when you're young and lucky you can be a little arrogant we raised 3 million from uh found your group radfeld grew it to 100 million people fastest growing social product on top of the social networks in under two years and sold it to Black R for $50 million there was a company called Zar and that was the failure we raised $42 million everyone and their mom invested I got kicked in the face I didn't realize how much I was struggling with my own loneliness alcohol created a company where 3 years in everyone hated like even being there cuz we weren't self-aware we were not able to be honest that it wasn't working I've really learned a lot about the ways I lie to myself I'm also sober now I've been sober for over 3 years the greatest thing I've ever done your new company it's a decentralized messaging protocol called xntp letting everyone in the world have secure communication that they can own and control Shane Mack you're welcome to the podcast what's up man how are you I'm doing well doing well so you we were talking earlier uh a little bit about your background but um tell everybody where you're from and and what kind of brought you to Nashville yeah I mean I grew up in a little town called Bartonville Illinois it's outside of pure it's in the middle of nowhere between Chicago and St Louis and my whole life my parents didn't know any other vacation except panal City Beach so for 16 years in a row we drove an RV down I just to sit up top was it spring break or summer spring break every year oh nice I did that too we stayed at the ospry hotel they had a shuckums night in this little oyster bar called Shu shuckums every single Wednesday on spring break had Poria night and our family felt like you know this we're a big deal we got puia night here in Panama City Beach oh that's awesome and uh we used to go with all my dad's co-workers and stuff and we'd always stop in Nashville and I always loved music I always loved writing I've always been a writer um and when I got to college I went to Western Illinois it's a little State School on the west side of Illinois that you know no one's ever heard of but my mom was like you should go to Nashville and be a songwriter and my dad was like you should get a real job and he really thought I'd get in the trades or whatever but I'd always been fascinated by technology um and I was always on the computer and Building Things and learning how to code and I had a little eBay store when I was 13 I used to sell baseball bats cuz I was a baseball player and I was selling baseball bats on eBay and uh long story short I moved West my brother was in Seattle he convinced me to leave the my he's like man you can do a lot of things in this world you need to get out of Bartonville and I moved home with my girlfriend at the time right after college he's like you got to get out of here and he convinced me he knocked on my door at midnight one night he's like come over to your mom's house I was like what are you doing in town and he's like I'm here to talk to you and he actually convinced me to pack up in October of 2008 and he's like you need to leave and I moved to Seattle uh and you know it was an incredible journey and why Seattle he was there okay got it and um I I stumbled into amazing people we could talk about that and that got me into Tech and Tech really changed my life and I really loved being in technology and then in 2019 my last company got acquired they were in New York City and they were like we need you to move to New York City I was like man I'm so burn and I was burned out I've been doing it for almost nine years and um you know I think when you're like a young founder CEO and you don't really know what you're doing you're just trying so hard to stay above water raising Venture Capital you're running around San Francisco and I was just burned out I was so burned out and from for that time we had an office in SF New York and London and I used to fly there every month and on the way home for 5 years I stop in Nashville every Thursday night nice I'd literally take a suitcase go meet my buddy at the rippies on the corner we go hey man what's up stay for the weekend fly back direct flight San Francisco Sunday night and I was doing that for 5 years and I just what time frame was this from 2013 to 2018 okay so Nashville was just starting to pick up it wasn't it wasn't near as crazy as it is now those were some good times on Broadway yeah for sure they didn't even have a direct flight at to San Francisco when I first started okay yeah um and just great times it was my it was really at the looking back it was my Escape because I was struggling so hard like just being a young founder CEO and not aware and just like trying to keep my head above water yeah so I'd land here I'd Sprint for the weekend have fun fly back to San Francisco Sunday night so when so our our company got acquired in 2019 they were like we need you to move to New York and I was like I listen I can't like I I can't imagine living in Manhattan right now right I was like but I will come here every week and I'll get close to New York and they were like fine so they wrote it out of the deal they thought I was going to go to New Jersey be close to New York and I went to Nashville so I moved here in 2019 and then I did a two-year lockup with that company and I flew to New York every week for a year and then Co hit and I've been here ever since okay so so what was the company that was it a company that you founded before what was that company it's called assist we were actually the first chatbot platform to ever be built on messaging oh wow so we launched 2012 I was I was actually messing around with SMS because um before that I did a startup called gist which was an SMS uh protocol called Twitter oh 2006 and we were the first API partner on top of Twitter to ever uh like you're basically taking data out of Twitter and we were trying to add it on top of email so when you were emailing people you could see social data about them at the time it was called social CRM so we would aggregate Facebook and Twitter photos and everything on the sidebar and at everyone thought it was really creepy at the time back then I was like well that that's my Twitter this is my Facebook this is my LinkedIn these are separate identities um so we kind of aggregated that all together and um that that company though led me to really love messaging so when I saw Twitter I was like I can text anybody in the world because it started as 23232 it didn't start as a website started as an SMS protocol and so I'd always been like fascinated by like messaging and SMS Etc and then that got bought by Blackberry in 2009 and then I went and worked on BBM and Blackberry Messenger was like really what opened my mind to messaging and then I kind of was like why doesn't every business in the world allow you to text them and then my co-founder at the time Robert he was he actually founded Geek Squad and he was a CTO Best Buy for 10 years he was the first Fortune 50 CEO in the world to bet their whole customer service on Twitter DMS in 2008 wow so this dude believed he and he was like and then he he was the one who told me he said hey it's not about human chat though it's about chat Bots and in 2012 and you say chat now we're in 2024 and everyone's like wow chat Bots are everything people thought we were a joke our investors were like no what is it chatbot you know I'm like it's just a thing you chat with it's a little automated robot that kind of you know can do things for right um and so the way we started was we bought the short code like Twitter did back in the day ours was 23434 and then we started aggregating apis so that you could text a chatbot and do things on the the internet so the first thing we ever integrated was great clips and we were like can I text and get a haircut never talk to a human and text I need a haircut it texts back here's the three closest to you three three minute wait time 13 minute wait time 26 minute wait time wow text number one boom you're on and I remember Robert Stevens walked into the Great Clips Robert Stevens is on the screen we did it via text and he's like this is the future and I was like huh and had never and we were just like kind of experimenting yeah uh and then what happened was we just started integrating serves so we did flowers and haircuts and rides and Postmates API and the Uber API so I'd call the founders I was in SF so I'd just call them and say hey can I get your API and they're like yeah see what you can do with it and so I meant resi that's how I met Ben lenthal the CEO of resi and like he's like yeah do whatever you want with messaging and then I did florist one flowers and the CEO of 1800 flowers called he's like hey how'd you do that and I'm like it's an open API you can just get flowers delivered just text flowers and he's like I want this for 100 flowers and he's like I'll pay you to build it for us and I'm like how much and we were like consu we were going to be consumer app not an Enterprise platform right and I was like he's like 100 Grand I'm like 100 grand time out well let's let's do something for 100 flowers right the same time Zuckerberg's opening up the messenger uh platform for Messenger and WhatsApp so that businesses can start getting on messenger 2014 and all of a sudden those two things collided and we get a friend of mine worked as the Director of product on messenger we launch this little thing for the florist one bot and then they called and said hey you're building chat Bots we want to talk to you about Commerce Bots and I'm like I'm also talking to the CEO of 1800 flowers and uh he wants us to build the- 1800 Flowers experience so you never have to call the call center again MH and they're like we want that experience and so Zuckerberg 2015 opens up the platform we worked with them for about a year ahead of time to be their first partner ever to launch businesses and chat Bots and AI on messaging and he gets on stage demos 1800 flowers and says you'll never have to call- 1800 Flowers again wow and the CEO sat with me Chris mccan still a friend of mine he's awesome and he we sat in the front row with Cheryl Samberg and watched like hey the future isn't about phones and it's not about texting even humans it's that you're going to have these little agents and AI agents to basically do things for you wow so um you know starting that company you were talking about basically how how brutal it was the ups and downs you a lot of people don't realize that about startups the pain that the entrepreneur goes through and what that's like and you know entrepreneurs URS are an interesting breed because you know we like Risk but uh we it's almost like we're putting ourselves to a lot of pain it's like pain and suffering pain and suffering uh talk about that a little bit because you know when you're starting something up and you're you're building something big it's an incredible grind uh what was that Journey like for you starting up that that last company yeah for sure um and I think you know when you're young and lucky you can be a little arrogant right and I think my first startup I joined I wasn't the CEO and founder of and I was literally 21 years old right out of college and it was called gist and I met this guy ta mccan 20 years older than me I met him on Twitter through his assistant that's literally how my career started out of Western Illinois MH and I had no like credentials I didn't go to Har nothing I was just building little widgets on top of Twitter MH and I meet this guy and long story short his assistant wanted me to meet him I'm in Seattle I go meet him at a pool hall we have beers for four hours he's a legend in Seattle and the company he's wants to build is called mindbox which ended up being gist and what he what I didn't know is he was one of the most influential people in Seattle Tech and the guy he was working for was Paul Allen the founder of Microsoft and Paul wrote us our first million dollar check wow we did this company we grew it from we rais 3 million from uh found your group Brad Feld as like a VC phenomenal VC and grew it to 100 million people fastest growing social product on top of the social networks in under two years and sold it to Blackberry for $50 million in 2009 and I thought I knew what I was doing because that happened but the reality was ta was the one running that company he was the CEO um but we've built a great relationship he invested in my next company he believed in me and um I think I moved to San Francisco and I thought you know I got this figured out and you're like 24 at the time 25 25 you know 25 26 and um you know I think the next story is actually probably important that there's a company called zarli in between there before assist in 2013 from 2010 to 20 12 and that was the failure right we raised $42 million everyone and their mom invested Kleiner Perkins let our around mag Whitman joined our board all these famous people it was like everyone and everybody and I was the head of product and um working with these other two or three guys Ian Bo and Eric and um you know it was the horizontal Marketplace time it was Uber Postmates hotel tonight everyb and we thought we'll be the Craigslist version where you don't have to pick one you can we can do them all and the lesson there is you know could couldn't have picked a small enough vertical dog walking's a billion dollar company you know we and I remember we used to make fun of it they're just going to be a dog walking app like yeah wag is huge you know we are dead U but that was my that was the like I got kicked in the face and everyone hated their job we created a company where 3 years in everyone hated with it like even being there cuz we weren't self-aware we were we were not able to be honest that it wasn't working we were so full of [ __ ] we'd run around and be like no no we're just going to make it this is amazing this is the greatest thing we've raised 42 million we got this and that and this and we're so valid ated by everything outside of ourselves so that led me to assist and I think assist I tried so hard to build a culture I was proud of going through that lesson man but when it got hard I didn't realize how much I was struggling with my own loneliness alcohol like I was just fueling the pain with alcohol and I could justify it because every meeting every night I could have a business center in New York different person every day um and the more Venture I raised I say it looks like my weight chart you know just gain just like unhealthy gota um but I was trying so hard and I was really proud of the culture we' built sure we cared so much about the team so much about the employees but the reality is we were 10 years early on chatbots and it was hard because we were so [ __ ] early yeah we were so early but there was all these validation things Zuckerberg is like the future is AI and messaging Apple business chat opened we launched the first Phillies chat B chatbot to order beer in seat at the Philly Stadium went from three orders in the app to 80 orders in one night per section biggest shift ever Tim Cooks on the Apple earnings call saying we love what's going on at the Phillies and business messaging the future and whatever and there's all these signals mhm but the consumer wasn't there yet and the Bots weren't good enough and I think for me that struggle behind the scenes while also everyone externally thinking we're doing great while also I've never really made any money in my life right the companies I wasn't the CEO of like I didn't you know sell for $50 million you know I made enough to move to San Francisco yeah right and so you're kind of like [ __ ] everyone sees me as this young CEO I'm kind of broke and you're just in that struggle that identity struggle like trying to really just be a good CEO um and that spiral for me was harder than I thought and I was so good at masking it for myself my ability to lie to myself was on the highest level in the world and I think I've really learned a lot about the ways I lied to myself and like I'm also sober now you know I've been sober for over three years and I think the greatest thing I've ever done nice yeah so you you're talking about building a culture within a company um and you're still proud of that culture you built right yeah okay so um I think culture within companies is underrated in many many ways um a lot of a lot of people start companies and have this ego like it's me it's me it's me but you're only as good as your people and um what did you do to really build that culture and you I know you were lying to yourself in a way but you were also being true to yourself in a way too because you were trying you were you were you were giving so much to the organization but you weren't necessarily taking care of yourself so there was you very good good intentions behind that within the company though what culture did you create and uh what did you do to to make that happen yeah I think about this a lot um and I am really proud of it and I also try to take it into the company we're building now I think what we created was my goal is to give people their time back internally and externally and Robert Steven said to me which was my co-founder he said you can't make people happy but you can make them productive and they can choose to be happy and I was always like interesting mhm so instead of doing nap rooms and free lunch and all these things that Twitter and Facebook and all our VCS were telling us to do I was I was like how do we actually make people the most productive versions of themselves and how do we have um a a culture that is built on the rituals that we do that we never miss and so first thing I did I gave everyone a personal assistant so at the time it was pretty radical 2015 2016 era I was looking at virtual assistant platforms externally um and I met my assistant Michelle she was a military spouse I was like hey how many military spouses like are there in the country that don't like that could be assistants she's like 300,000 are unemployed it's the largest unemployment sector United States and so I was like why don't we give every person in the company an assistant and then it equalized the leadership it wasn't Shane the CEO with an assistant it was like everyone has access to an assistant and we could do one assistant for every like five employees and so then people learned the culture was learning how to give away your job learning how to give away your Legos learning how to let go of your ego learning how to say I don't know and we used to really practice those rituals of like really being more self-honest raising our hands being able to say I don't know not letting our ego make bad decisions how to ask better questions and creating that environment started with like little things like that but actually what most people are bad at is using an assistant because they think I'm here to do the job I'll just do it myself right and teaching people to let go teaching people give things away teaching people to help bring others up to help them do things u i remember this guy of Stefan he has these really fancy cuffs he's from uh Monaco and grew up in just like a really really wealthy family and he would pre do these presentations he he did like five slides of the Steve Jobs original iPhone presentation so his demo skills are next level but one day he tripped up and someone was like asking a really hard question and he just froze and I you couldn't take over and I stopped everyone I said Stefan all I want you to do right now is just stop breathe and say I don't know I have no idea and he did it and I said everyone here let's just say let's just practice and it was so cheesy but it was visceral and everyone remembered it and felt it and to this day if I text aan and I say what did you learn working at at sist he'll text me back and say I don't know that's awesome yeah and I I think just that honest reflection of all of us and ability to just be open and honest about what we don't know allows us to actually know what we're great at and be more proud about what we do now that's really great man yeah the we battled that a lot I guess you're making me think about it as far as like okay well how could I apply that to to my company and how do we uh encourage people to say I don't know I guess my partners and I we do say all the time if you don't know just tell us but um it is good to like really put a focus on making it okay and letting people know why it's okay not to not to divert responsibility but actually to be responsible because ultimately by saying that you're actually taking responsibility in a way like I I don't know but I'm not saying I don't want to fix it I just I just don't know totally the the thing I'll say is the biggest lesson I learned is the language I was using as a leader was wrong and so um the Apple thing I was talking about we were launching this thing with apple it was at the Philly Stadium huge deal every seat in the stadium is lined with a QR code and you scan the QR code on the phone you literally op eye message text two Bud Lights in a Yingling Apple pay beers delivered big big deal for Apple the exec are there this other partner we're working with and this lady named Amanda on our team is running is running the show and I thought I'd practice language I'm really trying to be more Curious ask better questions Etc and the former head of the largest ship in the Navy David marquay he was a friend of mine and he was also like a coach of mine he wrote a book called uh turn the ship around fast fantastic leadership book he flew in and I'll never forget this we we were there and a bunch of [ __ ] went wrong everything failed and what happened was the partner we were working with their apis didn't work and but we had built a backup plan because I told our team six months earlier imagine this live chat partner has no incentive to make us successful at this chat bot so let's make sure that we have our own version of this so we can actually talk to customers if needed and uh we'll plug it in so this guy Carlo Little Italian guy smoking I was like did you build that backup platform he's like of course I B you know just does that I'm like holy [ __ ] so we had this thing turn it on I go to lunch with David I'm like hey I'll be back I'm like Amanda we just need to train the delivery people on this new software cuz they were trained on this other companies I'm at lunch sit down the first three minutes there I get a call from Amanda she's like hey there's a problem this other Company's trying to plug their stuff back in doesn't thinks we're like kicking them out and all this stuff and I don't know how to like keep them away just so we make it happen and apple doesn't know but like they're fine and uh so I'm like do you need me to come back she's like no no no I'm like are you sure she's like yes I'm like Amanda I will I will drop everything I'm literally at lunch 5 minutes away I'm with David David's here just to watch us you know hopefully launch this thing he thought it was going to be a successful launch but maybe it goes wrong and like if you need me to come back I will come back do you understand yes do you need me to come no I said okay I hung up David looks at me and I think it's cuz we've been friends for a while he said what' you do wrong I was like I thought I was really I told her very seriously like I would definitely come back I'll do he said call her back and what I want you to say is Amanda on a scale of 1 to five how much would you like me to be there H and I picked up my phone said hey man I just want to ask something on a scale of one to five how much would you like me to be there she said five whoa and he said binary questions to high performers lead to them never telling you the truth that they need help and he said you need to never ask binary questions again as a leader and he said the trick to doing that is to ask how not what and if you say how much would you like him to be there how could this go wrong you can't ask a binary question with how and since that [ __ ] moment dude I like I thought I'd been studying questions I started a podcast called ask in 2008 I thought I was the most curious and smart question asker in the world everything about my leadership changed and I always think about how am I creating the environment where they actually can't really tell me what they're thinking yeah no absolutely yeah we've been going through a lot with our company recently and oh it's been nine years we've be going through a lot but you know like recently the whole leadership aspect has has really kind of been been my focus like how can I be a good leader to everybody yeah and you I'm asking the questions like I think as I'm kind of looking through it like the most important thing to me is making sure the employees my team members know that I have their back as long as that as long as uh I know they're doing their best to do the right thing and um you know I've gotten some good feedback on it recently you they' they've seen me go to bat for them at a you know high pressure you know high pressure stuff and it seems like whenever you go through things as a company those tough situations I mean over covid we were almost bankrupt sold my 1970 K5 Blazer just to make you're right we had an extra $20,000 for payroll which is just crazy how how bad it got for a minute and um but it does seem like as a leader being there for people and knowing them knowing that you actually have their back allows them to really reach their full potential what do what do you think about that totally and I think there's also how many ways and different ways to show up and would be there for them yeah there's the like really knowing like actually I need to take on the risk here I need to make this decision for you yes um and sometimes you have to do that yeah right but other times it's actually learning how to listen mhm and really not just listening to respond but listening to hear them and I think learning to actually let them tell you the thing they're scared to say to learn that you actually are so proud that they said it and next time it's easier for them to say and those two things I think are a real struggle cuz I try to never step in and do things for people but there are moments I remember David marquay said hey on the Navy ship it's called turn the ship around and he said for six months he would never make a command and he made no decisions for six months and it became the highest performing ship in the Navy wow but he said the one thing I would always do is if we needed to shoot a nuclear weapon and it was going to kill someone I would pull the trigger mhm and you need to know what you'll do to pull the trigger that you don't want to put that risk and burden on someone else as a leader and then create the environment for the ability for everyone else to make decisions and how do you make more leaders that can make decisions is really the way I try to think about our company yeah that's awesome uh in that company what was the biggest thing that you uh had to overcome and like the the biggest obstacle at the moment uh that you overcame and how did how did you do it it's a good question um I think it comes down to what I was saying earlier about the ability to tell the team that it's actually not working and realizing that that's actually what you can rally behind there was a moment about three or four years in where we had built the most sophisticated chat Bots at the time they weren't tree flows they could make decisions they could fail over and come back they could get back on track you could basically change your mind and keep going versus chap Bots at the time would say I don't know sorry like sir you know Siri for 10 years and we'd built some really cool technology but the business was actually only in call centers the business was Macy's wanted chatbots to take 7% of the queries away to help them save money MH but I and Robert wanted to be cool we wanted to sell flowers to make marketing to do sales to drive haircuts to and so all of the use cases that we launched with were in Zuckerberg too right he was like I want to make Commerce messenger I want to sell things through ever Lane the AI bot will follow up and say hey Ed you want want new t-shirts yeah new t-shirts boom and two years into to selling to the CMO we realized that none of it was working we were in experimental budget doing Innovation [ __ ] and The Innovation teams and everyone's excited but nothing was happening MH but the actual business and the actually the reason we got acquired was going to the service side and luckily my my co-founder founded Geek Squad and deeply cared about service and really understood service at a deep level and we were able to go through that but I think that ability I think you underestimate how hard strategy shifts are in take I mean it took a year unraveling you know they're still doing well should we actually kill the Sephora bot it's kind of cool they have our QR codes in every Sephora store saying book a makeup appointment on messaging and it's pretty cool should we kill that or should we keep it and the ability to say actually we need to tell them it's over M killing things and I think the founders only real thing that a Founder can do that most people can't is subtract most people are there to do their job right and do more and be paid to do more and they want to do more and I think that lesson and that realizing how hard it is but it took I thought it would take us a couple months we'll shift the strategy we'll go over here and a year later we're like should we shut down the the Fandango bot for selling movie tickets yeah and you're like yeah we should and I think realizing it wasn't working we were so early we were just way too early and even Facebook didn't make it work and then you know when I realized we were pretty [ __ ] is when Facebook's calling us asking us for advice and like we're their best partner like Shane what what are you seeing out there what should we do here you know because because they knew we all knew it wasn't really working yet yeah and then in 2017 llms happened and my co-founder smartly was like we need to get out because we have a good business on the call center side but the lolms are the real deal this is the chatbot technology we didn't have yeah and we have all these customers we were most of the Fortune 500 we were apple and Facebook show Pony like we were that like application layer on top of the network yeah and we'd go to all the enterprise we did all the sales for them we're like go talk to Macy's talk to T-Mobile talk to everyone and I think that moment when llm happened Robert's a Visionary and he really saw the future and he's like hey this is the tech we didn't have and unraveling what we have and like this and he was right the thing happening now is real this is the llms this is the chatbot moment what she were going the enti seven years you know we were seven years and luckily we actually were able to get out and varen this public company acquired us for 50 million bucks and like um you know they were a call center company wanting to get into messaging and AI they were like the old school They a public company who just did phones you know plus one to you know we're better than that yeah so it's like good lesson in that but I think the selfawareness that we were for a couple moments there really it felt like it I think the hardest thing that I've learned and I'll try to wrap this up is when it kind of works you can fool yourself and when it's it was kind of working yep you could book a ticket with Fandango you could book a makeup but no one loved it right no one actually cared it wasn't driving Sephora's business right and so it was cute and we could have kept going down that path and like felt great about ourselves yeah and that's what we did at Zar the company before it kind of worked I get coffee delivered 50% of the time mhm like we can make it get to 70% and the reality was you needed to build Uber and make it work 100% of the time right yeah yeah and I think that was a hard lesson you said um the only thing Founders can do is subtract I think that's what you said yeah uh that's very very true and when I look at kind of how our companies have grown uh I love when we cut an idea we thought was good uh it's actually I don't know if it's weird but I love it because I'm like yes I'm free of these chains that's been holding us back and just try to charge forward it's actually when you said it I'm like oh yeah like that's actually I love that not that I like failing but you know by the time you're subtracting something you've fought you've gone to war you've done everything you possibly can to make this thing work to me it's like freeing and it goes to kind of what you were saying I don't know it's okay to say this didn't work we gave 110% you one of my old fight trainers Lloyd Irving says as long as you give 110% win or lose you're still a champion and I believe that and ultimately in our companies uh you you the big picture is really what matters if we're going to a certain place so if you know if my great brill idea was ended up falling flat on its face you know if you have an ego with it you're like well no you got to you know you can drive your company into the ground but if you have that big picture approach to me it's freeing I've had so I've been wrong so many times it's like you know it's like my record is probably not that good but overall with the company we've gotten to a certain point and it's because we've been able to cut and then get focused and aligned and just charge forward so yeah when you said that it made me think gosh that's very true and to me it feels freeing because you know those chains of I've got to do this one thing or this is this project we've got so much money into it we've got to make this one thing work well you know but does it really matter for big picture if you've got a better idea where did that come from for you to let go of the opportunity cost and just say like let's cut it h you know I think in my head I I always to do the right thing I know it sounds simple but like I'm like what's the right thing to do ego aside what's the right thing to do and so um it's just one of the things that I I guess I just do naturally I don't know call Natural but I'm saying that's I do think people like have energy around like just not scared to cut it yeah I I I don't have fear around that I really don't and I love it actually I'm like I'm thinking about times in my career where it's like nope let's go everybody's like what I'm like come on let's go we got something else to do but um yeah it's cool that you said that cuz it got me thinking about it and you know as as Founders uh you know we do get to do those things and you know if you have a great team like our team will walk through a wall for us man I mean I've got so many great people working for us I mean we've got so many great people working for us it is uh it's just like how you switch your language there oh yeah well it's it is we got we have great people working for us and you know recently it's it's been kind of consuming me how grateful I am yeah for everybody because it's everybody even the people in this room it's everybody that's making this machine work and for me personally you know it is not me that's making all this [ __ ] happen it's not I've got great people people in the room I've got great people at the at the hospital all around me I've got great Partners we have a great full team it's I mean it is everybody um you know another interesting thing with leadership is you know it's who you have around you but for me it's been the mentors and the the the older dudes that I can call so our board is you know I think everybody is it right on my scientific ADV Advisory Board all 70 and up totally but they're awesome like old school gangster scientists that heads of NIH you know different points and you know we can go to them and and with problems and normally it's scientific problems you know so which is what I love to talk about but when shit's hitting the fan those guys are like gangsters I'm like wow thank you you know the sweet old man is giving me excellent excellent advice it's like hey what do you think about I'm kind of like shy bringing it to him because it's internal a little embarrassing or whatever you know and I don't want to bring drama to them but I need their help and and you know having that Network that's what's made us successful it really is we have just amazing amazing people so that's my rant but I love it it's actually crazy I woke up you know a couple years ago I was like all of my like closest friends are in their 50s and you know I'm in my 30s MH and I don't know how it happened I just like when I was younger and I was an old soul I just lued out and I was thinking about ta and I was thinking about Robert and you know Robert just turned 53 and and then I'm looking at our board now like you said I feel like the luckiest guy in the world I you know we have one guy on our board externally name is Fred Wilson from Union Square ventures in New York um Fred was on the board of Twitter Fred's on the board of coinbase and to even he's in his 60s to just be able to every day text with Fred and learn from Fred and it's those insecure things right I'm like the thing I'm like I don't know if I should take this to Fred and I'm like worried that he's going to be like mad or disappointed or what and he's never is he's just helpful and he's so thoughtful and I'm like every I'm like always like not like if I'm scared of being let down it like is 10 times better than I ever thought it could be and then he's proactive to me like hey I want to help you think this because there's probably something you might not be seeing here um and I'm like okay he'll like reach out like I know you said you're going to make this decision let me just tell you about that decision about what could go wrong I'm like thanks for that and I don't know I just feel the same way I feel so grateful and lucky to work with the people that such wisdom and experience and their own awareness he's like I know how I'll be wrong and I know how I won't be wrong but I can tell you stories I have of like the technical things of like what is probably right and wrong and just having someone who knows that like they don't know where the future's going but also I know how to run a company in the ground right right like that it's like the awareness plus the expertise is the magic and I just don't find a ton of people with that um confidence well isn't it cool though like you're talking about your board uh CU I guess we share that it it it really is comforting in a way because I can at least speak for myself as we're trying to cure cancer you know it's uh you this book right here is uh immunotherapy principles and practice it's a textbook for immunotherapy for cancer and Franco marinca one of the authors is on my sa and you know the comfort in being able to reach out reach out to someone like that and then I think to myself gosh I don't know I mean it's it's a little worthiness conversation like is you know yeah I I guess I'm saying it out loud am am I worthy to be able to work with him like why was why is he wanting to work with us I mean not that we're doing great work but you know those internal I don't think people talk about the internal doubts that they might have totally but that's what I I experience and um you know it's hard for me sometimes to reach out but I'm just so grateful to be able to have that wisdom uh from people like that and and the rest the people on our board and you know I think the worry the insecurity though that I was just talking about is what holds a lot of people back from actually getting it because they never actually yes I have that in security but I'm still doing it yeah I'm still calling Franco and saying hey will you join our board hey I'm still calling this guy and say Hey you know I'm still calling them with questions and stuff even though internally I have a little struggle um because I haven't built that I hate to well no self-worth or whatever it is that makes me feel confident enough to feel like I deserve that yeah and um but our company I now our company definitely deserves it but internally you know that's a conversation that I have I think a lot of people have those conversations those conversations hold them back it's funny for other people too to realize that the irony is that my insecurity and need for validation drives My Success right which is hilarious right it's like that is like for like I think most Founders are deeply insecure and over time you really grow into that and you're honest about it and that leads to more confidence more awareness less insecurity but it's just there and that's fine uh to was funny when you were talking it made me think of that moment in my last company you asked what was the hardest thing you know one of the hardest things was when I convinced the founder of Geek Squad to be my co-founder and I was CEO and I was 25 that's awesome and he went from a mentor to being a partner uh and that year and a half was hard harder than I actually have probably ever even talked about yeah tell me about it man he's you know one of you know he's the guy I talk to every day now he's one of my best friends in the world and we went we made it through it but I was so needing validation from him am I doing a good job as CEO is this what you would do what would you do and he'd be like you're CEO you run the company I'm here to learn from you too I'm like and every decision I'd be like Wonder was Robert gonna think of this what and it was just it was almost debilitating I was so nervous about him thinking I was a great CEO that I almost couldn't run the company effectively mhm and over time he he really him created the confidence in me and the space in me and what he really saw in me and he almost did the subtraction from me he's like Shane you're great at product and you're great at these relationships I can run this company if you're in the office we're losing money he's like go to Facebook go to Apple go talk to them focus on product integration Partnerships just get them and go recruit build the greatest team build a culture I got everything else that's awesome and he gave me the constraint which then gave us the partnership and grew into the relationship that it is but that was that shift of me just Mentor OH I'm like he's like I joined this company I'm here let's go you know I'm like okay yeah let's go but that actually has changed my life because he really was the genius of our positioning and help me stop running around San Francisco pounding my chest I'd be like message bigger than search he's like listen dude even if we were bigger than search and you're going to be bigger than Google don't say that you sound like a Pomp's [ __ ] right he's like let's say like I don't know chat Bots are kind of dumb and we call AI eii eventually intelligent he's like let's lower the bar overx and like he really is that thinker yeah and it really and I was like yeah [ __ ] these VCS I'll go build the company thank you for the money we'll go go a great thing and but but I was not there I was like really just running around SF like oh we rais money we got a bunch of people our company you know just like doing do all this you feel like a duck right like you're smooth on the surface but under the water duck Center under the water just paddling million miles hour no no everything's great over here just burning cash you know like so can I ask a question about the cancer sure I love statements that when you hear them you're always like wow that's bold and so cure I want to cure cancer as like a bold statement Bitcoin could be the currency of the world 2010 right and you're like that sounds ludicrous yeah um but I've heard that in 20 to 30 years I know nothing about this I'm actually curious sure that cancer could not exist is that true or is or like we know the path towards there not being cancer I think that that I don't know who made that statement to you I had to see what they're talking about most of it's not true got it you know the problem with cancer is cancer is not a disease it's many different diseases so our approach is going to be truly understanding the mechanism m in which cancer evades the immune system how does cancer evade the immune system because we all have cancer cells in us and our immune systems killing these cancer cells because once you can really uncover how cancer truly evades the immune system you can then know how to unlock the immune system to attack it I mean we can tell on the lab right now what tumor will respond to the current immunotherapies and what won't uh you can have it we call it the uh the immune desert desert uh of the of the cancer to where it's not even no matter what you do and so then a lot of the research changed from changing a tumor from cold meaning it's not going to respond to hot meaning that could respond and some of that those studies and stuff haven't gone as as well um but do I think it's possible absolutely absolutely under the current regulatory system that we have it's going to be difficult but that's where we've hacked the whole damn system because we have full life liing in Mexico sell your manufacturing license we don't have to go to us clinical trials and so our model we call it our crystal ball we have fully licensed lab in Mexico one of the best in the world um we have just amazing amazing technology but we also have patients so we can do these combination immunotherapies that you could never even do with the FDA where instead of just doing a car te cell which by the way by the time that treatment got approved it's $600,000 our is offer in Mexico for under $50,000 but uh when our Pharma company brings it to America then you know then it'll be more because that's what the how the system works but I don't want we don't want just one it takes you 15 years to get one drug through 10 to 15 years to get one drug through you need combinations of these drugs so with the current regulatory uh system it would take that would take 30 years just to try the idea when in Mexico with our licensing we can do all of these conversations and probably have it figured out in like three years I really think we're going to have a lot figured out um and uh and then we have this I call you the the the the profitable version uh part of the company that's the the stem cell part I didn't want to do stem cells like ah it's kind of basic science and like oh stem cells uh and we were able to to partner with somebody and I knew it would help us build our cancer vaccine lab and uh Joe Rogan's an old friend Joe started talking about it and we do have the best stem cell that's out there for the public uh it's called a hypoxic stem cell but that whole thing funded the muscular cell muscular skeletal you know neck disc injections knees shoulders Etc has funded all of our cancer research uh and I didn't even want to do that's kind of fun I didn't want to do this themselves at first uh and it's what it's what really made us so um love that yeah it's a long answer to your question but no it's great I I don't nothing about it I just you know cancer obviously touches all of us and so it's one of those ones where trying to understand it more and just know that there's other options out there that there other paths forward and that it in a in a in a infinite time cycle like there is a cure for this yeah there there yes I I think there there can be I I question how much cancer evolves um when the reason Franco said he can he thinks we can cure three4 that leaves that other you know fourth yeah uh but yeah I think most if if the big Financial incentive of Pharma to do what they do the perfect cancer drug is a drug that extends life three months you have a billion dollar drug you have to take away that incentive and I really want to turn the whole [ __ ] system upside down and shake it because I you know like no like I want to cure cancer we want to cure cancer absolutely so when you ask that question I'm not saying there's you know we're not going no I mean that's that is the goal totally I would be lying if I said I shouldn't say something that I don't think that we can do 100% I think realistically which is still pretty big you know three4 is still pretty big of curing cancer right now we're not curing 5% at the metastatic level yeah you know so um but I'm very optimistic about the future of medicine especially with now you get into the bioethical issues of engineering crisper and those type of things um we have some of the best scientists working with us on that so um you know we're kind of at the Forefront of all that and it's really really exciting so I'm I'm a Christian so I pray constantly I'm like God am I doing the right thing you know want to make sure that I don't overstep the playing guidelines but um I yeah I'm very very optimistic uh in in the future of of medicine I think yeah we could live within 10 years I think we should be doing 150 years you know with the way science is is pushing in all the cellular treatments amazing so your new company tell me about the new decentralized app uh yeah it's a DEC Iz messaging protocol called xmt and so we're building um you know think of WhatsApp or iMessage the ability to build the most open and secure messaging protocol in the world that can last forever and what that means is today if I was going to message you right and it's on iMessage that's on Apple servers right that's on Facebook servers on WhatsApp M and in the future there's a decentralized net networ all over the world and when I send a message to you there's a decentralized network of servers that's delivering that message from ADB and we have the best encryption and privacy and Security in the world and we're inspired by like signal I don't know if youve ever heard of The Signal app but signal level encryption and it's decentralized and so where we started was in the crypto industry everyone sending billions of dollars between w addresses and this guy Robert Lesner about four years ago now he's like I have 11 billion in this smart contract I know every single person's address who put money in it m and I can't message 95% of them because all they have is their wallet address why can't I send an encrypted message like email to these wallet addresses and we were like huh and like I was like why can't you he's like cuz there's no encrypted messaging layer for wallets and I'm like why not he's like well people tried and whatever and he's like but we need to be able to reach the wallet and so it just made me think like HTTP is a protocol for URLs you know browsers SMTP is the protocol of email so the reason Gmail can talk to Outlook is because there's an interoperable protocol called SMTP but it's not secure there's no encryption and then the last 15 years have been centralized into silos where everyone lives inside a iMessage and WhatsApp and Telegram and signal and you can't get out you can't own your messages they own your messages Facebook owns your messages okay and so we were like can you actually own your communication like you own your crypto so the private key is able to own my messages and so we went to the big players walked into coinbase said hey inside of the coinbase app why can't we just add on the top right here why don't we just add an inbox so if I can get money sent to my wallet address why can't I get secure communication and now you can and so what's cool is you're able to have secure communication and secure money in the same applications and now you can send this is my dad I can send him some money I can send five bucks boom send you can send money that's good for free instantly anywhere in the world with any token usdc Bitcoin e it doesn't matter a bridges on any chain right so I'm inside a coinbase wallet and I just said Dad send usdc on coinbase's base chain no fee I'll just send him five bucks so just sent my dad $5 and it goes in and now you have secure communication and secure money all in one application Apple pay cash app vinmo they can't pay across borders and so what happens is you don't have the interoperable and Global money rail inside of the messaging applications and so we're basically bringing together secure messaging and secure money but the cool thing is is is that it's fully interoperable so we have hundreds of applications now built on top of xmt so if I go into this one called Converse this is uh this is um like the WhatsApp or telegram for xent TB and that message I just sent my Dad shows up here and what's cool about that is if you want to leave WhatsApp you can't but in the future if I don't like coinbase wallet I can go to the new application in my private key I just log in all my messages show up yeah it's like basically like Bitcoin that'll show up in a bunch of different wallets exactly except it's your messaging data not your Commerce money day yeah and so you can own your money like you own your crypto or you can own your messages like you own your crypto that's awesome how how are you rolling it out so we're focused on right we've when did you start first of all when when did you start this uh right when my lockup ended so may 2021 okay and uh really really step one was build the most secure and open messaging protocol in the world where developers want to build on top of it so we've been focused on that for about 3 years our V3 of the upgrade of the protocol happened six weeks ago which puts us on par with signal right so now we have and by on par with signal what do you mean so post forward secrecy post compromised security so the ability to not um track between Cinder and recipient so you can basically know that if anything ever gets compromised my message is are secure uhhuh and the encryption level we use MLS which is messaging layer security which is an ietf standard that allows you to have the most secure encryption in the world and so it's an encryption thing it's also a way to protect the device so um the messages aren't stored in the network and so there's just a lot of like really nerdy stuff like that interesting and your app is on the blockchain F though which is obviously different than uh the other apps so the messages aren't on the blockchain the messages are not no they're on the distributed node Network around the world okay the blockchain in the future is actually where you'll be um the nodes will run okay right and so that is more that'll be even more secure what's that it'll be even more secure at that point right the decentralization makes it more secure right so imagine a country decides they don't like encryption and they want to read all our communication yes well in this world if there's servers running all over the world the network can last forever because if people want to surveillance our communication and they shut down the ability for people to have encrypted communication or privacy then the network will still run and so I think it's about more about the ability to have a communication Network that's sustainable if come last forever amazing amazing how how's the how's the reception to that right now so it's it's been amazing and we've been focused on just the ethereum community okay so in ethereum we are the largest messaging Network in ethereum working with major Partners you know inside of the coinbase app you go into coinbase now you hit the inbox boom all your messages you can now use it for communication sending money globally you can also play games and do things inside of it literally there's a Wordle app you can literally play word wager with your friends do all this cool stuff um there's a lot of other applications family the lens social Community there's an app called Converse um and there's this developer Community thriving to allow wall to--all communication within crypto but what's happening is it's good for the crypto Community but I actually feel like in the future messaging is going to be how most people in the world use crypto because they understand what's at they understand IR asset so our goal now is to make crypto as easy to use as iMessage so because right now it's so hard wallets are hard seat phrases are hard l2s are hard all this stuff is honestly so confusing bridging is hard swapping is hard no one needs to know what I need to be able to do is send usdc from me to Ed yeah you can send me some Bitcoin if you want if it had to bridge it had to swap it was different chains it doesn't matter exactly and so we need to make crypto as easy to use as iMessage and we are now getting to a point where the applications were seeing I mean I use I use this app right here as an iMessage replacement it's called Converse and it looks like iMessage as you're messaging has all my people I can literally invite you to message me here and so I have worldclass security no one owns it CU we all own the network together because it's a Global decentralized Network and it'll last forever because not one company owns it wow so you said the roll out so far has been on erc20 uh the ethereum community we we're not we don't run out we don't have a token so we're we don't have any rc20 okay sorry the ethereum community rather um the goal obviously is to get it out you know and compete with signal and WhatsApp but be the app that's decentralized uh or the messaging platform that's decentralized um how are you getting kind of the word out what's your what's your marketing plan behind it yeah so I think of it in the three phases so one step one is build the most secur open protocol in the world step two is Inspire developers to trust to build on top of it so because it's open and then step three is build an incredible application that is like an iMessage and telegram or what'sapp that every one what wants to use I think we're just moving from the the first two which was the coin bases build all these developers are building apps on top of it m and they're the ones marketing it right coinbase is saying use us for messaging and money and they're going out and pushing the the message we're just the protocol we're just to B we're like sntp and email gmail is the one saying use Gmail yeah um so building that Network effect so what I think is the interesting next phase is as crypto becomes a global cultural and societal movement I want messaging and I think we believe messaging will be the user interface for which most people in the world use crypto so I don't think you kill Craigslist or you kill email I don't actually think we kill telegram or Whatsapp I think those have a ubiquity I think we do things that aren't possible and we make the ability to use crypto yeah in an experience that is also the ability to feel like what'sapp at telegram because you have a native Financial rail crypto mixed with an experience that is secureity communication and also we have better security than the telegrams of the world and so their wallet is basically connected to the messenger so this is how it's exactly every single every single person at the core has a wallet address and so when you have wallets as your core Network everyone can now take action mints and money do everything globally fully interoperable where today you don't have that it's all phone number based and so another thing about the network that's more private SK is you don't have a phone number to sign up right you going to sign up with the private key you're can have 10 different inboxes oh we we'll figure this [ __ ] out man it's going to be really big and so that's good we're moving into the consumer layer which is it's not about are we going to be better than WhatsApp what'sapp is you B what is the world it's what do we do different to make crypto accessible to everyone in the world that includes secure communication and now what you bring together secure money and secure communication what can you do and the answer is every group chat in the world is going to be a little micro economy I'm going to set the the group to say our our group runs in usdc on the base chain and everyone who's interacting that group we actually have the thing work you can tip inside of this so if I said hey here's my five favorite places in Mexico you can just double tap it instead of just doing an emoji it's actually tipping in uscc everyone can tip and now every group you can play games you can bet with your friends you can play you know imagine you do all these things that you do today now because everyone has a native wallet built into it and you can show up with any money you want so if I I show up at usdc you show up at DJ she shows up at Bitcoin the bridging and swapping happens in the background yeah we all just get to play games interacts exchange value pay you back for dinner do all the things we do yeah and we every once's tried this for years but because it didn't have a native Financial rail built in it's never really worked but now it flips it on its head so I think the next phase of this is killer applications developers building on top of this to go get consumer attention that makes crypto feel like using iMessage and to be able to do things that we just couldn't do and so then I think you become as big as WhatsApp and telegram because crypto becomes that big and it is a global phenomenon that everyone understands and we can be the layer by which people understand it well yeah so yes exactly you can become a layer by which people understand it because if you have uh you have some of the same things that signal has you have some of the same security aspects and we're inspired by them we always say inspired by signal wired by grip right like we try to adhere to they've really been a huge advocate for private secure communication globally for the past decade and we really have taken a lot of inspiration from them to say okay how do we be as secure as signal and also make sure that we're native to onchain how do you bring those together how's what's the the government's response been to this they're like what are y'all doing here this could really shake up the entire system no I I think we think a lot about that you know we're we're working with coinbase we're going to DC a lot having conversations um and you know in America the reason we want to do the company here is because the First Amendment freedom of speech yeah we believe in protecting communication um and I think you have to think about the application layer so the application layer still has to adhere to the laws of the countries right so coinbase is a us uh company their inbox needs to adhere to the laws of the country right and at the protocol ler we just want to make sure it's really private secure so that privacy is a human right and that everyone knows that they have worldclass encryption like WhatsApp like iMessage like signal Etc um and so I think we're just looking to really work with Regulators how do we make this a more private thing for our citizens how do we make this a more secure network and then in a world where you can have multiple applications applications built on top of xntp need to adhere to the laws of their country sure so uh that's a it's a really interesting conversation like we're excited to like just do the company here be a us-based company really work with the regulation to create the most secure private messaging Network in the world yeah and I know you want to it's you the reality is you pull this off which I I actually think I'm from what I'm hear you absolutely can it's disruptive man this is awesome I mean because ultimately you're like vidmo mixed with uh you there crypto vidmo uh it's crypto vinmo with you know chat and I it's it's it's a really good idea and if you have the security of signal yet it's it's a crypto version um yeah it's actually going to push out crypto you think about like what did uh vinmo do well you they tie your bank account to it it makes it easy to transfer blah blah blah blah blah well I mean crypto is just as easy yeah if you if you have a way to bring that app in those wallets in rather to the messenger chat uh yeah you just a big problem you know yeah I think the developer Innovation opportunity to build applications that have messaging and money at the core that everyone in the app has both yeah and it works globally because messaging works globally but money doesn't and then money is just starting to work globally and it's interoperable money with crypto but it's so hard to use for so we're at this moment where you have been in crypto for almost 13 years now it's like 13 years in it feels like we're at the lyos excite alter Vista moment right and the consumer layer now is about to happen and all that infrastructure has been built and when I see things where I'm literally using an app that looks exactly like IM message MH but I can send you usdc instantly for free anywhere in the world I'm like it's here yeah but no one knows yet and that's that's it's powerful and it's cool and I think there's a lot of inspiring things there's a lot of things we need to figure out there's a lot of questions we need to ask how could this go wrong I try to invert things yeah like I want to do the right thing the other thing I would ask is like how could this go really wrong right and we need to think about that I was one of the first API developers of Twitter and you know I don't think anyone had bad intentions then but we sat around I remember sitting with the whole Twitter career with the original ogs and you know we're like this is the greatest thing in the world everyone to be T to everyone know this is amazing we're all so optimistic you know and it turns out a lot of [ __ ] can go wrong yeah a lot of [ __ ] can go wrong if you actually connect everyone in the world and algorithms kind of run one Silo and we only see our little you know mirror ourselves I think we need to be asking a lot of those questions now about crypto communication security privacy and I hope that we can you know get ahead of things that could go wrong in the future and really make it a better a better technology for yeah things will go wrong but makes me think like Victor Hugo an idea whose Time Has Come can't be stopped I mean that's that's the power of an idea and I think that that's uh I that's actually where we're at right now totally with with this and you think about B this and this lady who worked for us was from bin and she just talked about you know just saying that she was a lesbian in Bahrain over any messaging app with an authoritarian regime gets here killed then like and she's like so if there's a back door to any network there's a front door and the front door for us is the back door for you and for me it's my life and then you know in Oklahoma there was a lady who talking about abortion ended up in jail and because it was on Facebook messenger and I think those stories are just going to keep coming right and so giving people choice letting people own their communication if you don't like this app anymore you can change you're not locked in you know you're not tied to the big Tech silos and the big Tech surveillance in and I think that really is the opportunity to like let people own and control their communication like they can own and control their money yeah I mean you know but ultimately you look at all things that can go wrong and you're thinking you you want to do everything by the book and you know of course want off the laws to countries of course course but the reality is what you're doing is good versus evil I really do believe this because you know people can say what they want to about Elon Musk but in many ways it's a good versus evil type thing in my opinion because um you don't have to agree with him but he's bucking A system that has power I'm going to say tyrannical power over all of us and you know when you do stuff like that there's there's risk because you're doing the right thing but evil wants something else so you're going to be at a hell of a fight to make stuff like this happen I know it's just you're talking or DC all that stuff but what you're doing is so big because it changes the game if I can go to TJ where my hospital is was and go to whatever the Circle K or whatever the convenience store is Oxo there and uh just transfer money um you know we don't need the banking system we don't need and that's been the the the vision and goal of crypto of course for a long time the banks that have been chaining and enslaving people for uh for centuries but that's the freedom of of Bitcoin and and uh you have a solution so really I mean I I haven't heard about it so now I'm like I'm pretty excited because yeah that's that's the idea that's the one uh whose time has come you know and it can't be stopped you might get [ __ ] up no offense I'm not send you're coring to but they might try whatever but man the idea is what ultimately matters these ideas that we're doing are bigger than us you know they can change the world they can save people's lives they can keep people from being attacked by their government they can uphold freedom of speech you know in America we have the strongest uh freedom of speech laws in the world um but they're under attack right now and uh your app has the ability to free that up man it's beautiful yeah you know I think for me I always think about what's the core truth that I believe that will allow me to always fight for this and I think privacy is a human right and I think our communication and our relationships should be between the people that they're between and so our conversation right now is being recorded because we choose to do that sure but I want to be able to have our relationship and if that lives in message which almost every person in the world now does cuz 50% of internet usage is massive then those conversations or relationships should be private between those people and I just agree I grew up on this I've been on messaging since day one and I believe that messaging is how my whole career was built it's how all my relationship should build and those should be private between us and so um you know the reason to decentralize it is because to build something at global scale means that I don't know the laws of every country right and so you have to have something that is just so simple and it's an encrypted protocol for the world and applications need to follow the laws of their country yeah and so that's kind of you know that's our that's our goal and our mission and our mission is send Bloods to create the most open and secure messaging protocol that the last forever that's beautiful so uh talk about the team that you've built to to make this happen yeah we're we're a we're a small team we're probably like 20 people and uh we've raised about $50 million from Andre and Horowitz and Union Square Ventures light speed faction and a a lot of other great people in crypto industry um and most of our team is people building encryption secure communication you know come out of the WhatsApp and apple and iMessage and worked on cryptography and stuff like that and the other is focused on just C centralization so how do you really decentralize a network how do you make sure you can have a network that um can be a Global Network of node operators running you know they say to be fully decentralized is if if our company shuts down the network can keep operating sure so our company name is ephra and ephra actually is about Collectibles and things you have in life that are only like have a temporary meaning and what that means though is it's a reminder that companies don't always live forever but the network has to and you know for us to be able to build ephemera and work on the protocol xtp XMP has to be owned by all of us that are using it and all the node operators in the community and it's a reminder that the government looks at the regulation of decentralization and says can your company shut down and the network keep running and if that's true then it can be decentralized h it's pretty powerful I mean so I actually I actually do but I'm not sure every everyone listening understands what you've created with this big Vision biggest impact on the world how would you explain that I think if you think about how HTTP allowed everyone to use the internet and SMTP allowed everyone to use email and allow everyone in the world to communicate to me xmt is about letting everyone in the world have secure communication that they can own and control MH and today our secure communication is owned by whoever's platform gives it to us for free MH and the ability to own and control our communication is as important in the world as owning and controlling our money why I'll speak for myself I think it's actually hard to answer this question in America we can say like America is coming after our communication and it's it's coming after our freedoms but I actually feel like on a broad scale of things in the world we're doing pretty great got are pretty good and as a white guy living in America doing pretty great and I don't have a lot of like years of that to be honest I understand things happening and the feelings behind it but I think globally the ability to create something that allows everyone in the world to communicate securely and safely where your life is at risk by just believing in something taboo or believing in something of how you feel um or living in an auth authoritarian country I feel like I can't even comprehend like those types of things and I do think that surveillance of countries wanting to use more data and AI in this world we're moving into is going to get a lot crazier and so um for us to just know that we have secure and private communication that we can own and that users have Choice mhm to be able to move in between communication networks or applications and not have to lose all of their relationships um you know I I watched the whole developer Community for the last 15 years we all built on top of Twitter Facebook Apple Google everyone and the only true thing that you knew was going to happen is that you were going to get cut off at some point yeah right and they control the apis they control the business they control the price uh and they have 100% take rate you know they take all the money and we're basically giving up all of our data to be mark to and that model needed to change too and so I think if you can align the incentives correctly for a decentralized network of communication as well as create something where the whole world gets more security and privacy than they have today it's just a net good for society yeah and the idea that if you make it big enough and have the crypto I'm going to call it plugin but the wallet plugin I guess what you call it um crypto's just native to it right it's built with crypto native to everything yeah I mean that that frees up transactions you know all over the world moving money around the world is so hard I have a friend in Nashville who's Australian he's a big artist here and his sister said hey we're buying mom a gift it's $275 will you split it with me and he was showing me how hard it is to send the $125 to support the gift for his mom to Australia and I think the problem with crypto though and crypto needs to like we need to take some some self-awareness and some criticism because it's chess pumping and crypto and meme coins and make money and all this I don't think that's it at all and actually the brand of crypto is pretty Global but also easy to criticize cuz it's all this make money quick Rich schemes and these meme coins and all this stuff and everyone gets excited and then everyone tries it and no one knows how to use it it's too hard to use Etc but the the rail of interoperable money and attention actually becoming currencies is a huge thing it's so foundational to like and and disruptive and hard to wrap your head around and when that becomes simple to use and I can move money in and out of whatever I think is the most interesting and the attention of what's gaining traction or you know Geographic States become Network States and these things are happening where you know I think it's hard to actually comprehend how transformational this is going to be MH and if that's true I do think that interoperable money and the ability for anyone in the world to interact and move money in and out of systems or in and out of attention or in and out of companies or in and out of you know uh ownership or what that token even represents and stands for it could own something else like this building mhm that idea of interoperable ownership and money is so big that I think um it's going to be one of the greatest things that like in 20 to 30 years we look back in the world just running on like you know a financial a native Financial rail that's Global yeah fully interruptable not designed by any Geographic country and the ability for Value to move in and out of that is just going to be pervasive um and so I think the two things in the world that you need are secure communication and secure money and so I think those two coming together is just you know a cool opportunity you we were talking I believe before the podcast about the possibility of uh uh Bitcoin backing the the US dollar or uh talk about that a little bit what what could that do yeah I mean I have uh you know no knowledge or Insight here I think back to when I learned about it it so I was on a train in San this is the benefit of living in San Francisco I was on Cal train going down to menow park and this guy actually Taps me on the shoulder Adam draber and I didn't know who he was and he showed me an app called path it was like a private Facebook at the time guy from Facebook started it it was one of those things that blew up in Silicon Valley but never really made it out and uh he hold he goes is this you and I was like yeah it's me and he goes oh it's my buddy Jeff Morris you were with him last night Jeff posted this photo and I was like oh crazy I was like who are you he's like I'm Adam Draper um and he's like you know started talking and he said have you heard of Bitcoin I'm like kind of is it real you know like what is that he's like I think Bitcoin will be the most valuable thing probably in the world and the idea of a whole Bitcoin in 10 years won't exist and I'll never forget it I didn't even know what that meant I was like I don't know what a Bitcoin is I don't know how it's not going to exist he's like no I just mean it'll it's a non-inflatable currency so there's only 21 million so like as it grows we'll just keep making it denominated by less so it'll be like a millionth of a Bitcoin it'll be like the dollar whatever and I was like fascinating but his belief he said listen if it works the idea of a whole Bitcoin in the future doesn't exist but if it doesn't work just think of it as a science project but you should probably you know be in it and buy some but forget about it for 10 years and turns out Adam Draper is the first investor in coinbase his dad Tim Draper bought 30,000 Bitcoin off the government for $19 million oh my gosh and it one of the most legendary VCS in the world Tim Draper and um Adam also has a fund called boost and boost is an incredible fund that was one of the first to ever do the classes for accelerator for Bitcoin companies back in 2010 11 12 13 and um it's funny he actually text me yesterday like I feel like this is the moment for Bitcoin I should fly to Nashville I was like stay with me buddy and um so that happened and it was so transformational and like I learned such a lesson of holding something for a decade believing in like someone else's confidence and his expertise allowed me to hold cuz honestly you know that was $100 at Bitcoin at time and if it went to 2011 yeah so you at like two bucks Buck no was 100 oh was 100 then okay it was 100 um and I think I checked it the other day actually I was like how much was like like $99 and I think what's interesting is it's not about the Buy in it's about not selling right it's about how do you have the conviction and without someone like that how do you how do you not sell at a th000 when you made a 10x right that's the real when people are like oh if I bought Bitcoin a long time ago I'm like would you have held for a decade you know cuz that's that's the crazy the the crazy Believers and it it takes those belief systems of people like that and so at the time he believed in it so deeply and that was 13 years ago and so when I say things now it doesn't sound crazy at all the idea that this way to just make sure that you don't inflate your money in a world where all we do is actually not in a bad way just the Fiat system is built on it controlling inflation and growing your economy and printing your money yeah and every country in the world to be able to to have an offramp where you can just protect your own money to me is like it's starting to be more clear even in the last few months I'm like holy [ __ ] this is actually this this just logically makes sense it's like okay if everyone's country just inflates their money then we probably should protect our own money and so it's in self-interest then and I'm like that's when you really see big changes and then I start seeing people talking about this and I'm like if if someone steps off the ledge here and says hey we're going to put 1% of our financial Reserves we need I'm like this could just be the do know like what's the Black Swan event that is like oh oh this is this is just land there's not a they're not making more of it like all the things you kind of say and then you know there's a lot of things there's a book called softw War but um that's about how like wars in the future could be actually fought because of block space and if you're not going to acquire land interesting you're going to acquire assets and if assets are Bitcoin and then it's actually an energy game it's who can get the most block space I mean it's you're like and I'm like okay that might be a little over my head but I'm like I see the impact yeah and so I I feel like we're at that moment where it feels I'm so excited cuz now feels like that era in 2011 San Francisco where it was the beginning Innovation it was the founding Innovation but now it's like the utility of it we're starting to understand it more it's starting to get usable and the consumer layer I think is started to happen where um it's not just these get-rich quick schemes it's actually blockchain technology is something that's fundamental for how the world will inter we have an interoperable world with Airlines and flying and passports and now messaging but it never was for money and I think now it's going to happen well you know you think about access to money access to loans throughout the world is is difficult and what I think about is like okay let's think about the poor countries guys like you or I could fund loan programs with crypto in these countries it's not a lot of money to us but could be a you know it's like those micro loans that you've you've seen people do but you know we could do stuff like that on the on the blockchain what holds us back is the banking system you know and I don't like the fractional Reserve banking system I think the worst thing we could have done was go off the gold standard um if you look at what our debts done since then I mean it's just Skyrocket no matter if it's a Republican or Democrat president everybody just spends more money and then Republicans run on oh we're not going to spend any more money you know we're not going to raise the debt and you know Democrats don't seem to really care and you know the Keynesian philosophy is that you can just inflate the money and oh it's not going to you know it's not going to cause inflation though you I got in a big debate over covid when I I was upset that Trump was doing the Six Trillion I'm like inflation's going to go crazy and I had people just attack me you don't understand economics printing money doesn't cause inflation and I'm like you're crazy like you have you have drank the Kool-Aid if you don't think that printing money causes inflation um but you know I told you I worked on a couple Ron Paul campaigns so you know Ron Paul uh libertarian philosophies like a lot of Austrian economics you know uh Le Von mey's um you know the Frederick van hyek so you you have the idea of sound money and Bitcoin is really you know based on that idea you don't have the inflation you have a you have a finite amount and it's a science project it was a science project yeah but it was a science project on a philosophy and we're seeing that come to fruition now and I'm really excited about it because I think it I think it will change the world I think it'll bring a lot of people I mean we're already doing pretty good worldwide with poverty slower than it's ever been but I think that we're going to solve a lot of those problems because of Bitcoin um we could solve our nation's debt with Bitcoin if we were really smart about it I think maybe not fully solve it but we could make a dent in the debt that we have to me it's the biggest risk uh of our country right now I mean I think we're doing a trillion dollars every hundred days in loan payments or something I mean I don't know what the actual whatever the thing it's so it's so um feels exponential and like hard to even understand how you would roll it back that you're kind of like what's the Hedge against this right you're like Bitcoin and I think you have to think about it like that cuz like I don't know you know and I look at it um very like cautiously and try to be like ask hard questions about you know what I don't understand about it but it's you know people say like no this is how it is ETC and they're like if you know if you read a lot of um what's the Bridgewater CEO Ray doio right like his book right just he's like this is the problem this is like the downfall of every Empire it's just overprint money inflate the money and um you can't roll it back right um and I think that's a thing that I don't I don't have a ton of knowledge on but it just like logically I'm like that seems like this could be a problem right look at like logically yeah yeah a lot a lot of logic seems to get thrown out out the door right now yeah um but it's like that is where incentives of groups is very hard right I was like Warren Buffet said if I wanted to solve the debt crisis I would just make getting reelected based on if the debt went down yeah something like that something like yeah like if it yeah exactly and uh they had to have a balanced budget or something yeah totally it's like and if it and then you're up for re-election if actually you come in under under budget yes and stuff like that so just shows you the the difficulty of groups and the group think around you know things like this and trying to like when everyone I understand has their thing they're trying to get funded right they just have a ton of things to fund and uh it's an interesting challenge like as a system as a society well you know when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard like his famous quote was We're All Canes now you know referencing John Maynard kanes can's basically well him and um him and Le VES had you know a lot of debates back in the day and Kane's evidently won because you have you know a Keynesian economic system that we're we're under but uh Bitcoin is sound well I say sound money I'm going to call it sound money but it's it's not inflationary money um and yeah it has the potential to revolutionize the entire world I mean you think about the banking system not getting into conspiracy theories but the Usery system really puts people in a lot of lot of trouble and I wish from a Libertarian and I'm not like a Peter Dill libertarian um not that I'm going to call it extreme but uh you know I do think that the people should solve problems and not the government and you know you're from San Francisco so you know a lot of I'm sure like you running billionaire circles and those type of things I mean my thought is first billion that I have I'm going to put up to make sure every kid in Davidson County doesn't have to pay for college they go to a state school I just want to pay for it and I was doing the math I'm like it cost me like I'm doing the math right uh the interest that I'm making off my money I could I could do that but I I think that a lot of the problems can be solved with without the government solving those problems and with all the wealthy people actually coming together you know with a plan because you're not going to figure it out with taxes I mean they can just print money taxes don't even m i mean taxes matter but they don't matter because they've shown that they they will just print money no matter what we're 35 uh trillion dollars in debt so you actually from being from San Francisco probably are in a lot more of those circles than I've I've been in and are those conversations talked about like if if if one billionaire picked a city to take care of we could probably solve a lot of the the little problems without having to have a a tax debate I don't think I'm in a lot of those conversations to be honest no um and the conversations I am in politically you know moving to Nashville what I've really learned is I have really great friends on the left and I have really great friends on the right and being that I built communication tools and systems and worked on the last era social platforms I feel like my real like personal ambition right now is to try to like bring back the overlap of the conversation and listening and understanding of each other to realize the more we have in common than different right and that's really what I do in Nashville I mean my one of my greatest friends is a really far-left guy in San Francisco and one of my greatest friends here is a pretty far right guy in Nashville and both of them are actually the same guy with different Deads right and they really actually agree on a lot more than they think and the the extreme version of both their consumption became the views of the world because of like the internet silos and more like extreme views or what get views um but I'm just really trying to find the common ground and bring us back to conversations around even these topics and you know I have been in some of these conversations but my personal interest is really finding the things that are more alike about us than different these days that's really my personal kind of goal and what I've really been trying to do and hosting people I flew in people from New York and SF and hosted something here and um just feeling and seeing the human side of all of us more and realizing that like we're we're really all just kind of like operating from something we consume some personal beliefs some personal bias and baggage and then fears of like how do we protect our families in our lives and ourselves and our you know worth and stuff like that um but I've been kind of it's been awesome like seeing those conversations start to happen that aren't right and wrong MH that aren't me versus you and are actually in the gray area of like understanding and listening and being like actually we're kind of we're kind of on the same page yeah absolutely so that's been my real personal mission over the last few years well I think we have we like right now the algorithm has us this conf by us on on whatever we're looking at we're like see see this side sucks that side sucks one one post I got called a right-wing Trump supporter and quote a leftwing libtard same post and it's like there's a lot of nuance yeah and we we as as Society in many ways we seem to have forgot that that we actually do have more in common than we have against each other I bet you even if you line up let's let's say Republicans and Democrats we might agree on 80% 80% is pretty damn good yeah you know it's pretty good and and it's been so difficult I think what I realized you know when I moved here I was like oh we hate what the other side ignores or doesn't see and when I realized that I was like we're not even we're not even we're not even talking about the same things MH and then like it's like everything that one person hated about the other they're not even they haven't even read the thing that they hate right and I'm like this is insane and it's so hard I have so much empathy for everyone because like you know those silos and those algorithms are very powerful to reconfirm our own bias and what we see and knowing that I you know have been building on top of those systems and thinking about algorithms and chat Bots and automation for you know 15 years and it's um yeah it's probably why we're not building a social network like I just have no interest in like building social and more just like personal intimate our most valuable relationships how do you protect our attention how do he protect our communication and so I don't know I think about it a lot I'm just trying to trying to bring the overlap of the VIN diagram back together a little bit that's good I feel like it really really blew blw apart yeah you know when Trump was in office 2016 I like a lot of Trump's policies I I was I was actually didn't support him in 2016 though but I I do like some of his policies and you talking about build the wall build the wall and when I'd give speeches I would say we should be building bridges not walls and I mean that not I I think we have to have a strong border don't get me wrong not saying that we don't actually and I don't love what's happened but the point being The Importance of Being connected with other people we should look to you know figuratively build Bridges with people and con con and find commonalities and not create walls and I think the messaging of that was really rough because like I said I actually I actually agree with a lot of what he his his policy but I think the wording of it means something else to other people and he and he he of course knows he knows what he's doing um and I think that causes division I would call Trump uh and I I am supporting Trump now but I've called him the the um uh divider and chief sorry my brain slipped I've been calling him the divider and chief for years you know because he divided and you know people started fighting and 2016 2017 I told my parents my family friends I said he's going to cause there's no way they're going to let him be president in 2020 I could see the whole thing there's no way that he could be president in 2020 something's going to happen that last year there's no way they're either going to assassinate him they're going to put some crazy pandemic I was like laying off that there's no way and then we got the pandemic and this whole cycle every I haven't liked the attacks on him for instance and it's all led to I mean this has been predictable to me but I bring it back to him inciting inside people this anger that they can't deal with and um I say all this because it's a weird thing I'm supporting Trump but I could point out what I think caused the visceral that he's experienced and the fact that the people on the other side have gone so wild and crazy to where they would actually want to kill the guy um but to me I'm like of course they would want to kill them they can't handle what he's saying it's going to uh cause this crazy emotion whether illogical and thinking that you know even seeing comments that it's okay oh we wish you would have you know bad things we wish you would have died and all this stuff it's like uh so I say all that because to bring it all back together I feel like we have to acknowledge a lot of different things and not allow those acknowledgments to put us in buckets that Mis interpret what we're we actually mean by it if if that makes makes sense yeah I mean for me I just feel like how do you stop being so divisive right like that's the question I would ask how do you stop being so divisive how do you build Bridges not walls you know I agree with that I absolutely agree with that and I it's I get torn with it with what we're dealing with right now um how do you how do you bring people together when the other side just wants to take you down you know that's a tough one too I think about what I would do in that situation I would I wouldn't I don't know if it's sides I think it's extremes and I think what happened was the internet actually rewarded the extreme so the people that were the moderate or actually on different sides but actually had things to say that weren't extreme just stop talking because actually the extremes became the voice and so the voice I think there's probably more overlap than we think yeah um and the ability to do what you're saying which is you know build Bridges and now walls yeah um yeah it's been it's been tough man I look at Society right now uh somewhat in some areas it's not you don't have a lot of Hope but then you know you think about the project that you're doing that gives me hope uh I feel like I know what it means you know it's like a it's a Dream It's amazing um you know what we're doing gives me hope because on the health side it's the right thing it's dangerous I face the same um you know to me what you're doing is good versus evil I feel like what I'm doing is good versus evil I've never taken an outside investor never taking a grant you know all self-funded because I don't want to be manipulated um in a certain way not saying somebody taking money is bad but you know sure it's a no like we're we're doing it for the right reasons and so I have hope with that but you know just two weeks ago we almost had a president that got his head shot off and I think about what life would be like right now if that would have happened and um you know we've got to figure out a way to really bring as you were just saying you're you want to bring people together I do too and I think part of the way it it starts is through open open conversation and not judging the other side so harshly that they retract and try to fight back it's like well you and I might have different uh opinions on stuff that's okay you know I don't dislike you no matter what you know like it's it's no matter what your opinion is you know who are you as a person who do I see you as a as a person your politics don't they're not your identity as a human being they're not your heart you know a lot of times our politics are a way that we we see making the world better hopefully that's what it is like the side that we let's say the side it's even saying that the side that we pick is uh you know we feel like this is the better thing for all people that's how I look at like what I'm thinking is what's better big picture you know and I think that people that have a different view they're like well what's better big picture and so if if it's really coming from a good place why do we attack that why don't we say let's have a exchange of ideas maybe you could change my mind maybe I could change your mind totally it takes it takes listening and on a human level to hear each other's struggles and fears underneath the headline right the headlines are us projecting sometimes our own insecurities and fears and stuff but below that is usually a very human connection that is the same thing us trying to just support our community support our family do something better for the world and be a better human yeah about human connection uh it reminds me the opposite of addiction there was a study that was done uh and soldiers from Vietnam came back and those that were addicted when they were in Vietnam uh that didn't have families they all stayed addicts those that had families got off of it and the the quote that came from that is the opposite of addiction is not sobriety the opposite of addiction is human connection it's one of the best quotes of addiction yeah absolutely so I think um addiction's you know that that human connection and just addiction runs in many forms you know there's substance but there is you know now we're just addicted to devices and you can distract ourselves with anything and they're so isolating and lonely and the loneliness feeds addiction and like anxiety it's just a it's just a it's a it's a bad Loop mhm um and that quote is very very powerful even looking at my family you know I didn't share earlier but it wasn't until I looked at my family and the history of my family tree CU When you deal with addiction and alcohol and you know for me I always struggled with that I just I was always drinking a lot and I could always justify it and it wasn't until I looked at my family tree that I felt like it wasn't a me problem that's the problem with all addiction you're like it's a it's a they call it um it's an ism I self me you know you think it's me and but you're not that important and actually I mapped out my last three generations of my family and 50% of my family had died from alcohol or addiction oh wow 50% half my family got massacred by addiction and they say this quote pain and addiction runs through families until someone stops to feel it and I I looked at this chart I could show it to you and I drew it out on my iPad and it's red for people who died yellow for people still alive but struggling or you know have uh recognized that they have addiction and what was fascinating about it was I went back to my uncle died you know from drinking my aunt died a liver failure my other aunt died from fent andol my mom and dad's brother and sisters my mom was saying Grandma and Grandpa were just always fighting and there's just no connection mhm and then we the stories we tell ourself about it so you were talking about your friend earlier about his father uh Grandpa passing away or getting killed mhm so I I'll tell the story because you know the lies and the jokes and the humor that we'll tell ourselves to try to ease the pain so my whole life Grandpa died accidentally falling down the stairs make playing a trick on grandma that's the story my whole life I've always like oh how' grandpa Daniel die you know and at my uncle's funeral two years ago I was going through this box and I pulled up this newspaper clipping and I still have it on my phone a picture of it and it says literally in like the 50s they write like not an obituary like someone passed away like detail and it says Daniel M Daniel was found hanging at the bottom of the stairs uh South Poria man Daniel dies of suicide and I'm like holy [ __ ] like our whole like we don't we don't we can't even say it right mhm but our half our family has died because of the absence of like connection and addiction and abuse and all this and like generational addiction and pain and suffering it's just like just blasting through our family yeah and no one talks about it and when I mapped it out it gave me hope because I was like oh I need to this is the reason to stop drinking is not cuz I can't just I can just tackle this myself it's that this thing is actually been the like one of the craziest like massacres for my family yeah and I when I look at that chart I look at it quite a bit that little drawing of the last three generations and it's half red and you're just like [ __ ] you know and so it actually weirdly gives me hope to know that it's bigger than me and like I need to basically get a handle on this because this thing is actually I need I want the next three trees of this generation to actually not have red on it right absolutely yeah yeah addiction's Wild Man I mean I was uh gosh 20 2008 around there I tore my LCL PCL miniscus and uh you know we had team doctors and so they gave me prescription opiates and so started taking those and I was on them for about two years and taking more and more and more as a time kind of went on and I um went to stop went through withd draw and I couldn't get off of it for about 6 months I was trying to stop and the withdrawal would get me it was just a circle CU all it would take is a pill to make me feel normal again you know just getting back to that normaly and so I went to a therapist and I said hey you know I feel like I'm completely functional running my companies but I'd rather have a clear brain and deal with the pain than a foggy brain and no pain whatsoever and he said America's behind the times when it comes to opio withdraw Google IBO gain so I Google IBO gain and it was illegal in America it was legal in Mexico and so um I was skeptical like what's going on here is this real or not sounds kind of fake but then I watched a couple documentaries and I was like I believe those people so I took a plane to Mexico City took a bus a couple hours south to a place called taslan Mexico did ioan at this Clinic that was really just like a House Retreat uh home 72 hours next later later never had a withdraw never had a craving wow and um so that was an experience with you know but it was I felt pretty helpless because I couldn't stop yeah and it was affecting my life I was functional R in my companies but you know um my brain just wasn't wasn't all there and I think um you know I drink wine I'm a wine drinker but for sure you know my brain's a little more foggy when I drink the night before you if you're doing it every single night you're not going to operate at that level that you need and um you know breaking the chains of actual addiction that your family's gone through especially in the times that we're that we're living through right now fentanyl is going through the roof you know I was doing the math um I don't remember specifically let's see if about 30,000 people under the age of 40 there was less than 30,000 people under the age of 40 that died of covid um it's a small number uh maybe was under the age of 30 but you know comparatively I was comparing those that have died of overdoses in the same amount of time and it's like 10x crazy it's it's wild and so um the F stuff's scary and it impacted you know my my aunt went from it was opioids right it was just a surgery right then it was just after the surgery and then it was that ran out and then it was heroin and then it was fentel and then it was a funeral you know and like I'll never forget my Mom calling me and telling me that I was I actually had had a really bad accident I had to get a rib removed and I was in the uh the cardiovascular ICU in San Francisco my mom visited me for a week and my poor mother I remember just a week long she was with me and then she went home on Saturday and her sister died on Sunday m and then I wasn't supposed to fly but I end up flying home just to go to the funeral and you know I was on opioids right I was on these like crazy pain meds but I was very I was like I never luckily I kind of only took them for a few days because I I needed it I mean it was like the most losing a rib hurts I can only imagine but like I remember just like it was just one of those moments of just like [ __ ] like this is how it started mhm like this is just you know the thing that's really helping me right now yeah which is you know a lot of addiction is that it really at one point does really help you absolutely when you think about what those people uh did the the the Sackler family with the uh with the um oxycotton yeah you seen those documentaries it's I mean that's as evil as as you can get it actually got my grandfather too and I look back my grandfather hurt his back at 83 years old was given oxycotton and he was mad about taking it and I look back now and he was addicted and um he had a bleeding in his stomach a small bleeding and instead of giving it fix he said it's time to check out cu he was tired of dealing with the back pain and the and the opiates and uh actually I just realized that maybe a year ago I'm like wait a second I was putting it together like that's when that's when the oxycoton push was going on that's what Grandpa was talking about um but yeah the human connection point of the addiction though is so uh it's not really talked about CU that's what we're all wanting ultimately connection with other human beings authentic relationships being able to share vulnerable things and not being judged harshly you know and you know I feel so blessed to have a great group of friends and and wonderful family that I can share with but um you know I don't think a lot of a lot of people understand the importance of that or maybe they just don't have it I don't think you ever learned I mean I never learned like and what you learn over time is that it's pretty simple it's the ability to say out loud to another human being the thing I'm really scared to say and that relieves so much pain and actually somebody said to me you're only as sick as your secrets and one of that line to me it's one of those lines where you're like holy crap and actually you know it's going through a relationship and you know a hard time in the relationship and this therapist this guy I love it's like the 6 he's like 67 he might be like 77 he's an older guy um but he's so wise and he said Shane here's the deal if you tell her it might end the relationship but if you don't it will and he said the secret is always the bum and so all the things were so scared to say about anything are the thing that actually relieves and builds all the connection that we want Y and it's like it's the hardest lesson that you'll always learn and you'll never perfect and you'll just always be like oh I can't I don't know if I can tell them this yeah and it all and sometimes the other it's not safe sometimes it actually is too much for the other person and it does create the environment sure which is I think where you learn not to do that is because actually the person that you're telling the truth to isn't ready to or able to accept it and that's actually probably when early on in your life you stop saying things yeah and so it's you know it's not like you can just start saying whatever you want to everyone and you know everyone's ready for it but that's the I think that's the that's the human struggle yeah I had a partner that was he saw vulnerability as weakness totally and I'm like man you know I find my strength in my vulnerability that's and probably what happened was he was vulnerable and his dad told him don't do that cuz you'll be a [ __ ] mhm and that is the thing that then you protect yourself by not being vulnerable yeah right and well it's just the cycle and so it's unraveling all that [ __ ] is insane yeah well it's so weird you know hearing this like you know here we come like Scotty the guy on the far right there um you know and I are all you know Fighters so you know and a lot of our friends are big Fighters Etc so we come from this what would be seemingly well is a masculine sport but you know we we're both very open and and Sher and uh so it's always weird when like for instance he saw is like oh vulnerability weakness why you're looking weak to people and I'm like I don't I don't care man I I'm not like if they think less of me because I'm sharing my heart then they don't need to be in my network you you know of course you got to be careful there's times where you know you don't just completely vulnerable at everything but to build authentic human connection you've got to have vulnerability you got to what's the you know here's here's what's been going on in my life you know I'm ashamed of this well you a lot of people just carry the shame around and as you were just talking about you've got to be able to let it go I forgot the quote we'll probably put it in the clip that you you said about the the secrets uh you're only as sick as your secrets you're only as sick as your secrets that's really really good man yeah when someone said that to me and then with drinking and alcohol or addiction and I I follow up I said but it's only a secret to me and you're like actually everyone already knew yeah like that guy drinks too much you know and it's it's interesting to just the ways you you know that you'll even lie to yourself I was talking to someone the other day I said my greatest lie to myself is I always say everything's great I could have the worst day of my life and you'd be like hey what's up man how's things going I'm like man thing's great right and actually what I've learned over time is my ability to say honestly it's one of those kind of a shitty day is actually the the thing to learn um and I'm I'm I'm a more I'm really optimistic person usually pretty good energy but like my ability to even say that versus always protecting myself with great is uh you know it so sounds sounds like being a little [ __ ] right now like a little vulnerable but like that actually is the thing that that more authentic and honest self where you know people ask me now like you know how's your day and I'm like man I been stressed as [ __ ] right you know and I never and I drank my way through my last company right it's great it's great we're [ __ ] almost out of money you know we're burning so much money I got you know tons of employees and they're just sitting there in this like and and luckily to like will and almost killing myself and ending up you know I ended up in the hospital actually when we were almost out of money before we got acquired couldn't do this deal deal fell through I flew to Nashville I don't know if I've ever told this I flew to Nashville landed my buddy was getting married in Franklin and I went to lunch with a friend before I went to the wedding and he he was like are you okay and I was like dude my whole face feels numb and I couldn't feel my face and he's like dude you're probably having a stroke and he rushed me this is like 2017 and he rushed me to Vanderbilt and the thing about ER is if if you have numbness they think it's a stroke so they admit you instantly and so I got in instantly and eight hours later CAT scan MRI all these things nothing shows up and the doc's like how much do you work how much do you like how much stressed are you and I was like probably the highest level right now pretty much like running at fumes 150 flights a year probably drink a lot more than I should just trying to stay alive both work and himself he's like you're going to die if you keep it up and I was like and I was 2017 it took me you know four more years to really I think slow down and get you know coming got acquired then I had a couple years to recoup and stuff but uh I'll never remember that I'll never forget that day I call my I'm not going to be at your wedding you know and I was in Vanderbilt Hospital and it's just stress and then everyone else is like I thought everything was great like yeah me too yeah man yeah I know that uh know that feeling um it's funny that we almost kill ourselves over our businesses our companies I I've been there I I have been there as as well uh you know um yeah multiple times to where you know I've had broke out in hives I mean we on my arms all my like soft spots would just be like rashes and I'd be like oh and I I'm like it's tide it's the detergent I'm going to change the detergent and I'm like I got four different detergents said the same thing dud just sitting there turning it out I'm like no it's for sure the detergent and I'm like getting worse and yeah it's amazing well you'll fool yourself oh it's yeah no it's the the the amount of stress and I've got a lot better with it I don't feel like it's as stressful now as it used to be you know the first six months we actually lived in the hospital so we were like cuz we didn't know how to run a hospital so I'm like well let's just live in here stay in one of the patient rooms and figure every you know like figure everything out and um yeah man I mean the the stress as a entrepreneur really going for it when you know the the weight of everything is on your shoulders it's it's Indescribable I mean you and you also have everyone else's you know job and their fames I think about I I didn't have family at the time you know and just thinking about you know our coo and our you know my co-founder and his family and their kids and I just always wore that and that amount of stress and so I have so much empathy for Founders and employees just everyone in startups I mean they're kind of like an irrational vehicle themselves you know ventur is an irrational thing it's like just searching for exponential growth and they just cause chaos and so you're just kind of like trying to keep the wheels on always um and I just I don't know I just really try hard to like have so much heart and uh be there for other Founders and employees and teams and people just building things that are really uh ambitious because the ambition has a dark side oh yeah and be there for them but also it really helps me because if I can show up more you know people now will say man I'm you just you sharing so honestly just and allowing me to no one else my investors don't do that no one does that and I say call me with what you're scared to call your investors for that's what I tell Founders but it's really good for me too yeah it actually it's might be fully self- serving right it's like I actually needed that as well and that is the cycle well uh one of my favorite quotes is win and doubt Focus out like when's the last time you felt bad feeding the homeless or when's the last time you felt bad doing something good for other people totally and so that's that goes to that you know um it really does and I think it's good though like I carry the weight of all my employees too cuz I like but we should do that I think as owners because they are relying on us and you know hell high water I'm going to make sure they're getting their paycheck and I don't have to lay anybody off totally you know and if I do they knew what I learned over the last years of being a Founder that has made my life better better is to be so honest with them about where we are MH and not live in the like trying to protect them by making it seem like it's great because it's actually a disservice and I protect them by them knowing for sure what they signed up for clear on where we're at I share our bank account balance I share our money I share where we're at I tell them we're not there yet you know before we actually had any Integrations we're like oh no we've done a lot of great we don't have product Market fit that's fine when you like say things like that before you know when you're in the early days and I think being more confident in that versus trying to actually like feed my own insecure self being like it's [ __ ] great we're doing good and that has helped a lot I think because then you're not living in the lie or the secret you're not trying to lie I'm not saying Li is you're not living in the like the the optimistic projection of it's working yeah because then when it start because that starts to crumble and then all a sudden you're trying to actually pull a rabbit out of a hat yep and that's where all the hell happens well well see like in Mexico like our our employees we we don't share our bank accounts or anything like that um and it's a different culture but my goal is to make sure every employee is a millionaire by the time I'm done so every employee I have and which is a million dollars in in Mexico is a lot more money than a million dollars is in in America and uh I mean I'm talking about my cleaners I'm talking about the maintenance guys you know the people that are grinding it out every day to make sure the hospital runs the patients have clean everything you know the patient coordinators uh of course the doctors and stuff too but like you I want everybody that's like the they don't even know this and I I don't want to I don't want to say it out loud to get their hopes up but that is you know what my goal is with it I think I think we're going to be able to do it I think we're we're pretty D gum close to uh really you know really taking off um so that's the you know that's that's what I want for them and uh I think you know there is that responsibility though to make sure they're taking care of when Co happened had to lay off well no we didn't we kept 200 plus employees on uh for three months when we were completely closed and we gave them like hey this is what's this is where we're at you know uh if someone's in trouble let us know and we'll do what we can after that 3 months we're not sure that we're going to be able to you know survive Cashwise because we had we were at our lowest cash flow position when covid hit that we had been at in years because we had funded everything ourselves so it was bad man and if we don't get loans in Mexico so you know like this this whole Lab builds all cash not financed and so which is kind of a you know maybe we should take some money when one day but um you know I don't want the outside influence and uh but the you know the employees to me are so important because they're like they're like our family they're the ones that are actually making this [ __ ] happen they are we just have the vision and then you hire a bunch of great people and let them work make sure you have the right we fire a lot of people too don't get me wrong like someone's not a good fit you got to go but if you're the right fit you're willing to work hard or if you're if I see you're willing to work hard you might be in the wrong position I'll find a spot for you somewhere else you know and uh we had a mate this is amazing my maintenance manager um who's overseen the buildout I found out six months after he he was he's like just started out as a regular maintenance guy on this big renovation 25 years old I found out he started working and in maintenance at our company cuz he wanted to work in our lab one day that's what got that's why he took the Dum that's awesome and so it's just you think about the impact with the companies that we build that we can have on a lot of people so why not make it as amazing as possible for them why not I mean that's that's what it's about dude that's what it's really about helping people with our product or you know science whatever but it's also building those around uh around us and teaching them other leadership skills other ways of thinking you know um and and to me that's I I don't know that's that's like I'm as passionate about that as as I am about the the science I think I mean it's really all it is right it's just people and I always just say that I think great leaders create more leaders and that's my personal kind of drive it's really good great leaders create more leaders that's true but we need to create leaders man I love it and um I really appreciate this conversation going it for a while I learned a lot oh thanks I I did too man I'm I'm pumped about what you're doing uh I do see the potential the real potential maybe I don't see it all but like I see a that can change the world that's that's what we need we need a decentralized product decentralized banking product that's connected to the app I think we just we we went 15 years all of our communication centralized right Facebook Twitter iMessage everything just went inside of silos and the next 15 years is about of our communication decentralizing yeah buddy and I think it's just uh the two trends of the world are money and messaging and I think they're the two biggest things on the internet and we should make them decentralized an idea whose Time Has Come can't be stopped soe here we are thank you man thank you brother