Hello, Ride that, listeners. This is your host Videos Lebowski Today My guest from the show is David Hannah Mayer Hanson. David is an author of a best selling book called Rework. He's also race Car Driver, and for the last 15 years, David and his girl phoned me. Jason have been running a company called Base Camp. David is a really outspoken person, and he focuses a lot on living in life, a happy life of fulfilling life, a successful life. But unlike many people, he lives. A successful life is defined by himself and nobody else. This and how his interpreter neural journey led him to define a philosopher for his life and how he's applying that while raising his two young Children is what we're gonna talk about on the podcast today.

Without further ado, David, welcome to the show. Thanks games being around for almost 15 years, and you've been doing rails and base camp together for this long. What drives you? You know what? Why do you still show up for work?

That's a good question. I think it's especially a good question when she reached the point in You're a professional career or a case. I've reached the point in my professional career where I don't have to go to work. Right. Um, we've been so fortunate with the success of base camp that I could stop doing that neither, uh, start something else, another company or just do open source or spent my time on any other pursuits. So it is a question I ask myself pretty frequently as, ah, way of gauging whether we're heading in the right direction but base camp, because given the fact that neither Jay's nor I need to do base camp, we should do basically because we want to. And that revolves a lot around, actually ensuring that things stay within the realm of allowing us to do our favorite things most of the time. For me,

that means programming a lot. I love to program. It's, ah, one of my favorite things. A ce faras hobbies, pursuits. Passions go. It's probably if not my favorite thing in the world. It's close to it. There were cheers that the spot with a few other things, so I want to be able to keep doing that right. So we've decided that base camp should be a place that allows me to keep programming and Jason to keep designing and both of us to keep writing and teaching and sharing and not, for example, spend all our time growing the company, so to speak.

We earlier this year was it late last year. I forget announce that we're going to a hiring freeze. Base camp is about 53 people right now, and that's a good size where you don't need a whole layer of middle management and then managers for those middle managers. And, uh, we wanted to avoid that transition, right? Not that we thought that we were particularly special, in fact, because we thought that we were not that if we continued on the growth path that we were on in hiring slowly but steadily more people we would read it, reach a breaking point where all of a sudden we would need to spent most of our times doing are not favorite things all the time, right, just managing and running the company, which is rewarding in the zone sentence. But it's not the same spending your time creating with your own two hands,

so that's Ah, that's pretty much the ethos to stick with the things that we like, right? Because if I were to stop doing base camp, for example, I would still want a program which they want to write. So can't we just find a way to accommodate those desires, passions, pursuits within the base camp that we're already built up? That is the successful company where I get to work with some of the best people I've ever worked with in my life to pursue Ah, mission that I find completely worthwhile and still engaging. Ah, application that I use for many hours every day. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

That sounds like what a lot of people is striving for day in and day out and perhaps never get to with you no VC money or not, Right? And ah, that doesn't mean it took 50 people to get base. Came to the point where you and the longer have to do the work you don't like doing?

Absolutely not. I mean, into, in many ways Ah, at 50 people. I'm doing ah, lot more work that I'm not that I don't like doing, but that it isn't my favorite thing to do, right. There's more work managing a company when you're 50 people than there is managing a company of 20 people. Now there are some things that when it was just me and Jason and a couple of other people in the beginning, I had to do more stuff, right. Like these days, for example, I don't do any system administration. When we first got started,

I mean, I was doing the technical person, so I had to set up all the servers and manage them and do all that stuff. And Jason, for the 1st 3 years of base, Cam answered, every single customer supporting. Now neither of us spend the majority of our time doing either of those things anymore, which, um in some ways is sort of progress towards spending more of our times and the things that were uniquely good at, as I said to me with programming and Jason with Signe. But it's been replaced with other things that would then need to worry about right. But it's not that you have to do your favorite thing all the time. I don't think that that's ah responsible or a possible thing to do that. Whether that comes to work or it comes to home life. You can't just do your favorite things all the time.

I think that's Ah, head of mistake approach that's not very viable. And you're gonna be essentially an asshole if you try to pursue that as a full time strategy. But I fully believe that you can get to do your favorite things most of the time. If you are so fortunate to be successful in what you do, I find a lot of people that I know or have talked to who on the surface should have all the options opened for them to do their favorite things most of time. But somehow they end up not doing that right. They end of actually being miserable, even though they on paper, have all this power to design their life to revolve in a way that they would truly enjoy. And I find that that's just sad, right? Like if you are so fortunate to get to a place where you can make these authentic choices about how your life should be, I mean, I find it to be an obligation that you do. So it's kind of just his balancing, active eating your vegetables, but also, uh, enjoying life.

Actually, I wonder, Do you know why that's the case. Why people can't. I'm structure the life in, I mean, maybe less damaging wait to themselves because I've met quite a few people who are now millionaires. And they too, just snap back to work. And really, maybe maybe they can think of something else to do with their life. Like, have you noticed a pattern?

Well, I've tried to investigate that question for quite a long time, which has let me down the path of philosophy, which really is the pursuit of how to live the good life. And in that pursuit, I found a number of philosophical disciplines that really resonated with me. One of them is stoicism, which is this ancient Greek and Roman philosophy school. That focuses a lot on our expectations and how, um, the things that we think that are bad or good that happened to us. You are often batter good because we had expectations of how they should be. And we have the powers conscious human beings to set different expectations. That doesn't mean that it's easy. In fact, it's very hard, and I think that there's a lot of expectations about how life should be.

Your how things should turn out, that people aren't consciously choosing their simply inherited their adopting unconsciously, but that they end up running their lives in ways that aren't actually helpful to them. So the stoic philosophy teaches people, too. Examine that and re examine that and changing their expectations and changing how they process events. And I find, uh, that to resonate very well with sort of my home grown personal philosophy that I had developed just through my own experience that this was basically ah, better, more refined, more articulate version of that that had additional aspect I hadn't even considered. But because it reminded me of the thought patterns I had already had about how to live my life, it, uh it was just such a eureka moment where I went like, Oh,

yeah, there are people 3000 years ago, we thought all this through that came up with some pretty compelling answers on dhe. Then they bombed it all up into an approachable philosophy of how to live the good life. So I think, uh, that's a great place to mine for those insights the other philosophy that I've taken up more recently. He's concept of existentialism, and, um, that is a little bit less practical. And perhaps more than pressing view of the human condition, this notion that we're free to make our own choices and ah, that freedom is is often kind of scary, if not outright the spirit that because we are free to make all sorts of choices that we perhaps think that we can't right now, You hear?

They're saying all the time I didn't have a choice. You always have a choice. You mean it's a easy Cherie, sir, or whatever. But you do have a choice, and there's a lot of matters of how you design your life that, um, are really dependent on making those conscious choices. So what I find is a lot of people wind up unhappy when they should be happy is that they really haven't sat down and faced those questions, face their own mortality, face their own ah meu of the world, um, and carefully examined whether what they're doing, the habits that they formed, the choices that they're making,

um, are getting them closer to what they truly want, which of course, starts with figuring out What is it that you treat want on? How is it that you truly want to live? But taking the time to answer those questions, I think, is scary for a lot of people. And I was treating just a couple of days ago about the usefulness of the mid life crisis. Three idea that, ah, the midlife crisis offers a lot of people the first encounter with their own mortality, with the notion that death is going to come one day for all of us. And when you look back at the life that you've led, are you happy with the decisions that you've made? And I think the midlife crisis for a lot of people represents a resounding no.

You're not happy with the choices that they made, but they felt either that they have to make them, or they just kind of did in an unconscious in authentic way where they went with the flow, and this was what they were supposed to do blah, blah, blah on dhe. And now they're facing facing that reality that those choices they don't get to make them forever right. It already spent half what there is to life, and it's this really it. So the usefulness of that exercise is that even though the questions is scary and there might be despairing the scary um, it is a truce to reset. It is an auction 2% Now. The stereotype in that case is that this is some middle aged white dude, right? Who goes out and buys a red sports car. Divorces.

There's Claus and find some 1/2 their age. Yeah, okay, that happens. And that kind of looks pathetic to a lot of people and not on trust if I release. So that doesn't mean that the underlying realization that what they had was not what they wanted isn't legit. It just probably means that the first place that they sought refuge in these material things were clinging on to you through whatever. Um, that's not what's going to save them, right? And once the midlife crisis place through and they realize that these material or youthful cleanings are not going to make them content and satisfied, then hopefully the real work of figuring out what it is then that can make you satisfied and content with your life begins

I'm really happy to hear you say this because I think so many people take way too long to come to these conclusions and to re evaluate their life and ask the hard questions. And I do hope that our listeners to will at whatever age there at would would ask themselves these questions and the specifically for me. Personally, I've lately started thinking about this concept of basically living your life in reverse, because I think for our parents, life was very different, where you went to

work and you work, work,

work, work, work. You know, one day you're retired, and then you you tried to enjoy life afterwards. But in today's day and age, with the way we work, there's really no reason to kind of maintain the same work environment, right. There's no reason you even need to work every year consecutively if you can't afford to worry differently.

Absolutely, yeah, and I think it's it's It's even sort of more than that, in the sense that even if you do work full time like, for example, I work full time Well, these most of the year work about 40 hours a week during the summer We work 32 hours a week, we take Fridays off. But I do that knowing that that's how I want to spend 32 to 40 hours of my week, and I made that choice. But then I've also made the choice that beyond that, I don't want to just work right like I want to do something else. And that choice is not just something that Jason I take a successful founders who don't have to work anymore. It's also the choice that we offer and encourage, if not right in force, for the employees that we have that they knee, too.

They should. They're better workers. They're better people than will live better lives if they pursue other things than just work, work, work. And then it is possible to, um, have a fulfilling career where you working here full time and then also have very fulfilling pursuits outside of that career and to kind of have both of those things. There's forced economies that have been repeated over and over again, and the latest is, for example, that work life balance can't happen, that it's impossible to think of these terms or even harmful to think of it in these terms. Is it some sort of struggle? Honesty like I can't recognize that I try exactly for that. I try exactly for a balance that I want part of the scales filled up with work because it's intellectually stimulating.

I get to work with wonderful piers. I get to ah realize myself through creation. I would not want to give up that. I think that that's the pendulum swing that sometimes it leaves in my mind goes too far as a general prescription, for example, that living your life traveling all the time is this idyllic notion that should appeal to everyone. And if everyone had the choice to just travel, the world continues to me. That's how they would choose to live. Why go? Absolutely not. I go on a vacation for two weeks. I'm ready to do something else, like, I don't want to live in a suitcase or in a series of hotels. And I've done exactly those two things for a large amount of the past 10 years,

raising around the globe long enough to realize that that's certainly not what I would want to do full time with my life. But It's a wonderful sort of part to have us. It's one component of it. Um, yeah,

you you wrote once in your post cold reconsider that people shouldn't just accept the definition of success because, you know, form that everybody else is cheering for success, but they have to figure it out on their own. Some cure is over the last 15 years that you've been doing base camp, you know? How did you figure out your own metric for success and how it's changed as you grew older as you became a dead as you became a millionaire and more successful? Yeah,

that's a good question. I think one of the early conclusions I came to in life was the importance of intrinsic motivation that I was not a particularly great employee. And I wasn't that particularly great of, ah general student either because I wasn't motivated by extrinsic rewards very well. I wasn't motivated by grades, so that meant I had a few subjects in college and high school that I was really into and gave it my all. And then there were other toppings, some at one time or another, and then something else at a different time where I decided. You know what? I don't want to spend this year of my life doing math homework. I decided that my third year of high school, right? Like, you know, it's not that I don't really like math. I actually like math,

and in some ways, but right now there are things I would rather do than math homework. So what I'm going to consciously decide is that I'm going to get enough. I am going to fail. This class either elected to take it myself. I regret that decision, and I'm just gonna copy all my math homework. I'm gonna find someone in my class who can, uh, along we basically to copy all their homework. And I'm gonna turn it in with alterations that make their homework worse. Just enough to essentially not flung out of high school. But I know better than to get an F in the subject matter, right? And I don't really give a shit right. It was it wasn't keeping me from doing the things that I wanting to do to to make that choice.

And then I got to spend all that time. But you're not things like playing with the Internet, um, pursuing my own projects online and playing video games on do all sorts of other things that I would rather d'oh And I mean, there's obviously tons of survivors ship by has built into the next state when it comes here. But that worked out pretty well for me Not to say that's a general solution to everyone that like a If you just flunk your math classes, then everything's gonna touch up peachy there. Those things are not that well correlated. What is well correlate in my mind is discovering the power of intrinsic motivation, the things that you're motivated to do for the sake of doing them right. Like I was extremely motivated to learn a lot about computers, to learn a lot about the Internet, to learn about community building, toe, learn about leadership, all these disciplines that I'm now spending the majority of my time working on,

and that the investment into those pursuits were well worth giving up other things for, um, so that realization, the power of intrinsic motivation really drove me to look deeper into the whole topic of motivation and mastery. And those things, of course, pretty tightly correlated, right? If you're heavily motivated to spend lots of ours a very dedicated training, you will eventually end up a master well, based in most cases. And and I'd say certainly so for most intellectual pursuits that are not so reserved. Two some sort of genius bracket in which I generally don't believe that most things are, um and that meant that I was, ah, sort of on the chase.

I was ready to adopt ideas such as finding flow, one of the very infant French or one of the most influential books I've ever read. Finding flow is all about breaking down these moments of happiness when you're completely engrossed in the activity, that's just beyond your reach of your current abilities and you get lost in time and space trying to chase that. And I found that Ah, once I could name that once I could name that flow was a thing, and I was interested in getting more of it. I could set myself up and design my work and life to provide more of those opportunities.

It sounds like you've gone there quite a bit of reflection, time and throughout throughout your career, but this is amazing to hear this because I can always feel almost feel the rage of a plus. Plus, students who are working 80 hour days on DA probably achieved less success both financially and emotionally than you have.

I mean, I I married one to some degree. My wife was a straight a student. Um, who you got a 4.0, great point average pursued everything with extreme vigour in chase of, um to some extent ce, uh, extrinsic rewards. And I think that, um, her experiences getting a bit disillusioned with that approach and seeing others in her line of work. And I've seen the same where you see someone who come out with all these credentials that society tells us, are extremely important to chase, and then they come out without a compass of where they want to take. That, um,

can be absolutely tragic, right? You can end up with people who supposedly have it all, but it's still completely miserable and was what it is that they do. And then you can have other people were not all successful on any material grade point average college, whatever credential race that you're looking at and they could be the happiest people that you meet. And I know who I'd rather be, right? I'd certainly rather live my life extremely content and fulfilled with the work in life that I was living even if that meant and, ah, much different end of the wealth scale. Then, um, then end up living a life that didn't feel like it was mine or one that I had chosen, but one that I had simply followed. Even if that meant I could afford nice things.

Of course, the ultimate overlap is when there's two things meet right. But for a lot of people, they don't necessarily Um And if you do have to choose, I know which choice I'd rather make

you know, giving this philosophy on life. And you've been a well recognized sort of public figure and being very out spoken, and you spend a lot of time on Twitter or another still out of time. But you do express your opinions a lot, and I sure virtue of being a startup founder. You definitely overlapped with Silicon Valley circles who pitch a very different narrative off working all the time, you know, basically working a lot now so that later you can enjoy your life if you ever get there. But I wonder, you know, what does it feel like to be you and engage in these discussions? And still, uh, it's kind of like trying Thio breakthrough This brick wall that just yells at you the opposite.

It's very fulfilling work actor, I'd say I've always had a streak of enjoying pushing and swimming against the stream. So just that activity on its own is enjoyable for me, especially when it is, of course, powered by a sense that I have some insights that other people could benefit from a least considering. And it's not so much that I seek, wish or even think. It is possible to convince most people that I debate on the topic of Let's say, over work. But it is that I hope to sway some of the onlookers who view at the bait like that, too. It is considered the fact that hey, wait a minute. There are people who think differently where people have been successful thinking differently. Um, I don't have to just assume that the only path to success making a tech startup,

for example, is working 120 hours a week. Um, here's a narrative. Here's a story from someone who didn't do that, where things turned out pretty well. Let me at least listen to that argument. And then, if I still choose to work 120 hours a week, then I will least have made a somewhat informed choice. And then perhaps once I start regretting that choice somewhere down the line, I know which trail to pick up and explore once I'm ready for something else here. So that kind of satisfaction that comes from sharing an alternate narrative and seeing that adopted by people either tried the other version first and became disillusioned or avoided that path and and either cases ended up happier on this other side is very fulfilling. So I mean, part of this is also just I'm working up my own thought process around these things, right.

By sharing and thinking things through in public, I get to refine and honed my own arguments on my own internal debate about how things should be in how I should have been figured my own life. I mean, that's always I think that's open for tinkering, and I tried to do so continues me by, uh, both examining my own positions and views, but also by learning from others. And, uh, mostly the learning from others part comes from discovery. These older sources of wisdom in terms of stoicism, existentialism or other writers over the millennia have had wise things to say on these topics.

Do you think this focus on kind of living your own life and, uh ah, living life for yourself, the way you're doing it now came in part because you grew up in Copenhagen and not in us.

I think it was easier to be receptive to these ideas in Copenhagen, No doubt. Um, the Nordic model of socially Democratic state, I think, teaches you even if you aren't ready to receive those teachings in the moment, which I certainly was not ready to receive. All those teaching says Yes, I was growing up in Copenhagen. Um, they're there, and they're there to drawn when you get exposed to what the alternative looks like, right? I was somewhat critical, um, after data system in all sorts of ways. While I was living in Denmark and aspirational through towards the American entrepreneurial lore for lack of a better word for a long time.

And then I moved to the U. S. And I lived here for quite a long time. And then I became quite disillusioned with a lot of the established wisdom of why it is that America is so great. And I started to realize all the ways where the Nordic Social Democratic model really had gotten it right and where it really had just made life better for vast numbers of people in society. And then seeing how hard life iss for a lot of Americans, even Americans, that it would we relatively well, how unsecure, how filled with anxiety over some fundamental basics that I never even thought to be worried about in Denmark, right, things like health, education and ah, housing. Um, not that these things are not concerned everywhere they are,

but they're different categories of concern. The criticality of those concerns in the U. S. System is at a completely different level that what it is for most stains in the data system, for example, it's not just Denmark me. Whenever I bring up Denmark and I bring up dimmer because I was born and raised in Denmark and I spent 25 years there. People say, Oh, well, that's easy because six million people like they're right, like that's the size of whatever American city that iss Um, well, I mean, it's not just demo, right?

Like most of the you have systems that are much closer to the Danish system. Um, on all the important basics of, let's say, health education housing, um, that are far removed from the American approach to those things. And I mean, there's how many people in, uh, in your right one threw in a 1,000,000. So, um, again, this isn't to say that this is just some magic wonderland, and like that,

everything was figured out and has figured out neither in Denmark nor in Europe, but just that On some of these societal questions, the answer's the European answers or simply fucking just better. And having lived in Ah, Denmark, the U. S. And Spain, uh, for long periods of time has given me and inside Thio evaluate that at a different level than if you've spent your entire life in the U. S. Or if you spent your entire life done, Margaret, you're spent her entire life in Spain on, There's the saying of it. If you only know one country, you know no country. And I think there's a a fair amount of truth to that.

No, that's Ah, that's wonderful because another guest on this podcast travels a lot, was his daughter and he's been saying that that's been one of the best ways to learn about the world. For them is to go travel, basically take his much vacation time, and, uh, you know, you were fortunate to grow up in different countries, and so I lie. But a lot of people who were born in us missed that opportunity, and it's it's extremely important just to see what else is out there, what's available for yourself and no doubt. Now, one thing I wanna cover real quick before we go any further is your first book. Well,

not specifically, I guess, your first book. But the first book you guys did as space camp, which is re work because you guys were super popular for that one. It made rounds all over the planet, I guess. And I remember reading that book before I did my first startup and just thinking like right on. You know these guys get it. Um, can you just really briefly cover that book and kind of tell us how you came to the idea of writing that particular

book? Sure. So the funny thing is, rework it actually are Second toe, a major book Before we work, we self published a book called Getting Riel in 2006 which included some of the same topics that we cover and rework. But it was even more specific to our circumstances. He was pacing how to build a Web out right. He got really specific into the degree of that rework was a bit of a extraction from that book that a bunch of people read, getting really weren't necessarily building software, but felt like a lot of the lessons that we shared in that book applied to their work as well. And that was it was funny. It's a bit of the same surprise we've got with Base camp. The product. When we first launched based on the product, we were just trying to solve our own problems, which was to have better communication.

Better project management around client service is work, which was what our company was doing at the time, right? Designed for hire. And then we realized, Oh, there's all these other people were buying base camp to use it for all sorts of other things that are not client service is related at all. And that's what happened with getting riel, that we have all these lessons that we have accumulated building base camp and for both us and I working in the industry for longer than that that we wanted to share. And then we thought we had a different perspective on. So rework was then sort of the first grand accumulation of those lessons that applied to more people more of the time. And we took basically 10 years of writing from both getting real book and also years and years off block posts and keynote speaks and so forth and compiled that into one book with a bunch. I think 70 different short essays on individual topics such as higher when it hurts. Interruption is the enemy of productivity meetings or toxic pick a fight under do your competition. These are some of the essay topics that we had in that book, so he's basing like what are what is the,

uh, value system. One of the principles. One of the practices that we used to run base camp in the way that we have And in those maybe there's some ideas for how you could change how you do things and see things differently. And at least even if you're not going to do things like we're going to do even if you're not gonna give up press releases because we say press releases and spam, you get a different perspective on it and you'll be more thoughtful when you employ techniques. Um, that seem like, Oh, that's just the way everyone does things, right. Uh, well, we provided on a bunch of those topics a different way of doing things in the same. You could be successful even if you don't do that right. Even if you you're only working 40 hours a week, for example, that didn't prevent us for building a wonderful company that we're proud of and still here and is massively profitable on dhe has had the staying power and the impact of the industry on Let us try to share some of those, uh, principle and principles and values and techniques with you do you employ them on your own?

Did you guys know it was going to become a number one bestseller? Or was that it's a happy accident. We

knew that a bunch of the essays had really good pool because rework was more of a remix than a original production, so to speak. It was basically, like the greatest hits of the last 10 years. I often liken it to stand up comedians who will before they put together their HBO are, I suppose, these days Netflix special. They worked all of these jokes in many cases for years in clubs, and they know which one of them work in which one of them don't. So we knew we had a lot of winners in the material but itself. You sleep too, from that to selling when half a 1,000,000 books around the world. I mean, yeah, you'd be, uh, you'd have to have bigger sort of self confidence than even we do.

And we have a pretty healthy self confidence to think that Oh, yeah, the first major book that we, uh, released with the publisher. Of course, that's gonna be, uh, New York Times best seller and of course has been selling 1/2 a 1,000,000 copies around the world. No, we didn't really know that. But you you know? So I mean, it's always didn't matter, right? Like we weren't doing it for that reward would still have been a success to me if we had so attempt the number of copies.

Because in some ways, I was writing the book for me. I was writing it to remind myself to remind our own company off these values, principles and ideas. We refer back to rework all the times in ways where we have strayed where we're like a we know this right way. Know that, um, we should have ignored the details early on, which is another chapter, and we work yet we didn't in this case, right? I find that a lot of the most important lessons that you learned and, uh, you think a crucial you can't just learn them once, can't have to learn them 23 or four times before they truly sink in. So I was writing rework for myself in in many ways,

and it's just added bonus that you're another half a 1,000,000 people around the world who also thought that the ideas were good, which comes back to that discussion we had about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, right? I did not tie my self worth up to whether rework was going to be ah, hit broker. Not a hit book I was tying it up to do. I think it's a good book. I thought you hell, yeah. I think this is a good book. Uh, I would write essays that I wanted to read.

To be honest, I hope everyone the same to this podcast picks up a copy and reads it because I remember it was one of the only few books that I was able to read from cover to cover in one setting. And I generally don't like reading books. But it was I remember to this day, and I think the book came out with eight years ago. You would take it right to thumb 10. Yeah, it was It was so easy and exciting to read. And it's just, like, said everything that I was thinking at that point. So to anyone who hasn't read it yet, they should definitely grab a copy and check it out. And I and I linked to the book in the show notes. But actually, you guys have another book coming in this full right.

Yep. Uh, it's called. It doesn't have to be crazy at work and some of the topics air continuation from we work. It's probably the most direct sequel to rework that we put out We between the book, we have coming out in a month and rework. We published another book called Remote Office Not Required, which made the case for working remotely and gave people techniques and arguments for making that transition work. Um, but that was more sort of targeted very specifically at the notion of remote work and out and enabled host of other good things. It doesn't have to be crazy at work touches on a much broader scope, Um, of how, as we've just talked about on this podcast that a lot of people get wrapped up in his performative notions of what work should look like, what busy should be and the busiest good. And we try to take a hard swing of that and the advocate for, uh,

the Com company. Essentially, that work doesn't have to be crazy. It could be calm and it's better when it's calm. It's better when it's not 80 hour weeks or 120 hour weeks. It's better when it's not a packed schedules, when it's all super busy, when it's just meeting after meeting, when it's an overflowing inbox, when it's unrealistic deadlines, when it's an inability to sleep and then even when you can't sleep, you get just leave, not enough when it's weekends that gets swallowed up by work e mails when it's no time to think. Ah, when chat is just overwhelming, you're drowning,

you're out. And when it's all nighters and that you can turn work into a much calmer place by simply saying eight hours a day is enough, 40 hours a week, it's plenty. I need time for myself. You need comfortably paste days. Um, you need to use the weekends to recharge. You need to look at other techniques than just meetings for disseminating information. Zor making decisions. Everything doesn't have to be a rush. You can work on a realistic schedule on dhe when you discuss things it could be without making these knee jerk reactions all the time. Basic. Just slowing things down. Ah, and realizing you won't go slower.

All right. Um, it's funny. In racing, we have this saying that the slow is fast, that calm, careful inputs on the steering wheel. Um actually drives a race car faster. And I think the same thing is true in business and at work that if you're frantic and rushing around and you have 100 things and your hair is constantly on fire, you're not effective. You may be doing a lot of stuff, but it's not moving the right things forward. So we're making a pleaded argument for moving the right things forward and how to reconfigure work to be a place that doesn't feel like it's. It's crazy all the time, right? And part of that is reconfiguring the practices of work like how we have meetings or how we use Chad or how you see male.

But some of it is also revisiting the sort of goals and aspirations of work that you don't have to be dominating your industry. You don't have to be crushing the competition. You don't have to have this war mentality. You're serious, um, approach to everything, and if you do well, it's not really surprised you get locked into this survivalist battle. Um, but if you skip that and if you think said as adjective right, that hey, there can be and are many competitors to base camp. Isn't that wonderful? It means that people have choice. Base camp is not the right fit for everyone. There's plenty of people who look at base came and decide that they want something else.

And they're plenty of people. Look at other products that we, uh, 10 generally compete against and say like, No, I'd rather have a base camp. Um, the world would be poor if we didn't have competitors. We weren't a competitive, Um, it's not that we have to annihilate each other, So those are just some of the topics that we kind of cover in that book, and again, it's just like rework it short. You'll be able to read it in a single setting. It's about the same length as rework,

which means that you can read the whole book and to end in 23 hours or something like that. I'd be surprised if you can, uh, swallow all the topics and challenges that we post to you in those two and three hours But at least the material itself is relatively short. And all the essay so just usually a couple of pages and draws heavily on our experiences running base camp for, well, close to 20 years. For Jason's case, the the company traces its roots back to 1999. I joined and started working with basically in 2000 or started work with Jason in 2001. But the's air, not theoretical concerns, thes air, very practical concerns what we have actually hit. The problem's tried to devise solutions some of the times the solution didn't work, and then we tried to mother ones, and these are the conclusions.

Sounds like another New York Times bestseller.

We'll see. We're gonna try.

So it doesn't sound like it's gonna be very hard to get there, to be honest, like it because it's yet another book or it's just like Well, uh, like, everybody should be doing this or not doing the things that suggest yet not doing right. Um, I, uh, somebody asked that one of the show followers, but a curious when you say you know you're all about, like not crushing the competition and that, like your product is good for somebody. You build a really good, really valuable product. And by the way, I've met some of the people who've been using base camp since,

basically the beginning of base camp and they still using it, then they're still paying your money. It's it's pretty amazing, right that somebody could be with a product for 10 plus years. But that said, Where you guys gun to say, You just, uh, didn't quite discontinue. But I think you have stopped sign up for high rice. Yes, which was, Ah, a slack like product, right that you've guys been running

for a long time. It was actually ah, serum. It was more of like a self foresee kind of product. We did have another product that was kind of like Slack called campfire, But we rolled that product into base camp several years ago. The one we just stopped new feature. The belt Madan is called. It's called High Rise, which was sort of our second biggest product, and we tried a bunch of different experience with that. We had tried to have another team run it for a while and me, and I'm not being happy with that after we've given that ah, long period of time, then considered whether we wanted to run it again and ultimately decided, as we talked about in the beginning, that if I was,

if we were to design base camp, um, what would we want to work on? And high rise no longer fell within the sphere of things we were super excited to work on. And though even though it was, it was an amazing business more successful than the vast, vast, vast majority of all SAS Cos that's ever been formed out there, Um would that was still not enough for us to do it right, because we don't really reach the point where we don't have to do anything. So let's just work on on our favorite things most of the time. And, um, base camp remains a favorite things for us because the tire company uses it constantly. And the reason that we had built this other product that's Hirai serum product. Just it was not compelling for us anymore to continue to pursue that.

So I kind of decided, Let's just make a choice and, um, continue to support it for all existing customers who had it that that's one of the other core believes that base came, that we shares our legacy. We still operate a free piece of software called to Dallas that was launched in 2005 as a spin off from base camp at the time. And I think we shut it down for new sign ups in, like 2008 or something. And we still have, like, housing people every day, using that system, and that makes me proud and happy that we are the kind of company will value legacies. Is that a free product we launched our we should. We shut down to new sign ups more than a decade ago is still being operated right, and we're not leaving those users in a lurch,

and we're making the same promise to higher and shoes is we may see you call it. Hey, we're here, and we're gonna run this until the last customer shuts out the lights towards the end of the Internet, whichever comes first.

That's fascinating in a true testament to the way you run your business, because most companies try to build more, acquire more, yes, take over and you guys, you guys have sold a job or to believe a year to go ahead and you've shut on products and and it's only making you more successful because you're freeing up all this time to actually focus on the thing. It's Zach.

I mean, in some ways it's not making us more successful. I think that that is, if anything, to think that I'm most proud of the fact that we make these decisions and choices in the face off business realities that the best thing for us economically speaking would absolutely be to keep high rise, to examine the systems, to relaunch that There's a huge market opportunity here. You could absolutely do that, and that would be great business. But it wouldn't be our business. And we're not doing business just for business, right? I'm not doing it just for the money. We've already reached the point of enough, which is another key argument that we make, and it doesn't have to be crazy at work. Knowing when is enough when you're liberated.

To make your own authentic choices about what you want to pursue is absolutely critical. I'm not gonna tell you like what is enough, but if it's never enough. Well, that's probably not that healthy.

That's a great place to leave, work and switch to your life. And you mentioned that you're a race car driver and I think a lot of people want to know more about that and how you came to be a race car driver and you know what it gives to you. And also people ask for a garage tour, but we're we're on the podcast. But you know, as much as you can tell us about your collection, I'd love to know, if you don't mind.

Sure. So first of all, I'd say, saying, Your race car driver sounds like that true identity. I I probably shouldn't say that because it isn't I should say I drive race cars because I like it and it's fun. But I'm not a race car driver. In that sense, it almost implies that, like, this is what you do for a living. It's not. I wouldn't want to be a race car driver even if I could. Um, that is simply not a lifestyle that I find, um, appealing to be blunt about it.

But I do like driving racecars, and I do like driving racecars because it is such an immediate way of accessing flow. As we talked about this state where you're constantly in the custom of trying to get along better, you getting immediate feedback from the system that you're working with in terms of lap times and whether you improved or you didn't. And there's enough sort of engrossed mint in the activity trying not to crash, trying not to get into a serious accident that, you know, almost automatically command your tire attention, right? So that has been been a lot of fun, and I really had a great time doing it over the past. Ah, 10 years or so I sat in my first rail race car 2007. I got my driver's license at 25 in 2000 and five s, so it kind of made short work of the gap between in my Travis license and so into race race cars. But,

um, that is, you know, maybe, I mean, that is also then float into general appreciation of cars. I like cars, and I like watches because both of them, or have this sense of practical art to them and, um, crashed ship to them. That is just, um, the kind of people who work on products like that, uh, the amount of minutia and,

uh, layers you can dive into. It's just fascinating and fun. And, um, I found that with both watches on with cars that I I really just enjoy that again through the fortunes of base camp. I've been, um, hashtag blessed. Um um, to get to enjoy some of the finer specimens of both categories And when it comes to cars, um, just had some really great experiences driving cars in the open road. For me, especially convertibles. I'm a big sucker for convertibles.

There's just something about being in touch with the environment and engaged in this activity that you can kind of put on autopilot. When you're just driving on the road, you still have to keep your wits about. And, uh, it's just this is awesome. And ideals such as looking looking, looking at them, right, like there the best examples of both cars and watches. As I said, they're works of art, and you can appreciate them even if you're not sitting in it. Even if it's just standing still in your garage. Yeah, so hobbies you.

Yeah. Yeah, it's It's a good, huh, Bill, That bit of expensive hobby. But I suppose once you start winning races a piece for itself,

not at all, not in the slightest sense of the word. There's no money to be made in raising only money to be lost. One of the jokes and raising is if you want to make ah fort. If you want to make a small fortune in racing, you should start with a large fortune because you'll end up with a small fortune by the time you're done. Um, it is just, uh, new Christine expensive, to put it mildly. And a lot of that is because it's a very labor intensive sport, right? I'm going to race this weekend in Ah, Laguna Seca up north near seventh this directory and to put the two cars that we have on the team on the track, I mean, that's a huge operation.

That's the company behind that. With all the people show up in that weekend will be a large is base camp. Of course, that's expensive. Um, and I mean, that's kind of just just how it is right. But it also feels like, Well, all things you could spend your time and money on pursuing this sport that employs a bunch of people and has a bunch of fans who were interested in getting German out of that. I mean, they're certainly worst thing you could do. There certainly also better things that we're gonna hold the baptism. Hi. Is pursuit. No, I do it because it's fun. And because I can, um and that's Yeah,

really, some of it. You've quoted this quote from my belief Coco Chanel before that the best things in life are free in the next best things. Very, very expensive, Yes. Does that mean this racing deal is the second best

thing? Yes, and I think I was just thinking about this a couple of days ago where I was working on on some new software base. Cam and I was going like, I don't know what I'd rather want to be doing right now, but it's not even driving a race car, right? I'm literally having more fun. I'm being better stimulated, and it's more rewarding to work on this intellectual pursuit to try to get this domain model just right for this piece of programming than it is to spend time in a race par. So for me as kind of like the pursuits that I can choose to have programming in Ruby, that's that's one of those free things, right? Hold that takes its time and it's number one and then below that, um, you have the sort of very expensive things that are in second place. But the dis distance between those two things that very far I could give up race car driving tomorrow and I'd be like,

Okay, well, I'll play PlayStation then, right? Like I'm a big fan of Wipeout and force the motor sport and horizon on all sorts of other racing games on the computer. And you know what? It's not I t that big of a step down, Um, compared to the fact that, like, I could not imagine giving up programming right like that would be, ah, really substantial and deep felt lost in a way that giving up a hobby like during race cars just wouldn't. And there's a lot of things that are like that, and I think getting exposed to those things eyes, a healthy way of putting them into perspective.

because I find a lot of people going. Oh, man, it must be the greatest thing ever to be able to drive a race car or two owned into that that car, whatever you know, and you want to go like you want. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. It's pretty sweet, but that's pretty much the extent of it. It's not going to fulfill you. It's not going to define you and all the problems in your life for not going to disappear. And you're not all of a sudden going to be transformed. This this happy person just because you get to be exposed to these experiences, it's not. It doesn't work like that.

And that's not even that. It doesn't work for me like that. I've never seen anyone where it works like that for, um, so I think, kind of getting exposed to some of these things. This is a great way of accurately assessing their true value, and I'd say that they're true values far, far below what most people have this fantasy that they are, which gets back to the point we started with right, like trying to figure out what are you doing in life and why? And asking the hard questions. They don't have easy answers like, Oh, just buy a Lamborghini,

huh? You know, from everything you say and you've written, you don't come across as, ah, very risky person. Uh, maybe maybe more honest and analytical, but I wouldn't say it like you wouldn't jump off a cliff without a

parachute. I'm extremely risk of hers, extremely risk averse. That goes both for business and hobbies and all sorts of things. And I think that's one of the other narratives that I'm keen to the same bowl when ever have the opportunity that entrepreneurs or race car drivers, for that matter with these extreme risk seeking individuals who only get a high in life from basically just hanging on the edge between total glory and total destruction? I am not that person in the least. All my entrepreneurial decisions have been made within demo. We have the saying of with belts and suspenders at the same time. Um, very cautious and very considered and always looking at the downside risk off like know what the odds are that this will probably fail. Let me set myself have been such a way that when it does or if it does, that's not devastating. And, uh, tragedy the same thing with copies. I mean,

people look at race, car, train and think they go, Wow, that's really dangerous. And I mean, it's not that it's without danger Blood, uh, modern race, cars of God and extremely safe compared to what they used to be. I mean, if you were a race car driver in the sixties, I mean, that was tantamount to having some amount of of a death with wish right. But there's also the things that I, for example,

I don't want to do like I don't drive motorcycles. And it's not because I don't think driving a motor second would be a lot of fun. I said, I love convertibles and like carrying a motorcycle is like the ultimate convertible. But I've never met a person who drives motorcycle who don't have a story of a new death experience, either personally or off a friend or something else, and just go like you know what? I don't need that level of risk in my life. I could just going on a racetrack and stick something with four wheels on the track and okay, maybe you can have an accident. And and I've had a few, and some of those accidents can't be terminal. And they have been for people I've known. But overall, the risk profile is acceptable.

That's this Brings me nicely to your family and your kids being a risk averse. Still a race car driver. How does it work of home? You know, like, how do you go and raise your car knowing that there could be a potentially fatal accident?

How do I go about living my life in general knowing that there could be a potentially failed fatal accident? Right. People slip in the shower all the time or immoral. Importantly, they drive on the public roads and become one of the 36,000 people who die every year in the U. S. In an automobile accident. Right. Um, we still find ways to go on with our lives and that be paralyzed by fear simply because you've made a conscious choice, right? Like I looked at race car driving and made a conscious choice. Think this is ah risk I'm willing to make. And part of that is because living life, it's not just about making it the odds of being in a long as possible that that's not the game, right? Think the game is to have it be worth living.

And for me, part of that answer for to be worth living is to pursue things like race car driving on balance, set off with being extremely healthy about, ah, lot of other things that are way more likely track to kill you. Traveling racecar smoke are don't drink. I keep in shape. I brief fresh air. I get lots of sleep. I eat healthy, um, drink clean water. Um, I go for walks in nature. There are all these sort of more mundane approaches to how to live your life that will increase your, uh,

sort of, uh, mortality that, um that don't mean giving up on things that you really enjoy, like a race car and those from your much easier sacrifices to make that, um uh, like eating healthy air breathing pressure are exercising or someone so forth like that's not like I could combine reducing risks and does areas that I'm not gonna hopefully die from an early heart attack from B city or diabetes or from Ah, particle matter Filling my lungs are, um whatever. Let's have you. I'm gonna take my risks in other ways. So it's not about so much eliminating risk as it is about balancing it

Extend, You know, when they found out you fell in the sewer Hey,

happens all the time, right?

But to be honest, I was asking this question about it a bit of, ah, tongue in cheek because I think when you become apparent, at least for us and for a lot of our friends, you feel like you need to bubble wrap your kids and maybe yourself as well. And things become very dangerous. Very mundane things become perceivable dangerous, right? What if something happens? And it's great to hear you say these things have just, you know, maintaining healthy living is probably more beneficial to your life than avoiding slightly higher risk situation. Also,

I mean, when it comes to kids in particular, that is the topic I do care about about trying to overprotected like that is not the goal. Right again, The goal of living is not to make it as long as possible. Um, it is to make it as full as possible and as, uh, rewarding it's possible. And part of making it as full as rewarding as possible includes taking reasonable risks. And unfortunately, I think, particularly in the U. S. People have come extremely risk averse to things that are extremely unlikely to happen. Right? Um,

I don't know if you follow the thing on free range kids notion. That kid said agrees to be your Young Ages. They can kind of go about the business on their own, as I did when I grew up in West. Most people did, or 40 years or older when they grew up. And these days it's a complete freak out. It's almost ah, um, sort of police action if you see ah eijiro walking down the street by themselves, right? Even though there's never been lower rates of kidnapping and violence and and other risks to these kids reasons, If you look at the risks, for example of suicide, they just keep going up afraid. And I feel like oftentimes,

uh, parents are not attuned, actually, to making careful risk analysis because they look at these ago. What if my kid got kidnapped and not what if my kid ended up miserable from feeling like a prisoner was being escorted from cell to cell, the time with a supervisor guardian. Ah, and then being so miserable that ah, the kind of make the ultimate choice and killed himself. That's, of course, to kind of extremes out there, but I feel like that's a far or credible risk. Suicide is already the belief second, leading cause of death for teenagers, right? It's not getting fucking kidnapped by someone. It's succumbing to the pressures and anxieties of the life that they're living, which in part includes this bubble wrap approach and this seal to eliminate all physical risk while completely ignoring all the mental risks. And I feel like that's an incredibly portrayed.

So is there anything you guys doing with your life to enable this free range childhood for your Children? Um,

a lot of it is just, I mean, letting kids hurt themselves for just take one simple example, right? Let them crawl on some rocks that kind of look dangerous, and they could hurt themselves, the short of them actually putting something in position where they're going to kill themselves from something. It's not a bad thing for gets to experience on the themselves, like the consequences off off their actions. And it's the best teacher in many ways. Another example of this is my wife and I care greatly about eating healthy right. But there's ways to invite your kids into into that eating healthy world, but doesn't go through over going to ban all sugar, for example. Right, there are all sorts of bad things about your dad. You know what?

I had a fuck ton of sugar growing up. And so there's a lot of other kids. And yes, some of them ended up addicted to that getting diabetes, since no one. But a lot of them also didn't write. Like, let's perhaps keeps things a little bit in perspective and just eat that fucking candy sometimes, right? I think that's not going to be the end of the world. So I feel like trying to endow our kids with this much autonomy, as is reasonable and sometimes even a little bit unreasonable. I drive to do that and rather focus on that, Um, then sort of trying to protect him from all these long term dangers, which they're not really gonna believe in any way right like a soon as they're old enough to decide for themselves.

What they were conditioned to do was basically just You can't do this. You can't do that. What's the first thing they're gonna do once they have the power to do it? Course it's this in That painting is of course, it's the things that they couldn't do. So that's another angle of it.

It's ah, it's very refreshing. And hopefully more people will be coming. Listen and follow Follow along and but the kids be free. But yeah, here you have to basically give him a slip that says, you know, I'm a free range child, so please don't, like, take me to police Station if I'm just walking home by myself. If I ever make read that Surest is gonna say, Just eat some fucking candy. You don't Have you had any really profound experiences that shape you as a dad? You said your oldest this six, right? So there's Bean. Got a bit of time now, um, I've

had some certainly had to be differences. I've been heavily influenced by, uh, a writer and educator called Alfie Cohen. Um, that was written a bunch of book books, including The Myth of the Spoiled Child, punished by rewards punished by rewards in particular, has been very influential, not just on my relationship prepared to do it, but also as a leader and as a human of seeing, um, that split between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation over and over again, the misused and harming to two kids, right? Like a lot of kids that are a lot of parenting paradigms Go on the order of like, Oh,

if we introduce this point system, I could get my kids to do what I tell them to do what I can get them to sit still, then Sunday. Okay, maybe that's true. And that sounds like a great wave growing the next batch of authoritarian supporters. But do you know what? I don't think that's a very healthy approach. Ah, lot of the times, it seemed like parents are unreasonably obsessed with obedience. Um, and educators, too, to the point where you should realize that kids are autonomous independent beings, and they have their own priorities,

have their own motivations, and oftentimes they are in opposition to yours. That does not make them bad, right? Yes, it may make it inconvenient, and they make it frustrating. And it may do all sorts of things. Um, and you may wish that your kids would just do as you're told them thio. But that doesn't mean that they shed or that it's better for them if they did. In many ways, it's much worse if they do right, and I try to protect and nurture that healthy sense of distrust of authority and rebellion. Um, I mean it.

It's hard not for me not to smile when my oldest son says, um, like, Why do I need to do that? Just because you told me to. You know what? That's a pretty fuckingood argument, right? Why does anyone need to do anything Just because someone told them to, Um, no, come up with some real arguments. And you know what? Oftentimes those arguments fall apart because the argument is that would be slightly more convenient for me, And you're like, Well,

fuck you. That's how I think, right? Like I tried to sort of half the dialogue like if I was my place then that I would go like, yeah, that doesn't that that that's not a fair argument, right? You're basically just forcing me to do shit because you can, what a crappy relationship that is. And again, that's a little bit on the point that sometimes there are times we just need to get a fucking car and go. But those times are far fewer and further between then most people seem to realize,

um, I wholeheartedly agree with this. So that's I'm just smiling from your fear and listening to this because it's awesome and we will also be in those situations. And it's it's really hard, because as a parent, I think you're encourage that rebellious behavior and you know, to question everything. But then when you get question, you like, Oh, this is not a good time, Senator

was just, of course, that it's the best time, right? Because if you only do parenting when it's easy, like what kind of parenting is that, right? Um, and then I'd rather take my like, This is frustrating and I'm no saint in that regard. I could get extremely frustrated with both the kids at times when they're being. What looks to me is being unreasonable, right Until I get a moment to breathe and think like, you know, what? There there are persons and with unreasonable to you, to me is often completely reasonable to them.

And if I put myself in in their little shoes, which particularly with my oldest one, I now can, because I can't I have all sorts of memories from when I was his age. So it's not that hard for me to enter into that mindset and think like, yeah, fuck you. All right. I'm not gonna do what you say just because you told him to and s So it's kind of the balancing act of tolerating that frustration while at the same time encouraging the independence and protecting the intrinsic motivation and, uh, allowing a kid to make mistakes, to, say meaner, even hurtful things somewhat in a safe environment where they can kind of act out those roles as they learn to hopefully do less of that stuff and not be a draconian asshole who punishes willy nilly on whims like some tyrannical king. I think that's unfortunately roll that is very deceiving. The easy for parents to fall into,

um that, like, Hey, you do what I say because I told you to that I mean the number of times kids around the world heard that statement is just heartbreaking. I think that that, to me, is the most totalitarian statement of most all of parenthood. Right? You're gonna do this because I told you to, Not because it's a good idea, because I have reasonable arguments. But just because I told you to write, that's absolutely absolutism in the most absolute form. And that is an absolutely fucking terrible Sayif parenting are dealing with anyone, right? Yeah.

No, it's definitely isn't. I think so many people grow up that way, thinking that way or being taught that way that when they become adults, they can break through and unlearned this

That is sort of the tragic of how, uh, abuse sometimes replicates right? I've had this discussion on Twitter a couple of times of I believe it's still legal in the U. S. To spank your kids, which is to me it's just fucking mind blowing, right? Like what? A fucking perverted medieval approach to parenting and something that, thankfully was outlawed in theseventies e denman. Maybe was even earlier. Maybe later. Either way, it is outlawed. Now it's a travesty than it isn't in the US that you just reinforce the idea that parents have this total Dominion over their kids. They can already tell him like what to do. And now they can also physically punish them for being disobedient. Fuck that.

I could probably talk about this for hours, but I do have one question that I must get out of the way. That's the question is from my wife. And it's, you know, giving everything you've done and how you kind of came to be a wealthy person by hard work and sometimes kind of happy accident right where you met the right people or say you went to school. But you taught yourself to program. Now, knowing what you know about the world and the risks and opportunities, how are you gonna teach your kids about money? Yeah, that is

not a e c. Question, because I don't have the EEC I think answered the stock answer for anyone. Riches like, Oh, you're gonna teach them the value of money, right? I guess in like they shouldn't think that they just have this or whatever or the myth that this is how you end up with spoiled Children. If they just think that they kind of if they have no concept of money and they can just pursue all these things, uh, buy things. Really, Millie, Then they'll end up terrible people. I'm pretty skeptical of that whole idea. I think that most rich kids that fall under the stereotype of spoiled, rich kids end up being assholes because their parents of fucking assholes,

not because of the money. Um, Now, the other thing of that is, it doesn't help to pretend, right? Like, how disingenuous isn't of me to spend also ungodly sums going racing and then going to my kid? No, you can't have this $15 toy that you want. Because of what? Cause of the money. Are you fucking kidding me? Like that's not a comm groomed relationship with money, so to speak. Um,

so I don't think

I really have the final answer there. Except if to say that I'd wish to de emphasize the value of money. Now, there's a line to then and you should be respectful of that and shouldn't grow up to be completely oblivious of that. But I think most of the times people over correct, and they over teach about money at least in the sense of the value of money, right? But the value of money gets placed on this pedestal. Is this crowning thing that we should all be focusing most of our attention on getting I want a fucking impoverished life that ISS I'd rather teacher all sorts of other lessons about how to live the good life that are not about, like, how can I make the most money year? Whatever. Um and so I don't have a final answer there. I just have some directional clues that I don't want to be incongruent. So I can't, uh, sort of be all uptight about a $50 toy that the kid wants.

While it's same time spending many times that pursuing my own toys. Uh, that's that's a good way of growing assholes, I think, because I think keep Can't see that we can't realize that that you're being a completely hypocritical asshole about that. Of course they can. And of course, they're gonna draw their conclusions on that, Um and then at the same time, in some ways, devaluing money, right, And that is a luxury. I will 100% of sort of copped to that Most people do not have the luxury of devaluing money right, because there's really builds and whatever to pay for it. But if you do have that luxury,

uh, E do write it because I find that the opposite is often true, that it's rich parents who end up over emphasizing the value of money and attaching all sorts of other meritocratic ideals to it. Okay, we are virtuous and good because we have a lot of money and the people who work really hard, they end up making a lot of money up, for fuck's sake, Shut the fuck up like that's not how the world works, right? And I mean, I u n cringe a little bit when you say in the interests of this, like, Oh, you worked really hard on Ben. You were also a bit lucky. You know,

I didn't work very much harder than pardon me anyone if you define hard as number of hours put in, for example, plenty of people working way harder than me in way harder circumstances. Some of that was that the work I did ended up being valuable to a lot of people. Enough marketplace approach, and that's how current economics is system rewards people. And let's just be fucking honest about that. Let's not try to wrap it up in this meritocratic myth that, like the people who have the most money, have the most money because they are virtuous and good and that they worked really hard. There's an endless number of people, work insanely hard and do not have any money at all. So don't give me that crap. Um, Anyway, these air s Cuban here. These are not topics that I have fully fleshed out a completely coherent philosophy on, even for myself. So it's a work in progress. Well,

but I love the openness to talk about it publicly and honestly without trying to sugarcoat it or pretend like, you know, all the answers. Um, so all things considered, how has been a dead so far?

It's been wonderful. We mean, ah, it's hard to actually imagine not having done that. And it's very easy to imagine a great deal of regret if it had not happened. Write off all the things that I've done weird like Oh, if I hadn't done that, I would have looked back, would regret this certainly ranks very high, not at the top of the list on Dad's saying with the notion that link, when my wife kind of first brought up the topic, I wasn't necessarily the most enthusiastic about the idea that he's not in the concrete, maybe in the abstract sense of one day sometime, but not in the concrete of like, Hey, Shorty. But I'm very glad that she convinced me otherwise I wouldn't have it any other way.

And I think it's, Ah, extremely material part of what makes me appreciate life, my own life, the life of humanity in general, too, have you enough spring And it's been incredibly warning, too. Just watch things, Burt. Not things humans that I had a part in making, and I can see strains of my d n a. Playing out kind of growing up and becoming their own persons. That's just a remarkable part of the human condition that I fully understand is not for everyone, and I wouldn't want to. I'm certainly not one of these people that go.

What did you have? Kids? You should really have kids. A lot of people probably are more unhappy with their kids than their without and that is something that I very much is a personal choice to make. But when I'm extremely police with having made

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