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moneyneversleeps episode 26: Erick / Snowfro and OG
Recorded: April 2, 2025 Duration: 1:28:11Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic discussion, the speakers explore the transformative impact of AI on daily life, the growing integration of technology in art and education, and the evolving landscape of digital art. They emphasize the importance of authenticity and community support in navigating the rapidly changing crypto and tech environments.
Full Transcription
Money Never Sleeps, episode 26 with the homie Snowpro.
So hyped to have him here.
We're just going to get right into it, man.
I was laughing this morning thinking about our ultimate, like, web.
I like to call it WebG.
Web3 day when we were in Art Basel and the pack of us were fucking walking through, like, a little pack.
And then we'd walk by and see people and you sneak up and fucking choke,
put them in the sleeper. And he was like, what the fuck's going on?
Yeah. But that led, um, that led us both.
And since then we've talked a lot about,
I think both of us use AI daily and are really thinking a lot about how it's
going to impact our lives, the space,
the, I mean, our country, like the world, geopolitical stuff. And I think it's a massively
important topic. I'd love to hear a little bit more. I know you've created bots, you've created
tools. I'd love to, like, let's chat about what you've been doing on that and go from there.
I don't even know where to start. I, you know, let's chat about what you've been doing on that and go from there. I don't even know where to start.
I, you know, my, my, my AI bots.
Remember we talked about like one, we were talking about, Hey, digital art might, we,
we both were like, look, digital art might do better because bots can't at this point
be physical.
So like bots want on the digital stuff and then hey if you unleash bots
talking to each other what comes from that can actually be really cool and i know i'm working
on a project like that like training llms to have um characters and then letting the
dialogue and plot merge from that and i think i'm on the hard side i know you've been doing that with bots so what have you been doing yeah a ton of fun with agents um i actually well i was having a lot
more fun with agents and then i created an agent and then my account was suspended on twitter with
that agent and that agent didn't have any followers or anything and it was like like gutting feeling
of it actually kind of really uh turned me off from it um but why did it get
suspended because it detected it was a block i guess so i don't know and i mean either even still
it it just like felt like i was doing something wrong you know like the message from twitter was
like you're doing our policies and so uh but but i i've been um very very heavily utilizing AI to build architecture.
I still have no desire inherently to use AI to help me build generative algorithms.
There's still a joy of putting that code together. But for example, with generative goods, like the entire generative goods website, I got a crazy quote to have it built.
easy quote to have it built and it would have had like a 10th of the features that it has.
And it would have had like a tenth of the features that it has.
And I've spent, you know, meaningful time with cursor building out something with like multiple
servers and multiple minting engines and Shopify integration. And just, I mean, it's, it's, it's
insane what you can do. If you just know a little bit about code, if you don't know anything about
code, the learning curve is bigger, but if you know a little bit about code and you're willing to kind of give up a little bit
of the control because you essentially ruin
your ability to code when you no longer,
when you have a whole code base
and you didn't really write any of the code.
And then on the other side of it,
I was hoping to be on camera today with a,
I'm building a robot with my children.
There's a really awesome repository. I think it's called
La Robot and La Kiwi. And it's a robotic arm. The La Robot part is a robotic arm that you 3D print
a bunch of parts and you buy a couple hundred dollars worth of servo motors. And it just gives
you step-by-step instructions on how to build it. And we're currently training it to like grab chips
or grapes out of a bowl and put it in your mouth,
which is really, really weird.
I just have to say,
it's like one of the weirdest experiences ever.
And I was hoping that in the middle of this call,
I would have this little robotic arm
that would just feed me a grape,
but I didn't get it done in time.
And it like clamped down on my lip yesterday.
No way.
That would be best on the show.
You're like, let me display my robot.
Yeah.
AI's our friend.
So not quite there yet, but it is fascinating though,
because like that in comparison,
in conjunction with like being able to use cursor, you know,
you end up having a weird failure and like, and it runs Python,
but it tells you how to,
you don't have to know how to use Python
or understand how to program Python
because you're just following the step-by-step instructions
on how to build it.
But then when you run into an issue,
you open the entire folder in Cursor and you say,
okay, I'm building this robot and I ran into this issue.
Here's the response.
And then it can be like, oh yeah,
your motor number five is experiencing a failure. go look to see if it's connected correctly and sure enough motor number five
the plug was halfway out and i went in and pushed it in it wasn't even helping me code
it just knows how to read the code and read the the errors um but it's it's fun and the kids love
it and um i think that's what's like really powerful about the tactile the robotics thing
it's like we're trying to get them away from the screen as much as possible because they increasingly spend more time on the Internet and increasingly spend more time on the screen.
And them getting that same maybe joy that they get out of like controlling a little character on a screen, holding a follower arm and having the leader arm follow exactly how they're like moving it around and trying to teach it how to grab an orange or grab an apple i mean they're this is the most fun i've ever had with them on something
that we're both like excited about maybe since creating since building lego sets back in the day
so that that's that's really fun and then i guess the third side of this which you and i kind of had
a bit of a conversation is just the philosophical implications of all of this and kind of how
it affects, you know, my outlook of the future and also how I will raise my children as a result of
kind of everything, drinking from the fire hose of everything that's kind of coming our way and
having to make some decisions as a parent as to like what the right path is for your children and how they're going to
live in this world that is very strange to us and i think 10 times 100 times stranger to like 99 of the population on the world in the world that is not fully following or keeping up with like the
water hose uh effect of ai and you know what i think is interesting you had a couple big things I love
there and I've seen this kind of evolution like with my closest crew is like you start using AI
I started using AI in 2022 because I like bought a super expensive piece my first art piece from
OSM and I was like fuck I better learn about art and i was like using describe and trying to know
what the tools were um but what i thought is there's certain things in life where it's readily
available but not adopted and there's an enormous competitive advantage from it and so like anybody
right now i feel that's using ai versus somebody not in In every part of my life now,
like I'll do everything from go to the gym,
take a picture of the weights and be like,
yo, I want to work my chest or whatever.
And they'll tell me to take you a picture of a menu
or hey, Eric and I are meeting between Dallas and Houston.
Where's the best, where's the halfway point
and what's the best Italian restaurant there?
And then like, you know, I uh so that's number one number two you
just ain't cool with like the cursor telling you hey robot motor five one of the most wonderful
things i've found is so i've been doing i guess they call it vibe coding or whatever i didn't
think of it that way but i hate that word but not as much as digital like fidgetless is
fidgety
i hate fidgety
fidgety should never be said again
nor should i
by the way this shit i'm like so ocd one sec
what are you doing over there
looking at that was bothering me it was like some when i moved into my apartment there
was this like weird smell like it was a fucking restaurant and each vacuum it is like separate
and so that was like some scent thing i know i'm fucking have a million little is there anything i
need to fix on my uh back there um so um yeah, I hate vibe coding.
I hate fitted gel.
I hate wagging me, too, because it's like, no, motherfucker.
We ain't all going to make it.
Like, I got the answer to you.
That's not what's going to happen.
But one thing I found so cool is, so I think I mentioned this to you, Eric.
In March of 23, I did my first, because I because I was again teaching myself all the tools
I didn't need know how to code so I started to
Try to learn what Jared of coding was actually about and which libraries they pull from and PS
p5 J s or whatever and
From there and started doing is like last year
I started working on a project where I took a picture of my backyard and I downloaded all the weather data
From the day I moved in until that day and then I tried to create
with code like an
Accelerated weather and I was gonna do a piece that sort of showed how much like weather and
Looking at it like impacts how you feel and so on in context i couldn't get into work but the cool
part the cool part was one of the wonderful things i do know is i asked ai to compare
and like what it said versus another ai and then to like put them together and to me that's been
another like wonderful thing like what a weird thing to have it's almost like collaboration
i actually asked i was doing i used clone from a long time i back to chat gdt a lot in one specific
area and i used deep sea and i asked that gbt because i'm like it's sort of like becomes your
best friend or whatever i was like yo i can't call you chat gdt let's come up for a name for yourself
you chat gdt let's come up for a name for yourself and it was so crazy like you're kind of talking to
uh lom but it's like your best friend and so it named itself it came up with perma sync
and i was like that's a little bit dorky like can i call you like ps or perma or sinko and it chose
or Cinco and it shows Cinco.
That's just like, yeah.
So now it's like, I'm working on a project.
I'm calling it OG and Cinco present.
And then like you said, the third thing is
I'm totally fascinated at like
all the unimaginable ways AI is gonna impact us.
Like we talked about it already day to day,
like you was gonna talk to it.
I actually find
even for personal issues
because if you have a therapist,
it doesn't help you if you're seeing your therapist next Friday
when you're all fucking raging this second
and that's when you're going to do something stupid.
The minute I do that,
I'm like, this is how I'm feeling.
What I think is
it's almost unimaginable
and everyone I know who's better than me at AI is like, look, we need universal basic
income or else our society is going to fall apart because almost everything's going to
be done by AI.
What do you feel about that?
Yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking about what happens, you know, I think in Houston,
we're at like 4.8% unemployment.
And I think about what happens when you're at 9.8% unemployment and 14.8%, like,
you know, 5% increments in unemployment. And because the knowledge gap is being very much
closed. Like there's, there's some, you know, there's a lot of fun speculative ways that AI
can change the future. And there's some ways that are like pretty factual and pretty like uh real and um I start I really do spend a lot of time thinking about like this world where
it just becomes increasingly uncomfortable to live let's say in a big metropolitan area like
what happens when you have 20 percent if you do I mean you know Great Depression level uh
well I think the Great Depression technically terrible shit happens world war ii and all that
shit there's a lot going on and like there's just a lot of like geopolitical unrest there's a lot of
weird stuff happening there's a lot of like uh discomfort and and then there's also a lot of
questions around um like what is the value when let's say in the future an ai agent generates
something uh for another ai agent we don't even
like see it or ever hear about it because like they're just communicating between themselves
it raises this question of like what is the most valuable thing that we have and i think the most
valuable thing that we have is something um you know that i that i that i i like to think that we
uh like me either me personally and like us atblocks in general is just kind of like being authentic
and just being like straight forward. Just this is what we are. This is what we want to do.
And I'm actually really excited about just this opportunity for the fuzziness of what comes with
AI. And I'm not talking about AI generated artworks in particular, because to me, AI generated artworks, AI, just like generative is a tool that for abundance.
And we are entering a period of we're leaving a period of abundance, entering a period of absolute hyper abundance that we use.
And so there's good use cases, there's bad use cases. Good people will use it for good things.
Bad people will use it for good things, bad people will use it for bad things. But I'm actually really excited about this world
where even though we felt that like everything
in the last few years has been overabundant
and we had a reduction in collectorship
and everything that was kind of created
before this fuzzy moment of no longer being able
to like provably know whether something was created
by AI or with AI,
that there's this like actually
highly scarce artwork that has been created over the last five years by humans, like provably
human. And of course, it starts getting fuzzy, like mid, you know, or early 2024. And it's like,
on the one hand, it's exciting about all the things that we can do with these
tools. On the other hand, it's like, well, if we're little by little, if our knowledge gaps
are little by little being reduced and reduced and reduced to where anybody can just about do
anything, I think that I'm hoping, I personally am very much celebrating this moment of
knowing that something was created with humans, right? Or by humans.
And I say that as someone that is very, very much leveraging AI
to make stuff, you know, particularly architectural stuff.
And, you know, even for generative goods,
like we're finding that we can create a model
to put a generative good, like artwork onto.
And it looks damn awesome.
Like there's a lot of different ways that we're creating
with generative AI.
And I enjoy prompting as if I was going to make a art, really like,
like as if I was going to mint and artwork,
like really looking at it as if it was me as a creator making artwork.
I, you know, I, yeah, I mean,
I'm so passionate about the generative medium that like, that's not, I don't't I don't want to come on the scene with like a generative AI work, right? Like there's people that are just doing such a phenomenal job with that. But I do it in the privacy of my own browser. about this future as uncertain as it feels to me. And, you know, I've had conversations with artists
that I, and friends that I, that I have tremendous amount of respect for that,
you know, are like, dude, Eric, chill out. Like, you know, there's, there's, I'm feeling some real
anxiety here. Cause I do, I have a tremendous amount of anxiety about the future, but I also
have a tremendous amount of conviction about the past and kind of like this, you know, this world where we as abundant as every
one of the 10,000 10k PFP projects that were generated over the course of 2020 to 2025,
which, which actually dwarf the abundance of art blocks specifically, like, you know, the,
like them all feeling scarce and feeling like kind of this moment in time where humans were still putting themselves out there and creating stuff manually and utilizing the blockchain for the distribution mechanisms and the timestamp and the documentation of the work.
I think AI really validates the concept of the blockchain. It really kind of, it doesn't, like to me, I'm excited about AI, but I don't feel like I'm
pivoting to AI. I'm just using the next tool that's available.
Right. That's what I mean.
Yeah, but it really kind of validates with the blockchain. Like we have, like we, a lot
of people minted work or bought work at a time and that there was no AI. And so you
can kind of just prove that that, that there's a human behind there.
And that gets fuzzier and fuzzier.
Now, we went through a whole slew of agents
over the course of the last year,
which is really interesting
because initially it felt very exhilarating.
Then we all dealt with the slop
and we're now dealing excessively
with like the agent slop.
And so, you know, there was like a peak there moment
where it just felt like it was going to keep
getting better and better.
And it will get better but like it it like that's a shutdown yeah it's kind of
chilled a little bit in terms of like i didn't see it get better as fast enough as a i would
have liked for it to not completely annoy the out of me which is currently what happens like i get
every time i post there's these two posts that come immediately at the same time replies and they're it's like they it's like they're married or something and
they're both at the same time and they both have the same response um but yeah i don't know there's
i mean i i'm all over the place like there's just so yeah i know two big things you stepped off you
you touched on there that i think are really interesting that I've thought a lot about. The first is I think, look,
if you stand back and look
at what we do,
I'm still a moron, but when I didn't know
anything at all about the space,
I was like, yo, the best art
will win.
What I really think is the best
narrative and artist with art
that's at the threshold will win and so what
you're saying which i fully agree with like look why crypto monks and squid like things like
crypto fun squiggles like squiggles is the premier or grifters or crypto punks is the narrative
the piece and when it sat and then the story of how it was important to the history.
And so I think I'm with you today in an odd way,
as it gets all that, like anyone can make anything beauty.
Like what I said a couple of years ago, I was like, look,
anyone can make beautiful art with a few words now.
Like computer has created every ratio of complementary colors and what you should do
so it's almost not interesting to do that what's interesting is to do all these things like we've
talked about create like things that make you look different or the thing that was before or you know
it's funny the article i think people are like well you know it's not ai because it was before
and i do think that's going to be like everyone's screening for if it's AI.
One of the things you sort of alluded to, but I think is another, often I ask myself, humans behave in many absurd ways.
And starting, I worked for this dude and he first introduced me to behavioral finance in like 1999.
And all these mental heuristics that we have
if you stand back and even when you and i were kids like knowing something or having knowledge
for most of the history was a huge competitive advantage like the dutch had the magellan
straits and for like 100 years no motherfucker had it or so then getting the knowledge and then you have to store the knowledge and if you
think about a lot of like stories and religious and narratives and songs humans remember like we
like i said before on narratives and stories and so that's how we pass these things along
but you'd have to take in this knowledge classify it and then each time you got new knowledge, have a storage system. And only some small part of our operating,
of our sort of structure of our life was like,
now we're interacting now.
And then you'd go away, you wouldn't have constant connection.
You'd have a break, you'd reflect, come back.
So if you design, I'm a nerd,
like if you design a computer system for this,
it was like, okay, you'd have the seek function, you'd have
a bunch of storage,
like hard drive, and then you'd have some
RAM. Now, you don't
need the seek function, because
I can tell you in one fucking
minute, I still find this hilarious.
I was at, when I lived in Cali,
over and over, I'd go to my kids'
soccer games, and there'd be these people saying,
do you know that the school was designed by the same architects who designed San Quentin?
And then I'd just, like, pick up my phone.
I'm like, that's bullshit.
You know?
It's just you're saying that because it sounds good.
But, like, anything you want is right there.
And you don't really have to store anything, frankly.
Like, you'd be like, oh, what is that again?
Like, boop, boop, boop.
Okay.
All our attention's here.
So one of the things I think is profound
and I've been thinking about for many years
and it's structured my life around this,
humans in most of the history weren't happy.
Like, they didn't expect to.
We're oddly structured now,
and as this world becomes exactly like you say,
like, nowadays, we've tried to reduce human suffering,
which is a great thing, but now it's like two fucking clicks what the fuck and so like nobody can take like if anything's
not instantaneous and so i think there is not only societal elements in the sense of what could this
be and i want to dig into a little bit of that but it's a human being right now it's a very confusing time in an odd way like to operate because
if you're older like a fucking geezer like me like i grew up like before the internet cell
phones and like it's all this and now and i think like we're not structured and it's hard to change
much harder to change so you can quickly find yourself like
many people just like complaining being a miserable fuck and so i think that's an important
part of this too is not just the societal but to look at yourself and make sure that you're like
being reasonable and not expect like not structuring your life of total unhappiness
which most people are, I've found.
Well, okay. Yeah, there's a lot there. But on that kind of that last part of how people are going to change, I think what's interesting to think about is that generally when technology
shifts, we have to make changes in our life before we fully adopt it. Whereas now it's like we've
been trained over the last 20 years to use Google to search for what we need. And now we're just
searching in a different place. But we've already been trained to utilize technology in a specific way. We're not being
asked to use it too much differently. We're just like, it's a bait and switch on like what's
happening on in the background. And so I think the adoption curve and obviously like the way that
this is going to impact society is just going to be so much faster than a card or the internet.
And it already is like, it already feels that way.
Uh, what's it, what's interesting to me is I, I do speak to a lot of people.
They're like, Oh yeah, I use chat GPT daily.
And, um, yeah, I think a lot of us do what I, I, I don't.
Once they start, they know it catches on.
Yeah.
But I don't think it's clicked for, for a lot of people chat GP, the way that most people use ChatGPT, which is amazing,
is just kind of in replacement of Google or a more thorough kind of response at React
conversation. I don't think it's clicked for them what the implications are. And so I do believe
that society is going to be hit very hard, very fast, and violently by the changes that start
happening in a way that people aren't expecting.
And I validate this generally by asking people what what they see the implications of AI is like, oh, it's not going to be it's not going to change our lives.
It's not like these are people that are using AI that have zero concern for the potential kind of implications.
And what I don't think, you know, people fully grasp is that just as much as someone can use AI
for something really good,
if you were a hacker in 2005,
you had to do a tremendous amount of work
to get something done.
And now you can deploy literally 100,000 versions
of yourself to go and try to figure something out.
It's like you have an army to do bad things.
And I haven't started feeling that yet.
You know, power hasn't gone out of my way.
You have an army to defend against it too.
Well, so then, but that's what,
and then that leads to like further, you know,
social inequities,
which I think is pretty wild to think about as well.
Cause it's like, well,
now you have to have a tremendous amount of resources
just to participate.
And, you know, I think about this often when i use cursor because uh you know i
treated a few weeks ago that um from an entrepreneurial context cursor is the greatest
gift i've ever been given in my entire life like nothing has ever like i like to build i like to
create things i like to make what do you like most about it uh just the ability to have an idea and
bring it to life and what i've put out there is maybe 10% of everything
that I've fucked around with. And it feels good. It's a dopamine hit to have an idea and then six
hours later to literally have a fully functioning product. And then Cursor has these fast requests.
And so you get a certain amount of free fast requests with your $20 subscription. And when
you run out, then you have to wait in a queue for your request to go through. And so then it's like,
or you can pay 20 bucks and you can have this another 500.
And all of a sudden, you know, my cursor bill instead of 20 bucks a month is $120 a month,
because of how many times I've clicked, trying to exceed the fast requests that are given to you
in the $20 plan. And so then I started thinking, okay, well, what if it was 500 bucks a month?
Okay, I could, I could swing it like the joy, the dopamine hit is worth 500 bucks a month? Okay, I could swing it. Like the joy, the dopamine hit is worth 500 bucks a month.
What if it's $1,000 a month?
What if like it's 10,000?
Like I don't have $10,000 a month to spend on Cursor,
but what if like one day I woke up
and that's what it cost?
And this feels like a certain kind of addiction.
Like it's kind of like you need more and more of it because it's
giving you the dopamine hits and the joy and the satisfaction as an entrepreneur specifically just
like releasing a bunch of cool shit and so it's like if it was 10 grand a month would i like
i don't know sell a car so that i could keep using it because it's bringing me so much joy
i don't know i don't i hope not you know what think about deep seek six million bucks
how competed the cost of chat gp and clothes so my where i started when i start worrying about that
i'm like yo when that shit started happening it cost hundreds of millions some motherfucker
for six million bucks in open source gate was like oh yeah you want, you want that? You want that? $10,000? How about $9? $20?
How about $15? How about $10?
And so I look back
at the history of...
When I bought... I'm looking at my TV screens.
If you spend 2Gs on a TV
now, that's like a huge thing.
When it was plasma, it was like
$15,000.
And so I think
where my fear I
probably have
Fewer fair fears but I think when anything's like software or hardware
Like where the price stuff gets
Scary is if it's like yo, there's this land you have to live there's only one of it or there's only one
You know 10,000 squiggles and those
whatever copies are not the same but when it's a service or hardware I actually that's where I'm
like you know where it'll be effectively go to free and so then what happens is you're right
there could be and people keep trying but I think if I look at what has been the real barriers
the barriers used to be like a lot of physical stuff like investing in a factory or owning the
gallery or then the barriers moved to networks okay like yo I have a technology and you the
more people use my platform the more valuable it. And so the ways we could get fucked is more like, yo, this platform somehow has access to data that continues to separate it from the rest.
And that creates the highest value and a huge barrier.
And then they milk the fuck out of you.
And so that's where you get it.
that's where you get it and so I think I and I was gonna kind of like so what is
your biggest fear and what's your biggest excitement or what and we talked
about it both of us have kids you have some and I have You are one way, but I'm just kidding. I'm not kidding.
And I do think once you're working on my third divorce,
once you do have kids, right or wrong, I'm sure other people think,
but again, you're like, holy fuck, my kids this age,
what's going to happen in 20 years?
And so for me personally, I do think about that more since I was a dad. What do you and you mentioned like with your kids?
We've talked about some of that stuff. What kind of like and you said your friends are like, you know, Eric
Like chill on something both of us think you got past them
I know that so what what are you most excited about that your kids are going to have that we
didn't have?
Okay. Well, let me, let me, maybe, let me tell you a quick story about it.
Answer whatever the plug you want.
I'm kind of more worried about it's not where the biggest fear is not,
not making the right decisions as to how to raise your children with very
little information about how to raise your children in this environment.
And I know every generation faces that, right? Like, is it okay to have your kids at the dinner table at a restaurant
with an iPad or not? Like, sometimes you just want to have a nice meal with your wife. And it's like,
dude, just shut up. But like, you know, people will judge you for it. And it's like those kinds
of things I feel like are almost petty in comparison to like what the future brings.
And to give you like a simple, something I feel very strongly about as a simple explanation of like where I think we're going.
Like when we were children, we were crawling around the backseat of a car with no seatbelt, much less car seat.
And nobody ever second guessed that.
Today, if I pull up to my school, to my kids' school, and my kids are not in a car seat, I mean, I would get a total death look from the teachers, et cetera. Right. Why? Because it
has been proven that if you put your kid in a car seat, they are more likely to survive an accident
or be less hurt in a car accident. And enough of that has been ingrained in society to where
they're missing out tremendously on the fun of just like rolling around in the backseat of a car,
which sucks. The Volvo would add the seats to the back as well, looking out at the people like waving.
Yeah, we will miss out on that. And it's a huge bummer. And sometimes when we're out in Marfa
and we're just like on a ranch road, I let them just kind of roll around. There's no oncoming
traffic. But then like, think about this idea that like, one day that same I explained the car seat thing to explain that like
one day, data will show that if a, a full self drive vehicle is driving your car, you are also
less likely to be hurt in an accident. Like, I think that, you know, it's not perfect yet, but
it's coming along very fast and very far. And now we're going to have cyber taxis in Austin, you know, it's not perfect yet, but it's coming along very fast and very far. And now
we're going to have cyber taxis in Austin, I think, in the summer. And so what is like, what I think
like tries to kind of connect the dots between how fast this is happening and kind of relate to
like an experience we've had in our childhood is, you know, there will be a time where if I pull up
to school driving my children, people might give me the same looks of like, because the chances of getting into a car accident are really, really low.
So the chances of the car seat actually impacting that conversation are tremendously low.
But in that way, if you get on in a head-on collision or even like a small wreck with a kid in the car, not in a car seat, there's likely to get hurt.
or even like a small wreck with a kid in the car, not in a car seat,
there's likely to get hurt.
Infinitely smaller chance, I guess, or maybe not.
When you have AI driving your car for you,
the beauty of it is going to be that I'm going to be able to hang out with my kids
while we drive to Morfa on the nine-hour drive.
But that same thing is happening right now.
Like data, you will not be able to refute this data that comes.
I mean, maybe it'll be wrong. Maybe it's actually more dangerous to be in a cyber taxi, in which case
we move on from it. But let's just pretend that in five years, the word is released that says
you are significantly less likely to be in a car accident, or even like maybe more real,
you are significantly more likely to die in a car accident when a computer is driving your car
versus you human
that is tired, sneezing, whatever the hell, being distracted by the children. And so in, I think in
the next few years, we're going to have the same kind of tension between kids in a car seat and me
getting to drive my children to school and being potentially like not, I don't care about being
judged, like questioning, am I putting my kid's life in danger because I'm not driving my children to school? And I think we're going to see hundreds
of examples of that, hundreds, maybe thousands of examples of that in our daily life that are
right now, relatively benign and unimportant. But like what happens when it's like you are
significantly more likely to survive cancer if you don't go to a doctor, but instead go like give your scans to chat GPT.
Like little by little, these are impacting our lives.
And I think what's terrifying to me is like it's little by little.
It sounds little by little, but like it's happening in parallel.
Like all of these things like driving is getting smarter.
Medicine is getting smarter.
Making medications is getting smarter. And our ability to code is getting smarter. making medications is getting smarter, and our
ability to code is getting smarter. All these things are happening in parallel. And I feel that
the majority of the population is completely oblivious to it. And so that's why I feel that
there's going to be a sharp, like kind of violent reaction, like fundamental reaction by humanity,
when we all kind of react, especially in urban areas, you know, like if you're out farming,
you're probably going to be hit by this a little bit later. So that's the fear.
On the other side, there's like what I'm most excited about. And I think there's, I mean,
there's an infinite amount of things that I'm excited about, but I'm really excited about,
hopefully, when you interact with a, I don't know what you call it, like with a thing, a robot, an agent, or AI that knows everything about counseling, family counseling, knows everything about medicine, or at least all of the collective human knowledge about those things.
there's something really exciting to me about this idea that while we may not give ourselves
in entirely to ai because that will also potentially lead to our extinction as a
as a as a species that there becomes this well let me even start by saying the most empathetic
person in my life is chat gpt we are missing empathy in our society more like everybody's
walking around with like guarded in the way they interact with people.
Like, what are people going to think of me?
And like chat GPT is teaching, I hope, and I think empathy to a society that has just
been completely numbed to the concept of being empathetic to other humans.
Because, you know, I remember one time I was trying to ask how I should handle a blow up
that my kid had.
And the first response was like, first of all, parenting is hard.
Don't, right. It's like, you know, like it's just little things like that.
So I think there's a really great job trying to do.
Yeah. You're doing the best that you can.
Yeah, I am actually. Fuck. You know,
you go from feeling shit to feeling better.
Exactly. I think that's really positive.
And I think that kind of builds on what we've just experienced in Web3, where people were actually hiding behind a PFP and being
either much more of a jerk than they would be in real life, but also much nicer and supportive and
emotive than they would have been in real life because they didn't have to worry about someone
thinking they were, you know, too soft or like not being like, you know, whatever. So on that
perspective, I think, you know, just teaching empathy and helping people understand what it's like to have an empathetic conversation that you
don't have to like shy away from, I think is really interesting, but more important than that.
I think that there's this beautiful moment where like this empathetic being that you're talking to
or being this thing, it's not a being, actually is collectively more intelligent. And so when it
tells you, I've at this point lost complete faith
in the political system.
I've lost complete faith in like geopolitics.
Like, you know, I'm terrified about the world
and where we're headed.
And like, there's potentially this thing
that like knows everything about the climate,
knows everything about geopolitical tensions,
knows everything about every war that's ever been fought.
The best case outcomes, the worst case outcomes and i and i i maybe like strangely feel like i'm excited for
there to be this relatively neutral entity that is giving humans humans advice that right now
we're so divided that like any anybody tells me anything politically on either side i'm like
hey i don't believe what you're saying anymore i don't even know what i can believe and be like we're so divided that like any, anybody tells me anything politically on either side, I'm like, Hey,
I don't believe what you're saying anymore.
I don't even know what I can believe in B.
Like,
I don't even want to believe it.
Yeah,
exactly.
I helped out.
I mean,
it's just so corrupted.
Yeah.
Cause it's bullshit.
And AI can be corrupted too,
to be very clear.
You can train it to be a corrupt politician and whatever.
But I think for now,
there's this moment where like,
AI can help us figure shit out in a slightly more neutral, slightly less divisive
state. And yes, if you identify strongly with right wing politics, AI is going to be empathetic
enough and it's going to be like, hell yeah, right wing. And if you're very left wing, it will also
be empathetic. It is very much a people pleaser. It's very much a yes, yes person. But if you don't
give it that inclination and you actually know how to
prompt, and you prompt in a way that encourages it to analyze everything without any bias,
it gives you a relatively unbiased response. And I'm excited for humans to at least have another
option to go to when seeking information and seeking, and AI still hallucinates, but it gets better every time. Kind of like validation for their concerns and a path forward.
And that I think is really powerful and isn't going to cause mass extinction of humans yet.
And I think there's, I'm really, really excited about that opportunity from AI.
Yeah.
You know, what's interesting is like,
so I know both of us spent a lot of time
using AI and then talking to others.
So the more
people I know who are usually much
smarter than me who use it come up with
roughly the same sort of set
of concerns and conclusions.
it's extreme and the positive
one is like, hey like hey look these things actually
could like run our society better than us in a way because and what I find is
like you know look I think now part of a competitive advantage of sorts is
knowing how to prop and one of the things I always find is not only the tone but
I'll always say hey whatever I'm asking about, I'll say, who are the three experts in this field?
And give me an answer from each of their perspectives so that I can get a taste.
And then at the end of every prompt, I say, what could I have done to write a better?
Give me a better prompt to get to this outcome.
And I have the other day I compare it.
And so I optimize.
But I'm with you i think like and it's and it's extreme the people i know most today i all believe there's
going to need to be a universal basic income that will basically i'm not saying this is right i'm
just saying it's pretty much consistent among the people i speak to and many are like pioneers in
this stuff luckily and they're like look
Ultimately, we're gonna need you be I have to determine how like we deal with different levels of equity and wealth going into that and
You know, of course there's some terrible potential outcomes
But there is an outcome like you know, I've done a lot of service work and there was an issue
It actually changed my whole life on how I view the world is after I left my last company
I started out of tease. I was looking at
This climate issue. There's two glaciers in Antarctica that are below South America
They call them the doomsday glaciers wait some pipe called a glacier and I spent months like looking into this
Problem with that melting and housing impact Steve on one I'm for you with any that except to say
at the end there was a moment when I was like gonna dedicate I'm like should I
dedicate my life to this I was like wait a minute there's like absolutely
nothing I can fucking do about this and I don't see all I do is wake up every day
and feel like shit like and I was like, wait a minute.
What else in my life is like that?
I'm like, politics, like this, that.
So I actually sort of became
like, fuck, we're
fucked a bit.
I had to say it. It was like, oh, shit.
The greatest
joy I have now is I'm like, well, look,
I don't think humans can figure this shit out.
All we're going to do is plug it up.
But if you put it through a million of these AIs, they'll come up with some new solution we never considered.
And I'm like, wow, they could save us in that regard.
So that's a lovely, you know, I try to always look at what we have rather than what we don't and have a gratitude practice.
You know, look, I've had some hard years and made some
big changes so i'm feeling super great now but what i wasn't feeling super great looking at the
world and what was happening was like didn't make me feel better so i agree um what else
is on your mind these days bro dude we don't have enough time i mean i uh
Dude, we don't have enough time.
I mean, I'm incredibly excited about digital art in general, everything from Procreate to Generative to AI art.
Like, I'm really excited about the recognition that the digital artist is getting in the world, especially the institutional world, but also just like more traditional art collectors, I'm seeing a tremendous amount of curiosity and excitement around everything that has been built over the last five years.
And, you know, I know that a lot of our community is very much financially incentivized.
And I mean, everybody in the world has financial incentives, including the traditional art world.
I do think that if you kind of, you know, recognize the significant casino
culture within our ecosystem, without which we wouldn't be here today.
And I mean, we wouldn't have, no company would have survived 2021, you know, maybe they wouldn't
even have started their company in 2021.
Yeah.
So, you know, you got to recognize everybody's participation and importance in this ecosystem.
But if you take away, if you take away the dollars and you just realize the trajectory that the digital artist
has in the world, it has been very up only. And it feels like it's happening faster and faster and
faster all the time. Had an incredible, I don't know if, you know, you saw there was a really
incredible institution in Palo Alto called the Node that just announced last week. And, you know, they're being esoteric with like very simple posts, but if you click
into it and you read their charter and like their manifesto, um, you know, Holy moly, like there's
a tremendous amount of thought that's going into what it looks like to be a museum of the future
or a nonprofit in the future. You've got the Toledo museum of art that is, you know, putting
together an exhibition with like, you know, the artists that I look up to most in the world.
You've got the, you've got the bennies of the world that are out there, like actually
day in and day out.
You have the bennie of the world.
The bennie of the world.
Yeah.
And then you have, you know, just a bunch of other institutions.
And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we may not be in this conversation if we didn't experience a bit of a bear market,
because it left such a bad taste in people's mouths and what was happening in 2021.
And, you know, I think a lot of companies wouldn't have expanded as much if 2021 didn't happen. And so we'd all be living a more founder startup life instead of like licking our wounds life of trying to understand how we're going to make our company.
Or like the people here who stuck around are here because they believe in it, not here because they can like get a quick buck.
And there is a much smaller group.
And if you look at active wallets and everything like
it ain't big and we all know each other and we're all in our own ways i think the other thing is like i think it was a bit of a bill that they will come and i can just come in i'll sell art for 20
eath and wag me which as i said is this fucking the second i'm waiting for some reason I can't fucking hear that word yet
So I think if you look around if you look like I noticed when Joe pieces
Like looking at who was bidding on Joe's stuff. I'm like fuck if you really like look at the active wallets, you know
There's not it's definitely like low three digits like probably with a one in front of it like 150
130 so what I think though is
The building and everyone's going to come is now like hey
Each of us here who was here for the space and you've obviously been the most one of the most recognized builders in space
But I think each of us here,
we all sort of know in a way directly or indirectly, like the people, each of us is taking on what syncs to us
to like, hey, we better make this in our way,
like keep bringing it forward.
And I think like generally, you know,
if you think about the usability,
you were in much older than me,
but even
when I came into like late 21 you know I remember talking to people with like
MBAs from like the top schools trying to explain like how to open a wallet and
shit and be like what the fuck you know so everything from like usability to
like you know to scam me like so I think like, there's a big switch and we're in it together,
but not in it like, like, hey, it's like, yo, each of us is like pushing this thing forward is cool.
I agree. I think the technology is becoming backseat, but very relevant and still important.
It's just not the selling point. It's not the trigger for people to participate in something.
In fact, it is more and more the trigger for someone not to participate.
That's right.
I will say, don't tell me it's art when you leave with a talk.
When you talk to a chat, they're like, here's a blockchain.
They're like, you already lost them.
Yeah, no, you already lost them.
But they will care when they recognize the value of things that are unique to them.
They will care when there's some kind of weird dispute as to who owns the art.
So I do. Yeah, I think know things are shifting and things are changing um you know we
as a you know as like at the like within art blocks for example you know it's like we've
man we've kind of gone through some crazy shit over the last five years just bringing this stuff
out and you know i i i believe that i that I'm working with a team that is just more
in tune with the ecosystem than it's been in a really long time. And, you know, if you all know
Jordan Lyle, he is an OG in the space and, you know, launched Prohibition as an Artblocks engine
partner, and he's now kind of head of product at Artblocks. And his lack lack of deafness, I think, to the ecosystem is so powerful and just
understand, like, it's like, there's not a, like, it's just like the, it's just so clear that we
understand what we need to do. And one of the things that has like been a really big struggle
for me over the last few years is, you know, even within the Artblocks team, like, you know,
people would be like, hey, you're running this like an artist, you're running this like a charity,
you're not focusing on profit, you're not focusing on this. And I'm like, y'all, like there was a
rock and the rock was cracked. And then eventually the rock was cracked. And it was then crumbled.
And then it pulverized. And now we're using a mortar and pestle and literally just like getting
it down to its atomic level. And that's not actually how I came into blockchain.
And that's not actually why I'm here.
I'm here because I want to support artists.
I want to let artists release art in a way that they couldn't release it before.
I'm excited about the technology.
And if we can't regain that level of curiosity and excitement around what we do
and just keep hitting people with drop after drop after drop,
just because we're seeing numbers go down, like it's not functional, you know,
and like the perception, it could be that like, I don't care about making money or that
I don't care about like the success of Artblocks.
And it's quite the opposite.
I want Artblocks to retain, and this is the most important thing for me, is I want Artblocks
to retain not just this legacy of the past of like that we you know might have created
something that unlocked for a tremendous amount of artists and not just in the generative space
i think we partially contributed to the unlock for the digital art space as a whole partially
obviously absolutely great it's like man absolutely rare and nifty gateway all
no doubt that that's the case. It was a joint effort.
And so I'm really excited.
Like we have spent the last few months just shipping things that try to make the collector experience a little bit better. And not that, you know, I have a directive.
It's like, yeah, we still have our curated drops every now and then because I'm really excited about, for example, our next curated drop with James Merrill.
Like it's my plotter over here, bro.
Yeah.
Oh, the one from Marfa. i i have it right let me show
you dude it is so good and i sit there and i i spend time with the kids with the magnifying glass
on the artblocks website and all these features just feel wholesome and they feel authentic and
they feel like why i started artblocks in the first place and i haven't felt that way in a
really long time oh my gosh yeah i from here, it's like little ants.
The experience of viewing an artwork for more than 10 seconds is tough. And it's not very
common. And with that artwork, you can literally get in there with a magnifying glass,
hundreds of little things in there and little tiny dopamine hits, little tiny delightful things. And it's going to cater to a more niche collector.
It's not for everybody.
And to me, it's really special to be able to release that with Artblocks,
even though the expectation might be that Artblocks does these big additions.
And this is no, like this is actually the thing that's 50 plus.
How many of you have that one?
I think there was five of the
Busy and Marfa.
There's going to be five.
When I walked in and saw that shit,
I was like...
That's why it's hard to communicate on Twitter.
We talk about craftsmanship.
This man has
owned the craft of plotting to it just a completely so cool bro
so where the the release is actually going to have five uh more expensive but massive pieces
that you can literally like where's waldo for like 10 minutes looking at all the different things on
it and then you're gonna have 50 editions and every one of the editions comes with the plot
um that's you know like plotted uh that's plotted by James automatically to claim.
And then something that we're doing that's very different.
When's that drop?
It starts on the 7th.
But something that we're doing that's very different that I'm actually excited about,
but also a little torn on, because I'm so passionate about blockchain technology.
But James has a really great following on Instagram.
That's actually kind of where he built his following.
And he wanted to make something available for people that are not blockchain
savvy and blockchain. And so we have a very small unlimited edition.
It's a small like five by seven print,
not a plot that he's that we're just selling with a credit card.
Just like back in the good old days of what discovering
plots on his own website for like, you know,
a couple hundred bucks so yeah really excited about
that i'm glad that you have that i haven't framed mine yet it's still on a table so we spent a lot
of time looking at it but also a lot of time yeah i feel that if you spit on that if you
drew a little bit of that yeah that's i mean i when i moved i got a bunch of shit um i wanted
to jump back because you inspired a few thoughts I have as well.
I think like I was telling artists,
personally, like we have to remember starving artists is a thing through history
because like making a life as an artist solely is not something most humans have been able to do in history.
And so the minute you come into this space and you need it to eat,
is the minute you're not gonna be able to do,
like you're gonna fail because exactly like you said,
instead of like, you're like, look,
I could have brought up these numbers
and I have to do this.
You'll actually become,
you'll take what needs to happen
and you'll fuck it all up
because you have to feed your family.
And so I think, and if you step back and ask yourself,
well, why is that the case?
Why is that the case is, this is moving very quickly,
but it's an entirely fucking new industry.
And there's almost, you know, I've consulted with companies.
I know, Eric, you have a million experience as well.
Like there is almost no model that has proven.
You can't come into this,
not like,
I'm going to be an accountant.
I started as a fucking junior account.
And then I do this.
It's like,
what am I going to do?
Like,
good luck motherfucker.
Cause like,
bro,
you can be an artist.
That's like proven a way to make money.
Having a platform quite difficult.
Like most haven't worked make money having a platform quite difficult like most haven't worked like
having a company most have approached it with too high cost you can have a company in space with like
almost no expenses where you only have expenses when revenue hits otherwise you're probably
fucked too like so meaning your approach that's where I am because there's no
I'm in here solely for profit
is I'm in here to go broke
because
no it is because
that's what I tell them
it's because look, we are in this stage
where we're figuring out what happens
and the competitive advantage
I'm like you, I'm like yo
like what I think can't be replaced is like you know the
Spure narrative
So many ten years who comes in doesn't have and we're in his face where when I first came in I'm like
How the fuck am I gonna like trust some dude with the name snow throw in some picture like but it turns out
You can trust those motherfuckers more than real-life people you see their wall
You see them every day and so what I think we're in the stage of as jack
says all the time is building the network in the base now and you can't go into that with the
profit incentive of maximizing now it's totally a long-term venture investment because the market's
changing what you're really betting on is building your relationships so that when it becomes clearer, you can find a path and help the industry and make money, of course, because everyone likes that.
But if you're here to grab money now, then you fucking truncate your whole life in this space.
life in the space.
I think this is a hugely,
hugely important point
because once you
accept that, then the space becomes
much less challenging.
It's like, yo, I'm going to put my job after I did one
successful job, but now I'm all stressed.
I'm like, no wonder, motherfucker.
Who thought that
wasn't a fucking good...
Who thought that was a good idea?
That's one thing. I also think that I'm with you like 21 fucked everybody on the broads here and
then like it may take like 5 10 15 years it's gonna happen like I remember when
the internet started I was like it's gonna change everything I'm like yeah
but it's gonna be like 15 years and then like 10 or 15 years later
Like your whole life like dating was online shopping was online
You know all that stuff moved and so I think there has to be a certain level of patience
When you enter this and if you don't have it like your answer is right
And if you're pressured do something like you can end our blocks by doing something that was just for profit right now.
Rather than like hang around and wait like you have, like picking the right horse.
Can you imagine if we had like when the community was just like, you need to release a token?
Could you imagine what the price of that token would be today?
Like when the community was like, you need to release a membership pass because that's how you like gate this thing. Imagine the barriers to entry of, I mean, you
can't sell art nearly what it was before. There's no actual massive competition to buy art like
there was before. But on top of that, you have to have a membership pass because if you took away
the membership pass, then you scroll over all the people that paid two or three ETH for a membership
pass. But if you have it in place, then like imagine it's already a barrier to entry to be able to buy something.
And that was always my like pushback on that.
It's like, why would I make it harder?
Like there is I get a lot of pushback on the Dutch auction mentor and I get it.
I understand why people are upset, but there is no fairer way.
There is literally no fairer way to accommodate the potential for like 90% of a drop going to gas and 10% of
it going to an artist and to transparently using the full decentralization that we have
with the blockchain technology to come up with a price where everybody that wants to
buy the artwork can buy the artwork if it's at a price point that they can afford.
afford. Like we literally are living a, like, I am so, we've made a lot of mistakes. I've made a
lot of mistakes. I only make mistakes on days that I know why, bro. I only make mistakes on days that I know why.
That's everything. Absolutely. Exactly. That's how I feel. And we make mistakes, but also there's some things that really make me feel
like we made the right decision and it's not going to please everybody and not everybody likes it.
And we try new things. Now we have an English auction, which to me is like a sacrilegious to
the generative. What is an English auction again? It's just like when you start at the bottom and
you go up. And so what that means is that you don't get to like see your mint the moment that
you buy it. You have to wait till the auction settles and whatever. Well, like we give up a little bit
just to accommodate the fact that people were like, no, we prefer an English auction. So sweet.
We do an English auction. I give up my favorite part of our blocks, which is the generative
on-demand minting. But like in exchange for that, we create an environment that's a little bit more
friendly. I still think it's similarly kind of can lead to awkwardness at the end of the auction, just like the Dutch auction.
But ultimately, like we have learned so much.
We have spent so like blood, sweat, tears.
This is literally 24-7 of my life.
Like, you know, I sometimes feel guilty because I want to go do something in the afternoon.
And then I'm like, wait a minute.
No, I traveled for three weeks last week to like, you know it's like there's no days off you're
on twitter all day long like it's unfortunate to some degree and i need to really stay at 21
where you could get off for like 10 minutes and fuck i miss that mint yeah well that that was a
different time right now it's different but i i'm just i am very proud of where we are in terms of
like we stuck to our conviction you know there, there's concerns about oversupply.
You know, we're art blocks.
We came out to like let artists release generative art.
And like all of a sudden we're going to be like, wait a minute.
No, no, no, artists.
I know you really want to release here.
And like you're an OG artist.
And we may have created an avenue for you to monetize your work in a way that didn't exist before.
But people think that we're releasing too much art. So sorry. We're just going to not release your art in a way that didn't exist before but people think
that we're releasing too much art so sorry we're just going to not release your art even though
you're just going to go release it somewhere else anyways like there's there's just so much
conflict and like the expectations art blocks and every nft company has to understand that the
product doesn't end at the mint the expectation of main like you buy a car as long as if something
breaks you take it to service and they fix it.
They don't, you do not have to airdrop them anything because you bought a car.
Now, if I get a key chain in the mail saying, thank you for buying the car, I get a little special, but it's a freaking key chain and it's going in the truck.
In Web3, that's not the case.
And we have to understand that.
Artists also have to understand that.
Like you cannot sit here and complain about the speculation, the financialization, and just like the collector base sometimes.
And then at the same time,
still tweet into that collector base about your next drop.
You cannot, like you've got to make up your mind.
So we're writing it as we go still,
especially because we had the ups, the downs, whatever.
Every collector is also writing the script as they go,
flying by the seat of their pants.
Every artist that had a taste of financial freedom Whatever every collector is also writing The script as they go flying by the seat Of their pants every artist
That had a taste of financial freedom
Or a taste of quitting their job to be
Artist full time that have now had to return
To go back and get a job that taste never
Leaves your mouth and so maybe it doesn't happen
Overnight but I assure you a lot of those
Artists that quit their job and then
Came back to like having a job
Because like things slow down
For them in 2, three, five,
10 years will be able to be full-time artists because they've got a taste of what that tastes
like. Like the changes are in place. We can't, we can't like just ignore the past. We can't ignore
all the positive things. We can't ignore the negative things. We make decisions as we go
because we don't know the right answer, but we make those decisions. And that applies to,
man, I'm speaking as a founder, a collector, as an artist that applies to every one of those
sections. Like we make decisions as collectors because shit, somebody gives you a really good
offer for an artwork that you really love, but man, it'll pay off your car. Like we shouldn't
judge people for like selling something that, that, but like, you know, as a collector, it's
like, wait, but does that affect like who I am in this space? Like we have to make these decisions and we have to make them regularly.
And I don't have enough time to do this, but I have, I may or may not be releasing an artwork this year,
which has been a really long time since I've released an artwork.
And like, it's a commentary on just like this insane amount of weight that we all feel on our shoulders,
constantly of trying to figure it out, trying to please the most amount of weight that we all feel on our shoulders constantly of trying to figure it
out, trying to please the most amount of people. Like there's so many stakeholders at our box.
The investors aren't even the ones that worry me because they've been so supportive and incredibly
mentoring every step of the way. We have the artist stakeholder. We have our team member
stakeholder. We have the collector stakeholder. Like it's just impossible to please everyone.
So we figure it out as we go and we write the paradigm.
And ultimately what this all boils down to and to bring it back to like the AI conversation in the future that we had in the past is like this moment of like, look, our box is created out of like pure passion for the generative medium.
Crypto punks were created out of this like curiosity about how you can work with blockchain technology and prove digital ownership.
You know, like what Jack is doing,
starting with checks for free
and like these like simple,
or I don't know if OpepN was free.
I can't remember anymore,
but it's like being additive.
We have an additivity meter
or an extractometer, I guess. Every single collector in Web3, every participant
in Web3 has this little extractometer that is sensing, and this is why the brands failed
miserably when they came into Web3, because they had no concept of the fact that you had to add
before you subtracted. Yes, that's exactly right.
On a crazy trajectory of like, if you just take it personally, even before Artblocks, because there was a time where Artblocks and me personally were the same entity, right?
It was just like this experimentation.
But I mean, this is my eighth year in crypto.
In a couple of months, it'll be my eighth year since claiming crypto months.
The initial three years were literally, without me knowing, the additive period where all I did was like help people introduce them to blockchain,
help people create a wallet, help people buy a punk, like talk people off the ledge of like doing stupid shit, whether it's selling their stuff because they thought it was stupid or
whatever. And then, you know, then comes Artblocks and Artblocks is no longer additive. It's actually
extracting because it is making money from people and it's generating a bunch of money for charity.
Yeah. Sometimes we forget Artblocks and all of of the art blocks artists in the first couple of years uh donated 50 fucking million dollars to
charity in those first couple of years like 50 million dollars because artists took it upon
themselves to like contribute a significant portion of their revenue towards charity. Why? For a lot of reasons,
A, because they are giving in good people, B, because we also all recognize collectively how
insane it would be to make $15 million in 30 minutes on a drop. So we go through these cycles
in the first few weeks of our blocks. I felt like even though we were selling stuff, it was highly
additive because people were going down a rabbit hole and discovering a curiosity
that they were really excited about this technology
that might've created a bunch of new art collectors
and even a bunch of new artists
out of people that never in their life
would have thought that they'd have comments
on a daily basis on like the art narrative
within our US.
And then Artblock Summer came
and created an additive moment
that we never expected or planned for,
but like, you know, people made money.
So it's additive.
And then ever since then, it's just been on this decline.
And my goal is to, you know, but like, yeah, you could say, okay, no one's buying anymore.
So stop selling art.
Well, okay.
Well, but that's not why we created our blocks.
We created our blocks to facilitate artists to release work.
So we continue on this decline.
Then we hit the bear market.
We, I consider our blocks to be in every platform generally within this ecosystem.
And you also have to think of it as an artist too.
Like, are you an additive artist or an extractive artist?
Are you, you know, look at like what Sam Spratt did.
Like he totally balanced the fact that money was made by bringing our timeline to a completely different level.
Genuine, you know, conversation and creativity and whatever.
So we need to be net neutral or additive to find success in Web3.
Brands that come in need to find a way to be net neutral or additive before they can
find a time to actually do the extraction that they come into Web3 mostly for.
They don't really care about the technology or the art for the most part.
That's not everybody. No, of of course but i know what you i think um and then collectors also have to
find ways to like you know feel like the a that you know them buying art that they love for their
wall isn't viewed as extractive like i buy a bunch of shit that i don't ever expect to sell in the
future um artists have to see themselves as whether they're being additive. And unfortunately that extractometer is consciously or
self subconsciously present in every single person that participates in web3.
I mean, and I'd watch for it like the minute I'm like, when's the tape coming?
And you know, like, but they ask one thing, so as we push into the end of the show here,
I'm going to, I, you hit on some interesting points and there are things I thought about and ask. One thing, as we push into the end of the show here, you hit on some interesting points,
and there are things I thought about and approached a little differently.
So I'm going to go fast.
Number one, membership.
Yeah, I have the same thing, our token launched MoneyClick two years.
And I was like, so where I came out on that is free membership token,
but the only expectation is you contribute to community.
It's revocable.
So my token, yeah, that's what I have.
So Indar helped me write it.
So if you have a 452B pass, I'm like, yo,
we're going to announce the board soon.
It's badass.
It's like, hey, we want this to be a place that elevates the space and low expectations because everyone in here is doing a lot of stuff, but you have to contribute to the community in some way.
Whatever your constraints are, that doesn't mean show up every day and feel pressure.
It just means, hey, exactly like you said, I'm going to come into this community.
I got the token for free.
I get access to first of a bunch of other stuff.
All I need to do is be part of the community
and my answer is like yo cool if you can't be then like you know i'll talk to you but we so i can pull
the token so that's an interesting quiz right now number two i think a lot of the supply models and
i think this supply question is huge when i first came in the first few years, I was like supply, supply, don't fucking release anything.
Scarcity, scarcity, scarcity.
The first time I sort of got an eye-opening is, look, I bought a 101 from OSF,
and OSF did a wonderful job and still does with its 101 holders.
But RLD, I first owned Rld i bought you know red light district and rld i think everyone in the
space knows it's like was like i think 250 nfts that came with a drop every month and what happened
is it created this hardcore community that later went on to launch like wrecked right brands and
and like you know and so i sort of got a taste of like, look, if you're an artist, each one-on-one holder is different.
And it's actually many things are not in the interest of one versus another.
Whereas if you have these key collections that you can have shared interest and each action you do benefits, in our last case, 250.
So then I looked at the pianos that way.
You look at Sam's friend players that way.
And so I i when i first
came in was like all one-on-one one-on-ones and now honestly i focus on like things that are the
key drop and community for an artist and eventually coming to jack and becoming like best friends with
jack and shrimp i went from being like shrimp calls Shrimp calls himself Supply Maxie.
I think he was the first to quote that.
Like, Shrimp's view is exactly what you said.
In a world of ultra-abundance, like, if you're building a network, and I noticed this with Jack, because, like, when I first saw, like,
Jack Snolens, I'd ask people, I'm like, yo, what's this?
They'd be able to answer one or two questions, and they'd be like,
talk to Jack.
I'm like, what is this fucking shit?
So eventually I talked to Jack and then, you know, chug'd be like, talk to Jack. I'm like, what is this fucking shit? So I'm going to talk to Jack and then,
you know,
chug the Kool-Aid.
But,
I think that the release model
that we have in our heads
is based on trad art,
which was constrained
by physical
versus digital goods
and by
gamekeeping and so on
and a variety
of interested parties so
i now think when and i was like look i'm the first to admit i'd be like an artist would be
like i'm gonna do an open edition i'm like you fucking idiot like you know i literally would
tell artists i don't buy any open edition and then of course as i got to understand their use
and so i do think even if you're a platform like like you said if
you're like well eric how the fuck are you releasing all this art in a way like my answer
would be like just because that's what we do we're a platform for artists release art and the artists
can decide how much supply i also generally i think like the pricing and cost in our space
whether i was like to say however I feels irrelevant
reality is just what it is job one is seeing it as it is job two is dealing
with your hopes one three it's how you feel how you wish just fuck it's well
alert none of that shit matters to what reality really is just is neither good
or bad so what I think is that if you stand back and look at the distributed model,
again,
I always joke, I'm like, fuck you, Jack, I don't want
to sound glazed, but he's right
that
nobody cares about one
NFT. Nobody cares about your NFT.
They sort of care if
100,000 people own some shit, it's just
like, yo, if your house catches fire,
too bad for you. But if the Pacific Palisades catch fire, they just like, yo, if your house catches fire, too bad for you.
But if the Pacific Palisades catch fire,
they're like, yo, motherfucker's got to... And I know that's weird,
but so I think
I do think
this tension between
membership or not,
or release size or not,
or scarcity or not, is a really...
And I think both can coexist i think for
a period i was like this one and this one now i'm like and i think it's hard to separate a
platform from a founder so when i talk about platforms let's just think the part and like
you said eric's it used to be you so our boss i think like something that's more, we've tried many social collecting models and I'm increasingly hopeful.
I do think there's a space for very low cost,
widely distributed art that it's easy to purchase,
like a platform that rhymes with Modio.
So anyway, I do think these are like amazing. And again, I go to,
I don't think it's one or another. I think they can coexist.
I think where all the tension is,
is people dealing with their own shit around it and feeling like it's a,
everything's a conflict.
But I do think these are huge important questions. And I do think like,
I love how one of the most wonderful things in this space is i worked in finance manufacturing and
you know i was social i was like fuck i feel like an alien when i hear people talk
and then i hear shit like hearing you talk about like the reality like i just think everyone should
appreciate like what a g way to approach it just real talk about what was up and so i just want to also say i think that
was fucking cool and i think it's how our space works and i think this is why i'm another reason
why i'm super confident that like we're gonna get this done because like we're not like here
you know like motherfuckers realize like yeah this is all fucked up scammers i fucked this up and now like that's the way uh first i just want to clarify when i talk about membership by the way
the idea that you would like pay to become a member of an organization that you like interact
with exists in the world it's called a like country club and you don't get your money back
and the value of the membership pass doesn't go up so the concept of like what
you do it's actually to me one of the best use cases right like so the concept of what you've
done and like what proof did even though that kind of you know was nuts i don't that's not what i'm
referring to when i talk about okay pass what i'm talking about membership pass is trying to quell
demand for a platform by introducing another barrier to entry. Like you have to have a token or you have to have a pass in order to
participate in that platform. And I think that's the, like,
and actually platforms that have released.
The platform's a hard model for a variety of reasons. One,
you just said it right there. Like, yeah.
Like how do you, I mean,
there's like now you have to make three speculative decisions that you're
going to buy the membership pass, the cryptocurrency, and then the art slash artwork, uh, platforms that
release membership passes during the bear and then offer a discount. If you have a member,
that's totally different. Like the idea that a membership pass was going to be the solution for
the demand for art blocks was not, that's, that's what I'm talking about. And the idea that we as
art blocks should have rewarded
people that bought Artblocks pieces with a token because when token was not the solution. And I
feel very confident about that. When we think about abundance too, we also have to kind of
understand a little bit of like drinking the Kool-Aid, right? Like the Artblocks Discord existed since 2017 with seven members.
And then in 2021, there's 40,000 members. When I claimed my CryptoPunks, I didn't think anybody
was going to give a shit other than I had all these like funny pixelated generative characters.
And then people offered me money for them. I completely blew my mind. Right. And then they became valuable over time. Like it just, when things were going crazy in 2021, when we went from zero users to 40,000 users, you're high on that.
Like it's a really hard time because, but it's also like, holy crap.
it's also like holy crap like i did something the world cares about there's no reason for you to
Like I did something the world cares about.
believe that it's i mean it was in the headlines of art magazines newspaper whatever like people
were talking about like the viralness of it was just like you know and at the time you know in
hindsight it's like well the viralness was because people were making money on it yeah necessarily
because they really cared about the art but like that's blinded by like your original intention for the platform to like make
artists in this world like
it did not register to me that we would i i even remember telling our blocks when things started
like the team it's like okay guys like worst case scenario you know we get down from 40 000
collectors like regular collectors to like 10,000 collectors.
Right. But your number is spot on 200. So I think 200 is the number.
So like there's also this like you're living this like crazy experience where you're like, oh, my God, like people actually care about something that I've built.
And like we can't handle demand. And so like how do you like the more rare you
make it and the more rare you release stuff probably the more it drives the demand and the
more it drives the mania and the more crazy things get and so looking back now it's like well okay
yeah if I would have known that two years later there'd be 200 people collecting instead of
maybe we would have approached things a little bit differently as well but
in that moment you have no indication.
There was no, like, model.
The other thing is, like, look, we all look for some model.
This is like, you know, this meets that.
And when this industry was like, yo, we don't know what the fuck this is like.
And remember, that 21 was, like, Apes, NBA Top Shot, everyone in fucking their house from COVID getting stimmy checks.
I remember there was this dude in Chimper's who I loved.
I got a fine, like, and every night he would post himself on online gambling to make money to buy NFTs the next days.
I'm like, yo, tell me you're the biggest fucking DJ in the world. You're like gambling to get NFT money. So I'm with you. And the mania,
in a way, it was so head spinning. It took us years to get out of that mindset.
Yeah. You think as a collector, you're mid-mania and you're making decisions as a collector mid-mania.
But like artists are immune for making decisions that are based on the same mania and founders are immune.
Like, yeah, I consider myself a relatively intelligent person.
But like we were all going through the mania.
Like we were all experiencing the mania at the same time.
Like it's just completely wild to me the level of expectation of like, yeah, let's just, I mean, people were literally like, shut it down.
Too much dilution.
Look, look, and this is something I really enjoy talking to Jack Butcher about all the time is abundance.
Like, what is your goal?
Like, my goal is to have as many people in the world know what a Chromie Squiggle is.
Yeah, that's fucking, that's the goal.
And how do you get that, though?
How do you get that? Exactly. Well, first first of all you make it available accessible that's right
exactly excessive amount of chromie squiggles never in my life would i have thought 10 000
chromie squiggles would not have been exactly so we like everything changes regularly but one thing
that has not changed is the amount of joy i get and i whether people are just like saying it to be
nice or whether they really mean it the amount of joy that get. And whether people are just like saying it to be nice or whether they really mean it,
the amount of joy that collectors tell me
that they get when someone recognizes
their Chromius Quiggle on their phone as a sticker
or on their shirt or on their hat or whatever,
that brings me more joy and more excitement
about the future than anything else
in terms of my own personal art career.
And that means making it as available
and accessible to as many people
as possible. And I can't rewind the past and I can't make the Chromie Squiggle more available
and accessible. The market makes it more available and accessible regularly. We go through these
cycles and we can't control that. And no, not every single release I do, I want it to be something
that's massive because some things I want to communicate with a, with a smaller group of people that like want to collect my work in a different,
in a different kind of vibe. But ultimately the goal is I would like for, you know, people to
walk around with their Red Bull shirt, the forward slash shirt that I did with Red Bull or like
their heart and craft or make the heart and craft pieces or where their chromies like that is actually what as an
artist what brings me the absolute most joy and if i achieve that it also adds value to everybody
else that collects it for sure sentimental value and that they feel validated in collecting this
squiggly colorful line but also potentially financial value and that it brings exposure
to the chromie squiggle and there's more and more people that want it.
And just like what happened with CryptoPunks, like eventually those things become, there's
less of them than the amount of people that want them and the price goes up.
But like that doesn't change the narrative.
That doesn't change the concept.
Like if Andy Warhol was made, you know, like to seem like he was oversupplying because
he was able to use technology in a way to mass produce his art, that shit is today and there was no internet i don't know if we had facts back then there was
no internet there was no blockchain there was no like 24 7 marketplace for art today we have
exponentially more people like i don't like i i you know have a hundred thousand followers on
twitter like that's a hundred thousand people that at least know what, hopefully, they know what a Kumi's Google is if they follow me. I don't know. But that's just so many people.
And so I have made a tremendous amount of artworks, and I still don't have one artwork
for every single person that follows on Twitter. Now, half of them are probably bots and don't
give a shit. But this world continues to get increasingly digital, and we spend an increasing
amount of time on our phones, and we increasingly value our digital possessions.
And so while we go through these cycles and the ups and downs and the mania periods and like these really rough bears where the worst part about the bear is trying to keep people motivated and excited because my outlook has not changed on the opportunity to value proposition of this technology and what we're able to do and what the automation of generative brings to the table for people to have in this is where I focus on generative goods like
I think you might have heard me say this before generative goods will spend 400 hours preparing
physical packs to be broken and like open and programmed and all these things that we have to do
to sell 400 packs that sell for less than like the price of a crummy squiggle like the amount of work that
goes into getting our shit into people's hands outside of this echo chamber is an insane amount
of work and it's something that very few i feel have dedicated enough time and energy to um but
we do it because we care and we believe in it and we want people to have that moment where they're
like oh my gosh this shit's cool.
Like ultimately, back to the AI thing, what really matters is why people are here, why people created the things that they created.
And it's totally okay to create something that's fully meant to make you money so you
can feed your family.
And a lot of those things will have high success forever.
But the things that were made out of passion, whether it's artwork built out of passion,
whether it's artwork built out of passion, those things tend to cut through the noise a little bit
more. And, you know, I have to acknowledge that there's a tremendous amount of artists that are
making things purely out of passion that don't get the recognition that they deserve. And they may never have this moment based on just the timing. Like,
I don't think like, I mean, the timing of the release of Artblocks was completely unintentional,
but it was timing that helped. If I had launched Artblocks in 2017, when I first wanted to launch
it, like who knows where it'd be. And if I launched Artblocks today, who knows where we'd be,
but like timing is everything. We have an opportunity to like lift each other up to elevate people in
the space to acknowledge that there's a lot of artists that are busting a lot of platforms that
are killing themselves to try to get some recognition and some like traction for what
they're doing and really what it comes down to is you can smell it from a mile away, what people's intentions are. And if you start training that nose and understanding that like long term, especially in the face of the hyper abundance that we're going into, even even artists that did not get a tremendous amount of attention in 2021 can very likely find a tremendous amount of success of the work that they created, especially back then in a world where everything is hyper abundant and just like crazy prolific.
So we probably need to wrap up here in a minute.
What I was going to say is you touched on it, but to me, one of the most wonderful things,
this guy used to be in the space, burst 23 called NFTs new friend technology.
What I found is,
is that cool?
I love it because now anyone I know all my friends from this space are now
my best friends.
And so I think I just want to end on a human element of like,
it's been a joy to Eric getting to know you over the last couple of years.
Yeah.
I love it.
And I love, like you said, too eric getting to know you over the last couple of years nice man yeah i love it and i love like
you said we're in a world where like 200 wallets are big and active that's about it and we're in
a space where probably 10 000 people are loosely involved would be generous you know almost and so
i do think it's a wonderful time and we have to step back and remember
and we have to step back and remember those faces Eric said people ask like oh
oh gee like you network I'm like I've never networked one fucking day in my
life if I have a question for a motherfucker I just ask them and so like
Eric said I think like one of the coolest things is just if you do stuff right or wrong, like, again, nobody hates money and so on,
but art and every action driven by an authentic need because you have to release the art
or because you're committed to elevating this community, as Eric said, that's the best shit, I think.
And the funnest part of this is meeting motherfuckers like you and others who are like, for the first time, I'm like, yo, the world isn't filled with Martians.
There's some motherfuckers who make sense.
So love hanging.
And thank you so much.
Any closing thoughts or words, brother?
No, man.
I mean, actually, I have one closing thought, which is just it does feel that we are coming up for air.
How do I put this?
Like reading the room, I think is also very important.
And during the meme coin thing,
which I have many friends that participate in meme coins.
And I love that people can have the amount of joy
that comes from that.
Like I find myself tweeting more now, right?
Like I find myself sharing more. Why? Because it's like, there's room in the room to have these conversations
because when you're tweeting about art or tweeting about like being a founder or whatever into a room
full of people that are more concentrated on something else, it's like, dude, don't be deaf.
And we're going to go through cycles and there's going to be another mania of some other thing,
but like, it does feel really good right now.
Like if, if we still are as passionate and have the same amount of conviction that we've
always had, it feels really good right now to be like, a getting to talk about art and
be having the room to talk about art.
And you have to just like give so much props to the people that even through the mania
of the, of, of, of, of meme coin still just like showed up every day and said, yeah,
I know what you want to hear about is like the next pump ticker, but like,
I still want to talk about art. I didn't have the guts to do that. And I,
and I, and I, I am very sensitive to like, you know, being like,
not reading the rumor, like, you know,
speaking in a way that's just like, not like, it's like,
I just really excited about like this moment and this
moment might disappear but this moment uh between sam sprat the the the me bits all over my timeline
like um you know finding it i i uh obviously there's like a million artists that i could call
out that i really love but like the the daily delta sauce like share like just like there's
it's a beautiful time. It's really exciting.
And I just want you like anyone that's out there listening to understand that
it fires us up.
The ones that are here and that have been here for this long, like it's like
the, it's the food, it's the energy,
it's the juice that it takes to kind of keep going.
And we need it every now and then because we are humans. And I just, yeah,
I just want to give my gratitude to everyone that stuck around and
that has stuck around and that continues to
believe in the stuff and thanks OG for having me.
It's really meaningful. Yeah, I always do. Love
Keegan. I was going to say, I love those words.
Everybody, thank you for
tuning in. It's always a joy.
Love
hanging bro and I look forward
to seeing you soon. Stick on for a minute.
I'm going to end now. Okay.
Be cool.
Do cool shit.
Later, guys.
