My First Million: The Boys React: Tech Layoffs, IG Founder Starts A New Company & More Tech News

It's like, yeah, I took one look at you.

It's like, how much longer do you want to live as a New York

five?

Because you could be an Idaho nine.

It was one plane ticket, baby.

And so I feel like every city should

have to make their pitch as to why a 20-something year old should

move there and live there.

A 25-year-old.

I might create a whole new show around just this pitch.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days on.

On a road let's travel never looking back.

Ben, we're here.

You own this segment.

You take it away.

All right, here we go.

We're reviewing the news.

We're letting the boys react.

By the way, I like the thing you started doing

where you were like, fellas, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I think that's kind of like on the first episode

of the news of the boys react.

I feel like you kind of nailed the catchy thing.

Like that was pretty natural by you.

Good move by you.

But then on that episode, you were like, we're not the fellas.

We're the boys.

And I was like, wow, we are.

But the way you did fellas, blah, blah, blah, blah,

I thought that was really nice.

Fellas, there is a new Instagram.

The founders Instagram are back with a new app.

It's called Artifact.

It's being described as TikTok for text.

Is this the next big thing?

Sam, did you see this thing?

So the page says, I'm trying to pull it up.

The page doesn't really say what it is.

OK, in the news, they kind of talked a little bit more.

So I heard TikTok for text and I was like, OK, what is that?

Basically, it means two things.

Number one, Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram,

was like, when I saw TikTok and how the feed works, where you just

open the app, you're already in, you don't have to follow a bunch of people.

You just start swiping and it just learns what you like.

He's like, oh, this is the way everything should work this way.

I can't believe Twitter doesn't work this way.

I can't believe why are we still trying to do this like manual follow

interesting people thing when I should just the app should just give you

what you're interested in through machine learning.

So he goes, that's number one.

Number two, what they're doing is instead of what TikTok did for videos,

these guys are trying to do with news, actually, not just text, but news.

So they're trying to serve you text based news based on your interest.

And that's where he lost me.

I don't think people want to read a bunch of news in the same way

that they're willing to swipe through mindless videos for entertainment.

And so I think that's where it has this problem that a lot of Silicon Valley

ideas have, which is they try to sell you what you should do

instead of what you want to do.

And it sounds noble and high and mighty.

And when they go to dinner parties and they say, this is what we're going to do.

Everybody, you know, pats them on the back.

But I think that this is not going to work for news.

So I'm out.

So here's the thing that I'm wondering, by the way, you like how I went

shark tank on it and now I'm in or out.

That's maybe a new that might be a new part of this.

I'm out. I'm out.

I don't know if you could see it, but you got to like hold your hands.

Like an upside down V, you know, how like I've been watching Andrew tape videos

because it's just hilarious now that he's in jail.

And it's kind of funny.

He always holds his hands like in a V when he's sitting down.

And that's like how the alpha sits.

You got to like, if you're going to say you're out, you got to like sit with like

your yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go.

You got to like sit. Yeah, there it is.

That's how alpha sit according to Andrew tape.

Let me try that again.

And for that reason, I'm out.

Yeah, I have a little snap to it.

My wrist felt a little something there.

Yeah. So here's the thing.

They've been this guy, Kevin Systrom, killed it, right?

You know, this little fella, he created Instagram.

Awesome. Been out of the game.

That's ring rust, my friend.

When I watch it, absolutely.

I've watched enough fighting to know that ring rust is real for a lot of people.

So I wonder, like, is he actually in touch with what people want?

Is he hungry? Is him and his partner, you know,

their billionaires flying on planes with Ash and Kutcher?

Does he actually know what people want?

But I don't know about you.

But I study a lot of Japanese.

He's like, he's like, Ashton, Ashton, I see you got ticked up.

But wouldn't you rather that those were all just news articles?

Dude, I the I love studying like how the Chinese and particularly the Japanese

do things, the Japanese, these news apps in Japan are so pop.

It works wonderfully.

Now, what works in Japan?

It don't necessarily work here to totally different cultures.

There's a term for that.

I'm not going to pretend to even know what that term is.

But it's like, basically, when things work in Japan and vice versa in America,

it doesn't always translate to each of those cultures because they're so different.

But it works there.

Maybe it could work here.

In fact, I think the parent company of Bite Dance of TikTok Bite Dance,

they have another app, which is basically this.

It's an algorithmic news app called, I don't know how you pronounce, like, Tio Tio Tio.

I don't know how you say it's Choushou.

I don't know what the name of it is, but this is what it does.

And it's super, super popular.

So maybe maybe.

Yeah, that's the right answer.

Maybe, but I don't know.

I don't get back in.

Yeah, it's just, I think it's hard to be a billionaire who's been out of the game

and to start something from scratch.

I think that.

I got to give us a director's note here.

So I was watching something somewhere and basically I was watching First Take.

You know, like the, I don't know if you've ever watched these ESPN shows

where it's like two guys doing this, they react to the news.

These shows only work if you disagree.

So basically on all of these, by default, you got to take one side

and then I got to argue the other regardless of how I actually feel.

So if I'm out, you got to be in.

And I think it's a good case to be in to say, you know, this actually

already works in China and Japan.

So just I'm just saying good content comes from disagreement, not agreement.

I was a hard maybe.

You were a hard no.

That's kind of a disagreement.

That's far enough.

That's far enough.

All right.

All right.

What else we got, Ben?

All right.

Next one.

The thing everyone is talking about tech layoffs, more than 150,000

tech workers have already been laid off in the last six months.

That includes 12,000 at Google, 18,000 at Amazon, 11,000 at Meta, 10,000 at Microsoft.

So fellas, any advice for our fallen comrades?

Comrades, I hate that these people use the word comrades.

I saw, dude, we are not comrades.

These guys made, like they're trying to do the Soviet Union bullshit.

Bro, you made $600,000 a year in cash.

Plus another $250,000 in stock bonuses, and you had free pizza every single day.

Yeah, all you can drink oat milk, like get out of here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We are not comrades.

Like, you know, like, like, you know, comrades don't like eat great pepon.

We are not that.

So I hate when people say comrades.

And plus we're not even comrades.

I don't know a person who works at Google.

Whenever Sam lacked motivation, he would just go meet a lazy Google engineer

and just get their W2 salary out of them.

And then he was like, fuel ignited back to the lab.

I am, dude, I remember I went to the Facebook campus once

and I remember I overheard people complain that the line for the so like

Facebook's campus for those who haven't gone, it's basically like a it's like a mall.

It's like a mall, but everything's free.

I'm not joking.

I wrote an article about this, actually.

If you look up like Sam Parr Facebook office, they had a vending machine,

but instead of candy bars, it was like computers.

Yeah, iPhone char. You could get like a computer MacBook charger.

If you just like push, if you push D3, you would just get a huge MacBook charger.

Yeah, it was all free.

Incredible.

And then they had like a dentist, they had a barber.

They had a dude, I swear to God, they had a wood making like a wood shop.

Like you can go and like.

There's a van.

You could just go and get a hand job if you're bothering you.

It's crazy.

Dude, they have everything there.

You could go and leave your car and your oil would get changed when you came back from work.

I remember seeing all this stuff and I just thought I'm like, oh, this is it.

We made it.

And then I realized that the tenure at Facebook is like 18 months.

And so I was like, oh, OK, this isn't actually all the good.

So anyway, long story short, these people ain't comrades, OK?

But what are they going to do?

I actually don't know, like is 100,000 is 150,000 layoffs?

I'm not I'm not well versed enough in like the macro economy.

What's going to happen to them?

I don't know.

Do I think they're going to start companies?

No, I don't.

Some will, some will.

And I think that's that's good.

I think it's good to recite.

I think it's good for these companies to trim the fat.

They got way too much fat when I went and we were getting acquired by Twitch,

which had, I think, 2000 employees at the time.

And they made me like do go through a round of interviews during the acquisition

process, like, you know, meet the team and whatever.

And they would ask me questions for 55 minutes.

And then the last five minutes, they would say, do you have any questions for us?

And I just said, how many employees does Twitch have?

And then they would say 2000.

And then I'd say, how many employees do you think Twitch should have?

And this was my IQ test for them.

And I was trying to see if I was actually not even IQ test.

It was an honesty test.

Who here has the courage to say a number less than 2000?

And only one.

Most were just taken aback by the question because they knew what I was implying.

Because, you know, if they said if they said more, I just started laughing

uncontrollably, if they said 2000 is the right number, I would raise the people's

eyebrow and be like, oh, really, you just happened to have the perfect match

of resources to needs.

Like, isn't that, isn't that fortunate that you guys are just playing it perfectly?

Wow, you guys are amazing leaders.

And if they were honest and said, you know,

if we wanted to just keep doing what we were doing, we probably only need 250

amazing people and for us to do some of the new initiatives, new bets,

I think maybe another another hundred people would be would be right.

I would stand and give them I would give them a standing ovation in a job interview,

which is awkward because they're just sitting down in front of me.

Only one person was honest in that out of the seven that I talked to that day.

The rest were liars.

And so so yeah, these companies have had it coming.

They need to trim the fat.

If you got laid off, it's OK.

I'm sure you will bounce back.

You you've had a very, very cushy situation for a very long time.

Hopefully you built up a little safety net for yourself and go do something

interesting. I think this is a healthy recycling and flushing of the system.

You know, this is the juice cleanse for Silicon Valley, right?

This is the detox cleanse for Silicon Valley.

It needs it needs needed to happen.

Dude, juice cleans is the stupidest thing.

It's not like it's not like the juice is like a pipe cleaner.

My my influencers tell me differently.

Dude, I hate when people talk about this.

Like, it's not like you're just like you have like gunk in your veins and like

the juice goes through like a pipe cleaner, just pulling the gunk, cleaning your veins.

I always hated that idea of a cleanse.

But in this case, yeah, I think that is actually true.

Fuck, we're agreeing again.

But dude, a lot of and a lot of these companies are really generous.

Like they're giving six months

lead or six months severance.

And if you have been there for a while, you get even more.

So I actually think that it, you know, now's not good

opportunities turn shit into gold and take, you know, two months to freaking chill,

which sorry, they kind of already were, I bet.

But take some time to like actually chill and then get after it.

And, you know, there's I've been thinking about job hunting.

I call it job hunting because a lot of people think of like,

oh, I'm out. I hope hopefully I'll find a job.

And I'm like, no, no, no, now's the time to job hunt.

You know, you make like a list of 10 companies where you're going to work.

You find the hiring manager and you hunt them down and you get that job, you know,

it's a hunt. It's not like a, you know, I'll just apply to these hundred companies

on indeed and slash their tires.

You put your resume inside the tire when they go to find it.

That's all they know you wanted.

Yeah. So now is that time.

And I always perform best when I have my back in Seoul.

You know, we use that phrase burn the burn the ships or burn the boats.

You know, you now is maybe a good time.

So hopefully people will find opportunity in it.

But let's get one straight one thing straight.

We're not comrades. OK, give me a break.

I hate that stuff.

Cut the words. Comrade next one.

Listen, comrades and solidarity.

I never want to hear that word solidarity again.

All right. Listen up.

One of the greatest things I ever did at my old company,

the hustle was I hired this woman named Steph Smith.

Steph is amazing.

She is so good at breaking down companies and helping me predict trends

of which businesses are going to blow up.

And she's so good. In fact, that Andreessen Horowitz,

one of the most famous venture capital firms in the world,

they stole her from me and they poached her from me.

That's OK. I still love Steph.

And now she's the host of their podcast called the A 16 Z podcast.

It's their longstanding and chart topping podcast.

And it's awesome.

And Steph is the host.

Steph comes on MFM, my first million all the time.

You guys love her.

She's a fan favorite and she's one of my favorite people.

And so you should check this out.

So each week, the A 16 Z podcast gives you insider access to the people

and ideas at the edge of innovation.

Steph sits down with luminaries like Apples,

Co-founder Steve Wozniak, Neil Stevenson and all types of amazing people.

So check it out.

It's called A 16 Z podcast.

That's all one word. A 16 Z podcast.

Check it out.

More behind the scenes, someone else wrote the question,

which they actually wrote any advice for our fallen brothers and sisters.

But I like to think it was Sam who was just setting himself up for like,

I'm going to I'm going to set up this question and tear it down.

Don't say solidarity.

Don't say comrade, if you make over a hundred thousand dollars a year,

you don't you don't get solidarity.

OK, these next ones rapid fire.

OK, Doomsday Clock.

The Doomsday Clock got moved to 90 seconds to midnight.

This is largely due to fears that the Ukraine war could escalate into a nuclear

conflict. Doomsday Clock is all these nuclear scientists who just tell us how

close the world is to ending, fellas, are we all going to die?

No, I honestly had never even heard of this Doomsday Clock.

Ben, you're the historian around here.

Is this a common thing?

Is this something I should have known about?

And does this happen all the time?

Or how big of a deal is this bedhead?

And it's not like, by the way, it's not like a clock, right?

It's more like a meter.

Is this like Smokey the Bear?

Like, like what's the threat of like a bonfire?

So it is a wildfire.

You know, like there's Smokey the Bear.

It's like today is like a day where like there could be a fire.

Clock is a bad thing because clock always hits midnight.

It started during during the Cold War and is basically a bunch of nuclear

scientists got together and wanted to tell everyone how close the world was to ending.

So everyone would take the threat of nuclear war and nuclear disarmament very

seriously. The problem with the with the clock is it started, I think,

like three minutes to midnight.

And so like every time something happens, they're like, oh,

we're we're actually really close.

We're two minutes to midnight and the clock moves back and forth a little bit.

So so we're at like the 50 yard line, basically.

That's also a dumb analogy.

Why? That's a distance.

Because.

Yeah, because what they were trying to do is like give people this feeling of

impending doom, right? Like it's only a matter of time.

What do you do? Like a weightlifting analogy?

I want like a like a like a like a temperature bulb, you know,

like the temperature can go up and down.

I just think, look, you want the smokey the bear thing.

I was thinking about this

since like humans started existing, if this was like a book,

it would be like a thousand pages.

And the period that we're in now would be like a paragraph on the thousand page.

And I just I just think I am not so important that this one paragraph is going

to be more important than the rest of the thousand pages.

So I almost always refuse to believe that anything doomsday related is going to

happen while I'm here. So no, I'm not worried about this at all.

All right. What was that?

That was a good analogy, by the way, the book thing.

You're welcome. That's a free one.

All right.

Chat GPT can pass a bunch of tests now.

It can pass the US medical licensing exam and it passed a test from the Wharton MBA

program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Are you annoyed that you didn't have the chance to use chat GPT to cheat in high

school and or college? Hey, Ben, how come you didn't read the actual

headline that's written in the doc? I'm curious.

Well, what's wrong with that one?

It says chat GPT is chat GPT is Asian.

And it says how good it is at taking these tests.

And I got to say I had my human chat GPT.

I was a prolific cheater throughout school, fifth grade reading program.

I ordered I organized a syndicate.

I realized that if I was not going to read 32 books and win, but I had 10 friends.

And if we each read three books, then we could get to the 30 bookmark and all win.

We would all just take the test for each other.

That's what we did.

I won the teacher called my mom, let her know that I had cheated.

My mom couldn't have been prouder.

The second thing that happened, you know, math tests, they used to give us a TI-83

calculator and my buddy used to be smarter than me and take the test before me.

And then he would just type in all of the answers into the TI-83 calculator under

the Y equals sign button.

And I used to just simply open that up and fill in the answers and go on my way.

So I don't need chat GPT.

Three, I was ahead of the curve on this and I, you know, cheaters going to cheat.

Dude, we used to take, you know how you're

allowed to have like a water bottle in school?

We used to take the labels off like the Dasani bottles and write the answers

and the cheat sheet on the back of the label and then put the label back on.

And that was where the answers were.

And so I don't know, man, that deserves an A just for that.

But am I jealous that they have this?

Yeah, sure.

But I'm not jealous that I'm in school again.

Nerds.

So we win that one.

I have a wife.

Yeah.

By the way, Sean, I didn't read the headline

because it only got a B on the test at Wharton.

So I'm not sure if it's a nice, nice.

I have nothing to do with this.

I have nothing to do with this.

All right.

Justin Bieber sold his share of his back catalog for $200 million to an investor.

Smart move.

Yeah, definitely.

Why did he do it?

You know, has he had income coming in?

Like why?

I think somebody said his tour got canceled.

But that I mean, is he really living tour to tour at this point?

I don't know.

I think I would just assume it was a good offer and he had to make a decision.

He decided, yes, let's go with that.

Dude, Dr.

Dre did the same thing and people are like, why would you do that?

And someone said, well, listen to this.

So he got it.

He recently got divorced and so he owes his wife, you know, half of what he had.

He probably made five hundred million dollars off of Beats.

Half of that went to his wife.

And then there was another article that said in the divorce,

it was released that they were spending three million dollars a month.

So on travel, clothes, that's thirty six million dollars.

Neil Patel status.

Yeah, man.

Holy moly.

So he actually probably needed the money.

Is it smart?

Yeah.

He better go write some hits now, man.

He better get dancing.

But yeah, you know, look, dude, he sold it.

The work that he did from 13 to like 30, he sold for two hundred million dollars.

That's pretty dope.

And by the way, he sold just his share.

Like he owns only a small part, you know, his agent and then the label owns it and

the whoever, there's like four other parties involved in this.

So he just sold his share, which means his total back catalog has got to be worth

close to a billion dollars.

Good move.

In fact, I'm just going to say this now.

If I ever sell something for two hundred million dollars and people come to be

questioning if this was a good move, you're getting a slap.

You're getting a slap from me.

And like, do you need an explanation as to why I took this two hundred million

dollar check?

Like, I mean, how dare you?

You better have nine hundred million dollars if you're going to ask me a question

like that. If you ask me that question, I will say, please show me nine hundred

million dollars before I answer this question.

Otherwise, you get in a slap.

And so, so yeah, I do not question this.

Also, Bieber makes good decisions.

He follows me on Twitter.

That's really, really two dots make a line, baby.

That's two data points of Bieber making good decisions and two dots don't make a

line, but just because it rhymes and sounds good, it doesn't mean that it actually

works. Any two points can be connected by a line.

Two dots make a line.

All right.

Does he really follow you on Twitter, by the way?

He does.

Did you DM him? Did you DM him?

I never have been sort of crafting the right message.

A couple dozen years now.

How many people does he follow?

How many other people does he follow?

Two hundred eighty thousand.

Oh, there's the line.

Does he follow you?

Does he follow Ben?

Does he follow any of the bends on this call?

No, dude, by the way, you made the announcement on one pod that you want a

woman to reach out to you because you have a great D to C idea that you want to

help promote woman.

I have had like 15 women reach out to me.

Half of them think that I'm you because I'm not sure how we only have four female

listeners, so they must have told them, oh, by the way, we're not saying that anymore.

Someone had to talk with me.

I'm going to bring it up next time.

We're not. We shouldn't say that anymore.

I'm going to explain why.

But for now, that joke is killer.

OK, no, it's not.

And I'll explain why later.

But listen, I've had about 15 women and like seven of them like have a million

followers on Instagram and like their profiles are such that when I'm scrolling

through them and Sarah, my wife is sitting next to me.

She's like, what are you looking at?

Because it's like the hottest Instagram models and like bikini models and things

like that. So like, I don't know what you're getting at, but it probably worked.

I don't know what you're trying to do.

Yeah. So I had so many people reach out to me.

Well, we'll send them to me.

Right. Why are they reached out to you?

Oh, it's because my Instagram is like private and like locked.

Oh, yeah, that's not going to be that's not going to work.

Yes, I'm still I'm still there's definitely some good outreach.

I'm talking to two people who I think are the right.

How many people?

I don't know. I didn't count maybe 20, 25, something like that.

I had a lot serious people reach out.

I had a lot in there and and up.

Yeah, they're trying to reach you or they think that I'm you.

It's pretty funny.

But anyway, that's that.

I have just one last one, which is a new study shows how much money you need to

make to be in the top one percent income earner in every state.

Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars in California, New York, Connecticut is tops,

actually surprisingly, with nine hundred thirty thousand dollars.

The bottom is West Virginia with three hundred seventy thousand dollars

per year to be in the top one percent.

This question is specifically for Sam.

Sam, what do you have to say to my comrades who are not in the top one percent?

Oh, oh, oh,

I actually am going to do a big thing about this next episode that shows that you

can be in the one percent of New York and make that income and still not be able

to retire, because that's how much it costs to live there.

Yeah, dude, move to Missouri.

I think that's crazy.

Eight hundred thousand dollars is so much money.

It's so much money.

So eight hundred thousand dollars, by the way, is four hundred fifty six

thousand dollars post tax.

And if you assume that you spend fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a month,

which is very reasonable.

And that means you're saving like two hundred grand a year.

You've got it.

You've got to make that for 20 years in order to actually be able to retire,

which is even crazier than the eight hundred thousand dollars stat.

If you're making that much money in New York,

I'm getting a remote job ASAP and moving to, you know, West Virginia or

West Virginia or Florida, I'd rather if I'm just making a W2 income,

I'd rather live like a king in Florida than live like a plebe in New York and

be in the rat race. So get out.

That's what I that's what I would do.

Yeah, people always talk about,

you know, the big city and all that stuff, but big fish, small pond.

Yeah, that is a what we call a small pond syndrome.

You want to have small pond syndrome?

That is a much better way to live.

Now, of course, there's no there's no end to that.

You could go live.

You could be at the top one percent in Thailand with probably like, I don't know,

one hundred twenty grand.

So, you know, there's no end to that,

but it definitely just shows how much of a ripoff California and New York are.

And I think I say this, you live in New York half the year,

and I live in California the full year.

So, you know, who are we to say?

But like Charlottesville, pretty nice,

Boise Charlottesville is not bad now this time of year.

Yeah, lovely this time of year, the land of Lincoln.

It's beautiful.

Honestly, like places like California, you're like, oh, wow, that's a lot.

But then you scroll down and you're like, South Carolina, five hundred thousand men,

like Idaho, five hundred and eight thousand.

Really?

Like you got to like why?

Why would that be?

Why would that be so high?

And they're not they're not bringing enough assets to the table.

Or as you like to say, you got to have some attributes.

At least California's got the oceans, it's got the weather.

It's got the scenery, it's got the celebrities,

got whatever you want, Silicon Valley, Hollywood.

You got to have some attributes if you're going to be going to be demanding

this level of income to be in the top one.

Bro, have you ever been to Flora, Bama in Georgia?

You know what that is?

Flora, Bama or sorry, Flora, Bama in Alabama.

You know, you know, so we're Alabama and in the Florida line meets.

This is where we would go for our.

I grew up in Missouri, all Missouri people go to Florida for spring break.

You go to Flora, Bama, it's the line.

Is it MTV show, right?

Yeah, it's the it's the Redneck Riviera, my friend.

It is the trashiest place on earth and it is so fun.

You could eat popcorn shrimp all day for four dollars.

Flora, Bama is the place to go.

You get those Alabama prices while being on the basically the Florida coast.

It's all right. It's all right.

I actually think there should be a pitch competition like Shark Tank.

That's just cities or states just doing what you just did.

Like, you ever want to wake up and have shrimp because we do that here, right?

Like, you're tired of not having shrimp before 10 a.m.

Because that's not a problem in the in the red neck Riviera.

Fried popcorn shrimp, drooper for dinner.

It's the best man.

Florida is the place to be.

You don't have to own socks.

It's the best man. No shirt, no shoes, no problem.

I'm all about the floor, Bama.

It's like, yeah, I took one look at you.

It's like, how much longer do you want to live as a New York five?

Because you could be in Idaho nine with one plane ticket, baby.

And so I feel like every city should have to make their pitch as to why

a 20 something year old should move there and live there, a 25 year old.

I might create a whole new show around just this, just this pitch.

Yeah, man, we need some we need Alaska to sponsor this pod.

All right, I think that's it, right?

That's it, I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my

all in it like no days off on a road. Let's travel never looking back.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.