Welcome to Cloudlandia Ep156: Convenience Versus Tradition
In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan and I talk about how much AI is reshaping everyday life. I share how new tools like Google’s Flow V3 are making it easier than ever to create video content, while Dan explores how AI could tackle complexity—like managing city traffic or enhancing productivity—when it's applied intentionally.
We also look at how people are adapting to the massive increase in content creation. I ran some numbers: Americans spend around 450 minutes per day on screens, but YouTube alone sees 500 hours of content uploaded every minute. So while AI makes it easier to create, attention remains limited—and we’re all competing for it.
Another theme is “agency.” We discuss how autonomous vehicles, digital payments, and convenience tools reduce friction, but can also make people feel like they’re giving up control. Dan points out that even if the technology works, not everyone wants to let go of driving, or of how they interact with money.
Lastly, we reflect on what it really means for tools to be “democratized.” I talk about Hailey Bieber’s billion-dollar skincare brand and the importance of vision, capability, and reach. The tools might be available to everyone, but outcomes still depend on how you use them. We end with thoughts on tangibility and meaning in a world that’s becoming more digital by the day.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Links:
WelcomeToCloudlandia.com
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
ListingAgentLifestyle.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Dean: Mr Sullivan.
Dan: How are things in Florida Hot?
Dean: Hot, it's hot.
Dan: It's hot.
Dean: They're heated up.
Dan: It's normal.
Dean: Yeah, no, this is like it's unusual. It went from perfect to summer, All just overnight. I'm looking forward to coming to. I'm looking forward to coming to Toronto, to coming to. I'm looking forward to coming to Toronto Two weeks right, Two weeks here.
Dan: Friday. I'm actually uh, You're going to spend a week.
Dean: Yeah, I'm in.
Dan: Chicago. I'm in Chicago next week.
Dean: Yeah, I'm in. So I'm. Yeah, I'm coming for three weeks.
Dan: You're holding court. You're holding court.
Dean: I'm holding court every which way I arrive on Friday, the 6th, and I leave on the 29th, so there. So you are going to be in Chicago next Saturday.
Dan: Next Saturday you're in Chicago, yeah, until the Friday and then back home and we'll have our. Whether it's table 9 or not, it's going to be table 9. Let's just call it table 1, because it'll be at restaurant one.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Dan: It'll probably be nice to maybe even sit outside, which is a very good restaurant. Yes, on the patio. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, canada is going through profound changes.
Dean: That's what I hear, so prepare me. I'm already prepared that I will be ordering Canadians with breakfast instead of Americanos.
Dan: They've already conditioned me for that. I've been here 54 years in Toronto 54 years and over 54 years I've never gotten a good answer about what a Canadian is.
Dean: Okay.
Dan: Okay, except that we're not Americans. We're not Americans. And to prove it, and to prove it, they brought the King of England over to tell them Okay, ah that's funny.
Dean: I didn't see anything about that. Is that just that yeah?
Dan: we came over. They have a thing called the throne speech. When parliament resumes after an election, it's called the throne speech.
Dean: Okay, just a reminder.
Dan: Yeah, and so just to tell you that we're an independent, completely independent country, we got the King of England to come over and talk to his subjects.
Dean: And.
Dan: I guess that's what caused the division in the first place, wasn't it?
Dean: was the King of.
Dan: England. So nothing's changed in 236 years. It's all been. You know the royalty. They brought the royalty over to put some muscle into the Canadian identity, anyway. But there is a profound change and I don't know if you knew this, but there's tremendous trade barriers between the provinces in Canada.
Dean: Yeah, it's funny how Canada has really always sort of been more divisive kind of thing, with the West and the Maritimes and Quebec and Ontario.
Dan: But they have trade barriers. Like they're separate countries, they have trade barriers and Trump's pressure putting tariff on has caused all the provinces to start talking to each other. Maybe we ought to get rid of all the trade barriers between the provinces it's just that pressure from the south that is causing them to do that, and they would never do this voluntarily. Yeah, but it's putting such pressure on the canadian economy, in the economy of the individual provinces, that they're now having to sit down and actually maybe we shouldn't have barriers between you know and the.
US has never had this. You know the US straight from the beginning was a trade free country. You know the states don't have trade barriers.
Dean: Right right.
Dan: I mean they have laws that have not been entirely in sync with each other, for example, alcohol, you know, Some of the states were dry, and so it wasn't that we won't allow you to compete with our alcohol. We don't have any alcohol and we won't allow you to bring your alcohol in Fireworks. You couldn't have fireworks. Some states you could have Citizens could buy fireworks. I remember Ohio. You could never buy fireworks but you had to go to Michigan to buy them.
Dean: Is cannabis now nationally legal in Canada?
Dan: What's that fireworks?
Dean: No cannabis.
Dan: Fireworks, no, just the opposite. Cannabis, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's national, and that's another thing. The US, generally, when there's a contentious subject, they don't. Well, they did do it. They did it with Roe versus Wade, and then, of course, roe versus Wade got reversed. The way that American tradition is one state does it, then another state does it, and that gets to a point where it's like 50% of the states are doing, and then it elevates itself to a national level where the Congress and the Supreme Court they start, you know.
Dean: Florida. Florida just rejected it again. Every time it's on the ballot it gets rejected in Florida.
Dan: What's that?
Dean: Cannabis. Oh yeah, it's a state issue. Yeah.
Dan: Yeah, and I don't think it's ever going to be national, because there's enough bad news about cannabis that probably they won't go for it. I mean the impact.
Dean: Well, think about all the people that they would have to release from prison that are in prison right now for cannabis violations. You know it's interesting. That's one of the things that has been the discussion here.
Dan: You know is you can't legalize it, and then all of a sudden yeah. They'd have to get a whole new workforce for the license plates Right.
Dean: Well, the robot.
Dan: Yeah, robots.
Dean: Well, the robots, the robots.
Dan: The robots can smoke the cannabis, yeah, yeah, but it's. I don't see it ever being national in the US, because there's as much argument there is for it, there's as much argument that there is against it. And you know, especially with young people, especially with you know it's a gateway drug. They know that if someone in their teens starts smoking cannabis, they'll go on to higher-grade drugs.
Dean: That's interesting.
Dan: That's pretty well established Actually smoking is the first. Tobacco, first then cannabis. The big issue down here now is vaping.
Dean: Vaping.
Dan: I've never quite understood. What is it exactly? I see that we have some stories here yeah, what is vaping?
Dean: what is vaping? It's just like a chemical you know way of getting nicotine, you know and it's pure chemicals that people are sucking into their lungs. It's crazy no smoke no smoke. It's because in most cases you know you can vape in places that would be otherwise smoke free. This is just vapor, you know, so it's not intrusive, you know?
Dan: what's funny is, I haven't tell you how up to tells you how up to date I am right I'm getting my news about vaping from dean jackson. Yeah, that tells you how up to date I am right. Oh yeah, I'm getting my news about vaping from.
Dean: Dean Jackson. Yeah, exactly.
Dan: That tells you how out of touch I am.
Dean: That's right, I stay in touch with what the kids are doing. Dan, I'll tell you. I keep you up to date.
Dan: That's so funny. Kids, yeah, how much less than 80 does childhood start?
Dean: I don't know I'm hanging in there. I just turned 40, 19. So let's see Keep that. We'll keep it going, keep it alive.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: So it's been an interesting week.
Now we're coming up on like 10 days of the new VO3, the Google Flow video processing that we talked about last week, and it's just getting.
You know, there's more and more like everybody's tripping over themselves to show all the capability that it has. You know, I had an interesting conversation with Eben Pagan I was talking about because this new capability I mean certainly it's at the stage now what Peter Diamandis would say that you know, the execution of video has really been democratized. Now the cost is nearing zero in terms of, you know, the ability to just use prompts to create realistic things, and every time I show these videos they just keep getting better and better in terms of the news desk and the man on the street type of things and all the dramatic, the dramatizations there's really like it's gonna be very difficult. It's already difficult. It's going to be impossible to tell the difference between real and virtual, but my thought is that this is going to lead to more and more content being created, and I did the latest numbers For the same amount of attention that is exactly it, dan.
I looked at the thing, so I looked it up. Well, certainly, our attention capacity has remained and will remain constant at. If we had 100 of somebody's available attention, we would have a maximum of a thousand minutes of their attention available every day, but on average, americans spend 400 to 450 minutes a day consuming content on a screen. So that's what the real availability is. And I asked Charlotte about the current rate of uploading to YouTube, and right now there are 500 hours per minute loaded to YouTube every single minute of the day.
500 hours per minute, it's getting crowded minute getting, it's getting crowded and that is piled on top of over 1 billion available hours of content that's currently on youtube, because you can access any of it, right and so just?
Dan: that you can't even.
Dean: You can't even sit down no, and I thought know, the thing is that the content that's being created for that it's novelty right now. That's driving and everybody's watching it going holy cow. Can you believe this? Oh man, we're never going to be able to tell. That's the conversation. It's like a peak level interest in it right now and it's pretty amazing. But I just finished the second season of Severance on Netflix which is a great show.
And I read that the budget for that show is $20 million per episode. So they spend $200 million creating that content, that season, for you to watch, and so you're competing for that 450 minutes of available attention with the greatest minds in Hollywood, you know, in the world, you know creating this mega it's not Hollywood.
Dan: It's not Hollywood, no Right, I mean Actually a lot of. I bet. If you put Hollywood against London, England, London would win in terms of yeah, you're probably right. Interesting content, I bet. Yeah, I bet the skills of British people just in the geographic area of London outcompetes Hollywood.
Dean: Yeah, but it's really kind of interesting to me that I don't know to what end this creation Well, there is no end.
Dan: Yeah, surprise, there's no end. You thought you were getting close to the end.
Dean: Nope, nope.
Dan: No, I was thinking about that because I was preparing myself for my weekly call with Dean. And I said you really bright technology guy. And he said that it's called the bottomless. Well, and he said actually. He said do you know what most of the energy in the world is used for? This is a really interesting question. It caught me by surprise. That's why I'm asking you the question.
Dean: I don't know.
Dan: Most of the energy in the world is used to refine even higher intensity energy. Oh everything that's where most of the energy in the world is used is to actually take energy from a raw stage and put it into power. He says it's not energy we're getting. You know, when we switch on light, it's power we're getting. He says power is the game not energy.
Dean: Energy is just a raw material.
Dan: It's the constant human ingenuity of taking raw energy and making it into eventually like a laser, which is one of the most intense, dense, focused forms of energy. Is a laser?
I noticed the Israelis three days ago for the first time shot down a rocket coming from not a rocket, a drone that was coming in from I don't know, the Houd know, one of those raggedy bunches over there, and they were comparing the cost that, basically that if they send a rocket to knock down a rocket it's about $50,000 minimum a shot. You know if they shoot one of the rockets, it's $50,000. But the laser is $10, basically $10.
Dean: Oh, my goodness Wow yeah.
Dan: And you know it just prices you know, and everything else, but what they don't take into account is just the incredible amount of money it takes to create the laser. Yeah right, right, right you know, and he said that the way progress is made in the world, he says, is basically by wasting enormous amounts of energy, what you would consider waste. And he says, the more energy we waste, the more power we get. And it's an interesting set of thoughts that he can he said?
by far. The united states waste the most energy in the world, far beyond anyone else. We just waste enormous energy. But we also have an economy that's powered by the highest forms of energy. So he says that's the game, and he says the whole notion of conserving energy. He says why would you conserve energy? You want to waste energy. He says the more energy you waste, the more you find new ways to focus energy.
Anyway maybe AI is actually a form of energy. It's not actually. You know, I mean everybody's just from this latest breakthrough that you spoke about last week and you're speaking about this week. Maybe it isn't what anyone is doing with this new thing. It's just that a new capability has been created, and whether anybody gets any value out of it doesn't really matter. It's a brand new thing. So there's probably some people who are really going to utilize this and are going to make a bundle of money, but I bet 99% of the humans are using that, are doing that for their own you know, their own entertainment. It's going to have actually a economic impact. It's not going to.
Dean: That's my point.
Dan: That's what I was saying about the thing about the what I was saying about the thing about the, what it's another way of. It's another way of keeping, another way of keeping humans from being a danger to their fellow human beings you know, he's been down the basement now for a week. He hasn't come back up, there's a harmless human. Yeah, yeah.
I was you know, but if you think about AI as not a form of communication. It's a form of energy. It's a form of power yeah, and everybody's competing for the latest use of it.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: But like for example, I've never gone beyond perplexity, I've never Right, right. You know, like people say oh, you should use Grok and I said, no, no, I'm getting a lot of value, but I'm creating these really great articles. I have a discussion group. Every quarter we have about a dozen coach clients that get together and for 23 years we've been sending in articles and now this last issue, which just went out I think it goes out tomorrow you know, it's got about 40 articles in it and former mine and their perplexity searches to you and yeah, and.
I'm just looking for the reaction because you know I had a prompt and then the I put it into perplexity and I got back. I always use ten things. You know ten things is my prompt. Ten things about why Americans really like gas-powered, gas-powered cars and why they always will. That's, that was my prompt and it came back. You know 10 really great things. And then I took each of the answers and it's a numbered, sort of a numbered paragraph and I said now break this out into three subheads that get further supporting evidence to it automatically. So I got 30 and you know, and I do some style changes, you know to yeah, make the language part.
Thing you know it's about six pages. It's about six pages when you put it into word wow, I put it into work. I put it into word and then do a pdf you know, pdf and I send it out. But they're really interesting articles. You know I said but if you look at the sources, there are probably one of the articles has 30 different sources. You know that it's found. You know, when you ask the question, it goes out and finds 30 different articles.
Dean: Pulls an idea about it.
Dan: So I'm just checking this out to see if people find this kind of article better than just one person has an opinion and they're writing an article.
Dean: Here.
Dan: I just asked a question and I got back a ton of information. You know I said so, but that's where I am with perplexity. After using it for a year you know I'm using it for a year I've got to the point where I can write a really good article that other people find interesting.
Dean: Oh, I would love to see that.
Dan: I mean that's I'll interesting. Oh yeah, I would love to see that. I mean that's. Yeah, I'll send them out this afternoon. I'll send them out to you.
Dean: Okay.
Dan: They're interesting.
Dean: Yeah, huh. Well, that's and I think that's certainly a great thing Like I assist, but it's like a single use, Like I'm interested in a single use.
Dan: And I get better at it, it gets better and I get better, you know. And yeah, so that, and my sense is that what AI is a year from now is what you were a year ago.
Dean: I'm saying more about that.
Dan: Well, whatever you were good at last year, at this time you're probably a lot better at it next year because you have the use of ai oh exactly I'm amazed.
Dean: You know like I. I'm like your charlotte experiment.
Dan: You're a lot better with charlotte now than when you first started with charlotte.
Dean: Yeah, and she's a lot better a lot better, charlotte's a lot better. Yeah, I had a conversation with her yesterday because I got another entry for the VCR files where Justin Bieber's wife, hailey Bieber, just sold her skincare line for a billion dollars and she started it in 2023.
So from yeah, from nothing, she built up this skincare line, started with a vision I want to do a skincare line partnered with a capability, and her 55 million Instagram followers were the reach to launch this into the stratosphere. I just think that's so. I think that's pretty amazing. You know that it took Elizabeth Arden, who was a she may be Canadian actually cosmetic, almost 40 years to get to a billion dollars in Different dollars, different dollars in value than you know. Here comes Hailey Bieber in two and a half years. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy.
Yeah, this is but that's the power of reach as a multiplier. I mean it's really you got access to. You know, instant access, zero friction for things to spread now. Yeah.
Dan: Yeah, I mean the big thing that you know. I want to go back to your comment about democratization. It's only democratic in the sense that it doesn't cost very much.
Dean: That's what I mean. Yeah, it's available to everybody.
Dan: But that isn't to me. That's not the question is do you have any capability whatsoever? It's not that. The question is do you have any capability whatsoever? I mean, you know that tells me that if the person who waits next to the liquor store to open every he got enough money from panhandling the day before to get liquor, he can now use the new Google thing that's open to him. I mean, if he gets a computer or he's got a buddy who's got a computer, he can do it. But he has absolutely no capability, he has absolutely no vision, he has absolutely no reach to do it. So I think it's the combination of VCR that's not democratized. Actually it's less democratized.
It's less democratized. It's either the same barriers to democratization as it was before or it's still really expensive. It's not the vision, not the capability, it's not the reach, it's the combination of the three, and my sense is very few people can pull that like this. Yeah well, while she was doing it, 99,000 other people weren't doing that.
Dean: That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah.
Dan: That's really that distinction. My sense is, the VTR is not democratized whatsoever.
Dean: I really am seeing that distinction between capability and ability. Yeah, seeing that distinction between capability and ability.
Dan: That's every the capabilities are what are being democratized, but not the ability.
Dean: Ability, yeah, ability is always more than pianists yeah, and that's the thing ability, will, is and will remain a meritocracy thing that you can earn, you can earn, and concentrated effort in developing your abilities, focusing on your unique abilities that's really what the magic is.
Dan: Yeah yeah, yeah, as'm going like. My sense is that you know where we're probably going to be seeing tremendous gains over, let's say, the next 10 years. Is that a lot of complexity? Issues are, for example, the traffic system in Toronto is just bizarre. The traffic system in New York City and Manhattan makes a lot of sense, and I'll give you an example. There's probably not a road or a street in Toronto where you can go more than three intersections without having to stop.
Dean: Ok, but in.
Dan: New York City on Sixth Avenue, because I know Sixth Avenue, which goes north, I've been in a cab that went 60 blocks without stopping for a red light.
Wow, Because they have the lights coordinated and if you go at a certain speed you are you'll never hit a red light. Ok, yeah, so why can't Toronto do that? I mean, why can't Toronto do that? Because they're not smart enough. They're not smart enough. Whoever does the traffic system in Toronto isn't smart enough. My sense is that probably if you had AI at every intersection in the city and they were talking to each other, you would have a constant variation of when the lights go red and green and traffic would probably be instantly 30 or 40 percent better. How interesting. And that's where I see you're gonna. You're gonna have big complexity issues. You know big complexity there are.
There are lots of complexity issues. I mean, you know people said well, you know, a Tesla is much, much better than a. You know the gasoline car and. I said well, not, you know, a Tesla is much, much better than you know a gasoline car. And I said well, not when you're driving in Toronto. You can't go any faster in a Tesla than you can go, than traffic goes you know it's not going any, so you know it's not. You're not getting any real. You know a real superior. It's not 10 times better superior.
Dean: It's not 10 times better. I don't know, Dan. I'll tell you. You guys activated the full self-drive?
Dan: No, because it's illegal. No, it's illegal. It's illegal in Canada.
Dean: Let me just tell you my experience. Yesterday I was meeting somebody at the Tampa Edition Hotel right downtown and there's sort of coming into Tampa. There's lots of like complexity in off ramps and juncture you know they call it malfunction junction where all of these highways kind of converge and it's kind of difficult to, even if you know what you're doing to make all of these things. Well, I pulled out of my garage yesterday and I said navigate to the Tampa edition. And then bloop, bloop, it came up. I pushed the button, the car left my driveway, went out of my neighborhood through the gate, all the turns, all the things merged onto the highway, merged off and pulled me right into the front entrance of the Tampa Edition and I did not touch the steering wheel the entire time.
Dan: I did the same thing on Friday with Wayne, exactly.
Dean: I've been saying that to people forever, Dan. I said, you know, Dan Sullivan's had full self-drive, autonomous driving since 1998. You know, yeah, yeah, boy, yeah, and you know You're always two steps ahead, but that you know.
Dan: Well, no, I totally understand the value of having to do that. Yeah, it's just that it's available. It's available in another form as well.
Dean: Yes, yeah, yeah, the outcome is available. Right, that's the thing.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I enjoy chatting with him. You know like.
Dean: I enjoy chatting.
Dan: He's you know he. You know he. He's got lots of questions about. You know current affairs. He's got. He's got things to you know what's going about in London? It's the cab drivers. I would never take a limousine in London because cab drivers have their own app now. The black cab drivers have their own app and plus they have the knowledge of the city and everything. But if you're getting close to an election, if you just take about 10 cab drives and you talk to them, what's it looking like? They're pretty accurate. They're pretty accurate.
Because they're listening constantly to what people are talking about when they're in the taxi cabs and they can get adrift. They get a feel about it. Yeah, I mean, I like being around people. So being alone with myself in a car, it doesn't, you know, it's not really part of my, it's not really part of my style anyway, but it makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. Probably the world is safer if certain people aren't driving oh, I think that's going to be true.
Dean: You know as it's funny. You know now that. So elon is about to launch their robo taxi in Austin, texas this month, and you know now whenever a. Tesla Google right Google. Yeah, I think it is, you're right.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: So yeah, whenever a Tesla on autopilot, you know, has an accident or it steers into something or it has a malfunction of some way or some outlier event kind of happens, it's national news. You know, it's always that thing and you know you said that about the safety. I kind of do believe that it's going to get to a point where the robots are safer than humans driving the car and but the path to get there is going to have to not like as soon as if there ever was a fatality in a robo taxi will be a. That'll be big news. Yeah, well, there was one in phoenix with waymo there was a fatality.
Dan: I didn't know that yeah, I was actually a pedestrian. She was crossing the street and it was very shaded and the Waymo didn't pick up on the change of light and didn't see her. She was killed. She was killed, yeah well you know, it's like flying cars. You know, the capability of a flying car has been with us since 1947. There's been cars that actually work, but you know, usually you know, I mean we all are in cars far more of our life than we're in the air, but your notion of an accident being an accident.
I've only been in one in my life. It was a rear end when I was maybe about 10 years old, and that was the only time that I've ever been in an accident. And you know, and it happened real fast is one of the things that's the thing is how fast it happens.
And spun our car around and you know we ended up in a ditch and nobody was hurt and you know that was my only one. So my assessment of the odds of being in an accident are gauged on that. I've been in hundreds of thousands of car rides that seems like that and I had one thing. So my chances of you know, and it was okay, it was okay. If you have an accident at a thousand feet above the earth, it's not okay, it's not okay, and that's the problem, it's not okay, it's not okay, yeah, this is, and that's the problem.
That's the problem. That's the real problem. It's an emotional thing that you know it's death If you have an accident you know, it's death. Yeah, and I think that makes the difference just emotionally and psychologically, that this it might be a weird thing one out of a thousand, one out of a thousand, one out of a million you know, chance that I could get killed. When it's a hundred percent, it has a different impact.
Yeah, well, I was thinking that when, or the power goes out, the power goes out. Yeah, I mean, I've flown in that jet. You know there's that jet that has the parachute. Do you know the? Jet yes, yeah, and I've flown in the jets I've flown in the cirrus, I think yeah anyway, it's a very nice jet and it's very quiet and it's you know, it's very speedy and everything else. But if something happens to the pilot, you as a passenger can hit a button and air traffic control takes over, or you can pull a lever and it pulls out the cargo chute.
Everything like that, and I think that they're heading in the right direction with that.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: I think it's called VeriJet is the name of it, but they're very nice and they're very roomy. They're very roomy. I flew from Boston to New York and I flew from San Francisco to San Diego.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: I've been in it twice. They're very nice.
Dean: Yeah, Nice jets. Maybe you that'd be nice to go from Toronto to Chicago.
Dan: Well, they have them now, but it only makes sense if you have four people and they don't have much cargoes. They don't have much space. You're treating it like a taxi really.
Dean: Yes, yeah, true, I was going to say about the self-driving, like the autonomous robo taxis or cars that are out driving around, that if it starts getting at large scale, I think it's only going to be fair to show a comparison tally of if somebody dies because of a robo taxi or a self-driving car that the day or week or year to date tally of.
You know one person died in a autonomous car accident this week and you know however many 3,000, 2,000 people died in human-driven cars this week. I think, to put that in context, is going to have to be a valuable thing, you know.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean. The other thing that a lot of people you know and it's a completely separate issue is that you're being asked to give up agency. Yes that's the thing.
Dean: You hit it on the head.
Dan: And I think that's the bigger issue. I think you know a lot of people. You know I'm not one of them, so I have to take it from other people saying they love driving and they love being in control of the car. They love being in control and you're being asked because if you are in an accident, then there's a liability issue. Is it you, is it the car, is it the car maker? Is it you know what? Who's? It's a very complicated liability issue that happens, you know happens, you know, and it's really.
Dean: You know. What's funny, dan, is if you and I were having this conversation 122 years ago, we'd be talking about well, you know, I really like the horse being in control of the horses here, these horseless carriages, I don't know that's. You know who needs to go 30 miles per hour? That's that. That sounds dangerous, you know. But I love that picture that Peter used to show at the Abundance 360. That showed that Manhattan intersection in 1908. And then in 1913, you know, in that five year period from horses to no horses, I think we're pretty close to that transition from 2025 to 2030, you know.
Dan: Yeah, it'll be interesting because you know the thing that I'm finding more and more and it's really reinforced with this book. I'm reading the Bottomless Well, and this is a 20-year-old book, you know and everything, but all cars are now electric cars. In other words, the replacement of mechanical parts inside cars with electronics has been nonstop, and actually I found the Toyota story the most interesting one. Toyota decided to stop making electric cars. Did you know that?
Dean: Oh, I just saw a Prius, but is that not electric? No, it's a hybrid.
Dan: They have both, and for me it makes total sense that you would have two fuels rather than one fuel.
Dean: Right.
Dan: Yeah, and there's just so much problems with you know the electric generation of getting the. I mean, for example, it tells you what happened under the Biden administration that they were going to put in I don't know 100,000 charging stations.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: And it was 12. They got 12 built Wow, 12. They got 12 built Wow. And the reason is because there's not a demand for it. First of all it's a very select group of people who are buying these things.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: And a lot of it has to do with where, for example, in California, I think the majority of them come out of a certain number of postal zones.
Dean: Oh, really yeah Like.
Dan: Hollywood would have a lot of them Like Hollywood would have a lot of them, beverly Hills would have a lot of them, but others wouldn't have any at all because there's no charging stations unless you have one at home. But the other thing is just the sheer amount of energy you have to use to make a Tesla is way more than the energy that's required to make a gas car. Gas cars are much cheaper to make.
Dean: So there's some economics there.
Dan: But the other thing is this thing of agency living in a technological world. More and more technology is taking over and you're not in control. And I think there's a point where people say, okay, I've given up enough agency, I'm not going to give up anymore. And I think you're fighting that when you're trying to get that across. I mean, I know Joe is wild about this, you know about Joe Polish, about self-driving and everything like that, but I don't know when I would ever do it.
Dean: Well, especially because it's not a problem you need solved. You've solved the problem since 1998.
You've got you've you know one of the things, Dan, when you and I first started having lunches together or getting together like that, I remember very vividly the first time that we did that, we went to Marche. In the yeah, downtown Hockey Hall of Fame is yeah, exactly yeah. We went to Marche and we sat there. We were there for you know, two hours or so and then when we left, we walked out, we went out the side door and there was your car, like two paces outside of the exit of the building. Your car was there waiting for you and you just got in and off you go. And I always thought, you know, that was like way ahead of. Even your Tesla can't do that, you know, I just thought that was fun thing, but you've been doing that 25 years you know just wherever you are, it's knows where to get you.
You walk out and there it is, and that's this is before Uber was ever a thing for, before any of it you know, yeah, yeah, well, it's just, you know, I think we're on exactly the same path.
Dan: It's just something that I don't want to think about.
Dean: Right.
Dan: I just don't want to have all the where did I park? And you know, and the whole thing. And the cars are always completely, you know, clean.
Dean: They're completely you know clean they're, you know they're fully fueled up all the insurance has been paid for that they check them out.
Dan: I think they have to check them out every couple weeks. They have to go into their yeah, their garage and make sure everything's tuned up.
Dean: They have to pass yeah, most people think that would be a, that's an extravagance or something you know if you think about that, but do you know approximately how much you spend per month for rides or whatever your service is for that? Just to compare it to having a luxury car, of course I have no idea to having a luxury car?
Dan: Of course, I have no idea, Of course.
Dean: I love that Of course you don't. That's even better.
Dan: Right, I know it's about half the cost of having a second car.
Dean: Right, exactly.
Dan: It's so, it's pretty. You know, that's pretty easy, it doesn't use up any space, I mean.
Dean: Right.
Dan: Yeah, yeah and yeah, yeah, yeah, it's an interesting.
Dean: I like simple and I like you know, I I just like having a simple life and I don't like that friction freedom, friction freedom, yeah yeah, yeah and but our limousine company is really great and it's called Bennington and they are affiliated with 300 other limousine companies around the world.
Dan: They're in a network, and so when we're going to Chicago, for example, the affiliate picks us up at the airport. When we go to Dallas, the affiliate picks us up at the airport. The only thing we do differently when we go to London, for example, is that the hotel Firmdale Hotel, they get the cab and they pick us up and they pay everything ahead of time.
It goes on our bill. But it's just nice that we're in a worldwide network where it's the same way. If I were going to Tokyo, it would be the Tokyo right.
Dean: So yeah, that's. That's really good thing in in Buenos.
Dan: Aires. Yeah, yeah, it's the way, it's the of, no, it's the four seasons, of course it all actually does it. Yeah, so it's the hotels, so that's it. But it's interesting stuff what it is. But the democratize. I think that the I mean the definition of capitalism is producing for the masses. You know, that's basically the difference between other systems and capitalism, the difference between other systems and capitalism. Capitalism is getting always getting the cost down, so the greatest proportion of people can you utilize the thing that you're doing? You?
know, yeah, and I think it's democratizing in that effect. But it all depends upon what you're looking for. It all depends upon what kind of life you want to have. You know, and there's no democracy with that Some people just know what they want more than other people know what they want. Yeah right, exactly.
Dean: Yeah, I think that we're. You know, I keep remembering about that article that I read, you know, probably 2016 about the tyranny of convenience. You know that's certainly an underestimated driver, that we are always moving in the direction of convenience, which is in the same vein as that friction freedom. I've noticed now that other friction freedom. I've noticed now that other. I just look at even the micro things of like Apple Pay on my phone. You know, just having the phone as your, you know, gateway to everything, you just click and do it, it's just comes, it's just handled, you know. Know you don't have any sense of connection to what things cost or the transaction of it. The transaction itself is really effortless float your phone over over the thing, I got cash all over the place.
Yeah, exactly I know, like a little, like a squirrel, I got little ATMs all over the house. Yeah, exactly.
Dan: I got shoeboxes with cash. I've got winter coats with cash I mean Babsoe Cup. She says you got any cash? I said yes, just stay here, because I don't want you to see where I'm going. What do you want? Yeah, yeah. And I find a lot of entrepreneurs I think more than other folks have this thing about cash, because you can remember a day way back in the past where you didn't have enough money for lunch. You know.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: I always, I'm always flush with cash, yeah.
Dean: Every time I go to the airport.
Dan: You know the airport in toronto or where I'm landing. I always go and I get. You know, I get a lot of cash I just like currency.
Dean: Yeah, I love the. The funny thing is the. What was I thinking about?
Dan: you were talking about.
Dean: Oh, I had a friend who had he used to have a file like file folders or file cabinets sort of thing. But he had a file like when file folders or file cabinets were a thing, but he had a file called cash and he would just have cash in the cash folder, yeah, yeah, or nobody would ever think to look for it. You know, filed under cash there's a thousand dollars right there.
Dan: Yeah. We had a changeover a year ago with housekeepers?
Dean: Yeah, we had a changeover a year ago with housekeepers, so previous housekeeper we had for years and years.
Dan: She retired and we got a new one and she's really great. But there was a period where the credit card that our previous. We had to change credit cards because she makes a lot of purchases during the week. And then Babs said, Dan, do you have any cash for mary? And I said, sure, wait right here. And I said I brought him. I had five hundred dollars. And she said I said well, that'd be good. And she said where do you have five hundred dollars.
I said not for you to know mary, you can ask, but you cannot find that's funny, I think there's something to that, dan.
Dean: I remember, even as a kid I used to. To me it was something to have these stacks of $1 bills. You had $40 as a 10-year-old. That's a big stack. You were a push, oh yeah, and I used to have an envelope that I would put it in and I had a secret. I just had a secret hiding place for the money. Yeah, yeah, so funny. I remember one time I got my mom worked at a bank and I had her, you know, bring me. I gave my money and had her bring like brand new $1 bills. You know, like the things. And I saw this little. I saw a thing in a book where you could make what like a little check book with one dollar bill. So I took a little cardboard for the base thing, same, cut it out, same size as the dollar bills, and then took a glue stick and many layers on the end of the thing so that they would stick together. But I had this little checkbook of $1 bills and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
Dan: It's tangible, yeah, yeah.
Dean: It's like agency.
Dan: I think we like tangibility too. I think that's the value that we hold on to, and you can push things where they disappear. You know, digital things sort of disappear.
And it's not tangible. So I think a lot of people get in the money problem because the money they're spending is not tangible money. You know, and I think there's we're. You know we're sensory creatures and there's a point where you've disconnected people so much from tangible things that they lose its meaning after a while. I'll send you one of my articles, but it's on how universities are in tremendous trouble right now. Trump going after Harvard is just, it's just the sign of the times. It's not a particular, it's actually we don't even know what Harvard is for anymore. They're so far removed from tangible everyday life. We don't even know. So you can have the president of the United States just cutting off all their and so somebody says oh, I didn't even know they got funding. You know, I didn't even know they got funding. You know, I didn't even know the government gave harvard money and there's no problem now because they've lost touch.
They it's hard for them to prove why they should get any tax money and they've gotten so disconnected in their theoretical worlds from the way people live. It's a. It's an interesting thing. There's a tangibility border. If you cross too far over the tangibility border, I heard a comedian.
Dean: Jimmy Carr was on Joe Rogan's podcast and he was saying you know, the joke is that the students are using AI to do their homework. The tutors, the teachers, are using AI to grade the homework and in three years the AI will get the job.
Dan: Teaching other AIs? Yeah, exactly.
Dean: Yeah, well, I mean you can go too far in a particular direction. Yeah, that's where it's headed.
Dan: That's exactly right, yeah, yeah, apparently Henry Kissinger taught at Harvard and you know he was on the faculty but he was busy, so in some of his classes he just put a tape recording of him, you know, and he had a really boring voice. It was this German monotonic voice you know and everything like that. And so he would just put a teaching assistant would come and turn on the tape recorder.
Dean: And then he asked one day.
Dan: He was. He was just in the building and he walked in and there were as a class of 40. And he walked in and there was one tape recorder in the front of the room and there were 40 tape recorders on the 40 desk. He was oh no, yeah, they were just recording his recording. That's funny, yeah, and they would have shown up. I mean, they would have had standing room only if it was him.
Dean: Yeah, right, right, right.
Dan: So it's lost tangibility and it doesn't have any meaning after a while. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, Okay, got to jump.
Dean: Okay, so next week are we on yeah, chicago.
Dan: Yeah, we are an hour.
Dean: Okay, perfect.
Dan: It'll be an hour, the same hour for you, but a different hour for me.
Dean: Perfect, I will see you then. Okay, thanks, dan, bye.