Communication Technologies

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, Mr. Sullivan.

Dan: Mr. Jackson. You know, I. For about. I rehearsed that for about five minutes before you come on the call, Mr. Jackson.

Dean: It's all in the inflection. How do you do it?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to be cool. You got to be cool. But unique, but cool. Let's see.

Dean: Well, welcome to Cloudlandia, as always.

Dan: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Things moving, lots of action on all fronts.

Dean: What have you got?

Dan: No, no, I, you know, I kind of tried to find interesting thinkers, interesting speakers on various subjects, and I've come across this. And he's a lawyer, he's a professor, and he's at Columbia University in New York City. Tim Wu. Wu. And he's written some really, really interesting books, sort of history books, on the information technology, starting with telegraph in the 1840s and bringing it right up to the, you know, to the 2000 and twenties. And he's established sort of a model of what happens when a new communication technology or an information technology kind of adds up to the same thing. And says that it always starts off with some sort of, you know, tinkerer who creates something. Somebody who's going around with stuff in their garage or their basement and they create something and, you know, they tried to make do with it and they put out what they're doing. And when it starts, a lot of people catch on. And for example, he said in 1910, he moved. Moves it up to telephone. And he said, you know, in 1910, anybody who had about 10 neighbors who wanted to talk to each other could create a telephone system. They, you know, the technology was available. All he had to do is wire everybody's house. And, you know, it took a little bit of electricity to create a, you know, a system. And so he said, you know, everybody was doing it. Clubs were doing the churches were doing it, towns were doing it in farm. Farm country. But he said, people who have that

Dean: experience,

Dan: you know, really see the potential, but they. They just become unhappier and unhappier with a small scale of what is being provided to them. And, you know, to a certain extent, it's unreliable, it's unpredictable. And people want the new capability, but they want it guaranteed. They want it big, and they want it to go forever. And he says that grows it into huge corporations, which eventually become monopolies. And he's just got this pattern, and he says it goes over and over and over again. And he said, we're right now with the Internet. He says we're about halfway to the worst of the monopoly situation according to his analysis. But it's very interesting, very interesting, you know, and he's very charming. You ever see him if you go to YouTube? He has a lot of YouTube.

Dean: Oh, I love that. Okay. I love to have like, you're like me. I love to have great thinkers. Like that's when I discovered, you know, that's I like, like Jordan Peterson when I first discovered him kind of. And it's interesting, it's funny, you and I have kind of, I mean this

Dan: is, this is Cloudlandia where I can talk about something and I say just go to YouTube. There's about 10, 10 of them right in a row at various places. But our discussion group that I have in Toronto going on 20 years now, I send out one of his books.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Or will be sent out on Monday. But what I try to do because people are different. I'm a reader, you know, I like information packed books, I like historical books, but not everybody does. So what I do is I'll just give a paragraph of why I think it's really worth, you know, understanding this person and really important to discuss his ideas. And then I send a really good, the best book review, maybe about two page book review of the book. And then I sent out a video of him. I said, if you just don't want to read it all, just watch and listen to the video for about 40 minutes. That way everybody shows up feeling that they, that they're prepared.

Dean: I used to love Global. We reminded that, but that was a ancient before that was really a thing. Yeah,

Dan: I never got very, very much feedback until the quarter when I decided not to do it anymore. And everybody said, well, I loved it. I and I said, well, I never heard from you while I was doing that. So yeah, you know, you're a little bit late. You're a little bit late.

Dean: Right.

Dan: But nobody, you know, nobody really responded to it. They got it and I don't know, I mean I had no proof that people were reading it or listening. Right. So I, I said, you know, I'm, I'm a add 10, quick start. You know, I gotta have feedback. I go. Or I go crazy or I go off the reservation.

Dean: Yeah, right, right, right, I get it.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. But what I like is the going back. You know, I really love history. I mean I just like knowing where things come from and you know, how things developed. And then I like having right next to me Google. You know, I have the book. Usually I'm doing it on Kindle, I'm reading the book On Kindle. And then, you know, I come across something. I said, I'd like to go a little bit deeper. Just go to YouTube. And there might. Yeah, there might be two or three. There might be two or three, you know, different YouTube things that.

Dean: Yes, yeah.

Dan: I mean, I go to Wikipedia and just get a, you know, a basic handle if it's not too controversial. Wikipedia is really good. If it's controversial, like it's got implications, then I find them only about 50% useful because they definitely favor one side over the other and. Yeah, so but you have to filter that out.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, it's really, it's. I started this week, Dan, Yesterday actually mostly to. I was thinking about something happened this week where I was having. We're taking snapshots of time and it's really is interesting a friend who's turning 36 this week or turned 36. And then we were just thinking back that what was. That was 2002 for me and I just moved into my house here in Valhalla and, you know, taking a snapshot of what was like going on in my life in 2002 and what was kind of going on in the world at that time. That was, that was the beginning when, you know, the Internet was really starting to be something.

Dan: Yeah, Google.

Dean: Yeah, Google AdWords was just released. The. You could buy keyword advertising. And I rode that wave with our, with stop your divorce and with our money making websites. We were very early on both of those. And so you have an advantage that we had a good long period of time when we were kind of early into the. Early into the environment. And of course, you look at where it is now and it's almost evolved unrecognizably. You know, I mean, you could see how it would go. But 2021 is a different, A different core sample if we're taking the, you know, digital density of what is available now. The context of what I was thinking this through yesterday was I had a really interesting conversation. Dude, 36. And we were thinking about looking back for 2002 when I was.

Dan: No, I got all that. I got all that. You talked through. You talked through, you know, the, you know, everything. You were just about. You were just about to say something that had occurred to you. Okay, getting ready conversation.

Dean: Okay. So that. Getting ready for our conversation. I thought yesterday about how when you take like snaps in time like that. What if you and I were in charge of creating welcome gifts for new, you know, new citizens of Cloudlandia, when you decide to make that migration into cloudlandia if you're coming from, you're new to it, from history. It's not back in. And I was overwhelmed by just the entry level advantages that you have with your citizenship in Cloudlandia. Starting with, you know, the entry level, of course, is your smartphone. You got your iPhone. Your iPhone is your passport to Cloudlandia. Do you got the iPhone? You're in now, when you just think about what this opens up to you, you know, for no extra. I'm not going to say free, because you've got the cost of. The basic cost of citizenship in Cloudlandia is whatever your cost for the phone and your data plan. Right. That with that, you've got the basic access to Cloudlandia. And when you start thinking about the hardware alone, it was amazing to me. Have you ever seen these ads, Dan, that they show, like a Radio Shack ad from the 80s with our 90s with all of the electronics that are for sale at Radio Shack, like a video camera or a regular camera or a tape recorder and all of the things that are just built right in. Do the iPhone.

Dan: Mm.

Dean: That's just your. Your toolkit that you get to. Right. As you're navigating control to Cloudlandia. But then along with it, every citizen gets a radio station. You get a TV network if you want, station, network, whatever, free broadcasting of video, audio, publish as much text as you want, a free and instant direct contact with every other citizen of Cloudlandia with the push of a button. Or you can gather them in groups by video or audio. And it's just, wow. You know, when you start to really, like, think it through, the advantages that everybody has to create whatever you want. I mean, it's just hard for me to even fathom kind of organizing the. The thoughts around this. You know, could you imagine if.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: When people got off the Mayflower. Like, you compare. The other big migration that we'll talk about is people coming to the brave new world here of America. And when they landed, first of all, you had to, you know, get on a ship that may or may not make it, and you do a long journey to get here, but when you get off, nothing. I mean, it's pretty like it's overwhelming. Yeah.

Dan: But, you know, here, I'll just introduce another thought here.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And that is, I think that you do really great in Cloudlandia.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Because you were also a focused, productive person in the mainland. In other words, I know all the, you know, the endless technological capabilities, you know, that are available to me on my phone, but actually, I Only use my phone for two reasons. To talk to Dean Jackson.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And to access my happy device. That you know, that you know, the mood regular. At the mood regular. I don't use my phone for anything else. I don't use my phone for anything else. I use my computer for an awful lot of things.

Dean: Right. Yes.

Dan: I'm so I'm, I, my, my preference is actually having a much bigger screen and your MacBook. I'm used to the. Yeah. And I'm used to the computer. You know, I've got 30 years, 30 years under my belt. But what I'm really noticing is, you know that there's a lot of people who have all these digital capabilities. Okay. But you and I appreciate them more than people who were born since 1992.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And that's the basic thing I noticed because they don't know there's another, there's another way previously to doing things and they actually didn't develop some thinking schools in the slow world.

Dean: Right.

Dan: They were born into the fast world where you know, everything's fast. I mean if everything's fast, then nothing's fast, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So it's really, it's really interesting you and I are appreciating that because we had established capabilities and opportunities and had success before these tools were available to us. They find for example, they do tests teenagers with search engines. So they'll get 30, 30 teenagers with you know, they have, they have a problem to solve for. They, you know, they have to find something. They have to accumulate information.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And then they have an equal number of 50 year olds who understand search engines and everything else and they see who's fastest at getting the exact information that you're looking for. And the 50 year olds just clean, clean clock. None of the teenagers can stay on a track to actually find something because they get distracted. The, well they, the 50 year olds are, the 50 year olds are just looking for what they're looking for and they, they don't get distracted by all the other stuff.

Dean: Well, we grew up the 50 year old. The Dewey decimal, the card catalog. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: Well the 50 year olds had solving problems in another world. Right. And so, so they appreciate the speed with which they can do, do this new thing but they're not going to get sidetracked in this in the same way. So my next book, the book I'm working on right now is called your attention your property. Okay. And, and you know, just to go back to my model, I've reserved my iPhone use to Dean Jackson. You know and to a particular app. Outside of that, they don't have my attention for anything else they want me doing on the iPhone.

Dean: And I was thinking about that.

Dan: I just want to talk about this. So this came up and came up in one of the workshops last week, and somebody said, well, you know, you're just missing out on. Actually, I said, I'm not, because I have human beings interfacing between me and other people's attempt to engage me Right. In the mail, by telephone, email, you know, and everything like that. I've got somebody who picks up on it for me, but it doesn't take up any of my time. And, yeah, you know, over a period of a year or two years of working with these individuals, they kind of are about 90, 98% good at not letting something come through to me. So.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So. But, you know, that's the way I did it in the old world, too. I mean.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: In the slow, slow world. So what I'm looking at is you're. You know, people say, I've got. Did you see this? Did you see this? Did you see this? Did you see this? And I said, well, actually, I didn't. I screened it out and they said that, well, but what have I missed? The stuff I was missing three months ago. How important is this stuff that I missed? Right? Oh, no, no. Three months ago. It's a new world. I said, yeah, so I didn't miss anything. But it did. But it used. Used up none of my attention. It used up a lot of your attention.

Dean: Mm.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: It's funny, I was thinking about that with, you know, Joe, and you're good.

Dan: I mean, you're good about. You're good about that, too. You know, I mean, you're. You basically pay attention to things that you've lined up as important.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: I don't see. I don't see you being. I don't see you being overwhelmed by your interaction with Quantity India.

Dean: No, the. One of the things that I was saying about you yesterday or this week when I was talking with my friend, was that how you have guarded your attention. You've guarded your time, and you've cut things off that are like TV and, you know, like that when you look at that, just the. The things that make. The things that suck your time like a black hole kind of thing. Right. That when you're actually not, you know, hooked into the dopamine multiplier, which is really what all of this endless surfing could be, is you. You know, how much time do you think that you got back when you, when you gave up TV?

Dan: Well, three years. It'll be three years in July. It's 800, 800 hours a year. So I got back. Yeah, you know, it's an average. I, you know, I just took like a, I just went back and looked at a schedule for a month and I basically, you know, figured it out. What, what was a month's worth, weekends and everything?

Dean: Yeah. What would you.

Dan: I always thought, I thought it was about 15 hours. 15 hours a week and it's. Yeah. You know, I'll watch one of the talk show, you know, I really like Fox with Brett Baer. And that, that came on that, you know, that was like seven o' clock came on. It was an hour long. So there's, you know, there's five hours there. And then I check, you know, we'd, we'd have, we go to Netflix some evenings and we follow a series.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Okay. And that was always about a half hour longer than we were intending.

Dean: Right, right.

Dan: So we get hooked into something.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Would say about two and a half hours, five days a week. Yeah, you're up to, you know, you're up to 12 and a half hours. And then I'd watch a game or something on Sundays, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Baseball game, football game, basketball game and everything. So I said it's probably 15 hours. Probably 15 hours. And so times 50 weeks, 52 weeks is pretty close to 800, 800 hours. And so I got that back and then I got the other, I got the other bonus of no travel for the last year. So. Wow, three years ago, I've got about 1200 hours to work with. I mean, divide that. Let's say it's a 10 hour working day. It's 120 working days.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So

Dean: it is really. I mean, yeah, it's something, I mean, it's something where if you can. It's like your, it's almost like the magic key. You often talk about the magic of living in Canada and having most of your income come from the US or global. You're earning in US dollars and spending in Canadian that your, there's so much stuff going on in Cloudlandia. But you're, you're not, you're not paying that tax. You're, you're, you've got your slow, slow time. Mainland. Yeah.

Dan: We had to educate our, our accounting firm, our global accounting firm that handles Britain, Canada and the US that that as far as the regulation of government is concerned, when we're doing a workshop in on Zoom, the workshop is Happening nowhere.

Dean: Right? Yeah. How does that. What. How does that handle? How do you handle?

Dan: Well. Well, what I mean is to. They say, well, you know, you. When you get the money for the workshop, you're taxed. I said, well, that's true. But before, when we did a workshop, let's say in Santa Monica.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: The city of Santa Monica taxes us, the county of Los Angeles taxes us, the state of California taxes us, and the US Government taxes usually. And then we have all sorts of regulations regarding, you know, the performance of our. The performance of our workshop. And for example, in New York City, when we tried to do workshops in New York City, if we did it in a hotel, we had to have a union member of the hotel union in the room with us when we're doing the workshop. And if we wanted to move our boxes, our people couldn't move the boxes. Only the union member could move the boxes. That's why I talked about being in the mainland. You get taxed on space. You get, you know, you. You know, there's a lot of spatial taxes and regulations that are eliminated once you go to Zoom.

Dean: Yeah. I remember when you did an event at the. The Waldorf Astoria in. In New York. Yeah. I don't know why I was in town for that, but I was.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, great, great place and everything, but enormous taxes. And then, you know, and then people have to drive and park to get there. And that's a tax. You know, I mean, it's a time tax. It's a money tax. The mainland's just filled up with regulations. In Texas, well, we just. Yeah. I tell you, a little event that happened in the space about three days.

Dean: So

Dan: Canada's really locked down again because they didn't get the vaccinations in play fast enough that they could create some herd. Herd immunity. You know the term herd immunity? So they're just getting hit as if it's brand new with a variation of COVID So all the hospitals in Ontario and some of the other provinces, they're right back to the first month of COVID with the seriousness of the outbreak. And this is just because we have abysmal leadership. And in our gated community, the, you know, the big gated community called Canada, people say, what's Canada like? I said, well, this is the way you have to think about it. Canada is America's biggest gated community. I bet at your place, you have to check in at the gate, don't you?

Dean: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: Well, same thing with Canada. You have to check in at the gate and they're suspicious if you, you don't know somebody that's in the community. I mean, if somebody came and, you know, asked for somebody in your community, they'd say, well, you know, if they were suspicious at all, they say, well, let me phone them and see if they're expecting you.

Dean: Right, right, right.

Dan: You have to do the same thing with Canada. This is bigger. And, but you know, the, the residents of this gated community called Canada are, they're pretty mild mannered, they're pretty docile, you know, and they've had a big growth of pot smoking over the last two or three years. And they're, they're not armed, you know, so it's a rather tranquil place. It's kind of a tranquil place. But they did, they pushed it too far. And this was on Friday and they announced, and this is the premier of Ontario and this is the federal, you know, this is the mayor of Toronto and that says starting Monday, police can do instant spot checks on anybody. You could, they can stop you on the sidewalk, they can stop you, stop your car and they can have you explain why you're out, why you're not.

Dean: Oh, my goodness. Wow, that's brand new. I hadn't heard about that.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, that's on Friday. So I said, anyway, I went downtown yesterday, as I always do on Saturday, and my limousine driver, he was talking about, he says, yeah, he says, we don't, he says, thank God, we're an essential service. And I said, yeah. I said, quite frankly, I said, I, I'm almost 50 years in Toronto. So June 5, I'm here 50 years. That's the day I arrived in 1971. And I said, I have a feeling that they've gone too far and this whole thing's going to blow up in their face. It's going to blow up in the politician's face. And, and he said, yeah, yeah, I do. He said, this is. And it blew up. Apparently the, the police, and no uncertain terms, told the government officials, under no circumstances are any of their police people going to be stopping people on the street or stopping cars. That's not the role of the police. And if the politicians would like to stop people, the politicians can get on their own workplace and they can go down and they can stop people and see, that's what the police said to. Yeah, they didn't even, they didn't. Politicians didn't even, you know, they didn't

Dean: even run that by the police.

Dan: Yeah, no, they didn't run. The police, you know, had place, do it. And I said, I said, that kind of tells you where the line is. It just kind of tells you where the line is. And Canadians got pushed across the line. And I said, you know, you could get wiped out at the polling booth just because of what you did in

Dean: the last three days.

Dan: People will remember this. Babs was down walking on the boardwalk, you know, because we're right down on the lake here, and she ran into our next door neighbors who are really, really great people. And they said, this is, this is horrible what they're doing. They said, we've never had anything horrible like this happen to us ever in Canada, what has just been announced. And I said, yep, yep. I think they pushed it across the line.

Dean: Yeah. I had a friend who literally, they lived in Canada in the last two weeks, sold their house and rented a jet and family out, and they're just arrived in Florida yesterday and now they're done. They're done. It's just too, they went too far. Just like, just the words you said, that's too much. We're out. Yeah, we're out.

Dan: Yeah. I think that, I think it's, you know, it's kind of like a little thing. I mean, it seems like a little thing because there's been rulings from on high for a solid, you know, solid year, but it's just one ruling too far. And now everybody's saying, I can't believe what's happening. And now everybody's waking up. And generally speaking, if you're a political leader, you don't want the people to wake up.

Dean: Yeah, no.

Dan: And start focusing on you. Yeah, yeah.

Dean: Really wild. Yeah.

Dan: And the papers have been going deep and just how abysmal and how, you know, how at fault the political leaders are not taking it seriously in the first time, not having their act together and then fooling around with which virus, which vaccination are we going to get and everything like that. And so they have this, they have this survey of, you know, kind of more or less developed countries and it's, it's like 50 countries in the world that are more or less, you know, they, they've got decent healthcare systems and they've got decent government. And Canada's number 45 out of 50, you know, it's, it's rated number 45 out of 50. Israel is like number two. You know, there's a lot of little countries, Estonia, places like that, they have it. And the US is like number 14. But the US is, you know, all the countries that are 1 through 13, their populations aren't as big as the United States, you know.

Dean: What is this a rating of? What is this a ranking?

Dan: Well, it's a rating of, first of all, the. The speed with which you're getting vaccinations out.

Dean: Oh, I see. Okay.

Dan: Based on 100,000 people.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And Canada is about 10%. In other words, if you take 100,000 people, then they're, you know, they're at 10,000 people would be vaccinated, but 90,000 are not vaccinated.

Dean: Right.

Dan: The United States is around 35. 35%, you know.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: And, you know, I think Gibraltar is number one. I didn't know Gibraltar was a country, but I guess.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Looking at it this. And Gibraltar is around 98%, which I guess you can do in about three days.

Dean: Yeah, exactly. Everybody gather at the Rock. Let's go. Come on. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: Just offer everybody a drink, you know, Drink and a shot.

Dean: And a shot.

Dan: A shot and a shot.

Dean: Yeah, right. That's funny.

Dan: Yeah. Have you been there? Have you ever been there?

Dean: To Gibraltar?

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: No, I have not, but I know about. I'd like to go Gibraltar. I have a friend who lives in Gibraltar.

Dan: Yeah, I'd like to go. It seems like a neat little place, you know, and I haven't been there yet. Are we there?

Dean: Hello. We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I,

Dan: Mr. Jackson.

Dean: There we go. Yeah. My friend that lives in Gibraltar, so I have a Cloudlandia relationship with him, but I'm always fascinated that now, you know, when you. As I'm thinking through the Cloudlandia welcome, you know, guide that basically we say, you know, welcome to Cloudlandia. Here's all the things you get. You get your TV station, your network, whatever you want. Radio, it's all free to broadcast. You can talk to everybody, you can gather with anybody and you can live anywhere on the mainland. You choose. I mean, that's really. You gotta have a place to, you know, get your sandwiches and poop. You can't do that in Gladlandia. So you can pick a place on the mainland to.

Dan: Yeah, your breakfast delivery can't be too far away, right?

Dean: Exactly. So that's the. Yep. But you can literally pick. You can literally pick anywhere. And that is just. I was. I was talking with Philip yesterday and we had a really great conversation, actually. We were talking about. I was asked him about his 21 year old self. He just turned 13. I was asking if you ever, you know, thought about his 21 year old self. And I said, what do you think your 21 year old self would say to you right now if he was looking in on this, you know, and on how you doing? And he's like, well, I don't, I don't know my, what my 21 year old self will think. I said, yeah, it's true. You don't know who your 21 year old self is going to be, but yet, you know, we're creating him every day. Yeah, I was talking about the, the thing of, you know, you, your 21 year old self could be a concert pianist or could be a rock star, but the path to that would mean that you'd have to be playing the piano now, you know, like that's the thing. So it was really an interesting. I just kind of, it was the first time I think he's had that kind of introduction, conversation, his future self, the concept of his future self. Because I think until you're 13 anyway, you're very present minded. Right. You're very. Just whatever's going on right now,

Dan: you know, the big difference, so 13 for me was 1957, I was 13 years old. And the big difference that I am noticing between being 13 in 1957 and being 13 in 2021 is that most of the 13 year olds I want, that I knew, including myself, wanted to be an adult. We wanted to be an adult. And it was pretty clear what, you know, it was pretty clear what being an adult meant. You know, I mean there was pretty, I mean you had role models all around yourself. I think it's difficult being a 13 year old in, in 2021 because so many of the adults are trying to be children.

Dean: Yeah, I get that 100% or they're trying to be. They're not moving forward, they're holding and

Dan: they're trying to be buddies. They're trying to be buddies with 13 year olds, you know. I mean. Yeah, you know, I mean, when I was growing up, one thing, I mean this is like a first principle of the universe. Your parents weren't friends.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Your parents were parents and you liked your parents and you loved your parents, but they weren't friends, you know.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And your parents weren't. Your parents weren't trying to be friends, you know, they weren't trying to be friends with you. They were, they were trying to get you through to adulthood, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Their job is to take children and you know, give them some good direction and good advice and support to be becoming an adult. And I think it's very confusing today. I think it's very Confusing. You know, adults having temper tantrums on network tv, you know, getting angry and calling names like you used to when you were 13 years old.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And my sense is, I think it's confusing for children to kind of figure out exactly what adulthood means.

Dean: Right. Yeah. And, I mean, it's funny. I was, you know, I've shared with him the idea of your umbilical cord, you know, looking for somewhere to plug it in. And when you've got your own means of production, you know, you've really got your. Your own. You've. You've solved the big. The big challenge, you know.

Dan: Yeah. One of the things. Here's another thing that I find might be a bit unsettling, and it might put, you know, young people really in that gap, is that you have teenagers who are millionaires, you know, teenagers who decided to do a business, and they're millionaires.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I was reading in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, this is in about the, you know, the. The cryptocurrency exchanges that are now popping up. Okay. And there's a guy in Hong Kong, his name is Bateman, 29 years old, he's a billionaire.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Because of the valuation of the exchanges. His is ftx, I think FTX is the name of the exchange. And I said, you know, he's got some dangers in his life right now. One of them is, will his future ever be bigger than his past?

Dean: Okay.

Dan: He's 29 and he's a billionaire. And immediately there's a lineup of 10,000 people who are really going to want to meet him.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Only because he's a billionaire at 29 years old. And do they have an opportunity for him, you know, and so he's. I just read about two weeks ago, the last. The very sad last six months of Tony Hsieh, who, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Nominally was kind of a billionaire because that was his buyout from. As buyout from.

Dean: Right.

Dan: By Amazon, but, you know, that was used up by law firms and accounting firms and, you know, everything else. But he was, you know, he was in his 30s, and what. What I think he died of is from a lack of a future that was bigger than anything he had done in the past. I think people die from, you know, you got everything in the world except the future.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And. And you're not sure of your friends.

Dean: Yeah. Right.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Why. Why do people love you? Well, you have some suspicions that it's not really about you.

Dean: Yeah. Did you ever meet Tony?

Dan: No. No, I never did.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: I don't think he Was never a genius. He was never a genius, was he?

Dean: No, he wasn't, but he was, you know.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Joe knew Evan. Knew him. I met him with Evan a couple of times. But yeah, I mean, at the time it was just like a, you know, super guy. Introvert, very introvert. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, you want. There's something to that, I think.

Dan: Well, he made his money. I mean, he made his money on early stages of Cloudlandia. Really. I mean, when you think about how he made his money, I mean, that's. Amazon is totally a Cloudlandia. You know, what creates their growth is Cloudlandia. And then they deliver on the planet. You know, they have good services on the mainland. So they put two things together. They put together good mainland organization together with virtually almost unlimited Cloudlandia opportunity. Yeah, this is just the last six months. I mean, the article in the Wall Street Journal on Chutney Shea.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And looked like a slow motion suicide to me.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Every week it got a little bit worse and.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And he was almost not communicating with anyone outside of a tight circle.

Dean: That was the sense I got. The people around him really kind of were complicit in it all, you know.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: Well,

Dan: yeah, I have lights during the summertime and you know that. And there's a lot of bugs around the light, you know.

Dean: Right, right.

Dan: I think that happens with charismatic, wealthy people. A lot of bugs.

Dean: Yeah, a lot of bug circle. Yeah, that whole. Yeah, you know, this whole just kind of thinking about the, the, you know, you said something about our understanding of life before. Cloudlandia is part of the, you know, the adaptiveness that we've had to it. And you wonder. Yeah. You think like the young, the kids coming up now, they've got no other frame of reference for it. No other, you know, like. I think I remember looking through my childhood. My. I was shaped through the lens of being growing up in suburban Toronto in the, you know, 70s and 80s. And that, you know, was filtered through the Canadian lens and the local media lens. We didn't have access to global or independent perspectives. And now it's like you couldn't, you know, the last place people look are the local, you know, the local news that you're, you know, at six o' clock or whatever. Who's. Who's watching that now?

Dan: No, you wouldn't know anything about the old gated community if you didn't talk to me every Sunday.

Dean: Right, Exactly.

Dan: I'm here a little bit harder.

Dean: Yeah. But even that, Even within, even within Ontario, there's No, you could live in the. There's no difference in your access or your capability at your cottage three hours away or at your house in the city.

Dan: No, I mean, what I watch at the cottage is exactly what I watch when I'm here. I've got all my sites that I go to. I mean, we got really, really good Internet, plus we've got. We've got benefit of Elon Musk satellites now that, yeah. Unusually favor southern Ontario where, you know, we're, we're really a long way north from Toronto. But we're still considered southern Ontario because Ontario is so big. But apparently we're right in the, you know, sweet spot of those satellites going over and so apparently. Yeah, you know, if you wanted to. But, you know, I got what I need. But we've got really good Bell, Bell Canada. And it's really good, you know. Yeah, the service is really good. And they're. Yeah, they've got a local, you know, a local person who does all their service calls and everything else. And he's real good. He gets over there really fast.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So, yeah, so it's great. Yeah. And. But, you know, when I was a kid, I was a radio nut, and nighttime on AM radio, you can get 500 miles away. I remember one night. And this is northern Ohio, so this is Cleveland one night I'm getting big station in New York City. I'm getting a big station in Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta and New Orleans. I got New Orleans one night. It's just crystal clear, crystal clear. And I had this amazing sense of being connected, you know, of these places, you know, small farm, farm town that I grew, grew up in. And. But at nighttime I can, you know, I could just connect and I had a feeling of being connected to those places.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And that's, you know, and this is like 1951, maybe. 50, 51 and you know, and everything else. And it was a real thrill to me because usually you get a lot of static, you know, and can't do anything. And, you know, you can only get local during the day, but when the sun goes down, all of a sudden a lot. You get a lot better reception. There was an fm, right. There was no FM radio in those days, so you just had am.

Dean: Yeah, that's, that's. It's so funny when you're like, you and I, you know, you're describing something that those were sort of local worlds that was almost like different. If you think about them as the, you know, the radius of the reach of that local radio station. If you're saying 500 miles is the outer.

Dan: Yeah, 60 is probably 60 during the day. That was your maximum.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, and they. They had. They brought in some rules that you. I mean, you couldn't blast everybody off the air. You couldn't have. At first they. There was no restrictions on how powerful a radio station could be, you know, and. But you just, you know, you just. So finally they said, you know, this isn't fair. So they. They restricted it down to, you know, there was a, you know, an upper limit, and then that became that you were the one 50,000 watt station, you know, in a certain area, and they restricted it to certain radio stations.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Tim Wu. Tim Wu talks about all this stuff in his book the Master Switch. And he said. And he gives a complete history of radio and how radio grew up and then it became monopolized. And NBC was the big player. This was a huge player, national player. And then, you know, then you. In the telephone, you had AT&T for 70 years. They had a monopoly. And then you had the. Hollywood was down to six studios. So he was talking about all these. They all started off with thousands of players, and then they got down to just a handful of players and every one of them. And then they started linking up with each other. Like AT&T and NBC would link up with each other. And, you know. Yeah, it was very interesting. He was saying that Bell, which is AT&T, had. Call recorders in the 1930s. Bell Labs had recorded call recorders. You could leave a message. And they said, no, this is a threat. This is a threat to our telephone. So they didn't allow actual. Leaving a message on a voice recorder was possible technologically in the 1930s, but AT&T killed it as innovation until the 1970s.

Dean: Wow. Yeah, that's something. These whole.

Dan: It was Nixon. Nixon said, you know, he said, we're getting to the point where AT and T is the biggest obstacle to the progress of the US Economy. And he just went after ATT and they broke up. @&t. And he said. And Tim Boot said it was the breakup of AT&T that created the Internet.

Dean: How interesting. So, yeah, we are. Does he propose that that's where we are now? Sort of.

Dan: No. He says we're about Google.

Dean: Facebook.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. He said, we wouldn't be where they were if there is. It would be Google running everything. What, What Facebook does, Google does that. What Apple does, Google does. Yeah, yeah. That's what AT&T had. They had a total monopoly. It's the greatest information monopoly. In the history of the world. We hope it doesn't. We hope it doesn't come back.

Dean: Right?

Dan: Yeah. But he said it was the breaking up of AT&T that released a lot of talent and innovation out into the marketplace. And AT&T could no longer forbid anything attached to the telephone system. You could do it. You could attach anything you wanted to the telephone system. And a lot of people had cordless. There were cordless innovations. But AT&T said, no, no, we have to have alignment come in and install your telephone to guarantee absolute quality. Right. They wanted to know why you. They wanted to know why you wanted two phones in your house. Why. Why do you need two phones in your house. What do you, what are you doing with the second phone?

Dean: Yeah. Remember they used to rent the phones to you or whatever? Yeah, they.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, they own the phones. They. Yeah, they owned everything. They owned everything. And you couldn't have any repairman except their repair man. And. Yeah. So they. It was absolute. It was 70 years. So when people talk about the, you know, the tyranny.

Dean: Remember the day our kitchen, Our phone came off the kitchen wall and it became now movable with a long cord, that freedom to go outside of the kitchen into the living room or wherever. I mean.

Dan: Well, I remember when our phone went to where you would have one thing at your ear and the other, the other end of the thing on your mouth. We had the old phone, you put it on your ear and you had to speak.

Dean: You had to pick into the phone. Oh, yeah.

Dan: Talk into it. And there was no dial. There was no dial. You just picked it up and an operator would. And we were on a party line. You know, I grew up. Party line. And when you got on, you could hear the other clicks that people were listening to your. On your phone call, you know.

Dean: Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And funny, you know, and at a certain point, people want their privacy back and they, they want it for their use.

Dean: So.

Dan: But he thinks that we're kind of been. If you use AT&T's 70 year rule, he said, we're kind of like right now, we're like 30 years into AT&T's rule to compare it to the Internet.

Dean: Wow, that's. I mean.

Dan: Yeah, he thinks things are remarkably free right now.

Dean: Yeah, I feel like we're on. We're. We're in the generation that is the Mayflower of Cloudlandia, you know?

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And he said the one thing they learned from AT&T is that you can't forbid innovation. You can't have Somebody stopping innovation.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, and. And he said that the reason why the Internet works so well is that you can build your company on somebody else's platform.

Dean: Yeah, well, it's so. It's almost. It's overwhelming how. How much, you know, how wonderful it is to be at this moment in time, be who we are right now, you know?

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: Good time.

Dan: I feel, you know, I feel enormously wealthy with capability.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: More so over the last 12 months. I mean, my sense of the reach has gone through the roof. Easily 10 times greater reach than we had a year ago. And that's funny, we had a really good call with Joe yesterday. Joe Polish. And I just want to tell you this because he's using his year for different purposes, but one of them, he's really finding everything he can about cryptocurrency. He may have talked to you about this, and he was talking about a new thing called BitCloud. You know, about BitCloud.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So anyway, and. And, you know, he was sending us videos and talking to it and, you know, and you know, you know how Joe, when Joe gets really excited. Yeah, you get excited too, because he's very vivid and describing it in. Anyway, so anyway, when we, Babs and I were off the call, I said, what's most exciting? What's the most exciting thing in our future? And Bab says, next registration in the strategic coach.

Dean: That's true.

Dan: But we can speed it up. You know, we can speed that up. But yeah, we're. We're pretty clear in how we measure progress and people signing up for coach and staying in coach. You know, everything else is kind of a bonus, like new capabilities. But you gotta. You gotta, you know, you gotta stay focused on, you know,

Dean: Amen. I mean, those whole, like, you're successful. Yeah, I'm gonna revisit my. I'm not. I don't point. I'm ready to give up TV yet because there's things that I really do enjoy watching, but I'm certainly paying attention right now. And yeah, I think a lot of it.

Dan: Yeah, I think I'm. I think I'm gonna do a series of videos, just what my experience was, and just sort of share my experience, you know, what I found about getting time back from something I had never really given much thought before because right. Was something that I was doing for 60, you know, 60, 65 years, and I never gave any thought to it. And I said, I wonder what. What would I do differently if I got all that time back? And I certainly see that. And it's reading. It's really reading. I mean.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Just pouring things into reading. And, and I, I've got the experience that reading was a much more powerful and transformative experience. Experience than television was. So I, I had gone through the reading transformation before television. So it, Television had to kind of wait in line a little bit because.

Dean: Right. First love and getting back. That was your university experience too.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And I've gone back to my first love a lot. And the other thing is that, you know, I really feel a lot of slack in my schedule as a result of the past year. And I said I'm not giving it back. I'm not going back to being tightly scheduled again.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: I love, I mean I've got so much slack. That's what was, that's the great thing. And I guarded against, I mean guarded myself to keep that slack because I viewed that slack as the, the ultimate definition of success for me.

Dan: Yep.

Dean: Yeah. Time, freedom.

Dan: Anyway.

Dean: Well, Dan. Yeah, I always enjoy it. Really was. I'm going to give some more thought to the, the welcome kit because I think there's something good there. But putting it all into perspective immediately

Dan: after we sign off here, I'm just going to go up and send you the Tim Wu YouTube video. And, and he's, he's charming. He's, he's a. Yeah, he's just got a real charming quality about him that he's just so excited that he's able to, to think about these things and share what he's sharing, you know. But it's at Harvard Book Bookstore in Cambridge, I guess. Cambridge. And so when you get it, skip the first minute and 20 seconds.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: Because that's the introduction and the woman listening to her is like listening to fingernails on a blackboard.

Dean: I got you. Thank you for that.

Dan: Yeah. So you just, you just go to the 120 mark and then, then he's good. But he's, he's very lucid and he gives, he just gives you a lot of context and you don't have any sense of that. He's got a bone to pick or anything like that. He's just right saying, he said, I was just wondering whether what we think is so unique today has happened before. And he says, I've gone back and found four or five instances that look a lot like what's happening today. So I'd just like to tell you what I've learned for, learned from the previous examples that might be useful for understanding what's going on today.

Dean: I love it.

Dan: Yeah, perfect. All right.

Dean: Okay. I will talk to you next time.