The Double-Edged Sword of AI: Progress, Control, and Human Agency Explored | Replit CEO Amjad Massad X Impact Theory W/ Tom Bilyeu

Welcome back to Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu! In today’s episode, we dive deep into the powerful and provocative conversation between Tom Bilyeu and Amjad Massad, CEO and founder of Replit. Picking up in part two of their discussion, the two explore the societal—and even existential—impacts of technology, with a special focus on AI. The conversation ranges from reflections on Ted Kaczynski’s (the Unabomber’s) warnings about technology’s effects on our sense of purpose and meaning, to the potential for AI to both empower individuals and centralize control in the hands of the elite. You’ll hear Tom Bilyeu and Amjad Massad tackle tough questions: Does technology inevitably make us less happy? Can society self-correct when things go wrong, or are we at the mercy of powerful systems? They discuss everything from government regulation and the rise of social antibodies—like shifts in attitudes around smoking and junk food—to the risks of social unrest, information overload, and the war between centralization and decentralization in the digital age. Whether you’re passionate about the promise of AI, worried about its pitfalls, or just fascinated by the big-picture consequences of our technological evolution, this episode will challenge your thinking and give you new insights. Get ready for a nuanced, no-holds-barred discussion that blends philosophy, politics, entrepreneurship, and personal growth. Enjoy the episode! Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impactKetone IQ: Visit https://ketone.com/IMPACT for 30% OFF your subscription orderHuel: High-Protein Starter Kit 20% off for new customers at https://huel.com/impact code impactCape: 33% off your first 6 months with code IMPACT at https://cape.co/impactPique: 20% off at https://piquelife.com/impactPlaud: Get 10% off with code TOM10 at https://plaud.ai/tomQuince: Free shipping and 365-day returns at https://quince.com/impactpod What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business:join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show: https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show SCALING a business:see if you qualify here. https://tombilyeu.com/call: https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:sign up here. https://tombilyeu.com/: https://tombilyeu.com/ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast,Tom Bilyeu’s Mindset Playbook https://open.spotify.com/show/47VE90Cittmo6TGGFqg2xf —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Follow Amjad Massad: X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/amssad Blog: https://amasad.me Replit: https://replit.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

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• 1:09Tom Bilyeu?

  Welcome back to part two of this incredible conversation. Without further ado, here we go.

• 1:16Tom Bilyeu?

  What do you think the Unabomber got right in his manifesto? That teaches us something about how we should engage with AI?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  So maybe some background. Unabomber manifesto was written by this guy who's actually a mathematician. His name is Ted Kaczynski. And for all intensive purposes, like he's obviously did really bad stuff. We should say that did terrorism. But he wrote this manifesto that I think is worth reading. And it is a reflection and introspection on technology and its role in human society. It's called The Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences. And it starts with the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. One of the strongest opening sentences you can find in any book or piece of writing.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  He talks about how technology can rob us from this natural thing to us that he calls the power process. So he says, humans are made, are built, evolved, whatever you think of.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  To to have certain life phases and certain challenges to be able to overcome them. So you start as a child, you don't know how to walk. You know, you crawl around, you learn how to walk and you learn how to eat and do all the basic stuff. And then, um, you know, as a hunter gatherer, say ancestral humans, they would learn how to hunt. Uh, and and they'll do well in hunting, they'll have enough. Uh, resources to be able to go get married and get a hut or whatever they used to live in.

• 2:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Get a hut.

• 3:01Tom Bilyeu?

  The cost of huts needs.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Down payment on a hut. Got my, you know, slab of meat, uh, for damn payments. But, um, and, uh, and then you you have children and then they have children and you age out and you become the the wise, uh, you know, grandfather and then and then you pass away. And he says that that's that's so essential to us is his his view. And technology, uh, increasingly is making our lives so easy that we we, you know, society becomes pathological in many ways. And he he calls that, uh, depression. He calls actually social activism, you might call it walk woke today as like he actually has like an entire section

• 3:45Speaker 01

  on social activism being like a symptom of people just not having to struggle and having to overcome.

• 3:53Tom Bilyeu?

  They are looking for a surrogate for meaning and purpose.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  They're looking for a surrogate meaning and purpose, or they're taking out some kind of rage against, uh, society that because of that lack of meaning of purpose. Um, and, uh, and hi- his view is that, you know, these technologies have become a replacement for the power process. Uh, and that that's causing humanity overall to be just net unhappy, worse off because of technology.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Uh, now I don't, I obviously don't agree with, with, with a conclusion of that, but it's important to.

• 4:25Tom Bilyeu?

  When you say you don't agree with the conclusion, you don't agree that it's actually depressing us.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  I don't agree that it's inevitably true that technology makes us worse unhappy. I think there are forms of technology that makes us worse unhappy and all of that. But it's like any, any tool, any powerful tool, it can have negative consequences and positive consequences. And society needs to adapt to that and, and, and come up with either like regulations, religions to regulate these things, or, um, um, or, or just like social antibodies. You know, for example, um, I'm a big fan of, of Quest, uh, the snacks you made.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Um, there, there was a time when it was, you know, kind of acceptable to be eating junk all the time, to be eating Twinkies and all of that. But at some point, especially in the U S, I think it started in the U S, where, uh, there was a feeling that, no, we're getting unhealthy, we're getting unhappy, we're not looking attractive. And, uh, there was a movement around, let's find replacements, let's eat whole foods, let's eat.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  And society developed ways in which to get the best of both worlds, to have really tasty, good food. Uh, but at the same time, not feeling like crap and unhappy all the time. Um, and so I, I think without that regulatory force, and I don't mean that strictly in a government sense, because I can, government regulation can come with all sorts of negative consequences, but it could come from kind of society overall, then you can, you can overcome these things. But I think free markets and capitalism sort of running amok without any social. Um, reaction and regulation of that, we could end up in a place where technology is actually really harmful.

• 6:16Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so we know that some technology creates a problem. Do you put AI in the camp of technology that creates that problem?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Uh, I, I think AI could create tremendous problem, could create tremendous solutions. Uh, I think, I think the more powerful something is, the more has potential to do both.

• 6:35Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so I'll put my thesis forward, which is that is maybe one word different than what you said, which is AI is going to create tremendous solutions and tremendous problems. And so for me, I look at this and it's been such a huge boon in my own life. There are things that I'm able to do with our video game development that just wouldn't be possible if we didn't have AI. It just becomes too expensive too fast. So huge win, I use it in my own life constantly. Uh, it's ability to help me educate myself is unparalleled ever. I'm just absolutely incredible. When I look at the societal impacts though, I immediately am like, oh, like this is really going to be a problem.

• 7:20Tom Bilyeu?

  And I'll sort of rank order, I think the, you've got at the very top, you've got the ultimate panopticon where AI is just going to watch, see and do everything. And it becomes a tool for elites to gain control over the masses. I know you know about James Burnham, so definitely want to get into that, but just as a marker for now. So worry about that, then certainly worry about an interim period where humans will, uh, like if I look at Gen Z for sure, probably even younger millennials, they just don't try because the K-shaped economy has brutalized them their whole life. And then we've told them, hey, don't worry, in five to 10 years, AI is going to be better than you at everything.

• 8:04Tom Bilyeu?

  And there's just a why bother mentality. And then obviously you can go into all the different layers, sex bots, all that kind of crazy stuff. But it's like, okay, well, I know humans are bad at the self-regulating that you're talking about. And I know governments are bad at the top-down regulation. So now I'm like, oh, we have this thing that will be the ultimate tool of the elites. To control people and then the other stuff that it can do requires a lot of self-regulation. And so how do you think through, or if you don't agree with that problem?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Definitely let me know. But if you do agree, like, how do you deal with it?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. And I will say, yes, government is not always successful at regulation. But there are some things that I think were positive, kind of partnership between society, culture, you know, and and government, in some cases, religion, like smoking. I think it's been really successful in the US. Like, when I came first here, like, not only it was, not only it was hard to smoke because it's like everywhere it's kind of banned indoors, it was socially, at least in my social circles, socially looked down upon to be a smoker. And I was smoking at the time when I first came from Jordan. And I felt kind of like a social outcast a little bit. I felt kind of weird, like, why am I smoking?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Like, are they better than me? And that's the kind of feeling you want to you want to create for something that's like truly, truly harmful.

• 9:34Tom Bilyeu?

  But so this is where it gets complicated with AI. So in the video game industry where I'm at, video gamers absolutely despise AI. And they have that energy of like, what are you doing? Why are you using that? I'm not even going to play your game if you used AI, even for like the tiniest background object, like, nope, you're dead to me.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  But what are they reacting to? Like, are they reacting to actual social harm? Or are they reacting to sense of anxiety or job replacement?

• 10:02Tom Bilyeu?

  This is a category question. So so what I hear you saying is, we need to make things that are dangerous feel like we did cigarettes.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  The other way I'm saying it is, I generally am optimistic about humans to, although some things could be very harmful in the short term, just generally people and I think healthy societies. And and you could argue whether we have healthy societies or not, given all the social unrest in the world. But healthy societies tend to develop antibodies over time. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't worry about that, but that's just a general kind of flag that I'm planning to say, I'm generally optimistic about humans.

• 10:44Tom Bilyeu?

  That humans will figure it out.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Humans figuring it out. That being said, we can discuss all the, all the, all the details and that. So yeah, definitely, there are reactions to AI that are totally irrational. And that happens too. Like, the, the idea that you can't use, you know, AI to make video games is just when you talk to anyone, and I've tried to have conversations there, it's just, there's no real argument there. Like, you know, at, at best, you can get to the argument of like, artists, like, this is actually plagiarizing artists' work and, and whatever, you can have a discussion around that. But for the most part, it's just a total emotional reaction. But, but I think some of the things that we need

• 11:27Speaker 01

  to truly worry about right now is, like, just the general information landscape is absolutely horrific right now. Like, you can't tell what's real and what's not real. Like, any major news event, there's all these AI videos that are happening around it, and it, and it just leads people to this nihilistic view of like, I just can't, everything is propaganda. And, and our, our kind of media establishment in the US hasn't really helped a whole lot, especially during the COVID years and after that, and just the trust in media has went down a lot. So even that as an institution that you could probably maybe rely on at some point, is no longer the case. Social media replaced

• 12:09Speaker 01

  it, and now social media is just like full and sort of, full of these fake videos, and you can't make heads from tails.

• 12:19Tom Bilyeu?

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• 13:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 13:42Tom Bilyeu?

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• 14:26Tom Bilyeu?

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• 14:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for staying tuned. Now, let's get back to it. Okay, so this is a good point to go back to James Burnham. So COVID happens, completely reorganizes my sense of what the world is and how it works. Like, my life really can be just a line drawn. It's like my frame of reference before COVID, my frame of reference after. Yes. Reading James Burnham gave me the language with which to explain what I had been through. And I suddenly realized, oh my God, my whole life, the narrative has been controlled. I just didn't realize it. So I mistook consensus around projected narrative for actual represented truth. And COVID made me realize, oh, no, no, no, it was never simply representing the truth.

• 15:31Tom Bilyeu?

  It was always just narrative control. Now, social media made it impossible for them to have uniformity of narrative. And I was like, whoa, that was such a terrifying paradigm shift. And Burnham has this idea that you'll well know called the iron law of oligarchy. So there will always be a small group of people that run the world, like quite literally. And it doesn't matter how you fragment it, whether it's in a company. There's going to be a small group of executives that run the company. Whether it's a state government, small group that run that. Whether it's a household, there's going to be, you know, even when you got the parents and the kids. It's like, well, the parents are going to run things. Or I suppose you could have something really wacky and the kids are running the show.

• 16:15Tom Bilyeu?

  But there's always going to be a small group that actually leads. Now, one of Ted Kaczynski's ideas that I thought was really interesting is that what he said was, the system itself, as technology advances, will have to crack down on the people's behavior more and more to stay in control. And so with AI, you're creating the ultimate tool. Because it can see everything, synthesize everything, can be everywhere all at once. I mean, you know, you look at, what is, what's the Peter Thiel company, oh, God. Palantir, thank you. So you look at some of the stuff they're able to do from a surveillance

• 17:00Tom Bilyeu?

  perspective, and now you've got AI itself creates the very tool when it gets in the hands of the elites who know they must control the narrative, control behavior in order to control, in order to keep the system alive. And so now it's like, oh, the thing that Kozinski, he wouldn't have predicted AI in the form that it's in now, but he understood the coming problem.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these early literature were kind of circling around the same thing. There's this another thinker called Nick Land, which is also

• 17:38Tom Bilyeu?

  Nick Land?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Nick Land, pretty

• 17:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Never heard of this.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Wild, very impenetrable type of thinking, but in writing. But one idea that he talks about is capitalism is the boot's desk for AI. So it was always going to head to AI.

• 17:58Tom Bilyeu?

  Interesting.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Like, and he, he's, you know, goes a little wackier than that and says, it's almost like, you could think of AI as reaching back into the past and building itself through, through free markets and capitalism. It's almost like this thing has always somehow existing in some form and it's getting built and the ultimate conclusion is, is AI. But I digress. There's, but, but you know, the point is, it was always headed in this direction, this like, systems that we're building. That being said, in the same way that technology has good uses and bad uses, technology can be centralizing and decentralizing. There's

• 18:43Speaker 01

  an author, his name is Tim Wu, and he wrote the book, The Master Switch. And he talks about this oscillation between centralization and decentralization of technology. He brings up, for example, Um. Radio, one of the early technologies talks about ham radio. It was such a decentralizing technology because um people used to like, you know, have these radios at home. They would talk to each other. They would like um they can broadcast anything. Obviously, at some point, the government stepped in, kind of regulated the the radio, radio bands.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  And and he says like early internet was was also a very decentralized, decentralizing technology. There wasn't really this, you know, Facebooks of the world. There was like social networks that was peer to peer. And everyone's computer was cheated the same. There wasn't like client server. Everything is a is a client and a server. But at some point, we had it in a way that is like centralizing. But hi- his argument is like it'll keep oscillating. We'll we'll invent something that's like more decentralizing. And then later on, it's centralized. We'll invent another thing that's decentralizing. You can think of crypto as like a decentralizing of the potentially of the internet. Now, AI, I will make the point that it's both centralizing and decentralizing at the same time.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  So of course, AI can be used to do mass surveillance, to do to have these like big, you know, machines that kind of can ingest all the data about us and and use facial recognition. And you could think of it as the ultimate like, you know, dream of the Chinese Communist Party, right? Is to see everything and and and know everything about about everyone and control everything. But i- i- it there's something also decentralizing about AI. Now, think about um entrepreneurship. Like, I think we're going through a a boom in entrepreneurship like there's like none in history. Like what you said about, you know, your game studio. Uh, there's a lot of people that are able to build games right now that couldn't before.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  I- in uh in our business, we see um. We built a platform that allows people to build software. And so we see individuals that are making millions of dollars that otherwise would have required to have raised a lot of capital and be in Silicon Valley and employ a lot of people. So we see a lot of these micro entrepreneurship now coming to the scene. A lot of people are leaving their jobs, jobs they hate, jobs they're miserable in, and starting businesses that they're really passionate about and areas they really care about. So I think there's a sense in which there's going to be a lot more, a lot more companies. And I think that's a really good thing. That's a decentralizing thing. That decentralizes power.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  I also think that, you know, we talked about the information landscape. Now, I think Grok on Axe has been, for the most part, positive tool for people to like judge whether something is real or not. Like you see is like at Grok, is this real or not? And most of the time, the answers are really good. And it's giving them different perspectives and it's helping people judge the different things. I actually don't think that the ultimate personal information assistant has been built yet. Like what I'd want to see someone build is me going into some kind of AI system

• 22:11Speaker 01

  and putting some kind of statement like COVID was lab leaked. And then I want to see agents from every model, every company, from every country in the world, argue about it. And I want to see it spread and argued in every different perspective with different prompting and things like that. And then like find a summary of like all the different views. And maybe even at some point, putting in probability, probabilities about like, here's what we think the probability of that happened or this happened or this happened. So I think AI can actually create a potential information landscape that gives power to people to judge things and not have to rely on CNN. I do agree with you.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  New York Times, CNN, whatever, there have always been tools of the oligarchy to control opinion. I think it's, it's, it's more brazen right now. I think there's like, there's a sense of. Journalistic integrity at some point, but, but, but, um, but, but I think ultimately AI can be an empowering tool for the, for the masses to deal with this. Even on the issue of centralized sort of government 1984-esque AI, you can imagine a world in which people are helped by their personal AIs to overcome the AI surveillance.

• 23:37Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't know that I can.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 23:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so the thing that I think we have to contend directly with is if it is true that for the system to survive, the system must control your behavior, that AI gives them myriad ways now to nudge your behavior in certain directions, uh, that even if you have your own individual AI, the system is going to find ways to continue to close lanes down, close lanes down, close lanes down. So even think about right now, I'll, this is my prognostication. I think in the next two years, you're going to find out that the fraud that we're seeing in Minnesota is pervasive, it's everywhere. And show me the incentives, I'll show you the outcome.

• 24:23Tom Bilyeu?

  And so we have a welfare state and therefore welfare is going to be taken advantage of. You have an open border, people are like, oh wow, okay, cool, come in and get that especially. And I know this is now going deep into conspiracy land, but if also there are ways for them to vote, it's like you get the incentive structure where it's like, hey, the tit for tat is you come in, you get some free stuff and then I can basically count on your vote because I'm the person that makes the free stuff available. So now we're going to see like fraud is ever present. So what does the government do to crack down? The government's like, oh, I have a deficit. So now I'm going to go tax the wealthy people. The problem is the wealthy people can leave, but that doesn't stop them from ever tightening the grip. And now you can imagine if you take tax as but one example of how the system responds.

• 25:08Tom Bilyeu?

  By increasingly getting more aggressive, what happens when you can't leave? And so if, for instance, one thing California's tried to do is even if you leave, we can still tax you. Years after you've left, which is pure insanity from where I'm sitting. But it's like, if the system is able to get that kind of legislation passed, and we know it's possible because countries all throughout history have done that, where the walls are to keep people in. So the system has historically done it very successfully. The system has every incentive to survive. And now we're giving it, like, the people at the top are gonna have the access to most power, most money, because they can tax, uh, technology, they can legislate their own control, all of that.

• 25:53Tom Bilyeu?

  And then they can, if they see that the individual is doing something they don't want them to do, as we saw with censorship, they'll just shut it down. So they'll come up with a reason, it will be cloaked as safety, as to why you can't have the AI yourself, or you can't have one that's that powerful, or whatever. And again, they'll pitch it as safety, but they'll still follow the same playbook of more control, more control, more control.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, like a comment in agreement with that, uh, there's like another book that's Burnham-esque. Um, it's called The Sovereign Individual. I don't know if you've read that, it's a fantastic book. It predicted Bitcoin, it predicted remote board back in the-

• 26:33Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I read like the first chapter or something, so I know of it.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  It's really great. Uh, it talks about that we have, that modern welfare states are, you can think of them as companies for the employee. They're not in service of the customer, they're in service of the employee. The employee being the politicians, the, the like, deep, deep state employees. Uh, and ultimately, everything that they do is to empower them, themselves. And they actually prefer an underclass. They prefer an underclass, and they prefer the, the like, rich elite, and they prefer to create the, the schism between them. Because the underclass, they can rely on their vote, because they're voting money for themselves. And then there's like a source of capital and wealth from these productive individuals that they can all this, um, funnel through.

• 27:17Tom Bilyeu?

  That is terrifying.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  It is terrifying. Now, um, now, sort of the flip side to that.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  You know, I I I think I I do think I do believe, just like a fundamental belief in the self-correcting nature of humanity and also America. Like, I think America has a few innovations on how we organize society that are quite novel and quite powerful. Free speech is is one of them. You could argue the Second Amendment is also another one of them. But, you know, the the country was founded on the basis of revolt against taxation. So I I it's hard for me to imagine that we're gonna live in the world of this, you

• 28:06Speaker 01

  know, top-down, you know, taxation suffocation sort of control without without there there be a sort of a reaction to that. And by the way, the elite is also made of the wealthy. Like, if you go to DC right now, I mean, DC is, you know, run by billionaires. I don't mean this as a bad thing. Like, I think it was really great that a bunch of like tech, tech guys like went to DC and like are able to contribute and hold position positions of power. So it's not entirely clear to me that that, you know, that it it's headed that way in a locked-in fashion.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  There's still, there's still some democracy. I mean, the thing that is strange about California and the thing that I think the early founders of America didn't want is this idea of like majoritarian, majoritarian rule. The idea like you get fifty-one percent vote, you can vote your the money out of the forty-nine percent. They intuited, and that's why America is a republic and not a direct democracy, they intuited that that's a that's a that's a way to to take any minority and be able to to to target them. And so maybe there's something about how California is structured that is kind of hopeless, but but but but but America has different states like, you know, Texas and

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Florida, they're trying to bring the tech tech guys there, they're they're actively promoting and and soliciting and saying, you know, come here, we're not gonna. So there's also competition. There's also competition internationally with China. Like, once people see that China is is rising, by the way, China's free market system is more robust than America's at this point. Talking about welfare, there's no welfare there. There's not a welfare state. The way they do communism is by controlling the capitalist economy. The way they distribute wealth is by making sure that company, there's so many companies, there's so much competitions, margins are near zero. So you have, like,

• 30:17Speaker 01

  if they think that electric vehicles are important, they're gonna say, okay, we're gonna just cede every company that's gonna make electric vehicles. And there's like a lot of zombie EV companies in in China. There's probably a lot of fraud and all of that. But also, there's, there's tons of, like, really competitive Chinese electric vehicles. I don't know if you've ever seen one, but they caught up to Tesla in some cases better.

• 30:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, from a sales perspective, they're crushing Tesla internationally.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Internationally, they are. And so, and so, when, when, when the American public, you know, is educated on the fact that if we're gonna treat our most productive element of society that way, and they're gonna flee, and, and we're not gonna be productive because we don't have a true free market, we're gonna be losing against China, we're gonna get poorer. And so, I think the public will, will understand that, will understand that there's gonna be a reaction.

• 31:13Tom Bilyeu?

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• 31:55Tom Bilyeu?

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• 32:21Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. Okay, so I'm starting to map where we align and where we disagree. So you have a fundamental belief that there's a self correcting mechanism to humans in general, that we see a bad thing and over time we fix it. And that America is even better than that, better at that than sort of the average. Okay, fair enough. I have a different base assumption that my beliefs are built on top of, and they are that because intelligence is unevenly distributed and interest is wildly unevenly distributed, that you have a double force that pushes people into either

• 33:06Tom Bilyeu?

  being aware of how they're being manipulated and controlled and can do something about it, or they don't have the time or the intellectual capacity to do it. And that bifurcation will always give the elites the ability to have a massive amount of control. And because you just go after the people that don't have the time or the cognitive bandwidth to deal with it.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I think intelligence is overrated.

• 33:29Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, now we're in violent disagreement. Okay, make me a believer.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  I think that, and you know, as someone who grew up and everyone around me was like, oh, this is smartest kid, you know, they, you know, I could skip classes. I could hack into school. I could do everything like. Being smart is a core to my identity and that's why I'm here. And so it's not like I don't believe in intelligence or I'm anti-intellectual. But over time, I've come to realize that being smart, there's like this wild diminishing return to it. Do you know the midwit meme, right? I mean, society, so the elites that Burnham talks about, what Mark Andreessen calls the laptop class, right? They're kind of the midwits.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  They're not the 150 IQ, they're the 110 IQ. Those are the people running society. And so, you know, if the idea that intelligence is the most important thing, we'd be run by the Einsteins of the world. But we were never run by the Einsteins of the world. There are periods in in in America that we had a little more technocratic government around World War Two. And there were like really intelligent people that rose to the top. And you had Richard Feynman, Von Neumann, this is really exciting. But that's like a fluke in in human history. I think most of the time, it is not pure intelligence that is that that that rise to the top and ends up sort of controlling things.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Think of, think of Dilbert cartoons, you know?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Scott Adams just just just passed away. I, you know, I grew up reading these cartoons and and I'm like, man, I just don't want a pointy haired boss. And I think it really had an impact on me as like an entrepreneur, as like part of the entrepreneurial drive is like. And I did go to the job market and I my, your first first few jobs, I had pointy haired bosses. And they were not very smart. I was way smarter than them, but they were very good at the social game. They were, they had different skills. I think humans are a lot more diverse than we we think about. It is not just like IQ is like a single value. It is more like a, you know, if if you really want to measure.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Human performance, you need to measure a lot of other things charisma, uh, social skills, uh, spiritual, understanding, being, being, having senses about the world to understand where the world is headed. Um, like that's something I pride myself on. Uh, and I don't think, you know, I'm like, you know, uh, like I, I grew up with a lot of kids that were a lot more book smarter than me, like they would, and I'm sure you, you did too, like they, they would get better grades and, and all of that. Um, but one thing I always had like a, a good talent for is knowing

• 36:32Speaker 01

  where the world is headed technology wise. So I could like sit down, like a kind of thing and try to predict where, where things are headed. Um, and I don't think that's like a pure intelligence thing. Maybe it's, I don't know, it is not, would not go too, but over time I've, I've kind of my, my view of human talent have, have sort of evolved beyond, beyond just, just intelligence. And so I think there's a lot of regular, everyday people that have a sense for how they're getting oppressed, how they're getting screwed. I mean, the whole MAGA thing, the whole Trump revolution is because everyday people that you might not think of as the, the ultimate intelligence just realize they're getting screwed. They should like figured out that, um, there's a sense in

• 37:16Speaker 01

  which there's like a deep injustice in, in, in America and how, how certain people are, are getting treated, how we're like outsourcing all the manufacturing. Some, some people are getting rich and others, and they may not have, not all of them, obviously a lot of, a lot of people in that camp are very smart, but a lot of people might not have that like, you know, uh, vocabulary or like exact way to kind of articulate it in an intellectual way. But people are smart and I think they tend to sense where things are at and, and when they're getting screwed by certain people.

• 37:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay. Uh, whatever word you would call that, agency, I shorthand it to intelligence, but whatever that is, that makes people able to navigate the world well, do we agree that it's unevenly distributed?

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Broadly, yes.

• 38:07Tom Bilyeu?

  Broadly, it's interesting. There's something here that-

• 38:10Speaker 01

  I think people spike. I think people spike on different things. I think people who spike really high on intelligence, they tend to lack certain awareness of the world in different ways.

• 38:23Tom Bilyeu?

  I'll completely let go of the word intelligence. Intelligence is me groping for something.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:30Tom Bilyeu?

  I'll give you an example. So I used to hire people regardless of felony convictions. And it was an incredible journey. This is back at Quest. This is a lot of like laborers, manufacturers, and so we had people literally line up around the building just to be interviewed.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 38:53Tom Bilyeu?

  Because it was, I'm getting a shot here, no one's ever given me, and I'll get all this praise, like, oh my God, I can't believe you did that. Like, just incredible, incredible people came out of that period. But also out of that period came my belief that only 2% of adults will ever change. And so wherever the vast majority of humans are, when you meet them, they will be a year later, two years later, five years later, 10 years later. And that means 98%, this is obviously rough, but 90% of people, they're baked. Once they're, I don't know, 17, 18, somewhere in there, they are forever that person. And if something broke or wasn't there to begin with, it will be that way forever for the rest of their lives. And I put an

• 39:38Tom Bilyeu?

  ungodly amount of time and attention into trying to help those people like free themselves. Long before there were cameras or anything, I was just doing it because my natural bent is that I change so much, let me help other people change because it had such a radical impact on my life.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:55Tom Bilyeu?

  And I just found, no, it just isn't. So whatever that thing is-

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Don't you think that change needs to be personal, needs to be self-driven? Like, maybe your experience trying to change people is the problem?

• 40:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you think we're automata or is free will real?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  I think free will is real.

• 40:15Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so now we have found where we disagree.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you believe that there is a spirit that is not attached to the body?

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I go back and forth on this a lot. I just don't think that, I just don't think that you can explain consciousness in entirely physical ways.

• 40:42Tom Bilyeu?

  Like, you don't think intelligence really matters? I don't think that question really matters. I can't understand people's obsession with that. And I perfectly accept, maybe I'm just too dumb.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:51Tom Bilyeu?

  But like, when I hear the hard problem with consciousness, I'm just like, what?

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is hard. Like, you need to figure out what's special about humans. Consciousness is clearly a special thing. And, I mean, there's a-

• 41:03Tom Bilyeu?

  Why, sorry, I'm gonna challenge your, your total foundational premise.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:08Tom Bilyeu?

  Why do you need to understand consciousness? To, to what? Navigate the world well?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  No, I just mean as, as, as, um, so you ask a question about free will. And if we're getting to Bedrock philosophy, I just don't think you can brush away the question of unconsciousness. And the question of consciousness brings in spirit and other things like that.

• 41:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Can I try to brush it away? And then you tell me if, if I, and trust me, I want to improve. So if you see something that I'm missing, I'm desperate to see it as well.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:43Tom Bilyeu?

  Let's say, just for sake of argument, that humans are an antenna for consciousness. That it does not reside in the body. And that whoever, people that believe that are 100% right. That does not change the way that I have to interface with being a receiver of consciousness. So for instance, um, if you hit me in the head, it will disrupt my ability to receive that signal. If you give me traumatic brain injury, it will disrupt my ability to receive that signal. If my genetics are trash, it will disrupt my ability. If I intake toxins, it will disrupt my ability. On and on and on. So knowing that I am a receiver of an exterior thing

• 42:26Tom Bilyeu?

  to the interior is fascinating. And I would be like, whoa, that's crazy. But it wouldn't change anything about the physics of how I live my life. It would just be a, oh, that's interesting. It's different than I thought it was. But it does not suddenly unlock an ability, simply because I know that it's coming from the outside.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:47Tom Bilyeu?

  So, my thing is like- It doesn't matter, I think, experientially, to whether God exists or not. It doesn't matter if rocks are conscious, consciousness is fundamental, none of that matters. Whatever it is that drives it, it feels like this.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  So there are a lot of downstream implications of thinking that humans are full automaton, input, output, their function of their environment. For example, you would have a totally different justice system, right?

• 43:21Tom Bilyeu?

  I wouldn't.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Why not? Because you would assume that no one is doing anything out of... like, no one has true agency in a world of automatons.

• 43:33Tom Bilyeu?

  So I look at it from the perspective of I'm programming a video game, and I have an outcome that I'm trying to get to. And let's say that's a society that can cohere but never becomes calcified or static. So I need momentum, I need change, I need it to move forward. Whether it's AI reaching into the past and configuring us to be that way, or God did it, or evolution did it, but that is what we have. So the reason that humans are the most dominant species the world has ever seen is because we can cooperate flexibly in these really large groups. People tend to calcify over time, and so evolution figured out,

• 44:16Tom Bilyeu?

  well, we can't let these guys be like jellyfish, so we're gonna kill them off, because their particular abilities are gonna ride on the back of culture. But, once they learn what works, they're gonna harden it, and they're gonna become deeply efficient. And the way that I stop the world from becoming so efficient that it stops is I'll kill them off. I'll give them like, you know, whatever, 35 to 85 years, depending on when you were born. And then we get the renewal of, I think it was Max Planck that said, "Science has not advanced one insight at a time, it advances one funeral at a time." Because the context changes, and so the people that believe the old thing, they just die off, and then the new idea just becomes self-evident, because the context has changed, and great.

• 44:58Tom Bilyeu?

  So now I'm like, oh, okay, if I'm programming this, and I just need to set up the variables such that it is that way... For instance, I want to see people be given a chance to change. But I also believe that people are automaton. But because of the way that I'm wired, for whatever weird reason, and the things that I've encountered in my life, it makes me feel a way I don't want to feel if we just write somebody off and say they're resigned to the dustmen of history.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  So why not, though? Because?

• 45:32Tom Bilyeu?

  Because we live in a biological reality. I cannot escape my biology. I am wired.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Well, don't you think maybe there's something true in your wiring?

• 45:41Tom Bilyeu?

  What do you mean by true?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  There's something true that you don't, maybe you don't actually believe that people are automaton.

• 45:47Tom Bilyeu?

  I believe it's the core of my existence. So I believe that Phineas Gage is the most, have you read the book Determined by the Stanford professor's name I'm currently blanking on?

• 46:02Tom Bilyeu?

  He literally, all the way down to quantum collapse and 2-bioles and all that, he just debunks one after another, any room for free will.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Have you read The Blank Slate by?

• 46:16Tom Bilyeu?

  I'm so familiar with the concept, I can't tell you if I read the book, I don't remember.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, Steven Pinker. Pinker, yes, so.

• 46:22Tom Bilyeu?

  But I know it intimately.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  He talks about the, and I'm not saying that's the argument you're making. He makes, he talks about a lot of what happened like last century in terms of human destruction and tragedy is intellectually at heart is about this idea of humans as robots, as blank slates, like we can like program them. They grow up in a certain way. If you feed them the right inputs, they're going to be a certain way and then they're going to be.

• 46:56Tom Bilyeu?

  And do you think that's true or false?

• 46:58Speaker 01

  That's false.

• 46:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, agreed.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  That's false, yeah.

• 47:01Tom Bilyeu?

  So.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  But but but you why do you think it's false? Like if you think it's automata like presumably there's certain inputs that we can we can give people to like act in a certain way. You think they're non changeable at seventeen eighteen.

• 47:12Tom Bilyeu?

  Think about it like to use computer language. If you don't have the ability to access that API, the API can be telling you to do something all day. If you're not designed to do it, you're not going to do it. That's why I say be attracted to a porcupine. You can't. You cannot force yourself to be attracted to a porcupine.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  I'm sure someone on 4chan is.

• 47:27Tom Bilyeu?

  Well, so here's the here's the weird thing about human psychology is all for boys. Anyway, all sexual fetishes are developed around the age of fourteen. Super weird. And so guys have developed fetishes for like they have to have bugs crawling on their legs. The first time they masturbated, they had a bug on like, whatever. Like, and so, okay, that that was a weird way for whatever programmed us to be like, okay, well, whatever that thing you're into, I guess that's the thing the culture's into. So, cool. You're now into that thing. You're into women with big boobs. Nope. This time now it's girls with big asses. Whatever. But like, so there is an amount of like adaptability that we have.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  But there's a fixed range.

• 48:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Correct. And so it's like, you're not going to be able to find yourself like stepping outside of that because we only have so much latitude. Now, I'm going to guess some people have more latitude than others and it comes down to genetics and all that. So, people need to understand what I'm trying to say anyway is that we're incredibly complicated automata. But I would put forth without spending the entire episode on this, I would put forth that we are programmed by God, evolution, nature, whatever, but we're programmed. So we're within these finite bounds. And because we're within these finite bounds and everybody

• 48:44Tom Bilyeu?

  is different, that that is why there is the iron law of oligarchy, is that I think about this a lot when I think about money. So I originally got into politics, world affairs and all that during COVID because of my employees back at Quest. And I was like, a lot of these guys don't know how to manage their finances. I didn't understand money printing. So I didn't realize they were about to get bailed out. So I was like, oh, we're all about to get hit by a meteor. Right. They're all going to lose their jobs. They're toast. Let me do content about saving money and, you know, budgeting well so they can get through what I thought was going to be maybe six months.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:21Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, and then I would help them get on the other side. You get into it, you start asking what is money and it unravels everything. You end up at James Burnham, the elites and all that. And I was like, whoa.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:29Tom Bilyeu?

  So I realized, okay, the world's not what I thought, but economics, a very complicated system, very complicated, but you can sort of get it.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:39Tom Bilyeu?

  And so when I try to explain to people, uh, inflation, for instance,

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:45Tom Bilyeu?

  only to then watch them vote for things that are inflationary, which hurt them. I'm just like, what's happening right now?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:52Tom Bilyeu?

  So what do I do with that? And the reality is we've had this.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Can you vote against inflation?

• 49:58Tom Bilyeu?

  Of course you can.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  I feel like, I feel like every, I mean, Trump and Biden are as inflationary as, as the other.

• 50:04Tom Bilyeu?

  That is correct.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Do we have a non-inflation inflation? It is inflammation.

• 50:10Tom Bilyeu?

  I was gonna say.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  It is inflammation of the states.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  It, it anyways, without that digressing of that.

• 50:15Tom Bilyeu?

  You don't have choices for president, but yes, in 1913, we passed a law that made it possible to have a central bank. When we founded the country,

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:23Tom Bilyeu?

  they fought tooth and nail not to have a central bank.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:26Tom Bilyeu?

  They said, we need the debt to get the country kicked off, but we're going to give it like a 19 year time horizon. And at the end of the 19 years, they closed it.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:34Tom Bilyeu?

  So we made a decision in 1913 to allow ourselves to be pillaged.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, I don't know if, uh, people made a decision. They oligarchs definitely did.

• 50:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Therein lies my problem.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:47Tom Bilyeu?

  So if people understood it,

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:49Tom Bilyeu?

  they either would have voted differently or they would own assets because they would actually understand what's happening. You can escape inflation by owning assets. But you can't vote for inflationary things and not own assets. You, you are voting for your own poverty. And so it's wild. So now I'm like, how do I, how do I deal with that? If people aren't either, they don't have time or they don't have the, I round it to intelligence, but I get that it is a very complex thing. What is it? How is it that people allow themselves to be abused?

• 51:23Speaker 01

  I'm not in disagreement that there are certain things that people are unaware of because of the because maybe they're too complicated or they're made complicated like economics was made was intentionally made complicated like Keynesian economics is the ultimate lie like the you know they just complicated economics a lot like if you read Austrian economics and if you understand like things like the gold standard or things like bit potential Bitcoin standard it's a very simple system but to understand uh Keynesian uh uh you know inflationary economics is is is impenetrable and it's I think

• 52:05Speaker 01

  by design made to be impenetrable so that we can't so I wouldn't fault people for for not understanding it because I mean it took you you're you're like what in your 30s when you've understood it uh yeah my 40s 40s and I'm still I feel like I'm just beginning to understand it but that that's my point is that you can make it so complicated that a certain number of people will understand it and then other people won't and again I always throw into maybe they just don't have time they don't have the interest at some point they'll intuit it and this is this is I think back to to this idea of where I think it's not just intelligence they'll intuit that they're getting screwed they'll know it they'll feel it that they're getting screwed and that causes revolution

• 52:46Tom Bilyeu?

  yes but they fight for the wrong thing the revolutionaries often make things infinitely worse

• 52:50Speaker 01

  not always

• 52:51Tom Bilyeu?

  not always

• 52:51Speaker 01

  yeah but some revolutions are good

• 52:54Tom Bilyeu?

  Lenin Stalin continued

• 52:56Speaker 01

  all of these are

• 52:57Tom Bilyeu?

  yeah but they were revolutions they were people who were like fuck these kids we're gonna do this the right way and then Mao went and starved 45 million of his own people to death right and then put them through the Cultural Revolution where he killed millions more Lenin and Stalin collectively Jesus if you include what they did in Stalingrad in World War II It is terrifying, but even just the people they starve to death or threw in the Gulag. I mean, it's just tens of millions of people.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  So. But that, yeah, that was started by a small group of intellectuals, the Bolsheviks.

• 53:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, but their whole message was you're being abused by the rich and the powerful.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:36Tom Bilyeu?

  Take your power back.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:37Tom Bilyeu?

  But that's not what happens.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  You could certainly play on people's passions and you can create popular movements that end up even enriching and empowering a small, a smaller group of people.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  So I, I, I, overall, just to synthesize all of this, I don't think we're in that big of a disagreement. I agree that people don't always have the time, talent, you know, just capacity to, to understand the more complex things. Because the system has been built up to be somewhat impenetrable and to be this like mountain of lies. I would argue it's not all intelligence because the, the most intelligent people that graduate Harvard and go to work in consulting firms and newspapers and all of that. They're very intelligent, but they're lied to as much as, as the average individual. Like, I do believe in the, I do believe in the bell curve.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Like, I think it's, it's a meme, yes, but I actually kind of believe it. Like, there are, there are real intuitions that, that, that, yeah, everyday people have that, that are true. They arrive at them not in a purely intellectual manner. And you can call that intuition, you can call that spirit, you could call that whatever it is. There's something about the world where people kind of figure out that there's something is wrong. Now, that could be going in the wrong direction. Like, you can definitely, a demagogue can rise up and can give a speech and can play on that intuition and then can take them into a direction that.

• 55:09Tom Bilyeu?

  And do you think AI makes that easier or harder?

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Both. I mean, it's it's hard to tell which way it tilts because if we have these personal assistants that are able to synthesize a lot of information for us and try to talk to us at our level. Like when you give ChatGPT to your kid, it talks to them differently than it talks to you. Um, I think there is a world in which there's an ability to understand things a little more and be a little more skeptical about things.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  On the other hand, the demagogue can be supercharged by AI by like writing great speeches and and and manipulating the information landscape and and on social media. On the other hand, social media companies can can use AI to combat some of that. It's it's it's it's a very powerful tool. It's unclear to me whether it tilts positive or negative. And ultimately, it's on society broadly, it's on the entrepreneurs. Like, like, I think there should be a social cost for people in Silicon Valley that are building sex bots.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Like, if you're building a, if you're if you're friend of building a sex bot, it should be affirmed, right? Like, you should, you should, we should have standards for for entrepreneurs. Like, not everything should be about maximizing profits and and money. Like, um, it would be great to live in a world in which there's there's um, there's a social cost to, uh, and I think there already is. Like, OnlyFans was not started in Silicon Valley, right? It's one of the most profitable companies in the world. I don't know where it is. It's like

• 57:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Neither do I.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  UK or something like that. Um, and and for its all its flaws, Silicon Valley, there's always, things are always

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Sometimes it's manipulative, but people really try to pitch their company in a human interest way. And I think that's generally led to better outcomes than negative.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  And, and, uh, and so it's important, it's incumbent on, on people that are building this technology to try to nudge the world in a, in a, in a better direction. And it's important for engineers, designers to want to work on, on positive things. There are, yes, AI as a, as a, as a general purpose platform tool can be used in a lot of different ways, but there are things you can work on that are really positive. Like I think our business, if I may so say myself, I'm probably a little biased, is unquestionably good for

• 58:08Speaker 01

  the world. Um, we make it so that anyone can make software to improve their business, to improve their lives, to, to, to, to, for artistic expression. Um, though obviously you can make malicious software, we take, we take those down. Um, uh, but there are a lot of other use cases of AIs that are creating more lonely people, that are creating, um, and, and I think the American public overall has been like somewhat of a good check on companies. Like when I worked at Facebook, we would feel intense pressure from, from the public when they started hating Facebook for good reasons, right? Like people

• 58:50Speaker 01

  would change their behavior a little bit. So it's, it's a complicated dynamic system. Ultimately, I do have a fundamental belief in goodness of people and in society's ability, given things like free speech and the freedoms that we have in America, to nudge the system in, in a, in a better direction.

• 59:11Tom Bilyeu?

  I love it, man. I hope they take your advice. Having another generation of builders would be absolutely incredible. I love the vision of this being an era of

• 59:22Tom Bilyeu?

  Entrepreneurship at a scale that we've never seen before. Really incredible. Where can people follow you? Where can they engage with Replit?

• 59:29Speaker 01

  I'm on X at Amasad, A-M-A-S-A-D. That's where, you know, people, I can engage with people, reply and, and just try, try to help.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Replit, our website, R-E-P-L-I-T dot com. We have like a basic free plan, so you can go, go there and put a prompt. Don't overthink it. Just try something. Try to make a website. Try to make something for your girlfriend or boyfriend. Just start somewhere. I have a little blog that I, you know, every now and then write something on. I wrote a blog post recently that people found useful called How, How to Keep Winning.

• 1:00:12Tom Bilyeu?

  Good title.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Amasad.me. And in it, I just like talk about, the, the history of Replit is, is, I think, interesting to some entrepreneurs where we've basically didn't achieve economic, financial success. Until 2024, I started the business in 2016.

• 1:00:34Tom Bilyeu?

  Whoa.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  I started the project, the initial idea in 2009.

• 1:00:42Tom Bilyeu?

  Wow.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  So I've been at it for a long time and our revenue just, you know, shot up when the world headed in our direction. So we're right about the prediction. And now it's like a multi-billion dollar company. And so I tried to write.

• 1:00:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Congratulations, man. That is incredible.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Thank you. So I tried to write like the advice and like, the main thing, the main advice I just tell people like not to quit. I mean, there are caveats to that, but ultimately, you know, the person who's showing up every day and trying things and struggling with things and trying all the different tools and figuring out where the future might be headed and situating themselves in a way to like actually benefit from them, from that. That's a superpower because most people just quit.

• 1:01:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Ain't that the truth?

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:33Tom Bilyeu?

  I love it. Awesome, dude. Thank you for coming on. This was really cool. I've enjoyed researching you and getting to sit across from you.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

• 1:01:42Tom Bilyeu?

  Of course. All right, boys and girls, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care, peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break. And that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water, and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics,

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