EP 28 John Coogan: Cofounding Soylent, Becoming a Tech YouTuber, And Joining Founders Fund | EP28

One thing you guys got right, maybe accidentally, was building stuff people actually wanted.

This is Soylent.

Some people are calling it the future of food.

And I'm gonna live on Soylent alone for 30 days straight.

For less than $3, you can get a fully complete meal. How brands get built. It's not something you can buy, just something that needs to be willed by some crazy person. It perfectly summed up the fact that this was like almost more of an art project than a company.

You've kind of done 180 from tech and started building your own personal brand through YouTube.

This probably sounds crazy. The world is entering a new geopolitical era. AI just went nuclear. What I thought was missing was like optimistic content about technology that didn't just center the technology, it actually centered the individuals who were building the technology. Nothing can kill Twitter at this point. You could drop a nuclear bomb on their data centers, you would still be able to log in somehow. You just can't kill this thing. Think about it. It Mastodon Blue sky, like truth Social. It's just the most resilient thing in the world.

John, welcome to the podcast, man.

Thanks for having me.

So you're content creator, entrepreneur in residence at Founders Fund. And before that you've done a bunch from Soylent to Lucy and a bunch of other companies.

Yep.

I want to talk specifically about David.

Okay.

So he was your co founder for still.

My co founder.

He was a co founder from Soylent First.

Yeah.

Before that it was actually a wireless networking company.

It was technically two separate companies. There was one that was doing education technology and the other one was doing wireless networking.

And then that turned to a bunch.

Of other food company. There were a bunch of other attempts in between. Like there were like. Once things started failing, they started failing faster and faster. So it's probably like two months grinding on one idea before it failed. Then we'd spend a month on the next thing, then it failed. Then pretty soon it was like daily iterations on new ideas and you come company every day, like almost. I mean, maybe like a couple weeks on something before you figure out that it's a stupid idea and no one wants it. But I mean, you're trying to prototype, so you're like build something very minimal and then you get it out in the world and then you realize that it sucks.

That makes sense.

And that was kind of like the idea of what YC was pushing back then.

But you guys worked together on so many different companies. And to be honest, the last two, at least Soylen and Lucy, they Both worked. And what would you say the biggest differentiator was for why your relationship worked whereas most co founder relationships tend to fall apart.

Oh yeah, with David it's really simple. I mean we, we went to preschool together. No way. Yeah, we went to preschool, middle school, high school together and then we both went to college in Boston. He went to Harvard, I went to Northeastern. We worked at companies, at startups. We just have this crazy shared history. Then we both got married around the same time. We're at each other's weddings. There's just so many alignment of values and how we live our life that I think that obviously we're really good friends, we go way back, we like each other and that allows us to that put like that relationship maybe above whatever, like little disagreements happening within the business at the time. But there's also probably just like some sort of very fundamental human impulse to like not be rejected by your community. And so like if me and you start a company and we get in a fight and I kick you out of the company or whatever, like I'm not going to be shamed by your parents, but like if I do something messed up to David, like I'm going to run into his parents, like there's probably something very deep emotionally about like we are from the same community. And so you don't want to be rejected by your community and so you're more willing to trust those individuals. And this is kind of like a cynical interpretation of it. I mean, simple thing is we're friends, we like hanging out, we don't get in a lot of fights. But I think there's probably something deeper where the more history you have and the more ingrained you are in someone's like you're in their community, they're in your community, you're more likely to be able to, you know, stay in business with them or like stay involved with them, have a long term relationship. This is like why people say like the. I think the number of people that attend your wedding is correlated with how long you're married. So if you think about it like you just didn't have anyone at your wedding, like, well, there's no one, there's no one to call when things are hard. Right, interesting. So it's kind of the same idea and I think that's why like the YC application and a lot of founder and a lot of investors try and back founders where they have shared experience. It's not like they just met two seconds ago. Right? Because it's like, okay, when stuff gets Hard. They're not just going to cast each other aside because there's maybe some more social pressure to keep people together.

I think maybe this is because I was younger when I was asking for advice, but a lot of people told me, don't start companies with your friends because you'll, I guess, never take each other seriously. You kind of lose a level of respect for each other that is important when you're trying to make decisions. Do you think that's, I guess, not real advice?

Yeah. So there's something else that's interesting about me and David. We weren't really best friends in high school or college. We were more like rivals. So in. I mean, in preschool, we don't remember each other, but in, like, in middle school, we were friends and we did our math homework together, but we played this game Counter Strike, which is maybe still popular. I'm dating myself. I played counter strike 1.3, like, way before source. Way before. It's now in CS2, way before global Offensive. But we would play on these teams, and I ran one team and he ran a different team, and so we were, like, kind of battling. And even though we were into the same, like, extremely nerd shit that was, like, you know, not cool, but. And we were, like, kind of the shared experience, but we were rivals. And then the same thing happened in high school where he was kind of like the captain of the soccer team and I was hanging out with, like, the football bros. And so even though we both, like, transitioned from, like, nerd to athlete jock bro, I guess we were still, like, kind of rivals, but we were always friendly. But there was, like, a tension, you know, and I think that was very healthy.

Healthy?

Yeah, I think so. Because I think it. I think, like, it's. It speaks to what you were saying about, like, not taking yourself seriously. Like, if there's a little bit of an element of, oh, well, this person's a threat, that might make sense.

It's not like I'm much better than the other person.

I don't care what they have to say exactly. Or, yeah, we're just hanging out. We're just joking around. Or there's some clear pecking order. In a lot of social circles, there's like, okay, there's the leader and then the secondary. With us, it's like we're kind of equals in different realms and then kind of like, collided.

Did you also have complimentary skill sets?

I mean, we didn't really have any skill sets out of college, so, you know, we're not experts in anything I mean, he studied bio, I studied economics, but I knew how to program. And he was really good at, like sales and talking to.

So you had like that one person knows how to build the thing, the other person knows how to sell it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was definitely a little bit of that going on. But honestly, like, we weren't very good at building. We weren't very good at selling. So, like, there were no skill sets.

But in spite of that, it feels like one thing you guys got right maybe accidentally was building stuff people actually wanted. And so Soylent was kind of a accident, like almost like the Obama O's, kind of like.

Yeah, eventually we got there, but it took a year. Yeah, it took a year, basically. I mean, we, we, you know, everyone was working on their ideas towards the end of like senior year of college. And then, you know, YC starts in summer of 2012 at the time, and then go to demo day kind of all with one idea, but the ideas weren't working, so they fail. And then the months tick by of just different failed ideas. And then the original. So in the blog post was Valentine's Day. Tells you a lot about how our life was going at the time that you launch a product on Valentine's Day. But it went mega viral, so it worked out.

Why do you think it went viral? What was the post about?

It was extremely clickbaity. The title was How I Stopped Eating Food or something like that. It was extremely clickbaity because obviously protein powder is a food. So you didn't really stop eating food. You were eating macronutrients. You just kind of defined the category of food as everything except the product that we're making, which is a food product.

What was it like figuring out, like the manufacturing process and like the R and D side of soy? Did any of that go into it?

It was like. It was. It was like hacking everything together in the kitchen. Just kind of like making stuff from scratch, consuming it, testing it, literally dog fooding it. Both in like the. Yeah. And then. And then after there was demand, then we had to go figure out, like, how we're going to get this made. And so did some networking. Got in touch with someone who someone's brother was in a fraternity with, a son of a guy who ran Muscle Milk or something like that. It was. It was like, you know, you network to someone who's like a big deal, and then they put you in touch with like another, like the proper business to partner with, and then they manufacture the product. It's a protein shake type product. So it's pretty simple. And, yeah, I just kind of go from there. Interesting.

And then with Lucy, you specifically started building it because you saw a friend, I think, try to kind of quit smoking. Is that.

No, it was David.

Oh, it was David.

Yeah. David was trying to quit smoking, basically.

And you guys just were like, okay, we did Soylent. Now let's just go build the product specifically for that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was, like, definitely a way to leverage the current skill sets. Plus, you know, David and Sammy, our other co founder, were doing PhDs in bio at Caltech, and they kind of understood a little bit more of, like, the FDA drug pathway, the way nicotine products are regulated. It's a lot more like a drug than a food. So you have to submit this really onerous, like, regulatory package. And it was something that, you know, with. With Soylent, we eventually were. We eventually faced a ton of competition just from people just, like, random kids who were just like us, who had no experience but wanted to start a competitor. And then all of a sudden, we wound up with a lot of competitors, which was very tough for the business. So with the regulatory burden around nicotine products, seems like that would have been a little bit of an advantage long term. And then, yeah, it was just a product that seemed like would help David quit smoking. And that's a good story, but it's also just good to be able to test your own product, like, to be able to validate that the product worked.

What does validation look like from, like, a physical perspective? Because with a software company, I can say, okay, build an MVP in two, three weeks. I build one feature that actually works, and I get people to use it and get feedback from them.

Yeah. I mean, with. With Rob and Soylent, like, he stopped eating food for 30 days. He didn't die, so he just stopped eating food. Yeah, he just didn't eat any food. Like, nothing.

Whose idea was that?

That was his idea. Yeah, so. So he makes this crazy protein shake, and he's just consuming that, and everyone's like, you're going to die. And then he didn't. And so it was kind of like stress test accomplished instead of running. 1,000 people consumed this for one day, and they were okay. It's like one guy consumed it for 30 days and he was fine.

He went 15 days in. He was like, I'm going to keep doing this for another 15 days.

Yeah. I mean, I did not understand it at the time until he told me the name. Basically, he was eating this. Yeah. This paste. And I was like, why are you doing this? It doesn't matter. Who cares what we look like? Nutrition is not really important, which is obviously wrong. But I just thought it was a stupid side quest basically. And then he told me the name. He told me he wanted to call it Soylent. And I was like, oh, that's a great name. Because I'd heard about the movie and I'd heard about the book and I knew that it was kind of like a. It was, it perfectly summed up the fact that this was like almost more of an art project than a company. Like it was very tongue in cheek, very silly, very experimental. And that was perfect for where the branding needed to be. Like, it was a very, it was very effective as becoming like an anti brand.

Did you know that you wanted to take the route of like Venture and like trying to scale it? Because E commerce usually people don't usually go the. The first thing isn't Venture.

Yeah, I mean that was like the. We were kind of the start of that. Like Warby Parker had raised Venture and then we were kind of in this next batch of like dollar Shave Club and, and glossier and, and yeah, none of those. The whole category has been terrible for Venture. Like, and, and there's a bunch of good reasons for that. We were just kind of in that world because we were in yc. Exactly. So then we just kind of got pulled into that world.

Why do you think the other like as a category, it didn't do well?

I mean a lot of it has to do with just barriers to entry. If all you're doing is creating a brand and setting up a Shopify site and contacting a co packer manufacturer, like where's the value really accruing? The value is accruing to Shopify and they've done very well. Like that's the good D2C venture bet. Right. But in general, like these brands take very, very long time to build. You can build like a monopoly or like a moat with a brand. Obviously we've seen that with Disney, but it just takes like years and years and years. It's very, it's very circuitous how brands get built. It's not something you can buy. It's just something that needs to be willed by some crazy person. And I think the reason why you see the crazy like the Red bull founder, the 5 Hour Energy founder, any of these people that have built these brands, I think the reason why it works so well is because like they own 100% of it or whatever and then they're willing to Just grind at it, grind it and grind it for decades. And that's kind of antithetical to the venture model. It's unclear. It would be cool if venture could solve branding and they've certainly tried with a lot of different products, but no one's really figured it out yet.

It's interesting that you bring a brand because you've kind of done a full 180 from tech and started building your own personal brand through YouTube.

Yeah.

You told a friend a little bit ago that YouTube was like a 10 year plan.

Yeah.

And it wasn't just something you were trying to do for money.

Yeah.

What is the ten year plan? Where do you like, where do you want to be in 10 years?

Yeah. I mean, I started YouTube because I was kind of bored during COVID and had some free time for the first time in like a decade of entrepreneurship. There were actually nothing to do on the weekend and just free time basically. But then I started to think about, okay, maybe making videos and stuff would have some sort of value in the long term. Whether that's meeting interesting people or you can sell ads on it and make money that way. If I want to launch a new product, I'll be able to promote that to the audience. There's just a bunch of different ways that it can provide value. But I think the real reason why I think it's like a big, big project for the long term is just that YouTube does not understand technology at all. And there's these very weird, there's kind of these weird phases. There's like the very generic, I would call it like blue pilled, which is like TED talks or these very generic explainers that are just kind of like, oh yeah, nuclear fusion is solved, everything is going to be great. And it doesn't really tell you that you're responsible for anything. It just tells you the future is going to be good and things are going to happen and you can just sit back and watch it unfold, which I think is wrong. And then there's like this red pilled content which is like actually everything's bad. And like, you know, corporations are evil and those. I mean, obviously critiquing companies is fine, but some of them are just so wildly off base. Like I saw one where the guy was saying that Facebook was a Ponzi scheme. And I was like, you could say a ton of things about Facebook, but it's not a Ponzi scheme. If anything, they make too much money. That's the criticism is that they're too profitable and they have A monopoly on this. That's the criticism. Not that it's a Ponzi scheme and you have to pay into it, but they were trying to make some idea that they like. Oh, the investors came in and they're basically trying to say that all of venture capital is a Ponzi scheme. I think Chamath made a joke about this once and everyone took it out of context, ran with it. But basically you get this red pill, YouTube content in the business niche, which is every business is evil, every business is bad. And the problem with that is that these people, they wind up just becoming machines for the algorithm. They just want views. And so they wind up lacking an ideology entirely. And instead of saying this is bad and therefore this is good, it's just everything is bad. And it's the opposite of that blue pill ideology, which is just everything's good, which is also not true. And so I want to kind of move towards the white pill, something that's a little bit more nuanced, something that has some optimism to it. There's also the black pill, where everything's just completely nihilistic, everything's horrible. And you see some of that stuff on there, too. But what I thought was missing was optimistic content about technology that didn't just center the technology. It actually centered the individuals who are building the technology. And I think that that's what you'll see if you look at the content that I make versus the other content that's out there. There's a lot of people that do like business content or tech content or cover some of the topics that I talk about. But if you look at the way it's presented, it's almost always presented as like. Is like. Like, here's how we could take a rocket to the moon, or here's how Mars colonization could happen. It's all very abstract. It's like, no, Elon Musk is the one who's doing it. We need to talk about this guy, because if we understand the guy, then we'll understand if it's going to happen. And it's the same thing for any change that happens in our society. It's all driven by individuals. And so shifting from explainers to profiles was something that I thought was very, very important.

But did you know that when you started making content or did you figure that out as you made the content?

It was something I was feeling even before going on YouTube. But yeah, I would just kind of noticed it ambiently in the YouTube feed. Just noticing that I enjoyed. I went to YouTube for you know how to fix my washing machine. And I would also go to it for like, oh, someone's talking about like a movie I like or like a video game or something, or like a tutorial on whatever you want. Like I would go to for all the normal stuff, but I would never go there for business stuff because I felt like all, all the business stuff that was positive was too generic and too positive. Like there are some, there are whole channels where people are making millions of dollars just making fake, optimistic Elon Musk content. That's hilarious. It's like Elon Musk just cured cancer. 20 minute video and millions of views. Have you heard of the Tesla PI phone? This is hilarious. The Tesla PI phone, it's. Oh, you haven't heard? It's the smartphone that Elon Musk is launching at Tesla.

Since when?

Exactly. Millions of views around this stuff. It's just completely fake news. But it's optimistic. Which is weird because, because like people normally think about like, oh, like if somebody's shifting the narrative, they're doing it for like the negative. But no, it happens on the positive too. There are millions and millions of views on these videos about the Tesla PI phone, which is a thing that just doesn't exist.

This is the next Founders Fund investment.

I mean, who knows, maybe he will one day do it. But, but the point is, is that it's completely fake and, and it still still gets like millions of views. And it's optimistic. So you can't just go to YouTube and say like, the problem is, is that it's not optimistic enough about technology. It is. There are lots of optimistic channels and there are lots of channels that are, that are explaining, you know, all sorts of new, new technologies and how they can work. They're just very indefinite, they're just very vague about how the future will play out. And your role in it is completely. You can just sit back and, and keep watching YouTube, which I disagree with.

And then how do you actually go ahead and actually get some of the information? The Andrew video, I texted you about it. That was super in depth. A lot of like, I've been following Andrew for a while and a lot of that was stuff I'd never heard about.

Yeah.

Where do you get that information? Do you have connects at these companies because of Founders Fund, because of your circle? Like, where do you get, like, how do you come across or how do you put together one of these videos?

Yeah, so I think there's probably a few phases that have happened. Like the, the first, the first phase of my content Was like one day sprints. Basically. Like because of COVID I had Sundays free. So I'd wake up, research a topic record, I'd edit it myself and then I post it before the night was over. 100% of the time. I never spent more than one day on a video because I didn't want to bleed into the week because I had a lot of work going on. And I also just wanted to hold myself accountable to like a cadence. And so if you go back on the channel, you can see a bunch of like really low quality edits. And it was because I was doing it myself. And it's just like momentum though.

And that's like.

Yeah, it was just like trim out the bad takes. If I'm talking about a chart, put that chart on the screen. Basic stuff, no music or anything, just like me talking stuff. Then I got, then I hired an editor and then it turned into kind of like a one week cadence where like maybe I talked to some friends about what I was researching and pulling some other resources and kind of kind of get there. But pretty much everything was start of the week, I know what the theme is. And by the end of the week I've, you know, recorded the video and sent it off to the editor to post. And then the Android video is kind of like a version three, which was, you know, months in the making. Like, I interviewed them. I flew to Washington D.C. i flew to San Francisco to interview Trey and had talked to, I talked to more people than are just in the video too. I talked to a lot of previous employees, like lower level employees.

How do you get access to those people? Just like.

Yeah, I mean a lot of, like some of them were in network, some of them were, you know, working at other companies. Now that I'm friends like you just, I mean, Andil's big company, you'll just go to a happy hour in la, you'll meet an Anduril person. But. But then yeah, there was this process of, of actually sitting down, interviewing the entire team that we had kind of put together, you know, all the founders plus all the key employees, all the, you know, all the key employees who had, you know, something kind of specific to add to the, to this particular piece. And then that resulted in like nine hours of footage. And then, you know, get all that transcribed, figure out, you know, what are the common themes between these different transcripts. How is that? So it's just completely different process from a typical video where it's just like, oh, I'm collecting some facts or maybe I've just had some things kicking around my head and I just go and write down what I'm thinking. This was very much like this whole new process of transcription.

It's almost like more journalism than it is, like content creation.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I feel like the first the Anduril video really made the line between what a video essay is, which I think is basically just a blog post that you read into a microphone and then have an animator put or have an editor put some B roll over, versus like a documentary. And I feel like the Anduril is pretty close to being like a true documentary. It's a little short. I don't really know where the, where the bounds start for that, but that's kind of where I'd like the process to go.

And then in one of your interviews, you mentioned that, you know, YouTube wasn't for the money, but this year you're set to make like around six figures, like just off of YouTube. So then where do you reinvest that money then? Cause I'm guessing by now you have the editor, I look at your videos, you have like the production set. Where does the money go, if. Anywhere.

Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. There's a bigger theme here that we should talk about, which is like, why isn't there a YC for creators? Or like, why isn't. Have you talked about this before?

In depth?

Yeah, like a lot in depth. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, basically the reason why I don't think that there should be a YC for creators is that creators aren't cash constrained. Whereas if you're a startup, there are a million things you can do with money. You can hire people, you can hire software engineers, you can buy servers, you can go train on some A1 hundreds, you can buy marketing stuff, you can run ads. There's so many things that you can do. But as a creator, you're very, very rarely capital constrained. Almost always your idea constrained. And so sometimes it's access. Like, it'd be great if you had access to do a collab with someone or you could interview someone. Like, if you could get Elon to sit down right now, it'd probably shoot you to the top of the list, right?

Probably.

But like, that's not something you could buy, right? And then, and then the, the equipment, like you've already afforded like the best microphones, right? I think these are like 500 bucks a pop or something. So like, like you, you already have the best gear. And so if you leveled this up, if you get put 100k into the studio.

It's not that much.

Not going to do anything.

So it comes down to what we actually talk about.

Exactly, exactly. And so, like, how can you put money into something that makes you a better interviewer? You can't. You just have to do time.

I feel like we came up with, like, the similar conclusion after talking about it ourself.

But is it time? Is time the problem if you have, like, another job?

No, I. Yeah, I think it's just time. I think if you. If you went and spent a hundred hours a week just interviewing people and you just interviewed every single person and just. I mean, we see this with Joe Rogan. We see this Lex. It's like they can talk for three hours and they do it multiple times per week. And so they become incredible conversationalists, incredible interviewers. And so it just compounds and compounds and compounds.

We have a friend, I'm not sure if you've heard of him. His name is Danny Miranda and he runs podcast.

I was on his podcast.

No way.

Yeah. Yeah. He's awesome.

So he's doing that because the research.

Yeah, he.

Yeah, like, because of his research. Everyone thinks of him as one of, like, the best who's been on his podcast.

Yeah.

Thinks of him as one of the best interviewers.

Yeah, no, he's great. And he also. He also. I hope he doesn't lose this, but he interviews like a huge, like, wide range of people. Yeah, like, like complete. Nobody is to like, huge people. It's awesome.

It's insane. I think his network is also like, growing over time as he kept doing the video. Like, he gets someone on the podcast, they give him someone else that's also in their network.

No, no, no. He's super. He's super prepared. He like read all my old tweets and was like, site citing them and stuff for, like the podcast. It was really fun, 100%.

I feel like after we met in Austin and he told me about, like, his. His research process after that, I feel like our interviews have been like, completely different too. Just off of. Just like putting time into. Into the research.

Yeah.

Another thing about YouTube and now founders Fund, was that something you were thinking of when you joined Founders Fund, getting access to like, these creators? Because you had already interviewed Varda. You had already interviewed. Sorry. Done a video on Varda.

Yeah.

Now you did. Andrew Palantir.

Yeah, Yeah. I thought that working with Founders Fund would definitely open up the network. And it has. I'm trying to think about. It was more just like, they're cool people. And I wanted to hang out with them.

It's like out of all the funds you could have joined, you picked Founders Fund primarily because cool people, basically.

I guess. Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like I probably could have pitched Anduril without an intro and said that, but it was like, kind of more natural because I was inside Founders Fund and like, I certainly got more perspective. Like, I was able to talk to like everyone at Founders Fund about Anduroll and hear the story and understand, like, how the company actually got built. And so that was really, really valuable. So in terms of just like, like, if my goal is just to like, create the best quality product, like going inside Founders Funds, probably like the best way to do that or going and going work at and roll, I guess would be even better. But then, like, once you've done the Android video, like, then what do you do? Well, then what do you do?

So you make four videos a year and you work at each company for three months of the year.

I actually have an idea of what you do. I think the way I think what they should do is, is they should. They should hire someone to do like, Palmer Lucky, like Palmer Luckey podcast. But instead of it being like a podcast, it's like every. Every week they show up with a piece of like, military hardware or like, or like a boat or a plane or a car. And then like, Palmer walks outside of his office, walks around the car for like 20 minutes and gets to like, talk about this tech that he probably already knows about. And so, you know, you get to see Palmer take you inside of like, a C5 Global Hawk or, like, take you inside an AC130 and like, do kind of a walk and talk and like, explain the significance of a particular piece of military hardware. I think that'd be really, really entertaining to watch.

When did you kind of find your fascination with military hardware? You also said on an interview that you would, if you could recommission an SR17 for a day, you would do it just to make a statement.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, maybe because I'm a dad. I don't know. That'd be the most obvious. I don't know. I've always. I was an Eagle Scout. I've always loved America. Oh, nice. Really?

They love making the thing now.

Yeah, it's amazing. And so, yeah, I've just always been interested, but never, never really considered, like, joining the military or anything. And even the recent research that I've done, like, I don't think I'm particularly interested in Defense. Overall, I'm very interested in geopolitics and what's going on internationally. And then I think Anduril specifically is very interesting. But I don't think this is some mega trend that we need to understand. I think that there's a handful of companies that are going to get it built there. And I think the idea of, I don't know, creating like a dedicated defense fund would be like kind of weird. It wouldn't really make sense.

What do you think of American dynamism?

I mean, I made a hilarious video about it that you know, with a bunch of, with what's his name, Hulk Hogan theme song. You gotta pull it up. It's really funny.

We'll play a clip over it while you're.

Yeah, play a clip about it. I mean, it's cool. I like American dynamism, obviously. Like, I like America and I like dynamism, so what's not to like? But I mean the, the real, the real interesting thing that I've seen over the last couple months working at Founders Fund is like they are so, so at the core of defense technology and government technology and selling to the government. Like people think about Anduril and there's a lot of investors in Anduril and Androll is very cool. But it is new. But it's like, no, this goes back to Palantir which was co founded by Peter Thiel and was like a massive position for a long time at Founders Fund. And then SpaceX. Founders Fund was one of the first investors. Right. And so it's like, what are the three companies that have succeeded in this whole theme? Palantir, SpaceX and Anduril. Like name the fourth. There isn't one. Like, it's those three companies in terms of like, in terms of like building stuff that you sell to the defense industry. Like that's who they are. And Founders Fund has been at the core of all three of those. And it's crazy. It's crazy. I mean they don't do. You know, that's part of my job is like to maybe to maybe to, you know, retell that story. But that's what I've just found so fascinating. Like the, like I, before I did the video on Anduril, I did a video on Palantir where I didn't actually go inside the company because they're public company and it could be very tricky to get approvals and stuff for what they say. I just also didn't want to bother them. But it's a fascinating company. It is insane how that company has grown. And now it's like a total meme stock, which is super, super entertaining to watch. You just go search Palantir on Twitter and you'll see some wild stuff. But, but it's just, it's crazy that the, that that. I mean, maybe, maybe it's not crazy. Maybe it's very predictable that of course the fund that created Palantir would also create and also fund Space X extremely early. Right. But it's, it's certainly been something that I've kind of like opened my eyes to. I didn't realize how critical Founders Fund has been in that story.

But then what were you guys looking for? Because with Andrew, obviously Palmer Lucky built Oculus. He kind of knows, like, you can tell that he, he gets a sense that or you get a sense that he knows what he's doing when it comes to building those types of products.

Sure.

But in general, with all the other companies you guys invest in, it's not as easy as like, okay, this guy would make a good, like social. Consumer. Social founder.

You mean on incubation specifically? Yeah, I mean, I think the incubations come from the investors. So I think, I think a lot of times it's like, you know, Trey has an idea for defense tech company and like builds a team around it kind of. And that seems like what's more or less happened with Varda, where Delian wanted to do something in a particular area and then built a team around it. And then it's pretty like, logical. Like the reason that he teamed up with Will Brewery is like pretty straightforward. Like, Will was working on reentry at SpaceX. It's like the best company on the exact problem that you're going to have. So you'd get the best guy at the best company working on the same problem as you, and then you make him the CEO of your company. I don't know. That seems like a pretty smart thing to do.

That makes sense. Do you ever see yourself going and trying to build a founder's fund style company?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't really know what would be different about that than just starting another company. Because I'm not an investor there, I'm not on the investment team, so I wouldn't have the same, like, position, I guess. But I mean, as an, as an entrepreneur in residence, like, I'm kind of, you know, building stuff, building content, but also building other things. So thinking about stuff.

Thinking about stuff, yeah. And then can we hear about what some of those things are I don't.

Really have anything ready to announce, but you'll hear about it on the YouTube channel for sure. That's kind of the goal, you know, is to, you know, I think the content, it's very entertaining. It is that 10 year mission. I want to keep doing it, but I don't know that that's something that I want to like, squeeze every penny out of. Kind of like having it just be like, not total ad central. And if I. So if I can just like have, you know, make cool stuff, have a good audience and then tell them like, hey, I built this other thing, you can go buy that and it's mine, that's probably a little bit more just like chill as opposed to every week it's a new ad.

Makes sense. Like, one of the things we talked about when we were coming up with the idea for the podcast was the distribution would be great. If it now is a big podcast, we're making it for founders. The stuff I like to build is generally like in the range of things that founders would find useful.

Yep.

And so it kind of made sense. Okay. Now you have a podcast, you have distribution, you want to build a product, you instantly have your first 500,000 users.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. At least for launching.

Yeah.

Is. Is Founders Fund going to be more involved in the YouTube channel? Like, do you see yourself like making specific content?

No, not really. I'm trying to think about that. Like, we, we do some stuff on YouTube at Founders Fund, and obviously I'm like chiming in there like, hey, this is how we should edit this or whatever. And Founders Fund actually has a great podcast, Anatomy of Next. And they've done content before, but it's all very like, you know, sparse. It's like whatever is interesting. I don't think. I think part of the cool thing about what Founders Fund does is like, it's very. It's very unpredictable. You can't rely on it. So when an event happens, you better go because it's not going to happen next month. And it's the same thing for the content. It's very like when it pops up when. I mean, one of the first videos I made on YouTube was kind of breaking down that old amazing debate between Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt where Peter really like goes into the stagnation theory and they really get going. And it's very, very entertaining video. If you haven't seen that one. I think it was from Wired in Texas or something. But after I made that video, somebody emailed me and said, like, oh, I go on YouTube, and I search, like, at least once a month for Peter Thiel because, like, I want to see if he's dropped any new interviews. I'm a fan, right? And I was like, I had no idea that this would be a thing. So just me making a video, breaking down that debate got him to watch my channel. And so, like, I like that kind of, you know, it's unpredictable. There's something. There's something that's, you know, cool about that. I don't know.

There's a no Peter Thiel interview dropping.

Definitely no Peter Thiel podcast coming.

Now that you've kind of built out multiple brands now. You see, you're like, you've interviewed so many brands in Palantir, but also, like, you've built Soylent and, like, this whole range of different types of brands. You built your own personal brand. What do you think the biggest differences are when it comes to defining a personal brand and defining, like, a company brand?

It's interesting. I definitely don't have the personal brand thing figured out at all. I don't even think about it that way. I think about it much more like it's this YouTube channel that exists in this algorithm. I gave it my name just because I think that's what works on YouTube. You is right there in the name. And I think if people see a person's name, they're more likely to subscribe and more likely to kind of be like, oh, I want to hear what this person has to say, as opposed to if it's like, Bloomberg, Quick Take or whatever. It's like, okay, that's like, some corporate thing. I don't know if that's, like, real or. I don't know if that's reliable. Like, a lot of those, like, channels that don't have personal names. Like, it's a different narrator every time. You don't really learn anything about the person. But in terms of, like, personal branding, I don't even have, like, a public Instagram. Like, I don't do LinkedIn. Like, there's so many, like, you know, blocking and tackling things that you should do. If you're, like, trying to build, like, a personal brand. I feel like I'm much more in the world of, like, I'm trying to just, like, make Silicon Valley documentaries, and then hopefully, those are cool, and then I'm kind of the guy who made them. But I don't know that it's a personal brand. Makes sense.

I don't know.

We can talk about CPG brands. I don't really Know that much about Palantir's brand other than kind of badass, but other than that, I couldn't really tell you how it resonates with enterprise software buyers or DoD officials. Makes sense.

So then if you want to talk about CPG brands, if I wanted to start one tomorrow, do what. What's like the framework? What am I thinking about? Do I want to make it super kind of like friendly? Do I want to make it super mission driven?

That's interesting. I have no idea. I would probably say something like you would want to. I mean, I think it's still good to try and start with the product and try and find some significant leap forward, ideally with a manufacturing moat or an IP moat, where once you get the product built, you'll be the only one that can access it or make it for a number of years. And then when that flows to the brand, I don't really know. I don't really know how you would like. I don't think there's going to be any axioms like a friendly brand is always better. Definitely not. But I think you'd probably have to see how that brand, like how the product is actually used and then do cool shit around it. Basically. I think that's kind of the encapsulation of branding is like, if you can imagine how, like if. What was it like? You know, if I don't know if 3M made a shoe, you wouldn't know what that looks like. But if Nike makes a whatever, Jim, you'd know exactly what it is, exactly what it looks like. I think that that probably has to come from a single visionary who just picks their aesthetic and then just ruthlessly goes and executes on that for a very, very long time and is just kind of like the brand dictator and just takes a ton of risks but applies their own aesthetic to it. And if they are cool, the brand will be cool. And then eventually you'll be able to boil those down. But I actually think a lot of the problem is the red antlerification of branding. It's like this branding agency, there's a bunch of them, but not to pick on them, but people were going to the big branding agency. There was a whole. There was a whole time when it's like, okay, you raise like $5 million for your D2C thing and then you go and pay, you know, 200k to this branding agency and they give you this thing and it's lowercase font and they have this whole playbook and they wound up looking like identical. Everyone looked Identical. And. And like, obviously that's something you can't shortcut. And. And the question of, like, can you even pay for, like, unique branding ideas is like kind of an open question. I don't know. I haven't seen a lot of them. Most of them come from like, oh, my God. This like insane 16 year old went on TikTok and did something weird and now there's a brand around it that's really interesting.

You think of Ember Chamberlain coffee. I'm not sure if you know Build Space, but Build Space is a company started by a guy named Farza. Yeah, he really likes anime. Build Space is very anime heavy. I guess he liked Harry Potter. Build Space literally has houses. Red, blue, green, yellow. Like, it's very interesting to think that a lot of the brands that have actually worked, that I think about, the ones I like, engage with or I follow.

Yep.

They've all been almost like crafted by like, in the face of the person that started them.

Yep.

How do you think that works when you have co founders? Is it like now the two people put their brands together for.

For.

I don't know.

It doesn't. I don't know. I don't think everyone needs a brand. I think that's maybe overstated. I think it's fine to be behind the scenes and no one knows you. I know plenty of people that have zero Internet presence and are doing great. Fantastically. So I don't think that there's any need for that. It's fine to have one person that is the face and one person that's the ops person or one person who's the brains of the operation. The other person is just doing the marketing. That seems like a tale as old as time. I mean, what does Michael Jordan know about pouring molds for shoes, Right. He's not an ops guy. It's fine. Worked out great for everyone.

Well, speaking of Internet presence, you don't have an Instagram, but you do have a Twitter.

Yeah.

Got some fun tweets for you.

Okay. I do have an Instagram. It's just private. It's just like family photos. So I need to like, take those down and then put up like thought leadership posts, I guess.

Well, disclaimer. You tweeted all of this?

Oh, yeah.

I'm just reading yours and.

Yeah. What you got for me?

Okay, so this one's good. I know a tech slash business podcast who not only sells guest appearance slots, but also sells host slots. Not only can you pay to be interviewed, but you can pay to step in as the interviewer. Lol. Every once in a while, both people on the show are paying to be their genius.

How much would you guys pay? So how much did, how much did you guys charge me to be on this? Nothing. Nothing. Well, the benefits, money on the table.

How much did we. But I don't get it.

How much are you getting paid?

So I charge you, and then he pays to, like.

Yeah, exactly. Like, if I want exposure the next time, instead of paying to come on your podcast, I want to pay to come host your podcast.

But, But I publish. How does this, how does the publishing work?

Yeah, it goes out on the main feed. It's just like, imagine a podcast feed.

And then Danny Miranda show hosted by.

This has to be a big podcast that people paying for it.

Right?

So it's.

No, no.

You done this.

No, it's not a big show. And no, I, I, I, I don't. I've never paid to be on a podcast, but I just think it's a hilarious concept.

So if we pay, like, Danny.

Yeah. You go on and host his show. That would be good for your brand, right? There is value. That would be good. There is a value exchange. Like, imagine. Imagine if, like, Joe Rogan called you and was like, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm. I got the stomach flu today. I want you to step in and host my show.

So we pay and then you pay Danny.

Yeah.

To be on it.

Yeah, exactly. Like, it's the dumbest value exchange ever because it's just hugely destructive to the brand, obviously.

Yeah.

And as soon as people find out or they even just get the vibe, like, the whole point of a podcast is, like, consistent hosts that, you know, oh, I'm tuning in to hear what they have to say because I like these guys and I like their dynamic. And, yeah, I'll put up with some random entrepreneur who came on today because I like the guys. Right. And I like Rogan. And so Rogan brings on somebody not so interesting. I still listen because Rogan's gonna make it fun, right?

Yeah, but, I mean, building a cameo.

There are, There are unironically, some, Some podcasts where it's very, very pay to play, which is just stupid because you've never listened to any of these. Neither have I. It's, like, complete fake. You can do the same thing with, like, getting a book published. Like, you want to become an author. Like, you can pay 5k to someone to, like, co. Ghost. Right?

Ghost. Right. Yeah.

And, and then it goes on Amazon and it sells, like, two units. But like, then you can put like a lot of people do this if they're like VP at Amazon and they need to get like a promotion or like they're, they're like grinding some corporate gig and they want to be like a bigger deal and like be, you know, have a longer introduction book. Yeah, well, they don't write the book. The ghostwriter. But yeah, then they publish it. Yeah, so, so like imagine like you're some like, you know, corporate grinder at like Walmart corporate. And you're like, your job is to you know, implement a b testing software in large scale e commerce something or whatever. You know, you got something and it's boring. But like the way you get promoted is like you'll go to the industry conference and you'll speak on the panel or whatever. And so like another feather in your cap can be like, oh, and I wrote a book all about this topic. My, my topic. So like, why are you promoting me? Why can the shareholders trust me? It's because like I have this book. But like these books are terrible. The dog chatgpt is going to destroy all this. That's actually maybe a good business model. Dude. ChatGPT ghost writing for these people. Because they're already paying 5k a month.

Or 5k a month for the full book, you're saying.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Shout out cog lair.

Yeah, just churn it out. That's not a good idea because the only value that people want from that is that they want to be able to say I am technically an author of a book that you can see on Amazon when you research me for.

Two second and there's no name attached, as in apart.

No, the ghostwriter's not on there. But like, like imagine if when you were doing your research on me, like you, you Google it and like the third link is like, oh, John, John Coogan wrote a book about entrepreneurship or whatever. Right. And you'd be like, oh, like I'm going to mention that in my intro. Like, he's not just a random dude, he's also an author who wrote a piece of paper instead of like, I'm pretty sure across all my YouTube videos I've written like way more than a book. I just have happened to have spoken it into a camera and then edited it. But yeah, I mean, so you're saying.

We should just put that together, publish the book. You can get a code.

You want to be on the side that, where you're grifting the grifters. You don't want to be doing. You don't want to be the grifter. So you grifting the grifter mean. So grifting the grifter is where you are selling the ghostwriting services to the. To that stupid person who wants to be an author. If I show up next time and you guys are like, guess what? We're all authors and you make more than $5, I am gonna be very embarrassed for you. But if you're, if you're like. If you're like, hey, we're all authors and we have a business selling to these idiots and we're making a million dollars a month just reposting ChatGPT books or whatever. I'll be like, okay, that's kind of.

Forget, you know 70.

I know we're doing this weekend.

It's a good idea.

I think you got to do it. Oh, we're going to do it.

Here's another good one. What's your favorite company that has a terrible business? That is you love the product, but the stock has been in the trash for years. Yes, Elon, Twitter is the most obvious example, but what are some other good examples?

That Penguin Publishing house.

I tweeted that. I don't remember that. What was the first part again?

What's your favorite company that has a terrible business? So you love the company, right? But, oh, yeah, Uber's mind.

That's just a question. I'm just. Read the replies. Were there good replies? I don't know. That's why I asked Nintendo. Nintendo, Uber. Yeah, people always ask, like, why doesn't Apple buy Nintendo or maybe Nintendo?

Someone put Newell Brands. Newell Brands is a good business.

I don't know what's wrong with it.

Brands, they make Sharpies, Elmer Glue and all that stuff.

Yeah, I don't know.

Netflix, I think Netflix is Netflix business.

I feel like, well, kind of in the trash.

I think what you're saying is like, yeah, the performance goes down, but you still love the brand.

Yeah, I guess I was just kind of hunting for other examples other than beyond meat. Because Twitter is like that classic example of like, of, like, used by the most powerful people in the world, but, like, they just can't turn a serious profit.

What do you think about X?

It feels the same. It's cool. Like, I, I think that nothing can kill Twitter.

You don't think the membership thing worked for nothing?

Driving Twitter at this point, like, you could drop a nuclear bomb on their data centers and like, you would still be able to log in somehow. You just can't kill this thing. Think about it. Mastodon Blue sky, like truth social threads, Threads. Like there's been a million things. Like Jack Dorsey, the founder of the company, launched a competitor, right? Blue Sky. It's like this, like, didn't Blue sky get funded by Twitter? It's like the same thing. And yet like, that didn't kill it. It's insane. It's just the most resilient thing in the world. And like, like, I don't know, like there's all this news about Threads is going to kill it and then what. Where. What was the most interesting story on the Internet last week was on Twitter. Lk99. Like the whole superconductor thing, like that played out on Twitter. Like Twitter was the place where you log in to get the most up to date information. It's where the news broke. It's where all the memes are developed, all the rocks float. Like it's got its own culture already. It's all on Twitter. And so like, or axe looking for.

Two years of, of experience building superconductors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, like everyone's talking about it. It's where the conversation is happening. You would not go to Threads. You would not go to Blue Sky. You not go anywhere else to talk about that. And like, so for, for like the small amount of people that want to talk about superconductors, the moment that it breaks, which is a lot of tech people, like, that's where we're going to go forever. I feel like now is it good business? Who knows? How much can you monetize that? You know, there's a lot of other issues. Never bet against Elon. You probably figure it out. The Pie Phone, bro.

I'm telling you, he's gonna make the phone. The founder.

Why is it called the Pyphone?

I have no idea. I think just because like PI is a cool number.

And iPhone.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably like a competitor to the iPhone.

Has to be. It's gonna kill it. IPhone will take over.

But the Pie Phone, it's just we're.

Gonna leave their presence.

It's just so funny that there's someone out there and they're making tons and tons of money.

I get a better product than the Python. The only solution to climate change is building a Dyson Sphere.

That's probably true. Did I tweet that? Yeah. I do not memorize my tweets.

Can we build that? Is that possible?

Maybe with superconductors.

You think? Yeah, Full Dyson.

Nothing's impossible. It doesn't break the laws. Laws of physics. That's, like, why it was first conceptualized so it's possible, but, you know, a long way away.

This would hit, I think, the clean energy.

The clean energy. Take that YouTube video. Yeah. Dyson Sphere.

Sponsored by Dyson.

Oh, yeah.

Optimism.

It's a long way away. I mean, the clean energy. Take that. I. That I probably feel more, like, unironically supportive of would be just that, like, everywhere. We should just build, like, nuclear reactors underground with windmills on top of them, with solar panels on. The windmills just, like, just put all the clean energy on it, and then there's just something for everyone. And so when someone. I'm scared of the nuclear. Like, but don't you like solar?

But don't you like windmills?

Exactly. Don't you like windmills? And they're like, no, the windmills are killing the birds. They're like, don't stay away because everything's irradiated.

They look really creepy at night, too.

Kidding.

You ever. You ever driven by late at night, seen a bunch of windmills?

Oh, I think that's amazing. I think that's, like, the most beautiful.

Not scared.

No, I love it.

I'm scared of the birds.

Feels like a Hitchcock movie.

Yeah, but we just need. We just need more of all this stuff. Clearly.

Just build nuclear reactors, windmills and birds. Emphasis on the birds.

The birds.

But this is the optimistic YouTube you were talking about. Yeah, yeah, this is.

I mean, the Dyson Sphere thing is, like, it's probably not within my lifetime, but it's a cool idea.

The Python is within our lifetime.

Definitely.

I think this is a good one to end on. So you asked, like, neat followers. One, display expertise. Two, superconductors, Condensed knowledge.

Superconductors.

Three, make jokes.

No, you can't joke.

And then four, adapt successful posts.

Superconductors. I mean, that was an adaptation of a successful post. I think if you look in the replies, people will tell you exactly who I copied on that.

Yeah, Five.

But someone else wrote that more in, like, more verbosely. And then I just summarized it.

The best is five. Right. That's what I was going to shitpost.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of checks all the boxes.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it's good. I mean, I don't know the value of building a Twitter these days, like, if you can even do it. I have no idea.

So the last guy we had on, he just bought 3000 followers out the gate.

Yep.

And then he started posting cool content.

Yep.

Now he has 15,000 followers.

Cool.

Most of them are supposedly legit.

I think they're legit. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Got enough of, like, the initial signal getting out of that, like, reply guy. Hell hole is, like, purgatory is really, really important.

Yeah.

Like, the grind from, like, a hundred to a thousand is probably the hardest. And then once you're. Once you're. Once you're at a thousand, like, at least you can, like, kind of break into the algorithm a little bit. And then a couple viral posts and boom, boom, boom. You're at 10k or something.

Couple viral posts. Use the five steps to make your viral posts.

Use the five steps.

Superconductors. To be honest, if last week you knew about superconductors, you don't have 10,000 followers right now.

Yeah, those guys blew up the guy who did Ren's Cometeer.

Yeah. Come on.

It's awesome. Yeah. It's entertaining stuff.

Entertaining stuff. Cool.

Well, thanks for having me.

Of course. Thanks for coming on.

Yeah. Let's do it again soon.