on, you know, all kinds of things that can have a counter, a counter effect. You're not going to, you know, you're not going to make TikTok's not going to become illegal, and it's only going to get more appealing.

• 27:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Totally. Okay, so we've talked about Facebook groups, Facebook messaging. We've talked about TikTok. After the break, I want to speak with you about the blending of the online and the offline, speaking specifically about augmented and virtual reality, which you have some thoughts on. So why don't we take a quick pause here on Big Technology Podcast? We'll be back right after this.

• 28:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on the Big Technology Podcast with Scott Heiferman, founder of Meetup, founder of A New Thing, which we'll get to at a certain point in this conversation. But let's start this segment with a conversation of augmented and virtual reality. So Scott, you know, you, it's interesting, first of all, it was interesting to see, hear you today and see some of your tweets saying that you're optimistic about what Mark Zuckerberg is building. Honestly, I think that's oftentimes you tweet that and, you know, there are a thousand people that are yelling at you so brave of you to say that. I think with you that there's a lot of good things that Facebook does as well. And we've talked about the negative on this show, you know, a thousand times. So but putting that aside, you talked about VR,

• 29:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  and this was a little bit of a different tune. So you wrote, "Mark Zuckerberg, today, you can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet where instead of just viewing content, you are it." And then you wrote. This is not good, all caps. Your body matters. You are not media. So do you want to elaborate on that and talk a little bit about what you see as the dangers of people finding themselves in VR? And imagining that's reality?

• 29:29Speaker 01

  You know, again, there are some, there are some bigger, uh, more articulate thinkers on this than me, but I, but having, having lived in the, the chair of like the, you know, meetup CEO for 16 years, I can, um, you know, and, and seeing a, a kind of indescribable thing that happens when, uh, people, um, you know, people connect in, in real life and, you know, what happens there, I think that, um, there's a real threat. There's a real, real threat. I mean, the, uh, the, um, the train is not stopping toward, you know, towards a, um,

• 30:09Speaker 01

  uh, towards a, uh, towards us living in, um, in increasingly digital virtual worlds. And, you know, it's, it's kind of like, it's wonderfully astonishing to me that, uh, you know, Mark Zuckerberg is not shy about that. It's not, I mean, it's like, it's almost as if like this, this like, you know, what I, what I see is like a, you know, secret devious strategy of basically having people live, you know, more and more. You know, now we're, we're, think of how many hours you spend a day, attached to your screen, you know, your phone, your computer and Zoom and Instagram and here and here and here and here and FaceTime, you know, like,

• 30:50Speaker 01

  that's not going to go down. That's going to go up and it's going to be, and it's going to encompass our, our, you know, our whole reality and, um, and I'm not denying the, you know, the virtue and the value of, of, and all the good that comes of that. Um, you know, it's, uh, but the like, um, what is the, what is the, the,

• 31:16Speaker 01

  You know, meet space in real life will increasingly lose out. Uh, it'll be less appealing, it'll be less fun. Watch a five-year-old, or a four-year-old, or an eight-year-old, or a ten-year-old in a, you know, wonderful virtual world, and you'll say, why would they bother going back to the, to, uh, physical space? And, um, and losing that, you know, ability to have eye contact, or losing that ability to, you know, appreciate the imperfections and, um, you know, uh, you know, the imperfections of the real world and real people in real life. Uh, I don't know, Alice, what am I trying to say here?

• 32:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  What about, what are you trying to say?

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've, sometimes I feel like I get lost in a, in a, um, you know, it's obvious.

• 32:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  But I'm, but I'm like cognizant of the fact that it's completely not obvious. I've got, I've had debates with like, uh, people who are building bots.

• 32:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Um.

• 32:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, really, like, I remember I, I had a dinner with a Stanford AI researcher who, I, you know, he's like, yeah, we're building, uh, we're building a, we're building virtual friends. You can really be friend, a friend with a, with a, with a virtual, who will ultimately be, you know, C3PO, or what, and, and, and he was like, this is amazing.

• 32:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  And I'm like, well, wait a minute, if, if people don't have, you know, uh, what, what I, um, um, is it healthy for some, for people to, um, really kind of lose touch with what's, what's real and what's not? Because basically, a computer can't love you. A computer can't care for you. A computer can say, the way some like bots do today, they're, they can say, I care, uh, I care about you. Or I care, or I care what you're saying. But they can't.

• 33:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  And the ultimate like kind of meaning of life is is to be cared about and to be loved. And for someone to care about you being well, someone to care about you not being, I mean, that's basically, that's that's like the whole deal. And and so if is so, so are we are we headed toward a world where

• 33:40Speaker 01

  no one really cares about you? Because because computers have been programmed to. And I know you can say, no, no, no, the you know, the VR is about is about connecting real people

• 33:52Speaker 01

  almost presence like through through technology. It's still two people. Or, you know, a group of people and they care about each other and they love each other. But it's a it's I'm not, you know, I'm not talking about like the need to hug a tree.

• 34:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  I'm talking about the way in which

• 34:15Speaker 01

  hugging a person is kind of necessary. And as we kind of step further and further, more and more, kind of like, you know, well, we could just virtualize it. It's it's fine. That's a problem.

• 34:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's an issue. But okay, let me ask you this then. You said that's a part of the meaning of life is having people care about you, caring about others. Can you do that through VR goggles?

• 34:41Speaker 01

  I think I think it can be additive. I do. I feel my problem is is that and I really don't want to make this about. You know, I would I have a lot of like empathy for whatever, you know, Mark Zuckerberg deals with on a day to day basis. What what is a little scary to me is that the march toward and the path, the march toward like living, living in the metaverse.

• 35:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  You know, without a

• 35:08Speaker 01

  A um, a sense of like, wait, hold up, hold up, hold up here. Is this like a little spice? Is this like an additive part of life or is this life?

• 35:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Yeah. And how would you, how would you define the metaverse? Is it sort of like a bunch of different programs that your digital avatar could go between and interact with digital friends? Like, I guess like it's happening in gaming right now. Also, we've talked on the show about how on Fortnite, people spend more time hanging out than they do actually fighting. Uh, because you can be together with your, your friends and um, I guess VR could be VR could be on uh, on a 2D screen. Um, I think that's what people are referring to as, as this metaverse where it's essentially life transposed onto the internet. Is that, is that a fair definition? And sort of what, what about that concerns you?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Sure, sure. That, that, yeah. That uh, that seems to fit. That seems to fit. And I, and I, and I don't know what that line is. Again, I think it's additive and positive.

• 36:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Um, I, I'm, you know, I, you, you know, I'm, I'm looking forward to a future where my relationship with friends is like, it, you know, has a, has a, has the occasional dimension of like virtual presence and whatever, whatever form that means. Um, the problem is, um, you know, some companies have proven, have like proven themselves as not knowing what enough means.

• 36:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm hmm. Enough screen time, enough engagement.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I don't just mean like, oh, add in some little features to say, you know, you, you're, you're, you're now up to date or whatever. I just mean like, um, well, I don't know. I'm saying, you know, defend I R L. Like who's, who's, um, uh, you know, and, and no one gives a crap about some, you know, I'm not talking about some defend I R L hashtag movement. I just, I just mean that like, there's a lot, there's a lot to build. Like, why hasn't someone built a better meetup?

• 37:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Good question.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Why hasn't someone built a better meetup?

• 37:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Uh, like, why hasn't someone built the fifty other versions of people connecting, you know, things that like, you know, that that I can think of and that are obvious? You know, so there's a lot of things, uh, you know, so, uh, you know, it's it's great. There are all these venture capitalists and marketers and people building, you know, and building the perfect ad systems and building the, you know, the ten thousand people at Facebook working on VR and, um, all of this. But, uh, you know, I think that, um, I think there's there's exciting things to build that can, uh, be, um, that can that can connect connect people in real in real life. And and I hope people, I hope some people quit their jobs and work on that.

• 37:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and maybe it's too cynical to say it, but I think a good portion of why people haven't built a better meetup yet is because you just can't, you can't track. You don't have the engagement data that you would on, um, on an online platform. And that becomes less exciting to people building, and I'm going to use that word, community.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, I mean, you know, meetup, but

• 38:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  The business that, you know, uh, tens of millions of dollars of revenue and

• 38:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  was profitable.

• 38:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  I didn't say this is not a good business. I'm just saying that, you know, um, there is an addiction, I think, among developers in many cases to live in a world of optimization. You know, TikTok is, you know, think about the most right, you know, rising social media app, which is TikTok. It's a perfect example. They, you know, they look at everything you do, your, um, how long you're on a video, whether you like it, whether you comment it, um, you know, how quickly you scroll up, whether you watch it on a loop, and they use that to optimize. It's much more, it's much more difficult, and I think it's a more worthy challenge to optimize in real life. So.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And and by the way, you know, uh, I just want to, you know, my like, you know, annoying high horse here isn't just about real life. It's also about, um, it's it's most fundamentally about going back to what I said about like the people, you know, you being cared about and cared for and someone caring and you caring about somebody. And and I think that, um, uh, you know, you can even have, uh, you know, virtual group platforms. I mean, messaging messaging apps are are wonderful for bringing, you know, and and the a positive effect it has on groups of friends and such. But I I also feel like there's, you know, such a missing opportunity to, um, You know, uh, to connect people one on, you know, one on one that they already know, you know,

• 39:30Speaker 01

  have people, um, um, just, yeah, it's, it's what you said, the deeper, the deepening of relationships and the deepening, uh, you know, more quant, quant quality, not quantity.

• 39:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. So I guess this is a good moment to bring up, uh, what you're working on. Uh, I saw you posted a job listing for, uh, someone to come work at the company that you're working on now and give some examples of what you want to do, like, uh, maybe connect people who are the one-on-one connections, have like maybe someone who's a nurse, connect with someone who's considering going to nursing school, some other forms of coaching. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you're up to now, what you're up to next? Uh, how much can you say about it?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, whatever. This isn't like, this isn't, uh, top secret defense department stuff, but we're, uh, but we're, um, uh, but yeah, it's nine of us and we're like in this kind of crazy experimentation mode, um, for the past few months. And we're, yeah, we, we decided we're gonna, we'll, we'll come out when it's, when, uh, when it's time to, when it's time to come out. Um, but yeah, like you said, I'm, um, uh, you know, I always think in terms, you know, one of the fascinating things about, uh, you know, our, this industry is this ability, you know, that, that the internet is a network of, uh, people and not a network of computers. And this, um, uh, you know, it's always fascinating

• 40:50Speaker 01

  when there's this like kind of excess, excess capacity where, you know, uh, Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay realized that, you know, there's all this stuff that people had that other people wanted, or, you know, Airbnb where people had, um, you know, extra rooms or extra homes that, that other people wanted, or people had time to drive an Uber and other people wanted a, wanted a ride. I, I believe that, um, the great, the, the biggest untapped, like excess capacity out there is the simple, um, sort of inventory of people's life experience, um, and their empathy, basically. People are, people can be really caring and good listeners

• 41:32Speaker 01

  and empathetic and just wonderful people if they're put in the right situation. And they have this life experience with going through whatever, uh, they've gone through and other people, you know, would really benefit from it. So, um, so yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're hitting this broad challenge of how do you, um,

• 41:50Speaker 01

  You know, take this world's most excess capacity of experience and empathy and put it to work, put it to use to help people.

• 41:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and you asked earlier, you know, in the middle of this conversation about the metaverse, what am I saying? And maybe it really is that, you know, we are running the risk of falling further and further into these digital worlds without realizing how the physical worlds and our connections with others, which are key to a functioning society, are eroding. And it seems like this is another swing at trying to use technology to address that and potentially fix it.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, hell yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because, because I, and at the end of the day, it's, it's about, you know, you can have a bunch of people blathering on Clubhouse or spouting off in some media form, but for people to be heard, like one-on-one, the person to be heard is a, is, it's quite rare, you know, to, you know, and to enable not the, not the loud mouths who might be on a stage on Clubhouse, but, you know, for the, for the average person to have an opportunity to be heard, and it not be therapy and it

• 43:07Speaker 01

  not be, you know, whatever, whatever expensive forms of being heard are.

• 43:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Definitely. Okay, so let's take one more break and then we'll just wrap up here with another about 10-minute segment. We'll be back right after this. And we're back here for one final segment with Scott Heiferman, founder of Meetup and a new company he's just told us a little bit about. On our, on our third segment, I always like to have a little bit of fun, sort of do some rapid-fire stuff, get at some bigger questions. We've gone philosophical, so let's just start concrete on this one. For listeners, Scott, you've got like two squares taped behind you. What's going on there? With the blue tape.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 43:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  They're empty, empty blue squares in the background.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 43:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  They are a pending painting experiment that one of my kids decided to. I said, tape where we're gonna paint and that's, that's part of it.

• 44:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Cool. And then a bunch of people sitting, standing on us like some sort of sandbar. Sorry, it's a cool background.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  I found, I found this, I stole this picture online and somehow it appealed to me. So I Yeah. And I, I somehow kept a record of who I, of who, who, whose picture it was and where, but I, I, I, you know, it's a, I don't know if it's a, it's, it's right or wrong, but I, I tend to, I'll print pictures that I find off the internet.

• 44:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, nice.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  And like voila, it's, it's art.

• 44:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Super cool. Okay, cool. All right, continuing on, I had to just get that out. I'm like, what are these blank squares? What message are they sending?

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Um, so you said before we started recording that it's cool if I ask you a WeWork question, you don't, you can answer whether you want or not, but um, gotta ask, uh, I'm curious whether you would still choose to sell Meetup to WeWork if you had the chance to do it again? And uh, yeah, well, why don't we just start with that?

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Hmm, uh, you know, I, I don't know. I wouldn't, I'm not gonna be cagey. I, I mean, it, it, oh, the way it played out? No.

• 45:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  But uh, I mean.

• 45:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I mean, there, there was, there was a specific vision there uh, of, of what I thought um, that company was and uh, and, and no, if I could, if I could see the future, I don't think so, but um, but the good news is that Meetup's in really great hands. Uh, because um, I, I, I think this is public information, uh, you know, it was bought from WeWork by, uh, by the uh, you know, probably the best um, Uh, you know, uh, internet entrepreneur in, uh, in New York City.

• 45:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Um, and, and he, uh, Kevin Ryan, who started many things, um, uh, you know, MongoDB and DoubleClick

• 45:52Speaker 01

  and, and lots of things. And he, um, uh, so all I know is it's in, in good hands, someone who, who, uh, who's a really phenomenal, uh, business person and really cares about the mission. So.

• 46:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  So I'm.

• 46:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's great. Yeah. And we just had, uh, Elliot Brown and Maureen Farrell, who wrote the Cult of We book. Um, and so this will be the last question I ask about it, but I'm fascinated by the story. How soon into the experience did you realize that Adam Newman wasn't the real deal?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, I, I didn't participate in any of the, I, you know, I got asked something, right? To, to every journalist to, to, I, I'm, I'm not a, uh, you know, I'm not going to waste my time. I, I, I, yeah, and I'm not going to get into it.

• 46:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. All right. Let's wrap with, um, some positivity. Um, kind of curious what, you know, I, I do think that, um, one of the things that's cool to hear from you is your optimism about people and about what the internet could be used for in terms of good. Uh, and I'm curious, like, what you're optimistic about now, if there's any specific types of technology or, um, applications of tech that, um, that you're particularly optimistic about.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Um, let me go a little broad and then I'll try to get specific.

• 47:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Um, it's funny. I had, I had an experience last week where I, in the same day, I had the, uh, I, I, I finally got around to reading that Marc Andreessen, Andreessen post where, you know, uh, no, the, the post pandemic one. Yeah. There, there, there was the follow-up to that.

• 47:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, the we built.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  He, he, he wrote a, yeah, basically, what we built.

• 47:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  And, you know, I mean.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  That is a, it was really well-written and, and, and, and hard to argue with it. Not that, not that we, not that I would want to. And it was, you know, basically what it says was, you know, man, look at, look at all the ways we navigated a pandemic, how hu, how the, how human beings navigate a pandemic, thanks to, you know, crazy myriad of all the things that have been put in place, thanks to, you know, thanks to technology and, and, and, uh, and the market and all these things. And, and, um, at, you know, the same very day, I saw Bruce Springsteen's, uh, you know,

• 48:19Speaker 01

  one of his Return to Broadway shows, um, where, uh, you know, the, the kind of inner Bernie Sanders, Bruce Springsteen, AOC part of me, who, like, I couldn't have seen a more touching reflection of Bruce Springsteen on stage and, and re, and expressing what it means to, you know, care and love for America as a place of, um, you know, of, of, of opportunity and, and, uh, and, you know, understanding the, the struggle and the strife and the difficulty of, of just getting on in the world and, um, and, and, you know, and, and wanting, um, wanting opportunity and all these things. And, um, I know, I know this is not, seems like it's not answering your question, but

• 49:04Speaker 01

  it, it hit me that I was like, wow, you know, so many of like the, the Bernie, AOC, Springsteen crowd just hates on, uh, Mark and, what I, Mark, what Mark Andreessen is saying. And the, and the Andreessen crowd is just like, just pissing on, you know, the AOCs and the Bernies of the world. And, um, to me, it's like, there, there, there's so much, there's so much incredible overlap in these, um, in these views and visions.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  And it's really, it's a shame. And I, you know, so I'm not sure what I'm saying of like, oh, you know, I'm not just saying, okay, magically, these things are gonna, uh, gonna blend. But I, I'm hopeful that there are, and I know, I see a lot of people who do really get both sides of that, of that world, a sort of techno utopianism and a deep caring for people's struggle.

• 50:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Scott Hyffman, always a good time to talk to you. Really appreciate you coming on.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you, Alex. I appreciate it.

• 50:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's great. I hope we can get you on as a regular guest and especially as you have news to announce around your new thing. It would be great to get you back.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Great. Thank you.

• 50:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right. Well, thanks, everybody for listening. Thank you, Nick Guany for doing the editing, Red Circle for the hosting and the ad sales. And again, appreciate you all for hanging out with us here on the internet. Maybe get together with some of your friends in real life and see what it's all about. Might be cool. All right. We'll do this again next Wednesday with the Tech Insider or Outside Agitator. And until then, take care.

• 50:54Speaker 02

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