15. Biggest Australian Crypto Event, Adobe Acquires Figma, NFT's Are New Hip Hop Culture

I had multiple people say that they thought for sure collective shift would be, like, over. And then, like, you know, be like, with all the shit that happened last year with Old Mate, like, just would have been dead and, like, no chance to see us. Any chance of, like, winning, right, or coming back. Like, just wrap it up, it's all over. And 18 months later, we've got one of the biggest booths there. We're doing a keynote, speaking, you know, just raised some money, we're on the way up again. People are like, holy, how the hell did you do that? Like, you know, how. How is this going? Right? And that was really inspiring. It was really nice. Foreign.

Welcome Back to episode 15 of the Ben and Berg Show. Your favorite MBA and college dropout talking about everything, investing, crypto, web3life, sport, food, and just general talking berks, mate. Sorry.

Absolutely love it.

Sorry for being a little bit late today. A little bit. I'm a little bit hungover.

You're always late. What are you talking about? You're literally like. You're like, oh, let's meet up at 3 o'. Clock. And it's like, 3 o'. Clock. I'm like, cool. Waiting around. Where's Ben? I'll just get on with some work. It's probably busy. It's like. Then I message you like, oh, yeah, man, let's just do like four o'. Clock, mate, that works for me. That'd be really good. You could do later if you want. Every time I Even posted on LinkedIn, I updated the thing about being a co host on the pod. And then you're just like, yeah, mate, that's awesome.

Or some crap like that.

I'm like, why are you posting and not jumping into the pod at the.

Time we're supposed to do the time? I'm congratulating you for being a co host on the show. I'm supposed to be.

Anyway, man, your.

Internet is absolutely rubbish. Where are you in the world, mate?

I'm down to two bars. I'm on the Gold coast, mate. We had the Australian Crypto Convention up here on the weekend and it was massive, mate. Biggest Australian crypto conference we've ever had. Day from the crypto den. Organized it. Unbelievable. He did a fantastic job. Over three or four thousand attendees. We were, we had a booth there. I spoke a couple of times on Sunday. And, mate, it is just. I love it, man. I love the in real life community aspect. Like, the crypto people are so just awesome. And, mate, we were just like. There was four of us. It was Matt, Nick, Myself. And we just got like, absolutely. Just swamped all day. Saturday was insane, mate. The line was so far along out the door, they actually stopped scanning people's tickets. And they said, right, just everyone in. There was just too many people.

That is crazy. This is one of the biggest events, right?

It's the biggest event in Australia and it's the first one. So here on the Gold coast, going to Melbourne next year, I did a keynote on why you should care about crypto. And that's sort of like some practical investing strategies, but it was really aimed for beginners. So I had all my slides ready. It's more like bringing people in. The first question I asked was, who he owns crypto? And every single person put their hand up and there was like, okay, how many. How long you been completely different? Like, more than two years. And everyone put their hand. I was like, oh, fuck. My whole presentation. He's not meant for you guys. And I started talking and then I was like, it's pack crowd, right? 120 people packed to the brain. There's people outside, there's people sitting on each other. Stand up like crazy. And I was like, oh.

This is. This. This is not gonna be valuable whatsoever. So actually, you'll see the recording because I actually take it, take a deep breath because, like, oh, this give me a fucking train wreck if I, like, no one cares about, like. Like a smart contract or, you know, why you need bitcoin. Everyone fucking owns it. Like, doesn't matter. So I took a deep breath. I was like, okay, fuck the slides. I'm just winging it. So I just basically lad. Just. Just went off the cuff for 20 minutes to q and A and. Yeah.

How'd it go?

Nailed it. I think heaps of people loved it.

Now, of course, you are such a fucking amateur. You rock up to a crypto convention, Go, who's bought crypto? Oh, I did the wrong talk. I can't recycle my talk. I've been using for 20 years.

I hadn't really thought about it. I was just too busy, man. Then, like, I hadn't really prepared. I was sort of rocked up in the morning. I was like, I still didn't think about it. I just rocked up. I was like, oh, fuck, yeah. I would have been over. This is probably didn't be no newbies here. We're in the bottom of bear market.

Mate.

Oh, amazing.

It was really good. Then we had a panel. So we spoke about words for education. And it was good. There was a lot of, like. It was good. Like crypto events up here in Queensland. Like, I haven't been up, you know, north too much here, but, you know, a real common theme was, you know, a lot of people trying to make money too fast in crypto. Like, everyone's trying to, you know, trade these sign up to these trading bots and these algorithms and these 1% a day and like, everyone's like, trying to fast track making money. And I'm seeing it's big, big, big problem.

It's weird that no one wants to get rich slowly. This is the same thing as like trying to lose you right there, mate.

Sucking down coffee, mate.

You're basically just choking on that thing, mate.

Let me finish this point.

And then you're gonna get it.

This is the thing. No one wants to get rich slowly. And it's the same as losing weight or putting on muscle. No one wants to do it slowly. We all know how to do it. We all know how to eat healthy, we know how to bait, how to exercise, how to lift weights. But it takes time and it takes patience. And these are the things that are worth achieving. It's like building your wealth. Everyone knows how to invest bare minimum, not financial advice. Take 10% of your income if you can afford it, stick it in an ETF or something like that. Do it week after week, month after month, and let it compound and eventually you'll be way ahead of everyone else. These are very simple things. Even like people my parents age, they didn't have, you know, ETFs and all that stuff, so they just bought another house. They bought. That's the one thing they did. They bought one rental property and it cost them maybe 20, 30 bucks a week extra, whatever it was, they did that over a series of years. And when they retire, that house is worth half a million, 700 grand. There's 700 grand ahead of all their peers just for doing that one simple action.

I love it.

But everyone wants that, like, oh, I'm going to be a trader, I'm going to be, I need a boss, I need some weight loss pills, I need to get my stomach stapled.

And one of the biggest questions I got was like, you know, you know, what should I buy? Basically, I invest in my money and what I find is people with these trying to get, you know, rich quick through crypto is they jump different trends, they jump on whatever's the latest. You know, it's gaming, it's metaverse, it's NFTs, it's DeFi, it's yield farming, whatever they're Jumping, not really going deep on a particular vertical. They're trying to be just an expert at everything. And I said, I said to everyone there, I said, you know, because there's so many people that gaming and Metaverse, you know, events, so many people. I said, you know, the one area you know, I wouldn't be investing in right now. So we gave me a metaverse because by the time you get that attention, by the time you get into mainstream and everyone's excited and into it, it's too late. Where you make money is buying things 12, 18, 24 months ahead of time. So where, where is the trends going? Where's our investments going? That's where you need to be looking ahead with. People aren't looking right now.

And it's super hard in that gaming space as well because it's a network effect and you need lots of traction. You need to get the users in and once you can see month on month, the monthly average users going up in those companies, that's a much better indication of which ones to pick up.

100. So that was a big takeaway now, mate. Yeah, so go mate.

So the reason you're sucking down bloody, what are they, soy lattes or whatever they are, is because you, you called me up this morning, the first thing you said, Bergsman hungover.

So you went.

Last night was the last night of the conference.

And look at him sucking it down, dehydrated. Wait, I've been on the Source for about four days in a row. Like these crypto people.

Crypto in real life, classic, classic entrepreneur, high functioning alcoholic.

You cross startup and crypto people. Oh my goodness. Like, oh yeah, mate, there was someone at the conference on Saturday morning, 9am when we first got there. Greg.

No, it wasn't Greg, it was one of. Greg met this person, she was still sucking down a Captain Morgan can at 9am on a Saturday morning from the night before. She hadn't slept, she rolled straight through.

So good. You're on the Goldie, what do you expect?

So, so yeah, so Saturday night we had the VIP Wales night, mate. So I was up swimming with the whales. It was at the 19 Club at the Star Casino. They had, they put 30K, I think they put 30K over the bar and it was just on and was an hour ago. They still had 10k left on the bar. So it was just like right over it's bottoms up. Wrapped up about one or two. Then we had the event all day yesterday and then I was just like, it's just been a huge day. So you know, a couple of schoolies and we host the after party, mate. 350 people packed out the James Squire pub just around the corner here. It was wall to wall, mate. 350 people. We threw it out. It was. First drink was for free. This is our collective shift happy hour. First drink was for free, mate. It was gone in 20 minutes. We had to go from a thousand dollars to three and a half. It was like, absolutely pumping, mate. And then I got up and, you know, said a few words, just sort of thanked everyone because one of the biggest things I love about the crypto events is not necessarily the conference, it's the event afterwards, right? It's like the networking.

Oh, for sure.

The vibes. And that was the best thing I found in America. It's going and networking and seeing your friends and like meeting new people, having a few beers. That's what I said over there over the microphone. Like, we didn't shill anything. We're doing a panel. Was like, no, let's just like have a few beers and catch up. And then. But all of a sudden, everyone's into it. There's. Tracy was there, Greg was there. Like the AFL mint guys. Like, everyone was there. Just like, it was just oh.

So good. You showed me a video of that and it was mental. I saw the receipt on Twitter as well, but that was huge. I'm like, yeah, that's. That's been on a night out. And then. So this is the behind the scenes. Okay, what do I get? I. I'm. I'm. I'm holding down the fort, you know, for the team, the leadership. Like bloody other. Other leader. Armand, old mate, he's. He's off on leave. Ben's just drinking himself stupid. So, you know, I've got to look after everything back at the fort, make sure it's all running nice oil, well oiled machine, mate. Everyone's looking to me for leadership. And then what do I get?

Half the team was up here.

Who you looking after?

Don't tell them that part.

They're messaging me, mate. They're like, ben's on the piss again.

What do I do?

It was. It was Shane O, mate.

No, so. So behind the scenes on Slack, this is what I get, right? I get this bloody thing from Ben and Trace at the pub. They've had a fair few. And like, Tracy's nice. She's like, where are you bags? Come on, what are you doing? You should be here. Ben's just like, where are you, dog? It's like the best half of Purr this year and you're still at home, mate. Absolutely. They've both got the glassiest eyes you've ever seen.

Oh, my God. So funny.

So funny.

Anyway, so it looked, it looked amazing. And you were telling me, mate, and I can't believe it. So I reckon this is. But people are actually lining up to talk to you, mate.

No, that's. It was, it wasn't all the time. I think like when, at the, at the event, a lot of people just want to come up and say thanks. So you know when you're hosting free drinks, it was good, but it was just really nice to meet the community. I think for so many people was like, you know, they see our content, they see our stuff online, but just from an in real life perspective, I think it was just good to, to meet. And there was so many members. There's probably 25 members there that were just so awesome to see them in real life.

That's so good. This is something we should talk about. So as a startup, you know, we do a lot of digital kind of stuff. This is an in real life thing. Do you want to talk a bit about like, you know, the booth you had, the talks, the seminar, how it all kind of worked and what you think it did for Collective Shift.

So we went to the Gold coast really to solidify ourselves as a leader in the crypto education space and we had a pretty big boost. Like we invest a bit of money. It's not cheap. But the stuff that you get in real life is unlike anything else. One, the interactions with your members, potential members. You get the in real life keynotes and talks, which is very rare. You get someone's attention for 35 minutes. You think about like watching an Instagram video or YouTube video. You're always doing stuff. You're walking around, you're distracted. You've got, you know, 35 minutes or 20 minutes to deliver a message where people aren't distracted. They're sitting in a room, the ceiling chair, they're there to see you. So that's engagement. Like you don't get anywhere else. So you can deliver a lot more value. Then also the partnerships, like going to conferences in your, in your industry, good ones, I think they can be. Some of them can be a bit of a waste of money. Especially like the sponsorships aren't cheap. But to be in the area where like all the top heads are like all the major exchanges were there, all the major players were there weekend. So you have, you know, drinks with them, catch up a coffee, have conversations. And so many partnerships and opportunities come out of this weekend. Like, it was. It was a massive. And there was four of us there and we were slam. Like a lot of trying to. And even down the product, trying to explain your product to different people in real life. That's it. That's been an interesting thing. There's a few takeaways that we've found. It's like there's actually some problems in the, in our product and how we're delivering it. Like, what are people's problems, how we're solving it. And even having those conversations in real life is so much more different to just online.

And that stuff is so valuable as well. And just, I think with you, you know, going through the kind of speaking circuit and getting eyes on Collective Shift, doing multiple podcasts, but then the in real life thing where you've got, you know, the booth and people can come up and you've got a keynote. And then Matt and Nick did a. Was it a seminar on dude, how Nick killed it?

They did a investing workshop and it was packed. Right. Nick has never ever done public speaking. Nick doesn't even want, you know, he's not. He doesn't want to, but, you know, he doesn't really love getting in front.

It's a challenge for him. Like all of us, like, we all hated it when we started, but you know, even from.

Yeah, exactly. Like it's unnatural. Right? But even Nick in front of a camera sitting at home is quite uncomfortable. And this guy was up on stage in front of like a hundred people packed out, dropping absolute value bombs. It was unbelievable. I was like, I was having like a proud. I was like proud dad moment. I was like, oh my God, this is awesome.

So Nick is our senior research analyst and he's such a beast. Where he's just. He's at that stage where he's kind of getting comfortable with it and working on his kind of public speaking confidence. But man, even in the discord lives, he just winds up and just knocks people out. Like, he is just so good with his knowledge is. He's so deep. I just sit there in awe and just like listen to him like a little kid when they all sit around the teacher. Like, he is such a beast on the tools, mate. That's so good to hear. And apparently the line was out the door as well.

Yeah, it was great. I think that was one takeaway as well. Like, content has really been working for us. Like a lot of people, not members, you know, would bundle me up in the hallway and like when you know, in. In the booth or just walking around, I'm like, oh, man, I've been watching your content. I've seen you online, man. You've been everywhere. Where have you, as Sydney as being like people. People really can sort of be on that journey with you in that content game. So I think content has been a real sort of key differentiator for us recently. Just, we've invested a lot into content creation. I mean, look at what we're doing here. This is fun, but it's also really helpful to get the brand out there. Right. Content is good differentiator.

Yeah. And you stay top of mind. Like every time I log in, there's your little head, no matter what social it is and you've got something to say. Like, it's just constantly being top of mind. Now, speaking of doing the Pod, I heard that you ran into a fan. Mate, you've got to tell me about this.

We met our number one fan. He comes so good, gives me a big hug and he goes, chicken burger.

What a legend. What a legend. Oh, I'm so filthy. I couldn't be there now.

What's going on, mate? I love the Pod, you know, like, how's this going, mate?

But he sounded like us. I was like, oh, you are so good. You are so good. Proper listeners.

Oh, man, he sounds like one of our people.

Now. He loves the Pod. Avid listener. Loves the business aspect, loves the crypto aspect. No, it was a. It was a. Yeah. Top fella. So good. Good to meet in real life. Better bergs fans.

Amazing. And what were people saying about the Collective Shift brand? Because you've been. Collectorship's only been around for just over a year.

Yeah.

And the position that you started in and where we've kind of moved towards now, what was the feedback on that?

Unbelievable. You know, a lot better than probably what I would expected, you know, with all the. That happened last year, like, people really saw that where. Where we've come from and where we are now and people surprised. I had multiple people say that they thought for sure collective Shift would be like, over and then, like, you know, be like with all the. That happened last year without mate, like, just would have been dead and, like, no chances he has any chance of, like winning. Right. Or coming back. Yeah, just wrap it up. It's all over. Eighteen months later, we've got one of the biggest booths there. We're doing a keynote speaking. We just raised some money. We're on the way up again. People are like, holy shit, how the hell did you do that. How is this going? Right? And that was really inspiring. It was really nice to hear that. And I think it's just down to transparency and going through. When you go through those tough times is being transparent, honest as you can, and doing the right thing. And I think that's what we've been. We've definitely been doing that over the last 18 months and since the sort of start of collective shift. And I think that's. That's the reason why we're here today.

And it's also the consistency and intensity that you put in every single day. Not just you, but the entire team. Like, we're all aligned and we're all executing and we're deliberately like, you know, we're going in one direction and that is paying dividends. And it takes a while to get that flywheel spinning, but once it does, you start to see results like this 101.

Thing that wasn't consistent on the weekend, though, burks with the Lions, mate, we got absolutely.

Friday night. Sorry, Lions.

Oh, Lions. Oh, okay.

Absolutely annihilated. So they said, first of all, the first. The first mistake with the first issue we had. We rolled in the Star Casino watching the sports bar, and they had the bloody NRL on tv. I was like, what the. Amazing Canberra versus Sydney. We're in the Gold Coast. The Lions are playing a knockout final, and we're showing the nrl.

Queenslanders don't do afl, mate.

Oh, my goodness. Anyway, so they're showing it out the balcony. So we got Shaft out the balcony to watch a knockout.

AFL game. Like, jesus, what's going on here, boys? And anyway, that was dreadful. So.

And what happened, mate? What happened?

Oh, no, I couldn't tell you. I can't remember.

So I sent Ben to Ben a text, and it was. It was just like a nice one. Just going, mate, what's going on? He's like, don't start. And I'm like, oh.

You would have been so filthy, mate. I was like, oh, he's pissed.

I'm not gonna P him. Yeah, because I was just coughing it from everyone. And then Burke's. Because he's like, what's going on, mate? I'm like, just off, mate. I was like, yeah.

I'm pretty sure I said that. I was like, don't talk to me, mate. Yeah, yeah.

You're like, no, not now. Just off.

Oh, mate. Oh, crazy.

So, no, that was good.

So. So you're out. You're out. You're free.

We're out free. I mean, I've off to Dubai on Friday. So, like, that's good. I'm not gonna have to worry about trying to find a pub where I can watch it. But, mate, did you watch the Collingwood Sydney game?

Oh, I watched the kind of a bit of the first half and I was like, this is going nowhere. And then I'm like, it's done. And then I went to a mate's house for. For dinner and then turned it on just as like the last kind of seconds were playing and they saw that ending. Unbelievable.

Yeah.

What was it like watching the game, mate?

Oh, it's insane. Like, they actually showed it inside on Saturday night and it was going off like. Yeah, there was, like, there was only fisticuffs. Like, there was table versus table, the Sydney tables, Conwood tables. And like, such an intense comeback. I mean, Collingwood were down 36. Yeah, down 36 points. They come back to within a point. So that was a wicked game. Top game, amazing burgers. It was bigger news. We had the.

Acquisition of Figma from Adobe for $20 billion.

Just a lazy 20 billion, mate.

Holy.

How crazy is this?

Walk us through what, what, what happened? What's going on?

All right, for those that don't know, Figma is just. It's an online collaboration tool for designers, right? We use it in our business and it just works. It is such a good tool. We use it for knocking up like UI website stuff and it is absolutely brilliant. So I'll do a bit of a quick history on figma. They began like the two guys when they're starting computer science, working on Figma in 2012. They had some years off the tools and then released version one in like 2016. And their mission is, I quite like this. They allow anyone to be creative by creating a free, simple creative tools in browser, which is a key kind of differentiation point and just before we get to the acquisition. But why is. Why is Figma awesome? And there's a couple of features that they absolutely nailed and I just love diving into products and looking at this stuff. So the first one is if you've ever done design, like back in the day, you'd load up something like Illustrator, Photoshop, you'd work on it kind of locally or you need to save files, you need to finalize me to do all this stuff, have different versions. That's all bullshit. What they invented was this online tool and it's got an infinite canvas so you could just duplicate stuff you can keep moving across. And it's just awesome. We do that with our website. So you got different versions, you can compare them Side by side. Amazing. They focused heavily on interface designers. So they were like a really neglected area where you had tools like Balsamiq and a few other ones where you're creating an interface for software and you know, you don't need heaps of different tools that you kind of hack together. You could just use this one tool and make a beautiful interface and explain it to someone. Another amazing thing, 90% of their product is free, so you only have to pay if you're part of a team. So they made a great product and they worried about that monetization later. So that was really key. And if you're thinking about it, you want to attract people to that business and this is kind of like a network product and network effect. And you do that by making it free. You just send someone a link, bang, you can join.

It's so easy.

Like when you, when you guys sent me the Figma thing. Yeah, yeah.

So easy. They must have done a lot of work. Like speaking.

Yeah, exactly. He just signed it with Google saying.

What like works and, and what problems people had. Like I remember they always just have pop ups like asking for feedback and features and like releasing new stuff. Like they're really product customer driven which is a real sort of takeaway. I mean how long have they been around boat?

Yeah, so it's from 2012 but 2016 they released V1 but. And just a couple of other reasons why they window but like that network effect. So they think about it, you're a designer, you love Figma, you're in it. What are you going to do? You're going to pull in other designers, you just send them a link, you sign up with your Gmail, it's got oauth bang. No friction. You're already collaborating within two minutes, you're already signed in in your browser. It just works. Even other things like imagine I'm a consultant and I want to show you something. I have to jump on like a video conference, I have to screen share, I have to do all this crap. With Figma you can literally just share your screen and you can follow along. You can see where their mouse is, you can talk on the phone while you're both following along on different computers. It's absolutely awesome. And then they got insane engineering. So they've given you like a full desktop experience in a browser without downloading any software or doing anything that is just next level. Like you don't have any, you know, rappers or apps or whatever. Brilliant. And they release features at an insane pace. Like you're saying you always get an email like, hey, tell us how we're doing better. Hey, release these features. They're releasing them faster than you can actually learn them. So they're just so, oh, driven on this product and releasing new stuff to drive customer behavior to them. Absolutely beautiful. And what I like, it's extensible. So this is a really nerdy term, but this means you can build your own tools and share them. So let's say you want something within Figma and it's not there. You can build that tool and you can share it across the entire community. And if you want something nowadays, I'm telling you that shit's already built. You can just go into Figma and you can use it and really, you know, it's the company you utilize nowadays. It's like as soon as you have a startup you use Figma. You don't have to wait. Export share, get feedback. You can get feedback in real time. Like we work with our designer Drevs. I'm like, bro, go make this. He'll go and make it as he's designing it. I can just jump in at any time and start giving him feedback rather than him going too far and having to bring it back and us costing a lot of money. It's beautiful, man. That's so it's an amazing product and it absolutely wins.

How much do they raise? Berks.

And I'm going to go into the. Yeah, yeah. So let's go into their funding because I found this Super Interesting. So June 2013 they raised 3.8 million in seed funding. I think before this they had like a Thiel fellowship. This is the same one that Vital Vitalik got and it was about 100 grand. Peter Thiel, Peter Thiel gives it to you. So 3.8 million in 2013. In 2015 they raised a $14 million Series A. In February 2018 they raised a 25 million dollar Series B. In Feb 2019. So just a year later they raised another 40 million, 40 million dollars in Series C. And then in April 2020, so just over a year later they raised another 50 million in Series D. Geez mate. In June 2021 they raised 200 million, 200 million in Series E funding round. And if you look at their revenue, it's just kind of like almost exponential. It's just going up and up as more people come in.

Yeah.

And at they were valued at 2 billion in April 2020, 2020 and 10 billion by the end of May 2021. And now we know they're valued at 20 billion.

So 10 years later they're exiting.

This is insane. Like when you.

20 billion.

Sorry, but this, this proves a really good point. How long it actually takes to build something. So they've been thinking about this for over 10 years and actively building for like 8 years. This is like a long time coming. Not every company gets here, but they were just so focused on their customers and delivering that mission that they had. And now Adobe has come along and this, this is the deal, okay? This is the deal that they struck. So the market cap of Adobe is $150 billion or it was just before the deal last week they purchased them for 20 billion. And the deal comprised of half cash and half stock in Adobe. So they're using like just over 10 of what they have to buy this competitor and their Stock fell by 20 billion, like pretty much the equivalent. Right? Because when you value it, you look at the, the acquisition, the free cash, free cash flow is going to throw off all this kind of stuff. I think it was a bit of an overreaction by the market and you generally see these things. But why did they do this? And, and this is, this is your jam, man. So if you think about it, Adobe's builds this like desktop, monolithic kind of software, right? And they do have some online tools. They did pivot to a subscription model, but you've got this new agile web thing that everyone uses. You only need the one tool, the majority of it is free and there's all these customers that are moving towards it and they're just attracting that. And if you think about this, like I heard a brilliant thing where in 10 years the software that people are building, like all the incumbents, the people that are dominating today, they're going to lose their competitive advantage because you'll be able to, you'll be able to compete with them because you have a lot of no code and like software will just be a lot easier in 10 years time and they can't pivot their monolithic software. And this brings me back to your point. Is this a Netflix and blockbuster moment and did Adobe get it right? What are your thoughts, mate?

100%. I mean I don't even know what Adobe do, like who you know, I mean I do but like you know, you got the Photoshop and da da da. But I mean Figma is this new up and coming product that's just absolutely taking by storm and it just says a natural acquisition. Right? And I, I, that doesn't make sense to me why the market cap would decrease after an acquisition. Like that, like as you said, maybe a little bit overreaction. But man, like I think this is, this is a great move by Adobe. I mean you look at, yeah, the blockbuster example, they told Netflix to get stuffed with their idea and I think this is good. Like these big conglomerates, they have to adapt and move and like this is just a way that they can continue growing and being at the forefront is by acquiring amazing businesses like Figma. And like, like we, I've used Figma for like three or four years and it's so seamless. Like I, you know, it's one of those products that you just, you know, probably using like every week. And I didn't even realize, really, I was like, you know, of course it's valuable. Like man, it's so easy. Like I've never had a problem with it. Just a great product.

And even their collaboration boards like figjam, where you can get in, you can brainstorm, is so good. And this, I'm glad, I'm glad Adobe got this right. Takes you back to 2019 when I was studying strategic management. So this is like our capstone unit in the NBA and we're having a discussion about Tesla and I think it was Audi or something and they were saying like from a CFO perspective, you know, how much attention are you going to put into Tesla? This up and coming kind of, you know, small company that might have been a startup at the time, they weren't producing many cars, they were in a lot of debt. The company wasn't that great. And I said a lot of attention. And I got beat the down by everyone in class. They're all like, you know, look at this like Audi's like I don't know how many billion like Tesla's like, you know, a couple hundred, 100 million? Not even that. It was just like this, this huge, huge company. And the professor at the time, he said an elephant doesn't concern itself with the feelings of an ant. And I just thought, what the fuck? And I was like, nah, you guys have got this wrong for sure. Sure enough I didn't buy any Tesla stock.

But it's one of those things where people don't understand how, how quickly innovation can accelerate, how quick adoption curves can happen and how fast network effects happen.

And it also digital trend. This is my topic when I talk digital transformations. Don't care about your personal opinions, you know. Yeah, the market decides, doesn't it doesn't take into consideration if the market decides that this is better than its previous, like is downloading movies from the screen of your tv. Better than going into a Blockbuster store and actually picking out the vcr. Well, someone's opinion might be, oh, no. Like, no one ever wanted that. Like, they're going in and feeling and looking at the COVID and, like, that's great. You can have that opinion. But the market decided that we'd much rather sit on our couch, on our ass and not go anywhere and download a movie. The market decided. Didn't care what that must have thought.

And you think about all those pain points you have to drive there to the movie, the bloody movie store, right? You have to look through all the DVDs. They might not have the one that you want. If you get it, you have to go with their shitty pricing and how many weeklies and overnight ones, Then you have to return it. Whereas this is just one flat fee. You don't have to leave your house. You can do it whenever you want.

And I think for tying this back to crypto, you know, people always sort of ask, well, okay, why isn't it adopted? More than why isn't, you know, like, if crypto is so good, why are more people using it? It's because the experience isn't the Netflix experience yet. It's the typewriter experience. The technology's there, but we haven't cracked the experience. I use the example on my talk on Saturday.

Yeah.

Think about when you want to go and put on a bet on sports bet. Like, I could do it within the next 12 seconds. It'd be two clicks not to have a. I've had a bet on the AFL next week. It's so easy. If I want to go and buy, like, yep, an old coin on uni swap. Oh, Jesus. Like, I just want to, like, you know, stab my eyes out. I need to put aside an hour and a half. I can't stop up. I need to be, like, concentrating. I get stressed. I've got anxiety.

You gotta think so much.

Oh, my goodness. But once that becomes a sports bet experience, the ability for you to own your own money, send it anywhere in the world instantly with no fees, no one can take it off you. It's got all that, like Bitcoin, the monetary systems around limited supply, everything you need in a financial asset, plus all these other things around Ethereum and other crypto assets is so much better than the current system. But it's just difficult to use.

Just even. You talking about, like, Uniswap, like, you have to know what that is, how it works, that it's safe, how to look up a Contract, address, how to all this shit. It is just so, so much and you freak out. And I think you're right. Like, crypto is like the original Netflix experience where they used to have, you know, vending machines with DVDs inside when they were testing their model, or they'd mail you kind of DVDs. Like, it's slightly better, but it's still like horrendous. And if you're in a country like Australia, the banking is pretty good. You don't need to do all this stuff.

Going back to the personal opinions thing. And like your example when you're at work. Another thing that I spoke about on Saturday was around, what I don't like is when people give opinions about shit that they don't know about.

Right? And they're happy. More. I gave the example Warren Buffett, he's historically amazing investor, like, hands down great, love listening to his stuff. But historically hasn't been a technical sort of like, you know, tech investor. So when he comes out and calls bitcoin rat poison, I guarantee you he doesn't actually know what the hell he's talking about because he hasn't given her the time to actually learn about it. Right? Same with media and journalists. When they talk about all this shit that he's done in crypto, a lot of them haven't put in the time to truly understand it. Same with people talking about right click, JPEG, NFTs, it's all the same. So it's like, yeah, I think. And you know, a lot of people quick to judge are quick to make it. And I've been there, I do it sometimes I sort of pull myself up like it's, you know, no one's perfect. But I think what I'm trying to do, when I am asked a topic about something I don't know about, it's like, look, rallies. I'm not an expert on it. This is my opinion. Probably not right though. Rather than, yeah, hey, Ben, what's your opinion on this? And I give this like crazy outlandish thing and I've got no idea what I'm talking about. You know, it's.

It's crazy, isn't it? And my mate shout out to Joe, he went to a conference recently, it was a developer conference and there was a person there speaking about NFTs. Had no idea, no idea whatsoever. Probably never bought one in their life. Just talking about how it fits in with software and all this kind of stuff. If you are genuinely, if you ask me about NFTs and software and Fitting in and how it worked. I could talk for like at least an hour on like the different mechanisms, why you might want to do it, how it would work, what the trade offs are, all this kind of stuff. But yeah, people just hammer it, they're like, oh, it's all too hard, it's a scam, no one cares. All this kind of. And it's like if you haven't bought one and you haven't been in a community, if you haven't been rewarded, if you haven't seen price appreciation, if you haven't seen all these mechanics or how a dow works and how things like bounties and tipping and all of these kind of things work and how they interconnected. Don't even talk on the subject. You need to experience the thing. It's like how can you be a chef if you haven't tasted good food? Like it is ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous, man.

Greg Oakford did a presentation on Saturday on it was around the NFT evolution and how it's similar to the hip hop culture. And that was one of the most eye opening experiences listening to Greg tell me about this. So shout out to Greg. So he was basically comparing, you know, the old school style of going in and buying a record and you know, this, this idea of like evolution and culture and society around a particular artist or like a you know, trend or you know, album you might buy and then represented or like compared that when you used to be sort of into that, you know, back in the day versus web3 and NFT specifically with the different cultures and societies and communities but just in a digital format. So you know, you've got the Bored Ape Yacht Club for example where you've got like Snoop Dogg and Gary Vee and like Justin Bieber and they're all like around this particular community, society. It was sort of the same thing back in the hip hop days. And it's like this evolution of like culture in integrated, just in a digital form and that was one of the most eye opening things. You know, he spoke about a lot, few other different things but it's like this is just all an evolution. And you know what I've tended to find as well in not just markets but everything, life goes in this big circle, whether it be fashion, you know, like go back a few years ago, no one would be wearing like everyone would be wearing jeans. Right. And then we went through like two or three years where like no one wears jeans. Right. That's completely off for like younger guys.

Yeah.

And now it's back Again, for example, and you just go in this big rotation. Markets go bull and bear cycles. And then you get these things like culture and, you know, whatever else. But there might just be a different evolution through different, you know, technology, for example, or, like, you know, it's just. It's the same thing, but happening in, you know, more advanced ways. Really eye opening.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, man. You're right. It's the same kind of. And if you think about it, hip hop was born from a place where.

It was a very difficult time. There was a lot of.

You know, drugs, violence, corrupt police. There was a lot of unemployment, there was poverty, There were all these things. And there was this thing bubbling to the surface about how people wanted to express themselves. And then, you know, you started to see people like, you know, spoken word then, like kind of hip hop rapping on corners, break dancing, spray can, like spraying graffiti, like expressing themselves because of all these things that were happening in their lives. And it's a similar thing now where even though we've got a damn good. It's a lot of people, especially younger people, they feel like they can't get ahead. Like, they know baby boomers have fucked everything for them. Things are really expensive. Why even bother? I need 10 years experience before I could even get a job. I'm never going to be financially free. And it's like, now this is a pathway for people to express themselves and solve all those problems along the way. And I think it's a beautiful thing. Man, what a great analogy.

Yeah, it was great. Now you did a great talk, hopefully. Well, he. Greg. Greg runs the NFT Fest, which is the Australian version of that. But for NFTs to come up in November for Shout out, the NFT Fest, just Google it. Yeah, people are gonna. I think they've just launched the date. So, yeah, November, something amazing before.

Before we move on. Hang on with the Figma thing.

Yep.

I saw this on Twitter. What do you think about Microsoft buying notion? Because that is wild.

Is that. Has that happened?

No, no, no. But everyone's talking about it and. Okay, so I came from, like a traditional kind of, like corporate background, government background, and all we did was use Microsoft products. So it was all Word documents, OneNote teams, all this kind of stuff. I came over to Collective Shift and I was like, oh, this is a startup. It's gonna be. First day was like. I think it was a public holiday for you guys. So it was really good for me. Yeah, I jumped into notion and I was like, holy shit. Like all your standard operating procedures Everything was beautiful. It was graphic. It was kind of broken up into sections. It was linked. It was able to transfer so much knowledge just within a browser from whoever created it into my head and it was phenomenal. This is what Microsoft tries to do. So now this is. Everyone's tipping it as the next thing that's going to get acquired are going to be huge for Microsoft.

Yeah, well I don't use. Pretty sure I don't use any Microsoft products anymore. Like we. I don't use Microsoft Word, I use Excel and is any of that. It's all on Google Docs, Google Sheets. Like it's all online.

So. But notions. Notions. Awesome. Like that's where we have all our notes. The apps really like sweet and user interface is great. It's clean. Makes sense. It just works.

It's easy to collaborate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.

Good.

I mean it makes sense.

They should get them. They were coming after Discord. Remember they tried to buy Discord.

That's right.

Remember? I don't think that went through.

Hopefully they don't buy and ruin notion.

Mate. Do you imagine you. You had not. You had Operation Burks this week? Last week, mate.

All right, I had a procedure.

This guy episode. You leave me alone, man. I had to hold up the whole fort, mate. Who was there last week? No, you. No, Aman. I was doing everything.

What were you doing? You're down the pub, mate, be honest.

I just took four days.

I talked to the boys I like Ben wasn't even there. I saw the recording of the all hand meeting and it was done in like 20 minutes. I'm like, mate, this guy's done nothing. No, no detail, no nothing.

How's it going guys?

Oh yeah, nice, nice.

It was that talk from you. We could just actually get some property.

This, this is what proper leadership and management is about. Communicating with your team, making sure that they understand. That's why it runs so well, mate. These are things you'll learn with experience, man.

You notice around a lot more smoothly when you weren't there, mate. So to take it tanky.

Maybe I should just take more time off, mate.

It was no difference, mate. When you were gone it was still the same work I've done, so.

Oh man, they probably got more done because I wasn't harassing them. All right? So last week I did the hard thing and I went to hospital and I got a procedure done. And the reason I'm talking about this on the pod is because.

I think generally men are very bad with their health, especially around my age. Where you're approaching your 40s and you know, your 40s, are you going to your 50s? We're very bad at speaking up about things that are wrong. We don't really go to doctors. We're like, oh, she'll be right. And there are some things that you can do in your life to seriously prevent disease. And these are things like, you know, things like a, how your heart's kind of working, like calcium and plaque checks, all this kind of stuff, skin checks. And another one is colonoscopy. So these are things that everyone absolutely hates. I went in and I got a gastroscopy which is down the throat, colonoscopy which is up the rear. And everyone's like that, I'm never doing it. It sounds ridiculous. And I want to talk about it because honestly, it's not that bad at all. Like the worst part was the prep and the important, the super important thing about this is if you look at bowel cancer, that is, and I didn't go in for bowel cancer, it was just kind of gut related issues. But they check while they're there. Is completely preventable. It is the number one that's like the biggest cancer because it's men and women. And basically it starts off as polyps which can be removed and they sometimes turn into cancer. So all the kind of doctors I've talked to in pods and everything, they recommend having colonoscopy every three to five years. But at the moment it's only after your, when you're 50, you have your first and that's every three to five years after that. So that's a very long time. And even another thing that pushed me down this road was a guy I went to high school with, fittest guy on the footy team and everything. Stage four bowel cancer was 38. So he's my age, stage four bell. And now he's got like a stoma and he has to wear one of those bags and everything. And I was like, nah, look, I'm not gonna, not gonna be a wuss. I'm gonna do the hard thing. So bit the bullet and went in. So let me tell you about the process. So I went in on the Tuesday, right? So you start on the Sunday, the Sunday you have to eat like low residue foods. So it's like white rice, white bread, you can have like jam, honey, Vegemite chicken without skin. So it's not too bad, not too bad. But as you know, mate, I'm lifting and I'm a hungry boy. I get hungry Son, big boy. So like on the Monday, on the Monday it's liquids only. So literally the whole day you're drinking like two minute noodle broth, no noodles. You can have like barley sugars, you can drink fruit juice, you can have coffee and tea. No milk. It is just like, we're just hungry.

Were you just angry all day?

See, I thought I would get hangry, but I was just like, I was just more like just sad and didn't have much energy, mate. Like that was it, right, but, but.

Just like budding life, like. Oh yeah, yeah.

But then, okay, you have to do prep. So basically you've got to clean your bowel out. So what you have to do 5pm on the Monday and you got your, your thing on the Tuesday, you got to drink like 250 mils of this fluid. You're like, great down that. Four hours later, another 250 and then the next morning drink another 250. So drank the thing and I'm like, yeah, I feel alright. Great. Couple hours goes by and I'm like, oh, I've got to go to the toilet. Went to toilet, come back. And then it's like literally like every half an hour, an hour you go into the toilet and it just cleans everything out, mate. And by the end of it you're just sick of going to the toilet. And it's like, you know, we've all had the shits before, but this is different because you don't feel sick, you don't feel in pain, you're just going to the toilet. And honestly that was the worst part of it is just having to go to the toilet, right? And the next day you take your prep, you go down there and basically you go in. Really great experience. The anesthesist comes in. He was a lad, I was talking to him. Proceduralist comes in. Then they like wheel you in. So I'm talking to this guy and I'm like, oh, I used to work across the road at fsh. He's like, yeah, cool. I'm like, do you know this person or that person? He's like, no, I don't know them. Or I'm not sure. Like he thought I was just talking or something. Like, like, he's obviously just like goes in there and he's. He.

Because the anesthesia department is so huge. Not everyone knows everyone. Anyway, rock up, talk to the anesthesist and he goes, he starts talking to me. He's like, 50 of people do this operation without any anesthesia. And immediately before he could finish his sentence. I was like, that. And I was like. And everyone heard me because we're all lined up in, like, holding bay. There's all these people there. And I'm like, no way. And then, like, they can either do a thing where they put you in, like, Twilight or one where they give you a general anesthetic. And obviously, the deeper you go, the more risk you have. A lot of stuff. So I got the Twilight one. And he's like, look, you'll either remember something or you won't. So anyway, cool. He wheels me in, go in, talk to everyone like, this is your nurse. This is that. And they're like, oh, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I work for a crypto education company and we do research, analysis and, like, oh, crypto. And, like. Because the. The. The procedural is so the gastroenterologist. When I went to his office, right, we're talking about bitcoin. He's like, oh, I bought some of that shit, like, eight or nine years ago. Like, I had to buy it in China to buy a watch that I wanted. I was like, oh, man, you should have kept it. And I'm like, do you have any now? He's like, no. He's like, I'm like, ah, mate, you got to buy something. We like half the console. We're just talking about bitcoin, right?

So anyway, we go in there and then the lady, he's like, oh, this is your nurse. She's like, oh, yeah, I bought this, like, random shit coin. She's like, oh, I lost all my money. I'm like. I'm like, oh, so you shouldn't be buying that. She's like, how do you even invest in crypto? And I'm like, Look, 7030 Bitcoin E. And they all come in, they're like, oh, it's a scam, it's this, it's that. And the guy's, like, injecting me and I'm just like. And just, like, passed out, like, mid sentence.

I was just like. It was so funny because I was selling it so hard. I'm like, oh, no, you got to base it on the fundamentals, mate. This is why you need it.

It's a Be like, this guy's just talking. She just. Just pop, pop the.

Oh, mate. They're like, he's probably delirious with no food. Anyway, like, as. As I'm. I have the procedure. So they. You go under, you have the procedure. And then basically I just woke up. I didn't remember anything. Woke up while they were wheeling me back. And that was just like, as soon as I woke up, I'm like, knock, knock, bang, bang with a food at. I was like, so hungry, man. So, like, they're so good though, because you haven't eaten in a very long time. So they bring out like all these sandwiches, like, oh, but they're the good hospital sandwiches. So you have like a chicken one, a cheese and ham one, an egg one or something else. Beautiful sandwiches. Had tea, coffee, apple juice, had those biscuits and the good biscuits where you get like, oh, what are they? The shortbread with cream and like an Oreo and then cheese and crackers. And I had like a couple of rounds of that and it was awesome. I was out of there. Had the best sleep of my life. Slept amazingly that night. Woke up the next day. You don't feel anything, you're not sore, you don't feel sick. It was great, man. And they ended up actually finding two polyps in my bow.

Yep.

So which is very normal thing. But what they do while they're doing it with their little like half centimeter tube, they just take those polyps off, they just lance them off, send them off to the lab. Brilliant. Took a couple of other, like, from my, like down here, esophagus and that kind of stuff. Took a couple of samples, sent them off to the lab, see if I've got any allergies or anything like that. He's like, mate, you're perfect. See, in five years, done, do you.

Go to a public. Public or private hospital?

This one I went to a private one and the reason for that is, I think. Well, the reason I went there is because I'm not severe at all. So if I was going public, I would have to wait a very long time.

Yeah.

My mum works at the hospital, could probably get me in earlier because she knows the people there. But again, I don't want to go ahead of people that are having really bad bowel problems and need to go in. Right. Like, I could wait this one out.

And generally, like, when you earn a certain level of income, you have to get.

You don't have to, but you get private health insurance anyway. Otherwise you just pay the Medicare levy or whatever it is and it's the same amount in Australia. So. Yeah, yeah, went private this time and it was, it was a brilliant experience, man. It was, it was so, so good. I've got no, no dramas about, in five years about going for another one. And this is honestly, to everyone out there, a call to action.

Yeah.

If you've got any issues or you're concerned about anything, 50 is if you have no concerns whatsoever and the government's very conservative. If you've got some concerns, you've got bloating ibs, whatever you may have, then just book it in and just go for it. Get your sorted out.

Good on you, man. That's really good. I don't think that's across the board like Australians where, you know, especially dudes, I think we're all pretty much like, yeah, she'll be right, mate, don't worry about it. You know, get in there and, you know, get some help us, you know, and also even speaking to someone, you know, even, you know, over the past 12 months, well, probably two or three years now, I've sort of seen the therapist on and off based on just different things going on in my life. It's great. There's nothing to be ashamed of.

It's how good have the help, how good a therapist. So I've seen, I've gone to two different therapists and I've seen them like three points in my life and each one was for about three or four sessions and my God, like, they're like extreme things. When it's like my father passed away, my mum had stage four cancer. There was a lot of stuff going on, I couldn't cope. And just the way they help to mediate the thoughts in your head and give you strategies, it's literally like going to a personal trainer or going to a physio, but there's this stigma around. Oh, you know, they're going to mess with your mind or you're a crazy person. If you see a therapist when in reality it is the best form of self care that you can give yourself.

100 and just by talking to someone else.

Amazing.

Yeah, even.

Yeah. And someone that can guide you, that's actually trained in the thing, even like Chamath, he starts off his week with his therapist and he has a session with them and at the end of the week he has a session with the therapist and his wife so he can go into the weekend just with like a clear head, thoughts and all that kind of stuff. It's just, it's brilliant. It's a really. If you can afford it and if you can get into one, absolutely go for it.

Amazing.

Because it's a huge crisis at the moment, like people are in crisis and you try and book in, they're like, yeah, I'll see you in a year and a half and you're like, what the.

Yeah, that's book booked out.

It's super under serviced.

Cool bugs. Well, that's good. Yeah. So call to action there. If you're in any niggles or even just concerns or just, just need to check up, just go do it, get.

It done, get it sorted. And like, originally on the pod, I talked about like the stomach issues that I had, they're pretty much all gone. And I went to see my gp, I went to see clinical nutritionist, went to say, a. An allergist and then this gastroenterologist. And yeah, that does cost a bit of money. It wasn't mass amounts, but it was definitely worth it. It was over like a series of months. So each console, I might have been like 80 or 90 bucks out of pocket, but for me, that was worth spending on my health to solve all those problems and now I just have no worries whatsoever.

Yeah, awesome. Dude, that's really, that's really good because you were having. I mean, it affects everyday life, right? Like when you sort of think about it and you just feel like, like.

Yeah. And for me it was like. Yeah, it made me anxious because, like, if your stomach's like bubbling away or, you know, you're feeling bloated or you've got reflux, you're like, you're constantly thinking about it, it's taxing, you don't sleep well, you get cranky, get mad at like, you know, your Mrs. And your kid and all this kind of stuff. It was really affecting my life. So it was, it was well worth going down that path and getting that sorted. And it is very hard as well. It's hard to start. Start with your GP and go from there. You'll see different consultants and specialists along the way. They'll only be interested in their narrow area and their area of expertise and the thing that they can solve. They don't want to hear about anything else. So it's up to you to kind of advocate for yourself and piece it all together through those specialists that you see. It's probably the hardest thing to do and it's probably the biggest complaint about the health system.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Awesome, man. Let's do middle of the week.

All right?

Oh, yeah. Oh, do you want to go?

Oh, do you want to do. Do you want to do. I'll do my AI thing.

Yeah, go for that.

Yeah. All right. So I jumped into my first entrepreneurs Organization accountability group. So this was awesome, mate. It was really sick. So we met up at Ando's workplace in the city. There was five other People there? Well, no, four other people there. And then Ando, who was leading it, and it was just great. We all rock up, we're all smiles and we just get straight into it with the one word opener. They pass around a sheet with all the different things on there and like, I don't need it.

I'm ant.

Let's go. Like, I was just, like, I was mad keen. Like any personal growth, I'm an absolute sucker for. And we had to go through and talk about ourselves for 10 minutes. And it covered things like your career highlights, your family, your hobbies and what you want from the group. And went through like a little bit of, you know, how this is going to work. And it was just awesome. Like every month you'll have to present on like one of the 5% challenges that you have. You do this, don't you?

Yeah.

Is that what you have to. Yeah. Can you explain it? Because I haven't done it yet.

The 5%.

Yeah.

So with, with experience sharing. So you know where you get the most improvement in life, right. Is not talking about when you need some assistance or there's areas to get help on. Usually we go into this comfortable thing where we don't really want to talk about the really, the really nilly stuff. The stuff that we really don't talk to anyone about. You know, when someone says, how you going? It's like, yeah, I'm going good. What, what we're trying to do in EO is get out the bits that you don't talk to anyone about. The 5%, the bottom or the top. So think about your life in like a fuel meter. You know, we in EO to get experience shares on problems or just want to share good stuff. The 5% at the top, the very best 5% you want to share and you know, so talk about experiences or the 5% of the variable and the stuff that you know is nearly in the back your head you sort of constantly think about, but probably usually stuff you don't want to talk to anyone about because it is really tough to talk about. That's the stuff that you want to share because we get the most awesome.

That is. I can't wait for that as well. And they were saying, like, because I'm in the key executive program and you're in the. The founder one where, you know, sometimes there's these issues going on and you'll bring them to the group, you'll structure them in a certain way. You will. We'll be able to talk about our experiences. So you've got five other minds around it as well. And then it'll make it a much stronger argument for either. For you to go and do the thing or present it to your CEO or whatever it may be.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I can't wait for that. It was awesome. It was open, it was comfortable, and people were talking about their challenges straight away. And the first thing that stuck out for me was just, wow, I really don't have a lot of challenges in this business. Like, people challenges, or this person's an asshole, or how do I get this person motivated? Just common business or communication. It's always like, what are we building? How do we get there? It's more like a market kind of challenges. And then there was a thing where people were talking about their CEOs, and they're like, oh, what's your CEO like? I'm like, boy's a legend. Like, and. And it kind of tweaked as I was talking in my head, where there's not one thing that I wouldn't call you about. Like, I've never had that before. Where I could be completely open with my CEO. Like, previously. Like, they're, you know, CEOs and leaders I've worked with. They're a certain way, you know what to talk about. You know, you'll be dismissive on some. On certain things, but you're quite open. You want to hear it all. You might not have the answer, but you'll take it away. And there's not one thing I wouldn't call you about. And I realized that's a really awesome feeling for me where I don't have to let things brood under the surface. Try and solve them myself. Be like, this is unfair. This is. I'm like, no, I'm not going to bed like this. Pick up the phone, Ben. What the. And you'll just be like, oh, I didn't know, or, let's solve this or we'll do this, whatever it is. And immediately. That cognitive deload for me, it just allows me to sleep better, function better. I don't have that thing niggling at my brain. So. Well done, mate. Like, that's. That's awesome.

Thanks, man. I think it's good. It's probably just natural. Like, it's not something I've cognitively, like, you know, you know, thought about as something that needs to happen. I think it's just naturally happened as a way of, like, building a good culture in the business. It's always been open communications. I think that's a takeaway for any other people in businesses. Like how much good work do you do when you're not worrying about all the political. I hate all of that. You know, you've gone through the corporate world. I had it when I was a basketball referee. Like it's just so mentally draining and taxing, you know, it is.

You literally wake up tired, you have all those conversations in your head and you feel there's something either unjust or there's not enough equity or you're not getting recognized or whatever it may be. And to be able to bring that up and get it solved is just. Is epic, man. And even the way we've structured our meetings, we've structured those in a certain way where the agenda in them addresses those issues. Like you have to bring those up, you have to have the hard conversation. You have to recognize someone else for the efforts that they've done.

Yeah.

You know, so we're already thinking that way during the week and it goes a long way to reducing and ameliorating those problems.

Yeah, totally agree.

So epic. So, yeah, love it. I'll report back like in a month about how the first one went and should be awesome. I'm. I'm just excited about it. I like getting around my peers and either, you know, just talking to them, hearing new ideas and all these weird businesses that I've never even thought of. Like one does like anything to do with ropes. So it's like, you know, if you've got to clean the side of a building or you've got a mining rig or you got whatever. If you have to get to a weird position and you have to do something, they do that. And there's like an events higher one, there's a translating one. There's another guy, I'm not too sure what he does but like it's just all these different businesses and all the different challenges they have is just so exciting and it just gives you a different world perspective, which I love.

Yeah, I love it, dude. I think back to community as well. I think that's what I love about the NFT collection. Someone asked me, you know, different ways to get into crypto because I quit school, right. I hate the normal courses and education and like it just shoots me to tears. So like ways to learn for me is like, like actually talking to people, getting into a community that you actually like and community, you know, what does that mean? Work. I was like, you know, meeting other people that have similar interests, you know. So whether you buy the AFL new NFT or the Elvis Presley NFT or you go and buy the NBA top shots. Nft. Because you like basketball. And now you're talking and talking crypto with people like you in the. What's your Bears thing, Burke? What's the.

Yeah, drop Bears.

Drop the lads. Boys, Right? You play poker, right? And you just.

So good.

Yeah, it's good fun, right? Good Aussie. Aussie fella. So, like, I think that's the best thing for me about learning is like meeting similar people and just. Yeah, learning through sort of conversations.

That's great, mate. Before we get on to gratitude and kindness, something just popped into my head. You had an event earlier in the week and you just made it in time, mate. Do you know what I'm talking about? What happened here, mate? You did a bend.

So one thing, one thing with me, for those that don't know, I tend to try and do way too much in a particular day and tend to overbook myself and be quite unrealistic about how to do things. So try to slip out. I hadn't played golf in a long time. One of my goals this year was try and play more golf because it's good for mental health. Slipped away game of golf with Josh. Left the house keys, the apartment keys, Airbnb keys in the golf bag, which I didn't realize until later, after the golf shop had closed because I had to go to a sales thing. Went back and had half an hour to get to the Eureka Sky Tower. When I was doing a keynote talk, panel talk at the top of Eureka Sky Tower behind that wall, said, etoro with the wallabies. Like, the wallabies were there, right? And I get to the apartment and I'm like, oh, my God, I know my keys. Call the. Call the golf shop shut. Oh, how about you? We've got half an hour to go, but I'm sitting in shorts, sand shoes and a polo shirt.

Like, amazing, amazing.

Bring up the apartment owner didn't answer four times. I see her on the other side of the road. I run over to her, like, hey, I've lost my keys. Like, do you have a spare set? Yeah, Come up the office. Went up the office. Oh, we've lost a spare set.

What do you mean you've lost the space? I don't know where it is.

What are we doing? I'll call the building manager. Building manager doesn't answer. I said. I said, I've got to go. Like, you know, I've got to go talk to this event. Like, what? You know, I. What's the eta? Because I'm Gonna go to Target or, like, buy some clothes or do whatever.

Yeah.

I call my mate. He Uber. He Uber delivers me a set of clothes. Like, mate, I need a favor. Like, I need a whole kit. I'm about to talk in half an hour. Can you Uber deliver me some clothes? So that's on its way. They get a locksmith. The locksmith comes over the apartment. The locksmith can only get you in the door. You can't get to level 15. You need the FOB to get up the floors. So we're playing. We're playing Russian roulette with four elevators. Why she's. Because we. Someone was up at floor 15 earlier. So she's up there pressing the up button while we're going in and out of elevators, trying to make sure we're in the elevator that takes us up. So I'm with a locksmith, sitting in the wrong elevator. Like, just wait. There's no reception because it's like, in an elevator. Like, it was made ridiculous. Finally get up there.

Basically, within four minutes. Had gotten in the door. By the way, whatever you've got in your home is not secure. I watched this guy unlock this door, literally four minutes without a key. Drilled it down like you're not safe. FYI. Yeah, get close, get changed, hustle there. They push the event back for an hour. My Uber app doesn't work. I can literally can't get an Uber. And I'm in Docklands. So the building manager or this lady, the Airbnb, drives me to this conference. I get up, I go up level 90 like a rocket ship. Like me as pop. Walk out, have a drink, bang, Walk on straight, walk on stage. So I thought about crypto.

Amazing. They delayed it an hour for you, mate. Look at that. Vip. Vip. Vip. Holy. And you still made it. What a champion.

I'd have a frothy. I took a frothy up on stage and it settled the nerves a little bit.

Oh, definitely, mate. Good on you. Good on you for doing the thing and getting out there, mate.

That's good, though. It's good fun. The wallet. Yeah. And then the man, the Wallabies, lost in the blood is like, oh, that's a whole nother conversation. Did you see the end of the game the other night? The Wallabies versus New Zealand?

No, I'm not. I'm not a rugby guy. I only tune in every now and then.

No, I'm not a wallaby. I'm not a rugby guy either, but this was ridiculous. Mate, we're down by. We're up by two points. We haven't beat New Zealand in the Blazers cup in 20 years. We're up by two points, 40 seconds to go. The ref calls a delay of game because apparently we held the ball for like a second or two longer than we should have. Turns the ball over. New Zealand ball. They score a try. New Zealand win. Game over.

Mate. How filthy would you be?

Filthy, mate. The number one rule I learned as a referee is never be the deciding factor of a game. This referee single handedly changed the game. He blew the whistle. New Zealand ball try. Game over.

What about when they do that in soccer? Like literally, like refs have been like shot and stabbed and like, they, they get into it, man. Like, especially in those like, you know, really passionate countries like, oh, in Europe. Unbelievable.

Right? So middle of the week, okay, let's.

Do gratitude, kindness, let's knock that off.

Cool.

Yeah, let's do that. So, Ben, are you grateful or do you have a kindness of the week this week?

I'm grateful for my new suitcases, so I know that sounds weird.

Tell me about the mate. What's so special I could not bring.

Myself to buy a new suitcase? Do you know how much suitcases are? They're like 500 bucks stupid. And I was like, no way am I paying 500 for a suitcase. Like, get stuffed. So I was lagging around. Like, I've been on so many flights in like, ridiculous four months with my little bag. The handle doesn't work. Like, I'm standing there yanking the thing out, trying to like, pull it out, trying to just get it to work. The zip was busted. And then my bigger bag, I couldn't drag it because one of the, it was like, you know the trolleys where you can't get like the wheels, like, busted? That's what it was like with my suitcase.

Yeah.

Taking this to Singapore, Dubai. America's busted, mate. But couldn't bring myself to buy it anyway. I got to a point where I nearly threw my bag over the, the yarra the other day in Melbourne. I was so sick of it. It's like, right, I'm gonna buy these suitcases. Game changer, mate. These suitcases are like a V8. They roll anywhere, they wheel anywhere. They fit. Everything I need. It's wonderful, mate. So grateful.

This reminds me, we're like, I'm like a V8. My suitcases are like a V8.

Oh, my.

Game changer. Brilliant.

Have you seen the thing? How easy it is to break into a suitcase? Like, you've got to look it up. So literally you get your pen and you put it in the zip and you just open the zip. You can lift out the suitcase, take out whatever you want. And the suitcase is still locked. And you just move the zips around.

It locks it again, mate, between that suitcase and I might unlock my door within four minutes without a key. Like, nothing safe.

You're going to have to shelve your hardware wallet, mate. All right, so my.

My, my gratitude.

Just after you coloss, maybe we'll do it the same time.

Oh, mate, just go for it.

Did you see? I remember one video, you know, bit Lord, how he's like the loosest unit in the planet. Like, he was at his place and the cops rock up to his house. It was something unrelated. He's like, oh, they're asking my crypto. I'm gonna have to buff this. So, like, he takes his hardware well, he's like, I can't do it, I can't do it. It was so good. He's the loosest unit. I love watching his stuff. Oh, my God. All right, all right. So my gratitude is.

Having the tools that I need to succeed. And I really thought about this the other day where.

I went to school, I went to uni, and, you know, I'm able to, you know, read. I have the mental faculties, all this stuff, but I've learned how to learn, which is super important. And I think, like, originally it might have started with, like a Tony Robbins book where I actually read something that I wanted to improve myself in uni without a teacher giving it to me or something like that. And I'm thankful that, first of all, I know I can learn how to learn. So I can look up anything on the Internet and I can learn it. I know how to use the Internet. First of all, that's a huge skill, being able to Google something, find something, find YouTube, a tutorial, set up apps. Amazing. I'm grateful that I'm in crypto, like all this, in my interests and my skills that I've been able to do from all that learning has led me towards crypto. Being able to start my own business, work with you, and now work with you in the business, and grateful that I can do things like this podcast, all because of those being able to learn and becoming the human that I am. So just super grateful that I have the tools I need to succeed.

That's just awesome. I like it. We're very lucky to, like, if you go back a number, you don't have the tools to do what we do now. Right?

That's exactly it, mate. Like we. Everything is so open and accessible to us that it's just. Yeah, it's amazing, man. Like we're, we're so lucky. There's no, there's nothing holding me back from succeeding except myself. That is genuinely the way I feel. There is nothing that I can't learn on the Internet or go and build on the Internet and sell on the Internet. It's totally up to me.

Awesome, dude.

Cool, mate.

Meal of the week, middle of the week. Let's do it.

All right, this is, this is your meal of the week. Tell me about it.

This here, my friends, was chicken tacos. Now I've rotate off the chicken burger into the tuckers this week and I had this today and my goodness me, for a sore head, rough body, dehydrated, hungover Monday, this just hit everything we needed. So we had, we had this drizzle. It looks like a bit of like aioli slash. Like, I'm not sure, like some of the.

It's.

Yeah, I'm sure it looks like fancy.

Sauce where it's like ketchup and mayo.

Yeah, ketchup and mayo. Honestly, I don't even know what's on this. Like, I think that's like parmesan on top. I don't know what that pink stuff was. That was kind of cool. That was like sort of cold with your warm.

That's rhubarb. No, sorry, not rhubarb. Ah, what's the other one called? It'll come to me.

And then, and then like ori, not Oregon chives or something on top. I don't even know what's on this thing. All I know is bloody unbelievable. The tortillas were soft. Chicken was warm, well cooked, not dry, still sort of juicy. And then I had a mate, I'm embarrassed to say it, I had a mocktail. I had a alcoholic free cocktail because I could not bring myself to have any sort of alcohol today. So I had a big girly looking passion fruit mocktail with my chicken tacos and absolutely smashed both of them. This is getting an 8.9 burgs. It was wonderful. I can't give it any kind because it's not a chicken burger, but it was, it was top class.

It looks phenomenal. Radish, mate. Radish.

Radish. That's it. Yeah. That was good, man. So the mix of the warm and the cold and the sauce and the cheese, like just, just.

Oh, yeah. And it, they're open tortillas as well. Like it's. It just looks it's well put together, it doesn't look too greasy. It. It's like almost a perfect like hangover food. Because it's not too gonna. It's not gonna mess you up too much.

Yeah. And it's not like you're rolling in a KFC and you're gonna walk out, like wanting to sort of just fall asleep and, you know, feel bad about yourself because you just. You've just eaten 9, 000 calories. Like this is like still sort of healthy, you know, just hit all the right spots so that happy with this.

Amazing.

Love Gutaka.

Are you. Are you still on the Goldie, mate?

I'm up at the Goldie. I had this at surfers. So I went up, went up, had a look around. Oh, a bit of a wander, mate.

Nice.

Gold coast is unbelievable. Just quietly like. It is holiday vibes up here, mate. It is like everyone's relaxed.

Oh, yeah, chill.

Everyone's just sort of cruising around on skateboards. Old mate was riding his bike. I'm gonna run him over. He's got his surfboard out one arm and riding like just a mountain bike up the road.

How good?

Classic.

Yeah, it's just, it's chill vibes, man.

Yeah. Mind you, they only watch nrl, so I don't know about that.

Yeah. Bastards. Well, their fully team sucks, so. Yeah.

Great. Anyway, what do you got for me?

This was last night, mate. So this is a mushroom risotto and it was unbelievable. So you got your typical risotto, Arborio rice, you got three different types of mushrooms, mate. You've got button, you've got enoki, you've got oyster, mushroom, you've got broccolini that's cut up and put in there. Nicely shaved parmesan over the top drizzled with truffle oil. Mate, this thing was in. It was. It was at a pub. So it was a massive serve because we've got a. We've got a pub and someone over, like took it over. Used to be like a degenerate pub and now it's just like pumping, just packed with people. This was. I just felt. I had a big hunger on. I was lifting yesterday and I had a hunger on, man. And this was a big plate and I specifically went. This one without the chicken and the chicken stock. So this was the vegetarian option and it had like a really. Because they use like with the chicken one, they put heaps of chicken stock in it and chicken. So it's like really rich and salty. But you can't have that much of it you just feel like you get dehydrated. You don't feel that great. Nice. Had a nice Pinot noir with this as well. Mate. This was just bang on. Bang on.

Can I just say you. You've ordered a risotto in a pub. That is a big call, mate. That is dangerous.

Oh well, this, this pub though they're known for like they've got all this different stuff. Like they've even got you know, different crab pastas and crazy steak sandwiches. And I'll. I've got a photos of like my mates dishes as well. It's more like going to like oh, a bistro or something like that where they just serve that food. But it's a pub. It's crazy.

Yeah.

So I would give this, I reckon eight and a half out of ten.

Okay.

Because it was, it was spot on for what it was.

Yep.

But like, oh man, that when you have the chicken one with the chicken stock and everything. Yeah. That's like, that's close to a 10 out of 10. But it'll you up.

You're gonna be done.

So. And then, and then, and then for dessert, mate had this like sticky date and he had the ice cream. The cream and it comes out and I'm looking at it, I'm like, you know, this ain't gonna be your dirty. And I took a bite and I was like, hot damn. It was like, it was hot. It had raisins in it and it had all like this beautiful butterscotch sauce over the top.

Yeah.

And I demolished this thing in under two minutes, man. Like it was just gone. It was delicious. Like I'll definitely be going back. Let me show you some of my mates meals. This is my mates and this is unbelievable. You got the sticky pork sausages, peas, broccolini mash just covered in gravy. Just unbelievable. And then this one. Steak sandwich of the year. So this is actually brisket in the steak sandwich and it's got a French dip on the side. So you've got like a. I think it's like a French onion kind of soup. Might even have mushrooms in it. You can dip the steak sanger in there and have a bit of that. Oh mate. Unbelievable. I'll definitely be going back. It's cracking.

Nice work. Right, what meme we got is in our spicy. What's the level of spice? We had to edit out like half the memes last week.

It's. It was so funny where you get to meme 7 and then it just cuts and it just goes to the End like, that's it, we're done.

It was. It was very, very spicy. So I'm going to give a trigger warning for this and if you like the Little Mermaid, just tune out now. This will ruin a lot of childhoods. All right, so this is the Captain Phillips meme and it's. Look at me, I'm the Little Mermaid now. And it's got the black guy from Captain Phillips with the aerial wig on his head, the red wig. So good. So I watched the trailer of the Little Mermaid and you know when you hear, like a voice or just like amazing music and you just get, like, goosebumps and you get really emotional? Holy. I wasn't expecting much. I was expecting it. And she starts to sing Part of your world. And my God, she blew away the original woman. The same back in the day. Her voice is incredible. I'm like, bang. That's why they chose her. Like, they don't care. Like, you have to look like Errol, you have to be white or whatever. Her voice is absolutely incredible. She smashed it and I can't wait to see this. This is, like, going to be in my top 10 movies, mate. I'm gonna look at. I'm gonna watch it, I'm gonna be happy, I'm gonna cry, I'm gonna reminisce. It's gonna be amazing. I love.

Awesome.

That's all there is to it.

Give us a review afterwards.

Absolutely. Coming out next year. I can't wait.

Amazing.

So good, man.

I think that's it. I'm off to Dubai on. So just quickly, I'm on Sky News Arabia tomorrow. Like, the Sky News, like the second biggest media network in the United Arab Emirates. Like, it goes across Dubai, Iraq, Iran, like Saudi Arabia. They're doing a lot. They're doing a live. Cut to me tomorrow night live feed tomorrow night in Arabic. So it's going to be live. The question is going to be live, translated to me while they asked me around web3education and the Australian perspective. And what I'm coming to Dubai for, to bring education to the masses in. In Arabia.

That is Arabia. That is awesome. And seriously, mate, like, please tell me you're going somewhere to do this and you're not using the hokey Internet I'm looking at at the moment because you look like you've got eight pixels comprising your head. Like, mate, are you going somewhere or are you just doing on your laptop?

I was gonna do it here, but I can't do that.

Mate, you need to get. You need to get better Internet. Otherwise they're just going to look at you and be like, he doesn't even give us the respect of having decent Internet.

It's at 10:30 tomorrow night, mate.

You need to sort it out. You got, you got a day to sort it out. Surely you can do this, mate.

The am I gonna do.

Little cogs spinning in your head, mate.

I tell you what, they're not spinning very fast. Yeah, I'll think about it tomorrow.

That's it. See if you go somewhere or get better Internet or.

Yeah, anyway, and then off to Dubai on Friday. So speaking at a conference on Saturday, Sunday, Monday to be meetings with investors. It's all happening, mate, so I'll be next week.

How long you been Dubai for?

Well, there's another conference that want me to speak, so it's probably going to be close to three weeks, I reckon. Meetings.

That's huge, mate.

Meeting some family officers, got some meetings, doing some events.

Three weeks in the desert, mate. Have you been to Dubai before, mate, you are going to die.

Like, seriously, I want to come back like a tomato.

Oh, you're gonna be red, mate. You know, I want to see you in the full Arab get up wearing like the white clothes and the headgear and everything, man. It's like, dress how they dress, mate. You got it or you won't survive.

I copped it today. I usually just copper from here. I went for a massage and the lady goes, have you always been wringer? I was like.

She'S like brutal. She's like, you know your kid's gonna be Ranger, right? I was like, well, you know.

How.

Brutal, how brutal I was like, you always be. I was like, I'm not wranger, Like I'm, you know, burgers will call me Ranger.

But yeah, I was like, oh, you're slightly ginger. I wouldn't call you ranger. You're definitely, you're definitely pasty. But like, mate, for your masseuse customer and she's laying you out, mate.

I don't pay to get lit up by the masseuse. I'm like in our life, like, Jesus, give us a rest.

One of those heads that you got a head that needs regular panel beating, mate, you just gotta light you up whenever you can. You just, you're just a beacon for hatred.

Like your satellite.

Oh, mate.

Right, I'm leaving. I'm sitting here, mate.

What, What a good episode. We started off with you choking on your drink, which is amazing. We're gonna keep that in. Then you had a bloody cramp.

But hopefully our listeners can hear me through the mic is.

At least I could still hear you. Everything was fine. It was just hilarious. I can't wait to see this footage again. Mate, you're a mess. You're very not well put together at all. You're basically barreling through life sideways. I don't know how you survive, but, mate, good on you for having a go.

We feel sorry for you, Ben, but, you know, keep going.

So good. So good.

Thanks, everyone, for listening. Enjoy. Please, you know, send this to a friend if you think they'd be valuable, and leave us a review. And, yeah, we'll see you next week from Dubai. See you, folks.

Awesome. Thanks, champions. See you later.