Relentless
01:30:23 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[01:30:23] S1: Like cyberpunk. [01:30:24] S0: Yeah. It would feel like a very different culture. Like, Burning Man meets, like, Tokyo or something. And you could drop in there and and feel what it's like to be in a city or in a society that really is not encumbered by so much [01:30:36] S1: red tape. If you look at zipline, they had... They they kind of took the same model where you can imagine Africa is like a special economic zone where suddenly you're able to fly the drones without the FAA worrying about it too much. Yeah. And they did exactly what you're kind of describing except for over there where they basically just gathered a bunch of flight time and data. I think they had like 50,000,000 flight time miles or flight miles before they even went and did their first flight in The US commercially. Yeah. And FAA just basically went over there, looked at their data. Kenya, I think, was like laughing at them because they were like, this clearly works, and we're... We've been using it for the last ten years, and what are you guys doing? And then they came back, and suddenly they're operating. I think they've got their, like, third major hub just turning on now. But I think that's kind of like countries is kind of the special economic zones right now. [01:31:22] S0: You're right. I mean, well, Zip Line is an amazing company, and you're right. Like, it's kind of... I mean, it's great that Rwanda, like, allowed them to be that special economic zone. Rwanda is kind of like the Singapore of Africa. [01:31:33] S1: Not Kenya.
01:31:33 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[01:31:33] S1: Not Kenya. [01:31:35] S0: Yeah. Rwanda. Well, they might be they might be in Kenya too. But, anyway, these social economic zones have been very helpful, and it's a shame that they had to, like, leave The US to do that. I mean, we should have those in The US as well. [01:31:47] S1: This is something that I've never heard someone in crypto talk about. I've never heard you talk about it. The Silk Road 2013. [01:31:54] S0: Mhmm. [01:31:55] S1: What was it like operating a crypto company as that was getting raided and, like, shut down?
01:32:01 · Brian Armstrong
[01:32:01] S0: You know, at that time, we we were always trying to make crypto more legitimate. Right? And unfortunately, like, crypto did attract a variety of people that were doing scams and different things. Mt. Gox had blown up. You know, that that was like a setback for about a year. It really put a chilling effect on the industry. But we knew that the technology had a lot of potential, and this was like a blip on the radar, and so we just wanted to power through it. So I... At that time in San Francisco, I remember, there were people telling me about how they were using Silk Road. And actually, one of the security guys on our team, he actually, like, he sold some, like, brownies on Silk Road just to, like, test it out because we wanted to understand it. And people kept messaging him like, are these, like, magic brownies? And he's like, no. They're just regular brownies. Like, do you want them or not? You know? My mother's recipe. Yeah. Exactly. And so we... He was trying to just, learn about it because we thought this could be a better way to do all kinds of commerce on the Internet. So they were selling mostly illegal drugs, but we wanted to understand it a little bit better. So employees were testing it in a legal way. But I remember seeing the news come out that Ross Ulbricht had gotten caught, and he was sitting there right in San Francisco. Like, he was at, I guess, like a public library, when he got caught, and it was like... You know, it was like right down the street from where I live or something like that. Right? So in a way, was like, wow, San Francisco really is the center of innovation, I guess, in all ways, at least at that time. Now I think it's decentralized a bit. But part of me was also like, man, I I get where he's coming from, like, as, you know, kind of like a libertarian minded thing. It's like, you know, do you own your own body? Like, yes. Okay. Should you be able to put anything you want in your own body? I guess. Like, I I get the libertarian argument, but he also... You know, we live in a society of laws, and he was, like, very clearly, Blake, breaking the law. So there was all these claims. The story just got weirder and weirder. Right? Because it was, like, claims of this assassination marketplace, which is very unclear if that ever really happened. I don't think it did.
01:33:57 · Ty Morse
[01:33:57] S1: It's a good story.
01:33:58 · Brian Armstrong
[01:33:58] S0: Yeah. And then the federal agents were corrupt that were investigating him. I mean, it just... It got weirder and weirder. And so, anyway, it was another one of those early days of crypto that... What I've noticed is that anytime there's a new technology trend, you know, it attracts, like, kind of outlier people at the beginning. It can be, like, really entrepreneurial people who are ready to go commercialize it. It can attract, like, sometimes bad actors or kind of crazy people. And this is true of lots of technology. I mean, technology is just a tool. Right? Fire can be used to, like, heat your home or burn down a home. Right? And what I often see is that people, like, in society are just fearful of new technologies. But I think that technology is, like, unapologetically net positive as is capitalism and all these things. So I think that we have to lean in on technology and actually try to use it for good. It's arguably the thing that has helped humanity the most, even going back to invention of the wheel and fire or like the shoes on our feet are technology, eyeglasses are technology, and they become more commonplace in society over time. But our lives are immeasurably richer today than they were hundreds of years ago where people were... Died of disease and they were cold and they were hungry. And, like, a lot of these problems have gotten better in the world. It's all due to technology. So I actually think if you want to improve the world, you should lean in and try to create companies with technology. Like, that is... I... You know, you can run for office or something like that, but I think the highest ROI way to improve the world today is to start technology companies.
01:35:37 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[01:35:37] S1: It's ironic. I've thought a lot about capitalism, and I think I'm the most capitalist person I know. And counterintuitively, I've created effectively a nonprofit where we basically create as much goodwill as possible and then give it away for free and try to make things as legendary as possible, just maximizing for basically love and people... Like brand over time. [01:35:57] S0: You don't sell ads. Right? [01:35:58] S1: I mean There's no ads. There's no sponsorship. [01:36:00] S0: Podcast is operating at a loss. I mean, you're investing a lot in it. Like, do you want it to be positive from a revenue... From a profit point of view, or do you think it's actually... You're at... I don't know. Are you post economic? You're just ready to give back to the world to create more companies? Or, like, what's what's the... What do you wanna do?