ROI Podcast™ — the #1 Entrepreneurial Business meets Comedy podcast hosted by Law Smith + Eric Readinger

John Krotec is a U.S. Army veteran, visionary entrepreneur and founder of NeoMasculinity Solutions—a movement that helps men and women reclaim purpose, live through truth and lead with clarity. After surviving a traumatic brain injury and confronting long‑buried trauma, he transformed adversity into a mission by founding The Brainary and writing The Sentinel Handbook, a practical tool for self‑leadership. He delivers riveting keynotes and workshops on leadership, critical thinking, emotional resilience and self‑agency. With over 40 years in business, his journey spans high‑altitude expeditions in the Andes, building a pre‑internet multi‑million‑dollar retail company, and hosting conversations with leaders like General Flynn and Ron DeSantis. Today he leads a global push to reignite human intuition and critical thinking, empowering families to discern truth from fiction and resist the relentless onslaught of misinformation.

John Krotec is here to blow up toxic masculinity, trash lazy thinking and maybe tell you about the time he smoked DMT and met aliens. This Army vet turned entrepreneur isn't your typical motivational guru; he's a warrior‑poet who built a multimillion‑dollar company before the internet existed, survived a traumatic brain injury, and came back swinging with NeoMasculinity Solutions, a movement hell‑bent on rescuing men and women from the dumpster fire of modern misinformation. You'll hear him talk about protecting your family from six types of unreliable information, why vintage gender roles still matter, and how plant medicine saved his marriage. Co‑hosts Law Smith and Eric Readinger pepper him with lightning‑round questions—"Is a hot dog a sandwich?" "Have you ever seen a UFO?"—before diving into heavy stuff like leadership, human vibrational states, and why so many men are stuck in perpetual adolescence. Expect profanity, real talk and gut‑punch honesty. Smash that subscribe button, share with a friend, and get ready to laugh, cringe and maybe rethink your whole damn life and NeoMasculinity, John Krotec, toxic masculinity, vintage gender roles, leadership podcast, critical thinking skills, human intuition, plant medicine, DMT experience, traumatic brain injury, self‑leadership, family protection, misinformation, disinformation, emotional resilience, entrepreneur journey, spirit molecule, Andes expeditions, truth‑based media, and veteran entrepreneur.

Timestamps & chapters:

03:35 – Advice to your 13‑year‑old self: slow down, it's not your fault.

04:17 – Who the hell is John Krotec? Army vet, entrepreneur and crusader.

06:43 – DMT & demons: plant medicine, insomnia and saving a marriage.

09:55 – Inside the spirit molecule: aliens, metal bangs and dimension travel.

12:57 – Backpacking in Guatemala: CIA spooks, effigies and travel truths.

23:19 – Neo‑masculinity explained: vintage gender roles and fighting misinformation.

27:16 – Working moms & family balance: unrealistic expectations and social pressure.

30:35 – Calling out the modern man‑child: courage, therapy and intellectual laziness.

#AI #entrepreneurship #ecommercebusiness #productbasedbusiness #brandbuilding #businesspodcast #startupstories #scalingbusiness #directtoconsumer #manufacturingbusiness #corporategifting #smallbusinessgrowth #founderjourney #roi #NeoMasculinity #ToxicMasculinity #JohnKrotec #Leadership #CriticalThinking #HumanIntuition #PlantMedicine #DMT #BrainInjuryRecovery #SelfImprovement #Podcast #FamilyProtection #TruthMedia #GenderRoles #VeteranEntrepreneur #MensHealth #Mindset #Education #AlienEncount

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ROI Podcast™ — the No. 1 business‑comedy podcast on Earth — welcomes Kevin Surace, Silicon‑Valley innovator, futurist and author of The Joy Success Cycle, for an energizing conversation about AI, joy and success. Surace, a technology innovator with 93 patents and the CTO of Appvance, is best known as the father of the virtual assistant. He helped develop the first large‑scale voice interface at General Magic and led the team that created the OnStar Virtual Advisor. Inc. Magazine named him Entrepreneur of the Year (2009), and he invented QuietRock soundproof drywall. Surace explains the difference between real AI and simple automation, shares stories of building the first virtual assistant, and demonstrates how large language models can transform business operations and even compose music. But this episode isn't just about technology. Surace introduces his Joy Success Cycle philosophy and shows how joy fuels sustainable success. He explains why reframing daily tasks with joy leads to better outcomes, how to move the success marker to avoid the hedonistic treadmill, and how to find a sense of purpose by limiting complaints and focusing on meaningful goals. He also offers practical advice on removing toxic influences, getting out of ruts and not worrying about AI "taking over". Join Law Smith, Eric Readinger and our guest for an upbeat, hilarious and actionable discussion that blends comedy with deep insight. Subscribe to ROI Podcast on YouTube, leave a comment (good or bad — we'll read it on air), and check out the links below for sponsor deals and to get Kevin Surace's book. Ready to unlock joy and success? Hit play to hear about Kevin Surace, ROI Podcast, Joy Success Cycle, AI podcast, artificial intelligence, generative AI, virtual assistant, machine learning, patents, business comedy, motivation, productivity, sense of purpose, overcoming ruts, keynote speaker, music and AI, large language models, entrepreneurship, innovation, QuietRock and more! #AI #entrepreneurship #ecommercebusiness #productbasedbusiness #brandbuilding #businesspodcast #startupstories #scalingbusiness #directtoconsumer #manufacturingbusiness #corporategifting #smallbusinessgrowth #founderjourney #roi

Episode 500 of ROI Podcast®! Who better than the CEO and Owner of Dugout Mugs®, Kris Dehnert, the entrepreneur behind a wildly successful physical product brand built on craftsmanship, storytelling, and relentless customer focus. Kris breaks down how he scaled a novelty idea into tens of millions in revenue without relying on a traditional sales team, why product quality is still the most underrated growth lever, and how listening to customers drives smarter product expansion. We get into licensing strategy, corporate gifting, surviving hypergrowth, and the mental frameworks required to stay durable as an entrepreneur. This episode is a masterclass for founders, operators, and creators building real businesses in the physical world and trying to scale without losing their soul. Subscribe for more business conversations that blend strategy, lived experience, humor, entrepreneur podcast, ecommerce scaling, product based business, brand building strategies, physical product startup, business growth podcast, customer driven product development, licensing strategy, corporate gifting ideas, founder mindset, and manufacturing entrepreneurship.

00:06:00 How do you turn a novelty product into a scalable business? 00:09:55 How can a company grow without a traditional sales team? 00:14:40 How do personal values shape long-term business decisions? 00:18:55 How do you survive and stabilize after hypergrowth? 00:21:30 How should founders decide when to expand a product line? 00:24:10 How does product licensing actually work at scale? 00:29:05 How can gifting become a repeatable revenue channel? 00:32:20 How do lean operations improve profitability during growth phases?

#entrepreneurship #ecommercebusiness #productbasedbusiness #brandbuilding #businesspodcast #startupstories #scalingbusiness #directtoconsumer #manufacturingbusiness #corporategifting #smallbusinessgrowth #founderjourney #roi

How To Build a $60M Physical Product Brand | Kris Dehnert, CEO, Dugout Mugs® | ROI Podcast™ ep. 500 | Law Smith @LawSmithWorks + Eric Readinger

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John J. Murray is a stand-up comedian, host of Something Planet ‪@somethingplanet‬, a 500+ episode podcast featuring conversations with guests and co-hosts Jerod Walker and Brad Gilmore. Known for his blue-collar whitetrash humor style, Murray has performed extensively throughout the country's comedy scene. His comedy special "Rhinoceros" is on Amazon Prime Video. ROI Podcast™ gets down on what's actually happening with UFO disclosure - going hard in the paint past the headlines and into the insider stories: government whistleblowers, classified Senate briefings, Men in Black oddities, interstellar objects like 3I/Atlas, reverse-engineered tech, Zero Point Energy, Skinwalker Ranch, and the real reasons powerful people might want this buried.

It's not hype. It's not fear-bait. It's two entrepreneurs, a comedian, and a lifelong investigator asking the grounded questions behind the craziest claims. If you've wondered whether disclosure is real, why craft behave the way pilots describe, or what the government might be protecting… this episode hits every angle with humor, skepticism, and open-minded analysis.

Subscribe for more ROI Podcast® episodes blending business sense with cultural chaos, big ideas, and the stories shaping how we think.

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• The science behind protein snacks that actually work
• How to build a family-run empire (without going insane)
• Turning a chamber-of-commerce accident into a multimillion-dollar deal
• Why grandma and bodybuilders both crave the same popcorn
• Scaling from one store to 14 countries — no paid ads, no problem

"Magnifying glass examining colorful crypto coins labelled 'Ponzi,' one golden Bitcoin standing out as genuine, cautionary warning icons..."

ROI Podcast® episode 496! In this episode, entrepreneur and writer Alexander Svetsky shares stories from his wild ride through the crypto world. He talks about co‑founding one of the first Bitcoin‑only savings/exchange platforms and why dealing with regulators made him say "never again." Alexander also explains why he's building Satlantis, a Bitcoin‑powered ticketing app, and how his writing on economics and philosophy has influenced his entrepreneurial journey.

We dive deep into Bitcoin's fundamentals—what makes it different from "shitcoins," why sound money matters, and how bad incentives distort economic behavior. Alexander breaks down how Bitcoin is backed by energy and how mining can even stabilize the power grid by flexibly using surplus renewable energy - cryptoforinnovation.org - and providing load‑balancing services - cryptoforinnovation.org - You'll hear why he believes decentralization beats trust in institutions and what industries could look like in a Bitcoin‑standard world.

If you're curious about energy debates, Ponzi‑scheme cryptos, or the myth of Satoshi Nakamoto, this episode delivers fresh insights. We also get personal—Alexander reflects on mistakes, shares advice for his 13‑year‑old self, and discusses being a new dad.

Hit like, subscribe and ring the bell if you enjoy these deep dives into business, tech and philosophy. Share your thoughts and questions in the comments. Listen to ROI Podcast® on your favorite podcast platform for the full experience!

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Eric Readinger 0:03 All right, Alexander, can just go ahead and get into it. Law is running late, so we're just going to do the GET TO KNOW YOU part here. Go ahead, tell us your name, what you're about, and any sort of links you want us to be directed to.

Alexander Svetsky 0:18 No worries, man. So name is Alexander svetsky. I'm funny enough more people know me for my writing online than than they do for my business stuff, but I've been more of an entrepreneur all my life. Made every mistake in the book, as I'm sure every single entrepreneur realizes, the older they get and they realize they were dumber than what they thought at the time. So that's that's been like the content learning for me, but these days, I'm building a really cool events app. It's kind of like Luma or Eventbrite, but just with, like, Bitcoin payments and some other features, which are really cool, and if people want to know anything about me or what I'm doing, the app is called satlantis. So like Atlantis with an s.io so they can check that out. And if they look up svetsky writes on Twitter, so S, V, T, S, K, I, writes like writing on Twitter, they can find me there. But, you know, I'm not even on fucking social media much anymore. These days. I'm sick and tired of all that crap. I get too triggered, and then I go on there and start, like, saying a bunch of shit. And I'm like, okay, maybe I shouldn't have said

Eric Readinger 1:25 that. Yeah, gotta keep it inside, you know, and don't engage so easy. Said, No, satlantis is the the ticketing app you're talking about. That's the way that you're working on now, yes, I saw something about a cryptocurrency exchange that you started, and I guess that's how you got, you know, going in this business. What? What's that about? That seems like a big deal, like a start your own exchange. It's like one thing to make a shit coin, whatever, but your own exchange, that's, that's pretty badass.

Alexander Svetsky 1:59 Yeah, man, we were the, we were the first Bitcoin only exchange slash savings app in the world. Actually, we were, we didn't fuck around with any shit coins. We didn't do any of that stuff. We were just purely, I had been involved in a little bit of FinTech stuff earlier. So we figured out a way to link people's bank account to their arm to the app, and they could just basically set automated rules to accumulate Bitcoin on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, right? So kind of like dollar cost averaging. So I guess you know we were, we were classified as an exchange. And yes, you could go from dollars to Bitcoin and back. So there was an exchange functionality. But really, like the the app was a savings app. That's kind of how we how we thought about it. And, yeah, man, we were the, you know, I dealt with the fucking regulators and the banks and the this and the that and, like, it was a, it was a, it was a stressful business. I got out of that at the end of 2021, because I was done, done with the regulators, done with, like, I ended up I was building a compliance business, not a technology company anymore, like, after about four and a half years, and I was like, fuck this shit. I didn't sign up for this. So I I stepped down as CEO, somebody else took over, and then I kind of sold my shares and

Eric Readinger 3:10 moved on. So you were doing that. It was that in Australia, you were doing that. Yep. So they're just as bad down there as they are up here.

Alexander Svetsky 3:17 Yeah. And they've got even more. I mean, I would say the capacity for the US to to, like, fuck someone over, for lack of a better term, is better, like, you know, yeah, you're gonna have the best of that shit. Yeah, they'll find you halfway around the world, on a fucking island somewhere. Then, you know, they'll get you. The Aussies don't have that same sort of strength, but they're kind of like middle managers, you know. I mean, you know that, like, that guy is just like, right here and just like, right yeah, you want me sniffing in your ear and shit like that, and then follow the leader Exactly. So, so they're like that. So, you know, I was sort of done with the bureaucrats, and figured do something else with my life.

Eric Readinger 4:04 So you talk about writing online, kind of writing are you talking about? Is it all crypto related?

Alexander Svetsky 4:10 It was more this sounds cringey, but you know, philosophy or like history and economics, kind of like I found my own voice, kind of blending all of these, like deeper concepts about, hey, you know, the world is fucked up. We're surrounded by idiots. And how can we build a better world? You know, I always looked at Bitcoin as kind of like a important instrument in that, yeah, because you have this, yeah, it's, um, you have sound money. And, you know, the more you fuck around with the money, the more you fuck around with people's time preference. And the time preference is related to behavior. You know, it's like, do you just consume and think about now without thinking about the future, or do you think about the future and value that and therefore, you know, delay gratification, all that sort of stuff, and actually use your brain. So when you screw around with the money. E you distort people's time preference. You make them more present oriented instead of future oriented, and as a result, you kind of create poor behavior, and then that kind of has knock on effects throughout society. So the idea here is that, you know, with sound money that people can't print and can't fuck around with, you can hopefully nudge people in a better direction, and their behavior improves. So I kind of talked about all of that stuff,

Eric Readinger 5:23 Wow, sounds, I mean, it sounds like you're going just beyond philosophy, is that psychology and the whole deal? Because, I mean, you're going deeply indeed. I mean, you're right though, like a decentralized money system is what's got to happen, in my opinion, just because I get into this, has been a while since we argued about Bitcoin law and I but he's like, I'm not buying. It's not backed by anything. I'm like, what is that piece of paper in your hand backed by he thought it was still backed by gold. For one thing, argued about that. Yes, I said he's backed by the US government, okay, which has its own staying power, sure. But like, what does that mean? Like, they literally just print whatever they want. Like, it's, you know, whereas Bitcoin, it's infinitely divisible, you know, you can always add a decimal point, add a decimal point so, like, your value is never really going to go down. It's only going to go up. I've got that, right?

Alexander Svetsky 6:22 Yeah, yeah, it's infinitely divisible, but it's the total supply is capped. And, you know, a good sort of response to the is it capped? Sorry, is it rose by energy, right? So, you know, the US government can channel more energy in a military context than any other institution on Earth, which is why they are superior. You know, gold is even backed by energy. It's like, How much energy does it require to extract the gold, to score the goal, to store the gold, to do all the sort of shit necessary there. Bitcoin is also fundamentally backed by energy, but it's far more efficient. The distance between the energy consumption and the the guarantee of the money is very short. So with Bitcoin, you are mining, and that mining process translates into the security of the network directly, whereas the US government, or gold, you expend all this energy on all of this other fluff in order to create the the guarantee that their promise for the money is going to be accurate, right? So that's so with the US government, it's more of a promise. With gold, it's more of a process. So Bitcoin will be able to scale in energetic load orders of magnitude greater than the US and everything like that. So ultimately, you know, yes, right now, Bitcoin is still nascent. It is still young, but we're talking about something that is designed to like last for 1000 years. You know, we're 15 years into the game. So you know, 50 years from now, bitcoins energy expenditure for securing the network will be greater than the US government's military might and all this sort of shit like nobody's gonna be able to touch it, right? So what you're doing by taking a bet on Bitcoin today is you're taking a bet on mathematics and cryptography being more a better guarantee than the promise of some fucking Federal Reserve retard, you know, promising interest rates. I

Eric Readinger 8:27 mean, I've never really heard it explained that way. That's cool, though, like, in terms of energy, because when people hear Bitcoin, what do they always hear, Oh, Bitcoin farm sucking up all our power. And I know it's not exactly the same thing, but like they're talking about electrical energy, and it's almost like this designed flaw that people want to talk about that it's like, Well, is it really because we get a feature, it's not a bug? Yeah, exactly when you put it that way, it's like, oh, well, yeah, they are spending a lot more money on making, you know, make sure the money is real money. But, yeah, that's when, when you, when you started the exchange. Did you keep it to just Bitcoin, or did you it was just Bitcoin straight up? Because, you know, even on, like, like, Venmo has, you know, you can buy crypto on there, and it's like, they'll have a couple, you know, here and there. And I'm just curious, like, what your take on, you know, just the various because there's 1000s of different coins to buy. What? How do you look at that?

Alexander Svetsky 9:38 Yeah, it's basically, there's two categories of money. There's Bitcoin or this shit coin. There's like nothing else. And in shit coin land, there's everything from every single crypto, including non crypto, stuff like the US dollar, the Aussie dollar, the euro. They're all shit coins. Everything is a shit coin because everything is is basically a promise. Yes, by an institution, a group or an organization, Bitcoin is not a promise by an institution or an organization or something. Bitcoin is a digital constitution. So you know that you're not expecting some group or some organization to tell you, Oh, this is how much money we have. This is the money supply, and this is the inflation supply, or any that sort of stuff. No, Bitcoin is like a programmatic set in stone digital constitution that is in consensus, and you can get out of consensus if you want. So I can go today, and I can, you know, Bitcoin is a program. I can run the Bitcoin program on my computer, and I can change the rules. I can go, Yeah, fuck it. I don't want 21 million Bitcoin. I want 42 million. I can do that, but I knock myself out of the network because I'm no longer in sync with the rules. I'm no longer in sync with the Constitution, so now I'm on my own network by myself, with any other idiot who chose to jump with me and have 42 million coins instead of 21 right? So Bitcoin is really unique like this. It uses social consensus to ensure that the rules stay the same. And in order to change anything on Bitcoin, you have to convince everybody else to change as well. And, you know, this is sort of, this is one of the big insights that Satoshi created, was he used the fact that human beings can't fucking agree on anything as the mechanism for security on Bitcoin, which means, like, you know, try and get 10 people to go to the fucking to figure out where they're gonna eat, right for dinner, right? Yeah, never gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. So try and get there's probably at least, you know, 100,000 or 500,000 somewhere in that range, nodes that are basically running the Bitcoin script running the Bitcoin program, and they're in sync every 10 minutes. Every time a block is done, they're in sync. They catch and they sync. Try getting all of those people to change the fucking rules of anything right? Not gonna happen. The cat is out of the bag. So that is Bitcoin security model, everything else, every shit coin, every crypto, every fiat currency, everything, everything. The rules are changed by a small committee of two people, five people, 10 people, whatever, and they can vote they can change the rules. That is the difference between Bitcoin and everything else. So when you understand that, you realize that Bitcoin is like the one sort of money that cannot be manipulated or changed or anything, which means everybody, ultimately is going to find their way to it. So if you find your way there early, you're just ahead of the game when they're

Eric Readinger 12:27 making these shit coins. Are they doing it off the sort of, like, infrastructure backbone of Bitcoin, and then are they having to do their own thing each time, and, like, write their own script, whatever? Okay, there's two ways

Alexander Svetsky 12:40 you can. You can copy the Bitcoin code and you can create what's called create what's called a fork by changing the code. So that's, that's a so that's like Bitcoin cash, Bitcoin gold, Bitcoin, this, Bitcoin that, right? Or you can create your own blockchain and then you can issue your own token. That's more like Ethereum Solana and all these other points, right? So the similarity between the ethereums and the Solanas is that they use a similar sort of technological substrate to Bitcoin. So they call it the blockchain, but it's their own proprietary shit that they launched. So they're closer. In fact, Ethereum is closer to the Federal Reserve. All you've done is replace the bankers with some nerds. So, you know, so the so the nerds just issue their own money, and they're like, Oh yeah, trust us, we're not going to change the monetary policy. And they've changed the monetary policy like,

Eric Readinger 13:27 20 times already. I mean, does it ever frustrate you? How much of life is a pyramid scheme? How many things are just like a freaking Ponzi scheme, whatever you want to call it? I mean,

Alexander Svetsky 13:36 totally, totally like, everything's become a Ponzi scheme. The problem is, though, when the money is a fucking scam, everything becomes a Ponzi, right? Yeah, and that's the big that's the big problem bitcoin is trying to solve, right? Is that you fix the money and you get a really nice knock on effect, because everything else starts to demonetize. But because the money is broken, we've monetized everything else. So we treat real estate like a Ponzi scheme, because we don't want to store money. So what do we do? We buy fucking how? Fucking houses as investments, right? We do the same with gold, with stocks, with everything, because anything to get the hell out of the dollar, or to get the hell out of the money, because the money is devaluing. But if you have money that doesn't devalue over time, then all of this other shit goes away, because then you don't need to speculate, you don't need to invest like a retard. You don't need to fucking buy it, flip houses and all this sort of shit. Like you start to have a hurdle rate on investment, which is the natural appreciation of Bitcoin as a savings instrument, because savings is supposed to increase over time, like the purchasing power of your savings is supposed to go up, not fucking down. But we live in an upside down world, so, you know, everything else is distorted down that down the track, yeah.

Eric Readinger 14:45 So do you have, you sort of projected into the future, any sort of consequences to, like, any particular industries or anything like, say, Bitcoin. Coin becomes the new standard. Do you see any, I guess, just industries in general, like so what would be a huge consequence of that that maybe I wouldn't think of

Alexander Svetsky 15:13 good question. Here's one that nobody realizes energy, the entire fucking energy grid, the energy infrastructure transforms. So let me, let me give you an example. So one of the biggest problems on the on the energy side of things, is load balancing, load management and distribution. There's always problems with that, even in the, you know, top countries like America and Australia, like energy goes to fucking waste, especially like, there's a lot of stuff going on in Texas now with like methane flaring from, you know, gas and everything that they're getting out, you could take Bitcoin and you can put a Bitcoin mine next to a energy grid provider, like coal station, methane flaring and all this sort of stuff. And when you have excess capacity, you can channel that into Bitcoin, and you can transform that excess capacity into money so that you can load balance and therefore use those extra credits to better to give more competitive energy pricing, whatever you can start to transform the entire grid, because now you've merged energy and Money, which are the two fundamental layers of a civilization. You can't have a civilization of any kind without an energy grid or a monetary network. So Bitcoin kind of fuses into the energy grid, and it allows you to better distribute energy. You can also seed energy into places where you don't have a current grid. You can go and put a fucking mining plant in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of Africa, with solar panels, for example. And then around that miner, you can start to then build a factory where the extra power can go into the factory, and then you can start growing out from there. And you can literally seed energy with money into new places where it didn't didn't exist before. And you can start to interconnect the entire fucking energy infrastructure of the world, and then ultimately what you end up getting is energy gets priced in what, in Bitcoin, not in fucking dollars. So then you have this beautiful symbiosis. So that is going to transform the entire

Eric Readinger 17:15 world. Whoa, that's crazy to think about. I never even realized that was a possibility. I mean, our power plants, I guess they would, they're that often. They're just, how much energy are they setting on that? I mean, that's crazy, because, you know, it's happening already. There's

Alexander Svetsky 17:34 Andrew, and he runs a company called Satoshi energy, and that's what he does. He powers with the he partners with the power companies, and he helps them build infrastructure to add load balancing equipment in the form of mining into their thing. I've got another friend. He has a he has a kind of, like a sauna spa with, like, magnesium pools and all this sort of shit for their heating. They use Bitcoin miners to produce the heat. The thing, you know, so there's all this, like, interesting stuff,

Eric Readinger 18:03 places that are cold, in general. I mean, you know, like, that's, that's so cool. I mean, where's the money going if, let's say, the energy, you know, you have the the Bitcoin mining operation, right next to a power plant. Who gets that, that Bitcoin that is

Alexander Svetsky 18:21 mined the power plant. So then they could use it for their top line, for example, so they can add to their top line, or they can use it to decrease the cost on during high peak times, so they can turn off the miner. And then they can use the excess power when it's needed for customers. But instead of slapping them with peak prices, they have a buffer, because they previously generated some money out of Bitcoin. So it'll create, like, more competition in the energy marketplace

Eric Readinger 18:49 as well. So why would any power company have what? What objections would they have to that? Because, I mean, it's literally a license to print money.

Alexander Svetsky 18:57 Yeah, it is. It's mainly a knowledge thing, man. So, you know, Riot Bitcoin, which is one of the big miners out of based out of Texas, they've converted shitloads of they've put all of their mining centers next to power plants and stuff like that. So all of this stuff is happening. All of this transformation is happening. So, you know, the early objections are, oh, well, we don't know what Bitcoin is. We don't trust it. It's too volatile, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that sort of shit. But, you know, as each domino falls, you kind of get this kind of change in consciousness, same as, like, when I was talking about Bitcoin 10 years ago, to people, they're like, What the fuck are you talking about? You know, now, like, it's, you know, that sort of shift is gradual, and the objections kind of float away, and then it's like, okay, well, you know, it's not a scam anymore. So what is it? Well, now it's volatile. It's like, yeah, okay, fine. You know, in the next five years, that's gonna not be an objection anymore, and on we go.

Eric Readinger 19:50 So do you stay up on energy trends because of all of this? Is it something that you pay attention to? Because, I mean, you. I never thought of it in these terms, but it seems energy keeps popping up in the conversation. I mean, is it something that you pay attention to? Are you looking for? Zero Point Energy? Are you, you know, trying to figure out what's next there too.

Alexander Svetsky 20:12 I I was down that rabbit hole about two years ago. So I used to own a publication called the Bitcoin times, which was like a premium sort of collectible publication, where I invited the best thinkers around the world to do a long form essay, and then I'd compile them all into this beautiful, little collectible item. I did that a couple years ago, and we did actually an energy edition, and I had some writers from all around the world produce a piece for it, and, and I had one really interesting guy called Gideon Powell, who was, he's, he's, his dad was like a wildcatter in Texas, and, you know, he's got this company called Choya energy, which is, you know, they're, they're oil and gas company, and they're super into Bitcoin and everything they build from the oil and gas side, comes with the mining infrastructure associated to it and all this sort of stuff. So back then, I was super interested, you know, we had an article in there about, like, what do you call it? The the nuclear mini reactors that are modular. And, you know, that's another really interesting thing, is these guys that are building small modular reactors. That's what it's called, SMRs. They're combining the container with the nuclear reactor on one side and the Bitcoin mining kit on the other side, so it like comes as a package. So, you know, they can, and they can drop that into anywhere, and it just generates power, and whatever power is not being used by the community or by the industry or whatever, just goes into the miners and it offsets the cost. So, like, there's this beautiful symbiosis. So I used to be really down that rabbit hole. These days, I'm busy building the app and just had a first baby and all that sort of stuff. So not as much anymore. But dude, it's super fucking interesting, man.

Eric Readinger 22:01 Man, I hope that comes to fruition. The conspiracy side of me. If, let's say there was a bad actor in the government that wanted to to destroy Bitcoin, or at least put a heart in on it, how would that go down? And law has just walked in the building,

Alexander Svetsky 22:21 right? What's up, buddy? Yeah, right. I

Eric Readinger 22:25 was asked about how somebody, a bad actor, could destroy Bitcoin. You're caught. I'm like a bad actor, like anybody, like a government entity or something like Nicholas Cage. Yeah?

Law Smith 22:41 God's fire. Why pick on Tara reap? She's not really good actress. I could I

Alexander Svetsky 22:46 don't even know who that is, so I'm just gonna assume she's a bad actress.

Law Smith 22:50 You see her boobs in The Big Lebowski and she was an American Pie man.

Eric Readinger 22:55 Way to derail this conversation, this is what I do best. I just learned so much as I Bitcoin and just boobs.

Law Smith 23:04 All right, we're talking groups.

Eric Readinger 23:06 I want to know, I want to know how you could, in theory, bring down the blockchain.

Alexander Svetsky 23:13 It's, um, I think what I said earlier, the cat is out of the bag. I think it's kind of too late. You know, the the governments have tried multiple times. You know, outright fans never work. You know, the, you know, the nature of Bitcoin is that, you know there's, there's no, there's no individual or no group of individuals that matter enough to influence, to change anything. You know, it's like, Who do you go after the miners? Well, you know, the miners aren't gonna, like, right? It doesn't matter how much mining power you have. Like, what matters is the collection of nodes. So how do you go after all the nodes when all the node operators are anonymous and, you know, there's an incentive for them to hold on to it. So, you know, really, I think the only way for it to sort of to to be impacted, would be fucked

Law Smith 24:05 his brain up in you gotta think of these. Yeah, I want to make I can see anybody stressed from a question as a guest, he's thinking, I know,

Alexander Svetsky 24:14 here's the one way. Yeah, I've got it. Here's the one way, if the federal government and the Federal Reserve become so pristine and pure that they stop printing money, they tell us the total supply of money, they stop fucking taxation and theft and all the bullshit shenanigans that they're doing, and they all of a sudden become somehow fucking holy men and make the need for Bitcoin disappear. That's the only fucking way,

Eric Readinger 24:39 and right into bitcoin is probably what they would do pretty

Alexander Svetsky 24:43 much exactly now, in the absence of that, and, you know, I would be very willing, but that that's never gonna fucking happen, right? Exactly? Um, there's nothing that stops

Eric Readinger 24:52 so there's not any sort of money manipulate, like they couldn't go in and buy up a bunch of it and like, because I guess that it just kind of reinforces it. In the opposite direction. So,

Alexander Svetsky 25:02 yeah, the things like a fucking virus, this is what people don't get. It's like, it's a virus, and it's kind of, first it's like parasitic, because it comes in and sucks out of the system. Then it becomes symbiotic, because as enemies Buy Bitcoin, they become sort of sucked into it, right? So, and then after it becomes symbiotic over, you know, 1020, years, then it fucking topples the exit the previous system, and it becomes the standard. So, you know, it's kind of, we're in the symbiosis stage, like the parasite stage is gone. That was, like, the stage one now. It's like, it's in the institutions,

Eric Readinger 25:37 yeah, coming in, going, it's like,

Law Smith 25:41 yeah, I don't know. I'm coming in hot. Yeah, I know. I apologize for being late. I had someone potential client that's like, Hey, I got a couple of questions. I was like, let me pull over real quick. Here's my thing. Do we talk about the origins of Bitcoin and the Miss, the mystique around it, and this tall tale that I don't think exists, the more I think about it, what Satoshi, yeah, you know, you could go back in episodes, and I was like, I kind of liked the lore of it, but the more I've thought about it and sparingly here and there over the years, the more I don't think it's a real I don't think it's a real story.

Eric Readinger 26:20 Well, no person. Well, I mean, what do you what do you mean the story that this guy invented it, and he nobody can

Speaker 1 26:26 find him, yeah, like that in, like, a mathematical equation of like that no one can figure out. Or, like, I don't know that decentralized it, Bitcoin is definitely real. And, no, it's real. Don't get me wrong. I just think it's like the Bible, a little bit like Genesis, if you take Genesis at its

Eric Readinger 26:44 word. Alex landers here, I'm glad he's here to

Law Smith 26:47 explain what he was agreeing with me, I had,

Alexander Svetsky 26:49 I was good, no, it's actually, it's actually kind of like that, you know, if you fast forward 100 200 years, it's going to be like a myth, kind of like, you know, the sort of the Genesis story, in the sense, I mean, we call the first block in Bitcoin, the Genesis block, right? Because that is where it emerged from. That's right. You know, there was. So the one thing he said that was incorrect was the sort of equation, or something like, it has no equation. And

Eric Readinger 27:11 jump in here, and I'm

Law Smith 27:12 speaking for the guy at the bar that talks about this. Yes, is how it's presented to me, a lot of the tires. I know that's not, I'll

Alexander Svetsky 27:18 disentangle that for you. So basically, it wasn't an equation that was solved. It was it was a problem of coordination that was solved. So there's this concept called the Byzantine generals problem, which is, how do you get a bunch of people who to coordinate so the Byzantine generals to coordinate to attack the castle at the same time, if, if you have to send messages to each other, but the messenger could send an alternate, like message. So like, the messenger could be a bad egg, right? Game, how do you get them all? Sorry, a

Law Smith 27:50 Game of Thrones. Kind of game

Alexander Svetsky 27:51 theory, kind of Game of Thrones. So yeah, picture that. So you've got a castle and you've got a bunch of generals. The only way they can take the castle is if they all attack at once, but they can't communicate directly with each other. They have to communicate through some sort communicate through some sort of medium, some sort of messenger, and that messenger, if they are an enemy, unknown enemy, they tell one of the people not to attack, and then you all fail, right? So that was always like in decentralized systems. That was always a problem is like, how do you get people who can't communicate directly, who don't or who do not know each other to agree on something, to come to consensus on a regular basis. That's the problem that Satoshi solved. And the solution to that problem was a mixture of things. It was using cryptography. It was using an incentive mechanism, which is, you know, effectively the Bitcoin currency. It was the time it was launched. It was the fact that it was laughed at in the beginning. So all of these things happened in the real world that came to actually make Bitcoin work. So a lot of it was, like, luck. A lot of it was timing. A lot of it was, you know, technical infrastructure. A lot of it was all of this stuff. Could it have, could it have been done better, potentially, technically speaking. But the what makes Bitcoin special is that you actually can't go back in time and plant the seed again so that the same events happen one after the other. Like there was no way for Satoshi, for example, to predict that Silk Road was going to happen, right? Silk Road was the drug website. If you remember that like Silk Road,

Law Smith 29:22 actually the first one. You could order an assassin if you wanted,

Speaker 2 29:26 yeah, whatever you want it. But the whole point I got went to prison was the

Alexander Svetsky 29:31 first, it was the first real use case for Bitcoin, yeah, there was no way to predict that. So that happened, and then that sort of created in the minds of the early adopters that holy shit, Silk Road was taken down, but Bitcoin wasn't touched. It couldn't be touched. So then it created more trust, more people were willing to mine, more people willing to buy, more people willing to build wallet infrastructure, all this sort of shit. So Bitcoin is effectively decentralized through its usage and through the way it's. Bred into civilization. That's the part you can't replicate because that you can't, like, the only way to replicate is to go back in time and do it again. And we don't have fucking time machines yet, so, like that. That's what

Law Smith 30:10 you said that very confidently. I

Speaker 2 30:13 mean, who knows? Eventually, here's some more law. Don't get me started. People started coin

Alexander Svetsky 30:17 was kind of invented in the future and dropped into the past. So that's a, you know, that's,

Eric Readinger 30:22 oh man, I might need to have you back

Law Smith 30:24 to talk about just that. Wait, wait, I missed that. What is it said

Eric Readinger 30:27 that there's some people that think Bitcoin was created in the future and then dropped in the past.

Law Smith 30:32 Oh shit, like a tenant, yep, sure. That's

Unknown Speaker 30:37 a whole. That's a whole. That's what that

Law Smith 30:38 movie is about. Figured that out. I was like, why? What's the purpose of this movie? It's all about Bitcoin. You know, he does the thing with his hands, point am symbol, and then you got cutie patootie and a beard at the end there. That's the kick ass guy. That really handsome dude. Yeah, that's what I said. What's up? You're looking good today. I've got a question about Solana, do you know anything about that? It's a shit coin. We already talked about it. Well, friend of the program, former guest, Vadim Dimitri.

Off, nope. David. Off, David off, yes. Sorry, I'm on fire. He probably doesn't listen. He's he's the only person I know that went from St Petersburg, Russia to St Petersburg, Florida. He got me on one of these fitness apps early on, and he told me, if you do it with your Apple, watch, it'll track your steps, and you get Solana coin, or soul coin or whatever, depending on how much you do. And I go, great, and I forgot to set it up, and he did it, if he got it. This is like early, early, early on in the app, and I missed out on about three grand, I think, according to him, If I took it, if I took that coin and sat on it for a week and sold it off or whatever.

What is there anything kind of like that in incentivized programs? This is a roundabout question. It wasn't really about the coin at all. If you know of other cryptos that are setting up non financial incentives to gain it, if there's anything like that, you know,

Alexander Svetsky 32:24 of I mean, the question

Law Smith 32:26 is, like, real low looting on you? Yeah.

Alexander Svetsky 32:29 I mean, who's, who's paying the incentives, and for what reason? Probably the app, I guess did, I don't know. I didn't really look into what. Why does it benefit the app? So, like, whenever, whenever you're getting money from, like, stupid shit, like walking around like, you, you know, you sort of got asked the questions like, okay, who's benefiting from this? What is the business model, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, so it's like all the shit coins are just like, literally spending money to buy users to prove that their network is real, so that they can continue the Ponzi scheme, so they can create more coins and dump more tokens on idiots, basically. So like, you know, all of these things are like weird machinations of, like modern society, which is all fucked up thanks to money printing, which distorts everything else economically. So, you know, you end up with all of this sort of weird stuff that doesn't make any fucking sense.

Law Smith 33:18 We've got, we got about a minute left. I hate to cut you off. What was what did you ask him? The or question we asked everybody? No, good job. Do it. What advice would you give your 13 year old self? 13? Oh, shit. And you're saying my honey to a coin is not very good.

Alexander Svetsky 33:35 No, no study about gold and silver a little bit earlier so that you can buy bitcoin earlier. That's literally the only fucking advice. That's it. Because, yeah, I got onto the gold and silver train a little bit late, kind of 2011 2012 had I done that a little bit earlier? I think I would have understood Bitcoin five years earlier, and that would have been a bit different. But here we are. Hey,

Law Smith 33:55 we're all free market here, brother, I'll appreciate you coming on. Sorry, I was late, egregiously late.

Eric Readinger 34:02 Yeah, I'm gonna actually make you listen to this one. I'm gonna happen a lot. This is the

Law Smith 34:05 first time I'll listen to our podcast for the first time. Good. This is 496

Unknown Speaker 34:11 episode, is it? Yeah? Okay.

Law Smith 34:14 See you, buddy. Thanks. Jen.

ROI Podcast—the business show that doubles as a comedy roast—returns with Law Smith and Eric Readinger riffing on TikTok, attention spans, and why horoscopes are basically astrology's version of fantasy football.

This episode tackles:

• TikTok's addictive algorithm vs. China's "education-only" version.

• Why social media feels like narco-terrorism for your brain.

• The trader who used TikTok comments to turn $84K into $42M.

• Comedy, drag shows, group dances, and why dudes just don't vibe with them.

• A DIY college fantasy football league idea that could flip into billions.

If you like your business podcasts with more laughs than LinkedIn posts, hit subscribe and join the world's #1 comedy-business podcast.

Eric Readinger 0:02 Okey, dokey,

Law Smith 0:06 Whoo, yeah, ah, I wear, I wear my DMX goggles, yeah. I mean, this is, like, the why is that? DMX, no, but it's like a guy. This is Malibu's Most Wanted. That's what this guy sounds like.

Eric Readinger 0:27 Yeah, maybe I don't know. He's not real. So can to be whatever you want him to be in your mind,

Law Smith 0:32 so he is. So I'm right, yes, you're right. I'm gonna do this like a chick, yeah, see, I'm right,

Eric Readinger 0:36 right, because I can't be proven wrong. I'm right.

Law Smith 0:40 I was telling a friend, it made me underthink, like dudes, it's much, much better

Eric Readinger 0:46 life. Uh huh, yeah, not everything you think is right.

Law Smith 0:52 Well before this turns into no man from

Eric Readinger 0:55 your children's club.

Law Smith 0:58 You know, we can only call that shit out because we empathize with that play. Welcome to ROI podcast, because this is the number one comedy business podcast in the world. Sometimes we talk about emo stuff like

Eric Readinger 1:12 that. Oh yeah. Are we gonna get into it? Nah.

Law Smith 1:15 Oh, come on. No, no, no, it's too fresh. Too fresh, okay, fresh wounds. But I did.

Eric Readinger 1:23 I'm gonna go ahead and just point out the echo Enos. That's my bad when we rip

Law Smith 1:28 it up the floor in the studio, fix it in post. We got some tools. Well, hey, man, we should tell everybody, because I like giving resources out. I'm the Suze Orman of digital resources. That's what I want to be. What? Yeah, Adobe has a podcast Audio Enhancer. It'll take out background noise. It'll take out we have a little buzz I could hear right now that we had two episodes ago or an episode ago that it took outably your headphone. No, when I listened to it later. One of the previous episodes we

Eric Readinger 2:02 did. Okay, this is definitely the kind of entertainment people want to hear. Well, maybe

Law Smith 2:06 I'm just saying, if you have audio you need to clean up. You can, it's for podcasts, they say. But you could probably use it. If you had audio you needed to clean up, like in a loud room or a conference or, you know, any kind of meeting or something, you can right? But I just like the easy, you know, drag and drop it in, boom, come back out. Five minutes.

Eric Readinger 2:24 You're good, yeah, AI is great, loyal part.

Law Smith 2:29 But like it, it AI, the LLM, you know, those language learning models of like Chad, GBT and Claude and perplexity, large

Eric Readinger 2:39 language, excuse me, what did I say? Learning? Used to

Law Smith 2:45 whatever rewind I got. There's too many acronyms in my head or abbreviations, but it's one of those things where it it's a whole to do, like you have to know, how do you hold to do? What happens was. And I think everybody's having this issue, I kind of try to push through it, because I know that outcomes of what you want to get out of it, like, organize this document for me. Like, instead of me having to do it, that's great. That's like, I love that part of it, right? And that's intuitive. But there's some things that aren't intuitive on how to talk to it. Yeah, nicely, you can be mean to it. I don't know if it affects it.

Eric Readinger 3:29 Well, not yet. You go on their list, their robot

Law Smith 3:33 list, that's fair. So you know, I would just say I like the easy things like that. Like, for this podcast I'll use, there will be a word counter that sem rush, I think, has out there that's just its own website. You can drop a whole paragraph in. It'll pull the keywords for you if you want that are most important. It'll, you know, do stuff like that. I like those kind of little tools. And if we do anything on the show, if we're if we add any value besides our guests wisdom that come on the show, we show you how to be a tool. It's some resources to be a tool. Perfect Circle, exactly. Good album, yeah. You know, I don't know if I want to get into the fantasy football stuff.

Eric Readinger 4:19 I know. I mean, I thought we were gonna talk about something else, I'll tease it.

Law Smith 4:23 Well, we were, you and I off air. Were bitching about tick tock and how I don't think either of us really like

Eric Readinger 4:30 it. I don't ever go

Law Smith 4:32 into talk well, I don't, I don't like I don't like reels, I don't like show. I don't unless I'm like, going to

Eric Readinger 4:39 look for something, right, right? It's not, we weren't talking just about Tiktok what?

Law Smith 4:43 But I mean, Facebook reels, when I open those apps, it's like, abrasive with the video. You know? It's like, oh, sometimes the sound is like, way high, like an old TV commercial where the audio is like, doesn't that still happens, right? And it's so. Well, it's like, when I open up those apps and it goes right to video, it's like, oh, and I'm usually already listening to something, right? I've realized that's on me a little bit as far as like, I don't, I'm not people send me videos. I'm like, I'll get to that later. And I just never, yeah, I know it a lot of the time, but that's not because I didn't want to watch it. And I do like that. People will send me stuff. They go, Oh, they're thinking of you. They go, Oh, it's

Eric Readinger 5:28 nice in general, to me, the interface is just a pain in the ass. Did you see the videos I sent you? Oh, you sent more than one. Oh, my God, gotta back out, because I go back in like,

Law Smith 5:38 it's just stupid, and then I might be a comedy snob at the same time, exactly. And so that

Eric Readinger 5:44 isn't funny. Isn't funny. Why are you sending me out? And then

Law Smith 5:47 so I was kind of thinking about it, when we talked about it, like last week, just kind of shooting the shit. And I was like, Why does Tiktok kind of annoy the shit out of me? And it part of it. Once I found out that the Chinese algorithm for their people is wildly different than the one over here. I think that was my trigger point to go. I don't want to be on that. That. And at the same time, my mom, friends that are like our age in their 40s, they were telling me they're wasting two hours a night on there every night, and they're like, I'm so addicted. Like, when it was really popping. Like, you know, 2021 I don't know 22 we're not the first movers on this, but the laggard, older people, yeah, and so, like, I was like, I want that. I don't have enough time. I feel like, but you're

Eric Readinger 6:41 acting like the Tick Tock algorithm is that much worse than any other social media algorithm. They're all doing the same thing.

Law Smith 6:47 Well, I think they do they I think they do it the best it seems like. Because it seems like, yeah, maybe I don't know, man, just from general chatter I hear in my life. But also, when I'm listening, I listen to a dick loader comedy podcast all day, because, you know, marketing, marketing work is like, once you know how to do it, you can kind of be on autopilot a little bit. And so it's one of those things where the chatter is like, it is they have, they got it dialed in, they got you screwed in, buddy. And that's, that's, that's really, they're the best at

Eric Readinger 7:27 it that. But it's like we're on neither of us are on it. To know if it's better or worse. I'm on it enough. I Oh, here we go. Now we get the truth.

Law Smith 7:36 Well, I need to know, well, marketing, we're in marketing, so it's like, I need to know enough, right? And I need to know a user perspective of it, right? I can't. I usually just try to stick to, like, outside research, well, yeah. But I'm always like, I like, put it away, like, it's like, a Ebola virus or something, okay, you know, I'm like, Oh, I don't want, that's good. That's really, yeah, but I also like timely reference. So the thing was like, Yeah, it's like, the Black Plague. And so I think, like, when? But really when it was like, okay, the algorithm for China and the Chinese people definitely got some pro China stuff going on there, right? That's, that's just good marketing within the country, right? Educational outside of that, it's only educational stuff.

Eric Readinger 8:29 Now here, what is the education about,

Law Smith 8:31 like, science and like things of that nature, probably revisionist history, I'm sure. But I'm sure it has a whole glaze of propaganda over it, yeah, but at the same time they're doing that, but over here, they're like, let these dummies get dumber. That's what. That's my like,

Eric Readinger 8:50 yeah, I don't think that's a wild No, that's not wild at all. I agree with you, and

Law Smith 8:56 I compare it to Narco terrorism of like, you know, they say there's a lot of fentanyl that gives through Mexico from other countries to go up, up to the United States to kind of hurt, yeah, oh, no. This is, and that's happened on the Russian

Eric Readinger 9:12 border without better than Narco terrorism, bro. Well, it's it. This is the Idiocracy. This is Lee, yeah, it's legal, right?

Law Smith 9:19 And we and another bigger if we back, really back out, like the the future where everything takes over, like, you know, all agency is lost for people, right? And at 1984 it was about like, everything coming at people to take over society. We're willingly giving it away with our time data, you know?

Eric Readinger 9:45 Yeah, we just keep letting them do whatever. You know, it's man. It sucks. So older I get, the more I'm like man they are. They are probably trying to control

Law Smith 9:55 us. Look, it's not all bad. But as our buddy in the. Uh, all star guest, Dean Akers, who's, come on, he's, I'm surprised when we had breakfast the other day, he didn't bring it up. But because I think he's brought it up every breakfast we've had the last, you know, two years, he goes, You know what the new cigarettes are? And I'm like, what? And he's like, it's the bone. And I'm like, I know that one. I actually can answer right? When he is a teaching, he's a he's a teaching kind of mentor, yeah?

Eric Readinger 10:28 So like, when Dean comes on here, and he'll ask us questions, and then we get all nervous and try to think of the right answer, and then one of us gets it right, and the other, he does the same thing at breakfast. And we the same way in real life. He's no different, yeah. We act the same way.

Law Smith 10:41 So he keeps score, but he that's like, his favorite, you know, kind of angle, and he's right, because he, he was telling me people were wasting two hours as well. And I was like, whoa. I mean, he, he looks up

Eric Readinger 10:54 that stuff. Yeah, that's not even now. That's, I thought that was obvious.

Law Smith 10:58 Is it all bad? No, it it provides entertainment for people, right, right? You can get information from it. I just don't know how I feel, like you, like we talk about with news outlets, we'd be doing a lot more work to figure out if, if this, this thing on my feed, is actually true. But most people don't take that extra step, including myself, and a lot of the times just go, oh yeah, that's okay, right? Just move on,

Eric Readinger 11:27 right? I think they annoying, most annoying dances I even get to that the dances, they're not as annoying. I don't think the food food, try this viral. Try this viral recipe. First of all, if that's obviously throwing a word viral into all the food, right? It's viral. It's viral. Whatever chocolates you know, like you, but the way they do the thing is, like, here, let me do a quick, sharp, snap, cut all, like, of the ingredients that you gotta, like, pause your phone. Like, they don't give you any measurements on what you're doing. Like, there no, it's just like you barely kind of got to guess what they're doing. And yet, there's still people are still trying

Law Smith 12:06 to do it. I went on a mom date. I had to go on a date with my mom for lunch once a month. Law loves mom. I love my mama and and she was saying, I was I was saying the same thing. I was like, I don't like any recipe online that doesn't give you the ingredients first. I know that's because that's another bunch into it. And you're like, I don't have, oh, fuck man, I don't have basil. I don't have that kind of basil here. No. But I

Eric Readinger 12:34 mean, whatever happened to the websites that just give you the recipe? Well, you'll have to write a fucking

Law Smith 12:39 story about it. They're all trying to game it. So, like, they know that's going to be too boring, and people don't want to see that at the beginning. But when you really, actually want to use the information for recipe, and you don't know, I don't I, admittedly, I'm not. I don't know offhand how to bake or cook really well. I can grill, okay, right? But like, I look everything up and just follow whatever the directions are

Eric Readinger 13:04 exactly. And when the directions start with, I remember when I was nine years old, it's like, what are you doing, right? I don't even, I don't even see them. Where are you taking me? Yeah, bro, it's a whole thing. Everybody's got to get their SEO in.

Law Smith 13:17 So 25% of the users are 18 to 2425 34 is about 30% and our swing and Dick group is about 20 Okay, I just, I wanted to pull some stats up, because I was like, I was curious how really even spread. So it started in 2016 and it's become this. It's grown quicker, more more adopted users, more daily active users than any of them in such a short amount of time. That seems suspect to me, right? Because I was like, how did it grow like that? And I can't get any of the any of the AI apps to tell me

Eric Readinger 14:00 really, I know, I think there's absolutely, well, whether it's an app or a person like that, get propped up and put in the spotlight and be made to be, you know, a household thing. It's like we were talking about like a guy like Sean Ryan. Yeah, who the fuck was Sean Ryan before he started getting every top tier podcast guest, yeah? Like, yes, I understand he

Law Smith 14:27 was, you know, he was a journalist. He was, he

Eric Readinger 14:31 was a counter Intel guy.

Law Smith 14:33 Wait, whom? I'm thinking of, the hot wings guy, the hot ones guy. What's that guy's name? Who gives a shit? Now, I'm thinking of Sean Kelly, but, all right, who's Sean? Who Sean?

Eric Readinger 14:48 What? Sean Ryan?

Law Smith 14:49 There Is he cute. He's a bald headed man. Well, I mean, there's so many audiences we don't know about. There's so many like popular things. Like, when people come up to you, especially like comedy, you think you have a finger on the pulse. Like, you ever heard of this guy? He has a billion people that follow on me. Like, never heard of him?

Eric Readinger 15:10 No. I mean, 4.8 3 million subscribers, right?

Law Smith 15:14 I don't know if I even know this guy. Well, I thought you were talking about the hot ones. Guy off air.

Eric Readinger 15:19 I mean, you just see he's got, you know,

Law Smith 15:23 he's is,

Eric Readinger 15:25 uh, sets. Let's see if I can imagine being able

Law Smith 15:30 to build up. My God, how unprofessional. Whatever you don't do premium down, um,

Eric Readinger 15:36 but anyways, I think there's guys that just like, get put into the spotlight to push a narrative, you know, like, just get certain people on there. Like, we're gonna give you a bunch of money for marketing because, like, somebody like, I just don't have no problem with the guy, Sean Ryan, he killed me in the sleep. But like, I don't necessarily think he's a great interviewer, or, like, has a fantastic recall of information, or anything, you know,

Law Smith 16:07 well, that doesn't mean, I mean that it's entertainment at the end of the day. So it's

Eric Readinger 16:13 not easy. Like, there's just a couple of them that are puzzling to me.

Law Smith 16:17 He created and show ran several. Oh, that's, I think that's a different guy. That is absolutely a different guy, former Navy SEAL in CIA, contractor. So that's pretty interesting. Right off the

Eric Readinger 16:29 bat, exactly what I'm saying, bro, and then he just jumps into the spotlight like

Law Smith 16:34 that. No, okay, so there are, if you're talking about, like, podcasts, where there's, like, how did uh, these podcasts land on the top 10 list? It's like they have PR for that now, it's like you pay to get on that shit.

Eric Readinger 16:50 Sure, I understand that. I'm just saying there's certain ones that I hear them and then just the way they are. It's very fishy.

Law Smith 16:57 He, uh, became a CIA contractor enemies, so maybe had some cash to spend from that. Yeah. And then founded vigilance elite and 20 vitamin company to teach tactical skills to civilians law enforcement. So maybe money, some money there. If you have money, you can, you can, you can get that many people, even

Eric Readinger 17:20 if you suck. Well, anybody who's been in the CIA, but not

Law Smith 17:25 us, we're doing it lean on purpose, right? Yeah. So you got, or even it's for this is brought to you, for viewers like you. I don't have that the end of PBS stuff

Eric Readinger 17:39 when they play best, get damp. Sure that's the right sound.

Law Smith 17:43 Whenever where they go. This TV show, this program, is brought to you by and they give a bunch of, oh, I got it. I got the reference. But, and then they'd say viewers like you at the end,

Eric Readinger 17:54 yeah, I know. Did you get it? Yeah, I still get it. Still get it.

Law Smith 17:58 I tried to get back to tick tock. I tried to get the list of words that will demonetize you or give you, oh, let's read those aloud. I've wanted to, that was what I was gonna do. I was just gonna start reading them without with no segue into it. But I can't get them. I can't get a list of them. It's like, secret.

Eric Readinger 18:17 Well, I know the kids. Oh, visit. Is it one? Well, you can't talk about that. Can't talk about unaliving yourself.

Law Smith 18:25 And Tiktok, I think, is the most prude out of all of them. Like you can't say sex, you say SIGs with, like, eggs with an S on right? Yeah, or the one on YouTube, and Tiktok is on alive yourself instead

Eric Readinger 18:42 of, did you hear me just say

Law Smith 18:44 that? Oh, no. Okay, good.

Eric Readinger 18:46 You see how this podcast goes. Everybody, I kind of do my own show over here. Law does his own show over there, and then we meet in the middle at the end. I'm trying,

Law Smith 18:54 yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Well, I'm trying to read some notes. I think we were talking at the same time for a full minute at one point when today, just a couple minutes ago, very possible. So what I don't like about that is, like, self censorship of stuff. But you know, it's not all bad, I guess, because there's so many kids that have accounts and they're on there the dance dances have never like, unless it's like, a bunch of people are never like, Wow, what a cool dance. I think it's interesting. I think it's I respect like a dance group that does something pretty, you know, difficult, synchronized. I feel like that is a female thing. Big time is like, I got a dance. I got, I got it hit me,

Eric Readinger 19:46 right, right?

Law Smith 19:48 I know I misogynist lately, so I'm just gonna lean into before, yeah, no, I'm saying like that. Okay, so group dance. Yes, moves, I'm gonna go with horoscopes. In, like, astrology, these are all things I don't know a straight man that is into any of this in drag queen shows, yeah, well, people are like, it's hilarious, and you're like, a half second, maybe at best. Okay, I'll there one straight male that enjoys any of those three things.

Eric Readinger 20:27 Okay, well, hold on, on the dragon shows, there is an element that can make it fun. That is, if you have another dude in your group who's very uncomfortable with the situation, sure, yeah. And we obviously let the drag queens know this, you know, you tell them, hey, focus in on him. Yeah, it's going to be funny forever. But I give you credit

Law Smith 20:47 for you having the friend, bring in that friend, or making that friend go kind of right. I'm not, I don't know. It's just like, I mean, this is obviously, it's

Eric Readinger 20:55 not like, I came up with the idea. I'm saying, like, if you're forced to go, you can make the best out of it, yeah, by making your friends uncomfortable, yeah,

Law Smith 21:04 at the same time, like dudes, I'm trying to, I try to be open to that those kind of things when they're brought up, I try not to just shut it down kind of right away.

Eric Readinger 21:15 You know, what kind of things,

Law Smith 21:17 stuff that has zero interest to me. And I extrapolated out to I'm like, do I know any men that like actual men that like this stuff? Yeah, straight guys like myself, but yeah, Comparison is the thief of joy. So try to be open to it. I don't know everything, and there might be a funny drag show out there.

Eric Readinger 21:42 I'm not, yeah, but again, I'm not trying to go to drag if you're forced.

Law Smith 21:46 Well, I've been, I've been to a lot of drag places because of comedy, and it's like, I've seen it. You get to open with Eliza Manali, and you're going to close the share.

Eric Readinger 21:58 I don't get it. I don't get how it's so much a thing.

Law Smith 22:03 So what else did I have on here? Look, we don't even have a Tiktok account for this podcast, which is pathetic. So we'll this, hopefully this will help. Here's one thing I found that was interesting. There was an entrepreneur trader that followed all the comments on Tiktok to find trends before people on Wall Street could find out about them. So he would spend four hours every night analyzing comments to find out what people were talking about. Okay, and then he would find that trend, and he he put a trade in on that company before it really popped to like older Wall Street people, and he fucking crushed it. Guy's name is Chris Camillo from from Texas, and he turned $84,000 into 42 million by just finding trends before they really pop to the general public, the older public, you know,

Eric Readinger 23:06 yep, but I see that he turned $84,000 into whatever. No, I mean, that's just like, what's his face?

Law Smith 23:16 Here's here's a good example. So Hollywood insider predicted Margot Robbie last the Barbie movie, right? So he sees all the Tiktok comments about the Barbie movie buzz. He puts a bunch of trade on Mattel stock because it's gonna, it's gonna go through the roof, because it's gonna be a legit movie, right? And crushes it with that kind of thing. I think ozempic was another one, or one of the weight loss drugs. When people were starting to do that and talk

Eric Readinger 23:47 about it, it doesn't seem like four hours a night is necessary for that.

Law Smith 23:52 Well, obviously he's obsessive about it. But it was one of those things where, what did I go? It was obviously, like obsessive and by the way, slime was the other one that that's like genius. If he was reading comments, I doubt he did it four hours a night. By the way, this is

Eric Readinger 24:09 what I'm saying. I have four hours. I didn't vet I didn't vet this whole thing, mental thing.

Law Smith 24:13 Maybe I didn't vet it out. And I'm sure he figured out how to get a bot to sweep and look at all this stuff. But kids obsessing over slime, and then, so he bought, he bought a bunch of Elmer, elmer's Glue stock, like shit like that. That's pretty awesome. Why is that? Because that's what makes up slime. Of a lot of that, okay,

Eric Readinger 24:37 but they're using it for glue.

Law Smith 24:40 No, you put you Elmer glue is one of the ingredients in slime,

Eric Readinger 24:44 but they're not making the glue. They're not taking Elmers glue and making slime out of

Law Smith 24:49 it. A lot of kids were making at home, yeah, including my own kids, I see. And then I had to have a no slime rule at my house,

Eric Readinger 24:58 yeah. No. The parents like the slime. I'm fuck that shit. Well, it just, it gets everywhere. It never comes off.

Law Smith 25:04 Yeah, it's like, Slimer from Ghostbusters. It leaves, like, residue

Eric Readinger 25:07 everywhere, snail trails. Yeah, yeah, fucking

Law Smith 25:11 first. Oh, but have I brought this up Ghostbusters? I got a lot of people that don't like cops, but they love Ghostbusters. And I'm like, You're you're backing, you're back in enforcement

Eric Readinger 25:23 there that don't like, like cops the TV show or cops in real life,

Law Smith 25:26 like police in real life. They're like, they're like, defund the police people, and then they love Ghostbusters. I find that funny,

Eric Readinger 25:34 right? That's a really fun thing for you to say to them. I

Law Smith 25:37 never bring it up. Oh, okay, dude, I, I don't if it's a big calorie burner, and I don't have a lot of information or a hot take other than that one sentence, yeah, I

Eric Readinger 25:48 am bringing it up. Yeah. I mean, defund the Ghostbusters.

Law Smith 25:53 I'm just saying, Man, you know, they deserve fair trial too.

Eric Readinger 25:57 The ghosts, I feel like they've already had their trial. Did they there? I mean, that's why

Law Smith 26:02 they got hurt there. There's systemic ghostism.

Eric Readinger 26:06 Oh, I see. So it's a problem with communities.

Law Smith 26:10 Anyway, I thought that was interesting. Not all Tiktok is bad. You can use it the way you want. Everybody wants to be an influencer now that's under the age of 18. YouTube star or Tiktok star is like the number one. I know job they want when they get older. It's crazy, yep, all right, I didn't think it

Eric Readinger 26:29 was any foresight to say we can't all be influencers. Hey, Eric. I didn't think we're gonna talk that much. I thought we're gonna have a short episode, I know, but I knew we would just gab like gals. I got,

Law Smith 26:39 I got one more thing, and then we'll get out of here and it, I'm going to open source it to everybody. So if you made it, I'm going to Shawshank Redemption you, if you made it this far, why you come a little bit further? What? There is a great idea I don't think I'll be able to ever capitalize on. So as if, like my Cuban coffee drive through idea.

Eric Readinger 27:02 You know, that's the one joke that I thought of when you're like, I'm gonna that's not my my bits on stage. What's the name of your Cuban drive through? What's the name that you give it? Oh, that's

Law Smith 27:15 the fruit the food truck joke,

Eric Readinger 27:18 whatever it is, the two cups. Yeah, my point is, is that came into my mind when you're like, I don't really do a lot of dirty stuff or shock

Law Smith 27:27 value stuff, yeah? Well, it's tough to shock people. Number one, you have to go so extreme. That's, that's why it felt out of place. And then this is a conversation we had off air.

Eric Readinger 27:38 It was, yeah,

Law Smith 27:41 about a set I did, and I was like, Yeah, not really. Part of who shit it was, yeah,

Eric Readinger 27:47 yeah, who's in, who's in the zone? Now, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't change. Holy Water, all right, we have, you don't get to just say it.

Law Smith 27:56 I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. Nailing that. Holy guacamole,

Eric Readinger 28:01 gronca, moly, I

Law Smith 28:02 know, but I

Eric Readinger 28:03 messed up. Okay, fantasy football, is that what you want to talk about?

Law Smith 28:06 Well, I've tried to figure out how to capitalize this league. I do. No one's figured out. Okay, so NFL, fantasy football, billion dollar business, like, if not 10 100. We know he knows sports betting going on with the Daily Fantasy leaves too well, and the college football is getting cooler about being less kind of they're they're becoming less restrictive about players rights and their naming rights and all that stuff paying them like they should have been the whole time. So I do a very nerdy college fantasy football league, but I'm always like, when I'm preparing for it, I have my draft tonight, and when I'm preparing for it, I'm always like, I can't believe no one's figured this out how to make college football fantasy because everyone goes well, there's too many teams, ah, but we do it a different way. We have eight managers, ah, and it's a top 25 League. You stick with the AP, top 25 and your draft really matters, because you have to skew it a bit. So if it's like Boise State's 24 and they play, you know, one of those opening games where they got to play something difficult, they can lose the value of that player goes down, because once they drop out of the top 25 you lose them, yeah? And you have to do a waiver, a weekly waiver.

Eric Readinger 29:26 Life is somebody doing all this by hand? Yeah?

Law Smith 29:30 Holy shit. I mean, not like writing it down? No, I know, but manually, I told you, this is the one where it's me, my buddy, Brendan, and I think everybody else is black dude that. So I'm like, you stupid kind of white guy in the group. I'm I was, like, the new guy, and that I was the new guy for like, 15 years in this league. I don't know these guys that well. So it's always like, we're doing the Zoom draft. Often. I'm like, sometimes I've been a little loosey goosey, you know, yeah, battle pops, it made some jokes that fall flat, and I'm like, Okay, well, I don't know these guys anyway, so, yeah,

Eric Readinger 30:10 well, but you need me there with you.

Law Smith 30:14 You can hop on tonight. No,

Eric Readinger 30:17 God, I try to so racist jokes and fall flat, but

Law Smith 30:21 I'm open to sourcing it. I've definitely done this on the show before and put it out there. It's one of those things where it's, like, I tried one year to really try to put effort into it for a while,

Eric Readinger 30:30 and like, what are you hoping sourcing the

Law Smith 30:33 idea of the game? So, like, you can be even hard to pitch this to a big like Yahoo or ESPN, or any FanDuel or something. Yeah, because you you'd have to go, I gotta pitch you something, but you gotta sign the longest NDA of all time that you can, like, it's like a movie script, while people don't read movie scripts just given to them, that has to go through their agency, because they'll get sued for, like, copying the idea. It's kind of like that, an IP of this idea of some of something that already exists, statistics that are out there.

Eric Readinger 31:08 Yeah, I don't think it'd be that crazy.

Law Smith 31:11 What sucks is, every year you have to do the manual research. Now there's sites you can pay for, subscription wise, that kind of do it. But like, Yeah, nobody cares about college. You can't. You can't really key in firsthand, all the parameters you need. So I've tried to, like, here's my strategy this year, because, oh, my God, I didn't read Phil Steele's phone book magazine. He does a thing on every team. It's like the craziest, like, Aspergers, he, like, he has, he it's like 180 pages. It's crazy. And he predict, he's the best predictor of, like, who's gonna win the Heisman, who's gonna be good this year kind of thing. So I tried to go, here's my here's what I was like, I gotta think outside the box, because last year I tried to do, I tried to use chat GBT didn't really work. This year I gave it a whirl. Still wasn't working for me. I'm going to look up the EA college football video game ratings, yeah, filter out all the non top 25 people, and then kind of go from that,

Eric Readinger 32:20 yeah, that's just that, right? Like, I was like a thing when back in my fantasy football days, like, if you ever had somebody like, you're trying to make a tough decision, start this guy or start that guy, I'd go to FanDuel, who cost support. Oh, yeah, yeah. Gamblers know,

Law Smith 32:36 right? The problem with the the Daily Fantasy ones was they don't have all the teams in there a lot of the time, so it's like, you're not getting a pure one to one sometimes, you know, if you're, if you're Jocelyn between, I've tried to do that for NFL.

Eric Readinger 32:53 I'm like, Oh, you're saying, like some teams play at different times and, well, yeah, they don't.

Law Smith 32:58 I don't know if they do it now. I haven't, I haven't really gone on those sites because I'm scared I'll, I'll gamble my life away. But it's one of those things where they do, like, here's the seven games early Sunday kind of package, but they would never have the whole Thursday to Monday, right? So it was hard to put it against it. I don't know, you know I'm saying anyway, I

Eric Readinger 33:20 guess so. But the prices are all the same.

Law Smith 33:23 The Price Is Right. Thanks for listening, and

Eric Readinger 33:29 it's from the prices.

Law Smith 33:31 And when you make billions off of this idea, you know, you package it, you're the listener. I'm talking to you, the listener. When you package this, just throw a couple shackles for for for funzies fucking nuts.

Eric Readinger 33:58 Yo, I'm dumb. I.

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