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CURAT3D: A series of conversations with the people shaping the culture and technology of the new internet.
This series is produced by SHILLR -- the most trusted marketing, media & consulting firm in crypto.
SHILLR
CURAT3D: Ben Rubin - Empowering Digital Communities with Towns
In this podcast episode, the host chats with Ben Rubin, the CEO and founder of Towns, a permissionless group chat app and protocol. We discuss everything from Ben's journey as an architect, to building digital spaces, and blockchain's role in ensuring the authenticity of human actions.
Ben Socials:
X (Twitter): https://x.com/benrbn
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubinben/
Towns:
Website: https://www.towns.com
X (Twitter): https://x.com/townsxyz
We're hyped to share that season 3 of the CURAT3D Pod is now powered by Towns! Towns is a permissionless group chat and protocol application built on Base that allows anyone to create & own digital town squares on their own terms. Available on web and iOS with full end-to-end encryption, join or create feature-rich Towns with native onchain gating, paid memberships and earn Towns points as you do so!
SHILLR:
Website: https://www.shillr.xyz
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/shillrxyz
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shillrxyz
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shillrxyz
I believe that, especially now, with AI that can essentially replicate us infinitely, to the degree that people don't recognize what's us and not. I think that cryptographic proof of who did what and who is human and who is who are going to become a huge, huge thing, and we are going to the same way. We accept cookies. We're going to be like you know use your touch ID to confirm that this is you, this is actually Ben, and the best technology for that is blockchain.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Curated, a series of conversations with the people shaping culture and technology of the new internet. This is a podcast series produced by Schiller, the most trusted marketing media and consulting firm in crypto. Before we jump in with today's guest, we want to make it clear that this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. We're hyped to share that Season 3 of the Curated Pot is now powered by Towns. Towns is a permissionless group chat and protocol application built on base that allows anyone to create and own digital town squares on their own terms, available on web and iOS, with full end-to-end encryption. Join or create feature-rich towns with native on-chain gating paid memberships and earn Towns points as you do so. We'll also be doing a little collab with our friends at the. We Do A Little pod in a joint town, so make sure to tap in and get access to our town-exclusive giveaways, rewards and more. Check the description for more info and head to townscom to get started today.
Speaker 2:In today's episode, I'm joined by Ben Rubin, who is the CEO and founder of Towns. Ben is a serial entrepreneur with a background in architecture who spent his life building digital spaces like MeekRat, houseparty and now Towns, a permissionless group chat app and protocol that allows us to own our own town and facilitate meaningful conversations with full end-to-end encryption, giving us more control over our social graph. I couldn't be more excited to have him on the show today. Gm Ben, how are you.
Speaker 1:Good morning, I'm great. I'm great. The sun is out here in New York, even though it's a bit chilly, but I like it when it's chilly and the sun is out.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was going to ask, like I'm from Texas, so the sun is out. The sun is out, yeah, how long have you been in New York for?
Speaker 1:Just genuinely curious, coming up five years now. Holy shit, what made you want to move there, always, always wanted to move. I lived in San Francisco for eight years and I always wanted to move and at the time I was married and, um, uh, you know, I my ex always always also wanted to move, but I was tied with my previous company in San Francisco. So it wasn't until, uh, we sold my previous company that it was possible to move, because we were kind of headquartered, you know, and pre-pandemic, you got like 80, 100 people in the office. You know.
Speaker 2:I can't really all right, guys, see you, I'm in new york, yeah, yeah yeah, it's kind of crazy how, uh, pre-pandemic, how things used to be, it feels like another world, you know, like it's it. I remember I was working a desk job. Uh, I was working, you know, and that was going to be the foreseeable future for me, you know, and uh, then covid just came in and threw a wrench and everything, and I, I just couldn't imagine going back to the way things were, you know, it feels like a, it feels like a prehistoric time, uh, for what it was.
Speaker 1:I actually think we're getting into like a happy middle where people are fine, like there is a better understanding of the value of an in-person, yeah, and a better understanding of where it's not really valuable to be in person, and people have more like language and opinion around it, which creates, I guess, uh to our world, an efficient market of time spent in person, time spent online. So I think I think, in the, in that sense, I I think we're getting into like a good people are finding like okay, these are the things I like to come to the office for. These are not, and like a lot of people that I know, that I speak to personally, I I hear a lot of people like you know, two days in the office, I love coming two days in the office, yes, you know, yep, we have the same things in towns where, like one day, uh a week at least, we all come, uh, at least the people in new york come to like a satellite office, um, yeah, yeah, I mean real quick, I'm just make sure my laptop was plugged in.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, like that, I I think that was the crazy part, because there was, you know, even before like you make a really good point even before covid there was, you know, at least the the role I was in, the job that I was in, I just kept pitching the idea of, like, we don't need to be here every single day, I don't mind coming in. The people I worked with were incredible. The team was rock solid, it was a bunch of superstars and it was like I enjoy that in-person aspect, but this doesn't need to be. Five days a week, this doesn't need to be. And to week, this doesn't need to be.
Speaker 2:You know, and I and to your point, though, I think we went through a phase where I feel like life slingshots, you know, like really far in one direction and then really far in another direction, and then somewhere in the middle is where we find the actual solution, kind of, like you said, just like an efficient market, uh, getting rid of things that like getting rid of jobs or not jobs, but like getting rid of things that like getting rid of jobs or not jobs, but like getting rid of things that, like, don't need to be there. Uh, you know so, um, I think you're exactly spot on with that. Um, we work. You know we're all distributed at Schiller, so it's kind of hard for us to to work in a, in a, in a physical environment, but we do. That's why we rent out places in Miami and New York, uh, during events, so we can all come and see each other, cause there we don't ever get to see each other Kind of sucks. You know, like, I love these guys, um, but, but, yeah, man, uh, appreciate the riff, uh, I enjoy.
Speaker 2:It's always weird thinking about that time. It kind of feels like a time warp, uh, that we went through, um and so bringing us here today. I know it's when you founded one of your companies. I believe it was, you know, I probably I'm probably going to get the name wrong, but Watch Party, is that House Party? You mean House Party? That's right. That's right. Yeah, okay, I knew it was Party. So I guess, like I always like to start a little bit from the beginning, you know what birthed that? Because there seems to be this draw towards the sense of online community and there's a couple of philosophical things I want to ask you later, but I think this is probably a good place to start.
Speaker 1:But yeah, well, to me, I like the medium of just like thinking about the online space as an opportunity to create interactions that you couldn't have before and, I think, a lot of creative ways to unpattern ourselves from how we're used to meet one another and what gives us comfort in that and confidence in how we meet one another. One of the ways to trick ourselves to feel comfortable in a situation which we wouldn't otherwise feel comfortable is those augmentations that you can do on a digital space, and there is a certain certain like all the successful platforms are dealing with some unique insight into plausible deniability, meaning and and in the sense of I can do something I don't feel comfortable doing in person, but this is an act on my behalf that, in the way it's instrumented in this product, I don't mind so much. You know to do um, and that creates some sort of a plausible deniability or like a sense of like oh, I didn't. Like. I remember when facebook had like poke, you know you never go. Like there's very specific, there's very specific people go and poke people that they don't know in person, right, but there was something about the manifestation of that idea but on a digital surface that created plausible deniability to bunch of people not in, not in a weird, not in creepy way, just like it made it like, oh, like everybody can poke, like it's not a weird thing, like yeah, uh, and then people started poking and then that all of a sudden, in a place that you can poke people and it's not weird you know snapchat, it will be very weird if you can send somebody a message and then delete it with the context of the use case for Snapchat.
Speaker 1:But because they made it the default, didn't feel comfortable to do before In a way that makes them feel secure. You know a very long preamble to answering your question, which is what was the sense for? What was the draw for Houseparty, which I'm sad you didn't know because it was 150 million users, most of them North America. But the thing that draw the most there was like how can you create an environment which, when people feel safe to have a FaceTime call with one or two of their friends without the emotional burden of actually FaceTiming, like how many people can you actually like call and FaceTime? And we were like 10 years into FaceTime or like I don't know nothing, sorry. Like actually it's not 10 years, it's maybe three or four.
Speaker 1:Where on group FaceTime, I mean FaceTime for 10 years, but it's the group FaceTime, I think, like 304 and like 10 years into FaceTime in general. And still there is, for most people, there's handful of people that they feel comfortable calling out in blue right. But what Houseparty did? It made it very easy for you, not because it was actually frictionless which it was but mostly emotionally it didn't feel weird for you to get into like a FaceTime call. You know, and that was the big unlock, because a lot of people did want to talk to their friends on a live call, but like the idea that they will call someone and they will say like oh, ben is FaceTiming you. Like Ben, I'm just. You know, I had one fun conversation with him in chemistry class like why the fuck is he FaceTiming me, you know. But on HouseQuad it made it cool because it it had this like passive uh affordance where it's like oh, ben is not calling you, he's in the house, you know he's in the house. You choose to join or not, you know anyway.
Speaker 2:So that's yeah, no, I mean, I really like no, because with me to to touch on the reason why, you know, one of the reasons why I guess it wasn't as top of mind for me is like there's certain things that I'm really quick to adapt to and then there's other things that I'm really slow to adapt to. I still very rarely FaceTime people, you know, and so that's one. It's one of those things that may have gotten lost on me, and it was also a very interesting point in my life where I was kind of just not wanting to talk to anybody, like just to just to be like fully transparent. It was a pretty, yeah, pretty tough, pretty tough part of my life and I was like, uh, clubhouse was like the only thing that I that I really latched onto because it was it, just it was I didn't have to present, it just made sense, uh, and I was able to learn, you know. So, uh, but I, but something that you, really, something that you touched on, is this, this like idea of like feeling safe and this idea of like connecting with people.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, one thing that I think, one thing that, like, I want double, double click on here, and maybe this is too much of a jump, but I feel I'm kind of feeling it is, you know there's on the speed of like having connection online. There is one thing I learned during covid is that there's this clear disconnect between, uh, you know, online interactions and in-person interactions, and part of that is like you know, online interactions and in-person interactions, and part of that is like, you know, like when I give someone a hug like that, just it's hard to. It's hard to emulate that online, right, like it's hard to, you know as much as I love thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's, it is a good thing, Um, do you think that there will be a period in time where the digital experience will be able to match the physical experience of being in person around somebody? I haven't found it yet, but I'm like, as someone who is a builder of online community tools and just you've been doing this for a long time.
Speaker 1:You mean it's, but you mean in terms of like there is a hardware that is receiving digital signal and emulating you like a robot, or or the feeling is completely digital, like I'm looking at a screen yeah, like what?
Speaker 2:or I mean just through, whether it's through, like through, obviously, some sort of hardware device. But do you ever think that we'll get to the spot where, like, we can emulate physical interactions in a digital space and have it feel on the same level? Or do you think that they'll always be, but where do you experience?
Speaker 1:it? Do you experience it physically via a robot or do you? You experience it digitally? Digitally, no, no, yeah I I mean if it, if you experience physically, meaning it's somehow connected to your brain, which means that you, it does get into the same receptors of touch, yes, and or if you tell me, hey, you know, do you think there's going to be a robot that is going to be as warm, as soft to touch as will behave just as a person, imitate digitally like a human image, now that seem real, then it will eventually be able to do that physically with, you know, hardware, so I think. But I don't think we'll be able to feel a direct feeling that we feel from surfaces and a hug and a kiss or, you know human touch to look at something digitally. But I do think there's going to be a great, there's going to be a pretty, you know, convincing replication of us that are physical, but they're going to be operated digitally and not through organs. Yeah, or maybe through organs. I don't know where we're going to go. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Thanks for yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And thanks for I know this is only 10 minutes into our conversation here. I kind of threw that at you because it's just something that, for someone who thinks about this a lot, you know, and as oftentimes I think maybe I'm just projecting, but I feel a lot of people feel, especially in the crypto space, there's this. There's this kind of disconnect or there's this tension between how much time should I be spending online, how much time should I be spending in person? We're obviously going more digital as a society like that, that much is true, um, but it's a con. There's a, at least for me. There's a constant push and pull around, going out and experiencing things physically versus doing things digitally with my friends, you know, um, so it's, it's something that I don't think I'll ever. Well, maybe we just haven't found the answer yet. Uh, it'll probably be an evolving, evolving topic. Well, maybe we just haven't found the answer yet. It'll probably be an evolving topic. But yeah, that's just something I wanted to throw at you, man, but I appreciate that, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one thing that really stuck out to me on the Boys Club podcast that I listened to was this idea around, yeah, just around, like filling a digit, like filling a void, you know, as as humans. Um, that was one thing that I was like, wow, like this is, yeah, like he kind of went there. I love it Cause, like they, they have the feelings check-in. Uh, a little bit about me. I've been sober for 11 years, you know. So it's, there's a that really stuck Good on you. Thanks, man. Yeah, it really stuck out to me. So, uh, I'm kind of curious on in your, in your journey and through your life, because when I hear someone talk like that, I'm like, okay, they've, they've walked through something you know like they've, like they're, they've constantly walked through things by the way but you know what I mean, like usually, yeah yeah, yeah, of course, uh, so so what is the question?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, so it was. There was that. Have you kind of always had this foresight or understanding around, uh, just around the void or like?
Speaker 1:was there kind of like a moment because I didn't, for example, I didn't say the void, you mean even that hole in the heart. Yeah, we all have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I when was it? When I was a kid, I used to in, in in in school. I used to raise my hand and ask to go to the bathroom and I would just wonder, because I grew up in israel, so it wasn't that like, I don't know, like it, it wasn't. You didn't need like a hall press, that's how you call it. You didn't need that, you know, and I would just like go on like one there and I think it was like a memory I have because I was.
Speaker 1:I would do it all the time and I was a great student, by the way. I would just like get bored or get the point of the class. I'm just like, man, I really need to do something better with my time and and I'm, I'm like, you know, third grader and I was just like, yeah, and, and I think people didn't really notice it because you know, get great good grades and you know, and I would just like wander around and look at stuff and you know, in in in the school and go, look at different rooms and what is this room and what is that room? And I think, in a way, there was a symptom of the recognition of some void like something that is like I don't want to be here.
Speaker 2:You know when we say something is boring.
Speaker 1:What we're actually saying is that it angers us that we can't do anything with changing our current right now you know, wow, yeah, you know, wow, yeah, um, and, and, and, that that anger is coming from like some reaction to the, to the state of where you are, um, yeah, and I also think everybody has a hole in the heart. Yeah, you know, it's a different shape. It's uh, um. We all cope with this differently and I think that's what also makes us humans, you know, because that that that void is what creates the empathy.
Speaker 1:Your unique empathy is directly related to the shape of the heart, or the shape of the hole in your heart. You know, yeah, and, and if you were a I don't know if you are that would be the better you are, not the better from audience, listener count, but better, meaning how close truly you are to the shape of that hole, the better artist you are. It probably would affect what you're writing about and how you're writing the music that's coming out of you. You know, and if you were a painter, the same thing, yeah and um, and, and, and. You know, in a sense, it has everything, everything and to do with, like, what you chose to do. You know you're choosing to do now, yeah and um, and we're all like this. You know, sometimes we recognize that connection sometimes we don't. And sometimes we understand that connection, sometimes we don't.
Speaker 2:Um yeah, I like that. That's a. It's a. I mean, it's a good way to from what, from what I gather, it's like this little compass, when we're aware of it, to understand you know what we need to be doing, or like where we feel like we have the most impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what makes us unique, you know? Yeah, like, just like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'm curious. Maybe a better, better maybe to tap on this, and this is probably the question I was looking for is when did you and we all have something right and and some people it takes longer to figure that out, or some people it takes, you know, uh it was. It takes really, you know, not that long to figure it out. But I guess, when did you, was there ever any uh moment or a series of moments or kind of period in your life where you kind of recognized that you had something different that you wanted to explore? Maybe that was like a little stronger than most other people, like you had a drive to do something that was a little bit different.
Speaker 1:First I would say that I think we're all different.
Speaker 2:first I would say that I think we're all different.
Speaker 1:It's just a matter of how well we recognize what we're different and what we're great in, and then it's a combination of luck and skill and privilege and whatnot you know, and then what you were born with Like it's all a mixture. But I think we're all different. You know, and, yeah, I would say, very, very early on in my life I was always, you know, an instigator, or doing something wrong or doing something different or not really complacent with the environment. That I'm at, not from a bad point of view, but almost like, as you know, the teachers really didn't know what to do. When it's like somebody who's very smart, gets A's like now you know, like get all this stuff and also is the cheeky one that is like starting the ruckus, and you know doing all this. You know doing all this. You know, yeah, I don't I don't have a specific moment, but I can say that from very, very early stage I didn't feel like I'm a fit in places.
Speaker 1:You know, well, like, oh, I've arrived. The only city that I feel like I've arrived at is New York City and it's full, you know, with crazy people, which I love, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, so yes no, I, I appreciate you taking these, uh, because it's something that I know for me. I didn't figure out. I knew something was different, but I didn't really know what I was trying to pursue, uh, until I hit like maybe 28, 29, 30, you know, um, so it took me a little while to like figure that out, kind of like to speaking to your point, like I knew that it was kind of a square peg in a round hole, but I just didn't understand where the square, the square hole, was. You know, yeah, um, and so, no, I, just a lot of that, a lot of this is just personal, uh, or maybe, maybe it's selfish to understand kind of a little bit more about your journey and a little bit more about you.
Speaker 1:Well, for sure you don't do, yeah yeah, you don't need to explain why you're asking me questions. I mean, I'm here to have a conversation and is there anything you know? Just so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, feel free yeah, I mean something else that, uh, I appreciate that and something else that that stuck out to me and maybe this is probably what I wanted to pull on or what I wanted to learn a little bit more about. You went to school for architecture, yeah, and then I believe you just kind of stopped, yeah. So I'm curious because, again, probably the one thing I immediately thought about is like, what did your family think? You know, like, how did that conversation go down? Definitely curious about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, first I finished, you know, three out of five years of architecture and urban planning and I didn't stop because I didn't like it, of architecture and urban planning, and I didn't stop because I didn't like it. I stopped because I had everything I needed to do, what I realized I'm here to do, which is, you know, I guess architect of digital spaces, and this is what, in a sense, this is how I look at myself. That's what I do. I'm an architect of digital spaces and what I do, you know what I do with towns, what I do with house party, what I do with Mirka.
Speaker 1:These are types of buildings that have certain characteristics. They have opinionated blueprints in how people should come together, feel safe, feel seen, enjoy, playing, meet one another. They have different types of blueprints, but they have blueprints and these are buildings. These are digital buildings and they're not buildings in the sense of the metaverse, where you're walking around in some 3D. You know, 3d building, 3d building.
Speaker 1:There are places that are building in their philosophical DNA of what is the purpose of a shelter. When you think about what is the purpose of a shelter, it has certain functions for safety, for opportunities for people to come together, for doing different functions. They have things that have direct correlation to our feelings. You know the size of the windows, whether we feel more intimate, whether we feel vulnerable. Is it open by default? Is it closed by default? Is the window, is the door? Is it see-through, is it not? How is the hallway's position towards the living room? Is it the first thing you walk in through? Is the main living room, or is it a series of doors? All of these change our perception of how we can act in a space. Right, and all of this serves into, like, how we utilize the space. And when you think about digital products, where, specifically, ones where we come together and communicate, just like the product that we're using now to do this podcast, right, it's, in a sense, it was architected as a space, even the digital space for this specific function. You know of what we're doing right now and whoever architected it took into account what is going to be the use of the space, how people are going to come in and out, what's going to happen after use of the space, how people are going to come in and out, what's going to happen after.
Speaker 1:You know, and in the same way you know, I think of my work as what is the kind of blueprints on the internet that we're missing for how we're coming together, what we're doing together, what kind of cool designs? And I got to tell you there's not much of us, there's a whole. There's not much of us, there's a whole, there's a lot, there's a. I'm not even sure I heard even one person you know even describing themselves like this. So I think there are a bunch of them that don't know that they're digital architects. But even take all of them, there's not a lot of us.
Speaker 1:No, and I think that's a really interesting and fascinating job to have. I'm very lucky in that sense because I get to have an idea for a building, I get to raise the capital for the building, I get to get it out, I get to put it on the map, I get to try to convince people to come in and enjoy it and maybe make some money along the way, and that's really cool. So when, after again this long preamble, going back to your question, why did I stop architecture? Because I realized that I want to become an architect of digital people. So I just stopped after when I realized that and I started my first company, which was the first building I wanted to build, yeah, and how did the parents react to this?
Speaker 1:They didn't have much say, not because I don't take their advice or care about their advice, but mostly because you know I'm a person of high conviction. You can't really convince me. Know when? When I get, when I clearly see something like it's yeah, there's not much to do there, I cannot even convince myself like I just I can, the best I can do is hold off a little bit, yeah, but that's the best. Like wait a day or two or a week, you know, but that's the max.
Speaker 1:Um, because I just get crazy. I just it's like an itch that you cannot scratch and it's like okay, okay, like I have to scratch it. Um, and the incentive alignment didn't work in their behavior, in their favor, because it's like it wasn't, like they paid, not in a bad way. I, I don't want to come off as a criticism or anything, but like when you, when you, it's, it's a, it's a. Even in in america, a lot, of, a lot of parents tend to pay for the, the, the students, college, which makes this conversation harder. So when you're asking it, I think it's, it's, it's good to disclose that I, uh, you know, and in to me, I didn't have that. No, I think it's a friction, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean that's a huge, that's a huge friction point, for sure, yeah yeah, extra, extra friction.
Speaker 1:I didn't have. It didn't pay to any aspect of my life, so there wasn't any dependency of my lifestyle or my day to day with how angry they are that makes sense.
Speaker 2:That makes sense, I mean, yeah, it's, but mostly also from just a generational you know gap of you know what type of opportunity was available to them versus what's available, like what was what's available to us through the internet. I think that you know it's very different, you know, I feel like being an entrepreneur in their time was probably a lot harder than it is now. Um, yeah, you know, um, there was only a few paths. Yeah, Especially.
Speaker 1:You know, I grew up in Israel and they're both. You know, my mom is essentially an immigrant from Tunisia that moved to Israel. When she was three, my dad was born I think the first year his family moved in from Libya. So, believe me, they didn't have a lot of opportunity.
Speaker 2:Did your parents move? Are your parents still over in Israel? Did they move over to? Yeah, all my family's in.
Speaker 1:Israel, all my family. I have three younger brothers, my parents there.
Speaker 2:How did you end up coming over here, like, if you don't mind me asking, no, my first company.
Speaker 1:My first company had a big breakout and success and I moved to um the states, nice, nice yeah, no, it's definitely, yeah, yeah, definitely a proud american. You know, citizen pay your taxes.
Speaker 2:Uh, oh yeah yeah, don't know, don't know what gets done with the taxes, but but we pay them. Um, we're paying them. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, I think there was a tweet you were mentioning around uh, you paying some sort of like exuberant tax fee for new york and it didn't include the sidewalks, but you still love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then they wanted to pay. Yeah, and then they want to pay me this. I'm like god damn, it isn't. Like. I'm like I already paid so much taxes. And you know, you also have the line item of new york city tax, which is on top of the state tax yeah and I'm like how are you sending me a pavement bill for the payment outside my house? I thought that was included in the additional new york city tax, you know yeah, listen honestly.
Speaker 1:That's the price of the market. You know what I mean. That's the market. There's enough beaters. It is what it is, you know and and I'm happy, I'm a happy buyer. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's kind of similar to Austin in a way, where I moved from the city or moved outside of the city to the city and I remember seeing my electric bills like, oh, wow, I'm saving a lot of money here, like this is good, but I almost pay my electric bill in city fees and taxes, just on electricity. Like there's like clean road fees for an electricity company. It's like, oh my God, I'm almost paying. It's not quite, but I'm paying like 60% of my electric bill on top of my electric bill every single month and I'm like, well, okay, I guess this is just the cost of being here, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a type of an L0 that you're paying the gas fees for because you like it, yeah, you like it, yeah, you know, and that's what it is. It is, I love the way you put that it's the same here.
Speaker 2:I love the way you put that. I think it's probably a good segue. You're paying the gas fees me too, baby. Yep, yeah, 2021, 2021, gas fees. Um, yeah, exactly, yeah, I think it's probably a good transition, uh, to how did you find crypto, man, like I'm always like, I'm always curious of, like the, what fascinated you by this, um, and what was kind kind of the entryway for you to come here?
Speaker 1:The entryway came in. So I was playing around as just a curious investor in 2016, 2017. Just buying a little bit here, a little bit there. And then in 2019, I started getting some portions of my exit with House Party and I remember the first portion wasn't like a lot.
Speaker 1:It was, you know it is a lot in many, many, many ways. You know, like call it, you know, half a million dollars was like a first payment, something like that. It is a lot in many, many ways, but it's like, you know, when you live in San Francisco, it doesn't really help you buy a house. You know what I mean, you know what I mean and and I was like you know, this is, you know, one payment out of many or whatever, and like.
Speaker 1:So I go to my friends and I'm like, who are like deep into, like deep, and this is like before the break of 2019, like this before, and you know, I started to spend time with them and I'm like, you know, maybe I should just invest in this because it's like I'm I'm already comfortable with it because I've been investing, you know, smaller amounts since 2016 and I find it to be really fascinating and it's like these are my close friends and they're like very into it, so like in it, and they're doing all the stuff you know and they, they kind of red filled me. Basically I bought. I remember buying like a bunch of eat for a hundred and something dollars a meat and but I'm talking about a lot of it. Yeah, like you know, like a hundred grand of it for a hundred dollars, you know, and like chain link, I remember buying for a dollar thirty you're a link marine, are you?
Speaker 1:dude for a dollar thirty? Also, you're a link marine. Are you Dude for $1.30.? Also, like 50 to 100 grand SNX if you Synthetix for 90 cents.
Speaker 1:I remember those, you know all of these and I kind of went to this like the whole. My friends had like this whole philosophy about how, you know, you need a way to secure computation which is ethereum, so they were very bullish. And then on that, you need an oracle and you need a derivative market, which was synthetic and you know you need, you need, uh, um, what was another one? There was another one. Basically, there was these kind of um, there was like five of those, and then defy summer happened the year after and it was like christmas. You know what I mean. It was like a big. It became like a big exit for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and and you know from that moment that that was kind of, I guess, my former years, because I was actually in it reading, staking, doing all this stuff. You know, and try asking all these questions, understanding you know what to do and how and actually being hands on on this, and you know, and that's where, personally, I got comfortable with the idea that this is real, this is real, this is how it works. This is from a personal standpoint. It is like I understand it, you know, and I believe in it, but, you know, as an architect architect of digital building it doesn't really connect. No, they're just like something I'm curious, just like I'm curious about piano and I'm learning and I'm doing things with piano, you know and food and and and and music and this and that.
Speaker 1:So, um, in at some point in 2022, we've been working in here and out there and we've been trying to do something that was pandemic, basically kind of like washed away, not in a bad way, it's just like more like the use case was not there anymore, when people are like remote and like focused on their calendar video chats, remote and like focused on their calendar video chats and um, so we were like, you know, something really interesting happening with blockchain, because it becomes this like open graph, becomes this open graph that you can actually anyone can read and write to and you can actually make access management decisions on the fly to bring people that have shared interests or shared experiences together and that can create very interesting types of buildings.
Speaker 1:Because, you know, imagine, you know, imagine, you know you talked a lot about like anyone when you're walking inside, anyone you see there has interacted with the art that was there or like is one of the owners of the art you know, or and that's like provable, yeah, you know. All of a sudden it becomes a much more interesting experience of the museum because it creates some sort of guarantees and shared experiences with the people that are there. So you might, you know, have conversations that are different. You might think about different use of the space. That is like a direct outcome of those shared experiences.
Speaker 1:You could think about, you know, a museum that only have people from your hometown you know, so so, so like and it's not just museum, I'm just giving this like analogy of a place, but like. The idea is that I I mean like, I believe that, especially now, with AI that can essentially, you know, replicate us infinitely to the place that, to the degree that people don't recognize what's us and not, I think, that cryptographic proof of who did what and who is human and who is who, are going to become a huge, huge thing. And we are going to the same way we accept cookies. We're going to be like, you know, use your touch id to like, confirm that this is you, this is actually ben, and this will the.
Speaker 1:The best technology for that is blockchain, the you know to do to do this enumeration, to make sure that this is enumeration. That is like, decentralized and everybody can write to and read from right. So I want you to think about a world in five to ten years where the internet is so fast and smart that it can be. Any one of us can have its own bot agent that look like themselves, behave like themselves and even can call your mother and say happy birthday, and nobody would know. And in that world, we will need to prove when it's really us and the best way to go about a global system, global ledger of who is doing what action that is actually human, verifying that it's them the best technology for this will be blockchain. This is blockchain and that means that we are entering we have entered in many ways into a period where a lot of things that are happening in real life are getting some form of attestation on chain, you know, and different countries have more or less version of it, and we're in the very, very beginning of that.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think that this creates this whole new opportunity to say you know, you can deduct different ways of how you can put people together, because now a group chat is not about dad or spoken who have each other's phone. It's actually like, oh, if you watch, watch, if you listen to the same music as me, as spotify, if you truly do, then like you, come in you know, yeah, if you know, like, imagine everyone repped a year on spotify was on on a graph, like a listening graph that is on chain, yeah, and then imagine.
Speaker 1:And then imagine like what you, what you in in that reality. What you could do right now with towns is create a town that say there's essentially permissionless group chat, that says anyone who has this artist at their top artists on that, on on on the, that spotify know blockchain ledger, like can come into this town and that is a really cool space. Like, truly like. That's a really cool space and this is not something we can do right now anywhere else. You know, right, and while towns does have the building blocks for you to create this experience.
Speaker 1:Fortunately, spotify doesn't have an open protocol for who listens to what, but my point is that we do have projects that slowly bring those things to life With restaurants, with education, with contributions to projects, with even ID in some of the countries, and I think that's really cool, or even ID in some of the countries, and I think that's really cool.
Speaker 1:And I do think that there will come a day in the next year or two where you will see a protocol, maybe from Spotify or maybe from SoundCloud, where they do put this kind of like information on chain. Yeah, and that's where these things become really, really interesting, because all of a sudden, the world of the internet, even though it's so anonymized, it can become intimate, not on your identity but actually on your actions, and that's a vertical we haven't have reduced the graph for, and I think it's a very interesting graph because once you have a collective of people that are engaging, where they prove their action, the value, the collective value of what they can do, the economic value is actually can be underwritten, and when it can be underwritten, then it becomes an economic value that they can unleash together. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I think it's really fucking cool.
Speaker 2:I mean, dude, you're touching on a lot of things that I didn't have the confidence to really speak them when I first came into the space, but that ideas that I had I'm like, wow, this lit, quite this tech quite literally touches everything. Like you know, there there is, there's so many things that can be done from this and kind of what you were saying of like I'm you know, I'm a tool fan, the, the band tool, and you know there's a very specific type of people that are the top one to two percent of listeners on like fish yeah, it's the same type of just cult like grateful dead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of these yeah, exactly, there's a, there's a time and and even, and even uh, kind of just zooming out a bit of of, you know, the space that we all met at. One of the things that was just so fascinating and mind blowing to me in the beginning was like, oh my god, god, based on the people I'm meeting on Twitter, in CryptoWeb3, whatever you want to call it, there is an automatic. There are a few assumptions that can be made where we don't really have to like suss each other out like you would meeting a person for the first time, like if you're here, you're kind of psychotic, if you're building something, if you're full-time, you're even crazier. You know, um, and that that has a set of relatability. You're, as we all call it, we're in the trenches. There's a lot of shared experience, shared wins, shared losses, and so the moment at least, this is what I've experienced that I've met some of the people that I've met online in person. It's some of it's. These bonds that I have through here are some of the strongest bonds I've ever had, more than people that you know. Obviously, I have my close circle of friends, but it takes so much less time, you know, to understand and to have that connection with people, even just based on Twitter.
Speaker 2:So what you're talking about with Towns and kind of this digital space, is super fascinating Because it goes down the niche, like it. It really uh, goes down even further to very specific interest. Um, and you don't really have to. There's an automatic sense of trust. You know, uh, that comes from. Oh my god, you're a fish fan, oh you're a tool fan or no, you're. There is a. There is just a genuine excitement. Uh, that really can't be replicated. Um, and finding ways to do that on chain is super fascinating. Um, so I think you know this is a roundabout way and probably a question that I should ask probably probably would help. Uh, people are listening is you know? We taught? You talked about towns a few times. This is what you're currently building. It's currently released. What is Towns and who is it for and why should people? Yeah, why should people use it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you're on Web3 and you're using Discord or Telegram, you should be using Towns. That's as simple as this. Why? Because you're using Discord or Telegram, you should be using TAMs. That's as simple as this. Why? Because you're using two centralized companies that don't have end-to-end encryption.
Speaker 1:That all the economic value that you're creating with your communities on Telegram or Discord you don't have any way to harness it. You don't have any way to harness it. You don't have any way to prove reputation of people that are coming in and out of your groups and you don't have any way to collect value, you know, in a way that is transparent. And the reason I'm starting with that that and now I'm going to explain what town does is because I think these are these are things that people just accept, the reality of like, oh, I got like a big, I got like a big discord, and like it's very engaged and we're all like bunch of people and we have alpha for meme coins and we help one another and we all make money together. Dude, you're making money of. Your alpha is just the tip of what you deserve. Like you can be creating so much more money by if you can prove the fact that you as a collective, as a group, people are being really smart and tasteful about how you allocate your portfolio, and if you can prove it, you can charge for it. And if you can charge for it in a transparent way, you can make much more money. It's not just like the $10,000 that you're buying, griffin right, it's also what you're getting from other people who are following your investment thesis right, your takes.
Speaker 1:And how would you even prove other people? How would other people explore and know about you? How would they see a proof that you're actually good at what you do? And then how would you collect it? And so what Towns is? It's protocol in and out? And it's for what we call permissionless group channels, a set of smart contracts that deployed on base, that represent who is allowed to enter. You know who has membership access to this specific town, and every town can have different membership model. It could be free, it could be gated, it could be paid for. People can pay with credit card If they want to join your town you know people can be yeah and people want to join your town.
Speaker 1:You know people can be yeah, um, and people, people um, can choose. You know different models for how they, how they, how they want to collect uh, the value for that and, um, the protocol moves around messages end-to-end encrypted between the members of each town and every town. You can actually see the smart contract on chain. You can see. You can see channels that are being created. You can see memberships that have been. Every town has its own treasury that is on chain. So if you are paying membership fees to join a town, you actually you can actually see on chain how it goes, like where does it go? Does you know? You can see roles. So anything that is about access management is on chain, visible to everyone, uh, including the treasury and the subscription, everything, and then all the messages, uh, this is the. The town's protocol basically moves uh, the messaging uh, around between the, the members of the town, yeah, and what's really cool about it is you can use any EVM-compatible chain to have the town's protocol read from the on-chain footprint and resolve some access management to who can be in the town. You know what can they do read, write or redact and that's really cool because that set, that unlocks a whole set of use cases that says, hey, this town can actually be composable in a native way to other protocols, right. Also, what it can do is it can natively collect contribution and it can natively prove some attestations that the members are doing Like, oh, the people here actually hold what they're saying, they're holding, they actually have bought or sold what they say they bought or sold, you know, which underwrite the whole premise of the value of why somebody should pay for. And then, if people are paying for it, then they can see also oh, this is where the money goes, this is how it's been used, and the whole thing can exist even without our company. You know, it's all operated with all independent operators, so not us, and it is, you know, will be owned, completely owned by the community, you know, very soon, and I think it's like really cool evolution for any, you know.
Speaker 1:I know some, uh, of the type of the people who are listening to this podcast, because two of them are the ones in my team, the two who were very, like, excited about this. Um, but you, there is no reason for someone who believes in this frontier of the Internet, of where we're going with our own perception of the kind of value we're creating and our taste with the Internet and how we're finding you know the things that are exciting us and how we. There is no reason to stay with the old guard of the discords and the, the, the telegram. I have yet to find a supermarket that you can pay with nitro. I haven't find it.
Speaker 2:I'm looking, I'm going with nitro.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to pay for shit. I can't.
Speaker 2:Or Fortnite V-Bucks. You know, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But I think it's important to recognize that the way we come together as human beings from the beginning of time, that's what gave us the asymmetrical value of all other species, because we learned to collaborate together and we come together online.
Speaker 1:Why do we keep it in a platform that you know to send? We chant a bit, we come together, we create, we go into this, this a discord server or telegram group and like we're living so much on the table on the floor Right, great way to put it. We should own the space that we're in. We should use the technologies we believe in, like blockchain, to show that we're creating value. We should be able to charge for this value, to enjoy the upside of that, you know, and and get rewarded the way we deserve. You know, totally, totally. There are people, you know people coming together and moving markets and all they get is their own little portion of their portfolio in it. Yeah, but honestly, they should be getting also a portion of their influence, and that's where. That's where I think that's that's the next frontier, and this is why people should own their group chats.
Speaker 2:They should, and yeah, no, this is really good, dude, there there's there's a few points or a few questions and and rabbit holes I want to explore on this because, yeah, you covered a lot and this is a brilliant, brilliant explanation here One of the things that it actually came to me last night, you know because we're talking about full ownership, we're talking about the idea of you owning the upside, being kind of like the master of your own destiny here when it comes to operating a company, because you mentioned, like this soon will be able to be run, it'll just run independently of you guys. So I'm curious in that sense, once the company has achieved the path to either decentralization or sufficiently decentralized, what is the role of the company at that point? And, kind of, really, how do you think about that?
Speaker 1:So I think where we left off is this analogy to parenthood, where a parent has a big responsibility in making sure that the kid is safe in the early ages and their ability to evolve, pursue their curiosity, their own growth right, be nourished for the things that they need and have their own point of view and, in a sense, human beings are. You know, having a kid is the act of decentralization, right, like you're creating an atomic unit that is separate than you, it shares your DNA, meaning it shares the way you're creating an atomic unit that is separate than you. It shares your dna, meaning it shares the way you're thinking and the way you are thinking about you know, um, different things. Whatever you know you can, you can call it your code. It shares your code, but, um, it's supposed to act on its own right at some point. And you know, I think you can take, I think you can take, you can maybe think about it as dodge years, meaning, you know, the road to the age of 21 is the three dog years. Yeah, in a decentralized cell. Um, I do hope the three years from now.
Speaker 1:You know, towns is a completely independent protocol that you know is able to flip his parents the finger and say I don't want to do this, you know, and, and I think, think, just for you to be in a place that is sustainable and have the confidence to do it, despite what the creators want, that is, you know, that will be great, that would be a great achievement, you know, even if it's you know, if in some points or cases it won't, I won't share the same point of view, but I think that's success. You know that is success. That is a growth of decentralized, totally Of any decentralized system where things can be in this agreement and continue to process. You know, to have a different point of view, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's like when you I remember, yeah, when you, when you just said that I mean that I never really thought of it like that Cause. When, especially when I think back at, like you know obviously, the journey I've had with my family, you know, it's like they're literally planting seeds and they're literally taking the brunt of everything you know, at least in this, especially the early years, to kind of show me how to like it's this balance of nurture versus, you know, kind of letting me fall on my face, you know, and figuring that path out. So it's really cool to see that. Or I guess, have that analogy or that can actually really that was a that's that makes complete sense and I don't think I've really heard it in that light before. Um, I think what I want to do is continue on this thread. Like so say you have, like this is a really cool goal to have this thing be fully decentralized. We're, we're kind of seeing the you've probably seen more, but the one example I think that stands out, uh, and it's not a specific um, like a specific product. I mean I guess you could argue it is, but you know, base is path to being fully decentralized.
Speaker 2:Like that's the one thing that I kind of look at is like, okay, they started very, very centralized. They've hit, or they're about to hit, an incredible milestone. Where it's, you know it's like one layer, it's like that first dog year. You know where it's like like, okay, we've hit this mark, this part's decentralized and then they do the next, uh, few things. I think, really, where I have the most curiosity is like for you as a builder and for the, for the team at towns as builders, you know when that, uh, when that happens, what is it that you guys want to do next? Is it more of dedicating a few small resources? Is this part of like a bigger? Is this town part of its own town? Um?
Speaker 1:I mean, um, I don't know, I don't, I don't. I try not to spend time thinking about it because that's fair. Then, yeah, the nature of these things is that it is the game theory dynamics of a system that is supposed to go to. A non-centralized state means, inherently, there's going to be compounding scenarios. They're just trying to crock them, just like. So it's really important to move from first principle, which is okay. What are, what are the set of actions that we can do right now, within our control, to get this one step forward and learn the new information that we need to know. The goal of the next step is to learn what we need to learn, to then step after you know and the step after. And that's kind of how I view it, because it's really hard to do those extrapolations of future states, especially in decentralized systems, because it's just like you're playing chess, not with one player, but I don't know how many pawns are in the chess game.
Speaker 2:I want to say six to eight, something like that, I don't know. Like when it comes to pawns specifically, yeah. Oh, but how many all the things combined?
Speaker 1:oh I don't know, um, I just enjoy playing the game. Uh, sounds like 16. So, yeah, yeah, like 32 players. You know what I mean. Like playing chess with 32 players. Yeah, um, that's a long one board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, exactly something that you know it's. It's I asked that question and then I kind of I've asked, you know, similar questions in different scenarios around. You know it's. I think it's always natural to think about, uh, both the past and the future and kind of how they affect each other, and it's easy to kind of get, especially in crypto, it's really easy to kind of see, uh or get a lot of hopium on, like you know, the grand vision of like what this could be and kind of be really concrete in that. And I think there's something interesting that, at least from what I've noticed, especially in the world of ai that we're living in right now, um, like, I think, when it comes to predicting into the future of a system that hasn't fully been built out yet, like decentralized businesses haven't, like they're not really. You know this is we're just starting this. You know the it seems like you guys are on the path, so there's no, there's no blueprint of of how people have done it in the past. So I guess what I'm saying is, the more I ask that question, the more I kind of realize, just like in the epiphany of like it's almost impossible, you know, and there's so many things that happen even in my personal life, like when I have a set concrete, super rigid plan of how things should look. What it actually looks like when it happens, if it ever does, is completely different and way better than I could have ever anticipated, you know. Um, so hearing you say that makes a lot of sense and it's probably an interesting like way to like rethink that and reframe that. Um, kind of like what you said around you guys are trying to learn what you guys are trying to learn to get to the next step, cause the questions may not even be fully thought out yet. Um, yeah, no, that's that makes a lot of sense. Um, I want to. I want to talk about something we chatted about a little earlier around the current messaging systems, around Discord, telegram. That's kind of what a lot of people use today, especially, at least, in crypto gaming communities.
Speaker 2:One thing that I wanted to maybe tap on a little bit here is the inflection point where people realize that they should not be on these platforms and they should be on towns, and I want to give an example of that or kind of the context of where I'm coming from on this is that I came into crypto through NFTs. Pictures are the thing that made the most sense to me. I didn't really understand crypto at all. Like I understood the principles and the foundation of it, but until I could transact with objects that meant something and had a lot of cultural value to me, I didn't really give two shits about crypto. You know, like to be fully honest.
Speaker 2:But after about a year in the space then I saw something an example, like you know, the Canadian government shutting down bank accounts for like an act of war, for helping the truckers during covid, uh, and they basically froze people's money. And then that's when it clicked for me. I'm like oh, crypto is like actually this, like these people aren't just absolutely crazy, like things like this can't actually happen and this is why we're building something against this. So I guess the point that I'm making is like usually people don't kind of change something unless there's like a or change their mind, or maybe this is just me projecting and happy no, no, no I, I agree with you, yeah, so I I guess like, what is that?
Speaker 2:what inflection point have you typically seen for people to become power users on towns, or what are some of the things that you kind of foresee people causing them to jump ship?
Speaker 1:so so, first of all, we're at month three from launching towns and we're still learning about where we fail our users in the funnels, and you know the features that we have and how we improve it. I don't subscribe to a product strategy that is trying to talk about doomsday and fear scenarios what if the government is going to take your thing? What if this Because you know Towns is not about diverting the government or trying to do you know, it's not about this. I rather focus on message. The following message is if you exist in the medium of culture and ownership on the internet, you believe in an online value creation. If you're part of that school of thought, it is important for you to examine why are you collaborating and coordinating on platforms that are centralized, where you do not share the upside of the value creation that you're doing with your taste, with your conversations, with your understanding, with your coordinations with your peer? Those platforms do not. They get the upside, they enjoy all the upside, but you don't have any native, transparent and immediate way to capture the value that you're creating. To capture the value that you're creating and the same way that you know, the computational L1 specifically, you know, let's talk about Ethereum and Upward, created an opportunity for people to unlock a whole value creation just by existing participating, operating, sharing, adding functionality online. There is the next set of this of like okay, we did it on an infrastructure level, right, what it is that is happening on a conversation on communication level, where that idea of value creation and capturing and value accrual that is happening through communication, where it does not right now capture on Web3, right, and it could be captured and it's not captured on Web2 either right, and it could be captured and it's not captured on web two either right, you know. So the actual pitch and or the inflection point is where we did a good enough job as a company to show people that if they, if we do good on our premise, there is enough reputation built into the towns that people are joining that they're willing to pay, they're willing to say I'm going to join Buna Town why? Because that guy rocks. I learned so much, I get exclusive content, he has all these interesting takes about trading and about art and I'm actually I think I should contribute to him, you know 10 or 50 bucks a year because I'm really enjoying the community there and there's enough reputation happening where it's almost like think about an app store but think about a town store, right, like, think about an app store, but think about a town store, right, where we're like there is there is like a lot of feedback and rating and and you'll understand, oh fuck, like there is there's like 10 000 people here paying 50 bucks a year to be part of this community and I'm making half a million dollar a year. It's all transparent, on-chain, which is really cool. Because now you start thinking, wait, could there be like DeFi protocol, that like look at the subscription that is happening on-chain on Boonatown and as a town owner, I might get blown against my future earnings, because all of these things are really interesting to think about.
Speaker 1:Because there is a reason why you're doing podcasts. There's a group of people that are coming here to listen. They enjoy the value you create and right now there is a lot of augmentations in the process indirect augmentation in order for your group to capture value that you're creating. Your group to capture value that you're creating right, it's not as native as as, like, directly, people uh, uh, benefiting and paying and and and what we want to tell if you do good, if you do good on the premise as a protocol as a client is that it's it's all of a sudden that it clicks to people that is like oh wait, I can capture more value of the one that I created online, also bringing my communication aspects on chain.
Speaker 1:And it's not that messages in towns are like move, are moving on chain there, there, there is, there's a, there's a whole.
Speaker 1:You know, you can read the docs about how it works, but eventually it ends obviously encrypted, rolls up to chain.
Speaker 1:But the graph, the access management, the treasury, who can read, who can write, all of that is on-chain and all of the messaging layer that is moving between those users is decentralized and eventually rolls to chain, which is what makes it, you know, kind of like, gives it like a competitive, like it's on par with what you expect from from a web 2.0 app. Yeah, um, and I think that's something that we we have to think about because, like, the way we coordinate, that's that's that's value, that's the value creation that we do right, and right now we're we're coordinating in places that don't really benefit us, uh, beyond the same way that they have 10 years ago. All the changes like where we act, okay, the places we act, now is in Web3 and there's upside there, all right, cool, but what is the next value? Unlock once this conversation has meaning. That can be traced, therefore can be packaged and sold by by the people who create this conversation, not by some third-party ad platform, you know yeah, I mean there's a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean, man, I, I really hate that we're pressed for time, uh, you know, in these situations, but it's honestly really it gives me a lot to think about um, because I, yeah, I, I think, especially having this being built on ethereum, it if I really go back to what I understand of the tech, which is, I still think it's not, you know, I'm there's a lot more people that are smarter me on that but I can understand in a general vague sense around how this is just essentially a building block. You know, that's the one thing that I really enjoy about Ethereum is that everything is modular, it's composable, it can, it can talk to each other in ways that you know, I haven't really seen before, and so when you talk about things like, you know, towns and group chats and people, you can look at all of the data and start speculating on the data in ways that are really unique and interesting and novel. Um, and I really liked that how you kind of made that personal on just to kind of paint a really clear picture of you know, if it was me that did it, you know this is what it would look like. Um, so, yeah, I mean a lot to think about there, um, and I think that, yeah, that's I'm trying, I'm going to put, I want to put a pin in that Um, and really I want to talk about cause I know you guys mentioned this a lot Uh, and this is something that is in all of your posts and I think it's really a great synergy uh around your partner river.
Speaker 2:Um, maybe we're not getting too technical, but like want to maybe look at from a high level you know what role they play uh in towns, kind of, how that partnership works. You know what are you guys utilizing them for? And kind of just it's really interesting to see because I think they're the, they're the specific privacy um service for all of the messages and that make it on chain and you guys do the the front end kind of bring it all together. So I'm really kind of curious, like did this? You know? Yeah, just kind of curious how that partnership works, um, maybe from a high level, or kind of what roles y'all play here, um, because I've I've done.
Speaker 1:When you say partnership, what do you mean exactly? So?
Speaker 2:I guess, like, is it a partnership? So, like you know it's, it's towns built on river. All right, you're. You know you're using using river as a okay so, so, so.
Speaker 1:So right now, the name of the protocol is river. We are we are considering unifying it, so there's towns, protocol and towns client.
Speaker 2:okay, so is river you guys as well. Yeah, oh, I didn't know that I had. No, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, but we're a river, a river, um well, we, we, we, you know, we set to build the protocol, and and that's incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we are like you can't do a social protocol without a product because, like, how are you going to show why this is important to people? You know, yeah, and honestly, it's so much work to do all of these things, you know, and, and we're lucky that we're so passionate about this because we have, we have like, that's that's a lot of grind, you know, like, but we we're like, you know it's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it because it's cool and the world needs something like this.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, we to your point, exactly to this past two minutes, exactly where you're like, oh, this is, this is related. It's like, yes, uh, we, we thought that it will make more sense in the beginning to have a different name. So people feel, you know, like, see that these are different and in all the senses, river is no longer like it's controlled by a Swiss association that guards the protocol and it has all the plumbing and setup that it's independent. But what we noticed is that it's really hard for people to take on a new brand, and if you're lucky that they take a new brand, you cannot bet that they will take another brand. You know, yeah, and and and maybe we need to make it easier a little bit for people to connect the dots. That's like so that's, that's something that we haven't yet decided, but like. That's exactly like changing like. But like, that's exactly like it changing like you know, recommending to the, the, the that the protocol will update, that the name to towns protocol. So just like, fits and easy for people to grok.
Speaker 2:Um, so, yeah, so, so, so that's, that's the partnership in a sense. Yeah, I love that dude. Yeah, this, I mean, do we do a little learning in public? Because, yeah, I had, I genuinely thought it was, yeah, a partnership that they were. I thought they were completely separate, uh, yeah, yeah, but no, it's, it's rad. I mean that's a huge undertaking, uh, but it makes a lot of sense. Like you can't really have one. You can't really have one without the other. It's kind of hard to protocols by themselves, you know, as much as like, as valuable as they are, they're not as like sexy or catches the limelight as well, you know, and so you need to have products built on top of those, on top of protocol, to make sense.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, okay, I'm putting together here yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's the best part about this is that it uh, you know, trying to explain what I do, you know, to family or anyone outside of here, it's it's like, yeah, we're kind of just building the thing as we're flying it. These are just like. These are like these are just new ideas at the edge of the internet that are primitive and haven't really been tested out yet, or maybe a new version of them is being tested out, and sometimes it's hard to package that up to people, you know. So, work in progress, for sure. Yeah, so we have about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a few minutes here, so I wanna wrap up with a couple more questions. You know, you mentioned just number one. Towns is just released for about like well, it's been out publicly for about three months. Is it super publicly available right like right now? Can anyone join and create the towns? Is it only for kind of specific launch partners? Just kind of curious, like how people can get involved right now, because this episode will actually be aired tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Um, oh really, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, um, well, uh, one of the cool things in Towns is we have an explore page. You can go and look at some different towns you want to join. So, like apptownscom slash explore, you can find different group chats that people have. Some of them are gated, some of them are paid, some of them are free. And some of them are gated. Some of them are paid, some of them are free.
Speaker 1:There is the Shiller Town. You know that you guys just launched, which I obviously recommend people. It's a great opportunity to kind of check it out and you can create your own town. You know, and if there's anywhere that you have internet friends where you guys kind of exchange ideas and you're using other products, you know it will be really cool if you give it a go, share with that group, give it a spin, give us some feedback. There's a little In the Towns app. There's a web app, there's an iOS app. There's a web app, there's an iOS app, there's a Mac app, but in it on the corner right there is a little ladybug where you can report and send feedback.
Speaker 1:Everything is read and you know we're builders just like everyone else in the space. You know we're trying to do something that we believe is really important, which is to bring value back to communities from their conversations and help us secure more of communication, that we own it, that we benefit from it, because right now there's maybe four companies that control all of our communication and they're all centralized, you know, and there's yeah and there there's like uh, you know and, and, and, sure it's a startup, and and it has. You know, we, we, we have investors, but in the grand scheme of things, we're just like small team that is trying to take on a big item. You know, which is communication and as much of help that we can get by people trying it, giving us feedback, supporting us. I think very soon we're going to roll out grants program for different builders and you know rewards are going to come into towns as well for communities that are doing good stuff. And you know we really try to give as much as possible to those who are early and supporting and pushing and helping us build it out, because ultimately we need.
Speaker 1:You know we're not going to replace the centralized communication in the next 10 years. You know we're not going to replace the centralized communication in the next 10 years, but I think we should make a big statement about why this is important, for it to be owned and operated by the people and not by big companies, at least some of our communication, to have that optionality, because otherwise, if we don't have optionality, that optionality, because otherwise, if we don't have optionality, it's extortion against us. You know, with the big companies, but we need this duality to have better leverage on the value that we bring online.
Speaker 2:You touched on something that means a lot to me and that's really kind of how I've nailed communicating anything in crypto to family and friends is. It's not that it's going to ever just fully. You know, what we're building is probably not going to fully replace the systems that we currently have it provides an option Like it's. It's another path. Like it's another path that is available for people who have certain beliefs, ideas, Thought provoking.
Speaker 1:Exactly, thought provoking, exactly, and it's's, it's another conversation you have, it's important, yep I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:And what you guys are solving, again, like going back to the, to the, to the essence or the backbone of what you guys are building, is communication and like that's how we evolve, that's how things get built, that's how things change, absolutely. So you guys are solving a really big problem or tackling a really big problem, and I'm I couldn't be more stoked, uh, to be partnered with you guys uh, yeah yeah, really us too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's amazing man. So uh, really grateful for your time. Glad we got to like get personal chop it up on the business side. Uh, you know, it's just kind of going.
Speaker 1:I hope I wasn't too cerebral. I always get this feedback. You know, ben, you're getting too deep too fast, uh.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you look at what questions I asked you in the beginning, that is not your fault.
Speaker 1:I'm. I'm enjoying every moment. You know, you know Um I'm. I'm also at Ben RBN on Twitter. Hell yeah, tag me, think me, ask me random questions, you know Amazing.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, I guess. Last question I have for you, it's one of my favorites. I stole this from from a podcast that I enjoy, uh, called invest like the best. Uh, and it is what is the kindest thing that someone has ever done for you in Web3? In Web3? Yeah, I want to keep it specific because he, you know, yeah, I want to keep it specific to this industry.
Speaker 1:The action that they did is in Web3, or the people that I met, yeah, web three. Or the people were that I met.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the people in web three, someone. Oh, I mean if, if something else comes to mind, and that's just you know, and that's just like to say what, honestly, whatever comes to mind, uh, just the kindest thing someone's done for you.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'll talk about a kind, a very kind of moment. That, um, that happened to me recently is that I went to the FWB Fest in Idlewild and there was a sunset performance by LaRogie. You know, larogie I don't, I'm not a player.
Speaker 1:He's a musician that's been um. His works are almost like a prayer, prayer combined with some electronic motives, but not aggressive, like very just loops, and he's been, he's been pioneering that kind of aspect of also like spiritual machine enabled. Live performance of sonic experiences, you know, sold already, yeah, and there was a sunset coming down and there was a bunch of builders. Live performance of Sonic experiences Sold already, yeah, and there was the sunset coming down and there was a bunch of builders and things. It was just the golden hour and you hear his voice and the loops and there was a lot of kindness and softness in how we're all unified in that moment. I don't know if it was to me specifically, but it's I feel like we're all engulfed in in in, uh, that guy's kindness and you know, um, it's, that's a great, I think a great moment of kindness with, with people in the, in the industry, you know, and people in the and other builders. That that I thought was really cool I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, yeah, I mean as someone who, someone who enjoys, uh, yeah, like I'm, I'm very kind of psychotic about who I enjoy and who I like, and I listen to it a bunch, and there's just something really special about, uh, finding a lot of those people and just kind of sharing a moment, because I, I really feel like that's one of the, it's one of the most primal ways to just enjoy one's company. Is that a? Is that a show, uh, where you're surrounded by good people? So, um, really appreciate that. Man, thanks for, yeah, thanks for sharing that. Uh, yeah, brought us well cool man.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, so we've shared, uh, how people can get involved in towns. We're gonna put all the info in the, the show notes, in the description. Uh, gonna include it in the tweet that we put out. Um, but, ben, this has been a treat. Man, yeah, again, just want to say thank you for for not only donating your time, giving a lot of of thoughts, these questions, but also just it's so, it's so cool to be partnered with you guys and really can't, can't wait to see what you guys do.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Amazing man.
Speaker 1:Have a great rest of your day, thank you Bye. Thanks for watching.