Welcome to Living in the Matrix. I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right. But the bottom line is,
is together we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world.
Welcome everybody, Living in the Matrix. I'm Jonathan. This is Rich. Say hello, Rich.
Hey everybody. Excited to be back. And believe it or not, I think we've got three podcasts
this week, but I'm most excited to chat with Nick, believe it or not. So great to be back.
We've had a lot of topics, Nick, on Living in the Matrix and it has to deal with who are
people that we can interact with that actually are living outside the status quo. We are,
you know, even we started the premise, are we in a simulation, right? We're in a postmodern
world who knows what is up, what's down. And we started with that kind of thing because
sometimes it does feel like we're in a simulation, right? When you look at two people looking
at the same exact idea and it's a completely different viewpoint. And a lot of the folks
we've ended up noticing is that it's a lot of people who are really trying to help others
out, right? People who have dealt with meditation and people who have done biohacking and fasting
and stuff like that. Other folks who are Christian evangelicals, right? So universalists, right?
So people who are outside of the traditional status quo. And I think you've come from a
maybe somewhat Christian of a background. I think we talked about that a long time ago. But
what I've noticed is that we were moving towards people who are also doing business. So we recently
had a recruiter on. We had somebody who I've worked with at LinkedIn, who's developed a new
business for longevity, right? An app and a program where you can get better. And I think
one of the cool things that I noticed about your post recently is about how do we help with
businesses and communities and things like this? And just to give a quick introduction for our
listeners is Nick has just spent his whole life trying to take care of others vis-a-vis
just the goodness of his heart or how it works with business. So I mean, in your teens, you started
working with five and six year olds that were in underdeveloped neighborhoods. I think in your
teens, you started helping with high schoolers and teenagers. In your 20s, you started doing
additional stuff. You started working with the Milken Institute as one of 300 people. The way
we met, of course, is you'd already developed your own app, which was called Here on Biz,
which was totally cool. And for everybody who loves LinkedIn, this was an app where you'd actually
fly into a new town and you'd open up the app and you'd see a group of people in your community
that might have like-minded interests. And so that's what got me meeting Nick. And of course,
I can't ignore the fact that you set me and one of my colleagues up with Gavin Newsom for a chat
in San Francisco at the San Bernardino T-Lounge. So just wanted to make this introduction. And
obviously, I'm going to let you talk about your new book that's coming out, The Innovation Collective,
and why the kinds of conversations we're having today are so critical in terms of the landscape
in the United States. We're in a tough situation. There's a lot of pain, suffering, loneliness,
suicide. There's a lot of bleak stuff out there. And we're here to dig in, find out how we can
heal ourselves, how we can heal our families and with the community, how can we make the nation
a more prosperous place. So how's that sound for introduction?
It's awesome. I super appreciate it. And it's fun to see you again and connect this way,
kind of exploring our connection, but also with an audience and one of your friends. It's fun for me.
So I do appreciate having me on. And the premise of the podcast of Living in the Matrix are kind
of getting outside of it. I always love the movie. Most people who see it, I don't know. I can't
think of a single person who's seen The Matrix that's like, it was a garbage movie. Yeah. And
I think it's because it does speak to something in us that we might be right, we might be wrong,
but that I think the one thing that we know is a big capital T truth, like a little T truth.
A big capital T truth is that we all know that there's an optimal version of ourselves that we
haven't yet unlocked. And I think that's something that Matrix plays with, is this idea that what's
holding us back? Is it me? Is it a system? Is it both? Can I break through? And so I love the idea
of a podcast that kind of dances with that big capital T truth and then allows for a lot of
people to display their little T truth of like, here's what I think. Because I jokingly say,
a lot of people have their theories on what happens after we die. And some people are emphatic
that this is what heaven is like. And the only thing we know is that post-death, it's binary,
either it's nothing, or it is ecstatic. That's it. It's all we know. It's going to be one or the
other. So fun podcast for sure. Yeah. And maybe to give a little more color on my background for
people too, to kind of fill in some of those gaps. My early years were really built around,
my mom has a big heart and she's kind of makes Mary Poppins look like an asshole.
Like she's just the kindest human and really introduced me to making a difference in viewing
broken people as my peer. And so those are my friends as a kid and worked with kids who were
awards in the state, like you mentioned, worked with schools and churches doing leadership
development, built three different mobile technology companies. And then in my later years,
discovered that there was a way to merge kind of my innovation thinking with my
more social impact mind and addressing the fact that a lot of communities were struggling to
build strong economies. And I believe that there was a way to build a strong community
that built a strong economy and allowed for everyone to have a seat at the table as well.
And so I've spent the last decade doing that. I've been to over 300 communities in the last
10 years and have done work contractually in 12 different states, three different countries,
all around building strong economies by building strong communities. And it's not as touchy feely
like, let's all get together and sing songs. It's very strategic and integrates startup cities,
best practices, a lot of the principles of what builds strong startups and integrates that into
what's missing in culture for people. So it's been a fun journey over the last 10 years.
Nick, you have a mom exactly like mine. And my mom did the same thing. She created what's called
Recycle Sally, which is we would go down to impoverished neighborhoods and help people
learn how to sew. And I helped her. And it was a process of thinking outside the box that,
hey, everyone is welcome. My mom kind of, why did that make a difference in your life?
Because it sounds like that was sort of a pivot point for you to say, oh, I like this.
Totally, totally. It's interesting to kind of emphasize that for a second. I have some friends
now who watch me over the last 10 years. And they said, Nick, you're living like someone who's
retired that's giving back now in the world, but you're in your 20s and 30s, like in that 40s,
what are you doing? Are you a philanthropist or are you a capitalist? I'm like, can't I be both?
Why do I have to pick one? And I think a lot of it does come from that early exposure. And what it
did for me was I think it shakes you out of this idea that your life is solely for the purpose of
creating stability for yourself. And if you're living in a family where all you do is obsess
over optimal self, so discipline, you need to do the dishes. Why? Because someday you're going to
have your own house or clean your room because someday you'll have your own house. Very self-centric
in learning how to behave and offer your intellect and your energy in a way that is in service of a
better world, which is true. But that then can breed somebody who believes as long as they keep
my head down and look out for me and then maybe do that for my kids, then that's winning. And
the moment you start to get exposed to people who are journeying through life in a very vulnerable
way where they can't hide their dysfunction like you might be able to, all of a sudden you start
to use your energy and time, intellect in a manner to solve for their problems as well, which then
has a knock-on behavior effect in your private life as well. So I think service infects your being
for the long haul and it helps you realize we're all a part of a larger story and it's not just
your story, is what it did for me. Do you think that larger story is based on just the goodness
of humanity? From a secular humanist standpoint, you can say that. From a theological standpoint,
you could graft that. Is it both? I mean, what are your underpinnings for that greater good?
And where does that transition come from? I'm doing this because I've been told to,
to you know what? This is actually amazing and I'm actually growing because of it, right?
Totally. Totally. So it's a great question. So the personal answer is in my younger years,
I acted in a manner to do service because there was this force energy that I think thought I was
special, expected it out of me. And so I was like, that's what I do. Because you'd read these stories
in the Bible and I actually took it serious. I grew up going to a private Christian school and
it was kind of like a religious mutt. We went to anything from like trumpets and flag dancing to
like pews and you know, a bunch of senior citizens and everything in between. So kind of saw my
gamut of the Christian faith expressed in many different flavors. And I think originally I kind
of acted out that service. But one was like, I didn't want to, you know, get left behind. I mean,
you hear about like the rapture and people want to scare you and you're like, as a kid,
you walk around the house and all of a sudden you can't find mom or dad or your sister, the dog.
And you're like, shit, shit, I've been left behind. And then, you know, all of a sudden you see
a neighbor and you're like, shit them too. And then you find your mom and you're like, okay,
I'm safe. Mom's here. Dad, if dad was here, we might have some problems.
But so I think a lot of it came out of a fear and a framework that was just kind of
thrust upon me. So the larger story as I've grown up and matured
is more now about this perspective that there is beauty and value. There's order and design.
There's harmony. There is frequency that is harmonious. There's vibration that is harmonious.
And when you dance in that harmony with another person, it's not about economic status or social
status or political preference or anything else, but there's just a co-creation of beauty and value
together. And that is maybe a humanistic way to say a very trite religious phrase, which is
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I think a lot of people pass over that and think
of it as some form of a, you know, there's clouds and angels and everything's going to be all neat
once that's done. I've come to try and understand my personal understanding of what this thing we
call God quite foolishly, whatever it is. This thing has designed a harmony and order. And when
we dance with another and we start to explore beauty value and co-create it, it's awesome.
And we're designed to love that. And so I think the larger meta story is about doing alchemy
with humans and with the earth and casting spells with our minds and our hands to create
more harmony. And when we do that, it is inherently co-creative. So you can't really do it in a silo
because I need other people from under that level of alchemy. And that then creates mission and
purpose and passion and pride and self. So.
What comes out of the other side? You know, do we all end up in heaven holding hands, singing songs?
I don't know.
That's not really the point, is it? Because you're touching on things that I,
that I've experienced is when you see the capacity to affect another life, you realize there's more
to just being human than the selfish act. What you're doing is you're just doing it for the
purpose of being human. And you realize there's more to just being human than the selfish act.
What you're doing is you're saying, Oh, I'm going to co-create. So I'm going to include that inclusion.
That's a, that's an experience. It's not just an idea. You must have experienced something.
This is, I really like this. What was that?
Yeah. Uh, great question. Experiencements that I really like this.
At the earliest age, um, it would have been having a,
a role model, which is like another person's mom who saw value in me and asked me to come work at
her summer camp for kids who are awards of the state and said, you would make a good mentor.
Would you come work for me? And this is when I was like in middle school or late elementary.
And I got to work with kids who were five kindergartners that were awards of the state.
And through that, um, just simply was a, a role model mentor would like play with these kids and
help serve meals. I wasn't like a disciplinarian to these children at that age. Um, and I think
through that, there was a sense of, I was asked to do something. I got compensated financially for it.
And I was able to provide a positive experience for another that arguably was someone coming from
a position of less than me because they didn't have parents. And I did. So I can say that
emphatically that they had less than me. Uh, and so I think in that you have a positive,
resonant experience. You're like, oh, that's cool. Um, and to, to maybe make a weird jump,
there's a fascinating book, uh, that's called origins of virtue.
And, and it looks at why are humans virtuous. And there's also another one that's fun called
road to character is another great book, uh, that you would think both have a very different
path based on the title. Not at all. Road to character is basically about really awesome
human beings who are flaming pieces of shit at different points in their life and helps you
really go, Oh, apparently how do we get to that character point? And like, we can still have an
impact and beautiful. The other one origins of virtue is, is more about, uh, bugs, germs,
and plants and how they cooperate and why, and then takes a bigger macro view at the human
condition and makes you start to ask the question of why do we cooperate? How much of this is self
preservation? How much of this is self service? And so, um, I still have real answers to that,
but what I do know is to come back to what you were saying, Jonathan, is that you're
saying, Jonathan is, I do believe we are created to create. And when we embrace our birthright
as a creator to create value and beauty in service of the world, um, then it's fun.
Hard stop. And, uh, I, I'm happier. I have more purpose, I have more pride. Um,
I'm a passion and maybe it's in my self preservation, self interest, but damn it.
It's also good for the world. I think, um, and if it is a simulation, uh, I prefer that lie than
another one. But I think that's the, that's why it doesn't ever feel like a lie because it's consistently
true that when you invest in the other, it's always reciprocated back. So the evidence for
its truth comes from its experience. And I find that, uh, very valuable that the more that I love
my neighbor, the more that it really comes back to me because I'm becoming love. Cosmically,
Jonathan. Yeah, I would say cosmically because one on one you can give to somebody that might
not be reciprocal. I've experienced that. I think you have too, right? So we're not expecting that.
Reciprocation is not them loving me back. It's recognizing the experiential value of loving
another person. Cause I did the same thing. My mom brought me to these events, all my childhood,
growing up, she would always take me to places. Like when I was 25, she said, I just took a job
at city team for drug rehab center. And she goes, why don't you go to a drug rehab center? And she
said, why don't you come and do essentially what you were doing, Nick and helping guys get off
drugs. And there was no reciprocation on their part. They had nothing to give me. They had to be,
they had to almost be the example of what not to do. So it was terribly shameful. And my job was
to go in and just love on them. But that practice of loving on them, I always got back in spades.
Yeah. And so an interesting thing that I operate from is I have
stopped trying to hold on to what I know to be true. And I try and operate from a place of what
I believe to be true. Meaning, I don't know if it is cosmic. I can't emphatically say that.
I don't know. I truly don't know that if we, if the three of us die, maybe that's it.
Maybe. Like I can't say yes or no to anything else. I am, I am acting in assumed hope and faith of
something else. And there's nothing wrong with having that. What I do know to be true is that
I can speak emphatically that it's fun and it's better. And when I look at coming back to,
there's a funny quote I really like, and it's one I use often with myself. And I tell other people
this too. If you're having a bad day, tell yourself a better lie. Yeah. And it kind of helps you step
back and realize how much of life is it we're running on stories we tell ourselves. And my
actions are driven by those stories. And maybe by history of stories that other people have told
themselves and genetics and how we've gotten to this moment. I don't know all those pieces,
but what I do know is I want to run the experiment and break out of all the norms to continue to
optimize my experience and share it with others in a way that I'm weeble wobbling my way to like
this, this end state where I've composted my way into the grave with a big grin on my face versus
some angry dumpster fire that's like inflamed and angry. And I think that's the right design
that I think a God designed humanity for. And I might be making that up, but like, I don't know.
So like that's me in a nutshell of like I've worked in the church, I've worked in
third world spaces. And I, yeah, man, that's just where I sit in the moment.
Yeah. So Nick, you have started a company called Aesop Industries and a very interesting sort of
approach, which is human and economic performance. Unpack that. What does that mean? And tell us a
little bit about what you do. Totally. So Aesop Industries, Aesop's fables are these like
meaty little stories that stick with you. And if you chew on them, can lead you to living a better
life. And our tagline is Aesop Industries, live a better story. And the human and economic performance
component is holding two truths that seem to be at conflict with each other. One is the human
condition, which are the things that we crave and want, belonging, purpose, family, community,
laughter, all these fun touchy feely things. And then economic performance, jobs, tax base,
stronger G&P. Yeah, security. And so you have corporations and governments and
entities trying to drive this economic abundance. And then you have people who are like,
I just want to be happy. And they feel at odds, I don't believe they are. And especially when
you hold on to the belief that the core purpose of a human is to create. And so if that's our
birthright, then if you can align the human act of creation and the human superpowers, the human needs
for purpose, passion, and pride with this desire to grow economies and macroeconomic trends,
you can create this kind of a Venn diagram, which is superpowers of the people, what the man wants,
and what the world is moving towards. And you can find this little spot in the middle where
everyone can start to look at it and say, I want to create X that I believe adds the most beauty and
value to the world. And you build a social community around that. So as a company, ASAP industries,
we intake what a client wants, typically government, family office, real estate developer,
or a corporation. And what they typically want is better tax base, more employees, a more occupied
campus, a resilient community, whatever. And they're spending billions and billions of dollars on
these things. Often their approach to retaining people or to driving occupancy is trite. And
a good example, most real estate developers put up these cliche posters that say, you know, work,
live, play, and have a picture of a pool and someone playing volleyball or someone holding
hands on a beach. So what are they doing? They're tricking you. They're like, if you live here,
you'll have great chest hair and can play volleyball and some girl will want to hold your hand and you
can drink wine. And so then people sign up for that. And then like they still have man boobs
and like one chest hair out the front. And they're like, it didn't work. And so what we realized was
what people really want and are paying a ridiculously high price. People are paying a ridiculously high
price for purpose, shoddick growth, real community, chasing a better version of themselves. I find
the phenomenon of what Silicon Valley is slash was, bonkers. People are willing to move across
the country, live in cars, do whatever they can just to have a shot on goal, not so they can build
a company. How many people go there with one company that they're going to start? Not a lot.
They go there with an idea of who they want to become. And they build a handful of companies
over their lives, right? They're chasing some role they believe they can play out. And so
we as a company, we curate the super identity that maps back to the client's goals, the macro
economic trends. And we help people embrace learning skills, setting goals, and being in
community that helps the individual wobble towards this optimal sense of self that they're seeking.
And we provide those experiences in that pathway with and alongside of and inside of the employer.
So for a community or a real estate development, here's an example. Let's pretend you're a developer
and you're building a 600 unit apartment complex with 340,000 square feet of commercial and mixed
use retail, because that just sounds like a random number that I may be pulling out of my ass.
And this developer, let's pretend is has a big anchor tenant that is interested in the future of
gaming and entertainment. Wouldn't it be great instead of just saying, look, we have luxury
apartments next to transit. Don't you want to stay here? Wouldn't it be great if you could create a
series of inspiring talks, idea sharing sessions, weekend retreats, book clubs, and all these things
that cause the employees of this gaming company and the whole community of people in the city to
come together and attend these very sticky gatherings on site of this real estate campus.
To where they're now all gathering as young people, senior citizens, mid-career startups,
this large employer, and they all want to stay in the apartments because this is ground central
of everyone becoming this version of that company. And so now it's a startup pipe for innovation.
It's a community gathering. And what does it take to become a great leader of a business?
Well, take professional skills. So we teach professional skills courses and we have
training sessions, but it also takes personal growth, right? Your self-talk, your relationships,
your health, money management. So we have curriculums and groups on that. And so we build
out this whole, you know, kind of like a coaching platform around a vertical, but the campus and the
culture of the people that becomes the coach. So what we do is we deploy that for cities, for real
estate developers, for companies to solve their problem. It sounds complex and it is in some ways,
but it's actually pretty stinking simple too.
In the example of a company where you've got this, it's brilliant, right? Because you've got this
idea of WeWork, but it's on steroids because the idea of WeWork was, oh, we have cucumber water.
We have these really cool Wi-Fi speeds and stuff like that, but they missed the whole point of
community. Everybody was doing their own thing. They were showing up in their own cube or not in
their cube, right? And that whole idea of having this open space was that you could foster community,
but it didn't come with that purpose. So how do you overcome the WeWork, you know, kind of issue?
And let's say you are a company, not a real estate developer, and you really want to develop that
pipeline. Jonathan also is in UX, right? So his, you know, pipeline of design, design thinking,
those kinds of things to create that new experience is amazing. How do you inculcate
the cult, even the pipeline of candidates, right? That would be a good fit almost because
you could have a wide funnel, but how many of those folks would actually be successful
and actually fostering this community? Is there a personality kind of type that would actually be
beneficial? All these kinds of things. How can that cross that out?
Yeah, it's a great question. I think so first and foremost, you asked the question about
personality types. The personality type that we target in our experiences is an individual
who is seeking something better and something more. So there are some individuals who think like,
I'm fine. Okay, we might be able to provide you like a nice office and like some fun social
settings and buzz around you or like maybe this campus is cool for you because there's energy
there. There's those people, but the people we typically see are ones who are mid-career,
maybe they're making a lot of money, but they're still longing for something more or something
better. And we provide them with the structure to get them there. So then to the next question of
like, what's the differentiator between like a WeWork that failed and a system that we've designed?
The main differentiator is, I would argue two things. One, we're not looking at attracting
you because the TI is great and it's the cucumber water. We're looking at providing you with two
primary things. One is a strategy that unlocks your progress and journey. So it's a very
structured experience. Think of it more as a pathway and less of an identity. Because like
just saying that you're fancy doesn't mean you're fancy, right? Like you can't build a
bouncy, right? Like you can't bippity boppity boop your way to meaningful community. You have to
actually structure a pathway to get you there. So when someone on boards into our communities,
it's a whole process of you declaring key things, having audits, attending multi-day
leadership summits. I mean, we just had one of my favorite authors and a guy running $100 million
venture fund. New York Times bestselling author and a dude running a $100 million venture fund
in one of our communities for two days. And when he's here, we do a pitch day on the first night
when these guys are here. But the pitch day isn't a standard pitch day. It's called show and tell.
And show and tell is just that. It's people showing off projects they've been working on
that they love. And it's songs, it's hardware, it's software. It's people showing prototypes.
It's people talking about a book they're writing. And so these VCs in the room, like he knows me,
and he's like, this is different. And yet he's finding deals he wants to do. And he's intrigued,
but also getting to see if someone's film that they're working on. Then the next day,
they do storytelling around two lessons in life and two lessons in business each,
an interactive forum. And so these individuals share their story and then a story about life
that taught them a deep and meaningful lesson in life. They're transferring principles.
And these are legends. These aren't nobodies. I mean, these are legit. Seth Godin thinks one
of these guys hung the moon. The other guy, Paul Allen tapped him to run and design the whole
innovation systems for the Seattle area. This is Paul Allen of Microsoft. Yeah. Yeah. These two
come in and they deliver these stories and lessons. After they've done that, we then gather and we
have a feast. And around this feast, everyone stands up and declares what they're inspired by,
what they want to create over the next three months, what they want the community to hold
them accountable to, and which pathway they choose. They choose one of the four different
leadership pathways. And there's a book club with a curriculum we've designed, a personal growth
group with a curriculum we've designed, a skills sprint where you learn new skills in support of
a community that's just designed to keep you accountable with a curriculum we've designed.
Then there's also a venture studio where you work on your idea to prepare it for the next show and
tells, and you get your idea and you go through the lean business model canvas with a curriculum
we've designed. We provide over 100 events per year for the communities, and we don't expect you
to go to all of them. We do hold you accountable to being on this pathway towards what you want to
become. So that's a key differentiator of that structure. The second is we don't get high price
leases and try and sub out that to the community so that you feel cool. We're okay taking a complete
thumb of a building, like the worst of the worst buildings, because it's the community and the
structure and the path to the future that you're looking for that actually makes it sticky.
Coming back to, I use that analogy of a fort early on. When I was a kid, I don't know if you
ever built a fort, like you thought forts were the coolest, and they were actually kind of like
wobbly, but when you got done with it, you're like, we did this. That's what we're building
and creating with people is we're building something together. It's a mission. So that's
our big differentiator from like a WeWork. And employers can bring us in to design the same
culture for their employees and their contractors, the friends and family of the employees as well.
And that's been a really successful model for retention and activation of their employees.
Nick, let me ask you a question because you may be, we were talking to Lori last week on our podcast
about this, and I want to bring it up with you because I think you live at the intersection of
this question. Communities, when they gather together in this idea of creating an idea that
everybody can buy into. And how is that different? Because most corporations that are operating have
what's called shareholder value. They want to increase shareholder value. Ultimately, the
expense of employees and people participating, your mode is very different. And how do you respond to
people who think, but at the end of the day, it's just about shareholder value. And that's all that
we really want to do. That creates this incredible imbalance of the community. How would you respond
to all that? No, it's an incredible question. And I've seen a lot of companies go astray with
stakeholder versus shareholder, and they need to drive profit and fiduciary responsibility.
So we have a process that we call the realignment theory. And the realignment theory
kind of comes down to this belief that people are really happy when they can set goals that
they believe in. Hey, I want to go work on this thing with agency. It's going to add beauty and
value to the world. Then they have a system where they can learn skills in service of those goals
and teach skills to others in service of their goals as a part of a larger community that enables
that and inspiration and education experiences. So you now have this, those are the three things,
like goals, growth and gatherings. That's kind of like our like the three. Cool. But most people
are kind of garbage at setting goals. Let's be frank. They don't know what they really want to
go and do. That's why the number one aspiration of Gen Z 12 to 27 year olds is to be an influencer.
And we want to like, we want to dunk on that gen. But let's be frank, the generation before it was
to be a musician and a hip hop star. The generation before that, it was I want to be a professional
athlete. That's what I wanted to be. Right. And then I realized when I was like a junior,
my business is not going to work out. And so as much as we dunk on those gens, it's just we
expose people to bad things. So they have bad dreams. So we need to help people dream dreams
that are aligned with this shareholder. Now, it can feel super manipulative. If you're like,
hey, guys, dream about how to make us make more profit. Okay, that's weird. But a company has like
a North Star, right? They have like an industry, they have a roadmap of innovation, and they have
kind of an area that they're going to move in. And that maps to specific needs they have to get
themselves there. Right. So it might be, well, we need more people who are learning these skills
that can help us build this part of our company. Okay, so I could go to those people like learn
this skill. They'd be like, screw you. Like what? Just so they can make more money. Right. Or you
could look at why they need this skill and what are they trying to get people to work on? That's
interesting. How does that then map to macroeconomic trends, like global trends of innovation and
industry that are exponential technology markets? Because I bring up that third bucket, the macroeconomic
trends to the corporate innovation roadmap, and the things that people are good at, right? That
they are the goals, growth and gatherings. So if you can take the superpower of those people,
like common trends and threads that they all share, the corporate vision of where they need to move,
and the global trends where there's trillions of dollars to be made, and you can come up with a
woven vision that says, all right, guys, here's that little positive core we can all focus on.
And in this, there's a way to phrase this vertical or a focal point that the employer or the large
company goes, oh, that scratches my itch. And that the macroeconomic trend goes, wait a second,
this little community in this region is going to focus on that thing. That scratches our itch.
We're interested to learn more. You're going to create a bunch of IP. And then you also then go
to the community and say, hey guys, there's a global explosion happening here with trillions
of dollars waiting for you. And these large employers who want to work with you. Now all of
a sudden these people go, well, tell me more. And this is what it focuses on. And these are the areas.
Do you guys want to chase this together and see if we can go shoot the moon? What you've effectively
done is you've given people who really people don't care what they're working on. Most people
don't. What people actually care about is can they work on something that they believe adds real value
to the world? Do they get to work with people they like and trust? Do they give you skills that they
believe are authentic to them? And do they get valued for their contribution? Hard stop. That's
what people care about. They have those things. Then they're like, life is great. I didn't say
what it is that they're working on, did I? So if they're working on something that's hard and
challenging, they're going to be learning new skills. So it's more about how do you align
goals, growth and gathering and those things that people get the agency with the corporate
interest and the macroeconomic trend. Because you can find a way to language it that inspires
people to show up. And guess what? All right. When people show up and you give them structure
of these events and systems and ways for them to do the goals, the growth and the gathering
and experience the true growth and pitch days and experiences, they work with the colleges,
you can bring in the SBA, you can bring in the venture investors, you can bring in the
corporations to hire. And you have this flywheel of 100 events per year that the company thinks
is in service of them. The people thinks it's in service of them. The industry thinks it's in
service of them. So who's it in service of? I don't know. It's just doing, it's realigning
all of our interests to be this one movement of we're all going to create more beauty and value
in the world. And when we do that, here's the most magical thing. When you do it right and make it
around a merit-based, easy onboarding roadmap, which is what we've done, we do 36 free events
per year in each of our communities, 36 free. I'm never going to charge anybody anything for
these things. And we've seen companies starting these things have gone from an idea to worth over
$100 million. These platforms that are free allow anybody to show up and we're like, look,
bring your ideas. Cause there's a culture of co-creation, but we do them around verticals.
And magically the output of these inputs with this kind of Venn diagram in the middle
is that it starts to heal mental health because people now have community and structure and some
like rigor, physical health. Cause now people have purpose and like why to show up and passion,
something to believe in. So like get out of your sweatpants, don't stay up as late, don't drink so
much. Economic health, cause they're learning new skills. They're actually like interested in what
trends are happening and civic health, because they're a part of a community that gathers
physically to where like that dude who sleeps with other guys, they don't care about anymore.
Cause he's got a cool idea or that woman who is a far left woke liberal or that old woman that's a
far right Republican, MAGA. All of a sudden you just don't care about those things. Cause like
when people talk about what they love and what they want to chase and what they're going to do
to add beauty and value to the world, it transcends something that you want to help them because
you're in the sacred loop of exchanging value for value with each other around. We co-create a more
beautiful tomorrow. So there is this intersection that is really rich in this matrix that starts to
realign the man and the human so that we're using our time and energy to add beauty and value to the
world. But it still fits within capitalism and things that smell familiar to us because we do
have a framework that we've designed that we call reality. And for people who want to like unplug
from the machine completely, it's like get a life that won't work. Yeah. I love you actually
answered my question for me, which was going to be, how do you address the biggest concerns that
you start off in the beginning of your book, which is 77% of these kids that are going to the
military can't make it because of obesity or drug use and 58% loneliness, et cetera. One of the things
I was thinking about, and then you mentioned a book last year called Bowling Alone. And one of the
scariest quotes out of this book was studies of political psychology over the last 40 years have
suggested that quote, people divorced from community, occupation and association are first and
foremost amongst the supporters of extremism. Right? So I'm thinking, okay, here's all these
negatives. This is really scary. But then I'm thinking even in the middle of us, we have ASU,
which is now considered one of the most innovative universities in the country outpacing both MIT and
Stanford. And what do they do over five, 10 years ago? They said, they said, Hey, if you work for
Starbucks, you can get your online degree with us for free. Just be a full-time employed Starbucks.
They democratized education. Uber driver, you're slinging drivers out there. You're having a rough
time. How about we give you an education? These are the kinds of things going on. So what you've
actually done is you haven't started with the pain and brokenness. You've started with the idea and
the community, and you're actually wagging the tail of the dog by doing that. Because the thing I was
concerned with, because you're going to be missing a big wide net of all this innovation with all
these people that are underrepresented, that are marginalized right now, that are hurting.
How do we bring them in? Because, yeah, this is, I would just love for you to help me process that,
because I like where you're going, because it seems so, it's not utopian, but it's a beautiful
vision of what that flywheel can look like. But I'm always trying to figure out how do you,
where does the egg and the chicken start and begin, right? 100%. 100%. Well, what it is,
the beauty is we don't have to worry about the chicken or the egg, because we already have a
farm. Yeah. And when you look at the history of what we've made as a nation, we've got a legacy
of greatness, of doing hard things, of struggle, of building. We chased, the American dream is a
shared global experiment. It is not a national identity. And that's a really important thing to
hold on to. The American dream is a shared global experiment of people locking arms saying, come
hell or high water, let's go do something cooler and better together. Well, it's self-actualization.
It's this idea that I can contribute to society and reap a benefit that allows me to continue
doing that. 100%. 100%. And when we had systems that oppressed us or that got off the rails,
we then took a deep breath and went, let's rethink this thing. And so we're kind of at another
moment where, coming back to your question, Rich, we have a lot of people who feel left out,
black and brown community being one. Look, there's super unjust things that have happened
throughout history and society. The gay community being another. Super unjust, awkwardness.
You can continue down the list of different marginalized people groups who've often felt
like they've been overlooked. And so we can look at the past and ask the question, well,
how do we right these wrongs? How do we shine a brighter light on these people? Or a cooler
idea would be, how do we just set a bigger table that is super wicked inspiring and that tells the
stories of struggle and success and failure that creates this loop of trust and discovery
as the first principle and create a social infrastructure and an economic infrastructure
harmonized around this. So first step is help people discover who else has done this that looks
like me, that I want to hear their story that's local in my own town. And you don't make it about
them as an identity and a gender. Instead, you make it about the story of someone who struggled.
And you invite everybody. You get houses of worship, you get the United Way, you get the
battered women's shelter, you get the K-12 high schools, you get the chamber, you get the Elks
Club, you invite the Dems, you invite the Republicans, bring them all, come one, come all,
the rich, the poor, the country club, you know, bring them all to the table. Why? Because you're
telling an inspiring story about someone in their own town. Guess what? People like that. That's why
we watch TV. And so you create this night once a month where it's storytelling around the local
person, you have free wine and beer, you get someone to sponsor it. That's why people like to
have a beer. They like to have a glass of wine. It's a better date night. That then starts to then
awaken people to go, I belong here. I have dreams too. And you start to help people dreaming in the
poor, the rich, the brown, the black, the white, the yellow, the red, everybody under the sun.
Cool. Next phase is then give them a forum where they can go from discover to dream. And dream is
where you start to like marinate a bit after you've discovered and you start to like spark the ideas
with each other. And the dream state leads into then the design state. And so we have multiple
experiences that fall into the dream and design category. The coffee and concepts is a fun one
where it's a multiple times a month where people gather just to talk about innovation breakthroughs
and news around the vertical, but then they also share their ideas back and forth of what are you
working on? Does anybody have a concept that they need feedback on? You see hands go up around the
room. And in the real time in the room, you work on people's companies together. And so you start
to design a plan, a path to get them there. And then we have high fidelity programs that get a
little bit deeper into, you want to design the real steps. Cool. Go through the skills
spring. Go through the lean business model canvas. Go through the personal growth curriculum because
you need to work on those things. So it's discover, dream, design, deliver. This is a tried and true
process called appreciative inquiry. It is about industrial organizational change, individual change,
but applying it to society's deepest, darkest, scariest problems. Look, we could talk about
solving for obesity and suicide by telling people to stop eating things and to go make friends.
But if you don't have purpose and if you don't have passion, you don't have pride, guess what?
You're still going to eat same nasty shit. And if you don't have, well, you're going to go make
friends because like I'm a loser. I don't have friends. That's how people feel. So instead we
need to create social infrastructure that allows people to then stumble into discovery that gives
them a little bit of passion. So it's, it's, it's almost manipulation by using the human condition
to say, this is what we were made for. We're made to dream. We're made to do hard things.
And so the chicken egg component, what's interesting is it's just about saying,
this is our birthright. This is our history. This is our legacy. Let's do it again.
And so I don't know what comes first. Is it like the person that makes the company
or is the person that dreams of the future? But you just start with everyone's got dreams, right?
You sit around and solve all the problems in the universe. So this really comes down to,
I believe when people have a dream that they've shared with other people, that gives them a sense
of purpose and passion and pride, they choose to eat better. They choose to be lifelong learners.
They choose to go to bed earlier. They choose better friends. They choose structure and rhythm
that helps them climb towards their purpose and their dream, their goal. If they don't have those
things, it is a fool's errand to try and have interventions around those other pieces. Cause
it doesn't matter. Like we could change the lunches at schools. We're still going to have obese kids.
Cause guess why? If they don't have a bigger dream and that someone's mentoring them, holding
accountable to in a community that inspires them to rise up, you know, we got nothing.
Yeah, Jonathan, I have noticed that even the algorithm that you get on Instagram,
if you surround yourself with great content, with uplifting high vibrational stuff, it's going to
get refed and repurposed and you're going to end up being that same thing. So the same thing applies.
You surprise with a community that maybe they're not all obese, but guess what? They're all
recognizing everybody's differences, strengths and weaknesses and what actual success looks like.
Everybody's been broken. Everybody's had shitty freaking days, shitty weeks, shitty lives,
gone through ups and downs, divorce, what have you, financial ruin. And yet they can come and
they can talk about what better looks like, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, Jonathan, go ahead.
And it's garbage in, garbage out. Like to that point of just, you know,
like to that point of just, just really quick is like, that's just the principle of society.
And so if all we're doing is sucking up more YouTube, more Instagram, more Netflix, more
Facebook, more Snapchat or Tik Tok or whatever, what is that doing for us? When we look at the
data on society that just is screaming for us to rip out of this quote unquote matrix, coming back
to like the theme of this podcast, it's so simple. If 50 plus percent of us are lonely, guess what?
One out of every two of your neighbors falls in that category. Go knock on the door and be like,
anybody want to be my friend? But we need a better why behind the what. And that's where it's like,
it becomes around innovation and creativity and economics that you can design a rich,
meatier community that comes together with us of all types, body sizes, races, genders,
socioeconomic status, religious creeds, because we can all rally around what do you want to create
that adds the most beauty and value to the world? That's the sacred act that transcends who you sleep with.
Nick, you seem fairly tied into capital. How hard is it to convince capital to think
outwardly first rather than the return? Are there really capital, people who will invest capital
that see the bigger picture? Yes, often it's more philanthropic. Meaning it's gone through,
we've gone through this cycle where occupied movement hit. And all of a sudden, everyone came
up for air and started asking the question of what's off and legitimate is led by, you know,
Gates and, you know, Tony Blair, Carlos Slim, Michael Milken, Eric Schmidt, Zuckerberg, everyone's
like, Whoa, you guys are all mad at us. And philanthropy, there's a really great book,
it's called the revolt of the elites. If anybody ever wants to snag that one. It's one of my
favorites. It was Steve Bannon's Bible for architecting the playbook of Donald Trump for
how he won the election. And he didn't write it. But it was a manifesto that helped everyone
understand some key pieces. And so I believe occupy is basically based on revolt of the elite.
And it's this theory that a lot of the capital and individuals started caring about
philanthropic trends, not their own communities. So I can give all the money to malaria.
But people felt stuck and left behind. And so when you talk about is there really capital out
there that actually cares about community first? If it is it's blood money, or it's, it's second,
third generation wealth, that has decided they don't want to be like dad or mom, and they're
going to go save the world, because they don't have a job that they believe has them saving the
world. I'm being very blunt right now. A lot of money, it's kind of an interesting endeavor to
try and save the world. You know, totally, totally, totally. So you have, and I think it comes from a
deep, meaningful, strong place in these people, but you end up with philanthropic legacy wealth
capital that that's willing to like lose or take a risk or like be managed well with limited returns
or capture turns. And then you have others who've made so much money, they're like, well, maybe
capture turns are okay. And the one thing I can come back to is this is what I believe.
I believe that if you design capitalism to embrace solving some of these social
issues in society where it's not theater, it's just when we gather to set goals and learn skills
together in a constant consistent routine rhythm with our neighbors, things are better for humans,
but we also make better companies. If we can re-architect capitalism to prove this consistently
to the power players, I don't give two shits. You don't even have to care anymore.
Like, let's just let the market fund the right damn thing. And I've seen it with my eyes. Like,
we don't need theater. I don't need you to clean up the spill on aisle three. I just need you to
wake the fuck up that knocking over the bottle in aisle three and playing some myopic short-term
capitalism games where you fire everybody from Johnson and Johnson and then rehire him as
contractors so that the price looks great because you got rid of your employees. And so look,
our future earnings look great. Our stock will jump. Everyone gets their bonuses at the end of
the year. And then we hire you back as contractors. That game is theater. And so we've played it for
so long, we think that's the only way to win. The truth is, the greatest things of our times,
the most valuable companies have come from this weird alchemy that happens in garages with friends.
So wake the fuck up, make more garages, like fund more alchemy like that. And we think it can be
some form of sheet music. It's not sheet music. It's jazz. And so the idea that we can sheet music
the hell out of some form of economic output without acknowledging the fact that there is a
human condition, let some jazz happen on the front end and be the underwriter of that with a portion
of that capital as a way to, sure, add some harmony to capitalism and then be ready to scale the stuff
that's on its way up. I think venture capital is changing drastically. I think welfare will...
Oh, absolutely.
So I'm curious, because I live in the middle of Silicon Valley with Sand Hill. I've been to Sand
Hill hundreds of times. How is it changing? That's an intriguing statement.
So quite a few things. So I believe venture capital is fundamentally on a shift where we have
seen for like a 20 year period, you pump a company full of capital, you run it up,
you take all the value out in the A, B, and C rounds, you do a DEF, screw these people over,
pride and ego. And then you take it public. It has a short term spike and then it crashes.
And then some big firm buys it out again once it hit the skids and they bring it in house.
Then they maybe spend it out again later. Yeah. That's been the cycle of innovation. It's silly,
silly, silly. I think in this modern era, the loop is going to get tighter to where we're going to
see more venture studios in early, early stage, less capital invested, get something to a
technology's readiness level, like one or two, and then it gets acquired. Similar to what an
aqua hire used to be, but instead of an aqua hire, it's buying a product that is like to a point
where it's like, we think we could scale this thing internally. And so it's acquisitions at a
much earlier state versus buying something with a baked, like full revenue engine that you're like,
we're going to buy this thing and take it to a thousand. More experimentation there because
here's the truth. Companies are laying off people in droves. It's happening all around us. And it's
not because, it's because of efficiencies. And like we're now in a world where we don't need
as many people to do all the data intensive things that we used to. And so as we watch that,
these companies will be able to have so much money that they become the ultimate VCs. The question
is, do we tax them and get a universal basic income and everyone gets free money to stay at home?
Or do we not do that? And when they get taxed to pay more welfare, because a bunch of people
aren't working, pretty much the same thing. Or do we re-architect society to have those who aren't
employed inside of these high scaling, high growth utilities, which are what a lot of these
companies are becoming. And do they then architect a shift in education, welfare, social security,
earlier life things that we are doing project based incentives to work on IP that these people
are chasing. And so there's a re-architecture. I think it goes way beyond just venture capital,
but into fundamental capitalism. That there's a way to re-architect capitalism and education
and social security and welfare to break the mold of which we're stuck in. But DC is going to hard
stop be a, I think it is a risk in the middle of this game that it disappears from how we've known
it. And we'll end up having these community rounds of local communities that support early stage IP
with forms of grants and offsets. And you'll get things percolated to a certain level. And then
these whales will have some form of a relationship in market that just goes,
calm, calm, calm, calm. And this gap here where we used to then scale things up,
people played that game over the last decade for sure, last 20 years a bit. And now it kind of got
burnt. Let's be honest, man. No one wants to invest in venture right now. I know two funds
who are out raising that just stopped. I've seen that trends too Jonathan. Yeah. Have you really?
Yeah. And the other thing that kind of goes back to is going back to the root of building community
and building these kinds of this flywheel, it goes against the force DEI and ESG things that have
been forced on people. Ray Fink says, well, sometimes we just got to force some people.
Well, guess what just happened last year, buddy. You just lost 3 trillion in assets in the ESG.
That's because you're trying to force this on people instead of grassroots, creative,
co-creative inspiration owned by communities. And you're having now, I see what you're saying.
You're seeing all these mini things kind of grow and get their funding as opposed to these one
or two big massive unicorns. And you're going to see a lot more repetition and a lot more scale
and a lot more replication and a lot more innovation. It's almost like how AI has
progressively gotten better and better. That is something you're onto.
And on the ends of the whole DEI, ESG movement, I am much more interested in the idea of large
corporations and the federal government and any of these key stakeholders saying, here's our big
problems, like our very real ones. These are the big innovations we need done, stall for these.
And then this community being able to have clarity and optics into these projects and saying,
I like that problem. I'm going to try and solve it by approaching it this way to ensure that I
think it's going to add the most beauty and value to the world. And if this is a truly merit-based
system where everyone is engaging with this database freely, now all of a sudden you have
people engaging with learning skills that matter for the future roadmap, developing products that
these groups can potentially commercialize and change the world with at high-scale volume
manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, brand, all the things they already do.
And we start to have this better relationship between the masses of plus theater. I mean,
let's think about high schoolers. Why can't high schoolers build and ship cool products
and work on these things today? Because high schoolers are wicked smart, but instead we have
them doing theater. They're doing theater work. I want my kids working on the roadmaps
for the largest companies in the world, learning skills that actually make them applicable.
So there's a whole push in my opinion that if we can rethink some of the philanthropy
and the corporate development approaches, the CSR, corporate social responsibility,
and the corp dev to become one stack, we now have a really compelling merit-based
X-Prize for everybody to play that I've done some basic math on a few fundamentals. I found a way
to get $19,647 per person per year over the age of 15 in the pocket of every American until death,
just based on some slight adjustments around R&D and philanthropy. And if we could get the masses
to gather a society to work on the innovation roadmap that all the key stakeholders need and
want, and they own the IP as the masses and it has to be licensed or acquired,
that's a fun rethink of the matrix. Amen. It is. 315, do you have to get your son?
Yeah, yeah. I need to jump too. So let me close it out real quick. So Nick, this has been an
absolutely amazing conversation. You're touching my heart and it really, and I think a lot of our
listeners will probably resonate with a lot of what you say, because at the end of the day,
we want our communities to thrive. So I appreciate your message. So thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you. Yeah.
Only one question. We've done this for a long time. We used to ask each one of our
podcast guests who their character in the matrix would be, Nick. So I'm going to ask you. I've
already got somebody in mind. If you've got a quick moment, who would you be if you were in the matrix?
Man. Isn't there a rabbit in there? There is a white rabbit.
I'd be the white rabbit. That's a good one. I haven't heard that one yet.
That's right. Yeah. I'd be the white rabbit.
It's a character on the shoulder, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I love it. Follow the
white rabbit, baby. All right. Thank you, Nick. It's been an absolute pleasure having you and
to our listeners. Please comment. Let us know what you're thinking about these episodes.
If you have someone to recommend, please do. This has been an absolutely wonderful episode.
We will. This has been Living in the Matrix and we will see you next week. Much love, everybody.