#86: Erica Levin — Our Meme Marriage

You've been tweeting some bangers. You just had one that got censored. So listen up, people. My wife tweeted a banger that was so unhinged it got censored on Twitter. I don't think I've ever even done that. I think Elon Musk has been like, nah, bro, this ain't it. This ain't it. Let's blow up the internet from the basement to the higher net. Scrolling's happening, man. We ain't done yet.

Let's blow up the internet.

Everybody asks me, do I I ghostwrite my wife's posts and the truth is she is my ghostwriter sometimes. She is the more unhinged one and Erica just left corporate and so now she is free to be her unhinged self. Would you say that's accurate, babe?

Yeah, I would probably say that's accurate. Although to some extent, like I don't know what I want later down the line.

So you're still trying to keep it a little PC?

A little PC for now.

So we can't share all your theories? She's a woman with many theories.

Yeah, I have a lot of theories.

Yeah, you were sharing some last night. There's some crazy theories, some good theories. So, Miss Meme Queen, how are you adjusting to leaving corporate?

I always thought the hardest part was going to be the culture adjustment, not the actual work. And definitely.

Yeah, you went dressed up to work one day, right? Or something?

Well, we went to go on a standup call. I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I can't— like, I think I went to go wear this Anderell jacket and I was like, I can't do that.

It's just too fancy.

It's too fancy. So today, like, I went and got my haircut and I was like, I'm so mortified to even have my hair done. Yeah.

So Erica worked in luxury fashion for a decade, basically. And I would always be like, this is so overly done. Like, I'm used to startup sweatshirts. Actually, the first time I moderated a panel, I was wearing a sweatshirt. And Erica was like, you need to wear a suit. You're moderating a panel. I'm like, I really don't think so. Like, that's just not what you're supposed to do in the startup world. Like, that's just not a thing anymore. So yeah, you're definitely, definitely adjusting to the startup meme life. Yeah, I'm very proud.

Thank you.

It's really, it's really been exciting. I don't know. I think something that people like, they're like, oh, you're so online. How do you spend time with your wife kind of thing? We spend a lot of time together. And one of the things that we bond over actually is being on the internet together and on Twitter. And yeah, can you kind of walk us through that, how you saw me being on Twitter and now you being the tweet queen, the meme queen with even more unhinged tweets than me?

Eh, sometimes. Depends on the day.

Yeah.

But I think something that you've said that's always been really key is like distribution. and I saw that there were certain points where I'm like, oh my gosh, like, if only I could just like get this out. It would be just like random thoughts or like SOSs type thing. And I was like, ugh, like, if only I had that following. And it's like, and I even think one of my friends sent me something. It was like, can Jason Levin go and tweet this? I'm like, well, I want to be able to do that. So, um, you were like, get on Twitter. And I was like, I am on it, but I'm a lurker. Um, and Yeah. As soon as the wedding came around, I was like, I don't want to balance wedding planning and growing a Twitter. So as soon as wedding planning happened, um, there was a viral tweet that happened immediately as the start of it. Yeah.

We were on the honeymoon. You wrote a banger. It has 10 million views about, uh, what was it? The 7 worst things about marrying a tech bro?

10.

10. Oh, sorry. There are a lot more.

That was, I had to keep it small.

Yeah. We got the David Sachs response.

Got the David Sachs.

He congratulated us for the wedding. That was pretty sweet.

Yeah, the crypto czar.

Yeah, the crypto czar. What were some of those? Those, uh, want to name our kid Elon? We've talked about that before. That's actually a good name.

I like the name.

It's a Jewish name. It's an Israeli name actually, right? Yeah.

I also think it's like unique. I'm a little worried about some of the hate that it would get right now, but to be honest, I like the name.

Well, we've got a few years till we're popping out our 20 kids, right?

Well, if we're having 20, I think we should probably start soon. Yeah.

Elon Levin. Um, so you went from lurker to meme queen.

Uh-huh.

I, So it's funny, I remember it not a little bit differently, but I remember there was one point that switched everything and you might not even remember this. It was just an offhanded comment, but it felt like it changed everything. And it was when I told you your thoughts are valuable. Like a lot of people are afraid to share their thoughts on the internet. They're not sure who cares and they're not sure if anybody cares about their thoughts. And I don't know, I remember saying that to you. You were like, who cares about this? I was like, all your thoughts, Your thoughts are just valuable. Like you create cool thoughts. And this goes for anybody listening. Like your thoughts are valuable. Your thoughts can make money. You can, you can go viral with just your, your thoughts. I don't know. I think for me that was when I saw you like accelerate. I don't know if you remember that.

Well, I think I remember that you said that and then I would start to like not think about what I was tweeting and just, just tweet off the dome. And those were the ones that then started getting likes from the people I knew. And I was like, oh my gosh. And one of the things that obvious, not obviously, but one of the things that you do in order to grow Twitter is a lot of the replies, like get impressions. And you were like, just say the first thing that comes to mind. And I'm like, the first thing that comes to mind is the most unhinged. Like, that's not a good thing, but that's usually the stuff that does well.

Exactly. So exactly. People are bored of overly serious, you know, like especially on Twitter. And even now LinkedIn is becoming a little bit more unhinged thanks to Jack and I, uh, and many other shit posters out there. But like, —people are sick of that, you know? Uh, they want the first— the first thought is often the best thought, you know? Especially with comedy, writing jokes, making memes. It's like the first one— the more you overthink it, worse it gets. You want to be underthinking.

Yeah, the raw emotion of it.

The raw emotion. Uh, and you've been tweeting some bangers. You just had one that got censored. So listen up, people. My wife tweeted a banger that was so unhinged it got censored on Twitter. I don't think I've ever even done that, babe.

Have you really never? I've never done that. But you've even tweeted that meme before. I have.

But I blocked out the dick. So— but I blocked out the dick. Not really. So wait, what? When? Not fully. So when XAI bought X, so when Elon bought whatever, Erica tweeted out a banger of a man sucking himself off and the head was X and then the dick was XAI. And usually when I tweet that out, I put a black box over the dick and you didn't do that.

And so I'm still new to Twitter. Yeah, I'm just gonna use it.

It got like 300 likes and then for whatever reason the X team, I think Elon Musk has been like, nah, bro, this ain't it. This ain't it. I'm not that flexible.

So I think that Elon has superpowers behind the scenes. Yeah. I don't even know.

On Twitter you mean? Like he, he has special rights or whatever privileges. Definitely. Like that's a normal thing in software. Like I have that for Memelord where I can. Do certain things in the app.

Yeah. So here's my space where I want to say this, because on Twitter I'm a little nervous that he's gonna see what I out him as doing. Um, there's been like a couple jokes on some of my stuff that has been like, oh, like you're Elon's next baby mama, after the Ashlee St. Clair stuff. And I like went to go click on it. Within 10 seconds, the person's account was not deactivated. It was deleted. Like, the comment was gone, everything. And I've had that happen. Like, uh-huh.

Who's tweeting that?

It was like random accounts. Well, but like, they had like legit—

those might have been bots too.

They, they just—

I think there's a lot of anti-Elon, uh, bots going around right now that are like commenting stuff.

Uh, they didn't look like your normal bots, but I mean, who knows. Either way, like, account deleted within seconds every time that somebody comments that.

Wow, that's crazy. And I was hoping you'd be Elon's baby mama so we get that $2.5 mil. Not enough. You don't even have to have his baby. You could be my baby. That's what Ashley did, right?

Yeah, I think so. And then she just like is going to say you won't even take a paternity test. Yeah, we should go on Maury.

Oh, me, Elon, and you.

Good PR stunt.

Yeah, that'd be a good PR stunt. Speaking of PR, all good PR or all PR is good PR, right? Right. So we got Duo Fucko in the house. We've been, we've been posting those posters everywhere. That's been going viral as hell. It's been a lot of fun. How do you explain what I do to your parents and friends and family?

I just, when I was in corporate, I would just say, "He does everything." And my parents, I don't know, it's hard to explain. I'll tell them actually what you do and they're like, "Oh." And even right now with switching over to startup stuff, I mean, I went from a legacy brand with a long history that was easy to relate to, but even now, I mean, this stuff is new, the stuff they're trying to understand, but they just don't know the right questions to ask. So what do I tell them? I tell them the truth, but they're like, huh? They don't know what to ask. They just go, okay, that's great.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, even my parents do the same, so it's hard for them to understand. But I'm curious, going into startups, what have been your favorite AI tools that you like to play around with? Because you're working in an AI startup now. And you are like the queen of AI tools. That's how you got started going from fashion into tech, was playing around with Midjourney, right?

Yeah. I mean, I was playing around with Midjourney. I was also like using Midjourney at my work and they were like, we need anything for a marketing campaign, just any ideas, we'll take it. And I was like, here, I just like, like we have a good brand and like, here's some ideas. I just like popped into Midjourney. Here's what we should do. Here's like a literal outline of what a store would look like. So that was also— that was really fascinating to do. I did, um, our wedding flowers with AI.

Oh right, I forgot about that.

Yeah. Um, and I also did our— like, I did a lot of the wedding planning with AI. Um, I did ChatGPT for like the timeline, and then I was like, no, a Jewish wedding. And I was like, well, I want the hora first. No, I want this after. Which one's more fun? And I would like ask it questions Um, it was really difficult because we didn't have a wedding planner.

No, we didn't.

I saved a lot of money.

ChatGPT is a wedding planner.

I would go back and get a wedding planner. However, um, ChatGPT did it all for me. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, so, I mean, ChatGPT, Midjourney. I was also able to like pass pictures over to all the vendors, um, and I feel like that's also a way to like get guys into the wedding planning. When, as soon as I was like, Jason, I'm doing it with AI, you're like, oh yeah, I actually did perk up.

About that. You're 100% right. And you, you created the initial images for like our wedding invite on Midjourney, right? Or ChatGPT on one of them. Like the, the blue and white, you know what I'm saying? No. No, those designs weren't in it. See, I don't even remember.

I don't know. Oh, I, yeah, I put together a Pinterest board with, yeah, I guess some of them, but just to like get down an idea.

Yeah. And then we, uh, I was helping you with glp1wins.com. Yeah, which is your new app. Do you want to tell people about that?

Yeah, I mean, I think like the building has been like really fun and like seeing how everything clicks. Um, even just explaining to my parents of like, oh, there's a workflow when you're on Facebook.

Tell people about GLP-1.

Uh, tell people about GLP-1. So, um, yeah, I have an app. I've been on GLP-1s. I was super curious about the Ozempic hype. Um, and the app is about changing your mindset into like the winning lifestyle. So a lot of people in the weight loss journey, it's like such a defeating thing. So just focusing on like, here are my wins and taking out, I feel like MyFitnessPal, for example, has like so many steps and it's wrong when it comes to like counting the calories. So I wanted like an AI food generator in there. So, or AI, take a picture of it, which you— That was pretty magical moment to see that.

Yeah, and it was cool. So we were doing some editing. We're like, no, ChatGPT, don't give us approximately. Just give us a number. Don't say you can't. Just like give the best guess. Don't give any extra fluff. Give us like 5 words, you know, just the numbers. Like just— it's cool. Like we're all learning how to talk to robots, you know, and AI in different ways, which is now like what you're doing full time too. So we don't have to talk about that. I know they're keeping it top secret right now, but working at a pretty, pretty sick AI startup that has a lot of Very cool clients. It's not that secret. Not that secret? You want to talk about it?

I'm working at Howie AI. What does Howie do? We do calendaring, so scheduling assistant or your executive assistant. Yeah. For your scheduling needs.

And you're prompting and helping with the prompt engineering.

Yeah. And analyzing the AI.

Yeah. It's pretty magical. Yeah. Pretty sick. Yeah. So curious as well, what's it like being married to a memelord? It's fun. Fun? Okay, good. Good. I'm glad about that.

Yeah. I think, I mean, I always needed somebody who was going to make me laugh. I always needed probably somebody funnier, just a little bit more driven than me. And yeah, I mean, I have fun with it. We can always laugh at stuff. Nothing I think is too serious in our household. Our dog is goofy.

Even our dog is a memelord. He's such a goofball.

Yeah. He's the biggest goofball.

Yeah. What about tips for the girlies? Any tips for the girlies around tech, getting into tech?

You have AI to get you into it if you want. Yeah, that's true. Like, I'm not technical. I will never claim I'm technical. I accidentally did. That was really funny.

You didn't realize what technical meant?

No. Yeah, 'cause I was like, oh, I can copy and paste this code over, I'm technical. And then there was the term for it of vibe coding. Vibe coding.

Non-technical. We're both non-technical. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, but I think you can just do things.

Oh, let's talk about that. Yeah. So you could just do things. We say it in our household a lot now. We kind of say it as a joke. It's like, ah, Jason, you could clean. You could just do things.

You're like, ah, she's nothing.

Thanks, babe. You're right. I can just do things, but I could also just not do things. I could just hire a cleaning lady. To do that too sometimes. Yeah, that's always nice. Um, but yeah, starting an app, leaving corporate, quitting your job to make memes like me, building a software when you're not technical, starting a TV show, starting a show, you know, Silly Valley Ventures. You could just start a show. I've always wanted to start a show since I was a kid. I never had the money.

I didn't have to raise the camera and a microphone.

You need more than that. It actually is, you know, this has been a long time coming, and now like having the people, being in New York changes everything. Like you could just do things. That is, is something I do love about New York is it gives you opportunity to just do things. All right. You know, today we were, uh, filming for 3 hours, right down in, uh, SoHo. And then the day before we were at the park filming. It's like when you have people around you, uh, being in a creative environment, um, and, and all the weird creators around, like really is a magical thing. Like I, I don't, I, you can just do things, but it's a lot easier to just do things when you have people around you who are also just doing things. Yeah. Like Alex, you know, Alex, we just have, ha, I just had Alex on the podcast. He's one of my best friends and You know, he texted me a few weeks ago. He's like, dude, we're like the Avengers of just doing things. I'm like, damn right we are.

So I'll tell you a classic New York story of like kind of you can just do things, but also like of who's here and the opportunity. So back when I was in college, I got a text from my roommate and she's like, I'm really struggling at work and like going on this rant, like super long. And I'm like, okay, like you need me to stay out of the house. I'm a distraction. I won't stop talking. Okay, get to it. She goes, and I'm really trying to please my coworkers. And I got invited to go meet the Backstreet Boys tonight. And I was like, okay. She's like, I really want to bond with them tomorrow at work. So I think it would be a cool story. Would you want to come with me? And I was like, yeah.

Wait, you met the Backstreet Boys?

Yeah, I was invited to an after party with them. I didn't even know this. In New York. Yeah.

You got hit on by Liam Payne. Yeah.

And then I tweeted about it. And then 2 days later, I got A New York Times alert saying he died.

Oh, shit. Yeah. I forgot about that.

Yeah. I was sitting next to you where I was like, "Oh my god, I tweeted this and it was going viral." Oh, that was when— Yeah. And then 2 days later, I was like, "Did I kill Liam Payne?" Probably. Maybe, yeah. It's probably your fault. I would like to not live with that guilt.

Yeah, you could just do things. We end up at comedy shows. You could just do stand-up when you live in New York. That's a pretty magical feeling. I just decided to— One of our favorite comedy places that we go to a lot, I got on their email list because we were going all the time. They were like, hey, we got open spots. I was like, well, I have viral comedy videos on Instagram. I'd never done stand-up, but here's, you know, my viral comedy videos. They're like, okay, come up. Like, I'm sure if you can make funny videos. I was like, all right, I guess I got to write a set. And then I wrote a set. And then 5 days later, I did stand-up and filmed it. Look up Equity Baby. It's pretty good. I was pretty proud of it. But like, you could just do things in New York.

I love it. I love it. You can do it in the other cities too, but I feel like it's easier.

It's easier to do it in New York. I will say it, having lived in other cities, it's a lot easier. Being in New Brunswick, New Jersey, it's a lot harder to just do things. You don't have friends around who are down to film or do street interviews. You don't have as big a comedy scene. Being, being around a scene of people and creators makes it a lot easier to just do things, whether it's LA, whether it's New York. For tech, SF, You know, it makes it easier.

So if we can just do things, what do we want to just do? If there's no limit on anything.

Dreams. We got, you know, Silly Valley Ventures. Want to make that as big as possible and hopefully get some leverage to get our asses, you know, into Hollywood part-time. At least me doing some comedy shows and movies and TV shows. That's the long-haul dream. Want to keep building more software with Meme Lord Tech. Yeah. Work on more companies, invest in more companies. I think go on a lot of adventures with our dog, Ron. Pop out 20 kids. You down? You down? Yeah. You could just do things. You could just have 20 kids, right, babe? It's easy. Did you know it's actually harder for a man to have a cold than it is for you to give birth?

I didn't know that. Yeah, it's a lot harder. I do empathize there.

Yeah. Thanks, babe. I appreciate it. It's hard having a cold some days. How often do I sleep?

You sleep not enough, but you sleep too late.

Yeah. I just go to sleep late. Yeah.

You go to sleep late, which is why I'm like, you don't sleep enough. You definitely don't sleep enough. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. That means I'm working hard. Bryan Johnson's not going to be pleased with that.

I don't mind. I don't care. Obsession doesn't sleep, you know?

So if you don't sleep, how do you balance? How do you choose to structure your day?

Yeah, so this is, uh, an interesting thing. I try to write in the mornings when my brain is the clearest, um, and, and work on software in the mornings and then do podcasts, yapping, filming in the afternoons. 'Cause it's, uh, my brain's like clearest in the mornings and then, you know, I'm, I'm ready to socialize by the end of the day. And then after the socialization, then I go back to working. Uh, on my laptop. Yeah. I like to write in the mornings, brain's clear, and then afternoon is podcast or hang out with friends or film and then back to work until like 2:00 AM when my brain is like back and clear. I don't know. It's like a, I go through cycles, I think throughout the day. They probably match up with my caffeine cycles and intake, I would say, of the, the highs and come downs when you think about it.

So, so is Fahrenheit your go-to or your Fahrenheit?

Ice coffee? Oh, Fahrenheit all the way. I'm done with that Celsius bullshit. But we'll drink some Diet Coke like Trump, you know. Okay, we gotta get— we gotta drink some Diet Coke. Um, but yeah, we— you could just do things. What about you? What are you trying to just do?

Well, definitely more than 20 kids.

More than 20 kids? Oh yeah, you're trying to do more than 20 kids?

That's fucked up. No, like, that's fucked up, babe.

Jesus Christ. Trying to give birth to more than 20 kids.

That would actually be like a really cool thing to claim. Um, sure, let's do it. Not now. Um, kids. I would love to be able to grow my company that I launched. Um, I also think it would be really cool to do investments. So just like a little bit of a typical pipeline, but I'm also a little bit earlier in my journey than you are. So I like Yeah.

But let's flash back like 4 years ago when we met, 3, 3, 4 years ago, I was a data engineer. Yeah. Most people don't know this about me.

I was checking your bank account.

I was checking my bank account 5 times a week, 5 times a day. I was a data engineer living in New Jersey at American Express and, uh, trying to make enough money off Twitter, off internet to quit my job. And, uh, really actually it was like 2 months after we started dating, I was like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm quitting my job. I'm going to go write for a living and Ghostwrite. It was less. It was less than 2 months. You freaked out. I remember.

It was 4 weeks into dating. Yeah, 4 weeks into dating. It was the week that we were going on a vacation. Yeah. You're like, I'm quitting my job. I was like, to do what? Yeah. You're like, I don't know.

I'll figure it out. Yeah. Very quickly, I was making more money writing than coding. Never looked back since then. There's obviously been some, some high months, some low months with the freelance life and now, now a little steadier, you know, definitely steadier. But it's only gone up exponentially. It's been compounding. It's been a pretty crazy journey. But I do remember you freaking out. I remember the first thing you said to me. You're like, my ex quit his job when we started dating and I had to take care of him. I was like, don't worry. I'm not going to do that.

No, you haven't. You haven't let that happen.

I'm not going to let that happen.

No. It's also funny because at that time you quit your job and I waited 6 months for a promotion. Do you remember about that? I was like, it's coming. It's next week. It's next week. Like my boss told me.

Corporate, corporate, corporate.

They told me it was coming.

You're moving so much faster now that you're not in corporate. Yeah. Twitter's growing. You're launching little startups. You're getting users for your startup. Crazy.

Yeah, it's crazy.

You couldn't do that in corporate. They wouldn't even let you tweet. No, it's crazy. It's wild. I knew that it was probably being monitored. It's insane. Fuck that shit. Yeah, that shit. Uh, but now you're making banger memes that are so unhinged that X censors you. I'm so proud. So proud. Um, what about, uh, going outside? Erica, uh, is the only reason I leave the house most days. I leave the house to film walk the dog, and when Erica drags me out. That's about it, right?

It's a good thing when I get you out. Because do you know what happens? You say, "I like this." I like being outside.

Yeah.

I'll bring you to a museum. I'll make sure it's always applicable into your work.

I just like working and learning, and if I'm not doing either of those, then I'm wasting my time. Museums have been really good. Museums have been good. We like museums.

And then we've gone to a few shows that you've walked away and been like, this is amazing. So I feel like I have to be like very careful with what in the arts and what in the museum. And if I know that you're going to like it and I'm going to get pushback beforehand, I just don't tell you.

Yeah. What about, yeah, I would say that's pretty accurate. We're also going on vacation to Arizona in a couple of weeks. And Erica did the sweetest thing that anybody has ever done for me. So I'm kind of autistic where like I like one restaurant and then I just go back again and again.

Like our honeymoon where we went to the same restaurant, I think 75% of the time.

I would say 4 or 5 times. And so on this trip— No, it was way more. So on this trip that we got coming up, Erica booked the same restaurant twice.

It was hard to get into. Yeah, in the same— And I saw that there were 2 availabilities and I was like, well, he's going to say on this night, I really like it. We should come back and I'm gonna be like, oh no, it's not available. So I've already pre-booked too, and if we don't want to go, I was literally dancing naked when she told me that.

I was so excited. I was so stoked. That was the sweetest thing anybody's ever done for me, for like an autistic motherfucker like myself. I get to go to the same restaurant twice. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm definitely excited. It's gonna be fun. What about, um, "What about dealing with my content? I know I get a little unhinged." Erica is— It's weird because you are more unhinged, but you also censor me in a good way. You've probably protected me from getting canceled at least 69 times.

Yeah. Yeah. The Trump hat, I know that nobody's said it directly to me, but I know that some of my friends have been very upset.

Oh, I still wear it. I know that you do. Um, but yeah, let's, uh, let's jump more into, uh, one of the coolest things that I've seen since you've started growing your Twitter as well is you just becoming a better writer as well. So when you first started on Twitter, it was like very new and, um, like you weren't good at the hooks or like catching the attention quickly. And very quickly you're like such a quick learner. You just like pick that shit up. And, uh, that's been one of the coolest moments for me, has been seeing that. Uh, do you feel that yourself? Like, do you feel it becoming a little more natural? Like, I see it, but do you see that?

Yeah, I mean, you have to like know where to pay attention. I'm also very observant. I've always been an observant person, so I see what does well on a timeline. I like know what's funny. Um, I know it's probably gonna resonate. Um, and then like I sometimes— the thing is sometimes it's like hit and miss though because there's been stuff that like before I had a following I tweeted it and like it did really well and then now I have a little bit more and it doesn't even do as well. So I'll like test some stuff out here and there. But, um, I mean, yeah, I notice it. I feel more natural. You know what resonates with your following, like sometimes want to rant about something female-focused, but my followers are 85% male. Yeah, it's all tech. It's like, it's not gonna do anything. Um, even though I know it would be really funny. Yeah.

And something else, your newsletter, I, it's been so cool for me to watch as well. It's just like, you've gotten so much better writer. Like, I'm just so proud. Uh, you've been writing your newsletter now, what, 8 to 10 weeks straight, I want to say every Sunday, something around that. 7? I think I'm at 14.

Oh, wow.

Nice. And you've been doing it in a really cool way too. So I like to voice to write a lot, and I don't know if you stole that from me, but you— no, definitely not.

No, I did that in high school.

Oh, nice. I didn't know that. A lot of people do it, you know, it's just dictation, right? Yeah. It's an old strategy.

I would drive. Really? I would drive to school and then— While writing? Uh-huh. That's sick. Or I would, I mean, I interned and worked while I went to school in my high school year. Yeah. And I just like didn't have time. So when I was driving from place to place to place, you would just write.

I love that. Like Andy Warhol would carry around a tape recorder, you know, on Mad Men they would dictate to secretaries. Anyways, so you've been every Saturday, uh, you walk the dog and write your blog while walking Ron, and you just take Ron by yourself. And it's so cute. Like I'm working, I'm working and you come back and you're like, newsletter's done. Yeah.

I'll be gone for an hour. I mean, to be honest, it takes like 20 minutes of yapping. Yeah. And then I come home and I see it on my computer and snip it up. I think if anybody ever wants to grow a following or have a place, you've always said like newsletter, newsletter, newsletter. And it's so funny. I was talking to my parents and they were like, oh, like an easy way. You don't necessarily even need to have people subscribe to it, but just like having a newsletter, it's something that you can direct people to always. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you can just do things. But anybody can have this and it doesn't need to take a full day. You don't need to be a good writer. The most organic thing that, the most organic way of reading is like the way that we speak. That's like—

I think you're becoming a better writer though. I think you're a good writer.

Well, I'm also listening to a lot of podcasts and I'm also reading, which—

What podcasts have you been listening to recently?

I love Honestly by Bari Weiss. I think that's a pretty classic in this world. I also love The Journal. I love the short stories there.

We love listening to Pirate Wires. Shout out Solana. Got that Andoril gear on for Palmer. I love, that's one of my favorite things too. It sounds so dorky, but listening to podcasts together, like on a drive. Oh yeah. When we find one together, it's really weird. So we either listen to like total dork all in or just like deep murder.

Oh yeah. There's no in between.

Like serial killer or like Chamath. I guess they're the same thing.

So something that I thought was interesting is you tweeted about how we, we like do agendas and we do like, and this, I think this kind of like relates in. And somebody was like, I wouldn't want that in my free time. But you and I love our stimulating conversations with one another.

Yeah.

We call it being able to recap after podcast.

At first when we were still, when we started dating, we call it like hot couple walks, you know, because like hot, hot friend walk or hot dog walk or something. Hot girl walk. Hot girl walk. That was it.

Biggie. I would go for hot girl walks. Right.

During COVID especially, that was such a thing. And then when we started dating, we were like hot couple walks. And that's like our strategy session. And then, you know, obviously the dog comes. And then during dinners— so my mom for her wedding bought us these cards, right, with like agenda topics. And we ran out of those fast, so fast. And now, um, now we come up with our own or use ChatGPT to come up with them. Or, uh, sometimes we just talk and we just yap. But it's fun having agenda stuff. Well, it's fun.

Another thing is, um, We got engaged pretty quickly. 9 months. Yeah. So everyone was like, do you guys even know each other? And we were just asking each other all those deep questions from all the agendas. All the deep questions.

Yeah. Even the first day we were, I got a little too deep. I might've gotten a little too deep, but it's okay. It's all good. Um, yeah, I also, uh, underrated skill, Erica, she is dirty at board games. And actually on our first date, it harkens back to that. So on our first date, Erica comes to New Jersey, which was green flag. From New York City. From New York. Because I had the dog. Manhattan. I was in New Jersey. Yeah. And any girl who comes to New Jersey for you, if you live in New Jersey, or if a girl is leaving New York City, like she is a keeper. And so I had friends who we were throwing a board game night that night. And I told Erica, and most people don't introduce a date to their friends on the first date. But Erica was like, I'm really good at Scrabble. Like, I'm really good. My ex was like a world champion. I was like, all right, fine, let's play. And she's dirty at board games and can smack me at Othello.

Oh yeah, you can't defeat me. You can't.

Also, I can't defeat you. Uh, your gym consistency is insane. So it's really weird, like I can work, like mentally work, just like nonstop. But you could go to the gym nonstop, like you're there every day, 6 a.m., like insanity. Yeah, I just don't— I don't got it. I don't got it like that.

Well, I find that funny because like at certain hours in the night I completely tap out and you're like, you just got to push through. You're done working at 8 p.m. I can't. Like, I literally, I physically can't. And in the same way that you see me going to the gym and you're like, I physically can't.

Yeah, I could be up till 2 a.m. working every night, but going to the gym every morning at 6 a.m., I've tried so many. It just doesn't happen.

Like, the 6 AM is tough. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, for me it's like when I drink enough coffee or Red Bull that I have so much energy that I need to punch something, then I work out. So it happens once every once in a while. Like my dad. Speaking of my dad, you know, my dad's the OG newsletter. Yeah. Yeah. So he's got the newsletter, but very different purposes. So he runs the law firm, you know, his little law firm. And so he just sends out a newsletter to his clients. And he's like, wait, why do, why do people pay for ads on your newsletter? Like, like, ah, well, people click it and that's, he just like totally blew his mind.

Yeah. Different world. Different world.

But like newsletters, uh, a lot of people do it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what about, uh, yeah, I, I would say internet being online all the time. Um, how do we, how do we deal with that? Both of us.

We're not good about dinner and phones. I feel like a lot of couples pride themselves and they're like, we have our phones away. We are 100% there. And I'm like, ugh. We also don't like it when we're not there. Yeah. But there's also sometimes stuff's going on and we also know that that's important. But I think that me being in your world and knowing how that's your distribution and how you connect with your users is like helpful.

Yeah. I love having you in our Twitter world because it feels like you have a deeper understanding of what I'm doing on my phone. Mm-hmm. And you know, I'm not, um, scrolling just for fun. Like I'm not just like—

No, I used to think that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're not. You realize that.

Or I know when you are. I'm working and I'm DMing customers or, mm-hmm. Um, you know, closing ad deals or, you know, getting subscribers or whatever it might be. It's like it's not just for fun, you know? Yeah. And yeah, so sometimes you need the phone out, you know, it's hard. But yeah, I don't know, I try to use the brick, you know, this, this little thing called the brick where you, you lock your phone, try to do that sometimes. Always good. And then on vacation, I feel like it's easier. We go on walks and shit.

Oh yeah, our walks.

Yeah, yeah. Walks are always pretty easy.

Yeah, that's our time that we're able to like, yeah, kind of disconnect a little more.

Eric and I are— we go for couples massages probably way too much, but yeah, probably once every 2, 3 weeks.

I want to say it's religiously once every 2 weeks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like it's the one time that— not the one time, but it's a good time to get offline for me. It's nice. Always enjoy that. Then get dinner after. Yeah. It's always fun. Yeah. We got dinner after this. Exciting. Exciting. Yeah, we do something. What'd you think about when I met my first internet friend in person? Justin. Shout out, Justin. Oh my gosh.

You brought me there. Yeah, because I thought he was going to kill me. You haven't met him, so you're bringing me?

Well, you know, I figured you might save me. You're cute. Thank you. You know? What did I do? And now you're meeting internet friends.

Yeah. It feels like— I'm going on like Hinge dates, which is really weird with other women from the internet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, that's— it's like, I mean, you're meeting somebody from the internet who you haven't met and you're like, well, how tall are they going to be? It is funny.

Yeah, it's always really surprising because like everybody's very shocked how short I am when they meet in person. And I'm always shocked how tall they are.

I'm always shocked how tall they are. Yeah, because We're short.

Yeah. Just some short Jewish motherfuckers.

Yeah. I haven't met my team and they said something today and I was like, you guys are in for a shock.

It's really funny how I'm known in your team's channel of the unhinged husband.

Yeah, I like that because at my old job, I'd be like, please don't see Jason's stuff. Please. I pray to God. He's doing a lovely podcast today. He had a tweet do well. I'd have to be super careful. About stuff. Like, I couldn't tell anybody to follow you, and like, I was able to put in Silly Valley Ventures because like, it's in their world.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a good feeling having you in the same, same world.

I also like know the news that's going on in that world and like the drama that, yeah, circulates on Twitter.

Any, uh, any questions for me around, around shit? Any, anything you got?

Anything I've got, hit me. Okay, so I'm trying to grow my business and Twitter's probably not my goldmine. Reddit probably is. And I want to start growing my Instagram. How would you recommend I balance all of these social channels, but also like where are my priorities with things?

Yeah, so I would start on the platforms where you are the most comfortable on, you can't imagine life without. So even though Twitter's not a quote unquote goldmine, I would still work on that a lot. You are getting users from Twitter, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, actually I would say about a third of them are from Twitter.

I also think there is a competitive advantage being a girl on Twitter because it's mostly dudes. So if you are a girl on Twitter and you want to stand out, it's a great way to do it, especially in the health field. On Instagram, you're going to have so much competition. For Instagram, actually, my advice, if we're actually jumping into this for glp1wins.com, my advice would be go silly, obviously. And so you have all these girls who are doing, you know, bullshit influencer model stuff or how-tos like I think we go silly with it. We all help. Yeah, of course. Of course. I think we go super silly, like sketches around it, like, you know, GLP-1 wins, you know, all around, like constipation and all these, like, goofy sketches that, like, yeah, these are like symptoms. Yeah. All the crazy side effects are like, you know, silly posters around the gyms or around New York. Like, I think we go silly with it. I'm just kind of riffing off the spot right now. But I mean, it makes you stand out.

You have a whole book on that, if I'm not mistaken.

I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I think, I think we go silly with it because, yeah, I've talked to other people about this before who are like, like this. When, when I spoke at NYU, right, you remember that girl who runs the modeling software? Yeah, that's exactly what I told her was the same thing. It was, you have to go humor, right? You are, you know, 20-something model girl, right? And do you want to go compete with all the boring, you know, day in the life of an influencer, day in the life of a model in New York, day in the life of a health person, or do you want to go like make some funny shit that actually stands out and go viral? So that would be my advice is make, make this lean into the silliness of it. And then I know you said Reddit is a goldmine too. Reddit marketing is hard as fuck. It's one of the hardest platforms to market on because Redditors for the most part hate any marketing, right? They just hate it. They hate anybody who's making money. They hate anybody who's like marketing anything. It is like the worst platform ever. But if you're going to do it, one would be, I think, silly around like memes and shit. And number two is actually just meeting people on Reddit, like starting conversations, maybe not in person because Reddit's are weirdos. There's a lot of weirdos on there, but starting conversations. I've met clients on there. I didn't know that. Yeah, I've met customers on there. Like, you can send DMs on Reddit. People don't know this. You could just send DMs on there.

I have sent DMs on Reddit.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah.

Yeah. And they've been actually really receptive.

So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would— It's surprising. Doubling down on that then. Yeah, I'm really surprised. Like the way that— So your subreddit community there, like people seem a lot nicer. Yeah.

I mean, you have to understand with GLP-1s, a lot of people have been overweight their entire lives and the scale like never moved. And the medicine just makes you really, really sick to a point that you have to change your lifestyle. So the scale's just dropping. It's not like a magic injection that you can just eat whatever you want. You can't. That's the whole point. So these people are seeing the scale move after all this time. And there was somebody today who posted as I was on my way here and they were like, I've been 400 pounds my whole life and I finally dropped to 190. Sheesh. And they were like, I've never cried so hard in my life. But like, you have then thousands of people who are just like, we did it, we love you. Like, you got this because this medicine's going to make you lose weight. There's no choice. You can't really stop it. I know that there's some people who are unsuccessful on it, but either way, like most people—

it's weird when you post on the entrepreneurship stuff, people are just ripping you apart. Ripping. Yeah. The only thing worse than Reddit is Hacker News, actually. So Hacker News is a subreddit, but it's basically— Hacker News is like Reddit, but people are hackers and, you know, engineers. And so it's like a higher intelligence, but just as angry about the world as Reddit. And like, they're just as like pissed off. And I think they're even more pissed off because they see dumbasses, you know, creating startups and making money. And like, these people are just like angry. It's even worse than Reddit, I swear to God. So don't, don't go to that part of the world. Don't go there. Got to be the worst platform.

The name of it doesn't even sound like—

it was created by Y Combinator. It's, you know, it was like created as their forum or whatever. And so it has— I just want to say like the angriest, bitchiest user base. Like everybody just complaining. It's actually really fun looking back at it. Like you'll see like Airbnb's launch, like they launched on Hacker News. It's just people like, this is a terrible idea, blah, blah, blah. This is why you can't do it in 7 steps, blah, blah, blah. It's all just like low agency retards. And like, it's really fun going back and looking at like some of the comments. Like they go viral every time. 'Cause like just anytime somebody launches something, there are idiots saying, this is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid. And you just can't listen to them. Just can't listen to anybody if you have enough conviction in the idea, you know? How many people told me I was an idiot? All the time. They still tell you that you're an idiot. They still tell me I'm an idiot. Yeah. Every day.

I feel like you're like my guinea pig. Thank you. You're welcome. I see that like the hate comments are not going to stop and like people are always going to doubt you. And I'm like, oh, like, and I know you're going to be successful. I've said since day one of meeting you on our date one, I was like, you could turn a garbage business into a billion dollar business easily. I feel like, yeah, like because I see you doing it and because you're kind of public sometimes about your failures, it makes it easier for me. And I would hope it also makes it easier for other entrepreneurs in the space or just people who are trying to do something.

I mean, that's my whole goal with sharing that stuff. You know, I, I have a post about my graveyard of failures. I had so many failures. Mm-hmm. And every day I'm failing at something, you know, like even today, like you call it a failure, whatever. Like, we filmed 5 different versions of clips, right? It's like, do you call the first one that didn't turn out a failure, or do you just call it clip 1? Do you call it try number 1? Like, that's just part of the game. Take 1. Exactly. Take, take 1, right? It's like failing. And so I, I do hope that people see that. I hope people see like my responses to the hate comments. And like, you don't try to argue with these people. Like, if people are hating, you just drop a meme. Just fuck you, you know, like that's the ultimate fuck you is just laughing at them. If you're going to laugh at me, I'll laugh right back, you know, like.

So one of the things that I told you early on was like when you hit milestones, share it because you wanted to share the wins, which also kind of got me to GLP-1 wins and the concept of it, of sharing the wins since people latch on to that. So how would you suggest to somebody a balance of the transparency maybe of failures, but also celebrating the wins.

Yeah. So it's very similar to what I do where like I share if I get a big Stripe screenshot, right? So I just sold a $15,000 ad deal. You know, I say like you could just sell ads on your shows, right? And I post that. But then if I have something fall through or I have a failure, I tweet about that too. You know, I just share the good, the bad, the ugly, right? Share it all. Share it all, you know, and Sharing screenshots with clients. You remember, we were on vacation. I rented out this beautiful Wander. Shoutout wander.com. Beautiful fucking Wander, right? Gorgeous. And it's Saturday night, and I'm getting messages from my team about some cuntie client who is just fucking screaming at them and insulting their memes. And like, bro, you are like— You do not insult my team. I sent her an email, fired her on the spot. Refunded her for like the rest of the month. And I was just like, fuck you. Like, seriously, like, you don't insult my team like that. And then I turned that into a tweet and a LinkedIn story and it popped off, right? It's like the good, the bad, the failure. It's all content, you know?

So can I close off the story of that that you saw her the other day? I was at a female entrepreneurship event and I was sitting and talking to a woman who I'm like, you just sound really familiar. And then she's like, follow me on Instagram. And I go, I know this page.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I didn't say anything.

But some of the—

I mean, that, that's very rare to have a client that means, you know, you've met some of the best clients, the Dannys of the world who are amazing. Amazing. Yeah, she's, she's the bubbliest and most amazing client. So it's really, um, that's part of the game is like, I don't know, I like sharing the failures. I'm also inspired by a lot of entrepreneurs, the Peter Levels of the world, right? You know, Levels shared the 100 50+ failures that he created, right? And it's a normal thing to fail. Like Mark Cuban has failed, right? He was one of my role models growing up. Not as much when he went weird political and got all weird about it. But you think about somebody like Elon, plenty of failures, right? And I was listening to a great podcast actually with Naval and Chris Williamson about how Elon, you know, every— you have to be able to recreate yourself and go from zero to one again and again. And you know that about me better than anybody. Right. I was deep in— I was trying to do Wellness Tech biweekly, actually, a wellness tech blog and data engineering. Right, exactly. And I went zero to one and just recreated. Right. And now, like, you know, being able to recreate yourself in different things, every entrepreneur needs to do that. It's a beautiful skill to fail, destroy it, start again. Right. You know, I've had plenty of, plenty of failures with that. And you have no idea. You have no idea. You say something comes out in 10 years. About how GLP-1s are terrible for you, right? It's like fail, recreate, start again, you know, like, who knows? And so just that ability to get back up is very valuable. And, you know, I just being able to get back up, go build it again and again, I think is one of the most invaluable skills out there. I don't know if I did. I ever tell you about that bike ride with my dad? Probably not.

Blaze your own trail. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're biking through Valley Forge Park, which, uh, people out there might know from where George Washington spent the winter, uh, Revolutionary War. And so that's where my parents are from, right? That town. My dad and I are going through the park and we are, uh, instead of, uh, going on like the normal path, he's like, let's go on the grass. Right. And he screams like, blaze your own trail. And, uh, it's something that I've always like, you know, I say it as like a mantra kind of thing with it is like, cuz you could see literally like the grass blazing, right, as it's going open and, you know, you see the path going by you. And he's always said that to me since then. So I think Erica likes my dad more than me, by the way. I have a crush on him.

Yeah, he's great.

He's pretty cool. Yeah, he's a pretty cool guy.

Very cheery guy. He's a very cheerful guy.

Yeah, he's a happy fella. Definitely. Definitely. I want to bring up another point, which is When we were early dating, I told you that, um, I, I felt like I was like a young Larry David kind of thing. And then you go, every Jewish guy thinks that. Yeah. Do you think— am I more like Larry David? I would hope so. I hadn't seen— have I won? Have I, have I won the Larry David competition?

So I hadn't seen Curb Your Enthusiasm. Wait, you hadn't even seen it? No, I was— you said early on in dating, so like guys' Hinge profiles were always like, I'm Larry David. Every Jewish guy Every single guy. I mean, he's got rizz. Yeah, but at a certain point when every single guy is saying that, I'm like, well, I clearly don't want to go check this guy out.

All right, well, I'm glad you gave me a chance.

You're telling me this and I'm like, okay. And then you turn on Curb Your Enthusiasm and I was like, what the fuck, you're literally him. And it was that episode where, um, he was like, oh, like, I don't want to go to the party, we should go the following day. And Be like that way, like we don't need to actually stay there and see people. And I was like, Jason, you would do this.

So what's funny is I actually have always been like that even before I saw Curb. And like, I just watched it. I was like, oh, that's me. Like, that's my life.

Yeah, you suggest things that we should do in order to get out of places with people.

I think it's just, I'm very like, I think for myself and I don't mind if other people are pissed off about it because like, I think it's a better idea. You know, I just, I don't, I don't wanna appease other people, you know? And also at the end of the day, Larry David, uh, and, and me, you know, not, not saying whatever comparison, but like, I do wanna win this competition, but I'm not saying that is, uh, is, uh, you've won. You've won. At the end of the day, like making myself laugh is more important than anything. Mm-hmm. And, um, and I, I think that when you are, when that's like, that's my only goal. Is to make myself laugh because, you know, this is— I've been in some really dark places. And when you've been in some really dark places alone, there's nobody else that's going to make you laugh, you know, except for yourself. There's nobody else who's going to get you out of that place. And being able to make myself laugh and why I'm making memes all the time, I'm being silly, is like, you know, when I'm alone with my thoughts, my head gets a little scary. And so I want to be laughing a lot. You know, that's how I stay happy. You know, you ever read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl?

No, I have not.

Just read it. So it's about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. Sad stuff, I know. But he talked— he was Viktor Frankl. It's a great book. And he talks about how even when he was in Auschwitz, him and his friends were telling jokes because they were just so sad in such a bad place. Right. And so this, this goes back to, you know, being Larry David is when your mind is fucked up, you need to laugh a lot, you know. Yeah. I don't know where I was going with that story, but I hope it was helpful.

It wasn't helpful. I actually really like what you said about how when you're alone with your thoughts, because as soon as you said, I like to make myself laugh, where my head went is, oh, you're the comedian who laughs at your own jokes. But you're actually making a really positive spin on that of like, if you're not If you're not laughing at your own jokes as a comedian, you're probably not good.

You see the best comedians, they make jokes. They're laughing.

Yeah, they're cracking up. Yeah, they think they're funny.

Yeah. I do the same thing. Like when I was, if you watch, you were there at my comedy routine, I'm like giggling my ass off. And even doing the podcast, doing the show, like I can barely contain it.

We were watching the Andrew Schultz special and I remember he was laughing so hard.

Yeah, all the best comedians do it. Yeah. Pete Davidson is giggling his ass off while he's delivering.

Yeah, but for your, yeah, but they've reached a certain level where it's okay. It's for your average person. I think that probably resonates a little bit more when people are constantly saying, oh, you laugh at your own jokes.

I think if your joke's funny, you should laugh at it. But anyways, the point of this, not to go off a weird tangent there, is making yourself laugh is really important. And that's what I say to everybody on Twitter is like, oh, should I post this? I'm not sure if people are going to think it's funny. It's like, well, do you think it's funny? It's like, then you should probably post it because you're not that unique. There are other people who are going to think it's funny. You know, so you should probably post it. So that goes for like whether it's, you know, posting video or posting a tweet or a meme is just like, if it makes you giggle, like, go fucking post it. Like, you know, there'll be other people out there. You never know. Like, some of my dumbest tweets gone the most viral. Remember the Mafia one? Wrote a whole post about— yeah, I wrote a whole post about why men should join the Mafia to make friends. I wrote that in 10 minutes and 15 million views. It just popped the fuck off. It was like, it was just dumb to make myself laugh. Like, You know, that's how a lot of Twitter starts is a lot of social media is you're just making your friends laugh and then you make your friends laugh at scale and then you make the world laugh. And that is why it's the most profitable, best time in the world to be funny because you can make the world laugh with silly clips. I think that's a good place to end. We got food to eat. Mm-hmm. Food sounds good. Food sounds good. All right, let's go eat. Okay, cool.