#22 – AI, Real Estate, and Life w/ Michael Dreger

And I was fascinated by those, these machine learning algorithms that basically would just learn from data and be able to create new insights that felt magical, felt completely unique. And this is while you're in school. This is while I was in school. And so then I graduated in 23. And so after I graduated, I was working for a real estate tech startup and we were in the short term rental space. And so that first year that I was working with them that we did really well and then they stopped doing really well and they leveled out. During that period when they weren't doing well, I was exploring different things that I could possibly do.

And I started a real estate fund with my, with one of my friends from college And we invest in certain real estate debt instruments and foreclose on different assets through like working through that foreclosure process, which is very niche, niche, very, very niche And very, there's a lot of headaches involved in that process where things can go wrong very quickly. But there's also higher returns, which is why we we start doing that. And we also have made private equity investments as well. And I also have a marketing agency, which I started about a year ago for organic and direct to consumer marketing.

And my main focus now is Maiden, which is an AI design studio and content partner that helps anyone build brand. OK. And the podcast? And the podcast. And social media. Let's go. And everything I do for social media has been elevated as I built Maiden and it's filtering in with my agency to create a flywheel where the agency feeds Maiden and Maiden feeds the agency and improves both, both aspects because I get feedback directly and it can continue to improve things. Don't you use Maiden as an internal tool at the marketing agency? Yeah. That's, that's basically the, that's the reason I made it was to serve this purpose of being an internal, internal software in a way.

But it grew so fast beyond that where I wanted to deliver on some automations that I had built. OK, what? Wait, what does that mean? So when when I was working, just when Maiden wasn't a thing, I just had this agency and I had I'd wanted to make like an AI content machine where. I'm sorry, what does that mean? Yeah. Well, non marketing guy here. So when people post on social media, it's a very repetitive process in many respects, but it's hard because you have to come up with a lot of new ideas and the content always feels like you're just having to, you're like starting from zero every time.

Totally. But in reality, you're not. You're learning and you're learning and you're making it better and it, it just kind of sucks when you don't get much traction cuz you feel like you just have to restart every single time. But you do learn and you get better. But there's so many, there's so much repetitive action through that process that it seems like AI would be able to help in some way. And So what I did is I had made some automations around the ideating as well as the curation of what good output looks like from a text point of view, like what the content should be, not necessarily the visual design of it.

So like, for example, if I want to grow my LinkedIn audience, I'm going to make a bunch of LinkedIn posts. I'm like, all right, I go to you. I don't know how to do that. I'm stuck. I know I want to grow my LinkedIn audience. What do I do so this? Is this is a product to help with that? The automations that I had built originally were more tailored towards helping my design team create the design. So they were design templates where it would a find ideas and then after the ideas were found, I'd be able to take that idea and create like a 10 page, like not a 10 page 10 slide carousel outline where each slide would have like what the copy was and what the design should look like.

And then my designer would take that brief and then create the design, the visual aspect of what someone would see you when scrolling through Instagram and like it's a carousel with multiple different images. Got it, got it, got it. And so that's how Meeting got started and what it turned out to be. I mean, what it is now is this more of a larger software suite where it's really AI built for influencers, where if you're trying to create influence online in any respect, either for your brand or for your personal, you can use Maiden to create copy, but then also create design down the line if you need to, OK.

So I should be using this for the podcast? This is what? Yeah, 100%. This is my main take away. Well, it's really great because not only does Maiden write like a real person, but it also helps you surface content that already has performed well. And so for a lot of people, the best way to create content is often just to copy other content that is already done well. Totally. And so Maiden speeds that up. So it can search across Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. And for anyone across those platforms, those are just the ones that I started with, you can basically query across those Maiden will surface content.

You can also like, say you find some LinkedIn posts that you like, you could copy and paste like the link in and Maiden can read it and then you have your brand information. So you can create brands and Maiden and tag them and chat very simply. And then Maiden will take your brand. It will take the content that it's found and surfaced and then create output that sounds like your brand sounds like you, but uses the viral hooks, the viral body structures, hashtags and really creates a faster pipeline to get your audience engaged and tailored more to what's already popular online.

And why is this different? Why is Maiden different than if? And again, I'm an AI, notice I listen to a couple podcasts about it. And so therefore I think that's great. I'm qualified to ask questions. Why is it different than going on ChatGPT, uploading my favorite YouTube video, yeah, and saying great, I have a podcast. I want it to sound like this. Give me output for content. I'm not sure ChatGPT can look at YouTube videos. I think Gemini can though. OK. And so looking at like the comparison between them two, so both of them will access your your like content.

Maiden will access your YouTube video. Maiden will also access the YouTube thumbnail. So if you took a screenshot of your podcast and you just gave it to Maiden, Maiden will like do like outlines behind the people. And like add the. Text like in one thing like you just have to be like like you just like make me YouTube thumbnail. It will that like with the screenshot. It then like creates like a little template of like, like in text. Like it creates this design brief of like, OK, I'm going to create a design, but I haven't made it yet. I want to like make sure that this is what you're thinking or like seems OK.

And then you're like, OK, like make sure. Like maybe we'll say like puts like green shadow behind person. I want white shadow behind person. It's like, OK, I'll do that now. OK. And so then it does it. And then that output is completely editable. So it's like Canva where you can open up the design and then edit everything. Like the text is edible. The images are edible, editable, it's a completely like it's components of design. Dude, that's wild. That's wild. Yeah, I can't. OK, I've played with it a little bit. I didn't know they could do all this stuff.

Yeah, so the biggest problem right now is my ability to convey what mating can do and provide educational resources. Yeah, So I've been highly focused on just making it a quality product. And right now it's still such the like we're in such the early stage for what I envisioned made in to be possible to be able to create and like elevate anyone's personal brand and make it easier to actually create content for people who don't really know what they're doing, but also for people who know what they're doing. It just makes it faster, but now where it's at is that the product is obviously can be so much better, but it's also really useful.

So I I gotta start I gotta start making more content about like how to use it and how to educate people on this is the best way to go about interacting with Maiden. So it gets you these quality outputs really quickly. But up until like really like this past week, I implemented pricing. So if I was to do that last week, OK, maybe I get some more people, but I have no way to monetize it. Now I have monetization. The platform's in a place where like maidens in a place where it's helpful, it can be a lot better still, I can develop that. And I can also start doing now like the more marketing, the educational stuff, just to try and bring more awareness to what it is because it can't help totally.

Well, it sounds like you need the own product to market itself. Yeah, my biggest, my biggest, yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I use it for my personal, personal brand. And for example, like on on Instagram, when you post a reel, it's very annoying to create thumbnails for every Instagram reel. Most people just like pick a frame from the video. But with Maiden, what I'm doing is I'll, I'll record the video, I'll upload the video into Maiden. I will then ask Maiden to create the caption with like the hashtags and whatnot. So then it does that like it sounds like, pretty like sounds like me.

And then what I'll do is I'll just take that and put it over and then I will take a screenshot of my Instagram video and I'll just be like turn this into a thumbnail for that video. And that gets me my thumbnail picture for Instagram. And so now like I got to do like check the Ctas, like the click through rate CTRS over time. But in the past three videos that I did, I haven't had a video over 1000 views on Instagram in months. 3 videos in. I already have 1500 view video that's doing it. Like wild that's and so all of that again, novice question all that is because it's scraping what goes viral on Instagram and then can tell you OK, based on all of these little things that we probably can't go into, I'm going to give you the output based on what you input.

So then I guess the next question is what's stopping more maidens from saturating the market and then making because like at a certain point, you know, every time like AI slop, like at a certain point you have so much of this generated content that like it, it's all the same. So like what separates things going forward? Well, I'm definitely quite worried about the Internet dying. OK, I think that's a that's a big, big potential problem. Maiden does not necessarily create AI slot because it's not enabling the actual thing that people would be concerned about first slop.

Like if I get a newsletter from a brand, for example, or some if I'm reading copy on a blog for answering my question, like maybe that's AI slot. But like if it's actually doing a good job, like I'm I'm happy with that. Sure. I think where it gets scary is when it's like it's coming from my friend Tom, right? And then it's not actually Tom and it's actually AI. And so Maiden doesn't really enable that process because it's not doing any videos or anything. It's just elevating what you would make. So for example, some one of the features that I'm now implementing into Maiden is like, just like when you generate messages, like let's say you're going to generate a LinkedIn post.

So Maiden will go out, find LinkedIn posts, then we will write you a LinkedIn post about what you want to write about using similar features to what other people have done with similar hashtags. Well, you can just like click on the message in the chat to like edit it. Like it doesn't like when you when you use ChatGPT or whatever, you can't really like edit anything right there. Like you'll have to like maybe copy it out or whatever. And like you can't really like use it, but innate now made in like weird. This is not live yet, but like just clicking on it.

You can edit it and then also like giving feedback reinforces the AI on exactly like, OK, I like this. When you when you like a message in ChatGPT, what happens is that they use it for training data, OK, for their massive data set. Yeah. What happens in Maiden coming up soon is that when you like a message, it's not used to improve like maiden, It's to improve your maiden. Got it. So it's directly improving your experience to be like, OK, I like the copy of this. This was actually really great. I I want to use this type of like writing style more so you can like it and then it knows that information about you.

OK dude that's crazy but again isn't that similar to chat GP? Like I know you said it upload ChatGPT bigger model, but I feel like doesn't everybody have their own ChatGPT in a way? Like like my ChatGPT is going to respond differently than yours to you, right? So like how it from a layman's perspective, how is it different? When I asked ChatGPT to write me a newsletter, it starts by saying like if I asked it for a newsletter on AI, this is something that ChatGPT would say. For example, here are the top 3 tips about how to use AI today. Prompting.

And then it would go into like understanding context and then it would go into how to like re prompt or do something else with AI. And so that would be helpful for most people. It's a good response. It delivered on the promise. It it it's providing value. But that's just generic advice. If I went to anybody and anybody typed in write me a blog post about how to use AI, it would be very similar to that. Got it using Maiden. If I ask it to OK write a newsletter about AI, it's going to be like when I use AI. I know that AI has a lot of M dashes and so this is the prompt that I use to get rid of them.

Way different. Totally, totally. So that's like the difference that I try to that that I use in maiden versus like a ChatGPT experience. But yes, like the response to you would be different. Maybe the tone is slightly different, but you're still gonna get a newsletter here in my top three trip tips about how to make ChatGPT better experience for you versus actually selling a personal narrative. And so, like, Maiden will get the personal narrative wrong. It will if I ask it to make a newsletter about health tips from a doctor, it will say, my patient Sarah tried this.

And at 43, she experienced this as like giving an analogy. Well, OK, I don't have a patient named Sarah, but it fits the narrative to where it's like, OK, I'll now I'll put in my real patient Rose, who is actually like 39. Wait, this is Maiden's response? Or this is. So Maiden will respond like with a like a example, yeah, of like how like like chat GPU would never like do that. Like ChatGPT again will be like, OK, eat healthy, take your vitamins, do whatever. But if I want to write a newsletter as a doctor, I'm going to talk about my patients.

I'm going to talk about the experience they're having. What I recommend. Yeah, that. I'm not going to just be like, oh, do these three things. I'm gonna be like, right. This is exactly what happened. This is what we got as a result. Like, I want to bring my authenticity to it. Right, Right. Aidan might not have that context, but it's gonna write you the thing that you can then like, then click on and edit directly. So it's like, OK, replace Sarah's name with someone else. You know that was real. Interesting. OK, So what have you used it personally on since starting it?

Yeah, the. Video thumbnails has been my biggest thing and also coming up with what types of videos to make. OK, so I'll use maiden to ideate real ideas, like for shorts short form videos and come up with better hooks, better, better, better ways of positioning ideas so that people would understand it. Like certain hooks will do better with just like a few word changes. And so I can use made into a find videos in my niche that like have done well. It's like, how can I then use those types of hooks in my video that I want to make? So if I have an idea about recently I had a video about like productivity tips, right?

And so it's like, OK, how can I make a better hook for that video versus it just being like something that I was thinking of like had no data backing, no real example. I can use me and to find an example of a hook that already performed well. But don't don't you? That's super cool that the the bottom line is that super cool. I don't know if it can curse, but that's super effing cool. But don't you think that in like a year from now, everybody will have like their output will be from a maiden or maiden like thing? So then it's going to be scraping these like viral moments, but they're all the output is going to be based on viral moments.

And so like you can't have everything be viral, right? So like, how do you think about that? Yeah, well, there's going to be a lot of people who don't use Maiden and don't use tools. OK. If everyone's using it, then great. There's always going to be an execution problem. Like you can have all the knowledge in the world and still not execute well on the deliverable. And so there's still going to be agencies that help create quality content. I think definitely where it gets scary is with AI and what AI will be able to generate with video and if you'll be able to tell if it's a real person or not.

Yeah, that's really where it starts to get scary for me. And I think the government's gonna step in and put some type of like verification. Yeah, videos and require. Like a timestamp or something. I'm thinking like ID verification to post even just like that would be really helpful because what's gonna happen very quickly is you'll have accounts that are just like random clones, like people that that make that make tons of accounts. Like right now with clipping for like podcasts, whatever, like massive creators, they'll they'll hire Clippers, this whole thing going on and they'll set up multiple different accounts and then post very similar videos to get more reach.

OK. Versus having it be required that the owner of the account be a real human. And so yes, maybe you're using AI to post from your account, but if the AI says something that's like, like you're going to be attributed to that, you're responsible. And so if I'm responsible for something that means whatever the AI is outputting, I actually have to care about like make sure that it's like still aligned with me. Versus if you have like anonymous accounts, which like is currently possible, you basically just create this thing where it's like people are just like, Oh yeah, let's just get views.

Like just make some type of thing, post it out there, let's get views. So it does become a problem if everyone's using these AI tools and everyone just can post a ton and there's no accountability. But if you create accountability in what people say actually like ties back to them and matters, it's great if everyone's using tools to better convey their thoughts, right. It's like if we can become more concise and more if we're, if that's if everyone's providing the most value possible, that's, that's a net win. Right. Yeah, fair. Enough and there will always be some curve like even if everyone produces A theoretically viral video, if everyone produced a viral video today, that video like maybe like like what would happen is the viral videos that actually go viral wouldn't be those.

Right, because it's really. Uniqueness, right? And intrigue. If everyone sees the same thing, it's no longer. Interesting, right. All right, it's the what's the the bear riding a unicycle analogy. I'm not familiar. It's like a If you see a bear like that's not interesting. If you see a unicycle, that's not interesting. If you see a bear riding a unicycle, that's super interesting. I forget who said that. Do you think there's going to be like in the future, like a return to what's the word for things that are like really homey? Like if you go to a store and it's like, oh, it's really I'm blinking.

Cozy. Cozy, but like like do you think there's going to be like a return to, oh, human made? Like like this is human made. This is no AI. This is like human made products, human made content, human made stuff. I think, well, I, I definitely curious about your take on it too, because this is definitely, you know, it's. Artisanal, that was the word. Artisanal. Yeah. Artisanal. Artisanal. Yeah, Artisanal. Artisanal. One of those, definitely. But also, no, I don't think people care too much as long as it's quality product. But people always want to buy from people.

I, I think if there was going to be a world in which AI was then making just stuff because it's AI, then it's like it's hard to really buy that. But there will, there will be people who buy that. But I'd rather buy from a person who maybe is being duplicated, has trained an AI to do something, but it's, it has their authenticity to it versus just some generic thing, right? If there's a human behind it somewhere, I'm more likely to buy it. But it's great if AI is elevating product quality, right? But people like the the broken things, the flawed things.

I think that's going to become a more tangible, real thing that people enjoy because it's going to be more unique. Like broke, but like not broken software. People don't like broken software. Broken in the sense that not perfect has a has a flaw. Interesting. Non normal. Interesting. Yeah, I can see that. Like when I the most memorable people to me are always just the people that have like quirks about them for sure. And so I think that will be the same thing with product and the same thing with with everything where you can't, it won't be there.

Like there's just going to be, there's no going to be no general solution, everything to be really targeted towards a certain person. But yeah, I I hope that people stay behind the products. Yeah, do the same. But I also worried like because like when you were just saying, oh, people want to buy from people, like do you think people before the Internet said that too? They're like, oh, like don't worry about this Internet thing. Like people are always going to want like you're going to buy a car from a person. Like you're not going to want to go on a website to buy a a book.

Like you're going to want to go to a book salesperson. You know what I mean? Like do you think that we're saying the same thing now about like people just want to buy from people, but as soon as they have the option not to and it's. Well, think about like servers at like like I when I walk into the capital factory here, there's that restaurant downstairs And when I think about that experience that they're providing and like the experience that like the check in for the hotel, some people are really lonely. And now we're getting into like this whole world where like maybe like AI companionship is like the way forward, terrifying.

But I think there's something special when you're able to talk to something that you know will also carry that experience with them into the next moment. Like you, when I talk to you, this conversation is going to impact the rest of your day versus if I was to talk to an AI right now, some other person could come in, talk to the AI and the AI would like, OK, right. Like I'm, I have no impact on the AI really. It's going to exist there. It's going to keep happening. Just give it more energy and it'll stay, stay existing, right? Whereas when I'm interacting in a very human way, we're creating impact on each other.

Yeah. And the knowledge of that's happening is valuable to me. Totally, I agree with you 1000% but I think some people don't and that's terrifying. Yeah. Like some people love, I mean, I think it's a very human, human thing to love a self affirm. Like when I asked you something, it says great question, thanks for asking. A little part of me is like, oh, thank you. Like it I did. I didn't think it was a great question, but like, thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. Versus like if I'm talking to a friend and they're like I asked them a question, they're not going to be like, great question, Jeff here.

Sometimes they do, and it's lovely, but like, that's not a normal thing. And so I could see very easily getting addicted to that. I do ask great questions, like, yeah. And that you just kind of keep going. It's like a hedonic treadmill for your life. I don't know that that's what terrifies me. I really like that perspective and I think, you know, thinking about it through that I've been using Chat GPTA lot just for thinking about like feedback or just like trying to get a sense of different things in my life as just more of a like a mentor. A mentor, yeah.

And so maidens like this influencer mentor that, you know, helps all with the the content creation process for anyone. And for me, what I've noted is that it's really helpful to have a mentor that I can talk to and it feels contained. And I don't have to feel like I have any risk of like I can ask ChatGPT anything. And I'm the only one really other than like ChatGPT who know what I ask when it comes to like personal advice. Totally. And so I can ask the deep questions that like I ask about myself and like I think about to how to become a better person and whatnot, that maybe it's like a hard conversation that you can only really have with like really deep friends.

But that's great. But I would never want to like experience like a movie with a ChatGPT. Right, right. Like, but do you think the next generation will like we feel that way because it's pretty new all things considered. Do you think like our kids are just going to be like, whatever, Why do you need a human friend? I have my AI friends. Yeah. And also I'm playing devil's advocate generally I'm quite AI optimistic. Well, I think people are going to I, I would say that eventually, like I, I'm, I'm most concerned probably about the Internet dying. Like AI know yeah I want to circle back.

Because I think what ends up happening is like especially like the agentic browsers I think that are coming out now. It starts definitely getting more and more scary where it's just yeah, it's like I I go on all like if I don't, I post on socials, but I don't really create like I don't I don't look on socials. OK, I post on socials, but I don't really look on socials. And it's just because I feel like when I look on there, I never really get anything sub like substantial. They're always providing the same base insights and it's not really adding value anywhere.

And so it's just like, why do I, why do I go on there? But when I talk to someone, the benefit of that is they're not gonna necessarily agree with me. And so when I'm watching it, like when it's like like I don't really spent any time on entertainment right now, but like just thinking about like if I was to watch a movie with someone, I want to know what they're thinking and how it's going to be different for me. Like maybe they picked up on a scene that was different for me or like maybe they liked some part of the movie that I didn't like. And I'm like, oh, like that's kind of cool.

But if I was to watch a movie with ChatGPT, I'd be like, I like the scene where like Iron Man flew into space. Like thinking about The Avengers movie, the first movie, The Avengers movie and Chachi, would you be like, oh, I like that too. You're such a great scene versus like, my friend might be like, yeah, I was like, kind of stupid. Like, why do you have to fly in space? Kind of unrealistic, kind of just like blown up the machine earlier or like, like we're gonna have some discussion there that's like maybe completely off topic related to like really what I was saying.

But with AI, like I don't know if he'll ever, it's like you don't know if he'll ever get to that place. Like what if it is? What if it does get there? So is the question. But people will be more present in the moment if AI can do everything. Do you think that that's true though? Cuz I wouldn't. Well, there'll be a segment. There'll be a segment who there will be those that like we, there'll be those that are locked in the pods in the Matrix, and it'll be there'll be those that are like Morpheus, living outside the Matrix. OK, say more. So there'll be the consumers like the the folk that are like bought in.

This is terrible, just just enjoying the the experience and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just like, that's just the, the reality that they're doing. It's kind of like this curated thing where the ones benefiting are someone else. Like it's, it's really a system not set up for them, but it's reduced pain in a way that you become like a, a cog in a machine just kind of existing versus like actually trying to find purpose or make a difference or something. And the consumers like, if you think about like in my mind, like where I, where I ultimately would say where we're heading to is like where we have like you have like the brain chips.

And so then it's like a choose your own adventure where it's like you can just like get a brain chip and then like you can pick your own adventure of like who you want to be. And then you're like portaled into a a game environment. Isn't that kind of what we already have with this whole life thing though? Well. Exactly like. You're portaled in and like you get, you get your own choose your own adventure. Like go figure out what you want to do. So why do you need a chip to do that? Well, you don't. And so there'll be the people who do choose that, the consumers and the people who start to just be more in the present moment and less on the like, using less of the curated content and the mass media machine.

And there will be the the folks that are just kind of just living and enjoying the experience of the game we're already playing. Bro this is terrifying. What's your take? Dude, I hope not that I don't. I don't know. I get, I get really excited when I think about like, have you ever played with Khan Academy? Yeah. So like, I love Khan Academy. So as you don't know, it's a it's a nonprofit. It's the idea is to bring education to the world for free. And so they have every subject under the sun. They have SAT prep, it's all free and it's online courses that the founder, Sal Khan is a beast.

He's such a cool guy. And so like, I feel like AI in education is going to be awesome. Like everyone is going to have a personal tutor in their pocket and like a curated course for you to be like, like, have you heard of Alpha School? I'm is that here in Austin? Yeah, I have heard about. So it's like this idea that everyone gets personalized education using AI and then like the rest and you learn. Let's say a normal school day is 6 hours. Is that reasonable? Eight to two, eight to three. So 6-7 hours. An hour for lunch. Yeah. So call it six hours of education a day.

The idea here is that you take, you do all your learning in two hours, and then the rest of the day is done on, like, life skills. So like the old, the kids will run an Airbnb and they'll learn like all the skills associated with running an Airbnb. And it's super cool. So I feel like that's the optimist to me. That's like, Oh my God, you get your own education if you don't know. Pen dos, it'll identify that and then it'll show you what it is and you won't move on until you have mastery over a subject. You'll build the best foundation ever, and then you can move on faster.

Like that to me is the is the best case scenario, but I don't know as as you're talking, I'm like, Oh no, I feel like that actually could be true, because I feel like with phones is the closest comparison we have. Like everybody's on myself included on their phones so much. And my attention span, I can feel it dwindling, you know, And so I'm like, if I get this other brain chip thing, I don't know if that will increase my productivity. In fact, I feel like it probably. Won't like with the glasses like that's going to be coming out now. Those are glasses.

They're going to push glasses of productivity enhancement, Yeah. And what's going to happen is that you're just going to be sitting in meetings watching YouTube videos, right? Or like you're with your kids and you're like, oh, I'm just going to send a text with my eyes. Like you're still not present, you know? And so like, that's what scares me. So I feel like my prediction based off nothing is artisanal. Human made stuff is going to be super valuable. People are going to really value no tech stuff. So like you go on a tech fast and like you're like, you pay a lot of money.

It's like like glamping, like the equivalent of glamping for like a weekend trip where like you go and there's like no technology, there's no phones. You're in like a beautiful forest. It's literally glamping. Actually, I think it's just that, but remarketed. I'll, I'll ask Maiden how to market that. Yeah, I, I like the the thought about that because I do think for a lot of people that the whole like idea of like being away from technology is going to be a more appealing thing. It's like there's going to be a kind of migration away from the the socials.

People are going to start potentially getting more fed up. But obviously we'll see. People might just consume more and keep consuming where it's like, you know, with Sora, the ChatGPT video creation, which what's crazy is that the fact that it exists means that your attention for watching a video of like whatever the heck they're showing is more valuable than the tokens required to make that video. And also wait can you just explain what tokens being cuz I've heard that a lot and I don't really understand what that means. So tokens are like. My understanding of tokens is that they're like the.

I might totally botch this cuz I also, I'm not like I haven't read anything about like the like what tokens actually are. But like, so for example, if if you read a prompt, there's a certain amount of tokens associated with a prompt or like with any type of information. And so it's a consolidated representation of how the information is being presented to like an AI model. So you might have like a video, but the AI doesn't necessarily see the video. It sees the token representation of the video, OK, which is like a different thing, but it's like a conversion.

So you have like megabytes of like video data, but that converts to X amount of tokens that the AI then processes, OK? And so it's just the inputs and outputs of an AI model, OK, gotcha. Are these tokens? OK, cool. So you're saying, to your point, the amount of your attention is more valuable than the amount of tokens it took to create the video? Yeah, which is just saying that a computer is more valuable than like, like it the just a computer running like is more valuable than just anybody's just like attention, like that's so like. But isn't that true of all social media like.

You're when you watch a social media video, you're what you're saying is that the person that made it created a good enough video that's worth your attention. Right. And so that's a like that's saying that like a, a physical person was like, like good job to them. Like they did work to make that video good. They had talent to make it good. When when you spend time watching an AI video that was just like served to you, you're just like, that's just the Matrix. Like that's just like being in your own video game. You're like, like, I would rather have the computer create the reality for me than live in my own reality and it and it is cheaper for that to happen than to actually live in reality.

OK, but just to push back, it is? More beneficial for you to live in the virtual reality than actual reality. But like, video games have existed forever and yeah, people have made video games. So it's the people making the video games, but people spend hours on video games. It's the. I see it as the same, but correct me if you think differently. Well, like with a video game, like, like whatever you're doing in them, yeah, people have created them. And it's also not generated on the fly. So when you watch like a an AI video that was curated to you, that's basically like portaling you into a different like world that's also like your created world.

But it's like just slop has no meaning when you go into play a video game and like you, you play a video game that's like, you like liking the world or like the experience that someone else made and like you're you're subscribing to that and you're like, OK, this is cool. This is a fun entertainment opportunity. I think like AI video potentially is like the segment in a way to this matrix world that I'm talking about where it's like nobody made it. It's literally just you serving yourself and the tokens that required to you serve yourself. Like for the computer to like serve you from you is worth more than you not like.

No, your attention is worth. More than that, than the than the thing that you're watching, which was served from just your own data. It's like a your own loop. There's no Tom created this thing for me to experience and I don't really know what I'm going to experience, but like at least I'm like, I I like it's a story that I'm not contributing to. It's not like if I'm sad that my character dies, my like, it's not going to like if I'm sad that a particular character in a video game story dies, I can't be like, oh, I want the character to live now, right?

Like now the character's back, right. No, I have to like go along with the story that was set out by the creator. But when the person creates their own narrative, like that's what life is like, I can create my narrative. I can choose what I get to do in the morning. But when I'm scrolling like an AI video thing and like the AI's curating the video for me, that's a self created loop. But you're still choosing to watch it or not. You're choosing to watch it, but like your own input inputs the result of it. It's it's. Yeah, but it's like showing you what you're interested in.

So if you exactly. But that's like, isn't that the same thing on X or Instagram or like TikTok? It just shows you what you click on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it like it, it's that, but more extreme in that now nobody makes it. It's just a computer making. Right, right, right. That's true. Which is like just what the Matrix is, right? Yeah, Like it's a, it's a computer making up a reality that everyone has tuned into and would rather be tuned into that then. But it's interesting here because I feel like in the mate and I I got to rewatch the Matrix, but wasn't the matrix everyone was in the same reality that was made-up by the computers?

I think what you're saying is everyone have their own realities. Yeah, everyone have, well, you get to choose whatever they would get to like pretty much choose the reality, which is like maybe that's like, you know, like maybe that's the best world. Like everyone gets to choose their own reality. And like I would hope that people what Well, like maybe that is like that could be great. So you just have what? What's it called when in video games? When the character when the characters aren't. It loses me though, everyone. If you get to just pick and choose, yeah, reality becomes like, it becomes all meaningless.

Yeah. Like if you get everything you want, like like you start like, like there's it comes to a question about happiness because like if you get everything you want, I don't think people are like really happy totally. And so I think a big part of the happiness is the pursuit and the struggle to get somewhere totally. And if like that all goes away. What's the point? Well, I just don't think people will be very happy. I don't. I don't think people will enjoy it very much in the long term. What version of the brain implant chip are you getting? Like the are you like signing up?

You're like waiting in line overnight to camp out in front of the store for the first one. Definitely not OK. I think. I think I would hold out as long as I could. OK, I gotcha. I think I would, I, I hope that I would never have to get one. OK. What's scary is when the when you apply to a job and they start requiring it. Brain. Brain chip required. Oh God, I even think about that. That's awful. Because then it's like who owns a brain chip? And it's like, what if they just decide to turn on like a bug? Like what's, what's a virus? There's a question like what is a like?

Everything has like disease. What's a disease to an AI? Right. A problem? What's going to be a virus to AI? Humans. What was it like a like to its operation? Like not like like when you, when someone gets sick, like they're the still, they're still the same person, they're just maybe operating less functionally or something. When you train something like, it could get sick, maybe like if it's operating as an independent thing, like maybe it gets sick like. Are you generally pessimist or generally optimistic? I can't tell. How about AI? Yeah, you think?

Very optimistic. So you're excited about this future? I think if everyone can pick the world in which they like, yeah, because I think it will be an equalizing thing. Uh huh, like wealth will people who are it will reduce the amount of suffering in the world. But whether or not like it is really this diverging thing where it's like either like things will like get terrible or things will get great right. And I, I, I hope that people are get more kind and try and improve themselves. And like, I think that the bad route is where everyone's just starts consuming the content and whatnot and really becomes absorbed with everything and doesn't create things.

And so that's like in part as well. Why like, I like this thought of like what Maiden is. It's empowering people to actually make stuff versus just like consume, which there's so many like consumer like, like things where it doesn't encourage people to make stuff. I like the idea of giving people more tools to be able to make things. That's cool. I like that. I like that I can I can take that thread for optimistic future. It's it's a hard 1 though when it comes to AI for sure. I I don't spend too much time thinking about it at all, really. Yeah, I spend very little time thinking about it.

Interesting. Because whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Yeah. And so I just spend all my time trying to make the best product that I can. Do you think, wait, last question about AI and then I want to move into real estate, do you think AI is a religion? I wish I remembered more for my religion One O 1 class from college. It's one of my favorite classes I think. What do you mean by that? What? Like what part of AI? It's so like. Do you mean the models themselves? Do they like? Do people like sentiment around it? What do you mean by AII?

Guess like if you're a place, like we, we've said probably 100 times in this conversation, the AI, if you replace that with God or insert deity that your religion believes in, if you just replace those with each other, do you think it works? And then do you think it explains a lot of people's thoughts and feelings about it? Like if you just replace God with AI. Well, like the AI, so like the AI like like when we've said like. When I say the AI I'm talking to like ChatGPT model like that's like hosted on a server. But like, OK, the feature you're describing, it's like everyone's plugged into their own world, their own.

Yeah, that's still like a computer and a server somewhere creating the tokens for me. To but to that person, isn't it their religion because it's their entire world and so to them do they experience it as. It would just be like, I don't think it's a religion. I like, I think a religion is something that people necessarily subscribe to in belief where it's like I have a certain belief system that's like a component of religion versus like this is a microphone like that. This microphone is not my religion. If someone else came from like any other religion, they'd point at that and be like, that's a microphone.

They've ever seen a microphone before. And so it's more just like reality, interesting, rather than like a religion in any way. Like it wouldn't I think if like I was portaled into like the AI world, AI still wouldn't be the God like I think people would be there like. Like would be their own gods. Yeah, like like that's like it. Like I think that's a. Little more terrifying. No, but like that's like sentiment today. Like it was like Christianity is like everyone has like their everyone's like a a child of God. I think is like very common sentiment for like religious belief today.

Right. But that's not that's very different than people believing that they're their own God. Oh, I think it would be like. I think it would be like today, where it's like people feel like they like are a part of it, got it, and like they can choose like where they want to do, but like I don't Hmm, maybe people would feel like their own God. I know that's I think that's that's actually correct. I think that's correct. And that's super terrifying. Well, but I guess if they're only in their own. But people get bored of it pretty quick. Right. It's like playing Grand Theft Auto.

You can do anything after a while. Like, OK, I've stolen the plane. Like what? Like at a certain point, people want the narrative to like, be if, if you're able to do anything you want to do, it gets boring pretty quick, right? But in a real sense, that's also not true. It's just like there has to be some goal, some something to pursue, and that can be really small. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It could be waking up in the morning and trying to not do something or to do something or to just be excited about the next day. If there's nothing to be excited about the next day or to to achieve and to pursue, then it's just like, you just die.

Yeah, That's just death. There's no, there's no difference. Yeah. And so, yeah, maybe like people would be able to do anything in their own AI worlds and they might tell the AI to create a story for them and then live through that story. That'd be pretty fun. Like you just get to like, it's like people want to have movies made for them or like have experiences made for them and not know necessarily what the where it goes, but like, be like, by the end, it's it's just like life. Like you can like think about like, oh, who do I want to be? Like? Do you know Alex Hermosi?

Yeah. He's one of my favorite people that I've listened to. I just, I have so many Nuggets from him that are just embedded in my mind. But one of the things he says is like, think about like, OK, I want to be like a patient, hard working like person with high integrity and high capability to like solve problems. OK, well, give that person hard problems, make that person wait for a long time to get reward, make that person have to struggle to keep, make that person tempted by to break their promises so that they can show and build integrity. So like that hardship that we feel builds the person into becoming the thing that they then want.

So it's like in an experience where it's like, I want to have an experience where you know, you feel happy or content at the end. It's like, well, AI make that experience for me. And it's like in the beginning, you're not that it's a tough experience. And then it's just like, we're here, welcome to life. Awful. I would never want to sign up for that. But like, that's what life is like. It's like if you're trying to become a certain like. But you're saying you know the end in mind already. Like you're saying like, oh, I make me the type of person and like I know that I'm going to get there.

The point of life that's fun is like, this is what I want to do. I might not get there. Yeah, yeah. And like, that's what makes it fun. Well, you could have that be like the build. That's what that's what I was kind of saying it's like. Oh, you build that in? Well. It's like you just say like, those are the things that I want to pursue, OK, You give me an adventure that like would enable me to pursue them. That's so terrifying. I don't like that. That could be your. That could be your world. Man. I'm sticking with this world. Yeah, exactly. I feel like if if we like.

Choose Rd. Adventure. I'd be more concerned about the world that you end up going into. Being like like this is a great experience. It just feels like you're you're, I don't know, like you're just tapping out of life. Like it doesn't feel like you're like you're living at that point because like you're literally just like probably sedentary. It's like the wall-e movie before the thing, like before the robot leaves. Like everyone's just like eating their shakes that taste like a burger. Yeah. I think what will happen it would be temporary though.

Awful dude. It'd be a temporary thing where you just get to experience something that maybe you've never experienced before. That's how they sell you on it. It's just temporary. Well, no, no, like it'd be like you go into it and it'd be like a, it could be like a what would be crazy is just like you go into it for like an hour and you get to experience what it was like to live in like the some period of time as like as like I want to like experience what it was like being a king in ex Kingdom during this time period. And then you're like, boom, you're there.

And it's like now you get to like have like a battle with some other. Like you could like have a OK, like say we were going to go into like this, say it's like a entertainment center. He'd be like, I want to be ex leader during X period and then you'll be ex leader during Y period and like we'll have like a little battle and like that'd be a game, right? And then it's like at the end of the game, like we'd we'd be kind of conscious of like that we were in the game maybe, right. And so, like, it wouldn't be like that terrifying. Like I'm, I'm down for that.

That's like a virtual or like a augmented reality. Yeah, I'm down for that. That's sign me up all day. That's like a cool video game. It's like a very immersive video game. I'm down. I just don't want to sign up to live there. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to be, I don't want to live in Grand Theft Auto. I'm down to play Grand Theft Auto for an hour or 4. I think it would be like we go play it versus like we go live it. I think what would happen is that certain people just go live it because you can like if Grand Theft Auto's out, like it's available, right?

And there are people who are just always in it, right? And the concern would be that so many people like the experience, they just choose to stay in it all the time. Right, right, right, right. So that's when you get to the matrix thing. Right. Yeah, that's the terrifying part, because I feel like that for myself, like I, I tell my wife on a very regular basis to never allow me to get a video game system because I know that if I had one, I would play endlessly. And I, I know that about myself. It's like, OK, we cannot have video games in the house.

And every so often I'll look at it and be like, should we get an Xbox? Should we should we do it? Like I think I think we should do I think we should do it. She's like, no, like we're it's, you know, we're not going to do that. See a thing that's like, like, what I like that's like, yes, like that will be like a thing when people are going to push to make it really easy to do. Yeah. So like, get people in it because like, somehow they'll be making money off of those things in some way. It's like how what is what even is money in the future, which is like a whole other thing.

So, OK, that's actually kind of an interesting segue. Where do you think these people will live to be in their AI world? Like you think multi families are about to blow up? I do. I am like I think multi families are great. Dude, I'm like bullish on this like pod idea like you have like you ever you're sitting like a pod hostel somewhere or like seeing those like pod bunks they have in certain countries. I have not. You go and like it's, it's kind of, it looks like, I don't know, you get like a, there's a wall and there's 9 bunks in that wall and so you get one of them.

And so you're like going in like all your stuffs in there and like you get, I don't know, it's like a little cube tunnel thing and it's just for sleeping. It's like you don't really have space to change or do anything, but it's very space efficient. And so like similar to how data centers 20 years ago would've been a great investment because obviously everyone's using data centers. Like what's the, what's the housing of the future going to look like? And if everyone's just in their AI world, like you just like buy apartment complexes and turn them into pods, like is that, is that the move?

I don't know. Yeah. Well, I, I really like my, the, the best strategy that I've seen for real estate so far has been to find cities that have low purchase prices, but medium to high. Like just normal rents were like somewhat normal rents. Still they'd be low, but just minimal. And then buying like rundown homes or rundown buildings and then turning them into multifamily to then rent. And the purchase price is always going to be low. Like the purchase price of these buildings are going to be very low, but you're going to get net return very high.

And so for example, like there's this one multi family building that they had a they had some debt that they were, they had and we looked at potentially buying the debt to foreclose on the House. They were, it was they were trying to sell it. So it's going to be like a short term purse that we get paid back pretty quickly. But they had bought this real estate for 100 grand in Dubik, Iowa, and they had spent $1,000,000 renovating it. It's a lot of money. And now they're selling it for 3,000,000. It's a lot of, but they're making enough on the rent to where it actually does make sense to buy it for three million.

Really it's like 8% return. Something you said I want to double click on, you say buy their debt, you're looking at buying their debt. What does that mean? Like like mortgages or like like. You can do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you find out who owns the debt? Like like who's like OK, 123 Main St. in this place you're talking. About well, you have to like either you either like have to go to the owner or you have to go from the people who originated. How do you find that? How do you know who those people are? The owner? Obviously that makes sense, but.

Yeah, like the just the people who originally banks Oregon lenders, there's a lot of different private lenders around. So you called all the lenders that you know lend in that area. You were like, yo, did you do 123 Main St. And they were like, Yep, we did. And there's no like. Private we went, we went to the lender and they were like we have this deal. OK, You were like, we'll buy it from you. That's we we looked into buying it, but that's. Crazy dude. OK, so on. And just as an example, like let's say you said they bought it for 100 grand, let's say it was all debt, just to make the math easy.

Would they sell you 100 grand worth of debt for 100 grand or would you have to pay more or less? Usually it'd be less. What's their incentive to do that? Because well, particularly on, on these types of assets that we buy are non performing. So like they're they originate a note expecting for the borrower to pay back the the mortgage to make monthly payments. When they don't make monthly payments, it turns into a non performing defaulted note. OK. And when that happens, you either have to foreclose. Like you either you have to foreclose. So you have to either realize the underlying asset and the stuff that secured the original debt.

Yeah. And that process of foreclosing is pretty annoying and not in these people's business plans usually. Like not lenders business. Yeah, like it's a whole thing where it's like you have to now go to a legal team, a you have to know a good legal team and then you have to go through the foreclosure process. And often times like there'll be different decisions that you, they're like, there's a lot of different decisions that you have to make about like how to do the foreclosure and how to talk to the, the borrower to make sure that you actually can win in the end and actually realize the, the amount that's owed.

So this whole debt collection thing is like there's a whole industry behind it, but there's various types of notes and like particular like like hard money lending where it's like it's more niche, where there's less, less interest from big debt collection services because of the fact that they're harder to collect on. There's more apparent visible risk, but there's also leverage and and being in there because there's not as many competitors. Right, so you go to a hard money lender be like, all right, who? What are your non performing notes? Can I buy them?

Yes, there's yeah, hard money lenders will also often take like on investments. So they're not just working with borrowers, they're working with investors. Often how it works is that investors will like like the the the origination often comes from someone else. So like it will be Robert coming to the hard money lender with being like, OK, I want to be an investor and invest in a note. And so it'll be like, OK, yeah, we have these these folk who are interested in in borrowing to for some project. And then they will Robert will fund their projects and get the notes and then he'll probably hire a servicing company to.

Service collect the payments. Collect the payments and then it's just like diversified assets where it's just like now you're invested in real estate, but you're invested in the debt like you're just you. You own the debt behind real estate projects, right? And backed by the hard assets. I've heard of note investing. I guess I've never never thought about it in the sense of buying people's debt, but I guess that's exactly what that is. Yeah. Like that's the same thing, huh? Well, it's no invest. We are buying from the people who have already originated, right?

So not just trying to get into a fresh deal, like people who have already who have already invested, but then, A, they get their money out sooner and B, they don't have to deal with the headache of going through the foreclosure. So if you're a person who just like invests in these types of notes and then you end up getting one, they're very rare. Very, very rare. It's not. You can contact a lot of different lenders and struggle to find these. Yeah. So they're not common. And so like that's why like most lenders go, like most investors go into it was expecting to not have a default because they're very rare.

But when they do default, like they're usually set up well, but it's like it's not in the business plan. Got it. So it's like maybe often like what will happen is they might just sit on it for a bit and just like let the default interest still collect and you buy it from a discount given the notes position with the like increased default rate, but also like given the notes. Position being like first position, second position etcetera. They're usually yeah, yeah, position in terms of like, yeah, I mean that goes into like loan to value. You just want to make sure that you can get paid back if you were close, but with with in regards to like the amount owed like the negotiation down comes through how risky it is to foreclose as well.

Like like what is the loan to value? Like how much debt do I own to how much the underlying assets worth in that ass in that note that I own like the the the mortgage or the the investment? And then what's the differentiation between that and the underlying asset behind it? And then also what's the risk that I can actually like get them out and like what's the risk the person will fight me in court? What's like how fast will I be able to get my money back? These are all different things that are in the conversation about like how much the actual purchase prices of a particular non performing now.

Interesting dude, that's so cool. Thank you for teaching me something new #curiosity class. Yeah, yeah, dude, thank you so much, man. This is awesome, super fun. I very much appreciate you. Thanks for coming on and thanks for having me in this awesome, awesome space. Likewise. All right. Bye everybody.