SF Factions You Should Know About, with Kylie Robison and Noah Smith

SF is nothing without its people so I brought on some of the greatest in @kyliebytes and @Noahpinion.
We covered:
- the different groups you can find in SF
- the different kinds of events worth going to
- groups working to make SF better
- why we love SF (controversial)

Watch on X; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

So you're listening to a very special edition of Members of Technical Staff. Uh what these guys don't know is that I actually say that every single time now. So I've kind of diminished the entire meaning of of what it is and I have to invent some new words or some shit. But basically, I'm here with uh Noah Smith and Kylie Robertson. Um two very uh very I'd say heavy hitters when it comes to the new media scene. That's the first time that sentence has ever been uttered concerning. But basically, I wanted to catch up with them because I think, you know, San Francisco is a very, very special place. And you know, I'm saying that as the Australian guy in the room. But basically, I've been here for a little while and I've also uh talked about the San Francisco social scene. But what good is it hearing about the San Francisco social scene from an Australian sitting by himself in a hotel room when I can get some of the greats of the game here with me today? So that's kind of what we're gonna be jumping into. I say kind of what we're gonna be jumping into. We are going to be jumping into it. I need to be more direct and use more precise language. But basically, um there's a few things we can actually talk about today. Different factions of SF, different events in SF, different groups in SF, and why we like SF. Because, you know, I think it's very, very easy to rag on San Francisco and some of the antics. But there's a reason why we're here. There's definitely a reason why I'm here. I've been here for nearly nine years at this point. Doesn't sound like it, but I promise that is the case. So, getting into this here different San Francisco factions. I think the first thing that comes to the top of my mind is actually, and this is

7 Girls of SF

SPEAKER_03 1:36

pretty recent, but seven girls of SF. Are you familiar with this, Noel? No, I'm not. What is Seven Girls of SF? Wow, we've got a little bit of explaining to do. I think, I think. I mean we're pointing to the audience member.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

And and rabbit.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hopefully the rabbit comes over here. I mean, also, I mean, I'm also we're also dressed as little animals as well, but that's that's one of those things.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Yeah, just something that happens sometimes. Actually, that happens in the SF social scene in general. Sometimes people just all wear silly hats and nobody knows why.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yes.

unknown 2:08

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

It's very important, yes. At Nerups, I remember Dylan Patel came into a party with the biggest plush Pikachu or some giant like plush Pokemon, and just came into the party holding it. That's and I didn't know why.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

No one parties like Dylan Patel. This is true. This is true. I was I was with him last night. I mean I've I think I've seen him like most nights of this week, actually. Yeah. Concerning for us as um, well, I mean, he's actually like running a proper business. I'm half employed. So I was gonna say like business owners, but yeah, it is what it is, it is what it is. But yeah, I mean I think you know, seven girls of SF, seven girls of SF. I guess we should explain to Noah what that even is.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Seven girls of SF started as sort of a bit uh led by Madison Canna, who was saying that there's only seven girls in San Francisco at all. There's no one else. So she started a group with these girls that started uh I think with the Tesla showroom party was the yeah, the enforced ratio. The enforced ratio party.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Uh which ended up actually just being more men in general, despite their best efforts. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Yeah. I think it was I think it was like 50-50. But of course, when it's 50-50, that's you know it it is, it is.

@sdamico BBQs

SPEAKER_02 3:18

There's only one kind of social event in SF, uh in the SF tech scene that has more women than men.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

A Sam Domico barbecue.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Oh is that actually Sam? Well, we get we gotta we gotta get to him actually, because I mean I want to basically we want to cover the the different factions and then we can get into the different events because and and as as you know, I have Sam D'Amico's barbecues listed actually. Very, very important. Somehow it has become a category in and of itself. I think it's noteworthy. Have you been to a Sam Domico?

SPEAKER_00 3:49

No, but we've filmed with him twice. I love Sam, but I have not been to the barbecues.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

I think um I mean, well, it's coming into the it's coming into summer. I think there will be a couple. Um we can get to that. We can get to that. No, I wanted to show you this. I wanted to show you uh one of Madison's posts, and she's actually she's basically screenshotted her initial post, right? The the birth of the Seven Girls of SF meme. Um so in this particular post from November last year, Madison's

@Madisonkanna reaction

SPEAKER_03 4:14

talking about, you know, Seven Girls of SF holiday party on Saturday. 100 plus SF women attending. Let me know if you'd like to come. Thanks to our sponsors. Um I'm not gonna say them. They'll be displayed, but yeah, I have my own. Uh but she she screenshotted her initial post. Since moving to SF, I've met every girl here, all seven of us.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

How is it that there it said 100 plus SF women attending, seven girls of SF? I don't understand the math here. Are there is it just like seven are girls and the rest are are can only be described as women, or is it just like numbers? Who cares?

SPEAKER_03 4:46

It's a very, very good question, Noah. I think the basically the idea is that um, you know, I mean, I like to post about this all the time, you know, in jest, but talking about how there are quote unquote no women in SF, right? Obviously, when what that comes from is like the idea that there is actually not as many women in tech, which is actually true. It's actually true. And so, you know, the all the memes about the SF party ratios, all of these sorts of things, Madison moved to the city last year. And so, for whatever reason, uh knowing all seven of the girls, right, the idea that there are just not that many women in SF, even though it's I think there's actually technically more women in SF than men now. Uh but you know, I think being being in tech, right, not being surrounded by as many women, seven, the number seven and seven girls of SF just had a particular ring to it. And it stuck. She made hats. She made hats. Um I can prove that she made hats because uh girls in the Seven Girls of SF group chat have been taking pictures with their hats, just like Kate Danick

@katedeyneka reaction

SPEAKER_03 5:41

arrived. Wow. I don't even know, I don't know her. Yep, I got a hat, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

There you go. Um but I so it's not that there's seven archetypes of girls in SF that everyone conforms to one or the other.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

It's just like, yeah, it's just like a joke that like, okay, there's only seven girls in SF, and then there turns out there's enough to host a party and do a whole series and community with them. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Yeah, and I think she does like I think she does like little lunches and weekly lunches.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Wait, is this related

@taotechic reaction

SPEAKER_02 6:08

to the proposal, which I think from an Australian, of like um 10,000 art hoes or something for San Francisco?

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Oh, this was at the end of last year, yes. Um so she's she's Kiwi, actually. She's Kiwi. No, it's all right, man. It's fucking same, same fucking thing. It's all it's all down that part of the world. Uh but basically, yeah. Uh so this is completely unrelated, actually. Uh, but yeah, I mean, go fucking figure a you know uh a New Zealander was able to take over the entire timeline for like a week. Uh and you know, I'll overlay the actual post. I can't remember it off the top of my head, but yes, 50,000 art hose.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Yeah, we'll save SF.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

We'll save SF, right? And sure enough, it comes from somebody from New Zealand. Um is that where we're gonna get the art hose from from down under? Um I mean, no.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Y'all make art hose?

SPEAKER_03 6:57

I mean, maybe in Melbourne. Maybe in Melbourne where there's a nice coffee. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but yeah. Where do the art hose come from? Like Hungary. Um, yeah, Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe the Ravers. It's a good question. It's a good question. Okay, other other factions that I'm thinking of, I think of Larkin

Larkin, Gays, Rationalists and Hippies00:

SPEAKER_03 7:15

House, our friends up at uh Larkin. Uh, you know, with the nice with the nice view, and you know, maybe I can like you know, without like completely doxing their location. Or put like a nice little uh like like uh picture from the balcony just showing the bridge.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

It is somewhere within five miles of Larkin Street, we can say that.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

Yes, yes, very, very true. But of course I can make a mention to you know Kat Sophia and Ryan hosting beautiful things all the time. Uh there's that. Um there's the gaze, right? Yours truly, featured in the Wired article.

unknown 7:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

I mean, not actually me, but my friends had a uh they uh do you know um Swix? Yeah. So Swix has this this new um like media company, and the logo is like it looks just like a handshake with two like hands coming this and like shaking. It looks exactly like that wired cover.

unknown 8:02

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

It is amazing, and I'll show you this logo in a bit.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Yes, perfect, perfect. You know what? I can I can overlay it. I'm happy.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

You can overlay the logo. It is it is that wired cover, and I thought, oh my gosh, that's the most brilliant logo, and they were so embarrassed they'd never seen the cover. That was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Yeah, but like a software own it.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Buttholes in that cover.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

This is the way the world's going, you know? Um I mean, I'd say that I'm here for it, but I mean my sexuality is ambiguous as it is. I'm just I'm an ally, regardless of it.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I'm not sure I believe you. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

Anyway, there's another one of those articles dropping, by the way. Really? And guess who they spoke to? Me.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Really? Oh my gosh, about the gay tech mafia.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

Token straight, dude. You know, it's it's that's rune, though, that's honestly rune. Like rune is the one straight dude at a Sam Altman party. That's true, that's true. I mean, you know, like I mean, Rune's basically the uh open AI comms lead at this point. I don't want to I don't want to get you in trouble. That's okay. I can say these things because um it's my fucking show. Uh so basically, uh, who else am I forgetting? The rationalists. Now I don't actually spend that much time. I mean, again, it's like such a vague uh category. I mean, you can think about Berkeley, you know, East Bay rationalist, Berkeley. I mean, there's definitely if it it there is definitely like a faction of that here. Um I guess that I guess it might not technically be rationalist, but I'm thinking of like, you know, like like the clawed funerals. Yeah. Like those sorts of things. I mean, like what would what would you maybe categorize that? I mean, I I see them as like a a group, right? You know, an association of some sort, but you know, I I think it's probably unfair to categorize them all as like, oh yeah, that's just the rationalist event.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

I think the cloud funeral is more like extremely online dolls, like the beautiful, cyberpunk, transitioned, yeah, beautiful people. I I mean the cloud funeral had some stunning outfits. It's hard to label that as- Yeah, I was I I remember. Um, yeah, uh maybe some rationalist crowd, but I wouldn't say as much. When I think rationalists, I think of the embassy. Well, that's like more EA.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Um the rationalists and EA don't exactly overlap because the the old less wrong community sort of splintered into the they really do, you know. They're like part of it. Yes, it's like it's an interesting all the like techno hippies and the whole like you know, the descendants of the of the Stuart Brands and Kevin Kellys of the world, and you know, all those people sort of converged on the whole EA rationalist, like AI safety, embassy, psychedelic drugs kind of um sphere. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Why haven't you written that like sort of map of communities? Because no one knows it better.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

Genealogy? Yeah, should you like the media map of the case?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I've wanted to do it, but I don't know if I can make it not cr not cringe. But I think no one knows better than anyone ever.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

We could try. It's it's it's delineating that's hard because like you can't say there's these people and those people because it's not like the the the booths at like a a you know college club fair. Yeah, right? It's like the uh, you know, it's like it it's sort of these these I these ideas and associations shade into each other, and so you have like rashless and EAs and like hippies and you know, things like that. There's people at the embassy who are not in tech who just like you know write poetry or something. And so actually we did a um we did a uh um psychedelic love poetry brunch there uh with Amina. Do you know Amina?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah, I remember this story you told me uh uh office hours. Yes, no way.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

We we did we did this event and everybody brought love poems that they had themselves written and read them, um, and people brought whatever substances they wanted and um and uh and and and used them. Um but then Yeah, that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah, are you not gonna talk about the stage diving?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

I wait, I did do that.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, yeah, I remember that was the funniest part of the story to me.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Yes, no, there was um there was a uh a silly short uh love poem I had written as a joke um in grad school, and I performed it while doing like stage diving off of a um because uh it's supposed to be like a metal song.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

And so I did like a like a stage dive and I knocked over this like giant ottoman and it was pretty spectacular. Uh so that's the SF social scene. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

We know how to party. Yeah, and I think that actually wraps up the episode. I'm kidding. It's it's like uh no, it it's interesting. I I find, I mean, you know, I I find that world to be very fascinating, even though I mean I'm like so far from it, really. I mean, and I don't find myself um too adjacent to that crowd at all. But I mean to me it's really interesting because I mean, you know, if you're if you're thinking about even the you know some of the some of the Bay Area, like especially like the East Bay law, right? Some of the some of the you know the the the thought leadership that sort of came out of the East Bay pre sort of like or pre-Chat GPT, I'm thinking like Slate Star Codecs, all of those sorts of those those riders, right? A lot of that thought was sort of coming out of the East Bay.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

And so those factions, it's like uh And

Why we lost the old Oakland warehouse rave punk scene

SPEAKER_02 13:05

the old the old Oakland warehouse rave punk scene is an important piece of this history, and I won't go into it too much, but like when I like in the early 2000s, I was going to like warehouse parties in Oakland at those warehouses that now nobody goes to because of the fire. There was the the fire and all these people died. Wow, in the 2010s. Yeah. So like, but ten years before that, I was going to all these parties and there would be like these, you know, just crazy wacky garage bands or like basically small raves. And um, it was great. And a lot of the that was back at this time there was this real idea that that if you were in tech, if you came out here to do tech, you were a rebel because at that time finance ruled the the you know the strivers. Yeah. If you were a striver, you went into investment banking. This is before the crash, right? Before the the financial crisis. And then, but if you want to just be weird and like, you know, do something with computers and sit there working on your laptop in a hoodie, which used to not be a corporate, the connotated thing. That was right that, you know, and just you know, go to Raves and whatever and live this countercultural life, make art for Burning Man, which was also like sort of an indie punk thing at the time and not corporate at the time, like that's what you did. And then um, this was that was like Jack Dorsey. You know, he was he was going to Raves and he was like sitting around in a little loft, like they were just like, we're gonna connect the world, man. We're gonna find out what everybody in the world has to say, and we're just gonna connect all these voices, give voice to the voiceless. And it turned out that what everyone just wanted to say was like, you know, fuck you, pay attention to me. Yeah, quite quite tight, donks.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

How did we lose that culture? Like, why is it so like why do people think we're so lame now in Silicon Valley?

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Uh a couple of reasons, actually. So one is that um then big tech came in, and big tech moved to San Francisco in the early 2010s. So Facebook created this idea that like, like, Facebook was was in many ways the nirvana, uh, the band, uh, not the not the heaven. But Facebook was the was the was the band, nirvana. I'm showing my age here, um, uh of this because they were the they were they came out of this subculture, but then they got um they got super big and they made all these people billions of dollars. And then the financial crisis happened, so like investment banking wasn't the thing for strivers to do. So then, and then venture capital got big, and you got YC and you got all this like corporatization of startup land, and so all this capital moved into San Francisco, and big tech moved into San Francisco and started paying these insane salaries, and then like all this money moved into San Francisco, it priced all the artists out, all the artists moved out, um, and then it brought in a bunch of people whose ethic was not rebellious, whose ethic was not to like you know, drop out and and you know, be a weirdo and like be a rebel on the West Coast. Now that was the establishment after Facebook. That was where you went to make all the money, and you had um and and so so all these new institutions came that that corporatized it, and then they priced everybody out via housing because we didn't build any housing, and that's when you had the germination of the Yimbi movement out here. Yeah. So I think that's right.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

That's that's good because I mean I I actually have the I actually have the Yimbies versus NIMBY's later on in the schedule of this. So I want to we I want to basically come back to that point at some point because it's like, you know, I have been learning a little bit more about SF politics just generally, not necessarily being involved, I'm just some Australian dude. But basically, you know, there there is like a big delineation. It's not so much right left here, it's kind of like it's like moderate left, hard left, but then there's also a delineation in those two factions between Yimbi and NIMBY. But I want to put a I want to put a pin in that as like a good corporate slot person would say. Perfect. Some shit. Uh first of all, I do actually want to give a shout out to Zoe Computer. Um, you know, to made sure to not uh read Madison's sponsors, but actually read my sponsors, uh, because that is extremely important. Uh basically open claw in the cloud, and you don't have to like spend hours setting it up. Pretty good. I actually use it. I would use them. Don't mind if we do. Would you use them?

unknown 16:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

She doesn't have to she doesn't have to plug uh we're not we're not rivals, but she doesn't have to plug your own.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

I'm not allowed. I don't know if I'm allowed to say sponsors.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Yeah, you can you can I mean plug brags, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 17:02

I am not I I am not sponsored by this company and I've never heard of them before, but I highly recommend them. Thank you, Noah's. What's how how are they spelled?

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Um uh Z O. Z O. Z O. Zoe Computer. Yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah, yeah. Make personal apps and automations. I was gonna say automocations.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Autobaclations. I'm into that.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

If we do. Um so that's pretty good. I mean, like, you know, even I guess if I have any sort of thoughts on because it's it's interesting. Last last week we did an episode on sort of like fashion and SF and right, sort of how Oh, I missed that.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

I love fashion.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Tech bro fashion, right? It's sort of born out of the idea of like, oh, you know, we want to dress for comfort if we're gonna, if we're gonna work for 80 hours a week, we're gonna do it, you know, comfortably, rebel against the finance bros. But now, yeah, like you said, it's it's like um, you know, tech have not been the underdogs for quite a while. Not been quite a while. And even the even the the Stanford dropouts, uh, they've not been the underdogs for quite a while because now it's like a viable career path to go ahead and raise venture capital and pay yourself like 150k a year. Were you a Stanford dropout? Is that what he's doing?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

No, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Oh no, no, I uh did I point? Hopefully, as like just pointing to the door or something. But yeah, just wanted to wanted to shout that out real quick. Now, I think another important thing to get into, right? Because you you you also touched on the different style events. We don't have Oakland warehouse

SF events (shoutout to @Bonecondor)

SPEAKER_03 18:21

rapes anymore, but we were also talking about the Claude funerals. Yes. We had like the peptide rave, which funnily enough is thrown by somebody who lives in New York.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yes. Who threw that? Burb, Chairman Burb.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Oh, Burb. Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Yeah, yeah. There's normal names that we just throw out, right? Everybody's known by their Twitter names.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Well, her real name is even funnier. Yes. You can we can say it because she says it all the time, Tori Pastori.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Yes. I it's a it's such a great name.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Tori Pastori. It's a great name.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Just rolls off the dunk. It's amazing. What a great name. She did the um the leak code party at the you know, a couple months ago as well. Were you at that one?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I can't remember if I'm being honest. I might have been out of town.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

I I I missed it for for Grace's giant birthday party on the hill.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

That's true. That was that night as well. That was that night. Yeah, that was that night.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah. And and Dwight's birthday party.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

Yes, there were, I I remember it was like, I think that was, you know what, I think that was the weekend of like March 14. I'm gonna go ahead and say it. I'm gonna go ahead and say it because I had a lot of parties. Yeah. There was like there were like six partifles.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Oh, was that also the weekend for the Ulysses thing too? I think it was. Oh my gosh, that was a crazy weekend for no reason. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Sometimes, like, that's the thing in SF, right? Like sometimes these just happen. It's just like for whatever reason everybody's picked a particular weekend. It's like, okay, cool. Well, now there's seven partifles.

unknown 19:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

They're all back to back and overlapping. It's delightful. I mean, I say we're kind of talking about it as if it's like a burden, but no, um, this is awesome, right? This is this is why that means why part of why I live here, actually. I think it's great. I think it's absolutely great. I missed um uh the Long Live SF party.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Oh, we did you go to that?

SPEAKER_03 20:02

I did go to that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

I didn't I I don't think I saw you there, but I don't think we ran into each other.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yes, yes. I I remember it. It was fun. Long live SF was great. Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

I I had to go to my father's funeral, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

Because you were meant to be, you were you were also meant to be hosting a barbecue, no?

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Uh yes, yes. And I I I moved that to um this weekend.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So that's that's how I mean you still still gotta keep the partifuls up, right? Go grieve a little bit, move the partiful. That is how this works in SF. But you know, our condolences. Condolences from the Mott's audience. Yeah, yeah. Um, what else is there? What else is there? I mean, uh David Hall's those really, really great events.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yes, I'm a reporter, so I don't go to those.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Oh, because he because they don't want you or not.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

I imagine they I I haven't been invited, so that's probably a big portion of it. But I did go to the um party next door at uh unnamed Taxios Place. I've been so I get the gist of the beautiful house.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Yeah, yeah. It's a it's a great, it's it's one of my favorite neighborhoods of all time. Again, I'm not gonna say the neighborhood. I mean, like, you know, yeah, it would be would be a little bit weird. You know, uh it's so expensive, I don't know the name of it.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

I'm just I'm not bougie enough to even know what that neighborhood is called.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah, yeah. That's the it's called it's the the neighborhood's called the permanent upper class.

unknown 21:22

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

I I like those parties because all those people, having made like ridiculous amounts of money and retired, now just spend all their time going to Japan. And I know a bunch of good restaurants and places to go in Japan, and then I can just tell them no, it's not about mogging. I'm helping. I'm telling them. I'm not no, no, no. Yeah, no. I I I still believe in um, you know, the ideal of peace, love, unity, and respect. Yeah. You know. I'm not I'm I'm plur.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

I'm not, you know, clavicular. The you know, these guys are too competitive. I'm just like, yeah. Important. There should there should be room for multiple hot guys to exist in a photo without deciding who has the best shoulders. That's my thought.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Oh wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Heart take.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

Is it all about who has the best shoulders? Well, I mean, in in my the voices in my head tell me that.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Got it. I I think, you know, just like more is more.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's not that doesn't necessarily have to be zero sum. But again, the voices in my head will tell me that. But you know, that's my own issue.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, not really. I don't think I've ever looked at a photo and thought of that in my entire life. So you're safe in that regard.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Like who has the best shoulders?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

You never, not once in my life have I thought that ever.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Here's a hot monster. It's a it's a thing only men think about.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Do you think about that? No, I've never thought that. I've never thought that. Not really.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

I mean, my my here's a here's a hot take, and I'll clip clip it myself and then put it online. Um, but I think it is um, you know, and this is for me personally. I'm a I am a single 27-year-old man, and so therefore it is very, very important for my actions to be governed by that of the female gaze. Right? The smell, the colognes that I wear. I would like female validation, right? But I can show it to a female friend, be like, hey, do you think this smells good on me? It's not about what I want, right? Like, I could think, oh you know, I tend to prefer like the really girly perfumes, but I can't tell what my pheromones are like. Right. I've been learning all of this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

And so therefore MHC, very important. Oh really? Yeah, major histocompatibility complex protein.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Yeah, it's uh it's like the it's a protein produced by your immune system, but it's like the most powerful like attraction smell that we've that we know of is this this immune system protein, and it's produced by your hair.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Oh, okay. Anyway, this is like a crazy side tangent, but I just you know I I wanted to I wanted to make this hot take, and I think you know, and I'll probably tweet about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

That's that's important. Gotta tweet about it.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

All right, back to SF

MOTS events

SPEAKER_03 23:55

scenes. Back to SF events. Um, what else? I mean, well, Mods has done a few events.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Yeah, yeah. Have you been to a Mots event? No, I've never been to Motz events. But you I think you missed um Halloween. You missed Halloween. Because I I did I did Halloween and I did uh and I did uh Valentine's Day. Uh next one that I will do, well next one's gonna be a jazz recital. Um and then the one after that will be my birthday.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Sweet. When's your birthday?

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Uh 25th of July.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Oh my gosh. Did we already know we have really close birthdays? Okay, I had forgotten.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

I'll try my best not to miss it. I I don't think I think I will be in town for Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

I mean, all good either way.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

My dad will be in town, so I'll bring him.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Bring him! It's because my birthday's always athlesia themed. I make it the easiest theme.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

That would be perfect for him. Was it was the creatine party also your birthday? That is that was my birthday. Oh yes. Wow, that's so funny. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

So that is, you know, we're we're just gonna I'm just gonna run it back. It's just such an easy theme. It is so me.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

I didn't get the theme memo, slash, didn't read the party full or something, so I showed up in like regular clothes. I was like, oh, I could have worn yoga pants. Now I know.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

The idea the idea is basically to just have everybody looking like hot.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah. And everyone did look hot. Yeah. I do recall.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Don't mind like don't mind if we do. Don't mind if we do. Um, cool. I think, well, was there anything else here? We mentioned Sam Domingo's barbecues. Uh mentioned, we mentioned Larkin. Um anything else that I may be missing? We talked about the clawed funerals. That's that's the cool thing. I mean, like, like they're all oh, the the there's like the fruit parties, right? All of all of these, the thing about SF events is that, and and you know, like outsiders they tend to hate this. Yeah. Um, I tend to like it as an inside.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

There's the there's the like like shit poster, Twitter shit poster scene, which is like a little a little bit different. Um That's me. That's definitely my there will be some of of that. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um there's the there's the like only AI researcher scene, and they have like those parties.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

I'm also in those group chats, actually, somehow. I'm like, I'm just like, you know, blood thinks he's on the team. Yeah, very very adjacent to um, you know, uh Dorcash and Sholto, you know, because they they host a lot host a lot up there.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Those yeah, those guys, yeah, they're they're you know more of a more of a general interest in yeah. Um that's a that's a party nexus with Dylan and Dorcash and Sholto. Absolutely. We watched that.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

And with that, with that beautiful place, yeah. Props to them. I mean, don't mind if we do.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Um the RC party was really fun. Yes, yes. We watched old, you were like, you have to watch this really old football match. No, cricket, cricket. Yeah, yeah. You're like, this was everything to me, and it was incredible.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yeah, it was like like these like mid-30s dudes just like dominating the entire cricket world and looking pretty good doing it.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

I mean they looked really, really hot. Yes, yes, and it was a very it was like VHS level quality, and it was amazing. I was always fishing for that from Gile.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

All right, but here's the here's the thing that uh the SF like tech world party scene needs more of.

What the SF party scene needs more of and bridging the artists and tech people

SPEAKER_02 26:50

It needs more of people who aren't in tech. It needs more, I mean, like the this is the the you know, the core of the art hose for San Francisco idea is simply that the old idea that the SF tech scene would be a place for you know interesting people from tech and non-tech, like that you'd have art people there. You'd like they would have like you know, political activists and like hippies who tried to live in weird ways, and some of those people ended up becoming like rightist activists. Yeah. Like, I mean, I mean, Yarvin was in that scene. Like, um, but then uh or um like uh what what were there were there were all these group houses where you know tech people lived and then weirdos lived too. Yeah, and it really blended almost seamlessly into the kind of San Francisco queerdo, you know, the traditional counterculture of San Francisco. There wasn't a hard limit. This is in the 2000s, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

And I think the tech people need like a sort of social skills makeover for that to occur because when I bring my like non-tech, non-media friends to these things, like it it's hard for them to have a conversation not about tech. And I'm I'm very used to it and I like talking about technology, I'm endeared uh by like awkward behavior. I think it's really fun and adorable. But for people coming into it, they're like they feel very excluded and they don't know like how to have those conversations.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

But here's the thing the reason that all died was the 2010s post-Facebook corporatization of SF Tech. It was big tech coming in with all these like you know, tech bros, and it was it was you know, every investment banker deciding they had like a social mobile startup. And this was why the old like, you know, sort of like everyone together kind of tech scene of the 2000s in San Francisco died. This is why that died. And now that all the corporate people have left, we have a golden opportunity. And that was the pandemic. You know, they left in the pandemic and they all got like that generation aged out, and all the kids moved to the burbs. Yes, and then um uh and and so what now we have this this golden opportunity now that it's like a lot of, you know, you know, I don't know, indie people again, maybe not necessarily start some startup people, yeah, but then also just like um people, I don't even know what to call like us, but then there's a lot like it's it's punk in a way again, and we have the opportunity to then bring back in the art people, bring back in the weird people. And I know American culture has had this sort of breakdown where everybody just brought really irritating politics into everything, like in the like in the 70s. But like we could get, you know, we could go back to the 80s, we could go back to just you know, weirdos and punks and and you know, artists and whatever hanging out with uh with with tech people. We could do this. We just how do we do this?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Not to get too heady, but I don't imagine the punks are really excited to hang out with like AI lab people, you know, who get like defense contracts. Like I feel like it's very ant antithetical to that culture, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Maybe, but the anthropic people are weirder than actual punks.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

That's true, that's true. I I I do adore their culture. Like how yeah, I mean And they fought, you know, in weird ways with defense contracts and have gotten them. But anyways, yeah, I agree. They have like a very interesting culture that if we could, you know, sort of like half those people are trans.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

I think and then they, you know, half the people in the defense contractors are trans as well. I just don't need to doing the security, doing the low-level systems programming.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Yeah, people do not realize how trans heavy the like elite AI researcher community is. Yeah. Like that would be a someone would write about that if the if people knew about that.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Right. I mean that's where the whole like Rust meme came from, right? It's like the idea of being a Rust programmer, therefore you're actually trans. Right. It's actually it's actually not a knock on on the trans community at all. No. It's because they're extremely talented, like low-level systems programmers, which has been the highest demand programming job since forever. Yeah. Right? Low-level touching metal, it's also the hardest. Think like the computer. Yeah, it's also the hardest. Yeah. Um, you know, and it's and it's probably, you know, it like it it'll be the last, it'll be the last part of programming that is that is that is done by AI, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:58

So it's just so you have to be so meticulous.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

It's so important, right? It's so important.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

You can't have tiny little point mutations and errors and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

That's right. I mean, I even I've I've I um had this conversation with uh with a with a guy who maintains the Linux kernel last year. Oh wow, right? And like he he has to, he has I mean, we're again we're tangenting a little bit, but it's all related. But he has to he has to code in Vim, right, because of the particular Unicode characters. Like Linus would just fucking torch them. So there's that. The more you know, the more you know. But that's an it's an ode to the trans community. It really is. Like it's it's um who's gonna win, Claude Mythos? Like in cybersecurity, Claude Mythos versus the trans community. My money's on the trans community.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Always.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

It's it's been long enough that now it's the time to actually generate trans stereotypes. Yeah. Like we had like, and so the trans stereotype is like coder. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Like that's a that's a really heavy.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

My sister is trans, and I told her that uh I told her the rust stuff. I was like, Yeah, you you know coding. She is into coding, so I was just like, look, rust. She had never heard of that. No, no. She's she's I think she said it was kind of boring, if I recall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

It's a bitch to work with. The borrow checker is something else. But anyway, yeah, we're getting a little technical.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Don't mind if we we could get like the the problem, okay. I mean, the the problem is actually the punk scene got destroyed by like um the 2010s. Like the twenty social media like killed the punk scene. And and a lot of the art scene, like a like um, you know, if you're if you're in the art scene and your you know art has completely collapsed into just like, you know, yelling about Palestine and occasionally hating on people in tech, why are you gonna go hang out with the tech people? Yeah. And it makes sense. And it's like um the convergence of art on political stuff makes it harder for the artists to come and join the tech people. It's not necessarily even that the tech people wouldn't want them. Like, it's that it's that something has happened to the art scene in America and the counterculture in America got really, really altered.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

It's a it's a class divide now. It's it's a it's it's like, I mean, it really I mean, at least, you know, as somebody who went to quote unquote art school, right? It does, it does feel like like a class divide. I mean, again, yeah, any everybody that I went to school with, there, you know, they see people in tech as like pests, right? Right in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

And but you know who's gonna bring it back? Bernie Sanders.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Oh, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Bernie Sanders is gonna reunite the art and tech world uh at the age of like 97, whatever he is. He's immortal. He's immortal the immortal Bernie. You know, Bernie is gonna reunite tech and art because Bernie's now getting into X-Risk. Bernie is now getting into AI risk. And so all of the like, you know, sort of EA, you know, people, a lot of those people are like working for anthropic too. And like, you know, a lot of those AI safety type people who went to the the uh the Claude funeral are like, you know, all the people who are like don't build a data center because it uses water or something are gonna switch to don't build a data center because it's gonna kill the human race, and then like they're gonna go party with the anthropic people, and the leftist and tech scenes will be reunited through Bernie.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

That's kind of a perfect take.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Yeah, I was I was like, where is he going with this?

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah, no, that was perfect. That was perfect.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

Well, there you I mean, like, we need to get punks to come to the embassy.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

That's true, I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why it is actually so hard to bridge art and tech

SPEAKER_03 34:20

You know, I think like, you know, if I have any, if I have one final thought on this, right? Because I mean, like, I think like taste has been the buzzword of 2026. I'm actually gonna post an article pretty soon that I actually wrote back in January 2025, or actually used the word taste, and now I'm like, I I read it again uh last night, and I was like, wow, what a fucking idiot. Like how, like, like, I mean, one, I was using the word before it's cool. Two, that word's a slur now. But yes, but I digress.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

I miss that whole trend.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

I I totally miss the taste trend. Um, but basically, like with this sort of thing, right? Because I mean, I I I see a lot of discourse about you know people in tech wanting to try and create culture, right? The collisons now they have a grant, right, in order to make a quote unquote new aesthetic. My contention with that sort of thing is that as soon as you're trying to force a new aesthetic, it's gonna be bad. It's like it's almost like crowd, like crowd-sourced art, right? If you let people vote on a piece of public art, it's gonna be the worst thing you've ever seen because, you know, like that's just not really how it works. You're letting a bunch of people who don't know what good looks like decide what good looks like. And it's like, okay, how do you how do you how do you like how do you bridge those two gaps? How do you bridge the gap between tech who might not necessarily you know they want to go out and hear jazz, for example. I use jazz as the example because it's the one that I know. Uh then they they want to go out and hear jazz, but then it's like for their corporate event, they hire like the worst trio on planet Earth. But it's like, oh, it's a it's it's a trio and they have a name, so and they do events, so I'm gonna hire them. It's like cool, now we have jazz. But no, it's like like you've you've you've brought in the worst jazz ever. Like now everybody's gonna hate jazz. And so, but then on the on the flip side, you have the artists, like people that I went to school with who hate tech, right? And and they'd much rather play for like three people in a basement uh for like zero dollars if it means that they can play their like weird sort of science-based, like heady, experimental free jazz. Uh, like like how do you how do you go ahead and and and bridge those two gaps? It probably you know, probably takes insiders on both sides, which is which there are just not many of. Not many of. Anyway, that's a bit of a TED talk, but I don't know. I've been thinking about this a lot. I'm gonna post an article about this, maybe a uh a first Mott's article. Maybe I'll do a Substack or some shit for talking about jazz.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Shout out Substack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

Shout out Substack. Not actually a sponsor.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Maybe you could have like in the middle of Mott's podcast, you could have an interlude where you're just like, you know, playing some jazz.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Could do that. I do like that. Oh yeah? I do. Well, I like when you uh play sax, right? Yes. I like when you play the sax.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I haven't heard it, but I know I wouldn't have. The saxophone Instagram account's been popping off recently. I'll I'll plug it, I'll plug it. People are sending me stuff. You know who else plays Sax? Sam D'Amico. Oh, he does? Really? I actually didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 36:59

He was in the Stanford band, the famous band. He has taught me this, actually.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Wow, that's sick.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the more the more we know. So there's you know, like, Saxon Club of San Francisco. There needs to be this. There's a few of us out here. There's a few of us out here. Um, speaking of well, I was gonna say speaking of which, not speaking of which at all, I need to catch up on some ads because we've been going so so deep into topics. Uh, you know, fell fellow media mogul can understand this. You don't have to say sponsors is okay, Brex is good. Um basically, uh superpower.com. I'll give you guys codes, you can try it if you want.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Superpower.com.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

Yeah, yeah. Basically, basically giving the care that billionaires get for under uh $200 a year.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

You too can live like a billionaire with superpowers.com.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

Full blood, full blood panel, right? You know, preventative health. That is what they are doing, right? I I got a full I got a full blood panel with them. And basically, I was wondering why I sort of felt a little bit under the last few months. Basically, uh I had deduced based on the results from Superpower that I was actually a little bit low in selenium. So a few of my thyroid markers were off. Anyway, selenium supplement, it's all fine now. I also had a bad sleep, and so it put my testosterone a little bit lower. Um, so naturally, ego was fully damaged. Now, was my testosterone low? Absolutely not. But was it low for me? Yes, and that makes the voices in my head go insane.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Anyway. What's your what do you mind disclosing your testosterone uh in in nanograms per deciliter?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Uh Brian Johnson moment.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

It's it is it's pretty, it's pretty high. It's pretty high. The baseline's pretty high. Um, it's sort of yeah, like last time when I got a good sleep, and again, it is always I gotta caveat these things because it's you can actually gain, you can gain these tests a little bit. Um, but on a good day, you know, I hover around that 850 mock.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

Oh wow. That's not good.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

So on this on this bad day where I barely slept, I was at 653. Um, but you know, which is still not bad. Still not bad. Healthy boy. Healthy boy. Anyway, not to fucking flex that. March, the highest T podcast for wearing bunny hats. That's right. That's right. Eat it, Brian Johnson. I unfollowed him actually.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Really? Because of the vaginal microbiome microbiome?

SPEAKER_03 39:11

Like I it's like I'm like, okay, bro, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

You know? I do not follow him. I get enough on my timeline. The microbiome stuff was painful to see.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

It was How are you gonna know when Brian has sex with Kate? How are you gonna get the updates?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

How else? Dear God.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

Superpower should partner with Brian and they should do like, nah, I'm not gonna go there. I'm not gonna say that. Anyway. Yeah, not gonna say that. Uh, cool. So I wanted to touch on this a little bit. You know, you know, it gets a little bit political, but I mean I think SF,

Groups making SF better, Hamilton Society, SF10x, GrowSF

SPEAKER_03 39:45

SF politics is like one of those interesting things. I mean, I I find the groups sort of that are that are maybe somewhat adjacent, you know, trying to improve political discourse, trying to make the city better. I find them quite um, I find them pretty cool actually. Uh Hamilton Society for Society. So Hamilton Society, for example, if I could speak like a normal person. Uh have you been to a Hamilton Society?

SPEAKER_00 40:06

I have, yes. Yes. I'm trying to remember. There was one in immigration that I went to, and then was that the one I saw you at? The whole crew was there, whole seven girls. Immigration. And then there was another the immigration one was quite good.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

Yeah. Shout out Didi Doss.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Friend of the show, one might say. One of one of the best titles you can possibly get on this planet. Uh yeah, from Will O'Brien. Um, so this was November last year. So this is when they were kind of you know picking up steam. Yeah, the immigration debate was was full. Must say, have you been to a Hamilton Society thing before? Yes, I have speaking I've speaking.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

I speak it quite well. Um I'm sure you did. I've spoken at the uh Hamilton Society. Yeah. Um the question was, can men and women be friends?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Uh yes. That's good. Yeah. What did you argue?

SPEAKER_02 40:56

Oh, I I I gave the so so uh Will told me that at the at the end you're supposed to do something like in the affirmative, but the most ridiculous possible affirmative case that you could think of. Okay. And um uh so I tried to think of the most ridiculous possible case. I was like, uh yes, men and women can be friends, but they have to start out by having really bad sex to get the spectral tension out of the way so you know you never want to do that again.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Yeah, it's so funny.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

And so yeah, I mean, I mean, is that is that very ridiculous though? Okay. Anyway, I'll leave that in. Uh so so Will, this is back

@Willob reaction

SPEAKER_03 41:30

in November, he says The Hamilton Society is San Francisco's Premier Debate Society. The brilliant Yaron Brooke recently challenged us to debate on the topic of Christianity will destroy the West. The motion did not pass. But we thank Yaron for his great contributions on the night onwards. And of course he's got the the pictures from the evening. You can see. Did anyone cite Nietzsche? What's that? Did people cite Nietzsche? I don't know. So I didn't go to this. I mean, you know, we'll we'll can Wilkin Taylor. So I'll give it a givea shot.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

I went to the one where it was the gene editing debate. That was my first one. Oh, nice. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

Nice, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Um How do you know which ones are gonna be serious and which ones are just gonna be goofy?

SPEAKER_00 42:02

The gene editing one, so that sucks because I was only there for 10 minutes because that was the Chinese peptide rave party for Bonanza weekend. So I was there and then I had to leave quickly for the Chinese peptide rave. And then I went to almost all of the immigration one. Um I don't know. They they've seemed amazing.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

But the immigration one was serious?

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Was it, Jaden?

SPEAKER_03 42:24

Um pretty good. I'd say so. I mean it got pretty pretty dramatic at the end. Um Anton Troinikov got kicked out. I I know I think that was like performative, but Anton. Anton Troinikov.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Oh, Anton. What was he saying?

SPEAKER_03 42:35

I think he was just being I think he was just being rowdy.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Yeah, I had missed the end. I was not there for someone getting kicked out.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

What was the what was the resolution and what was the the resolution of the resolution? Um I don't remember I left. Was it pro just pro and anti-immigration?

SPEAKER_03 42:50

That's right. Yep. You don't know who won though. Um I don't know who won.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

I I I assume immigration, I thought D D won.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

I assume Didi won.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah, D won. I thought he did, because I think they tweeted it, but I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Yeah, hard for me to remember. I remember because I was like two days back from Australia and a bit jet lagged. Anyway, enough of my problems. Uh but you know, I also went with my friend Lily. Uh, do you know Lily? Lily Sharples. Anyway, she tweets out,

@lillysharples reaction

SPEAKER_03 43:16

uh, she tweeted, she's like, I've been attending Hamilton Society debates for the last few months. They have easily become one of my favourite events in SF. SF is full of smart people, but it often feels like an echo chamber. People just repeating what they read on Twitter with no strong opinions of their own. These people are building the future. They're creating the technology everyone will use, and they're getting all their ideas from the same Twitter threads. That's insane. People need space to think for themselves, to get out of their comfort zone and argue with their friends. And so this was um quote tweeting the Piratewiders article that covered the Hamilton Society debates. Oh, they actually just put the Piratewise one, they they covered the immigration debate. So there's that. Did I read it? No.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

They didn't know it existed.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

Were you at that tweet though?

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Were you at Jasmine Suns? Substack debate.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

No, I missed that. I missed that.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

I I debated a guy about whether AI will take all the jobs or whether AI should take all our jobs.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in Australia for that. I remember that. Um and I had yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

I was supposed I was they gave me AI should take all our jobs.

SPEAKER_03 44:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

And then um, yeah, so I had to I I won a resounding victory.

SPEAKER_03 44:23

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

I mean, as as I would expect.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't expect anything less. No AI.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

I I considered I considered just having AI do all the debating and just standing there while AI did it as a as a gag.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

But um Yeah, I mean, oh I'm glad you won. I want the friends of the show to win everything.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

I won the the prize was one job. Like Substack gave me a little certificate which I have back there that says we will give you one job when AI takes all the jobs.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Nice, nice. So you've escaped the permanent underclass officially. You're promised a job. Oh, that's right. Don't mind if you'll have the last job. Yeah, you'll have the last job. Because of this contract, we're supposed to mind if we do. Um other little mentions. Uh there's also uh like I think I think adjacent to Hamilton Society, there's also SF10X. So uh Massey and Pablo Panish do a bunch of work with that. Um yeah, relatively new. There's also uh and and here's

Shoutout @garrytan and @GrowSF

SPEAKER_03 45:15

an interesting one uh that has been around for a little while, Grow SF, right? Oh yeah, growth. Gary's tan, right? Trying to make, I mean, I would say uh uh pretty heavily responsible for the the uh turnover of a few district supervisors back in what? 24? 24 it was, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know my I know my district supervisor, Mr. Uh Stephen Sherrill.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

I think mine's Bilal.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

Bilama Moo. Yeah, mine is also Bilalmo. Yes, yes, yes. So, you know, both uh both winners in that in that particular election. And I believe uh Stephen Sherrill's actually up for re-election in June. And I personally, we're getting a little political here. I personally wanted to win. He's like a you know, a little bit more pro housing, right? Uh my district has been upzoned a little bit to try and get some of the some you know the ball the ball rolling on some new housing. Again, I've seen uh rents of one bedroom apartments in my neighborhood because I was looking a little bit. Uh they are scary.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

They are scary. It's true.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

Random comment New York is worse than us now. And that was not true in the 2010s. We were worse.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

I was gonna move to New York last winter. Yeah, and it it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

I mean You were gonna move like permanently?

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Yeah, I thought I work in media, so I thought like, and I'm young, so I was like, why don't I try it out? And I was like, no, dude, I'm California forever. I love I I can never leave. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 46:31

All the New York media are reaching out for us for takes now anyway. I speak to the New York media every week. That's true. Every week.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

But the the rent was uh I mean scary. Crazy.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

It's like five thousand dollars for one bedroom or something.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

No, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Insane. Like who can pay that?

SPEAKER_00 46:46

It's it's going up crazy right now in San Francisco because I got mine rent controlled in 2023. Yeah, and you cannot find they're selling or they're renting out something in my place like twice the amount for the same space. It's crazy. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

Yeah, yeah. It's uh I mean maybe, maybe, maybe that's maybe the maybe that is the permanent underclass, right? So the SF rental market.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

But this is what Henry George thought. Henry George thought that the permanent underclass was just people who didn't own property.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:14

Didn't own land.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

Totally crazy. I'm fucked.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

Well, I mean, I mean I've I've grown up with it being being from Australia, right? So it's Australia's uh problems are I would say even more acute than here, uh, by by quite a by quite a ways away. But that's a side tangent. We don't have to get in, we don't have to get into like niche Australian housing policy on Motspod when we're talking about Yimbies versus NIMBY's in San Francisco. Uh but yeah, I definitely wanted to give the mention to, you know, uh Gary Tan, right? I mean, that's like like he his work with Grow SF. I actually remember um you remember this post back in 2022. You know I knew him in college. Gary Tan, yeah, really.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

I was in his uh physics study group for one session, and then I decided being in a study group would be bad for my physics ability, so I quit. But no offense to Gary Tan who organized the study group. He's he's great, uh, but I just decided not to be in any study group.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

Um but yeah, so Gary, uh he's a great dude. Uh we still we still keep that.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

Of course, of course. No, Gary's the man. And I I I remember this back in like in 2023 when it was like they they published this, like um, I forget exactly who published this. Uh yeah, like like people were really going after Gary Tan and making like really weird like caricatures of him. One of which looked like a famous racist cartoon. Yes. This is this was it back in 2023.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Well, that's not the one that that's the famous racist cartoon, but go go down to the actual Gary Tan one.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

Oh, Jesus. Crazy, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Yeah, it was obviously based on the Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Anyway, uh Gary Tan and Grow S F1. Uh big time would like to say that. Uh and Gary Tan even mentioned this in August 2023. He said, sad to say, the racists who made the SF Tech Pro site with that octopus with my face on it actually control ac actually control of the city. They are the prime supporters of supervisors Peskin, Preston Chan, Walton and Roan, and the corrupt political machine. We vote them out in 2024, and they did. There you go. Oh yeah. There you go. Um I must say, SF's looking better now than it did in 2023. That's all I'll say. It's somebody who's boots on the ground. Someone who's boots on the ground. Um and again, I'm saying all of this, so if any, I don't know, if any of the political people want to go after anyone, they go after me.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

It is a lot different. I felt like the craziest it had ever been was during APEC, and then ever since APEC, combined combined with Lurie, like it has been a lot different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

Thank you, Xi Jinping. Not a phrase I typically say. He came to San Francisco. He like shamed us into cleaning up the streets in certain areas just for him. And then we just we went we went pro with that whole bit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Yeah, we really did. We really did. A fact changed everything. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

I mean, I thought we were gonna have to get Xi to specifically visit every block in San Francisco in order to specifically clean up every block, but no, somehow we it became a self-sustainable.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Like actually, actually, Xi Jinping, we're sending you to sixth and mission.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

No, like literally, I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_03 50:01

Yes, please go to sixth and mission. Xi Jinping, please send it. Yes. Please send the polyp. Oh no, that's exactly where we should send them. Anyway, I think to sort of wrap this, and before we actually wrap, I will give a mention to Cappy AI, newest mod sponsor. Uh your agentic IDE. How's it spelled? Uh Cappy. C-A-P-Y.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

C-A-P-Y.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

C-A-P-Y.AI. Yes.ai. Agentic and Agentic AI. You can own your entire software development workflow in one place. And you can make pull requests from Slack. So you can actually have your non-technicals contributing to the code. That's a little bit scary. Wow. Anyway. Amazing. Hell yeah. You too. Could use, you could contribute to code.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Cappy AI. And Joe Computer and Superhumans.com. Superpower.com. Super. You were great. Superpower.com.

SPEAKER_03 50:55

You did. You did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Superhuman, they're not a they're not a sponsor. Pretty good company, I hear, but anyway, I'm just I'm just pro tech. Anyway. Okay. So to wrap here, I think a nice place to wrap is, you know, we've we've spoken a lot about San Francisco.

Why we love SF in 2026

SPEAKER_03 51:10

I mean, talking about 2000 San Francisco. Why do we like San Francisco in 2026? Start with you, Kylie.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Um, I love San Francisco. It's the best city in the world. Um it is just beautiful and filled with life and characters, and I don't find that same divisiveness and partisan, like, you know, nature to these parties and these communities I visit. Um I am in media, so I'm both in the tech world and like the creative world. And I don't know, it's just the most lively, beautiful city. Uh I'm a California girl for life, and I just can't imagine being anywhere else. Um what else? I mean, a lot of people dog on sort of our dumb tweets, and I think we do make a great amount of dumb tweets. But I find like the do you remember the tweet that blew up? It was like I found math at a party. Like I threw a party and there was someone who was doing math, and I found the paper, and everyone was it went gigaviral. Um I find it, I find it super endearing. I'm like, the nerds can have fun, let them have fun, they're not harming anyone. And you go to these parties and like sometimes they're not drinking and they look like they've taken Molly, they're just that happy on life. And I think that's fucking rad.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

But unlike the 2010s, they haven't taken Molly.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 52:33

No, I haven't contributed much to uh much to that either.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

No, I drink, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:39

Can can we talk about how the drug overuse is actually going away now?

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

Drug overuse at San Francisco parties is going away.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

Which I like, by the way. I am not I do not use drugs. Yeah, I'm I'm also the same. I'm I'm like incredibly straight edge.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

I don't know if I've ever taken drugs at a house party in my adult life. Yeah. Yeah. It seems uncomfortable. Not to be I drink. I I love drinking. Not a straight edge, but yeah, it has gone down, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Yes, the especially the ketamine has like people realized after watching a certain famous person who shall remain nameless, that ketamine is bad for you and that it's not just a magical antidepressant. And if you snort lines of ketamine every day to like party or chill out or replace cocaine in your repertoire or whatever you were doing with it, that like it'll be an antidepressant and then you'll feel good. And people eventually realize that like if you do that, it really screws up your personality and it it messes you up. I think uh ketamine use is dropping in the in San Francisco now.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

That's fascinating. I feel like I've only ever seen people using ketamine in San Francisco if they're gonna use anything. But it's a very like certain sector of the tech world.

SPEAKER_03 53:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. I've I've I only I only ever really saw it maybe beginning of last year. I've not really seen it since. Maybe that's got more to do with who I hang out with versus um, you know, the actual trend. But I mean I'm I'm sure there is something to that. I mean, you know, being an insider in San Francisco, I do try and go to everything. And yeah, I I I think yeah, the last time I really properly noticed it was sort of like, yeah, probably first half of last year. Uh and I've not really noticed it as viscerally since. So there's probably something to that. Probably something to that. So I think it's like also like really it's like generally bad. Like it's like really bad for your bladder line.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

I just don't get any of it at all. Cause I'm like, you want to be comatose at a party? Like I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Well, so my theory is that a bunch of these people were on cocaine to work. Yeah. And then cocaine is the drug that you snort lines of that works for, I don't know, three to four hours or whatever. I don't know. I don't use cocaine. But anyway, people disclaimer, I don't. Uh but then then people like I I I knew people who were like into cocaine who got into who then were like, I need to get off cocaine. I'm gonna get into ketamine because like a white powder you snort lines of that last for three to four hours. And there was this whole thing about like, oh, actually it's an antidepressant, it's good for you. They're like, Well, I could get off cocaine by doing something, it was like your your um, it was like they thought of it like vaping for smoking. Yeah, you know, and so they so people just were trying to get off cocaine by getting on acetamine. And then um, those were to be fair, those were finance people that I knew who who were doing that. But then uh in back in New York in the 2010s, but then um like hedge fund people do too many drugs. But then um, but then like in tech, I felt there was probably the same thing. Um yes, and so I think, and then people did that experiment and found out it did not work. Yeah. That's how American society progresses by like cycles of like, let's try this new drug, oh no, this drug was bad. Let's try this new drug, oh no, that drug was bad. And our our politics kind of follows this this cycle. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

I would read that essay.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, there's been the up up, it's like the uptick of nicotine in sort of like the more hardware spaces, uh, or at least, you know, the the the pushing of it, I would say. Uh, all of those sorts of things. Hey, I mean I'm not gonna I mean I I don't take nicotine. Uh I in I endorse uh I endorse coffee. I like the things that are performance enhancing. Yeah. Steroids Hey, I must say though, with the whole peptide craze, a lot of people's peptide stacks are looking a little bit similar to you know steroids. But anyway. Just want to say, just want to say that.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

So San Francisco.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

Yeah, well, hey, you know, classified peptides. Mart's episode with Jimmy of Peptide Partners. Wow, that would, I mean, that would that would end up being a debate. I'd put I'd push him pretty hard. I'm push, I'd push him pretty hard. I mean, I I I try and push max of superpower, you know, a little bit. Um, but I always try and, you know, he pays me money, so I've got to try and find the middle ground with some. I'm gonna try and find the middle grounded.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

J Jimmy's great, he's a very nice, reasonable guy.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:49

Um yeah, I mean, I think it'd be an interesting episode. I think it would be very, very opposing. Very, very opposing.

SPEAKER_02 56:55

We went on the epic Taiwan trip. Wait, we could do Mots podcast, the Epic Taiwan Trip episode.

SPEAKER_03 57:00

Yeah, gotta do Mots Taiwan. I gotta do, I gotta start doing Mots like overseas or Mots just anyway.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

Neither of you guys could come to the Taiwan trip this this past year, but we're gonna do it again this year.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

Lovely. I've never been to Taiwan. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 57:12

I've never been either, actually. Uh just to just to quickly wrap here, yeah. I mean, I think even if we just tie it around, I mean, I would actually put like the uh yeah, the the the the lack of drug use at the the events that I am at with my friends as a positive towards SF. I actually do quite like that because I mean even Sydney, right, everyone's on cocaine. Um but yeah, I know I know for me it is it is the social scenes is that that what keeps me here, right? I mean being back here full-time, right, like like people might know I'm sort of bicostal between Sydney, Australia and San Francisco here for a few years, but I've been back full-time in the city since February. And of course, you know, technically uh, you know, visa reasons, non-permanent resident, blah, blah, blah. Like technically been here since 2017. But the last sort of year and a half or so, being sort of back and integrated into NSF has definitely been probably the funnest time ever for me. Funnest time of my life. And that is because of the NSF social scene, right? It is it is the partifuls on the weekend, it is, you know, just stacking them up, it's the variety, it's the themed parties, it is the it's the ideas, it's all the you know, the endearing sort of like coding at the fucking bar, right? Again, I rag on it a bunch on the timeline. I don't like Striver posting, but when I see it out in the wild, is it funny as hell? Yes. Do I laugh? Yes. Does it make my life better when I laugh? Yes. And so all of these sorts of things, like I wouldn't have it any other way. There's that pot take.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

There.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

Any any any other thoughts, Noah? Wait, am I so so you did your why you're excited about SF in 2026? I'm excited because um weird is back. And in the 2010s, like I I lived in San Francisco, or I lived near San Francisco in the like early 2000s. Yep. And weird was definitely a thing. And then I visited a lot in the late 2000s, and weird was still a thing. And then I felt in the 2010s, especially after like the Facebook IPO and the financial crisis and all the suits moved in and you know, everything, I felt that weird was dying in this city.

SPEAKER_03 59:09

Even I felt that, and I just moved in.

SPEAKER_02 59:11

I lived across the road from Twitter. And I was like, oh no, is this gonna be the next Austin? Is this gonna be the next, you know, to place where like I love Austin, you know, and Austin, what Austin has become is great for Texas and great for the world. But something was lost. The old Weird Austin did die. Yeah. Keep Austin Weird failed. Um, and so and then Portland kept itself weird only at the expense of becoming an anarchist wasteland. And so, like, like the price was too high. Yeah. And so I was like, is SF destined to either become an anarchist wasteland or like, you know, corporate, you know, globopolis kind of thing? And it didn't. It didn't do either one. The weird is back in SF without going crazy. Like the city is nicer and yet people are getting weirder.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

I like that. And the the cool thing about a city becoming weirder is you actually don't know what direction it's gonna go because it's that's what weirdness is all about. Yeah, like I don't know what SF is social scene or art or culture or whatever is gonna look like three years from now. And I love not knowing about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:09

Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's good, good. And um, you know, maybe not good for uh the SF uh uh homeowners, right? They might not necessarily know what direction their price is going. But for those of us that don't own the house, right? The permanent underclass, you're looking at one right ear, uh it's kind of fun. It's kind of fun. On that note, I think that's a good place to wrap. If you've been listening to another episode of Members of Technical Stuff, we'll go ahead and see you on the timeline again real soon. As an honorary girl of SF, they gave me this nice hat, right? And it says seven girls of SF. It's the one that Kate was wearing earlier on in the episode. Anyway, I'm here now because if you don't have all the mod sponsors memorized by now, then you're a fake fan and you need to fix your life. Just kidding, it's a little bit harsh, but that's how I'm selling software here in 2026. None of this Maslow's hierarchy of needs bullshit. Um, I'm just gonna call you weak for not buying the thing. Speaking of which, the thing that you might or might not be buying, but you probably should be buying, uh, blackbox.ai, blackbox.ai. You can go ahead and spin up 15 plus agents all in one place, right? 30 agents. Fucking spin all the spin up all the agents, damn it. Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, you can spin up all of these agents in one place, whether it's from your CLI, from the phone, you can get stuff done, and you don't actually you can actually close your laptop, right? I mean, especially if you're just spinning them up on your phone, maybe something like uh, you know, not necessarily having to worry about a VPS or anything like that, but they've got this cool new feature called Claudex in which you can go ahead and maybe code the thing with Claude Code and then review the thing with Codex or vice versa. You can actually set up those workflows with Blackbox. They do a lot of push ups, which is a green flag. If you're wanting to use a particular software product, you want your founders to be jacked. This is 2026. So my recommendation is you go ahead and check them out because they are pretty cool. Anyway, that's the end of the show. That's the end of the show. Got all the ad reads ticked off, and that's really, really good. So I'll go ahead and see you on the timeline again really soon.