Peter McCormack, Host of What Bitcoin Did: Marketing, Memes, and the Adoption of Crypto

Peter McCormack is the host of popular Bitcoin podcast: "What Bitcoin Did." In this wide-ranging conversation, Peter and Anthony Pompliano discuss podcasting, marketing, Twitter, and how to build brands in today's environment. This is part one of two. Head over to "What Bitcoin Did" podcast to find the second half of the conversation. ----- Join the Off the Chain newsletter. Pomp's daily email analyzes the crypto market for institutional investors. Simply, it’s the best crypto newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning. No frills. No bullsh*t. Just everything you need to know in a 3-minute read. https://offthechain.substack.com/ ----- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Peter McCormack is the host of popular crypto podcast, What Bitcoin Did. In this wide-ranging conversation, we cover podcasting, marketing, Twitter, and how to build brands in today's environment. We played a game during the recording where there was a $10 fine for anyone who mentioned Bitcoin or crypto, so you'll enjoy hearing that. You're listening to part one of two right now. When you're done listening to part one, head on over to What Bitcoin Did podcast to listen to part two. This was an epic two and a half hour recording, and we really enjoyed it. So I hope that you find it nearly as much fun and entertaining as we did.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Hi Pomp, how are you?

• 1:15Speaker 00

  I'm doing fantastic. I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you on this wonderfully cold day in New York City.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you for having me over here. How long have we been trying to do this?

• 1:24Speaker 00

  We've been trying to do this for months, and we're here. And there's more cameras staring at us and microphones in our face I think we probably are used to.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  And we big shout out to Cody Vargas, my twin. Do you know the story of Cody?

• 1:37Speaker 00

  I do not. Cody, what's your story?

• 1:38Speaker 02

  No, do you know how we met?

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Oh no, how did you guys meet?

• 1:40Speaker 02

  So, I was in Vegas for World Crypto Con, and everywhere I was going, people kept going up to me and going, say, "All right, Cody, how you doing?" And I was like, "I'm not Cody, I'm Pete."

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Oh, you two do look alike.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we went to and then I was it's like happened for like three days and I was at this party and somebody says to me, all right, Cody, I was like, look, I'm not Cody, I'm Pete. And she went, oh, no, look, there's Cody. And he was behind me. So I went up to us like, all right, everyone keeps saying hi, Cody. And he was like, everyone keeps saying hi, Pete. So he's become like, he's become my crypto twins.

• 2:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, you guys are doppelgangers.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I love it.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  So, so, all right, what should we talk about? Podcasting, man?

• 2:18Anthony Pompliano?

  I got all kinds of stuff. Let's talk. Yeah, let's talk about podcasting.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  So I started a few months before you.

• 2:23Anthony Pompliano?

  You did.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  And I was having this really good run.

• 2:25Anthony Pompliano?

  You're my idol.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Well, I was having this good run and then, like, say I'm driving, say I think I'm driving a nice BMW and that comes this Ferrari behind me. It's like, I'm like, oh, great. And like, you've really crushed it, man.

• 2:41Anthony Pompliano?

  I, uh, I cheated. I got to build it off your back. You're the one who convinced everyone they should listen to podcasts. And then I came along and was like, hey, if, uh, if you put some music in the beginning and just yell and scream a lot, they'll listen. And, uh, and, and now, um, you are doing things that, uh, I'm a huge fan of. I, I, uh, we were talking before we started and, uh, the fact that you are so transparent about everything and take the time to literally list out, here's every single view, here's every single dollar, here's every single expense. Uh, I think that's how businesses are going to get built in the future. It's awesome.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  But I do everything right. I like, I book the interviews.

• 3:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Crazy.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  I travel to the interviews. I do, it's only these, the last two episodes that come out, I haven't done the engineering. I've finally, because I've made some good money, I've took an engineer on, which is going to save me forty hours a month. I do all the website, I do all the publishing, but you, you run in a business during the day, right?

• 3:31Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I literally said to, uh, Blockworks groups, the guys, uh, Jason Yanowitz and Mikey Polito, I said, look, I'm happy to do it. I think I can get people to show up. I think I can interview them. Uh, I don't have time to do all that stuff, right? And, uh, and they said, uh, we'll figure it out. They didn't know how to do it, right? But it's, I mean, it's a, it's a first class lesson in you want to do something and somebody says, hey, here's an opportunity. I'm willing to do half. I need you to do the other half. And you don't know how to do it? Just say yes. Yeah, I'll figure it out. And they went and figured it out. And here we are.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  So how have you found it, man? It's like, how many episodes have you done?

• 4:04Anthony Pompliano?

  I have no clue.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Like fifty?

• 4:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, probably like fifty. What about you?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Uh, eighty-two.

• 4:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Eighty-two?

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Eighty-two went out today. Andreas?

• 4:13Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm trying to, uh, to catch up.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Well, so that was the other thing. I was like going along coasting on an episode a week. And then you come in, there's like two a week. I'm like, oh, God, now I need to do two to keep up.

• 4:24Anthony Pompliano?

  I only know one speed. That's been my whole life is just if you're gonna do something, do it, right? And the part that I like is there's people who I've interviewed and you've interviewed. And I actually enjoy listening to your interview with them because what I notice is my interview has a very specific bent on it, right? It's pretty much how do I get this person to explain what they're doing, why they're doing it, how they're doing it for an audience that is intrigued and interested in crypto, but they're not the hardcore enthusiast, right? Fine, number one.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  You have to be $10.

• 5:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, man. All right, that's $10. And so from my standpoint, how do you get, how do you get that to that audience? You gotta get them to the guests to speak in a very specific way and a very specific, you know, kind of perspective, etc. You get to go all out, right? You get asked about all the nuances and kind of the really detailed stuff. And so I actually learn a ton from yours that are questions I can't ask because they're too in the weeds. And so

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 5:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I actually, that's my big secret is if somebody comes on, I'll listen to a couple of other people have interviewed them because I'll learn aspects about that person or their story that I can't get to just given who the audience is.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  See, I find, I always say to people, mine is like entry level as well, like really simple. Because I will listen to someone like Marty Bent and listen to him talk about finance and I'm blown away by like his depth of knowledge. Or I listen to Stefan or Pierre and the things they know, the detail they know is way beyond me. I just, I'm just not smart enough. Like I don't understand some of the things I'm reading or hearing. So when I go into interviews, I'm actually asking the questions about things I just don't understand. And also sometimes I'm like, I'll see something and I'm like, that just seems like bullshit. And I just kind of want to ask it, but like sometimes I feel uncomfortable. It's like, am I not allowed to ask this? Like, shouldn't I ask this? But no, I just do it. And it seems to have worked and seems to have grown.

• 6:28Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the number one lesson you've learned from doing all this?

• 6:32Speaker 02

  What? Like life lesson or as a podcaster?

• 6:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Both. One life lesson and one podcast lesson.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  It's it's more of like, it's not a new lesson. It's just like hard work pays off.

• 6:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, like really hard work pays off. I don't, um, maybe they do because I talk about it, but like I work really, really hard at this. You know, I do, and I don't have a choice, right? I'm a single dad.

• 6:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Uh, two kids, one lives with me full time.

• 6:56Anthony Pompliano?

  How old are they?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Uh, my son's nearly fifteen. He's fifteen.

• 6:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  So he came out to Japan with me for the Car Palace interview because I had nowhere for him to go. I was like, well.

• 7:06Anthony Pompliano?

  You want to come with this guy who may or may not have lost a bunch of money?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, people. And he was cool and it was great to have him with me, but like I had no choice because I had nowhere for him to go.

• 7:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  And I have to juggle that. And then, you know, my daughter's with me every other week and.

• 7:18Anthony Pompliano?

  How old is she?

• 7:19Speaker 02

  She's just turned nine.

• 7:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  And I can't go and get a job in London because I can't commute because I need to be out. So I have to make this work from my home.

• 7:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  From my home office. So I, I do sixty, seventy hours a week.

• 7:30Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  I just, I just work really hard. So hard work pays off. Um.

• 7:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Marty Bent, shout out Marty Bent, who will probably talk about a bunch. He's got a, a podcast, uh, TFTC. And, um, he said it to me. He said, look, the, the whole key is just show up every day. Right? And, and so, you know, the just work hard, show up every day. Like, it's not really that big of a secret. It's just hard to do.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's, and you know, I made a commitment early on to do a lot of interviews in person. So I flew out to North Carolina. You know, an area you know well to interview LARP. And I flew out to, uh, San Francisco to interview Charlie Lee. And I, and then I went out to Japan to interview Roger Veer. And I just put that commitment into that kind of difference. And then I just hustle, work hard.

• 8:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  So work hard. So that's, that's the biggest lesson I've learned. But it's more of a like, um, it's like a repeat understanding of a lesson. You've just got to work hard. And then I think the thing that I've learned most about, um, podcasting. Oh God, what have I learned most about podcasting? I guess, it's a really tough one. Um, I guess over time I've learned. I think I'd like to think I've learned more about how to interview people.

• 8:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  And. When I listen to someone like Marty, I want to hear Marty all the way through it.

• 8:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Because I really respect his opinion and I love the conversation. But I don't want to hear me on mine. I want to say as little as possible to get as much from the guest and hear them talk. So what I think I've learned most is how to construct an interview. And I try and make all my guests feel comfortable and like I'm not going to trap them. And and then just try and get them to open up and talk. And I think if you listen to my first podcast and you you follow the trajectory, you'll see interviews.

• 9:06Anthony Pompliano?

  It changes.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think and I think that's just me getting more comfortable. I don't know about you.

• 9:09Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you tell guests in the beginning? Like, here's the structure. Here's what we're going to talk about.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 9:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, okay, so you don't do that. I I usually don't talk to the guest at all about what we're going to talk about until they're in the room. And I say, hey, like, are there things you want to talk about or things that you're not comfortable talking about? So I like, I do let them set boundaries.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, which some people may not like and some people do like.

• 9:33Anthony Pompliano?

  But to me, it's, I'm very clear that like, I'm not a, I'm not a journalist. Right? Uh, I'm, I'm, there's no gotchas. There, there's no, uh, there's no anything. And I think that puts people at ease.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Because they're just like, okay, you know, Peter or Pompa aren't going to be here and they're not going to trick me. Which is, uh, you know, when I go on podcasts, right? I'm like, I can I trust this person not to put me in a position where they're going to ask me something that's awkward or whatever? Or can we just have a good time and talk about things we want to talk about?

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I had a conversation with somebody yesterday and it was on Twitter. And they said, see that I'd interviewed Andreas? And they said, I hope you ask them all about this stuff. And that comes up occasionally. It has the same with Mark Carpalas.

• 10:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Somebody wanted me to ask him about something quite controversial. And I said, the subject you firstly want to ask about has got nothing to do with what I'm going to interview him about. Secondly, I've spent a year trying to get this interview. And I'm flying out to Japan for it. It's not your agenda. It's mine. If you don't like it, I'm very sorry.

• 10:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  But also, I think if you go around doing like hard hitting interviews and you really pull some people apart, you're going to struggle to get future guests on because they're going to be like.

• 10:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, it's different goals too, right? Like, you know, we talked about Marty, but like, let's talk about Laura Schindt, right? Another great podcast and like, she is a journalist.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And part of the, or a big part of the value that I get out of what she does is she will ask those questions. But I think guests go on knowing that's what they're there for, right? You're going to get kind of a very unbiased journalistic approach. And I'm sure that she, there are certain guests who are, you know, worried or less likely to go on. But then there's a lot of guests who actually, that's what they want, right? They, you and I are gonna, you know, be buddies with them basically and let them kind of tell their story. And that's great, but that's not a hundred percent of people. And so, you know, it, the beauty of this whole ecosystem is everyone approaches it a little bit differently. And you can bring the same person on four or five different podcasts and you'll literally get, you know,

• 11:36Anthony Pompliano?

  30, 40% different content. And so it's, it's really fascinating to kind of watch it all develop.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that journalism thing's really interesting because I've been told a few times I need to be more responsible. And I need to be more impartial. And I've said, it's very difficult to be impartial because I've got, I've got an opinion. And also I find that, I kind of find that funny, especially if it came, it comes from someone in America. Because whenever I come over here and I watch the news, the news is either liberal or it's conservative.

• 12:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  It's hardly ever impartial. So like, how do you get impartiality? And I'm not impartial and I'm not a journalist. I'm not trained. I fell into this. I used to work in advertising and, you know, here I am. And yeah, I mean, do you get much flack for your interviews?

• 12:16Anthony Pompliano?

  All the time.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:17Anthony Pompliano?

  I, look, I, I'll talk about it. Uh, we just had, um, uh, Rick Burton come on and

• 12:24Speaker 02

  He's great.

• 12:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Love Rick. High energy, comes in, came in at 7:00 AM in the morning, knocked it out. Uh, and there's people who are upset that I didn't ask specific questions or didn't push back, et cetera. And again, it goes back to what I tell every guest is, I'm not here to argue with you. I'm not here to debate with you. I'm not here to do any of that. What I'm here to do is, there's a platform. I want you to tell your story in your words and then let people decide.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And, uh, and it's just this idea of like, I don't know, maybe you feel the same responsibility. Like, I don't think I should tell people what to believe or listen to. Right? Like, you should tell your story, and then people can believe whether you're full of shit or not.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I get that. And we got it the other night. You know, I was with Catherine Wu. We were in a bar.

• 13:09Anthony Pompliano?

  From Missouri.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, Missouri. So we were, she came to the Hoxton. We wanted to catch up on a couple of things. And by the way, I think she's utterly amazing. And some guy, the bar guy, heard us talking, and he came over to us and he said,

• 13:25Speaker 02

  he's talking about crypto. Can I ask you about something? And we're like, yeah, sure.

• 13:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Even.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but no, then the question comes out. He goes, what do you think of XRP? And I start cracking up. Like, I'm like, what are you doing? And I'm cracking up. And, you know, we have the conversation. It goes out on Twitter. And some guy goes, yeah, you just made that story up. I was like, no, we didn't. And then the funny thing that happened after that. So previously, I've been talking to this girl next to us. And she wrote on a beer mat to me her phone number. She was like, if you want to have a drink another time, here's my number, which was really cool. And also, like, kind of brave, because she interrupted the conversation. Go, here you go. Anyway, Catherine goes and the beer mat's gone. And I'm like, where's it gone? I mean, she was lovely. So I asked the barman, couldn't find it. The next day, he messaged me on Twitter with a photo.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  Let me show you it. Oh, the phone's there. Oh, I'll show you. He messaged me on Twitter, goes, I found the beer mat. Here's the number.

• 14:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's go.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  So I put that up on Twitter as proof. But like, sometimes I find myself always having to defend myself.

• 14:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Why?

• 14:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's the secret. Somebody told me a very long time ago, and I forget who, I'm gonna forget whose quote this is, but it's somebody who's important, and I probably should remember their name. But their quote basically goes, you know, in your twenties, you're really, really worried what everybody else thinks about. In like, your thirties and forties, you realize that like, you're not as worried anymore. And by the time you're like, 50 or 60, you realize no one ever cared about anything you were doing.

• 14:52Anthony Pompliano?

  It's a little different when you've got kind of a public audience that feeds off each other. But there is this sentiment of like, Is the anonymous troll on Twitter who is trolling, right? It's not, we just label them all, like they're trolling you. Is it worth engaging with them? Well, part of your brand, right, and mine is being authentic, engaging and, and having that conversation.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  But I troll the fuck out of you all the time.

• 15:17Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I love it.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  I'm literally, whenever you post something, I'll be like, cause you know what? You know what annoys me? Like I'll put out a really authentic heart, like heart story. And I'll get like 500 likes. You'll put out, this bank sucks. 20 million retweets. I'm like, this is, this is bullshit.

• 15:34Anthony Pompliano?

  So, so the, the two people who I could always count on, well, there's a couple of people actually that I can count on trolling me at non-stop are you, my girlfriend. And then, uh, usually I will get either, uh, Larry Sirmak or, uh, Frank Shapiro from, uh, the block. But there's, there's good, everyone's doing it in fun.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:52Anthony Pompliano?

  But the part I love is the real trolls don't know that.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:56Anthony Pompliano?

  And then they like pile in and then we're all like, oh wait, we were all kidding.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  You're serious. Yeah. Cause it's good and bad trolling, right? I, I was trying, uh, trolling Brian Selkis this morning. I'm trolling him regularly. But I think, I think it's

• 16:07Anthony Pompliano?

  It's a badge of honor to be trolled by you.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  But no, no, that's embarrassing. I think it's, um, I think if you can take the trolling.

• 16:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  I think it's a, it's a good sign of you, but I also think it's like shows a community. We're all kind of in this together and also it makes you responsible for what you're saying. If you're getting trolled, you did something a bit dumb.

• 16:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course. And, and look, part of, uh, the beauty of Twitter, in my opinion, and why I love it so much is I can throw an idea out there. And if you don't come, you know, proper, you will get snapped up immediately. I mean, you, I've literally said things and within two minutes, I'm like, oh, I, I, you know, was being perceived incorrectly. Or I literally said something inaccurate.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:45Anthony Pompliano?

  There is no past, there is no, uh, you know, oh, we like you. It's okay if you say something that's out of bounds, like people do not care. Uh, and that responsibility and accountability is important, I think, when you have these big audiences.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, I had this conversation with somebody last night. It was talking about you and I said, the thing is, Pom's got a bunch of haters because he's out, because he's out there. He's the man in the arena. But I said, he, my perception of you is that you're doing more than 99% of people out there for the space. You get a pass if you if you put out something dumb, you make fuck up. And I think I think almost any of us do. None of us can be perfect.

• 17:20Anthony Pompliano?

  People know our intentions.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Like, like, once you've created, if you create one piece of content, that's the only piece of content anyone knows about. They don't have enough context as to what is your perspective? What is your intentions? Good hearted, bad hearted, all that. If you create content on a daily basis, you're constantly engaging, you're you're very authentic, very open and transparent in the way you engage with people on Twitter.

• 17:43Anthony Pompliano?

  You probably get a quote unquote pass in the sense of they know that you're good hearted, well intentioned. But they will tell you right to your face, hey, you're an idiot. Right? But it's not that you are an idiot. What they really mean is you're saying something idiotic. Right? And then there's a difference between that.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:01Anthony Pompliano?

  You know, it's like, hey, look, that was dumb versus you are dumb.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Do you do you feel pressure?

• 18:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I used to, and then I just stopped caring. Like, at some point, I just said, you know, how many followers do you have on Twitter at this point?

• 18:14Speaker 02

  I'm at like, I'm just short of 50,000.

• 18:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, so let's say 50,000, right?

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Which is so weird.

• 18:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, there's nobody in the world who can have 50,000 people paying attention to what they're saying and not have one of them not like you or disagree with you, etc. And the problem is that the people who disagree are the loudest.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Like,

• 18:36Anthony Pompliano?

  think about, if you say something and I like it, I'm gonna retweet you.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:40Anthony Pompliano?

  So I will further the message, but I actually won't reputation wise, make a comment that says, this is great content. Right? Like, my action says that, but I don't step in and say that. The quote unquote hater, what they're gonna do is they're gonna light you up in the comments. And then all their friends are gonna see that and then they all pile, right? So like, the way that Twitter is structured, the incentives are a little weird. And so I think that's part of, you just have a big audience. Of course, people are not gonna like you.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I find it so weird, though, I do. I went to see my dad, my dad lives in this little village in Ireland. I think I was at like 30,000 followers at that point and I showed him it. I said, Dad, look, watch this. And we put out a question, it was like, should my dad buy something?

• 19:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  And yes or no? And it just like this poll starts going up. And my dad, my dad's going, what is going on?

• 19:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Who are those people?

• 19:32Speaker 02

  This is so weird. And I was like, I don't know, Dad, it's so weird. So what what's the, um, what's your favorite interview you've done?

• 19:38Anthony Pompliano?

  My favorite interview I've done?

• 19:42Anthony Pompliano?

  It's gotta be Murad.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Right. A moment in time, eh?

• 19:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Just Murad was, so you wanna know a secret about the Murad episode? Is Murad came in to the office on, I think, a Wednesday or Thursday. And I had done, I think, an interview right before, like two interviews before, and it'd gone over. And I only had a specific amount of time, right? Cause I gotta actually have like a real job and do all sorts of stuff. And I knew that we were going to be really rushed. And I have like forty minutes. And so we started and within five minutes, I literally, we stopped. And I just said, no, no, no, shut this off. And everyone was like, what are you doing? And I was like, this is gonna be an epic episode. Let's come back this weekend when we have no time constraints.

• 20:30Anthony Pompliano?

  And we're gonna go for as long as it takes to record exactly what you wanna say. And I think he was a little kinda freaked out, like you just, I came here, we stopped it, we're gonna restart. And we came in on Sunday and we recorded, and it's like, you know, over an hour, I think like an hour and a half or something. And when we got done, normally people were, you know, that are in the room helping record and stuff are like, oh, that's a great episode. It was silent. And we obviously, and it was, it was freaky. And we were just like, that was incredible.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, do you know what? I remember listening to that one and sitting back and I was like, alright, Pom. Yeah, you know, you know that one.

• 21:07Anthony Pompliano?

  It's all, he gets all the credit, right? Because he, the way that he can articulate his ideas and the conviction he has in them, you feel it when you're listening to it.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  I think, I always think you need to. I think one can ruin it on their own.

• 21:20Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  But I think you need to be for a good interview, cause you need the structure, the questions, and you need the answers. I mean.

• 21:26Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your favorite?

• 21:28Speaker 02

  That's a tough one. I usually always say my first interview with Len Albrecht, which is Ross Albrecht's mom. And because that was a very.

• 21:35Anthony Pompliano?

  How did you get that? Let's talk about how you actually sign some of these people up.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Well, I just approached her and I said, I'm very interested in the story. I'm going to be in Austin. I know that's where you're based. Can I come and see you? Can I talk to you? And she said, yeah. And it turned out the day we were recording was Ross's birthday.

• 21:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Day after her birthday. I didn't know that. And I filmed that, it was the first one I filmed. And it was a lot of prep because it was a personal story. It's nothing, whilst it's attached to what I normally interview about, it's got nothing to do with your smirk. It's like that game, isn't it? It's attached to the story, but we didn't talk about it at all. We talked a personal story about, you know, a family losing a son to the prison system. And it also made me realize like, eventually, I want a podcast which is broad.

• 22:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Which I've trapped myself with because of the name of my podcast.

• 22:25Anthony Pompliano?

  But, but is that true? So I think about this a lot, too. Could you not bring somebody on that's not related to the industry and still do an interview with them? And maybe you can only do it every once in a while.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 22:37Anthony Pompliano?

  But I don't think people would judge you.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  No, I think you can sometimes, but also I noticed the, no, the reality is the, it's a, it's a business. I treat my podcast like a business and you have to look at the downloads. So I interviewed Andrew Torba from Gab.

• 22:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  It's connected. It's 20% less listens than a normal show.

• 22:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, interesting.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  So I, you know, and I'm interviewing, when I'm in LA, I'm interviewing Mark Weinstein, who was one of the founders of the Fire Festival, which I think is going to be a fascinating interview, but I don't know where I'll go.

• 23:03Anthony Pompliano?

  But he's related to the industry a little bit, right?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 23:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, definitely related and works in the industry, but what you're going to talk to him probably is less related.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, and I've already had a pre-call with him and I don't agree with some of his thoughts and I don't even want to get into that. I want to find out about the Fire Festival because that's insane, right? It's an insane story, but.

• 23:21Anthony Pompliano?

  You want to hear, you want to hear a wild story?

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:25Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I won't say which one. I've got four brothers, so I won't say which one, but one of them.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Don't tell me he went.

• 23:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, so what he did was he has a buddy who basically got essentially free tickets, like hundred dollar tickets or something. And so his buddy convinced him they were going down, got to Miami, got on the plane. They were the first plane on the tarmac that got turned away from taking off.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  No way.

• 23:47Anthony Pompliano?

  So he didn't actually go. And then they're like, oh, we had to like find a place to sleep, but I was to get a hotel. And he went out, had a great time with his friends for the weekend. And he calls me and he's like, everyone else's Fire Festival experience sucked. Mine was awesome.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Well, I can't, I mean, have you watched both documentaries?

• 24:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I've watched a lot on Netflix. I haven't gotten through the one on, uh, who, oh, no, no. Uh, yeah, I did. Actually, I watched both of them.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Yes, it's a very different perspective, right?

• 24:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, and different people in both of them.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, um.

• 24:15Anthony Pompliano?

  One of my friends is in it.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Really?

• 24:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Seth, uh, uh, Crosny, I think, uh, the guy who, uh, William Finley is the fake account. He was the one sending all the pictures.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 24:24Anthony Pompliano?

  He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Really?

• 24:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, shout out Seth. And his claim to fame in that whole situation was all the media was citing him.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:33Anthony Pompliano?

  As William Finley. And he's literally like, this is a fake persona that I made up as kind of like an Onion style, uh, character.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  So are you from Raleigh?

• 24:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I grew up there.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  So I've been there.

• 24:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, really?

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. So when I went to interview Jameson Lopp.

• 24:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  I think I've.

• 24:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Jameson lived in Durham, I think.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I stayed, I flew into Raleigh.

• 24:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  But stayed in Durham. And, um, I went, I went to shotgun guns.

• 24:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  I shot my first ever gun.

• 24:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Did you go with Jameson?

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, he took me.

• 24:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. He's the man.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, so I, he was my third interview.

• 25:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, wow.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  I reached out to him. I said, look, I'd like to come and interview you. Um, and can you take me to shoot a gun? Basically, it was just like this really weird request. I thought, you must have been thinking, who is this guy?

• 25:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So for those that don't know, Jameson is, um, he is Mr. Security and, uh, Opssec. He, uh, he has literally moved himself to an undisclosed location in the world. Uh, and he's written a bunch about how you can basically remove yourself from the digital world and, and traces of you. Uh, and he also loves guns and he's, uh, from North Carolina and, and just shoots machine guns all the time.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Well, so I turn up at his house with all my recording gear.

• 25:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  And I go in the house and he's there organizing guns. Bear in mind, I've never even held a gun.

• 25:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  There's these guns, everyone, like, this is weird.

• 25:48Anthony Pompliano?

  You're like, oh, you, these are actually your guns. You're not just taking pictures on the internet.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  No, he had like a lot of guns and then, and so we did, recorded the interview. And then we went to get something to eat. And by the way, I was a vegetarian at the time.

• 26:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  And he was like, right, we're going for barbecue. And I was thinking, I don't think I've got the heart to tell.

• 26:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Did he have a big beard and everything going on?

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yep. And I was like, I don't think I've got the heart to tell you I'm a vegetarian. So I went in at barbecue with him.

• 26:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, you ate it even though you're vegetarian?

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Cause I, I was, I couldn't do this. And then, and then we went to shotguns, which by the way, I, I was blown away by the power of them.

• 26:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  It's crazy. Not what you expect. And then I left and I was like, wow, that was an amazing, like a, one of those days you'll never forget. And I'm really grateful to James. He, he's actually been such a great support of the podcast. He's helped me get lots of interviews and like, nobody go and pester him now, but he's just been a really great support.

• 26:36Anthony Pompliano?

  He, he is, uh, so he's one of the first people I met in crypto as well, just being, uh, there, a, um, a very, uh, young, um, a very young kid, uh, introduced us. And when we met, I remember talking to him and realizing this guy is in this for all the right reasons.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 27:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? He doesn't care about 95% of the things that other people care about. He even believed so much at one point, they sold a lot of his possessions and went all in.

• 27:18Anthony Pompliano?

  At a time when like, you had to be pretty crazy. You know what I mean? Like 2013 is very different than 2017, right? Or 2018. And so it, it's, uh, it's special that this industry has so many people like that in it.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  What do you like with guns? What, what's your view on them?

• 27:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, so I was in the army for, uh,

• 27:36Speaker 02

  I heard about this recently.

• 27:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Years. Yeah. Uh, Ryan Selkis outed me.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Not a bad way, but, uh, he, he recently tweeted this. And so, uh, I've literally spent a year in Iraq.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 27:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, and you carry a gun everywhere you go. Uh, you like to training with guns.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Are you like, were you like just a foot soldier?

• 27:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, I probably have spent, uh, a good portion of my life with guns for somewhat of a profession, right? And, uh, It's a thing where I'm of the view guns aren't good or bad, right? Money is not good or bad. Um, you know, certain assets aren't good or bad. How they are used or implemented or applied, that can be for good or bad uses. I think guns are like the perfect example because if you think about, um, let's say you're a good guy, I'm a bad guy. The world actually wants you to have guns, right?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:30Anthony Pompliano?

  They don't want me to have guns. And if the rules are reversed, now I'm the good guy, you're the bad guy. Then now they want me to have the gun, not you.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:36Anthony Pompliano?

  And so it's a tool or a weapon, it's just how they're applied. And so I think that that type of view uh is really different, right? I think you've got to have shot a gun before, right? To understand that type of stuff. Um, and I always think about uh, when you're shooting the gun, you're not thinking like, this is this dirty tool used by bad people because you're like, you're a good person, right? Like, I'm a good person. If I have this, then good and bad people can have it, right? You you you change your psychology, I think, a little bit once you're actually uh, like, um, initiated a little bit with it. Was that, what did you think when you shot a gun for the first time?

• 29:17Speaker 02

  I was just scared how powerful it was.

• 29:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Like scared in what way?

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Because you see it in films and TV, you see somebody shoot a gun and it's like pop, pop, pop. And you're like, okay, that's a gun. When you do it in real person, it's insane how powerful the bullet flies out of the gun to the bag at the end of the room. Like, I was just like, whoa, yeah, that's that's scary. Um, and it was a weird experience. It was kind of like going bowling because you had different lanes.

• 29:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  There was a couple, there was family, like, it was kind of strange because I come from a country where we don't have guns. You don't see guns. Yeah.

• 29:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Is it illegal or it's just uncommon?

• 29:54Speaker 02

  It's uncommon and you have to have special licenses. And actually, to say I've never shot a gun is a bit of a lie. I went clay pigeon shooting once and shot a shotgun. But it's, it's just not a thing in our society. But when I held it and I shot this gun, I was like, that is so powerful and that scared me. But I also learned a lot about it. I've, it's funny, in North Carolina.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  I trust people with guns more than I do in LA.

• 30:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Why?

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Because it feels like it's part of the culture and therefore it's responsible. I don't, I don't know why. I just, everyone I spoke to.

• 30:27Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like drinking in Europe.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. But like I speak, spoke to the girl behind the counter and she's like, yeah, I've got thirty seven guns. I was like, what? She's like, I've got thirty seven guns. I've always had guns. It's always been part of my life, you know?

• 30:41Anthony Pompliano?

  You felt like they're familiar, they're trained, they're educated and they understand safety.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Intentions are different.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, but you know, I don't know. I just, I don't know. It's a really, it's a really funny thing and I probably, I don't know if it's a stupid thing to say. I feel like I trust a gun with a conservative person more than I trust it with a liberal.

• 31:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Really? You think that there's like a political components to it too?

• 31:07Speaker 02

  It's no, it's more, I think it's more cultural. I feel like there's a, like, when I've been around America, when I've been into more conservative areas, I feel that there's like a conservative culture, which is very much family, hard work, guns.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Rodeo and country.

• 31:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. And do you, so here's a good question for you because you, uh, you aren't from the United States. When you come to the US, do you get the sense that, take those cultural components you just described on the conservative side? Do you get the sense that those don't exist on the other side or they're just less emphasized? Like, is it like a, a, um, intensity difference? Or is it just literally binary? Like in some culture, some things exist and then the other sides, they don't exist.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's more binary. I just, I've spent a lot of time in, a lot of time in LA, New York, Vegas. And then I've spent a little bit of time in places like Texas and North Carolina. I tell you what the interesting thing is, is I feel a lot of warmth towards the conservative people I've met. I don't agree with them politically. I would never vote for Trump. But you know, when I went to Austin, I went to a rodeo, I met, there was, you know, a lot of kind of Republican people there. Really family orientated, you know, they were all there as a family and I just, they felt like a lot of unity, felt like the, like. That family was a big deal. That's one of the things I've noticed. Like when I was in Durham and I stayed at this bar. Now, I started chatting politics to these two guys.

• 32:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  It was a useless conversation because I completely disagreed with everything they said about Trump. But then when we started talking about life and family, I was like, I really like you guys. You know, they're out there hardworking for their family. Then I'll go somewhere like LA and I've got a lot of friends in LA. But you've got a lot of like, just over the top, you know, cosmopolitan, ridiculous people. And I'm just like, I don't feel any warmth to you.

• 32:54Anthony Pompliano?

  You're gonna love this. I have a friend who's a hardcore conservative.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:58Anthony Pompliano?

  And he always says the same thing. He goes, ah, liberals are too smart to have fun.

• 33:03Anthony Pompliano?

  And I think that like perfectly sums up the political spectrum in the United States, right?

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Literally this guy who he could care less about any intellectual topic that you and I could debate. But he's just like, I just want to have fun in life, right? And I think that a lot of people are like that. Kind of summarizes a lot.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  I've got really politically confused over the last few years to the point where I can't find myself aligning myself to anything because I see things I like across the spectrum.

• 33:31Anthony Pompliano?

  But do you, don't you feel like that's rational?

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Like, um.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do.

• 33:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I, I just feel like the older you get, and especially the culture that you and I are growing up in. Like, we have phones in our hands where we can talk to tens or not, or hundreds of millions of people. Right? You literally right now could pull up your phone and tweet to 50,000 people like that.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? My parents didn't grow up with that. So the collision of different ideas and the kind of like attrition of ideas that we experience on a daily basis, it pulls people, I think, from the extremes more towards the middle. Because you at least are exposed on a higher frequency to other ideas. As long as you don't get, you don't go like over the edge into one of the echo chambers, right? Like, that's the only downside to it is it would be very easy for you. Let's say that you're like, I'm a hardcore liberal. I'm only going to follow liberal accounts and that's the only information you consume. You actually, like, it actually could become a detriment. But I feel like for most people, uh. You actually get pulled more towards the middle? I don't know. What do you think?

• 34:36Speaker 02

  I think you're right. And actually, funny enough, when I was growing up, I was very liberal. I quite like socialist policies. I used to think, oh, the NHS is great. And if you earn too much money, yes, it should be taxed from you and given to, you know, other people. And I think it's, I find it kind of strange if you don't grow up feeling like that.

• 34:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Like, where's your heart as a youngster? And then as I've got older, I've started to feel like, oh, and you know, of course, the industry I work in, you start to feel like, oh, God, socialism's awful. It's like the most evil thing in the world. And then I'm like, oh, I kind of want to help people. It's really weird.

• 35:05Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the most defining experience from your childhood that you think is a great example of like who you are today? Like one story from your childhood, let's say like under 20 years old.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  My, my father worked, my brother worked hard. So my father was an aircraft engineer, shift worker, 12 hour shifts. He wanted us, he, the most important thing for him was for us to go to a private school.

• 35:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  His salary alone could not put.

• 35:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Me, my sister didn't go in the end, but for choice, but me and my brother went, his salary alone did not cover the school fees. So he, his shift patterns, four days on, four days off.

• 35:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  And every single time an overtime would come up, he would take it. He was paid more.

• 35:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Paid like time and a half or something?

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Time and a half. Every now and again, something would come up called the ghost shift, which is 24 hours. And he would do it. And he worked and he worked and he worked. And he put me and my brother, and he raised three of us very well, but put us both through private school. So.

• 36:03Anthony Pompliano?

  He's probably very proud of that.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's very proud of it, but like, but he, he just said to me, if you ever have children, I want you to do the same. And it's one of those weird things also, like, like, so my children are in a private school. And I worked very hard to do that for them. And I feel very sad that not everyone else can have the same.

• 36:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Sort of like a tough thing, but I just have this memory of, you know, my dad would be either leaving for work at six in the morning. So he'd be gone by the time I get up. Or he would leave in at six o'clock in the evening because he does the night shift.

• 36:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  You know, turning the planes around. And so my memory is always him, us three kids running to the door to give him a hug goodbye, or running to the door to give him a hug, come home. So I've just always got that memory of my dad working hard. I'll tell you another component I'll add to that, though, like. I woke up, sorry, I grew up with my dad as my hero, right?

• 36:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Totally ignored everything my mom did, took her totally for granted, raising three kids at home. My dad was the fucking hero, right? My mom passed away two years ago, an amazing woman. What happened was is I got divorced prior to her getting sick. And decided I would be committed to my children and being a dad. Through that period, I learned how hard it is to raise children. It's really, really hard.

• 37:20Anthony Pompliano?

  That's fascinating.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what happened was my company collapsed after my divorce. And I decided not to go to work for a year. I spent a whole year just going back and forth to Ireland, see my mom, or take her to Akima and just hang out with her and take her to dinner. And I kind of fell in love with her as a woman over that period because I got to know her again. And, you know, about two months before she died, I, you know, apologized. I said, look, I didn't appreciate how hard work, how hard it was for you to raise kids until I'm doing it now. And I've taken you for granted and given dad all the credit and I'm really, really sorry about that. So, sorry, that's a long-winded answer to your question, but I think I, I think from my childhood, I've learned about hard work, but I didn't want to leave my mom out of this.

• 38:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Because I've left her out of so many things I feel terrible about. I've learned as an adult, how hard my mom worked.

• 38:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Do, do you think that you are a better father today because of the experience of that year? Where you said, look, I've got to do this, I've got to commit to it. And it was your sole focus? Or do you feel like, um, what, like, do you think there's another way that you could have gotten the same experience?

• 38:30Speaker 02

  No, I, I mean, I don't think I am a great father, I'll be honest.

• 38:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Why not?

• 38:34Speaker 02

  I, I think I'm all right, like I'm a fun dad.

• 38:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm going to interview one of your kids next.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, they, you know what, they, look, I have a good, good relationship with them. I had a very bad breakup with my ex-wife, like awful, the worst that you could possibly go through. And they've been exposed to too much through that process and I wish I'd handled it better and I feel terrible about that. And I, I think how I handled it hasn't helped. But I do think I'm a, I think I'm a good dad. I give them a lot of freedom. I, Laura Shin influenced me here. Did you see her TED Talk?

• 39:06Anthony Pompliano?

  I did not, no.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  See, she talks about when she was growing up, she didn't have any rules in the house. They could do what they want and that shaped them.

• 39:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  So I went home that day, I was like, kids, no rules. You can go to bed when you want, eat what you want, do what you want. Strangely, it worked very well for my daughter and not my son.

• 39:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, explain this more, because I grew up in a family with five boys, so I'm very fascinated the difference between a daughter and a son.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  She, her bedtime is half eight. She's, first night, she stayed up really late, and then she was really tired. So she started putting herself to bed between half eight and nine because she knew she had to be up for school.

• 39:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Very responsible.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Very responsible. And she was eight at the time, she would get up, get her school uniform ready, she sets her alarm. Sometimes she wakes me up, or like, I wake up and she's in front of me, she's like, get up.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Like, it totally works for her. She owned the responsibility, just not worked for my son because he stays up till two in the morning playing Fortnite.

• 39:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep, of course.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  I did trap him with it, though. Like, one day, I was like, I just didn't get him up for school. And he woke up at nine, he's like, Dad, I'm meant to be at school. And I was like, yeah. And he's like, why haven't you got me up? I was like, it's no rules. You chose to stay up till two in the morning. It's just not worked with him. I think the difference, I've noticed the difference is, is that I think girls are a little bit more organized when they're young, and boys are a little bit more dopey.

• 40:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that that is, uh, I don't want to say genetic in the sense of, but like, it's a natural tendency? Or do you feel like there's some conditioning at very early stages?

• 40:31Speaker 02

  I'm kind of nervous to answer this, because I feel like if you ever try and identify anything that may be, like, gender difference, you'll get attacked. It's almost like this whole-

• 40:41Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, don't answer it. I don't want to get attacked either.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  But you know, like, there's this whole thing at the moment about trans athletes.

• 40:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't know about this. What is this?

• 40:49Speaker 02

  It's about, I've been reading the news about female, I'm even nervous about getting my terminology wrong. Female trans who are now going through hormone replacement therapy and competing with, in women's sports, okay? And there's a whole, is this, is this right? Is this wrong? And people are saying that this is wrong because, you know, you've got the physiology of a male.

• 41:11Anthony Pompliano?

  They're upset about the sensitivities around the treatments, the gender, etc.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  No, it's more like, you've got somebody with the physiology of a man, go through gender, whatever the thing is.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  Gender reassignment.

• 41:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  Uh, or hormone replacement therapy and then competing with females, but still having some of the physiology of a male. And some people are saying it's just, if you're saying this isn't allowed, you're being discriminatory. And other people are saying, well, hold on. This is unfair. We've got gender differences in sport for a reason. So I've always really nervous about stuff like that because you can be attacked from any direction.

• 41:42Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I, but I'm, I'm a believer that, uh, it's funny to hear the thing about Laura Shin and, and your kids. Let people do what they want.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Well, the kids need boundaries. Horrible advice. It's the freedom to be themselves.

• 41:53Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So, well, here's, here's what's funny. So let's, let's go to the, uh, the rules thing. I grew up with four younger brothers. I'm the oldest of five boys. There was, it would have been a nightmare for my parents to say, no rules. I'm the oldest.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  How much responsibility does that come with?

• 42:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, as a kid, um, well, here's the best way to describe it. So one of the situations or stories that I would tell as like defining of my brothers and I is my brothers and I would literally, uh, when we get home, we name a thing we fought over it. Food, the remote, uh, who's looking at who, uh, you know, I heard you said something or literally just, I'm walking by you in the hallway and you're not paying attention and I just whacked in the stomach. Right. I mean, just like anything you could think of five boys, you can imagine, right? We're all eight years, uh, from oldest to youngest. So we're all very close in age. Just mad house in terms of what we want to do.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Five boys in eight years.

• 42:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes. My mom's an, an absolute angel. So I had the opposite experience where we spent all the time with my mom because my dad, uh, traveled for work. So he was gone basically Monday through Friday. So I had to take care of us and very similar thing, right? Like, why didn't my mom do this? Why didn't my mom do that? Right? Or, or, you know, like, of course she did that. Like she's my mom. Um, and only when we got older did we start to really appreciate it. Uh, but, but the thing that, uh, I remember as kids is there are very specific points in almost every single one of my brother or I's, uh, school experience where the day before, knockout, drag out fights that you would expect brothers to have.

• 43:29Anthony Pompliano?

  The next day, somebody outside of my brothers would say something, push one of the, you know, something happened where it was an attack from the outside, immediately the five of us, you don't want to mess with us, right? And it's just like, look, I could push my brother, I can yell at him, I could, you know, because I can do whatever I want to him, he can do whatever he wants to me. Don't even come over here because you're not going to get one of us, you're going to get all five of us. And I think that like, some of that is, my mom knew, like, hey, I'm gonna like, teach you guys this stuff. And my favorite story as a kid is my mom got mad at me one time because I was on a school bus with my brother who's right underneath me. And they used to play this dumb game where the seat, they would like slap each other's hands,

• 44:13Anthony Pompliano?

  and he broke his finger, right? Like somehow like, you know, he hit it and bent it, whatever, he broke his finger. Complete accident, nobody was even like upset, he thought he like jammed his finger, whatever, goes, doctor's broken. And I'm talking like, broken, like it's like sideways. And my mom was so mad at me because she looks at me, she's not mad at him, she looks at me and goes, what did you do? And I was like, wha- wha- what do you mean? What did I do? Somebody broke your brother's finger. And not like, go beat him up, right? This person who did it, but did you defend your brother? Did you stand up for him? Did you help him, right? And it's little things like that where I, I think that, uh, like mothers do that instinctively. And I look, and it's just like time and time again, things like that. And it's fascinating, right?

• 44:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Because my brothers and I are very close today. And I'll see them and I'll greet them with, you know, what's up idiot?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  How often do you all get together?

• 45:07Anthony Pompliano?

  So I, uh, it's unfair because all five of us live, uh, within 25 minutes of New York City.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 45:13Anthony Pompliano?

  And so we, you know, we hang out as much as we can. I have a beautiful girlfriend, uh, another one of them is married. I have two younger brothers who are, uh, 23 and 25 and, you know, they're doing things 23 and 25 year olds are doing. And, uh, and I'm probably a little too old at this point to go out every night and do all that kind of stuff, but they're having a time of their lives.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  And I met your girlfriend last night, she is beautiful.

• 45:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  And she seems great, she seems like she's totally got your back.

• 45:38Anthony Pompliano?

  She, uh, she's smarter than me, she's tougher than me. And, uh, and actually, uh, she's an immigrant, so she's from Bulgaria.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 45:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Came to the US. And, uh, it's fascinating to hear just the difference of mentality, et cetera. And so I think that's part of, look, part of this whole industry is. People are everywhere, right? I mean, I, I literally on a daily basis get to talk to people all over the world with different experiences, different perspectives, different belief systems. And you're like, you know what? This is pretty cool. Like everyone is um collecting around a single idea. That, you know, without overblowing, it can change the world and is changing the world.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Okay, so what's the one interview you want to get? Who have you got? Like, I want that person.

• 46:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, man, there's a bunch. Uh, I'm gonna list three, but for three different reasons, right? But after I list one, you have to go. And then we'll go back and forth. Uh, so one of them that I absolutely want to do is, uh, I want to interview Joe Rogan.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 46:42Anthony Pompliano?

  So he, he always interviews everybody, right? And, uh, I think it would be fascinating to, uh, cause I think that the way that he is very conversationalist. There's times where I'm listening to him interview somebody and I'm like, I wish that they would immediately turn the question back on him. So I think that would be a fascinating thing and you could, and he has such a breadth of topics that he could discuss everything from, you know, economics to aliens, to drugs, to politi- I mean, he could, he could talk about it all, right? And then he has. So I think that would be like, my number one thing would be to interview him.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Wow, okay.

• 47:17Anthony Pompliano?

  What about you?

• 47:18Speaker 02

  I think you know my number one.

• 47:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Who?

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Is our boat.

• 47:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, why?

• 47:22Speaker 02

  I just find him fascinating. Um, because I think to, to interview him, I'm gonna have to do so much preparation. Because his kind of, the things he writes about are another level. Like I had with Peter Todd, it was just like, whoa, I thought I got him. You know, when I threw the, remember I threw the bait out?

• 47:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Like, that was a whole day of planning. Like, how am I gonna reel him in?

• 47:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Watch this.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:46Anthony Pompliano?

  If you guys are watching right now or listening, uh, to his podcast, go and tweet at Nick Zavo and tell him he has to go on Peter's podcast.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  No, don't. Do you know what? I don't want people to do that because I think if he wants to come on, he will come on at some point.

• 47:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Naturally.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  And that'd be fine. But I definitely don't want him pestered to, you know, because I'm sure he gets asked all the time. I would hate for him to be like.

• 48:05Anthony Pompliano?

  You don't want him to be pressured.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  No, I don't. If he wants to come on, great. You know, I've been trying to gradually get everyone from like the history of the old days back. Uh, you know, I did Whitfield Diffie on cryptography, which was like insane and.

• 48:19Anthony Pompliano?

  How did you get that?

• 48:20Speaker 02

  I think that counts.

• 48:21Anthony Pompliano?

  You're at two, by the way.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  I'm a two, shit.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  I reached out to him. No, no, actually, what happened was I interviewed David Chow.

• 48:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  It didn't work out. It just, it was one of those interviews that just didn't. And we, I decided not to publish it. I discussed it with David and he was fine. And I said to him, can you introduce me to Whitfield? And he did. And I met up with Whitfield and he was great. And it was a great interview.

• 48:41Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  And I do, I'd like to interview Ralph Merkle. Like, so I want to get everyone. I want to almost have done the complete history. And Zalbo is part of that. So hopefully in time that will hap, that will happen. But that's my number one. Okay. What's your?

• 48:53Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Number two, Chamath Papaplia, who, uh, he started the, uh, the growth team at Facebook. Um, he is a, a part owner. Uh, I did.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Do you know him?

• 49:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I do not know him, but, uh, he has agreed on Twitter actually to do it. So, um, we're, we're, we're going to coordinate it. But, uh, the reason why I want to interview him is, uh, he's into all of the, um, kind of decentralization, et cetera. Right? So, so I think that that would be pretty fascinating. Uh, he's very specific and unique views on social media and a lot of the way that we communicate and probably have built audiences and things like that. But the, the most fascinating part to me is he is a guy who appears from the outside to have reached, uh, what I call total freedom.

• 49:38Anthony Pompliano?

  And the freedom has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with lifestyle. It has everything to do with the mental position. I don't care what anyone else thinks. And it is a very, um, careful line to walk. In that it can be perceived as arrogance, egotistical, narcissistic, right? Kind of like all the negative side effects. But it is very freeing for the individual. And so walking that line around a lot of topics and he's very public about, I don't care what anybody thinks, right? Which also like compounds some of the negative side of perspectives, but also is probably even more freeing.

• 50:17Anthony Pompliano?

  To me, that is, uh, that's a fascinating just area to think through of like, you know, I always ask people like, what's your goal? And almost everyone that I ask that question to, I usually ask it in private because it's a very personal question. They will tell me something that is measured by status or amount of wealth, et cetera. Right? It's like a measurement thing.

• 50:40Anthony Pompliano?

  When people ask me this, and I took this from somebody else, happiness, something that is completely undefined and personal to you. And so when you think about that, like, what does that mean to you? For a lot of people, it actually is freedom. And how you define freedom, and like, you can just go down this whole rabbit hole. And the next thing you know, you probably spent two hours talking to somebody, and you're like, I not only don't have the answers, I actually have more questions now. And those are the conversations that are fascinating to me.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Wow. Okay, that's a good one.

• 51:06Anthony Pompliano?

  What's yours?

• 51:07Speaker 02

  I hadn't really thought beyond one. I only have, but I tell you, I can, I can come up with them.

• 51:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Come on, don't you listen? All I do is great questions.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  Well, I tell you what, so there's a guy, there's a newsreader guy, a news reporter guy in England called John Simpson.

• 51:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  And I'd really like to interview him. And I tell you why, it's kind of funny. So I really like the news, and I do like journalism, and he's one of my favorites, right? But actually, what happened was when we were kids, and I was about eight at school, we were all told we had to go write a letter to a famous person.

• 51:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  Pre-internet, you know, that world that my kids don't realize existed. So I wrote to John Simpson, and I was like, have you ever been in jail? Were you scared? He wrote back to me.

• 51:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he's like, um, like, I can't remember the job title, but he's something like, head of reporting for the BBC, right? He is their top guy. But anyway, I don't know, don't know what it was back then, but he wrote back to me. So I'd like to interview him.

• 51:58Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  I've actually wrote to them, because I'm, I'm at some point gonna do another podcast. I'm gonna do a broader, non-

• 52:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you know what yet, what the focus will be?

• 52:05Speaker 02

  I think it will be like, you know, news, current affairs, you know, kind of edgy topics, you know, I've, so I've already done a few interviews. I interviewed a guy who was put in prison in Panama, who's from New York City, by mistake, ended up in a scary ass prison.

• 52:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Interviewed a lady who campaigns for freedom of choice with drugs. And I'd like to interview John Simpson about kind of news and current affairs. They actually replied and said he would do it this year at some point, which is amazing.

• 52:34Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  So yeah, I would like to do that. What's your theory?

• 52:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, my third one that I would want to do.

• 52:46Anthony Pompliano?

  You know what I actually want to do? I want to go somewhere in the world. So this is, I just call this the like faceless interview. I want to go somewhere in the world where you know, nobody just, um, so I'll give you context on this. My brother who's right under me and I for a couple of years in a row, every Christmas we would, um, like on the 20th, let's say. We would sit down, we'd get on our computer and we would say, where do we want to go? No plan, no anything. And we would pick a place in the world. We would buy a flight. We had to leave within 24 hours of that flight, right of whenever we sat down, it had to be within 24 hours. We would fly there. One of the rules was we could have no lodging figured out.

• 53:29Anthony Pompliano?

  So the first year we ever did this, we flew to India, landed in India and didn't have a hotel, didn't have a plan, didn't have anything.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  India is wild, right?

• 53:38Anthony Pompliano?

  We landed at midnight in India, uh, in Mumbai and we had to figure out what to do.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, your phone may or may not have service, right? The wifi, I mean, you got to figure all stuff out. And so it was somewhat of like a kind of a fun thing for us to do together or whatever. And so we got a hotel, right? Then we figured, okay, then now that we're there, that's the first time we ever looked, well, what are the things to do in this city? And you ask around and like, and you kind of work thing. And we spent two weeks in India and we went to like seven, six or seven different cities.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 54:09Anthony Pompliano?

  And, uh, you know, we did things like, um, we went to, uh, Jaipur, India, which is, um, a pretty small area in, um, in India. And we rented motorcycles.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 54:21Anthony Pompliano?

  And I had a motorcycle. He'd never driven one before. So imagine being in Jaipur, there's no traffic line, like it's just crazy. Everything you see in the videos, right? And he's driving a motorcycle for the first time. So like kudos to him for just, you know, he just tackled it. And so what I'd love to do is go to like, in that type of environment and you just find a random person and you interview them and you say, explain to me your perspectives on, and it's like every topic that you could think of.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:46Anthony Pompliano?

  And then you basically publish it and you're like, this is a person who lives in this village in this country who maybe doesn't even have internet connection or maybe has, you know, 5G or, you know, whatever it is. And you just kind of go through the whole thing. And then you just see like, this is a, this is somebody who lives on the same planet as you, who thinks completely differently.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  India is one of my favorite places I've ever been to. It's just wild and so different. I don't know about you. I'm like, I'm not religious, right?

• 55:10Speaker 02

  But I think if I spent enough time in India, I could be convinced because it just has, do you know what I mean? You've got a feeling there's like something going on.

• 55:17Anthony Pompliano?

  The holy land, right? Like, like you, you feel like there's something going on here.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  There's something going on there, isn't there? That's what I felt. All right, third one.

• 55:24Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your third one?

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Oh, God, third one. I'm gonna just pick a random, like, just, just something that I think would be super interesting is, um, uh, uh, I'd love to interview someone like Axl Rose.

• 55:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, wow.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  Because like, it was the first man I saw live. I'm like a huge Guns N' Roses fan. Um, when they reformed, I took my son to Vegas, we went to see them.

• 55:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  I think I'd like to do that. Yeah, I think I'd just, because, because he's.

• 55:47Anthony Pompliano?

  What would you ask about?

• 55:49Speaker 02

  Oh, God, I would ask about, I, I, I'd like to ask a lot about the creation, the music creation process. Because actually, what I can, from reading their books and seeing the breakup, I think everyone else was getting so smashed on drugs. And he just wanted to create this, these albums. And I think in, so I controversially prefer Use Your Illusion One and Two to Appetite for Destruction. Everyone loves Appetite and Appetite is amazing. Every single song's great. I just think some of the best songs in Use Your Illusion One and Two are mind blowing. I think Koma and Estrange, which are both like 10, 11 minute songs, are phenomenal. They're like masterpieces. It, to me, it's almost like modern, like, um, like modern Mozart, right? It's just absolute masterpieces.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  And actually, cool, they never used to play those songs live on, when they reformed, they now play them. So I've heard them like, and I, so I'd like to ask him about the music creation process and what it meant to him. He tried to do it on that Chinese democracy and you could see what he was trying to do. I just think he didn't have the formula of the whole band. But yeah, it's just like, I've got, I've got to deal with my kids. So my kids want a dog. And I said, the deal is you can have any dog you want, but we're calling it Axl Rose the dog.

• 56:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, I love that. So it, it's funny here, you say this because, um, i- is it Kanye? I think that says, uh, "Name me a genius that's not crazy," right? And, and I think music is probably one of the best, um, ways to look at this in that pretty much every single great musician, lyricist, just creator like that.

• 57:24Anthony Pompliano?

  They're a little quote, quote, off by society standards, right? Whether it's the way they think, the way they act, the, the way that they perceive what's, you know, okay to talk about, not okay, you know, whatever it is.

• 57:35Anthony Pompliano?

  But it always makes me think that's true across every industry, right? Like, like I would actually argue the reason why you are great at recording the podcast and the approach you take, like some of the things you do is crazy, right? By everyone else's standard, but you think that they're normal. And I actually look at it, I'm like, of course, like the idea of like being fully transparent about everything you're doing.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 57:58Anthony Pompliano?

  There's a lot of people who are like, that's crazy.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 58:01Anthony Pompliano?

  And you're like, why would you not do this, right? Like, like actually this like makes a ton of sense. And I look at it, I'm like, that actually makes a ton of sense, right?

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:08Anthony Pompliano?

  And it's probably things that I do that you look and you're like, that's crazy, right? And, and so you kind of, i- i- it's almost like, um, the people who push the edge, they have to break out of that main mindset and music is like the perfect example.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Well, I like it how Milton put it. She put, she's like, I don't give a flying fuck. And I'm like, yeah, I want, I want, I'm trying to be that hardcore. I'm not, but I'm like, yeah, I've got tattoos. I like heavy metal. I'm, I'm not, I'm not going to wear a uniform for anyone. I'm just going to be me and do, do what I want. I like the music comparison because I had this conversation with somebody the other night, I was like, what was the last great album? Like in 20 years' time, people are still going to be talking about and listen to it. And there's loads of albums from my childhood you can think of, like classic Elton John or Guns N' Roses, everything, right? But like modern albums, and I, I think the last great album was by Amy Winehouse, Back to Black. I don't think there's been a great album. There'll be albums of people that go, this is amazing.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  I'm going to be like, I don't think people in 20 years will be talking about that album, but I still think they're going to be talking about Back to Black because it was a phenomenal album.

• 59:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that those get better with time? Like, like there's this belief that they were good at the time and then now 20 years later, like, oh, that was, you know, that was an all time hit and it's because 20 years has gone by?

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Maybe, I think also one of the other things is, I, I think it's controversial, but I think music is better when people are off their face on drugs, making music. You go back and you listen, a lot of the best music was made by people smashed on drugs.

• 59:33Anthony Pompliano?

  But, but I think this goes to the point of what do the drugs do? They release a lot of the, the inhibitions, right? And, and they, you know, I, I, I think a lot about, um,

• 59:46Anthony Pompliano?

  There, as a human, there are, uh, real rules is what I call it, like real world rules, right? If you kill somebody, you're going to jail, pretty much in any country in the world, right? Like that is, that is a rule that we as humans have all agreed off limits. Then there are society rules, which means that if you walk down the street and you just flick off a random person, everyone's gonna be like, that guy's an asshole. There's not repercussions in the sense of you go to jail, but you do that enough times and you become known as that person, you kind of get put in society's jail, right? In terms of you, you're an outcast.

• 1:00:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Then there's like the personal rules and it's things that usually I find you believe you wouldn't do, or you wouldn't test that boundary, or if you've never been put in a situation to test a boundary. And it's, and a lot of times it's mental, it's the way you think. And I think most of these music creators, et cetera, like when you hear them give interviews and they talk about like being on drugs, on drugs, whatever, they feel like they're like escaping to some, you know what I mean? Like, like it's very weird how they describe it. Uh, and then you look at like Steve Jobs, same thing, right? Like, like breaking out of those boundaries. And so again, there's real world rules and repercussions and all this stuff, but uh,

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  But this is why we have corporate governance, right? Because corporate governance allows companies to set the like, the things that can't be legislated for, the things they're gonna do for the morality of the company, right? That's why you have corporate governance, you know? And that's, I think, I think we do that in life in different parts because like, for example, you can't legislate perfectly for global warming and green policies, but companies will put their own policies in place. So I think that's why we have kind of different forms of governance, right?

• 1:01:33Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Well, and also there's again, real governance. And then there's like you and I as friends, there are certain, um, rules that we either intentionally agree on, or just over time, as we become friends.

• 1:01:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I have certain expectations of you. You have certain expectations of me, right? And if you ever do something I don't expect and in a negative way, I violated the rules, right? Let me ask this. Talk to me about how you think about marketing in terms of part of building a podcast is the creation process, right? So you gotta find interesting people, realize that you have things to talk to them about, book them, get them logistically in the same place or remotely record, right? Which is obviously a task. Got to clean up the audio. You got to kind of get it all ready to go and they got to distribute it. That distribution part to me is fascinating because I think a lot of different people take different approaches to it.

• 1:02:30Anthony Pompliano?

  And in certain industries, you have certain tools like Twitter that are available to you where, you know, again, in a heavily regulated place like healthcare or finance, they probably actually can't use some of the platforms that you and I would use.

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. For me, the most important thing is brand from the very start. It was like, what is my brand and how is my brand represented? I very by by design and by purpose went for the pink and the black as two very strong colors that I knew in terms of banners would stand out.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  And I designed those banners in a way because I'm very consistent. So people would see them over and over again. They'll go, okay, what is this? I keep seeing. And then part of the brand for me was the guest. I was like, I have worked so hard to have good guests. I mean, I've worked really like, I don't think people understand how much goes on the background. So when I put out those income reports, some of it's to help people. Some of it's to help myself be accountable. But as the money's been going up, people have been getting in touch and saying, I really want to do a podcast. And I'm like, yes, cool. I'll help you. Let's get on Skype. Let's talk about it. But you have to realize how much work goes into this. So for example, my first 25 interviews were all in person. I was on a plane every two weeks, every week with my two kids, then on a plane to go and

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  interview somebody and doing everything else. But yeah, for me, it's all about brand. And I play more of a, I think I play a different game to you. I play more of, so I'm playing a long game in terms of trying to establish what I think is a very credible Bitcoin podcast and a very strong brand around having.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Very struck Brad around that and about the guest. That was what I was.

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  So that's what I've tried to do and less so in terms of pushing my Twitter. And plus also on Twitter, I just struggled to be professional. Like I can't, I just, I'm a troll, I'm sarcastic. So rather than But I think that's good. Yeah, but sometimes it gets me in trouble. Like, like what? Well, like just people out here sometimes don't understand it. So for example, my profile is a troll of you. Do you remember that thing where you put out a list of jobs titles? Yes. So I made that my profile. So it says, I'm a tech titan, 15 years in evangelist guru Instagram. Oh, man. But and it says also, it says, but like, I also say it says tech titan and mommy blogger, lord of the dance, right? It's like this I love it. I love it.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  The amount of time people come to me and like, you're a fucking idiot. You think you're evangelist? And I'm like, look, it's a joke. It says mommy blogger. And that's how I got Andreas on. So what happened was, and there was like, I've been trying to get Andreas for a year, right? And this kind of meme was going, thread was going on Twitter. And Andreas replied to it and I was, and it was a picture of a big hairy ass and he replied. And I was like, Andreas, I've messaged you twice from your website. I've been trying to get hold of you for a year. And you haven't replied, yet you replied to a big hairy ass. And he comes back to me and goes, it's probably because you're an ICO advisor and I want nothing to do with you. And I was like, no, my profile's a joke. And then all these people were coming and going, no, Andreas, you need to check him out. Like his, his podcast is serious. Week later, he's on. That's amazing.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  But it gets me in trouble because people, so a lot of people will say to me, say, like, you're really different in person than you're on Twitter. Like you seem like a nice guy and kind of friendly. On Twitter, you seem like you're a bit of a dick. And I'm like, yeah, I'm just like, what? It's got, also, I think it's maybe it's like a British thing. Like we, we just fuck with people all the time. We're always winding people up. And so that's all I'm doing. I'm like, you post something, I'm like, right, how can I wind up pomp? Silk is post something. I'm like, how can I wind up?

• 1:06:07Anthony Pompliano?

  You're gonna love this. Ready?

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:09Anthony Pompliano?

  My whole theory on Twitter, and I've talked about this before, it's all characterizations. So think of it like the WWF, wrestling in the US, right? Wrestling is fake. They script it, right? There's gonna be conspiracy theorists, by the way, who say wrestling's not fake, right? It's real, but they script these things. They go, they put on a show and they entertain. Twitter is the same thing. There are the heroes, there are the villains, there's the tag team partners. There's, you know, all these different kind of characters on Twitter.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:36Anthony Pompliano?

  And if you ever stopped being snarky and kind of facetious all the time, I would think you're somewhat wrong, right? And, and there's people who are super serious. And if they ever said a joke, we'd be like, oh, my God. Like, you know, like people would just, you know, overheat. Part of it, though, is, uh, I, I've actually never said this before. So if somebody, somebody, people ask me in private, who are the people I respect the most in, um, in the industry? And I always say you.

• 1:07:07Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Thank you.

• 1:07:08Anthony Pompliano?

  And Marty Ben.

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 1:07:10Anthony Pompliano?

  And here's why. It takes incredible courage every day to put this thing in your face and talk, and have this moment in time, every idea you have, every thought you have, et cetera, to either be recorded or typed out and to put it out to the public. And you will be judged by that for 10 years.

• 1:07:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Anthony Pompliano?

  You're putting ideas on, on record every single day or every week or whatever it is. But here's the best part. There's a lot of people who do that and they're very inauthentic when they do it.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  Okay. Yeah.

• 1:07:40Anthony Pompliano?

  So they'll create a piece of content, they'll have 10 other people read it, right? They'll get it all edited up and they'll put it out there and be like, oh, look how smart I am, right? And I call it the intellectual Olympics.

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  All this.

• 1:10:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's what you do.

• 1:10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like, he's busy. Like, he gets like a hundred thousand downloads an episode, right? He's busy and he did it for me. So, anyone wants to do it, I'm like, like, anyone now, listening, you want to do it, I'll tell you everything I know. There's no secret. Like, I'm competitive in that I want to kind of win, but I still see us all on the same side. Do you see what I mean?

• 1:10:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Like, that's why I promote everyone else.

• 1:10:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, and it's also a thing where you could sit and, you know, you could argue with people and do all this stuff. You buy yourself some karma, I think, by being a good person, right? And what I mean by that is, there are very few times, but I've definitely done it, everyone's done it, where just somebody says something so outlandish, you're just like, really, right? You're just, that's seriously like your argument, or that's what you're going to come out of the blue, out of nowhere, whatever. And in those times when you basically say, okay, enough is enough, like, I'm serious and I'm going to actually say something, what you find is, again, people have context, they know your intentions, they think you're

• 1:11:14Anthony Pompliano?

  good-hearted, right? Like, you have all these things that are working towards you, and people might not even agree with you. Like, my favorite direct messages I get on Twitter are people who say, I actually disagree with everything you say. I just want to say thanks, though, for putting in so much effort.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:11:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, you know what? Kudos to you for having, you know, basically the wherewithal to kind of throw a jab at me, right, if you don't agree, but also say thanks. Like, I really appreciate that. And I'm actually much more likely to respond to that person than the person who, you know, is like, I follow everything you do, but, you know, and just, yeah, just like, I get it, things, I appreciate it, right? But like, this person has an opinion, they recognize that it's different than mine, but they're not gonna just like walk away and not engage at all. It's, I don't know, it's just, it's very unique, uh, when you get to talk to a lot of people every day, how you see some of these interactions, and you're putting out public content.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. You get some weird stuff, though, the DMs, right?

• 1:12:05Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the weirdest DM you've ever gotten?

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  Uh, boobs. It was so embarrassing.

• 1:12:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I'm lucky in that I'm very public about my relationship with my girlfriend. And so I I've avoided a lot of that.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  It just came in one day. She's messaging me and I was like, hi, how you doing? She's like, oh, do you wanna like, um, she's like, I see you in LA a lot. Do you wanna meet up sometimes like, oh, you know, maybe, maybe not. Cause I've kind of, I kind of got a, um, yeah, but anyway. In comes these boobs. And I'm like, what are you doing?

• 1:12:34Anthony Pompliano?

  There's 10 people who just signed up for pod to start podcast now.

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  They No, I was like, I was like, you, you, you shouldn't be sending stuff like this out like this. Like, thank you. I really appreciate, um, your boobs. But like, you shouldn't be sending this stuff out. And it was really, oh, it was so awkward. Um, that's the weirdest thing. But then I just, I know you get lots of people who, I know you get heartbreaking stories, but you just have to ignore them because you you don't know what's truth or not.

• 1:12:57Anthony Pompliano?

  That's the, that's the worst part.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, oh, like my whole family's dying and we haven't eaten in a year. Can you give me some Bitcoin? And you're just like, I don't even know if you're telling the truth. Ah, fuck, fuck, I'm losing now. There's a lot of swearing in this one. By the way, do you know if you swear on your podcast and you don't warn about it? There are certain regions you don't get played in.

• 1:13:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, so I did not know that, but I did know that you have to put the like explicit tag on it or whatever.

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Anthony Pompliano?

  And, uh,

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  Laura told me that.

• 1:13:24Anthony Pompliano?

  When, uh, see, she, she, uh, she's been doing way long.

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  She is such a pro.

• 1:13:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, she, uh, so when I learned about the explicit thing, I remembered, uh, it made me think of, remember, uh, CDs? And they would come with the like parental advisory thing.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Anthony Pompliano?

  That was cool, right? You wanted to get the parental advisory because it had all the curse words, all that stuff. I remember thinking in the first episode we were gonna release and we had to put the explicit thing. I was like, actually, this is like kind of business related. I don't know if we want parental advisory or explicit on this. Um, but, but I real, I think in my opinion, nobody actually cares, right? Nobody does anything. They don't not listen because of it or whatever.

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  Ken Bozak's in, do you know Ken?

• 1:14:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I've never met him, but. Legend in the sense of uh, he has sent me information, he's introduced me to people. Uh, he's been like, hey, you should go check this out. And then, uh, I recently saw that he bought one of the, uh, the short the bankers t-shirts and he was wearing it around. He made a gif out of it and, and just, I enjoy people who are enthusiastic about the things that they do on a daily basis. And he is like the epitome of that.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  So we, our birthdays are a day apart. I met him in Vegas. I went to, so when I turned 40, I didn't want to have a party with my friends and stuff because I'm divorced. I didn't want to have all this weird couple, non-couple day. So I was like, I went out for a couple of beers with my friends and said, I'm not having anything. I went out to Vegas instead. Went out to dinner with a whole bunch of people, uh, like Luke, Luke came and I went like, yeah, Luke Martin, but a whole bunch of like different, uh, people that you would know from that world. And we went out to dinner. It was great. But somebody organized a birthday party for me and, uh, Ken, which was where I met Cody. And, um, and, and, and I was at this conference and the thing about Ken is like, he's like, he's like a famous person at these conferences. Like people are just like running up

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  to, because he's, he dresses different. He looks cool. He's got like this cool girlfriend. People are like running up to him. But the really interesting thing about him, he did an interview on the Crypto Street Pod, you know, you've been on that.

• 1:15:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 1:15:28Speaker 02

  Fucking fuck. It's four. Um, he lives entirely, I can't even say it.

• 1:15:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Entirely off of all.

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. He lived, yeah. And you know, he hustles it. I mean, he's a great guy.

• 1:15:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Thanks for listening so far to this recording. As I mentioned in the beginning, this was a two and a half hour recording that Peter and I did. You've now finished part one. And to listen to the remainder of the conversation, please go to the What Bitcoin Did podcast to listen to part two. Thanks so much and see you over there. Hey everyone, Pop here. If you liked this episode of Off the Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the Apple, Spotify and other podcast charts, please do us a favor and rate, review and subscribe. To review, simply go to the Off the Chain homepage, scroll down until you see the five blank stars. Taking 15 seconds to fill those stars in and leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us take the entire crypto ecosystem to the top of the charts. I appreciate you listening and see you next time on Off the Chain.