00:18:43 · Lulu Cheng Meservey
[00:18:43] S1: The first thing I'll say is that the founders choose to do this. You know, no other person, whether inside, outside the company, their parents, like, no, no people besides the people starting the company are able to set the tone of the culture and decide what to stand up for. You can't like Weekend at Bernie's wheel somebody in and get them to be credible. So I'm more speaking as somebody who I think helped facilitate and support, but really, this is them. You can't like attach a spine from the outside. You know, it has to be there. It's really important to choose whose side you're not on. The people who avoid picking a side, it's not that they are then beloved by everybody, it's that they're beloved by nobody. You're in the demilitarized zone. You're in no man's land. So you might as well pick a side or eventually one will get chosen for you kind of haphazardly. And so saying that we're not on the side of the people who believe that it's morally wrong to work with military, and we are on the side of the people in uniform, at least makes it so that the people who do believe that feel like they find a home with you. And the people who don't, this is like the Elon email, you do not want them here. They're a time bomb. There are people that you might employ that will actually destroy your company from the inside. The most catastrophic, destructive crises are always inside of a company. You see these things happen where CEOs get attacked from the outside all the time, like Brian Armstrong, he was attacked from inside outside. And so he got rid of the people who are attacking from the inside. And then he was only attacked from the outside. And that was fine. And it was fine. And like two months later, everything was better than before. But when you see people get attacked by their own employees, and they're not able to manage that, and they're not able to make a hard decision like Brian did, that's when the company is just, I think, not going to make it.
00:20:40 · Ty Morse
[00:20:40] S0: Sam Altman recently came out after someone like threw a Molotov cocktail at his house. And he effectively said, I worry that I've been too, like, non confrontational. And I think that was, like, his one of his biggest weaknesses over the past, you know, twenty years as he's been building his companies. What is the power of being, like, confrontational and being willing to, like, fight?
00:20:59 · Lulu Cheng Meservey
[00:20:59] S1: You know the phrase, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? When you fight for someone, you can be so much stronger and more powerful than if you're fighting for yourself. So this is like a hack. But you defending yourself comes off as like self interested. You know, people discount it. But you picking somebody, and it can be somebody with like identical interest to yours, but you advocating for them is so much more powerful. So there company was that I had, and I was a leader in the company. And we had someone who was making the case that tenure shouldn't determine how much you were paid. You shouldn't have to work there longer to get paid more. It should just be straight up on performance. And I also happen to believe that. But if I had said, hey, you know, I know I have no comms experience, but I feel like I should get paid based on my output, it's not as strong as me advocating for her and saying she doesn't need to be here for ten years in order to get paid at the level of someone who's been here for ten years, but isn't performing as well as her. That's not fair. And so you can literally just pick someone else to support, and then put yourselves on the same side, and you can come out so much more forcefully and not have that be discounted. That's one. Two is people see sincerity when you're willing to do something costly. And getting into a fight is pretty costly. I don't recommend doing it all the time because it's training. You fight to win. Don't You just get in a fight and then leave. If you're in the fight, put some effort. You're going be in the fight and it's going to be painful. You're going to take some blows. It's going be damaging maybe. But when people see that you're willing to do that, they believe that your principles are real. And so I think Sam is correct. Maybe maybe that is the case. Like, I don't know psychology, but it sounds like a good analysis.
00:23:00 · Ty Morse
[00:23:00] S0: You talked about the three body problem and deterrence and how Palmer is kind of like the prototypical. I think Elon is another one of these things where if you come after him, he is just going to throw everything that he has at you. So that's very costly for you to come after him. Then over time, less and less people want to do so. Why is deterrence like so important? And what is it?
00:23:20 · Lulu Cheng Meservey
[00:23:20] S1: Everything is about incentives. And as you move through the world, you have to shape people's incentives for how to interact with you. And so when you see young women being told or telling each other themselves, like, treat yourself in a way that demands respect for men you go on dates with, or people demanding to be taken seriously by an employer. All of these things are just us trying to shape incentives for how people should interact with us. There is a real incentive, like a default incentive for people on the internet to just take potshots because they get engagement out of it. And it's like the there's a quote about is it politics? It's so vicious because the stakes are so low. It's like the people for whom the stakes are the lowest are the most vicious because they have the more upside. And so the more you gain exposure, the more people are going to take shots at you to try to get the upside. And so you have to be actively reshaping incentives. And this is where we go back to the idea of plan for the long term. It is not about temporary pain avoidance. Do not pursue temporary pain avoidance. It's not a legitimate goal. Set your sight on the finished pizza. And do what it takes to get there. And sometimes it'll look nonsensical to others. And that's okay, you'll just swallow that. Sometimes it'll be painful for you. And that's okay, you'll just deal with it. But at the end of the thing, you'll have your delicious hot pizza the way that you wanted it, as opposed to somebody who gets blocked by basically their own psychology. They get blocked by fear. They get blocked by wanting to please or wanting to fit in. These things are all fake. They're in our heads. But these people who are blocked by the things in their own heads will just stay back at stage one while you're enjoying your pizza.
00:25:19 · Ty Morse
[00:25:19] S0: What do you think the best examples are of people or situations that you've seen where you could tell that there was this temporary pain avoidance that led to some massive blow up?