I grew up on the eastern end of Long Island in the Hamptons where you have two groups. Actually, there are more than two groups, but for simplicity's sake, you have the city people who are rich Manhattanites typically who come out to summer in the Hamptons. Then you have the townies. the townies uh range but typically include people involved in service industries so uh let's just say landscapers waitresses waiters uh real estate brokers although they're getting pushed out by people like sotheby's are based in Manhattan. And there's a lot of alcoholism, not very good education. It's a pretty dismal picture. So I found it very difficult for myself to transition from having more in common with the townies to having more in common with the city people. It's been like a real existential issue. So you don't have things in common with the city people anymore no no no i i had i as i went through say high school and then uh left long island i initially was 100 townie and then i started to move where i'm like okay 90 townie 10 city person as i went to undergrad and then like 70 townie 30 city person. Where do you think you are now? You know, I can empathize with the city people now. And I feel like I'm straddling both, right? So I go back and it's like I have some of my closest friends who have died in the last two years of drug overdoses. That's crazy. And I feel like I'm kind of trapped in between these. Not trapped, that's the dramatic word. But I'm straddling these two worlds where I grew up hating people who came in from Manhattan. I mean, they were just like so rude and entitled and annoying and irritating. Part of it was that I was working as a bus boy. So I saw the worst that humanity had to offer. And now it's difficult for me sometimes to identify and let's say, have a conversation about shared interests with some of the friends I grew up with. It's not because I'm better by stretch of the imagination we're just in such different tracks I still feel

more at home with my younger friends old then I will I feel like if you shot a water in the Bay Area well okay so I would caveat what I just said with the fact

that I left Long Island to go to actually petition my parents to do this to go to a boarding school in New Hampshire. And that's where I forged my closest friendships that I still have to this day. So I am absolutely closest to those people. When I went to college, didn't have a lot of close bonding experience because I already had the away from home uh scenario but it's uh i don't feel like a fish out of water in the bay area but it's it's it's proven harder to develop really close friendships i think the further you get along in a certain professional track uh not always i mean i do have close friends in the bay area uh but, um, not to, not to meander too far, but it's just, it's, it's something that I've seen. Some people have a lot of challenges with and other people don't have any with. Yeah.

I think that for me, um, you know, I grew up in a pretty lower middle income family. Um, and, uh, I, I feel that, um, that's always felt at home and I have a bunch of really crappy nineties tattoos. And so what's your worst tattoo? Can you explain to someone like freaking flames on my leg? Like I've got really bad, bad tattoos. They're in the process of getting removed, but I will pay you a $10,000 if I can put a

tramp stamp on your lower back. I'll give you 20 and we'll do the same thing. You'll give me 20 if I put a tramp stamp on your lower back. So no, here's the deal though.

Like I feel like, um, I, I just like, I feel at most home with, with like people that understand that because

I go to the gym, I go to this

like really like, like meat, meat heady gym, you know? That's perfect. And, and like, yeah, dude, I'm surrounded by dudes with really crappy 90s tattoos they're like oh i feel at home here they have like tasmanian devil tattoos on their arms oh what's up bro hell yeah like it's the best alice

and shans what's up yeah uh what did you want to be when you were growing up i've been

i always knew i wanted to be in computers ever since i was probably 10 or 12 years old like nothing else i knew i knew the second i got a computer that i was hooked i moved the computer into my bedroom, and my parents thought it was weird. And I was like, I need to have this machine as close as possible so I can hear the fan at night. It makes me sleep. I'm serious. I loved it, dude. Everything about it, I'd leave it on all the time. I'd get on it. I learned every single DOS command. You can ask me how to do anything in DOS right now. I can tell you how to do it. I loved it.

I wish I could. I definitely have non-engineers in security when it comes to, or non-coders in security when it relates to tech and startups. I really should learn how to code at least in one language. Not everyone, but a handful of friends have been telling me I should go after Python first, which I'm inclined to do. I get to it eventually. Natural language is first. Programming language is second, I guess. Outside of computers, if you could study with any expert in the world, who would you study with and what would you study?

I would probably pick some type of meditation guru. Hmm. And, uh, and I know this is totally doable, but like, I think that like the, the issue that I have now, um, is that I feel that all of this computer, like the computers and the constant like stimulus and and and all this like you know i don't know about you but like there's no such thing as it's extremely blurred the personal time versus work time and so like you know i'll be at dinner and like you know it's not this bad because daria makes me shut down the laptop at dinner but like you know what i mean it's like it bleeds into everything that you do and so because of that i feel like my brain is being slowly scrambled like i feel like your brain is always on edge it's being fragmented and i feel that like we're gonna realize in short order here in the next 10 20 years that like all this distraction and stuff is really messing with our brains. And I feel like I need to find that balance and I haven't done that yet. So I think if I, if I could study with anyone, it would probably be like a two or three month, like just straight up retreat with like some like awesome Buddhist monk somewhere that would teach me, uh, you know, walking meditation or whatever it may be, some way to gain my soul back. Kevin has lost his soul. That would be the title of this podcast. Kevin Rose loses his soul. As long as it's like Tim Tim Talk Talk, Kevin Rose loses his soul. No, but seriously though, I feel like it's so hard, man. It's easy to feel lost i mean i've

we've i i don't think i've talked about this all too publicly but um it's been uh i feel like i'm an aa or something's wording it this way but it's been it'll be 11 weeks as of this sunday that i've meditated twice a day every day for that period of time which, it would have been incomprehensible to me that I would actually meditate that consistently. You're

not counting masturbation as meditation, though, because that... No, no. Because if you are, then that wouldn't count. Then you're like four a day. You're like once a week, man? I've

never masturbated. I have no idea what you're implying.

It's a late night show, people.

It's a late night show. Sorry all you seven-year listening, but in three years you'll learn. I'm not counting masturbation. Is this a

late night show though, seriously? Because

we talk about more vulgar stuff? Yeah. What do you want to bring out there? I don't have anything else

I want to talk about. You want to talk about penises? What's going on? No, I don't. There's nothing else. I was just worried. You always talk about penises. Just might as well admit it to everybody. You know what I heard? Yes.

Say what you want. Say

what you didn't want to say. No, I mean, it's nothing that's, that's interesting. That's fine. Sounded, it sounded defensive, which you should bring up. My buddy that, that, uh, that, that owns this wine bar, we were just like talking about it. He got square, you know, that credit card system. I'm to the users out there okay so square is basically like this little tiny dongle that you can plug into your ipad or iphone and you can swipe your card and dongle is

a little square that you plug in sounds very pornographic you

swipe your card and that's how you pay for things everyone's kind of seeing this now so basically he was telling me that 30% of his signatures, like, you know how you have to sign the iPad with your finger? Like you sign the name? 30% are penises.

He said. That is awesome. I'm going to start doing that. Because then if the credit card company is like, is this your signature? I'm like, what the fuck do you think? It's a penis. And of course it's not my signature. He's like, I see more scribbled

penises than, like, you even believe. He's like, people are drunk and they just sign a penis i

thought that was pretty awesome why have i never done that i don't know i'm

embarrassed to admit that i've never signed a penis before uh so if you go there yeah and you see chris and you get that discount sign with a penis sign

with a penis uh so speaking of balance technology and so on as so i don't count masturbation, just to come back to that. 20 minutes a day, twice a day, transcendental meditation, blah, blah, blah. I'll talk about it more another time. I want to focus on you, Kevin Rose. Technology. It does cause a lot of blurring. So you get this work-life blending instead of balance. What is one technology you think you could live without? Or two. Television.

Absolutely. Okay. Except for football. Okay.

And now what if we can't, now let's just say, because there are a lot of self-righteous San Francisco techies, and I'm sure they're elsewhere who are like, Oh, I never watched television. I don't even have a television. And then I watch five hours of fucking youtube every day right and that's just ridiculous yeah you can't say you don't watch tv no no that's fine but if you're watching for looking like jaguars attacking crocodiles and like kitten videos and parkour for four hours on the internet like it's the same thing yeah i

mean if it time wise yeah i mean they talk about how much like the average american household watches tv and like don't get me wrong i do enjoy a great movie i enjoy a mini series like like you know about star galactica or something like that but only once it's been a few seasons then and people are like oh you got to see this yeah but like rather than that i would rather spend time working on businesses or building my own stuff i think that's like one of the key you were talking earlier about like traits that entrepreneurs like successful entrepreneurs have and like no all the great entrepreneurs i know like they they work their projects bleed into their personal life and it's it's sad but it's true and they they they're focused on that and so like you know when i was building several some of the companies i built in the past like it has always been about cutting out that type of stuff, like figuring out where you can prune and cut and create more space so that you can actually have the time to put in the 10, 12 hour days. And it doesn't feel like it, especially when it's something you're really passionate about. It doesn't feel like you're putting in that much time, but like it's, you can't expect to be a successful entrepreneur just working at nine to five like it just doesn't work that way and

you don't just to address a common i think misconception with the whole four hour shit that uh that is it everyone's

gonna i know i said that they're like oh you're gonna try i know tim ferris the fuck so let me

address that the for people who haven't read it uh the four hourhour workweek is about optimizing per hour output. That's it. End of story. So you maximize your per hour output, increase it 5 to 10x. Then if you're, let's say, a VC or an investment bank or whatever, you still work the same number of hours, but you have improved volume of output. Same for startup people. The objective is to use your time wisely and allocate it to the things that you're passionate about. And in that case, for you, it would be, let's say, some of your startups that you've worked on. For me, where I feel like I am an Archimedes lever or can utilize Archimedes lever to really have the broadest impact is, say, with the book. So I'll spend three years on a book that's a serious investment of time but uh the the objective is not to be idle so just to emphasize that uh and i think that once you you should be looking for something that consumes you in a way and i know that might sound negative to some people but it's like if you're not a hell yes about what you're doing then why are you doing it? Uh, or should you be looking for something else? Yeah. Uh, I think that's a good point. So television. All right. Fair enough. Speaking. All right. Let's, let's drop TV. You mentioned documentary, any favorite documentaries?

Um, yeah, I mean, there's a gosh, I'd have to go back and look at the stuff that, uh, I've watched like, um, what is it? Uh, like, uh, food ink, food inks, food inks, good one. That's a great one. I really enjoyed that one to kind of like shed some light on like the industrial food process and how nasty and horrible it is. Um, that's definitely top of my list. Um, I don't have any that jump out as being super exciting that man on wire is worth watching that's fine have you seen who killed the electric car no is that any good i i heard that was pretty good graham's giving the thumbs up our partner this

three-person podcast who

killed the electric car what's it about uh well just the the how the electric car died the first time around when they try to get off the ground yeah the yeah

the gmeb one interesting who was it that came out with the nova at one part at at one point uh thank you wine for that english fuck up uh and the nova went the nova and then they tried to sell it in Spanish-speaking countries, and it was the Nova. It doesn't go. And so they couldn't sell the car. That's funny. Oops. Okay. If you could stop the clock and live forever at

a particular age, what age would you choose? Man, that's a good one. Probably. I mean, that's a good question because obviously you don't know how things are going to feel in the future, but I would say as far as like my, my general, I'm sure your joints

and muscles will improve.

Spunk. Your spunkiness and, and just ability to recover from. You're doing a shitty job on your wine. Dude. I told you I had a glass glasses before I got here. I'm not trying to be an enabler. I'm just saying you're doing a shitty job on your wine. If you're trying to promote alcoholism on your shit first podcast, it's a little hardcore. I'm waiting for the alcohol brands

to sponsor me for my third episode. Yeah, so what was the question again? You want to know? Any age. Where would you be? Oh, 24. 24, okay. Yeah, that sounds about right. I

think the 24, I mean, your mid-20s are kind of like your prime, right? Yeah. Physically. What are some of your pet peeves? What

are things that drive you insane?

Pet peeves, one of the things that drives me insane is that I feel as though in our industry, there are a lot of people that are tech, tech, um, that aren't really direct. It drives, it drives me nuts when people beat around the bush and really you just need to say the truth because like, even though it's painful and it stings now, at least people know where you stand. Yeah. And I feel everybody, it saves everyone a ton of time and i feel that that's like what would be an example of that what circumstance it just feels that you know i i see this all the time and even my world in the venture capital world like a lot of people will say i i recently changed the way that i say no to people now this is a great. I would say that the majority of the time, like venture capitalists, when you go out and you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to raise some money and you meet with someone at a VC firm and they sit down and they say, oh, show me your idea. And then you go through it. And then typically you get an email 24 to 48 hours later saying, this is how we want to proceed or not proceed. And oftentimes the email not proceeding is like you know i talked with our partnership and i don't think it's a good fit at this time or you know um i i'm so busy with my current investments that i i don't think i have time to take on anything new but thank you for your time and like it

let's talk let's talk in six months or whatever it's such

BS,

man. The soft maybe slash no.

And it's just like, I was like, it's funny. I just, the other day I was sitting there and I was writing a no, like saying no to someone email, which for me in the past has typically been like, you know, thought about it. Really don't think it's something that we want to invest in. Thanks, but i'd love to talk to you in the future blah blah blah right the typical one that you read everywhere else right and then you know i just started thinking like gosh there's gotta be i'm gonna try and be very direct with the entrepreneur and just like see what the response is like because i feel like that's just like i might come off as a dick and that's that's the? The concern is that you just come off like you're just being a dick and they should talk to you out other places. But you know what? But I think that like, at least people will be like, you know what? We know where he stands. And so I tried it for the first time last week, actually. The entrepreneur wrote back and he was like, dude, thanks for being honest. I

appreciate it. What was your wording? I'm curious. Cause this is something I think a lot of people battle with how

to say no. So I liked the idea. I thought that the space was generally really boring. I didn't know how big a business it would become. I thought that they had decent traction. They were clearly going to get their next round of funding because of that traction. But it wasn't something where I was going to be over the top excited about to answer their emails and get pumped up Right. And so I wrote the guy an email and I was like, listen, I don't think I'm the right partner for you. I think the idea is sound, but I am not excited about this space at all. It doesn't get me excited. And I just don't think like when you need someone to reach out to and to help you out, like I'm going to be the one that's going to jump back and be the right partner, you know, more or less. And he wrote back and he's like, dude, thanks for the direct feedback or honest feedback. And, you know, look forward to see you next time you're in town because he's out of town. And it was like, it was the first time where I was like, wow, I actually like, it's also a good founder, you

know, and I can take it. I've

done that before and working with some engineers. And I feel like it always – I kind of like I want to start living by that because I think it's the right

thing to do.