You know, one of the bestselling books in the 9s. this is after Mosaic it was a book in the bookstore. how to get on the internet You had to download drivers and windows. That's of course why AOL became they literally said finally, it's so hard we're going to send you CDs because this is just a nightmare because you had to literally go and be like a hacker just to install the windows Dri I realized email marketing was going to be big and in 1997 every human that walked into the Wine Library that bought serious wine I was like would you like to join our email newsletter half of them didn't know what email was The remaining 25% there was 25% that new would say something like yeah, my email is AOL Yahoo.com like they they didn't have it calibrated.

attention is the number one asset vayer Nation how are you uh very excited about this interview as you know most of what I'm doing is uh group settings in podcast in 2024 podcast with friends that I uh stream live on Twitch go to Twitch go to Gary Ve.com twitch all of you should be subbing up but this one's a special episode because I think um I think a lot about filming myself over the last 15 20 years and something happened when I was with a couple of buddies on my team a couple months ago where we looked back at Old footage from my daily vog even just six seven years ago and I already got what I wanted out of this which was the fondness of looking back at things I have a I'm making a prediction that I will look at this interview in 30, 40, 50 years with Incredible fondness and so I'm glad that I still look somewhat decent cuz I have a feeling this will be important video that I watch and my grandkids watch. Um, my guest today is Chris Dixon he wrote a new book uh and it's an important book uh, read, write own Chris is someone I've gotten to know a lot better in the last three, four years, but when that started happening when we started talking and um, he's got an incredible career as a founder and definitely as an investor. Um, it was really funny when I could tell that like oh I feel like Chris and I are going to get closer I called AJ and I said bro guess what I've been talking to a little bit lately and he said oh I said Chris Dixon and he laughed with a laugh that you could only know when you have a brother which was he knew why it mattered to me I navigated 2006 to 2011 as an essential point in my career. It's when I transitioned from running a liquor store to starting to become an angel investor and really my talk about your you know, to me that was like going away to college.

that era of the internet I really became dramatically more uh, educated on many things. and I it was also during an era where a lot of the people from 20034 five were writing blogs and blogs were such an essential part of the internet. And then Twitter came along and things started to shift. but I consumed an enormous amount of information from so many different people in that 5-year window.

and literally literally, there was only a couple people that consistently would say things I'm like yep, yep, yep and as you can imagine because I felt that I had a good eye on where the world was going. that made me think that they were smart I agreed and and obviously it all kind of. a lot of those things played out Chris literally one of I mean genuinely one of two or three people that I was like wow, this guy gets it, gets it, gets it, gets it. And when I found myself getting deeper and deeper into Web 3, sure enough, he was there again and again.

gets it, gets it, gets it. So it's a real honor for me Chris to have on the show. Thank you so much Gary I I My audience knows that that setup is unheard of for me and so I think everyone's we better not blow it now. Yeah, big big trouble.

we got to those. And likewise, like you know, I think of you as one of the kind of fellow Travelers who have been through multiple eras of the internet and have always been I think optimistic, um, embracing new technologies, leaning into it. um and I and I have a lot of respect for that. and so I was excited when I you know when we got the chance again to or I guess for the first conferences here and there.

Yeah, it had been informal before so I was very excited to get to work, work with form and that sets up this whole thing. Let me just go right into it. Uh, we're now We We filmed this a little bit earlier but like this is out now on podcast in all my socials. Clips We're pushing it today because it's release dat January 30th I I Couldn't recommend more, especially because so many of you have been vriends or vriends.

Curious Crypto or Crypto curious Nft this blockchain that deep fake videos like I know who's listening all the way from the kids on the come up who who are excited about it to all of I I probably want the Fortune 500, the policy makers, the the small business owners to read this even more. This book has the potential Again, no pressure. has the potential to be the quintessential book that allowed people to get it the AHA as we transition from Web Two to web three. There's so much, you know, not misinformation.

There's so much, uh, misunderstanding of this next era. I think Chris has done a phenomenal job at taking a stab at it. And so again the reason I said that I might look back on as fondly is I think it'll be fun to look at I know we'll be friends in 40 years and like we had hair and and I have a feeling like this book could be that book and so it's an important time too because I do think right now we're in an inflection point of people trying to understand this fully but are ready to understand it so very simply. my first maybe only question cuz I think we can rant on this and flow is why did you write this book now and what is the book about? Yeah, so you know I've been spent my whole career on the internet I I am basically 25 years um, working on the internet in some way or another I was an entrepreneur I started two companies and then became an investor.

um tell everybody what those companies are Yeah so and just going back. by the way, like I was just my own background like I you know I came from Ohio my parents were professors I was actually in a PhD program in philosophy believe it or not, um lot because I think most of the reasons I've always had nodded with you is I think you understand human behavior that makes a lot of sense so so you know So I um and that was sort of late 90s and then I discovered for me it was a real real kind of epiphany was to discover that there was a job you could do which was to you know like start companies and do this cool stuff and then specifically on the internet. And and for me, what was attractive about the internet. For those who kind of know the Internet history and I go through some of this in the book is the idea that it would be this network that connects all the computers and all the people in the world.

but it would be a network owned by the people, right? It would be democratically controlled, right? Anyone that was the original Pro that was the original internet and and and the idea anyone could go and put up a website. you could be an artist, a poet, a programmer, an entrepreneur, whatever you. whatever you want to do and you could put up a website and you could go and build an audience and have a direct relationship with that audience. and maybe that's something you do for fun or maybe you you know you put ads up or you sell products.

but whatever you want to do, you can do and you have this little plot of land. your your website you know Amazon.com became a very big plot of land. Some of these little plots of land became big I have a little plot of land C Dixon. Org but you got a little plot of land right? You got a little plot of land and you could build on it and you knew if you built on it that you would own it right that you would own what you built.

So you know Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page and all these people who were building these startups and I I believe a lot of the entrepreneurship that led to the original kind of growth of the internet was was because people were attracted to that promise 100% right? I Told my father that Wine Library.com which I launched in 1997 for a single store liquor store in New Jersey was going to be our second location. y we were going to own this store and you owned it right? You own, you own that website and and that that was you know that and that there's a whole history to that. How that happened. Like that architecture of the internet.

it came out of government and Academia I go through it briefly in the book. I go through the kind of important points I try not to bog it down with too much history, but that's been well covered too. Yeah, but I go through the sort of salient points and specifically it was architect in a way that you sort of owned. some you had ownership and specifically like of your domain or of your email address and that gave you all these rights.

and G let you build a direct audience and that was a very important sort of what seems like a kind of Arcane technical feature that you could own your domain and that for example if your hosting provider misbehaves, you can switch your domain to somebody else. You control it right and that that's a very important uh feature that yeah that basically shifted power to the to the edges of the network, to the users, the creators and the entrepreneurs. and so that was great. and then you know the internet sort of continued to you know obviously there was the internet bubble and then crash in the 2000s and then kind of I think when you got involved um and you know and and I was involved then too.

Um that was sort of the you know, the kind of rebirth the web 2 era right? And that's when people started to realize that that the internet wouldn't So in the sort of first era most of the websites were were I call I call it skoric. It's a term that Steve Jobs used to refer to software that kind of looks like old-fashioned things like the original Apple uh uh. book book app had sort of grainy book looks and stuff that was a Steve Jobs term but it's come to mean something broader which is sort of when when a new medium pops up like the internet. People do things like they take magazines and brochures and basically make digital versions of right? and that was kind of, you know I think Probably most listeners always take the last form factor into the new.

like early films were plays. Essentially, we're at Vayner Media and Advertising Firm. The first 100 TV commercials were radio ads. Yep, a man sat there and read so you always sort of Port the last for of media.

So right. So the So the Web By the way, if I may I apologize. It's why social media marketing is misunderstood. You still have TV Centric advertising agencies trying to make ads on social media that are made for television.

That's why all those YouTube commercials stink. They shouldn't be that they should be YouTube pre-roll ads, not a television commercial run as a pre-roll Yeah, and that's a that's a repeating pattern, right? So whenever something new comes along, Um, this is sort of. You go to like Media Studies and read like Marshall MCL and these kinds of people they'll talk about it. which is a new medium comes, new form of media comes along and people start off sort of doing the last thing.

and then there's a few people like you who are kind of pioneers. but then eventually other people figure it out. That's right. And the specific new thing you could do with the Internet in the 2000s was it was a two-way It was a publishing medium.

It wasn't just it was. that's why I call it read, it was it's a first one was sort of read only you're consuming information. The 2000s in the Web 2 movement people said hey what about if anyone can not only read but they can write they can publish right and that was the beginning of blogging in the early two I mean there was some blogging but really in Earnest to begin 200000 was popular news site as you remember called Read Write Web there was there was in fact I I quoted in the book and their first thing their their actually I quote their first paragraph which was the web should be more than about it was like 2003 they put up a Manifesto the web should be more than about reading information. it should be about reading and writing I love it and in fact they other name for web too.

There were conferences the read WR they were called yeah so this is not by the some people ask me like read WR did you make it no no read Wr's an old term, the own is the sort of new part and so anyways but that's where the that's where the Um title comes from. but um so anyway so then so then the internet kind of grew and that was great. um but then the way I think about it is it was sort of a battle in the late 2000s between when social networking got big between open and closed architectures and so open. Specifically there was a protocol called RSS and people still use it for podcasting and stuff and it's still around.

But it's like you know, tens of millions of users, not billions of users, the way that Facebook has right and so what happened essentially and the way that a lot of us thought it could get to. Yeah. and so at one point it was sort of a it was sort of a legitimate rival to Twitter and Facebook and everything else. And then around.

you know, 2010ish The the Clo, the the the corporate owned networks, the sort of proprietary networks like Facebook and Twitter started to pull ahead. Um and fast forward today. You know that they're now dominant and fast forward today. You now have Um.

You know the top 1% of of social networks control 95% of the traffic, Top 1% of search engines 95% of the search traffic The you know? NASDAQ Um, the top five tech companies went from 25% of the M NASDAQ uh, market cap 10 years ago to 50% today. Wow. Like so all of these stats consolid. Yeah, it's just massive consolidation and my concern.

and I think we're really headed there is the internet's going to end up like old broadcast TV Where you're going to have ABC CBS and NBC You're going to have you know Tik Tok Facebook Twitter and like five things and you're already seeing this. By the way, like you know, Twitter is demoting if you link out like you're not only going to have five things, but they're going to be completely closed silos and there going to be they're going to. These organisms are going to care about themselves, They're going to care about themselves and so this the internet will have gone from I What I think of as this sort of beautiful open dream of like this Democratic internet into this into what I think is is really not a great outcome which is, uh, an internet of you know, sort of four or five companies that have full control and and specifically why is it not a good outcome? I Think it's not a good outcome Because for example, for creators, okay, if you're a Creator right now and you create, you know why do you go. Why do you wake up in morning and go to Tik Tok and Instagram right? You go there.

not because of the content that Tik Tok and Instagram produce because of the content the users produce right? And and so how does Tik Tok make money? They they make money through advertising. They take all of the money they make from advertising. They have very di Minimus Creator funds, but they're like less than 1% of their revenue. But outside of that, they take all the money and so they make it very hard.

You know music? Spotify um it's a great service I Love by the way I love all these Services they're great but you know musicians of the 8 million musicians on Spotify 14,000 make $50,000 a year or more which is roughly the average American salary and the rest don't And so this this architecture of consolidating power in these five companies is bad for I would argue bad for cre. Why do you think the consumer at scale as a herd allowed that to happen I think they created better experiences frankly I think RS like things like RSS were you remember this? They were clunky. You had to set up your own domain. You had to.

um FR yeah. and and also by the way I I talked about this in the book I got through it like I I Ed YouTube As a case study they they did Heavy subsidization. So the original value proposition of YouTube in 2005 when they launched was you get to it's really easy to host video and by the way, it's free because we'll pay for it. and and they raised billions of dollars of venture capital and subsidized it.

By the way, I wanted to launch Wine Library TV Three years before I did I went to my tech team and said I want to make wine videos They're like okay I'm like tell me how much it's going to cost Yeah they said okay. They came back and they said for every 15minute video you put up because that was my guess of how long it they're like. for every people that are going to watch it, it was some Ason I was like what? and that's what you had to do if you used RSS right? right? So that's why these these so what happened is Venture Capital the industry I work in came along and said hey, you know what we think this will be so valuable someday and YouTube today by the way Wall Street analy is part of Google but Wall Street analyst say it's worth $140 billion right? And so the the VC's correctly said someday the prize is so big that we'll give you. Let's call it 10 billion to subsidize it beat RSS and then eventually you'll be worth 140 billion.

That was sort of the calculation the VCS of that era made and you know correctly, a lot of them did very well. These are very Val you know meta worth whatever I don't know 700 billion or I Also think the thing that I knew which is why I bet the farm on social was attention is the asset MH and when you're when you're on Garyvaynerchuk.com you have to muster up the demand all by yourself. when you were on Twitter.com garv you're getting by accident awareness right? All these creators come to me and they like I ate the platform so I'm like you were zero in your living room. You went on and you made content and you paid zero for a wh when you advertise to get people to know about something, you pay Yep, and that that was so valuable that it created the consolidation.

Yeah I call it. Come for the tool, Stay for the network is sort of the pattern I call it. So you start come for the Tool YouTube says meaning it's sort of a single like hey, you come there because they subsidize it and it's an easy do video but then over time it's because my interpretation have Come for the attention, Stay for the attention. Yeah, you know you come because you want to get that awareness to your point when you become Beyonce you don't need it as much.

but the reality is more and more of the attention is still there. And so like all of a sudden, even traditional media can't rival that level of attention. So being on in on the cover of People magazine and being on today's show and being on Prime Time special on NBC is not going to outpace contemporary attention from having incredible success on Tik Tok y Anyway, nonetheless, go ahead. So okay, so that's sort of the problem statement.

What I said? You know. So the internet started off as this dream of this Democrat funny I I if I may Yeah. I Actually, when I hear you say this, don't think that you think it's this catastrophic problem I think you think of it as it can just be better. Yeah that I Love look I love I Yes I Look I Love the internet I Obviously like the average American us it seven hours a day I'm probably at that or above like I think it's incredibly valuable.

incredibly useful I've built my career on it. It's been great. great for me, and so it's just not as great as it can be. Yeah I think it can be I Think it can be much better? Yes, yes.

And I think that the and my favorite way to make it better is through Innovation as opposed to let's say regulation or something like this. Like there's one one school despise you. Well, that one school of thought would be hey, this is too big. Let's do things like block Acquisitions And first of all, the cats out of the bag.

These companies are already huge. Blocking new acquisitions is not going to I Don't think it's going to move the needle. You know, maybe you could break them up. It's very hard to imagine how you could do that.

The real game is based on on what is perceived as. You know the real game is new, features, stories in stream. this, but the reality is the speed in which the big players can copy a feature. Be real, right? Snapchat Like these, you know.

Snapchat Got fortunate that it took Meta so long to create the story function in Instagram if they had done it two years earlier. Yep, yeah, look and I Also, think by the way and I Also think it's a business opportunity if you can go. So you know, getting to blockchains like what? what? I see a blockchain is as a it's a piece of infrastructure that lets you build new Digital Services in which those Digital Services enable direct relationships between creators, startups, developers, and their audiences. So for example, what you do with Vriends right when you sell uh, you know a VRI a collectible to uh to to your audience, you pay maybe a small 2% 2 and a half% fee to a Marketplace or something.

but otherwise that money goes to you that that 97% let's call it of the money going to you is unheard of in the ex reverse and even not even close. Actually, they don't get too. And so it's also a business opportunity if you can go and create new networks new services that you can go to these creators and say hey, do you want 97% of the money or do you want 0% of the money like it's an interesting business proposal like that one? Yeah, not a very yes, so right. I mean that that's that's ultimately a lot of the business proposal.

So blockchains are a new way to create Digital Services that compete with things like you know Facebook and Twitter and games and just I Think of every kind of C Financial Services Payment Networks, all of them. It's a new way to create Digital Services Chris You sit here tonight as I do I assume that it's inconceivable to you that in the next 20 years that one of the one of if not the biggest social network in the world is a decentralized social network? Yes I I look I mean that's I've bet my old me too obviously do I do believe it. But um and and look I I started to sort of see it you I've been now in the space for 10 years. Um and and you know started to see like to me around 2013 or 14 was when we started to see that consolidation when blockchain started to get more sophisticated and like the technology started to evolve.

Um so look these things can take a long time and obviously it has taken long time that's been. that's been the biggest thing we. You know this is what's nice about being in this part of our career. You know when we were looking at this stuff in 9969 I remember saying silly things like I was a kid dad by the year 2000 everyone's going to buy every bottle of wine on the internet.

This was lack of experience. You didn't You could see it. Yeah yeah and yes one day it takes a long time for. But yeah that's the it takes a long time to build to both build these products the infrastructure like AI So the first paper on neural networks is 1943 say that one more time.

really slow. sorry because no no I'm not saying I'm doing this for effect more than appropriate with your speed. I'm trying to keep up with Gary you're perfect on your speed I'm saying this for effect because obviously this is on everyone's mind. Say it one more time for the kids in the back.

The first time AI was referenced in paper theur Neur networks were invented in 1943. it was mallic and pits. It was a famous paper you know Allan Turing his famous Turing test was 1950. his paper um he even then predicted like 20 years from now.

Well I forgot exactly the predictions were but very sophisticated. AI Systems There was an AI bubble people talk about in the 1980s with so-called expert systems. um I started an AI company in called Hunch in 2008 which I sold eBay in 2011 which I thought I was like timing it right I was 10 years too early and you know what actually made AI happen. There were a lot of things that made AI happen, including just brilliant people you know designing algorithms and other things.

But the real thing that made it happen were Gpus which is which are the processors that it runs on. And by the way, why did Gpus get so good Because of video games? So like the the real, it's a crazy it's kind of a crazy underappreciated story that video games are going to bring us. You know Advanced artificial. You know why we call them bugs when there's an issue in there was literal bugs in the yeah in the vacuum tubes, it it Grace Hopper I think I can't I I just stumbled on that I don't know how I missed it in the last 20 years.

the fact that that computer in Harvard in 1948 or whatever it was, they went in and something was wrong and there was a moth in there and they had a pull it out. Did you ever see those pictures? They have those big vacuum glass vacuum tubes and the they were, you know insane that is. Those things were like I mean they were like I think they had by the way as I've got more 1K of memory or something. people even know what that means anymore that that's kind of where I was why I jumped in just to Sidetrack to talk about something interesting lately because the what's going on because I'm aware of about the GPU using like the fire power right? the Firepower I'm trying to figure out now now I'm getting fascinated by that I'm like okay, what happens when at 100x is now, what can we do that is like that's where it gets fun with Ai No with something else that I can't see right now.

space travel uh living underwater robot I don't know, things are above my pay grade I'm good at consumer Behavior with emerging Technologies The hardcore teex just a a different level. They continue. A lot of these things are economic phenomenons, meaning that like Gpus were already getting better. Like why did Gpus get better? Part of it is physics and smart people, but they needed the money and they had the money because of video games.

Yes, now they have a lot more money because of AI And so they're going to get even better and better. That makes sense. So like there's just fly wheels to kick in, right? and and they're really I Think primarily people talk about Moors Law Yes, and that's important, but that's sort of how how many generally refers to how many trans dener scaling is called. How many transistors can you pack onto like smaller and smaller area.

But really, there's this broader thing that happens across networking, storage, all areas of computing. You know, just the connectivity and that's an economic phenomenon. Why is your iPhone so amazing? Today is partly because the iPhone's gotten better. It's partly because the apps have gotten better, but the two reinforced each other right.

It's because the first iPhone came out, somebody created snap and Uber and you know the entrepreneurs created these Services The services became popular that then gave Apple You know, sold more phones, gave them more money, they went out and made a better camera that made Instagram especially when you're taking a 30% all these it's all these fly wheels and we're in a flywheel with AI I Believe we're in a flywheel with blockchains now. Blockchains are getting better, the apps are getting better, the infrastructure is getting better like you know, like the they have a natural Network effect. the more people that use what's what's the biggest thing that people are missing about this blockchain phenomenon in general public that's a little bit more educated. Not somebody who has no no, but what do you think is I think I think that there's some self-inflicted wounds here due to the the the crypto industry which is the kind of speculative and casino aspects.

I I have a part in the book where I call it the casino versus the computer M And so the idea is there sort of two cultures right? There's the culture which I write about I tried to I Hope this will be the you know the book people reference. When they when they think about the comp, you know the productive uses of blockchains. The blockchains that how do you use blockchains to create new internet services that that provide a better internet than the one we have today. That's a more that's an Internet that rewards creators and developers.

That's the productive Vision that I write about. There's another set of people who I think have taken like tokens are an important part of this. Nfts tokens like Ethereum, that Eum computer ACC and it's remember I was talking about subsidies of YouTube They don't have external sources of funding, so it funded itself through the token. so the token plays a productive use in the system.

But there's a set of people who have taken these tokens out of these contexts. and like SPF and FTX would be the extreme example. Put it on a website and make it into a gambling thing and that gets all this media attention. There's scams and fraud and then that just kind of of really really sulles the image of the space.

That's right and look and some of this is, you know I I think is self-inflicted There are people that you know that that I know that are you know. people get excited by trading and this. and so there's nothing wrong with speculating things. It's the same thing like Wall Street right? Like there's like it's what about alcohol If you misuse something and like Wall Street Like look the the real purpose of the stock market is to provide efficient allocation of capital to help companies build products.

That's right, a buy product of that is you have hedge funds and speculation and that does play an important role. I'm not anti like trading right. Like trading plays a role. It plays a role in price Discovery and liquidity and other things.

But but but in Crypto I Think we put the cart before the horse. Yes, right? We mixed the two Like well it happened with web One. it was just done with the stock prices right? Web one had its own had own version. It was just it wasn't full consumer like we are now but like it was full consumer I mean well what I mean by that was in 1997 the friction to buy 30 shares of Pet.com that was in like there was too much friction but it was happening I mean that that that wave? That that Financial wave was retail driven in the 90s? Yes it was right.

E Trade right Oh yeah, there was ads every minute on TV about trading and very similar. Um so look I think that I think that kind of Casino culture has has really soled the blockchain kind of movement, right? The General: P Definitely Nfts? Yeah, you know I do think Bitcoin is as a brand is doing well in the scheme of things? Definitely. Nfts? Yeah, um. but more importantly, even if Nfts and every cryptocurrency had a great brand right this second.

I still think the majority of people don't even understand the underlining aspects of the blockchain and how profound it will be for proof. Well, this is. this is partly why I wrote the book right. because I've done I've gone around I've been in the space for 10 years I've had God knows how many conversations.

um trying to talk about this like I you know you wrote this mainly for yourself. You're like here. just read this right. Like instead, just you just like look I'm by the way for the listeners like I I Have been a longtime proponent of blog I blogged for years.

Yes, I've been a longtime believer that, like most business books shouldn't be books, they should be blog posts. Okay, just so you know, like I wrote a book I know that I wrote a book begrudgingly because I really feel And by the way, this is 230 pages I cut out another 230 50 pages like I wrote a book that begrudgingly because meaning that it's the only way I decided to really properly explain this topic. This is just. this is a topic that you just need.

The history of the internet. You need some context. Um I Just it. just I Think there's really no other way to explain this fully and properly without.

It's the only reason. it's the only reason I understand it. so I could not even comprehend understanding it if you don't understand the history ofet. So I that's why when you told me I was like I mean that's the first couple chapters are like a really quick run through the history of the internet and and and they are basically what I would say is people like Gary people like me, people like my partners at the the senior you know like Mark Andri and other people I work with like they would know this already.

It's sort of taken for granted that that these basic things I kind of argue that like yeah, like when you invent the browser. like literally you had to be a super nerd by my standards in high school to know how to go on the internet before there was a browser. yeah like normal people are like what I can't write code how the what are you talking about one Z like I like no no I like Ebay.com enter yes, understand 12794 like no yeah really real talk I know it sounds ludicrous but like when I was in high school and I heard of like some kid out of modem and and it was like but it was like literally the most nerdy, sophisticated, knowledgeable kid our schol for you know, one of the best selling books in the 90s. this is after Mosaic it was a book in the bookstore.

how to get on the internet. Oh yeah, like because it was like you had to download drivers and windows. That's of course why AOL became they literally said finally it's so hard we're going to send you CDs because this is just a nightmare. You had to literally go and be like hacker just to install the windows driers I realized email marketing was going to be big.

Yeah! and in 1997 every human that walked into the Wine Library I was that bought serious wine I was like would you like to join our email newsletter Half of them didn't know what he it was and 25% of the the remaining 25% there was 25% that knew would say something like yeah my email is AOL Yahoo.com like they they didn't have it calibrated. The only reason was by way the only reason 25% knew is by being in Short Hills Milbourne New Jersey I Had a lot of guys GSS that worked in the stock market and they were the ones that actually knew their you know their email That was it. Yeah it. it's profound and that's where we are now.

The amount of people that say the silliest thing the same way I joke about AOL aty Yahoo.com and we all laugh. The things people are saying now about Nfts crypto like hot takes not grounded in knowledge is why a book is needed and look like n to take Nfts a little bit since you know that's that's what you're working in like Nfts are. So the way I think of an Nft is and I have whole section on the book if people are interested. but the the um Nft is.

So one of the key things that blockchains enable is they enable ownership. That's why the book's called read, write own. They allow they allow new new services to be created where the users and creators and software developers can have their little plot of land again. Okay, and and Nft is is essentially a little plot of land, right? It's a little thing you can own and it's a very you can put anything on that plot of land.

Now it so happened that you know Nfts. By the way, the standard wasn't developed, wasn't finalized until 2020. So this is a four-year-old technology people know like Okay, so it's really early and what happens often with Technologies like say this Social Networking, for example is they there's sort of the essence of the technology, like what it will be long term and then there's the way it arrives. So like early social networking, right? What was Twitter really? Today we know what Twitter really is.

It's a global messaging system that you can talk about politics and culture and business when it arrives. It was nerds talking about the burrito. they had a lunch, right? And that was it was. and it was widely kind of derided and mocked in like let's call it 20067.

That was my whole career. No. I mean it was liter and by the way, my first. if you go back and look at our early tweets, we probably were nerds talking about what we have for lunch like it was actually an accurate charact Char characterization.

but there was another. it wasn't wasn't the full potential. There was also another Insight I People literally would joke to me because I was very bullish on it I was an early investor in it I said uh, they're like who cares if you're walking the dog And my answer used to be everyone. Yeah, there is another thing like yes, you could talk about politics this but like, but people are interested in people.

Yeah, like right now someone's posting walking the dog and people replying like what kind of breed that's cool, what that like Well, and your argument was, don't confuse like the early adopters correct with like don't over over over rotate on who the first people just because they're a bunch of nerds. very I mean look at Instagram Instagram was for photography Yeah, like these things take on lives of their own. Yeah, and then they and then as they grow, they kind of grow into what they really are. And so what.

Nfts really are. It's a way for you to have to to create something. It could be anything. It could be a collectible item.

It could be something. It could be a wedding certificate. It could be something yes that ties to the kind of real world. It could be an asset in a video game.

You could be an identifier on a social network. like so instead of being Cix on Twitter I own my own. it can be anything and and you know it's a general Tech sort of Technology It's an atomic unit of ownership is what an Nft is and so a lot of people that are negative about it today. They look at some of the things that happen in 2021 2022 and you know some of the ridiculous prices and other kinds of things and they say oh this must be a ridiculous technology but of course what they what I would argue is they should look past that and look at what it really is and what it could become right and it's going to become I I think like I think it's an incredibly like the idea, the fact that you could own something and nobody can forge it.

Nobody can touch it. it can't burn down in a house. you know how much paper was lost in fires and really screwed up a human. How many people lost our safety deposit key like real stuff and like do we really think in 20 years I likeing around my passport I'm scared every time I'm with it and do we really think in 20 years that people will be you know, collecting physical things the way that they do I mean that'll still exist but digit of course things are going to become you're love this I Did a podcast yesterday called The Retirement Home so six 80-year-old individuals interviewed me and I I make all my predictions AK Quick actions based on history.

Yeah, hence what we're talking about here. and I talked to them about when the credit card started to really penetrate culture. That's funny, What' they say no they just said you're right. like basically it was one big actually Dustin Walked in the elevator was like what do you think because he knows I've been dying to get more time with people in their 80s yeah and his answer was interesting.

he said to me it it was cool to like know your stuff is like what did you say like that you're Stu they confirm the things that been say the stuff he's been listening to me Yap about for five years he doesn't have the context for nor when he looks at me he's like why do you know that or why do you think you didn't live it here people lived it and when you could see people's body when I was like Hey gang tell these kids like what it was like when the credit card came out and you were like no way am I going to use this what do that even and they were like yeah and like how weird it was and like you have to have your cash on you like when I say I don't want my passport on me I mean it, it could be I want my passport to be an Nft on the US government blockchain and call it a day like I don't need it destroyed or stolen. It's a pain in the ass and you know by the way like uh you know with the rise of AI as an example like can you TR like video has been the ground truth of the Internet it's been the one thing you can kind of. you can kind of believe Society you can kind of believe of society very. And now with deep fakes, can you can you still believe video I Mean it's already the question.

it's a question mark. and three years from now by the way, oh, it's over. It's over. And so one of the beautiful things you can do with the blockchain actually have a section on this.

Actually, you inspired me on that one because you've been talking about it. Thank you. And so it's one of the sections at the toward the end of the book. I Go through a bunch of like application use cases.

um, but defix. So like a blockchain is a perfect way to keep an audit. Trail And essentially like the New York Times can attest to like this video being real and it's an immutable a audit Trail that's a great I I Think the great use for a blockchain I Think there's a lot of really interesting use cases for blockchains that are kind of counterbalances to what will happen with Ai. Ai is also going to make by the way, content creation like creating an illustration already done this essentially it's going to be Costless That's right.

why is somebody going to pay an illustrator? um when they can do it through AI Now will that will that kill off the illustration business like I Don't think so. but I think they need to. They need to adjust their product Oh It's huge and they need to start leaning into being communities and what you're doing right. Like because you not someone could generate a new image of of a vfriend.

Correct and it's not going to matter to you because it's not the real V friend? Correct right? You could explain I should let you be doing the talking here. world ofi like your business model becomes much much more important in the world of AI I would of course I I You know we talked about this we you know over a flight or a dinner like the AI of it all is going to accelerate people's aha moment to the value of the blockchain. Y I mean it's profound and in a world where people are struggling with trust of big corporations and Trust of government like it is actual human. Nirvana decentralized place that shows truth.

How do you know it's a real person? How do you know? Like captas, you have to pick how many fire click on all the fire hydras like that's over like the computer can do that. I Can't wait for Because By the way, I sometimes miss one when I miss a caption I have to do it again I'm like the bike was not really in the scene. it's so absurd. We live in 2024 and that the answer to figuring out something as a human is like are there like how many bikes are in this photo like it's just not the right answer to these problems.

um by the way, fishing authentication like this I I had a one of my partners he was tweeting about about it um Martin he he had a uh one of his family members was had a phone call with his voice with using Ai and said hey I need you to send me money and that that's that's already here I mean that's you can do You can take someone's snippet of their voice and then replicate. yeah replicate it. So like we're going to need system yeah imagine this hello you know and they got to take over your no, you don't know the number but a lot of people pick that up comes up as yeah, you're right I'm in big trouble. you need to text me like it's going to yeah, you leave a voicemail so that people not going to believe anything I think in a couple years they'll have it interactive like I can be speaking into the thing and in real time it'll be making it so I could be talking but it's we have that now.

Yeah for people. So so by there's an answer to this which is cryptography right? Which just cryptography on blockchains. You can have systems build systems where you can we have it. We walk around like we walk around with a you know with a touch ID in our pocket and it's not that hard to connect that to a bunch of other systems including blockchains to make sure that we can authenticate video and text and voice and all these other things.

And in fact, we have a bunch of like we we're working with. Sam Alman He's got a startup called Worldcoin which is exactly that. proof of personhood using blockchains, right? and so like. There's a bunch of really interesting use cases.

so I think the the stuff in the book you asked me in the beginning. What? Why now? I think part of it is the consolidation of the internet I think part of it is AI which look I'm very we're bullish on. AI I Think it's awesome. Our firm invests a lot in it, but it's a centralizing technology.

Yes, it will reinforce the strength of these companies. It's the extreme centralization. Yeah, it it. It's a super powerful.

It's a super powerful thing, but it requires lots of data, lots of capital, lots of compute, and the big companies have that, and it's going to reinforce that power. and blockchain in my mind, is the one kind of credible kind of counterweight to that to that movement. and so it becomes more important than ever. What? What have we not? You know, Obviously, especially when we get together.

We just went like I knew we would I I had coffee Red Bull I was like I got to get Gary V level clock speed here n you do just great yourself brother. you need to be Chris Dix and out all the time. What did we not touch on in our r ranting here? That is either in the book that you'd like to make sure people know and uh or something that um you just want people to know from this, uh, this interview and and one more time everybody if you're listening I mean this. Open up your phone right now and go to your favorite bookstore.

There's one or two at this point. back to consolidation. uh, read, write own I I Just know my audience very well I think I have a good track record with all of you of like books cuz you know I love when people get educated I still book form when I think about your knowledge cuz I know you from afar and now more and more close when I think that that can be had on your opinion on this for 20 bucks or whatever the hell this is getting discounted to on Amazon that is profound I still think books are like the great knowledge, you agree with that I I Like this by the way I have a book coming out in May Day Trading attention I Just order. This is like thank you brother.

This is the secret of everything for me and I really did it. You know, writing a book made me really appreciate books in a way. In fact, I I finished the book basically in October and I think I have read more books now in the last three months since because I I because you realize what you did and you're like wait, other people are doing this too. like obviously this isn't the full 25 years of knowledge but it really is kind of the best parts of it.

It's sort of like and it took like I spent 12 months I got up every morning you know I spent four hours a day I Also had a lot of really smart colleagues who helped me um and so like it it it was I didn't realize how much work it was going to be to. well it was. It was work for you. and by the way, this one was my hardest work too.

and I've written a bunch that have done really well I think this one was work for you because you know it matters. You know that it's complicated just like I Know marketing is complicated and you know that you've been fortunate enough to maybe be able to synthesize it and that require like that requires real effort because you can go long-winded here. you might miss something here and there's a sense of responsibility. Yeah, look like so like I'll tell you too I S I Started this after kind of the FTX and a bunch of the the scandals and the other of stuff and at first I was sort of depressed.

I was like wow all this work over this stuff and then these Bad actors spoil it and then I sort of said to myself well let's look at it optimistically which is I've never been involved in a area of I've been involved in technology a long time but I've never been involved in one where the gap between the public perception and and what I think is the reality is so wide and instead of feeling sorry for myself that that there's that wide Gap why don't I see it as an opportunity which is I could write, maybe hopefully write the book to fill that Gap and that's what. So that's what kept me getting up every day for brother. Honestly, you know this like Bill Gates was the most powerful technologist of the time and was sitting on television making fun of the internet. Yep, like it's a fat yep like I you know back to Mark and you you know he wrote a book called the Road Ahead which yep and it was came out in '95 and the word the web didn't appear correct and so then he wrote a new version and he bought up all the old versions so they wouldn't find them.

You can find them on eBay Now Insane. Is that true? Yes, that's true. That's insane. That's true.

This is why I don't like to predict I just like to talk and I'm obviously he's a genius and like I'm not I'm making point that like it's very me. What I'm saying is maybe this is the thing that has the biggest Gap But but for the people that were fully bought into electricity when it was invented, obviously the person who invented it and the early Believers of it. do you know how sad that first decade was when most of the general public thought that if you brought technology into your home, you were bringing demons into your home? Y? Let me just you know I've given you a lot of history lessons. Electricity by the majority of the general public was viewed as a voodoo Spirit thing.

Do you know where the first electricity was in? United States it's right. New Jersey no Well that's where that's where he was. but it was JP Morgan at his house with the library today on 36th Street was the first house in the United States that had he put a generator in the back he he he wired up. He he he was a venture capitalist who ate his own dog food.

He literally was the first person to have it and it would smoke. black smoke everywhere and all the neighbors complained and then they went and wired up. Wall Street Yeah no but it was yeah of course. Thomas Edison no but he he was the investor in it but um no, you're right, it was wild.

Sit here and we're like oh man. I wish people understood the blockchain electricity. By way, it's Gypsy There's a great book. It's it's like a cartoon book.

it's called I think it's called the War on Fun or something and it's basically every. It's basically the argument is every single thing in the world. At some point it's first adopted by teenagers and then adults hate it and it happened with. you know, going back to Socrates he was anti- writing.

That's right. The novel was originally considered debased. you know form of like you know Etc the bicycle was very controversial Kaleidoscope the ear. You know early cars you had to disassemble your car.

the red flag FL laws they're called like there's a long history of by the way early internet cryptography. This was a massive debate in the 90s. You know the the 128bit uh Netscape was classified as Munitions by the US government until 1999 I think it was was illegal to export 128bit Netscape they had a 32-bit version that you could export because strong cryptography was considered Munitions right and and people like Mark Andreon my partner Mark Andreon and Ben Horowitz had to go in front of you know down to DC and basically say they would say well, why would someone want to encrypt something unless they're a criminal And they said because someday it doesn't happen today people will buy things on the internet and they'll need it to be private but that doesn't happen today so you know you want us to make a law that allows for criminal activity when there's this thing that might happen someday. Like literally, this was a major debate.

people can look it up the Clippers chip like I know it was a major kind of debate. Uh I think if the blockchain debate today is similar to that and that it's like this. You know I think people will someday when we're 80 as you were talking about, they'll be like, come on, No One was really against. They were really trying to ban blockchains and tokens and be like, yeah, they were no, no, you're you're you're exaggerating it.

That's right. I Think that I think that will happen. Please everyone. go out.

This is as infatic as I've been in the history of my podcast. This is a book you must pick up. I Don't give a crap if you ever do anything on the blockchain or crypto. this is for life.

This is understanding that history can show you the future and will make you more of a Maybe person instead of a no person. and there is a direct correlation to profession, success and spiritual happy personal success. When you start eliminating no from your vocabulary and create maybe maybe leads to no, but no, but sometimes it leads to yes. no always leads to no and it keeps you away from everything that is fun and good.

Chris Thank you so much thank you Gary that you're the best! Thank you.