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KP Unpacked
KP Unpacked explores the biggest ideas in AEC, AI, and innovation, unpacking the trends, technology, discussions, and strategies shaping the built environment and beyond.
KP Unpacked
The Friction Test: Quit or Keep Going
This episode is a gut check for founders heading into 2026.
In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP sits down with Nick to unpack a question every builder eventually faces: are you pushing through healthy friction or slamming into an immovable wall? From startup shutdowns to lifestyle businesses to full resets, they explore how to make clearer decisions when time (not money) is the real constraint.
This conversation spans the very practical (how founders are using AI tools daily to replace entire workflows) to the deeply strategic (why AI adoption has become a diligence filter) to the speculative-but-serious (how autonomy, robotics, and AI in the physical world could reshape where and how we live).
If you’re a founder, operator, or investor trying to decide whether to grind, pivot, or quit, this episode will sharpen your judgment.
Key topics covered
- The “friction test”: how to tell the difference between productive resistance and a dead end
- Why time should be treated as capital and how that reframes shutdown decisions
- AI as a new baseline skill: why hours per day in tools like Claude are now table stakes
- How non-technical founders are building real products from scratch using AI
- Why AI adoption is becoming a red-flag test in founder diligence
- Real-world AI in high-stakes environments (including life-or-death decision-making)
- Eliminating “thought mind work”: how automation reduces stress and extends founder longevity
- Big bets on the physical future: autonomous vehicles, robotics, VTOLs, space hotels, and living farther from cities without the commute tax
If you’re navigating 2026 planning and wondering whether to double down or walk away this episode is for you.
Listen now.
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All right. Rumors were floating around that we were never gonna be back. The band was the band was broken up. Some some people were saying that. Who are these people? There were very few people saying that. Dang, internet talks a lot. Yeah. It's good to be back. It is good to be back. I've had a chance to like do a sit-down, hang out conversation a while. This should be fun.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Happy New Year, everybody. Nick.
SPEAKER_02:Happy New Year.
SPEAKER_01:It's the 15th, so I think it's the last day you can say happy new year to people.
SPEAKER_02:That's yeah, that's a good cutoff.
SPEAKER_01:It feels about right.
SPEAKER_02:After that, it's just like you're you can make the jokes about it being too late and it can still be a fun, fun thing for a little while, but yeah, you can't just like yeah, go with a happy new year greeting at this point. I agree.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:You want to, yeah, this is probably a good place to start. You're uh so this is K KP unpacked. We need to unpack your thinking, and we haven't done that in quite a bit of time. I mean, I think it's been over 30 days. So 30 days in a in a in a uh in the mind of of KP ready can be, you know, a year for most people. The quantity of posts that I just sift through to find interesting topics supports this theory. Um, but the I mean, let's start with one that I flagged, which was the New Year's resolutions post. I think the the theme of that post was actually like self self-care and um uh more geared towards founders and help, yeah, helping them kind of set their own uh their their own personal plans, like whether or not it's work-oriented or you know, uh, you know, adjacent to their family and personal life. I think like your your posts on this topic all are always pretty compelling. Like you're you wrote it basically an entire book about this. Yep. So um let's dig into that. What are the 10 your 10 recommendations for or resolutions for this year with uh with founders?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I don't have them in front of me and my uh the memory of a goldfish. However, we can summarize this because I because I think yeah, I think there's one thing to consider is when you think about New Year's resolutions and quality of life and work-life balance, all those things, right? I think one of the things that you always have to consider is the the time and like the cycle time of what you're dealing with. So right now is a very busy time to like make hay as a founder. If you're starting an AI startup right now, you gotta grind, right? This this is the time, this is your window of time to make something happen. Um, and there's just not, I mean, there's just no way around it, right? You're you're you're grinding right now. I think if you're an existing startup, you know, existing SaaS startup trying to get your series A, um, I think you have to make a decision to grind or to give up. Um, because I, you know, I've said it before, I think every founder I know that's really good, like exceptional founders, they have lots of common traits. But the one common trait I see are the ones that know the difference between friction and an immovable object, and they resource appropriately. And I think a lot of founders, the optimism slash um grind, whatever, it's like a road to nowhere. I mean, I think a lot of founders are in a bad spot right now and they just need to optimize to get out of that spot, and getting out of that spot might be shutting down. Um, and so I think, you know, in the in the general realm of like if you read my book, What You Know About Startups Is Wrong, I talk about a lot of stuff in terms of everything from meditation to almost dying, you know, hydrate well. Always that's one of my big ones is hydrate well. But I think it's also a good time to hit pause on on the grind, right? Like, what am I working towards? Why am I doing it? Is there a there there? And I think that's the the world of denial that a lot of founders really need to um really consider, like take the time and really consider. Like, there may not be a there there. Do you really want to keep pushing ahead? And and I think you've been on some I think you've been on some calls with me with some of our port co-founders, where I'm like, are you sure you want to spend another five years on this? Because based where based on where you are in revenue and your trajectory, there's probably five years, five more years to get an outcome. And is this really what you want to do with the next five years of your life?
SPEAKER_02:I was listening to this podcast yesterday with this um GP from Indreessen. He was talking about almost the antithesis of of this, not not arguing for for burnout or you know, sprinting with no direction just for the sake of sprinting, but basically like the idea of backing founders that have this have this quality, call it chip on their shoulder, call it revenge, call it a a bigger than a mission that's bigger than themselves, and you know, and the goal of having a great bank account.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because at the end of the day, like, you know, you're you're a founder building a building a startup in the age of AI, building a software company in the age of AI, like you're gonna run into some walls, and there has to be something inside your DNA that pushes you, pushes you through it. And it could be something as simple as simple as like that investor that told me no, I'm gonna I'm sticking this out because like I want to prove them wrong. Yeah. And or it can be, hey, what I'm building is so consequential for the world. And I think this this would be something I think a lot of our founders relate to because they're building in the built environment. I'm building something for housing, or I'm building something that's you know, engineering a better world. I need to stick it out. Um, but he was he was saying like a part of their underwriting process is vetting for that chip on their shoulder, you know, higher purpose quality. And like, you know, I think it's one thing to talk about it in a you know a diligence call. It's another thing to like see it in action. Yeah. And uh because because when you're in that moment and you know you are faced with that existential question that you're you're asking our founders in some cases, that response is um, you know, for for for you know, for Andrecen that's doing you know, very large rounds and need they need$10 billion plus outcomes, like they only win when those founders exist and they back them. So anyway, like I think what I'm getting at with this question is how like it's it's all the the choice to give up is always going to be there. How do you know, founder, whether or not it is worth sticking out and and worth pushing through the wall? Like back to your analogy on friction or removable object. I guess like that that's kind of what I'm getting at is like what is the difference?
SPEAKER_01:I I think that there's a simple way to think about a lot of things that we think about, right? Which is capital allocation. And if you think about time as capital, you know, like everybody's talking about AI bubble, right? The AI bubble, oh my god, it's an AI bubble, right? In order for it to be a bubble and for the bubble to pop, it means that we have to want to get liquidity out of our AI investments, whether it be NVIDIA, whatever, whatever, because we think there's a better place to put the capital. Otherwise, we should just stay right in it, right? And so it's always like in many, in many cases, you know, I've had small businesses and you know, not everything I've done is tech and continue to do, not everything is tech. Um, and some, you know, it's like you get an offer to sell your company, it's like sell and do what with that money. And so I think a lot of times for a founder is like, hey, if you shut down, shut it down and go do what. And if it looks a lot like what you're selling, you're better off or what you're shutting down, you're probably better off just staying in it. I think the other thing that I think as VCs, we own some responsibility in this is that, you know, how we think about time horizons, right? Ultimately, if we own 8% of a company, we're along for the ride, right? And so if a founder wants to keep going and um can get to like maybe they get the cash flow break-even or positive and are not going to grow venture scale and are gonna grow five percent a year, I mean, we don't get we don't really get a say, right? We don't get to say like, oh, that's not fast enough. You need to burn more cash. We can we can try to uh optimize and convince people. But I mean, what do you what happens if you're a founder and you get to five million a year in revenue and you're able to pull half a million bucks out of the business? And we're sitting there saying, no, you need to grow faster, right? Um, maybe they don't want to. Maybe they change their mind, right? Because we we we act like there's this like legal commitment of sorts. Maybe there's a business commitment of sorts that says, Hey, we invested in a venture growth company. You told us you were going to grow like X, Y, and Z. But what happens when the founder changes their mind and says, you know, I think I'm okay running a lifestyle business.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely not aligned with what we are seeking. Right. But what do you do about it? It's like not a lot we can do about it. Yeah, I mean, you just say, well, you you chalk you chalk chalk it up to a a zero or a loss, right?
SPEAKER_01:It says, I mean, it might be an ongoing entity, but it's not gonna give us any kind of yeah, yeah, it's not gonna deliver anything to us. So um, I do think sometimes we look at these binary outcomes and say, hey, you either need to go big or shut it down. Um, I think a lot of I think a lot of founders think that's what they want to do. And once they're in the midst of it, they decide. But I think a lot of it is these timelines we put on, like, oh, you need to get to this by this many years, you need to have liquidity by the and some of that's constrained by you know our fund, uh, or how our funds work. But I mean, honestly, a founder doesn't care how our funds work. Now, the reality is if you're a young founder, that's a great way to never get a venture capitalist investing you again, right? They kind of take what you thought was gonna be a venture scale business and turn it into a lifestyle, lifestyle business. You know, people aren't gonna get get excited about investing in you again. In fact, you're more likely to get an investor to back you again if you shut down your company and say, hey, this isn't working, I don't think it's worth any of our venture. Yeah, you know, let's let's shut this down. I have a different idea. Let's go do that.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I think what you're highlighting partly is venture as an asset class is kind of it's a it's it's a niche financing strategy for founders. And I think I think that one of the one of the problems and why founders end up end up in a spot where they actually realize they don't want to be running a high growth technology business um that's required for them to you know become a billion-dollar business or or it's a bust. Um, they realize that later, but they fool themselves into thinking that it's something they can and want to do because it's they think it's the only way to capitalize your business. And that's just not true. Yeah. But like I think maybe one of the bigger, maybe the other side of this is like we talk to a lot of founders that venture is not suited suitable for.
SPEAKER_01:Right. They also act like we're like we don't get it, right? They're and and you try to tell them, right, like, hey, you're not it doesn't make it a bad business. You're just not a venture fundable business. You know, you you need to go seek a different type of financing. And some of those founders look at us like, well, you guys don't understand, you don't get it. And it's like, well, you know, we we kind of do get our asset class pretty well. Not that we get it right every time, but we do kind of know what characteristics of a venture fundable company looks like.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um but uh but I do think that, you know, my point also is that why someone might want to give up is really driven, is really driven by the idea that maybe um the market has changed.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Um the idea of like funding a SaaS company right now, you and I are both like it's gotta be kind of special, right?
SPEAKER_02:It does 100%. Um conversation with Matt this morning.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, think about like during the app economy, like would you fund an app today?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's businesses and models that you see that came that are are that are from a different era that are appearing today, and that just are not they're not gonna riding the wave of the current technology inflection point in the way that's going to give them the best probability of a massive outcome. Like it's just very obvious. Like we talked to we talked to this um company in the last couple weeks that we actually both really like the founder and um he's building it like a very outdated um B2B SaaS business.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it just feels like it's from the 2010s. And like I think if he was in 2000, you know, 2010 to building in 2010 to 2020, perfect opportunity and probably would have done incredibly well, but does not feel like a business that in 2026 that we can fund at seed stage and expect to get any real return. Right.
SPEAKER_01:I mean to your I mean, like technology matures 100%, right? And once it matures, it has a lot less risk to it, which means there's a lot less opportunity, right? And I think uh it's I thought I also find it fascinating sometimes when founders pitch us how almost their business like there's no risk, right? It's like no, it's like a it's like a sure thing. Like, if it's a sure thing, you're talking to the right per to the wrong person. We don't invest in sure things, right? That's not what we do because generally sure things that are less risky also have less upside.
SPEAKER_03:Yep, totally true.
SPEAKER_01:And and I think it it look, I mean, I I'll I'll be the first one to say like this industry is much more of an artisan industry than some highly pragmatic, you know, private equity, discounted cash flow, UbidA driven type of you know anal, you know, analyst mindset, right? A lot of it is, you know, thinking about the founder, thinking about the size of the market. And and you are definitely kind of betting on someone that's gonna hopefully adapt along the way, which by the way, I think that is one of the biggest things I get shocked by, right? I probably spend, I don't know, three hours a day in Claude.
SPEAKER_02:I'm um yeah, I'm probably four hours a day right now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, so if you met a founder and they like pitched you something, and you're like, hey, like you can do that in Claude, right? And if their response is like, well, like no, you can't, and and they say that they haven't been spending any time, and I'm just I'm not just saying Claude, I mean any of the LLMs, right? And if they said, well, I haven't really spent much time in it, I think it's just like a hard pass. And I think even with our existing founders, I get shocked at how behind they are sometimes. And I really believe that when you're they forget they're in the technology. I mean, this is the thing, you are in the technology business, and I think sometimes founders forget they're in the technology business.
unknown:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and so they're like, yeah, we're using AI. We just put a chat butt on our website. I'm like, whoa, like, dude, like that's not we need to see some deeper thinking around how you want to apply AI for whether it's software for the development, for marketing, whatever.
SPEAKER_02:The um the slow, the slow to adopt AI tools for a startup, I mean, completely feels like a like a complete no-go red flag at this point. Um, you know, for for us in an underwriting phase. Like we cannot like it just it should it shows that you're living, you're either you're either living in denial, um, or you're not staying up with current trends and using the best tools. Right. There's no, and there's like to me there at this point, there's no argument on the other side that you can be nearly as productive, prolific, or build with this highest quality. And I think that was an argument you saw previously was like quality, quality is not going to be there, it's just not true anymore. Quality can be there.
SPEAKER_01:No, and I think that's you know, do you expect that mindset out of corporates? Absolutely. But a five-person startup, and to me, like a five-person startup today, this may be struggling with their next round, should be trying to figure out how to be a two-person startup by leveraging AI.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it's the it's the word you just used because you're looking for maximum leverage because you don't have the resources that the large corporate does in terms of capital and people to go build things and execute things and take products to market, right? When you, I mean you have you have no resources. So, like the only thing that matters is you leveraging the best tools.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And like you're so you're you're telling me you're not doing that. Like you're there's something that we're not on the same page about here. Like we're looking for asymmetry and you only get that through leverage.
SPEAKER_01:No, and I it is interesting, like you know, someone pointed out to me that maybe I'm down the rabbit hole all the time on these AI, you know, you name it, I'm in it, right? On the AI stuff. And you know, my point was like, I mean, I enjoy it. I'm not saying I hate it, but also it's like my job. 100%. It's uh it's our job. Like technology is our job. Like, I had a call today with the guy that's doing a quantum computing fund, and we're chatting about that. And I mean, I don't know how much you know about quantum computing, but I I don't feel like I know enough.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, another entirely new um like you know, big big picture technology wave that yeah, you have to pay attention to. And I think that I mean for me, the harder part about I've gotten into quantum a little bit, but um I think the harder part about it is you can't like actually use it, right? Like the AI tools you can experiment with and play around and kind of understand where the where the models are and and like like personally you can get in the weeds with it. With quantum, like you just have to kind of study it and analyze it. And um, it's a little more esoteric to me.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:But my but so that's kind of my point, right? I spent with this person you know so I could learn so I can understand because I'm like that's kind of my job right I I I probably can't you know invest in this minimum you know and all that like it may not be a great guy you know he's pitching me to be an LP I'm probably not a great candidate but but did I spend an hour with him so I could be that much more knowledgeable about the market the market trends viability and I'm like because it's my job like this is the job and I think for a founder a tech founder that um is not spending the time it's like they're missing they're missing the point yeah agreed what's um you mentioned how much time you're spending in Claude um are you which is just like pure pure joy like what what's your uh what's your experience on a day-to-day basis using it um I have lots of ideas lots of theories and um not enough smart friends to have those conversations with or for or friends that want to talk about those topics right so they want to talk about something else that they're interested in um so I just find that I'm really uh it's like my long lost friend so to speak I mean and what's good is for me being high functioning ADHD um to be able to process an idea like to a point where it's like oh that's a bad idea because otherwise you end up with a fluttering being an entrepreneur ADHD you you have a fluttering of ideas and until you run them to ground they just kind of hang out with you and a lot of times I'm able to kind of really in a deep way for example I was looking at buying a building and turning it into a co-working event center and this morning I was like okay I need to like get that off my plate the idea I need to get the idea off my plate so I put in a bunch of data on the building and the cost and I said build me a financial model like how much cash do I need to build off this co-working business like build off the business model is it perfect probably not was it close enough yes did I then I asked it like how many hours of effort do I need to personally put into making this happen and it gave me an answer that was probably a real answer pretty close and I was like I don't have time for this but now that idea in call it under 10 minutes instead of sitting around bouncing around in my head um is out it's off the plate and so I think between that learning um assessing things um I think it's what what it is is so is so well you know a lot of times you know we know this in in venture we do a bunch of meetings with a lot of founders and we start to kind of do pattern recognition but I think what that does is we do pattern recognition and call it 10,000 feet right whatever level that is but I think with AI because we're able to with you know for me for Claude I'm able to kind of dig in a little bit I'm doing I feel like I'm doing pattern recognition at like 2000 feet like at a level of detail that I haven't been able to do which I think is is super uh is is super interesting super important and um I think you have to from a competitive edge perspective.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah the um what the reason I ask about your time with Claude and kind of what you're what you're working on so I'm not I'm not technical I'm not an engineer never really built a product never coded really in my life other than like a few small projects here and there. Over holiday break that was like my my goal was like to get in the weeds with Claude code and actually like start prototyping stuff and building stuff and getting you know getting my hands dirty with the models and seeing what I could come up with. I mean like complete it was a complete euphoric experience. Wow like I could build I I mean I I could build something for the first time in my life and like it was a tool that could write like it like it it understood like previously where I would get where I would get stopped in the past like let me just give you a concrete example like I in the past I was I was building out I think this was like a couple years ago I was building out a scraping tool um try to help our portfolio was a um I was trying to help our portfolio sort and organize like all of the industry's trade shows. So I wanted a scraping tool that you know would find both the the um kind of the larger association trade show events and then the smaller state associations and like every vertical in our industry I wanted to like have a uh a play a place where you could go figure that out because trade shows are such a big part of go to market, right? I got the tool um going and off the ground, but there were certain moments in time where the complexity um just became beyond what I had time to you know resource it with like in and you know I basically ran into walls that my tech where my technical knowledge just wasn't strong enough. And I would drop it because like I just you know I had I just it was I had too much other stuff to do. Here you know I'm able to natural language prompt and like into into the Claude code CLI and you know into my terminal and actually complete the product right like like it got me through the walls for the first time ever and shows you and answers like the technical questions that you couldn't break through earlier. Like I could have researched them in the past I could have gone to Stack Overflow and found the you know the bugs that I was running into and done all that. But like I just like I'm not I'm not a software engineer. I didn't have the time to do that. And maybe that's coke maybe I just you know needed to work work through it. But truly like you know if you're doing another thing if you're if your core jobs in another functional area like you just you know you run into these walls and you give up but it's just not true anymore. Like I got through it all and like I there's in that that's just one example there's multiple things I've been experimenting with and been able to um actually build a front and back end for and it's like yeah it feels euphoric. I mean it's it's um it's a just like what an incredible time to be in the technology industry and like to not want to use those tools. Like I understand like I'm not a software engineer and I'm I'm not going through the same um identity dynamics and the like maybe a grief sort of grief experience with like the skills that you built and spent you know your entire career um investing in and building in like that becoming a commoditized thing you know you could argue the same thing is happening in all of knowledge work to some extent right it's not just for coding but coding tools of the last year were like the just most in focus for models right so but yeah I mean it's um I don't know it feels it feels to me it feels euphoric like it's incredibly exciting. I'm working on our on our annual report for LPs right now and like there's four stages of last year that I've outlined um were awareness, grief, like actually realizing what was happening the capabilities and the improvements and the speed that um improvements were being made um three was euphoria so everything I'm talking about like my own personal excitement I've like I I personally went through that and I think a lot of other people are and then um fourth is arbitrage which is like how do I actually build and invest in companies that can take advantage of this moment in time and for us it's very obvious where we're doing that we're doing it in AI and we're doing it in robotics. And robotics is on a maybe slightly delayed curve. But they're gonna all the downstream benefits of the progress in AI models um they're gonna hugely benefit from and it's gonna have the same sort of impact on you know physical laws and physical labor as it right now is having um on the on the on the software side with knowledge and intelligence, right?
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. Yeah it was interesting I I met someone for coffee this morning over in San Mateo and I pull up to this coffee shop and half the coffee coffee shop is full of cops. It's like so many cops I was like um I just walk I'm either in this safest place on the planet right now or I'm in the most dangerous like they're cleaning up a crime scene or something. I don't know what's going on. And so I'm sitting there waiting on uh folks to join me and this young cop is sitting there talking about AI I'm just like eavesdropping this conversation and they were talking about how to think about how they're thinking about AI. It was fascinating because they're all like very young police officers um and they were basically saying like hey I think AI is going to be huge for us. And I was like oh this is interesting like I had to just kind of lean into the conversation right and this young woman was this young cop she was like there are so many decisions we have to make and then we are are unsure if we made the right one so if AI can take all the different condition conditions that we see and just tell me what to do then I can act faster. So her point was kind of like we have to process so many things to make a decision and that leads to hesitation. And that if AI just told us what to do, we would not hesitate. We would just move quicker. And I thought it was really I mean just the way she was a clearly you know we're in San Mateo it's you know close enough to Silicon Valley right um but I thought it was just fascinating how here's a young cop saying like here's how I think AI could save more lives of police officers to make better decisions.
SPEAKER_02:I mean it reminds me of the argument for um autonomous vehicles just they're safer they're objectively safer than human drivers. Yeah um but when you're complex with like a or you when you're faced with a complex human decision like a life is at stake uh man that is a yeah I can imagine that's a really tough equation to work through in a high stress moment. And I mean societally we see people make mistakes all the time in those high stress moments right like police officers make the wrong decision we all would in high stress moments. But yeah that that is um that's that's that's interesting. I I would actually expect like maybe the opposite reaction like the taxi driver reaction to Ubers right yeah I bet if there was an older cop there they would have like well you know experience it's like yes also yeah agree if you're 35 years at uh being a cop you probably have built the pattern recognition to make quick decisions 100% faster than AI probably right but this young woman she looked like she was like 22 23 maybe she doesn't have that she the the that pattern recognition those synapses are not firing that way so I my guess is everything in her day is probably doubt about making a decision.
SPEAKER_01:And so I but I I just thought it was really fascinating you know that here's a a cop saying like I think AI is going to be amazing for us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah I don't think that means cops are going out of business right but in fact you might recruit more cops because they feel more comfortable about being able to do their job yeah super interesting but I I think you know your your point about like you got to be in the tools I just can't you know it's it's really when I hear CEOs talking about oh I don't know about all this AI stuff I'm like well what have you done what have you played with have you tried writing code have you tried you know I've been running uh cloud co-work I don't know if you got that I haven't used it yet but it's all it came out it's uh pretty pretty interesting because it's a desktop app yeah and so the idea like an interface for people not using cloud code right yeah well it's uh you know they positioned it that way what I would say is it's like basically it's running cloud locally and it can fully interface with your computer and it can run run local mcps so like today there's there's something I do once a week I go to this one website I do this search I download a file I enrich it across multiple applications and then I put it into a data set um does it take me a ton of time no it takes me like 20 minutes a week but I got that fully automated now it just runs and it might not seem like a lot but you know stuff like that you know it it starts to add up right and then what is it for you up to do otherwise I mean I'd love to be I'd love to say I'm the one of those people is like oh it's freeing me up to have better quality of life um no it's just freeing me up to do more work to take on more but you're working less right dude I'm working so much I mean that's I think you the other dynamic that is um this is like Jevin's Jevin's paradox where like yeah you start um if you actually increase your productivity if you if you uh if you consume more energy what's the what's Jevin's paradox if you consume more energy um now you're more likely to consume more in the future yeah um same thing if like you're using the most productive tools and you're freeing yourself up for more time you're actually going to work harder and and more and maybe more than you ever have in your life but I think the difference is like you actually want to be working um like your your your time like you're pursuing more projects because you're pursuing things that you actually are that feel like play to you right it's not like yeah you're um yeah you know and I I think yeah I referenced it in my last book about like salt mine work which is basically just all the stuff that we hate doing.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think I'm doing any of that anymore. I think between delegation and AI I wa you know because I think you know like I wake up around 4 4 30 I mean I wake up 4 4 30 very enthusiastic to take on the day because I don't have a lot of that morning dread like uh gotta do this gotta do that like I just I don't have that that list is getting shorter and shorter um both personally and professionally it's like what a it's nothing but like fun stuff to look forward to on any given day and that just makes me want to work more like I want to get up and do do more stuff right I mean think about it like when you have to get up like oh my god I gotta do the XYZ before 10 o'clock it's like nobody's excited to wake up and do you know that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02:But but yeah and so the reason you're feeling that way is because it's it's automating the sort of work that you didn't like to do and is giving you peace of mind and and keeping your energy levels up so you're not spending brain energy on things that you hate to do or you're not good at or just aren't fun. And um so yeah while while you are still like spending a ton of energy on work every day it's like on the big stuff and the the fact that maybe your like the tedious work that you hated that you're now automating with AI the fact that it's like of like of maybe better quality for me it's like I feel like even my my tedious work has gotten actually better because of these tools. So my the stuff I used to hate I'm performing better on I'm not expending any time or effort into it um other than making sure that you know the context is conveyed properly right and I get a focus on all the stuff that I'm great at and that I like doing that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah you know and I think if you know not everybody's embracing it not everybody's in it right but you and I listen to a lot of the same podcasts and study a lot of the same things. I do think this is gonna have an impact on longevity. I think you know cortisol levels are always you know that's one of those things that everyone talks about like hey you got to keep your cortisol levels down right and a lot of that's just stress related you know physical and mental stress and so I I I do think that we're gonna see a shift in how people think about like their quality of life and their energy levels and you know I need to figure out my sleep because I just you know to me like every morning's like Christmas morning kind of thing I can figure that out. But yeah it's for good reasons right I'm not up all night stressed out about oh I got a million things to do before nine o'clock. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah yeah now I'm like yeah I got a million things to do they're all getting done right now I like I like that theory that from a long from a longevity standpoint it increase increases lifespans because your overall stress levels have gone down because you know a competent coworker person yeah ai you know ai agent is working in the background for you and making sure everything's taken care of. Like it like it it's it truly is stress relieving I mean like knowing that someone has your back and is working for you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah I think it's like whenever you have like a great employee yeah totally work is just such a joy right and I think with AI it may not be the ideal employee day one but watching it improve brings you joy. It's like seeing a young employee develop like wow like you know three months ago they didn't even know what that was and now look at them. So I think it's the the positive projection of cap you know uh capabilities the progression of capabilities I think is like uh also very interesting but no I think you know AI saves lives that's what and that we just came up with say AI saves lives that's the new bumper sticker not just uh police officer lives not just police officer lives um what uh so 2026 what industry topics are most interesting to you this year um you know I don't I feel like I have to start every sentence with unbiased right I think we're gonna make massive strides in the application of AI in the physical world I think like you're talking about like like you were talking about like robotics and I think um I think we're gonna start seeing some real like some really interesting things happening in robotics and automation. Um you know I think we're gonna start to see almost some like science fiction type stuff. There was a company I think got funded earlier this week by YC and I think Indri Sinhorowitz to be the first uh hotel on on the moon that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Did you see that? I was like what is this? But also like so awesome right even if they fail it's gonna be awesome.
SPEAKER_02:I want to meet those founders. Sounds like a prop Prop Tech deal we should explore.
SPEAKER_01:Finally, Prop Tech got interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Real estate development deal.
SPEAKER_01:How do you do the entitlement on that? But yeah, look, I uh I am still very convinced. Like we are entering, and I think we are in like one of the coolest times in our lives. I think it really is gonna be one of the coolest times. I mean the next decade is just absolutely wild. I think this year you're gonna start, I think you're gonna start seeing um a lot of like things that were maybe a little bit science fiction start to be actual. Yeah, you know, I was talking, I was talking to Devin the other day, I was like, I think people are gonna live further away from cities. Because I've been looking at a property, it'd be about geez, it'd probably be about an hour and a half into San Francisco, about 45 minutes to the airport, it's a little bit further. And I was like, however, between self-driving cars, Waymo, and like the vertical takeoff stuff, yeah. I mean, why would I mean because this property is like amazing? It's like this beautiful property, um, isolated from everything. And I was like, is it realistic that in three years I might have like a fully autonomous VTAL that can take me to the airport? Tesla FSD or yeah, or or test or test Tesla FSD, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can do that today.
SPEAKER_01:Like, who wants to live in a crank? Like, I'd rather live on 25 acres. I know everybody's not into that, but for me, I'd rather live on 25, 30 acres in the middle of nowhere. What keeps you from doing it? Well, you know, gotta go to the grocery store. Well, I think grocery stores are gonna like autonomous deliver to me, you know, zip lines right down the road from where I live. Um, oh well, I have to get places. Well, just pop in full sub, you know, FSD on a test line.
SPEAKER_02:Changes the the pain threshold of the commute quite a bit when you're not actually having to drive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think like not to get too like optimistic about the world, but I think you can actually like have your ideal life. I want to live on a farm with horses, why not? What's like what's stopping you? Right. I mean, I mean, obviously you gotta be able to buy stuff, but you know, why do I have to live? Oh, I can't, you know, when we talk about like affordability, like everybody, I mean I I love this conversation around affordability. Can we improve construction and save probably 30% on costs? Absolutely, like I'm a firm firm believer in there, but you still have to deal with land costs, sure, yeah. So if you can live two hours away from where you work, land cost goes down dramatically, yeah, 100%. And you maybe get to live in a in a spot that you actually like. You know, not everybody that lives in the city loves living in the city, it's somewhat of a necessity.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there was a book back in the 90s called The Roaring 2000s by Harry Dent. Um, and he coined the term excerpts, and his hypothesis had more to do with high-speed internet and the internet, basically, saying, like, hey, because of telecom, video conferencing, etc., people can live even further away from city centers and have a quality life. I don't think it quite happened. I mean, clearly we're all, you know, doing Zoom calls and all that to to um we can work fairly well remotely, but he kind of hypothesized around like literally communities that were two, four hours away from a city center that would start to flourish. That I don't know has happened. Yeah, but I I mean, I you know, like like I mean, I always thought it was an interesting idea, rooted in fact, very pragmatic. Um, like we might that this go around, we might, it might actually happen.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like we saw some of that in the COVID era, but the trend stopped once we all kind of went back into the city for work and return to office happened because and I think part of the part of the reason that maybe it didn't manifest and go a little bit further was um that the commute was still painful, right? Like if you're two hours away and you do need to go into the office, whether it's one, two, three days a week, uh I mean it's that's a tough commute. But if you don't actually have to drive and you get it, you don't have to take the train either. You you ride in an autonomous autonomous vehicle. Um, I think that I think it's dramatically different.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I do have a friend that lives in a town called Aptos, which is probably two hours from the city from San Francisco. He goes in three days a week. Does he? And I was like, that is so like insane. And he said, I live on the ocean.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I have a Tesla. I do calls the entire way in. The sound quality is good. Like I can do calls the entire way in. He's got one thing I need to improve on like some of my Claude stuff is I don't use the voice feature at all. He says the entire drive in. He's with he's with Claude using the voice feature the entire time, like talking to it. I haven't done that yet.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's good.
SPEAKER_01:But I think, but it's fascinating. He sits there and talks to it and starts sending deliverables out to people, you know. So in his mind, he's like, Yeah, it's a drive, but I'm very productive. Future's gonna be crazy, man. Yep. All right, well, it's a good uh start to the year.
SPEAKER_02:It's a good good kickoff call.