Hey, listeners. Welcome back to another episode of Two Dads in Tech.
I'm Troy Munsen, and on this episode, Daniel and I talk about how AI is quite literally destroying lives, what we can do as parents to help our kids make tough decisions as social media and AI is on the rise, and what you would do for a life without technology.
We have also launched our newsletter, so if you wanna subscribe to our newsletter, it's not the podcast, but instead it is a subproduct to the podcast. Go to twodadsintech.com and subscribe.
Other than that, let's go ahead and get right into the episode. Hey, Daniel, how are you? Oh, I didn't... Sorry. [laughs] I didn't realize, I didn't realize you started the recording.
[laughs] I think we should keep that. Hello. Hello. The arsenal has oddly shaped feet. [laughs] All right, let's get into it. Daniel, hey. [laughs] How are you? I'm good, man. It's good to see you.
It looks like you have a new background. What's up with that? Did you, uh, did you add some panels to your walls? Yeah, so we moved. We moved, man. It's been a process. My wife is...
She wants everything done, like, within a week. We, we tried to finish everything this week, and everything...
Like, there's decorations on shelves and stuff already, but there's a few things that we need to do, so these panels behind me are wrapped in plastic.
The boxes are still on the floor, and I need to hang them up, but I'm procrastinating. I love it. Screw my background, dude. Today's not only your birthday, but it's also your- Ooh... anniversary. Happy anniversary, man.
Ooh. Ooh. Thank you. Thank you. Seven years married. Over 10 years together, two kids down. Uh, yeah, it's, it's great. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's a happy day. Yeah. 10 more to go, man. 10 more to go.
That's right. Well, it's good to see you. If there are any wives listening to this, if your husband is not recording a podcast on your anniversary, you do not have a good partner. Your partner should- That's right...
leave you for the day and go and record- That's right... a podcast. I was hoping this podcast would be longer to take you for- That's right... a little bit. Eight-hour podcast recording session on the anniversary.
You know, my wife asked, "Do you wanna go out for our anniversary?" I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Troy and I have a podcast to record." [laughs] You come out sweating. Maybe, maybe when the podcast is done.
[laughs] Oh, all jokes aside- My goodness... man, yeah, happy anniversary. I'm, I'm proud of you. I'm happy for you, and tell your wife I said happy anniver- What's your wife's name? Sarah? No. Courtney. No, not Sarah.
Courtney. Not Sarah. Courtney. I, I do not... I'm not sure where that name came from. If you're, if you're listening, Courtney, th-there is no Sarah. Uh, where did that come from? I don't know.
Uh- Your co-founder's name is Sarah, so- And we were-... that might be- And we were talking about- Yeah... having her as a guest, so that's kind of maybe a- That's right... surprise future episode maybe, having Sarah on.
Sarah, if you're listening, join, join Two Dads in Tech. Tell us about- Please... all of your sales and demo antics. Please. Please.
But I wanted to talk about a, a serious topic that I saw this week, and if you don't mind. Yeah. All right. [sighs] Thank goodness I got permission. So, I'm on TikTok a lot.
This week, and actually I was not, 'cause I moved. I was busy, but I was on TikTok, and I saw that this 16-year-old kid passed away. And so then I got into this rabbit hole, and he's like a TikTok creator.
I think he has, like, a million followers or something like that, so a fair amount. I got into this rabbit hole. I was like, "Okay, well, how'd this kid pass away?" And I went through all of his videos.
His girlfriend posted a lot of videos of him passing away, all this stuff, and it was so hard to find good information.
So all that to say is I don't know how much of this is factual, but based on what I had uncovered from TikTok and then googling everything and trying to figure this out, this kid was 16 years old. He was an influencer.
What seemed like on the surface a really happy kid, but supposedly, the story goes, his name is Joshua Blackledge, so anybody can look this up if you want, 'cause again, it's hard.
It's actually really hard to find information on this, of exactly what happened, but supposedly what happened was he had friends that were a really bad influence, which talked him into shooting himself.
And again, this is just what I read up on. And I wanted to... Like, you're a father of two. I'm a father of two, and I wanted to get your thoughts.
Like, how do you think we teach and stop our children from becoming victim of something like that with friends that could be a bad influence? That's a, that's a tragic story.
It's hard because my kids are three years old and almost one year old,
so my only insight into what this will be like when I'm parenting them as, you know, they're growing up in a, in a world of, you know, making their own friends and making their own decisions, I, I look back on my own childhood and what I did and the universe I lived in, and everything's so different now.
Honestly, I feel somewhat unprepared for that. I read something recently where... Or actually, it was a TikTok.
There was a kid who was playing catch with his friends in, like, some neighborhood street, and they accidentally hit one of the cars with... It was, like, a football. Rammed into the car.
Didn't cause any damage, but caused the car alarm to go off, and this video is the kid from the perspective of a Ring camera going to the person who owns the car's house saying, "Hey, don't know if you're home or if this thing's recording, but we're playing catch and the car...
You know, we hit the car on accident and the alarm went off. Doesn't look like there's any damage, but I just wanted to come and apologize. Not even sure if you're ever gonna get this, but, you know, sorry about that.
We'll try to be more careful next time," and then he kinda walks away.
And this viral video is the video from the Ring camera after the fact, and all these comments on the video were like, "Wow, someone's raising this kid really, really well."
I mean, he was probably 11 years old, I would, I would guess. And I think, I think so much comes back to parenting
in ways that are actually kind of overwhelming, because so much of what we do as dads, and if you're listening as, you know, maybe you're a guardian, maybe you're an aunt/uncle or, like, a father, mother figure.
You might be a mom, a stay-at-home mom, a single mom, single dad.
There's so many-Parental types of figures, but so much of what our kids choose to do, the friends they make, the crowds that they find themselves in, uh, the, the things that they do, the, what their, their, their affinities and their, their likes, their dislikes, all come back to what their parents parented them with, how their homes were, uh, you know, made at, you know, in the house, and what their day-to-days looked like, how much attention they got from the adults in their lives.
And so I don't know.
I mean, I really don't know how to answer your question other than I'm overwhelmed that there's a world that my children will be relying on me to save them from because that feels like a unbearable responsibility in some ways.
It also makes me much more grateful for my wife and for the village that we have around us of people who I respect, who I think are helping us to create a more safe environment and safe haven for them.
It's not really just up to me as much as it might feel like that. Yeah. Yeah, and I, I'm right there with you.
I don't know what the answer is, but I do strongly believe that everything that we do as parents somewhat controls the narrative of, of what your kid does, and I think that obviously there's caveats and nuances and stuff like that.
There's a stereotype where if you're really strict on their kid, on your kid, then they're gonna rebel more when they're older, things like that. Who knows? I don't know the statistics behind it.
But I did see that video, uh, that you're talking about where the kid went up to the Ring doorbell, and, and I agree, like whoever raised that kid did a damn good job because, you know, really it's like, I would just kind of...
I-- Sadly, I probably as a kid would have just walked away and been like, "Yeah, whatever," but it's really interesting to see kids like that. But one thing that just kinda made me think about was
a while ago, shoot, episode three? Episode four? I, I, I don't really remember, but you talked about somebody that took their life from an AI girlfriend telling him to- Mm-hmm. I think. Mm-hmm.
Who-- I can't remember if she told him to kill himself or if like if they were breaking up. I don't really remember the exact scenario.
But yeah, it's in-- it, it is scary, and it is overwhelming, like the world that we are- It is... heading into. And a lot of it is on us. We take the burden of that, of how we teach our kids. Uh, but man, it's sad.
It's extremely sad, and I don't know. It's devastating. Yeah. It's devastating. It is. And, I mean, it reminds me of another story, and, uh, I wrote about it recently. Someone that I know DM'd me.
They're a listener of the podcast. They said, "Hey, this feels like a kind of two worlds colliding in the sense of parenting and technology," and it's unfortunately another tragedy.
It was, it was a kid, sixteen year old as well, who was the victim of extortion from some scam artists who were sending him these AI-generated photos
that, you know, were sexually explicit and also fake.
And so they were using these photos to blackmail him into giving him money, saying, or them money, saying, "Hey, we're going to release these photos to the internet of you doing all these things unless you pay us," you know, I think it was three thousand dollars, they said.
And they threatened his family. So, you know, again, sixteen-year-old kid being threatened of, you know, basically ruining his image online, but also his family in danger, all this stuff.
So turns out he actually gave them that money, the story goes, and they still said, "Hey, actually that's not enough."
Um, he ended up taking his own life because of the pressure, because of the, just the whole situation entirely.
And the original episode we were talking about where that story happened, where the AI chatbot, you know, ended up someone taking their life because of this pseudo-relationship they had with the chatbot.
I remember saying, "This is not the last time we're going to experience something like this." And now we're in one episode where two relevant stories are taking place that are unfortunate tragedies.
I don't think we're prepared for how much our world is going to change due to this type of technology, and when I was writing, you know, I'll just read a tiny excerpt of what I mentioned.
I said, "I understand most viral technology, and I understand that it's developing far too rapidly for me to keep up with."
Said, "My children are both growing up in a world one hundred times different than the one that I grew up in, and they'll both have to make choices in their lives to be good people, even with the power of the world at their fingertips."
And that's kind of how I view this all is when we grew up, you and I, Troy, we didn't have the World Wide Web in our pockets.
And even five years ago, we didn't have the ability to create new usable applications in our pockets.
And I think what AI is doing is it's giving so much power to people who otherwise probably should not have that amount of power in a single decision, even in a single bad decision, in a moment of weakness, the ability to alter the course of someone's life.
I mean, shoot, I know children shouldn't have that power. I also know most adults shouldn't have that power, and so I think we're living in a world where everything's kind of being built.
It's like build the ship while you sail it. That's how I feel with like a lot of technology right now, is no one really knows how it's going to affect the world. Mm-hmm.
We're just building it and, like, kind of seeing what happens. Yeah. Yeah.
It, it's, it's a scary reality, and speaking of scary reality and technology, there's some scary news out in the SAS and, and VC world as well today. So if you're listening to this, it's March twenty-fifth.
We usually record these a week or so in advance. Eleven X is a company that creates AI agents, but their flagship product was their AI SDR at the height of AI SDRs and just the AI boom.
They recently, in November of twenty-twenty-four, raised a fifty million dollar Series B led by a16z, which if, if you're unfamiliar, they're one of the most respected and reputable VCs in the entire world.
Well-It looks like A-A16Z might be suing them because they claim that they have customers that they didn't, and that their work environment is also horrid. Like, just read the articles.
It's like even if you love hustle culture, this is getting people in mentally dark places. And so
I don't know if you read much about this, but this morning I was at the gym, and I saw, like, the first post about it, and I'm like, wait a second. Like, LinkedIn's usually not early to anything.
And then I looked it up on Google, and it was like an hour ago, and I was like, wait, LinkedIn is kinda early here. Um, so- Hey. TechCrunch. I know. What up LinkedIn? So TechCrunch, uh, came out with an article.
Essentially, this company had a very specific contract, and it said, "Hey, we only do annual contracts, but there is a ninety-day opt-out clause."
So what that essentially tells companies is you have zero risk to sign on with us for the first ninety days.
So what they did was they sold all these contracts in a very short amount of time, a lot of them, and there were a lot of these customers in the ninety-day clause.
But what they were able to do because of that is essentially say, "Hey, this is our ARR because we have all of these contracts that will turn into ARR, assuming they don't opt out."
Well, they went out, they raised a ton of money. Turns out over ninety percent of their customers have churned. They've lied about the customers that they have.
They've fabricated about all the customer data and, like, who they're working with. There's so much going on behind the scenes.
But I wanted to ask you, I don't know, again, how familiar you are with the story, but who's at fault here? Is it the company? Is it the VC that didn't do due diligence? Like, w-what do you think? Yeah, great question.
Who's at fault? I mean, look, if you, if you're falsifying customer data to raise money, you're at fault. I, I think it's... To me, it's black and white.
Now, should the VC, in this case, A16Z, should they have been able to uncover that in their due diligence? I mean, maybe.
You know, if Eleven-X was really, really good at lying, it might not have been as clear-cut as just, you know, discovering those customers were fake, or if the ARR projection was pre ninety percent churn because they launched and raised in such a short period of time, falsification could have been a gray area.
You know, it's like, hey, our ARR, you know. People are like, they hit eighty-three thousand dollars in MRR, which to them is like they made eighty-three thousand dollars.
They have no idea if it's gonna be a recurring payment like thirty days from now, but they're like, "Oh, I'm a million ARR." It's like, well, no, you made eighty-three thousand dollars in revenue. It's not MRR.
You don't know. You've been around for three weeks. It's not ARR because you've been around for three weeks. So the projection of annual recurring revenue is a fairly gray space.
And when you're raising money, if you launch, make money, and then raise all in such a short period of time with that ninety-day, you know, churn cutoff that maybe was yet to be experienced for most of their customer base, then it's like, well, yeah, ninety percent of our customers churned, but like three weeks ago, they were happy customers.
[laughs] I got-- I don't know the timeline of things. So it's like, you know- Yeah. -that's super sketchy. Like, for sure sketchy.
And for A16Z to be potentially suing, you know, I'm sure they feel slighted in a lot of ways. Do you think this says anything about selling AI as your core product? Yes.
I was having a very interesting conversation with an engineer I know recently. Really bright guy, entrepreneur, lot of experience, you know, builds at the speed of light. Just respect him a lot.
And I think what we're seeing in tech, and I work at Beehiiv, really exciting time where I work. What we're seeing in this space is these AI tools go from, you know, zero to a hundred million ARR, like, overnight.
And you and I talked about this in a recent episode.
And so it can, you can start to feel like, wait a second, what do we need to do to tap into that type of revenue and start to think, well, you know, build AI tools and, you know, you know, coincide or, or, you know, build concurrently with some of these AI features and integrate with AI and, you know, brand statements around AI.
It's like, well, while there may be some truth to that, the conversation I had with this engineer landed in a really interesting place, and it's let's see how many of these AI tools are still thriving in twenty-four months.
And I'm not at all speaking directly at, like, the main ones, like Cursor, Replit. These ones, they're, they're, they're fine. They're revolutionary. They're gonna, they're gonna be around for a while, in my opinion.
But there are so many AI tools being launched right now by AI, like people using AI to build new AI tools. I'm like, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say, like, we're in a bubble and it's gonna pop.
Like, I think that'd be extreme and I think maybe premature because we just don't have enough information yet. But I'm like, it's not, I guess it's not surprising to me that this story with Eleven-X came out.
I'm like, yeah. Like I was basically just waiting for one of these companies to have screwed over a VC because, like, th-there can't be a million companies in AI all making a billion dollars.
There's not enough money for that. Yeah. There's not enough people. Yeah. There's not enough customers. So I think it, it's, it's all gonna find its way into the light at some point and in some way. Yeah. Yeah.
No, I agree there. And so with Demo, if you're unfamiliar at all, I'm the founder of Demo. We're a software marketplace, and so I see a lot of companies come inbound.
What I have noticed, especially in go-to-market tech, sales tech specifically, everyone it seems like is building AI tech for AEs or AI tech for sales teams.
And you me- you said something interesting here where you mentioned, I don't know, if we're in a bubble. On my end, input-- like I manually add these companies to the site when they, when they create a form.
On my end, I'm like, we're in a bubble. Like there are hundreds of- Yeah. -companies claiming that they are an AI copilot for sales teams. Let's hypothetically say that there's two hundred on our site right now.
I bet you a hundred and ninety-eight of them will die in the next twenty-four months, and I bet you two of them willProbably do decently well.
Like, you're all doing the same thing, and you're essentially all just a, a, maybe this is a hot take, but a, a ChatGPT wrapper. However, what I have noticed is a lot of companies are also starting to notice this.
I, it sounds like 11X did not notice this in time, but for example, AISDR is a company, aisdr.com, they are a company that provides, guess what, an AISDR, but they do it completely differently than what 11X does.
Like, they do it with signals, and they read your website visitors and closed lost deals and all that stuff. So like they leverage a lot of first-party data and things like that to know when to reach out.
It's not just like, "Hey, let me write you emails, personalized emails based on what I can scrape about you online."
And so I dig a lot of companies, even, even this one company that I'm consulting with right now, they're changing their phrase from AI copilot to essentially sell... What is it?
It's something like bringing the human back into sales or something like that. Like, completely shift it. And so I don't know. It's really interesting, man. Really interesting time in tech.
I think it's an, I think it's an incredible time in tech as well, but th- those AI companies, mm- Yes. Not a long lifespan. Speaking of AI companies, can you tell me what is the earliest
AI tool that you personally, and probably most of our listeners, interacted with in the last 15 years? This is an opinion, but I think it's pretty accurate. Just throw out a guess.
What's the earliest tool that you used in AI? Earliest? So now you, when you say 15 years, I'm thinking back further than just, like, the last few years. Yes. Yes. Dude, I don't know. I, I don't know.
I, I don't know- Siri... the earliest AI tool. The answer, the answer is Siri. Siri was launched on October 4th, 2011. That's insane. 14 years ago. Has Siri and Apple completely dropped the ball?
It feels like after 14 years of development and a trillion-plus dollar company, Siri should be 1,000 times more than what it is today. It's such a useless tool, am I expensive. A thousand times more than OpenAI.
I mean, you, you'd gotta imagine if Siri was truly before its time, how is it so archaically out of touch with what AI can do now, having a 14-year head start, and- Yeah... infinite cash flow.
I mean- Yeah... Apple notoriously has money, like actual cash. Like, Apple has cash in the bank. Like, not-- Most tech companies do not just have billions of dollars in a bank somewhere. Apple has literal money.
[laughs] Cash flow positive they can spend on development, yet Siri's out here looking like it was built in 1843 without- [laughs]... a single use case that's relevant to my daily life.
Yeah, you know, it's, it's interesting knowing the vast amount of data that Siri probably sits on and what it could probably do for you on a day-to-day basis- Yes... that it doesn't do.
I just say, "Hey, Siri, what's the weather like today?" Or, "Hey, Siri, set a timer." That's my main use case. I don't use it for anything else. Does it... Is there a Siri AI?
Like, I, I know that it, like, does it actually do AI things for you? Does it automate- Honestly... any workflows? I don't know. Like, I feel like I should be using it for that if it does.
But you know, like, Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. came out, and they had JIRA or J- JORA, or I can't even remember their name, right? It's, like, way back. Jarvis. Jarvis. Iron Man's- Jarvis...
like AI home was Jarvis, and that was, like, when did Iron Man come out? Like 2000 friggin' 3. Iron Man, I'm looking it up right now. Iron Man 2, Iron Man 1 release date was in 2008,
which is, I can't do math, 17 years ago, and they had Jarvis doing Robert Downey Jr.'s entire, like, stuff, like his life. It was just like this, this robot was, like, doing things for him.
I feel like Apple could have done that. Like, Siri could have- Yeah... become an actual real-life Jarvis.
But meanwhile, we have these, like, Alexas sitting in every room, and we have these Siri Dots, whatever they're called. I don't even know, like Google Homes. Apple has a Apple... I don't know what Apple's one is called.
All these are so useless. I'm like, "You guys had Iron Man show you what was awesome and sci-fi possible. You basically had the roadmap. Someone just go build what we had in a movie 17 years ago."
Obviously easier said than done, but, like, please, someone go build that. Jarvis Homes would be sick. Yeah, that would be sick.
And you know, actually, speaking of massive companies in AI, I just noticed a really cool AI feature from one of the largest companies in the world. It might be the largest company in the world right now.
What is the largest company in the world today? Oh, I don't know. What is? Is it Amazon, or is it Apple? I think it goes back and forth. There's like 10 that are competing with the space over and over again. Let's see.
Look it up. I think it's Apple actually, and then maybe followed by Amazon. It is Apple. Three, three-plus trillion market cap, followed by Microsoft, Walmart by revenue.
This is ChatGPT, so someone fact-check me on this, but- Interesting. Okay. Yeah. It's Apple, according to this very loosely prompted question I asked. And you can't even build AI into Siri.
Anyways- That's what I'm saying. $3 trillion. That's so much. So I've, I've been buying a lot of stuff on Amazon. We recently moved. There's a lot of random little knick-knacks that I have to buy.
Dude, have you noticed, I don't know the last time you used Amazon, but they have...
Essentially what they do is they summarize all of the reviews for you and give you the summary of what people say before you have to read any reviews. Yeah, I actually hate that. I actually hate that.
Dude, I love it, 'cause it's like, hey, people say... L- Let me give you, let me give you an example.
So I was looking for a, a lightning to HDMI cord, and it was like, "Hey, people said that this works really well with Apple products, but it doesn't really work that well with third-party products.
Plus, you can't get a quality above 1080 HD with this cord, et cetera." I didn't know that until I read that little AI review.
But anyways, why do you hate it?I hate it because you can't override it unless I'm not doing it right. Like, you can't actually go and find specific line item reviews anymore.
It just summarizes everything, and you're sort of, like, left with that summary.
When I buy products on Amazon, or at least what I used to do, is like, let me read five five-star and five one-star and basically make an educated decision. 'Cause if the one stars are bad enough...
Like, sometimes people are like, "Yo, my experience should prevent anyone on the planet from ever buying from this company ever again, and here's why."
And I'm, like, reading the juicy deets, and I'm like, "That's horrendous. Let me see what the five-star review said." The five-star is like, "Great product." I'm like, "Okay. Well, let me read a different five-star."
I'm like, "Let me-- How do I weigh my options here?" And so, you know, I don't know. I, I like the summary. It's helpful, but, like, I wanna get the deets. I wanna see- Yeah... what am I getting myself into.
Like, I bought a Murphy bed on Amazon, and it was extremely complicated to assemble, and it came with a couple broken parts, and I had to drill my own holes because they drilled them wrong. It was a whole thing.
I'm like, "I should write a review. I'm not going to. This is way too much work. I just don't care." What would you rate it? What would you rate it? Probably three, because now that it's built, it functions amazingly.
I love it, but the amount of effort I put into it that was intended to save me from building one from scratch, like, if I were to do it again, I would just build one from scratch.
Like, like literally go buy the wood and build it 'cause I was drilling holes, and I was, like, redoing parts, and I had to order another part because it broke in shipping.
I'm like, I could have just, like, sawed my own Murphy bed together with how much effort this required, so I don't know. People should know. Yeah. People should know.
Yeah, and actually, in a lot of the five-star reviews, one, they're purchased nowadays because you can buy reviews. That's one thing. The second thing is I stopped reading reviews, and I s- well, depending on what it is.
I stopped reading reviews, and I started looking at the images and videos that people can post so then it's, like, actual footage of if this works because you can buy reviews. Yeah. There's AI-generated reviews nowadays.
Plus, when they send you something like a Murphy bed, you might get something that says, "Rate us five stars and get another free Murphy bed."
Like, there's-- When I get supplements on Amazon, it's like, "Rate us five stars, you'll get a free one of these." I'm like, "Five stars. Great product." [laughs] Didn't do anything. Yeah. Um... No, I know. But yeah.
And I've definitely left some reviews in exchange for money before. I mean, like, why not? Yeah. Especially if it's, like, enough. Like, if it's like a five-dollar Starbucks, I'm like, "Well, no."
[laughs] "That's not, not worth my time." [laughs] I also, I entered a, I entered a review. I'd never do this, but they got me. Lululemon sent me an email. I bought some pants from them the other day.
They're like, "Hey, be entered to win four hundred dollars to Lululemon for answering a few short questions." I was like, "Four hundred dollars? That's not bad." I was like, "Entered to win means it's not guaranteed."
I was like, "But how many people think this way? Ah, whatever, I'll do it." It was, like, so many questions, and it required a picture, and I had-- I'm like, "Oh." But I was too deep.
I was like, "I have to finish it now." [laughs] You did it. It took me like ten minutes. I was like, I did a ten-minute review, and I guarantee I'm not gonna see four hundred dollars. So I'm like, "What a waste of time."
They got me, though. They got me. I can't believe they got me. Yeah. Hey, I've been got from those, and usually what I do is I click on the form to see, like, what's involved.
However, now they're starting to just do, like, one question, and then you go to the next question on the next screen. So it's like you don't really know how long it's gonna be.
[laughs] And if they're nice, you have a loading bar. [laughs] Yeah. Terrible. Dude, I- So terrible... I completely agree with that.
Wanted to ask you a question about something that we talked about on a recent podcast, and it was about the fact that I own a Tesla. And we asked if that meant that I support Elon Musk. Yep.
Well, let me tell a story before I get into that 'cause I'm so ADHD. I got my first hate from driving my Tesla while my son was in the car on the way to sports on Saturday morning, so a guy was flashing me from behind.
Really? Yeah, and he drove by and just gave me the finger. And I was like, "That's really sweet. That's really nice of you." My wife was like, "Did you-- Were you driving horribly?"
And I was like, "I drive the speed limit. I don't know. Maybe he was in a rush," but my assumption was he just hated that I was driving a Tesla. It makes sense based on, on where I'm at.
I've actually then been looking into Rivians recently, but they're just so much more expensive. So- Yeah... all that to say, have you heard of DogeQuest? No. What is DogeQuest? Okay. So
somebody came out with DogeQuest, and it's like a mission that they're trying to accomplish. You should look it up. Okay. It's pretty crazy. Okay.
A guy has leaked the addresses of every single Tesla owner and says, "We want you to vandalize their car, burn it, do whatever you can, unless they can prove to us that you have sold, that they have sold the Tesla."
So it's like this mission of this guy from Reddit creating DogeQuest. You can see everybody that owns a Tesla and where they live, and then their whole mission is, "Let's go destroy them unless they've sold it."
And so- Wow... I own a Tesla. Things are only getting shakier now, man. I might, I might have to switch soon. I don't know, but a car's not cheap. I don't know what to do. I'm looking at it now. So it's on the dark web.
Uh, I don't know if you know how to access the dark web. Is your name on it? Is your, is your information there? On the dark web? I mean, we've talked about this. My information's probably everywhere.
Yeah, just literally Tesla owners. I mean, that's, that's scary. I think... I could be careful about how I say this, but I'm gonna say it.
I think you're a lunatic if you go blow up someone's car because of it being a Tesla.
There is a severe psychotic disconnect between what you believe about the world you live in and that person purchasing a product, and you need to seek professional help.
That said, what was your question about the Tesla thing? I didn't have a question about it. I wanted to just tell you about it. That's it. Oh, you're just telling a story. That is psycho. That's psycho.
Look, disagree with people all day. Feel angry. Feel upset. Think that they're less than worthy. Like, whatever you want to feel about a human being for the decisions they made, like, do it.
At the end of the day, you should not put other people in danger because you're upset that they're driving a Tesla. That's irrational. It's irrational. Yeah. I don't drive a Tesla. I have no stake in this.
We have to be human about this, and this is just inhumane.
Dude, and you rewind five years ago, at one time, Tesla was thought of a car-- Like, the people that now hate Tesla were once Tesla lovers because they were working on making a greener Earth.
Now, then there's the argument of, "Okay, but lithium batteries, the way that they make the batteries, and you recycle them, that's worse for the Earth than gas." Like, okay, sure.
There's all these technical things that can, that we can all talk about, but it's just so interesting.
It's like-That person that flipped me off, for example, no vandalization, but that person that flipped me off, I'm like, "You don't know me at all. You don't know my story. You don't know like- Yeah...
anything that I believe in. You just assume that because I'm driving this vehicle, I'm a bad person." And so a year ago, when I lived in Raleigh, there was the opposite of this.
This-- Eh, I'd probably say a year and a half ago, there was the opposite where there was a group, same thing.
What they were doing was they were going around slashing the tires of people with gas-guzzling cars, trucks, Expeditions, things like that, and they would leave a note on the car that said, "We want you to switch to an electric car to be better for the environment."
So I don't get it, man. I mean- I don't get it. [laughs] A note on the car, like, I, I'll give you that. Like, look, leave as many notes on as many cars as you want. That's not hurting anyone. Yeah. I don't care.
Like, I literally, I don't care enough even to care. It's neither here nor there to me. But I've seen people keying cars. I've seen people spray painting cars.
Obviously, there's, like, the worst case where, like, there has been Teslas, like, blown up and, like, I don't know, it, it could be a statement. There's a whole bunch of, like, creative expression and whatever.
Like, okay, like, we're-- I feel like we're crossing a line. I don't know.
I don't have a formed enough opinion to speak more adamantly on it than I did just a moment ago, but, like, let's not confuse creative expression with inhumanity, and I think sometimes we get those two things confused.
And I'm a creative person- Yeah... so I'm not speaking down on creative expression. I'm saying let's be mindful of who is on the receiving end of that creative expression. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in full agreement there.
Switching gears, Troy, uh, I wanted to mention a quick story. It's end of quarter right now while we're recording this, uh, March twenty-fifth.
I know a lot of sellers are trying to get their contracts out for quick signatures before that quota ends at the end of the quarter, and we get... You know, we start from scratch in the new quarter.
I know some quarters go past through April, depending on your fiscal year, but for me, Q1 ends in, like, five, six days.
And the, the worst possible thing at the end of the quarter is you send out a DocuSign, and you don't hear back. You can't get the signature. You're waiting. You're waiting. You're waiting. You're following up.
You're calling. You're emailing. And then next thing you know, it's April first, it's April second, and that contract still isn't signed.
The thing that is being solved right now before our very eyes is this issue of getting the signature from the new customer. If you haven't heard of them, Agree is this brand-new startup.
It's been around for a, a number of months now. Went from zero to twenty-five thousand users in only six months. Agree.com is going after the DocuSigns of the world for two main reasons: quick signatures, quick payment.
It integrates seamlessly with Stripe. It has industry recognition already with a lot of big logos already using it, has an all-in-one dashboard. It has team features. It has a ton of templates.
In fact, I used Agree and the templates that they have in Agree to get Agree, the company, to sign the contract to sponsor Two Dads and Tech. So super meta moment for our sponsor today and in April.
It is Agree. You should go check them out. We've used them here at Two Dads and Tech. I'm a huge fan. It was really seamless, very easy. I've used DocuSign. I've used HubSpot contracts.
I've used a bunch of tools out there just to get the signature. You know, NDAs and MNDAs and, you know, there's so many different things we need signatures for. MSAs, all the different acronyms.
Agree really does make this so much easier. So go check them out. You guys can check it out for yourself, and hopefully you like it. Um, tell them that, uh, Two Dads and Tech sent you, and let us know what you think.
And the sad part about that is this episode will be coming out after the end of quarter. So I'm sorry if you don't get- I know...
your deals closed or if you hit quota, it's because you're not using Agree, and we let you know a little too late. But like you said, we start over from the jump. You start at zero in April. Let's get it.
[laughs] Go get Agree. That's right. There's always, there's always another contract to be signed, and so now you gotta use Agree. Get that signature. Don't let the signature stop you from moving the deal forward.
Ugh, that is the worst. Awesome. Great job, by the way. Thank you. Okay, back to the story. A great way that I wanted to end the episode is by mentioning a story and asking you a couple questions on it.
There's a story I just found on Twitter from August Lam, who is a writer and a painter. I'm not even sure who this person is. I just came across this mega viral post from her about... Actually, you know what?
I'm just gonna read it. It says, "Last day of owning a computer. Once I sell it, I won't have any internet-connected devices, just a flip phone. I'll use the library to check email and transcribe my writing.
Wish me luck or join me." And I was like, "Whoa." I don't know if this is rebellion or what. She has a picture in the post where she's holding up a book. The book is Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer by Wendell Berry.
I know nothing about this story. I know nothing about her reasons, but I had to ask. I was like, this has to be talked about in Two Dads and Tech.
How stinking difficult would it be to eliminate technology entirely from your house and from your day-to-day? I mean, the easy answer is it would be difficult. I always like to put a monetary value on things.
So, like, one thing that we talked- Yeah... about on our last episode is how much I'd go to prison for, for 12 months.
So now I'm trying to think, okay, well, how much would I get rid of every internet-connected thing in my entire life?
Like, you-- I, I would need to be somewhere remote that's beautiful twenty-four seven and never have an expense again in my life. So maybe, like, twenty bucks. No, I'm kidding. [laughs] So maybe, like, uh- Twenty bucks.
I know, right? No, it would have to be a lot of money. I could not do it. If you told me to go a week next week without getting on the internet, I don't know if I'd be able to, to be honest. Dude.
There's too much going on. I, I thought the same thing. I s- I thought the same thing at first, but then I actually thought a little bit moreHave you ever heard of light phone? L-I-G-H-T phone? No.
Sounds like a phone that maybe is bricked a little bit. What is it? Pretty much, pretty much exactly what you described.
It is a phone that lets you call and text, has your alarm, has a couple things like a calendar, some of the basic things, but otherwise it's just dumb.
It's super dumb, but has the smart functions where most people are like, "Oh man, that would actually be legitimately convenient to give up." But like there's no social media, there's no camera.
There's a lot of stuff that's just like, whether good or bad, distraction to have in your pocket and sometimes overkill or even addicting. So you, you say how much money would it take for me to give up...
I actually flipped it a little bit. I was like, how much money would I actually be willing to spend to not have to use technology?
Because I think there's this component right now where the line between free use of tech and addiction to the tech we're using freely is pretty blurry. I think- Mm-hmm... myself included, a lot of us are addicted.
Addicted to TikTok, addicted to social media in general, addicted to use, just scrolling, just doom scrolling. Just literally hours of just, you're not even looking at anything. There's nothing being digested.
It's just sometimes because you're standing in line somewhere and you are just feeling awkward and you're like, "Well, what else do I do? I don't wanna just stare into space, so I'm gonna scroll."
And it's interesting, like actually Dan Go, uh, I've talked about him a couple of times on the podcast because he's a super healthy guy. He talks about health, and he tweeted-- Let's see if I can find this tweet.
He said, "If you can, one, eat food, two, stand in line, three, play with your kids, and four, go to the bathroom, all without looking at a phone, you have a modern-day superpower." And- Mm. I was like, actually,
true. I- Dang. Yeah... don't do any of those things without having, like even sometimes just the phone in my hand.
It's almost like going to a party and not having anything in your hand, even if you don't drink, which I don't drink either, but like I have a cup of water even in my hand 'cause having nothing at a party feels like, like I gotta have something in my hand.
I feel like we've conditioned ourselves to be so tied and attached and addicted to just having the phone in your hand, whether or not you're scrolling. It's like, yikes, guys, we are literally prisoners of our devices.
Yeah. So I think I would actually pay money to, to have someone brainwash me out of that. [laughs] Like I think- Yeah...
I think I would be like, "Hey, give me like six months of just freedom," 'cause I'm not free from devices at all by any stretch. Oh, dude, I'm not at all. And, and I agree. I think that we are prisoners to our devices.
And I think, like, I would love to have a detox from every single thing from the internet. Mm-hmm. But I'd wanna be somewhere nice. I'd wanna go somewhere [laughs] like do I wanna just... I don't know.
I guess I could sit in the house. We just got a new house. It's kinda fun right now. Yeah.
So maybe I could, but I, I love when I go on vacation, like to Mexico and things like that, and then I just leave my phone in the room. It is- Yep... an amazing feeling not having a piece of technology near you.
Um, and I'm the same way, man. Wherever I go, if, if I'm in fast food or whatever and I'm waiting in line, phone's out, just kinda scrolling. I get it. Dude, it's horrible. Yep. It's horrible. Yep.
We can, we can be the difference. I think it all starts with someone choosing to take a stand, which is why I loved that post.
Like for whatever reason, this person decided, "I'm gonna stop using technology," and it's like, wow, that's actually really admiring or I'm, I admire that. It's admirable. I think that's really cool- Yeah...
that someone is, uh, is doing that. Yeah. I think that's, that's the best way to put it, is it's admirable. I probably wouldn't do it, but I think it's the best way to put it. And I also think that- Yes...
that is an amazing way to conclude this episode. Yes. Yes, it is. So Daniel, as always, where can they find us?
Well, before you tune out and stop listening, which is what a lot of people probably do at this point, we are launching officially our newsletter. Coming up every week, you will get a Two Dads and Tech newsletter.
It'll be a little bit kind of a podcast-esque newsletter, but really it's just gonna be an, a supplement, a product in and of itself, free to everyone.
Subscribe at twodadsintech/subscribe, or you can just go to twodadsintech.com, and the subscribe link is right there in front of you. Expect that in your inboxes. We're really excited about this.
And with that, you can find us everywhere @twodadsintech, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, we have a page. We're on YouTube Shorts. Of course, the Two Dads and Tech page is where this episode goes.
We're also on Spotify, Apple, anywhere you listen to your podcasts. Reach out at daniel@twodadsintech.com if you're interested in having a conversation.
If you're interested in sponsoring this podcast, we do have some slots available next month in May. Anyways, Two Dads and Tech, that's everywhere you can find us. Beautiful. Daniel, have a good day. Yeah, you too, Troy.
Talk soon.