Sean and Sam Parr test OpenAI's Sora, an AI video app that generates TikTok-style clips from text prompts and a quick facial scan. You record three numbers and a glance, and Sora creates full-body videos of you. They predict it'll be the fastest-growing app ever once invites open up, and discuss how AI is shifting from solo tools like ChatGPT to social platforms built for sharing.
Chapters
So last night I downloaded an app that blew my mind and it's called Sora. And I don't say that casually. I'm not trying to be an AI thought leader who's like, holy crap, the new model is so unbelievable. They just changed the game. No, no, no. This app was weird. Weird in a way that I haven't like— hasn't settled yet. Okay, so basically OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, have released a new app called Sora. And when you hear it, the— I think the first reaction is a big eye roll. It's a feed like TikTok, but hey, all the videos are made AI. You don't have to worry about like, is this a fake video? They're all fake videos, okay? And so the initial reaction from the smart guy community was like, uh, literally like, oh good, pure AI slop. In fact, there were some great tweets about this, uh, that I just want to call out for humor and excellence. Chris Bakke had a great one. He goes, Sam Altman, you know, OpenAI, we're going to cure brain cancer. OpenAI today, we created brain cancer. Like the worst thing you could do is just a feed of AI, AI slop, basically. But when you go in, it's not AI slop. I think that's a, I think that's a thing that gets you cool points on the internet. I don't think it's what's going on here. And I think you're going to be on the wrong side of history if you try to resist this. And so you open up the app. The way it works is like ChatGPT, you can type anything and it's going to create an AI video. But the very first thing it does, the camera's on, and this is not like any onboarding I've ever done in any other app. The camera's on and it says, say these 3 numbers out loud. And you're like, all right, 12, 74, 88. It's like, cool, stole your voice. Got it. Like, what? It's like, yeah, we can use AI to do your voice from those 3 numbers. Got it. And it's like, hey, just look to the right real quick. There's something over there. You look over to the right. It's like, Got your face. All right, now we could put those two little actions. You saying three numbers and you look, looking at the camera and then looking to the side. It now can recreate your face.
I did mine last night in bed. I made one that said, um, I made a few actually. The first one was put me in a Ralph Lauren ad, which is hilarious. But the really shocking one, I said, make it look like I have a ponytail and let me. Sorry, share that ponytail one. It's scary. I let it grow out over the last year. It feels completely different, but I kind of like it. It's easy enough to keep in shape just to rinse in some conditioner and let it do its thing. When I'm working or need it out of my face, I just pull it back like this. Simple. Feels good.
So this app is unbelievable. I did one where I said me ding dong ditching, uh, somebody used like the Ring camera footage. And then I cartwheel away to hide. All right, here we go. Quick knock. And I'm out. Perfect.
How does it know your height and stuff?
It just inferred my entire body from my face, which is disappointing in its own way.
That looks real.
Yeah. And so, okay, so you could do it for yourself. Now watch this one I just sent. You could also use other people if they let you. So this is, so Sam Altman, the, you know, the founder of OpenAI, he's like available to be used. So you just, if you just tag like, you're just like me talking to Sam Altman or whatever. But in this case, somebody was like, they used Sam Altman and they were making fun of the idea of the AI slop. Have you seen this one?
Are my piggies enjoying their slop? This is crazy. This is 100%, I think, better than TikTok, actually. I think it's better than TikTok. And it's, it's, this is V1. It's so good.
So there's a couple of kind of, so I think this is going to be, here's a couple of predictions. I think this is going to be the most downloaded app in the history of the world, um, in a short period of time. So I think it'll be like the fastest to get to 100 million downloads. Um, cause I think it'll happen in like, like right now it's gated by you need an invite code. But as soon as they open that gate, or if they open that gate, um, in, in short order, this thing would get, you know, 100 million plus downloads very, very quickly.
I just went to the App Store last night and I just clicked download and it worked. I didn't know you had to have an invite.
Yeah, same. Other people couldn't do that. They all needed, they would hit a wall that said you need an invite code. Um, cause I was, I was like, dude, have you seen this? I was texting people and they were like, I can't get in. I was like, I didn't have a code. I don't know why I got in and others didn't. I'm not sure. Um, so that's my first prediction. Second prediction is I think this opens the floodgates of something that Matt Mazzeo talked about on our podcast. So I did an episode with Matt about AI. Matt's totally like, he's so far down the rabbit hole. I'm like, Matt, it's like Matt, Matt, Matt. It's like echoing down the rabbit hole. And he was talking about AI and he goes, the crazy thing about AI is we are so early. And I don't mean in just in terms of how smart it's going to be. We're so early because every AI tool right now is single player. He's like, ChatGPT is just a tool you use yourself. And same thing with the image creators and same thing with almost all of the tools are still single player. But the internet has showed us that like all the most powerful apps, they're multiplayer. The things you do with other people, whether it was Facebook and social networking, whether it was Uber connecting you with drivers or Airbnb connecting with other people, Slack where you chat with your teammates. Like it's crazy that none of the AI tools are really multiplayer today. And so he's like, I'm waiting for that. Like, that's the next wave. That's the big thing. This was one of the first AI, AI-native things where I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to be using this with other people. Like last night, me and my friends were basically like creating videos of each other, making each other laugh. Um, it was like so easy just to do that back and forth and get it there. You know, you get a tag, you got tagged. Somebody made a video of you. It's like, dude, I have to go look at that. I can't not look at that. Like, so, hey, here's somebody hold this baby. I got to look at this video somebody made of me, right? It's like one of the most like strong pulls. And if, if you remember, one of the big growth levers for Facebook was when they introduced friend, uh, photo tagging. So they made it super easy where not just you could upload photos, that's a Solar Player experience, but when you could just click on somebody in the picture and write their name, and then you would get an email whether you use Facebook or not that would say, Sean just uploaded a photo and tagged you in it. And you're like, oh, I gotta go see what this picture is. Like, that's out there for everybody to see. That created this insane growth loop for, for Facebook. I think that's what's going to happen with this.
When you lived in China, did you, uh, I forget what they call 'em, but what are the apps that are like, I think it's WhatsApp is one of 'em where they're like an everything app where WeChat, uh, yeah, sorry, super apps, WeChat. So like with the WeChat, it's, it's hard to understand, uh, in America, but they call it an everything app because you could like, you chat with your buddies, you order groceries and you send money. Like what is that, right?
You pay your electricity bill, you could buy furniture, you do anything you want on that app.
So I downloaded this thing or I signed up for ChatGPT Pro or whatever the most expensive one is because they have this new thing called Pulse. Have you used Pulse?
Dude, no, but I love this idea. I haven't used it. Can anybody just turn this on?
You have to pay money. So it's expensive. I think it's $100 or $200 a month. But yeah, basically like I tell it what I'm into or it gets to know me. And every day when I wake up now, I mean, I'm on ChatGPT all day anyway. Now in the morning I pull up Pulse and it's sort of like my newsfeed except it's all tailored for me. So like I'll tell it I'm interested, I'm reading this particular book that interests me and I see like relevant articles that it has written. So it's, it's the journalist and it's, so it's like, uh, you know, um, Apple's newsfeed except it's also the journalist or like I'm into like Greek philosophy right now and like I'm seeing like it's telling me about Greek philosophy tailored towards me. Or like YouTube, like, you know, we're trying to like learn more about YouTube. It's saying like, uh, I'm like, I wanna learn how to get more popular or be better at storytelling or whatever on YouTube. Like I wanna like perfect that craft a bit more. It writes articles based off of the conversations that I've had with it. So when I, we do this podcast, we'll use ChatGPT to research and come up with story ideas. It's giving me daily articles based off that, which is insane.
And so like, they should have just called this Ben Levy cuz this is what Ben Levy does. Ben gets to know you. He knows what your interests are, what your dreams are. He knows what you're, what you're working on right now. And he'll, every day he'll just text you useful, interesting things and celebrate your success and like help you. Hey, here's a tweet I saw that's relevant to the thing you're talking about. Hey, here's an article that talks about how to do that thing you were talking about. Now Ben has to compete with AI because AI is doing that.
And this is the first example of a super app. Now I'm starting to get it where I'm like, everything's going to be on here. And frankly, like, I'm a free market guy. This is scary. This is like every quarter I'm like, okay, now I am a little bit more fearful what's going to happen in 5 years because how is this company not going to take over the world and be the biggest company on earth the way that like I'm using it already?
And why is that something you're fearful of? There is always a biggest company on earth. Why is it scary that it would be OpenAI?
Because I think it's potentially going to be significantly larger than every company ever and will know more about me like Well, it will be ubiquitous in more ways than it has ever been. Uh, you know, like Nvidia is the third largest company in the world. I don't particularly interact with that every day, and I don't know if it knows anything that it could like ruin, ruin my life. But now OpenAI does. I just think that OpenAI is going to be like the combination of Facebook, Google, every news company ever, and then like 5 other companies combined into one.
I want to talk about this for a second. This is pretty fascinating. So I sent this to my sister. I sent her one of these videos and she was like, "Ah, what? AI, Sean? What is this?" And I'm like, "Oh, the makers of ChatGPT now have this app. You can make any video about anything using anyone and you just use your face and then they just do it." And she's like, "Oh my God, being your sister is so tiring. You have so many cool things that I now need to like know of. And like, I was just getting settled in this couch of life here and now I have to get up and go do things. And like, what is this?" and I feel that. I actually feel that in a big way. Right.
You feel exhausted?
Yeah. Because like, even when you talked about Pulse, it's like, oh, another game-changing thing I need to go learn, do, try. Oh my God. Am I irrelevant now? Is it my— am I super powerful or irrelevant? I can't tell. So I think there's, there's that angle, which is I think some people feel exhausted by the rate of change. and I don't know what to tell you. It's like, it's like saying I'm so— it's like on Survivor when they're like, I'm so cold. It's like, well, you still got 30 more days out here and it's going to keep raining. Like, I don't know what you're going to do. You sleep every night in the rain. Now that's what happens.
You're going to be drenched. You just summed it up perfectly. Am I now super powerful or am I irrelevant? I don't know which one.
Yeah, because dude, I mean, I'm looking at this thing like, oh cool, so content creation, everybody can just do it easily.
Interesting.
Hi. Um, You know, I was watching this interview with, um, Steve Bartlett and Steve has his podcast called Diary of the CEO. And I think it's basically like the second biggest podcast in the world right now. It's pretty, pretty insane. Um, he was talking and he was like, uh, you know, he was sort of like, you're either the hunter or the hunted. It was like, you are either going to get disrupted or you're going to be the one doing the disrupting. He was talking about for his own business. He's like, yeah, so I have a team that's just working on AI podcasting. So they're making like AI Steve or AI guests, and then we're creating all AI podcasts. And he's like, we are, testing them with ad spend to see, do people watch the AI podcast as much as they watch the normal podcast? He goes, before it was like, no, it was really bad. He goes, now, as bad as it sounds, like, the average watch time is the same on the AI podcast versus the human podcast. He's like, so, That's going to be a thing. And I'm like, I don't even know if that's true. I don't know if I believe that. I don't know where that is. I don't know what he's exactly saying. Just that idea of like, oh, so like, again, if I'm a content creator, maybe I'm just irrelevant at this stage. Like, who knows? Maybe, maybe I'll be completely obsolete or maybe I'm 10 times more powerful, right? There's two different perspectives. So I think there's an exhausting reaction to it. I think another reaction is sort of the dystopian of like, yo, this is all too powerful and you guys are getting way too powerful. When it took my face and my voice in 3 seconds and now like, if I, you know, if I toggle the button on, you can make a video of me doing anything, saying anything. And if you use ChatGPT, you can just upload all of my writing ever and all of the transcripts of this podcast and you could be like, hey, let me just have Sean as my coach and I don't get paid for that. That's just like a thing that people can do. Like this is all like, a little insane, right? And, um, it's all quite powerful. Um, and some people don't trust Sam Altman. So I think there's that dystopian of like, you know, um, where is the world going? Do I want this sort of all-powerful technology or this company to be all-powerful? I think there's that fear too. And I think there's a third reaction, which is the one I'm trying to lean into, which is just be curious, go have fun, go play. Wow. What an amazing time to be alive that like you're seeing the birth of this thing and you get to ride these waves and like, The whole world's gonna change, hopefully for the better, and you can kind of impact that. That I think is the only useful reaction of the three.
All right guys, here's the thing about side hustles. Everyone wants one, but most people overthink about it and they never actually launch anything. But because of AI, you can go from idea to your first sale in only 7 days. My old company, The Hustle, they just dropped an AI side hustle crash course. So basically what The Hustle did was they looked at things that me and Sean and HubSpot CMO Kit Bounder. They look at stuff that we said and they broke it all down into simple bite-sized steps, which means you're gonna get a guide that gives you everything you need to launch a side hustle without any of the guesswork. So you can get it right now. You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now back to the show. Dude, what's gonna happen in the next couple years is Palantir it's going to— we're all just going to be in a Palantír cage, you know, like, who's going to be in a Palantír cage? And Sam Altman is going to be throwing stuff at us, like our slop that we have to eat in a cage. And this is just how it's going to be. I, I do think the haves and the have-nots, it's just going to separate even further.
So can I tell you some of, some of the more positive, uplifting, exciting versions of this? So I think, um, learn— learning and education is getting way better. So there's a few examples of like, uh, people who are making AI tutors that are incredible. We've talked about Alpha School. Google just released this thing called like, I forgot what it's called, like personalized learning where you could basically tell it what you want to know and then it just like develops this incredibly personalized curriculum for you and feeds you, like takes you down that path, which is really cool. Um, and I think the idea of like, just like you have a a therapist, or we talked about a, you know, a therapist in your pocket, a sponsor in your pocket, you're also going to have Socrates in your pocket.
What's it called?
You know, Google sucks at naming everything. So they're like Google Learning and Development Trees. It's like, I don't know what— I don't know what it's called.
Dude, I hate when all these companies just— they name their thing like Maps. Like, it's just like one— it's like— it's like—
this is Ava. Ava, your cute friend who's all-knowing. Hey, Ava. All you have to do is out in public, just say, Hey, Ava. It's like, I don't want to say, hey, Ava, out in public, you know. Hey, Ava, how much is that house worth? That's what I'm going to be saying.
I would have—
hey, Ava, does she have an OnlyFans? Thanks, Ava.
While your glasses are on.
Hey, can you hold still for a second?
Hey, Ava, for a cool part.
Hey, can you turn this way? Oh, I'm out of range. Hold on, let me get closer to your face.
Do you ever gawk? Like, you ever see like a crime and I'm like, uh, like whenever I see a police officer doing something, I just— him, um, uh, I'm just like, Sarah, let's go gawk. Like, I'm just like, like, hey, can you guys—
I just overestimate myself. I'm like, you guys need a hand with anything?
Can you guys explain what's going on? Like, what did he do?
What did he do?
I'm just like, I'm just like, shamelessly, I'll just go up to someone like, can you give me a play-by-play?
Dude, by the way, that's one of the best Sora prompts is use body cam footage to show me doing X, and it's a cop body cam that's following you. It's so good.
Let me tell you a story, and then I want to ask you a question. I was with someone recently this past weekend and we were watching a baseball game. And in between each inning, he would like look on his phone and like start messing around and doing stuff. And then during the game, I would hear like ka-ching or like a, like a buzzer, a buzzer noise. And I was like, after 4 innings, I was like, what are you doing? And he was like, oh, I'm betting like $3 or $5 between each inning on what's going to happen over the next inning. And I was like, what? What are you talking about? He's like, well, I have this app. Where like it uses AI somehow and it like makes you— it comes up with like different micro bets that you can bet throughout the game. And I was like, do you, do you do this all the time? Like, what's the situation? He's like, oh, like literally every time I watch sports I do this. And I said, how much do you watch sports? He's like, oh, every day. I was like, wait, is this a thing? And I went and like talked to like 10 other people in this room and I was like, tell me, do you do this? Do you do this? Do you do this? And almost every single person in the room, they— if it was a man, they did it. If it was a woman, they're like, my brother or husband or boyfriend does it.
Right. Well, if you watch any sport now, like every ad is basically like the sponsor of every podcast is, you know, FanDuel or DraftKings. And then if you watch games, like, you know, the leagues used to ban this. They didn't want gambling as a part of it, but now they basically realize like, that's our premium sponsor. And so they're like heavily using it. But it's funny because like there's been all these situations now. I don't know if you've seen where players are caught. There was probably like 5 notable things— not 5 notable cases of this last year across like NBA and NFL, let's say. And so like one guy, for example, um, you know, he owed a bunch of people money, owed like a car dealer money and his jewelry guy money and whatever. And then they went back and they looked at like a pattern of his games and they're like, huh, like that's weird that he didn't shoot the ball there at the end of the game. Or like Just last week, even, um, this football player, they were the quarterback, they were winning, the quarterback wanted to run out the clock. So they're just trying to hold the ball. And so he took the snap and then to make sure that he used all of the clock, he just started running backwards, which you would never do normally if you wouldn't run backwards. But he's like, cool, I just need the 7 seconds to expire. He ran all the way backwards into the end zone and took a safety. So a 2-point swing for the other team, which didn't matter. They were up by 7 anyways, but the line was 6. And so it went from a win to a loss. Now he wasn't cheating, but like, The gambler, you know, these guys get like death threats in their DMs every day now because they're like, dude, you messed up my parlay. Like, you messed up my over-under. Like, you piece of shit, you know, blah, blah, blah. And they just, they get like harassed. So the players don't really like it who are, you know, just trying to play the game because like all of a sudden people take it uber uber personally if they have a bad game or if they miss that shot or if they scored one extra time or didn't score one extra time when they could have swung the line, you know. By the way, there's another angle to this that's kind of fascinating. In the sort of sports betting nerdery. So I don't know if you've seen lately, but there was this great tweet where it showed Robinhood stock going like this and DraftKings stock going the exact opposite way in the same time frame. Sports betting, which is like a pretty regulated thing, like I can't do it out of California, for example. Right. I think you can do it in Texas, but I can't do it there. I don't know what state—
38 states in America allow it.
Yeah. And it started with like just New Jersey and then it's Michigan and then it's been expanding since then. But it's a pretty regulated thing. And, but all these other apps now do sports betting, but they call it prediction markets. And prediction markets are legal. So Robinhood now has sports betting in its app, even though it's not, not a casino. You could just go in Robinhood right now and bet on sports. You could do it on Kalshi, you could do it on PolyMarket, you could do it on all these prediction market sites. And their volume is like exploding because they now added basically like sports wagers because there's like a technical loophole in sports betting. You're like, okay, here's the distinction. So sports betting, you're wagering directly on the outcome of the game, you know, $100 on the Warriors to win. So this is regulated under U.S. gambling laws by the state gaming commissions. Prediction markets are seen as a financial market where you're trading the future, like trading futures or stocks, not a bet. So you are buying and selling shares of an outcome.
That's insane.
I don't know why that's any different, but it basically calls it like it's almost like a commodity, basically. So you're— so all these apps were able to add it as prediction markets rather than sports betting. And so now it's— now it's in more places than it was before, and it's easier to access than it was before.
I think once you become like a famous podcaster like Scott Galloway or you and I, we have to take on the cause. Like, we automatically get interested in saving young men, which is like all the rage right now, right? Like, young men are getting left behind.
But in all seriousness, ironic, because I spent like most of my 20s gambling on like riverboat casinos and like Indian reservations. But yeah, you guys shouldn't do it even though I did.
Well, you know, I don't like gambling at all, but I think that there's a— there's— and I don't particularly like outlawing stuff, but I think that there's a difference between like going to a casino and that being your night out. I still don't think it's great, but I think that it's different than what I've experienced in my short amount of time being around guys like betting $3 every game. And having a DraftKings account manager calling you and being like, hey, do you want a $500 credit to try this new bet? Like, like, you know, it's a little bit more isolated. And so it's, it's, it's, it's strange to me to see this. I talked to this guy. Go to bircheshealth.com. So B-I-R-C-H-E-S. So bircheshealth.com. This company They just raised $20 million from General Catalyst and Kevin Ryan from Ally Corp. I don't know this guy at all, so— and I've got no involvement or anything. I just thought it was cool. But it's a company that raised $20 million and their whole thing is helping particularly young men get cured or get help from gambling addiction. And the reason I thought this was interesting is I brought this up about 3 years ago where I was like, I'm shocked that there's not more alternatives to Alcohol Anonymous. Because Alcohol Anonymous is a massive— it's not a business, but it's a massive organization. And one of the reasons now that I run a community, an in-real-life community, is that I realized that Alcohol Anonymous is all based around you and like 20 other alcoholics where you're sharing and like the connection is what matters. And doing that online, it doesn't really solve the problem the same way that doing it in real life. And so that's one of the reasons why there hasn't been an alternative. However, with the rise of BetterHelp and like all these like telehealth psychiatrist or whatever, which I've done and I've tried, like it does actually help solve the problem. Um, I don't know if it does it as well or, or not. I don't, I don't know the research behind there, but it definitely like helps. It, it, it is a fine alternative to in real life therapy. And I saw that these guys had just raised money. I think he said they're only 2 years old. They grew like 5x in the last year. And I was reading in the New York Times about this online betting. It said 60% of guys between 18 and 22 do sports betting. And a large percentage of them are now problematic gamblers. I'm like, oh, this company's got to take over the world. Like, this is like— now, like, I was seeking earlier, like years ago, for like an Alcohol Anonymous alternative as like an interesting business that could do good in the world. This Birch's Health, and I'm sure there's competitors, is a very interesting business that I think could take off.
Someone on the pod brought this up a long time ago. They were talking about how like physical centers, basically they were like, oh, you could repurpose like I forgot what it was. There was some retail concept that was just dying, like a Blockbuster type of thing. And they were talking about how their prediction, their idea that they brought on the pod was to repurpose those for gambling addiction. They're like, oh, at that time there wasn't even the sports, the prediction markets. It was just daily fantasy. And they were like, you know, there's, there's going to be a big need for this. Can I tell you about an MFM listener who's doing something really cool with this? All right. So there's a guy who I think he listens to the pod, he DM'd me and he's got a very interesting app. So if you go to sunflowersober.com.
Okay, that's cool.
Check this out. So this guy Kobe created this app called Sunflower Sober, and it's an AI-based version of what they call like a sponsor.
Yeah.
So I think— I don't know exactly how it works.
I can tell you. I can tell you. I can tell you. You—
did you go?
Yeah.
Were you a member?
I was a member of AA.
Yeah. So what did you— tell me your experience. So you go to— you went to a physical place and it was like, hi, I'm Sam. And I have a great newsletter. You should subscribe to. Also, I have a problem. Like, what did you say?
This is pre-newsletter, but basically, I think before I met you, like, I was like, I didn't make a lot of money. And I was like, I don't have a lot of money to go to rehab or anything like this. I need help. And I went and like Googled AA near me. And I lived in Potrero Hill. And I go to a meeting and there's 30 or 20 of you sitting around in a circle. And they're famous for having everyone smoke cigs, 'cause that's like when you get off alcohol, you like, your addiction transfers to like a new thing. And so there's everyone smoking cigs and everyone drinking black coffee at like 8:00 PM at night. And you basically, you go around the room and you say your name and your issue, which is basically I'm an alcoholic and I have been sober or I haven't been sober for this long. And you tell your story and you don't have to share if you don't wanna share. But, and after a certain amount of time, you get a sponsor, which is someone who you're supposed to rely on and you're supposed to call and you say like, I'm at this party and like, I'm feeling like I'm being tempted right now. I don't feel great, or I screwed up. Like, can you help me? And you're supposed to like go above and beyond for this person. And that's how you pay it forward in the community.
Right. And that's free. All of that's free or you pay?
AA is free.
AA is free. The sponsor thing's free. It's just a community of people helping each other.
Yeah. And there's a weird story about it. So there's a phrase. So have you heard the phrase, are you a friend of Bill? That's the secret phrase. So like, are you friends? Are you friends with Bill?
Gave it out.
It's not really like that secret, but it's like, are you, are you friends with Bill?
And that means like, are you in AA?
Yeah, because I believe the founder is named Bill W. They say, are you a friend of Bill W.? The founder of Alcoholics Anonymous was this guy named Bill W. And he started in 1935 and he's got this crazy story where he was trying to overcome alcohol addiction and he created this 12-step program for himself. But he's a wild character where like he like took a lot of LSD to help him like overcome his addiction. And it's a whole like cowboy story behind this guy. But the phrase in AA, it's a secret phrase. It's, you friends with Bill W?
Okay, that's amazing. So check this out. So this guy makes this app and he's like, he basically uses AI to do this. So he is like, okay, you can go to rehab, you can go to therapy, you can, but like what if in your pocket was an always-on, helpful, um, you know, compassionate, non-judgmental person who's there to, you know, who's there to help, someone to talk to. And it's not just for— I think he started it, I think he had maybe in his family like somebody who had like alcoholism. And then, uh, but it's not going to be just for alcohol, like it'll be for gambling, it'll be for any type of addiction. And this app is kind of exploding. So in the last 6 months, it basically went from 0 to 100,000 users. So like, look at this revenue ramp.
Oh my God.
To, you know, get, getting, getting to, you know, $50,000 plus, uh, in monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions. And what's interesting is that people pay, uh, you know, whatever, some low, like, dollar a month plan. And this is going to happen in therapy and any other, uh, any field where somebody's charging you, you know, $100 an hour or plus, you're going to suddenly be able to pay $9 a month. And have unlimited access to that level of, you know, to that expertise. It won't be a human, but the AI might, you know, in some cases might be better because again, nonjudgmental, always available, you know, infinitely patient, that sort of thing. And in some ways it might be worse. You might think, ah, it's AI, I'm not accountable to this person in the same way. Not sure exactly how this could play out, but very interested. And he's grown. And if you go look on Reddit, people are talking about this. There's a very big market for this. And one of the things that this business does, where some of the revenue can come from, is he passes the leads on to like anybody who's looking for like, if you're looking for, let's say, like a more clinical solution, because I think there's like drugs that will help you as well if that's the right, if that's the right treatment for you. And so you can actually, and, you know, he might be able to go vertical, so he might be able to start his own clinic underneath. And all of a sudden you have this kind of either free or, you know, $10, $20 a month type of a consumer who suddenly is worth 10 times as much to you as a customer. And so, um, he's passing, you know, you know, hundreds of leads a month to these teletherapy clinics who are looking to, you know, um, speak to a human slash like be able to have, you know, medicine for, for their addictions.
This is pretty cool. You know what's crazy is, um, alcohol amongst young guys has like plummeted. Alcohol, like people drinking, like when, when you and I were at college, like it was like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Like, that's, that's drinking nights or like, you know, something like crazy like that. Young guys do not do this nearly as much, which is good.
Have you seen 21 Jump Street? Yeah. I feel like daily when they go back to school and they're trying to be cool and they're basically like, you know, they're like 29 or whatever.
And they're going back to high school.
First they go with like one, one strap on the backpack, right? Like there's like all these little things that like were cool then but are not cool now. And they're like, punk a kid, try to like make themselves cool. And they're like, yo, that's not cool, man. That's bullying.
Well, they like call him gay and the guy's like, why would you be so insensitive?
Exactly. And so they're like, whoa, like shit's changed. And that's, that's kind of what the drinking culture, uh, you know, from what I read, I don't know if it's actually true. I don't know if you go to college campuses and they're all dry now, but like it does seem like it's much less than it was when we were in college, you know, 18, 20 years ago.
It's way less. Is this, um, Sunflower Sober? Are they, did they raise funding?
Yeah, they raised funding. So I was looking at investing because I think this is going to be a very successful company. You know, that doesn't always make it a great investment because valuation matters a lot. But I think an app like this, I think, you know, the way that Calm and Headspace came in and did something on an app, they did meditation on an app, something that was previously kind of like a, a little bit of a touchy-feely sort of thing that you did offline. And they made it like a daily habit, uh, you know, daily ritual in your pocket. I think that basically getting off your addictions, whether it's porn, whether it's gambling, whether it's alcohol, whether it's weed, you know, whatever it is, there's plenty of things that screens, you know, just, just social media. There's a bunch of things that you could be addicted to nowadays. And I think helping people get off that is going to be a pretty big deal.
Have you been to therapy?
I have like an executive coach. I don't know if that would count as therapy. I would say probably no.
I mean, Cousins, have you used— do you think that ChatGPT could potentially change or have you used ChatGPT to supplement and/or replace an executive coach or a therapist?
Definitely on the executive coach side. On the therapy side, I mean, I never went to therapy. I don't even know what you would— what I would say. I'd be like, hey, like, yeah, like, life's pretty good. I don't even know what I would go into. So I don't even have the skills to like— it's kind of like in Lost when they find the hatch and they're like, how do you get in? And I'm like, I don't know. It's like, that's my emotions. They're the hatch and I have no idea. How to get into it. I don't even know what the problem— I don't even know what I'm supposed to say, what I'm supposed to do. It's a foreign language to me.
I have used it as a, like, for example, it'd be like, I'm mad at my wife because of this reason. Like, can you help me make sense of this? Like, am I wrong? Is she wrong? Why am I angry? Like, help me, like, figure out why I'm pissed off. Or like, this person wrote me this email. Help me, like, figure out how not to react in a negative way and get what I want still. I have found that it has helped me tremendously. ChatGPT, like crazy amounts.
Yeah, it's really good. Really, really good. And I think that AI is only getting better. And so using AI to do these things that humans were otherwise doing, whether it's therapy or, you know, your sponsor or other things, I think is going to help expand access to more people, you know, who otherwise maybe they didn't— maybe they didn't seek it out because they felt embarrassed. Maybe it was too expensive. Maybe they live in some random country on Earth where that's not as common. You know, they don't they don't have it available in Potrero Hill where you're living at the time, right? Like there's this sort of like there's like multiple 10x, you know, sort of order of magnitude jumps you can get when you just look at those, those 3 variables alone, cost, access, and sort of the taboo nature of it.
So I saw something on— I saw something that like sort of got passed up on that I thought was amazing. Okay, so there's a podcast called Acquired. We've had them on here. They're amazing. They're awesome. They were talking to Tobi. Tobi's— I actually don't know Tobi's last name. Tobi's the CEO.
Lütki.
What is it?
Lütki, I think.
He's the CEO of Shopify, which is, you know, like the 10th or 18th or 30th largest company in America or in the world. Huge thing. And he made this small comment. So Tobi is a guy who we've had his partner on before and he kind of explained him a little bit.
I know what you're about to say because it was unbelievable what he said.
It was unbelievable.
It was like, Guys, that guy just said something insane over there. Are we just moving on? Like, what's happening?
So basically he's like, this guy Toby, I gotta set the stage a little bit. He's a nerd's nerd. Like he's like, he's like all about this. And so he tells this story where he very casually mentions, well, about 20 years ago, about 15 years ago, I created this program where it logged every letter I ever typed on my machine. And you know when somebody calls a computer machine that they're like the shit? He was like, that's the tell. Yeah, that's the tell. He goes, I created this program that looks at every single letter I've ever typed on my keyboard, and then every 10 minutes it automatically takes a picture of my screen and does a screenshot. And I have an archive now of roughly 15 years of every single letter and 10-minute screenshots. And like, he just mentioned it like as he was getting to another story where he was like, and what, and what I noticed when I was building this program is XYZ. I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, reverse.
Right.
And so I'm like, I want that. Give me that. And so for, for context, I think Shopify is probably 15 years old. And so basically the whole founding of Shopify, he has shown you could see like exactly how he, how he feels. There's this one book where it was like, I forget the title of the book, but the premise is like Google knows more about you than anything else because you, you, whenever you type in Google something, that's when you're saying your real feelings. Now, in this case, when you're, when we're talking to ChatGPT, that's where we say our real feelings, not what we're saying. I want to do this for myself. I want to like log everything I've ever done so I can look back after years and have an archive of like seeing my personal development and things like that. I think it's so cool. What did you think when you saw this?
I mean, like you, I thought that was one of the most, just sort of like, what, what, what did you just say? You did that? You actually did that? And I was like, wow, what a— also, forward-thinking thing to do, because now in the world of AI, it's all about data. And this guy might have the best dataset that you would want to create, like, a very, very— the best dataset for himself. Yeah, because if he wants to create AI that thinks like him, well, guess what? He logged every keystroke and took a screenshot of his screen every 10 seconds. So you knew exactly what he was doing. It made me think of— I don't know if you've heard people talk about, um, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Of course.
And like, the, the remarkable thing about Meditations is like, here's this guy who was the ruler of the Roman Empire, and which was the most powerful empire in the world. So here's the most powerful man on earth, and then he wrote in his diary every night. He never thought it would get— he never planned to publish this. So it's his true inner thoughts. And then we sort of, like, you know, like a little brother, jacked his diary and, you know, published it for the whole world to see. But wow, what a, what a one-of-one type of unique event where the most powerful man in the world logged all of his innermost thoughts that he didn't think anyone would read. And now we all get to benefit from it. And that's meditations. I'm like, well, this is way better because this is like that for a CEO because he didn't even have to write it, which is already one filter, right? Maybe one, maybe some days you don't write, maybe you, you write, but you're not sharing the full context. Maybe you're not, maybe you're being a little generous to yourself versus every keystroke, everything I looked at, Every distraction, every tab I open. I can't believe that he did this. And also he didn't say what he's doing with it, but, um, I'm pretty fascinated to find out what that is.
Me too. I think it's amazing. So like, I, I'm a bit, I'm big into this. So like, I have a secret, I call it my secret YouTube where I make like a, I, you know how like in your phone when you like film your kids, you typically only do like a 10-second video of them doing something cute. I love home videos. So like, remember when your dad, like, would just keep the camcorder on? Would keep it on for like 10 minutes. And then like, I don't know if you've ever experienced that magical moment where you're like 18 or, you know, our age now and you're like, oh, dad, let me play one. And you'll just sit and watch it for like 15 minutes. Like, it does feel magical. And I only have— I think I only have one video of me as a kid because my parents didn't have one. And I'm like, oh man, I long for that. I wish I had that. And so what I do is I film like 5-minute videos where I'm just walking around the house having a conversation and we're not performing. We're just like hanging out. And I upload it every day to my YouTube. And the reason I did it is there's this app called One Second a Day or one— I forget. Is that what it's called?
One Minute a Day.
Is it One Minute a Day? No, no.
One Second. You're right.
It's One Second. But it's actually, I think, 3 seconds. We actually changed it to 3 seconds where when my little girl was born, the day she was born, all the way up to her first birthday, we did a 3-second video every single day. And whenever I watch this video, it makes me cry. Like, it's like so emotional because like, I'll see my dog who's not alive anymore, or you'll see like family members or whatever. And it's like a very emotional— you'll see like, oh wow, that was amazing. Remember the time we were there? And so I was inspired by that and I was like, I'm going to do this every day now, but for like a 10-minute or 5-minute video. And it's not like a YouTube thing. I'm not— or it's not like I'm editing it. I literally just record a home video and I just upload it and like, I'll just— we'll scroll it one day when she's older. And so I love doing archive stuff. And I remember there was this thing called Rescue Time. Do you remember Rescue Time?
Um, I remember that thing, but what was it doing? Was it just bringing— was it like TimeHop? It was just bringing back an old photo.
No. So RescueTime was a thing that Tim Ferriss promoted, and the whole premise of it was it's going to tell you what you spend your time on. And I remember using that, and I'm like, I wish you could tell me more. Like, I wish I could, like, track my behavior on the internet and tell me about myself. But back then, this was 15 or 10 years ago, we didn't have that technology. Now, because of my obsession of, like, I do like tracking, I love tracking. I wish that I could, like, do this for more facets of my life. Life. And when I saw Toby's thing, I'm like, I long for that. I want that so bad.
Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I, I, I go the other side on the overtracking everything. I only track when I'm trying to make a change. So if I'm trying to make a behavior change or like a, let's say maybe whether it's in myself or in my company. So right now, what do I track? I track my kind of food and weight and my exercise habits. And right now, because I'm writing a book, I track, did I write this morning for the first, you know, the first 2 hours of my day? Did I write? Yes or no? Right. And so I'm just tracking those two things. That's a new behavior I'm trying to implement and sort of what gets measured gets managed. I find that the tracking, just tracking generally, um, tracking everything is somehow like nervous energy to me. I said this once about sleep tracking. I was like, good sleep is obvious. How'd you feel when you woke up? You'll know. You didn't need to check the number. Oh, my resting heart rate.
My—
oh, I went into, you know, deep REM 4. Last night for 48 minutes. It's like, what do you do? I don't know what you're talking about. Like, you— it's very obvious if you slept well or not. Then again, I think Oura has sold like 20 million rings or something like that, right? So there's obviously like a sort of insecurity or nervous energy you can tap into of people who are hobbyists who enjoy knowing more about themselves.
I'm not talking about that kind of tracking. I'm talking about tracking as in memories. Like, I like looking back. Like, for example, I have, clothes from when I was a kid that my girl, my little girl wears now. And I'm like, oh, that makes me feel special. I'm so happy I saved it. Like, I, like, I'm talking about, like, memories. Like, I like memories. I don't, I don't wear an Oura ring. I don't wear—
You're talking about, like, RescueTime, right? That's more time tracking. That is Rob Dyrdek, right? When Rob Dyrdek came on, he goes, I track every minute of every day.
I'm not talking about— what I'm saying is I wish I could have used that, but in a different way. And what Toby is doing is a kind of a cool example where, like, I'm logging things to, like, so I can look back 6 or 12 months or 10 years later and I'm like, let's see my evolution. Like, did I— like, I just think that it's very curious, um, and interesting.
Do you use the Meta glasses?
No. Are they awesome? Should I get them?
They're awesome. They're really great. Um, if you want to do the kind of 1 second a day VHS camcorder thing, it's kind of perfect. It doesn't go the 10, 15 minutes length. That's like too long of recording, but you get 2 minutes at a time basically.
If you just push the button. That's still good enough though.
And it's your point of view and you don't have to take out your phone. Like, first of all, when you take out your phone, like, you're out of the moment and then they're like, uh, okay, I guess I'm supposed to dance now. What do I do? Right? Like, I'm not sure exactly what, what to do. Especially once your kid starts playing sports, it's like the handiest thing in the world. Like, it is, it is like the soccer mom's dream is to be able to just push the button and now you get to watch the game, but you also get to record what's going on very easily. So these things are amazing. I think they're about to make them Um, GoodBad. And what GoodBad is, they, they're putting like a screen in it. So it's like, and while you're walking around, you could scroll Instagram. And I'm like, oh yeah. Like, or you could check your email. It's like, okay, cool. Like, I can see why that's useful, but I don't think it's like wise to do that. Right. Uh, whereas the version they have now, the version I have is just camera only. So it's just a capture device.
Maybe I will get those.
It doesn't do anything else. Capture device and it's headphones if you want, like if you don't want to wear AirPods. It's an amazing set of headphones, uh, that just like sit over your ear, but you hear it and only you hear it. Other people don't hear it. It's pretty great.
That's like the third time you've, you've mentioned this. I'll get it. I'll get it. Uh, I'll buy these. These are actually great.
It's a great thing for parents. 'Cause like, you know, your kid's on the swings and you just like, you're like, this is a moment right now, or I think this is a moment. And it's like one second, like less than one second away and you're capturing it and then you're still in the moment.
That's cool. Yeah, I'll get 'em. I'm in. They used to be $500. Now they're way cheaper.
Um, yeah, they're just getting better, uh, every time they do it. There's one more, but I don't want to bury it at the end of this episode. I want to actually lead with it next time because I've been dabbling with a different AI tool that I think is incredible. And it's been such an amazing, positive experience. And I feel so, um, empowered, like, you know, I feel total, total empowerment in my body. Um, and I want to tell you about that in a, in the next episode. And I want to show you what I made with it.
Oh my God, that's a really good cliffhanger. Okay. Yeah. All right.
Tune in.
That's the pod.
Like and subscribe. Go to Spotify, please. Oh, by the way, the gentleman's agreement. The gentleman's agreement, which we've talked about before. Now listen, you think you may have heard this spiel before, but I've decided on the spot to improvise and change the way we're going to do this spiel. Because if I just say the same thing again and you feel like you've already heard it, this may not work as well. But listen, we are just simple creatures. And imagine that your friend Sam and your friend Sean, they needed a little bit of help, but you get to decide. It's like the trolley car problem. You get to decide. Are you going to let the train run over our bodies and we stay stuck at 800,000 YouTube subscribers and only 300,000 Spotify subscribers? Are you going to let us be at a measly 1.1 million subscribers, or are you going to pull the lever and move the train off the tracks and go hit that button on Spotify for us. Just show a little love, show a little support. We've entertained you, we've trained you, we've educated you. We've been here, we've been there for you when you needed us. Are you going to be there when we need you? Be a good friend. Be our— what's it called? Be our emergency contact right now. I'm putting you— I'm putting your name down as my emergency contact. Go to Spotify, follow the show, please. Because we're growing like crazy on Spotify. And Spotify's got video, Spotify's got audio, and it also has comments. And there's a polls feature. We're going to put up a poll with this episode. Answer the poll. We're answering all the comments in, in Spotify right now. That's, that's the new platform where we're excited about.
What do you want the poll to be?
I think in this it's the, your reaction to the AI, to the AI ideas we have on here. And the options are going to be, oh my God, this is too much, or May I have some more slop, please? Those are your two options.
All right. Uh, or it could be like, uh, shit, we're fucked, or shit, this is awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. Those are really the only two. And somehow I'm having that reaction at the same time, which is a very weird feeling.
Um, all right. That's it. That's the pod.
