Ep 133: 1) Berachain 101 with co-founder Smokey the Bera 2) Feelings on internet addiction

[00:01] Welcome to the Feelings Check-In, a feelings first look at the news of the week. Takes no one asked for on topics everyone's talking about. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No. [00:18] No. [00:19] Just boy stuff. [00:20] Hi. Hey. [00:22] This is Boys Club. [00:23] a podcast where we talk about the new internet, [00:26] From a feelings first perspective... [00:28] And if you don't know what that means, today is a perfect example. Half of this podcast, we have Smokey the Bear, who is the co-founder of Barachain, which is a layer one blockchain. They are... [00:44] building something on top of this concept of proof of liquidity. You will learn about it here. He's super nice. [00:53] He's a bro thief, but he is a nice guy. [00:56] and we love to see that they just raised an insane amount of money to do what they're doing. [01:01] They also just made a big splash. There was a conference in Dubai last week and they had a lot of marketing. Splashy, splashy marketing. Splashy marketing that you may have seen. There were drones. There were beautiful women in bathing suits having a ton of fun. On a ski-do. On a ski-do. Freedom of life. Freedom of life. Proof of fun. Proof of fun. No, but very interesting stuff. You'll learn a lot. [01:31] I think you will still be confused by the end, but we're going to keep talking about it and we're going to learn together.

[01:35] Holding hands. Smokey is welcome back anytime. And then Dean and I go into some feelings about... [01:42] our relationships to our phone and our work and how the internet makes us feel [01:48] when it's our job. Stick around. Hey, Natasha. So a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help [02:18] Your way to trade crypto, go to kraken.com backslash boys club and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to U.S. and U.S. territory customers by Payward Ventures, Incorporated, PBI, DBA, Kraken. View PVI's disclosure at kraken.com backslash legal backslash disclosures. [02:41] Today's episode is a 101 on Barachain. We're joined by Smokey. [02:49] who's [02:50] Twitter bio says, [02:52] chief [02:53] shit poster and co-founder uh pseudonymous co-founder we are cameras off here uh smoky welcome to the show [03:01] Hey guys, thank you for having me. We're super excited to have you. I will say it's always funny doing podcasts with people who are anonymous or pseudonymous because you're just talking into the void here. But I'm very excited to learn more about Barachain. This was a meme that then became a reality. The meme was that it was never going to launch. You guys just had a very splashy...

[03:24] hundred million dollar round announcement led by Framework. And it's Ethereum adjacent. These are the things that I know. So am I getting it right so far? And also that's a layer one. And a layer one. [03:37] Yeah, no, you've got all the facts right there. Okay, okay. That's it. Let's wrap it up. There it is. Good podcast. Okay, so in your words, what is the TLDR on Baruchain? So to give you the high level, you know, you've got some of the finer points already. Baruchain is an EVM compatible, or anyone could even say EVM equivalent L1. It's built on top of the Cosmos SDK, though we try to abstract that quite a bit. [04:04] and it's powered by something that we call proof of liquidity. [04:07] Proof of liquidity is like a spicy variant of delegated proof of stake. [04:11] And what it's really meant to do more than anything else is two things. [04:14] One is to allow for alignment of incentives between liquidity and security at the network or protocol level. [04:21] and two, to actually be able to drive value from the chain [04:24] to the protocols and users building on top of it. [04:27] So to actually explain a little bit more about what that means, [04:30] It means that the only way to earn the staking and/or security token of the network on Baruchain, is by first doing the work of actually providing liquidity to the network. [04:40] So what that means is that the staking token of the network, which is called BGT, is entirely illiquid. You can't just go and then market buy it. You can't just go grab it on Binance or Uniswap or whatever. [04:50] you actually have to first do the work of providing liquidity. [04:53] to a number of different, initially DeFi primitives, but eventually any set of governance-approved smart contracts,

[04:59] on the chain over time. [05:01] And what that's meant to do more than anything else is enforce this idea that [05:05] you know those who have the greatest degree of say in the network and its incentives, its growth over time, [05:10] are the ones who've actually contributed value towards it in the first place. [05:14] So I think that's the high level there. [05:17] The whole point there being that when you look at most proof of stake chains, you really do have a little bit of a trade-off when you allocate a given amount of capital. [05:25] you're either choosing to allocate a given amount of capital towards security and running an OTH on the network, whether that's ETH or AVAX or whatever it might be, [05:33] or liquidity and effectively depositing in a DEX, a lending market, whatever it might be. And our whole thesis was like, it seems odd that we need to choose between these two things. And of course, stuff like Lido, or liquid staking tokens, Eigenlayer, etc. all move this in the right direction. [05:48] but they tend to be very specific to a given class of tokens. [05:51] and are not necessarily implemented at the native level. So our whole thing here is, could we build a chain where you have liquidity and security growing in parallel or in lockstep as a network scales? [06:02] And then could you actually find a way to make that liquidity and that flow of emissions across the network [06:07] useful for the applications building on top of it. Because I think the other thing that we've noticed over time, especially as we just see all sorts of new chains popping up, whether they be all ones or all twos, [06:15] is that applications have increasingly less reason to build on chain A over chain B, [06:20] apart from just like, you know, weird mercenary grant programs and like people throwing subsidies at them. [06:25] which is cool and would be really nice if this was 2021 or something.

[06:30] We just don't really think it's representative of what makes sense for a scalable blockchain over time. [06:35] So the last part of proof of liquidity in bear chain [06:38] is that effectively instead of all the block rewards living with the validators and at the validator level [06:43] The validators on DaryChain are actually pushing block rewards and their emissions [06:47] towards different applications on the chain. [06:50] So what that means is that, you know, for the first time, you have the opportunity for the chain to power the applications living on top of it. And actually give them a little bit of like an entrenched advantage from an economic and or financial point of view. [07:01] beyond just a network slash tech point of view. So anyway, I rambled for a little while there, but that's a high level. [07:07] Great, great, great. You've got a tight pitch there. I got to be honest, I'm tracking about [07:12] 50%. [07:13] comprehension on what you just said. So I want to slow down a little bit, unpack a few big concepts that you have that you went through. Really compelling. And I'm really interested in the proof of liquidity piece. I think before we get to that, even [07:27] one [07:29] feeling that comes up for me is [07:31] why [07:33] We need another layer one in the year of our Lord 2024. [07:38] - Okay, wait, can I try to answer, and then you tell me where I'm wrong? [07:43] Please, yeah, go for it. Okay, so agreed that I'm not tracking completely, but there's some points that I'm like, okay, this proof of liquidity innovation, I guess, is you're saying that [07:56] Basically for people to reap the rewards of validating your network. It's not something that you can't, you can't buy your token on a,

[08:08] basically on Uniswap or another decentralized exchange or whatever. The only way that you're rewarded is by actually like actual participation in securing the network. [08:18] of Barochain. Is that correct? [08:20] 80% correct. The only way that you actually are able to gain those rewards and to actually be able to participate in the network on the security side and act as a validator and then beyond that, [08:32] as a validator help to direct block rewards and network commissions towards apps and pools that you care about [08:39] is by first doing the work of providing liquidity. So the whole idea is, you know, liquidity turns into security, and then that security token allows you to direct where liquidity goes across the network over time. [08:50] That's the little flywheel that starts happening. Okay. And when you're talking about liquidity, are you literally just talking about like, [08:57] - Yeah, well, like that. - So, you know, the way that it works when the network starts is that there's a couple of applications that are sort of like natively built into the chain. [09:05] you know, by like the foundation slash the core teams. And those are ones which can actually initially receive those block awards or emissions. So yeah, like, you know, LPing in a DEX, right. Providing stable collateral for a perps vault, you know, borrowing stable coins in a, in a lending market. Like there's some sort of like very basic DeFi primitives that are meant to just set a ground, you know, like foundation more than anything else. But aren't really there to like reinvent the wheel or, you know, be the next frontier of those, of those primitives, if you will. [09:35] very much there just to be an initial area where users can bootstrap liquidity in order to earn security.

[09:41] Okay. Okay. I'm tracking. And you're saying like this idea of proof of liquidity and what you just laid out is a differentiator for people to decide to build on Baruchain over another L1, where right now the landscape for L1s in crypto, as a builder, you're basically just choosing based on maybe grants or maybe community that exists within a particular network. [10:11] because of this structure that you have with the liquidity pool that is different from another layer one. Is that... [10:19] maybe close? Yeah. No, I think that's a pretty fair way of looking at it. And I think that like, [10:24] For better or for worse, the way that we see a lot of things at the moment is like, the tech really does become commoditized over time. [10:31] So it does end up being a lot more of a business of network effects, if you will. [10:35] in that I think it's very fair to say that over time, and from what we've seen in the majority of the space, it isn't always the most elegant technical solution that ends up being the [10:44] the winner in the public eye or in the sense of adoption. It's actually what manages to get distribution. And the way that we model crypto on a very long-term horizon is that [10:55] If the industry is going to scale or get any sort of real adoption and not be just this weird thing that basement dwellers engage in, then we probably need to actually see applications that people want to use that can only exist in a crypto/web3, on-chain, whatever you want to call it, world. And we see our role here as providing as many different applications as possible.

[11:16] that opportunity to go from zero to one and like have a shot on net that is accelerated [11:20] buy something like peripheral liquidity that allows them to get off the ground a lot more easily. In terms of actually having the chain itself [11:27] direct emissions towards those applications, such that they can make it easier to bootstrap an initial user base, an initial community, and actually start finding some semblance of product market fit. [11:37] The way we really see it is like, you know, a chain is really the sum of the applications that's building on top of it. I don't think many people think about like using Solana just because it's Solana or Arbitrum just because, you know, it's Arbitrum. They think, "Okay, cool. I can use GMX on Arbitrum." Or, "I can, you know, go launch a shitcoin with PumpFun on Solana," or whatever it might be, right? I think we think about the apps there and our goal is to really attract all the best application builders. [12:00] by giving them the best chance of making it out of that initial [12:04] you know, death sphere where people really struggle to to to reactivation energy. [12:09] I think it's really compelling to be liquidity and distribution first. I'm convinced by that as a strategy. I, [12:18] Wonder and this is [12:21] Probably... [12:22] Definitely a stupid question, but I don't know how old Baruchain is. I know that you guys just did a big $100 million raise, but being liquidity and distribution first is [12:32] hard in a zero to one moment and for like a relatively new [12:38] chain or ecosystem and wondering how you're getting past that cold start problem. [12:44] Yeah, in terms of sort of attracting initial liquidity, if you will. Yeah, the money of it all. Of course, of course. Money does matter. I think that for us, we've been around for the better part of two and a half-ish years. And one of the funny things about the bear chain backstory is that, as you guys alluded to initially, it didn't start as a chain. It started as a little bit more of a joke and actually an NFT project.

[13:05] that spun into a blockchain over time. I know that's not necessarily the most common set of evolutions, but I think we're seeing more and more of that happening over time. [13:14] And it's actually that we found ourselves starting with a group of initial users [13:19] that were actually from a lot of these very DeFi native communities. Like we didn't just sort of drop like a... [13:24] 10,000 profile picture, like Bored Apes or whatever type of project, and then be like, "Okay, cool, now it's a blockchain." It was actually just a very DeFi-native community, like folks from the [13:33] Olympus, Frax, Alchemix, Curve-type ecosystems. [13:36] that were already relatively flush on chain, and many of whom were also builders. So we actually found out recently that like from our [13:43] initial NFT holders from these collections that spiraled into bear chain. Their average on-chain, the average on-chain net worth of one of those bear holders [13:51] is like over $300,000, which is like kind of wild to consider when there's an initial community [13:56] of a couple thousand people there to start. [13:58] Now, if you actually extrapolate that a little bit further and then think about all the different applications, all the different liquid funds, all the different folks that we've actually sort of brought on side over the last couple of years as we built out the bearish vision, if you will, as we raise various funding grounds, we've also been pretty careful to think about groups that can actually help get off the ground when it comes to that initial liquidity. [14:19] whether that be partnering with like major stable coins or major, you know, liquid funds and, uh, [14:24] than groups that are known for providing meaningful amounts of capital on chain. There's a whole massive tangent I could go into about Chinese whale groups. What I can say is that we've thought a lot about [14:34] coming out the gates really strong, and making sure that in order for people to even be aligned with the chain from a private round point of view, there is also some degree of commitment to basically deploying capital either on the chain or into the ecosystem.

[14:48] We were just we were really fortunate to be able to have, I think, fairly competitive fund raises. And with that, it made it a little bit more easy for us to say, hey, guys, like we'd love to have you involved. [14:57] But with that, we also need to be able to identify some form of greater value add [15:01] whether that be LPEing stable pairs in the decks or contributing to ecosystem projects. [15:05] So while I can't speak aggressively on specifics, we do expect to come out the gates with a fair bit of that cold start problem solved. [15:14] Cool. Super interesting. Okay, one thing that I've witnessed and really respect about the... [15:20] bear chain strategy, I guess, is that you are very vibe first. And I can appreciate that coming from boys club. And you recently tweeted or you reposted a tweet that said investing in cults and good vibes is actually a great thesis on ironically 100x better than investing in an L1. [15:39] with S-tier tech and no community TBH. [15:43] So would you say that sums up Baruchain or could you talk a little bit more about your perspective of basically [15:50] sort of the convergence of [15:52] brand and community and vibes, but also this strategy that you guys have from a technical perspective of why people should build on you. But it seems like you really value these other areas as well. [16:02] Yeah, for sure. I think that when we look at where a lot of L1s have come over time, you see a really common pattern of like, hey, we've got this interesting new consensus technology that's been spun out of a... [16:13] you know, a novel research university or like a top, you know, a fang type company, whatever it might be. And then, you know, you raise a monster round and then try to make a bunch of people care about it.

[16:23] And in more cases than not, it ends up feeling like really forced and like highly inorganic. And I think that that is something that's tough to like, that's actually more of a of a hill to climb than than actually just trying to build something that people want. Right. For us, since we, as I mentioned, came from this NFT community and then like, you know, basically had a very DeFi native root. [16:42] We found that we got to where we are product wise by talking to people, by like talking to builders, talking to developers, talking to just users. Which I know doesn't sound particularly like innovative, but I think is an often misstep, especially in crypto. Like people just kind of build shit and then they're like, what do you mean they don't want to use it? Yeah, totally. I think that that has been a large part of what's also informed like our go to market, our vibe, if you will. [17:07] And I think that we think about it a lot as more like barbells than necessarily just vibe-based and then tech after. I think that there's a certain group of people... [17:15] and it's probably a little bit smaller, they'll be nerds sniped by the tech and end up building really interesting things that could ideally only exist on bear chain powered by proof liquidity. On the other hand, I think that a lot of people are just looking to actually find a community on chain that... [17:29] sits at that happy medium between technical or advanced enough that they feel smart by engaging in it, but not so scary that they feel like intellectually dwarfed by having to engage in it. I think that when I see a lot of my friends trying to engage in the ZK ecosystem, they're like, what the fuck is going on here? I don't know what a proof is. [17:47] I don't know what a circuit is, and I don't really want to know what either of these things are. On the other side, just anecdotally, when we talk to people who are using our testnet,

[17:55] They were like, yeah, my girlfriend and my sister thought that was pretty funny because it was like, you know, all the applications were right there. There's cute bears on the website. This is kind of funny. And we didn't necessarily engineer around that. [18:06] We didn't always think that that was going to be the outcome, but I think that this happy medium has served us quite well. [18:11] And I think just going back to your original question, yeah, I think that the vibes and the culture matters a ton. [18:16] because that is really what ends up being like the hook. But I think that what keeps people and actually makes them want to spend more time on it than they would on just like, you know, [18:23] a meme coin or some random thing they scroll through is actually then looking under the hood and being like, oh, there's like this [18:28] this iceberg of a really interesting developer ecosystem, a pretty cool mechanism, all this stuff that could actually stand the test of time if done correctly. [18:37] - Okay. [18:37] So you guys are DeFi. [18:40] focus for sure are you thinking about consumer apps like how how are you thinking about designing for the apps that are building on bear chain and like what's your strategy there [18:49] Yeah, for sure. And you know, for us, [18:51] I think that DeFi is an initial hook and it's definitely a sector where we think that we can be first in class, if you will. But I think that DeFi doesn't necessarily scale massively as much as I'd love it to. The most popular apps have 1,000, 2,000 type users. I actually do think that a lot more value comes in the long run, at least from an onboarding point of view, in games and social apps and all these other things that actually have a little bit more of a viral experience. [19:14] So we're 100% thinking about those. There's a number of groups that are already building them. And there's everything from [19:21] I guess there's everything from your AAA type games, even though we don't try to identify as a gaming chain, but we think there's a very good audience fit there, to pretty cool new social apps that I think will have very...

[19:31] nice overlaps with existing social platforms and new ones that are being built. So, you know, in short, definitely we see ourselves like T-shaped in that we can probably [19:40] help accelerate DeFi applications the most. [19:43] But I actually think as a side effect of the group of people who are already attracted to Baruchain, you find yourself with a really good group for gaming, for social applications, for all the stuff that comes in between. [19:52] Okay, last question. Why are you anonymous? [19:54] That's a good question. I think that for us, an nominee serves a couple of different purposes. One, it actually means that the brand can be pretty amorphous, which is kind of cool. No one's like, "Oh, this is a bunch of suits from Facebook." No one's like, "Oh, this is a bunch of tech bros." Or, "This is a bunch of VC guys." [20:11] We could be anyone, and that's not an attempt at veiling who we are. There's, I think, a non-trivial amount of people who have met us IRL and have contacts in our backgrounds, yada, yada, yada. [20:21] But I think that's actually a pretty useful tool from like actually scaling and building a brand to look like a many sided die. [20:26] Such that for one group, we look like a DeFi chain, for another group, we look like a meme chain, for another group, we're an NFT community gone to some weird sort of overdrive, whatever it might be. I think there's also a very obvious part about this, which is the regulatory landscape in crypto. You know, the vast majority of the team is Canadian. You know, we still have to dox to RIAs, et cetera, centralized exchanges, all that kind of stuff. [20:47] And we have zero issue doing so. Promise there's no North Koreans over here. But I also do think that, like, the reg landscape in the space is, like, pretty rocky. [20:54] And it's definitely not something that inspires confidence, especially when building a relatively DeFi-centric, albeit entirely decentralized and meant to be entirely community-driven blockchain. So that's part of it. And then the last part that we saw that I think is pretty interesting is like,

[21:09] During the last cycle, especially 2019 to 2021, we had a whole bunch of friends who were basically spending two to three hours a day on their FAANG jobs while building some of the best projects in DeFi and in crypto out there. [21:25] were effectively a little bit scared from regulatory and/or career risk angle to take the leap to publicly go headfirst into the space. They've got families, what happens if I launch a token and go to jail? Understandable concerns. But there were also some of the most crack devs that we knew, and we're building some of the products that actually got a massive amount of adoption. [21:46] I think that by setting the bar for the ecosystem as anonymous founders in some way, it enables some of those folks to actually be able to do the same without being questioned as much. [21:55] and just try to level the playing field a little bit. Cool. Lead by example. I think there's a whole other like philosophical thing about like, you know, it's kind of cool to be able to build in a manner that is not simply based off your past experiences. [22:08] And, you know, without trying to sound douchey, I do think that if we [22:12] I do think that if people knew about our backgrounds, I think it would be more bullish than bearish. But I think that it's nice to be able to build something based on like [22:19] just merit alone and what you've been able to show to people. Right. It's not like, hey, I did these like five, six things. Therefore, you must worship the ground that I walk on. It's more just like, hey, we we built something. You know, the only way that people can judge us is by [22:32] you know, what they can actually see. And hopefully that inspires confidence. [22:38] Cool. Well, Smokey...

[22:39] Thanks for joining us. [22:41] Of course. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. This is fun. [23:11] See what crypto can be at kraken.com backslash boys club. Non-investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Transfers to a third party are not available on Kraken. Cryptocurrency services are provided to U.S. and U.S. territory customers by Payward Ventures, Inc., PBI, DBA, Kraken. View PBI's disclosures at kraken.com backslash legal backslash disclosures. [23:36] This is The Feeling Stricken. [23:37] Let's feel it. Let's check it out. Let's feel it. Let's feel the feelings. [23:41] do you have a feeling [23:44] I have a feeling [23:45] Let's hear it. [23:46] - [23:47] I... [23:48] My name is Dina Burke and I'm fully addicted to my phone. I'm an addict. [23:55] Hi, Dina. [23:58] Yeah, I don't know. It's reached a fever pitch of internet and phone addiction. [24:06] It makes me feel bad. [24:07] Yeah. [24:08] It makes me feel bad.

[24:10] About... [24:11] many [24:12] things. [24:13] But [24:14] I don't know what to do about it because... [24:17] my [24:18] Thank you. [24:18] ability to do my job well. [24:21] is directly proportional to the amount of time that I spend on the internet. It's like a chart. That's [24:27] up into the right. You're doing a chart that doesn't make any sense, but I am tracking with you. You know what the chart is. And... [24:36] So I don't know what to do. [24:40] Yeah. [24:41] Because I want to be good at my job. It's like a big part of my life. And it's a big part of what I like to do. [24:47] Mm-hmm. [24:48] is do good work. [24:50] And... [24:51] I really can only do good work when I'm [24:54] fully locked in guy. [24:55] on the internet and [24:57] That makes me feel bad. [24:59] I know. I really feel the same. I feel it very strongly. I got a notification the other day that it was like, your screen time is down 30% this week. And... [25:11] I had... Thank you. That was last week, so we'll see this week, but... [25:15] I had felt [25:18] like really struggling around the work in the same week where I was like, okay, what am I going to write the newsletter on? What's a funny tweet? All of the things that like, [25:27] just are in your brain or honestly that live in my notes app as I'm going about my internet. [25:34] journey throughout the week and saving things to... [25:37] meme or to tweet about or to write about in the newsletter or all these other things that we use the internet for every single day reporting on for two online like the content for our podcast.

[25:50] My notes app was like light. All I had was locked in guy. Who I keep there. Because I've never actually talked about him. But... [25:59] I am content. But I felt like [26:06] there was a, the well was empty. [26:09] Yeah. [26:10] my [26:11] well-being. [26:13] is in a much better place when I have a healthy relationship to the time I'm spending on my own. It's tough because I do get a lot of joy from the internet. [26:21] And... [26:22] I do... [26:24] have a lot of fun online, especially when I do it with my friends. I think what's tough is [26:31] And I... [26:32] I think the Boys Club brand and you and I as people are really [26:37] sensitive to having a shame [26:40] culture around. [26:41] being online and being on your phone [26:44] Because... [26:45] feeling bad about having a feeling is like a super unproductive way to live and a very easy [26:51] default setting that I go into all the time. And so I, [26:55] I... [26:56] I'm constantly trying to like hold that when I'm, [26:59] being mean to myself about my relationship to the internet. [27:03] But... [27:04] It's also like true. It's just true. The more time you spend on the phone on your phone, [27:08] Like, [27:09] the worst yeah so literally this is kind of like [27:15] tangentially related. It's kind of a branch from the phone addiction. We're branching out into another

[27:21] sort of related, but a little bit different of a feeling. [27:24] but it comes up for me in the phone stuff a lot is as I'm entering the, [27:28] a new decade for a big birthday coming up and doing some reflections of reflection and thinking about like what [27:35] I want to [27:37] grow into... [27:39] Like, [27:39] what my aspirations are for [27:42] myself and [27:44] What's next for me? [27:46] And I'm thinking a lot about how... [27:49] to have my sense of self be... [27:54] rooted in myself and not be rooted in reflections of other people. [28:00] and my sense of self. [28:01] being built by it being in reflection of other people. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. [28:05] And like, [28:06] having like a deeper well. [28:09] Casey. Shout out to Casey. [28:12] Always comes back to KC Mouse Grace. Always comes back to KC Mouse Grace. [28:20] So that's something that I'm like actively working on. Yeah. And, [28:24] And it's been challenging and it's been rewarding. And I think that it relates to... [28:31] time on the internet a lot because [28:33] You post something, [28:35] And you're looking for a response from other people. [28:39] That's the act of posting is an act is a request for a response. It's an offering. It's an offering and it, it needs to, [28:49] a response to be validated or you could look at it in that it needs a response to be validated it it doesn't necessarily maybe that's what i need to like be moving in towards or to but that's part of my struggle around it is like really not

[29:04] wanting to care what other people think of me. [29:08] And... [29:09] having myself be what determines what i think of me and then being online and posting stuff and [29:17] that being like inherently there yeah [29:19] Totally. It's attention. I also think it's attention. I also think. [29:22] One. [29:23] What a beautiful... [29:25] thing to be working on in the season of in your life i'm inspired and feel called to reflect [29:34] um i think that what's also tough about [29:38] There's the act of posting and that [29:41] relationship to wanting [29:44] to be validated around [29:46] who you are online and what you're putting out in the world. But I also think like the act of scrolling and engaging, that's inherently something that is... [29:56] a comparison or that you're like looking at others and how it makes you feel and what it yeah where you rank [30:04] Where you rank and what... [30:08] Um... [30:10] what's the word like invokes like what it, what it, [30:13] invokes in you and brings out in you. [30:16] And... [30:18] Sometimes. [30:19] it's amazing. And it's like, there's something that you learn about yourself and something that you're [30:25] engaged in in the world or something that you're learning about the world and [30:29] sometimes it makes you laugh and sometimes it's a way to bond with other people but [30:34] a lot of times it can make you feel less than and

[30:37] and have this like [30:39] relationship to your feed that is all about what you're not. [30:44] And I feel like I... [30:47] I see this a lot. I mean, they talk about it all the time with like teenagers and young people like that, that. [30:52] They're depressed because their entire relationship to themselves is in relation to the... [30:58] other people online. And I think that like, it's really difficult to, to, [31:04] not engage with the internet in that way. And you only know yourself in a relationship to other things in the world and other people in the world. And... [31:12] there being a healthy... [31:15] between people [31:16] that learning about yourself from inputs of others in real life and online. [31:22] and it forming who you actually are. [31:25] is a very delicate [31:27] line and a very hard thing to navigate. And I think with the amount of time that we spent on the internet, [31:34] It's something that we have to be like looking at every day because I find myself... [31:39] in various forms... [31:41] feeling bad about myself and [31:43] whether it's like [31:45] in like whether exactly how okay these are the ways no no i'm just okay okay i'm curious she's pushing me she's pushing me um i would say that there's two things that come up immediately one is and this is a muscle that i think everybody has to learn to [32:04] develop and anybody who says that they don't, I don't believe.

[32:08] is that other people's success [32:11] is not your failure oh the hardest and other people winning [32:15] is actually means like nothing about you but it's so hard to know that in your bones when especially when you're [32:24] you have a startup and you're pushing a boulder up a hill every single day and [32:29] When you see somebody running up the hill, it's very hard to see that as a... [32:34] Good thing. [32:35] And I feel like it's something that I have like literally actively like working out have had to learn to do where I'm like, yeah, I'm, I am. [32:42] Sitting with this feeling and I'm genuinely happy this person is doing well and like teaching myself to be that way and that it doesn't mean anything about my success or my work or boys club. And then the other is, of course, like what I look like and. [32:57] If I'm and like that, I don't think I think you're past this and you are evolved. You're an evolved person around this in a way that is inspiring, but I do not relate to. And I direct especially getting back on Instagram. I'm like, oh, wow, I. [33:13] Like, it's actually been really... [33:15] good because i'm like oh i'm identifying i'm really able to like pinpoint the moment that i start feeling bad about myself yeah and log off and i'm like this is totally useless [33:25] information in my brain and in my heart. And, but it's, [33:29] It's actually something that I don't feel like I'm dealing with like, [33:33] day in and day out, but it's something that I have... [33:36] Because I have more... [33:38] I'm more aware of it.

[33:39] I'm like, whoa, this is really... [33:41] a part of being on the internet as well yeah imagine being 13. I know absolutely cannot I know cannot it's very sad. [33:51] It is. Mark Zuckerberg has a lot to answer for. Oscar came, my seven-year-old son came home the other day and he said that his friend has a phone and he wants a phone. Seven? Seven. That's, I'm so sorry, but too young. Too young. Too young. Yeah. Who does he need a call? It's a hard time. [34:12] he was like oh so sorry i gotta take this [34:16] It starts early. That's crazy. I remember when I was 13, I asked my mom if I could shave my legs. No, I was younger than that. I was maybe 11. [34:23] and she was like sure but you're gonna have to do it for the rest of your life so start when you want and i remember being like what and then like two years later i was like what was i thinking for the rest of my life i'm gonna have to do this and that's how i feel about [34:36] the phone for kids. [34:38] Totally. [34:38] I will say just the one thing about phones and kids and screens and kids and that's a whole other conversation, but [34:45] the Silicon Valley... [34:46] Parents. [34:48] who don't let their... [34:49] kids go on phones and have screens so twisted [34:53] one of the most hypocritical like bullshit things that I'm infuriates me. [35:01] I know it gets you going so quick. It furiates me. So maybe there's another podcast on that, but that's it. Oh, we should. That's a great podcast. Okay. Thanks for listening.

[35:12] *outro music*