This is Dalton plus Michael. And today we're going to talk about why AI is going to create more successful founders in the world. It's interesting as we've gotten older. Oh, sad. We kind of see a new set of tools come into the market and then an explosion in the number of founders who can now create value. And we've seen this before, right? Like what was the first time you saw this?

I certainly noticed when the internet was new, people that knew how to build websites, were suddenly able to make lots of money from the skill. And it was like really basic stuff. High school kids were making tons of money. I remember people that could just figure out how to sell stuff on eBay, where you would go buy something cheap, but then list it on eBay and arbitrage. Basically you would see people that kind of understood the new tooling that came out and would like do a hustle and make ungodly amounts of money. And it was just because they understood the new tools.

And it wasn't even a hustle. It was a good business. They saw that tools enabled new businesses. We saw this tail end of the open source world where we could build all of Justin TV with free software. And then we were there in the beginning of Cloud Compute where we didn't have to rack servers anymore. Any kid could sign up for an Amazon account, put a couple bucks down and get access to a server. And so what's interesting is that we might, I think we feel pretty good about saying this, we might be on the cusp of the next one of these. And that means there are maybe a whole bunch of new opportunities for successful businesses to be created starting now.

Yeah, I mean, here's another metaphor. When the iPhone came out, who would have thought that Flappy Bird would have been created? And I think I read that that guy made like 20 million in cash in like two months and then shut it down. And so if you watch, okay, iPhone, Steve Jobs on stage, some guy in Southeast Asia building Flappy Bird, that's like wild.

Never would have guessed.

And so, again, to be very direct, what we're arguing is that when brand new technologies come out that are powerful, the people that are on the cusp of understanding them and that quickly build businesses or build useful things using those tools have a very unique view of creating businesses and wealth. And again, to be on the nose for AI It seems like you can do things that would require way more headcount than you would otherwise. And so, Ian, we're not even saying we know the ideas. We're just saying, if you're watching this and you're interested in being a founder or maybe not working at a company, and you just pay attention to every new thing that comes out and try to find these opportunities or, I don't know, arbitrage is the right word, but just, you know.

New opportunities.

New opportunities using these cutting edge tools and you're on the bleeding edge, there's no, you're not competing with anyone. It's green field.

I think what's cool is anytime one of these technologies shifts happens, the cost of starting a business, some set of businesses reduces by up to like 10X. And so suddenly, businesses that either wouldn't have made sense or certainly a normal person couldn't just stand up and do, right? Like, can you imagine just, oh, it's pre online selling in eBay. All you have to do is rent a storefront. run a store, right? Like that's cheap, right? Like absolutely not. Or like pre Airbnb, like all you have to do is just like buy a house and set up your own air bed and breakfast bed and breakfast thing or even buy a hotel. Yeah, that's crazy. Whereas like Airbnb you can rent a room and think about your own place.

If you saw Airbnb early and you just decided to be a host and be like, Oh, I should like do this as a business. You can do it pretty well. When Shopify was a brand new thing, like all of these platforms, the people that were the first to recognize that these were, gave them leverage. Those entrepreneurial minded people did really well.

yes. And so I think what's so cool is that what we're saying is like, if you're ambitious and you're paying attention, you might not ever need to work at a big company. You might not ever need to have a boss. Like you can be in control of your own destiny and these moments don't happen every week. like we wish we did. But like when they do, the people who move.

I mean, this is a very specific example, but WhatNot, the online live shopping thing, I still talk to the founders a lot. And they have, I think like high school aged kids selling stuff on there. And making just, again, I didn't want to say the numbers, but they've figured out the format, they understand how to use whatnot, they built a user base there, and they're basically...

the killers.

They're making enough money to set themselves up for their entire life by just seeing this new platform, figuring it out, and then making a bet on it. I mean, this happened with Twitch.

Happens with Twitch. Whole new industry, basically. I think that what's cool is that We're also talking about every scale, right? We're talking about things that can be venture backed, maybe billion dollar companies one day. But we're also talking about things that can just set you up so that you can pay your rent and live a good life. The opportunities are across the entire spectrum. And I think that's what's really cool about new technology. When there's a real technology shift, it affects businesses across the board. We're not just talking about companies that I see even fun.

I think that the last point I want to make on this front is that you don't get this opportunity if you're just thinking, you got to actually do.

Well, and they won't teach you this in schools. Schools teach you stuff for 10 or 20 years ago. So the other thing that I've noticed in these trends is that when you are part of the history being made and you're this early on the cutting edge of a new tech coming out, you can't expect your university or your teachers or your peers people in your community or your peers to teach you about it. It's only basically weirdos on the internet. Like the only way to find these opportunities to learn about them is to find weirdos on the internet that are also into this thing. And they're figuring it out too. And kind of compare notes. And this is how new industries are created.

Literally. by weirdos on the internet, like literally.

Literally, there's like some subreddit with a bunch of weirdos and like some day from now, you know, 10 years from now, there will be an entire industry of people that learned about this thing in some subreddit somewhere There.

Yeah, I totally agree. So, hey, the big takeaway is if you've been wrestling the lures, if you thought, oh, this isn't the time to start a new business, maybe you should reconsider. This is a very interesting time.

Yeah. I think the final argument is there's a good case where A smaller percentage of the population will need to get jobs, and more people will be able to use tools like this to be self-employed in some way. I think all the structural changes imply that more folks will just use their highly leveraged selves using all these tools to run businesses, then have to go get a job. Right?

And I think that story is in told, right? I think the story is always this kind of depressing story of like, oh, maybe you won't be needed anymore as opposed to here's a set of tools you could do things that people couldn't think of doing affordably before. Like you could be your own boss. You don't even need to be inside of a company to create value.

Yeah.

So anyways, hopefully that's inspiring.