Hello friends and family, welcome to the random show, my name is Kevin Rose.
Tim Ferriss.
It's been ages.
It's been ages.
This is episode number 4,327.
If you haven't caught the other episodes, then you're missing out.
They're hidden.
They don't exist.
Speaking of hidden, man, we've had a lot happen in the last 12.
We haven't hung out in a freaking while, I'm serious.
My mystery drink you got for me, so we have for a hip and all besides that, what do we
have?
A little Malbec.
Mendoza.
Yep.
Fantastic wine.
We should say, we're at the Bat, we're at Hotel Biron, which is an awesome little quaint
tiny wine bar in Hayes Valley in San Francisco, type in Hotel B-I-R-O-N into the old Google
and it will give you the address.
Into the Google.
45 Rose Street or something like that.
45 Rose Street and it's right next to a fantastic restaurant called Zuni Cafe.
Yes, it's one of my favorites.
And the Zuni Cafe cookbook, I'm not going to say too much about cookbooks, we'll maybe
talk a little bit about cooking, but one of my favorite cookbooks out there, check
it out.
Um, it's not a hotel, it's just a straight up little tiny wine bar slash beer place.
Good spot, check it out when you get chance.
Anyway, and it's not Byron, like Lord Byron, as I thought for ages, it's Biron.
Like, to me, more.
I had to ask the owner of Chris about the name and he was like, yeah, Biron.
Fantastic wine selection here, really outstanding.
Good beer selection too, dude.
Really good like Belgian beers and stuff.
Me and my beer.
So you're drinking the Malbec, I'm drinking the We Heavy, which is an old toaster here
as you get here and barking in the background, which is a really good brown ale, do you want
to try a little sip of this?
Yeah, I'll have a sip.
You don't drink beer though.
I don't much, because I have a...
Let's talk about your beer ology.
Yeah, I have a semi, it's very much semi-allergic, if not allergic response to malt or hops,
one of the two.
If I have, for example...
Looks like you're about to take a sip of this, you're like, I'm gonna sip my left
testicle as well as the size of a coconut.
I should take other medication for that, that's a benefit.
But I have a reaction to maltose or hops.
If I have wheat beer, I've had some amazing wheat beer Munich, didn't have that effect
on me.
Rice-based beer, they use rice.
Not many beers use rice.
There aren't many.
Then also...
Why do you not like drink beer then?
I assume that most beers don't have rice.
Right, which is the reason I can't have it.
So if it's normal beer, it throws me for a loop and I have this...
It's not getting drunk, but it's almost as if I were getting drunk.
I get dizzy, I have a spike in energy and then a really bad crash.
In any case, so I don't drink much beer.
But also, just having been an athlete and competing in wrestling for so long, I didn't
think that beer was fibrillating because it's not very good for cutting weight, typically.
Dude, so one of the things I want to ask you about is that you talked about the launch
of your book, gosh, I mean this was like a year ago?
Yeah, a year ago.
Something like that.
And it's been...
House of Air.
It's crazy, as we expected, it's just blown up, or at least as I expected, you have done
very well.
Are you happy with everything?
I'm very happy with it.
Could not be happier.
What's very different about this book from me, just from a gratification standpoint, is
that for the 4-hour workweek, people would tell me stories, but they couldn't send me
really photographs, whereas there are people who've lost, dozens of people who've lost
more than 100 pounds since December, and that's been really fun to see.
And the launch itself was very different from the 4-hour workweek, it was more precise,
but it's selling at about 5x the 4-hour workweek, it's still selling at about 5x the 4-hour
workweek.
That's amazing.
What's funny is a few of my friends have lost weight, so Ben, the CEO of Chung, which
is big, iPhone, and Surge coming, he like lost a ton of weight, have you met him before?
Okay, so it's funny because I have these friends that I'll be like, oh dude, you're
looking great, what's going on?
They're like, for our body, I'm like, oh yeah, Tim's a buddy of mine, they're like,
what?
I'm like, Tim, and I'm like, Tim's like, they can't count man, you're kind of a rock star,
that's nuts.
Well yeah, I mean I have 14 minutes into my 15 minutes of fame, but...
15 out of 15 in mine.
You're like 14 and a half, 14 and a 3 quarters.
But speaking of launches, you had quite a launch, I mean very recent, I mean you've
gone public, you've come out of the closet.
Yeah, so we created an app called Oink for the iPhone that we think is pretty cool, we
think it's a little bit different take on what everyone is doing with mobile apps right
now, especially location aware rating apps out there.
The big thing for us is that when you look at traditionally how we have found things
that we like, when it comes to restaurants, things to do, places to go, there's a few
big players out there, there's like Yelp I think is the biggest one, the biggest kind
of incumbent that's out there, and they're very good at showing you, you know, I type
in pizza and I see 4 out of 5 stars, 5 out of 5 stars, 3 out of 5 stars, whatever, right?
And or pizza's kind of a bad example, let's say an Italian restaurant, and I go in there
and I click on it and I see where it's located and I see all the metadata about it, but oftentimes
you get these really long length reviews, right?
So these reviews can sometimes be like, you know, paragraphs and paragraphs long, but
really what you want to get at is a couple different things, you want to get at what
have my friends been here, because friends are a really good kind of like a way to qualify
a place, right?
Sure, I think also just in a peer group, like attracts like, so if four of your friends
like something, chances are you want to try it at least, and you may not like it, but
you definitely want to try it, right?
So there's that, and then there's also, you know, you want to cut out all that crazy lengthy
review about my grandmother did this, whatever, maybe, and like get the meat of what the best
thing here is.
Grandma, who needs them?
Well, I'm just saying like, you know how it is, when you're on the go and you're in
a mobile experience, you want a fast option.
I mean, it's the classic question that you, for years we've always asked like waiters
or waitresses or anybody, it's like, what are you known for, you know?
You always ask them to sit down for dinner like, what are you known for?
Oh, we're really good with our fish dish or whatever it may be, right?
So Wink, long story short, Wink is a way to go into a place and rather than rate the place,
you rate the individual thing.
It's fun, it's fun to use too.
I mean, obviously.
Like I just rated this beer, I thought this beer was awesome, so anytime anyone that's
following me comes in this place, they'll see that I enjoy this beer.
They'll also see the number one rated thing here, and then the cool thing is that we
compare things relative to each other.
So for example, let's say you have an awesome lasagna, that lasagna may be awesome in that
restaurant, but how does it compare against all other lasagnas based in your city, right?
So anyway, it's early days, we need a lot of people to come on the app and actually
start to build up the database and rank things.
I mean, your number is looking pretty good though, right?
They're looking good.
I mean, we've got about close to 50,000 people at the time of shooting this, of using the
app, we've had over 700,000 actual sessions of people using the app, so people are addicted
and coming back and checking it.
And we've got a lot of cool people ranking stuff, and you gain reputation when you rank
different things, like I'm a level 7 in tea and sadly cocktail, because I drink a lot of
cocktails, it's her fault.
Was that it?
You're 8.
She's one of them.
Enabler, enabler, I'll tell you what my favorite feature is, because I remember when it was
wire frames back in the day, and it's been fun watching it come together, but the ability
based on where you are to say, within however many blocks, within one mile, within five
miles to find the best X, right?
So if you're here in SF and you're wandering around downtown, you're like, I want to have
the best cup of coffee, then you can figure out what that is, based on how far out you
want the concentric circles to go.
That's my favorite feature.
Oh, thanks, dude.
Oh, yeah, it's cool.
I also use it as a diary of my favorite foods and meals and things like that, which I used
when I was in Seattle.
That's a big part of it, actually, is cataloging the things that you really enjoy, and the cool
thing, and I don't want to get crazy, who knows, this may fail or whatever will happen,
but as I'm cataloging the things that I enjoy over time, it might be really cool to, you
know, if this stands the test of time, to look back 10 years, and my kids or people
that I've just become friends with can go and, you know, if I fly to Argentina tomorrow
and you've been there and you've looked at a bunch of stuff, I'll pull up and be like,
holy shit, like, Tim has tried these 10 things that he gave a heart to, that he thought were
the best, I'm going to go try those out, you know?
There's something very powerful about that, I think.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I've already looked back at my activity feed to see what I had in Seattle, because
I remember having these amazing meals, I wanted to go back and not just go to the same restaurants,
but have the same dishes.
Have you added anything as a to-do?
I haven't added anything to-dos yet.
So to-dos are awesome, because let's say you see something in my feed.
Let's say I fly to Japan tomorrow.
So it's like a wish list on Amazon?
Yes.
Okay.
You add it as a to-do, and then get this.
Sometimes we use GPS, and you're geofenced, and you're walking by something that's really
cool that, like, this is how you walk, because I know that's when you walk.
I love you.
Very purposeful.
But you're full of bugs, and you'll pull it out, and you'll be like, hey, Tim, that
thing you wanted to do is a block away, go try it out, or if you're going to a different
city, and we know you're building credit and you like coffee, you walk down and like, hey,
two blocks away is the third ranked coffee, third best ranked coffee, you might want to
try that out.
You'll be able to notify you when there's cool shit around you.
So there's a lot of really valuable stuff that you could do for businesses.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
For sure.
Anyway, it's a lot of work.
We've got a lot to do.
Startups?
Startups are awesome.
I like...
Well, you know, fortunately, while this startup is getting up and running, and you're finding
your feet, you can pull in some pocket change, working at the genius bar.
That's right.
He was giving me shit when I walked in on my Apple show, he's like, oh, you're like,
help me fix my iPhone?
Yes.
Actually, I have a little bit of the cool story.
I'm sure there's a good story.
Actually, I got invited to go down to Apple.
Speaking of Apple, well, if we get into it, the jackets.
So Steve Jobs, obviously big news affected a lot of people very deeply who didn't expect
that to happen.
I was learning of the news, Charlie, you know, my right-hand man, told me late at night
when the news came out, and I didn't believe him.
I thought it was just this denial or point of disbelief, and I actually had a chance
to meet a few months before it happened, not Jobs, I wish, the biographer.
So Walter Isaacson wrote the book, and I haven't read the book, but I'd imagine it's
great.
I mean, everything Walter has written, I've read Ben Franklin Biography's amazing, Einstein
also incredible.
So we always talk about a book about every episode we shot, and mine is definitely Steve
Jobs' book, because I might say it probably about a little over half way through it, and
I decided to download the audiobook just because it has so much going on right now, it's easy
to be at the gym and listen to the audiobook.
Crazy.
It's one of these stories where you realize, and I'm not all the way through it, but when
you realize who Jobs was, you realize that he was a little bit insane, a little bit crazy.
Like in a, gosh, I don't know how to really explain it, other than he just, he had this
drive for perfection, that he just wanted everything to be perfect.
When he launched the next computers, and if you remember next, it was like after he got
kicked out of Apple, he started another computer company called Next, and he obsessed over the
colors of the types of screws that they used inside the computer, like certain little things
that he was so, so obsessed over.
But when you look at modern day Apple, it's so clear that those things, I mean it's clearly
his company.
It's funny, I was telling a friend of mine, even today, we were talking about Apple versus
the competition, and one of the things that, I remember when the Zoom came out, it was
a big competitor to the iPhone, and the Zoom was Microsoft's attempt to create a portable
Mv3 player, and they had this, when you turned it off for the first time, it was a Zoom,
they had a pretty logo and all that stuff, and then they had this little slider bar that
was like the loading screen, and the slider bar was very much, do you know like before
the operating system loads, like the gradient, like you're not into the beautiful OS, you're
in the pre-OS, and it had this nasty little like 8 bit gradient icon that was loading.
I remember looking at that, and I showed a friend, and I was like, Apple would never
allow that, and it's so true, because you look at like, Steve Jobs cared about the way
that the headphones were wrapped, and what kind of material was used, and his pursuit
of perfection was just insane, he was also very troubled, I mean he cried a lot during
meetings, all the time he would cry, I mean it was crazy, he talks about how he would
just break down in tears all the time, any particular type of trigger?
You know high stress situations, people would talk about how he would just have this like
Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing, where he had the good and bad side of Steve that would
come out, he did LSD a lot, he talked about doing LSD all the time, he talked about how
LSD helped him realize his complete potential, like it's awesome, it's just a great book,
it's one of those books where you read and you're like, wow, this is the backstory to
this cult-like figure, I mean that's really what he is, he's like this figure that people
look at and they almost worship him, and it's funny because it talks about how many times
he's dropped LSD and it's in like every other, every 10 page or whatever, it makes you think
like shit, maybe I should try a little...
There's a great article written by Sam Harris, so Sam Harris is a PhD in Neuroscience, he's
also written a number of very popular and controversial books, and he has an article
on his blog about use of psychedelics and hallucinogens, that is very worth reading.
Hypothetically, if I were to use high dose hallucinogens once a year, hypothetically
speaking, I could see how mushrooms could be used for a very similar type of reboot purpose,
but hypothetically speaking, so startups, so we have Apple, Oink, obviously in terms
of scale, very different, but in the startup world, have you seen anything particularly
interesting recently?
Not a ton, I mean I've made a couple of investments and a couple of things like fab.com, which
is, I think fab's cool, maybe you should explain, yeah.
If you've ever been to like, the problem with designer furniture and shit like that, everyone
thinks it's cool, it looks awesome, but it's expensive as hell, and no one wants to buy
it, so they're like the guild group for design furniture, like super heavy just kind of design
stuff, and so there's some cool stuff that, oh dude, I love fab, but to jump away from
that for a second, something that you will love, well done.
What is this?
Okay.
You don't know what this is?
I don't know what that is.
Dude.
It looks like a mosquito coil, no I'm kidding.
So this is from Jawbone, you know Jawbone?
Yeah, I know Jawbone.
The headset maker?
Of course.
This is their new device called the up, the Jawbone Up, I love that I am showing this
to you, because this is like so up your alley, it's ridiculous, alright, so check this out.
So I go into my little iPhone app here, okay, so I wear this all throughout the day.
I think I see where this is going, you see where it's going.
I go into up, I unplug this end, and it gives me a headphone jack, I plug it in here, and
then I go in here and hit sync, and right now, it's going to sync all of my different,
my steps that I've taken throughout the day, and then look at this, it does my sleep, it
does my steps, and it does my meals, and so then I can turn it sideways, and this is today,
so this is all the activity that I've had today.
Oops, I'm going to be coughing on mom.
Hey mom, mom, oh she can't hear me back here, I'll call you back later if you can hear this.
Alright, so, call mom back later.
So this is my activity today, right, I can scroll back and notice how like, this is my
sleep pattern for last night, notice how it gets darker when you go into bed, I hit the
sleep, I have 85% sleep quality, it shows my like, my deep mom, oh mom, mom, I love the
quacking, mom, mom, mom, mom, okay, is it important, can I call you back in a bit, I'm
in the middle of shooting a podcast, okay, I'll call you back, bye, alright, so my mom
will call me back again.
So here's my sleep cycle, the deep and the light sleep, and then the time's over wait,
so I had to get up, I take a pee a couple times last night, nothing's wrong with my
prostate, I had a few drinks, I was drinking a lot of water, my prostate's fine, anyway,
you're getting very defensive about your prostate, my prostate's great, here's my
uh, my miles, so this is my uh, heavy activity, so let me show you how this works, the device
works, so the device, you just wear around your wrist, right, and then when you're going
into heavy activity, so if you hit this button, you'll see it just shows like a little green
light that means that you're in a normal mode, if you press and hold it in, it turns
it into sleep mode so it shows like a little moon there, so that's when you're sleeping
and I can go back by just holding it in, and if I press once and twice, it flashes rapidly,
that means I'm in a workout mode, huh, so you switch between like standard mode, workout
mode and sleep mode depending on what you're doing, that adjusts how the accelerometer
is functioning itself, exactly, so put within your wrist and see what you think about it,
pretty cool huh, I thought for a second you were going to tell me that this was some like
Chinese bracelet to make you stronger and I was going to have to debunk that on national
television, would have been embarrassing, international, international, international,
that's cool, that's a smart design move, yeah, I like it, there are lasers in it as well,
so side note, just in terms of iPhone, sharks with lasers, related to iPhone and tracking,
Zio, which I talked about ages ago, yeah, which is a cool device, so they now have the ability
to integrate it with an iPhone app, so that the actual headband goes directly to an iPhone
for tracking, which is smart, so, let's see, startups, startups, fab, Trippie is one that
I'm quite psyched about, dude, thank you for the introduction, of course, so Trippie,
I just met with him today, is this, oh yeah, that's right, JR is in town, is this primary,
yeah, alright, so Trippie, I've seen a lot of hallucinogen startups, and this is that
what I'm getting, so Trippie, yeah, so Trippie is actually travel-related, yeah, how many
of you did mushrooms tonight?
Not tonight, you said that, no, we're not doing them tonight, I wouldn't do, if I were
to do mushrooms, it would not be in a recreational, sacrilegious, go out, hang out way, it would
be in a room, mega-dose, potentially, okabo, flashback, so Trippie is a travel startup,
and I've seen dozens of travel startups over the last four years because of the four-hour
work week and the success of that book, and Trippie is the first one that I've become
involved with, so Trippie, what makes it very cool, JR, who is either the founder or one
of the founders, virtual tourists, which I used for years and recommended, has now reached
a point where he no longer has to violate or would violate any non-compete, and started
this new startup called Trippie, which allows you to, let's just say, hypothetically, actually
there's no hypothetically, I did this, so I would love to go to Indonesia, but I don't
know anything about Indonesia, so I put up on Trippie that I'm going to Indonesia, a
brief description of what I want to do, play with orangutans, etc, and then I invited friends
on Facebook, automatically, because Trippie will tell me which of my friends on Facebook
have either lived in and been raised in or have visited Indonesia.
Because it pulls in your graph, it checks their check-ins, and then it also looks at
their interests and places they've been, as you find, yeah.
Right, so a lot of the social stuff, I think you do a very good job, very few companies,
I think, do social properly in the sense that I don't want it to be spammed, I don't want
it to increase my workload, and in this particular case, thank you, once I put that up, my friends
can make recommendations, and then as they make recommendations, thank you, I can simply
click on the recommendations I like, and it will add it to my itinerary, and to the map
for the trip, create that, I can print it out, go to these places, take photographs,
put them up, it is the easiest way to put together an amazing trip that I've ever come
across.
So, I used it today because I'm planning this trip to Maui for Gary's birthday, and
I put it on there, I was going to Maui, and then instantly it brought up my 30 friends
that had been to Maui, and I was like, oh, tell this person, tell this person, tell this
person, because I trust their opinions.
And then instantly, they come back and they get the wall post, and they start recommending
places to eat at, activities to do, like all kinds of stuff, it's really cool.
It's so great, I mean, and it's a very logical extension, because you trust your friends.
Yeah, you really trust your friends.
It's a very logical extension from virtual tourists, and it's an improvement upon it
in the same way that Oink addresses, Yelp is an amazing service, but I think that you're
offering an alternative, and similarly, virtual tourists, fantastic site.
If you want to do recon on a specific city, specific country, amazing, but if you want
extremely specific recommendations, granular recommendations from your friends, Trippy
does it.
And that's what I actually talked to them about today, because he was saying how you
can log in with your Foursquare account, bring in all of your history about where you've
been, and I was like, dude, let's talk in a few months, because I'm happy to link up
Oink so that people can log in and recommend, you go to Thailand and I'm like, hey, you
got to try this dish, or something like that, those types of recommendations are really
cool.
So cool startups.
Yeah, yeah, I've had to dial back a bit, as I'm sure you have, on the startup stuff,
just because the advising doesn't really scale, and from an investment standpoint, still
very bullish.
I mean, I really pretty much have everything in either.
We've talked about investing before, so I got out of the public markets completely.
I'm out of the public markets, and the only thing I have in there is bonds.
I have no bonds, I have no stocks, it's either cash, not even cash like equivalents, it's
just cash, cash, or startups, that's it, that's the split.
So this is as pure to a barbell strategy, have you heard that expression before?
As pure to barbell as possible, meaning you've got nothing in this sort of comfortably medium
range of risk tolerance, it's either super, super ultra secure, or really asymmetrical
bet, like casino style.
We should talk some more.
Yeah, yeah.
I think you could get a little bit, you could weight the little side of the first part of
the barbell a little bit.
Well, here's my logic.
So for me to, if I wanted to go into bonds or something like that, why would you not
be in a like a federal bond fund, the US government is not going to default?
A lot of the hedge fund guys I know believe that there is a bubble in the bond market.
So for me, but here's the thing, so for federal based security, this is the question for me.
How much do I have to put in to on an annualized basis, hold on, to result in a meaningful
amount of money that makes it such that when I look at the newspaper, I don't get stressed
out about things related to bonds and the, so I'm not, I'm no bond expert.
So let me, let me tell you what, all right, but I want to hear your rationale because
my rationale is that you can go into Vanguard and, and whoever you want, Vanguard has low
cost bonds, bond funds, right?
You can go to Vanguard and you can take a look at like this last financial crisis that we
had, right?
Yeah.
The 30s, especially, I mean, federal bonds, based by the full backing trust of the US
government, they don't really go down, right?
Like they don't because the US government is not going to default, they have really
shitty returns.
You can get a percent and a half, maybe two percent max, right?
But it's not going to, like there's no, if you take a look at like Vanguard has a growth
of $10,000 over the course of five years or whatever, right?
Here, here's what happened when the stock market, like when the stock market took a day
and it goes, dude, like nothing, nothing, like nothing can rock those because they're
not based on any type of like crazy public markets.
It's all based on, their holdings are US government bonds.
That's all they hold.
Those have a fixed rate of return and that's what you get, you know?
So it's not a big deal and you can get in and out of a bond fund at any time.
It's not like you're buying a bond where you're like stuck for five years, right?
So you're using short-term maturity?
Short-term, short-term.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Because the interest rates you never know.
So I would stay short-term.
Yeah.
I'm open to it.
I mean, just to play down with the advocate so people understand the logic that I'm using.
For me, I feel like, at least go to money market account and get freaking egg.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, like money market, I consider cash.
So like, I could, I mean, I do have, I believe, some money in market, money market right
now, but for me, I feel like I should focus on accruing and increasing, we've talked about
this, my working capital, like my actual capital base to a point where the smaller percentages
become a meaningful percentage.
Even looking at the compounding, if I were to take the energy that I might invest in
bond analysis, and I know you're not necessarily doing that if you're looking at a bond fund
specifically, and apply it to, let's say, merchandising or licensing for our ex-related
things.
I get it.
Like, I could make, yeah, substantial.
I get it.
Well, yeah.
I'm not analyzing bonds.
I throw up to a fund that has a thousand bonds in it or more, like it's huge, you know.
You're also more comfortable with the public markets than I am.
I'm not in public markets anymore at all.
But you had been.
I had been.
Well, actually, I'm shorting, I'm shorting RIM right now.
That's probably a good bet.
I've been doing really well.
I haven't.
Fox.
I am, we'll talk about this separately, but I am extremely short European sovereign
debt as of about six months ago.
You're crazy about it.
I am.
Anyway, we don't need to talk about it.
Yeah.
So we won't go crazy on that stuff.
I'm looking at the light.
I'm sure that's going to look extremely odd.
But so what else is going on, man?
Oh, it's sauerkraut.
Pickling.
Yeah.
So we have-
The other thing about these, I really enjoy pickled food, lacto fermented food as well.
This is pick-a-peck right here.
I got this at a Fuji party.
Pick-a-peck.
I just attended.
Pick-a-peck.
You love your pecks.
Oh boy.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
All right.
I could just take that and run with it, but it would just get ugly.
So pick-a-peck, actually really, really delicious stuff.
Is this pickled carrots?
Yeah.
Carrots, try one of them, winner?
Yeah, yeah.
These are from-
Lacto fermented?
Yeah.
These are, I honestly am not, I don't think they're lacto fermented because there's no
dairy in this.
It doesn't have to be dairy in it.
Oh, it'd be lactobacillus?
Is that what the lacto refers to?
It's naturally-
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it probably is then, technically, lacto fermented.
Damn.
It's spicy, spicy, spicy, right?
What about it's fermented naturally or it's fermented?
All right.
Well, this-
I think vinegar's not actually fermented, it's just pickled.
I don't know why.
But fermented is fermented.
It just has vinegar, so I think this is just strict pickling.
Yeah, strict pickling.
You want to try one?
You want to try one of them, Bob?
Yeah, sure.
After, after.
After, after.
Those were amazing.
After, after.
That was very-
I knew them.
Mr. Miyagi of you.
Aha.
So, pickling sauerkraut, you're doing some stuff with sauerkraut, right?
Yeah.
So here's the deal.
I love sauerkraut.
Let me tell you what, my whole obsession was with fermenting.com, which I own.
Are you serious?
Yeah, I just bought it.
I'm not doing anything.
You were there and it's like a freaking landing page.
I love it.
All right.
So, here's, here's the deal.
Fermented foods are really interesting because I've been reading a lot about them over the
course of the years about how their health benefits, right?
Yeah.
It makes certain nutrients more bioavailable.
Really?
Like certain things that like, they're supposed to be really good about them, right?
They have natural like, like your same bacteria that attaches to them that are good for the
digestive gut, which is a second, second brain, blah, blah, blah, right?
So in a couple of things that were really interesting there, one, you started talking
about a long time ago, you told me that sauerkraut has a lot of healthy bacteria.
Yep.
You typically think about healthy bacteria like, you know, you think yogurt, the acidopolis
and like, so I was like, well, why is sauerkraut?
How does that all happen?
It's all based on this lactophilmented stuff, right?
Yeah.
One of the things that really struck me that was really interesting is that cultures that
have fermented foods in their diet tend to have some interesting things happen.
And I don't know if this is what's actually going on, but like in Okinawa, Japan, they
have more people over the age of 100 than any other place in the world, right?
Yeah.
It's one of the blue zones, does that call that, yeah.
One of the things that they have, and who knows if this is it, but I'm just going to
go out there, one of the things that they've tried to say might potentially be it are either
mass consumption of a fermented turmeric tea.
So they take the turmeric root and they ferment it in Japan.
In Japan.
In Japan.
Turmeric.
I'm going to Okinawa in a few months and I'm going to bring some back.
Yeah.
Let's talk about that.
I'm going to find out how it's going.
I've been dying to go to Okinawa, some of the best diving in the world.
So I'm going out there.
So that got me interested and then I've also, you know, people that consume a lot of miso
fermented soy.
Natto.
Also have natto.
Also have really, they live to be very old.
Anyway, so I started getting into it, started reading books, started buying this book called
Wild Fermentation.
Yeah, show me that.
A few other books that I've bought, I've been reading up on it.
And so I thought like, why not start with some sauerkraut?
It is extremely easy to make.
You take a head of cabbage, you chop it up, add a bunch of salt, throw it into a pot and
you, I bought these special pots on Amazon.
They're really cool, they're fermenting pots and they're made out of clay and then what
happens is they have a lid that's at the top and then they have a couple clay discs that
go inside.
And so here's what is important to know about fermenting food.
So basically what's happening is the food is starting to break down because, you know,
as food does, it starts to decompose, right?
When you salt the cabbage, the salt brings out the water out of the cabbage.
So in just a few hours after salting cabbage, it's been chopped up, it turns into this mushy
kind of water base.
Side note, Zuni Cafe, which is right here, they do a very similar sort of dry brining
approach with meat.
They'll put salt on the meat and it brings the water out and then the salt and the water
goes back into the meat.
So basically, if you cut up a bunch of cabbage, you add a bunch of salt to it and you put
this thing, you just wash it, right?
You're going to see this stuff turning into like a water kind of mess because the salt
is flowing out of it.
So then what happens, you put that on a little pot, you add some fennel seeds, you add some
chopped carrots, you add some chopped radishes, whatever you want.
It doesn't really matter.
You can add whatever you want.
You put these two clay discs on top of it and the clay disc pushed down on the cabbage.
And then what happens is the water eventually overtakes the clay dishes.
So water creates a seal over the stuff that's decomposing in the anaerobic seal and then
all the natural bacteria starts to occur inside of that.
Then to keep it extra sterile, you put this lid on top and you pour water around the lid
and the lid is kind of in this lid and the water creates a seal around the lid.
And then when the gases start to expand from the cabbage, they pop the lid up and the gas
comes out, but no extra bad new air goes in.
And so it naturally...
How long does it take for this process?
About a week.
So after a week, you can start tasting it, but I would say that we found that after a
couple of weeks of fermenting is when you get the best sauerkraut.
Then you take some of that out, transfer it to a dish, put it in the fridge and you've
got sauerkraut, we put them on great hot dogs, put them on all kinds of stuff, and you've
got this natural probiotic.
Is that it?
Sorry.
I thought you were going to say something about that.
You know, we got some really good, like all organic hot dogs and put it on top of that.
So anyway, it's really good, we eat it raw, toaster, chill.
That was some Czar Milan action right there.
So...
Dog whisperer.
So, I did fermented beets now.
I'm starting an experiment.
Cool.
I want to learn how to do the fermented turmeric and then I'm going to start taking that.
It's delicious, right?
Sauerkraut almost every morning.
Dude, it's so easy to make.
I know what I'm getting you for Christmas.
I'm going to give you a fermented pot.
Sweet!
I would love it.
All right.
Let's kind of give each other...
That would be fantastic.
Last holiday season, he gave me the flies for fly fishing, a Japanese fly fish price.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, that was fun.
Yeah.
It was very nice.
So, I have a question.
Speaking of like gadgets and gifts and what not, can anybody download Oink at the moment?
Yeah, it's completely open.
Okay.
So, and you're trying to build the base of...
People that want to go out and read stuff.
So you're trying to get as many items as possible in there, right?
So would it be possible?
I know we didn't talk about this beforehand, but...
So I have a high-end Breville juicer-blender combo, it's like the highest end you can
get.
Yeah.
So I have an extra one.
Yeah.
I have an extra one.
And would it be possible to, let's say, I don't know, have people download Oink and the person
who rates the most awesome stuff in the next period of time, I just mail it off to them?
Actually, maybe you rate it and then if they leave a mini-review, they have to follow you.
Okay.
And if they leave a mini-review on why they should deserve this Breville thing about something
about themselves, then you just give it to them.
So I can rate the device and then they need to comment on it.
Right.
Exactly.
They've made a mini-review on it.
All right.
So yeah, so I'm going to do that and then let's just say...
So follow us on...
I'll make you a suggested user, so you'll be in the suggested user list, and then they'll
find you as they sign up and they ban, okay?
Okay.
Cool.
And then if you...
So leave a comment explaining why you deserve it and then we will...
Let's make that...
Those are awesome gifts, by the way.
That's a freaking expensive...
It's an expensive device and it blends and it uses its top of the line, I mean, hundreds
and hundreds of dollars.
So I'll leave a comment, make it 140 characters or less just so I'm not dealing with any mini-novels.
Might have called their 200 masks.
Oh, fantastic.
Perfect.
And then do it in the first 48 hours after this gets posted and then I'll mail it off
to somebody.
So...
Brand deal.
Sweet.
Thanks for your...
Yeah, of course.
What are you talking about?
Oh, we're talking about a lot.
Instagram.
What was that?
You don't do Instagram.
I haven't done much Instagram.
I love Instagram.
So what's the difference between Instagram and Hipposomatic?
That's a good question.
I haven't used...
I haven't used Hipposomatic.
Why does Hipposomatic have a social network component to it?
Oh, okay.
It's not social.
Okay.
Instagram's a very, like, social app.
It's, like, great for taking photos of, like, there's the things that...
Picture.
I thought I was using my blog.
Really?
We should be using Instagram.
I should?
Yeah, for sure.
Huh.
I've enjoyed using the filters on Oink, actually.
Yeah, I mean, Oink, for me, is about items.
I mean, it's about, like, the things that you find.
Instagram is, like, oh, my dog looks freaking awesome.
This is a cool piece of artwork on the street.
This is, like, you know, a beautiful sunset, like, it's like that.
All right.
It's alternative numbers.
Yeah, it's alternative numbers.
Okay, I'll check it out.
So, I have this question for you.
It's still startup-related, but as far as the world of blogs go.
Yeah, blogging.
Okay.
So Tumblr, WordPress, if you want one of these.
Yeah, try one of those.
The peppers are really...
I just ate a half a pepper.
The peppers are hot.
I feel free to try it.
Yeah.
I've never gotten my bad.
So, blogging.
Where do you think these various blogging platforms are going?
I mean, you have all these different options.
I don't think WordPress has gone away any time soon.
I mean, obviously, I'm a big divotape of WordPress, but...
Yeah, I mean, it really depends on your level.
In my mind, it's where you fall in the spectrum of content contributors, right?
Yeah.
Because you have someone like yourself, and you can bang out a really serious good blog post
that is multi-paragraph.
It's informative, it's high quality content.
For you, WordPress makes complete sense, right?
Yeah.
Tumblr has really captured the imagination of people that just want to quickly post a
video or have a quote that they want to post.
Yeah.
There's something like really...
Short form.
Short form.
Twitter is even smaller than that.
Yeah.
And it's very mobile.
You know?
So it's like there's people that are contributing a sentence, and there's people that are contributing,
you know, mini novels.
Do you think there's an acquisition market for the leaders in each of these spaces?
I mean, there's definitely...
I don't know if they necessarily need to be acquired.
I mean, I know that WordPress is making a lot of money.
Oh, WordPress is doing great.
I mean, it's automatic killing it.
The only thing that concerns me is Tumblr is actually doing, you know, from a product
standpoint, they have a ton of users and no one's paying for anything.
WordPress has the whole commercial side to it where they make money and things like that.
I hope Tumblr will turn on some of that revenue and kind of decide what they're trying to
have that we'll see.
Okay.
So...
Eli, what are you thinking?
I'm just fascinated by the whole space because, I mean, I play in all those sandboxes as a
content creator, as a publisher.
So, you know, I'm on Twitter and an investor in Twitter, then I use StumbleUpon as well,
which I'm an advisor to, then I use just for sharing things.
Like, I don't think you should have invested in that.
Well, no, no, no.
Here's the thing.
I only invest in things that I use.
I agree.
I'm the same...
Yeah.
Dude, I have the 100% same philosophy.
That's the great way to put it.
Yeah, and it's...
And I've actually been criticized by a couple of VCs who have been...
Yeah, they're like, oh, that's such a simplistic way to look at it.
I haven't done that...
I've done pretty well.
And the funny thing is, I get chipped from time to time.
People will be like, I'll be like, you've got to check this stuff out for a while.
I love it.
And someone will come back, you're an investor in that service.
So I'm like, yeah, because I freaking love it.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm not trying to just randomly promote something.
No, no.
Like, I put something out recently.
What was it?
It was about Uber, right?
And so, Uber saves my ass.
Like, every week here in San Francisco, because Luxor cab blows.
It's terrible.
And I put up a note about an airport run where I just got my ass saved completely by Uber
for host reasons.
And someone's like, oh, like, caveat, like, you didn't say that you're an advisor.
And I'm like, I've done that all the time.
And I have all my disclaimers on the blog.
Here's what you guys do.
Yeah, exactly.
My whole thing is that you can't worry about that.
You just got to put your freaking, like, a list somewhere.
Like, I have my About.me page, that's everything that I'm involved in.
Yeah.
And, like, you know, whatever.
Yeah.
The thing is, like, it just comes down to who you are.
Yeah.
And, like, people know, there's a lot of people that can be bought out for very little money.
Yeah.
Because a lot of people that someone can walk up to you and be like, hey, Tim, I'll give
you through iPhone and talk about it, you know.
And, like, I think that you and I are kind of cut from the same cloth and that, like,
it's not worth it.
Because you can see straight through that.
And you'll lose those people as fans.
It takes, I mean, so long, and rightly so, to develop a reputation for integrity with
that type of thing.
Oh, for sure.
So the idea that, like, you or I would promote something because we get a quarter point of
equity, if we don't like it.
I remember just randomly talking now.
Like, we were like, okay, we get it.
No, no, no, just saying.
Like, this isn't, like, a pat on the back, but it's just saying, like...
I wish we could get free job loans.
I tried to get some.
Like, seriously, this is the name of the lab.
We're sold out of that.
So when bought us two people, pretty travel store.
Yeah.
So any other cool stuff that's come across this table on the last?
You know, there's more travel that I have coming up.
So I'm excited to do another episode after we get some more travel.
Okinawa.
Maybe we'll do...
Okinawa would be amazing.
I've wanted to go forever and I speak Japanese.
Oh, shit.
Maybe you should meet us there.
Dude, you should meet us there.
That'd be baller.
Come out for, like, three or four days.
I'll be done with all my current stuff.
Dude, come out.
I've wanted to go for years.
To bring your girl.
That'd be fun.
Yes!
Ok, alright.
Okinawa.
A little double-D Okinawa action.
Freaking done.
That'd be fun.
It is, it is.
Sweet.
Alright.
Thanks for watching the episode.
Until next time.
Glenn Bob, do you have anything to say at all, Glenn?
Glenn Bob, any post-script ending notes?
You just said I'm gay.
Oh, you just said I'm gay?
That's true.
That is awesome.
Congratulations, sir.
Bachelor party, motherfucker.
Oh, Glenn's had a new show this time.
We should talk about that.
Toasted Donut.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm gonna make a guest appearance.
Not too far from now.
So is it gonna be revision3.com slash toasted donut?
I believe so.
I'm sure it will be that.
Yeah.
Either way, you can find it on your blog, dirtandsalad.com.
Sure.
Yeah, I'll find it.
I mean, if I have time, I'll put something up.
Put something up there.
Anyway, check out Glenn's stuff, too, because he's the funniest Alan.
It's gonna be a good show.
TBD.
It's gonna be fun.
Alright, everybody.
Until next time.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time.
