#85: Varun Rana — From Amazon Engineer to Viral Comedian

When I dropped out, like, my mom was crying, you know, like, yeah, she was crying.

She wanted me to go back to school for a long time and now she's super proud and she's like, ah, you know, I think the great thing about the content path and this internet path is like, you just continually disappoint your parents so much that they just eventually become numb to it and now they're just like pseudo supportive of it, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. They just become so numb that it's almost like a Stockholm syndrome for a kid who makes content.

Exactly. Let's blow up the internet from the basement to the higher net. Scrolling, tapping, man, we ain't done yet. Let's blow up the internet.

Why is it so easy to make fun of tech?

I think because it's like such a new thing in the grand scheme of things. It's like this like less than 40 years old industry. And so it kind of attracts like people from all different walks of life, and it just has no rules. Like, it's so— and when something has no rules and it kind of, you know, just becomes a free-for-all, I think it just really brings out the worst in people.

So yeah, or the best too.

Yeah, sometimes best.

Yeah, the most creative too. Yeah, I'd say.

Yeah, true.

But sometimes in a bad way. Yeah, yeah. You've, you know, your career is now around kind of satirizing tech. Yeah, uh, similar to what me and Jack Kovecky do in some degree and, and also building tech. And so you got started as a software engineer, you were saying?

Yes. I worked at amazon.com for 2 years. The, the book distributor.

They just do books, right?

Yeah. Yeah. The book company. Yeah. The textbook company. The textbook company. Yeah.

Yeah.

No. Yeah. I worked there from 2018 to 2020. Yeah. And then, yeah, I just hated that all around. Hated that. I don't have a lot of great things to say about that other than I learned a lot. I'll give 'em that. You know, that's—

Okay.

I mean, that's pretty good.

Yeah. That's, that's good.

Yeah, yeah. I was a software developer.

So when did you start making content? Was it while you were at big tech or at startups or what?

It was in between. So after I left Amazon, I took a break from working for like 7-ish months.

Nice.

And I was working a little bit part-time as well, but it was in that like little time off period that I was just trying all the things that I've always wanted to do. And one of them was making content and that started on TikTok in 2021.

Nice. Nice. Yeah. And so how fast did it go from like making, you know, just trying to like, now it's your full-time thing?

Yeah, I think it, it could have been a lot sooner, but I went full-time in mid-2024. So it took like 3 and a half years.

I mean, that's pretty fast, dude.

Yeah.

You know, it took, I mean, it took me a while. Yeah.

There was, you know, a period of like 8 months where I didn't post at all. And then there were slumps where I would post like once a month, you know? So I, it took some figuring out. And also I was pretty young. I was 25 when I started. So like that was during COVID Then like post-COVID I moved to New York and I just like wanted to take a break to kind of like live my life a little bit. And I actually feel like that's super important for any creator is to just like go live your life and then you'll come back and have a million things to make fun of.

So dude, 100%. Actually, I. Posted this on my Instagram story last night. It was like, sometimes I disappear from Instagram and TikTok for a little bit. It's just 'cause I'm grinding or I'm out living. Like sometimes you gotta disappear and it gives you more inspiration. You know, every writer, uh, you think about somebody like Ernest Hemingway or something, they're like, all of his books come from his travels in like Spain, you know, at the, the running of the bulls. Like you gotta go live, you know, Hemingway and Vonnegut, like they wrote a lot about war. We don't get to go to war anymore. We just get to build software. So we write, we write about that. We make fun of that. Totally.

And I know I and probably every other creator out there feels like they're on a hamster wheel sometimes. Like, man, I gotta keep posting, whatever, whatever. But like, one of the things I've learned is like, the algorithm will give you infinite shots as long as you, you know, whenever you come back from your break, you'll be consistent. And two, like, you can afford more risk if you're intentional every time you come back. So if you're like taking a few months off, You know, after a few months you're like, man, I've spent all this time building this stuff. I met all these weird people, whatever. Like you can start to be intentional about, okay, the next several months I want to like make fun of this and then that could maybe get me this kind of brand sponsorship. I'll monetize it. And then like you monetize, you make some money and then you can go chill again, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I mean, I've gone through—

It's like a more healthy way of going about it.

Yeah, dude. I've gone through different cycles where. You know, I was posting on TikTok a lot around like subway videos and Instagram, and then I, you know, switched more towards street interviews and then took a break, you know, was posting a lot of meme videos and now it's a lot of sketches and it's like coming back with the right intention, figuring it out, taking some time to reflect is super important. I think underrated. I see— I actually, I was just talking to this guy, Josh. What's his name? Josh. Whatever. He's from— big YouTuber, right? Josh and Archie. So they have like 2, 3 million followers and have been doing it forever, right? And he like just took a break and now he's like back, you know, they were making money on the side, of course, like from all the passive income, whatever of it, and still running like some— making some stuff on the side. But he, you know, he came back and better than ever and just went super viral. He interviewed Lily Phillips. It was that guy who did that whole documentary. And so coming back and like, you come back, uh, sometimes more refreshed than ever. So yeah, I like that.

I do see a lot of discourse now. There's so many like aspiring creators and I see discourse on like X or Threads of people being like, oh, now the algorithm is only prioritizing new creators and not me who's been grinding for so long. And I'm like, yeah, you, you can't, you can't let this like algorithm or whatever, you can't blame them if you want to make content about something. You have to be more intentional about, yeah, what you're creating and who it's for. And if you do that really well and, you know, study the other content in the space, try to make your own spin on it really well, like, you will succeed.

Yeah. So I have been on Twitter since I was like 13, and you know how many algo changes there have been.

Yeah.

Like, you just can't think about the algo. You just keep posting. Fuck the algo. Yeah. You don't worry about things that are not in your control. You just keep on fucking posting. And the algo just does its thing. Like, I totally— every time there's a Twitter algo change, people are freaking out. I'm just doing the same thing I always do. Like, you just keep going. And, and that makes you Lindy and kind of antifragile where the algo can't disrupt you because you could just keep going. And then the second thing you're saying is taking it to the next level, which is like, you know, my show, Silly Valley Ventures. By the time this comes out, the first episode came out and that was kind of my thesis around it was like, oh, I got to go to the next level. It was like, I don't— I got the money now, I could build a fucking show. I could build a show. Why not build a show? You know, it's like, why not? So, uh, I want to take it to the next level. It's fun, you know, making memes in my apartment. I love that, and I'm always going to do that, and I'll do it in bed and whatnot. But I want to make a show, you know. I want to take it to the next level.

So yeah, I was curious like about your meme making. I mean, like, obviously you've— you're so experienced with it to the point you have this like amazing platform around it. But like, how did that start? I mean, you just said, yeah, making memes in bed. So I was just curious, like, what does that look like for you? Your creative process around meme making? I'm sure a lot of people—

it's in bed, it's always make it in bed. No. Um, so I, I've been on Photoshop and— so I started with GIMP. I don't know if you remember GIMP. It was a free Photoshop alternative because my parents wouldn't buy me Photoshop.

Okay.

So I started with that when I was like 11 or 12 in school. And I would literally like, you could look back at my Facebook profile pictures and I've posted this before. I literally would cut out my face and, you know, do funny taglines and funny like lines. And I was like, that was like a meme, right? And that's the same thing I do now with my memes. I post memes and use face swaps and add funny captions, the same thing. And so I built myself a creative software. So I started with GIMP when I was like 11 or 12. By the time I was like 17 on Photoshop, I made like $40 grand selling stickers. On the internet. So I was in high school just like cooking up stickers and then, you know, I learned how to build software. I was like, oh, you know what? I, I wanna build the software for it. There was no good meme software out there that I really liked. I hated all of 'em. And so I wanted to build a better alternative. Uh, and, and dude, the feeling of building a creative software is insane. Like absolutely insane because you just are not, uh, you, you build the software and then all of a sudden, you know, people just start making weird shit that you could never expect. Like, you know, this company here, Mangones, right? So, uh, I love Mangones. Uh, this is not a sponsor. They just send me free mangoes. I guess that, that's, that's not a sponsor. I pay for mangoes. They pay, they, they send me a campaign. It's a gift. It's a gift. Yeah, sure. Anyways, they make mango memes. I could have, yeah, yeah, I could have never expected that, uh, that there would be a mango meme company. There's also, um, there's also like public companies or startups, there's like musicians, there's like super unhinged stuff. So like you just don't expect like when you build a software and then people just do shit with it that you would never expect, like the face swaps, unhinged shit that you would just never expect. It's a crazy feeling.

Yeah. I mean, two thoughts there. Like, one, it's super crazy how we, who I would consider like Zillennials, right? Like we've like almost been at the forefront throughout our life of this like new medium, right? It's a totally new medium of art. And like we've gotten to like witness its evolution, which largely has like stayed the same just with some, you know, modern twists, right? It's like not just one format. There's millions of formats. You can make your own format, right?

100%.

And the second thing is like building the tool to unlock that for others, right? It's like, I think about this when I'm using like Logic to make music, or when I'm using, uh, Final Cut for video. It's like, the person who like built this, that's like so much power. That, that just like— Final Cut is used for movies.

Yeah, yeah. Who controls the memes controls the universe. So it's, yeah, it's a crazy feeling. I mean, people, um, you know, you've, you've used the software, you make memes on it, and, um, you know, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of views every month from, from our software. And it's a It's a beautiful feeling, not just the views, but just seeing people have fun with it. Yeah. Like somebody yesterday, last night. This is just a funny story, which I think you relate to, is like he just started giving me feedback that I didn't ask for. Hmm.

Classic.

And I was— yeah. And he, you know, just some 18-year-old kid, 19-year-old kid who's like never built anything. And I just messaged him like, dude, I don't need feedback. Like the software is growing, it's making money. I'm having fun. Just, just have fun. Just go sign up, use the software. Like, I don't need your feedback. Like, people like the other day, this actually happened too. So this girl with like 500 followers comments calling the software UI ugly, ugly ass UI, right? She says she has like 500 followers, never built anything. She says your software has some ugly ass UI. Meanwhile, Peter Levels, I'm sure you're familiar, right? He has like 600,000 followers, makes $2 million a year building software himself. He goes, I love this UI. Right? It's like the person who has built something is like, you know, so much more supportive. It's the same thing with content, dude. Like the friends who've never posted content, who have never tried, are the ones who attack. And then the creators like ourselves, totally. We've never met until today. It's like we've just been supporting each other for months, right?

Totally.

And like, dude, that was one of the things that blew me away about content and making friends online was the family, like my family, even my family, bro. Was like less supportive than strangers on the internet.

Yep. Like, crazy. I talk about this all the time, dude. Like, it's, uh, this is— I mean, I would really be curious what people in other forms of art have to say about this whole thing, but I know in content at least, like, this is still like super fucking new. Can I cuss, by the way?

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, yeah, go crazy, bro.

Go, go crazy.

Content is still like super new. And people at large don't get it. But the irony is that they consume it day in, day out. They consume it day in, day out. But when it comes to someone saying, I want to go contribute to that thing, it's like, wait, what? Whereas other things we consume day in, day out, if someone says, I'm going to go start a beverage company, it's like, okay, well, that's a thing that's been done before.

But it's so funny.

The success stories have like really been showcased to the greater public in content.

So my dad watches so much YouTube. Yeah, like watches motorcycle videos. He loves motorcycles and watches, you know, all these like funny videos of like Mr. Bean, if you remember. Yeah, like the comedian. And he's like, wait, you could start a YouTube? Like, I told him, I was like, yeah, Dad, like I have a channel. He's like, they let you do that? Like, yeah, who let you create it? I was like, like they're so— my dad's like 65, right? And they're so used to the permissionless state of media that like he grew up with, right? When he grew up, when he was 15, 17, you know, a teenager, you had to get, you know, an agent. You had to get a TV deal, whatever. Now all of us have TV channels. This— you're watching my TV channel, right? YouTube channel, right? Or Twitter, Instagram. Like these are all just TV channels nowadays. And He was like, wait, like, you can make money doing that? Like, how? Like, who's paying you? I was like, Dad, you know, like those ads like that you see during the motorcycle videos? Like, there are people who pay me for that.

Yeah.

And like, he finally was starting to get it. And then he saw actually, you know, Jason Levin, the MyTech CEO guy. Yeah. So he saw him or his brother actually in the New York Times.

Oh yeah.

And how much money he was making. And my dad's like, oh my God, look at this. Like, He's like, look at this guy. I was like, Dad, like, you're like, I know, like, you know, a friend's brother. Like, I'm doing the same thing. Like, like, it's weird. It's almost like people in your life don't see you that way. Yeah, but last night it was a good feeling. So I just sold, sold a package for, for Silly Valley Ventures for 15 grand, which was amazing package of ads. And I was, I was out down in, down in Chelsea and went to Chelsea Market and took myself out for sushi. And so I said, send, send a picture of my dad. I'm like, story in two pictures, right? Is like the stripe and then the picture of the sushi.

I love that. I love that you put your like stripe transaction stuff in your content. That's like, yeah, I think more people need to see stuff like that.

I think they do. I think I'm not a fan of like MR in the bio or anything because like that's always changing. And I also like, I don't know, I think it's a little too braggadocious, but I like keeping it a little mysterious sometimes. But showing like, hey, like you can make money doing this, you know, it motivates me.

I'm like, damn, I need to get my money up. Exactly. It motivates.

Motivates people. I've heard that from a ton of people who see my content, who read my work. I hear from my team especially, like my team, like when they see that we're up, like they're stoked, right? Like they're like, oh shit, like this is getting real. Like, like, let's go, you know? And so I think that's kind of an underrated reason to do it too, is like it motivates your team. But yeah, I don't know, man. It's, it's fun. It's— yeah, I, it's really funny. Like my mom gets it now. Like, so, you know, you and I both went to Michigan. When I dropped out, like my mom was crying, you know, like she was crying. She wanted me to go back to school for a long time.

Um, and now she's super proud and she's like, ah, you know, I think the great thing about the content path and this internet path is like, you just like continually disappoint your parents so much that they just eventually become numb to it. And now they're just like, Pseudo-supportive of it, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. They just become so numb that it's almost like a Stockholm syndrome for a kid who makes content. That's how hilarious, dude. Indian parents. I can't imagine they were happy about you quitting software engineering to become a creator.

Um, yeah. So, I mean, my parents didn't work in corporate. They were in, they were physicians. And so like, they didn't really understand any of the career stuff I was doing, but they just wanted me to do this kind of stable job. Did it for a couple of years, was super unhappy. I was back in Michigan at that time during COVID So, you know, around a lot of the Indian community as well. But yeah, man, I was just going insane, just going absolutely mad at this job. And I just like one day was like, okay, I'm putting in the 2 weeks. I, I have enough of their money. I'll just go run with it and go somewhere else. And And then I didn't tell my parents until like the day before my last day.

A couple days later. That's how you got to do it. That's the same thing I did. Yeah, I told them after and after I made the decision.

You know, I think my, my parents have this habit of like hiding how they like they, they, they, I don't know if they were actually really, really distraught or crying, for example, but like, I know I called my mom and she was like, oh my God, like, oh, and it starts stating like religious things, you know? And then I'm like, trust me, you got to trust me on this one. Okay. And then I know my dad. Dad at first was just like, you shouldn't have done that. Yeah, yeah. And then they were even telling me some of their friends said that too. They're like, oh, you shouldn't have done that. I'm like, just you wait, okay? And I— the funny thing was I had no plan at all, but I was like, just you wait, just you wait.

That's a lie. I was talking to a friend last night. I was like, Indian moms and Jewish moms are basically the same. Oh yeah, except Indian moms make spicier food. Yeah, that's like— they're literally the same.

True, true, true.

Just like very anxious and nervous, right?

Similar.

Yeah, 100%, dude. And like, I— my My mom was crying. It was, you know, telling me to go back to school. And then this year I spoke at NYU. I was like, yeah, once I, once I sent her that, she was like, oh cool.

Oh yeah, I did like, I did an NYU thing. I went to Michigan as well. Now they're like, oh my God.

I know, I know.

It's so funny. This is such a prolific time for him. Yeah, yeah.

This, I, dude, same with the newsletter. So I've been writing my newsletter for 180+ weeks straight.

That's crazy.

So insane, right? Yeah, I know. And that doesn't, it didn't start out like that, right? It started like, like, you know, just a few people reading it and, um, now tens of thousands. And, uh, my dad's still— my parents are like, wait, you can make money from that?

Like, yeah, yeah.

I'm like, Dad, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can. Like, it's, it's just really, um, it's just eye-opening. It's funny. Yeah, it's, uh, I, I don't know, man.

But I think another side of it is not only people are like confused how you make a career and make money out of it, but I think the unique thing about content as well is that you are putting yourself out there and putting your own thoughts and opinions fully on display. Like, if you go start like a business, like a beverage company or something, like, yeah, you got to be a salesman of your beverage, but it's, it's a, it's a tangible thing that isn't you.

That's so true.

In content, you're like, hey, like, I'm putting me fully on display for everyone to see. And I think that does like kind of rub some people's insecurities a little bit, you know? And so people might be like, why would you do that? Why would you take yourself and put it on the screen? You know, like, I think that's a whole other part of it that makes people, like, concerned when you do this kind of thing.

Yes, that is so true. I've never thought about that. It's like somebody emailed me the other day or messaged me like, I love how you turned your personality into a business. I'm like, yeah, that is what every creator does. That's what also— that's what, like, every artist does.

In general, like, but it's unique because acting, for example, you're acting like someone else. Or if you're like in Broadway, a similar thing. Uh, filmmaking, similar thing. But like, especially if you're doing content and you're like, here's me, dude, here's everything I think, here's my brain on the screen. Like, I think that's scary to a lot of people still.

Yeah, yeah, that's very true. It's definitely scary.

Um, for me it's freeing, you know?

Oh, so freeing. I love, I love the feeling of like saying shit that I just want to say. Yeah, I am, you know, I've said this before, but I am a pirate in search of the one last treasure, which is freedom of speech. Like true freedom of speech, dude. And the only way to have true freedom of speech is to get fuck you money. Yeah, that's it. That's the only way to get it.

I've thought so much about this, but like while I was at my various jobs, like I didn't feel like I could post about certain things.

If you're at Amazon, you can't. Yeah, Google or whatever, like, or big finance. Like I have a lot of friends.

Exactly.

Sure. Or you do in New York who like, yeah, they're either on a non-account or they just don't post because they'll get fired.

Exactly.

It's terrible.

I feel like a personal responsibility to talk about things that other people don't want to talk about, like the whole H-1B thing, or just how people are treated at these jobs. And just like, there's so many things people want to speak up about and I feel like I'm not afraid to talk about it. I'll, I'll do it if no one else is gonna do it.

Yeah.

And then by doing that, you then create a whole new category of like content. And so I don't know, I'm just. I feel like whenever people ask me about getting into content, I say like, what is just like stuff that's burning on your mind? Like, just start with that. And then before you know it, you'll create a genre.

100%. I feel the same way with talking about sex in general. It's like most people are really afraid to talk about it.

Yeah.

For whatever reason, it's become almost more normalized actually for girls to talk about it than men.

Oh, totally. Totally.

It's really weird because like 20, 30 years ago it wasn't like that. And now if a guy talks about it, like it's, it's, it's actually very rare. I think every guy is afraid. And yeah, maybe it helps the fact that I'm married that like I have my, you know, I don't know. But the point is like, there's so many— there's this arbitrage right now around like making sex jokes and dirty jokes and like I am totally leaning into that, right? Like, you know, my Subway videos, 24 million views, reading like I have a small penis on the subway, like, yeah, talking about sex in post or making dirty jokes. Like, a lot of people are afraid to do that because they'll get fired or in tech, you know, their VCs, they're afraid of that, like all these things. And if you are not afraid of that, if you're playing a totally different game, you could just totally arbitrage on their fear. And it's amazing.

I mean, I, for my skits, I often use this like fictional startup I created called Strokeify, and it's just like literally In reference to like circle jerking, you know, like what is Strokify exactly? It's just like this fictional entity that I use for making points. Like I use it in skits. I use it like when I'm ranting about stuff, like I'll use it as an example when I'm like explaining or ranting about some startup thing.

And yeah, um, are you, are you taking investors?

Oh, I mean, it's completely fictional, but maybe Jabroni Capital could.

Yeah, yeah, we'll get you to take investors. Speaking of that, uh, speaking of Jabroni, I just got my flyer over here for duofucko.com, right? Pretty beautiful. So Duofucko.com is Duolingo only for cursing. And, you know, this is exactly what I'm talking about. The arbitrage, right? Yeah. It's like most people, they would not want to have something with cursing or, you know, whatever it might be, you know, unhinged or inappropriate. And we literally just launched a show around this, bought the domain for a whole $11. And there's just an arbitrage in doing things that other people are afraid of. Fear Arbitrage 101. So doafucka.com, you know where it points, right to our YouTube video, right?

Oh yeah.

We're going to hang those flyers actually tomorrow in the city. Yeah, we're going to hang them all around. I got like 500 of them, so we'll be hanging them everywhere.

Are you guys flying them yourselves?

Yeah, yeah, I am. I don't, I don't have like an intern or anything.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. If you know any broke NYU kids, All the NYU kids I know are pretty rich, honestly. Like, who are still in NYU. Like, that's a weird thing about NYU is like, you try to find like an intern at NYU or something. Like, I've done this and they're all like rich.

Oh, really?

Yeah. It's because they're like NYU kids. Like, they're all like trust fund kids. Like, if you try to find like an intern at like Penn State, right? I'm from like Pennsylvania suburbs. Like, these kids are like, they're broke, they're hustlers. And like NYU, like, no, like, I don't, I don't need a job. Or like, I'm not going to do something for like $20 an hour. Like, it's so funny.

I don't know, I've never tried, but like, I've always thought about it. I'm like, man, there's like all these kids probably—

but they're all, they're all living better than we are for the most part.

That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They, they are, dude, there are a lot of, a lot of the NYU kids, like, they've got like some penthouses and shit and everything's paid for, which sounds great. So, uh, if you're an NYU kid and want to pay for me and my wife to move in.

Yeah.

Shout out Nathan, if you're listening to this. Love you, buddy. No, I don't know if he's, if he's already, you know, cooking. But let's get back to making fun of tech and let's talk. We were talking about this earlier where in startups, in tech, for some reason everybody calls sales like GTM. Um, for whatever reason, like sales is a dirty word. And so they're like, no, it's go-to-market or it's like marketing or whatever. And I'm like, no, that's just sales. Like, it's just sales. Like, that's not a bad word. Like, I love sales. Like, I, I'm good at making sales. Like, I love it. So yeah, you've definitely seen that, right?

Yeah. I, I mean, my very honest opinion is like they have changed the name of it and the marketing of It's— but it's to make a largely undesired set of tasks sound more desirable. And I'm not talking about like getting on the phone and closing a big deal. I'm talking about like everything else. You know, there's this whole community online of people who are super passionate about list building, dude, like Clay and Apollo and like—

it's most—

it's like, it's like some fucking Loom video of like Oh, here's how I build a clay table to do this. And I'm like, how did this person become so passionate about this? And they're like, yeah, I'm a GTM, whatever, GTM this, GTM that. And I'm like, oh, like, I don't know, whenever I think of like the go-to-market ops, like list building, email drip campaign, like all that stuff, like, I don't know, that stuff like doesn't appeal to me. And I feel like calling it go-to-market makes it sound better. I mean, before, what do we call it? Sales ops. RevOps, whatever. Now we call it go-to-market. Yeah, it just sounds cool, but it's really just like downloading CSVs, uploading CSVs, typing stuff into little boxes, and like, that's all it is.

That's so true. Same with chief of staff. Chief of staff is literally— you're just a founder's bitch.

Oh, that's it.

That's what chief of staff—

you are their fucking secretary.

Yeah, it's just a non— it's a PC way to say secretary.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, my understanding of chief of staff is like you're like working with a founder and the founder is just like, I want to like look into that. And then they're just like some ex-consultant or like banker who's just like, okay. And they just like make a bunch of spreadsheets and Jira tickets and they're like, yeah, I'm going to do that then. And like, I don't know, like I, I can't— I— what does the staff even mean here too?

You know, it's like, yeah, I think it only makes sense to have a chief of staff when you have like over 10 employees or so or 20 or whatever. Even that, I don't think it's needed. But, you know, Tyler Denk, right, for example, founder of Beehive, I don't— he told me he doesn't even have a VA, like, which is crazy. I know some people who've got like 10 VAs, like he doesn't even have a VA. He definitely doesn't have a chief of staff.

Like, do you have a VA? No.

I mean, I've got like employees, but I don't have a VA. I tried one, but I fired her. Like, it just wasn't good. Yeah, I think most of this VA stuff is kind of like a a cope too.

It's kind of like, yeah, I have one, but it's like, what does she do?

Or he—

so like, I mean, like right now I have like, I like don't want someone answering emails for me. I don't want someone answering the phone for me.

I hate that.

That bothers me so much. I don't want people touching my shit when it's like when you email someone and then like Jose responds and is like, hey, like, yeah, when, when can we find time? I like my Notion board a lot, so I have her just like keep my board organized. Like if something's—

you can't organize your own fucking board.

I can, but like sometimes I just like forget to like put things on there.

What's in your Notion board?

Everything for content, everything between like the finances of it.

How much are you paying her?

The— oh, like $8 an hour, like, and it's like a few hours a week, so it's not a 40 hours a week thing by any means.

Where'd you find her?

Upwork.

All right, I'm getting a VA. I switched my mind.

Maybe I will. And they're, they're abroad, so like that helps with, you know, keeping—

how specific were you— did you have to be about what the work entailed?

Um, very. But I'm also just very particular. Like, I knew I did not want them answering emails. I didn't want them, like, doing traditional VA stuff. I was like, okay, like, I just need to make sure my project manager tool is, like, always up to date and, like, I can log in every morning and be like, okay, this is what I need to do today.

So she checks if you posted something and then—

so I have this, like, shared doc with her where, like, I have, like, different categories of tasks and I'll be like, oh yeah, I need to like do this, but I need to do it by like next Friday. So I'll put what I want to—

what's your boss?

No, no. I mean, like, I'm— she's my assistant. She's like, I say like, okay, I need this done by then. So it'll go into Notion, which then will go in my calendar and stuff. So just keeping me accountable because I just like feel like my mind is a chaos sometimes.

Sounds like your boss. If she's keeping—

yeah, maybe, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just like the structure. But yeah, I guess I did effectively hire a middle manager. Yeah, for $8 an hour.

Hey, not bad. It could be worse. We all need managers.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

I, you know, I could definitely use that for some things. I think around, you know, growth experiments and stuff like that, I said I set a lot of reminders to myself. I send myself a lot of emails, stuff like that. Yeah, I could see how that'd be helpful, actually. You know, I get it. I get it. I do have a tweet saved in my drafts that I've been saving for a while, which is just like Level 1 of success is virtual AI assistant. Level 1 of success is AI assistant. Level 2, virtual assistant. Level 3, physical assistant.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely aspiring for like, like when I can afford like an executive assistant who like I can even meet in person and they can just like do everything like to like keep my shit going, you know? But like those obviously are more expensive.

So yeah, yeah, dude, I, uh, you ever see, uh, that, that Ryan Serhant, you know, Yeah. Yeah. Did you watch his show on Netflix?

I did.

Dude, he talks about how he has like a guy for everything. I love that mentality where he has like a physical trainer and nutritionist, like, you know, 5 assistants. It's like he's like, yes, I know that sounds crazy, but they make me more money than I spend on it. I was like, yeah, you know, yeah. All right, fair enough.

Yeah.

Like, I do hope that one day when I, you know, get that guap, like I'll have a, you know, a personal trainer or something. Like, why not? You know?

Yeah.

I mean, like, comes to the house once a week. Sure.

Totally. I mean, I often think about like, what would I like outsource? I definitely will want a cleaning person. I'll definitely—

That's like, that's, that's quick.

Yeah, that's nice. Like that.

Dude, I had this idea for a startup actually yesterday, which is Latina cleaning ladies, but for your laptop.

Before your laptop?

Like your files. You know what I'm saying? It's not a bad idea, right?

Okay.

Dude, my files are insane. Do you know—

You mean just like your downloads folder?

Do you know what a downloads folder of a meme lord looks like?

Oh, dude.

It's just Saratoga water bottles.

It's just like trump.jpg. It's Trump.jpg. It is Trump 3.

Absolute unhinged insanity. And I would pay a lot of money. Actually, I'm going to steal your VA. She's going to clean up my shit.

Yeah, yeah, sounds good.

Maybe I do that. Can you give remote access to your downloads folder? Probably not.

I feel like you can let people remote into your computer.

That's why you need a physical assistant.

Yeah.

Every night, end of the day, just here's my laptop, rename all my files.

Initially, I was thinking you were Saying like cleaning the screen too, which I'm like, yeah, that'd be great too.

Cause I've got a lot of jizz on there. Um, I actually thought of this other startup idea, which is actually serious. It's not really a startup. It's like a quick tool, which is like upload all my files and then use like OCR images to like rename them essentially. And I built it, but it just had too many false positives. Um, but I think there's something there, like just my downloads are terrible.

I don't know.

I'm going off right now. Just—

yeah, no, I mean, you would use that, right? Wait, let's say that again, the OCR thing.

All right, so you've got like 100 photos in your downloads, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And you— they're all like image_912, uh, you know, ABQ579, whatever, just real random names, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Personally, I don't save everything with a name because I'm in a rush, right? You do the same, I assume? Yeah, like, do you name everything? Are you like perfecting it?

No, I mean, I want to, but I don't. Exactly.

Exactly. So you just like press a button and it runs AI through everything and renames everything.

That would be amazing. I feel like that's not expensive or difficult to build too. It just kind of looks at it.

No, dude, I built it.

It looks at the file and it's like, what is this?

I built it, but it wasn't good enough.

Let's find a home for it. Or let's make a home for it.

Maybe, maybe I should double down on that. Maybe I should, maybe I should try rebuilding it. Cause I, at first I did it as like, you just upload a bunch of files. But maybe it's like a Mac app actually.

Dude, I actually think that's a very untapped space right now.

Are you starting a startup?

Maybe, dude. I mean, I thought about something. So like I have shit in Google Drive and some of my Google, I have like a lot of automations and like sometimes I have things in Google Drive that then funnel over to somewhere else or whatever. But like I have stuff on my computer that I wish I could just, once I download it somewhere on my computer. It then automatically goes to like Google Drive, or maybe you want it in Dropbox, whatever. But like, it's surprisingly hard to do that. I mean, you would have to just build it natively. Like, I don't think there's a lot of—

have you used repurpose.io?

I do. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, you could probably do that if it downloads to Dropbox. You could have Repurpose send it to Google Drive.

Yeah, I'm saying like connecting the cloud with your local computer, kind of like what you're saying too, like doing stuff that keeps your local computer organized, and then like, yeah, you can like send it other places too.

Dude, my computer's so messy, it's terrible. Like, my— every time that my wife and I watch Netflix, yeah, that's just organized my computer time. Oh yeah, so like, yeah, I just like—

I don't even do that, dude.

Yeah, we gotta, we gotta fix ourselves. Yeah, yeah, or hire a Latina cleaning lady.

Yeah, yeah, laptop files. Yeah, they just like, they just like knock on your door and it doesn't have to be Latina. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

I'm cool with the guy too. Yeah, yeah, I have nothing. I'm just—

could be an Asian man.

Yeah, yeah, I'm cool with that. It's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, totally.

Um, is it better? I mean, that's, that's arguable.

Yeah, yeah, maybe. I mean, you know, they're— they, uh, they've been in the industry, you know, longer.

That's true, that's true.

That's a good point.

So let's talk LinkedIn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're having fun building there?

I'm having fun, dude. I mean, I started just like shitposting on there, like almost a year ago to the date, and I was doing like a fun thing where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have you guys comment like prompts for ChatGPT and I'm gonna use that to generate posts on LinkedIn. I did that for like a week, 2,000 followers.

Really? Yeah.

And then like from there I just kind of kept going. Now I write most of my posts on my own without much AI involvement, but Um, yeah, I think, I mean, like, it's funny because I, most of my LinkedIn persona is making fun of LinkedIn personas, and yet I'm actually very bullish on LinkedIn too. Like, I think people are definitely sleeping on, like, I mean, there's so many people making like millions from just simple things like having a following and putting a link to whatever you're trying to sell. Like, it's actually not that hard. And I think people's hesitance about LinkedIn is the only thing that stands in the way from them, like, making something out of it.

I think it's two things. It is what we were talking about earlier around fear arbitrage. People are afraid to post on there because they're afraid they'll get fired or their high school friends will think they're a loser. And number two is thinking that LinkedIn is cringe. And what I say to that is embrace the cringe because there's a lot of money in being cringe.

Oh yeah.

Like some people will think it's cringe. But people like us were like, oh, that guy's smart. Like our boy Jack, right? He's got 50K on there. Like he's making, making moolah. Or like, you know, I'm sure there's some idiots who are like, oh, he's so cringe. It's like, nah, Jack's the fucking man. Like we love Jack.

Yeah. Someone showed me his profile and that actually inspired me to start doing a similar thing.

Dude, like, you know, one man's cringe is another man's cool. Jack's cool, right? I'm sure some, a lot of people out there think me and you are probably cringe, right?

Oh yeah.

Because cringe is a meaningless word. But posting on LinkedIn, I spedrun it, speedran it from around like 2K to around 10K now in the last 6 months.

Amazing.

Amazing. I've been taking a very different approach to LinkedIn than, than Jack. So it's interesting. We talk about this a lot. So Jack is once a day for maximum virality. Uh-huh. One shitpost, one satirical post a day. I am quantity. I treat it more like Twitter. Twitter, you could, you just go all day and like I do the same with LinkedIn. And so I, I'm just constantly building, building, building it up. And just like, I don't know, I think I have so many ideas. I have like memes, I've got everything. Like I've just, I just put out a ton and both approaches work. And now posting videos, like, I don't know, I don't think there's one right approach. I think the one post a day works. And, but you could also do multiple. You could, you can, you could do serious, you could do silly, like I'm doing serious and silly. Like you could do everything. Like.

So I actually feel like across platforms, if you're posting like a, like for LinkedIn, for example, if you're posting like a long, long line-by-line post, like that might benefit from like having time to marinate and doing maybe once per day or a couple times a week. Whereas I've noticed with your content, there's some that are more quick hits too. And that's like, that's the kind of thing you probably want to post more. And similar thing on YouTube, TikTok, if you're making super long videos, it's probably better not to do that every single day. If you want to reach the most people. Yeah.

Yeah, that's 100%. That's a great point. Maybe I— yeah, my longer posts, when I do those, they have a longer half-life for sure.

Yeah.

Like I'll see likes coming in from them like 3, 4, 5 days later, whereas the short ones are just short hits. But sometimes it's nice to do the short hit, you know?

Yeah.

Like sometimes you got to crank one out, you know?

Yeah, you just got to rip one.

You just got to— you got to rip one out. You got an idea.

It's got to rub on it.

This would be so funny on LinkedIn and I just post it, you know? It's like not every I don't know. I'm a big believer that not every post has to go viral and not every post is meant for virality. Sometimes it's just to like post it and get it out there and it feels good. And, uh, it's not always about going viral.

I haven't found a pattern yet for what makes my posts go viral, but I definitely, like a big point of my LinkedIn is like, I'm gonna use very predictable LinkedIn engagement tactics to kind of prove the point that like there are patterns in what goes viral. So like. Anytime I'm like, I'm excited to announce.

Oh yeah. I love that.

You can guarantee that I'll get at least like 50 likes at the very least.

Want to know what we should try actually is, uh, you know how a lot of people do those, um, comment blank word to do this. We should do that, but it's, uh, like a dirty word or something. Comment retard to get our guide to how to be a retard on LinkedIn.

Oh my God.

Just retard, retard, retard.

I did one where I was like, like a few months ago, I did another like fake job announcement. I'm like, I'm excited to announce I am now the king of work. And then I said, comment a cookie emoji to congratulate me, you know. And then, dude, a bunch of people did that. I—

when, when Sam Altman got fired from OpenAI, or yeah, removed or whatever, I posted that I was the new CEO of LinkedIn— or new CEO of OpenAI, sorry.

Yeah.

And my grandma calls me and she's like, I am so proud of you, Jason Levin Levin Levin. Like, I've heard of OpenAI. I knew you were doing good in life, but I didn't know you were that good. And I was like, thanks, Grandma.

Crazy. I actually have also had like relatives, like when I said, like, I forgot what it was, but I think I said I'm the CEO of something. And they were like, oh my God, like our friends said, our friends thought that was real. My parents were like telling me that they like actually believed it.

Yeah, you could just post things. You could just have fun. Yeah, it's fun tricking people. Like, yeah, my grandma thinking that I'm the CEO of OpenAI was hilarious. And then It actually like spread to like my— like she called my mom and then my mom called me. Yeah. And my mom was like, why didn't you tell me? Like, I'm so proud. They had no idea about OpenAI.

Like, they're like, what's OpenAI again?

Yeah, they've heard of it. Um, but only ChatGPT really. Yeah, it's so funny, man. Um, yeah, so you don't, you don't use AI much for writing?

I do a little bit. I think I, I use it if I'm struggling to take a post home?

Like, I gotta be honest, I can't tell with yours.

You can't tell?

That's good.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't think you did. I, I don't use it at all. Uh, you could tell with some people, but I did— I couldn't tell.

My best post and my best performing posts I know are when I don't plan it at all. I'm just like, I think of it in the shower or something. I chug my coffee and I'm just like, I'm just, I'm just— and you're gonna think this is funny or cringe, but I think there's some weird connection between like LinkedIn posting and like rap. Like sometimes I'm like, dude, I feel like I'm like writing some bars right now, dude.

That's hilarious. All right. That is not cringe. Uh, that is hilarious.

Yeah.

Cause I do the same thing. Wait, we should film a sketch on that after this. I was going to say that. Like listening to rap writing LinkedIn posts. Like, oh, that's hilarious. I love it.

It literally feels like, it's like I'm not rhyming. Sometimes I will put rhymes in my posts, but I mean, that's what it feels like. I'm like, damn, I'm in the studio out here, dude. It's like.

Writing those LinkedIn bangers, bro.

I'm dropping my series.

Listen to fucking Tupac, right? Right.

I mean, if you look, you know what's called— it's called broetry, I'm hearing now. But this line-by-line kind of format, like, that's what it feels like.

I'm like, damn, it's just verses, bro. Yeah, dude, I love it. I love it. I mean, not all of us get to be rappers, so might as well like really live in this rap life, dude. I mean, rap inspires me so much. I don't— I guess I don't— I don't talk about it much on the podcast, but I listen to rap all day.

Like, me too.

That is the number one thing that inspires me is like I like to say I'm a mix of, like, Mac Miller and Balaji Srinivasan, which is a very weird mix. But I grew up a stoner, like, very into Mac Miller from 15 to 21, and then I quit drugs and alcohol and got really into tech. And so I'm this really weird mix of, like—

I think I'm somewhere in there, too.

Exactly, of just inspired by Kanye and Mac and Childish Gambino, and then also, like, Peter Thiel and Balaji. It's a really weird mix, but like, it works for me. Like, I'm having fun. I lean into it.

Yeah. I think there's something about the LinkedIn writing that's so like, not just like poetic, but it's also like these guys, it's a lot of men who are just like trying to like proclaim their strong opinions and their truths. And they're like, they're like, fuck the office, bro. You know, like there's just like a fuck. There's like people who are trying to get their hot takes out here. There is something so rap-like about it.

Yeah, bro. Everybody's just doing rap battles, but it's on LinkedIn. It's like, oh yo, I just wrote—

you should host a LinkedIn rap battle.

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Yeah, wait, wait, we should actually—

in-person experience.

Yeah, and we— nothing has to rhyme, it's just a LinkedIn post.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like you read your LinkedIn post out loud. It's like, I fired 6 employees today, and you have like a hip-hop day of my life, like, yeah, uh, or I electrocuted my employees today, blah blah blah. Uh, my competitors sucked Dick. LinkedIn rap battle.

I—

we, we should host this during like New York Tech Week or something. That'd be so funny.

Yeah, New York Tech Week. I was just telling someone like, I feel like it needs more like fun stuff, dude.

Well, we're hosting some, uh, great events. This is not even meant to promo it, but Jack and I are hosting a late night meme-a-thon. So super unhinged.

That's amazing.

Gonna be at WAP, which is, uh, sick office in, in Brooklyn. Like beautiful, beautiful office. And then I'm also hosting, uh, with the podcast's last guest, the one right before this, uh, with Jared. We're hosting, uh, Can AI Be Funny? Uh, which I think is a fun topic. Um, and we've got about 7 minutes left before we gotta bounce. So let's discuss that real quick actually. Sounds good. While we're on that is can AI be funny? Uh, we're talking, uh, do you think it can be like, what, what's your thoughts? I have a lot of thoughts, but I wanna hear yours. Cause I, I couldn't tell, like I said, I couldn't tell that you use it a lot.

I use AI a ton for my workflows, especially with writing. I don't use it to like write stuff for me, but I do use it to kind of help me structure my writing and like figure out if an idea is universally appealing or not.

So you're saying you're a LinkedIn rapper with AI, essentially?

Yes, ex— exactly. Yeah, one of us. AI is like my record label.

Yeah, Sam Altman is Rick Rubin. Yeah, Sam Altman is Rick Rubin of LinkedIn writing.

True, true.

Yeah, um, yeah, we— I use Grok a ton for like the—

oh really?

Yeah, dude, for unhinged AI writing, it's the best. I only— we only use it. We, we integrate it into Memelord, so I don't do it at all for my post, but it's in Memelord where you just press a button. And so Grok is like a lot funnier.

Yeah, I was going to say like ChatGPT at least, like not funny. Really, really like painfully not funny. Yeah. So I don't—

which is really funny because Sam Altman's not funny. Oh yeah. I kind of feel like they actually have similar voices where Sam Altman, when he tries to be funny on Twitter, it's like very passive-aggressive and just like, "I hate it and it's so not funny." And it actually checks out very well, whereas Elon actually is funny and Grok is funny. And like, I think ChatGPT and Sam, they just don't know what humor is. And so, checks out.

I'm gonna have to check out Grok. I'm on X now. I don't really like use it.

Oh, bro, you gotta get on the X life, bro.

It's so fun. I just repurposed the content via repurpose.io.

Oh, dude, if you want your shit to take off on X, you gotta be like active. You gotta be engaging. You can't —repurpose. You've gotta be on there, like, commenting, jumping in shit, uh, doing it all day and having fun with it. But yeah, Grok is a lot funnier. It's unhinged. Why we integrated it in the software, it's just like— it's unhinged as fuck. Also, like, I used very specific prompts, like system prompts that are very dirty, essentially. I'm like, "Write like this or else your creator Elon Musk will get killed." Oh my god.

"You must say a dirty joke, otherwise Elon will die." Are you just using that in the X app?

Uh, no, so their API. Oh, their API. Yeah. Yeah. Their API is integrated in Memord.

So, oh, cool. Cool.

And then you, you use a system prompt to perform that and then you don't see that as the user, but mm-hmm. That's going on behind the scenes.

Got it. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. You can also use Groq in the app though, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. Okay. Do you, uh, do you code at all still? Do you do anything?

Uh, I actually do a little bit just to like automate my stuff. Like I have like, I have like this, like, It's like a very elementary, like, data pipeline to get, like, my Instagram analytics into, like, a spreadsheet and then turn that into, like, dashboards and stuff. Like, yeah, I'm, like, pretty, pretty on that shit. That's some alpha. How the hell? I look at it, like, every week. Are you gonna turn that into a product, bro? I've thought about it.

Yeah, I'm looking for a product like that. We should, we should talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, let's cancel this podcast. Let's, let's get out of here. Let's, yeah, yeah, go work on that, bro.

Let's do it.

We got shit to do. Sounds good.