Welcome back everybody to another episode of the CNS Podcast. Our guest today is Koo
Shong Hirpada, entrepreneur and founder of CLD9. Today we'll discuss how Koo Shong's childhood
shaped his entrepreneurial journey, what sacrifices it takes to make a company as a first-time founder,
how optimizing for happiness can detract from your business, dating as an entrepreneur,
Koo Shong's opinion on AGI, and much more. Thanks for listening.
I'll only drink like three of these a day. It works so well dude like every time I'm feeling
like low energy I'll get one of those you know electrolyte? No. You don't know electrolyte? They
just sell them at like gas stations and stuff because when I was in Colombia I always felt
dehydrated because it was always hot, humid, and so I would always- Are you from Colombia? No.
I'm not from Colombia. This would be a good way to for us to like figure out where the hell you're
from. You'll never know dude. It's a secret work for the CIA actually. I won't reveal where I'm
from either in case ICE finds out. I recently just got my green card. Big achievement I would say.
Because you were on here with uh the what is it called the visa for study? No no I was just on
visa my dad's visa and I technically like it's a good thing because I wouldn't have been able to
start this without a green card. I literally started the company the second I got a green
card I think like a year and a half ago or like they they give like a pre-green card or something
like that. The US is kind of a tiny bubble like everyone's like personality is so different like
in India and in Europe. I grew up with like one of my friends who's European called Gaia. We had very
similar tastes of humor but nobody could ever get it. They always thought we were like weirdly
like just way too brutal but like it's just our sense of humor like everyone there is so direct
in some capacity. What were you in Europe for? I wasn't in Europe he was from- Oh okay. Yeah and
then I'm from India. I can't reveal that. I'm just kidding. How does your childhood in India influence
what you do today? I think it's less about my childhood because I moved when I was like seven.
I think it's more about watching my dad go from like living in India to like trying to figure
everything out here and watching him from a third person perspective that like has really changed
my work ethic I would say. Because like okay if you're like a first generation or was it first or
second generation immigrant I think I think it's first yeah if you're a first generation immigrant
and you're really young like your role model is probably going to be your parents because you got
to see them like struggle like crazy just so you could like get to a point where you could like
be a dipshit and like I don't know go to college right. So I got to see his work ethic and seeing
how like the change in culture really affected him which it didn't like he was just a baller about
it. He literally came here he's like I know exactly what I need to do I'm gonna work my ass off I'm
gonna figure this out I'm gonna learn about everything that I can possibly learn about in
terms of building wealth and then got us to a position and now he's just like a chiller
software engineer that just like has a great financial life and everything like that that
allows me to like actually pursue like what I wanted to do because he kind of took up the
responsibility of trying to get it get trying to get us set up so he never pushed like oh you need
to be a software engineer you need to be this you need to be that he was always like do what you
want to do because I had no idea what I was doing earlier and I ended up figuring it out so like he
put that trust on me so yeah that's a lengthy answer. What was that struggle like for you
seeing your parents coming as immigrants and not really knowing this new country that they're in
and you're kind of just watching as a young kid what was that like? Yeah well I technically
struggled with them right yeah but I really like the only time I found out that it was the struggle
was when I grew up because then like I talked to my friends and I'd be like oh you guys didn't have
to sleep on the floor that's crazy because as a kid you're just like you don't even see it as a
struggle right like I feel like people overemphasize like oh I went through so much struggle as a kid
generally like even if like you're a kid and you're poor like all the kids back in India
that I grew up with were really happy even if they were like dirt poor so it didn't affect me
until I got older and like I said bringing it back to like saw what my dad went through because
as a kid I just thought oh my dad's like just working and stuff like that and then I got older
and I was like holy shit how did he make that like it seems like a miracle like what he did so like
I really need to step my game up you know it was like struggle like it was a struggle like I got
to like I moved like 18 times as a kid which was like crazy but like I don't know if you're hard
working like it's not that bad in my opinion so you always figure like a way out of it so yeah
what about you my parents both immigrated from Mexico so also first generation immigrants yeah
didn't grow up with a whole lot yeah but I saw the disparity between where I was at and where other
people in the US were at earlier on because my parents were Catholic and they were like you're
gonna get a Catholic education so that was like their number one thing that they cared about really
yeah so they found scholarships and financial aid to get us to go to Catholic private school
okay and at Catholic private school you have people who are pretty well off yeah and so you
come back from like Christmas break and you're like fifth grade everyone's like oh yeah I went to Cancun
oh I went to this place oh I got this for Christmas right yes definitely and then I'm sitting there in
fifth grade and I'm like yeah no I we were at home we didn't do very much my presence came from like
donations dude like we were like at that point in time we were struggling quite a bit so yeah we
would go to the church and essentially get Christmas presents really from as donations from the church
and people who went to my school their parents would donate those presents wow and so there was
like a lot of like oh what's going on like why is my life like this different is different than
everybody else's so I was very in tune with kind of the difference between what I was going through
what others were some people might take that and be like oh life is unfair yeah I was given a bad
hand etc etc but the bigger lesson that I actually ended up learning from that was
that those material conditions didn't really matter to the actual humans behind them and the
connections that you could still make with them right yeah and so for a long time I felt a little
bit like on the outside on the boundaries but I learned that lesson that oh no it doesn't matter
if someone's lived a completely different experience from you like they could be let's
say dirt poor living on wherever and they can still connect to someone who's very very wealthy
on that human level yes yeah I think and I definitely went through that observation period
as well when I was like yeah all my friends are living completely different lives right
but it's it's less about oh damn it sucks that my life is like this and their life is like that it's
more of like the act of observing that and seeing like okay this is what the like situation looks
like where do I want to be within all of this you know like um I think that's the better way to go
about it and that's the way to not limit yourself as well you know as a family as a as like an
individual um so I think that's probably why you're in the state that you're in now as well
because you got to observe that and you're like okay um I'm not gonna whine about this but like
this is where I want to be maybe that's one of the things I often tell people about seeing
that disparity is that as opposed to it being a sad thing it was more like oh you actually see how
high you can go yeah right yeah so like let's say your only communication and connection to other
people is among people who aren't doing super well financially who maybe are struggling you're not
really seeing what is possible out of that right yes and so it can be very limiting you create these
stories about what's possible and what's not yeah versus you see this disparity you're like oh that
person did that they built this company and they didn't have anything before yeah that's a possibility
yeah definitely and like the kids might not have done it but the parents were a lot of themselves
made doctors engineers entrepreneurs exactly and so you see that and it just creates a new level of
what you're aiming for which if you aim high way higher yeah you land among the stars right and
that's a gift as well and that's like I think something my parents put a lot of effort into
it's like they didn't have to put me in like a neighborhood that maybe like had an amazing
school and try to sacrifice so much just so I would go to a good school because if you go to a good
school but you might be at the bottom like financially but like you're still seeing all
your friends are like damn like their parents are like really really well off and apparently
they were from nothing because you're probably close family friends with them as well and that's
possible like knowing what's possible is probably the greatest gift not only from like being
surrounded and like going from lower class to maybe middle class but also just entrepreneurship
in general I'd say is like all about knowing what's possible and that most things are generally as
simple as they seem you know yeah because it sets the bar higher right there is no bar there is no
bar but like let's say like your college counselor like I have a friend went to a pretty horrible
school like and there was like no support nothing like the school wasn't great and so goes to the
counselor and they're like oh yeah you're not getting into CU Boulder yeah and that's like the
expectation is that they can't get in oh it's too good of a school for you I go to my counselor
and they're like oh what school do you want to go to and there's putting out all these schools like
oh you could go to Harvard oh you could go to Yale you could go to any anywhere yeah the expectation
wasn't oh what are you going to go to college it's oh where do you want to go what do you want to do
yeah what do you want to do exactly yeah so there there's those people that are actually believing
in you versus being in that in a different community you might not have that right yeah and it's
sometimes maybe it's not even like people believing in you it's just like having such an open mindset
because of the situation you're in where it's just like oh yeah like you can do whatever you want
you know just like having being surrounded by people that think that way because in Seattle I'm
from Seattle and um everyone has a generally very closed mindset and then when I came here it was
it was a nice breath of fresh air where a lot of people here are just like do what you want to do
generally everyone in Seattle is like oh damn you don't have an internship at the age of 12 like
what's wrong with you you don't have an Amazon internship you don't have a startup going at 12
years old and it's so funny because I'll go back to Washington now and all the kids are trying so
hard like I'll be talking to one of these kids and this kid is like 13 I'll be at the gym he'll
walk up to me and be like yo by the way like I have three startups and like I'm trying to get an
internship I'm like bro you're 12 and it's impossible to do three startups at once like I'm telling you
right now why do you feel the need to tell me this like what is the approval here it would be great
if you were 12 and do a startup but I honestly recommend people to do startups at like later
ages yeah enjoy your childhood dude not even yeah I mean like dude it's just too much like this is
like this is very not great for your growth as like a child in my opinion like startup is very
far removed on what you should be doing as a kid yeah I agree I think also just being so
focused on oh I have to build something I have to solve this problem when you're 12 13 years old
like you're you're a kid man you're still growing you're still learning you don't know what you
want to do yet yeah like enjoy yourself learn new things meet new people do all these things don't
go out and try building a startup at 12 years old yeah because if you actually like are tie your
emotions to how well your startup is doing a lot of times then like doing a startup is in my eyes
like choosing to have a mental health illness literally I think we've talked about this before
like literally doing a startup is like being like I'm that normal happy person let me just have like
horrible like depression for the next two years of my life and choosing to do that yeah right so
like that's a choice like you know it's going to be 18 hour days you know like all your emotions
are going to be tied on whether you get the next customer or not do you really want to do like I
would have straight up like trauma if I start did a startup at the age of 12 because also no one
takes you seriously that at that young age as well oh yeah like if you're walking around like oh I'm
building this AI startup and you're 13 well yeah that's what I did with this kid he was like I'm
doing three startups one of them is AI stuff but like dude I don't believe you you know it's like
I don't want to be involved with that because like I you're just too young it's just too young I know
you recommend it you know so maybe there are some kids who have it in them but no they are for the
majority of people it's not the best path to take yeah when you were young were you big into I know
I want to start a business I know I want to do this I did you know exactly what that was going
to be like no I had no idea so I actually was an artist for most of my life like different forms
of art like I wanted to do 3D animation for the longest time I was a painter drawer and then I
was a musical artist for like a couple of years as well so I had no idea I was going to do this I
just knew I really liked building things like and then I did like a little engineering stuff on the
side as well as a kid yeah I was very similar to a lot of my friends at that age and all we cared
about was just building stuff you know or like making something which is a blessing by the way
like which is like most people don't get the opportunity to do that but that's like all I was
into and then this came about because all the art forms that I like really liked I would spend a lot
of time on art and then I would get nothing out of it generally because it's so luck-based and with a
startup it's like no it's a startup is a lot like art like you're building something and sometimes
it can be visually like building something but it's a form of art in my opinion but you're getting
rewarded proportionally or exponentially based on how much work you put in so it's it's the ultimate
form of building something so that's the reason I went into it so let me plan for that which I did
and how did it become what you're building now with cloud nine how did you find out this was
the problem you wanted to solve this was what you wanted to do for the next two three four five
years I think it was just based a lot of personal experience like just personal experience with
like supplementation and I come from an engineering background my whole family is just
like a family of engineers right and I saw this gaping hole of a problem where it's just like damn
this like massive industry is completely broken in my opinion and it's like run by the wrong people
and I viewed it as an engineering problem I was just like no if you build the right tech and you
create the right solution then you can literally just take this massive industry and put it into
one product right I was just like okay bet let's let's spend two years because the pathway after
that after I really understood the problem the pathway is really clear on like what you need to
do what you need to build so I was like okay we know customers are going to buy this because it's
literally the solution they've been waiting for and solution I had been waiting for for such a long
time so the second I saw the problem I was like no brainer let's go after this yeah can you tell
us a little bit about what the problem is how you're solving it yeah what that looks like right now
for you what state the company's in yeah so the biggest problem I think a lot of people might know
with with supplementation is there's just so much research out there and there's so much there's so
many different supplements and it takes a lot of work to get things right when it comes to your
health and I had gone through that experience myself I was spending 200 hours a year like just
researching like these ingredients and I was like watching more plates more days yeah like watching
that watching Andrew Huberman like reading through like research articles on like how what's the
dosage of vitamin d I need to be taking and I noticed a lot of other people were doing the same
thing and what I realized it's like most people are doing the research not because they want to
be because they have to and most people are spending so much money not because they want to
be because they have to so I realized because of my dad's tech background because I've been surrounded
by like founders my whole life um like this problem could be solved if the supplement industry
isn't that lazy and builds the right technology around it so where what we are is basically
we're honestly 80% of tech company and 20% of supplement company users basically go through
like a conversation with an AI that we built and it builds you the most scientifically accurate
supplement formulation for exactly what you need and then we took it a step further and we like
not not just making the recommendations easier for people let's actually ship them a product
that's like really easy to use so a lot of the company now is building the robotics and the
manufacturing around building a product that can be easy to drink and it's super personalized
towards you so yeah we're doing it right now and we're the only company in the world to do so we're
the only company that somehow builds a manufacturing line that can personalize up to 28 million
different formulations right now up to a mass level scale with a machine that's like this big
so we took a completely different approach to it we launched about a month and a half ago with this
and it's been amazing like this is the dev cycle before you launch is hell like you met me when I
was going through the dev cycle I was just so depressed and then you launch and you're the
happiest like generally for the first couple weeks it kind of sucks but once you launch and you see
the customer feedback oh my god like it was it was amazing so that's where we are right now we
launched anyone can buy the products go check it out we're growing pretty fast as well and the
product is getting significantly better than I ever could have imagined it the fitness industries
changed so much in the in the past few years at least from what I've seen on it at least before
it used to be like oh lift weights eat food and there seems to be this huge jump towards optimizing
performance taking the right supplements why do people want that and why is it so important to
them yeah I mean I wouldn't even limit it to the fitness industry like we used to be like a fitness
supplement brand now we're like all supplementation but I think it's people are finally wanting to care
about their health and people are wanting not just care about their health but they kind of want an
edge on other people right like they want a competitive edge and they're realizing like if
I optimize my biology then I can get that competitive edge that most people don't have in this day and
age because you know people are eating garbage and people are just living not that human lifestyles
the way that we were intended to do which is not a bad thing by the way like maybe this is like the
direction people are supposed to evolve in but we just the technology is not caught up yet which is
why people have to take supplements in the first place but I always say like if you don't need to
take supplements don't take them like I know I'm building a supplement company but like we really
are pushing like just take exactly what you need you know and I think the fitness industry and the
overall like health industry is moving towards like less is more research base less is more like the
bro science doesn't work anymore you know those were some good days dude the bro science the bro
science days just three sets of 12 bench press go eat chicken rice and broccoli and that's all you
need dude those I mean maybe like it does kind of work in some aspect like don't over complicate
things you know like just it's it's it's relatively simple like just get the baseline stuff you need
which is just lift heavy and eat it's like generally you get 99 of your results from that
and then if you want the extra one percent then like optimize everything about your routine make
sure you're doing like dup stuff like that which most people don't need so anytime somebody asks
me for fitness advice I'm always like let's go to the gym and train hard and then eat a lot of food
because I didn't do that like earlier in my fitness life like I didn't do that much research on like
what am I supposed to do in fact I still don't do any research on like what am I supposed to
be doing at the gym right it's like I got trained by a marine and he was just like deadlift bench
squat and go to failure until you want to cry and then eat a lot of food I was like okay dad
um it just worked have you ever seen the uh the meme with the bell curve and you have on one side
the beginner and he's like I go to the gym I lift heavy weights I eat and then I sleep then you see
the middle guy and he's like well actually the research says rep range of six to eight and like
you have to take all these supplements then you have the other side of the bell curve who's the
advanced guy I lift weights I eat a lot and I sleep yeah yeah it's like that's the journey honestly
yeah and at the end of it like you'll still be interested in the research and I still use a lot
of the research like on what I do on my day-to-day life but like I know what's important what's not
important right yeah those big levers are gonna get you a lot farther yeah and try and optimize
all the small things I was the smallest when I was like going to the gym and just trying to hit like
one fiber on my rear delt like that was just not ideal what do you like a two inch movement
it's just like no half reps are better now now everyone's doing half reps like our research study
comes out yeah everyone's doing partials that's that's usually how it goes dude one new research
study comes out everyone hops on like oh this is the new big thing and then tiktok and instagram
are making that even they just make this so much worse that's what we're trying to change as well
where we don't really believe that like influencers or anybody should be talking about the research
other than the research which I think or people who are educated on reading the research yeah if
they're if they're educated on reading the research that's great I do think now we're reaching a point
where the technology is getting there where you can start to remove some of the bias behind the
research and just base it completely on data right because like your favorite your favorite
researcher your favorite influencer might be super biased to certain research that honestly probably
will help them right and companies do the same thing so we have this big like moral thing where
we're like we are never going to talk about what these supplements do like it's just going to be
like the ai that that speaks on it like because it I don't want to be a company that's like oh
take creativity and it's going to get you super jacked just to get more sales like people in my
opinion are going to buy more cld9 if like we have nothing to do with what the supplements do or say
or interact with your life like the data just speaks for them so that that needs to change like
I think it needs to completely progress to like influencers are just like talking about how they
do things but not trying to educate because I promise you one of these days as much as I
hate ai ai was is is going to do a better job at educating your end consumer about health than
your influencer will because your influencer can't memorize five billion studies right neither can
your doctor by the way but I don't know that's kind of where I'm at the the whole supplement
thing with people funding their own research it just there's a creatine monohydrate which
is well studied everybody knows it works yeah but then you'll see all these other companies making
like creatine like poly hydrate or creatine whatever and they'll quote one study that's
yeah it's more effective than creatine monohydrate and they funded it yeah and it's like they'll just
sell it at a huge amount of money off yeah yeah well the sub the way the supplement industry works
is the FDA basically says you can generally do anything you want with the marketing so if I
really wanted to I could probably convince people that vitamin c cures cancer and I could get away
with it like that's so stupid like as a tech guy like I look at that I'm like I want to stay the
crap away from the supplement industry because I'm like that just does not work like that just does
not work whatsoever so yeah it is a very messed up industry which we are keeping a very big distance
from in terms of like how we do things like we don't even look at generally unless it's marketing
like in terms of visuals we don't really look at what other companies are doing because we're so
far removed from it yeah it's a more hands-off approach to letting the research and letting the
ai tell people what to do it's not like I don't know exactly what's best for you yeah I have no
idea like me as the founder I have I will not tell you what you're supposed to take like don't rely
on me to tell you what what you're supposed to take take unbiased data on what you're supposed
to take and like also we don't really operate that much as like a sub like I said we don't
operate as a sub company like we really view ourselves more of like a platform and a service
where you kind of get exactly what you need and you get out if you don't need us anymore don't take
the product right but if you do need like if you go to your doctor and they're like you have a
vitamin b12 deficiency and like you have these deficiencies then we make it really easy for you
to fix that problem and then once it's solved like maybe get off but if you don't want like if it's
for like focus for example daily focus and you might stay on just what does cloud nine expand
into the new tropics space or is that not there yet no everything we're everything um because like
if we're gonna be like as personalized as possible we have to hold a pretty decent ingredient catalog
so we have we have new tropics and we're gonna constantly expand this because the more we
expand our supplements the more we can expand our data pool and the more personalized it can
actually be right um yeah so what are some of the struggles you face right now being a young
startup founder in boulder colorado um i think it's my age a lot of the times and the fact that
like a kid like me like i'm 22 i should not be going through this much stress on a daily basis
like i just feel like overwhelmed because like my job as the ceo is trying to do the hardest thing
possible for a company that's this complicated and that's trying to change the industry this much
and i'm very young for that not in a bad way it's just like i'm very young to be taking this much
stress and the hardest problems the company is facing honestly i'd say it's it's figuring out
the marketing a little bit but like we generally know what we're doing we're not facing that many
problems right now like we know exactly what we need to do it's honestly like lack of funding
because the vc market is just crap right now um though we are getting funding um but and also
we just don't have that many people working on the team the where we are probably should have
taken 20 people working every single day and we made it work with four guys so now we're under
staff now that we're selling so just getting more people on here like having more people join the
team so i can focus on the things i need to and they my my other guys can focus on the stuff that
they're supposed to focus on we can outsource maybe like some stupid like integration stuff with the ai
right so yeah it's not the old problems we used to deal with yeah now it's the scale problem
yeah now it's a scale problem yeah it's a scale problem and just product market fit right because
we've only launched for a month and a half the product is there the product is perfect in my
opinion like it's it's gonna get there sorry it's not perfect but it's gonna get there now it's like
figuring out how are we gonna market this to where we don't seem too broad and we don't seem too
niche because the product is literally built for any supplement that you would possibly want any
any outcome we have research on 60 year olds that would have hyperthyroidism and providing
them supplementation for that to like just guys that want to get jacked right so how do you market
that because it's an all-in-one solution we built the solution to fix the supplement industry which
means that we solve everyone's problems at the same time because we can because no one else could
do it so how do you market that yeah most companies start within a niche we're solving this one
specific problem for one specific group of people but what you're doing is solving the whole
supplement problem for everyone yeah and in one centralized place right well the question is if
for example you if you were doing a startup right and there was a problem that is as wide ranging
like like servers just don't work and everyone's using servers right would you try to fix a silicon
chip inside the server or if you could you would just try to solve the entire problem at once
right and just be the only company that solves the entire problem and just fix all the servers in the
world that's a stupid example but that's that's what i thought about it's like all my startup
professors used to be like oh you need to focus on a niche focus on a very small problem i'm like
screw that that's why the startup ecosystem is getting worse because people need to focus on
bigger problems and people need to fund bigger problems that's my perspective on it i wanted to
solve a big problem and with time we will be able to market it correctly because if enough people
get their eyes on it then they'll be like oh okay easy but how do you how do you convince them of
that is is the road to navigate people like to keep things the same right it's a homeostasis they
like to keep the industries as they go so it's a very tough problem to solve what were things that
you faced early on in terms of fears limiting beliefs when you were coming into becoming an
entrepreneur what what kind of internal struggles were you facing there i think i kind of relate to
you because we've talked about this before where it's just like you think everything is a lot more
complicated than it actually is you have so much fear on damn if this goes to shit what do i do
with my life right most people don't put all their chips in one place and then also when you start
like everyone hates you for some reason like they don't want you to start in some capacity like most
of your friends like i i had a lot of issues where i lost so many friends along the way because
i was so zoned in on this right and they almost didn't like how quickly i was progressing i lost
a lot of friends that way because most people are just going the traditional route yeah i think the
hard thing there is if you're growing as a person and you're changing very very quickly your friends
weren't friends with the person you are now they're friends with the person you were before yeah so
eventually some friends are going to shed off yeah and in that in between you don't find the people
that are higher than you you can't get into those circles but the people who you're moving past
yeah are also kind of falling off so you're left in this lonelier less friends area where you're
trying to grow trying to make it big for sure and and even with the friends that want to see you
succeed like the biggest issue i had was i would live in a conference room inside university right
for like 18 hours a day and my whole job was trying to get to the nitty-gritty details of
everything being isolated in some aspect trying to build a product and then they expect you to be
really social when you're out of that situation when you've basically tried to force train your
brain to getting really good at the details of things so i struggle with that as well where i
went from you know i'd go weeks and just living in a conference room to trying to socialize again
and then i'd be like damn i totally forgot how to talk to people so that sucked in my opinion that's
like like i don't even think like like in hindsight like figuring out the problem building the solution
like that's not even the hardest part that's genuine it's genuinely like the emotional
execution yeah it's the execution and you have a responsibility to execute as efficiently and
as quick as possible to keep your company alive and all your emotions are tied to the company
and when the company goes to shit you feel like a dickhead like you feel like ass like you feel
terrible when the company goes to crap and then when the company's going really well you'll be
really happy but then you're like i don't want to lose that so i need to be in perfect execution
mode and when you're in perfect execution mode you kind of lose friends so so there's a lot of
sacrifices to be made there but it does force you to be a better person forces you to be the most
efficient version of yourself the smartest most efficient most put together version of yourself
not emotionally maybe but like in terms of the way you live your life um yeah i mean what were
your experiences with because you went through a startup as well i worked on a startup for 14
months it was a blockchain ticketing app for live events for concerts conferences etc and
and so one of the hardest things was balance right because you come in you're like oh i can
live a normal life and also do a startup right yeah but you have responsibilities with friends
responsibilities with family maybe you're trying to stay healthy you have all of these things going
on but then you have to get stuff done yeah so there's a huge conflict of things that make you
maybe happy and fulfilled right now that you can't fully go into because to get stuff done i have to
be on 100 on the company right so i'm not even sure if it's possible to have a balance ideally
that would be the ideal thing is you can build a startup you work nine to five on your startup and
you have a normal life other than that it's not possible it's not even close to possible it's not
usually possible maybe eventually yeah but in those hard times when you're trying to get traction
trying to get funding trying to do those initial things to make somebody be like oh you have
something yeah and now we'll trust you will believe in you and now you cultivate a bit more balance
in your life yeah you do have to make those sacrifices i don't think you should make them
forever no i don't think you should make them forever maybe if you're like die like i'm a big
when i go into something i'm like 100 yeah and i've been like that my whole life the sacrifices
are definitely probably the hardest part about entrepreneurship and a lot of the guys that are
in the company right now have had to make similar sacrifices and they they go through that system
that i originally went through where it's just like oh damn like your girlfriend's gonna be
mad at you if you are working like 14 hours a day and you don't call them right and you don't
really if you do it really young then you don't get to live a normal college run through and i do
sometimes look back at it i'm like damn like all my friends were partying and they got to socialize
and they have such amazing friend groups they got to have girlfriends and stuff like that and i was
sitting in a conference room like the whole time but it's worth it it's i think it's worth because
i i really find the most amount of fulfillment in building things and i get fulfillment from
watching other people build things based on the company and the company gets to fund whatever
they want to build ultimately slowly you get all the stuff you missed yeah right i think you have
to have a line where something is asked of you that goes too far and you know where that's no
i can't do that so i was talking with david brown and one of the things he said was yeah i worked
hard on the business but i was always getting eight to nine hours of sleep every single day
yeah like that was he was going to do that i operate better i feel better i have better
relationships i get eight nine hours of sleep i don't care yeah i'm going to do that right yeah
and so having those boundaries and not letting something completely take over and then maybe
ten years down the line you have a successful company and you're horribly unhappy yes yeah and
i'm still learning to draw that line i mean he's completely right about that when it's like you
you got to make sure like your health and your sleep is good and i sacrifice the crap out of
that like i just threw that at the window for like the first and still i mean i still kind of do some
sometimes that's why i'm still learning how to do it but yeah that's that's a good line to to live
by and that's what i'm trying to learn learn how to do because i've gone through like weeks where
it's just like oh who needs food who needs sleep and then i come out of the week i'm like damn i
feel like i'm on the brink of death and now i need to go back to washington and take a break for a week
like imagine if you could just stay you want to like have that threshold and try to get as close
to like unhealthy as possible with maximum efficiency but never you know don't go past the
line don't go past the line because the second you go past the line you'll crash that's where
burnout comes from right yeah you see high achievers you see you see michael jordan you see all these
people have done amazing things it's really easy to idolize everything they've done but then you
actually take a look at it and it's like no they've sacrificed literally every single possible thing
in their life yeah to be really really really really good at this one thing yeah and that's
probably not the life most people want to live no like you want to have some semblance of
happiness in other areas of your life most yeah most people would and those people are built
completely differently exactly they're still very admirable for becoming so good at that one thing
but it's easy to idolize them but it's important to remember what the cost of doing something like
that is yeah i mean i don't know i'm kind of on the i'm i'm a little bit on their side because
i care less about like i'm a very objective oriented person and i've talked about this
like on a different podcast before as well but i kind of view the world as there's happiness
oriented people and there's objective oriented people right um and i would prefer if most people
picked one because the people that stick in the middle that like want to have a balance generally
fail at both and i picked objective because i just internally think i have a purpose to to go to a
certain direction and i know people that are happiness oriented and they're very happy like
they're great they surround their entire lives and structure their lives around happiness for me i'm
okay with making those sacrifices because i just want to get there like i literally just want to
get there like that's all that matters like i want to get to the end objective even if that means
sacrificing happiness even if that means structuring everything around this one thing which i've done so
far um and i've like the problems have come with it but it's worth it in my opinion like it's worth
every single second of it and i felt that during fitness as well like when i went through my fitness
like journey and i still feel it to this day where no like focus on one thing and when i when the
time will come to be happy i will structure my life around happiness i just don't i know i have
a life purpose and i want to like get there as efficiently as possible yeah i have time i've i
have time constraints on myself as well really i think you have seasons you have like the seasons
in your life where maybe you do give up some things and you go harder than anyone else and then you
oh i did what i wanted to do okay now i i can focus more on happiness maybe on my friendships
maybe on these things yes but if your whole life is just one season not ideally because you do have
an objective you hit that objective you're like okay good you don't continue following the path
of giving up everything yeah keep raising the bar because it's really easy to play that game where
you just keep upping the bar and you there is no bar yeah exactly like there's there's it's always
going to keep going your bar is whatever you set for yourself i want to hit this objective yeah
okay good i hit it yeah i did what i wanted to do and sure i can set another objective but maybe now
i do want to focus on maybe starting a family maybe doing this yeah i mean that's definitely
a healthy way of thinking i'm not sure if i'm there yet i'm like there's no there's no limit
in the sky like i want to like try to just do what my objective in life is to try to do what luck
says i generally can't do i want to try to defy luck to the maximum possible potential are you
is your purpose as a human to experience humanity to its fullest or to try to progress it and devote
yourself to progressing humanity in some capacity because if you're here to experience humanity then
you're gonna like go through college and you're gonna try to just experience everything right
you're gonna go you're gonna go abroad for two months or you're gonna quit your job for a year
like you're gonna do this and i support that and then you have those people that are like okay i'm
here just to progress humanity then you need to devote yourself to that and i'd say i'm heavily
on one side which i don't find a lot of people are these days i've met a couple people in my life
that are similar and a lot of ceos that get to that point are similar but i don't see them on
a day-to-day basis so that is also very isolating very very isolating not a lot of people at this
age think that way it's a lonely path to go down yeah when not you're basically doing what nobody
else is doing so you're not going to find many people who understand what you're doing for sure
and i definitely envy the other side and look at it through a glass window but yeah what are your
your friendships like right now how has that changed since you started i've gone through periods
where i had a lot of friends like when the startup was doing really like when we won nvc and we went
through the successes like you know you go through those periods where everyone wants to do with you
like everyone wants a meeting with you everyone's a friend with you my closest friends i have a very
small group of friends i have maybe three very close friends two of them i grew up with that i'm
heavily inspired by and i have a couple friends in boulder as well and they understand my lifestyle
that's the best part like i'm very close friends with the people that understand like we understand
each other and we try to make each other feel i'm not friends with that many people that are heavily
involved in my lifestyle i like the contrast because my main objective with a lot of my friends
is like i want to not think about the startup at all i'm here to like not think i want to turn my
brain off i want to just hang out with you guys like have fun i have like three four very close
friends and then obviously you have you have those acquaintances if you're in a similar position to
mine where you have hundreds of thousands of acquaintances on the day-to-day basis and i've
gone to a point where i have to pick and choose my friends very wisely so i keep the circle
pretty small how are you choosing them um i kind of just have one criteria like do they either
make me want to be a better person um and do they like kind of i don't know do they make me feel
better generally right and the the first one is more important like if i'm talking to one of my
friends like am i genuinely inspired by them i might not talk to you every single day i might
only talk to you every three months i still consider you my closest friend because every time we talk
my perspective in the world like significantly changes and i have like one or two of those
friends where they're very high level guys that i'll go to washington and we'll just hang out in
like one of their houses and we'll try to predict the next five years of what the world is going to
look like and we'll take both of our perspectives and then we'll come out and be like damn like i
knew about that i knew everything about that's going on with ai right now five years ago from
one guy you know so like i kind of saw it coming that that i view him as one of my closest friends
because he inspired the crap out of me and how did you find these friends that inspire you to be
better where are you finding them just luck i would say and it's also what we talked about earlier
if you your parents sacrificed so much to put yourself put you in the right position i went
to a school where there were a lot of smart people that had very high standards for themselves and my
friends should have very high standards for themselves unless they're just like a friend i
want to party with um those are two different friends you have drinking friends and yeah friend
friends yeah yeah what about you what do you base your your friends off of not that most people
should be having like a checklist on their friends like it should be generally natural
they're friends at last yeah like there's probably there's friends that even if you don't see them
for two years you're like see them again you're like it's exactly the same right whenever i meet
someone and i see something in them that inspires me i see a character trait of them yes that i
would want to have like oh you're really really good at that thing maybe like other parts of them
don't click as well with me but i admire this so much about you yes and i find that in them
i want to be this person's friends and i'll try to be their friend and that's how most of my
best friendships have come about is i was inspired or admired something about a person
yeah and i want to learn from them so i'm gonna be their friend yeah no that's that's exact i
would say that's how i got better my whole life at anything yeah i copy people yeah just like i
literally like forced myself to be constantly surrounded by them when i first started the
entrepreneurship journey i was like what am i doing one of my friends or now he's my friend but i just
saw this dude like named bruce and he would just be grinding away and i was like i like his work
ethic i want to be that work ethic so i was just like dude i'm just gonna like live around you for
the next year that's what i did like it changed my life but now he's one of my closest friends but
it's because i admired that work ethic day in and day out 12 hours in a conference room and maybe
that's not what it takes all the time but i was just like holy shit you can do that you can work
you can work he knows how to work yeah bro knows how to work and then i've been inspired by another
friend of mine he is so unbelievably good at seeing the big picture and predicting the future
he also is very technically skilled probably the smartest person i've met he was big in ai basically
he's he's one of the ai overlords so heavily inspired by him because of his ability to see
the future that's very important in entrepreneurship you need to be able to see the future you're not
building today's products you're building the products that people are going to want in a year
that's how you're going to build the next billion dollar company i admire that about him him combined
with my friend with amazing work ethic is really what built me i think i heard the quote when i was
like 15 where you're the sum of the five people you're around yeah i took it way too seriously
yeah that's just how all my friends came to me i surround myself with people that have something
i want to be like i'll just by diffusion become more like that and so far it's worked what would
you say you're the character trait you're trying to look for now in yourself that you're trying to
improve being unapologetic in everything you do because i've always been a people pleaser
so it it's always been a challenge for me to kind of go up against confrontation to be like no that's
wrong i don't want you to do that and confronting people in a way that makes them like me less and
i'm no longer pleasing them and so that's something i've been focused on for the past year and i've
made quite a bit of progress on it hanging around people who do do that and seeing how they do it
yeah and then taking cues from those things yeah it's just something that's plagued me my whole
life is being a people pleaser dude yeah i guess it might come from the childhood stuff we talked
about being kind of a little bit on the outside trying to fit in trying to be like these other
people that i didn't see myself as part of so it was a way that i learned to adapt if i'm likable
and i'm agreeable people like me and then i fit in and then i don't have any issues and so it's
relearning that neural pathway of how i interact with the world yeah it's valid and and you don't
want to be friends with people breezers and you don't want to be a people pleaser yourself
generally people are more attracted to like even if it's the wrong thing people that are like
stick to their word what would you do differently if you could get rid of some of the fear that
maybe you have inside of you what would i do right now well yeah i think that's the that's the trait
i'm looking for now is execution speed like i am trying to get to a point where i execute on things
as quickly as possible you know that you know that period when you're like i want to do this and then
actually doing it yeah the most successful and the most i view this also as a trait of intelligence
is um closing that gap yeah like it should be instantaneous so it's not really fear like i'm
not scared of doing things maybe it's a mix of fear and laziness not that i'm a very lazy person
but like internal brain laziness i'm trying to remove that that is what's going to take personally
me and the company to really amazing heights oh we have this amazing idea let's execute on it today
get it out tomorrow because i've i've seen the most amount of success from people i really admire
that's what they do that's what my dad does as well like he can he can literally be like we're
going to do this and to most people it will seem like the hardest thing in the world and he'll just
be like no we're just going to do it learn it in a week get get it done and it will create value like
like this and most people are like damn how do you build a billion dollar company
but it's with people like that it's like people that just like are like okay we need to build
we need to build a camera from scratch damn that's going to take four years like no it's not it's
going to take a week of learning and we're going to start building it we're going to iterate on it
but we're going to do it fast we're not going to let our thoughts get in the way it's all about
execution and me as the ceo that that's the biggest risk of the company failing is if i get worse at
execution speed or if i stay at a terrible execution speed yeah what do you think stops you
from executing faster like what what what things are you kind of fighting in that space between
oh i should do this i'm doing it well i think it's experience mostly i think that's the number one
thing is experience and i think when somebody calls themselves experienced at say like i'm really
experienced at building tables the first time i'm going to build a table i'm going to really try to
think through it instead of try to build it right and then if i've built tables my whole life then
i'm going to build it like this so um and then trying to get experienced as quickly as possible
one of the biggest successes i got in execution speed was when the company was going to die if
we didn't release the product and when we were at that life and death situation i had robotics work
constantly and i had ai work constantly i don't have a formal degree in either of them and i was
forced and my my whole team including jackson was forced to get to the highest expert level that you
possibly can get to and some of these subjects as quickly as possible or the company dies
now we're on the other side we need to get better at whatever we did there and we are yeah i would
say experience is the biggest thing and trying to get experience as quickly as possible and then
also time allocation is a big thing i'm learning right now what do i need to delegate and when i do
spend my time is this the best use of my time to move the company as forward as i need it to be
right so like this week has all been about like a new software update that we're doing
and also building out the second version of our machine right so how am i going to allocate my
time and how do i make the people around me execute faster as well that's also a big job
of the ceo where you need to create an environment where everyone else's execution speed is as fast
as possible as well and you need to build a culture around having really fast execution speed and when
i mean execution speed i also don't mean like oh just like dilly dally stuff and just go to the
like dilly dally stuff and just like get shitty work done like i'm still talking about highest
quality possible work but executing on that as quickly as possible yeah yeah i think i was
watching a youtube video the other day where this entrepreneur was giving advice and he was saying
number one thing he ever learned was do an adequate job in an inadequate amount of time yeah and that's
the secret to execution yeah you have a time crunch and you're still going to do an adequate job
it doesn't have to be perfect but you have to do an adequate job yes and you and people will be
really surprised on how much work you can really get done like there's i have this thing in my
brain where i know there's a frequency there that sometimes i can hit where i can just get shit done
but it doesn't usually last that long and i've only hit it a couple times throughout my life
and when i hit that frequency it's just like i just got done what i was supposed to get done in
a year in a week i need to get back to that like as quickly as possible and and the people i try to
keep myself away from as much as possible are the ones that restrict themselves on like oh no it's
going to take me three years to get there i like no i can you know these people are so much smarter
than me like i can't do that i'm like biologically there's not that many differences between you and
i right like okay like one person might have better endurance in running but it's not that big that as
much as people think like elon musk is not that much smarter it's just how he built his life that
made him smarter but biologically he's not there so if anybody can do it you can do it that's how i
kind of think the biggest thing too is there's so many people that don't execute yeah that even let's
say all these people are smarter than you but where they will they execute as fast as you will
will they fail and learn in that fast iterative cycle as fast as you will you might not be that
smart yeah but if you can go in execute fail execute fail really really fast yeah you're going
to be so far ahead were you a technical founder or were you the business side of things it was the
ceo so i was business side of things but i'm technical as well because i was going to say like
i noticed with really smart technical guys they the the execution speed does get reduced by a lot
because you focus too much on the technicalities and you don't understand like i've noticed a lot
of the technical guys i've worked with is that we'll spend too much time on the technicals
and then we'll like literally come short of the actual goal yeah that was one of the things that
i had to learn not letting the perfection of engineering something get in the way of
executing and it's actually quite difficult when you like to build something yes and you want it
to be really really good oh i have this great idea it's i'm going to build this awesome product and
you have a vision of what it's going to look like and you can't build it perfectly yeah you can't
yeah if you want to deliver something in a timeline you will never build it perfectly you can always
find a way to make it better to make it better to make it better you get stuck there you you have to
learn that skill if you're a technical founder yes and also a lot of the times if you are like a
first-time founder and you are kind of on the technical side then it's more fun to build the
thing than sell it in the beginning because there's a fear of selling as well when you first launch
you're like you are still going into the dark where you're like it's more fun going through
like really shitty dev cycles and trying to figure this out there's definitely that fear as well
which i think i've eliminated and i want to continue to eliminate as much as possible
learning to sell is hard dude dude i know just we're doing a good job at it but like it was hard
it's hard like that is the number one skill that will take you so much farther yeah but it has a
huge learning curve at the beginning yeah like you go outside and you're like why am i i'm gonna ask
them to give me money yeah why would they give me money yeah and it's hard like oh you want to
look at my demo no why do i want to look at your demo having all these asks to people can feel like
you're demanding things but ultimately it comes along with if you're obsessed with this problem
and you know that your solution is going to be good even if it's not good yet then you don't have to
worry about oh i'm asking too much if i have a million dollars behind my back and i'm like
yo kushan can i give you something i'm not gonna be scared to ask that question bro i have to give
you something like i'm excited to show you this because i believe so much in it and i think that's
one of the things that stops founders that don't have this passion or obsession behind what they're
building is they won't be able to sell like that they won't believe in it so much that they don't
have a problem with going out and asking people yeah and also the problem does have to be really
important as well if you are going to be selling to people like i see so many technical founders
that just build stuff thinking that it's going to work out because it's cool why are you building
this really cool thing if it only matters to three people in the world that aren't going to pay for
it you have to build really cool things for really important problems it has to solve a problem it
has to solve the problem i know and i see so many startups oh we're building a an ai something ai
building gmail with ai yeah like ai gmail and i'm like okay do i need that though in my life yeah
what problem are you solving if i really did need that then you would probably have to make the
problem for me first so that you could sell it back to me that it wouldn't be like fully like
you're trying to solve a human problem that's where like i hate it when all the vcs are too scared to
try to invest in big problems like they're they they would rather invest in a really well-rounded
technical solution to something that doesn't even exist then big problems maybe i'm just better
because of vcs and invested in like they won't invest in me man i know god damn it we're way more
technical than any other like like e-commerce company so it's like the e-commerce guys are
just like no we don't give a shit about what product you're selling i need two to three
million in revenue before i invest anything and then the technical side of it it's like oh you
aren't going to get sales for seven years you don't know whether the customer is going to buy the
products but you need 50 million dollars to do rnd for the next seven years all right here you go
and i met like i've met like crazy like entrepreneurs that have had gone through that
and that's also what's creating the vc bubble right now why do you expect agi from pre-trained
transformers no it's it's literally like you limit it's like i don't even know how to explain it it's
like the math problem's already already been solved it's literally a math problem that's already been
solved and it's so bad at reasoning it's not built to reason so you need to start from the ground up
from the technicals based on what your goal is like their goal with most let's call it ai was
to build these statistical probability machines and they did a great job at doing that and then
they noticed like oh my god if we like train it on a bunch of words it kind of sounds like a human
and then now they're calling it ai but if we just take the text prediction algorithm yeah we take
that and we apply it to every single possible piece of data that a human experiences in every
mode of experiencing we take oh physical experience i feel something we take the experience of an
emotion we take all these different data points yeah and then we try to predict then that's what
we are is it do a better job at it though we're a predicting machine off of every single stimulus
we ever experienced that's how we make our thoughts i wouldn't say that because i that's
what i used to think when i first started ai and then i'm in a different state now where yes like
we are predicted machines we're heavily based on like um like what we experience on a day-to-day
basis let's say text prediction can do that or even image prediction then let's say you create
this big multimodal thing that can do that ultimately the the pure form of like consciousness
is not a prediction system we have no idea what it is yeah so you have to start with building the
medium of consciousness and then observing what consciousness looks like then it will be useful
but they haven't even started with any of the research that's that's gonna happen yeah i mean
i don't want to reveal all my secret plans by ten year vision but like yeah it has a lot to do with
that there's a lot to do with that i want to try to build out many neural structures i i shouldn't
even be speaking on this i i can't have a camera like but it's gonna be cool yeah that's that's
that's what it needs to be it needs to be trying to understand what the medium of
consciousness is and then build the technology off of it and i do believe that we will be able to
replicate um consciousness on a computer one day are you collaborating with anyone on the research
side of things for the the consciousness agi um well yeah obviously jackson yeah because he does
like the actual like integration of it it's mostly like the ethical dilemma of whether we want to do
this or not and that's less about because i know for a fact i could probably do it you should watch
the video ai dilemma i will because i honestly these days i'm less in a dilemma of oh is this
going to be possible i already have a path laid out on how we can get there it's like whether i
want to do it or not because based on my prediction if agi happens there's going to be a lot of suicide
like a significant amount of suicide i might just build it just to see if i can and see what it
looks like and then throw it in the trash like that maybe that's what the question is for a lot
of ai researchers yeah is should we build this not can we yeah but i also hate the hype around it and
there's so much politics around ai now just too much marketing hype yeah the hype is like it's
going to take all the jobs it's going to make text prediction will not take your job but even if it
did there would be like a one-year period where it takes all the jobs and then it's so good that it
can actually just do everything for you yeah and there's no need for jobs there's ubi everyone can
just actually just live and it does all the manual labor all this stuff they can just think be
creative all these things like people what people want to do yeah i think we actually will get close
to that with the current like statistical prediction algorithms i think we could do we
can get a good chunk of that where it replaces a lot of things it's not what the things that they
are marketing as it's not what they're saying they're trying to do it's going to be the small
stuff we're going to automate we're going to create robotics that know how to build entire houses
without any human intervention with just uploading like a schema that's what it's going to be it's
not going to be like oh we're going to build ai god not with this i think it'd be so funny to
watch what like people that look smart think about but that's like actually really stupid be like
damn did i put my contacts in yesterday oh never mind i have glasses i have
someone's like holy shit that dude's like probably really smart bro there's the opposite i look like a
fucking dick like i just look so stupid bro that's the problem with getting jacked dude everyone's
gonna think you're stupid no they do just because you have muscles on you yeah well also like it's
like the meathead stereotype you're like a bimbo or what's it a himbo yes a himbo yeah if you were
taller you'd be a himbo i think oh what a himbo you've never heard that one so a himbo is what
girls call guys who are like tall and like jacked but they're like stupid oh shit yeah it's like the
meathead basically is a himbo damn you can't have both though tall and jacked you can't be tall
jacked and smart just doesn't work out yeah so if you're tall and jacked you're gonna be stupid
thank god i got fucking nerfed bro thank god you wouldn't be able to do a business dude i would
hate i would hate being super tall that would suck the reason i like going on dates is because
i'd like to look at like whatever their perspective of their life is because it's so different like i
like to turn my brain off and just like live through their lives for a little bit it always
ends up working out because 90 percent of time like we're talking so much right now if you can
just turn off your brain like listen to a podcast hear someone else talk it's better same with the
date so it always works out with girls when when they're like oh my god i love talking that makes
it easy for me exactly all i'd do is see if you're not intent yeah i mean i always ruin things by
talking more so these days i've just been like no i'm just here for the mysterious vibe you can
you can tell me all about your life i will be extremely interested if you just did that in
almost every interaction you had with another person everyone would be like this guy's so awesome
and you've never said a single thing about yourself how is he so cool and you're just like
yeah i sat there and i listened to you well i want to do more of that that's also a trait i'm
trying to be better at it's just like listening to people and not trying to insert myself into
anything the the people i've hated the most in my life are the ones that insert their own lives into
like everything in every conversation like i do this no what is the topic at hand like do you really
have anything to do with the topic at hand do you have to insert yourself into everything like maybe
it doesn't have to be about you in every conversation which is what most people like don't realize
it's the classic dale carnegie you know uh that book how to win friends and influence people
really fucking old book like 1900s like one of the biggest things that he gives is like just listen
to people stop talking about yourself just sit there ask questions and listen intently and that
will make you friends yeah and the law of mystery really does work the less people know about you
they're much more likely to idolize and really admire you for not much of a reason as long as
you expose only the good things and you choose very carefully what you expose about yourself
that's a very closed way of living but if you have a certain objective where you want to move
up a social ladder like that's definitely the best way to do it just be as mysterious as possible
put yourself in every social situation as possible but like you don't don't reveal too much about
yourself you know and like just listen to people because people like being heard what is your dating
life like as an entrepreneur it's fucking non-existent oh no why is that you don't have
time and a lot of women don't really understand that i can't i will not be able to pick up a
phone call in the middle of the day i can't go on dates every single day as as much as i was as i
used to so i love going on first dates because i really still want to be exposed to the dating
world and listen to other people's perspective i just can't most people don't want to be dating
an entrepreneur people are like oh my god that's so cool do they really want to date an entrepreneur
like it's a lot of commitment i think the best relationships i've had while i was doing this was
when like the girl understood what my lifestyle looks like it's like they need to understand like
hey i might not talk to you for a full week at a time it doesn't mean that i don't like you but
there's just priorities most people can't get that unfortunately what about you what's your
dating life been like as an entrepreneur while i was working on the business it was pretty
so so yeah i wasn't going on a ton of dates right now it's not horrible go on dates occasionally
but i don't i'm not a big fan of any dating apps i like to meet people in person get to know them
yeah be face to face so it's harder to find people that way you find less people but yeah the culture
isn't really built around that anymore it's way more enjoyable yes way more enjoyable and like
what's the point of dating as well it depends on what the point is like if you're trying to
find your life partner then like you're really going to enjoy those conversations like in person
you know and then if you're just trying to find something fun then it's gonna be significantly
different and then maybe the dating apps will be useful i was talking to eddie and he was talking
about how he doesn't really he's like oh i don't have time for stuff and he and we were like oh
then how do you find dates and he's like i do the approach in person method and it's very admirable
to see people still doing that like how many dudes do you know who actually in the middle of the day
go up to someone and they're like oh i wanted to meet you you were pretty yes like how many dudes
actually have the balls to do that these days yeah i used to be better at that when i was surrounded
with my friend bruce like he was so good at that where he would just be like oh that girl's kind of
cute let me go talk to her that person's like pretty admirable let me go talk to them that's
the trait i want to be better at um that's awesome though it doesn't matter what happens you don't
care about the outcome i'm gonna strike up a conversation with someone because i want to
yeah if it doesn't go anywhere i don't care that's a great perspective because i'm always like i
always only care about the outcome most of the time and then you get hyper fixated on that and
then you get so nervous when it comes to social situations just learning how to follow your
intuition follow your intuition just do it and i've gotten lazy with it where my method is just trying
to be like if i'm like known for doing something most of the time people just walk up to me like
when i was like pretty heavily into fitness like people know me from my instagram and they just
like walk up to me so i never would have to do any work when it comes to social stuff yeah honestly
i'm pretty lazy socially maybe that's why i'm so isolated when it comes to entrepreneurship it's
just because i never put in any effort like most people know me for the startup so they like
will walk up to me and will become friends that way i actually never put in any effort into social
stuff now that i really think about it i probably should get better at that that is the way to stay
connected as an entrepreneur is talking to people everywhere you go maybe you don't see people very
often but yeah you go outside to go buy groceries talking to people there maybe you're talking to
the cashier you're striking up conversation yeah maybe go to the gym and you see some people and
you make some new friends and it won't take up a ton of your time like anything else would because
it's just a part of your normal life you're just actively engaging with the world around you yeah
that's true you got it you should see how cracked out i am about being being efficient though like i
don't even make i try to remove that for my life these days as well small talk give me the coffee
right now yeah like i'm serious like i have i'm in a situation where i'll wake up i'll gym the rest
of the day i'm here i'll order food out so i save time like i don't even cook not because i don't
want to cook but it literally just takes up too much time i'd rather eat one meal a day and have
more time in the office than eat two meals a day having to cook one of them yeah and that's where
the health sacrifice comes in as well because i'd rather eat that one meal instead of two meals
if i can spend more time in the warehouse spend more time working on stuff always grinding man
yeah it sucks it works the closing tradition we have on this podcast is we'll ask the guests
to make a small little challenge for themselves that would make me maybe improve their lives a
little bit in an area that they are currently struggling with and then hold them accountable
you set a little deadline on it and then i'll keep you accountable to it okay i like that yeah i
actually like that a lot we call it a carrot and then there's a stick involved if you don't do it
go to a murph or something hard i'm down um maybe it's maybe it's
i would say i want to be significantly better at marketing what about that that's like did you say
a goal what was it no no it's a challenge a challenge you can do within like one to two
weeks once in two weeks that will put you in the direction of creating that snowball towards
what would make your life better i'd say i'd say going out and forcing myself into at least three
conversations maybe in the next week of people i have never met before just like saying hi to them
i think that's what most men struggle with these days in general so no it doesn't have to be a
girl like just no yeah just people in general yeah just like walking out to be them and be like hey
you look like you're doing something interesting or like you look like an interesting person
what are you up to these days etc something like that because i'm so socially awkward like i
actually have unless like i put on a personality i'm like okay today i'm gonna be charismatic
great like sometimes i'll go out and i'll be like not like energetic so i can't like do that
it's just such a bum to go out because everyone views me as like really socially awkward and then
they'll like a week will go by and be like oh kushong's actually not that socially awkward
but it's just because he ate like three meals in a row and like actually has the energy to like
say hi and talk to people yeah so it's that okay i want to have a challenge i want to have three
conversations random conversations random people just put myself out there okay cool so two weeks
from now what's gonna happen if you don't do it i'll actually go running with you guys how about
that you'll do the sf marathon where is it in what time july 28th if i can get a ticket maybe
but i would have to train for it i'll run a marathon with you guys here and i haven't ran
in like years okay i'll run a full marathon let's do it i'm serious okay because i hate running yeah
me too dude that's why i started running yeah because you don't like it for the hard well i
used to love running but then i got like i gained so much weight that like fucking running sucks now
let's do that i had a 15 minute mile in eighth grade i've been horrible at running really
yesterday i ran 852 for my half marathon damn i had a uh what's it called i think i got to 530
when i was a kid i was so skinny people run 530 on marathons dude it's insane dude i know
i couldn't do it but they're also like 90 pounds and they're basically flying when they're running
dude have you seen those super jack guys that run now yeah all the hybrid athletes they're
fucking insane yeah i cannot do that they squat 500 pounds and then they'll go on like a marathon
crazy builds man i wish i was like that but sadly maybe in a couple years i'm not that i like i think
i like lifting too much to want to do other stuff like it's lifting is the most efficient use of
like trying to be physical because i used to be a swimmer and it takes so much time like going to
the pool getting set up swimming a bunch of laps yeah it's just too much work and then you have to
shower same with running it's just like and then you're exhausted for the rest of the day when i
run like i'm so tired with lifting i like lift lift lift i still have so much energy for the rest
of the day so yeah that's the deal cool well in two weeks you'll have had three conversations with
some random persons hopefully that i engage in out of my own doing not that they walk up to me
it doesn't count if they walk it doesn't count yeah okay awesome thanks for coming on man thank
you always a pleasure talking to you i hope to see big things from cloud nine thank you people
find out about you your company stuff like that go to instagram cld9.ai or type in
www cld-nine.com with me um i don't know i want to start a startup like channel but uh kushong does
life if you actually watch this and want to follow me on instagram all right awesome fuck yeah dude
all right great job