The Boys React: Tech Layoffs, IG Founder Starts A New Company & More Tech News (#415)

It's like, yeah, I took one look at you. It's like, how much longer do you want to live as a New York Five? Because you could be an Idaho Nine with one plane ticket, baby. And so I feel like every city should have to make their pitch as to why a 20-something-year-old should move there and live there. A 25-year-old. I might create a whole new show around just this, just this pitch. Ben, this is your segment. You, you own this segment. You take it away.

All right, here we go. We're reviewing the news. We're letting the boys react.

Uh, by the way, I like the thing you started doing where you were like, fellas, blah blah blah blah. I think that's kind of like on the first episode of the news of the Boys React. I feel like you kind of nailed the catchy thing. Like, that was pretty natural by you. Good, good move by you.

Fellas, there is a new Instagram. The founders of Instagram are back with a new app. It's called Artifact. It's being described as TikTok for text. Um, fellas, is this the next big thing?

Sam, did you see this thing?

So the page says, I'm trying to pull it up. The page doesn't really say what it is.

It's okay. They, they, in the news, they kind of talked a little bit more. So I heard TikTok for text and I was like, okay, what is that? And basically it means two things. Number one, Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram, was like, when I saw TikTok and how the feed works, where you just open the app, you're already in, you don't have to follow a bunch of people. You just start swiping and it just learns what you like. He's like, oh, this is the way everything should work this way. I can't believe Twitter doesn't work this way. I can't believe— why are we still trying to do this like manual follow interesting people thing when I should just— the app should just give you what you're interested in. through machine learning. So he goes, that's number one. Number two, what they're doing is they're, instead of what TikTok did for videos, these guys are trying to do with news, actually, not just text, but news. So they're trying to serve you text-based news based on your interest. Um, and that's where, that's where he lost me. I don't think people want to read a bunch of news in the same way that they're willing to like swipe through mindless videos for entertainment. And so I think that's where It has this problem that a lot of Silicon Valley ideas have, which is they try to sell you what you should do instead of what you want to do. And it sounds noble and high and mighty. And when they go to dinner parties and they say, this is what we're going to do, everybody, you know, pats them on the back. But I think that this is not going to work for news. So I'm out. So here's the thing that I'm wondering, by the way, you like how I went Shark Tank on it and now I'm in or out. That's maybe a new, that might be a new part of this. I'm out. I'm out.

All right. Well, you can't see me, but I'm holding, like, I've been watching Andrew Tate videos because it's just hilarious now that he's in jail and it's kind of funny. He always holds his hands like in a V when he's sitting down. And that's like how the alpha sits. So you gotta like, if you're gonna say you're out, you gotta like sit with like your, yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. You gotta like sit. That's how, yeah, there it is. That's how alphas sit according to Andrew Tate.

Let me try that again. And for that reason, I'm out. Yeah, I had a little, a little snap to it. My wrist felt a little something there. Yeah.

So here's the thing. They've been— this guy Kevin Systrom killed it, right? You know, this little fella, he created Instagram. Awesome. Been out of the game. That's ring rust, my friend. When you— I've watched it.

Absolutely.

I've watched enough fighting to know that ring rust is real for a lot of people. So I wonder, like, is he actually in touch with what people want? Is he hungry? Is him and his partner, you know, they're billionaires flying on planes with Ashley Kutcher, does he actually know what people want? But I don't know about you, but I study a lot of Japanese.

He's like, he's like, Ashton, Ashton, I see you got TikTok open. Wouldn't you rather that those were all just news articles?

Dude, I, the, the, I love studying like how the Chinese and particularly the Japanese do things. The Japanese, these news apps in Japan are so pop. It works wonderfully. Now what works in Japan? It don't necessarily work here. Two totally different cultures. There's a term for that. I'm not going to pretend to even know what that term is, but it's like basically when things work in Japan and vice versa in America, it doesn't always translate to each of those cultures because they're so different, but it works there. Maybe it could work here.

In fact, I think the parent company of ByteDance, uh, or TikTok, ByteDance, they have another app, which is basically this. It's an algorithmic news app called, I don't know how you pronounce it. Like, I don't know. I don't know how you say it. Xiao Xiao. I don't know what the name of it is. but this is what it does and it's super, super popular. So maybe, maybe.

Yeah, that's the right answer, baby. But, uh, I don't know. It's just, I think it's hard to be a billionaire who's been out of the game and to start something from scratch.

I think that, uh, I gotta, I gotta give us a director's note here. So I was watching something, uh, somewhere and basically, uh, I was watching First Take, the, you know, like the, I don't know if you ever watched these ESPN shows where it's like two guys doing this, they react to the news. Um, these shows only work if you disagree. So, um, basically on all of these, by default, you got to take one side and then I got to argue the other, uh, regardless of how I actually feel. So if I'm out, you got to be in. And I think it's a good case to be in to say, yo, this actually already works in China and Japan. So just, I'm just saying, good content comes from disagreement, not agreement.

I was a hard maybe. You were a hard no. That's kind of a disagreement.

That's far enough. That's far enough.

All right. All right. What else we got, Ben?

All right. Next one. Uh, the thing everyone is talking about, tech layoffs. More than 150,000 tech workers have already been laid off in the last 6 months. That includes 12,000 at Google, 18,000 at Amazon, 11,000 at Meta, 10,000 at Microsoft. So fellas, any advice for our fallen comrades?

Comrades. I hate when these people use the word comrades. I saw, dude, we are not comrades. These guys made like, they're trying to do the Soviet Union bullshit, bro. You made $600,000 a year in cash plus another $250,000 in stock bonuses and you had free pizza every single day. Yeah. We are not comrades.

All you can drink oat milk. Like, get outta here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are not comrades. Like, you know, like, like, you know, comrades don't like eat Grey Poupon. We are not that. So I hate when people say comrades, and plus we're not even comrades. I don't know a person who works at Google.

Whenever Sam lacked motivation, he would just go meet a lazy Google engineer and just be like, just get their W-2 salary out of them. And then he was like, fuel ignited, back to the lab.

I am, dude. I remember I went to the Facebook campus once and I remember I overheard people complain that the line for the— So like Facebook's campus, for those of you who haven't gone, it's basically like a, like, it's like a mall. It's like a mall, but everything's free. I'm not joking. I wrote an article about this actually. If you look up like Sam Parr Facebook office, they had a vending machine, but instead of candy bars, it was like computers. Yeah.

I, iPhone charger. You could get like a computer MacBook charger. If you just like push, if you push D3, you would just get a huge MacBook charger. Yeah.

And it was all free.

Incredible.

And then they had like a dentist, they had a barber. They had a dude, I swear to God, they had a wood making, like a wood shop. Like you can go and like, there's a van.

You could just go and get a handjob if you're bothering you. It's crazy, dude.

They have everything there. They, you could go and leave your car and your oil would get changed when you came back from work. I remember seeing all this stuff and I just thought of like, oh, this is it. We made it. And then I realized that the tenure at Facebook is like 18 months. And so I was like, oh, okay, this isn't actually all that good. So anyway, long story short, these people ain't comrades. Okay. But what are they going to do? I actually don't know. Like, is 100,000— is 150,000 layoffs? I'm not, I'm not well-versed enough in like the macro economy. What's going to happen to them? I don't know. Do I think they're going to start companies? No, I don't.

Some will, some will. And I think that's, uh, that's good. Um, I think it's good to resize. I think it's good for these companies to trim the fat. They got way too much fat. Uh, when I went and we were, when we were getting acquired by Twitch, Twitch had, I think, 2,000 employees at the time. And, um, they made me like do, go through a round of interviews during the acquisition process, like, you know, meet the team and, and whatever. And it, they would ask me questions for 55 minutes and then the last 5 minutes they would say, do you have any questions for us? And I just said, how many employees does Twitch have? And then they would say 2,000. And then I'd say, how many employees do you think Twitch should have? And, um, This was my IQ test for them. And I was trying to see, uh, if I was actually not even IQ test, it was an honesty test. Um, who here has the courage to say a number less than 2000? And, um, only one. Most were just taken aback by the question because they knew what I was implying. Uh, cause they, you know, if they said, if they said more, I just started laughing uncontrollably. If they said 2000 is the right number, I would raise the people's eyebrow and be like, oh really? You just happened to have the perfect match of resources to, to needs. Like, isn't that, isn't that fortunate that you guys are just playing it perfectly? Wow, you guys are amazing leaders. And if they were honest and said, you know, um, if we wanted to just keep doing what we're doing, we probably only need 250 amazing people. And for us to do some of the new initiatives, new bets, I think maybe another Another 100 people would be, would be right. I would stand and give them, I would give them a standing ovation in a, in a job interview, which is awkward cuz they're just sitting down in front of me. Uh, only one person was honest in that out of the 7 that I talked to that day, the rest were, were liars. And so, uh, so yeah, these companies have had it coming. They need to trim the fat. If you got laid off, it's okay. I'm sure you will bounce back. You, uh, you've had a very, very cushy situation for a very long time. Hopefully you built up a little safety net for yourself and, uh, go do something interesting. I think this is a healthy recycling and flushing of the system. Um, you know, this is the juice cleanse for Silicon Valley, right? This is the detox cleanse for Silicon Valley. It needs to, it needs, needed to happen.

Dude, juice cleanses are the stupidest thing. It's not like, it's not like the juice is like a pipe cleaner.

Uh, my influencers tell me differently, dude.

I hate when people talk about that. It's like, it's not like. You're just like, you have like gunk in your veins and like the juice goes through like a pipe cleaner, just pulling the gunk, cleaning your veins. I always hated that idea of a cleanse, but in this case, yeah, I, I think that is actually true. Fuck, we're agreeing again. But dude, a lot of, and a lot of these companies are really generous. Like they're giving 6 months leave or 6 months severance. And if you have been there for a while, you get even more. So I actually think that it, you know, now's a good opportunity to turn shit into gold and take, you know, 2 months to freaking chill, which, sorry, they kind of already were, I bet, but take some time to like actually chill and then get after it. And, you know, there's, I've been thinking about job hunting. I call it job hunting because a lot of people think of like, oh, I'm out. I hope, hopefully I'll find a job. And I'm like, no, no, no. Now's the time to job hunt. You know, you make like a list of 10 companies where you're going to work. You find the hiring manager and you hunt them down and you get that job. You know, it's a hunt. It's not like a, you know, I'll just apply to these 100 companies on Indeed and hope—

slash their tires. You put your resume inside the tire when they go to find it. That's how they know you wanted it.

Yeah. So now is that time. And I always perform best when I have my back against the wall. You know, we use that phrase, burn the, burn the ships or burn the boats. You know, now is maybe a good time. So hopefully people will find opportunity in it. But let's get one thing straight. We're not comrades. Okay? Give me a break. I hate that stuff. Cut the words comrades.

Next one. Next one.

Listen, comrades and solidarity. I never want to hear that word solidarity again.

More behind the scenes. Someone else wrote the question, which they actually wrote, uh, any advice for our fallen brothers and sisters? But I like to think it was Sam who was just setting himself up for like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna set up this question and tear it down.

Don't say solidarity. Don't say comrade. If you make over $100,000 a year, you don't— you don't get solidarity.

Okay. These next ones, rapid fire. Okay. Doomsday clock. Doomsday clock got moved to 90 seconds to midnight. This is largely due to fears that the Ukraine war could escalate into a nuclear conflict. Doomsday clock is all these nuclear scientists who just tell us how close the world is to ending. Fellas, are we all going to die?

No.

I honestly had never even heard of this Doomsday Clock. Ben, you're the historian around here. Is this a common thing? Is this something I should have known about? And does this happen all the time or how big of a deal is this, Ben?

And it's not like, by the way, it's not like a clock, right? It's more like a meter. Is this like Smokey the Bear? Like, uh, like what's the threat of like a bonfire or a wildfire?

Smokey the Bear.

You know, like there's Smokey the Bear and it's like, today's like a day where like there could be a fire. The clock is a bad thing because clock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Always hits midnight.

It started during, during the Cold War and is basically a bunch of nuclear scientists got together and wanted to tell everyone how close the world was to ending. So everyone would take the threat of nuclear war and nuclear disarmament very seriously. The problem with the, with the clock is it started at, I think, like 3 minutes to midnight. And so like every time something happens, they're like, oh, We're actually really close. We're 2 minutes to midnight and the clock moves back and forth a little bit.

So, so we're at like the 50-yard line, basically.

That's also a dumb analogy. Why?

That's a distance.

Because what they were trying to do is like give people this feeling of impending doom, right? Like it's only a matter of time. Russia and the United States are squaring off.

Analogy for you or like, you know, what do you need, like a weightlifting analogy?

I want like a, like a, like a, like a temperature bulb, you know, like the temperature can go up and down. I just think, look, you want the Smokey the Bear thing. I was thinking about this since like humans started existing. If this was like a book, it would be like 1,000 pages. And the period that we're in now would be like a paragraph on the 1,000th page. And I just, I just think I am not so important that this one paragraph is going to be more important than the rest of the 1,000 pages. So I almost always refuse to believe that anything doomsday related is gonna happen while I'm here. So no, I'm not worried about this at all. All right.

What else?

That was a, that, that was a good analogy, by the way, the book thing. You're welcome. That's a free one.

All right. Uh, ChatGPT can pass a bunch of tests now. Uh, it can pass the US Medical Licensing Exam and it passed a test from the Wharton MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania. Uh, are you annoyed that you didn't have the chance to use ChatGPT to cheat in high school and/or college.

Hey, hey, Ben, how come you didn't read the, uh, the actual headline that's written in the doc?

I'm curious.

Well, what's wrong with that one? It says ChatGPT is— ChatGPT is Asian. And then it says how good it is at taking these tests. And I gotta say, I had my human ChatGPT. I was a prolific cheater throughout school. Uh, 5th grade reading program, I organized a syndicate. I realized that If I was not gonna read 32 books and win, but I had 10 friends and if we each read 3 books, then we could get to the 30-book mark and all win. We would all just take the test for each other. That's what we did. I won. The teacher called my mom, let her know that I had cheated. My mom couldn't have been prouder. Uh, the second thing that happened, um, you know, math test, they used to, uh, give us a TI-83 calculator. And, um, my buddy used to be smarter than me and take the test before me. And then he would just type in all of the answers into the TI-83 calculator under the Y equals sign button. And I used to just simply open that up and fill in the answers and go on my way. So I don't need ChatGPT-3. I was ahead of the curve on this. And, um, I, you know, cheaters gonna cheat, dude.

We used to take, you know how you're allowed to have like a water bottle at, in school? We used to take the labels off like the Dasani bottles and write the answers and the cheat sheet on the back of the label and then put the label back on. And that was where the answers were. And so I don't know, man, that deserves an A just for that. But am I jealous that they have this? Yeah, sure. But I'm not jealous that I'm in school again, nerds. So we win that one.

I have a wife.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, I—

by the way, Sean, I didn't read the headline because it only got a B on the test at Wharton, so I'm not sure if it's—

oh, okay.

Nice.

Nice. I have nothing to do with this.

I have nothing to do with this.

All right, uh, Justin Bieber, uh, sold his share of his back catalog for $200 million to an investor. Smart move.

Yeah, definitely. Why, why did he do it? You know, has he had income coming in? Like, why?

I think somebody said his tour got canceled, but that, I mean, is he really living tour to tour at this point? I don't know. I think I would just assume it's a, it was a good offer and he had to make a decision. He decided yes. So let's go with that.

Dude, Dr. Dre did the same thing and people are like, why would you do that? And someone said, well, listen to this. So he got a— he recently got divorced and so he owes his wife, you know, half of what he had. He probably made $500 million off of Beats. Half of that went to his wife. And then there was another article that said in the divorce it was released that they were spending $3 million a month. So on travel, clothes. So that's $36 million.

Neil Patel status.

Yeah, man. Holy moly. So he actually probably needed the money. Is it smart? Yeah, he better go write some hits now, man. He better get dancing. But yeah, you know, look, dude, he sold it. The work that he did from 13 to like 30, he sold for $200 million. That's pretty dope.

And by the way, he sold just his share. The— like, he owns only a small part, you know, his agent and the label owns it. Then the whoever— there's like 4 other parties involved in this. So he just sold his share, which means his total back catalog has got to be worth closer to a billion dollars. Um, good move. In fact, I'm just gonna say this now: if I ever sell something for $200 million and people come to me questioning if this was a good move, you're getting a slap. You're getting a slap from me. And like, do you need an explanation as to why I took this $200 million check? Like, I mean, how dare you? You better have $900 million if you're going to ask me a question like that. If you ask me that question, I will say, please show me $900 million before I answer this question. Otherwise you get in a slap. And, uh, so, so yeah, I do not question this. Also, Bieber makes good decisions. He follows me on Twitter.

That's really— does he really?

Two dots make a line, baby. That's two data points of Bieber making good decisions. And that's a lot.

Two dots don't make a line, but Just because it rhymes and sounds good doesn't mean that it actually works.

Dude, any two points can be connected by a line. Two dots make a line.

All right. Does he really follow you on Twitter, by the way?

He does.

Dude, DM him. Did you DM him?

I never have been sort of crafting the right message. Couple dozen years now.

How many people does he follow? How many other people does he follow?

Smooth 280,000.

Oh, there's the line.

Does he follow you? Does he follow Ben? Does he follow any of the Bens on this call?

No, dude. By the way, you made the announcement on one pod that you want a woman to reach out to you because you have a great D2C idea that you want help from a woman. I have had like 15 women reach out to me. Half of them think that I'm you because our voices— Not sure how.

We only have 4 female listeners, so they must have told some friends.

Oh, by the way. We're not saying that anymore. Someone had a talk with me. I'm gonna bring it up next pod. We're not— we shouldn't say that anymore. I'm gonna explain why.

But oh man, for now, that joke is killer.

Okay. No, it's not. And I'll explain why later. But listen, I've had about 15 women and like 7 of them like have a million followers on Instagram. And like, wow, their profiles are such that when I'm scrolling through them and Sarah, my wife, is sitting next to me, she's like, what are you looking at? Because it's like the hottest Instagram models and like bikini models and things like that. So like, I don't know what you're getting at, but it probably worked. I don't know what you're trying to do.

Yeah.

So I had so many people reach out to me.

Well, send them to me. Why did they reach out to you? Oh, it's because my Instagram's like private and like locked. Uh, oh yeah, that's not gonna be—

that's not gonna work.

Yes, I'm still, I'm still, uh, I've— there's definitely been some good outreach. I'm talking to two people who I think are the right How many people? Uh, I don't know, I didn't count. Maybe 20, 25, something like that. I had a lot of serious people reach out.

I had a lot, and they're— and, and, and, uh, yeah, they're trying to reach you, or they think that I'm you. It's pretty funny. Um, but anyway, that's that.

This data is wrong every freaking time.

Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

Whoa, I can see the client's whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails. And here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed.

HubSpot. Grow better.

I have just one last, one last one, which is a new study shows how much money you need to make to be in the top 1% income earner in every state. $850,000 in California, New York. Connecticut is tops, actually, surprisingly, with $930,000. The bottom is West Virginia, uh, with $370,000 per year to be in the top 1%. This question is specifically for Sam. Sam, what do you have to say to my comrades who are not in the top 1%?

Oh, oh, um, I actually am going to do a big thing about this next episode that shows that you can be in the 1% of New York and make that income and still not be able to retire because that's how much it costs to live there. Yeah, dude, move to Missouri. I think that's crazy. $800,000 is so much money.

It's so much money.

So $800,000, by the way, is $456,000 post-tax. And if you assume that you spend $15,000 or $20,000 a month, which is very reasonable, and that means you're saving like $200,000 a year, you got to make that for 20 years in order to actually be able to retire, which is even crazier than the $800,000 stat. If you're making that much money in New York, I'm getting a remote job ASAP and moving to, you know, West Virginia or Florida. I'd rather— if I'm just making a W-2 income, I'd rather live like a king in Florida than live like a plebe in New York and be in the rat race. So get out. That's what I— that's what I would do.

Yeah. People always talk about, you know, the big city and all that stuff, but big fish, small pond. Uh, you know, that is a, a, a, a, uh, what do we call it? Small pond syndrome. You want to have small pond syndrome. That, that is a much more better way to live. Now, of course, there's no, there's no end to that. You could go live, you could be at the top 1% in, uh, Thailand with probably like, I don't know, $120 grand. So, so, you know, there's no, there's no end to that, but it definitely just shows how much of a ripoff California and New York are. And, uh, I think I say this, you live in New York half the year and I live in California the full year. So, you know, who, who are we to say?

But like Charlottesville, pretty nice. Boise.

Charlottesville's not bad. Now this time of year.

Yeah. Lovely. This time of year, the land of Lincoln. It's beautiful.

Honestly, like places like California, you're like, oh wow, that's a lot. But then you scroll down and you're like, South Carolina, $500,000, man. Like Idaho, $508,000. Really? Like you gotta like, why, why would that be? Why would that be so high? And they're not, they're not bringing enough assets to the table. Or as you like to say, you got to have some attributes. At least California's got the oceans, it's got the weather, it's got this, you know, the scenery, it's got the celebrities, got whatever you want. Silicon Valley, Hollywood. You got to have some attributes if you're going to be going to be demanding this level of income to be in the top 1%.

Bro, have you ever been to Floribama in Georgia? You know what that is?

Floribama?

I'm sorry, Floribama in Alabama. Duh. You know, you know, so where Alabama and in the Florida line meets, this is where we would go for our I grew up in Missouri. All Missouri people go to Florida for spring break. You go to Floribama. It's the line.

It's an MTV show, right?

Yeah, it's the, it's the redneck Riviera, my friend. It is the trashiest place on earth and it is so fun. You could eat popcorn shrimp all day for $4. Floribama is the place to go. You get those Alabama prices while being on the basically the Florida coast. It's all right. It's all right.

I actually think there should be a pitch competition like Shark Tank. That's just cities or states, just doing what you just did. Be like, you ever want to wake up and have shrimp? Because we, we do that here, right? Like, are you tired of not having shrimp before 10 AM? Because that's not a problem in the, in the, the redneck Riviera.

Fried popcorn shrimp, grouper for dinner. It's the best, man. Florida is the place to be. You don't have to own socks. It's the best, man. No shirt, no shoes, no problem. I'm all about the Floribama.

It's like, yeah, I took one look at you. It's like, how much longer do you want to live as a New York Five? Because you could be an Idaho Nine with one plane ticket, baby. And so I feel like every city should have to make their pitch as to why a 20-something-year-old should move there and live there. A 25-year-old. I might create a whole new show around just this, just this pitch.

Yeah, man, we need some— we need a Alaska to sponsor this pod. Um, all right, I think that's it, right?

That's it.