Soon as we go live, I get a text message from someone in my family. Get to the sauna. Get to the sauna. Welcome to the panel where two bootstrappers talk about building a better business and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, cofounder of transistor.fm.
Brian:And I'm Brian Castle, founder of Builder Methods.
Justin:And I'm gonna be heavy on the mute button today. I was sick with the flu. I got that flu that everybody had. It was the worst four or five days of my life. Just felt exhausted.
Justin:Just watched a ton of television on the couch. Couldn't work. Couldn't do anything. And then I was feeling good by Friday of last week. Sunday, I was woke up early in my bed and I got a snow report for Revelstoke that it had snowed 20 centimeters.
Justin:And I thought, I could just drive there and go. And so I, like, snuck out of the house, messaged a buddy as I'm driving out to Revelstoke. I had to get gas first. And I'm like, hey, bud. Like, if you get this in within the next five minutes, come with me to Revelstoke.
Justin:And he's like, okay. So we both went and just had an incredible time. It's been a bad snow year here, but we hiked the peak. Look at this picture here.
Brian:Awesome. Oh, you hiked up there.
Justin:Hiked up. I mean, I think that's what ultimately made me sick again is I just way overexerted myself. Just yeah. Too
Brian:That's serious to get up there. Right?
Justin:Too much. Yeah. And the cool part is you end up dropping in right in this ridge here. So we had a bunch of turns
Brian:a that's a no go for
Justin:me. Like, a bunch of first tracks on this, which was super fun.
Brian:I bet.
Justin:But yeah, after that trip, my I like, the next day on Monday, I was just, like, exhausted. Could not like, my old 46 year old body was feeling it. And then I think
Brian:Isn't it great to have that? Like, first of all, I'm I'm always so jealous of you and any friends, especially who live out West who are closer to these amazing mountains.
Justin:Like Yeah.
Brian:Like, for me to get to anywhere decent in the East, which is, you know, still nothing compared to out West, it's like a good three or four hours to get to a a decent hill. Yeah. But isn't it nice, like, doing what we do, have the flexibility, especially to go to these places, like, on weekdays? Mhmm. You know?
Brian:Yeah. You know, like, me and the kids we're gonna I think they have Monday off, but I think we might take them out on Tuesday
Justin:Oh, nice.
Brian:To to go up to Vermont next week. You
Justin:gotta do it. You know, I I read an interesting post. I I mean, we're gonna talk about this this kind of viral Matt Schumer post. I'm sure folks saw it. It's called something big is happening here.
Justin:And, you know, I I saw all sorts of kind of reflections and responses to it. This it got 75,000,000 views on Twitter. I
Brian:didn't realize it that much.
Justin:Yeah. I I didn't even see it on Twitter. Someone posted it to Slack as a it was a blog post.
Brian:Yeah. I've just seen, like, multiple people I know retweeting it. And, you know, I I read it. I you know, I I it was a really good read. I've let's let's get into it.
Brian:I mean, I thought Yeah. Let's just talk about the original piece first. I I think it was like a response piece. But like the I mean, a lot of it rang true, you know? Yeah.
Brian:For those who haven't read it, like, what's the what's the gist? Like, what's the two sentence gist of this thing? It's like, basically, like, hey, I I work in tech in in software. We are seeing AI completely change our like, everything about our industry and our craft and what we do as knowledge workers. And, like, it's it's not theoretical for us in software.
Brian:AI has already changed everything. Right? And it's only going faster. We we know that here in our little tech bubble. And the what he wrote here is sort of like a letter to the outside world, to the rest of the world.
Brian:And I actually loved how he how he framed it at the very beginning. He he talked about the very beginning of COVID, and I remember this. I'm I'm sure we all remember this. Right? The it was like the March in 2020, and you're hearing the reports come out of China.
Brian:You're hearing about, you know, okay. This COVID thing, it seems kind of serious. Like, okay. It's overblown. Like, what?
Brian:You're talking about a flu? Like, how bad could it be? Right?
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And and there's that general thing. And then and then all of a sudden, it was like, boom. Like, the world is shutting down. They, you know, they they canceled the NBA season. You know?
Brian:They're shutting down, like, everything. It's just crazy. You know? And he and he was, like, equating that feeling in 2020 to this right now feels like that moment. The, like, the moment where the rest of the world is like, this seems overblown Mhmm.
Brian:But they're about to have a rude awakening. That that's his general point, I think.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think that's why it resonated. I think I mean, let's be honest. Like, there's still tons of folks even inside of tech that haven't yet had this realization.
Brian:Mhmm.
Justin:But there was certainly a big number of us Even I mean, I'm not on Twitter every day. I I try to read it maybe once a week and just catch up, but I don't post there anymore. I'm not, like, in the fire hose of, you know, the the AI tweet thread boy. I I get things disseminated.
Brian:But even if that's true, like, even if you are not like, maybe maybe it hasn't really had a huge impact for you personally in your craft. I I mean, you, Justin, or anyone else listening who's like, you know, they're they're not using AI or Cloud Code or whatever, like, as much as everyone else says that that they are. But if you work in this industry, you still can't deny that, like, just look around. Like, every engineer is using Cloud Code. Like, very few professionals are actually handwriting stuff anymore.
Brian:Like, this the velocity is changed. The the tooling is going incredibly fast. Like, you know and then and then, of course, you read the news and you see, like, the the layoffs, the the hiring numbers are changing. Like, it's
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Even if it hasn't affected you personally, it's it's clear to see this is where it's going.
Justin:You know? Although, I I still think we need to be clear that most software developers in the world still aren't using Cloud Code. I'm pretty sure. Like, so many of my friends who are in the enterprise are just like, man, we wanna use these tools or they're curious about the tools. And they're like Yeah.
Justin:We we're not allowed. Yeah. So I think there's
Brian:still There's copilot and stuff that's popular.
Justin:Yeah. There's still a big group that hasn't really had this realization yet. And he alludes to this in the article. He's like, listen. First of all, if you're a programmer and you still have not like gone in and just said, let's see what this can do.
Justin:Like, if you didn't have that Thanksgiving holiday or Christmas holiday moment where you're like, I'm gonna sit down and see what this can actually do yet. You've gotta go and have that moment. You've gotta Yeah. And in in a with a significant model, like Claude code, Opus 4.5 or 4.6.
Brian:That was another good point is that, like, oh, there's a lot of people who are just dabbling with the free models. And you're if you're using the free models, you're literally using models that were, like, from a year ago, and so much has changed in the last twelve months with the Frontier models.
Justin:This is the realization most of us had, which was, you know, some people tried AI, and it wasn't that good. But now when you try it, when you try one of these new models, I mean, even just like the other day so I demoed that that prototype I've been building for a video podcast podcasting hosting application. And just as an experiment, I was like, I needed to get some Google API credentials. I needed a website. I needed branding.
Justin:I needed terms of service and a privacy policy. And literally with one prompt, I said, hey, I want you to go over to this other app directory where I've been writing this application. And based on what you see there, I want you to generate a marketing website that includes terms of service, privacy policy. Thank you. I I did that.
Brian:Please and thank you.
Justin:And it it what it produced I mean, I could show you on screen. What it produced? Sure. Maybe I'd want to
Brian:Might wanna tweak a few things. Tweak a few things. Serviceable website. Like, there's no question about it. You know?
Brian:Even more it's better than that.
Justin:It's better than that. It knows that I'm in beta. It knows what my sign in link is. It knows how it works. It knows that I support YouTube, Transistor ZPIs, Spotify, and other podcast apps.
Justin:It knows it's everything you need to publish video podcasts. It's clear. It has like, this is a good first draft. And then the privacy terms knows that I use YouTube's OZ two point o tokens for video uploads. It knows that I use transistors API keys for podcast.
Justin:It knows that I'm gonna use Spotify API credentials. It generated all of this, and it knows what the user is going to be doing. So here's all of the terms of service and privacy policy implications. This was truly one shot. And if if I was going to do this before, like I've done this, I've built the initial version of the marketing site.
Justin:And again, if I was going to launch this, I'd want to stand out. So I can't have like this has got the traditional the traditional purple that always shows up at Yes.
Brian:Like the indigo thing. It's got the rounded corners with the shadow. Like, we it's definitely got the vibe coded, like, hallmarks. But still, the outside like, to the outside world, this is a clean, modern website. And and like you said, like, it it got all the details right.
Justin:Like, details right. And and even, like, these screenshots that it produced, like, these kinda clean, like, yeah, here's here's what we want to present to folks. It's like it's 80% off the bat.
Brian:And That's a thing, man. And, like, I I mean, I wrote about this in the newsletter last week. It was like, you know, it's things like this. Like, you you can have AI, Claude code, any of these, like, get you eighty, ninety percent of the way there. The the really interesting thing, and I and I heard this originally on a on a Wall Street Journal podcast where they were talking about, like, the the rise and breakout of of Claude Code, like, a year later.
Brian:Mhmm. And they were sent and they did this, like, interactive piece on the site using Claude Code. And they were like, we together got this project, this piece built 80 and we are, like, nontechnical journalists, 80% of the way there. And that last 20% was the essential part. Like, we we, the human, in the loop.
Brian:Yeah. Like, we had we had to craft the the prompt and the direction and the goal of the project. Like, that's important up front. Then that big messy middle is handled by AI. And then and then the very end is the part that, like, clinches it, the the 20% to dial in the details, to get it right, to make the necessary changes or refinements.
Brian:And it's like without that last 20%, the whole thing doesn't work. Like, you can't publish it. Right? Yeah. But but still, like, at the end of the day, like, this whole project like, what they were talking about was, like, that project took two days.
Brian:And a year ago, that project would have taken, like, six months.
Justin:Oh, yeah. I mean, yes. Yes. In terms of all of this. And even like so the first version of terms of service I've used in the past, I used to use a service called termsfeed.com.
Justin:You know, the scrappy startups that need terms would go to a website and pay. We paid, I think, a couple $100 for terms feed. We had also used iubenda in the past to generate privacy policies for us. And then, you know, now we have lawyers that look over these things, and they always have opinions. Just to get terms of service used to be a big lift, and now the your initial version is actually pretty good.
Justin:And that's the way it was before, by the way. This hasn't changed. Terms feed and Ayubenda. Yeah. Were like boilerplate.
Justin:Pretty good. Boilerplate legal terms. I mean, here's another thing I'll I'll share. I I've wanted to John O'Nolan from Ghost said, Justin, your your RSS feed on your website sucks. And so I just, the other day, just rebuilt it completely.
Justin:Here's my RSS feed. It's a full content RSS feed before I just had the title and the link. And he's like, that's not good. He's building an RSS reader, so he wants the whole thing. And so I also styled it with XSLT, which is going away, which we could talk about if we want.
Justin:But this project, I've been procrastinating on it because I'm like, I know I could do it on my own, but I just knew it'd take me forever. This was, you know, I don't know, five, ten minutes of prompting. You know? And then it's done. It also like upgrading static versions used to be a big deal.
Justin:You have to upgrade your version of Laravel and PHP, and I'd forget to update PHP on the server, and then everything would break, and then I'd have to bug, you know, one of my friends.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:Now I just went through all of that yesterday. What used to be what used to take me a day to update Static, I did again in twenty, thirty minutes with
Brian:Yeah. Claude Coe. We can get back to that article in a second because I do think there's some open questions about it. But like Yeah. Speaking of like these projects, I still see this night and day dynamic between okay.
Brian:So like this this past week, since last since the last time we recorded, I built basically two finished new apps in the last seven days.
Justin:Yeah. And
Brian:the third one is, like, halfway. And and those are, like, tools that I'm using in in my I'm calling it, like, my brain system with my OpenClaw team of agents. We can get more into that. Like, one is like a tracker dashboard with, like, you know, a task tracking thing. The other is like a markdown voice capture and notetaker and reader of markdown files, and it syncs to a Dropbox folder so I can, like, sync my files with my agents that I'm calling that one brain down.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:So these are both mostly built. I did I did each of those in about a day each. Used Design OS and built it out and and they hook into Open Call and all this stuff. Yeah. But compare that to I what I also did this past week was I did a little like a mini redesign of builder methods.
Brian:Not redesign, but, like, the video library for Builder Methods Pro has has really been growing.
Justin:Yeah. I noticed this.
Brian:My Cloud Code course is now, like, halfway out. Like, half of the lessons are are now dropped. And members have been having a hard time, like, navigating to literally find the course lessons, like, in in the library, because I've only had, like, this one big feed of of of videos.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:And so I needed to build a way to, like, categorize the videos into what I'm calling series. So, like, one one series is the build with Claude CodeCourse. Another series is builder stories. That's where I interview other builders, and they show how they build. I've got these project ride alongs.
Brian:And so and so now what what you see there, what you're showing is like the are like these three, you know, nice callouts at the top with some Yeah. Custom brand illustrations. And Yeah. But By the way,
Justin:those custom illustrations with your your your custom Claude skill. Claude skill. Came in clutch here. Those look great.
Brian:Yeah. For sure. And then the area below that where it's, like, listing and filtering out all the videos, and you've got like like some filter controls on the top, like Mhmm. Mhmm. Like, had that stuff in place from before, but I had to, like, reconfigure the layout of how it all fits.
Brian:Now so Yeah. This project also took me like a full day. And and this is really just a reworking of like one page on the site. And I was hoping it would not take me that long. Like, you like, you would think that, like, something this simple should only take, like, thirty minutes, an hour maybe, given our speed.
Brian:So it's interesting this this dynamic between like, I can build entire new apps in a day, but why does this site take me an hour just to change one thing? And the reason is buildermethods.com was started in early twenty twenty five.
Justin:Yeah. Oh, you think that's why?
Brian:I definitely think that's why. Because there are lots of especially like the way that I organized UI components and and Tailwind CSS and Rails components. And and, like, it doesn't use React or Inertia. It's all like Rails, Turbo, Hotwire, my custom components that I designed and created. And and so, like, a lot of those UI components on that page are reused across all of builder methods.
Brian:Mhmm. So, like, you can't just have AI, like, tweak one thing and and have it blow up all these other pages. Like, everything is interconnected in a way that I would have known how to maintain very easily, like, a year ago by hand. Mhmm. So, like, it's the it's this dynamic.
Brian:I see it again and again where it's like what they call brownfield development or legacy code. Yeah. That stuff is really hard to introduce agents into the mix. Like, I I do I did have agents build most of that project, but it still required a lot of, like even at the end, I I I ended up going in and hand coding a bit of the CSS to make sure it's it's simple.
Justin:You know? See see, what I thought you were gonna say, and I this is still an open question for me, is I think a lot of people can identify with that feeling of like, man, like, that first big build, that big scaffold, like, building an app in like, with a few prompts, that part seems to be consistently pretty good, especially if you kind of architect it and think through what you're building before you start prompting. But even with features like apps that have been built in the last couple weeks, it does seem like people are having this experience of once it's built, the models do get worse at modifying and updating. Is that something you're finding is true?
Brian:No. Because I find I do find that the code bases that I started recently, like the ones I did this week that only took me a day to build and ship Mhmm. Like, I I am still iterating on them. And it and it is much easier for me to just iterate straight through Cloud Code with with those. There's part I mean, part of it is like an element of, like, well, I didn't hand code it in the first place, so I'm not precious about how things are coded under the hood.
Brian:Yeah. There's sure. There's some code code in there that I haven't personally reviewed, but I did test it and I architected the plan around it and everything. So I sort of trusted in that sense. But, yeah, I have been able to iterate and and really change pretty big parts of business logic as I as I learned about different integration points.
Justin:So you think a lot of this is about like because, yeah, my worry is
Brian:that my original code that I hand coded is so intertwined in a way that I used to design and architect apps myself. Mhmm. And that is not the way necessarily that, like, I would do it to like, today, I I generally use React and, like, Rails, Inertia, React, and and I don't hand code from day one.
Justin:See, this just make me me wonder it's making me wonder
Brian:like, for for older sites, there's, like, an extra layer and an and an extra time piece of, like it's not just prompting, and it's not just writing a spec for what you want built. You also have to layer in, like, hey. And let me explain to you the components and the business logic that already exists from years ago or from months ago that that this needs to reuse. That that takes extra time to to work into the spec. You know?
Justin:See, here's one thing I have in my head is on one hand, I'm seeing that established players, and I'm thinking of my own business in this context, have such an advantage right now in that, like we were talking about with Lars Lofgren, they have they're this defined entity across the web. And so if you ask an LLM what's the best podcast hosting platform, nine times out of 10, Transistor's gonna be on one of those lists. And that's that's great. You know, I like that. On the other hand, I'm feeling and I again, maybe this would be absolute a bad absolutely a bad idea.
Justin:But that thing I brought up last time about FreshBooks building this totally new company when they wanted to release a new version. So they built a totally new company, totally new code base, and it it had a lot of that feel that we're talking about right now, which is we can go so much faster if we're not held down by the legacy stuff. And if we can test this independent of all of our users and everything else, like, that's such a big risk. And so let's just, like, build this out. And they built a totally different company, totally different product that competed with FreshBooks.
Justin:And the moment they knew that they needed to switch to this new version was when existing FreshBooks users started canceling and saying, I'm switching to that other product. Yeah. And I mean,
Brian:37signals has been doing a version of that for a
Justin:long time. Yeah. 37signals has a version of this too.
Brian:I always liked that. I I never I never knew if that would be something I would wanna adopt in my own products, but I always I always liked it in theory of being able to have a version like, if if I was working on a SaaS business, like like Transistor or Mhmm. If Clarity Flow were my full time focus on on everything, and and it was like a super growing thing that like, yeah, there's probably a lot of, like, legacy product decisions that I that I would have liked to done do differently Mhmm. That I I would probably consider just doing a totally new version. And then there would be, like, Clarity Flow classic and Clarity Flow new.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:You know? And and I mean, there there is part of me that's like like, maybe I just need to like, John and I create a whole new company, and I just go over and just, like, run with scissors and, like, build this thing out. And maybe it's not podcast hosting. Maybe it's a sponsorship platform or something. But having that experience of like, let's just run with scissors over here and see how fragile and like, just see what that's like.
Justin:You know?
Brian:I think that would be a really interesting exercise for you guys as a company because it's like yeah. Because I I think, first of all, it could just be productive as like, hey. Maybe this isn't a new business line, like a a sponsor or a video platform or something like that. Yeah. A second product from your team, that that could be interesting from a business standpoint.
Brian:But I think it would also be interesting because your experience your you and your team's experience of designing it, building it, shipping it will be so different from how it was with transistor that maybe you can take those learnings and start to see how things might change on the on the transistor code base and
Justin:process. Right? It's still it
Brian:It would still have its legacy stuff, but, like, I think right now I'm not inside your company, so I don't know. But, like, right now, it's probably hard for people to adopt and and change, like, the way that we've always done it. Right? Even if you know that the tools are there, but if you do have that that fresh experience, then there's there at least should be some takeaways that that can that can increase some efficiencies over on the transistor side too.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. It does have the risk of shiny object syndrome and of,
Brian:Screws are shiny object syndrome. But also shiny objects. Come on.
Justin:And this is also spreading yourself too thin. There is and even from a branding perspective, one of the risks that Lars brought up though is that this whole this whole entity, like having a wide footprint on the web, it also connects to founders. He's saying, like, founders that like to start a bunch of things are gonna have a harder time with this kind of organic distribution because AI really likes simple simple relationships. Like, Justin is the cofounder of transistor.fm. If you get too many of those things in there, you lose out on I mean, this has always kind of been the case.
Justin:Brennan Dunn used to say, you know, you wanna be known as the guy who does x. Right?
Brian:I get that. But, like, but I I do think that there's a difference between shiny object syndrome and spreading too thin in in terms of, like, too many different businesses and products Mhmm. Compared to one company launching a second and maybe a third related product that they can sell to basically the same audience. I mean, like, to me, a transistor launching a video podcasting platform or a a podcast sponsoring platform, like, that just makes sense. You know?
Brian:And I and I also really believe this part that, like, it would be less effective to launch those as features in Transistor because you you are so well established as transistor.fm is for podcast hosting. And if I'm thinking like, where do I manage where can I get access to a sponsorship platform? Like, I'm not associating transistor.fm with that question.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting idea. The the one thing I like about it that the FreshBooks story reflects is the way Mike McDermott thought about it and I mean, think about how much bigger of a risk this was back then. Because this this happened in the 2000.
Justin:Like, yeah. Like, I think I can't remember exactly, but I think it was, like, 2005 or something like that. The in some ways, you are downplaying the risks because it's like, well, if we introduce all these new features and this new platform and this new architecture and people don't like it, like, we have a couple 100 customers and we have to shut it down, and we just say, well, just migrate back to FreshBooks class. You know, migrate to our competitor, FreshBooks Classic. Like, there is something nice about if this is truly if it truly works, like it's as fast as we think, as robust as we think, which I'm still I'm worried about the fragility of these apps going forward still.
Justin:I'm worried about Yeah.
Brian:But like that that would be more like a app that you code. But you, you know, you have John on the team. You got you got your technical team. Like Mhmm. It would be really interesting, I think, for you all to work together on a new app.
Brian:Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna be cheerleading the idea of Transistor getting becoming a multiproduct company. I'm I'm all for that. Okay. I do think that, like, having a technical team behind it, like, means you can use these tools, these AI tools, to a more serious degree than, you know, than than, like, you just prototyping stuff.
Brian:You know?
Justin:Yeah. Alright. Let's get back to this this article because now we got people in chat. I I think a lot of people one thing that resonated about this article is it did have this kind of timeliness to it. Like, basically, like, wake up.
Justin:This is happening. If you don't acknowledge that this is happening, you're gonna get left behind. And it was also some kind of sober warnings in here. Like, get your financial house in order.
Brian:Yeah. Like, how much do you buy into that part of it? Like, the the the warning to the nontechnical world. Yeah. Let's I think some of the the the examples are different.
Brian:Like, some are probably more true than than others or, like, true to me than others. But
Justin:Let's work through them one at a time. First, start using AI seriously, not just as a search engine.
Brian:Well, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Mean, those are sort of like his recommendations.
Brian:But before that Yeah. Like, I I think the real question that's interesting is, like, I still see I I'm still sort of amazed, but I sort of get it that, like, I feel like AI has completely changed our industry as we've been talking about for this whole episode. But the rest of the people in my life, the normies in my life, are barely even touching it. Yeah. And, like, I ask my family all the time.
Brian:You know, Amy works in in the school district. My kids go to school. I'm like, who in the schools are using AI? Are the teachers using it? Do the kids use it?
Brian:The answer is no. Like, nobody uses it. Okay. Well A little you know? Yeah.
Brian:And, like and and sometimes they'll say, well, I Google for things, and now Google shows me AI stuff. So there's that.
Justin:I mean, schools will be the last. School divisions will be Yeah. Like, there's there's stuff sending PDF newsletters. That's like it's like Exactly. They send an email that's like, hey, everybody.
Justin:Check out the newsletter attached, and then you're like, oh my god.
Brian:This link to go to this multi
Justin:column, three column PDF document that I have to, like, scan through and figure out what's important.
Brian:Not to mention they're sending me stuff about the high school, and my kids are in fourth and sixth grade.
Justin:I mean, I can tell you who is feeling it is when I talk to my kids in high school and college, what the the danger for them is more uncertainty. And in some ways, I think they're feeling that uncertainty can
Brian:Like the job prospects?
Justin:Yeah. It can also it can lead to a a sense of malaise or hopelessness because it it's not clear to them what this is gonna mean. They've heard that the the entry level job market is getting decimated, and that's true.
Brian:I mean, that that part rings true to me. I I think that that to me is like the scariest segment of the economy, I would say, at this point is is like young people entering their careers at at this time. Like, I I just don't know what what I would suggest other than
Justin:Yeah. I mean get
Brian:comfortable with these tools.
Justin:But like
Brian:It gives
Justin:it gives you a sense of helplessness. But even also maybe worse, maybe the bigger risk is a lost sense of purpose. Because a lot of us went to college for things that we didn't end up pursuing as a career. But there was still this promise of an economy that we could get into that kind of pushed us to go to college. So, you know, we went and it was like, I'm gonna study music or I'm gonna study English literature.
Justin:And in the back of our minds, we're like, you know, maybe this isn't the thing we're gonna do as a career, but we had this feeling like diploma or a degree is at least going to help us get our foot in the door. And that
Brian:I kind of stopped believing in that even before AI came
Justin:in. Well, and that that advantage has gradually eroded, but it still leads to a problem of purpose and motivation. Because now a kid is looking, you know, in high school is looking at I mean, they're looking at their own classes and they're going, what's the point of all this? Then and then they're looking at college and they're like, what's the point? Like, I'm gonna spend I mean, in The States, it's like, I'm gonna spend a $100 for a college education, and I'm it's not gonna lead anywhere.
Justin:The thing is that what I do worry about, and this is something that Ben Ben Barrowski, Marie Puin's partner, talked about on LinkedIn, is I I do worry about the loss of human motivation and connection. And if you think about that kid that's gonna graduate and not gonna go to college, sure, college might now be a bad play for your career. But kids need purpose. They need a sense of, like, connecting with humans. And
Brian:I I I mean, I agree with you that all of that is a is a huge concern. Mhmm. The the question that this article is raising is like or or the the warning that it's raising is that, hey. The economy is about to explode. Everyone needs to wake up.
Brian:And I actually don't fully buy that.
Justin:Okay.
Brian:I think it's I think it's just gonna take a lot longer to for for AI to spider its its way through the rest of the economy. I think it's definitely already here, and it's gonna keep getting deeper into the tech industry for sure.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:But we are the the crest of this wave, and it's gonna and I think this wave is gonna take a lot longer to crash over the rest of the economy. I mean and and part of part of me is even questioning that, like, my my own read of that. Right? Because it's like like, my my gut is saying, like, it's just gonna take all these other industries and all these other businesses so long. Even if they know that there are advantages to adopting AI, they just can't because they're slow to move.
Brian:Right? And people are just slow to adopt and adapt.
Justin:Yeah. And there's also the idea that his his the way he sets up the structure of the article is to say, listen. This is happening in software development, and it happened in software development first because AI companies need to write a lot of code. So they wrote they created agents that helped them write more code. And then he goes, okay.
Justin:What this means for your job? And it's like legal work, financial analysis, writing. And he goes into these other categories, but I don't think the it's still unclear to me as well if the impact it's had on code is going to go to those other categories.
Brian:Because I do think it is gonna go to those other categories. I just think it might be more like five or ten years, not like one or two.
Justin:Yeah. And I'm still even I'm still like it's just AI works particularly good for code because code writing code is really about kind of established good patterns, established good architecture. Even like you think about the reason it kind of killed Tailwind Plus and Tailwind Components is because once an LLM has sucked up all the good UI patterns, it's just pretty easy to regurgitate those. It's they're pretty set. You know?
Justin:These they're they're very rules based. Like
Brian:Yeah. I mean, I it's like this is where I'm like I question my own read on this prediction. Because it's like, on one hand, I really, really believe that these things are gonna keep getting insanely better. And they're gonna keep getting better even at faster rates. And and it's already insanely fast.
Brian:Know, because like you Whatever we are seeing and using here in the tech industry now, there is still so much friction to what we do. I mean, even just the fact that we open up command line interfaces to interact with this stuff. Like, no normie is gonna do that. Yeah. You know?
Brian:So, like, even just the harnesses and frameworks and the scaffolding and the methodologies, all of that stuff is is definitely gonna melt away.
Justin:And
Brian:that stuff and and the melting away of that will happen fast. Right? Like, I I firmly believe that by the end of 2026, what we now see as like the frontier models are are gonna feel ancient in within twelve months. Like, it's gonna be so much better by the end of this year. Believe it like, and and that's hard to even imagine.
Brian:And and and a lot of that is just in the ease of use. Like like, it's just gonna understand your intent. It's it's already so much better than at that now, but, like, there like, that stuff is gonna get easier and easier. And and that means, like, picking up and starting to use these tools is gonna get and and also that means that, like, if OPUS five five point five is what's happening twelve months from now or GPT six or whatever is is happening twelve months from now, that means what we know of as GPT five five point three is gonna become the free model twelve months from now that the masses are using. And that that'll be insanely good for them.
Brian:Right? Yep. So okay. So there's, like, that side of it that's like, this stuff is just gonna keep getting better and more and more impressive and more and more helpful in what you want it to do. Yep.
Brian:But I still think that the what do you call it? The the pushback on that, the the the the thing that that slows down that momentum in the general economy is the fact that the the 200 person company, the 2,000 person company Mhmm. Moves like molasses. Even even when they know that these tools are there and available and they want to use them, like, they don't know how to, they can't adopt it, they can't change their their workflows. That's that's number one.
Brian:But then there's there's the the consumer. Right? So, like, I think legal is is one of the most obvious cases. He he already said it's like it's like sort of like target number one. Even Claude came out with, like, a a product aimed at the legal industry.
Justin:Yeah. Although that was basically just a markdown file. Right?
Brian:Basically. But that but, you know, but that you can build a Claude skill that can basically do replace a whole a whole job.
Justin:You I'm still a little bit skeptical about that. Like and the way the markets reacted, I was a little bit like, I don't know. Like, it it
Brian:Dude, it wrote your terms and privacy on
Justin:It your it wrote my terms and privacy. So that but to me, that's still just replacing the low end of the market, the self serve market. Yeah. But once you get above that
Brian:lot of lawyers that serve that market. You know?
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I yeah. I guess so.
Brian:So so what I'm saying though, again, is that, like, I do think that the LLMs will be capable of serving that market.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:But consumers, the normies are still gonna especially the older, like middle aged to older people, the the people who do call up a lawyer to help them, you know, hash out a a contract when they're when they're buying a house or, you know, doing whatever. Like, they those people I'm not talking about young folks. I'm talking about, like, 40, 50, 60 year old people are still gonna be they still have the normal muscle memory of, like, alright. I need a lawyer. I I could I I trust a lawyer.
Brian:Like, yeah. I know Chatuchi PT can probably do it, but, I'm not gonna trust Chatuchi PT. Like, that that is gonna have a lingering effect that still takes a while to work through.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's true. And I legal is one of those things I'm still like, yeah. There's just so many even, like, buying a house is such a good example.
Justin:Like, if if I'm buying a new house with my spouse and I say, don't worry, honey. I'm just gonna get ChattyPT to write up the contract. She's gonna be like, no. We're gonna go to a lawyer. Like, we're not gonna fuck this up.
Justin:And in a lot of cases, I think in Canada, I think you actually technically need to get a registered lawyer who's registered in real estate to sign off on it. I could be wrong about that. But so, yeah, I I think you're right. I think the adoption society wide is gonna take longer than people think. But the the warnings are still I mean, normies are asking me they might not be using AI that much, but they are asking me a lot about AI and how worried they should be.
Justin:And some people are worried about, like, these AIs becoming sentient. They've heard of, like, Clodbots, like, you know, gossiping about their owners, and they've they've heard about On on MoltBook. They've heard about the the Anthropic team has noticed like, they've got, like, what? They've got models that are, like, I don't know, expressing emotions or whatever. Mhmm.
Justin:But most people are worried about the economy. And Yeah. Most people are working worried about their job. And most per people are worried about their kids. And so
Brian:And and there there is the societal thing that I think is pretty concerning that people are developing real relationships with with these things, like with the loneliness factor like you were talking about. Like, that's that's kinda concerning for sure. But but, yeah, like like, you know, you could you could pick any any part of the society and then find a thousand things to be, you know, freaked out about.
Justin:Yeah. There's two comments in chat here. Brett says, my mom was just asking me about this earlier this week, and she's almost 80. And then Seth says, people are uncomfortable because they've trained their entire lives for a system that's crumbling. That is one of the nerves that's definitely been hit, I think.
Brian:Yeah. I hear that a lot too. You know, people who you know, I'll see commenters on YouTube saying like, oh, you're like like
Justin:I mean, this is why programmers feel threatened right now
Brian:for sure. Is like a danger. Right? Yeah.
Justin:Which I totally get. I mean, that is it is
Brian:I get the concern. Yeah. But I I, you know, I also like, I I've always had the mindset that of of, like, look. There are just some things that are out of our control, and you can it it's not actually productive to complain or put your head in the sand or Mhmm. And and also, I think that it's also, like, counterproductive to try to like fight it or stop it when like it's I'm talking about technology specifically.
Brian:I think technology is always going to march forward no matter what it is that you're talking about. So, and I I get the fear of like AGI and like, let's put a pause on all this. Like, let's like, this is a this is a danger to the human race. And like, there's a there's I I I sort of understand where that's coming from. But then I always I always come back to like, okay, you could you could say is you you wanna hit the pause button all you want, but that, a, that's not gonna happen.
Brian:B, that if you hit the pause button, then someone else is not gonna hit the pause button. Like, this is just gonna keep going. So to me, it's always a more productive and I think a more positive mindset to say like, yeah, yes, this is acknowledged. Like this is scary. There's a lot of fear out there.
Brian:This is moving faster than we are all comfortable with, But it's happening whether we like it or not. So we might as well try to have an open mind about it and try to figure out how can we be productive and where do we, as humans in the loop, add value. You know? And I and I do think that, like
Justin:That that although the I think the other sentiment that I've had, and I think a lot of people have had, is there there is part of me. I said this last time. There's part of me that's like, and it's definitely shows up in this Matt Schumer article, which is like, shit. I gotta, like, work my ass off right now because this might be my window to make money Yeah.
Brian:Well, while
Justin:it's here. Family and for their kids and their kids after that. Like, this is it. Like, there's this a little bit of desperate desperation, land grab, feeling like we don't really know how this is gonna affect society as a whole. You know?
Justin:Like, when the robots came for the manufacturing jobs, that did have societal ripples that we we could say have even led to the political realities we're in around the world right now. And so I think some of us are like, man, like, that was, you know, manufacturing was what? I don't know, 20% of the economy. And that got disrupted by robots. And now we're talking about a whole other part of the economy, knowledge work, service work.
Justin:And
Brian:I think yeah. And and look, I I get I get the fear. I feel it myself a lot of the time, but it's also like it it is I think it's a a human thing where where it's really difficult to envision what what your field of view is going to be in the future. You can only see what your field of view is now. Right?
Brian:So so if you right now, we can only assess like, okay. I have these skills. I have these assets. I have these points of value that I have to offer. I have this knowledge that I can that I can leverage.
Brian:Mhmm. And these are the realities on on, like, where I can place that stuff and and and be a productive person in society. Right? If you if you fast forward three, five years and all of this stuff has rippled through the economy and maybe what what you're doing today doesn't exist three, five years from now, there's still you're gonna be in a totally new position. You're gonna have a totally new set of life experience, a totally new set of observations and insights and network effects that you've gained over the next three years.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:So so you're gonna be in a totally new vantage point. Yeah. And at that point, like, it's like okay. Like, let's let's let's take it back down to, like, SaaS products for
Justin:a second.
Brian:Right? Like, everyone is talking about it. And I think there's I frankly think that there is a lot of truth to the fact that, like, a lot of SaaS products and product categories are going to be wiped out Yeah. Due to due to AI.
Justin:But We should also emphasize that a lot of the articles and media around this is around the public markets and SaaS in the public markets
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:Which is a totally different animal than independent SaaS. So, yes, some independent SaaS could be under threat as well.
Brian:But But what I'm saying though is
Justin:that really talking about Salesforce and
Brian:all Yes.
Justin:HubSpot and all that.
Brian:For sure. That that's that's definitely true. But the smaller SaaS, a lot of them, like, individuals can vibe code their own competitors. Yep. But the but at the end of the at the end of the day, again, fast forward three, five, ten years from now, yeah, maybe your typical CRM product doesn't really exist ten years from now.
Brian:But people are still going to have problems that need solving. People are still going to have pain points. And there's probably going to be thousands of new pain points that we can't even dream of right now. So there's always going to be problems to solve. It's our job as builders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs to look around and see what problems we can solve.
Brian:And like maybe how maybe the types of problems you solve in the in the next few years are gonna look extremely different from the ones that we've been solving for the last ten years. You know?
Justin:I mean, it is. But what's the what's the saying?
Brian:It's hard to predict what those are gonna be, but like, that's what we do.
Justin:Yeah. What's the saying? Is it evolve or die or or or something like that? Like, yeah, you can basically whereas, you know, people say, you gotta play the game on the field. Right?
Justin:It's like, what are we Yeah. If this is what's happening, all you can do is respond to that. And we've seen, you know, like, Adam Wathen, his business gets kinda decimated by
Brian:Great example.
Justin:AI. And he's like, okay. What am I gonna do? All I can do is respond and respond as quickly as I can, which is kind of I mean, I feel that too. How do you feel about, like, some of his, like, kind of warnings or prescriptions here?
Justin:Like, this might be the most important year of your career. Work accordingly. What what do you think of that that kind of stuff?
Brian:Like, being You know, it's a little little strong strongly worded,
Justin:I would say. But
Brian:I I I think that there's probably some kernel of truth to it. Like, I I do honestly wish that again, I'm thinking about the normies in my life. Right? I do wish that more of them would even if you don't start actively, like, replacing your workflows with with these tools, just start really playing with them or tinkering.
Justin:That's his previous point here. He's like, start using AI seriously, not just as a search engine.
Brian:Because I because I think that especially especially if you get a paid account, like and he and and that was one of his things. Like, just Mhmm. Forget the free. Just pay $20 and just get ChatGPT. Yep.
Brian:You know? Like, that alone is a is a huge lift. Oh, and and he had one of the other one of the other suggestions there, which was like, don't just ask it to tell you a joke. Yeah. Have it have it help you do something real.
Brian:Like, anything you need to do. If you need to write up a paper, if you need to plan a talk, if you need to, like, solve a problem with a spreadsheet, like
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Try to throw it at it. Even if it's not gonna be your real version that you use. Like, just
Justin:I
Brian:think a lot of normies would be pretty amazed at what's actually possible.
Justin:If you're in finance, give it a messy spreadsheet and ask it to build the model. I mean, I I just did this the other day is I had Claude Code find me all all of the podcast hosting providers that support this technology XSLT that's being deprecated. And it went and found me all of all of the ones, and I said, give me an example RSS feed for each one, and then give me a account on how many feeds that represents. And it just went out. It took a while, but it it would have taken me way longer to find all that information.
Justin:And it just did it for me. So giving it real tasks is that that's kinda when you start to realize, okay. Here's where it can actually be helpful.
Brian:I'll tell you something that kinda frustrates me about, you know, like, about my my my kids in the school and the schools at this point. So they're in the public schools here in Connecticut, and and both my kids are in are in the the LEAP program, which is like the, you know, the the advanced the couple advanced kids from each class. They they get pulled out and they do these advanced projects throughout the year. Right? So these are like the, you know, like the the smartest kids in in in the in the class are are doing these things.
Brian:My older is is doing there she's engineering and and building, like, a bridge. That's, like, like, a year long project. My younger one, the fourth one, fourth grade, like, they're they're introducing her to coding, like like, super, like, building blocks of of coding. Right? The the instruction from the teacher is continuously just don't use AI.
Brian:Mhmm. And I I get it on on some things. It's like, yes, we want to teach our kids how to obviously, to read, how to how to learn, how to how to research. But, like, there was this one assignment where where they were like they were tasked with, like, research different type different structural types of of bridges. Right?
Brian:And they literally just supplied the kids with, like, a list of, like, 10 websites. Yeah. Find your answers in these 10 web pages.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:You know? And and these are the advanced kids. Right? Like Yeah. And and, like, my daughter was going through it.
Brian:Like like, okay. Like, she found some things, but, like, there are some, like, open questions that that I'm like, alright. Well, why why don't you just why don't you, like, ask chat GPT ask ask Claude and and go deeper and and maybe find some new idea? And and she was like, well, I was instructed not to use AI. Yeah.
Brian:You know? And, like like, I I don't like this thing that's that's been emerging over these last couple of years, which is like training the youngest kids who are you were talking about, like, kids coming up. Yeah. And and they come into the economy with this, like, anti AI attitude. Right?
Brian:Like, and my my kids happen to be excited about it. Like, I gave her a Cloud account. She's vibe coding games and stuff like that. Yeah. But, like, to have the the like, the schools really need to start to embrace this stuff.
Brian:I'm not saying replace all learning with AI, but but, like, if you wanna be productive in society, like, you have to know how to use AI in in the workforce. Like, if if there if there's one advantage that you can give a 15 year old, a 20 year old, like, make them feel confident with these tools. Like And it could be Don't make them shy away from them.
Justin:You know? There could still be a place for saying, this is going to be the place where we teach you how to think and write and use your brain in a difficult way where you don't automatically reach for easy answers. But you don't have to downplay the importance of AI. You can just say, like, you know, mister Miyagi with The Karate Kid. It's just like, well, we're gonna work on the fundamentals first.
Justin:And, you know, why am I am I painting the fence? It's like, well, you're gonna paint the fence right now. But, yeah, eventually, you're gonna play in the tournament, and you're gonna play with all the tools. And, you know so I think some of it is an attitude thing of, like, I think in universities, there will
Brian:be problem solving. We don't we don't need to teach they already read great. We don't need to teach them how to read, like, a selection of five websites.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Just let let's teach them how to be curious, how to how to problem solve, you know, and how to refine and you know?
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I I I agree with that. Although, I do think that the opportunity is to is to sometimes take kids away from technology because it's like the one time where you can do that.
Brian:Yeah. Socialize them and
Justin:Yeah. And but to have, you know, some classes, it's like, yeah. You're gonna sit down and write an essay, and you won't get to access the Internet. It's like, I can't do that. There's no way.
Justin:It's like, no. And you're gonna put your phone in a lockbox so you don't get distracted by it every 30 seconds. I can't do that. It's impossible. It's like, no.
Justin:No. We're gonna teach you how to sit down and write an essay, and that's it.
Brian:Like, how to how to stay focused. Yeah.
Justin:But at the same time, yeah, there has to be this other piece to it, which is these tools exist. And so in this class, we're gonna use AI, and we're gonna show you when is a good time to use it. We're gonna show you how you might wanna interact with it, and we're gonna you know? And we're gonna have to teach them to be developing both sides of their brain. So how to build resilience, how to do difficult things, how to be bored, how to not be distracted.
Justin:Like, we're certainly all struggling with that. And on the other hand yeah. Here's these powerful tools that you can use, and you gotta know how to use it because it's gonna be reality. I I just wanna hit one more of these, which is okay. So this might be the most important year of your career.
Justin:I do feel that pressure. I think that's one reason it resonated. Like, this window won't stay open long. Once everyone figures it out, the advantage disappears. There is a little bit of this like, if the economy is a race, if the economy is a ladder, if the economy is full of winners and losers, there there's always gonna be this pressure for people to be like, I gotta stay.
Justin:I can't. You know?
Brian:There I I could I I do maybe hearing it the second time now, I see maybe what he's saying, which is like, yeah, like, the advantage of being an early adopter to this stuff is gonna go away quickly. Mhmm. Because by next year or the year after, everyone will have already adopted it. But if you came to the table at your company or in your business with the motivation, the the ingenuity, the the the to to come to the table and be like, look look what we look what I can build. What can look look what we can do to to move the ball forward in a way that we wouldn't have otherwise.
Brian:Like, that just positions you as ahead of the game no matter what situation you're in. And, like, that that requires, like like, taking maybe take doing this stuff, like, on personal time or, know, if if your if your company is not adopting it at in the organizational level, then then you should be hacking with this stuff.
Justin:Yeah. I I also think this line here of have no ego about it. I think that for me, it feels like this is important enough, and it's proven itself to be potentially paradigm shifting enough that I have to try it, investigate it, be in it. And to be willing to be wrong about a lot of stuff, and to be willing to say, you know, like, I'm on record saying, I don't think AI does very good at marketing. But I'm also open to the idea that it one day may will be.
Justin:And to not, you know, continue to see the world the way I wish it was as opposed to seeing the world the way it really is. This part here, get your financial house in order, I think speaks to something I've I just said. I I am feeling that worry or pressure of like, man, what is gonna happen? Like, so much of the stock market is AI.
Brian:It's interesting. Like, I've heard I heard another, like, SaaS founder who's in in a similar position to yours with a with a well established, you know, solid footing SaaS company that's been around for for a long time saying the same thing. And I I'm always sort of amazed at guys like you and him saying that because I feel like you do have such a healthy, pretty resilient SaaS business.
Justin:I think this is the part about this is what keeps you alive.
Brian:I think that your business is gonna survive even even beyond it's like if I were trying to start up a podcast hosting company, that would be insane to me right now. But if you if you are already Transistor FM, like, I don't think that those people are just gonna cancel because AI
Justin:is here. I agree with that, but I I still think there's this I often think about like when we bought our house in 2020, we bought at a variable rate. And in Canada, you you can't you don't lock in your rate forever. Like, you basically get either a variable rate or a fixed rate. And once you're in a fixed rate, it's a five year term, and then it renews.
Justin:And I we we started on a variable rate. It was like 1.6 or something. And I was just like, I don't trust this. Every week, I was like looking in the news. I was like checking with my mortgage broker, and I annoyed the hell out of him.
Justin:But eventually, because I was checking it every week, because I was a little bit paranoid, I started to notice things shifting, and I contacted my mortgage broker. We locked in at one point seven six or something crazy. Mhmm. And then a week later or something, rates jumped. And then a week after that, rates jumped.
Justin:And a week later, rates jumped. And, you know, that decision I actually have to renew again this year because, you know, it's a fixed five year mortgage.
Brian:I mean, we're we're fixed on thirty. Like, we're we're not going anywhere anytime soon because we're we got a good one.
Justin:Yeah. So I have to renew, but compared to
Brian:what they are now.
Justin:That little bit of paranoia probably saved me, I don't know, tens of thousands of dollars. And I do have a little bit of paranoia in this moment just because things feel so unstable. It just feels yeah. It just feels like, man, where do things stand? So even though I do feel like we're in a good place with Transistor and all these other things, there's just part of me that's still a little bit paranoid.
Brian:I'm feeling fine right now, but I feel like I'm much more in in a much more insecure business situation than you are. Yeah. You know? Like, my thing is still it's still, like only six months into revenue. You know?
Justin:I think this is the thing about this time though, is everybody feels exposed. You know? Just like, even if you've been doing well, you're feeling like, I'm exposed. If you're an employee who's just like loved, like working for big tech, and you've been
Brian:Part of me is like that that's how I've always felt as an entrepreneur. But it does like, to me, it's like, it's not so much about AI. Like, I think I again, I think AI is here. It's gonna keep coming. Mhmm.
Brian:It's to me, like, business is business, and it and it's just this is why I think that you're in a much more secure position than than you might think compared to someone like me. Is that like, I've seen this happen in startups that have started before. Like they're off to a great start and then they plateau and don't sustain, you know, within the six to twelve month timeframe. Like that could still be a reality for me. It's going pretty good right now, but like who knows what could happen this year for me.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:But for you, you've been around years, millions in ARR. It's like if things and from what I understand, they're not going badly for you guys this year. Yeah. So if things were to start to change, materially change in the economy, in your market, where your customers are, you would notice those changes and you would start to adapt. And you wouldn't fall off a cliff.
Brian:Would notice the changes and you would start to take steps to course correct. And whatever that might be. But again, that's what we do. We react to our market and our customers. I I think I think that's part of the beauty of SaaS really is that like it's not the kind of thing that can just fall off.
Brian:Once you once you're off and running in your steady state and you're growing, like it's not the kind of thing that can just fall off of a cliff. Yeah. There's some whatever, like market exceptions to that. But like, you know, you're you're gonna see the warning signs a lot earlier, and you'll be able to adapt. Yeah.
Justin:Right? I mean, but I think that's the thing. I think a little bit of paranoia, this this adapt or die feeling is it's the exciting part of capitalism, and it's the sucky part of capitalism. It's just like, this is reality. And I think what's different though is just how fast it feels like it's moving.
Justin:How Yeah. Like, what one thing we've never seen before, and I know we've been talking about this a long time, but and we can we can move on in a bit. But, like, the job market right now is crazy. Job numbers are down, but GDP is up. Yeah.
Justin:So right now, GDP growth is being driven by the stock market and financialization and all these other things. This is the one of the first times in human history, at least in the history of capitalism, where we've got people's potentially, more and more families are going to have less spending power because there's less jobs, less good jobs, etcetera. And it's changing so fast. We've never had this happen before. And there's just part of it that's like I'm like, what's gonna happen
Brian:be interesting to see, like, what kind of policies come out over the next, you know, because, like, there there are things that, like, seem pretty farfetched now, like, you know, like UBI in in at least here in in The States. And, like, that's been floated, but it doesn't seem realistic and at least not in America. But I I think as the years progress over the next like like, I I think certain things like like that or similar things are just gonna become like the the the voter demand for that is gonna become so much louder, I I would guess. I I Yeah.
Justin:And and it's it's it's also hard to know, like, what's what what's the best version of that? Like, is the best version of that is that more and more of these models and technologies become open source or accessible to the to the extent that every human will have a robot clone that goes to work for them in the factory and builds stuff.
Brian:And Or or most families have a self driving car that goes out and does Uber drives on its own throughout the day,
Justin:and that's
Brian:a that's a source of income. So Like, that that that will be a reality in the next one.
Justin:Well, that could happen. But I think what's worrying people is like, right now, we just see it's the massive companies that own all that tech. It's the massive companies that own the models. It's the massive companies building the robots. And it's like, I think a lot of us are like, how how am I gonna fit into this future?
Justin:Like, I don't have a robot. And if the robot takes my job at the factory, what happens to me? You know?
Brian:Yeah. I mean, this is where I tend to, you know, align with the with the capitalism people. Right? Like, I think I think the market is gonna work itself out. I I I get it.
Brian:I I know that I know that the the income inequality is insane, and it's a it's a it's a it's a massive problem. Like, I I get it, but it's also again, it's like one of those things that, like, maybe this sounds cold or whatever. I I just don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. It's one of these things that I feel like I can't really control. It's just a it's it's a market force.
Brian:Mhmm. And and I do think that I do think that that the economy is is gonna transform over the next couple years Yeah. In in probably a bunch of different ways, which means families and people are going to there's gonna be new ways to make income. Yeah. And a lot of ways that people are making income are gonna go away.
Brian:And there's and there's gonna be an extremely painful transition period of transition. And and that is out of most of our control. You know? It's just gonna happen. So it's gonna suck, but it's also gonna it's just gonna be change.
Brian:And and change has happened before. It just happens to be happening extremely fast now. And Yeah. Like, I don't know. It's like it's it's one of those things that's like
Justin:I I I just wanna be on record to say I am worried. And one of the reasons I'm worried came about by looking at these Clodbots and thinking there is a world where Tesla makes all these Optimi. And, you know, Elon wants to make like 30 40,000 just for testing purposes. But he makes all these OptiMi, and then they become their own financial agents. You know, maybe companies buy them, maybe whatever.
Justin:And all of a sudden, Optimae number 2,002 has his own house and has his own bank account and contributes to the economy and participates in the economy the way that a human used to be. And humans can or could get cut out of the economy. And this is the first time where it feels like, you know, we've been based human capital capitalism has been based on human labor this whole time. Even like the big shift to knowledge work, it was still about putting people behind computer screens and having them drive computer screens. But when I hear that the real, like, AI pilled CEOs talking, they're like, yeah.
Justin:Now agents can drive computers. And that cuts
Brian:But I I that's the kind of thing that that's
Justin:like People out of the
Brian:I I get that. I get the concern, but it's like, what what are we supposed to do about that?
Justin:Well, that's why I'm putting it out there. I I think this is gonna be the
Brian:People are still going to need things. And the things that they do need are gonna be very different ten, twenty years from now. And those those needs are still going to need to be met, and there are gonna be new ways for humans to deliver value. We it's we cannot predict what those are gonna be. But, like Yeah.
Brian:I I I think we're gonna have a completely different vantage point twenty years from now than we do now.
Justin:If autonomous robots are participating in the economy the same way that humans have, that's gonna add a crazy dynamic to our society.
Brian:Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's gonna be crazy alright.
Justin:And I this is this is the you know, if there's any, like, doom and gloom and, like, people being worried, I think there's part of me that wants to sell my kids the utopian version of this to say, listen. Everything's gonna be fine. AI is an amazing tool, creative tool in your hands if you use it properly. But then there's this other part of me that's like, shit, there's stuff emerging right now. Like companies for real replacing a human operator at a at a computer and saying no.
Justin:And an agent's gonna just run that. And you can see all of the places where this could happen. It's like flight control. Like, every flight control center is
Brian:a big I just think that I I just think that it's it's always gonna be difficult to map what the human experience is gonna be like five, ten, fifty fifty years from now Mhmm. Based on based on our experience today, because it's gonna be very different. And and I and I personally just don't believe in in the idea of like, well, we need to artificially keep the current human jobs intact even if those jobs are not needed to fill a a real problem. Like, that is that's artificial and not sustainable. The the market and society is going to need to shift to to figure every individual person is gonna need to figure out how do I contribute?
Brian:How do I add value? And and that answer is gonna be completely different ten ten, twenty years from now. I you know? I there there's there's no answer to that. Like, no nobody can really figure
Justin:that to think about it and talk about it now, though, is that, again, people don't like this. But the truth is we humans right now are the ones voting people in and shaping policy and shaping some things. We at least have some say right now. And I've always been a technologist. I've loved computers my whole life.
Justin:I still love computers. I don't want to move into the woods and not use computers. But I do want us as a society to be thinking critically and thinking, where could this end up? This isn't like people in the in the chatter saying, oh, this is our cent century's mechanical thresher. No.
Justin:It's different because humans have always been
Brian:This is where I agree that that, like, I I I really wish that the leaders would be more much more serious about, like, okay. Like, this is coming. This or or it's sort of here already. We need to be taking real, well informed steps and and and coming up with, like, real plans or proposing real because definitely here in America, that's not happening. We know that.
Brian:No one in leadership is serious on any side, and it's been that way for a while. That's my one thing that really gets me a little bit depressed and why I I tend to avoid the news lately is is just that, like, I I do tend to think that, like, leaders are not taking this seriously enough. Yep.
Justin:I just wrote an article on this that I wrote for the podcast standards project, and it relates to it, Moving Pangea says, who says they a thousand percent agree with you, everything you've said, and and not spending too much time worrying or focusing on things outside of our control. I agree. Listen, I'm the first person that says, you as an individual entrepreneur, you cannot create or move a market. Very few companies have ever done that. There's Apple, Microsoft, etcetera, have maybe done that.
Justin:Even they don't succeed all the time. Like Facebook wanted us all to be in the metaverse. They failed. So we can't create markets. Economically, you usually have to respond to the game on the field.
Justin:However, there's this whole other field this whole other category of life where we do have advocacy power. And I don't want people to give that power away. You have the ability to call your representative, to vote for people who are thinking critically about these issues, and to bring up things to be in your own communities, talking to your neighbors, talking to your friends, talking to your family. And when they say, should I be worried about AI? Not giving them some bullshit utopian everything's gonna be fine.
Justin:No. Yeah. You've got to be thinking both sides. Yeah. Respond to the game on the field economically.
Justin:Like, you got to do what you got to do to put food on your family or whatever. I get it. That is important. On the other hand, don't give up your responsibility to be an advocate. And you can write an email to your representative.
Justin:And you're like, well, that's not a big late. Listen. If if Yeah. But what
Brian:does that do, man?
Justin:If millions of people write in the listen. Section one seven four is a good example of this. You know, a lot of us felt like
Brian:I I actually in terms of I'm not very politically active, but I tend to think that supporting or promoting better candidates for future offices is seems to be more productive than trying to convince current leadership to, like, change their stance on something.
Justin:Sure. Whatever we gotta do, that that's that's what we wanna be that's so yeah. I I just don't want us to be if you look at history, there are so many examples. It could be anything. It could be woman's right to vote, where people could keep playing the game on the field and decided not to.
Justin:But they they decided to form some collective action and to advocate for things that they felt were as important to them. The the organized labor movement is the same. Like, the way we got here with our standard of living right now isn't to just, like, always play the game on the field. Sometimes, you also have to play the game that's not on the field, the harder game, which is collective action, voting, advocating, you know, community action, all that stuff. Part
Brian:somebody just said Justin 2026. I'm in. The you know, since we're a little you know, we're not gonna get super political, but one of the things that I think is interesting in terms of like trends in society and politics now is how uninteresting or how much, at least here in America, I know Canada is so much better on so much more serious and They're not on food.
Justin:I'm worried here and
Brian:all that. Yeah. But but, like, at least here, there, you know, there are just these insane media bubbles, political media bubbles. Right? Mhmm.
Brian:And people like me, and I tend to think that I'm in the vast majority, say like, I'm not interested in any of those bubbles. Get me out of the bubble. Like, I'm not interested. You know? And I think at this point, it's starting to become true.
Brian:Like, five years ago, five, ten years ago, politics in America was the biggest sport on television. Everyone was into it. Whether you maybe you don't like to talk about it too much at at Thanksgiving dinner, but everyone's watching it no matter what they're doing. Right? And and I think that that tide has shifted.
Brian:I think it's gotten so so much like a circus and so ridiculous. Mhmm. So and and and just so depressing that most people are tuning out and most people and especially most people are are turned off by the extremes. And I'm I'm I'm always gonna advocate for for the center because I I think that's where much more common sense and seriousness happens. But, unfortunately, center does not does not win.
Brian:And and, you know, so Except in Canada,
Justin:it does. Well,
Brian:that's why I'm saying Canada's like
Justin:just better. Saying, but there might be hope for the states too. Like, right now, it's it's
Brian:But, like, that's what I'm saying. I actually think it's a positive maybe it's maybe it's bad, but I I sort of think it's it's good that, like, politics is getting so stupid and ridiculous that it's uninteresting that most people are tuning out of it. Yeah. And I and I my hope is that, like, that will eventually maybe it'll take a long time, but, like, that'll eventually cycle through, like, okay. Maybe extremist politics on left or right actually doesn't work at the end of the day.
Brian:And to and to get the and to win back the attention of the serious folks in the middle Yeah. Maybe we kinda just have to be serious now. Like, I'm hoping that that's gonna hap that's my hope.
Justin:Yeah. You know? I I mean, that's my hope too. And I I think
Brian:But it's not gonna happen The in the next cycle or the cycle after that.
Justin:Yeah. I again, and I totally agree with I I you know, for a while, I was fighting every battle on Twitter, and I I totally get that's not the that's not the environment to have any sort of serious discourse about really anything. We need better better places to communicate. Podcasts are one of those places. And and I think this I the one thing you don't wanna do is stick your head in the sand.
Justin:I'm I'm telling you, like, there are in in the in governments around the world, there are big AI corporate influences. I mean, this is especially true in this in The States right now with what's that guy from the All In podcast? I mean, Marc Andreessen, all those guys, like, the people that are creating and funding the tools that you and I are using and talking about and trying to figure out, they're playing politics. So don't stick your head in the sand and say, nothing matters. We can't better you got it.
Justin:If you do that, if you're just gonna be naive and stick your head in the sand and say, it's I can't I can't impact any of it, then we're we're gonna get whatever they give us. And Yeah. That's to me, that's not good enough. I don't wanna live in a world where Marc Andreessen gets to decide completely what world I'm going to live in. You know?
Justin:I that Yeah. That that abdication of personal responsibility. But not just personal, but like you guys have friends. You guys have neighbors. You guys have podcasts.
Brian:It's gotten to a point here. I don't know, like and, know, we're not super social. Mhmm. But like, it has gotten to a point here in America in general, maybe everywhere, is that like nobody talks about politics. And it's such a turnoff no matter no matter what.
Brian:Like,
Justin:it's Yeah.
Brian:It it it it is like, you just don't talk about it. It's, like, rude to even say anything about your opinion on politics anywhere. Like, you might talk about, like, at home with your spouse, with your close friends, but, like, it's just not a thing that people really talk about. You know? And and, like, to me, that's part of, like, that's kinda good because it because it's gotten so toxic.
Brian:And it's also a reminder that like, I love that I have friends who vote the opposite way for me most of the time. Cause there's so much more to have in common with people. And when it does and and I do still actually follow the news and and the politics, but but the only things that I that I actually like to spend my time tuning into, and these are few and far between now, are like, TV shows and news outlets that actually bring opposing views together to try to to to either have, a a real debate or find common ground. Like, the the bubbles, the the far left and the far right where they're where you're just talking to the the people who agree with you. Like, first of all, that's just not interesting.
Brian:Like, what's even the point? Like, why? Like, literally, their whole business model is to is to get their audience angry at something. Mhmm. Like, that's just not it's it's not interesting.
Justin:Yeah. And I'm not advocating for, like, being a stressed out anxious person all the time who where the sky is always falling. I have a great life. I live enjoy live and enjoy my life. And at the same time, I'm also a little paranoid.
Justin:Just a little. Just enough to care. And that's all I'm advocating for. I'm not saying, like, don't just stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. And on the other hand, don't run around like the world's falling all the time.
Justin:There is Yeah. A middle that is reasonable. And I'm worried that people are going either to one side or the other. And there is just a rational middle where you can be like, you know what? I agree.
Justin:We gotta play the game on the field, and I'm gonna care about this enough to vote and talk to my representative. Like, those are both fine. You can still have a good life doing both of those at the same time.
Brian:For sure.
Justin:Alright. Well, that was an hour and a half just talking about this one article.
Brian:Man, I get it's it's like he this is why something like that just blows up. It it, like, just sucks.
Justin:77
Brian:So much.
Justin:Million people. I I mean, I think this is the other thing about this moment. If people don't wanna talk about there's a lot of people who wanna talk about AI. A lot of normies wanna talk about it. And I think yeah.
Justin:I think we
Brian:always Normies in my life don't. Like Really? Yeah. That's that's silly. That's boring.
Justin:Like in the barbershop, when I go when I go to the barbershop and I listen to the conversation, people are are interested in it. They're just like, what's going on with this thing? No.
Brian:When I when I talk to my friends and family, it's like, oh, there goes Brian again talking about AI. Let let him go.
Justin:Oh, man. Well, I think we should end it there. Thanks, everyone, who joined us in the chat. I we this so as much as some people are like, man, they didn't shut up about this. More chat discussion in this episode than ever before.
Justin:So if we're Yeah.
Brian:I feel like there was, like, a whole discussion that didn't really involve us. They're just doing their
Justin:own thing. Listen. They got their own hive mind, man. They're they're they're this is like the clodbots to talking. They're they've got their own thing going.
Justin:But, yeah, thanks everyone for joining us. And are you back? Are you here next week? Am I here next week?
Brian:Yeah. I'm I'm here in February. I'm I'm just going away in March.
Justin:Yeah. Next week, I think it'll be the last week before I go on my founder retreat. So we'll see you all then. Thanks for listening, everyone.
Brian:Later, folks.