If you're serious all the time, you'll burn out before you get any other really serious work done.
Like you can do serious work without taking yourself and it too, seriously, because if you do that, you just burn out. I have yet to see a single exception.
and also,
In. This is a grand experiment for me at least, but it seems very promising that you can get very serious work done in fun ways.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of proof that covers all things and of teas, including a brand new project done by none. Other than Tim Tim Ferriss, Tim welcome to the show.
So, great to be here. Good to see you brother, too. Good to see you. Sorry, I have a new ad for those who have not seen what happened
before we press record. I've been enjoying non stop sound effects of every possible type because Kevin has a new toy.
That's right. I do and you know investor dollars put to good work. Here we have a we have our own little soundboard now which is awesome.
No in all seriousness. So it is nice to actually have a somewhat professional studio. It'll be very professional once we actually have a real home home, although this is coming together quite nicely Mouse, done. A fantastic job. Setting it up. And we actually have, you know, real Mike's, real lighting things of that nature. So it's great.
I like I like the purple background effect that you have working for you, brings out your eyes.
You know what's crazy? Thank you first of all and it's crazy that we just moved in here. This is actually temporary space a couple days ago and now rush to get this set up. So it's good job. Good job looks excellent. But yeah so dude, this is crazy because you know, we've been talking and I've teased for a long time. Now long-term very gracious to you know, let me chat your ear off about an empties on the random show and talk about you know the early stuff in the early proof past days and
Then obviously in the mooc, the good chaos, that became Moon Birds. Um, but you know, people, what people may not know is that you immediately went all-in as you as one does, the will specially you and went deep and we really started going, you know, crazy within of T's especially around our trip to Marfa Texas. Yeah, remember when we went out there and he started buying some serious, like cromie squiggles, like you. Yeah. Got some great in at ease as a collector. First right collector first?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
I haven't been that has been for me. I mean I really haven't showcased any collections of any type. I've just been collecting to scratch my own itch and to explore the world of. And ft is which I think for a lot of folks has been entered through, the gateway drug of nft artwork and yes as someone who's been very not just interested in but
Evolved in art from a production perspective, right? From an illustrator perspective. A lot of that background is is
We're has been invisible to, I think a lot of folks who have read my writing or have listened to the podcast is that prior to all of that, my plan was to be a comic book penciler for 10-plus years and one too late. It's not too late and worked in illustration and paid a lot of my way through college expenses and so on with illustrating books and magazines and acting as a graphics editor and so on. So I've been very, very interested
In.
All of these intersections within the kind of Venn diagram of nft Zed. Also, our background goes way, way back in terms of early-stage tech experimenting with new tools and playing with these technology that goes. I mean, certainly way back. You even further than I but for me, 2007-2008 at the latest. So this is provided a really fun opportunity to re-engage with all sorts of things.
That I'm interested in.
I feel like that is one of the things that you and I bonded over very early on where, you know, I was more obviously, on, definitely the tech side. On the Angel Investing side, you were just kicking off your career as an author and angel investor. And then you are in a big big and biohacking which I was always curious about. But you were like, you know, an order of magnitude more sophisticated in terms of like your understanding of published papers and the literature and all that stuff. So I would just kind of follow what you were doing, except for this.
But guy in a hospital or other things but I yeah, I kind of fast follow. Where it was? It was appropriate. I could give
you the the the do
not try at home list. Also save you. I could save you some hospital visits but she you know that's what friends are for. Yeah, exactly. And then we would, you know, do angel deals together, try out new technologies together. Things like that. And so, you know, when I got into entities and all that and knowing your love for art, it makes sense that you would would then Venture into the space and kick the tires. Now that said, it's November 8th,
As of this recording in, if he's might be dead right now. We don't know because it's not such a hell of a day. It's been a very exciting day. Few days. All of a
few days. Yeah, very exciting. I mean, exciting in the way that like an avalanche is exciting. Perhaps but
right. Exciting. Nonetheless like to watch. I know but you should be far enough away but sadly right in the middle of it. Yeah, been better on video instead of being on one ski going.
Going directly into the Avalanche. But do you know some people choose to ride the bear? Some people choose to do something.
Health, dangerous Hobbies
t-shirt for you ride, the bear bear. So let's talk about your your project. Let like can we would be a good word would be a good place to start? Would it would it be with the kind of the idea of a pfp? Or if you consider this a pfp or can we what can we, what can we say? And what can we say about the project right
now? Well, I think because ultimately, the you and I will
Sit around and have martinis and decide. When Pub data is I can just go for it and we can get into the nitty-gritty and then we can release it went to make sense. But I think it might make sense to start at the beginning insomuch, as let's see here. So early 2021 you and I were having a conversation and you like you got to look more closely these nft things and I think maybe prior to that or maybe just after that, the timing is slightly lost
And I think it would have been just before that. I don't remember the exact date I'd had Katie Han on the podcast and we talked about and ft is and then you had encouraged me in early twenty Twenty-One to roll up my sleeves and actually start using some of the tools
and to, and to buy it. If D's those phone calls. Yeah, those phone calls. The many mass support phone call. God.
It's just like remedial what? You know, walking your great-grandmother through
Buying the first 10 ft. Sorry about that giffgaff but I appreciated the yeah the one. Oh one
you sort of short School Bus help there and
It made me very, very excited on a couple of levels. So, to explain why I need to give a bit of additional context. So, there were a lot of things that came together for me at once one was new tech. Always interesting to me, especially when there is some type of on-ramp, / trojan horse, that allows a lot of, let's just call them not obviously, early Tech candidates to become
Vault with early Tech if that makes any sense, right? If there's some type of like muggle pathway for someone like me to get involved
really interesting the next was for I would say, two or three years probably two or three years at that point, I'd have to go back and look, I had been brainstorming trying to brainstorm ways to run a
I suppose, let's call it Contemporary Art Auction with donated artwork to raise money for my foundation. So I say Foundation, which supports a lot of the early stage, it has supported and continues to support a lot of the early stage cutting-edge science related to psychedelic Therapeutics and addressing so-called intractable psychiatric conditions of all different types. So, complex PTSD OCD anorexia nervosa.
Pretty broad spectrum of difficult to treat conditions. I had been trying for a long
time to try to put together
something, resembling a physical Contemporary Art Auction. And as soon as I saw the mechanics and the marketplaces involved with NF T's, I thought to myself. Wait a second, there may be a bunch of other options here that don't involve putting on the knee pads and begging fill in the blank like agent of our
Next X to give me a canvas which it turns out they hate doing generally, I was like them, there may be a more elegant solution here, that allows me to also experiment with the technology and then on top of that, and if if anybody goes back, if they've been following my Instagram for a while, they will have seen over the last two or three years various attempts on my behalf to get back into using my hands to produce our work. So you'll see experimentations with
Charcoal, you'll see experimentations with pencil with pastels, with different types of different media to get back into the physical production of artwork. And so I saw Ian and ft is a great combination of excuses to engage first hand. So that's when the wheels started to get moving and I would say at that point began all of the most
Dick, ulis ideas imaginable, right? Popping into my head. For what I might do if I were to do something and then of T's. Hmm. And and at first it was it was. What could I do? That would be really easy. That would be exciting for me, lightweight fun. And then, as it went on my my desire, I guess got more and more ambitious, and elaborate in terms of folding into a potential art,
Eject, which is how I viewed it. These things I wanted to explore, but it never really had the incentive to explore in a real way like fiction and world-building. And last but not least, kind of revisiting all the things that made me happy as a 12 and 13 troll. So I've spent a lot of time with a bunch of people. I respect recently and almost all of them have been discovering and resurrecting Joy.
Boys of their as later in life that work or to their enjoyment as a 12 or 13 year old. So when all of these ingredients in the cocktail then got kind of shaken up and stirred over the last let's just call it I guess what the hell is it now a year and a half?
That is Led I guess in the last nine months and especially in the last six months to this project, that is going to launch. Now in the next few weeks, which is pretty crazy to think about at the arguably the worst possible time to launch anything ever and entities. Which iMac which I'm actually very pleased by in a way because number one, if I were doing it just for a money grab this would be the worst time imaginable.
To do it, I could have done you know I could have farted out some really terrible artwork and done some pink long ago. I decided not to do that and I should say up front like a hundred percent of the primary proceeds are going to my foundation. So that's that's that and that piece of the experiment is important to me. Also, when the markets are really bad and you think back to when I first got involved with the Angel Investing like 2008-2010, I mean that was kind of a.com depression and it was just the
the best time to be in the game because it was one of the True Believers were left on the field. You know? I mean like all the Fairweather folks had to split they just took off well that's
happened. Yeah well that's happened.
Oh yeah, no. I mean all of the sort of the I shouldn't say week but all of the Casual tourists in the herd, have been called already and it forces you. And by you, I just I guess I'll just save me.
To think about all of this, much more creatively and to come back to First principles and think about like, okay why am I doing this? How could I make sure that I stay true to certain priorities like fun and play being the absolute core of all of my decisions around this.
So, I'm having a hell of a time in. And you've seen
it. You've seen it in me because we've hung out so much and had so many conversations like a it is been. Let's see here since publishing tribe of mentors that came out, I want to say 2000, set a 16 2017. It's been five years since I've been this energized by anything as a public-facing
project. It's great to see that in you
but I'm curious.
Like, if
what does this mean for you? Where does this fit in your in your career? And the sense that let's assume you get everything you want out of this project? Yeah. Obviously you have some primary sales coming in, that goes to your foundation. I'm guessing that that money goes in. Yep, that's great. That's awesome for the foundation but we know royalty is, are up in the air right now. Who knows with a scam with a royalty? Yeah, big time. You know. So, what is it? What's a win for Tim? Oh,
Long term here, like, what is this project turn into? Because, I think if I'm putting my devil's advocate hat on which I love that onion, post Devil's, Advocate turns out just to be asshole people in your asshole hat. Please do that. Yeah, for my asshole. And I'm ready, people say like, okay celebrity in FTS we've seen this play book before. P FPS we've seen this play book before. Yeah. Yeah. But what I, what I know and the reason I'm asking this question is because I know what you're doing behind the scenes, which I think.
Already share today. Yeah, I'm sure much cooler than just checking boxes and obviously are not doing for this this for the money. So what is what's the creative win for you?
Yeah, shit so much
fucking work. Oh my God, if I did like my hourly
on this, I'm working at Burger King, it's fucking hilarious anyway so the win for me is continuing to play the game. So that
is game effectively.
A quote from cars-- and sort of the finite versus infinite games side of things. So the game here is giving myself
It's compelling excuses, / reasons to engage with creative muscles that I had that I have, but I haven't exercised in a very long time, and one way to do that, is through something that I'm reasonably comfortable with, but that I haven't done in a very long time, and that's visual art, and I very, very, very acute visual senses. I've pretty good fine motor control and I can
Also, I've realized through this process work with artists really well, that's new for me, I've always been the artist when I've designed say all of my book covers with the exception of tools of Titans. Like I just I designed all of those book covers through sketches and then had them professionalized and Polished, obviously to get ready for actual printing. But the visual piece is something I feel
I feel like a whole human being again when I'm engaged with and it feels so good, it feels so good but I need I
need reasons to do that because
when all I'm trying, when all I'm trying to do is say take a lesson with a teacher once a week. Other things crowded out, right? Other things, crowded out, life gets in the way and prettied up trying to adult my life as best as possible. I'm like, oh well, that's not important, that's optional. But when I have a team
And I have a project and when I have deadlines the magic, is that shit gets done and I actually do a lot more art. So, I mean, I have in my bag right now. I took it with me to a coffee shop that huge Sketchbook. I have an iPad with prokaryotic procreate on it that I have still not figured out how to use. It's
been putting it off because I'm enjoying scribbling in my notebook, so much.
So that's that's part of the game that I want to continue.
You is the visual art the other side of, and there are many pieces to this game, but one of the games that I want to really continue to engage with is fiction. So, I've spent so much time as a nonfiction writer, I'm an 1,000-plus blog posts, right? Thousands of pages of published material in the books, let alone the other thousands upon thousands of pages that
were cut from those and the drafts were thrown out and so on non-fiction is
An incredible craft. It is super interesting and challenging In A Million Ways. However, I think when it's done best generally, you're a really good architect. And then you do a ton of research, and you assemble all the materials and then a lot of it is carpentry, right? Like, you're just, you're putting together what you laid out in the blueprint and that has its own creative challenges. But what I, what I really have enjoyed about playing with
Action. And what back in the day, I enjoyed so much in D&D Dungeons & Dragons. Right. By the way, I still have all of my modules, all of my books, all of my maps, all of my 20-sided, die, and 4-sided, die from when I was a kid playing D&D. I kept all of it. I still have it to this
day. As my wish, I would have kept some
wine. I have all of it. It's literally in a room about 20 feet away from me right now. And what I enjoyed so much about DND whether I was the dungeon master or player.
And what I have enjoyed so much about art and what I've enjoyed so much about now doing fictional World building. This is coming back to the question of what game I want to continue playing is that you can set these initial conditions or set a situation say with a character or with two warring Clans or with in the case of dungeon master might just be a setting in a particular campaign with different characters and here's the opening.
Scene and then you go from there. So even I in this case, as the writer /, say do not know what the ending is going to be. I have no idea what's going to be around corner number 7. And that is fun for me, right? I'm not just
Putting together, Brick by Brick the building that I already know the finished look of. That's not the case at all. So
what I would like ask you a question. Sure about that, though. I mean, what you're saying is you're talking about writing but we're also talking about and of T. So I think what we're missing is the connection that thread is
connected. Yeah. Yeah. Totally like it
because I was in most in a few projects, they'll say hey we're the crazy, you know, buff squirrels or
Her. And then you got like the squirrel page and then there's some copy about the lore of the squirrels and how they got their anabolics. And like all these things that go down and then and then that's kind of it, right? It's like yeah aging. You're like okay that's all you're talking. This isn't just a one pager. This is the characters. I buy this? No, no, it's not
a one-pager now, I, you know, I want to be clear, I'm not committing to writing, you know, the has best version of Game of Thrones or something. Yeah, it's not 12 novels but I have
spent hundreds of hours thinking about World building. So, the at what is the nft? He's here for me, are a project with deadlines with deliverables, that keep me on track in thinking and engaging with art and fiction writing. So what this means in Practical terms is that this project when it comes out, we'll have I'll give
Some of the specifics, it's going to have eight primary great houses. These are like Clans and they're going to have different characteristics, different strengths, different weaknesses, different cultures different religions, different natural resources. Mean there's going to be a lot of fucking detail and this has been written. I've already written this and furthermore, I've already hired a
Primary voice actor. There are probably probably I say, probably meaning, hopefully be more to perform these as also, this is an exclusive news flash. What weÃll do sound effect myself, it will also be a podcast so limited edition, see season 1 of a podcast that will have this lure.
Armed and that will come out in drips and drabs so that people can slowly sort of look through the haze and begin to piece this world together. There's going to be a lot of
Embedded secrets and Mysteries and mythology, is that folks if they're interested will really be able to explore and in some cases will have to piece together. So all of that writing is being done and that's already in process, you've got these, these houses you have Maps. Like I have art to review right now related to refinements to a map like a lay of the land of the known territory.
per se, and
The writing then thus far has been related to a lot of the backstory in the histories but the conditions are now set in sort of the present-day and there will be at least one primary figure character who's going to be very nebulous in a way. I should say nebulas but physically he will be at this point sort of unknown who will be telling the story or rather trying to piece together the story.
Himself. And he's a stand-in in a way for the listener, or the reader. And so how to entities figure into all of this. It keeps me on track because if I were just writing this, I don't have any desire to write a fiction book. Right now, putting it out as a blog post or a series of blog posts could be interesting, but it's kind of like a fart on a crowded train. Like, will anybody notice? Maybe somebody will notice but it's
Not, it doesn't have the gravitas or the connective tissue, to really hold Collective attention and to Foster sort of collective imagination. Whereas, if you have a 10 ft you have people with skin in the game. You certainly have me with skin in the game. You have a team, I mean a team. I have a very small team is focused on this for right now. The game I want to continue playing is really engaging with.
Upping the art. And if I look at, for instance, like the first history that I wrote for one of these Clans and I look at the last, I can see a tremendous, and this is not my words. This is from a number of proofreaders, like a tremendous amount of progress. Like, I am getting better at doing this and that's super fucking exciting. I don't think I'm going to, I don't think I'm the world's best or anything close to a great fiction writer right now, but I have been studying it. I've been going back. I've been reading the classics. I've been listening to podcasts and
and listening to lectures on World building on systems of magic, all sorts of things, I've been paying attention and so it's getting better. And I know there's so much room left for improvement. So basically that is the game. I want to continue to play.
I'd let me
questions. Yeah, let me throw in a huge caveat,
right? So we have me. All right. Go go for, give me the caveat
first. Well, the caveat is if by engaging with NF tizen, web three, I just need to deal with a bunch of dicks. On the internet, all the
All the time. Then all bets are off then I'm like, all right, like I'm not going to continue to just take the you know body shots on the internet, if right, if it's if it's energy-draining. So the reason I'm doing it right now is because I am getting so much energy from it, it's so fucking fun and it's been a long time since I have felt that. And I so I pay attention to that, just in terms of like why this, why that it's like, what is giving me energy, which people are getting the energy,
Let me double down on that. So right now it means doubling down on
this.
The thing about the nft space that is so challenging for me and everyone else building in it is that you know a year ago or close to a year ago, if you'd asked me as someone that's a builder, how far out do you plan when you're building project in general? I would have told you you know, kind of 8 to 12 months, type world does very much a web too kind of thing, right? Yep. And then when I got in a fuses like, oh shit, well, we shouldn't be planning more than six months out, that's just
Toss right. Yep. Then I cut that down to three months and now I'm going to about 30 days, this is so I feel like anything above and beyond and that far out is dangerous because you promised something this community, the people that are in antique collectors, maybe it's because the blockchain is just so transparent in general, they tend to, and this is an everyone. But the, the folks I interact with they want a level of transparency and understanding about where the project.
Going how ambition ambitious is the project and you know, what do you hope to build eventually? And so I think that's the challenging part is is like figuring out, especially with you 10 because Tim you have such a massive podcast, a massive following on the other end of the Spectrum, which is the more kind of like normies. Not the web three folks right now armies. Yes, if you go in and say, hey every single episode is going to be plugin.
This antique collection and, you know, it's like I'm going to put a lot of effort in this because there is a world where Tim Ferriss has the power to release comic books to release graphic novels. Yeah, to do, you know miniature series on Netflix? Like there is a world where you could pull that off because you are the type of human that has the wherewithal, the knowledge, the the you know, the fan base, all of that to make this happen. Yep. I guess like the really difficult.
Kitchen is like, how serious are you with this? Because you just mentioned have, I don't like the crowd. I might I might pull back a bit. Like that's going to be the number one question you get right? Yeah. So I can let me take a stab. This is, this is, this is one of my favorite topics because I get to be the salty cantankerous old man, which I'm really embracing these days.
So all of those considerations you just mentioned right? Like what's your roadmap has this has this has this has this comes down to if we don't want to call it by to fancy a name. People just wanting to know if they're guaranteed to make a quick
Buck, right? Except you
by and large they're like, can I buy this? And then flip it for point to eat more.
Two seconds later or
five. Let me I mean, you could push back, but let me just say, say, 90% of people in this environment are exactly that. There are ten percent of us that will say, I want to bet on Tim Ferriss over the long term. Yes. Yes. I want to come in and ends on this because I know he's going to create something great. I agree. So there are exceptions I will say that
default is
A lot of folks who just want free money for no effort and that world sometimes exists, there are windows of opportunity, but really that Dynamic rarely turns out very well for the individual or collectively speaking. So, to come back to how serious I am. I am so fucking serious about
What I'm creating right now.
But I am not in any way afraid of the mob, in the sense that I am going to let all of my creative decisions, be dictated by what the lowest common denominator of day Traders. Wants that make sense? I have zero interest in that and also I don't need it. Like, I don't need there. I mean, just based on the amount of
Work, I've put into this. I could figure out a way to do like compilation interview-based book and call it a day with far less work, right? So the drivers for this
different and as people complaining for sure. Oh my God. Yeah. Because people who buy a book
aren't like how is this gonna pay for my car down again or whatever? Yeah, my kids gone. Which nobody, I don't think anybody should and put money into speculative anything
For a for any type of important output, right? It's just too it's just too risky and you know there are risks intrinsic to a project or risks. Also inherent to just macro factors that are Beyond anyone's control. I mean AKA look at the last week the need for fucks sakes. So you know look if you want something safe and if T is ain't it folks. So with that. Having been said, so
I'm very, very serious. And I got some Sage advice, early on which was from a different friend, although you can confirm or deny whether or not you echoed this in some sense, but it's like either.
Promise and promise a lot and then deliver or promise nothing and set expectations, very very low, which is my default with everything it has been my default with almost every project I've ever done, because if I set expectations low there's nothing but upside surprise, for
people. So they accept you just told them that and another like other he's sitting next.
Rotational I thought, well, I mean, I am setting expectations low, but here, let me show you, this would be fun. Why don't I? So, there's going to be
Be an FAQ on some kind of mint pagers, or website dedicated to the project. Right?
So
here are a few of the drafts, your facts of you.
Have my facts question? Yeah. Do these in ft's come with
utility or roadmap in a Discord? There's no plan utility, no plan a roadmap, and no plan Discord, but there might be a few surprises. It's a big experiment that I've been thinking about planning for the better part of a year dot dot dot, dot dot. And then there's some other stuff right now. I've given away a couple things I wasn't.
Going to mention to anybody prior to launch. I was actually going to make these surprises after the mint, like the podcast and so on. But I've had a number of people say, hey look, you're really excited about this. If you just hedge and say nothing, it's kind of a disservice to the whole thing. So you might as well mention right? Okay. So here's another one. Should I consider this an investment? That's a question and my draft so far. Is absolutely not. No, this is an art experiment and you're getting funny and highly
Eli's jpegs that are part of a fictional world that's it and then it goes on and on and on and I just basically say yeah.
Come into it expecting, as you might, if you were to go to a casino and like, spend $100 as entertainment money, much like you'd spend money at at a movie theater, you don't expect to get your money back. You expect to have fun watching a movie, eat some popcorn and then go home. And, you know, hopefully I give people some soul enriching laughs along the way as well as provide, a fictional world that people engage with, but I do not want
Or a my position. I don't want this to be viewed as an investment, and I'm definitely not positioning it that way, right? Yeah.
Now correct me if I'm wrong here, but some of these come with free dinners, with you and jam sessions, is that correct? No, I do promise any of these
things. There's another one, or it can I read a few more of these? Now, I might have to change some of these but there's another one that another question on my frequently asked questions is, can I be a dick and expect benefits? If you're a dick I reserve the right to ban or block
Block you from anything. I do in the future and then it goes on and on to basically say, like I'm not planning on running and online preschool for children with behavioral problems. So if you're an idiot, I don't want to be part of this world. I don't want you to have any benefits. If there are any, so I will block you in whatever way I can. So I just I just think the the the sort of Norm of like
being in a community such as online Twitter which is like one of the one of the most unfriendly neighborhoods of the internet and just like pissing on people's heads as they walk by on the sidewalk and throwing potted plants at them is not acceptable to me. Yeah, that's not the culture that I want to Foster. If culture is a byproduct and part of the worst behavior, you're willing to accept.
I want to set the rules really early and I think you can do that. It'll be a challenge certainly, but I was able to do that with say blog comments on my blog long time ago. I was like, we're going to be cool if you're not cool. You're going to get blocked. That's it. There's and there's no second chance. This isn't like three strikes you're out. It's like no, you get one chance. I give I invite you to dinner at my house and you like, put your balls on the table and then like spit in my food. I'm like, okay, you're not coming back to dinner. That's that's
one strike against on that once at your house. Actually.
That's true. I didn't want a name.
He's invited back. It was a lot of tequila. I gave you. I did give Kevin one pass on that.
That's a nice gesture but but
here's another one. Okay, so, one more FAQ and then I'll stop because I don't want to kind of rein on my own parade and undersell. It, I'm trying to be very careful of that. But here's another one, will you be involved with this forever forever ever forever ever? And then I said, probably not, I'm not pounding the pavement for any of my books or TV shows anymore and I wouldn't expect this to be all that different
I'll be involved for as long as I'm super stoked and it's massively energy-giving instead of energy draining, get if I have to deal with a lot of idiots online and it's just non-stop punishment. I'll piece out and move on. My goal is always to create something that can Thrive without me but TBD right. What I would love as a dream outcome, coming back to your question, is for this to go really well for me to enjoy it. And then to say, you know what, I want to keep writing fiction, I want to keep producing artwork, like I already have all these ideas for possible.
Isabel extensions and all sorts of stuff. And, you know me like I've thought about the possibilities for like derivative Creations, right? I've thought a lot about these things. It doesn't mean they're going to happen. It absolutely doesn't mean they're going to happen but it could.
How do you think about? You know, there's there has to be some fans of yours out there that they'll tune in this and say this sounds really cool and I'm a fan of Tim's, I'm sure his sci-fi writing will be really
interesting.
Paying more for like fantasy more like fantasy
fantasy. Sorry fantasy writing, will be really interesting I to amend to this because there's of course a lot of Geeks out there that might be into fan fiction type stuff. Yeah. Is there a world where anyone can kind of kind of help out or do you see a world where you evolve any Community type involvement or operation? This is an excellent question and I have not figured out where I land on it. I've talked to a ton of people about it.
and I don't know where I'll and yet, I don't know exactly where I'll and yet because there's
there is such a broad spectrum of options. And on one hand, you've got kind of the Disney.
Super enforcement, right? But as a in part, as a result of that, I think they have very tight controls on sort of
quality narrative character in such a way, that these worlds, have incredible longevity, right? I mean, some of their characters and so on have just unbelievable. Multiple decade-long Longevity if the oversaturate, so I'll use Disney as as an example on this to, like, if suddenly there's Five Star Wars properties coming out every week. I think personally, okay, if you're someone on the
Team whose incentivized by shorter-term stock performance, and that's going to benefit you, and maybe your shareholders over the short term that's fine. But you can also corrupt and damaged a fictional world and characters very quickly. By that oversaturation right now, there are other examples of folks like forever. For instance, Hugh Howey with his book,
Wall which was this huge sleeper best seller who is really supportive of all fanfiction, right? He's the opposite end of the spectrum and I think that both sides could make very compelling arguments as to why they're doing what they're doing. And then, there's a lot in the middle, right? There's a lot in the middle, so you might have, for instance. And this is where n of T is get so tricky. And it's
Buddy asked me like if you can go long and web through on anything what would it be? And I said, if I, if I could go a long on New Generation intellectual property lawyers, if there are a way to do that, I would do that because this jacket is so complicated. It is unbelievably complicated little, let alone like the accounting and tax and all that. I mean it is so bleeding edge that very few people have any idea where the puck is going
on the IP side, right? You have situations where for instance, certain holders of an nft will have the commercial rights or not to their particular image.
But they do not have commercial rights to say the name of the project, right? Because then, what's the incentive of the project owner to sort of, create a lot of brand Equity value? If it's just getting sliced and diced into a million pieces, right? That can cause all sorts of problems. And, and you see this with a lot of the larger projects in the nft space today, right? So like how do you thread the needle on that? Is there are sets of questions that consumed so much. I thought for me at least like
A lot of thinking that are invisible from the outside when you just see the output. But yeah, I've got I'm doing a lot of reading on this. I'm talking to a lot of people but I'm not sure where I land
yet. Yeah, so I mean, you've got like Gary Vee for example, would protects all these IP so like the sacred sardine or whatever it can. It's like it's only Gary's only. He can use that, I don't know if s sardines of thing but I'll just
say it is I like Italy is that might be my my DJ name.
See, you got that this fully protected, you know, I've gone the cc0 route, which is, you know, like nouns and crypto codes and a few other projects out there where we say the remix is the meme culture, the extension of the brand into a thousand different nooks and crannies is going to be what gets us more visibility, long term which you know experiment we'll see what happens. Experiment and middle-of-the-road kind of board Apes like will will give you a little bit of you know you can go sell.
A coffee mug, just don't call it board Apes, call it number 65 whatever. Yeah, so any sense on which way you're leaning are? No, not
yet. Yeah, I would say I probably lean and this is nothing new to me, right? I want to just maybe back step for a second and say I've had to think about this stuff before. This is not new, right? I've had to think about it with respect to my books. I've had to think about it with respect to the podcast and like
What do I do when people are slicing? Dicing the podcast? What do I do when people are creating like
summary books of one of my books? What
do I do? When there are various types of derivative products that get put out, that are associated with my books, or my name, or whatever might be? How do you respond to that, right? And when do you need to respond to it, right? Because there are laws established around say trademarks. If you never enforce your trademarks, you get yourself into trouble. So,
So this video, you know,
this, you know, this really well. So as much as the web three world is the wild west. Like there are actually live in a society governed by laws and if you're going to think about here's what I would say if you're going to think about, if people are investing in a person or a team because they hope that person or team has a long-term Focus, anyone with a long-term Focus has to take this shit seriously and think
About him. Otherwise they're not thinking long-term they're just flying by the seat of their pants and their stuff could, you know, the floor could fall out, not the floor in the nft sense. Although I guess that could be the case as well. But like, the metaphorical floor upon which the entire project stands could just disintegrate unexpectedly if they're not minding these details. So where am I right now? Am I thinking probably somewhere closer to bore tape Yacht Club
And Disney, I'm probably closer to that end of the spectrum and it's wise.
Yeah, for me, I think that for this type of project. Yeah, for this type of project and also, it's like, if somebody, if you folks want me to try to craft a world that they can engage with, in some way, whatever that some is is kind of like TBD, right?
I need to there need to be certain
pieces that are reliable for for me as foundational pieces of this world so I can I can create let's call it. You know, physics that are reliable. I can create lineages that interweave in a way that makes sense and we'll see if that changes. I've also, for instance,
Come across. I have put so much time into this. Kevin. Oh my God, me, you know, that? I've done a lot of it, but it like the number of case studies that I've read and case Law related to different types of Ip is unbelievable. The number of cases, I've looked at related to almost every major nft project, you can think of is mind-boggling. And there are some cases of folks who are for instance, opening up to certain types of fanfiction.
And then they'll have their Community, whether it's a dour, otherwise, a vote on pieces of fan fiction that are created. That should be incorporated into the Canon, right? Sort of the
interesting, which is interesting. However,
one of my like governing principles for this entire thing is actually a quote that I borrowed a principal from Morgan Spurlock. The documentary filmmaker made Super Size Me and so on, which is once you get fancy fancy gets broken. So
I've seen a lot of projects.
Become so complex, especially around mechanics that I think a lot of people opt out because it just looks like a grind to figure the shit out on any level. So for me I'm like so for me, I'm like look it's art like the what you're buying is Art and what that then gives you is some skin in the game as a playing piece in a world that you can then engage with
The form of that fictional world is not going to be 27, different mechanics, it's going to be writing and it's going to be probably spoken word, at least initially in the form of a podcast. And then we see what think that's
brilliant. By the way, I get very, very excited for the podcast. Yeah, I know. I just know it's gonna be fun. I'm excited.
So now you've had some, some you and I have had this cat and mouse game about the name of this project and the specifics because, you know,
One
of one of the things that I love about you is we are so supportive of things that you believe in and get excited about. And one of the most hilarious aspects of your personalities is what goes hand in hand with that is that you man you have big
mouths. And so I'm always worried about you blowing my cover with secrets and okay, you want to talk some shit. You're the most paranoid motherfucker. I know, dude, you're like Souls construe. It could be like something that you've already in.
Announcer. Like, don't fuckin say where I'm like, Tim you tweeted about it like two days ago? No,
yeah. We look, I so I agree. We are on, you know, this is, this is
where opposite ends, which is why we get along, because that's right. Like, like, I'm the kind
of like paranoid, squirrel. Minding the nuts. You know, like that guy from Ice Age and you're and you're like, you're more like the Hakuna Matata, like, warthog from
Liking
and so, you know, we get along. It's been a while. So watch out one. What they mean. I remember he was fat. Other than that. I don't know. He's just like everything's gonna be great. Hakuna Matata. No worries man. Yeah, things are fantastic race. Peace out
and I will say not that I have any personal experience but I went oh shit. I just blew my cover, someone went to. He see The Lion King show like the actual theater show with a friend of theirs and their friends whole family including
Leading a bunch of little kids and that someone was a little concerned that they just might not be able to like sit through whatever 90 minutes or two hours of this performance really not knowing anything about it. So that said person took a handful of gummies and
It was one of the most spectacular experiences of said person's life. I mean it was just beyond description and how amazing it hell and hilarious, especially hilarious, it was so thank you for coming to my Ted Talk on Lion, King and Edibles. The point was that that I'm paranoid. You're very much the opposite of paranoid and what I wanted to say to offer is to share with you for the first time
This is not bullshit people. I've actually have not told Kevin the real name. There was a placeholder though, do you remember the placeholder? Yeah,
of course. So I was going to say with the only reason I am going to agree to even polishes episode as long as we can say what the placeholder name was. Oh yeah. Yeah. All right. So I remember the placeholder name. All right. So what was the placeholder name? You got a hold of me and said, I have this idea for an empty project. Can I tell the real story? Yeah. Yeah, of course. Okay. So the real story in this, okay.
Let me just put it this way in the spirit of ideation and through working through new ideas. Yeah. A long way. Oh yeah. Because when you first when you first mention it was very much like imagine a couple of guys having a couple of drinks like bullshitting about what would be hilarious if they saw this on the blockchain. Oh yeah. I feel like a cat how it kind of started. Oh yeah. Started when you turn it into something where I when I first saw the art I was like man. Fuck. These are good. These are like, I wasn't joking. Like there was a really good like you.
A good job with this this crew and so I was pleasantly surprised with the with everything and how it's come together. Like it was clear to me at some point in your head it went from haha, witness be funny to like I'm going to build something pretty badass, right? Yeah,
yeah. All my friends were like, wow. This got really elaborate very
quickly, right? Yeah, exactly. So it started off with Tim being, like, wouldn't it be funny? Just a mess with people and just creating
IT project that was just a bunch of like roosters and like, have it be like cock and balls, just call it cock and balls. And like you could do like blue balls and you could do like and I'm just like, I'm like oh God, that's Tim godspeed. Like yeah, he's make that happen. I just wanted to sit there with my Michael Jackson popcorn being like I like watching this shit go down. Yeah it's so that's that's how it started at sounds good. Yes.
Is so talking balls initially. Yeah, which is immediately registered all the domains. So yeah, buy them from me,
which I knew you'd do. So I'm glad that that was your son. You know your red herring. Just so I'm going to take Moon birds for me. Now, exactly,
I win. There's no identity project. I just Holier birds all the birds that's
hot. So so that is so that was actually one of several initial spitball ideas or I was like okay what is something that would just be?
Be really fun. Now, all the other things are also true, right? Like the engaging with tech, the engaging with art, the raising, hopefully, raising money for the foundation of those are all in play already at this point. But I was starting with. How can I make this fun for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, right? Because when I make things fun or interesting for me, it always comes across to the, I mean, in the case, of the books, like my readers or in the podcast, case my listeners, right?
When I'm not stoked about something, it is very hard for me to hide. That says, all right how can I make this hilarious and fun for me? So cock and balls was definitely one was one idea. There were other ideas. One other idea was going to be, I was going to see if I could crowdsource eyes, meaning photographs of eyes from my audience and then this was before Dolly, actually, I mean, now you
Could really do some crazy stuff. Although I think, Dolly by default, the outputs are owned by. Is it open? I changing that now. Okay, they are changing that. I mean, I, yeah, and then you have you to stable diffusion. And so on which I think by default makes everything
Public domain or CC 0. So that would be compatible, assuming that somebody had an approached like, like you have potentially potentially, right. I mean, there are a lot of details, but I decide Iya of doing something very interesting with eyes and initially the eyes as the, let's call the window into the soul was going to be tied into Consciousness, and then, like crypto for Consciousness, type
fundraiser, I mean, you should still do this, by the way, you should talk to platonic. If you try with him at all, do you have the
Jesus, his photography is fucking amazing. I
love him
photography, I don't think he and I've ever met. Oh my God, I've seen it, I've seen him present.
His photos are amazing. I mean the stories behind for instance, his profile pic pointing up of Putin sitting in the throne basically and the back story with the question about the Beatles and it's incredible. So
So, so I so I haven't ice to this idea completely, but this was one of the other ideas was like, okay? I'm going to do eyes and do this and then have this spin on stylizing the eyes at all. These ideas, another idea, which was, kind of, I don't want to say too on the nose, but it's going to be for raising money for the foundation again, and it was going to be taking molecules of current and lesser-known also novel.
Oops, that could be tryptamines, that could be, if an ethyl means, it can be
any, you could sponsor molecule by buying. It isn't in Athey. Well, you could
potentially specify thought about this. Also like buying an N of T. The end looking at certain Dynamics or mechanics, I should say there are ways of different molecules get waited. And then based on the waiting funding is applied to say, studies that support different classes or types of molecules and
There are a lot of molecules like there are databases of these molecules at least is laid out in 2D. I'm sure there are ways, there are absolutely ways that you could visualize them in three-dimensional space but that was another idea, right? And then, I mean, I'm looking through, I'm looking through a bunch of my notes Here. Yeah, you some terrible names to
W Windows of the salt, wo TS W was
the
See, it was going to be some word play. That would have definitely been changed. I thought about different collaborations for instance. I mean, I really think Brandon Stanton is amazing. The humans of New York and he's a friend and I never haven't floated this by by him because I didn't want to put him at any risk of some like, nft curveball screwing things up and I thought, man, like he would actually be an incredible person to
Ali collaborate with on something like this, if it were purely a
fundraiser, but let's let's get back here. There was when you want to do with the Dilbert
creator.
Was
there might a you there was it was it the Dilbert? It was some
comic. I do think it was, I dunno. I mean, Scott Adams has been on the podcast. His his story is quite amazing. In
his rookie - ability with him. Look your text with them. You wanted to call it. Dill
oh no, no, no, there was a joke with fuck, was it?
I think I think that was a joke. Yeah, I think I wanted to call it a dull. Dog.
Is that was until dog, think it was or normal. Just click here text with him. You texting him at Marfa and he never wrote back or some shit like he was like, oh my god, well, we're fine. Ya know, as if
it might have been dull dog. No, he said that he was gonna call. I think maybe in his, in the podcast, we did together that I joked that he killed.
Dog. Dill dog was the name that got abandoned in favour of his. I
was talking so enough to be specific. It was really good.
Shit. You know what I do? Remember though, because we had had a bunch of tequila in Marfa and you, and I were losing it laughing, which happen to be the same time that I stayed with you at that Airbnb where you're like yeah they're no blankets and I slept on the couch at like the in 40 degrees with a fucking towel on and looks like dying all night and then we found the blankets just conveniently
in a drawer like two days later.
Oh God. But anyway. All right. So, cock and balls. Do you want to see the real name of this thing?
And how its developed? Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it, please. All right, so
I'm going to show you a shot on my phone, so I'm going to hold it up to the camera and I
think you'll be able to have some actual Graphics we can overlay to because we got tried jacket off
and all that stuff. So and then I can explain the background on this. So now as it's a bit of a preamble
A little foreplay before I show you this thing. So, part of the reason that this name made me so happy and it still makes me so. Happy is number one. I'm just emotionally immature and an adolescent at heart and I find this hilarious. Secondly, if anyone wants to criticize this or slam it or whatever, they're going to have a really hard time not using
this project name. So so in other words they're going to have to they're gonna have to type it out or say it which is gonna make me lose my shit laughing every time I see it. Okay so here we go, this is in process, this is not the final version but this is a possible logo for the project which is going to also be fully animated or I should say partially animated. So, here we go.
Legend Of Cock punch.
So you say you heard it here
first folks. So so
this deep. So this this project is called cock punch. And yes, before you ask I've cocked punch.com. I have cock punched out WTF. I have Adcock punch on Twitter. I've got all the cock punch
so 50 so you can cock punch on Twitter. Oh my God.
So this is part of the reason why there's a good chance I'm going to lose money on this whole thing. I've put so much time and money into
this including buying shit like handles for cock punch. It's so stupid. Kevin rapist. I can't believe my entire career has led up to the point where the Pinnacle, the Synergy of all of these things I've done is something called, cock Bunch, but it gives me a lot of Glee for a whole host of reasons. One, is that I get to do something fun. That actually should raise. Hopefully like, if Ike
No billion to million.
Who knows how many dollars for the foundation which will immediately get to poor deployed to Science And scientists and projects that I care. Most about that. I think are uncrowded bets that are super high leverage in the world in terms of impact and long-term benefit to humanity. So that is just hilarious that Tech and our relationship and everything has coalesced in such a way that a project like this can even exist. So
So the the the explanation behind it, so it's called cock punch. Why is this called cock punch? Right? I've shown you some of the artwork. Yeah, at with the artwork, which I'm just, so, I'm so happy with your amazing. It is so incredibly detailed and I'll give a couple, I'll mention a couple of things, which I might edit out later. So I'm not sure how much I'm going to disclose before. This launches. I was intending for a lot of things to be surprises but times are tough. It's a weird.
It. I feel like I should share some of it. So there are eight primary houses. As I mentioned, there is a lot of history that has been put together for this. And what I realized about cock and balls and its original iteration was that yeah it's funny but it's it's very short-term funny. When it's like cock and balls ha ha I get it cock and balls cock. It's holding some balls like bowling balls earnings billiard balls like yeah, okay it's funny for a second and then it's just not
Not very interesting.
What I also realized about that initial coffee mousse hus
is love saying it,
iteration is there just wasn't much narrative or dynamic connective tissue to it at. All right, it was a joke but what what I realized very quickly as I was thinking of variations on that as I was like, okay, hold on.
What if there were this fantasy world within which you have this Warring States period. So there's basically this civil Strife Warring States. Period. Quite similar to Japan way back in the day. Not totally coincidental. Just because I've studied so much Japanese history and this is true for many, many, many places, by the way, before they became large nation states, there are these Warring States period. And at one point this
This truce of sorts this, peacemaking mechanism was developed which is kind of similar in some ways to how geopolitics can be exerted through the Olympics, now for humans, right? It's it is kind of warfare through athletic means. So, there is this, there is this entire area in this realm called the free trade zone and within the free trade zone, a lot happens. That is sort of the
The the one demilitarized area within this realm, there is the Eightfold Arena and within the Eightfold Arena, you have the great games and the great games are one-on-one Warfare between these characters, who are sent as representatives, from the Eight houses and they're vetted in different ways. And that's part of the Laura that I won't get into right now because I want it to be a surprise.
So, a little MMA Style.
/ Olympic /.
Like it's like MMA meets the Olympics meets
Gladiator time. They're all roosters. They're all roosters. And there are many questions. This raises which are going to be part of the mystery of this world, but we are the only hands. There are no hens. There are no hands and this is going to be part of the mystery at. That's all I'm going to say about it. It's going to piss a lot of people off. I'm sure and that's okay.
Because then they're going to have, to explain to people why they're
so pissed off by a project that is called cock punch for fuck's
sake. People you're taking life too, seriously, like find another fight. This is not the fight worth fighting. But there are, there are, there are no hence and can see why they're having so much fun
with the least serious. Oh, it's so great. Study the connective tissue between the IP rights of these different various project. There are no hands. There are
Even let me be clear. Let me be very
clear. Everybody. There are though. Hands. If you're, if you're, if you're buying
these n FTS because you think their hands, there are no hens and
God. And so the artwork that you have seen involves all manner of and there are there are a lot of elements involved but they all have different gauntlets, right? So the I don't want to give away the name but there is a specific name for these games.
But colloquially throughout the realm. It is known as cock punch. Why? Because it's box your cocks and they have each these gauntlets. And that is one of their Primary Weapons is punching with these gauntlets. Hence, cock punch and it
says, when the punching so we will. Let's, let's, let's go into the, can we go to the actual, how they look and what not, we should walk through what their sure?
How does it go through? Which ones do you want to walk through? I would say any of that. You can send us to put up
graphically in the them. Yeah, yeah. Let me I'll show you again what I showed you before and I'll explain some of the components, right? So so this guy here it looks like it's turned around on my phone so I think the quality is not going to be super high. But what you're looking at here is a very, very large kind of
Goliath rooster. And what you can, what you see if you kind of double click on this, you see a handful of things. So at the very bottom of this and the configuration of all, this is not an accident. This is where all of the Easter eggs and stuff that's embedded in this fictional world, I think are going to be a lot of fun. But this this example in the
In the logo. As I just shared it with you is a Goliath rooster who will have many attributes people might associate with say a Berserker, right? So think of maybe the fictionalized Vikings with battle axes and things of this type and the visual I mean in this particular case is got war paint across his face.
And huge neck and also very detailed armor. And most of it is in this case leather, there is some metal at use, but there are going to be one or two clans who have primary access to and expertise with metals and that is one of the types of scarcity that will exist in this world and that changes.
Behavior. And it changes how things flow, and it changes the interactions right at the bottom of this. You also have to gauntlets and in this particular case there to goblets that are bladed and they have two different types of blades, but the the type of Gauntlet is really, really wide. I mean I think we have
God, I want to say close to 300 different attributes that were all designed from scratch. I hate easy is so
incredibly man. Tailed, I mean, how do you even come up with that
many? So we sat down and put together,
dozens of Google
Documents put together hundreds of pieces. This is what I what I did. You know, hundreds of pieces of reference images.
So be like, hey, it's a blend of these five things but go to this Wikipedia page, go to the sixth paragraph on. This particular weapon that was used in this particular culture. I want this aspect but not this aspect, and I wanted to be roughly this multiple. In terms of the size of the hand wanted to be held. In this way, meet the level of detail is completely bananas. And then there would be rough drafts and
Then illustration and design reviews. Sometimes those almost always would start in 2D. So, something I haven't shared which I'll share, and you saw the first teaser that was presented today that I put up on Twitter at T Ferris and at Tim Tim nifty's. So and that teaser,
Blew a lot of people away, right? It, it's well beyond what anyone would have expected and
The story behind how it was generated hints at a whole extra layer of complexity that also makes us very interesting, which is all of these characters.
Are modeled in three dimensions. So, the way that all these teasers were created was by positioning light sources and camera angles, around these characters who exist and by doing that, you get these incredibly cinematic stupidly, I think awesome shots of these characters. It's all done with in affecting of the files that people will ultimately have access to.
To in 3D, it's going to start with 2D because these three-dimensional files are. I don't like some of them are going to be enormous will be like two gigs, right? So for meant purposes, it's just it's going to be two. Things will be more likely to break if we try to do that out of the gate. But they are all three dimensional which means you can do all sorts of fun things with them, right? If you take the time to learn how to use any of these three, you know, three dimensional modeling.
Is the software, you will be able to create photo shoots for your character in like, rotate and so on. What that also means though is we did not just create something in 2D, we had to keep in mind what it looks like when you rotate it all the way around when you look at it from the top. So the the sheer number of details to build in was crazy. It was it's been so incredibly labor-intensive.
Pensive and I've loved it, which is the maybe even crazier part, like I am. So you. Yeah, you mentioned that I'm kind of paranoid or very paranoid. It's true very hyper Vigilant. I think there a lot of good reasons for that. I did a lot of weird shit has happened to me, including like some pretty gnarly stuff. So I think my, my default is like on alert, right? There's that, what, that default on alert though has an upside because I'm very, very, very visually acute, right? I can probably draw the layout of every restaurant I've ever been.
But I just was crazy. I have incredibly abnormal visual Acuity and visual memory. So reviewing this art while here. I'll give you a crazy example. You'll believe this to it sounds unbelievable. I was surprised. So we had to go through at one point and not only did we create like, the 290 different traits and by trait. Like that could be a hairstyle but but more commonly it's like a really
Lee intricate piece of outerwear or really intricate weapon or really intricate Footwear something like that and then we need to go through and name all these things right?
Awesome. There it's still
work. Yeah so I so I went through with the project manager and named all these things. I love naming things, there's a lot of power and names. A lot of power in names, which is going to be part of the
Whole lore and world that I'm building and had been building. But
After naming all of them, I remembered every image and what name it was associated with. So, like, for the next week I'd be like, hey I want to change that. One thing was called this, but I want to change it to Amethyst deceiver. This is what the gamma this is what the gauntlet looks like. Here's the reason for doing it. Could you update that in the spreadsheet hectic? So this is this is just a way of saying, I don't think any there's no detail that I noticed that has
Been overlooked in this art
really proud. It's crazy. I was when I was on a call with you, and one of your folks were working on it, they were zooming in like really, really, really close along the edge to make sure that like everything was connecting the right way. Oh yeah. And I was just blown away at like the attention to detail and just making sure that everything is just so perfect on these things. Yeah, for such a project that like started off with such humble beginnings, and I'll kill you were just like
Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, and it's and it's and that right there is a great example of. I think why I'm getting so much energy from this because. Yeah. Because from our initial conversations, there's no way I could've predicted. This is, what would have happened and that's fun, right? That's fun. And there's another reason why it's like, yeah, what's your five-year roadmap? Like number one, i-i'm not doing this to cater to day Traders. I understand that Traders are part of this. I realize that's in fact in
In some ways, I think a healthy part of the ecosystem. We didn't even talk about royalties, but I do. That's
what I do. That was my next question. Actually, a fire away
isn't because this is this is gonna tie in.
Yeah, so my question that I had around this especially when you got into a lot of the more like insanely well-defined weaponry and things of that nature, I could easily see you assigning, you know, power to each of these individual things. And saying this character is has more armor. This character has more of this this and that
Like given your background in D&D. Like this could be an easy play to roll into either some type of game or, you know, I mean that's, that's an obvious move. If we were back, six months ago, eight months ago and the royalty engine was fired up the way that it was back then. Yeah. You could say, heck, I can launch this get on a 10 to 15 million. Dollar-a-year run rate in terms of secondary royalties and fund the hell out of all the infinite kind of crazy ideas
and all the development myself for stuff like
that.
Yeah, and it's like that would have been amazing. Sadly, that's no longer the case. Yes. What's the plan? The cherry blossoms have shed their flowers? That's right.
Well, you mean the plan terms royalties or just the plan terms of how I would want to explore things like that. I guess a
couple questions to that then so one. What's your current take on royalty using? And I said before this is the eighth, so it things could be completely different by now, November 8, and then also,
How do you plan to fund things like that? Going
forward?
I'll let me tackle the second one first. So the first using first and second and very confusing way.
Alright, how does it feels like a first
second head? I'm gonna tackle the first one second. So first, how do I plan on funding these things in the future? I don't plan on finding these things in the future, so just so that is clear.
I'm excited by the potential like the the potential energy of this project is very very high.
How and if that gets translated, as a different question for me. So I am not committing to doing any of this derivative stuff or line extensions because I don't want people to buy any of these entities expecting that because they shouldn't there's a very good chance. I don't do any of that stuff.
In part because there's no funding for it in part. Because if I don't enjoy it, if it's not giving me energy and I'm dealing with too much headache and dicks on the internet then I will change direction. I'll do something else. So that's that. If I
Want to explore those things later. I would imagine given as you said that the royalty engine at least as it existed, a year ago is no longer, those times have passed. And that the primary sales are going to the foundation, I would either have to go out of pocket. In footing the dev cost for all those things or I would need to partner with companies.
Who would probably license the IP in some fashion? Which is another reason why one could make the compelling argument for sort of controlling the Integrity of the meta, brand and world, right. On some level, you can't totally control. I'm not going to try to do that, but to sort of maintain a core Integrity to that. So I think that if I were to explore
Whether it's games and animated series or something like that, it would almost certainly be in partnership with a specialized company that does that and does it better than anyone else who is willing to figure out some type of deal structure that allows that to happen. That doesn't require Tim Tim to write, take out a fourth mortgage on his house to try to
make it work.
I imagine your swag game is going to be pretty like the if your hats and shirts and stuff that you sell. Oh, tell me we're gonna do there are revenues. There
are so many options for fun things that can be done, but I do want to get ahead of myself, right? I want to see what you next. I want to do a good job on this first, all of that stuff is going to be there and
I'm not committing to it. It is exciting and fun to think about. But in this happens to me with books to, by the way, like, I need to be very careful about getting too excited about various spin-offs and marketing opportunities, because that's the fun easy stuff for me to think about, whereas like the writing and in this case like the art and the fiction, that's the hard part per se to get, right? So I've just been focusing on that but yet the marketing stuff possible, merge all of that, holy shit.
I have a million ideas. It's, I mean it's kind of layup,
right? Me Spock punching out
for, for God's sake. So coming back to the royalties though because I think this is a conversation that that is worth having and I may come off as horribly naive. I'm sure people have Arguments for this, that and the other thing. Let me begin with a story. So during covid,
I had conversations with many artists, friends visual artists and also musicians.
Who could finally make money in some cases without touring all the time and being away from their family and friends, they could finally justify putting their energy into something that would pay them on an ongoing basis. They wouldn't be singing for their supper non-stop for nickels and dimes.
and,
I realized that there are many Market drivers, let's call it that because I think that's exactly what it is leaving platforms to race to the bottom in terms of.
Not just cutting their fees. But if that's not enough for them to Survive and Thrive and eat market share, let's figure out ways that we can cut other fees including royalties to creators.
That tide may be impossible to stem, right? That may be something that is just inexorably marching towards zero but on a philosophical basis as someone who has contended with very difficult economics in the book world. And look, I have been very, very lucky and managed to like jump on top of a shooting star and I made it work for me but I don't want to get into specifics.
But people would be shocked.
by relatively speaking, how little money comes out of
I guess five books now that our number one New York Times and Wall Street Journal, best sellers that are place like in 40 plus languages. They would be shocked at what that actually translates to much. Like I think people will be shocked to learn what musicians make from tens, and hundreds of millions of players on some student platforms. Right? I it's, it's unbelievable. How little that actually adds up to. So, while put it this way, actually, this is, this is, I think I could say this, that all in, by the time,
This project is launched and kind of up and running. I probably will have spent the majority of after-tax income that I've made from all of my books combined in the last year. One. And that's one reason that fucking crazy. Crazy. It's crazy, right? Fifty thousand dollars. That's crazy. Yes. So it's so it's it's and you know me like I'm very judicious and thought how I
Spend money. Like I think I'm very good at Capital allocation like I'm very surgical so I'm not blowing money. Like I'm spending it very, very intelligently and
nonetheless the best at that actually. Yeah, thanks babe.
Like I'm really I'm really high leverage in surgical how I do it and nonetheless all in with this thing including like my time which is a lot of time and the time of my team and so on and contractors and everything else.
It'll probably be almost certainly more than 50% of the after-tax income to me from all of my books in the last. Yeah. Like six to 12 months. That's crazy. So on a philosophical level, right? And I'm getting off easy, compared to say musicians and most fine artists like I'm getting off and really, really easy because I've, I've had a tremendous amount of luck and good fortune with the
Looks so at a philosophical level. I want
I want gifted artists to be able to share their work and create new work and to be incentivized to do that in a way that allows them to thrive. I strongly stand for that.
I'm furthermore
that yeah, furthermore, I want nascent artists or would be artists who are choosing between Paths of like, sell out to the man and go work at like, fill in the
Tank kind of rank-and-file institution bank or whatever. No, not to talk smack about Banks, like there's a place and a time for it. Some people are built for it, but for people who would shelve their dreams of exploring art, to take the reliable path because they see no way to make ends meet through ART. I want to try to preserve options for them to do that. I think the world needs it. And for that reason, I really strongly
We believe in trying to protect royalties. Now that could just be whack-a-mole, it could just be a Fool's errand because it's all going to 0 anyway, but but let's telescope out and consider what that might mean if it goes to 0 and royalty streams just disappear.
And the Call to Arms and the request or the command, from all the Traders is, well, what you need to do is have a 10-year roadmap, you need to have a team, you need to raise money. And instead of being an artist, actually you need to be a start-up CEO and founder first and foremost, and a fundraiser in order to get an entry ticket to play in this game.
What do you think happens
now?
99.9% of all the artists disappear. That's what happens. So then what happens? Well, it doesn't paint a very Rosy future for the space. I don't think so. Personally,
Even if it's like, all right. This is gonna be the hill that I die on. It doesn't really make a difference. Like I will, I do want to stand for royalties. That's how I feel. Right? That's how I feel right now. Well, I'm
here's the, here's the thing to admit it. I think you and I will agree on this and tell me what you think about this statement. What I think it's going to be fixed with code. I don't think the whack-a-mole option is going to be the one that fixes it for with, for the long term. I think that's a, that's a, it's an ARCA arms, race to like, who can outsmart the other one, or deploy a new contract, yester, it's like it.
Antivirus game. It's like virus gets released and you have to quickly come over the patch to like exactly. It's
also not adaptable. Right. Because retroactively if you then need to modify our contract, that's not always a piece of cake, right? Yeah. So
I think it's going to be there will be other technical. Let's just say, get solved over the long term in this and you are able to actually enforce royalties. I think it the beautiful thing about it is if you see something that's enforcing a royalty and you see it on the screen, that's enforced in the royalty. You don't have to buy a
It like let the market figure out what is what the right because I think, I think what will most likely happen is gone? It'll probably be well, I think there's a couple things. I like to think of these as more Dynamic than what, what they are where it's always like, okay? It's 5%, right? Or it's 8% or its 10% or whatever it may be. I like to think of them as something that can change with the situation. Yeah. With a little bit more because I look for example, and then
That I have a dream scenario that I want to tell you about, so
please go. But I have this like dream wish list type scenario related to
this. So for existence so for me it's like you know, well there's two things I set the proof Collective past to be in three year membership, right? I did that
intentionally cause I didn't want to test. I
myself up for ever ever to be, you know, part of having to feed the mouse forever. Right? And it's so far, it's been great. Do you say feed the mouse? Mouths like that.
I kind of like feed the mouse.
That's the name of our new Punker. Punk rock
band. Well, to your point though, right now it still doesn't feel like work. It's like, it's a good. We're creating great experiences for the people that own the passes, but I think it's the last six or eight passes that were sold, were done. So that escaped the royalties, right? Yeah. And so, we have another side of the crowd, that's like a turn. The pass on to be a forever past. Get rid of the three years, we're coming up on a year. Now will be a year in come January 1st.
You have two years left, I have some Fudd, make it a forever pass, but how can I make it a forever pass? If there's not Revenue to hire the employees to do that magic on the other side. Yeah. So it's just like you kind of like you can't have it both ways. Right? So yeah my point. There needs to be income. As much as people seem
to hate anyone else making money and web streak at least if a judge it from nft Twitter,
You need
fuel to make these things run. Yes sir. It's a single artist in a fucking Studio, or it's a company of people who have who have a roadmap and want to deliver to their community. In either case, there needs to be fuel.
The other piece of this that I think is really important is that there needs to be a check box that I believe, personally, you'd get 80 plus percent of companies that would check this or as if, there is a sale,
Well or someone is losing money from the last transaction. Don't charge them any royalties. I like if someone is under water for something they have collected on the art side, it just isn't working out like why would I want to kick them whether down right? Like that would be a box that I would check right away. Yeah, it's interests. You you I don't know to me that there's there's better Solutions are coming. I've been talking with a lot of folks and there's a lot of really interesting Tech being built right now. So
what I was
Dreaming about and I knew it wasn't going to be. I didn't think it would be technically possible, but
Part of what gives me so much.
Excitement around, this is that and people might view this as a negative. I don't think they should. Like, I don't need to do this, right? Like I'm choosing to do this, but I don't need to follow. I don't feel compelled to follow the Dogma that has very quickly. Risen up to become scripture in web three, right? Like can't do this. You have to do this, you always have to do this. You can't do this, you know? And it's like 12 months ago, you had
Add to have a Discord and then a couple of projects don't do it now. It's like, oh, no. Now you don't need a disc or it is just like, oh my God. It's the same just like opinion competition. But these aren't actually laws of nature. Yeah, there's a lot of room to maneuver. So what I was hoping I could do with the launch of this with two would to be to set basically a descending.
Rate of royalty percentage so that if people hold, they get rewarded in a sense, right? So if they, if they sell in the first month, 50 percent royalty
practically. You know? If they sell
after the first month, but like within 6 months, then it's, I'm making these numbers up, obviously, but right, 20% and then it goes down, and I, therefore, incentivize
People to hold or more
likely, I don't change any Behavior. I attract people who are willing to hold, right for a longer period of time, which is appealing to me because I don't want to deal with the manic-depressive folks, who are just yelling on the internet. Every time they don't get a 3X return on doing no work, I just don't have a lot of respect for that. I don't want to cater to that and I recognize that there are really good people involved in the space. It's just that the
Worst in the space. Tend to be the
loudest. It is, it is challenging especially when someone's upside down in something where they put a lot of money and and and, you know, the market takes a turn and it's a, it's you have a lot of people that are in a
bad situation. So it's you gotta tell you, that's bad, coming back. Like a boomerang to one of the items in my FAQ please, please, please.
Do not buy something called cock punch as an
investment called punch, please, please? Dear God. That's safe for anything that has the word cock in it. Yeah, yeah. Like I wouldn't say that. You could broadly. Apply that today more than just yours.
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Well, the crypto dick, buckets, by the slurry hot for a minute. You know. They dick dick pots. It doesn't, it
doesn't ride. The fucking hundred foot wave of memetic power in the same way that cock.
Does. Okay fair just saying
so I want to I want to close out with a few more logistical things I'm sure I'm the coxide so collection. You could have done 10 K, you don't know where it's going to land. You have 100% lock that in, but you're thinking what? Now I'm thinking
That's it. Don't think, okay? And then I haven't decided how many to reserve but you know, I like the idea of this entire thing unexpectedly is turned into a study of economics and Game Theory. It's wild. How complicated this stuff gets and how deep you can go down that rabbit hole and get distracted. I think from the art side but you do need to think about certain aspects of it, right? So
For instance, just the question of like, how many should I reserve like on one hand? I'm like, well, no primary sales. Secondary who the hell knows. So, let me reserve a bunch. And then I'll show that I've got like my skin in the game and incentives are aligned with everybody else. But then somebody said, well, somebody who's pretty, pretty well-versed in the space said. Well, but if you have a huge Reserve, then people will be worried about you selling a bunch at the peak and then flooding the market.
And driving the floor price down. I was like, oh my God, I don't even, I mean, number one, I wouldn't even occur to me to do that,
but it would just ruin your reputation as a human. So I think I mean that's ever do that, I'm no, I wouldn't do
that. But yeah, I mean so the other thing is like look, if you don't know who I am, which like why would you? I'm like tear F celebrity. But
if you followed anything that I've ever done,
Then you can kind of answer any. You can answer most questions. You have about this project, if you like followed it, like if you think that I might do something like that then you shouldn't buy it. And I don't think you've tracked any of the projects that I've done in the
past. I would say there's there's a couple things there that I like one, you hold them back and it gives you the, you personal optionality should, let's just say this thing is like, starting to gain, gain some momentum, and you're, like, I said, the people are loving loving the podcast, like it, the
Laura's going really well, you're like, finding a writing Groove, like things are going now. You could say to the community. Hey, the first day are the 1st and 15th of every month, I'm going to sell two of these. Yeah, and all that cash is going to be used to fund development for X, right? And so you don't have to rely upon the royalties. You can go in and say I'm holding these back. Should we ever want to use them? Or I could just let the market and you want to lose that ever. But the choice is yours. Yeah, I'm
You know, I don't tell you what to do live your life but these are your choices. Hey, you help me or be a shoe dog in the head. So yeah. So I I like I just like, I do think for me, right for some people who are scheming bastards who just want to take the money and run, maybe they would pull some stupidly short-sighted move like flooding the market with a ton of their product which is stupid. It doesn't make any sense.
Sense for me. But I like the idea for me it will I will feel strongly aligned and I like that idea. So that so yeah, first first, I guess Logistics question that I think I feel quite confident about is roughly being available. I'll tell you another reason why that's important is with the number of attributes that we have
If we don't have a certain critical mass, we will not get a good distribution of those traits and attributes. Really, very true. And I want people to see these things. We have put so much time and effort. That's why I think you should do.
Getting a few more of them out there, I think given everything that you have on the on that you said that you're just going to commit to a first season of like even just doing, you know, putting your energy into a new podcast. That is gonna be around
this. Yeah, like it's not gonna it's not gonna hurt right, like my main podcast, like Tim Ferriss shows got across a billion downloads in the next handful of months, right? It's a big show when I have launched and look past performance is no
guarantee of shoes. Your performance. So
Oh,
please take this with a huge grain of salt. I launched dedicated episodes for my last two books, tools of Titans and tribe mentors. Things are much more competitive. Now they're like 50,000 plus new podcasts come out per week. So everything is changed, algorithms have changed, blah, blah blah, blah. But both of those podcasts ended up being number one on Apple podcasts out of all podcasts for a short period of time because of the way that things were weighted at that time. So I don't think that'll happen. I think things are too competitive but when
Launch a new podcast. At least a handful of people should listen to it and they're going to be so fucking confused as
yeah. That I think it's going to get
talked about like to go from like dissecting world-class performers and deconstructing the habits and routines and favorite books that you can use. In your own life, to Cock punch is going to be such a jarring. Yeah. Transition that people are going to talk about it. So that will be at the very least of a very, very hilarious.
This
week, well, this is this is great to my I think that I'm relieved, I'm relieved in that when I think of people that, you know, there's there's so many. I'm sure you can imagine when members, like, did its thing, right? Yeah. And just like really took off amazing. Everybody came out of the woodwork to pick my brain on and ftes also then became like the the number one phone call to like I want to launch it and have to project, right? And
A lot of them were really been. Yeah, with no plan. You know, and my advice to a lot of people was just like, don't don't do this unless you're willing to put your reputation at risk or you have something that's new and novel and exciting and is like, Uniquely Yours. You can point to, and say, this is why I'm different than everything else out there right now. Like your superpower. One of many is, is your creativity on the writing side, right? And your ability to go in and dominate that space so well.
And so you were playing to two years superpowers to get the art side and then also the creative writing side. It's like I don't know. That's, that's, that's a good powerful combination that isn't just insert celebrity signing on artist to do, drop to make, you know, X number of dollars and never show up again, right? Yeah, yeah. So exciting.
It's exciting. And I've also I've should have painted myself into a
Productive creative Corner in the sense that I decided way before any other decision that the all the primary sale proceeds would go to the foundation, right? So there is no option for me, just rug pulling and running with my bags of loot to the brewery that, you know, to the, to the Bahamas or st. Kitts or whatever, right? Like I have I have created conditions such that I need to be creative and
And that's great, because that's what I want to do. So, I've just created the constraints and the incentive such that. That's what I got to do, which I'm very excited about. I remember it being in Austin at, Elizabeth Street, Cafe drinking, a Vietnamese coffee and eating pastries, while you were texting me, during the mood Birds launch the fucking craziness that was in suing and I was so happy for you man. I love, I love seeing my friends win and win so big and it was so
Fun to get those text. It may be so happy. I was with a friend. I was like, I appreciate that. Good
this man. I'm so fucking happy. I
was so it made my day that you were having such an amazing amazing day. So that's what I wanted to say. I got to tell you,
I will appreciate that. Means means a lot, obviously, coming from you. And, and the thing that I'll follow up with this is like at the end of the day, I think that
The thing that I love most about working in this space and the reason why I get up still still even in this crazy Market, still Jazz to play is because it still does feel like play. It feels like we're making shit up and that's okay because this is a new frontier. We're figuring out on the Fly and as long as it feels that way, it's going to be it's going to be fun. And in a good creative things, come from a place of comfort. I feel then a place of stress right now and it seems like you're operating
In a place that is low stress, not you're not making it seem like it's just you know crazy roadmap. You're just going to have a good time and I think good things will follow from that if that's
place your Opera. Yeah and and I'll also
say something out loud that a number of people have encouraged me to say out loud. They're like have you actually said that? And I'm like no I haven't there you should which is and there there there there a few sentences so it's like, I take too long, it's not talk. But so the first is, if you're, if you're, if you're serious all the time, you'll burn out before you get any other really serious work done, like, you can do serious work without taking yourself and it too seriously, because if you
you do that, you just burnt out, I have yet to see a single exception and also
And this is a grand experiment for me at least, but it seems very promising that you can get very serious work done in fun ways, right? So, this is a project, is it, it's a very elaborate art project with visual art and writing called cock punch. That's the proper pronunciation by the macaque punch and and the funds from the primary sale are going to. This is a foundation which
A fund Therapeutics for people who are suffering from debilitating conditions, like treatment-resistant depression, which I've suffered from for my entire life and complex PTSD as a result of trauma like sexual abuse and experienced war. And so I mean these are serious fucking things and it can get really dark and really heavy when you're immersed in it as I have been for many years now. So the possibility of having fun and
Injecting play. And having the, the side effect of that the output of that then flow down into these very, very serious high-leverage places is super exciting so I hope I hope I hope and I mean I don't want to say expect because secret to happiness is low expectations but
I'm very optimistic about this whole thing and if it works holy shit, man. Like if it works the door that opens to me because I've been so serious man for the last handful of years, working on all this, these Therapeutics and it's dark. It's like you deal with these stories of trauma and so on. Its it gets very dark. So the idea that I can continue to do that work, not abandon it, not abandon those people, not abandon myself but to also have this like, light fun side that
Sets it that gives me longevity and endurance. Oh man, that's exciting to me.
Yeah, that's amazing. And I love that you're not taking yourself too seriously, and just calling it something. Just
ridiculous that you could also
get shit for for about having that bpc. By the way. Oh yeah, always, I can't wait exactly to be cancelled next
month. Oh yeah. But, but in the process of trying to cancel me, they're going to have to write and say, cock punch over, and over and
over, right. Stop. Good Luck. Good Luck. They just need the
Gnostics that people are going to have to go through from the peanut gallery, to try to criticize it without actually taking the bait and saying, or writing cock punch is going to be just pure entertainment.
Yeah, well, that in, if this does take off let's hope it's like this could be gravestone material where it's like creative cock. Bunch. Yeah. What's think you know
easy we do. I was thinking one of the best moves. Like if I want to walk, the walk of not take myself too, seriously.
Launching. This is my first major nft project and first attempt at fictional World building is going to mean that I would sweat. Like a third of my Wikipedia is going to be dedicated to something of cock punch.
Yeah. That makes me happy.
Oh man. So anytime anyone in like you know the Netherlands is like we run this business or organization. We are thinking of having Tim Ferriss, be a keynote speaker. Let's go to his Wikipedia page. It's going to be like cock Bunch, hello? So it'll be interesting to see how
How that turns out? I love it
so good. Well Tim. Yes. Yes sir. Great to have you on the show. Excited for this launch. I will be minting with bells on and hope I get the rare blue ball cock, which is the rarest
correct, the blue balls. The blue balls are not common blue balls are not. Common are treasured. They are, they are treasured their treasured as are many others
joking, but that actually is true, right? One of the blue balls, trade is
treasured blue balls are actually
Rare and I don't want to spoil all the secrets but yes, blue balls are prized possessions, those are going to be. Those are going to be on the rear side of things. Cock Bunch.com don't miss it at cock, punch on Twitter.
Adcock that shut Twitter. Oh my God. Kev Kev. How did I end up here? Awesome, thanks brother. Yes you on launch day with tweet. I'll be retweeting every related posts. I possibly can
It's gonna be it's gonna be glorious. Can't wait. Oh yeah. Great to spend time with your brother. All right. That is it for this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you would like to help us out head on over to proof
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click on the reviews but at the very top and leave us a five star review, Thanks so much. Take care.
