[00:01.980 --> 00:03.800]  I'm a little intimidated to be here.
[00:04.040 --> 00:05.520]  Everybody here is smarter than me.
[00:05.920 --> 00:08.640]  Everybody here knows way more about tech than I do.
[00:09.720 --> 00:14.580]  I'm gonna try instead to help you see things that I see that some people don't.
[00:15.620 --> 00:24.460]  Fifteen years ago, I gave a talk at Quantico, at FBI headquarters, and it was the heads of crime labs from across the country.
[00:24.740 --> 00:28.440]  And I got in, and the auditorium was about twice as big as this one.
[00:29.360 --> 00:31.280]  And everyone was sitting in the back row.
[00:31.820 --> 00:35.880]  And I said, I'd really appreciate it if you would move toward the front.
[00:36.960 --> 00:38.900]  And not one person moved.
[00:39.400 --> 00:42.120]  So I'm not going to ask you to get up and move toward the front.
[00:42.180 --> 00:44.920]  But if you wanted to do that, I think that'd be fantastic.
[00:45.380 --> 00:56.620]  The thesis of what I want to talk about is that there are systems all around us, and they don't want people to do what you do.
[00:57.220 --> 00:59.140]  They don't want to be hacked.
[00:59.300 --> 01:00.580]  They don't want to be seen.
[01:00.840 --> 01:03.440]  They want to make rules and have the rules be followed.
[01:04.300 --> 01:12.840]  And I believe that there's an ethos of community-focused, positive hacking that can make things better.
[01:13.340 --> 01:18.860]  And I learned a lot of this from my friend Corey, and that's why I'm here today, because he told me about the event.
[01:19.200 --> 01:24.660]  And some of my ideas are stolen from him, but I get all the blame, and he gets all the credit.
[01:24.900 --> 01:28.520]  So to begin, this is the solar system.
[01:29.520 --> 01:33.040]  The solar system is the most famous system of all systems.
[01:33.620 --> 01:36.260]  Everyone acknowledges that there's a solar system.
[01:36.780 --> 01:40.460]  The thing is, the Earth doesn't rotate the sun because it wants to.
[01:41.120 --> 01:43.600]  It rotates the sun because there's gravity.
[01:43.960 --> 01:46.900]  And gravity is not just a good idea, it's the law.
[01:47.320 --> 01:55.440]  And a system is something that is functional, but that we take for granted.
[01:56.040 --> 02:00.060]  And systems often involve tools.
[02:00.420 --> 02:08.380]  As soon as there are tools, tools that exist to leverage human effort, systems are built up around them.
[02:08.460 --> 02:11.640]  And we tend to just take it all for granted.
[02:12.360 --> 02:17.480]  So there's a famous story of a big fish swimming by two younger fish.
[02:17.800 --> 02:20.580]  And he says to the fish, how's the water?
[02:21.220 --> 02:24.900]  And one fish says to the other one, what's water?
[02:25.440 --> 02:27.920]  And that's what we're all marinating in.
[02:28.460 --> 02:43.740]  You, me, everybody is living a short-term life, hour by hour, day by day, without realizing that if we had been born 10,000 years ago or 10,000 years from now, everything would be different.
[02:43.880 --> 02:45.280]  The tools would be different.
[02:46.020 --> 02:47.740]  Our expectations would be different.
[02:48.140 --> 02:49.300]  The culture would be different.
[02:49.620 --> 03:02.260]  And so the question we get to ask ourselves as hackers is, are we here to day trade and to tweak the little thing that's right in front of us with tactics, getting a little bit better at our skill?
[03:02.960 --> 03:08.320]  Or are we here to make significant long-term change?
[03:08.700 --> 03:11.600]  Because if you can see a system, then you can change it.
[03:11.700 --> 03:14.020]  So you saw this meme going around the Internet 20 years ago.
[03:14.240 --> 03:17.600]  If you take a picture of a bat and turn it upside down, he turns into a badass.
[03:18.000 --> 03:22.940]  Here are three bats getting ready for bed, but they're actually at a cocktail party.
[03:24.980 --> 03:33.880]  And I learned this lesson very expensively, but I felt it profoundly when I was in Ottawa a bunch of years ago, giving a talk.
[03:34.040 --> 03:40.080]  And I'm walking around early in the morning and I see this beautiful sculpture and I think, oh, that must be a first people's term, a waddo.
[03:40.660 --> 03:44.020]  And then I realized I was on the wrong side of the sun.
[03:44.940 --> 03:47.120]  So the expensive story is this.
[03:47.320 --> 03:51.600]  On my desk, 30 miles from here is this box.
[03:51.880 --> 03:55.280]  And inside this box is something that cost me $40 billion.
[03:56.400 --> 03:57.860]  And I'm not making that up.
[03:59.220 --> 04:02.520]  When I make the following statement, it's true, but maybe not to you.
[04:03.020 --> 04:11.260]  Uh, in 1990, I had something you didn't have, which is high speed access to the Internet.
[04:12.080 --> 04:16.280]  And I saw Archie and Veronica and online databases.
[04:16.600 --> 04:20.700]  And I decided the thing to do with that was to make a book.
[04:21.080 --> 04:24.840]  And this is the t-shirt that I gave to the Salesforce for the book.
[04:24.920 --> 04:26.340]  The book was called Best of the Net.
[04:26.540 --> 04:28.040]  You can find one on Abe Books.
[04:28.040 --> 04:30.860]  It sold 1,740 copies.
[04:31.140 --> 04:35.780]  At the time, it was the best guide to all the cool things you could find on the Internet.
[04:36.740 --> 04:41.240]  With that same information and the same amount of effort, I could have started Yahoo.
[04:42.000 --> 04:44.820]  And my half would have been worth $40 billion.
[04:45.500 --> 04:47.820]  And instead, all I got was this t-shirt.
[04:48.200 --> 04:53.180]  Because I didn't understand the system that was being built.
[04:53.720 --> 04:59.000]  I did what I was good at, as opposed to doing what was important and what was needed.
[04:59.640 --> 05:05.100]  So I want to tell you a story of two creatures, unrelated, whales and plankton.
[05:05.200 --> 05:06.260]  So let's start with the whales.
[05:06.460 --> 05:18.160]  In 1820, if you were an evil genius, and you wanted to kill all the whales, you could use space lasers, but that wouldn't work because we hadn't invented satellites yet.
[05:18.820 --> 05:26.460]  Or you could teach people that whale oil is the solution to darkness.
[05:27.260 --> 05:30.100]  And as a result, a few people would go whaling.
[05:30.400 --> 05:33.200]  And then they would need whale refineries.
[05:33.340 --> 05:38.260]  And an entire industry would be built around exterminating the whales.
[05:38.500 --> 05:45.600]  And at its peak, in the middle of the 1800s, in the United States, more than 10,000 people had a full-time job of killing all the whales.
[05:46.620 --> 05:50.260]  The thing is, the whales were not saved by Greenpeace.
[05:51.080 --> 05:53.120]  The whales were saved by kerosene.
[05:54.120 --> 06:03.320]  That a hacker figured out, and then it was followed by the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania, that kerosene was a cheaper and more efficient way to eliminate darkness.
[06:03.920 --> 06:06.060]  And this system changed.
[06:06.760 --> 06:13.620]  The system we're in right now is more related to plankton, which are those little squirrels things on the right.
[06:14.600 --> 06:27.000]  Plankton, and in Russian, there's a term for office plankton, which I believe is pronounced office plankton, describes people who go to work and do what they're told.
[06:28.180 --> 06:31.080]  They're dispensable and replaceable.
[06:32.240 --> 06:35.400]  Even some CEOs are office plankton.
[06:35.960 --> 06:41.840]  And there is a system at work pushing people who have jobs to become office plankton.
[06:42.180 --> 06:46.780]  And if you try to stop being an office plankton, the system pushes you back in the other direction.
[06:47.240 --> 06:48.360]  So, Karl Marx.
[06:49.000 --> 06:54.740]  Karl Marx said a lot of things, but one of the things that he said that was really profound is this.
[06:55.220 --> 07:11.640]  As soon as we give sufficiently sophisticated tools to workmen, the skill of the workmen is transferred to the machine so that the next work person doesn't have to have skill.
[07:12.880 --> 07:15.040]  And we keep signing up for that.
[07:15.840 --> 07:18.300]  Adam Smith wrote about pin making machines.
[07:18.440 --> 07:27.160]  Turns out a long time ago, it took a skilled craftsperson a whole day to make 100 pins, like the kind of pins you would put in clothing.
[07:27.300 --> 07:28.000]  100 a day.
[07:28.680 --> 07:36.280]  And with a pin making machine, five or six craftspeople working together, without a lot of skill, could make 10,000 pins.
[07:36.880 --> 07:38.340]  So you can guess what happened.
[07:38.680 --> 07:43.800]  You need to own the pin making machine, because you really can't make a living as a pin maker.
[07:44.660 --> 07:53.540]  And one of the challenges for people who have the kind of skills and insight that you do, is to figure out how to get off the assembly line.
[07:53.980 --> 07:59.960]  Because you know what to do, but the system keeps pushing you to de-skill.
[08:01.200 --> 08:06.620]  So an interesting way to think about this is, you're not sitting in traffic, you are traffic.
[08:07.280 --> 08:11.080]  You are part of a system, and they're all around us.
[08:11.500 --> 08:14.560]  And I'm going to mention a bunch of them going forward.
[08:14.720 --> 08:19.060]  But systems are public conspiracies, not secret ones.
[08:19.360 --> 08:28.900]  And they're often not voluntary, that we get pushed into a system, a system that is organized without an organizer and led without a leader.
[08:29.640 --> 08:31.940]  No one is in charge of the Internet.
[08:32.260 --> 08:35.260]  No one is in charge of the invisible hand of capitalism.
[08:35.520 --> 08:38.280]  No one is in charge of the college industrial complex.
[08:38.680 --> 08:44.960]  And when we see these systems, it's easy to want to blame one person, right?
[08:45.160 --> 08:49.000]  One horrible person with a chip on their shoulder who thinks he can be in charge of everything.
[08:49.200 --> 08:51.640]  But that's not what's actually going on.
[08:52.040 --> 09:00.360]  What's going on is that there is a system and the people in the system are all, quote, doing their best.
[09:00.920 --> 09:04.040]  They don't see the system, they're not in charge of the system.
[09:04.300 --> 09:09.180]  But the culture that we are in requires interoperability.
[09:10.060 --> 09:14.820]  If you go to another country where everyone speaks a different language, nothing is going to happen.
[09:15.580 --> 09:19.580]  Because if people can't communicate with each other, nothing happens.
[09:20.080 --> 09:23.940]  So interoperability begins with, can I speak in a way that you understand?
[09:24.060 --> 09:29.520]  If I walk into you in the hall here, and I put out my left hand to shake your hand, that's confusing.
[09:29.520 --> 09:35.040]  Because our interoperability system for greeting is you're supposed to use your right hand to do that.
[09:35.260 --> 09:36.020]  That makes it work.
[09:36.160 --> 09:44.140]  If you go to Japan and try to argue with people because they're driving on the wrong side of the road, they would correctly point out that they're not wrong, you are.
[09:44.800 --> 09:54.760]  And so when we think about what we get to do, and how we get to do it, when we influence systems, we've got to see them and understand them.
[09:55.320 --> 10:01.340]  And the two ways to unlock it are to look for status and affiliation.
[10:01.640 --> 10:06.060]  So this is the best bike, fastest bike ever made.
[10:06.120 --> 10:07.640]  It's a recumbent bike.
[10:07.920 --> 10:12.040]  And the race across America was won by someone on a recumbent bike.
[10:12.240 --> 10:17.740]  The recumbent bike is an extraordinarily fast, safer, and more comfortable way to travel.
[10:18.880 --> 10:20.040]  So what happened?
[10:20.200 --> 10:23.520]  Charles Moshe invented the recumbent bike in 1920.
[10:23.980 --> 10:25.980]  And he knew it was faster and better.
[10:26.060 --> 10:30.720]  He lived in Paris, which was then and now the hotbed of bike racing.
[10:31.520 --> 10:36.140]  And he went to some of the leading bike racers in Paris, and they laughed at him.
[10:36.640 --> 10:42.160]  So he hired the ne'er-do-well brother of one of the bike racers, paid him some francs.
[10:42.260 --> 10:48.280]  And he broke the world's record for the farthest distance peddled in one hour.
[10:48.420 --> 10:49.720]  He broke it by a lot.
[10:50.400 --> 10:52.260]  So what did all the bike racers do?
[10:52.520 --> 10:54.380]  Did they adopt the recumbent bike?
[10:54.600 --> 10:57.660]  They did not, because they were completely threatened.
[10:57.880 --> 11:04.260]  Their status was completely threatened by the fact that this amateur on a bike was faster than them.
[11:04.840 --> 11:06.520]  What about the bike manufacturers?
[11:06.900 --> 11:13.040]  Well, the bike manufacturers saw that Charles Moshe owned the patents, so they were threatened.
[11:13.240 --> 11:17.320]  Their status as leaders in the system that they were part of was threatened.
[11:17.480 --> 11:27.160]  So affiliation kicks in, and the riders got together with the bike manufacturers, and they banned the recumbent bike from competition.
[11:27.280 --> 11:32.420]  And it is still banned from international competition more than 100 years later.
[11:32.820 --> 11:45.160]  Interesting to note that if you're not in competition, which is everybody in this room, you probably still have a bike, if you have one, that looks like you could be in competition.
[11:45.820 --> 12:00.300]  So many people are being harmed by this other kind of bike, that lobial surgery on women's genitals is rising in the United States because of women who are hurting themselves riding a traditional bicycle.
[12:00.640 --> 12:03.800]  I'm not here to lobby for you to get a recumbent bike.
[12:04.380 --> 12:14.540]  My point is that we need to look at why is someone even riding a bike like that, even though they're never going to go in a race where it's banned, because they want to look like they could go in a race.
[12:14.680 --> 12:16.160]  It raises their status.
[12:16.420 --> 12:19.800]  They are affiliated with the other bike riders.
[12:20.600 --> 12:25.920]  Years ago, I was in Provincetown, where there's a lot of bike paths.
[12:26.320 --> 12:28.860]  And my wife and I went to rent bikes.
[12:29.020 --> 12:41.440]  And on our way in, I noticed on the bike path, almost everybody who was riding in a couple, either both people were wearing a helmet, or neither person was wearing a helmet.
[12:41.940 --> 12:43.340]  And I couldn't figure that out.
[12:43.420 --> 12:47.720]  Is it that people tend to date folks who have the same helmet preference that they do?
[12:48.660 --> 12:51.160]  And I went into the bike store to rent bikes.
[12:51.360 --> 12:52.740]  And then I realized what happens.
[12:53.060 --> 12:58.340]  They give you the bikes, and then the person behind the counter says, do you want helmets?
[12:59.140 --> 13:02.780]  And whoever speaks first, the other person says, okay.
[13:03.780 --> 13:13.380]  And if you wanted everyone to wear helmets, then all you have to do is change that part of the system and put two helmets on the counter and say, most people take helmets.
[13:14.380 --> 13:18.440]  And the number of people who would then be wearing helmets would go through the roof.
[13:18.760 --> 13:23.720]  What systems do is they hide behind culture.
[13:24.040 --> 13:28.960]  We assume that they are normal, so that we won't challenge them.
[13:29.480 --> 13:35.540]  In the 1940s, almost a million women were telephone operators.
[13:36.020 --> 13:41.580]  And at the rate that the phone system was growing, it was going to be all women were doing it.
[13:41.720 --> 13:43.640]  This is an abnormal thing.
[13:44.100 --> 13:51.620]  That we were going to conscript almost every single person in the country to do something, but it felt normal.
[13:51.960 --> 13:54.260]  We heard recently about TikTok.
[13:54.760 --> 13:58.380]  People are spending hours and hours and hours there.
[13:58.700 --> 14:03.320]  And the question is, do they work for TikTok or does TikTok work for them?
[14:03.880 --> 14:18.260]  That when we think about how easy it is to seduce people into believing in false metrics, we understand that status and affiliation drive the adoption of almost every system.
[14:18.440 --> 14:19.340]  What's a false metric?
[14:19.660 --> 14:25.080]  Well, if you're hiring a programmer, finding out how many words per minute they can type is completely irrelevant.
[14:25.380 --> 14:26.160]  Don't ask.
[14:26.500 --> 14:32.100]  Asking how they would move Mount Fuji, or how many golf balls fit into a VW microbus, don't ask.
[14:32.300 --> 14:34.040]  It's a false proxy.
[14:34.280 --> 14:38.220]  These false proxies are easy to measure, but not useful.
[14:38.740 --> 14:46.240]  And so what most organizations do is they hire people who look like them as opposed to hiring people who can actually do the work.
[14:46.520 --> 14:50.120]  In radio, the false metric was super simple.
[14:50.360 --> 14:52.360]  What's the ratings of the radio station?
[14:52.540 --> 14:57.860]  Because the ratings determine how much you can charge for ads and how much you can charge for ads determines how much money you make.
[14:57.980 --> 15:08.200]  Well, some radio consultants figured out that the way they determined the ratings was by having people fill in a notebook of what radio station they were listening to.
[15:08.860 --> 15:17.680]  So these folks made millions of dollars by going to radio station after radio station saying, we can raise your ratings by 5 to 20% if you pay us.
[15:17.680 --> 15:19.900]  And the stations would say, sure, that'll work.
[15:20.580 --> 15:26.440]  And the hack was, repeat your call sign four times more than you already do.
[15:27.160 --> 15:29.840]  Over and over and over again.
[15:30.040 --> 15:32.880]  And that's why if you still have an old-fashioned radio, they still do that.
[15:33.320 --> 15:34.740]  False proxies.
[15:35.280 --> 15:35.480]  Okay.
[15:36.320 --> 15:38.560]  So the fork in the road then is this.
[15:38.800 --> 15:44.380]  The fork in the road is, are you committed to hacking for yourself or are you committed to hacking for the community?
[15:44.920 --> 15:48.060]  Hacking for yourself is fun and it's a worthwhile hobby.
[15:48.180 --> 15:50.420]  And I am in favor of it if it makes you happy.
[15:50.700 --> 15:56.180]  But hacking for the community is something the system does not want you to do.
[15:56.560 --> 15:59.940]  The system is not going to reward you for doing that.
[16:00.080 --> 16:04.300]  And their system is much happier if you're spending time tweaking around the edges.
[16:04.620 --> 16:06.580]  What does it mean to hack for the community?
[16:07.180 --> 16:17.580]  Well, when ACT UP started to take a leading role in fighting the AIDS epidemic, what they figured out was that the FDA wasn't doing what they were supposed to do.
[16:18.060 --> 16:32.320]  And they followed the FDA's rules to the letter, creating volumes and volumes of reports and statements that the FDA had no choice but to listen to.
[16:32.560 --> 16:35.480]  Because the system has no one in charge.
[16:35.800 --> 16:38.440]  The system just does what the system does.
[16:38.720 --> 16:43.520]  And we can show up and say, oh, I understand the rules of this system.
[16:43.860 --> 16:44.260]  Right?
[16:44.340 --> 16:46.700]  The whale folks didn't want to kill all the whales.
[16:47.260 --> 16:49.520]  They just wanted to make a living eliminating darkness.
[16:50.080 --> 16:54.420]  If you can show up with a new way to eliminate darkness, they'll stop killing the whales.
[16:55.320 --> 16:57.080]  Okay, so let's say you have a time machine.
[16:57.480 --> 17:01.580]  And you can bring anything you want back to the 1800s.
[17:01.740 --> 17:06.080]  Well, a misguided thing would be to bring an iPhone.
[17:07.100 --> 17:12.380]  Because it might get you a date, but it's not going to accomplish very much.
[17:12.620 --> 17:16.700]  It's not going to accomplish very much because the interoperability doesn't exist.
[17:17.040 --> 17:18.660]  There are no GPS satellites.
[17:18.900 --> 17:20.140]  You aren't part of something.
[17:20.340 --> 17:22.220]  You can have fun with the single device.
[17:22.220 --> 17:25.980]  But if you don't understand, it's just a node on a network, you're stuck.
[17:26.920 --> 17:29.340]  Okay, quick experiment, if you don't mind.
[17:29.620 --> 17:31.480]  Close your eyes for just five seconds.
[17:32.920 --> 17:42.300]  That is what it looks like for one out of every six people on earth every night who have no electricity whatsoever.
[17:42.960 --> 17:47.760]  When electricity showed up, the first thing it offered was the light bulb.
[17:48.340 --> 17:50.780]  In fact, there were no electrical outlets.
[17:51.020 --> 17:54.840]  And all people had in their home was something called the Edison mount.
[17:55.260 --> 17:57.060]  You can guess who that was named after.
[17:57.340 --> 18:06.440]  And if you wanted to do your laundry, which was the most noxious chore that women had to do in those days, you could buy an electric washing machine.
[18:06.760 --> 18:10.260]  Now the thing is, electric washing machines are unstable.
[18:10.500 --> 18:11.880]  Even to this day, they rock a little bit.
[18:11.980 --> 18:12.960]  In those days, they rocked a lot.
[18:13.040 --> 18:21.320]  So you would have to unscrew the light bulb, ouch, and then screw in the plug into your light thing and sit in the dark while you did your laundry.
[18:21.360 --> 18:22.920]  And it would rock and back and forth.
[18:23.040 --> 18:30.320]  And in one year, more than 20 people were killed by washing machines walking around the room and wrapping the cable around their neck.
[18:30.500 --> 18:31.460]  That's not my point.
[18:31.740 --> 18:35.720]  My point is that electricity spreads.
[18:36.280 --> 18:45.380]  That when people in a little village outside of Borelli, India, buy a D-light solar lantern for the equivalent of two months worth of kerosene, it's a miracle.
[18:45.780 --> 18:48.840]  Because now their kids can read and do their homework at night.
[18:49.040 --> 18:50.500]  And now their house isn't going to burn down.
[18:50.620 --> 18:51.880]  And now they're not going to get lung disease.
[18:52.160 --> 19:03.020]  But what's really cool is soon thereafter, the productivity that light bulb brought gives them enough income to get another solar panel, to get another one.
[19:03.160 --> 19:06.120]  And eventually they electrify all the way up.
[19:06.560 --> 19:10.620]  That's what persistent systems do.
[19:10.900 --> 19:12.740]  First, they hide behind culture.
[19:13.020 --> 19:15.120]  Second, they feel normal.
[19:15.720 --> 19:19.960]  Third, the more we use them, the more we use them.
[19:21.680 --> 19:27.360]  Fourth, once entrenched, they relentlessly work to defend themselves.
[19:27.600 --> 19:31.760]  And the last one is the user might not be the customer.
[19:32.220 --> 19:35.260]  And that distinction is super important.
[19:35.740 --> 19:40.540]  In social media, you might be the user, you're not the customer.
[19:41.400 --> 19:48.800]  The social media customer is buying the ads and wants your attention and wants your discomfort and wants your insecurity.
[19:48.920 --> 19:52.700]  So you'll come back in just a couple more minutes and see what's new.
[19:53.780 --> 19:58.880]  When we think about these systems, then we can look to see who is the actual customer.
[19:59.260 --> 20:03.400]  If I think about, sorry, business systems exist to serve executives.
[20:04.160 --> 20:05.900]  That's how they make decisions.
[20:06.280 --> 20:08.120]  Will this help our stock price?
[20:08.280 --> 20:10.160]  Will this make my job more secure?
[20:11.360 --> 20:13.160]  Schools optimize for administrators.
[20:13.460 --> 20:16.200]  Weddings, optimize to profit caterers.
[20:16.680 --> 20:18.100]  I hit the button one too many times.
[20:18.240 --> 20:18.440]  Sorry.
[20:19.120 --> 20:19.660]  Go back.
[20:20.680 --> 20:23.060]  So let's think about the wedding industrial complex for a minute.
[20:23.400 --> 20:27.860]  The wedding industrial complex, how much should you spend on a wedding?
[20:28.720 --> 20:33.060]  Well, the answer is exactly as much as your best friend, but $100 more.
[20:34.460 --> 20:37.660]  And the system is built to amplify that.
[20:38.180 --> 20:42.660]  Caterers want you to order the usual stuff, because the usual stuff is how they make a living.
[20:43.200 --> 20:47.460]  When we think about school, if you go to a school board meeting and say, what is school for?
[20:48.460 --> 20:50.780]  Parents, administrators, teachers all have a different answer.
[20:51.480 --> 20:55.400]  Because what school is for isn't what you might think it's for.
[20:55.440 --> 20:59.240]  And we don't even agree, which is why it's so hard to make school better.
[20:59.640 --> 21:01.580]  What is TikTok for?
[21:01.900 --> 21:08.620]  Well, it depends on who you're asking and whether they want to reveal to you exactly what they're getting out of the system.
[21:09.200 --> 21:19.860]  And when we think about the various systems we are trying to hack, we can think about what is the first principle that this system exists for?
[21:20.080 --> 21:22.340]  And do I need to change that first principle?
[21:22.440 --> 21:27.800]  Or can I use that first principle to make the whole thing better?
[21:28.060 --> 21:37.060]  So the Grateful Dead showed up and the system of music is not organized to make these fans or this band happy.
[21:37.680 --> 21:39.760]  So they walked away from radio.
[21:40.040 --> 21:44.300]  They walked away from basic structures of copyright.
[21:44.540 --> 21:47.420]  They walked away from how you're supposed to do it.
[21:47.420 --> 21:52.480]  And 10 years, they were the number one touring act in the world.
[21:52.840 --> 22:00.920]  And last month, five months ago, they broke the record for the most Billboard bestselling albums.
[22:01.280 --> 22:12.200]  Because they played by different rules in a system that could reward them, because the things they were delivering to the system were what the system actually rewards.
[22:12.740 --> 22:15.080]  So systems seduce us.
[22:15.580 --> 22:23.140]  Often we go into them against our own interests, because they offer a status, because they offer us affiliation.
[22:23.300 --> 22:25.800]  People like us do things like this.
[22:26.040 --> 22:37.800]  You don't want to have a funeral like all those stupid funerals you've ever been to, but you will, because by the time you're dead, somebody else seduced by the system is going to make the decision, not you, and convenience.
[22:38.920 --> 22:41.480]  And Tim Wu has written brilliantly on this.
[22:41.600 --> 22:45.160]  If you Google Tim Wu and convenience, his essay is better than I can explain to you.
[22:45.320 --> 22:49.300]  But human beings will trade almost anything for convenience.
[22:49.720 --> 22:54.720]  And one of the magic elements of the hope audience is you don't.
[22:54.900 --> 23:05.900]  You do an enormous number of truly inconvenient, often ridiculous things, because you don't want what comes with the convenience.
[23:06.660 --> 23:10.060]  And the last one is the freedom from fear.
[23:10.360 --> 23:18.440]  The freedom from fear is something that will get people to do an enormous amount of things, even if the fear isn't real.
[23:18.900 --> 23:23.880]  So, a couple concrete examples of systems that came out of nowhere and changed things.
[23:24.800 --> 23:33.740]  The first widespread effective digital currency system came from Safaricom called M-Pesa in Kenya.
[23:34.320 --> 23:36.980]  And the model is fantastic.
[23:37.660 --> 23:39.060]  Basically, it works like this.
[23:39.400 --> 23:43.020]  A friend of mine in Kenya explained that he needed to get some money to his grandmother.
[23:43.200 --> 23:44.240]  He lived in Nairobi.
[23:45.020 --> 23:56.680]  And he took, I don't know how many Kenyan shillings, put it in an envelope, went to the bus station and said to a bus that was headed near his grandmother's village, can someone bring this to my grandmother?
[23:57.240 --> 23:58.500]  And someone said, fine.
[23:58.700 --> 24:00.680]  He gave him the envelope of money to a stranger.
[24:00.820 --> 24:04.200]  That person got almost all the way there, handed the envelope to someone else.
[24:04.200 --> 24:05.400]  It got to the grandmother.
[24:06.440 --> 24:07.440]  That's great.
[24:07.540 --> 24:13.680]  But as society starts to urbanize, it's harder to make that resilient.
[24:14.520 --> 24:17.540]  So, Safaricon was the cell phone company.
[24:17.560 --> 24:21.020]  And they had kiosks all over because people didn't have credit cards.
[24:21.120 --> 24:24.380]  You can go to the kiosk and top up your account.
[24:24.420 --> 24:28.480]  So you could put 100 Kenyan shillings into your account and your phone would work again.
[24:29.780 --> 24:32.480]  Well, they had a lot of these kiosks.
[24:33.140 --> 24:39.460]  And then they implemented a system that where you could put in money to top up somebody else's phone.
[24:40.420 --> 24:47.380]  And once you had money on your phone, you could also go to the kiosk and un-top up your phone and take money out of your phone.
[24:47.680 --> 24:55.980]  So all he had to do was go to the kiosk, put money in his grandmother's phone, And then she could go to the kiosk and get money out of her phone.
[24:56.840 --> 25:01.740]  And this spread, and it spread, and it spread, and it got more and more refined.
[25:01.980 --> 25:06.240]  And if you want to understand the future of digital currency, that's what happens.
[25:06.300 --> 25:10.260]  You start with a use case, you don't start with a multi-level marketing scam.
[25:11.280 --> 25:15.960]  And this idea of seeing systems is profound.
[25:16.280 --> 25:21.000]  And then we can hack them, if we're willing to do it in public and build new systems.
[25:21.000 --> 25:24.760]  So you may know this piece of art.
[25:25.080 --> 25:26.260]  It's called The Bean.
[25:26.420 --> 25:27.700]  It's in Chicago.
[25:27.920 --> 25:29.580]  It's by an artist named Anish Kapoor.
[25:29.920 --> 25:37.460]  Anish Kapoor somehow heard about a company that made a black paint called Vantablack, the blackest paint ever created.
[25:37.660 --> 25:46.840]  And he went to the Vantablack people, and he somehow got them to sign a contract that he was the only artist in the world that was ever allowed to buy Vantablack paint.
[25:46.840 --> 25:50.720]  He bought the worldwide exclusive rights to a color.
[25:51.660 --> 25:54.940]  And my friend Stuart Semple was offended by this.
[25:55.060 --> 25:58.440]  That's Anish on the one side, Stuart's on the pink side.
[25:58.700 --> 26:00.260]  He was offended by this.
[26:00.360 --> 26:03.920]  So he invented the second blackest color in the world.
[26:04.320 --> 26:16.640]  And this black, which you can buy from him, in order to buy it, you have to sign an affidavit that says, you are not Anish Kapoor, you don't know Anish Kapoor, and you will not let Anish Kapoor use the color.
[26:17.200 --> 26:22.640]  He has gone on to create dozens of other colors, including a beautiful Yves Klein blue.
[26:22.940 --> 26:25.460]  And he does all of this hacking in public.
[26:25.760 --> 26:34.520]  And as a result, he's organized a community of artists, and given that community tools to go forward.
[26:35.160 --> 26:39.800]  So, to summarize this part of my rant, and I'm going to try to leave plenty of time for questions.
[26:40.340 --> 26:43.820]  What the system wants is it begins by offering you deniability.
[26:44.020 --> 26:45.360]  I was just doing my job.
[26:45.620 --> 26:47.220]  I was just following instructions.
[26:47.540 --> 26:54.500]  But then it adds on top of that a feeling of helplessness, which is why what this group stands for is so important.
[26:55.500 --> 26:57.500]  Obedience, which goes with those two things.
[26:58.240 --> 27:02.200]  Fear, and yes, Tim Wu's convenience, just as a bonus.
[27:03.940 --> 27:11.820]  But what it all adds up to is a word that I've almost never heard used since it was coined a very long time ago.
[27:11.920 --> 27:13.720]  And it's de-skilling.
[27:14.380 --> 27:17.180]  The system wants you to de-skill.
[27:17.640 --> 27:20.680]  It wants you to be a cog in a machine.
[27:20.680 --> 27:25.720]  And to skilled people, they offer you a little bit of bait.
[27:25.940 --> 27:31.980]  They say, well, if you could make this little tiny part better, or that little tiny part better, that would be okay.
[27:33.080 --> 27:36.180]  But systems are much bigger than the sum of their parts.
[27:36.960 --> 27:40.260]  So here's a key story that I think will help you understand this.
[27:40.860 --> 27:45.640]  Some of the poorest people in the world are chocolate growers, chocolate farmers.
[27:45.640 --> 27:48.200]  And there are a few reasons for that.
[27:48.540 --> 27:52.880]  One, because chocolate is traditionally from Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
[27:53.500 --> 27:59.300]  Two, because the giant chocolate companies have pushed for chocolate to taste worse and be cheaper.
[27:59.780 --> 28:06.980]  So they have pushed farmers to grow a hardier, more reliable, but terrible kind of chocolate.
[28:07.140 --> 28:11.420]  And then, because it's all a commodity, they pay them the lowest possible price.
[28:12.180 --> 28:17.440]  Many of these people are children who are basically working in slave labor conditions.
[28:17.960 --> 28:30.180]  So when Halloween rolls around, the system that we live in pushes us to buy as much cheap chocolate as we possibly can, because we're just going to give it to strangers who are going to harass us, and then we can go back to our lives.
[28:30.680 --> 28:34.840]  Well, two people saw this and could not abide it.
[28:35.020 --> 28:37.640]  First, Tony, who was a journalist in the Netherlands.
[28:37.640 --> 28:44.800]  And he decided to hack the system by writing a series of exposés about how horrible the chocolate companies were.
[28:45.580 --> 28:48.760]  And the system said, we can outlast you.
[28:49.160 --> 28:51.440]  And they had meetings with him, but they outlasted him.
[28:51.880 --> 28:54.440]  So instead, he started a chocolate company.
[28:55.140 --> 29:00.500]  Tony's Choco Lonely is called that because he was lonely, being the only person who cared about this.
[29:00.940 --> 29:02.020]  Well, no longer.
[29:02.420 --> 29:05.940]  25% of all the chocolates sold in the Netherlands is made by him.
[29:06.660 --> 29:10.420]  And my friend Sean Askinozzi in Missouri saw the same thing.
[29:10.560 --> 29:13.680]  He built one of the first bean-to-bar chocolate companies in the United States.
[29:13.880 --> 29:26.080]  He does business directly with chocolate farmers, pays them five times the usual rate, and has open book management and has taught dozens of other companies how to, quote, compete with him.
[29:26.080 --> 29:36.180]  He is somebody who's showing up, like Tony, to actually change the system, not just to hack it for himself.
[29:36.280 --> 29:43.520]  He can use the system against the system because the system, fueled by capitalism, just wants to make a profit.
[29:43.660 --> 29:46.920]  They don't actually want there to be slave-child labor in Ghana.
[29:46.920 --> 29:52.880]  But if they can make a profit by making ethical chocolate and talking about it, they will.
[29:53.040 --> 29:54.500]  And the system will change.
[29:54.920 --> 30:03.400]  So here, right now, in this moment, there are three things that are causing every system in our lives to be vulnerable.
[30:03.760 --> 30:06.040]  This is the moment for hackers.
[30:06.620 --> 30:10.320]  They are technology, media, and the shift of generations.
[30:10.320 --> 30:11.740]  Technology.
[30:12.180 --> 30:14.880]  Technology is the one you're the most familiar with.
[30:15.020 --> 30:17.300]  When technology changes, the systems change.
[30:17.600 --> 30:22.500]  Just ask somebody at GeoCities or Yahoo or AOL or Prodigy.
[30:23.600 --> 30:29.040]  AI is going to completely transform just about every system in our lives.
[30:29.320 --> 30:37.640]  In this moment, you can show up and make a permanent big change happen because the system's already under threat.
[30:38.060 --> 30:39.360]  Number two is media.
[30:40.100 --> 30:42.880]  You know what changed all the colleges in the United States?
[30:43.380 --> 30:43.940]  U.S.
[30:44.080 --> 30:44.800]  News and World Report.
[30:45.320 --> 30:46.400]  Because they ranked them.
[30:46.960 --> 30:49.440]  They put information into the world.
[30:49.620 --> 30:50.320]  A new proxy.
[30:50.800 --> 31:02.280]  So just to give you a ridiculous example, on this campus, they spend a fortune on sports because spending money on sports gets you a certain kind of applicant, and that makes your ratings go up in the ratings.
[31:02.480 --> 31:03.220]  Here's another one.
[31:03.360 --> 31:04.100]  This is my favorite.
[31:04.840 --> 31:09.600]  One of the things in their algorithm is, what's your four-year graduation rate?
[31:10.100 --> 31:12.280]  Because the theory is, this is a useful proxy.
[31:12.280 --> 31:15.140]  Because we want to know how many people struggle to get through college.
[31:15.680 --> 31:18.360]  Well, Northeastern University is a five-year school.
[31:18.360 --> 31:22.280]  So their four-year graduation rate was close to zero.
[31:22.740 --> 31:35.840]  So some brilliant MBA at Northeastern realizes that if they just call up a bunch of students who are doing well and offer them the chance to graduate in four years, their ranking will go up.
[31:35.840 --> 31:36.740]  So they did.
[31:37.240 --> 31:40.240]  That has nothing to do with whether it's a good school or not.
[31:40.360 --> 31:44.000]  It has everything to do with hacking a system that's under pressure because of the media.
[31:44.600 --> 31:46.180]  And the third one is generations.
[31:46.600 --> 31:52.320]  Because people like me and those a little bit older than me, baby boomers, I'm the youngest baby boomer, we're dying.
[31:53.120 --> 31:57.600]  And we took up all the airspace since 1965.
[31:58.520 --> 32:01.600]  All the music, all the politics, all the commerce.
[32:01.940 --> 32:03.940]  Baby boomer, baby boomer, baby boomer.
[32:03.940 --> 32:05.180]  And now we're going.
[32:05.580 --> 32:08.860]  And that's going to lead to another significant shift.
[32:09.920 --> 32:14.220]  And there are three dominant systems that we need to keep our eyes on.
[32:15.440 --> 32:17.660]  Capitalism, colonialism, and tech.
[32:17.920 --> 32:20.820]  And all three are very powerful and all three are around.
[32:21.000 --> 32:28.480]  If you ask what it wants, you can figure out what it's going to do next, even though no one is in charge.
[32:29.900 --> 32:32.580]  So to wrap this up, and then we'll do some questions.
[32:32.580 --> 32:39.300]  There was a conference a little bit like this one in 1927 called the Solvay Conference.
[32:39.300 --> 32:42.880]  It was the most important conference of physicists ever held.
[32:43.040 --> 32:44.740]  They've had one every three years since then.
[32:45.280 --> 32:48.500]  There are 29 people in this picture.
[32:48.660 --> 32:53.040]  You may notice there's Albert Einstein and Marie Curie and Niels Bohr.
[32:53.040 --> 32:56.140]  It said that Heisenberg was there, but it's uncertain.
[32:56.480 --> 32:58.640]  But what is true...
[33:00.500 --> 33:01.320]  Thank you.
[33:01.520 --> 33:05.860]  I can't use that line anymore, because everyone thinks it's from Breaking Bad.
[33:05.860 --> 33:08.180]  You guys understood it.
[33:08.280 --> 33:09.540]  And I just saved it.
[33:09.660 --> 33:12.500]  I took this gig just so I could say that.
[33:13.600 --> 33:15.160]  You made me so happy.
[33:15.920 --> 33:22.260]  Anyway, there's 29 people in this photo, and 17 of them won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
[33:22.260 --> 33:23.920]  And you can look it up.
[33:24.280 --> 33:27.720]  They all won it after the photo was taken.
[33:28.560 --> 33:31.700]  You didn't get invited to Solvay because you won the Nobel Prize.
[33:31.940 --> 33:35.600]  You won the Nobel Prize because you were at Solvay.
[33:36.200 --> 33:42.120]  And so, when I think about Cory Doctorow's greatest contribution to the hacking world, it's this.
[33:42.880 --> 33:45.800]  If you do it by yourself, it's worthless.
[33:46.760 --> 34:01.540]  If you organize, if you look at what EFF has done, if you look at what happens when someone who's doing it for a living and making a lot of money has done, when we create community action, the systems change.
[34:02.380 --> 34:05.600]  Ten years ago, I got invited to a weird secret conference in New Mexico.
[34:05.780 --> 34:06.300]  It was super cool.
[34:06.400 --> 34:10.640]  I got to meet some very interesting people, including Neil Armstrong.
[34:10.920 --> 34:12.720]  That is not Neil Armstrong, by the way.
[34:12.800 --> 34:13.440]  You can see Neil.
[34:13.580 --> 34:15.240]  He's about one inch tall in the visor.
[34:17.520 --> 34:18.800]  Neil took this picture.
[34:19.340 --> 34:19.860]  Neil was there.
[34:19.940 --> 34:21.180]  It was his last public appearance.
[34:22.440 --> 34:26.240]  And it's night and it's cold, and they build this giant campfire.
[34:26.640 --> 34:29.940]  And there's, you know, a hundred of these fancy people outside.
[34:29.940 --> 34:30.560]  We're shivering.
[34:30.760 --> 34:31.520]  We're wearing blankets.
[34:31.760 --> 34:32.500]  We're sitting around the campfire.
[34:32.660 --> 34:36.060]  And Neil comes out to talk about his mission.
[34:36.840 --> 34:42.000]  And while he's talking, I'm pretty sure there was some advanced planning involved.
[34:42.480 --> 34:48.640]  While he's talking, the biggest full moon I've ever seen starts to rise over his shoulder.
[34:50.060 --> 34:51.100]  And he stops.
[34:52.240 --> 34:53.380]  I get all choked up.
[34:53.420 --> 34:53.880]  I don't know why.
[34:54.120 --> 34:57.520]  He stops and he turns and he says, I've been there.
[35:00.640 --> 35:02.580]  There are footprints on the moon.
[35:02.780 --> 35:04.200]  They are still there.
[35:05.280 --> 35:13.060]  When you think about how hard it is to change the systems that you are dancing with, it is easy to give up.
[35:13.240 --> 35:15.740]  The system really wants you to give up.
[35:15.920 --> 35:18.140]  The system wants you to not talk about it.
[35:18.140 --> 35:19.900]  The system wants you to not organize.
[35:20.200 --> 35:21.980]  The system wants you to back off.
[35:22.380 --> 35:27.260]  When you feel that, just go outside and look up in the sky.
[35:27.660 --> 35:33.980]  And realize that NASA put people on the moon and brought them back safely.
[35:34.220 --> 35:41.520]  When the sum computing power of the entire institution was less than the phone in your pocket.
[35:42.680 --> 35:46.160]  This is a moment to care a lot.
[35:46.580 --> 35:54.700]  To show up and to organize and to talk about it and to publish it and to care a lot.
[35:54.880 --> 35:58.060]  So if you need a written invitation, here it is.
[35:58.180 --> 36:00.720]  What the world is saying is super simple.
[36:01.040 --> 36:03.300]  We need you to lead us.
[36:03.520 --> 36:04.820]  Thanks for your attention today.
[36:13.020 --> 36:13.780]  Thank you.
[36:14.480 --> 36:14.840]  Thank you.
[36:14.840 --> 36:14.860]  Okay.
[36:15.180 --> 36:16.900]  I think I left time for questions.
[36:17.100 --> 36:20.020]  John will tell me when I'm out of time.
[36:20.280 --> 36:24.320]  So we got a microphone here and I'd love to hear what you want to talk about.
[36:30.240 --> 36:31.860]  So you mean me as a user?
[36:32.420 --> 36:32.560]  Yes.
[36:32.760 --> 36:34.660]  So the key, I think, is this.
[36:35.320 --> 36:39.460]  What we do when we make change happen is we create tension.
[36:39.460 --> 36:43.840]  We don't solve a problem that everyone already knows they have.
[36:44.320 --> 36:46.640]  The tension of I might fall behind.
[36:46.920 --> 36:48.580]  The tension of this might not work.
[36:48.720 --> 36:50.480]  The tension of what will happen next.
[36:50.980 --> 36:54.540]  And so when we want to bring a system to people.
[36:54.820 --> 36:56.440]  A new tool or something like that.
[36:57.220 --> 37:02.860]  The real question is what would scare the user I need enough.
[37:03.360 --> 37:06.940]  That they would get rid of their fear by using it.
[37:06.940 --> 37:10.420]  That they would get rid of their fear by trying it.
[37:10.760 --> 37:14.440]  So what was Facebook's simple, never-stated slogan?
[37:15.460 --> 37:18.360]  Your friends are talking about you behind your back.
[37:18.360 --> 37:19.760]  Do you want to hear what they're saying?
[37:20.820 --> 37:26.200]  As soon as someone knew that that was what was on offer, we had to go look to see what they were saying.
[37:26.680 --> 37:26.960]  Right?
[37:27.220 --> 37:33.080]  When Twitter said there are people who aren't as smart and eloquent as you who are gaining followings.
[37:33.180 --> 37:34.600]  Do you want to catch up?
[37:35.220 --> 37:36.920]  People needed to go do that.
[37:37.780 --> 37:42.360]  So it feels off-putting to say I'm here to create tension.
[37:42.960 --> 37:46.620]  But that's exactly what we do every time we say, oh, the Kickstarter is about to sell out.
[37:46.980 --> 37:47.380]  Right?
[37:47.460 --> 37:48.020]  You better hurry.
[37:48.700 --> 37:50.040]  I just made tension happen.
[37:50.200 --> 37:52.200]  You should do it on behalf of people.
[37:52.420 --> 37:56.500]  You should do it so that they'll be glad afterwards that they did it.
[37:56.880 --> 37:59.060]  But they're never going to be glad to go first.
[37:59.680 --> 38:04.340]  That's why benchmarking and specs rarely make a great product.
[38:06.100 --> 38:06.980]  Thanks for that.
[38:08.520 --> 38:11.020]  This is a question on your last slide.
[38:11.240 --> 38:11.500]  Okay.
[38:11.700 --> 38:13.140]  We need you to lead us.
[38:13.140 --> 38:24.520]  So in this perspective that you have, what are really the top two qualities of a leader that can affect change?
[38:24.680 --> 38:29.760]  Because I don't want the answer, which is pretty common, charisma and rhetorical skills.
[38:29.760 --> 38:30.200]  Nope.
[38:30.540 --> 38:31.140]  They're not that.
[38:31.540 --> 38:32.340]  People get...
[38:32.340 --> 38:33.800]  I've studied leaders all around the world.
[38:34.120 --> 38:35.820]  You get charisma by leading.
[38:35.980 --> 38:37.720]  You don't become a leader because you have charisma.
[38:38.140 --> 38:39.040]  We define...
[38:39.040 --> 38:40.560]  Like, Gandhi had a speech impediment.
[38:41.240 --> 38:44.360]  It's not that you're going to win a popularity contest.
[38:46.500 --> 38:50.260]  I'm going to make a statement here that isn't about the people in this room, but it's about the people in this room.
[38:53.000 --> 38:53.900]  You're lonely.
[38:54.880 --> 39:00.860]  You wish people would see you and know you and miss you if you were gone.
[39:01.400 --> 39:02.600]  Because I am too.
[39:02.760 --> 39:03.860]  And so is everyone I know.
[39:04.940 --> 39:06.480]  Leaders deal with that problem.
[39:07.260 --> 39:09.000]  Leaders are not managers.
[39:09.360 --> 39:10.800]  They don't have power and authority.
[39:11.260 --> 39:12.860]  They say, I'm going over there.
[39:12.860 --> 39:13.800]  Who wants to come?
[39:14.540 --> 39:17.700]  And the closing scene of Buckaroo Banzai changed my life.
[39:17.960 --> 39:19.220]  And it's not a great movie.
[39:19.220 --> 39:20.140]  I just rewatched it.
[39:20.320 --> 39:22.260]  But the closing scene is great.
[39:22.640 --> 39:23.080]  Great.
[39:23.080 --> 39:26.020]  Where they're all walking the Hong Kong Cavaliers.
[39:26.460 --> 39:28.660]  Each one of them weirder than the next.
[39:28.960 --> 39:30.660]  But they are part of something.
[39:31.540 --> 39:33.140]  This is the place to start.
[39:33.580 --> 39:34.340]  Right here.
[39:34.580 --> 39:35.840]  Who wants to come?
[39:36.260 --> 39:37.900]  That's what it is to be a leader.
[39:38.520 --> 39:39.320]  Thank you.
[39:39.840 --> 39:40.380]  Hi.
[39:44.560 --> 39:46.460]  Hi, Mr. Garvin.
[39:46.460 --> 39:51.140]  I think the photo you used is very interesting.
[39:51.660 --> 39:54.740]  The one that people in the past hold an iPhone.
[39:55.120 --> 40:00.780]  So we can see you watch the world very carefully for decades.
[40:01.420 --> 40:04.300]  And so the system come and go.
[40:04.300 --> 40:21.040]  So if we look into the future, do you think the crypto industrial now is strong or big or complicated enough to be called a system?
[40:23.320 --> 40:24.700]  You're asking me about crypto.
[40:26.080 --> 40:26.200]  Yeah.
[40:26.340 --> 40:28.280]  The whole industry.
[40:29.220 --> 40:29.620]  Crypto.
[40:29.960 --> 40:30.360]  Web3.
[40:30.780 --> 40:31.180]  Sure.
[40:32.060 --> 40:34.720]  Let me try to answer that because there's a lot of people waiting.
[40:35.160 --> 40:35.400]  Is that okay?
[40:35.540 --> 40:35.620]  Yes.
[40:35.620 --> 40:35.860]  Great.
[40:35.860 --> 40:39.320]  This is my, this very last sentence of my question.
[40:39.760 --> 40:49.120]  So if it will be a system, do you think what is the biggest lesson it can learn from the older systems?
[40:49.420 --> 40:49.580]  Right.
[40:49.760 --> 40:49.900]  Okay.
[40:49.980 --> 40:50.360]  I got it.
[40:50.480 --> 40:51.140]  Let me, okay.
[40:51.300 --> 40:51.540]  Thank you.
[40:52.040 --> 40:57.760]  So it's interesting to look at Gartner's hype curve.
[40:58.100 --> 41:01.540]  It's interesting to think about Jeff Moore's crossing the chasm.
[41:01.540 --> 41:08.040]  That when we think about the interoperability of various forms of crypto, it's true.
[41:08.320 --> 41:10.960]  A Bitcoin here works just like a Bitcoin over there.
[41:11.120 --> 41:13.500]  That was a big, difficult thing to do.
[41:13.680 --> 41:19.620]  And as we add more and more and more layers, you see the interoperability increasing.
[41:20.420 --> 41:32.000]  The challenge in the crypto world is if the price of mainstream crypto wasn't consistently going up, the number of people interested in it would be close to zero.
[41:33.020 --> 41:37.780]  And they are going to need more than that to build a sticky system.
[41:37.980 --> 41:41.020]  Because it can't go up by a factor of 10 every year.
[41:41.700 --> 41:45.080]  So what's missing is customer traction.
[41:46.000 --> 41:50.300]  Other than the people who are using it as investment, who would miss it if it were gone?
[41:50.300 --> 41:57.380]  Coming back to first principles, like if ChatGPT and Claude went away, a billion people would miss it.
[41:57.580 --> 41:59.120]  After just one year.
[41:59.820 --> 42:01.340]  That's customer traction.
[42:01.900 --> 42:04.140]  That's what gets a system to be sticky.
[42:04.940 --> 42:05.620]  Thank you.
[42:05.900 --> 42:06.260]  Yes, sir.
[42:08.420 --> 42:15.720]  So in the case that you gave for the Grateful Dead, it's a radical system openly embedded in a larger musical industry system.
[42:15.720 --> 42:16.120]  Right.
[42:16.860 --> 42:24.600]  Do you have thoughts on how to be open in a radical system that still allows it to survive embedded in these more traditional systems?
[42:24.740 --> 42:30.100]  Because like in our case, our response typically like to be secretive about it and it can't be open.
[42:30.760 --> 42:31.260]  Right.
[42:31.620 --> 42:43.700]  So I think that's the only thing that has ever changed systems is when a competing system begins on the platform that the other system enabled to exist.
[42:43.700 --> 42:44.440]  Right.
[42:44.720 --> 42:51.640]  That the people who built the phone system sent telegrams to each other in order to be able to get enough traction to have a phone system.
[42:52.860 --> 43:00.620]  And Western Union was so embraced in the old thing that when they had a chance to buy the phone company for a couple of million dollars, they said no.
[43:01.380 --> 43:01.680]  Right.
[43:01.920 --> 43:05.220]  That if you have to hide it, it's never going to spread.
[43:05.220 --> 43:08.620]  You have to figure out how to give away all your tricks.
[43:09.340 --> 43:14.220]  Because the critical mass, even though certain people know how you do everything, it doesn't matter.
[43:14.600 --> 43:16.980]  The critical mass is enough.
[43:17.420 --> 43:23.640]  That you need to go to the next Grateful Dead concert even though you can hear all the old tapes, because it's the Grateful Dead.
[43:23.860 --> 43:27.220]  And so the system has to be open in that way.
[43:28.080 --> 43:28.600]  Thanks.
[43:29.000 --> 43:30.180]  These are great questions.
[43:30.520 --> 43:30.720]  All right.
[43:33.440 --> 43:33.940]  Five minutes.
[43:34.220 --> 43:34.240]  All right.
[43:34.240 --> 43:34.560]  Thanks, John.
[43:35.420 --> 43:36.840]  So you mentioned Cory Dacaro.
[43:36.980 --> 43:40.540]  He's a big inspiration for me and many of us, as well as I've read your books.
[43:40.920 --> 43:51.440]  You said in an interview a while ago, and I don't remember the exact quote, but it's about putting their passion behind and starting to put out social content even just to build that minimal viable audience.
[43:51.440 --> 43:52.820]  And I really found inspiration for now.
[43:52.880 --> 43:55.440]  I'm someone who creates and has become popular creating social content.
[43:55.620 --> 43:57.840]  What do you say to others to encourage more people?
[43:57.960 --> 44:00.480]  Because I do it myself as well as things.
[44:00.580 --> 44:02.280]  I stepped up and never realized I had a talent for it.
[44:02.300 --> 44:05.100]  Next, you know, I have 400,000 people following me for the content I publish.
[44:05.340 --> 44:09.060]  What do you say to others to get them up on stage, see more presenters and inspire them?
[44:09.640 --> 44:09.900]  Okay.
[44:09.960 --> 44:11.340]  Well, let me break this into little bits.
[44:11.540 --> 44:16.440]  First of all, having a blog 25 years ago is different than having a blog today.
[44:16.960 --> 44:19.100]  If I was starting today, I wouldn't have a blog.
[44:19.100 --> 44:27.800]  That the fact that Claude can write a blog post almost as good as me means there isn't going to be a scarcity going forward.
[44:28.120 --> 44:30.520]  Attention is way more fractured than it was.
[44:31.200 --> 44:36.760]  The people who have platforms want lots and lots of people to hustle to get 400,000 followers.
[44:37.020 --> 44:44.940]  But those people aren't really following you in the sense that there would show up tomorrow if you said fly to France to meet me.
[44:45.120 --> 44:46.920]  That's a much smaller group of people.
[44:46.920 --> 44:58.040]  So we have this challenge of the long tail and pyramids, which is if you need a base this big to get this many people of value, it's harder and harder to get a base this big.
[44:58.360 --> 45:03.720]  So for me, the smallest viable audience is much closer to what Kevin Kelly's talking about.
[45:03.720 --> 45:10.700]  Are there 1,000 people, just 1,000, who would mail you $100 if the project was worthwhile?
[45:11.240 --> 45:14.460]  How do you find 10 people like that?
[45:14.940 --> 45:19.840]  Because putting out pretty good, in your case, exceptional content isn't enough.
[45:20.260 --> 45:24.360]  It's going to have to be bigger than that, more connected than that.
[45:24.360 --> 45:29.220]  So the real win going forward, I don't think, is creating a body of content.
[45:29.320 --> 45:32.360]  It's creating a body, a community of people.
[45:32.780 --> 45:34.440]  And it doesn't have to be a lot.
[45:34.620 --> 45:35.560]  It could be 50.
[45:35.560 --> 45:38.940]  But people who would answer the phone if you called them.
[45:39.320 --> 45:40.580]  People who would show up.
[45:41.560 --> 45:43.540]  That base can spread.
[45:43.820 --> 45:47.660]  And the example I give you is Alcoholics Anonymous.
[45:48.220 --> 45:49.640]  No one knows who's in charge.
[45:50.160 --> 45:51.520]  They don't have a campaign.
[45:51.900 --> 45:52.940]  They don't have a budget.
[45:53.200 --> 45:54.660]  And everyone knows what it is.
[45:55.360 --> 45:59.200]  And in any city, in any church, you can find a meeting.
[45:59.800 --> 46:01.380]  That's what a movement feels like.
[46:01.540 --> 46:02.860]  That is a possibility.
[46:03.540 --> 46:05.160]  I've got time for two more quick questions.
[46:07.100 --> 46:08.400]  Hi, thank you very much.
[46:08.960 --> 46:17.040]  Earlier today, you mentioned that a strategy to change systems can be scaring people into change and into action.
[46:17.260 --> 46:19.060]  And I think that's how I understood it.
[46:19.160 --> 46:19.900]  You said scaring?
[46:20.020 --> 46:20.440]  Scaring.
[46:20.700 --> 46:22.500]  I think I used the word scaring, but go ahead.
[46:22.500 --> 46:23.700]  Maybe I misheard you.
[46:23.780 --> 46:25.100]  But still, my question stands.
[46:25.100 --> 46:32.320]  How do you mobilize people in today's age without then having to resort to fear-mongering or that fear?
[46:32.620 --> 46:32.700]  Right?
[46:33.420 --> 46:34.300]  What are the practices?
[46:34.360 --> 46:35.140]  What do people want?
[46:35.380 --> 46:35.480]  Right?
[46:35.760 --> 46:42.700]  So one of the challenges the climate movement has is it's very easy for me to describe in detail the problem.
[46:43.060 --> 46:45.740]  But people say, yeah, but if I show up, is it going to go away tomorrow?
[46:46.300 --> 46:47.240]  And the answer is no.
[46:47.560 --> 46:49.500]  So it's very hard to get people to show up.
[46:49.780 --> 46:53.120]  Because it's not, I create fear, you solve it in one day.
[46:53.120 --> 46:56.440]  It's, do you want to be where the other people are?
[46:56.740 --> 46:59.060]  This is what people like us do.
[46:59.260 --> 47:01.340]  People like us do things like this.
[47:01.540 --> 47:09.300]  When we create a cultural dynamic, fear of being left out will cause people to go forward.
[47:09.640 --> 47:13.700]  So fear-mongering is a short-term hack that doesn't usually last.
[47:14.040 --> 47:20.020]  But belonging and affiliation and status, they go on forever.
[47:20.020 --> 47:22.960]  And we just change what the proxies are for those things.
[47:23.080 --> 47:23.820]  But they keep going.
[47:24.100 --> 47:32.520]  So we have to paint a picture for a future, decide who else is coming with us, and then build a system that keeps that moving forward.
[47:33.540 --> 47:34.300]  Last question.
[47:34.420 --> 47:35.160]  You've been very patient.
[47:35.260 --> 47:37.120]  Everyone, I really appreciate you being here.
[47:37.280 --> 47:37.540]  Hi.
[47:37.800 --> 47:38.220]  Hi.
[47:38.480 --> 47:41.160]  I appreciate so much in here.
[47:42.200 --> 47:49.320]  My role in this phase of my life is to be tension in Saxon culture.
[47:49.620 --> 47:54.700]  It's one of the things I pay attention to in terms of generational change.
[47:56.140 --> 47:59.740]  It can be a bit taboo to talk about these things at conferences like that.
[48:00.200 --> 48:09.420]  So within your boundaries of comfort, my question is, when you think about systems of sexuality, particularly since they're perennial, what are ways you think about that?
[48:09.660 --> 48:10.180]  Thank you.
[48:11.220 --> 48:13.400]  Well, thank you for being brave and doing the work.
[48:15.340 --> 48:18.600]  It's very important to begin with, this is not for everyone.
[48:19.640 --> 48:24.720]  That if your first sentence out of your mouth is, this might not work, then you let yourself off the hook.
[48:25.060 --> 48:27.520]  The second sentence is, this is not for everyone.
[48:27.940 --> 48:30.440]  It invites people who do want to come on the journey.
[48:31.100 --> 48:35.040]  And then you can build a culture for the people who it is for.
[48:35.300 --> 48:37.300]  People like us do things like this.
[48:37.580 --> 48:47.280]  So if we look at the extraordinary hard work under horrible conditions that the gay rights movement has been through in a hundred years, right?
[48:47.500 --> 48:52.900]  All the way from people being killed by governments to gay marriage being legal.
[48:52.900 --> 49:05.380]  There's a step-by-step process here that requires impatient persistence, where you are showing up, finding people who want to come, and forgiving people who don't.
[49:05.620 --> 49:11.540]  Until you can surround the community with enough affiliation that it becomes normal.
[49:11.960 --> 49:14.040]  People like us do things like this.
[49:14.440 --> 49:15.640]  Thanks for coming, everyone.
[49:15.800 --> 49:16.480]  Keep making a ruckus.
[49:16.940 --> 49:17.740]  Thank you.