The Pomp Podcast
00:48:05 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:48:05] S1: I mean, it's the same with, like, the political people. [00:48:07] S0: Political people, Bitcoin. [00:48:09] S1: Bitcoin people. How [00:48:10] S0: many people over the years That's true. Said, literally, all other assets are going to be worthless, and all of the money is gonna move into Bitcoin, and you're literally not gonna touch cash. You're just gonna hold Bitcoin. [00:48:21] S1: And I think some people were criticizing you for not having full blown Bitcoin psychosis because you weren't willing to go to the Correct. Extreme. [00:48:28] S0: One of my biggest regrets ever in the whole Bitcoin world is a stupid thing, but to me is, near the end of the 2021 bull market, I put the, stupid laser eyes on, on, Twitter. And [00:48:44] S1: I remember you didn't wanna do it, but then you didn't.
00:48:44 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:48:44] S1: I remember you didn't wanna do it, but then you didn't. [00:48:46] S0: I know. I was like, this is stupid. Right. Because I I remember that. Because it was very much... I I I was very hesitant of, like, this is, like, getting cultish. This is getting, like... Like, you get blinded. You can't think clearly when you tie your identity into something where you're like, I have to... Whatever. By the way, I wanted to believe. I... It's awesome to be part of a cult. It's awesome to be, you know, with every... All this stuff. It is very lonely to say, I am gonna resist the human nature of wanting to be part of a tribe, and I'm gonna try to clearly think and critically think. And I understand an argument, but I'm not going to, like, subscribe wholeheartedly, blindly, religiously to it. And I've told story before. There's an individual who asked me to do a call, and literally... I mean, in hindsight, it was it was insane. He was [00:49:41] S1: like I remember that call, and I remember how you felt after. [00:49:43] S0: He was like, you you don't have laser eyes on Twitter. [00:49:47] S1: And this is an influential person. It's not [00:49:49] S0: like some Joe off. I was like, looking around. I was like, are are we... Am I getting punked right now? Is this what we're talking about? What the fuck? And he was like, it would mean a lot to everybody if you did [00:49:56] S1: it. Right.
00:49:56 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:49:56] S1: it. Right. [00:49:58] S0: And me being a a clown coward who, in a moment of weakness, said, you know, I'll I'll I'll do one for the team. Oh, okay. I appreciate you asking me that. I'll go ahead, and I'll do it. By the way, I tried really hard. I tweeted. I said, you know, laser eyes to a 100 k, laser eyes to a 100 k. I tried. And then [00:50:22] S1: I forgot about that. [00:50:23] S0: As I sobered up from the 2021 insanity, I was like, what the fuck am I doing with these goddamn laser eyes? And I wrote a whole piece, and I said, maybe the laser eyes blind you. Oh. Can't see clearly if you got lasers on your eyes. [00:50:38] S1: Right? This is where we end. It was a pleasure.
00:50:38 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:50:38] S1: Right? This is where we end. It was a pleasure. [00:50:42] S0: Hold so the whole idea is, can you subscribe to a point of view of the world, understand, believe in an asset because you've done the work, etcetera, without the psychosis? So AI psychosis is a thing. Bitcoin psychosis definitely exists. There are there are people that I know who I love them because you need some of the crazy people because they push the the the the pace, the edge. But you're also like, hey. Their vision of the future, I believe 30, 40% of it, but then they go past that into crazy town. And so this idea that, like, there are literally people who believe that you are violating the ethos of Bitcoin if you hold cash. That's crazy. And so it just is like, okay, I wanna... 30, 40%, I'm in, but I want my feet on the ground, clear eyes, no lasers. AI, girlfriend, I already got a wife. I'm good. You know? Yeah. Girlfriend. Oh. Yeah. The psychosis. They... These guys are fine. These guys are crazy. They're, like, falling in love with relationships with a piece of software. [00:51:51] S1: Like, dude. It does just agree with everything you say. Dude,
00:51:51 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:51:51] S1: Like, dude. It does just agree with everything you say. Dude, [00:51:55] S0: snap out of it. Let's go. What are you doing? Right? And then you you start to kinda understand that you see this pattern over and over and over again, whether it's AI, whether it's Bitcoin. Right? All this. By the way, there's gonna be new technologies. Like, there's going to... I promise you, there is somebody who's gonna get space psychosis. They're gonna be like, dude, we're all gonna live in little capsules like the Jetsons flying around in space. [00:52:18] S1: I [00:52:18] S0: Then we're gonna repopulate, and then on our way to Mars, and this, and [00:52:23] S1: I remember Maybe. When I was at Fortune, I wrote something about a company, and I said, it's a very, very fine line between ambition and delusion. And sometimes, you think you're just being ambitious about your company and what it could do that you kinda fall into delusion. [00:52:42] S0: Well, I would... Maybe we disagree on this. I don't... We never talked about it. [00:52:45] S1: You want you want the founders to be delusional. Already know. [00:52:48] S0: I think that... Well, I think that it is very hard to create things that change the world I [00:52:57] S1: agree. [00:52:58] S0: Without being delusional. [00:52:59] S1: I agree. But There are limitations to that delusion. [00:53:03] S0: There's an extreme that then transitions from delusion to [00:53:08] S1: Psychosis.
00:53:08 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:53:08] S1: Psychosis. [00:53:09] S0: Well, psychosis, but also people take it to the extreme, and then they, like... Again, I would argue, like, the EA mentality. Right? Again, I I I read the book. Right? So, like, is that the is that the bible of EA? No. But I think it gave a pretty good understanding is the argument, if I had to, like, summarize it, is almost anything is on the playing field if it means that you can accumulate more resources to then do good in the world. So, like, by any means necessary, right, is essentially the the argument. It's effective altruism. It's like, if you are a, if you can go exploit sports gambling to make billions of dollars and then you're gonna help the world, who cares that you exploited the sports gambling? And on the other side are people who lost their life savings. Who cares that the dad who was drunk on Saturday night took the other side of the bet, and you made a lot of money, and he lost his family or lost his house? It's kinda like that gets brushed under the rug. It's like, no. No. No. I as an EA was able to accumulate all these resources. I'm gonna go help the world. By the way, may go do good with [00:54:15] S1: Robin Hood example? [00:54:16] S0: But it's just like the world is complex. [00:54:17] S1: Oh, we're gonna piss off a lot of people with the spontiacs.