01:00:44 · Micky Malka
[01:00:44] S1: Yes. So I think it's in the spirit of being a rebel. So my wife and I, we love art. We find that art is beautiful. And when you find stuff that speaks to you, it has an immense value. It's been around all of us since the caves. Right? It's it's always been there. And five years ago, we stumbled upon digital art for the first time. I was on Twitter, scrolling, and I saw an art piece that looked something very similar to a physical art piece we had from the seventies. And then we got into it and started to find other artists in digital art that were doing beautiful stuff that matched something beautiful in history. So we started to pair them together. And that journey took us, like any journey, to get to know the artists. Because what's the difference of these artists? They're alive. And and they're all here, and they're all using... They all study computer science one way or the other, and they just decided to be artists and tell a story in a different way. Once you start to meet them, they were rebels in the complete expression of of the word, the same way we were describing some of the rebels in in companies. Like, think about... Right now, we're running a show on people. Think about That's one I saw. That's the one you show. So think about people. Think about an entrepreneur who decided for 5,000 to do an art piece every single day, posted online so he can only get better. His goal was, he read a book that said, if you do something every day, you will only get better at it. And he started in 2007, sketching. 2011, started to use Photoshop. 2014, cinema four d, and so the software evolves. And every single day, posted an image online that no one bought. People paid attention and just made fun of it or congratulate them or or jump against it until in '21, he sells the first five thousand days, what is it, fourteen years, for $69,000,000. And suddenly, it's like an IPO moment. No one pays attention for a long time, you sell it. What does a real Revolut do? He said, fuck it, we're gonna double down. I'm gonna build a studio, I'm gonna start building a lot more stuff that I couldn't do before. And now he's one of the most prolific artists alive. All he does, his work is digital. And he's not the only one. People see Cryptopunks and they see a JPEG. Actually, I see a movement. I see a cultural artifact.
01:03:17 · Micky Malka, David Senra
The first art on chain ever created, and it happens to be portraits. Guess what? Every single art movement in history starts with portraits. They always involve the portrait. So the story is we went to the museums and we said, this art should be seen. Because at home, we post... We get... We put it around our house, and all my kids when they were teenagers and brought their friends, guess where their their attention went? [01:03:45] S0: Now I thought you have
01:03:46 · Micky Malka
[01:03:46] S1: it hanging on the walls. It went to this. Yeah. Fifteen, twenty minutes in front of it, talking to it, interacting, asking questions. No one didn't understand. We go to museums and they said, yes, we can do this 2028, five years from now, four years from now, and we'll have to find a curator who's gonna curate what the artist wants to do. And my wife and I look at each other and say, no fucking way. This needs to happen today. So Node, it's the first digital art studio designed for digital artists. It is a space where the artist is his own curator, because that's what Rebels do. You design how you wanna show your art. You don't let somebody else tell you how you're gonna put your art. And it's a place where you come and you get your hands on with the art that speaks to the future. And we put this place in Downtown Palo Alto for a particular reason. Because Silicon Valley needs creativity. We need to bring it back. So our contribution to society is put it in a place where people can actually walk in and see it. And we've opened it five months ago. We had close to 60,000 people show up already. Every weekend we're breaking records. It's free. It's open. And people are interacting. And the most beautiful things, kids are bringing their parents. So you told me that last time you went to a museum where the kids are telling dad, let's go in. Yeah. Exactly. So that is the difference. So I think we need it, going back to beauty, to taste, to creating authentic stuff. And these artists are the most authentic people right now using digital tools. So let's show them, let people interact with them, and let that be the driver for entrepreneurs to use it in their own practices.
01:05:35 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[01:05:35] S0: But this is what I meant about, like, you're way more entrepreneur than you are investor. Because you... Just like like when you when you start a bank for the unbanked in Brazil. You're like, well, I'm not gonna open up branches. I mean, like, what opportunity? What's the white space that these incumbents are not? I'm a rebel. What is the white space that these incumbents are not attacking? Well, you just said, like, the museums are, like, they they don't even have the infrastructure to to display digital art. And, like, me... I went to Node with you. Like, the walls are, like, customizable. The next how... The people's in there for what? Like, months, something like that? [01:06:06] S1: Yes. [01:06:07] S0: Yeah. And then the next one comes in. The infrastructure is still there, but now the artist gets to essentially use the infrastructure as a canvas for his for his his or her art. [01:06:16] S1: Think the world will have a lot of these places. Museums will change. They will evolve. It will take a while. [01:06:21] S0: The location that you picked speaks to, again, the the... Like, you're kind of just identifying what's the way they did it and, like, what's the way I should do it now? Where, like, you can walk into it. It's, like, in a very, like, small downtown area. Yes. It's not it's not like a destination in and of itself. It's something you can just... It's, like, part of the neighborhood, if that makes any sense.
01:06:21 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[01:06:21] S0: The location that you picked speaks to, again, the the... Like, you're kind of just identifying what's the way they did it and, like, what's the way I should do it now? Where, like, you can walk into it. It's, like, in a very, like, small downtown area. Yes. It's not it's not like a destination in and of itself. It's something you can just... It's, like, part of the neighborhood, if that makes any sense. [01:06:40] S1: If you read history, which is part of the beauty of playing infinite games where you have to live in the future but also understand the past, this is not very different than what happened in Paris in in... With the rebels in in their art movement when they were not accepted in the museums. And this is how the impressionism came to be. And all the art that was a revolution that changed the way we look at art in the last one hundred years. We're living through that same moment. Funny enough, it's not in Paris. Maybe it started in Palo Alto. [01:07:10] S0: And so you look at the first Node in Palo Alto almost like a prototype. [01:07:13] S1: Yes. Because the name Node is meant to be a node in the network. So we will be learning here for the next year to perfection our technology, improve our UIs. There's a bunch of engineers working on this. A foundation with engineers. Like think of how different it is to traditional art, and then expand it and open it in many many more other places.
01:07:13 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[01:07:13] S1: Yes. Because the name Node is meant to be a node in the network. So we will be learning here for the next year to perfection our technology, improve our UIs. There's a bunch of engineers working on this. A foundation with engineers. Like think of how different it is to traditional art, and then expand it and open it in many many more other places. [01:07:34] S0: Another thing that I wanna talk to you about. What's with your fascination with Rebels? It's all over your website. People I know you talk about this all the time. [01:07:42] S1: Well, first, I'm a Star Wars generation. Right? And I grew up with Star Wars. I'm a big fan of Star Wars. And to me, growing up in Venezuela, you... The only way to survive in that environment is you have to be a rebel. The system, the the dark side was all over, the chaos was present. You had to raise above above that. And the rebel mindset is one where you know authentically and generally that something can be better, and you're willing to give your life for it. To me, being a rebel is just a way of being. It's a way of looking at the world, and when you when you see something, you can always look at it and accept how do you make it better? How do you make it more beautiful? How can what what's missing? Like, just the mindset of always being willing to know that better means it can still be better. [01:08:35] S0: I mean, 17 year old serving a company. [01:08:38] S1: Yes. [01:08:38] S0: That would lead me to believe that you had this like rebel... You know, you were essentially a born rebel. [01:08:43] S1: Yes.