Ep. 118: 1) BTC dip explained with Ophelia Snyder 2) Feelings on putting yourself out there

[00:00] Hi. Hi. Okay. Let's get started. [00:02] We're back. We're so back. [00:24] Just boy stuff. [00:25] Guess what? Boys Club is doing our very first conference called Brand New. Dina, what are we going to be talking about? So we're going to be covering a lot of the stuff that we cover on this podcast. Crypto, of course, the new internet, digital culture, emerging technology will be at the Austin proper on March 12th. And we're pulling in some of the smartest people we know. It's going to be very fun. Tickets are now live and they will never be as cheap as they are [00:55] Today, go buy your ticket. Members and daddy holders get special pricing. And if you aren't a member, you can apply to attend brand new. So go to boysclub.vip backslash brand new link and show notes to get all the details and can't wait to see you in Austin. Yeehaw! [01:12] Hi, welcome to Boys Club. Welcome to Boys Club. We have such a fascinating podcast episode for you guys to listen to today. Really incredible conversation with Ophelia Snyder from 21co. She is extremely... [01:27] Legitimate? [01:28] working in very smart very smart working in a scale of money that honestly i can't even comprehend

[01:37] I think she has close to 3 billion of assets that she's under management. Yeah. Wild stuff. Wild stuff. She's incredibly smart. We on the feelings check in what we do is we spend half the episode talking about something that's happening in the world and bring on smart people to explain it to us. And that's exactly what happened today. And I was like, Hey, I'm going to be a little bit. [01:59] do you think Ophelia could come on and explain why the dip? And then as soon as she started talking, I was like, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed about the question. [02:08] So we're talking about the ETF of it all, Bitcoin price action, and honestly just trends in... [02:15] finance in general, I would say, and a lot of learning. So definitely give that a listen. And then Dina and I spend a little bit of time talking about our feelings and putting it out there of it all as well. So give it a listen. [02:29] Hey, Natasha, what is crypto to you? Crypto is so much more than charts and gains. It's a whole new financial system, entirely new technological rails to enable creativity, ownership, wealth building, and more. Free of credit scores and spending habits, Kraken is your easy-to-use, newbie-friendly bridge to this whole new world. Everything can be better, so why not finance? To get started, go to kraken.com backslash boys club, sign up in just a few minutes, [02:59] of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to US and US territory customers by Payward Ventures Incorporated. PVI, DBA, Kraken. On today's show, we have Ophelia Snyder. Ophelia is the co-founder and president of 21Co. Your Twitter bio reads, "Running 40+ crypto ETFs, 8+ tokenized products.

[03:19] 2 billion plus in assets. I figured that was worth bringing in here in the intro. Ophelia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. We are excited to have you. We're excited to talk about the Bitcoin ETF and all that has been happening there. Before we get into that, I'd love to just learn a little bit more about you, your background, 21Co, what your role is and what you guys do there. [03:40] Yeah, so I have a very, I guess, peculiar job. I started 21Co with one of my best friends about five years ago, which in crypto years is several lifetimes, specifically to help our moms actually. [03:56] I hold a rather distinguished honor of having been brought into Bitcoin by my mother in November of 2013. [04:03] Wow. Cool. What was your mom doing? Is she in tech or finance? No. My mom is an author and an artist and she was in finance when she was much younger, but it hadn't been for a long time. And she came to me one day and I was, I was home from college. And I remember this super clearly because I was like sitting on my mom's bed. We're just like talking about nothing. And she's like, by the way, [04:25] We were watching the news and she's like, you know, Merck spends too much money hedging and monetary policy with interest rates at zero for this amount of time just makes no sense. And it's going to cause issues. And globalization is clearly continuing to gain steam, very much a pre-COVID world in that respect. And she's like, but geopolitical stability isn't always a long term guarantee. So we're going to need some nice, you know, neutral payments rails to make all of this work.

[04:55] "No, what are you talking about? No, you care to elaborate?" And she's like, "Oh yeah, it's this thing. You should take a look at it." And then that was my introduction to Bitcoin. And the interesting thing, and the way this ties back to the story of how the company got started is my mom didn't make that trade. [05:10] She didn't buy any Bitcoin at the time. She made a couple of seed stage investments, I think, around the space, but she never actually made the investment because the way she saw it was – [05:19] So wait, now you're telling me I have to give some company I've never heard of all of my personal identifying information and basically open a new bank account. [05:26] to buy an asset where if I lose my password, I lose it forever. Like, this is really the plan. And I'm like, "What?" [05:32] And she's like, I'm not doing this. [05:34] Which I understand. And it makes sense. It's just not accessible to most people. And we forget that most people's financial lives are organized in a much more structured way than that. And so a few years went by and my co-founder actually had a very similar problem with his mom a couple of years later. [05:47] And so it was around that time we're like, okay, there's got to be an easier way to do this. There's got to be a way to get people into these products in a way that they feel confident about, right? Like join the community, participate, feel good about that. [05:58] There's got to be a solution to this problem. It's actually pretty well aligned with your ethos as well. And so we set out to build a product to help our moms. And we did. And that was the world's first physically... [06:13] backed [06:14] spot crypto products. And what that means is you're actually holding Bitcoin or other assets in the crypto space is underlying. And since we launched that first product, we followed it up with, [06:24] 40 funds outside of the U.S. We run six funds in the U.S. We manage, actually those numbers are a little bit out of date. I think now we're probably pushing close to 3 billion with the new U.S. launches that have come out and sort of the very rapid pace of assets coming into the space. And we also run a line of tokenized products under the 21 co-brand. So it's a very, it's turned into a very interesting company. It's grown a lot over the years. And my role at the company is a

[06:53] Mostly focused on product. So I'm the person who teams, and I certainly do not do this alone, do our financial structuring, actually build these products, ensure the products actually operate and trade the way they're supposed to, and set product strategy. And my co-founder, who is equally amazing, handles most of our sort of public-facing, go-to-market, business development kind of things. [07:15] Wow. No, um... [07:17] better person than to talk about all the things that we want to talk about today. Deeply credible, amazing story, and definitely aligned with our ethos and what we're about at Boys Club. [07:28] and really want to talk about the Bitcoin ETF drama that we've been witnessing over the past few weeks, but also, of course, [07:35] many years of people working and trying to get these over the line. [07:40] And [07:41] Obviously the approval of the ETFs here in the US a few weeks ago, huge validation seeking for the industry as a whole, a lot of excitement within the crypto ecosystem. [07:52] Here we are 15 days later, price of Bitcoin is sliding down 20%. I'd say that mainstream media is no friendlier to crypto than it was before. The New York Times Hard Fork podcast spent 15 days. [08:06] minutes just railing on how crypto is a joke. And it's tough to see. It's sort of discouraging as people who are working in this industry. And I think a lot of it is sort of just coming from maybe a lack of understanding, maybe just public sentiment generally. But I would love to hear your take on sort of the state of the union and where we're at. Yeah, of course. So there's a lot of

[08:29] I think there was a lot of expectation that the arrival of an ETF changes things overnight. There's actually a couple of pieces to it. So I think that was a very baked in expectation. And I think there's also a fundamental disconnect between what a successful ETF launches and isn't. [08:43] So. [08:44] To be clear, this is one of the most successful ETF launches of all time. [08:47] Let's just start with that statement. This has gone unbelievably well. You typically don't see billions in assets coming into new ETFs in the first couple of weeks. [08:58] Most ETFs are excited if they make it to $100 million in the first year or two. [09:03] Let alone in the first day or two. [09:05] It's a very different situation. So I think, first of all, people don't seem to really fully grasp that this is going extremely well. The second piece... [09:16] And I know everyone's very excited and there's been a long time story of, you know, the institutions are coming. They are. [09:23] But [09:23] One of the things that makes institutions institutions and not [09:27] individuals in retail is they typically have gatekeepers. So the way to think about institutions and access to financial products, there's two pieces to it. There's a concept of the velocity of money, and then there's a concept of like actually access. [09:40] So just because a product exists doesn't mean everybody can buy it. It needs to be added to platforms. [09:45] This is an intermediated space. [09:47] You can have the best widget in the world if it's not available at a retail outlet. No one is going to be able to purchase it, right? And so there are people who act as, you can think of them as wholesalers within the space. [09:58] In order for a wholesaler to agree to take your product, they need to do diligence on it.

[10:02] That process doesn't even begin until after the product exists. [10:06] So imagine you spent all this time and money manufacturing the most amazing new iPhone, but there are no authorized retailers to sell it. [10:15] That's actually where we are today. [10:17] That is the current state of play. [10:20] So right now you have to go through and actually set up those connections and, and go through that diligence process. Now in a normal situation, that diligence process takes weeks or months. [10:28] This might be slight, [10:30] quarters. [10:30] It's probably be accelerated, but it's still going to take time. Once that's done. [10:35] Then you have this concept called advisors. Most people, [10:37] who control large amounts of money in the United States don't actually do so through their own decision-making process. [10:46] Right? So, [10:47] your... [10:48] 401k is invested in a model that's produced by somebody that does an allocation for you, right? So the common one is like a 60-40 model, but 60-40 of what? Who's picking those bonds? What is that equity really? Right? Most people are not sitting here picking individual names for their portfolios, just generally speaking in the United States. So what actually has to happen is two pieces. Models need to be updated to include these, which is a much longer process where you have to actually sell these products once they're accessible and actually do the education of what this does to [11:18] and how it can be beneficial to clients. And then the other is educate and inform advisors who are helping people decide what investments are appropriate to them. [11:27] - Okay. [11:28] The last piece is you actually need the people whose assets these really are. [11:32] to actually make the decision.

[11:34] Right. So how often do people on average review their stock portfolios? [11:39] Once a quarter. [11:41] It's a pretty normal cadence to like sit down and look at your financial life and say like, hey, what's going on? [11:45] Most people don't look at what is your allocation to the S&P 500. [11:49] every day. Right? Right. So you need these two steps to have happened. So first you need [11:54] access to have occurred and to be on all these platforms and even to be accessible in all of these places. And then you need people to actually make the decision to purchase them. [12:02] Both of these things take time. That time is not measured in days. Today I think is trading day number nine. [12:08] So I think one of the issues is that we are being a little bit short-sighted. [12:12] This is the vehicle that will allow for this conversation to shift. It is however, going to take more than two weeks for that to happen. You haven't even finished the diligence process. We haven't even started the diligence process in some cases. [12:23] on that first chapter, depending on, quite frankly, how conservative the institution is. Some institutions may not even want to begin diligence for 90 days. That's not uncommon. [12:32] There's a concept called seasoning in financial products where people don't want to buy products that haven't existed for a year. Some platforms have requirements of three or five years, depending on what is going on. [12:42] So, [12:42] Do I think that some of these things will not apply because it's a novel asset class? Yeah, of course. [12:47] But you still see differences in the way these work depending on the asset [12:51] base and the sort of the size of that asset base, as well as [12:55] quite frankly, the amount of time it's existed. [12:56] So, [12:57] I think that's part of what's happening, like pragmatically from an institutional market construction perspective. And I think

[13:04] For the crypto native community, this has led to sort of a feeling of disillusionment, like these institutions aren't interested. [13:12] It's not that they're not interested. It hasn't been enough time. [13:15] for them to have done anything with this information yet. A microcosm of this problem is, I think, as an industry, we're very used to things happening instantly. We are. That's just how crypto works, right? Deeply impatient. Deeply impatient, which is, I always tell you, for an industry where, you know, we're all committed to revolutionizing financial infrastructure and the monetary system. And how, like, a two-week lag on that seems to cause a problem. I think there's an interesting, like, philosophical disconnect there, which I've never really understood. I [13:45] have some really great impacts that people are going to be excited about. It's going to have some impacts that people are going to be really confused by. [13:50] So for example, settlement cycles. [13:52] not instant. [13:53] Actually, like T plus 1, T plus 2 is pretty normal. [13:57] Like the American market is officially moving from T plus two to T plus one in May, not instant, but no longer two full working days. [14:04] can you talk more about t plus i i don't know what this is okay so you know how in crypto you have to have money to trade yes [14:13] And the minute you trade, that money is no longer yours and is gone and is being traded. Yes. And you immediately get the thing you've just purchased. It looks more like when you... [14:22] pay in cash at a grocery store right right i gave you my five dollars you've given me my milk that is not how finance works actually it's much more akin to swiping your credit card [14:34] And the way to think about that is the following. When you swipe your credit card, that money hasn't left your account yet, right? It's on a credit balance somewhere. So you haven't actually...

[14:42] paid for this thing yet, there's a bank that's essentially fronted that money. [14:46] How long does it take from the moment that you swipe for that to both register on your credit card statement and appear on the statement of the person you purchased it from? Everyone has always seen that pending concept. [14:57] It's a form of settlement and validation, right? [15:00] and it can be pending for a while. [15:02] We've all seen that on our credit card statements, right? That concept of a pending transaction. What is that actually about? This is what I'm talking about. So you can have an economic transaction that has been agreed and finalized, but not settled. [15:14] and there's a constant discrepancy between [15:17] what an accounting book looks like, which is, I know that I have paid these $5. These $5 no longer belong to me. I understand they will go out of my account tomorrow. I should not spend that $5 again because I actually don't have it. [15:30] versus the settlement reality of, well, it hasn't actually left my account yet. I haven't paid my credit card bill yet. There are layers of abstraction to this, right? [15:39] That's actually what happens in financial services all the time. [15:41] So in order for you to send money somewhere, [15:45] and actually have it arrive, that takes time. And in order to settle securities and actually send you the actual security, it takes time. [15:53] So the entire market in the US has been configured to occur where settlement occurs [15:59] two days after the trade date. [16:02] So T is the day where you do the trade, not the hour of the day, by the way, like calendar day. T plus one is the following calendar day. T plus two is the day after that. I see. Okay. Okay.

[16:12] So, [16:13] For example, one of the things people are looking at really closely is like, well, what is happening with these outflows from Grayscale? Yeah. [16:20] How much of it is being recycled? Question. Like how much of it is going to another product and today they didn't match up. [16:25] not really relevant because here's the issue with cash creation what you're doing is somebody is if [16:32] like move in and out of these products from the consumer side, it looks like you might have sold out of one and bought into another and you're done. Pragmatically on the back end for that cash to cycle through the market twice through a cash creation cycle will take days. [16:44] And that concept of lagging is just not really something I think people fully realize. So that's one thing that's going to change. Other things that are going to change, you're going to see like, honestly, [16:54] Bigger tickets, more liquidity, and much lower fees for things. Mm-hmm. [16:59] Because for example, paying 1% [17:01] to trade on a crypto platform versus getting, you know, 1% [17:06] trading commissions versus getting basically free trading on a securities platform. [17:11] That's not going to work long term. So you're going to see a lot of this pricing come down, I think, over the coming months. It's going to be largely to the benefit of consumers. So I think overall it's going to be a great thing. It's going to start normalizing crypto to the way the rest of the financial infrastructure works, which is actually a good thing for consumers. And quite frankly, a good thing if you actually want crypto. [17:30] to be the basis of a financial system. [17:33] You need some of that financialization to occur in order for especially Bitcoin to be a real reserve currency. I think it's a little bit different with Ethereum where if you're trying to do something like Bitcoin,

[17:43] reinvent the wheel a little bit and you provide the tools for financialization. So you can, you know, have smart contracts and other things built around this. It's a little bit different. [17:51] But I think based on what we're currently looking at from a reserve currency perspective and a store of value perspective in those use cases, you really do need this infrastructure. [18:00] Okay, so my big takeaway from what you just said is that we all need to chill out. Everything is fine and great and healthy. And the question I was going to ask you, which I think I... [18:13] know what your answer will be, was about Bitcoin's [18:16] short term. [18:17] price slide and action and that like affecting this phase that we're in. And I think you would say irrelevant and to have a more longer [18:26] term vision of what's happening here. You spoke a little bit about what you anticipate in coming months. Curious, yeah, your perspective on 2024, more generally, I'm hearing sort of a stabilization and maturity of these products. What else are you looking at? And are you excited about? [18:40] So I will say one thing. Everybody likes to feel like they get a good deal, right? So you're getting to a place where entry points look a little bit better for people who haven't been in the space before, right? So try to remember like most of the results of this idea that like, well, if you're a big financial advisor, why aren't you front running this? [18:58] So I think that's one of the narratives that's also happened here that like, well, they all front ran it and now they're out and they don't care. And that whole thing that doesn't work that way. Cause there's actually an access problem. Like most of these people couldn't buy these products in the first place, even if they wanted to, like there's no way they could have purchased the physical underlying. That's why these products are so impactful. And so I think,

[19:16] realize that you've got a whole new class of people who are in the space. They're looking at this price action. It's going to take some time for those transactions are going to happen at a price that they're comfortable with. And they're going to want to see some upside to that. So I think it's going to take more time than people would like. I think it's, [19:32] A little bit of price slide heading into that doesn't really change the optics for someone who's new to the space who's coming into the space for the first time it might even help those optics under certain circumstances. [19:40] a very sort of odd way. Think of the equivalent of like buying a jacket on sale. [19:45] um for lack of a better description there's a different feeling to that um when you when you make those transactions and that's something people [19:52] understand and it's quite visceral. I think that as we look at 2024, here's the other issue. I don't think people really understand how much bigger the tickets we are talking about are [20:05] So small allocations to crypto think like 50 basis points of a trillion dollars is a lot of money. [20:11] That's now the world that we are playing in, right? ETFs deals in the, you know, a billion dollars of flow is a. [20:18] fantastic thing and not a thing that happens in only one product. [20:22] That's very different. Like think about the number of crypto asset managers that have more than a billion dollars under management. [20:28] It's a vanishingly small number, right? Think about the number of financial institutions that have more than a billion dollars under management in TradFi. [20:36] Right. Think about how many of them for whom five basis points is more than a billion dollars. Right. It's a very real thing around just a different size and scale of money.

[20:46] It's slower moving money. [20:49] So I think when you look at 2024, what you're going to see is [20:53] a lot more money in the space, which is going to translate to price action. It has to. A lot more activity in the space on the trading side as a result of that. But I think you will see slower velocity, right? Some of these behaviors that I'm describing is what provides stability to markets. People look at their portfolios once every three months. Advisors help them not panic sell like. [21:14] that that whole concept, I think you'll likely see... [21:18] As the institutionalization of the space happens and as you start to see a broader base of support, I think you're going to see volatility come down as a result of that. And what volatility there is, you're going to see slowed down. [21:29] So even if you see those price corrections, they're going to happen over a longer time horizon. Because moving that volume of money is a very different... [21:36] scale problem than it is today where [21:39] small fluctuations can have major differences. I think before we get there, the having is coinciding in a really interesting way. [21:50] with some of these dynamics. So I think you're going to see... [21:54] and [21:55] increase of interest in the space, more money in the space, coupled with less organic sell-side supply. [22:02] which is gonna cause some, I think will end up being quite beneficial from a price action perspective, but [22:07] also changes a little bit the order book construction. Long term, I think that will be a very good thing. So I think 2024 is a very exciting year for the space. That's where we're going to start to see institutions play, like really play for the first time. And we're already seeing that.

[22:19] in just the first month of the year and that trend is going to continue and accelerate. You're going to see a reduction in sell side pressure from miners. [22:28] which, granted, on a relative scale to the buy-side pressure from institutions is likely to be small, but it's... [22:34] quite optically and psychologically important to the sector. And I think that's going to be coupled with, as you see renewed interest in the space, a lot of the sector has spent the last two years building things, building really exciting things, but building things assuming customers will come. Bears are for building is a trope, but it's a trope for a reason. It's actually very hard to build things of value in bull markets, especially the way bull markets in crypto work, because there's a lot of hype. Things are moving very quickly. People are paying people to use products. [23:04] and clear what product market fit looks like. So I think if you look at a lot of the major innovations in [23:09] the crypto space more broadly than just sort of Bitcoin and institutional adoption. It does come out of bear markets. And I think you're going to see a lot of that innovation that's happened over the last couple of years come into the spotlight and hopefully make for some really solid use cases as we head into Bitcoin. [23:26] more of a mass adoption phase. [23:28] over the coming couple of years. [23:30] Wow, this was... [23:32] so honestly encouraging. [23:36] I'm like feeling lighter. I'm like, we're good. We all just got to take a, take a beat and it's all going to level out. We'll be fine. And I learned so much. Ophelia, thank you so much. This was such like, [23:48] Rich content and amazing to really learn what's happening in a world of crypto that is obviously super important, but that we don't talk a lot about, which is really...

[23:57] all the things that you do. So thank you so much for joining us. [24:01] Thank you for having me. This was fun. [24:03] When you're first getting started with crypto, it can be scary. Am I doing this right? Is this just like my bank or trading app? How is it new and different? Well, that's why we love Kraken. They have a 24-7, 365 customer support team that's there to hold your hand all along the way. This isn't a 9-to-5, Monday-to-Fried bank. This is crypto. It's all the time. Anyone's welcome. Open-door policy. Come one, come all. Try something new at kraken.com backslash boys club. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. [24:33] are provided to U.S. and U.S. territory customers by Payward Ventures, Inc. PVI, DBA, Kraken. [24:40] I have some feelings about putting yourself out there. There's people who... [24:47] put themselves out there [24:49] and have so much space [24:54] from [24:55] It, for some reason, that... [24:58] It doesn't matter. They don't think about it. What do you mean? Like, who's an example of that? I think I can only think of men who do that. You sent me this really funny TikTok and then I posted it on my Instagram and... [25:08] It's this guy talking about the salad district of Brooklyn, which is so funny. It's like such a funny TikTok. And he himself is not like exceptionally funny necessarily in it, but the concept's funny. And I'm watching it and I'm not judging him at all about making this content. I'm just like, this is just a guy doing something funny. And I don't have any baggage around it for him on his behalf. And I don't know him. I'm totally projecting a whole world around this man.

[25:38] Usually in my experience, a man. [25:40] who has less baggage about being perceived online. Right. [25:45] And there's many reasons why that might be, but... [25:50] I have decided. [25:52] and it is going to be my truth, that I am just going to stop caring. [25:56] And just... [25:57] put myself out there. Yeah. [26:00] Put my thoughts... I do it all the time on this podcast. But I think, like... [26:05] I... [26:07] I'm held down by a fear. [26:10] of looking like a try hard. [26:12] And then I'm like, oh, actually, if that's the worst thing that I can be perceived as someone who is perceived as trying. Is that so terrible? I know that I'm funny and cool and beautiful. I can be all those things and also be trying stuff publicly on the Internet. Yeah. [26:30] Do you know what I mean? I think what you're saying is like you, you already feel those things and you know those things about yourself. And so it doesn't matter how you're perceived. [26:38] by other people. [26:39] It shouldn't, but sometimes it does. Yeah, totally. And I think about this world of people, both known and unknown, who see something [26:50] online and perceive me in some way. I want to get to, and I think I'm almost... [26:57] there of being like, who cares if that person. [27:02] Now thinks that I'm less cool or funny or smart than they thought before. [27:06] I know myself and

[27:09] I can be cool and also eager and also kind and be trying. And all of those things can be together in one package. And actually that's a more... [27:21] more fulfilling and confident way to be in the world than to be holding yourself back for some fear of perception. I love that. I'm so happy for you. [27:31] Do you think that I can do it? Do you think? I totally think you do it. I totally think you do it. Caitlin, who works with us on social media, social media wizard guru. She does our reels. You may have been seeing on Instagram. What? Our shaman. Seriously. She said the other day, you have to climb Cringe Mountain in order to reach viral valley. [27:49] And I feel like you really took that advice to heart. [27:53] I did. I'm seeing it. And I think it's great. I love it for you because I also like there's something about [27:58] being on the other side of it. [28:00] And I see you and I also see when you're getting stopped. And I'm like, I think you're all those great things. So I don't know why you're stopping yourself. And but it's easy from the outside looking in to be like, it's so it's so easy. Just do it. [28:12] - Right, right, right, right, right, right. - But I'm happy you have that perspective. - The truth of that feels close and I'm like, wow, I wanna keep that. [28:20] Because I've been thinking a lot about our business and Boys Club, as we always do, and thinking about the next year and what... [28:30] needs to happen and what would need to happen for us to look back next January and say that was an insane year for boys club. There's, we couldn't have imagined what happened and

[28:46] couldn't have predicted it and it was phenomenal and all these things. And when I've been thinking about that and really trying to imagine and plan around what would the components need to be for that to be our feeling. [28:59] Next January. [29:01] And a big component of it is that like the content that we're producing is [29:06] has exponential growth. And that's just the reality of our business. Our business is a media business. We've fallen ass backwards into it, but here we are. And so in order for that to happen, the only way that that happens is if... [29:21] there's a lot of surface area for things to take hold on the internet. And it also means [29:28] putting yourself out there [29:29] In many different ways. [29:31] some [29:32] in the lanes that we already have, some in new lanes, some in content, whatever. There's all these different things that we could talk about. But I do think that that has been really crisp and clear to me that if we want to see this business in a different place in a year than it is today, we're going to see this business in a different place in a year than it is today. [29:47] then there are some risks that need to be taken and [29:50] i want to be comfortable with the fact that that's the business burn and not like fight it all the time because it's exhausting and it's unproductive yeah and [29:59] That's sort of the feeling. Preach. Preach it. Thank you. I'm curious your feelings. I want to hear your feelings. I am totally aligned with how you're feeling. Not for me personally, somehow. I'm like once removed from... [30:12] it myself.

[30:16] But I... [30:18] like spiritually and emotionally love it for especially for you I think I've been feeling like my definition of what cool is [30:26] is evolving as I'm getting older. And I actually think related to what you're saying, I think, [30:31] what I am like now and newly considering to be cool. [30:36] are people or things that are like fully self-expressed and fully [30:42] themselves in whatever form they are. [30:45] And not trying. Trying in the way that you're talking about it is effort. Yeah. [30:49] And I think effort is cool. [30:51] trying to be something that you're not like trying to fit into some other form or to chase some [30:59] thing else is not cool. [31:01] But the line there... Mm-hmm. [31:05] is so thin petite it's petite my hope is that the realization i'm having is what tips the scale where if like you're doing things with baggage [31:16] around how is this going to be perceived yeah you're like a try hard and you're conforming to whatever is on the internet or in the world that you think you should be [31:24] And when you free yourself from that, [31:28] there's effort involved, but it's genuine, I guess, or it's coming from something that you enjoy personally. [31:34] And I think that that reads for people. I think it does too. But I do think that there are plenty of, [31:39] creators, content creators who do very high effort content. Yeah. And [31:46] It's so cool and so fun. And I'm thinking in particular about this one dude who came across her desk yesterday, who is this TikTok guy is totally viral. I'm liking on his name, but he does like full length films in TikToks. Like he does like a full production, but they're designed for TikTok and their TikTok length. And that's cool. It's like his own thing and it's fully his own thing. So there's one thing that I just want to add to this conversation. And I think this has

[32:16] around the work that we do and what it means for us and our personal brands and things like that. We've been working on an exercise around really distilling the brand identity of Boys Club, which... [32:26] is such a powerful brand, but to put it into words has been hard because it's chaos. [32:32] and crazy. And one of the things that you have taught me as a friend outside of Boys Club, but has shown up in the world of Boys Club is just a way to approach the world and, [32:45] and approach people [32:47] without shame. [32:48] and oh my gosh I could cry wow a little bit of emotion we'd love to see it here on the feelings check in that's what we're gunning for every week honestly a little tear [33:01] Oh man. No, you've really taught me that in my relationship with you and oh my God. Wow. Fuck. And in the way that you see the world and see people. [33:10] Great example. First time we go to Las Vegas, these group of girls walking toward us, barely clothed and clearly ready to have a good night out. And you were like, I love it. I love to see it. We weren't in that mindset at all. We were like heading to bed and I was like, oh my gosh, yes, that is so fun. That is so beautiful. That's a way to be in the world. And to approach the world with those eyes was like life-changing for me. Oh my gosh, I'm going to [33:40] - Oh. [33:41] I don't remember that moment, but I, I am that moment, not life changing, but like the world, the way you see the world. Okay.

[33:50] Has shifted my stuff. Anyway. [33:53] Okay, so thinking about Boys Club and the brand identity, that is so prevalent in the way that... [34:00] Boys club looks at the world and is like, it's a post shame mentality. Mm-hmm. [34:06] You are welcome. [34:07] However you see the world, however you see crypto, however you see tech, you can be curious, you can be thoughtful. And it's really powerful. This is so fucking stupid. I did not mean to do this, but, and, and. [34:21] And it is true of the brand and it's true of the experience of being a part of voice club. [34:27] And I've been thinking a lot about that as we've been putting this brand book together and thinking about the language that we use and how we talk about voice club. [34:35] And wow, I want to apply that sense of shamelessness and just like acceptance of [34:42] the way the work, the content, the way that we show up in the world to how I work [34:50] the work that we're doing right now, which is like producing content. And how can I look at the world and look at all the other people on the internet that I follow without a condemnation around [34:59] what they think about and what they're saying. And it's so much more fun to be, not be like, is this cool? Is this judging everything? And just be like, this is just people doing their thing. And trying to apply that to the own work that I'm doing. Yeah, hard to, but... [35:14] Yeah, like how do you, the grace that you're giving other people give to yourself as well. [35:19] Thank you.

[35:20] Exactly. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. That's so kind. I don't know. So I don't know. It's not like really kind, but I'm, I'm moved. It's just, it is who you are and. [35:32] I think to bring it full circle when people are who they are, [35:35] It's a really beautiful thing. Nice. [35:37] So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a draft tweet. Wow. Draft tweets. Throwback. Hit me. I have one. [35:47] Uh, it's not quite right. They never are, but that's why they're in the drafts. [35:54] Taking an algorithm joyride. [35:56] Parentheses, letting Spotify play whatever it wants. [36:00] that's funny that's a little hard to follow you're like wait what and then yeah yeah great I did have playing a song and then letting Spotify take over is like taking an algorithm joyride [36:11] Maybe it's a little clearer. It's a little clearer, but it's more clunky. You know? Not quite there. So it's sort of like, yeah, it's not quite there, but I'm excited for you because I think we're going to get somewhere. Thanks. I have one. Let's hear it. It doesn't really make sense, but it speaks to a truth about my... [36:29] Addiction to my cell phone. Great. Hey, sorry guys. I was just brushing my teeth on back now. What did I miss? [36:37] I like that a lot. Thank you. I like it a lot. It was like true. Like I was on Twitter and then I brushed my teeth and then I like came back and I was like, what else happened? I think, I think it totally lands. I think people would get it. I think people would get it. I'm going to ship it. I'm going to ship it at some point and a more appropriate time to be brushing your teeth, you know, time it. Okay. There it is. That's boys club. We have two podcasts, two online,

[37:07] about internet culture and this podcast where we report on some web three or emerging tech story and then talk about our feelings the feelings check-in so thank you for listening please like subscribe share send to your friends anything else that's it thank you so much