WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.359 When I got my green card, I'm like, okay, now I'm a free person. 00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:04.719 I can do whatever I want. 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:11.359 But 10 years of being on the work visa and student visa, they foster almost like a victim mentality, right? 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.240 Where you can't, therefore you don't. 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:16.559 And therefore, that's the way things are. 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:19.719 It changes your risk appetite. 00:00:19.719 --> 00:00:24.679 I want to say it actually removes, there is no risk appetite. 00:00:24.679 --> 00:00:26.719 Yeah, you start to optimize, but not taking risks. 00:00:26.719 --> 00:00:33.439 Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Metacast podcast. 00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:38.719 And I'm your host, Yili Bestelev, and he's my co-host, Arnab. 00:00:38.719 --> 00:00:39.518 They won't say hi. 00:00:39.518 --> 00:00:40.560 Hello, hello, hello. 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:49.840 Yeah. I always, but just recovering from a cough and cold, so a little bit less high and hello. 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:51.359 So it's going to be quite podcast. 00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:52.439 I will see. 00:00:52.439 --> 00:00:59.359 All right, so Metacast behind the scenes podcast is a podcast where we talk about how we build our company. 00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:02.399 A podcast app is our main product. 00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:03.759 We are currently in close beta. 00:01:03.759 --> 00:01:05.480 We haven't shipped publicly yet. 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:08.599 It's going to be the best postcard ever. 00:01:08.599 --> 00:01:09.439 Postcard? 00:01:09.439 --> 00:01:14.359 Yes. The best podcast ever created by mankind. 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:15.280 We think so. 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:19.480 We've been using the app for a while now in our internal beta. 00:01:19.480 --> 00:01:24.840 It's an awesome app, and we can't wait to share it with the world, but there is still some work to be done. 00:01:24.840 --> 00:01:28.239 And on this podcast, we share how we build the company. 00:01:28.239 --> 00:01:29.599 We talk about entrepreneurship. 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:32.560 We invite entrepreneurs to talk about their journeys. 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:42.959 So yeah, it's a mix of about stuff about everything that goes into building a company, which we hope will be interesting for us to listen many years online. 00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:46.719 And if people can benefit from this right now, that's great. 00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:58.959 But also when we ship our app, this podcast is going to be our community engagement channel, sort of where people can learn about who is behind the app, how they think about building the app. 00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:01.879 We can discuss customer feedback and all that. 00:02:01.879 --> 00:02:08.359 So yeah, we are taking it really meta and using the podcast as a podcast listeners engagement thing. 00:02:08.359 --> 00:02:10.919 So Arnab, what are we going to talk about today? 00:02:10.919 --> 00:02:17.400 You and I are both immigrants in these countries that we live in now. 00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:19.439 Where else would you be in the grinsing? 00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:22.759 Well, no, actually, I was immigrant in two countries. 00:02:22.759 --> 00:02:26.719 So we're going to talk a little bit about our journey so far. 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:31.679 And Ilia has reached one of the most important milestones in being an immigrant. 00:02:31.679 --> 00:02:33.919 So we're going to talk a little bit about that. 00:02:33.919 --> 00:02:42.759 But before we get to all that, so every few episodes, when we start recording, we have this Google doc. 00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:46.639 Every time we write up some bullet points about what we're going to discuss. 00:02:46.639 --> 00:02:51.879 And that's the time when I look at it and realize, wow, it's episode 39. 00:02:51.879 --> 00:02:56.159 And back in January, we knew we wanted to do a weekly one. 00:02:56.159 --> 00:03:01.639 So of course, if you do the math, it would be like, OK, 40 episodes in by the end of September. 00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:05.960 But it just feels surreal that it's episode 39. 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:08.519 It just feels surreal that almost a year has passed. 00:03:08.519 --> 00:03:12.719 It seems very cordially very first episode in late October, I think, on November. 00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:14.879 And we started publishing them in January. 00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:16.879 That's been quite well. 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:24.800 Well, that's the reason why I name all of our MP3 files with the output audio with a three-digit number. 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:29.000 So it's like 001. This one will be 0039. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:32.360 Because I knew we were going to cross into 100 at some point. 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:34.400 So but we still have about a year to go. 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:37.960 So this numbering thing will work for about 20 years, you're saying? 00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:39.840 I didn't do the math, but I think you're right, yeah. 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:42.639 52 weeks per year, so yeah. 00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:47.960 Remember how we discussed in one of the episodes, what would it be like to work together for 20, 30 years? 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:51.560 And I think none of us wanted to do the same thing for 20, 30 years. 00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:54.080 But we were fine working with each other for 20, 30 years. 00:03:54.080 --> 00:04:03.199 And actually thinking about it, when we started recording, if I think back to last October, to you, you had done a few podcasts already. 00:04:03.199 --> 00:04:04.560 To me, it was all new. 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:08.360 I have gotten very used to it now. 00:04:08.360 --> 00:04:11.680 And I really enjoyed the process of recording it. 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:18.759 And then listening to it again, because the first few times that was like the recording thing was itself a bit stressful. 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:22.399 But listening to it again was like really painful. 00:04:22.399 --> 00:04:25.160 I'll say something now and then I'll clarify it. 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:28.759 So you feel yourself like fish in the water. 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:30.319 And this is what it means. 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:35.759 It's an idiomatic Russian expression translated directly into non-idiomatic English. 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:37.160 It's something in English too. 00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:37.759 Oh, is it? 00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:39.680 You feel like fish in the water, yeah? 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:41.000 I've never heard of this in English. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:45.639 But the reason I brought it up is, I've been trying this thing recently. 00:04:45.639 --> 00:04:51.519 So I post stuff in our newsletter, and also I adapt this to LinkedIn. 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:57.199 But I also started taking that from LinkedIn plugging into chat GPT, and telling it, translate it into Russian. 00:04:57.199 --> 00:05:05.639 And then I do a little bit of edits, and then I cross-post this to my telegram channel as well, from my Russian audience, which is much faster than writing this from scratch, right? 00:05:05.639 --> 00:05:21.199 But what I noticed is that chat GPT is not yet good enough to translate idiomatic English into idiomatic Russian, or any other language as I suppose, which sometimes results in really weird phrases, which obviously would have to correct. 00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:24.199 And this kind of tied to our topic of immigration a little bit. 00:05:24.199 --> 00:05:31.759 I knew somebody who would use idiomatic Russian expressions, translate them directly into non-idiomatic English, like I just did. 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:39.759 And it would make no sense to anybody, except me, because I was the only one, like I could make a connection about his doing. 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.879 So this being meta-cast, let's go a bit meta now. 00:05:43.879 --> 00:05:45.959 I follow you on Instagram, obviously, right? 00:05:45.959 --> 00:05:53.718 And I see most of your posts are like with Russian words, and all, and sometimes they're in the image itself, so I can't translate them. 00:05:53.718 --> 00:06:01.279 I don't read Russian, by the way, listeners, or speak it for anybody else, just casually wondering, yet, maybe. 00:06:01.279 --> 00:06:04.800 Well, if you hang out with me, you're not as one year's sheep, you might. 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:10.399 Right. Well, I do love learning languages, and Spanish, I've been doing it for about a year and a half now. 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:12.399 I'm OK with it now, there. 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:16.319 I can talk like in basic Spanish in casual with people. 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:29.879 Anyway, so the meta part, so I saw your post in Russian, and sometimes if you have actually written the words, right, and it's not in the image, then Instagram offers like C translation. 00:06:29.879 --> 00:06:31.480 So I did that translate. 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:46.560 So what it did was it translated you talking in Russian about how your translations from English to Russian are not good, which was in Russian, back into English, and it made no sense at all. 00:06:46.560 --> 00:07:00.240 That's because I don't really want to say this, but I would say I'm pretty good at idiomatic Russian, and I've also grown, I guess, pretty good at idiomatic English, especially when I'm writing. 00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:03.680 That's why the translations don't make sense, I think. 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:09.560 It's because those idioms, they are not easily translatable from one language to another. 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:18.879 We should take the original English one, put your Instagram Russian thing, and then put what I see when I translate it, and put it in the show notes. 00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:20.879 I think it was really funny. 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:25.879 I could get a sense of what you're trying to talk about, but it made no sense. 00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:28.800 Anyway, I think this is enough meta. 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:29.639 Right. 00:07:29.639 --> 00:07:37.480 So one thing we wanted to improve, or I wanted to improve, this episode is that jump straight into the main topic, and then do some chitchat at the end. 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:39.279 We already failed a bit, improvement. 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:40.160 11 minutes in. 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:41.600 Let's do it. 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:43.079 Yeah, cool. 00:07:43.079 --> 00:07:50.759 So the reason I want to talk about immigration is that I've been thinking a lot about how I spent, and same for you as well. 00:07:50.759 --> 00:08:07.920 So I spent over 10 years on work and student visas, and basically all of the time from my mid 20s to my mid 30s, which is some of the most productive years in terms of like trying things, risk taking, like you don't have kids yet, or at least some of those years. 00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:14.040 And then when you're in a work visa, you're kind of screwed because you can't try much, right? 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:15.439 You're tied to your job. 00:08:15.439 --> 00:08:16.560 You're tied to your job, right? 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:18.160 And we also talked to somebody. 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:29.079 He was like, yeah, if we'd been interesting to work with you guys, but I'm on H1 visa, which is dependent on my employer, and you know it's non-starter for a small starter. 00:08:29.079 --> 00:08:30.399 We can't do that. 00:08:30.399 --> 00:08:41.158 So yeah, we want to talk about immigration, how it affects work in both good and bad ways, kind of what you learn from it, and also how it affects entrepreneurship. 00:08:41.158 --> 00:08:48.078 Because both of us lived in multiple countries, which is one that to chat about that, and hope people will find that interesting. 00:08:48.078 --> 00:08:53.159 So tell us where all have you lived, how many years, what's been your journey? 00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:57.559 So I was born in Russia, actually, my hometown is in Siberia. 00:08:57.559 --> 00:09:00.679 You're the only person I know who's from Siberia, by the way. 00:09:00.679 --> 00:09:02.480 OK, I know many. 00:09:02.480 --> 00:09:04.039 Four of you's reasons. 00:09:04.039 --> 00:09:09.399 Yeah, so six hours flight or five times zones to the right from Moscow. 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:11.919 It's like two hours drive to Mongolia. 00:09:11.919 --> 00:09:13.120 Let's have how it is. 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:14.679 Like one half hours flight to Beijing. 00:09:14.679 --> 00:09:18.559 You were probably closer to India than to Moscow. 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:22.318 Or at least the northwestern side of India, yeah. 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:23.840 It's probably about the same distance. 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:27.840 But if you talk about Assam, where you're from, it's probably very close, yeah. 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:32.639 So yeah, then I moved to Moscow when I was 22, I think. 00:09:32.639 --> 00:09:37.399 And then I had an opportunity to work in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates when I was 25. 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:38.480 This was DHL? 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:40.799 Or was it DHL, yes. 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:45.000 They were doing some re-working, and there was an opportunity to move to Dubai. 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:47.440 Well, there was an opportunity to get fired or to move to Dubai. 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:50.559 So it was an obvious challenge, kind of, because I always wanted to leave a broad. 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:51.639 I was exploring. 00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:55.279 I wanted to move to the US since I was like 16 or so. 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:56.559 I wanted to be a rock star. 00:09:56.559 --> 00:09:57.799 And obviously, where do you go? 00:09:57.799 --> 00:10:00.039 To be a rock star, you go to Los Angeles, right? 00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:08.960 And I actually, I told my mom, I remember, I told my mom that I would do the dishes in restaurants just to move to the US and play the guitar in the evenings or whatever. 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:10.559 Luckily, that never happened. 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:12.399 So yeah, I spent a year in Dubai. 00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:13.720 Then I did another rework. 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:15.240 I was moved to Singapore. 00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:18.240 So just one year in Dubai and then off to Singapore now? 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:19.360 Just one year in Dubai, yeah. 00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:21.240 Then I spent a year and a half in Singapore. 00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:22.559 And are you already married? 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:24.720 Do you already have kids at this point? 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:26.080 I was married, but no kids. 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:33.279 And actually, that was a good thing that we were married before moving to Dubai because we had to do a bunch of paperwork to prove that she's my wife. 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:36.960 And we had to go to like UAE embassy to legalize that. 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:39.679 Because they're very particular about people living together. 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:41.759 I don't think actually it's legal if you're not married. 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:49.279 So some of my friends had to marry like ASAP, to immigrate, which it didn't have a good optics, you know? 00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:52.519 So yeah, then Singapore, one and a half years, also with DHL. 00:10:52.519 --> 00:10:54.799 Then we kind of got tired of the weather. 00:10:54.799 --> 00:10:57.039 And my wife really wanted to live in Europe. 00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:59.480 So we moved to Germany to bond. 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:01.679 So my wife was already pregnant back then. 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:09.078 One of the reasons why we wanted to move to Germany to Europe is because we just wanted to have a better, well, more suitable climate for us to have the first child. 00:11:09.078 --> 00:11:11.480 I think some people would be wondering, wait, wait. 00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:12.919 So you wanted better climate. 00:11:12.919 --> 00:11:15.240 So you move from Singapore to Germany. 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:17.559 More suitable for you, I think, yeah. 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:19.639 The climate we used to, right? 00:11:19.639 --> 00:11:23.479 So yeah, we moved to Germany soon after my son was born, my first son. 00:11:23.479 --> 00:11:26.759 It was 2012. So I was like 28, 29. 00:11:26.759 --> 00:11:28.958 We spent there almost two years. 00:11:28.958 --> 00:11:31.919 Then I applied for my MBA, moved to the US. 00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:34.599 That was Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 00:11:34.599 --> 00:11:38.078 It was Philadelphia. Yeah, I went to work there. 00:11:38.078 --> 00:11:42.078 Then I started the job with Amazon in Seattle. 00:11:42.078 --> 00:11:44.359 So I was first in a student visa in the US. 00:11:44.360 --> 00:11:48.320 And then I got converted into a work visa, H1B. 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:49.840 And then from that I got my green card. 00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:51.919 And then from green card, I got my citizenship. 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:54.879 So overall, I've been the US for 10 years at this point. 00:11:54.879 --> 00:11:57.519 Nice. Yeah, what's your journey? 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:09.240 So in India, I spent the first 17 years or so in the place that I was not exactly born in, but the same state, same province. 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:10.679 We moved around quite a bit. 00:12:10.679 --> 00:12:12.919 My dad had a job that anyway. 00:12:12.919 --> 00:12:20.519 But then after that, I went to study in southern part of India, then worked in a different city in India, Bangalore. 00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:26.919 And then pretty quickly, within a few months, I moved to New York. 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:31.039 And I was working for Infosys, for Goldman Sachs. 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:32.679 Were you an H1 visa? 00:12:32.679 --> 00:12:37.240 I was on an H1 visa, yes, the first time. 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:43.720 And then after about a year, I got tired of the bank and I was working stuff. 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:50.159 And I wanted to do something else, got a job in Amazon as an SDE1, and I moved to Seattle. 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:51.720 Still on H1. 00:12:51.720 --> 00:12:57.480 And after a few years, I was like, I want to do something interprenurty. 00:12:57.480 --> 00:12:58.919 I didn't know exactly what. 00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:02.039 And that was not possible to do on an H1. 00:13:02.039 --> 00:13:05.919 So me and my wife, we both wanted to do that. 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:07.879 And we were both on H1s. 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:09.679 So we moved back to India. 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:13.799 And we both worked at very small companies. 00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:16.120 She worked in like a four person company. 00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:19.879 I worked in like a eight person company or so. 00:13:19.879 --> 00:13:23.359 In spoiler, we will have people from those companies on our next episode, right? 00:13:23.359 --> 00:13:35.399 Yeah. Although I worked with them only for a few months, I primarily was contracting for a startup in DC, while also helping out small projects and all that there. 00:13:35.399 --> 00:13:42.639 So we already had like our daughter, she was six months old, when we moved from Seattle to India. 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:43.318 And that was great. 00:13:43.318 --> 00:13:48.519 Like she got to spend a few years with her grandparents, like pretty much all the time, right? 00:13:48.519 --> 00:13:54.600 Like somebody would be over all the time, either my parents or my wife's parents or something like that. 00:13:54.600 --> 00:14:00.799 But then we kind of started to feel like, again, like you said, it was more, we were more suited. 00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:04.679 And we liked the lifestyle in North America a bit more. 00:14:04.679 --> 00:14:06.559 So we decided to move back. 00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:15.799 And till this point, I had not considered all the green card and all of the, we had never applied for all of this light. 00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:20.799 We had never thought about permanent residency and citizenship in a different country and all that. 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:24.239 But this time when we moved back, this isn't 2014. 00:14:24.239 --> 00:14:28.399 I'm about 33 year old at that time, I think, 1981. 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:29.119 So yeah. 00:14:29.119 --> 00:14:31.039 So that's when we started, right? 00:14:31.039 --> 00:14:38.279 And that's when we started realizing that for Indians in the US, it's basically like a never ending line. 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:43.279 So we got into the green card queue in 2015, January. 00:14:44.198 --> 00:14:47.399 But very soon it was a parent like, okay, this is not going to work out. 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:49.958 Me and my wife both are on H1Bs. 00:14:49.958 --> 00:14:54.318 We have renewal, stamping every two, three years. 00:14:54.318 --> 00:15:02.000 And then the political situation in US changed and the policies for like H1s and all that change. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:03.839 It was much more harder. 00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:15.440 And at that time you were my manager, I think that's when I told you, okay, I want to move to Canada, make it a bit easier for ourselves because we were serious about immigrating to a different country at that time. 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:25.600 And it was very uncommon, I think, in big companies or maybe in any company where like you have a manager and you're an individual contributor, but you work from a different country. 00:15:25.600 --> 00:15:31.080 But you and our like people in our leadership chain made it happen. 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:33.320 So I moved to Canada. 00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:35.559 And then it was very smooth, I want to say. 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:46.279 It's like we within a year and a couple of months we got our permanent residency and we qualify for citizenship now. 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.000 So we just started the process. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:50.240 So hopefully we're in about a year. 00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:51.240 It'll all be done. 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:52.200 We'll see. 00:15:52.200 --> 00:16:05.679 So I almost feel bad telling people of India and all Chinese origin that I got my US citizenship or even green card because I know a few guys it takes 10 years, 15 years to get a green card. 00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:06.600 How does it work? 00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:07.600 Why is it so bad? 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:08.440 You don't know. 00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:13.159 I mean, I still have friends who have been in the queue for more than 10 years at this. 00:16:13.159 --> 00:16:19.000 I mean ours was applied in 2015 and I mean, it's still valid. 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:23.759 Do you know that our application for green card is still in the queue? 00:16:23.759 --> 00:16:25.679 So you can still get a green card at some point? 00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:34.120 If you're dead, the priority date, if the line catches up to that date, then you will get some sort of notification apparently or Amazon will get it because they applied. 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:36.759 But we won't do anything with it now. 00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:45.000 But yeah, it's that long because US has a country-wide quota for number of immigrants. 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.399 They will get in on the permanent residency track every year. 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:50.679 From each country? 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:52.039 Is it like per country quota? 00:16:52.039 --> 00:16:53.840 It's not citizenship. 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.360 It's based on your country of birth. 00:16:56.360 --> 00:17:04.318 So you may be a British citizen, but if you're born in India, you're in the queue with everybody else who was born in India. 00:17:04.318 --> 00:17:16.480 And because there's a much larger population and a larger volume, especially in tech of people coming on like H1Bs from India and China, those queues are extremely long. 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:25.759 I don't know the latest because I'm not following it honestly for the last few years, but when we move and there are different categories, right? 00:17:25.759 --> 00:17:31.559 The most common two categories, I think for Chinese, it was about 10 years or so. 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:35.240 And Indians was probably about 20 years or so. 00:17:35.240 --> 00:17:37.759 I don't know what's happening now. 00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:41.559 This is pretty incredible because I didn't have to go through any of that. 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:48.000 Things took time, but the same time as, let's say, anybody from Germany or Britain who were not born in India. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:55.159 So it was fairly quick by, I guess, your standards, but still it took a long time. 00:17:55.159 --> 00:18:04.359 And one of the things I want to talk about today is just how being in a dependent situation affects your psyche and restaking appetite. 00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:14.638 Because when I was in H1, actually let me start when I was on work with us, when I wasn't to buy, the reason why I got moved to Singapore is because the company was doing layoffs. 00:18:14.638 --> 00:18:17.719 And it was closing the office there. 00:18:17.719 --> 00:18:20.439 And it was my very first opportunity to live abroad. 00:18:20.439 --> 00:18:22.799 And I was like clinging on to it. 00:18:22.799 --> 00:18:23.839 I didn't want to go back. 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:32.920 Because one of the things I realized when I first became an expat moved from Russia is, Russia has a pretty aggressive culture at work. 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:35.200 There is a lot of pacifaggression. 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:37.039 There is a lot of active aggression. 00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:41.599 I mean, things might be different now, but there's quite a bit of toxicity in the office space. 00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:46.359 The Western companies who work in Russia, they are better because they had a lot of management. 00:18:46.359 --> 00:18:51.240 They were used to have a lot of management coming to work from Britain and other places. 00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:53.638 But local companies, they were no good. 00:18:53.638 --> 00:18:54.519 I never liked that culture. 00:18:54.519 --> 00:18:56.160 I never felt like I fit there. 00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:59.920 In Dubai, my colleagues were mostly, like my manager was from Wales. 00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:06.400 My colleagues were mostly from Great Britain, a bunch of people from India, a bunch of people from Belgium. 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:10.279 Because they actually used to be headquartered in Brussels, but the global headquarter. 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:12.079 So lots of people moved there as well. 00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:15.359 And that culture was so nice and polite. 00:19:15.359 --> 00:19:20.359 And things were getting down without having to backstab each other. 00:19:20.359 --> 00:19:25.480 So I almost felt like this is my kind of culture because I've always been like that. 00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:29.160 But in Russia, it never set well with me working in Russia. 00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:36.680 And then basically, when they announced layoffs, by the way, it was almost a poster child for how to not do layoffs. 00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:37.559 So what happened there? 00:19:37.559 --> 00:19:46.559 So it was 2009. So they moved an office from Moscow to Dubai at the onset of the financial crisis when it started to pick up his team. 00:19:46.559 --> 00:19:51.640 And then they realized they made a mistake, and they actually don't want to pay for an office in Dubai. 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:55.440 So they moved everybody around March, April. 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:56.680 Some people came in May. 00:19:56.680 --> 00:19:58.799 And where did all these people move from? 00:19:58.799 --> 00:20:00.920 They shut down an office in Brussels. 00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:02.920 And they shut down an office in Moscow. 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:06.799 And I think there were also people from other places who wanted to work. 00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:11.400 OK, but these people didn't come from Singapore to Dubai and then move back again to Moscow. 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:14.319 No, no, no. They came from other places. 00:20:14.319 --> 00:20:20.119 There were people who approved their lives in places like Belgium and places like Moscow. 00:20:20.119 --> 00:20:27.239 There were a few people from Bahrain, as far as I remember, because they wanted to consolidate all of those kind of smaller regional offices into one place in Dubai. 00:20:27.239 --> 00:20:28.239 So they decided to shut it down. 00:20:28.239 --> 00:20:42.079 And somebody flies in, actually somebody from Singapore flies in and said that now this region, this EMEA region, which included North Africa, sorry, all of Africa, Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe, we are going to combine you with the Asia-Pacific region. 00:20:42.079 --> 00:20:45.359 And we are going to reduce this office by 50%. 00:20:45.359 --> 00:20:48.439 And then he flies back to Singapore. 00:20:48.440 --> 00:20:53.359 And then for about a month, you can imagine, no work gets done because everybody just freaked out. 00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:54.960 Morales gone. 00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:55.960 Morales gone. 00:20:55.960 --> 00:20:58.079 Because people just moved there. 00:20:58.079 --> 00:20:59.880 And everybody is in a work visa. 00:20:59.880 --> 00:21:03.880 And everybody sold their places, sold their stuff, bought cars. 00:21:03.880 --> 00:21:08.599 And also in Dubai, you can meet to rent for one year and you actually pay upfront for a year. 00:21:08.599 --> 00:21:12.200 The company paid for us, but then the company deducts from your paycheck or something. 00:21:12.200 --> 00:21:13.640 I don't remember how exactly it worked. 00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:16.880 But it was not clear how that's always going to work. 00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:19.799 I just bought the car, we just got the contract for a place. 00:21:19.799 --> 00:21:21.480 And I'm happy. 00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:25.640 And this guy comes and tells it's all going to go away at some point. 00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:28.000 And you don't know if you're going to be fired or not. 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:31.599 And then if you weeks later, they come back. 00:21:31.599 --> 00:21:33.279 And this is what happens. 00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:35.000 So imagine in an open office. 00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.240 In an open office where everybody can see everybody, our operations group was just half a floor. 00:21:39.240 --> 00:21:41.720 So you can see pretty much everybody who works with you. 00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:54.759 And managers, let's say my manager, what come out of somewhere, he would come to one of my colleagues, his director's report and say, hey, we need to talk. 00:21:54.759 --> 00:22:04.319 And then this person is walked to another room where the SVP of ops at the time tells this person that they are being laid off. 00:22:04.319 --> 00:22:06.759 These are the conditions, sign these papers, right? 00:22:06.759 --> 00:22:12.759 And then the person is walked back to his desk, or her desk, and the security is there. 00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:20.119 And then they are told to just grab their clothing, their backpack, whatever, leave everything else on the desk, without even being able to say goodbye. 00:22:20.119 --> 00:22:21.759 And they are walked out of the building. 00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:24.720 And you can imagine about half of the people are getting fired. 00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:29.279 And everybody sits there and watches this happen one by one. 00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:33.200 So compared to layoffs that happened, let's say at Google this year, or at other places. 00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:36.720 Which was also a shit show, but different kind of shit show. 00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:37.799 It was a different kind of shit show. 00:22:37.799 --> 00:22:40.839 At least you got an email and you know you're gone, right? 00:22:40.839 --> 00:22:42.359 Well, not everybody apparently. 00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:43.199 But yeah. 00:22:43.199 --> 00:22:45.359 Yeah, but that felt like torture. 00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:49.359 Because you just see this happen one by one, and it's not nice. 00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:50.839 This is like movie shows. 00:22:50.839 --> 00:22:54.199 I think it was in the office or office space. 00:22:54.199 --> 00:22:56.638 One of those movies, there was a thing like that. 00:22:56.638 --> 00:23:05.839 Where two management consultants come in, interview everybody to figure out like, who's a good fit, who's not a good fit, in front of everybody, was very stressful, like, and imagine. 00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:07.839 Yeah, there's my specific immigration, right? 00:23:07.839 --> 00:23:12.000 Is, so I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, okay, I might just be laid off. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:17.480 And my visa will basically expire because it depends on my employer. 00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:18.480 Like, what am I gonna do? 00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:20.160 I've just changed my life a few months ago. 00:23:20.160 --> 00:23:21.400 What am I gonna do? 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:27.160 And that has always been at the back of my mind for 10 years I was on work visas. 00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:33.160 So it's like, I wanna try something new and like, you can't because your immigration status doesn't allow you to do that. 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:40.839 Or like something that shit starts to happen in the economy or in the company, or even like in your job and you like, fuck it, I don't wanna work here anymore. 00:23:40.839 --> 00:23:42.519 But then you're like, what are you gonna go? 00:23:42.519 --> 00:23:50.679 So, and then you just like, swallow this and just persevere through stuff that you normally wouldn't go through, right? 00:23:50.679 --> 00:23:52.519 Yeah, so that's my kind of story. 00:23:52.519 --> 00:23:58.878 We have talked about your moves from the White House Singapore, but never at this detail. 00:23:58.878 --> 00:24:01.159 This resonates with me a lot. 00:24:01.159 --> 00:24:07.480 Like, I continuously am amazed how similar our life paths have been. 00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:11.480 Because I'll tell you what happened in that financial crisis with me. 00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:15.960 Although it wasn't like this, I got a really lucky break out of that. 00:24:15.960 --> 00:24:20.960 So like I said, I was working for Goldman Sachs in New York. 00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:23.279 This is around like 2006. 00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:27.319 And after a year, I had the age like I wanna do something else, right? 00:24:27.319 --> 00:24:28.960 I'm not enjoying this anymore. 00:24:28.960 --> 00:24:30.960 I had very little development work. 00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:35.680 I had more like support and that sort of on call sort of stuff going on, right? 00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:38.200 So I started looking for jobs preparing. 00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:40.240 I don't have a computer science degree. 00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:46.000 So all the software engineering that I did was like I learned on my own and stuff, right? 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:50.160 So I started preparing for stuff and started interviewing. 00:24:50.160 --> 00:24:51.599 I got three offers. 00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:54.400 I did about six interviews and I got three offers. 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:56.640 So lemon brothers, then the Anderson baby. 00:24:56.640 --> 00:24:59.200 I don't tell you, yeah. 00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:03.000 Lemon brothers, Morgan Stanley and Amazon. 00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:10.319 Okay. And for whatever reason, this is 2007 October-ish. 00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:13.319 The conventional wisdom would tell you to go to one of the banks. 00:25:13.319 --> 00:25:16.878 Yeah, because my experience kind of like applies there. 00:25:16.878 --> 00:25:20.759 And I had a really good like position and all that and more money there too, I think. 00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:22.559 Amazon was an HDE one. 00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:32.599 But my thing about like I wanna work in a different space, not in banking, really helped me out because I decided to join Amazon. 00:25:32.599 --> 00:25:39.119 So I joined in January 2007 because it takes like four or five months for all the visa paperwork to be done, right? 00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:41.799 When you change companies in the US. 00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:43.959 So I joined in January. 00:25:43.959 --> 00:25:53.480 After two weeks, all of lemon brothers, or maybe not two weeks, two months, whatever, all of lemon brothers was gone like the whole company. 00:25:53.480 --> 00:25:56.119 The whole division that I was going to join. 00:25:56.119 --> 00:26:04.400 It's like your or maybe like 200 people under the VP or that sort of leadership was down size to 12 people. 00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:08.359 And I had a friend there who survived in those 12 people, right? 00:26:08.359 --> 00:26:16.480 So he told me like you got such a lucky break that you didn't go come to Morgan Stanley or you didn't go to lemon brothers. 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:19.240 And instead Amazon was booming at that time, right? 00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:21.519 Like I joined, it was very early on. 00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:26.279 I think we maybe had like 200 or so engineers only at that time. 00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:27.039 In the whole company? 00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:28.359 In the whole company, yeah. 00:26:28.359 --> 00:26:29.200 Like Amazon. 00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:34.640 Wow. I was in the original, the Pacific medicine, the hospital building. 00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:35.880 You know where Amazon starts? 00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:39.440 It's the building that's like on the hill that you can see from I-5. 00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:43.119 It's on Beacon Hill. Yeah, it's like orange is beautiful looking. 00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:46.160 It's a hospital and Amazon shared some space with them. 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:48.200 That's the building I started in. 00:26:48.200 --> 00:26:52.680 And I love the culture and I grew so much when Amazon learned so much. 00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:58.000 But yeah, it all was thanks to a lucky break during the financial crisis. 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:07.759 This is why it resonates with me because our life facts kind of completely changed because of this event that we had no foresight into. 00:27:08.200 --> 00:27:10.039 We didn't know that this was going to happen. 00:27:10.039 --> 00:27:13.160 When you moved to Dubai, you didn't know that this was going to happen. 00:27:13.160 --> 00:27:17.839 And when I moved to Amazon, I had no clue that the whole world is changing. 00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:18.599 Right. 00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:23.079 And sometimes you just have to relax in the changes and just let them happen. 00:27:23.079 --> 00:27:23.920 Anyway, yeah. 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:32.759 But I think ultimately what you said, the limitations of the visa, like I always had this entrepreneurial thing. 00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:37.079 Like I didn't know what I wanted to do but I knew that I wanted to do something of my own. 00:27:37.079 --> 00:27:44.880 I think it's a good plug for our episode 24, part one and part two where we talk in detail about our entrepreneurial journey. 00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:55.480 Yes. But it was impossible, especially you have to get to like permanent residency in a country to be able to work on your own in most countries. 00:27:55.480 --> 00:28:01.679 It's like illegal actually in most countries to do something on the side when you are on an employment-based visa. 00:28:01.679 --> 00:28:04.159 Right. And so I didn't see a path there. 00:28:04.159 --> 00:28:09.759 Like we discussed, my path to Green Card in the US might have taken 20 years or so, we don't know. 00:28:09.759 --> 00:28:11.799 I think I moved to Canada, that was good. 00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:14.959 I kind of always knew that I want to do something on my own. 00:28:14.959 --> 00:28:27.519 But once we got the PR and we talked about it in episode 24, part one and part two, I got promoted to my level of incompetence in Amazon. 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:33.440 Once those two things happened, I figured, okay, I really want to build something of my own and do hands-on and all. 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:35.000 So yeah. 00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:37.640 I actually am remembering when I got my Green Card. 00:28:37.640 --> 00:28:39.920 And I'm like, okay, now I'm a free person. 00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:42.680 I can do whatever I want, work-wise, in this country. 00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:52.960 But then it was like, I think 10 years of being on the work visa and the student visa, they fostered that mentality of like coming to peace with like, oh, I can't do anything. 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:54.920 So it's almost like a victim mentality, right? 00:28:54.920 --> 00:28:57.799 Where you can't, therefore you don't. 00:28:57.799 --> 00:29:00.319 And therefore, that's the way things are. 00:29:00.319 --> 00:29:01.160 Right. 00:29:01.160 --> 00:29:06.160 You mentioned very early on that it changes your risk appetite. 00:29:06.440 --> 00:29:11.400 I want to say it actually removes, there is no risk appetite. 00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:15.880 Yeah, you start to optimize for not taking risk because otherwise, your entire life might change. 00:29:15.880 --> 00:29:17.079 It's not just work anymore. 00:29:17.079 --> 00:29:21.319 It's like your family will get sent back home. 00:29:21.319 --> 00:29:24.240 Oh, I mean, your home country, like kids are in school. 00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:28.240 All of that, it's, well, worst case, you also have a mortgage. 00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:29.279 It's not fun. 00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:35.799 Actually, one part of the story in Dubai that I don't tell as often, I bought a car. 00:29:35.799 --> 00:29:37.119 I had a dream car in mind. 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:38.519 I really wanted to Mustang. 00:29:38.519 --> 00:29:41.559 It was the orange Ford Mustang GT 2008. 00:29:41.559 --> 00:29:43.439 I think it was 2007. 00:29:43.439 --> 00:29:46.519 My favorite kind of model year, I loved it. 00:29:46.519 --> 00:29:48.799 I bought it a couple of weeks after I moved to Dubai. 00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:50.200 I really wanted that car. 00:29:50.200 --> 00:29:51.720 I hunted for that car. 00:29:51.720 --> 00:29:54.878 And then this whole thing comes, it's financial crisis. 00:29:54.878 --> 00:29:56.079 I can't sell the car. 00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:57.319 Nobody wants to buy it. 00:29:57.319 --> 00:30:02.279 And people who come, they kind of sketchy and they try to buy it for half the price. 00:30:02.279 --> 00:30:04.559 And then I need to move to Singapore. 00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:05.759 And I don't know what to do with this car. 00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:08.559 I have to pay back because I have a loan in the bank. 00:30:08.559 --> 00:30:16.000 So what I had to do is I actually borrowed cash from my boss to pay back the bank. 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:17.440 So I'm no longer in debted. 00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:24.039 And then I found somebody who bought the car for 60% of the money I paid for it just a few months ago. 00:30:24.039 --> 00:30:27.240 And the money was just enough to pay my boss. 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:30.319 I lost all of my money that I had to put into this. 00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:33.359 And that was a big lesson in terms of. 00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:40.000 If you overextend yourself financially, it might come back to you back in unexpected ways. 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:47.079 We talked a little bit about the financial independence path in episode 24, part one, part two also. 00:30:47.079 --> 00:30:55.720 But generally speaking, I feel like you are still even with these experiences, you take more financial risks than I do. 00:30:55.720 --> 00:30:58.880 Like I'm almost a conservative when it comes to financial risks. 00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:00.160 And I'm amazed. 00:31:00.160 --> 00:31:04.799 I'm impressed by how much risk you are able to take in. 00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:11.720 But like you said, I think you have to take these kind of risks if you want to do something big once in a while. 00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:12.240 Right. 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:13.200 Yeah, absolutely. 00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:17.039 And I think a car is not worth the free areas for sure. 00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:24.160 Even actually right now, the car I drove right now, if I was buying a car now when I'm already an entrepreneur, I would have bought a cheaper car. 00:31:24.160 --> 00:31:28.960 But because I was buying this car when I was still employed by Google, I'm like, OK, so let's just go for a fancy one. 00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:38.559 Anyway, we talk a lot about that in episode 24, which I think is one of our best episodes in terms of insights of how to become an entrepreneur. 00:31:38.559 --> 00:31:41.519 Will end this thing on a positive note, though. 00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:47.480 I would say being an immigrant in a country is hard. 00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:49.559 You and I, well, I don't want to speak for you. 00:31:49.559 --> 00:31:52.920 But my path has been well-trodden. 00:31:52.920 --> 00:31:58.240 There's a lot of people in tech who have moved from India to US and to Canada. 00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:05.079 So there was a lot of like experience to lean on internet forums and all that to get advice from. 00:32:05.079 --> 00:32:13.160 Having said that, I think there's a lot of people who move and being immigrant in a new country is not easy. 00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:20.480 US and Canada, if you're already English-speaking, it's some, you have already solved a huge part of the challenge. 00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:24.720 But there's all these other banking and everything, all the little details. 00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:33.200 But I think living in a different country or multiple countries changes your perspective on life itself. 00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:42.279 And that's the thing that I'm most grateful for is meeting people from different places and seeing their perspectives. 00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:43.638 And yeah. 00:32:43.638 --> 00:32:48.559 I actually recently did a post on Instagram where it took screenshots from the map. 00:32:48.559 --> 00:32:55.119 So when I was a kid, we would drive to this lake by a cow, which was about 70 kilometers away, about 45 miles. 00:32:55.119 --> 00:32:57.559 It felt like a trip when I was a kid, right? 00:32:57.559 --> 00:33:03.839 And then there was another thing with different places in the lake, which was about four hours drive 250 kilometers. 00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:07.319 And that was a whole adventure to go there. 00:33:07.319 --> 00:33:13.959 And now, this last weekend, we drove 500 kilometers north of Florida and it just felt like we can get away. 00:33:13.959 --> 00:33:21.079 And then I kind of zoomed out on the map and it just shows by US standards, this 500 kilometers is just nothing. 00:33:21.079 --> 00:33:22.919 Oh, I saw that post, yeah. 00:33:22.919 --> 00:33:26.959 You compared that how long it takes to drive from, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:33:26.959 --> 00:33:28.720 But then it's also a perception of this, right? 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:33.880 And the point I wanted to illustrate is when you zoom out, you really start to see things differently. 00:33:33.880 --> 00:33:37.000 When you move countries, you really start to zoom out. 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:40.920 You really start to see that things are not the same ways are in your culture. 00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:44.240 And like we were talking about the idiomatic language kind of thing, right? 00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:49.960 You really start to see things differently, even learning different languages, it changes you. 00:33:49.960 --> 00:33:52.079 It changes you for the better, I think, for most part. 00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:53.640 It breaks some people, though. 00:33:53.640 --> 00:33:57.160 Some people just come here and like, no, nope. 00:33:57.160 --> 00:33:58.160 And they go back. 00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:05.079 And some people stay here and they adjust, and they assimilate, and then you become a whole different person in a way. 00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:14.199 Even for people who don't like it, and they're like, oh, I don't want to be here, I do think they may not realize it, but it does change the way they think. 00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:25.559 Well, by actually going somewhere and discovering they don't like it, they are becoming more aware of what they like and what they, and otherwise, it would always be a regret, right? 00:34:25.559 --> 00:34:27.000 Like, oh, I never moved there. 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:28.119 I have the opportunity. 00:34:28.119 --> 00:34:34.519 I know many people in my parents' generation who are like, well, I have the opportunity to move to Australia or New Zealand. 00:34:34.519 --> 00:34:37.278 We never did it, and we still talk about it. 00:34:37.278 --> 00:34:39.079 Anyway, yeah, cool. 00:34:39.079 --> 00:34:40.159 So let's move on. 00:34:40.159 --> 00:34:41.318 We don't have much time. 00:34:41.318 --> 00:34:43.239 We have a hard stop today. 00:34:43.239 --> 00:34:45.358 What are you reading and listening to? 00:34:45.358 --> 00:34:47.639 What do you recommend to people right now? 00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:50.960 Oh, OK, so I actually want to recommend two podcasts. 00:34:50.960 --> 00:34:54.798 So one of them is Mark and Dresden on the Hibirman Lab podcast. 00:34:54.798 --> 00:34:58.159 It came out maybe in the last few weeks, maybe a month ago. 00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.480 Sometimes in late August or early September, it's a great episode. 00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:07.519 I always keep surprised at how fast Mark and Dresden talks, especially when he gets excited about stuff. 00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:12.878 But he makes these really nice connections between history and science and all that. 00:35:12.878 --> 00:35:14.599 I totally enjoyed that episode. 00:35:14.599 --> 00:35:16.358 What he talks about AI. 00:35:16.358 --> 00:35:18.119 And I mean, I won't spoil it. 00:35:18.119 --> 00:35:20.079 It's just a great, great, great episode. 00:35:20.079 --> 00:35:24.039 I think I listened to about 30% of it, and then I switched to something else. 00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:26.239 It's still in my continued listening list. 00:35:26.239 --> 00:35:27.599 So I'm going to go back to it. 00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:30.478 But it is a very dense and long one, too. 00:35:30.478 --> 00:35:32.079 You know what I have to have continued listening? 00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:36.159 In our app, of course, the continued listening section in our app. 00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:36.838 Oh, yeah. 00:35:36.838 --> 00:35:39.679 That's such a great feature. 00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:42.398 So the other episode I'll say really quickly. 00:35:42.398 --> 00:35:45.318 I went to the Avengers 7 Fold show, a couple of FIXCO. 00:35:45.318 --> 00:35:47.358 It's one of my most favorite bands. 00:35:47.358 --> 00:35:48.759 An amazing heavy metal band. 00:35:48.759 --> 00:35:50.599 Like, people are actually mine, your age. 00:35:50.599 --> 00:35:52.119 So it's kind of unusual, I guess. 00:35:52.119 --> 00:35:57.318 I think you and our James, you were the two people who introduced me to Avengers 7 Fold. 00:35:57.318 --> 00:35:58.838 I love them, too, yeah. 00:35:58.838 --> 00:36:03.239 Probably actually, these are the guys who listened to Metallica when they were growing up, because they were our age. 00:36:03.239 --> 00:36:08.039 So therefore, actually, they're styled very much with them, as Metallica, but with a lot more color for the day, broad. 00:36:08.039 --> 00:36:16.400 So as I was driving to the show, I listened to an interview with their vocalist, Machadios, on the podcast called Talk Is Jericho. 00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:28.719 And the main point I want to make here is how awesome is that to be able to find an interview with the band member that you're going to see in an hour, and you just listen to this guy talk and get more context. 00:36:28.719 --> 00:36:36.478 You know, it's like when you go to a museum and you enjoy art, you're really only able to enjoy it if you really know the history, the context that the artist was in. 00:36:36.478 --> 00:36:38.000 It's the same as the story from music. 00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:41.878 I guess music is easier to enjoy without context, but context gives these colors. 00:36:41.878 --> 00:36:50.478 And what I learned is that this guy, Machadios, after they did the tour with Metallica in 2016, I think, he damaged his vocal cords. 00:36:50.480 --> 00:36:52.559 So I learned a lot about vocal cords. 00:36:52.559 --> 00:37:01.960 I learned that he couldn't sing for a few years, and how he was going through that, all the kind of psychological trauma, he couldn't sing happy birthday at like family events, even though he is the singer. 00:37:01.960 --> 00:37:03.079 He's an amazing singer. 00:37:03.079 --> 00:37:08.199 And then how he recovered all his surgeries and all that stuff, and the psychedelic journey that they took. 00:37:08.199 --> 00:37:13.960 And that's why their last album is the way it is because they prioritized art over money. 00:37:13.960 --> 00:37:17.920 And then I was able to enjoy the show in such a different color. 00:37:17.920 --> 00:37:21.599 But what I have to say about this podcast, it had like 25 ads in it. 00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:24.800 It was incredible. 00:37:24.800 --> 00:37:28.320 And our app doesn't have a way to skip on CarPlay yet. 00:37:28.320 --> 00:37:29.840 So it was painful for you. 00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:31.000 It was very painful. 00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:46.119 Yeah, anyway, but it's not everybody's podcast, not everybody's kind of episode, but the meta point I want to make is like, you go to a show, just search for the name of the people you're going to see, and you might be surprised at how much more enjoyment you get from the show afterwards. 00:37:46.119 --> 00:37:48.360 Ask Chad GPD to tell you about them. 00:37:48.360 --> 00:37:56.440 This is one of the great use cases of Chad GPD have found is whenever I enjoy a TV show or something, I ask it to like, there'll be more about this person. 00:37:56.440 --> 00:37:59.760 It doesn't replace an actual interview when they actually hear the people talk. 00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:05.599 No, no, but it gives you a gist, and then you ask, where can I read more about them? 00:38:05.599 --> 00:38:09.159 And then it gives you all these podcasts and YouTube links and all that. 00:38:09.159 --> 00:38:13.519 Cool. Okay, so my list, so I'll skip over the regulars. 00:38:13.519 --> 00:38:24.480 Like I love HardForg, HardForg, Lex, and a few other podcasts had Walter Isaacson recently because he did the Elon Musk autobiography, or biography, sorry. 00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:25.480 He's a little show. 00:38:25.480 --> 00:38:26.800 He's, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:38:26.800 --> 00:38:29.039 And those episodes were great, by the way. 00:38:29.039 --> 00:38:30.760 You should listen if you have not heard. 00:38:30.760 --> 00:38:37.320 HardForg, I really enjoy the chemistry and the kind of banter and the comedy they have along with all the journalism. 00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:38.519 So I really like that. 00:38:38.519 --> 00:38:42.280 But today I'll focus on like, so last week was Climate Week. 00:38:42.280 --> 00:38:49.639 Climate Week is an annual event big in New York, but also becoming big in places all over the world kind of makes sense. 00:38:49.639 --> 00:38:51.719 And I'll talk about three things related to that. 00:38:51.719 --> 00:38:58.280 First one was, is a book called Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. 00:38:58.280 --> 00:39:05.239 Actually, one of your friends, I don't wanna attempt to say, let's do it, do it, do it, man. 00:39:05.239 --> 00:39:06.400 Say the name. 00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:09.639 Shooksa. Okay, Shooksa. 00:39:09.639 --> 00:39:10.480 Shooksa. 00:39:10.480 --> 00:39:14.239 Yeah. She'll have to listen to this episode now too. 00:39:14.239 --> 00:39:16.318 But she's in Austria, right, Vienna. 00:39:16.318 --> 00:39:19.318 She posted this on Instagram and I really liked it. 00:39:19.318 --> 00:39:20.719 So I started that book. 00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:23.639 I'm about 80% into the book now. 00:39:23.639 --> 00:39:25.398 I love the book. 00:39:25.398 --> 00:39:26.398 It's two things, right? 00:39:26.398 --> 00:39:44.119 It's fiction, science fiction, about the climate and how geopolitics and everything else in the future is changing because of climate change, like water crisis and all that, immigration and all that, how it's changing, right? 00:39:44.119 --> 00:39:47.039 It's fascinating, but that's all science fiction. 00:39:47.039 --> 00:40:05.358 What it also does is it'll have a chapter focused on some characters and fiction and then have a few couple of pages of facts based on right now, that kind of correlate why he's writing that fiction and narrative based on what he's writing that on. 00:40:05.358 --> 00:40:11.880 So it's like, what has happened up to now is fact and then he extrapolates this into the future which will it becomes fiction. 00:40:11.880 --> 00:40:25.878 Yeah. It's a really cool way of like, I've never had a fictional book where every few chapters you will have a essay of like facts and the reality currently right now. 00:40:25.878 --> 00:40:34.159 It is pretty long though and I do feel it's a bit idealistic in some ways, but you can read it for yourself and figure it out. 00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:40.239 Like it also brings about a positive thing which is actually a common theme across all the three things. 00:40:40.239 --> 00:40:42.079 But anyway, that was the first thing. 00:40:42.079 --> 00:40:47.679 The second thing is I do enjoy nature and wildlife related stuff. 00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:51.278 You know, we do a lot of like wildlife stuff anyway. 00:40:51.278 --> 00:40:52.719 Is dogman wild life? 00:40:52.719 --> 00:40:55.400 Dogman is wild life. 00:40:55.400 --> 00:40:56.759 Wild, yes he is. 00:40:56.759 --> 00:40:57.599 The wild. 00:40:57.599 --> 00:41:08.639 Yeah. But I don't generally enjoy the new trend of nature and wildlife documentaries which are very sensational. 00:41:08.639 --> 00:41:15.519 Like this polar bear dying on the piece of ice in the Arctic, therefore even is doomed kind of stuff. 00:41:15.519 --> 00:41:26.000 But not just that the story, but the way it's presented itself, it's like you know those history channel kind of like, and then next up what will happen next. 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:27.480 I don't enjoy this. 00:41:27.480 --> 00:41:33.480 So there's this new national geographic show called Animals Up Close, it's on Disney+. 00:41:33.480 --> 00:41:39.360 By Bertie Gregory, a British like explorer and photographer and all that. 00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:42.840 It's amazing, you have to watch this. 00:41:42.840 --> 00:41:49.360 He goes to these remote places and captures these things that you will never see in your life basically, right? 00:41:49.360 --> 00:41:56.960 He spends like six months trying to capture these things and the kind of storytelling he does along with it. 00:41:56.960 --> 00:42:07.559 And it's not just about the animals, it's also showing how he and his team are doing this with drones and- Behind the scenes. 00:42:07.559 --> 00:42:08.320 Sorry, metal. 00:42:08.320 --> 00:42:13.199 It's really good and it's not presented in a sensationalist style. 00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:16.280 It's a very, very easy listening style. 00:42:16.280 --> 00:42:23.719 But one common thing where he keeps talking about is how this is not going to be possible to see like in a decade. 00:42:23.719 --> 00:42:24.639 Wow, yeah. 00:42:24.639 --> 00:42:27.960 The last thing I'll say is science Friday podcast. 00:42:27.960 --> 00:42:31.320 They had September 22nd episode. 00:42:31.320 --> 00:42:34.480 It's called Our Fragile Moment, Climate Comedy. 00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:37.320 So they had a comedian in there in that episode. 00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:42.719 They had a few jokes, stamped up comedy jokes about climate crisis. 00:42:42.719 --> 00:42:52.119 And the whole gist is like the way we kind of use doomsday scenarios to talk about climate to try to affect change is not working. 00:42:52.119 --> 00:42:59.760 So this comedian, what he's trying to say is, okay, we need to make it more relatable and humorous and his style brings it in. 00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:01.639 Yeah, I really enjoyed that episode. 00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:03.800 I should speak about humorous. 00:43:03.800 --> 00:43:06.079 One thing I'll just say in the middle of finishing that. 00:43:06.079 --> 00:43:11.759 One of the most memorable moments for me on that Marc Andreessen episode was the bicycle phase. 00:43:11.759 --> 00:43:20.400 So in the 1800s, people were so afraid of the bicycle giving the women freedom to go to other villages and marry men from other villages. 00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:33.920 So that the magazines in France of that era, 150 years ago, they invented a thing called bicycle phase, which is like when you pedal very hard on the bicycle, your face kind of becomes, it's almost like an agony, right? 00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:35.960 Because it's hard to pedal a bicycle. 00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:40.599 And they said, if you pedal the bicycle for too long, you'll get stuck in the bicycle phase. 00:43:40.599 --> 00:43:43.880 So you will be ugly and nobody will ever marry you. 00:43:43.880 --> 00:43:47.280 So that's how they try to discourage people from using the modern technology. 00:43:47.280 --> 00:43:54.199 And Marc Andreessen makes this thing about how there will always be people who are against the modern developments. 00:43:54.199 --> 00:43:58.880 And for some reason, I feel like it ties into climate change, but we are out of time. 00:43:58.880 --> 00:44:03.679 We're out of time in this podcast, but we are not yet out of time for the world. 00:44:03.679 --> 00:44:06.599 Anyway, cool. 00:44:06.599 --> 00:44:08.918 All right, see you next week. 00:44:08.918 --> 00:44:09.559 Bye bye. 00:44:09.559 --> 00:44:10.398 See you. 00:44:10.400 --> 00:44:34.400 See you. Bye bye.