#457 Liron Shapira on Relationships and Rationality

Liron Shapira is the co-founder and CEO of Relationship Hero. He’s a serial entrepreneur, founding his first company at age 21, which raised over $130 million. In this conversation, we discuss the YCombinator experience, rationality community, superintelligence artificial intelligence, Relationship Hero, investing in Coinbase, and Bitcoin. ======================= OKCoin.com is the leading crypto exchange for both beginners and experienced users. You can fund your account in under 2 minutes, and get access to the most advanced trading engine, all while paying the lowest trading fees in the industry (0.1%). Visit www.okcoin.com/pomp and open your account today. ======================= The Rodman Law Group is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs realize their vision by helping them operate defensibly in sectors where laws and regulations haven’t caught up to the realities of the industry. The Rodman Law Group’s legal expertise combined with its understanding of blockchain technology makes it the ideal legal service provider for the industry. http://www.therodmanlawgroup.com/pomp ======================= Harvested Financial makes options incredibly simple. They’re the first options robo advisor, where you can build and customize a personalized trading plan that gets automatically executed. Options help you speculate in capital efficient ways, diversify your holdings with market neutral strategies, and generate passive income by selling premium. https://www.harvestedfinancial.com/pomp =======================

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

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano, most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Liran Shapiro is the co-founder and CEO of Relationship Hero. He's a serial entrepreneur, founding his first company at age 21, which raised over $130 million. In this conversation, we discuss the Y Combinator experience, the rationality community, superintelligence, artificial intelligence, Relationship Hero, investing in Coinbase, and Bitcoin. I really enjoyed this conversation with Liran, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is OKCoin.

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• 2:51Anthony Pompliano?

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• 3:34Anthony Pompliano?

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• 4:20Anthony Pompliano?

  So you can build and customize a personalized trading plan that helps get automatically executed. Options can help you speculate in capital efficient ways. You can diversify your holdings with market neutral strategies and you can generate passive income by selling premium. Go to harvestedfinancial.com/pomp. Again, harvestedfinancial.com/pomp. One more time, harvestedfinancial.com/pomp. The first options robo advisor. If you don't have options in your portfolio, you need them and you need harvested financial. All right, let's get into this episode with Laron. I hope you guys enjoy it.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 5:25Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys, bang, bang. I've got Liron here. Thank you so much for doing this, sir.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Hey, my pleasure and longtime listener.

• 5:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Well, we, we've known each other for a while now because I had the, the pleasure of investing in, in the company you're running right now, but we'll get to that in a second. Let's jump right into your background. You've got a pretty interesting story where you're born in Israel and moved to Silicon Valley at the age of four. Just talk me through growing up in Silicon Valley and what that was like.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah. So, you know, my first language is Hebrew, but I got a chance to go to, you know, kindergarten and stuff in the U.S. So pretty quickly I got Americanized and me and my brother started talking mostly English. And I was just really lucky to land in Silicon Valley because I love computers. And then later I discovered I love entrepreneurship and I looked around and like all the cool groups and organizations were just right here. And, you know, like 30 minutes drive away everywhere I wanted to go. So yeah, I was like obsessed with computer programming growing up. And I studied computer science in college and then right out of college, I worked at Slide, which was like at the time, I'm like, oh yeah, it's just a random job in San Francisco.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Go slide. But then in retrospect, it's like, oh, wow, there were a ton of like really great people there who were my coworkers, obviously Max Levchin, Kiefer Boy, Suhal from Mixpanel, Adora from Y C, just like crazy amount of good talent density at Slide, and I didn't fully appreciate it at the time. And then I went and did a startup called Quicksee, which itself got really big and partnered with Alibaba. But actually, we ended up kind of lighting $170 million on fire. That basically had a terrible outcome. So that was kind of my foray into the startup world. And then a few years ago, kind of picked up the bat for another swing, and that led me to my current company, Relation Shapiro.

• 7:11Anthony Pompliano?

  So let's talk about lighting $170 million on fire. Explain kind of what happened there. And I think for those that aren't familiar with startups, the idea that you could be a fast growing big company and still not work out is a little counterintuitive. So kind of elaborate on that.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. That's a really important idea. It's really interesting to think about. So with Quicksee, we got really big. And this was, we started all the way back in 2009 when the iPhone was new and the whole idea of app stores were new. And our thesis was like, we need to invent a totally different search technology that's customized for finding you the right app. Now, I actually think that that thesis, there's still something to it that's underexploited. Like if you use your iPhone, you know, if you pull down the search bar or the spotlight feature, it's actually still really crappy. Like it only recently started finding like the most obvious results. And it's still like barely, you know, if you type in like the name of a document you're working on, it's not going to pull up the document. So that's still like a rich area for improvement. And that was kind of the seed of Quicksee.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  And then, but we ended up kind of flailing around trying to find, you know, what's the revenue model? How do we get traction? And our biggest breakthrough came when we partnered with Alibaba. We made this deal where we would power search for their app stores. And so then that turned into like a 20 million a year revenue thing. We were doing a bunch of custom work for them. But eventually it all fell through. And so throughout the course of that whole process, we raised mostly from Alibaba as a strategic investment, a total over like seven years of $170 million. And so you'd think if you're looking at it from the outside, like, wow, this company is going great and all this money is pouring in. But a lot of times it's an illusion and you really just have to look at the yearly metrics, you know, like how much revenue is coming in, what are the costs? And ours were pretty crappy, but we just had all this money to burn anyway.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  And so we just burned it and then we shut down because we didn't even have an asset that was good enough to, you know, sell and continue as independently.

• 9:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And what's so interesting about hearing this story is the way that you run Relationship Hero is very, very data-driven. I get the updates and it's probably one of the more data-driven updates that I get. Talk through a little bit about where did the idea for Relationship Hero come from and then we can talk about the product you guys have built.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Totally. Yeah. So, and yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, we do A/B tests. We're data-driven. So, the original idea, it really has nothing to do with my previous career, but it has to do with a problem that I understand deeply, which is struggling with dating and relationships. Because you know, you always want to start a company around a problem you understand. And as somebody who's always been, you know, very technical, living in Silicon Valley, like my career's always been an area of my life that I have done pretty well. But my relationships were like a disaster. Like I'd go on a date and it'd be like the worst day. Like I'd feel really awkward. Like communication was bad. Like I wouldn't get a second date. And so I found myself always hitting up my friend, like monopolizing his time, getting all this advice about dating. And so after my last

• 10:00Speaker 02

  company shut down, and I was thinking like, what problems am I familiar with? I'm like, well, what if we take my friend's skill, which is basically relationship coaching, and we scale it up and we give other people the same benefit that I'm getting? Which sounds a little crazy, but as we started to explore it, it's like, well, everybody's trying to talk to their friends. They're trying to get relationship advice from their friends. And it's not like they would even bother contacting a professional, because the professionals out there just have like these random websites. They're like, you know, they're not really trustworthy. There's just different types of coaching. There's a lot of therapy, but therapy is, you know, or marriage counseling, but that's not exactly what people need either. So, we just thought, hey, maybe there's a niche. So, that was like the initial kernel of the idea. And we kind of grew it organically. The first version of Relationship Hero was like five of my friends sending us screenshots of texts

• 10:45Speaker 02

  from like their Tinder, from their OkCupid, just being like, hey, what do I do? What's like my next move?

• 10:50Anthony Pompliano?

  And so as you start to build the company, it sounds like really in the beginning, it was almost like we're gonna do the service and then we'll figure out what the product is over time. Like, how do you go from what is a really early, early kind of MVP to what the product has become today? Is that just constantly talking to the customers and really understanding kind of how they're using whatever product they have in their hands and what they need? Or is this more of you've got a vision, you set that vision, you go build it, and then you'll find the customers that want that thing?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  It's a combination. So it's a concept that I call following the value or the, I call it the lean MVP flow chart. So you're always trying to follow a flow chart, like in terms of what's your next step? The rule of thumb is like, well, where can I, where can I double my value? Like, how much value am I creating now? And just how can I double it? Because if you keep doubling it, pretty soon you're gonna create a lot of value. So for example, like at the beginning, we were helping a few friends with text messages. So I was like, okay, well, to double that, I just have to find like five more friends. So pretty soon I'm helping like 10 friends. Okay, but then I ran out of friends. So suddenly I had to get creative. I'm like, okay, well, how am I gonna find 10 more people? And so we went on Reddit and we found some people on Reddit and we were helping them for free. So I'm always just thinking like, how do I just double? And now we have like thousands, so doubling thousands.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Now we have to think like, okay, well, now we need to like, you know, do a TV commercial or something. But if you just keep asking, how do I double? How do I incrementally create more value? It gets you pretty far.

• 12:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so as you start to actually build the product, I remember even early on, you're playing with like the monetization and kind of the pricing structure. And at one point it was like, I think a dollar per minute, and then you moved more to like a monthly type of structure. Just talk through like maybe some of the tests that you would run and kind of what data you would pay attention to in order to better understand, you know, what works, what doesn't work, and kind of what's in the best interest of our customers long term.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Totally. Yeah. So one thing we do is we just we A B test like crazy. So like anytime we launch anything, we have it deeply embedded into our software that everything is an A B test, you know, like, and I'm not just talking about like button colors. A lot of times we actually don't bother testing like the really small stuff that we don't think is going to matter. But anytime we're trying to say like, hey, can we raise our prices? Well, what if we were to offer, we raise our prices, but we give half the people a discount and we see if the people with the discount actually tend to sign up with a with a higher rate, you know? And so we're always looking at the numbers because how lame is it to like launch something that, you know, cuts 25% out of your business and you don't even realize it and you blame it on seasonality? You know, it's like you need the instrument panel of A B test.

• 13:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so this idea is pretty, you know, straightforward, right? It's, hey, people want a relationship advice, we're going to provide a relationship advice. But you've built it in a unique, almost like marketplace way where you're bringing in top of funnel interest of people who need the advice. And then you're basically finding people who could be the coaches and onboarding them in order to to provide a good experience. Why has nobody else done it in this way? Right? Like, where did the insight come from to do it in this specific kind of virtual, you know, technology enabled way come from?

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. So it's, you know, relationship here, it's not necessarily what it seems on the surface. Like when people see us, they're just like, oh, you're a marketplace. But what most people don't realize is that there's not really a market for relationship coaches. So like you can compare us to BetterHelp and Talkspace on the therapy side. Those apps are much more like a marketplace because they they take something that's a more standard commodity, like a therapist. Okay, you make a list of what certifications constitutes a therapist, and then you go offer a contract job to those people. So that would be more of a marketplace model. In our case, there's no such thing as a certified relationship coach with a single definition. So we looked at all the certifications out there and we're like, okay, well, this one kind of fits, but it's missing this. And eventually we pull together our own certification and our own training. And then we're like, okay, great.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  So we know how to train and certify a relationship coach, but then, you know, where do we find them? Or like, who are they? Relationships with coaches. And so we started kind of looking for raw talent. So we have people, you know, we have a list of like 20 backgrounds that are all like somewhat relevant. Like, okay, this person has done social work. This person has a BA in psychology. So we have all these different backgrounds and then we train them. And so we're, we're kind of in this middle space. I guess there's a fancy term for this. We're like a managed marketplace where we have a lot of control over our supply. In fact, in the US, we have, the coaches are actually full-time W2 employees.

• 15:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so as you started to scale this up, what's been the biggest learning in terms of actually building out, you know, in a space that people I think understood, but using a model that people hadn't done before?

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it's, you know, it's really just thinking from first principles, right? So instead of, I feel like people are always like trying to search Google and try to find like the answer for how to do something. But in our case, we're just like, well, can this person give good coaching? And if they did, how could we tell? Like, what would be the proof? So we like made a bunch of tests, they have to take tests. And then we have a dashboard showing like, what does their retention look like? You know, like, do the clients come back? What kind of reviews do they leave? And so when we hire and train a new coach, we can see very quickly, like within a couple of weeks, like where they stand. And we can instantly detect anomalies being like, okay, something's wrong with their coaching. And the unique thing about what we do is we take responsibility for the quality of the coaching. So like, if you got bad advice, we'll actually go in and look and be like, oh, okay, let me give you a refund. Let me actually give

• 16:18Speaker 02

  you a more senior coach to kind of fix the bad advice you got. And it's rare, but we take responsibility when that happens.

• 16:25Anthony Pompliano?

  And why is the focus so much on what I'll call like very tactical things, right? So this isn't, hey, be nice, or hey, you should go do something at a high level. It's very, very tactical and like, you should respond in this way, or you should do X thing on Y date. Why the focus on the tactical aspect rather than the more high level stuff?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah. Well, imagine you're going to your friends for relationship help, right? A lot of what you need is that tactical advice. And the thing is that it's possible to be an expert on relationship tactics. You know, courtship, uh, courtship is a game, right? And it has a lot of evolved strategies and tactics. Um, you know, like crafting the perfect text. You have to draw on a lot of communication skills. And everybody feels like they have to be their own expert, right? Everybody's like, oh yeah, I don't need help, you know, dating, it just comes from my heart. It's just me being authentic. And so one of the, the perspectives that we have at Relationship Hero, which we think is not super popular yet, but we think it's growing in popularity, is the idea of like, look, sure, you want to be authentic, but you shouldn't expect yourself to have all of these communication and courtship skills,

• 17:28Speaker 02

  because it's something that you can like invest more time into getting better. And you can talk to a professional and get some tips. That'll save you a lot of time.

• 17:35Anthony Pompliano?

  And the most important question I'm going to ask you today. Uh, everyone wants to know, how do you write the perfect text message or Tinder message?

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. So, uh, you know, I'm not going to give you a bunch of stock openers, although we do have those. Um, the, the number one key that people just don't get, like the most common complaint I hear about dating apps is like, you send a message, even you work hard on it and you know, you express why you like the other person, and then you don't get a reply. Or you get a few replies, but then the conversation like peters up. And you're like, damn, I like this person. Why did the conversation peter out? And the number one trick, um, to, to, to keeping the conversation going in like a really good serendipitous way is you just have to think a couple of moves ahead. Like, think about it like it's chess, you know, like playing chess against yourself. Imagine that you are the recipient of the text. And imagine that you, uh, just want to be able to respond within like five seconds.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Like a response just comes to your head like it's natural banter. Most of the texts that people write are actually really annoying to respond to. And the only way to respond to it is to like, think for five minutes. And when you make the other person think for five minutes, they're like, uh, you know, this guy seems pretty cool, but it's just, let me, let me get back to him. And then they never get back to you.

• 18:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's so fascinating that you describe it as chess because basically what you're trying to do is not ask a question that has a finite answer, it sounds like. Instead, what you're doing is you're really asking a question to elicit a response in which you can then respond to again and kind of keep the conversation going, right? It's almost like you're optimizing for a sustained conversation rather than simply getting information.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Yes, except when you say sustained conversation, it's not just about like prolonging it, it's about making each back and forth feel good, basically, or give some value or have some purpose. So, for example, like when it's early in the conversation, a lot of times you just want to make them engage and like have fun. So, your goal is basically to create a fun interaction. So, you want to throw in like a tease or a joke, but not just like a random knock-knock joke, but like a certain type of joke where they like it and also they're motivated to continue it, like something that like challenges them a little bit, like kind of like an interactive role play.

• 19:43Anthony Pompliano?

  I love the just the framework that you use to describe this. I want to switch gears and we'll come back to relationship here in a little bit, but there's a lot of people who listen to this who like Bitcoin and technology investing. You've been early to a lot of things. There's this tweet from 2011, June 11, 2011, and it says, "My investment thesis: Buy into a 10% probability of 100x return. Examples: One, Bitcoin. Two, Milner and Conway's Start Fund." There weren't very many people who were talking about Bitcoin and 100x potential upside back in 2011. When did you first hear about Bitcoin? Why did you kind of tweet that out and kind of what was the logic back then, especially if you remember it?

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. And by the way, don't forget, Milner and Conway's Start Fund, remember Yuri Milner and Ron Conway back in 2011 gave Y Combinator a ton of money. They were invested a lot in every company. And that ship has actually come in too, right? Like if you look at all these IPOs, like Airbnb, almost 100 billion, like everybody now realizes that Y Combinator is by far like the best game in town, except maybe Sequoia. Like those two are, so yeah, I mean, I think both Y Combinator and Bitcoin were like really sleeper hits back in 2011. And so where did I get the thesis? I just think that, you know, the human brain is just bad with orders of magnitude. Right? So I'm always looking for the 10% probability. And back in 2011 Bitcoin, there was like a 90% chance that it was just gonna like fizzle out.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Right? Like now, obviously, it's much more robust. But in 2011, sure, it might fizzle out. But I just noticed like, okay, well, on the 10% chance that it doesn't fizzle out, like, couldn't it just go 10x, 100x, 1000x? Like, isn't that, you know, why isn't that possible? If it can go 3x, why not 100x? And like, sure enough, you know, the 100x was like well within the realm of possibility.

• 21:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And in terms of that technology versus a fund, how did you look at the difference? Or even today, how do you look at the difference between basically giving money to somebody else to go invest versus finding the assets yourself?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah. I mean, they're both good strategies, right? So I tend to, I just think that my comparative advantage is noticing, I call it order of magnitude perspective. So my brain is just wired in such a way where I'm always trying to like ask, you know, how big is something? I'm just like really obsessed with like order of magnitude size, right? So I just noticed, hey, Bitcoin could be really big, right? You know that very well, like you're always talking, you know, it could be 100 trillion one day. And so, yeah, so that was the deal with Bitcoin. And also, one connection I have to Bitcoin that's kind of random, like, what was I even doing looking at it in 2011?

• 22:16Speaker 02

  A couple of random historical accidents from my life. One is that when I was in college studying computer science, I randomly took this grad class, graduate level elective, and we were talking about cryptography. And I randomly did a project, like writing a little paper on this research paper where somebody had made a scheme for, it was called Compact eCash. So it was like a way to use principles of cryptography to pay people. So like, I did a little report on the scheme. I did a little presentation. I'm like, yeah, this is a nice little scheme, but it's like impractical, so it basically sucks, but it's like a nice idea. So then, literally like two years later, I'm reading the Bitcoin white paper. And I'm like, wait a minute, this is like the crappy paper that I read in college, except like much better solving all these problems. So like, I just randomly happened to be in a position of being like, oh, holy crap.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  This is like a solution to an important problem. And then the other thing that really hit for me is I was part of the less dot com community and all these rationalists and they were actually very early to Bitcoin. In fact, there's like some, there's some gossip that, uh, that one of the contributors, one or two of the contributors to less wrong might be Satoshi. So like there and they were talking about Bitcoin. And so the, the last straw for me af- after those two like data points was just seeing it, seeing the market price start to rise, like seeing it get traction, seeing it get talked about and not die. And I'm like, okay, if on the conceptual level Bitcoin is so powerful and it's not going the way socially, like it's actually picking up steam in terms of like normal people caring about it. Um, then that is like a very potent combination.

• 23:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. You also were a, an early investor in Coinbase. Uh, and so for somebody who saw Bitcoin so early, was it just a natural extension when you met Brian, uh, that Coinbase could be big? Or kind of what was the story there and why did you invest?

• 23:55Speaker 02

  So randomly in 2012, when I was kind of like at the height of my Bitcoin obsession, like I'm actually less involved with Bitcoin these days, but, um, right around that time, there was this, uh, this new company called Funder's Club, which is really great. They're actually doing really well too. Um, and it was this new idea of like letting people give smaller checks, a little bit like a syndicate, uh, letting people put smaller checks into companies. And that was right when I was starting to get a little bit of disposable income. Um, and I was looking to do a little angel investing. So just by coincidence, I, I, I ended up putting a check into the first, uh, Funder's Club fund where they had a few options of companies to pick. And I'm like, oh yeah, Coinbase, I like Bitcoin. So a lot of luck, you know, Silicon Valley being at the right place at the right time,

• 24:36Speaker 02

  happened to like Bitcoin, ended up angel investing in Coinbase. And then of course, you know, forgot about it for a few years. And, and now they're like, you know, the next, uh, potential YC IPO. And I've just been really impressed. Oh, my thesis there was just like, look, I think Bitcoin's a big deal. And I think that Coinbase is doing a really good job at just being like the best Bitcoin company.

• 24:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And it's so funny because once you make the investment, you kind of forget about it for a while. Uh, it's almost as if you give your capital to an entrepreneur and you task them with like, hey, go grow my wealth. Right? To some degree, um, and being in the YC Silicon Valley type world, was there additional weight put on it that they were going through YC or had gone through YC? I don't know at what point, um, or was it just, I just like this company?

• 25:20Speaker 02

  So the YC stamp of approval definitely meant a lot to me. So YC has like a special place in my heart because I was reading Paul Graham essays when I was in high school, just like obsessively, even before YC was a thing. And then I kind of followed YC from afar, like, you know, read all the articles documenting what was happening in YC. Eventually, Relationship Hero ended up doing YC in 2017. So I kind of got to check off a bucket list item. But yeah, when I saw Coinbase do YC, that was definitely another plus. But at the same time, it was really funny to consider like how clueless I was as an angel investor because Coinbase is my best angel investment. So I like to act like I know what I'm doing, but it was really like my first lucky angel investment. And I was like, I was just like chatting with them, being like, oh yeah,

• 26:02Speaker 02

  let me analyze your code, you know, what programming image are you writing? And just like, you know, just didn't really know how to evaluate a company.

• 26:09Anthony Pompliano?

  It's so funny. What was going through YC like?

• 26:12Speaker 02

  It was pretty cool. So, you know, it's just, I'd built up so much anticipation and I'd read so much about YC that when it actually happened, it was slightly anticlimactic because it's like, oh yeah, right. Okay, it's YC. If I felt like I was like super hardcore. I was like, okay, I have to talk with every partner. I have to like, you know, go contact every company. Like, I was like so hyped up about it. And like, other people were like more calm. So like, settle down. But, but no, I mean, it's really good. They give you high quality advice. We always get, you know, nuggets of insight from our advisors. Like, when we started Relationship Hero, we were actually focused only on text chat. And so one thing our partners told us is like, hey, you know, have them give you a call. And so like on the way to a YC group advising session, we, my co-founder Liron was like on the phone giving coaching to one of our clients, you know,

• 26:57Speaker 02

  so they give you great advice. Obviously, the straightforward application process and the straightforward 125K that they give you is nice. The stamp of approval is nice. So, I mean, YC is killing it. You know, they're number one.

• 27:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. It's so fascinating to see kind of just success after success. And you wonder how much of that is the selection bias versus the actual value that they derive. What would you say was the best part of the experience and then the worst part of the experience?

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Okay, the best part of the experience, I would just have to say how good they are at helping you raise more money, right? It's really amazing what they do. I think everybody knows, right? You come in at a valuation that's less than 2 million, right? When they give you money, you're valued less than 2 million. They get 7% of the company. And by the time you're pitching on demo day, we raised at 6 million. You know, these days, companies are raising at 10, 12, 15, right? 20 is not unheard of. And so it's kind of like they 10x you like in 3 months, right? It's talk about a 10x return. And so, yeah, so that magical process worked on us to some degree. I mean, it was still, it was still hard work to meet with a bunch of investors and raise money, but you know, they absolutely gave us a boost. And that's probably, if I had to rank

• 28:09Speaker 02

  the reasons to do YC, I just think the fact that they opened doors to talk with so many investors is probably their number one value. The worst part of YC, I guess, I might have to say like, randomly, when you have to go listen to the talks, because sometimes the talks are a really special part of YC. Like, I really liked seeing Joe Gebbia from Airbnb, like, he talked to us, and that was really cool, you know, Drew from Dropbox. But some of the talks were like, we were less excited about, and we even skipped them because we were like an hour away, like, when YC was in Mountain View, we were in San Francisco. And then they're like, "Oh, why don't you come into the talks?" I'm like, "Well, I watch so many startup talks, I don't want to see every talk." So I kind of opted out of some of the talks.

• 28:47Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome. You've got a blog that you've worked on for a while, Bloated MVP. What was the thought process behind that?

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, Bloated MVP. So, you know, I like to write, but I've never found until now, like, a theme that I can write a bunch of articles about. So Bloated MVP is like the first time, and I'm like, I bet I could write like 50 articles about Bloated MVPs. And the concept, obviously, MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. And so Bloated MVP is kind of like another synonym for, for a startup that's not a lean startup, right? Like, if you try to follow Eric Ries's lean startup, and you try to make an MVP, but you fail at it, you end up with a Bloated MVP. And the reason why I want to write about Bloated MVPs is I think even today, when everybody knows you're supposed to make an MVP, right? It's like, it's already seeping to the culture. And yet, 80% of companies that I see are Bloated

• 29:37Speaker 02

  MVPs. I'm like, what's going on? Why is everybody still shooting themselves in the foot? So I made a blog, it's bloatedmvp.com, and it just documents like, okay, here's another startup shooting themselves in the foot, making a Bloated MVP. And it's so easy not to make a Bloated MVP if you follow like a few principles. So that's basically what I spell out.

• 29:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Why is it so easy to mess it up? Like, why does everyone continue to launch these bloated MVPs?

• 30:02Speaker 02

  So yeah, there's actually a bunch of reasons because you think, you know, the concept is so well taught, you think everybody would get it by now. There's a bunch of factors that lead you astray. For example, even the word MVP, Minimum Viable Product, the word product, I think, is actually very misleading. Like, remember how I said Relationship Hero? It started out as like me and my co-founder just helping five of our friends. Okay, how did we help five of our friends? They would text us screenshots or we made a Facebook group and we'd post in the Facebook group. Right? Would you call that a product? No, but it was us giving value to our friends. So I would still call it a value transaction. And what people don't understand is when you want to build a company from nothing, you have to follow the value and you have to ask yourself, how do I create a little bit of value? How do I double the value, right? How do I create more value?

• 30:46Speaker 02

  And when you do all that, that's not necessarily a product. But what most founders do is they're kind of, you know, they're cargo culting, right? So they're copying the surface level characteristics. I'm like, okay, here's my startup. I gotta get a co-founder, I gotta get an accelerator, I gotta get a VC, an angel. I gotta check all these boxes to do a startup. And then I gotta hire a developer or learn to code, right? And then I have to build a website, launch in the App Store, go to Product Hunt. And everybody's just like, you know, they're like zombies, right? Or like lemmings, right? And it's like, no, forget all that stuff, just follow the value.

• 31:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it's crazy too, because I think that it's so easy to get lost in the weeds and want to build, you know, feature after feature after feature. But also, there's a psychological element to it, right? Like, yes, you want to make the product as good as you can, but it's also scary to launch something that you know isn't good, right? To some degree. So how do you think people get over that?

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. There's a few tips. So one of them is the idea that like, nobody cares. I mean, there are certain like high-profile launches that like naturally hype up, right? So like if a well-known entrepreneur is gonna go launch something, I actually think, you know, Marissa Mayer launched something the other day, and she's so high-profile that she would probably have to launch it anonymously if she wanted to get like, you know, some early feedback and iterate. But for 99% of entrepreneurs, including myself, people care so little about what you launch. They just care so little. It's like people imagine that they're gonna launch and they're gonna get like a million people's, like the intense spotlight on them. There's not gonna be a spotlight on you. Like, you should be so lucky that a bunch of people will care to judge your product. So just like, launch it and see what happens.

• 32:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and the downside really isn't that bad because there's so little people using it that if it absolutely sucks and everyone hates it, you'll learn and, you know, what do they say? Feedback is a gift, right? Well, I want to talk a little bit about modern rationality. This is fascinates me. You've been kind enough to to suggest a couple of guests to come on the podcast previously that touch on this stuff. Just maybe let's start at a high level. Like, what is modern rationality?

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. So rationality is really awesome and it's fun to talk about because there's like so many misperceptions about it. So I have to give credit to, you know, where I learned all the all the concepts of modern rationality, probably centered around that site I mentioned, lesswrong.com. But there's also, you know, overcomingbias.com, which is Robin Hanson's personal blog. And yeah, he was on the podcast. I highly recommend listening to his episode. And lesswrong.com was actually founded by Eli Yzerudkowski, who is somebody who he's like very prominent in the artificial intelligence research community and one of the inventors of modern rationality. And he wrote this thing called the sequences, which is like many thousands of pages of like dense explanatory content of like all these different ways of like how to think

• 33:24Speaker 02

  and how to properly change your mind, like exactly when the evidence tells you to change your mind, basically like how to do science better. So like very high level, like what is all this stuff, right? Like, what's the what's the central idea? It's basically like how to wield your brain as a tool. Because obviously, your brain is like extremely powerful, right? It's like the most intelligent object in the known universe, right? But at the same time, it did just evolve, right? It wasn't designed, it evolved. And the way that it evolved was like, you know, to survive and reproduce. Right? So like, it's it's not your brain is not designed to like see truth and have accurate beliefs. It's just designed to like let you get by in society. And so rationality is about trying to like, you know, remove the all the filters and just be like, well, what if I wanted to use my brain as a tool for like clearly seeing the

• 34:09Speaker 02

  world and like making discoveries, you know? How do I do that better?

• 34:12Anthony Pompliano?

  And as you do this and kind of learn this way of thinking, is it practice makes perfect and you've just got to really kind of, you know, throw yourself off the deep end and just Obsess over as much of the content as possible and you pick up kind of muscle memory? Or is it something where you, somebody can sit down, read for, you know, five hours, get it, and then they're off to the races?

• 34:33Speaker 02

  It's a good question. Like, how does one actually become more rational? And one of the principles of modern rationality is that a lot of times it helps to focus on a problem. So don't just focus on the rationality itself, but like focus like you're trying to solve a problem. You know, for, for example, like if you're trying to go to the moon, that, that necessarily means you have to get rational about like how orbits work. You know what I'm saying? Like there's, you have to kind of chain backwards and you have to, you also have to get rational about like, you have to think, how do I design a protocol to test different iterations of my rocket engine? You see what I'm saying? Like, not only do you have to understand the physics of the engine, but you have to step back a level and you have to think like, how do I organize a bunch of humans to build a rocket engine? And when it doesn't work, how do I tell them to like evaluate the data and try again?

• 35:17Speaker 02

  And like, when, when should we do the experiment? You know, like, should we put a bunch of parts together and test them all at once? So it keeps making you step back and rationality is kind of like the ultimate stepping back of like, you know, how do I organize everything to begin with?

• 35:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it feels also like there's a mental framework, right? That you can apply to almost every situation. But really this depends on this like intellectual curiosity to continue to drive towards, you know, whether it's first principles thinking or really getting at the root of a problem. And so it almost feels like what you're doing is you're trying to stoke or build up that intellectual curiosity muscle while also developing these frameworks in which to apply it. So that when you're looking at a problem, you're not kind of getting caught by all the shiny things and you're really finding the meat of, of the issue?

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Yes. So there's really, it's a whole toolbox of frameworks. There's like so many greatest hits of rationality. So one of them is just the idea of like, changing your mind is good. So like, imagine two people go into an argument. A lot of times both people are like, well, this is what I believe and this is what he believes. And we're both going to try to convince each other. So one of the things of rationality is, is the idea of like, well, if you're really just trying to have a more accurate belief, you should think of it like a dance, you know, almost like a martial art where you Come in and inside of your brain is a probability distribution over possible ways that you think that the world might be. And as you interact with somebody else, the stuff they say, you take it in and you want that stuff to update your mental model. Like you wanna, you want to let your mind be changed.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  You know, when, when, if your current mental model is not accurate, you want to let it get more accurate by changing. Right? So not every change is going to be an improvement, but every improvement improvement is going to be a change. So that's the kind of stuff rationality tells you. And in order to pull that off, they, they have like countless, you know, bags of tricks that help you do that. Just, I'll give you one that I think is really profound for me, which is just the tool of specificity. Which is just like when you hear an argument, before you get really reactive to the argument, try to zoom in and drill down and make it more specific. So I've, I've written about an example on my blog. Uh, like imagine that like I'm somebody who's like pro capitalism, right? But, and, and I think Uber is like an overall good company, but I know it's like kind of controversial.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Um, and so somebody will come up and tell me like, you know what I don't like about Uber? Uber exploits its workers. And so I'm tempted to say, well, you know, in capitalism, anytime you're giving somebody an offer of employment, you're just making a bid in a market and so they can take or leave the bid. But overall it's driving wages up, right? Cause they're bidding for labor and they can always get a different. So anyway, so that's, that's my temptation is to give this high level answer. But here's a rationality trick I learned before I even give any answer. I can stop and be like, okay, Uber exploits its workers. Can we get more specific about that? Can you tell me a hypothetical story of like one person and just describe in detail how they're getting exploited? And they say, okay, well, imagine a guy named Joe, um, who wants to earn a few bucks.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  So he takes a job at Uber, um, and Uber pay, uh, he ends up making thirteen dollars an hour. And he drives around and his car gets some depreciation and he doesn't get benefits. And I'm like, okay, uh, and then, and the guy's like, well, and meanwhile Uber's IPOing and they're making eighty billion. And Joe's like making thirteen dollars minus depreciation. I'm like, okay, well, is that really exploitation? Like what's, what's Joe's next best alternative? And like, well, Joe could go get an actual job with benefits. I'm like, okay, then, but why didn't he? And like, I don't know why I didn't. And I'm like, well, you have to tell me why I didn't because you're telling a story. I'm just asking you to tell me a specific story. Like, you can go ahead and flesh out the detail. Like, I'm just trying to listen. And then when they try to flesh it out, they're like, well, maybe Burger King offered them benefits and Uber's not offering them benefits.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  And I'm like, okay, so is that why they're exploiting? They're not offering benefits? So I'm not saying I'm going to win the argument, but I'm saying just by being really specific about like what they're even talking about. A lot of times they're not talking about anything coherent and their argument just kind of like collapses.

• 39:11Anthony Pompliano?

  I love the idea of just keep asking why and how and why and how and really, really pulling out the, the individual details. One area where I don't think we are yet able to do that is super intelligent, artificial intelligence. And, you know, you've told me that that is a big topic among this rational community. Help me understand kind of what is the obsession there and kind of what are those conversations about?

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. So really important topic. And it's actually, you know, I mentioned that Eliezer Yudkowsky, the creator of lesswrong.com is somebody who's big in both the AI community and the rationality community. His initial motivation for teaching the world about rationality is because he realized that he wasn't getting enough traction, educating the world about artificial intelligence risk, because he needed to like first step back and be like, listen, this is how you need to use your brain. Okay, now that your brain is fixed, let me tell you about AI risk. So that was like his course of events. And so the argument for AI risk, luckily, it's been getting a lot of traction. And so if you compare, you know, today, if I say, hey, AI is risky, we need to study AI risk, a lot of people nod their heads. They're like, yes, it is kind of risky. Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  If I'd said this 10 years ago, that would, it would just kind of sound like a very random fringe topic to bring up. So it's, it's definitely becoming more mainstream. You know, Elon Musk has said, yes, we need to study AI risk. But, but what is exactly the risk? So very simply, it's, it's just the idea that it's, it's very possible to imagine an AI that's really smart and doesn't mind accidentally destroying a bunch of stuff, like destroying life as we know it. Like, it's kind of easily, it's kind of easy to accidentally destroy life as we know it. Like, for example, like, imagine if you just like, if you took like a random animal, like a badger, and you just scaled up the badger until its capabilities are like, you know, more than a nation state. Well, you can imagine the badger might accidentally destroy the world. Like, it doesn't, if it doesn't, you know, consciously try not to.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  So that's kind of like a super intelligent AI, you know, similar kind of risk.

• 41:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's fascinating in terms of there's a line between, hey, we need this, it's going to make us so much better at XYZ activity. And then there's a quick turn over that hill, and then it becomes, hey, we should really fear this thing like it could kill us all. Where do you think that line is? And how much of a validity do you put in the idea of super intelligent AI risk?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I actually think it's a really, really important big risk. Remember, we were talking about, you know, like the 10% chance of 100x return. And I was talking about order of magnitude perspective, like your ability to notice when something is like a big deal. So AI risk is a very, very big deal. And the chance of it is actually a lot more than 10%. And the the return of getting it right versus wrong is like a lot more than 100x. So it's a very, very, very big deal. And so people are just, they're having a hard time intuitively getting it. Because when you look at AI today, it's like, okay, classified an image. And people say all these smug comments like, you know, oh, you know, Alpha, Alpha Go can play Go. But if I were facing it in real life, I could take out a gun and shoot it, right? Or like, I could turn it off, right? I think the old grass types and like, I'll find the off switch or whatever. But it's like, no, like, it just, it doesn't

• 42:16Speaker 02

  work like that. Like, it's so, it's so easy, conceptually, for the AI to be like, well, I'm going to manufacture a nanobot, like, but you know, by sending, you know, there's labs right now that are connected to the Internet that have enough tooling to, you know, to start, there's biology labs connected to the Internet right now, right? So, and you saw how like, you know, today, we have the Moderna vaccine, right? It's mRNA. So they just coded some mRNA, and you put it into your body, and it's, and it's, it basically programs your body. Okay, well, if an AI were sufficiently smart, it would just have to be connected to the Internet to start doing bioengineering. Like, you could pay with Bitcoin, you could build these things. And the problem with nanobots is, you know, this is just one thing they can do. I'm not saying they will. I'm just giving you a possibility like nanobots. The problem is they can replicate a bunch, and you can end up with like, the

• 42:58Speaker 02

  entire Earth turned into nanobots, like, pretty quickly because of exponential growth. So I'm just saying, like, there's a lot of power here that you can unlock if the right code is running on the Internet.

• 43:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And what's crazy to me is like, everything you just said, there's 90% of people or more will be like, that's crazy. Like, there's no way nano bots are gonna be running around doing all this stuff, whatever. But actually, no, there is a possibility. And I always, you know, push people on the probability and then the asymmetric payoff. So Bitcoin's a great example, you know, five years ago, probability of it succeeding, still pretty low, like low single digits, probably. But very, very high asymmetric payoff if it works, right? It'll be very big, kind of that order of magnitude that you're talking about. This is even bigger and worse, right? Like, the probability of that happening is probably even lower, which means that the asymmetric opportunity is even more egregious. And therefore,

• 43:54Anthony Pompliano?

  I guess that's really where kind of you drive, like, hey, people should really be paying attention to this, even though it's a low probability, because the risk is so big.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  Well, funny enough, I actually think it's pretty high probability, too.

• 44:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Why? Why do you think that?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  So there's a few things. So one is just the idea of the, okay, first, let's start with what are the chances that computers are going to get smarter than humans? And I think that's like 80 or 90%, right? Like, it's hard for me to imagine that like 100 or 1,000 years from now, we're not, the human brain is still gonna be the smartest thing. That doesn't sound plausible to me, because computers are rapidly getting more intelligent and capable.

• 44:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Well, and I guess really that it comes like timeframe, right? So it's like, if there's a larger probability, it's just on what timeframe? Is that in our lifetime? Is that in the next, you know, 200 years? Or is that 10,000 years, right?

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think it's probably in our lifetime. And it's, I would say it's within like, you know, a few years to one or two lifetimes. Like, I would be pretty shocked if 200 years from now, we still don't have smarter than human intelligence. I'd be like, really? Like, what happened?

• 44:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that means that we shouldn't develop super intelligent AI? Like, should we just stop?

• 45:01Speaker 02

  There's a good tactical argument to say we should just stop, but it's also the problem is stopping requires a ton of coordination because it's not, you know, back in when they were doing Manhattan Project, like in the 40s, you could argue, you know, you kind of needed a nation state to like enrich uranium or whatever. So you could just be like, okay, let's ban enrich uranium and we can, you know, same as we try to do with armed control today. But when it comes to making an AI, it can literally just be like a team of like less than 10 really smart people in a basement with a computer. Like, there's no way to force them to stop, even if the law says to stop.

• 45:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's pretty crazy. When you think back to rationality, uh, are you able to apply these concepts on a daily basis? Or is this more like a framework, um, that you just use as you kind of go through the higher level decisions in your life?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  I personally find that I'm able to apply it quite a lot. Um, just probably my favorite thing to apply, besides what I said about like making people get specific. Besides that one, my other favorite thing to apply is just like throw out a numerical guess, even if it's vague as hell. So like with Bitcoin, you know, Bitcoin back in 2011, when most people see that, they'd be like, yeah, it has a very low chance. Um, and then they would leave it at that. But what I did was I said like, okay, well, is the chance more like point 001%? Is it more like 1%? Is it more like 10%? Is it more like 50%? And I said, oh, it's about 10%, right? Like, where did I get that number, right? Out of my rear, right? It's like, I, where did I get 10%? But I just think 10% is a better guess than 1% or 50%. And making that guess, it lets you make another guess. Like, well,

• 46:28Speaker 02

  is the upside, is the maximum possible upside, is it 10x, 100x, 1000x? And I'm like, okay, let's say 1000 or 10,000x. So then what I have to do is just multiply 10% by, let's say, 1,000x. Suddenly I get this number, you know, 100x. And I'm like, wow, okay, well, that the expected value is 100x. Sounds like a good investment to put a little bit of cash into. Um, and that's useful thinking. And so I mentioned that in the concept of investing, but you can even do it in the concept, uh, context of work. Like, should I do this project, right? Like, what's the, can this project 10x my company if it works? What's the chance of it working? Can it 1.2? Can it grow my company 20%? So I'm always making these vague numerical calculations. And I find that they're, they're more useful to do that than not.

• 47:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Let's talk about Relationship Hero to, uh, to finish up. As you built the company, obviously you've got this framework of rationality. Um, you've been early to a lot of different technology trends. Where do you think Relationship, uh, Hero is going? And kind of how do you think about the path to get to that, uh, kind of final vision?

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. So I think, you know, the big vision of Relationship Hero is there just needs to be a really big relationship coaching industry. Like, it needs to be like a 10 to 50 billion a year industry. Funny enough, you can look to our neighbor, therapy, right? So, therapy already is a 30 million industry in the US, and, or a $7 million industry, 30 million Americans go to therapy. So, you already have like 10% of the population going to therapy. And so, ask yourself, what percent of the population would benefit from a relationship coach? Well, imagine like anybody you talk to, ask them to make a pie chart, being like, in this pie chart, like, make a pie chart of all the things you care about in life, and like, how much value they are for, you know, for your whole life. A big slice of the pie is gonna be their relationships, right? So, suddenly, you've got like, you know, 300 million Americans,

• 48:08Speaker 02

  they all care about their relationships. And so, where do they go for relationship help? Instead of going to their friends, they should go to a relationship coach. So, the vision for Relationship Hero is to just take what we've been doing now for like 50,000 clients, and scale it up to like 50 million clients.

• 48:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And in terms of how big it can be, do you think it can be bigger than the $7 billion kind of therapy market? Or do you think that it's probably about the same size?

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Well, I think that it's within an order of magnitude, right? So, I don't think it's gonna be more than 10 times bigger. But I also think that it's not gonna be more than 10 times smaller. So, I think it's gonna be like, maybe it'll be like 50% bigger. And I think, you know, a lot of people need therapy, and therapy's great. But for me, if I had to guess, I would actually think that more people could use a little bit of relationship help compared to a therapist. But I don't think that they need to be compared, because I think that they're both good, and they're the same order of magnitude. But if I had to pick one, I'm gonna say a relationship coach.

• 49:00Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And somebody who uses the product today, what is the experience like from a user's perspective?

• 49:07Speaker 02

  So, we make it as convenient as possible. So, if you wanna do a video call with a relationship coach, if you just wanna text them, if you wanna get on the phone, you pick, you just go to relationshiphero.com. Actually, since you're watching the Pomp Podcast, you can go to relationshiphero.com/pomp, and we'll give you $50 off. I gotta, you know, I gotta do the promo. And then, you just, you schedule an appointment. We do same-day appointments. Oftentimes, like, within an hour, you could be talking. And you can just say your issue. We have a money-back guarantee. And, you know, the reason why we're able to run this business and have it be profitable is because we have an extremely high satisfaction rate, where a lot of times, people come in feeling stuck. But then, they report to us, like, "Oh, wow, you really opened my eyes. Like, this coaching was like surprisingly valuable for

• 49:50Speaker 02

  the time and money I spent." So, that's why we think we're on to something.

• 49:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And what's so fascinating about this, I think, is not only, one, is there that money-back guarantee? You've put thousands of people through it, the discount, obviously, relationshiphero.com/pomp, which everyone appreciates, but also there's a very quick feedback loop, right? Like, there's sometimes people say, like, hey, come and use my product or service and like, you know, six months from now, you'll know if it works or not. Like, that's pretty hard to sell. For you guys, a lot of times, it's literally within hours or days, somebody will know immediately, like, either this is helpful to me or not. And so that high satisfaction kind of rating really drives home the point that, like, this is working for thousands and thousands of people.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Yes. You know, it's very interesting about relationship advice, because it's very hard to give the right advice, but when you hear that you're getting good advice, a lot of times, even without being an expert, you can feel that you're getting good advice. Like, when you hear it, you're like, oh, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense, even though I didn't think about it. So even within the same session, you're already getting some feedback from your brain, being like, this is making sense.

• 50:57Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. Before I let you go, ask everyone the same two questions. First is, what is the most important book that you've ever read?

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Um, well, I have to say, the consolidated sequences from Less Wrong. And actually, if you go to lesswrong.com now, they just, for the first time ever, published the Less Wrong sequences as a book, and they published a collection from last year's Less Wrong essays. So I guess I'm going to promote Less Wrong's book, because it really is. I've read everything three times over, and we're talking thousands of pages, so I want to put in a plug for them.

• 51:26Anthony Pompliano?

  And they put it as a book that you can just buy?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah. It's like a physical book, it's a Kindle book. Yeah, lesswrong.com.

• 51:33Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. People should definitely go check that out. Second question, aliens, are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 51:40Speaker 02

  Man, so I heard you ask this to Robin, Robin Hanson, and he gave such a good, thorough answer. So I'm not going to top Robin Hanson's answer, but I'll give my, like, dumber take, I guess, which is, I think that in the observable universe, it's pretty obvious that there's no alien activity, just because if they, if they were really smart and serious, like, they would obviously be, like, harvesting all the resources. They wouldn't leave the stars. Out there to just like burn themselves out. That's like a massive waste of resources, for example. But I think that if there's, there's probably aliens right outside us in terms of like computer simulation levels. So like, I'm definitely, and you might want to ask this question, instead of just asking, are there aliens, you should be like, are we in a simulation? Because if I had to guess, gun to my head, are we in a simulation,

• 52:24Speaker 02

  yes or no? I think I'd say yes. Just because, think about this, we're, we're in an era where we're inventing virtual reality, right? So I can basically put on virtual reality goggles and feel like I'm in a simulation. So it's like, we're inventing simulations, this technology is just becoming possible. We're gonna start like, there's gonna be people who spend their whole lives in VR. And yet, you're telling me there's no other aliens who have invented a simulation and put us in it. They just, we just happen to be in a time when simulations are getting invented. Like, it seems like too big of a coincidence to me.

• 52:51Anthony Pompliano?

  So, one of the craziest parts about me asking the question about aliens is, one, how many people believe aliens are real? Like, 90 plus percent, probably, maybe 95 percent of people who come on it, to the point where it's shocking to me when someone says no now. That completely inverts when you ask about simulations. It's like, less than 5% of people think that simulation is real. And what I wonder is, how much of it has to do with like, the socialization and the political correctness of these ideas, right? So like, aliens 20 years ago, like, you were the crazy person if you talked about aliens. Now it's like, dude, the government has UFO videos and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And so now, aliens have become much more acceptable to talk about and believe in publicly. Simulation, my guess is, 10, 20 years from now, will be very similar.

• 53:36Anthony Pompliano?

  It's just, at the moment, not quite as popular of an idea to, to, you know, kind of embrace as maybe aliens are.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Overton window has embraced aliens, but not quite simulation.

• 53:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. You could ask me one question to finish up. What do you got for me?

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Cool. So, Pump, I've kind of watched you build up your podcast and your audience, and it's very impressive. So, my question is, what's been your most effective strategy for growing your audience?

• 54:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Consistency, not even close. It's literally just doing it over and over and over and over again, day in, day out for years. And that sounds like too simplistic for most people. But, you know, when I first started, a lot of people forget, like, we didn't have video on YouTube. We literally were really, really bad at the audio stuff. We didn't know what we were doing. And the guests kind of were all over the place in terms of some like really high quality guests, some that just, somebody emailed me, it was like, hey, I want to come on your podcast. I was like, sweet, you know, that must mean it's legit, like, you know, bring somebody on. But as we've improved, I think the quality, the guests, all that kind of stuff, what I realize is like, a lot of the

• 54:46Anthony Pompliano?

  most diehard loyal listeners and readers and things like that for everything that I do, came from the early days. Like, it didn't matter that it wasn't high quality in terms of production and all that. Like, it was just the fact that I kept putting out the content. And they got value out of it, right? And that's why they stayed. But I think the consistency by far is the number one thing that I've learned. And, you know, that's always my advice to other people is like, hey, if you want to do this, like, first piece of advice, don't do it. Because you literally have to be consistent for, you know, years and years and years. I think I've been doing it now. This is the end 17, 18, yeah, end of the fourth year. And so it's just when you think about how many people are willing to sit down and just bash the head against the wall for four years

• 55:29Anthony Pompliano?

  or so, not many. A lot of people think they are. But when you get, you know, to day 472, and you're have to go record a podcast and write and do all this kind of stuff, I think people just, you know, say, hey, look, there's better stuff for me to go do. So I think consistency is definitely the differentiator.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, you're very prolific. You're definitely one of the top podcasters in my feed in terms of just like constantly releasing episodes.

• 55:53Anthony Pompliano?

  I try five times a week. That's the, that's the goal. So we'll see if it works.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. Well, congratulations on getting this guy right here. Top talent.

• 56:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Exactly. All right. Where can we send people to, uh, to find you on the internet and find more about Relationship Hero?

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Cool. Yeah. So I'm, I'm going to say relationshiphero.com and check out my blog, bloatedmvp.com.

• 56:15Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Bloatedmvp.com and then, uh, relationshiphero.com. And if you use dot com slash pomp, what is it? $50 off?

• 56:24Speaker 02

  $50 off.

• 56:25Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Go check it out and, uh, thank you so much for doing this. We'll do it again in the future.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Thanks a lot, Pomp. Appreciate it.