TJ Miller

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Cool chair. One second.
Take your time, man. Thank you.
Hey, man. Hey, support the troops is
great. That's a great.
Troop Oh man, I was just at Disney World with my kids and we
met Darth Vader and he said. I acknowledge your support.

(00:22):
That's perfect. Right.
It was the perfect line. My kids like lost their minds.
Sure, dude. I acknowledge your support is
great. Yeah man, thanks for having me.
How you doing? How long?
I was there for just three days.My mom like takes all the
grandkids when they're four and then like just by themselves.

(00:44):
And you know, we went to with our kids, but now the the kids
are a little older. Mine are 9:00 and 6:00 and all
their cousins are like older than that.
And so she does grandma camp every summer.
And so for grandma camp this year, it was like, OK, we're all
going back to Disney World together.
And so it was an awesome. Experience.
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, it is.

(01:07):
It's been, it's been awesome. I was the youngest of my three
brothers. At first the idea was the
parents weren't allowed to be there.
You know, like it's supposed to be spend time with your cousins
and like, get independence kind of thing.
But since I didn't have kids, mywife and I, like, we're always
the ones that were helping, you know, And when it came to us
having kids, my mom was like, I can't do this without you guys,

(01:28):
so you got to, like, keep helping.
So I've been doing it for 15 years, one week every summer.
And yeah, it's awesome. What a great like family thing.
Like I've never heard of grandmacamp, but it's such a brilliant
idea to like get everybody closer and have a different sort
of family experience. Yeah, we did.

(01:49):
We would go for a week about a maybe 2 weekends, more like a
week to Pawleys Island, which isin South Carolina.
And it's just sort of a cool as a beach.
And then the entire family wouldget 2 beach houses, one directly

(02:11):
on the beach and one just acrossthe street.
And like the entire family. And it was the most fun thing
ever, 'cause you're around all your cousins and uncles and
aunts and everybody on the beachand you're boogie boarding.
And then it's kind of it's adjacent to Myrtle Beach, so
it's not really that trashy, butit's like not expensive.

(02:33):
So that was just so fun. We did that for years.
It was great. Nice.
Have you been back there as an adult?
No, I haven't. I feel like it would be fun
because I I would remember the two cottages, but yeah, I would
definitely go back. I they tried to organize sort of
an adult version of it, kind of because some of the people in my

(02:57):
era have kids, but not really that many really.
Just like my cousin has two kidsand then my other cousins are,
you know, millennials who just aren't gonna have kids or can't
afford kids or whatever. One of them's in show business,
sort of. And yeah.

(03:18):
And my younger sister is sort oflike, you know, figuring that
out. It's just, it's different now,
man. It just is a different.
That's why I hear that. And it sounds so cool because
people just aren't having kids and they're not, you know, doing
family stuff in the way that used to be the way that used to

(03:39):
be when I was growing up, I feellike, which is a shame.
Yeah, Grammar camp is really oldschool.
Like this year was a little different, but in the past, like
it's always been no on the phones or like, I mean, they're
not playing video games. Like it's all like outside
camping and doing stuff like that.
And so that, that's been awesome.
Like I, when I had kids, I, whenI first started having kids,

(04:01):
like I wasn't anti like tablets or anything like that.
And I'm, I'm still not like 100%against tablets or anything, but
just the idea that I think everybody just grows up now.
Like anytime you have any sort of downtime or any moment, yeah,
you're just constantly being distracted, being pulled away to
some digital environments. It's like, oh man, we're, we're

(04:22):
missing out. Like I recently took social
media off my phone and I felt like it was unplugged from the
matrix man. Like I I still check it on the
computer, but like barely ever compared to when you can just
sit and pull it out and it just scrolls forever, you know?
Yeah, I try and stay off it, butI have to do it for my job.
Right, right. Promotional to her tool and I

(04:46):
should be. Sadly, I should be on it more
like I'm not on FI should be posting on Instagram every day.
I should be like on X much more,especially in the bitcoins, you
know, in crypto space, like, butI just don't really like it.
It like makes it's just not interesting to me.

(05:09):
And I kind of you said the matrix.
It's like I kind of see the I just sort of see it for what it
is. So I'm like, this is just, it's
this is very tricky. You're being, you're being very
tricky. The algorithm, it's all sneaky.
I don't, I'm not into it. So it's a, it's a relationship I

(05:30):
have to have with social media. But I'm also in a weird position
where I'm not like, you know, grappling for views or fans or
anything like that. I'm not kind of like help, help,
help, you know, please, somebodywatch me.
I have an audience. Yeah, it's just really it's, but

(05:51):
it is like that's how you connect with a certain
demographic. They're just on there every day.
They're just I, I I'll never forget.
I had a friend, Dustin Chaffin, this very funny stand up comic,
very funny. And he kind of, he said said,
yeah, I really got to, you know,live in my screen time, you

(06:13):
know, and I'm like, what do you mean?
He's like, I looked and I was like online for 8 hours
yesterday and I was like, what, what were you doing?
It was just Instagram that. And I blew my mind.
I was like you on Instagram for 8 hours yesterday.
And he's like, I know man, it's just 'cause he doesn't drink.

(06:35):
So I think in some ways, you know, everybody's addicted to
something. And so in some ways he is like,
I don't know if you go to the gym, I, I, I absolutely know
that you do. But like some people, it's that
you know, and then stuff, Well, it's this.
And for him, I think it is Instagram.

(06:56):
I think he just goes on there and it's just scrawling, looking
for those dopamine hits. Oh, this is funny.
That was cute. This is crazy.
And it's just, you know, some people are on social media all
day. That's kind of what they do.
And I know a girl, Tiffany Fong.Have you ever heard of her?
Yeah, yeah, of course. So she's like and I like her a

(07:21):
lot. I think she's people have very
who have strong opinions about her.
But I like her. And when I met her, I talked to
her, I just realized she just was like, I am going to be on X
doing a very strategic thing every single day, all the time.

(07:42):
I'm, I'm going to use this platform and become famous in
this space. And it totally worked.
But she's absolutely glued to her phone all the time.
It's it's not even as you're talking, she's checking.
She's like on the phone as she'stalking to you.

(08:02):
And Michael Saylor is the same way.
He's for a different reason. But when I went and met with
him, somebody else knew him and they were like, so was he just
checking the charts the whole time you guys were talking?
And I thought, I thought about it.
I was like, yeah, I guess so. I mean, he had his computer
because that's who he, I mean, he's, you know.

(08:23):
Right. He is that, you know, Yeah, he
he's, he is really, really something.
But you know, this social media for a lot of people is like,
that's how this is, that's how this works.
It does it does not work withoutX for some of these people.
And so I'm trying to like force myself to go on XA little bit

(08:44):
more. We, we finally kind of have our
assets sort of we're fighting kind of in self custody sort of
in that territory and doing that.
And but for a while I didn't want to post about it because,
you know, you get scared that you get hacked.

(09:06):
We don't have, we don't have some huge BTC holdings or
something like that. But like, you know, it's enough.
And then I'm a public figure. And so, you know, it's
worrisome, but I feel like now I'll be more comfortable talking
about Bitcoin a lot because it'svery funny.
The amount of the amount I talk about Bitcoin in real life is

(09:29):
not represented in that X spherebecause I talk about Bitcoin and
they're like a lot, you know, it's just a funny thing.
I was, I did some joke was talking to somebody the other
day and they're like, oh, are you a, oh, are you like a
Bitcoin guy? And they're kind of like, oh,
you guys send me a criminal. Like, yeah, you want to be bored

(09:51):
for the next 30 hours. Like because most people just
aren't. I I feel like in some ways we
get a bad rap a little bit because like it's like being
acolytes or they just, it's people either see it as bullshit

(10:15):
or a cult. Yeah, there's a little bit of
that right now. We're at this kind of inflection
point. And then the thing that I talk
about all the time, and this is what I, I try and discuss, like
when I talk to an injective or Bitcoin Las Vegas, like the
thing that we have to do is help.

(10:38):
We have to help ourselves stop seeming like an exclusionary
club. Yeah.
I think a lot of people, and this has been happening for a
long time, but a lot of people feel left out and then that
makes them angry. And then as the price goes up,
then they're mad at themselves for not listening to us.

(11:00):
And so then they feel like, well, I missed the train and
we're like, no, you didn't. And they're like, yes, I did.
And we're like, no, you didn't. And it just because I, I just,
it's like the thing that I struggle to figure out.
I did a good job with NF TS. I did a special about NF TS that

(11:20):
was an NFT. It's kind of meta comedy.
And I figured out a good way to describe NF TS so that people
understood them. But I think Bitcoin lacks this
like clean one line, the it's digital gold.
It doesn't work. It's that is like, oh, OK, now I

(11:41):
can't. He doesn't.
That's not how it doesn't. Work.
It makes it sound like it's fakegold for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
It's it's digital gold. It's fool's gold.
It's got 5 to it. But I find that my jumping off
point lately has been just by $5worth of Bitcoin.

(12:02):
Just buy $5 worth of Bitcoin today, buy 5 bucks a week.
That's all you. And the reason I say that is
because people still don't understand.
It's fascinating, you know, this.
It's fascinating to be on the inside of this world and looking
out and having people be like, well, I can't afford a Bitcoin.
They're like $100,000. And I'm like that it you don't

(12:27):
have to, you can't, you can't, you don't have to buy a Bitcoin.
They're infinitely divisible, basically.
I mean, in terms of what would be needed.
So that's why I say just buy $5 worth of Bitcoin.
And I've gotten one guy who I tour with, he understands.
And it took me, I would say, several years of hearing the

(12:49):
Winklevoss twins say to us, it'snever a bad time to buy Bitcoin.
It's always a good time because I kept like texting them and
being like, hey, there's a pullback now.
Do you think we should get in? This was in 2018 when it was
$8000. And I was like, yeah, now it's
now it's at 7600. Do you think it's a good time to
buy? And I just, I couldn't

(13:10):
understand what they were saying, which was, it doesn't
matter. Just buy Bitcoin, try and build
to a whole coin. And that's another thing that I
like to talk about. It's like the concept of being a
whole coiner and what that meansand what that means
philosophically. I I try a little bit and kind of

(13:31):
explain that that's what I did with this kid that I work with
is I kind of helped him understand like just build to
one coin. And that that would be you're,
you have no idea how important that's going to be, you know, So
it's a lot of little pieces of philosophy that you kind of have

(13:52):
to click together in a lot of understanding.
It's really hard to get to. And I think that's why it's so
obtuse. But yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Like, so for for me, I didn't
know anything about like the Federal Reserve or fraction
reserve banking or really how banks worked at all until, yeah,

(14:13):
until I had a house painting business when the housing bubble
crashed. And so I didn't want like my, my
goal wasn't to paint houses. My goal was to be a documentary
or a filmmaker. And so I was using that house
painting business just as a way of making money to enable my
career, like to jumpstart my career.
And so when when the housing bubble crashed, I thought, OK,

(14:35):
like all these people got caughtup in this bubble.
I don't want to get caught up inthe next bubble.
And so I tracked down a bunch ofpeople that had predicted the
crash and interviewed them and everything.
And so that's what kind of led me into this space.
And I actually first was asked publicly about Bitcoin in 2013.
And what I said then was that I saw how it could have value in,

(14:57):
you know, getting around the government in places like
Africa, like where they don't necessarily have like land, the
land titles. They need stuff like that, like
putting that on blockchain. Could could, I saw the potential
in that. And the other thing I thought is
you have countries like China or, you know, Venezuela, where

(15:18):
people are trying to get their money out of these countries.
And so I thought, OK, that it makes sense that Bitcoin would
be such an amazing leap forward in their ability to do that.
But what I said at the time was that like, I'm risking
everything I have on making these documentaries on the
economy and the financial crisisand the bigger bubble that's

(15:38):
coming next. And so I, I didn't feel like I
could take that risk. I said, OK, I'm putting all my
risk into this, which is obviously putting all your eggs
in one basket. But so I've bought gold and
silver over the years, but haven't actually had Bitcoin
until recently, despite talking about it 12 years ago.
I certainly wish I'd bought some.

(15:59):
So I guess I I wanted to ask youlike how did you first hear
about Bitcoin and get into Bitcoin?
Well, I think every bitcoiner who's like, really into it has a
similar story to you. It's their version of it.
Like, there's this guy who owns a bar here at called Pub Key,
and he's just a guy who has beenin since like, 2013.

(16:22):
And you hear that and you're like, Oh my God, OK, it's got to
have $500 million or whatever. And but then when you think
about it, his story was a littledifferent, but just the same.
He bought it when it was so fucking cheap.
And then when it got to $2000, his father was like, if you
don't sell this, you're an idiot.
And he was just like, OK, you'reright.
So then he sold all of it. Yeah, probably made a crazy huge

(16:46):
profit, but not like if he had waited five years, you know?
But it just it at the time, it doesn't make sense.
So, you know, we heard about it from the Winklevoss twins.
I did a show called Silicon Valley and they did a cameo in

(17:08):
the season finale of the first season, right.
And I sort of, I have a joke about them in the in the show,
you know, I make some joke aboutthem.
And then when I met them there, they were nice, but it wasn't, I
didn't even have a conversation with them, you know?
And then he and I, that's my wife, Kate Kane.
I were walking New York City where I am right now and we're

(17:31):
walking, I think there's these two 6 foot 6 like handsome men
look exactly alike walking towards us.
And I go to Kate. I go, this has happened before,
by the way, where we saw, I saw a dog.
It was that most handsome dog I've ever seen in my life.
And I look up, I was like, who would own a dog like that?

(17:53):
And it was Steven Spielberg. And I was like, Kate is dead
Spielberg and she's like, yes, TJ, that's Steven Spielberg.
And I was like, maybe I should go talk to him, right.
And she's like, yes, TJ, you've been in like 5 of his movies.
Yes, go over and talk to him. So I turn to Keen and go, is
that the Winklevoss twins or that's the Winklevoss?
And she goes, yeah, who else? What, 66 twins?

(18:16):
What are you talking about? Of course that's them.
And I'm like, oh, we should say hi.
She's like, yes, TJ, you were ona fucking TV show with them.
Yes. So I went to him.
I go, hey, what's up, guys? The hell yeah.
And I, they were like, where do you guys live?
And I was like, I live in New York, where do you live?
They're like, we live in New York too.
And so we, they asked for my number, we exchanged numbers and

(18:39):
we went and we had like dinner with them or something.
And later we became really good friends with them.
We, I, we've seen King Kong the musical with her.
But it's like they, it's interesting.
They're in a very specific and different place right now
politically and I can understandit, but I have a have an opinion

(19:04):
about it. But we went to dinner with them
and they said we're we're doing this.
You know, I'm kind of like, So what are you guys doing right
now? And they're like, well, we're
doing this thing with Bitcoin. Have you heard of Bitcoin?
And I was like, kind of. And then I asked them about it.
But then I quickly saw that theydidn't want to, like, spend

(19:27):
their time talking to me about it.
Yeah. But sort of we're like, we're
doing this thing called Bitcoin.We're geniuses.
We invented Facebook. But if you want to learn about
it, you should you should look into it, you know, kind of.
And then I just started reading about it and I fell into the
rabbit hole. People are like, do the Winklevi

(19:49):
orange peel you. I was like, no, man, I orange
pilled myself. I just suddenly it just ramped
up and I think almost in a hypomanic way, I just started
consuming all this information about it.
And I started to teach my wife because and during the pandemic,
I really like gave myself a master's degree in blockchain.

(20:10):
But you know, when I start explaining it to my wife, she's
a maxi. So she's a Bitcoin maximalist.
Whereas I'm interested in blockchain and different
currencies and technologies and smart contracts and all that
stuff. But she just feels, and this is
her famous line, that Michael Saylor was like, yeah, when he

(20:34):
heard her say it. And it's she's like, why buy
Pepsi when you can buy Coke? Yeah, that example doesn't work
for me. I'm a Pepsi.
Yeah, I bet you Ethereum so. I mean in real life, I love
Pepsi. I believe it.
I can't believe it. I believe it.

(20:55):
OK then. So she says, look, it's it's
Vine couture. It's you.
When you buy Chanel, the value always goes up.
You know, if you buy H&M, which would be I guess almost meme
coin level. But if you buy So to her, it's
like, you must get the best thing.
And the idea of the scarcity of it, that's what attracted her to

(21:18):
it. First.
She kind of was like, wait, there's only 21 million, Like,
yeah. And that's when it kind of hit
her. She was.
So there's no way to make more of this thing.
I was like, no. And she just got it.
She was. The price action is obvious,
obviously, with supply and demand, you know?

(21:41):
Yeah. And she was like, all right, buy
Bitcoin. Now, was was inflation a factor
in your guys's like thought process or like the dollar, or
was it more you just saw the potential of Bitcoin as being
something new, not necessarily something as an alternative?
You know what I mean. Yeah, of course, as a hedge
against inflation. To me, I think that was more

(22:03):
from my perspective, one of the many assets that Bitcoin has,
one of the, you know, one of thevery men.
So would be a hedge against inflation, the scarcity, I
think. I think Kate also not, you know,
to get away from the couture thing of it.
Kate also really connected with what you connected with, which
was this is a way that you couldget a Saudi Arabian woman

(22:29):
Princess who's been kidnapped and is and they're threatening
to honor kill her. This would be a way that people
could get money to her. And if she was able to escape,
she would have that money anywhere in the world, you know,
And so that was very appealing also kind of the freedom of it,
you know, and that Bitcoin is freedom thing, which is really

(22:50):
true too, you know, And so I think I just saw a lot of, a lot
of different things about it. And, and the inflation hedge was
like important as well. But now I don't know if it will
it, it might, it might still decouple from the market.
But now with the institutional adoption and the ETFs and you

(23:15):
know, hopefully global, you know, strategic reserves in
various sovereign places, it it's, it might kind of become
indelibly tied to, you know, countries and the dollar and all

(23:35):
this stuff in a way that just isdifferent than we all could have
expected. But it's also people got so
angry about the institutional adoption and like, I was like,
how did you think this is going to work?
Hold on, I'm sorry, give me one second.
You're. Good.

(24:01):
And so, yeah, it's sort of, I was kind of like, how did you
expect to get mass adoption without something like ETFs?
And I think a lot of people, a lot of people are like, that's
not in line with what this is supposed to be and all this.
And I'm like you, you just, you can't it, you can't kind of say

(24:29):
like anarchy, but mass adoption.You know, you can't be like,
fuck the whole system, but we want all of you to use this
thing. It's like it doesn't.
Those things are antithetical, Ithink in some ways.
And so and so. From a punk band.
Once they get popular then everybody's like Oh yeah, fuck

(24:49):
that. It's also, I think it's we're
punk rock, but we want this to be pop.
Yes, you can't have both. That's not how this works.
You can't beat K pop and fuckingSex Pistols.
It's just that's not exactly howit can work.
And the other thing that frustrates me is like if we
really do believe that Bitcoin is freedom and that everybody

(25:12):
should have Bitcoin, then you have to be OK with certain
things like institutions gettinginvolved.
And we're not going to be able to suffer this level of
volatility every four years. So you can't that's not that's
you get people to invest in an asset.

(25:33):
And if it's less volatile, then these institutions will go from
telling people 1% of your portfolio should be Bitcoin to
7% of your port first three, butprobably then 7% of your
portfolio should be Bitcoin. And if it is and you can have
part of your 4O1K as Bitcoin, then that is going to be a

(25:57):
massive uptick of the price of Bitcoin.
It would just, if everybody had their four O 1K and like 7% of
their retirement or whatever wasin Bitcoin.
That's how it just goes to $1,000,000 a coin, you know.
And so I think The thing is, is it's like, I, I want people to

(26:18):
own Bitcoin because it's an asset.
I mean, this is very sailor discipline.
Boy, have I fallen asleep. Listen to his fucking interviews
more than once. But he, you know, he's you just,
you know, it's going to go up. This is this thing that the
sooner you buy it, the more upside.

(26:41):
But also you buy it because it'sheading somewhere.
And it has been and like I've been fortunate to watch that be
the case since 2017 essentially,which strangely is 8 years.
But it's been fascinating to seethe ETF.
We know the girl that came up with the idea for an ETF,

(27:03):
Lavinia Branca. And it was just fascinating to,
like, hear her explain why she and Kathy Woods were figured
this out, that this is going to actually happen.
And I think, you know, I was, I was there.
Were you at the conference in Vegas?
I actually missed that my kids had their end of the school year

(27:25):
program and they sang some songsso I skipped it.
This, the singing in the songs is probably more worthwhile in
terms of a life experience. But you know, I always forget
his last. But the Strike guy, he kind of
unveiled this borrowing against your Bitcoin service.

(27:49):
And it's, I think there are other ones, but he's kind of the
highest profile. His name's Jack something, it's
just his last name is hard to pronounce, but he's sort of
unveiled. He's like Strike, you can borrow
this much against your Bitcoin. I forget.
I feel like it was like 60% or something.

(28:12):
And then the link that you want to borrow and your interest is
going to be this. And he said, and this is the
most important thing. He's like, but we don't like use
your Bitcoin. We just, we're going to hold it.
We will hedge against it, but we're not going to take your

(28:33):
Bitcoin and invest it somewhere else in the sense that if you.
Can't get it back. I want my Bitcoin back.
It's like, well, it's locked over here.
And because that's what happens with FTX and Gem and I had that
with Earn. It's you know, and so when he
explained that, I kind of felt this whole audience just be
like, what? And the reason is because that

(28:57):
is the future. Now we've seen that what you
would do is you borrow against your Bitcoin and then it will
become more valuable fast enoughthat it will pay for the
interest. So people are getting, they're
getting money from you, but it'sreally just the Bitcoin is
making its own money kind of. And that's how that's how you'll

(29:21):
you'll have liquidity without while still hodling because
that's when I have all the hodlers were sort of like, this
is amazing. I mean, it's that joke about
Bitcoin. Bitcoin millionaires are still
illiquid because they won't selltheir Bitcoin.
So they're always they're alwayslike, hey, you want to split the

(29:44):
check And it's like, don't you have like 100 Bitcoin?
It's like, yeah, but I could never spend it.
It's just working. It's like the the miser who Jack
actually did, he told this storyon stage, but it's it's the
miser who buries his gold in thein his backyard and then he digs

(30:06):
it up just to look at it. And then he buries it again and
saying, but he's like very poor.He lives in a terrible house on
stuff because he just doesn't want to spend any of the gold.
And so now it's interesting to see like this is how bitcoiners
will be liquid by and still huddle their Bitcoin.
So it's just very interesting tosee how it like, like I don't

(30:28):
think I could have understood that was possible before.
Yeah, right. Be quiet.
Yeah, it, it, I mean, there's companies that do that with like
gold and silver. Yeah.
And it the thing that scares me a little bit is that it kind of
reminds me of home equity loans where you have your house and
all this value in your house. As long as your house is going

(30:50):
up and up, you know, you can take, take money out of the
house. And a lot of people did that
leading into the housing crash. I screened my documentary, my
first documentary, the housing bubble at an Arca Poco in 2018,
which is a a big Bitcoin spot. And I remember talking to people
there who they were travelling around the world, you know,

(31:11):
spending all their money on credit cards because they're
Bitcoin has gone up so much. You know, they, they didn't care
about their high interest rate and all that.
I guess my big fear is that we haven't really seen, it's so new
that we haven't really seen it play out through a financial
crisis. And so like you mentioned it
being kind of coupled with the markets.

(31:31):
And so it kind of trades like a tech stock.
And when we've had this huge tech bubble over the last
decade, I'm very curious to see how Bitcoin plays through that
over these next few years. Now, that doesn't mean that 20
years from now, it's not going to be higher.
My point is just we, we can haverough times along the way.

(31:53):
And you know, like, just like Amazon, people lost them shit
ton of money on Amazon, but thatdoesn't mean Amazon didn't
become the global powerhouse it is today.
You know, Absolutely. You know, I still, I, I still
always say always, always, always, I still always say that

(32:13):
you you just never should have any money in crypto that you
can't afford to lose. Yeah.
And it's just I, I have that problem that a lot of bitcoiners
have, which is where I'll sort of go.
Well, I could buy like $100 worth of Bitcoin.

(32:34):
What's the big deal there right now?
And you sort of, you know, you kind of went and scrounge around
and get a little bit more Bitcoin here and there.
But I would never, you know, Sailor famously said that you
should take out a loan against your home and buy Bitcoin.
And like, I would never do that.I would never tell anybody to do
that. But if I sort of, if I had, how

(33:02):
do I say this? If I, if I had like a second
mortgage or a lien out against like a house, let's say that's
worth $100,000 or whatever, I think instead of paying, if I
had $100,000 for the Bitcoin, instead of selling that and

(33:23):
getting the house back, you know, under, I would rather pay
the 1.6% or whatever it is on the money from the house and
keep the Bitcoin rather than ditch the bitcoins because the
Bitcoin is going up, You know. But I, I think to ever, let me

(33:45):
put it this way, to put yourselfin debt to get Bitcoin is not
something that I would ever recommend to anybody.
But if you have money that you can put somewhere and it's just
a matter of allocation of that money, I would put it in

(34:06):
Bitcoin. I mean, I really wouldn't.
I, I think it's tough, you know,it's tough to have seen it and
thought, I mean, I could get 8000.
I was like, well, I really missed the boat on this thing.
But you know, maybe one day it'll make it to 16,000.
You know this like literally. But I was also going to say to

(34:27):
your point about you talk about in 2013, but you didn't.
It's like when it was $8000. If I was going to buy 10
Bitcoin, even 1 is crazy to people that you would spend
$8000 on something that's just not real to everybody.

(34:47):
But to buy 10 to buy $80,000 worth of Bitcoin would be like
insane. That would have been people
would have said, in fact, my father, people around me would
have been like, you're a fuckingidiot.
You're crazy. This is the worst mistake you're
going to ever make, you know, And so you each year we are

(35:11):
like, I wish I would have boughtit in 2015 or something.
Well, in 2015 you wouldn't when,when it was worth $200.
You'd have to be so prescient toboth buy a lot of it, right?
Like a hundred, a hundred of them, and to keep them that
long. Because when it was $200, once
it was $2000, you got to sell it.

(35:32):
You want to sell all, especiallyif you have a bunch of Bitcoin,
you got to sell all of it. You're going to make 100 grand.
Like it's like that's kind of skewed.
And so I think Kay and I have been lucky to like the two have
been on the same page in the sense that we're like, we're not
going to sell this. And that was just, and that's

(35:54):
another thing of what you're saying.
It's like, I only will buy Bitcoin when I know that this
money is not going to have to besold for it.
You know, like, I know I'm not going to have to sell this
Bitcoin to like cover this thingor that thing, you know?

(36:15):
But I actually haven't bought Bitcoin.
The only Bitcoin I have is from people buying my documentaries
with Bitcoin. Awesome.
But that. Yeah.
So it's not I. Think that's so cool and that's
more in line with the philosophy.
Yeah, but I but I like so I going back to when we released
our first film in 2019, we really said the Angelico Film

(36:37):
Center, which is fucking awesome.
But my producers. It's the perfect, yeah.
It it was, I grew up on Kevin Smith movies and that's where he
saw Richard Linklater, slacker that inspired Clerks and he also
premiered Clerks there. But yeah, so that was amazing.
But anyway, my producer David Tais is a big gold silver guy.

(36:59):
He started the the hedge fund fruit and bear fund and was like
well known for predictingthe.comcollapsed.
And what he said in 2019 is justput 3 to 5% of your of your
savings or investments in it because who cares?
Like if you lose that 3 to 5%, who cares?
But if it does end up being thisinstitutional thing that takes

(37:22):
off like then there you go. You know, it overtakes all your
other gains or losses. Are you into gold and silver at
all or are you not interested inthat?
I did a gold note, you know, I have a traditional sort of
wealth guy. So I have a broker.
So I, I have, you know, the majority of my assets and are

(37:44):
sort of not even retirement, butthe majority of, are sort of
assets are in traditional equities, you know, socks and,
you know, not even bonds, mostlyjust stocks and silver and gold
was never anything that I was super into because my guy is

(38:05):
like, you know, I owned some BlackBerry a year or two ago and
I, you know, the guys kind of, you know, finding value.
It's more of a sort of Warren Buffett type approach to
savings. But I was talking to somebody
recently and they said that theysaid that their broker was like,

(38:30):
or no, what'd they say? They're like, it was like, how
much of your money is in crypto,like in Bitcoin versus your
traditional assets? And the dude was like about 5050
and somebody was like, what? That's insane.
That's so dangerous. And he was like, no, no, no, it
didn't start that way. It's just that my Bitcoin and

(38:53):
crypto holdings have grown so much while traditional equities
have grown not that much that it's like this like they caught
up to each other almost because there's so much value in
blockchain as a whole. But Bitcoin, you just the idea
that we went to Michael Saylor's100K New Year's Eve party and he

(39:19):
kind of, it's like he knew it was going to get to 100,000.
But the vibe the entire night, you know, I mean, he has this
fabulous villa and Miami Beach and all this stuff and a yacht
and everything. But the the vibe at the party

(39:44):
was still kind of like, can you fucking believe this is
happening? Like $100,000 Bitcoin.
It just, it was so crazy to us. And then, you know, now 122 or
something like that, and it's just chugging along.
Yeah. I don't know if this cycle it'll
make it to 250,000, but it's very, very possible.

(40:06):
I do believe that by 20-30 it'llbe worth $1,000,000 a coin.
I do think that's true. Yeah, honestly, my answer to
that is I don't know. I have no idea.
That was like the big thing I learned from interviewing all
these incredible, like investors, like Jim Rogers is
one of the best investors of the20th century.

(40:26):
And like all these people that like, I thought I was going to
go to them and they were just like, this is how I predicted
the housing crash and, you know,like this and this and this.
And the biggest take away that they gave me was like, I don't
know, nobody can like predict how hundreds of millions of
people are going to make decisions and, and all that.
So, yeah, I mean, I, I would love to see it keep going up.

(40:48):
The I had, I think gold and silver is something that people
should also like have it in their portfolio.
My mom recently talked to her retirement advisor about it and
he's like, nobody's asked me howto buy physical gold and silver
in my 12 years of doing this jobor whatever.
And so I think these last 15 years, people have kind of, you

(41:08):
know, obviously a lot of that money that would have gone into
gold and silver has gone into Bitcoin.
But I, I think that like if you go back to the peakofthe.com
bubble in 2000 or around 2000, or you go back to the peak of
the housing boom, like gold and silver outperformed the stock
market since then, which is a sign that like these are normal

(41:32):
times. Because gold and silver is just
supposed to be like money, like just savings.
You know, it's not supposed to be like a speculative of thing.
Like I view Bitcoin as more of like a speculative like, like
you're investing in the potential of something.
Whereas gold and silver is more of just a way of not losing your
money to inflation. I do think that we're in a

(41:55):
situation where I don't think there's going to be a stock
market crash. Obviously, I don't know, nobody
knows. But something is wrong where,
Yeah, the death that we like aredebt is like like increasing by
trillions of dollars. And it's just like, it's just

(42:15):
something and the stock market like isn't reacting to reality.
And that's been going on for years.
That is not just been going on this year or something, but it's
almost like it's just a fantasyland, you know, they just
are like, well, it's it almost is kind of like, well, we can
always pay more money. We can always get more debt and

(42:38):
that's just not going to work. Somebody's going to come and say
it's time to pay the piper. So I do think we're on the the
precipice of something that is like that.
But if that's the case, then youwant Bitcoin all the more
because it will crash with everything else, but it's
scarcity will remain the same. They have to keep printing

(43:01):
money. You know, there is.
They block themselves in a corner.
And that's really what my documentary trilogy is about, is
using those people that predicted the housing crash just
tell the story of the bigger bubble and how we got to this
point. And what I think a lot of people
don't realize is it's not the 80s and 90s anymore.
Like we've had 25 years where they just replaced one bubble
after another. wehadthe.com bubble with the housing bubble,

(43:24):
and now we have this bigger bubble that we've been living
in. And it's like it wasn't 2020.
Like you can't just pay people to sit home and not do anything
and just print money. Like that doesn't add up.
Like you got to produce things and make things.
And what you're saying about thedebt like that, there's just no
way. Like even if they wanted to cut
spending, which nobody actually does, like they'd have to cut

(43:47):
spending by 50% and they'd stillrun into problems a few years
down the road because all the promises they've made, like
going forward are just out of control.
Like with Social Security and Medicare and everything.
Like there, there's no solution to it, in my opinion.
So I, I do agree with you there that like Bitcoin, as long as

(44:08):
there's interest in it, like thedollar has benefited from being
the world reserve currency and other countries and people in
other countries being like, oh, that's the safe haven.
But it, it doesn't seem to be that way anymore.
Like we saw start stocks like start to crash just a little bit
earlier this year. And usually people run into the

(44:28):
US dollar and US bonds and they didn't do that.
So like, I, I think you're rightthat like, this is a different
time. Like it's not, it's not the 80s
and 90s anymore. And it's the Trump component of
it is just too, he is too crazy,too unpredictable, too like

(44:50):
impetuous and capricious and various other words that I used
on the Sats. But he is, he's he's not adding
any stability. And so that the less stable the
United States is, the less stable the dollar is and the
more. Yeah, I mean, I I think there is

(45:10):
that is actually tying back to your first question.
That is something that I think is really important that you get
from Bitcoin is it just has the stability.
And because of that it's, it is a hedge against in the
inflationary component of the dollar, which is just like the
worthlessness or worth of it. Have you heard of Ross Ulbricht?

(45:32):
I did want to ask you about did you see him speak at in Las
Vegas? I mean, I don't he should never
have been in jail. You just, you can't, you can't
punish the grocery store for somebody giving raw and milk or,
you know, like salmonella eggs or something because it's just,

(45:53):
it's not them. They didn't farm the eggs, they
didn't bring the eggs in. They didn't.
So I thought that that was really, it's just what was
happening on it was so completely illegal and there was
some pretty heinous shit happening on there.
And so I think that whoever the judge was just was like, I'm

(46:15):
going to make an example of you,the fact that you made this
possible, as you know. We should mention what he did.
He started Silk Road, the dark web portal where you could buy
and sell things online using Bitcoin.
And this was way back in like 2011, 2012.
Yeah, but I, but the reason I brought him up is because, like,

(46:38):
man, how things have changed. Where back then, like they
wanted to make an example out ofhim, obviously because they gave
him a double life sentence with no possibility of parole for
just making a website. And it's not like there was like
us sex trafficking or like stuffwith children going on and
they're like murders or anything.
Like it was just a website wherepeople that wanted to

(46:58):
voluntarily transact were able to do that with Bitcoins.
But but yeah, I think, I think the big factor was they wanted
to make an example out of him with Bitcoin and.
Yeah, just to be fair and to be clear, you like there was sort
of contract killing even though it never happened, I don't

(47:20):
think. But.
And there was I I think there was like some child pornography.
There's a lot of drugs. You can buy drugs on there.
There. There was, there was some pretty
like illicit shit going on there.
And so all of that was then put on him as if he had done all of

(47:42):
that stuff. But it was primarily drugs.
It wasn't like, it wasn't like akiddie porn website.
It's just you could buy and sellanything on there.
And so mostly it was drugs. Just people would say I have
ecstasy, can you send it to me? Yes, you send me Bitcoin, I'll
send you the ecstasy. That was it.
That's what's happening, which was illegal, you know.

(48:04):
But I think, yeah, as you were saying, he like they tried to
make an example of him as if he did something that now that he
went to jail forever, then otherpeople wouldn't make a website
like that. And it's like, no, it's the dark
web. There's.
Yeah, so the the contract thing there is a prosecutor that

(48:25):
mentioned that he tried to have a contract killing put outs, but
if you go to freeross.org they like discuss that and that never
was brought to court and that wasn't like the evidence of that
is not what I substantial but. No, I don't.
I don't think he did any of that.
I'm saying there was like a the way they did it is it would it

(48:48):
would be a death pool and if youcould correctly guess the date
that this person was going to die and it would just oh wow,
you could correctly guess. I heard that, that's
interesting. So you guess the date that the
person is murdered, then essentially it would be you that
murdered them and then you wouldget paid Bitcoin for that.

(49:10):
Like they would lock and end up like that.
But like, I, I haven't heard any.
I think that I read like there have been no like confirmed
cases of that ever actually leading to a murder.
You know, so kind of what you'resaying, it's like a lot of it
was just hearsay. And I, I think what it came down
to is it was a place to buy and sell anything.

(49:31):
And mostly people bought and sold drugs.
Yeah, people really want to do, you know?
So one thing that that leads me into is the privacy of Bitcoin.
Like do you believe that like ifyou were buying drugs over and
over, like do you think Bitcoin is still like something that you
would want to do that with? Or is it something where that

(49:53):
would just like it kind of givesthat digital record where they
can tie you to more than one crime, You know what I mean?
Yeah. I mean, I think the thing about
Bitcoin is that first of all, I wouldn't buy anything with it
because I consider it sort of a reserve.
You know, it's a, it's a, it's agoal, it's a stockpile, right.

(50:15):
But I think that the Ledger component is interesting that
you could sort of see, but thereis an anonymous component to it,
which is that once you send it to an address, it's gone.
It's it is, it is in that walletand you can take it and put it
in a different wallet or put it in a Ledger or whatever and then

(50:37):
it's gone. There's no, yeah, there's that
joke about if you get divorced and your wife is like, I want
half of the Bitcoin. You're like, I I don't know
where it is. I lost it.
I was. On the boat.
It fell off the boat. I don't know.
I can't, I just, I can't tell you.
And it's like they can't do anything.
There's there's no way that, youknow, they could try and

(50:59):
backtrack. Well, he sent it to this
address, this address or whatever, but it gives it, it
does both. I guess it's my answer.
You know, that's part of the functionality of it and the
operability allows for both of those things to be part of, you
know, use case scenarios for thethe digital currency in in terms

(51:23):
of that. But I don't know that I think we
may have crossed the point of noreturn with people using it like
a currency. I think we're closer to Ethereum
being that, you know, buying andselling things for Ethereum.
But it's just like, yeah, it's reminds me, there's this guy, a

(51:49):
Bitcoiner in Calgary who's friends with BTC sessions And
he, I was talking to him and he was like, all right, do you want
to hear my story? Well, yes, of course, because I
love, you know, I love stories, obviously.
And he's like, well, I was really interested in Bitcoin as
a, you know, a currency as a means of exchange.

(52:12):
And he was like, and I started my business and I needed
furniture for my office. So I spent 30,000 Bitcoin and I
got all the furniture for my office.
And I'm like, yeah, 30,000 he's like, Yep, that's my story.

(52:32):
That's rough. It's so rough, but I talked to
him about it. He's like, he's like, but you
know what, I don't all these guys stand by this because they
were there early, you know, and again, like I'm saying, like he
never could have imagined each Bitcoin was worth because I
think it was worth $0.50 or something at that point.

(52:52):
Yeah, was so to him, the idea that an individual coin that's
worth like a dollar would be worth 100,000 times more than
that, it just didn't compute andit shouldn't have.
There's no way to possibly tell.But yeah, he would be a multi
multi billionaire if he'd held on to that Bitcoin.
So, you know, it's just, it's interesting, you know, I mean,

(53:16):
it's, I think that's why I got really into the space is it's
like one of the most fascinatingthings of all time.
It's just, it is so fascinating.And I didn't read the Bitcoin
standard until like a year ago or something.
People always laugh at me. Yeah, I feel like, what?
What do you mean? And it's like, I just didn't.

(53:38):
I learned about it from every other place.
So then when I finally listened to the standard, it just blew my
fucking mind, dude. I was like, Oh my God.
So it's cool. That's awesome.
So would would you describe yourself as a Bitcoin
evangelical or would you not go that far?
Like, are you, if somebody disagrees with you on it, I

(53:59):
guess I would say, are you goingto spend your time trying to
change their mind or are you just, if you want to talk about,
you know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean.
I wouldn't say I'm an evangelistof it in the sense that I'm not
going around preaching about it.I think I'm more likely to be
like, you should buy Bitcoin andthen sort of did that.

(54:20):
I think I'm done being the guy who argues with somebody who's
like, forget it. But I think also, dude, like
passing 100,000, having the ETFshappen.
And most people don't understandthis, but the idea of a
strategic Bitcoin reserve here in the United States, but less

(54:43):
like sovereign governments, although that will be huge.
Just the the idea of Bitcoin treasury firms and it's, you
know what I mean, Like companiesthat are treasuries.
It's kind of there's nothing left to argue about.
You get cut. Like my father, he read the
Bitcoin standard. I had to read it and he kind of

(55:05):
is like this just isn't worth anything.
Like stocks and bonds reflect a company gold has a you know, you
know the arguments. And so he's just never going to
he's always going to think that it's this thing that's kind of
bullshit. You know what I mean, right.
It does mean that it's not that he doesn't think it's going to.

(55:30):
It's clearly made me. It's clearly a good decision.
I clearly have made a good decision.
But I think to him it's kind of like, but you just you have
beanie babies at the right time.Sort of is.
I think kind of he sees that as is like or what's Kate is

(55:50):
Lulabulu. Do you do you know that thing?
I don't. Even know what that.
Is Willabula fucking? My wife knows about it, but it's
like it's a new, it's a new kindof thing.
And it's dolls and you want to have them and they're, yeah,
it's a, it's a big like Beanie Baby thing.
But it's, my father kind of doesn't understand that.

(56:11):
Like the way that it's designed is, it's not tulips and, you
know, the Dutch Tulip craze. It just, it isn't that it's, and
I think it's hard for you to understand because there's never
been anything like it. So when you try and explain
something to somebody and there's never been anything like
it, it's, yeah, it's just like adifferent, it's a different

(56:34):
deal. Like I'm doing something right
now in the blockchain space, which is not, it's an
entertainment thing, but it's designed to do this thing that
no one had ever thought of. And in the last like 2 weeks,
it's been melting my mind because I'm just like, wait, so
these two things function of operability and mimatic sort of

(56:58):
cultural, those two things can go together.
Like what? But it's like when something is,
when something is something thatno one's ever seen, it's just
really hard to explain it to them.
I just, you know, it kind of just isn't.
Yeah. It's so it's, you know, it's
strange. It's a strange thing.

(57:20):
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day,
nobody knows. You know, all you can do is
watch it play as it's played out.
It is. It is well, you, you mentioned
your dad. And so my podcast has let us
disagree with Jimmy Morrison. And the idea is that if you talk
to anybody long enough, you knowyou're going to disagree on

(57:40):
things. But the idea of my podcast is
just giving people a chance to like, talk about things they're
passionate about and their authentic selves.
And so it's not necessarily an evangelical thing because it's
more like, here's my story, takeit or leave it kind of thing.
And so you mentioned your dad and you've talked before about

(58:01):
how he's more of an evangelical atheist.
And correct me if I'm, you know,mischaracterizing what you said,
but he's more or has been more of an evangelical atheist and
you have a little bit different of a world view.
Can you tell me and everybody else about absurdism and your
philosophy there? Hey, OK.

(58:22):
Thanks buddy. Yeah, my father is sort of, we
were raised atheist and my mother was an agnostic, but our
family was sort of an atheist family.
And I kind of out of that sort of found my way to absurdism,

(58:43):
which is basically nihilism witha smile, sort of.
And I think that it's not nihilism is kind of one step
further than atheism because it says not only is there no God,
there's no nothing, there's justnot anything.

(59:03):
And so from there, you to take that leave, because I'm a
Nietzschean nihilist, a positivenihilist, to get through that,
you go into that abyss where nothing is anything takes a lot
of like courage and forward motion.
And it's just, it takes a lot. And but once you get to the

(59:26):
other side of it, then you can, you realize that if nothing
means anything, then anything can mean everything.
And so you kind of decide to build.
Once you've stripped everything down, now you can build meaning
out of anything. Your life can be about your
children or being a teacher or being a preacher or what.

(59:51):
So to me, an atheist is the exact same as a Catholic in the
sense that they decide make thisthe meaning because use all of
it's made-up, you know, and. So my father would kind of, I
don't think he would disagree with that.

(01:00:12):
I actually never talked to him about this, but I think he would
kind of go, well, whatever. But I mean, if nothing means
anything, then what's the point of everything?
And so nihilism, like Bitcoin can be a little bit difficult to
explain because you're sort of saying nothing means anything.

(01:00:33):
If you're like, then then what'sthe point?
It's like, no, that's exactly the point.
Now you have this kind of freedom to be able to build up
your meaning and, and create your own life.
Well, you become a God really, if you think about it.
And so the absurdist sort of version of that is that not only
not as it means anything, but also it's just ridiculous.

(01:00:55):
This whole situation, the fact that we're animals that can
think and you know, and feel like there needs to be meaning
in our lives and just all of it is so fucking silly, you know?
And so if you can do that, then you sort of then you can have a
really good time with the fact that it's all so absurd.

(01:01:17):
And that comes from Eugenie and Esco was my main influence with
regards to that, the pioneer andabsurdist theater.
And and he was an existentialistand, and, but I think it's
really important. And it's been very freeing for
me because instead of rolling myeyes at religious people, which
is what my father does, I'm kindof like, good on you.

(01:01:42):
That's what's making you feel safe and good and like
everything is meaningful, then that's good.
Keep. Keep at it, yeah?
You, you see the like, you realize that they can value
something differently than you do, right?
You're not trying to like mold everybody into your worldview
because that's how it gets meaning.
It's by making everybody have the same opinion.

(01:02:03):
And then you don't as a nihilist, what you don't do is
you don't go, well, of course Catholicism is bullshit.
I mean, not none of it's real. You just kind of don't do that
because you don't need to do it because of what you said.
You're not like, yeah, it's all bullshit, right?
Because there's no party. That's like, what I actually

(01:02:25):
know the real way. I actually know the real thing,
and that's that there's no God and science is the most
important thing and all this stuff.
But Nietzsche was dangerous because he, you know, he really
believed in the revaluation of values in the sense of being
like, why is slavery bad? Is that bad, or has it been
around for most of history? That's just right now we think

(01:02:47):
it's bad. And when you say that to people
now, I, I wouldn't say that in public actually, like not at a
cocktail party. I'll say it to you because
you've got cool records behind you.
But I sort of, that's how hardcore niche he was.
He was certain he talks a lot about master mastery and this
all this stuff. Like he did not believe that in

(01:03:09):
democracy. He thought that that was insane,
that you would let all the stupid people vote as well as
the smart ones, which is Plato felt the same way in the
Republic. And you know, these are guys who
do not align with our current values.
And he was never his sister tried to make him somebody that

(01:03:34):
like that. She pretended like he was in
line with like Hitler's thinking.
And it's like, no, he would not.To him, Hitler would be sort of
the worst use of all of this, just would be completely it's
Tunichi. What Hitler did in the way that

(01:03:57):
he was doing it was the worst way that you could.
He kind of abhorred being German.
It's actually Prussian. But you know, Tunichi, it's
almost like Nazi Germany. You know, Saudi Arabia and

(01:04:19):
American democracy, Those are all, you didn't quite get it
right. Those are all, you're doing it
the wrong way for each of those.But it is scary to say to
somebody, look at all your values and are they real?
Is it true that you shouldn't kill people?
And what Nietzsche asked is like, really think about that.

(01:04:42):
Don't do what people don't thinkof what you've been taught
weekly. Think about the thing in and of
itself. And so that's super scary.
So that's why I don't, I try andnot do a lot of like, well, you
know, Catholicism, if you were born in, you know, India, then
you'd be Hindu. You wouldn't even be Catholic.

(01:05:04):
So you wouldn't believe in any of that stuff.
And it's just, it doesn't. I'd rather make them laugh, let
me put it that way. Yeah, I, I guess that kind of
transition into something I really wanted to ask you about,
like, why did you get into comedy?
You know, like, why, why did youwant to be a comedian?
And obviously you've done so much other stuff with film and

(01:05:25):
everything, but it seems like throughout your career you've
you've made stand up comedy the priority over and over again,
where you've, you know, walked away from one of the most
amazing shows HBO has ever done.So when you started out, why did
you get into comedy? Has that changed over the years?
Well, I was, I, I was very funny.

(01:05:46):
Was sort of the beginning of allthis.
But yeah, I sort of, I just liked making people laugh, you
know? And that transitioned into, wow,
he's pretty good on stage and doing school plays and stuff.
And that transition to let me try out for the comedy group at

(01:06:07):
my college. And then that transitioned into
what do I want to do? Do I want to become a
psychologist and help like 500 people and instrumentally change
their lives, you know, over the course, their entire lives?
Or do I want to help hundreds ofmillions of people, but in

(01:06:28):
smaller increments, just make them happy for 60 seconds or an
hour and a half or 45 minutes orwhatever the medium is?
And I just decided like the bestthing that I could do was any.
This is utilitarian ethics, which is John Stuart Mill.
And it's, you want to make the most amount of people the most

(01:06:50):
happy so that ethically that's what you do and you stock up
everything to that. So that's why utilitarian would
be like, murder is OK if you're killing Hitler.
Yeah, because that will make themost amount of people the most
happy. So I just, that's what I wanted.

(01:07:12):
I got in it to kill Hitler. That's why I, so I keep talking
about Hitler on a Bitcoin podcast about my comedy
philosophy. But it's, you know, it, it just,
it felt like that was the best thing I could do And I just
loved it too. I mean I love it's so fun making
people laugh but like when standup is going well it is so fun.

(01:07:36):
Yeah, it's kind of weird becauselike, that is, as a filmmaker,
like I'm trying to tell a story.Obviously I want the audience
to, like, feel emotions and, youknow, grow in some way from that
story. But like with comedy, like like,
yeah, it matters what's funny toyou, but really like, it matters
what's funny to the audience. So it's kind of that interesting
dynamic of you're trying to to, to reach people like not sell

(01:08:00):
out, but you're trying to like reach people the most effective
way, I guess. Yeah, I think that's right.
And that's why I did Yogi Berra 3D.
Well, I got to mention, have you, are you a Mission
Impossible fan? Yeah.
I mean, yeah. OK, so obviously they just had
that last one come out and so people, I went through and

(01:08:22):
watched all of them over again, but they kind of ripped you guys
off with like having a bike go off a Cliff and having them free
fall trying to grab somebody midair and save them with
parachute. Like you guys are way ahead of
your time on those stunts. You guys like with Bitcoin way
ahead of. Our time exactly.
There you go. I guess the only other thing I

(01:08:42):
wanted to talk about before I let you go is we were just
talking about the audience and comedy and everything.
You lived through lockdowns in New York City.
What were the lockdowns like foryou?
And did that change your way of thinking at all?
You know, how did that affect the way you do comedy?
Well, it did. It was affecting in the sense

(01:09:05):
that I got to hang out with my wife a lot, which was really
cool. And so that was wonderful.
But it was so fucking scary because we didn't know how long
it was going to last. And the way that I make a living
is by packing large amounts of people in small spaces and
having them all breathe heavily forward.

(01:09:29):
So it was really scary. And we just hemorrhaged cash for
a while and that was really scary.
But we got through it and I think what what happened in OK
and I were talking about this two nights ago or something and
what happened was we sort of like, I was just thinking about

(01:09:51):
her. She's so funny.
We I left and and performed as soon as I can.
So I went to all the crazy places that were open, so Texas
and Florida and Tennessee and all that.
And it was pretty dangerous because she's like
immunocompromised a little bit, so to speak.

(01:10:12):
But I really felt like it was such a scary time that if people
wanted to come together and laugh, that it was really
important for me to do that. And she agreed.
And so I kind of went on the road and we had to spend a lot
of time apart once I was able tostart touring because I would

(01:10:32):
come home and have to quarantinefrom her.
And we just. And then I'd get the PCRT test
and we'd get to spend really just one night together.
And yeah, I mean, I just felt like it was really important to
make people laugh at that point.And so when I saw people and I

(01:10:55):
saw how grateful they were, I really came to understand like,
you know, and then she would getreally mad because she'd be
like, these people aren't locking down or they're saying
that it isn't real and it's a plan endemic and all this.
And I just said to her, listen, different people get scared in
different ways. And I think that helped her

(01:11:19):
understand a little bit because I understand people a lot,
because that's kind of what comedy is, sort of observation
and psychological evaluation. And just really, it's very, it's
very, very strange, but you haveto know a lot about people to
make fun of them, you know? And, and so I, I helped her kind
of understand that. And then, you know, I think it,

(01:11:41):
if anything, it just makes me sograteful when I go to places and
you know, when I go to places and it's and people are coming
to see me and there's always ticket sales are down across the
board. And you know, there's kind of
always that conversation. But that's the other thing that

(01:12:03):
I'm scared about is I don't wantstock market to crash or
something like that because thenpeople will not buy tickets to
my show because I'm one of the more expensive acts to see.
And so I don't know what's goingto happen.
I try and remind Keith and myself that all the time that

(01:12:23):
like, as you know, my buddy Jimmy Morrison says, like, you
just don't know if you don't know.
So we really try and like, you know, yeah, we really, really
try and like, just, yeah, prepare.

(01:12:46):
But go from day-to-day. And to me, it's like, you know,
I always say people are like, what would you ever sell your
Bitcoin? I'm like, yeah, you sell your
Bitcoin when it's going to change your life.
And something can be life changing, like having kids, but
it can also be life changing to own a car outright.
You know what I mean? Right.

(01:13:06):
Hold on. This is going to be amazing if
this is the case. I'm waiting for a call from Ryan
Reynolds. Me too.
So, yeah, exactly. So it's, you know, it's so funny
because I have this like saga, it's ongoing Ryan Reynolds saga.
And so me and my buddy were laughing.
We went to this dinner last night about him now, because I

(01:13:28):
called Ryan last night and left a message.
So now sort of waiting by the phone for Ryan to call and I
doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what he calls.
I've got a lot of things too. I'm going to wash my hair.
I'm going to. So you're just been laughing
about that. But yeah, I mean, we just we
don't want to sell our Bitcoin. We just we don't want to do

(01:13:50):
that. But having it gives you the
ability to sell it, you know, and I don't try in time the
market anymore. I'm as guilty as anyone of
buying in a bull market and not buying in a bear market,
although I do both. But like, you know, I just why

(01:14:12):
wouldn't she get Bitcoin? Why wouldn't she buy $5 worth of
Bitcoin? That's what I tell everybody.
Just buy $5. Yeah, Well, I I think that's a
great place to end TJ Miller. You value Kate and.
Bitcoin, yeah, that's. Right.
All right. Thanks so much, man.
This has been great and I think people are going to learn a lot

(01:14:33):
from it. So I appreciate you taking the
time. Alright, thanks, Betty.
See you, Jimmy, take a greater risk on these mortgages, Yes, to
give families mortgages they would not have given otherwise.
Yes, It means we use the mighty muscle of the federal government
in combination with state and local governments to encourage
owning your own home. That's what that means.

(01:14:54):
I ask all of you just one more time to look at that chart, and
I wish I had a lot of butter shock to show you that would
reinforce that you buy a house before you have a job.
You get a job, you're safe for adoubt.
Baby, then you buy the house. A lot of people are going to
find out, Oh my God, you know, not only is is my my stocks
down, my house is down too. And now what do I do?

(01:15:18):
Jim Rogers knew these bubbles were going to burst, but I
didn't. Neither did film maker Jimmy
Morrison, who started a house painting business less than a
month after home prices peaked. Because timing couldn't have
been worse. But we don't have to make those
mistakes again. There are people out there who
called it. And next time, maybe we can,
too. We've got a growing economy,

(01:15:39):
jobs, incomes. We've got very low mortgage
rates. Housing is going to be a
disaster. In the next. 5.
Years. You sell housing stock and you
sell Ben Bernanke. 1 myth that'sout there is that what we're
doing is printing money. We're not printing money these
days. They don't need a printing
press, only to us it's a computer keyboard, so we're not
a free market. Then there is an.

(01:16:01):
Invisible there is a. But now the list hand that
touches them, Absolutely. These people in the government
apparently don't learn anything at all.
They broke it and they're tryingto fix it by doing more of what
broke it in the first place. theUnited States can pay any debt
it has because we can always print money to do that.

(01:16:22):
What? Of course it can happen again
and it's happened before raw materials were allocated between
essential and non essential business.
I hope they don't lose confidence in their government.
I can see but there why there's skepticism.
But the only government we got, all this has happened before and

(01:16:53):
it will all happen again. The reality is we have gone from
a stock market bubble. Now we have a housing bubble and
when it breaks whatever causes it to pop.
Then. A lot of people are going to
find out, Oh my God, you know, not on.
Are my stocks down? My house is down, too.

(01:17:14):
And now what do I do, Charlie? This was the day we were afraid
to wake up to the bankruptcy of one major Wall Street investment
bank. The shotgun wedding of another
can't be distracted. What's going on with the war or
what's wrong with the economy? Stop worrying about that.
They're not only doing the wrong.
Thing they're doing. Exactly the opposite of the
right thing. We got into our mess by spending

(01:17:35):
too much money, running up too much debt and printing too much
money. And that's exactly what we're
doing. Which, by the way, would seem
how we got into this state of affair in the first place.
You have to work for many kids. No, you don't.
It comes from the machine in thewall.
I've seen it. Yeah.

(01:17:56):
You just have to push buttons. I don't think the economy is
actually doing well. That's the problem.
It's just the illusion. It's the stock market going up.
It's the real estate market going up.
It makes people think the economy is doing well, but it's

(01:18:17):
actually doing a lousy. Basically, quantitative easing
has been a wonderful boon for the 1%.
It's caused the markets to soar,but it's not held the real.
Economy Quantitative easing is avery fancy phrase for what an
ordinary civilian might call money printing.
It's a euthanism essentially, for printing money and buying up

(01:18:39):
mortgage instruments, buying up Treasuries.
What we're doing is lowering interest rates by buying
Treasury securities. And by lowering interest rates,
we hope to stimulate the economyto grow faster over time.
It becomes habit for me. The politicians can't live
without it. Eventually it begins to degrade.
Give me some of that quantitative easing brother.

(01:19:02):
I don't think they wind it back voluntarily.
I think 1 stimulus package will lead to the next one and two
more money printing. Ben Bernanke didn't magically
undo all those mistakes by creating a trillion dollars and
giving it to bankers, right? Those mistakes were still made,
resources had still been misallocated, and all he really
did was was literally paper overthe problem and push it back a

(01:19:23):
few years. So the trick is to find the
appropriate moment when to beginto unwind this policy.
And that's what we'll that's what we're going to do.
Why should a bunch of people sitting around the counters
remove the Federal Reserve building, Washington, DC, know
better about the proper level ofinterest rates than they know
about the proper level, say, of corn prices?

(01:19:44):
The truth of our world, Max, it can't be easily summed up with
the math. There is no simple path.
Guys, the truth is way more depressing.
They're not even smart enough tobe as evil as you're giving them
credit for. I hope they don't lose
confidence in their government. I can see why there's

(01:20:06):
skepticism, but the only government we got?

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